The Last of the Stanfields(76)
Robert hung the lamp from one of the ladder’s rungs and began shifting aside stacks of crates concealing the tunnel’s entrance. As soon as he had made a large enough space to get through, Robert grabbed his lantern and slipped inside.
Just as he was nearing Sam’s hiding place, he heard a rustle, followed by heavy breathing from the end of the tunnel where the cases of weapons were stored. Robert gripped the gun firmly in one hand and raised the lantern with the other. The glow of the flame revealed a form huddled against the wall. It was a woman, crouching on the ground. As she raised her haggard face, Robert saw that it was Hanna.
He rushed over to take her in his arms, but she began howling and thrashing about as soon as he touched her. Robert realized he must be unrecognizable in the dark with his face all swollen, and Hanna must have thought he was a militiaman come to force himself on her. He begged her to calm down, and Hanna seemed to recognize the sound of his voice. She curled up in Robert’s arms, her entire body trembling as she recounted in a daze what had happened earlier that day . . .
A truckload of armed militiamen had arrived at the foot of the trail in late afternoon. Raoul was stationed at his lookout post nearby and quickly surmised they hadn’t come to those woods for mere reconnaissance this time. He ran up to the hunting lodge, warned everyone inside, then grabbed a Sten submachine gun and bravely raced right back out to keep the enemy at bay as long as he could, to buy time for the others to make a run for it.
Sam refused to leave. His legs simply weren’t strong enough. The old man begged the Resistance fighters to take Hanna with them, but as soon as Antoine was shot dead outside, everyone realized it was too late, the lodge was completely surrounded. As the partisans opened fire, Alberto, the one built like a bear, sent Sam and Hanna to hide in the cellar. The militiamen were specifically on the hunt for Resistance members, and with a little luck, they might just spare an old man and his daughter. Sam made Hanna enter the narrow passage first, then covered up the entrance with one crate after another. Hanna desperately stuck her hand through, begging her father not to leave her in there alone, but Sam had insisted.
“You must stay alive . . . for me, for your mother, for all the others! Reach for the stars, my darling. Make the most of your life, and never forget that you’re Sam Goldstein’s daughter. Remember those dreams of peace we shared, all our wonderful trips together, and all that I’ve taught you. Take the flame I have passed down to you, and light a thousand torches, enough to illuminate the sky. One day you will have children of your own. Tell them about your parents, tell them that your mother and I will always love them. Wherever I’m going, I will be watching over them, just as I’ve watched over you.”
Sam kept telling his daughter he loved her as he finished building the wall of crates to hold her inside. Soon his voice was drowned out by the sound of gunfire and blasts above. He moved the last crate into place, and Hanna’s world plunged into darkness.
The gunfire above soon came to an end, and she could hear voices. A man opened the trapdoor and came down to search. Hanna fled to the farthest end of the tunnel and could hear the man barking at his comrades.
“There’s nobody down here, nothing but dirt and cobwebs. I’d like to get home before midnight.”
“What do we do with the bodies?” asked another from the living room.
“Take their papers,” a third replied. “The families will be notified, and they’ll come get them. No reason we should have to do the dirty work.” Hanna heard snickering above; then the solider climbed back up the ladder, closed the trapdoor, and all was silent.
As her story came to an end, Hanna moaned sorrowfully, wailing like a wounded animal. She rocked back and forth, calling out for her father again and again, her cries filling the cavernous space. Robert feared she might be going mad and knew he had to get her out of there, quickly. He took Hanna by the hand and led her down the tunnel, snuffing out his lantern before they climbed above. “We have to be sure,” he said. “They might have left somebody behind to watch over those woods.”
Robert was lying. He hoped to spare Hanna the grisly sight of those brave, fallen men who had sacrificed themselves to keep the militiamen from finding her. The two walked through the lodge in darkness. But as soon as they made it out to the porch, Hanna stopped and begged to go see her father. Robert adamantly refused.
“You don’t want this,” he said in a choked voice. “Please believe me. You’d never be able to unsee it.”
They followed the path down into the dark woods. Robert wondered if Hanna would even be able to ride the tandem. But even if she could, he hadn’t the faintest clue where to go. Then he remembered Alberto once mentioning guides who smuggled refugees across the Pyrenees mountains. Spain was just over a hundred kilometers away. It would take three days to reach the border on the tandem, maybe less.
Five hundred yards from the hunting lodge, Robert sat Hanna down at the foot of a tree and stared into her eyes.
“I have to go back to the lodge to get some clothes. Mine are soaked through with blood, and if I’m spotted looking like this out on the road, we’ll be stopped at the first checkpoint. We need provisions, and most of all, I need to get your papers.”
“I don’t care about your clothes or those fake papers!” Hanna yelled. “I forbid you to leave me here alone!” Robert clamped his hand over Hanna’s mouth to muffle her cries. They weren’t far from a road where German patrols could easily be on the prowl.