Daisies Are Forever (12 page)

The girl was insistent. “You gave yourself to the Fatherland. You deserve to get on. You soldiers are all heroes.”

Not him. He was far from heroic.

If the teen only knew. Instead, with trembling hands, he pushed her forward, onto the carriage.

Then it began to huff and puff, steam streaming from the engine. Without warning, it inched its way forward like a caterpillar. “Gisela! Gisela!” The noise of the crowd intensified, swallowing his words.

How would he ever find them? But he had to. No matter how much she infuriated him.

Had she and the girls managed to get on? Should he try to board? His heart drummed against his ribs. He couldn’t leave them here alone. He couldn’t let them go ahead alone.

The train chugged and moved faster. If he didn’t act now, he would lose his chance. But if they weren’t aboard . . .

He jogged along the train, as much as he could in this mass of people. He had to commit. Now.

“Annelies! Renate! Girls, girls, girls!”

Gisela screamed for the children, her words lost in the clicking of the train wheels against the track. Kurt had gotten lost in the
crowd. How would she ever get aboard? She should have never let Kurt push them through those windows. Never.

When the train left the station, they would be lost to her forever. Two little girls, alone in the world.

And she, nothing but a failure.

She could no longer keep pace with their car. Her breathing became labored. Soon the train would pass her by.

“Nein, Lord, nein.”

Then two long arms reached from the broken window of a car several removed from the girls. If she could get on the train—anywhere on board—she would have a chance at finding them.

Lord, may this man be strong. Don’t let him drop me.
If he did, the train would run over her. Her palms perspired.

She grasped his hands and held on for dear life.

Audra telescoped her vision and focused on the train in front of her. Her heart pounded in her throat. If she didn’t think about the number of people pressing in on her, she would be fine. She had to just focus on breathing.

This was nothing like her brothers locking her in the outhouse for hours. Nothing like the dream she kept having, the one where her bedroom walls pushed in on her, strangling her.

She had to fight for air.

She pulled Bettina and Katya along with her. They hampered her forward progress. How had she gotten stuck with them, of all people? The iron giant loomed in front of her, large and menacing, yet welcoming her with open arms. She surged forward with the crowd.

Another few pushes and she stood on the edge of the platform, the steps to the compartment immediately in front of her. Here was her chance.

“Sister, we will get to ride the train. What a thrill.” Bettina was always up for adventure.

“There are so many people here, Sister. Will there even be seats for us? Is this our train? It looks rather old.” Katya was more lucid today.

Audra wondered herself whether there would be room on the train for them. Or would it pull away and leave her here with the Holtzmann sisters?

All Audra knew was she couldn’t miss this train. It might be the last one out of Danzig. Forever. If she didn’t, she would never make it big. She would be doomed to a life of poverty, like the rest of her family.

The women and children pressed hard around her. She pushed Bettina ahead of her and shoved her up the steps, then repeated the process with Katya before Audra raised her foot and set it on the metal step.

The force of the crowd squeezed them farther and farther into the car. The world began to spin and blackness closed in. She swayed and grabbed the edge of the once-plush seat, crushing the velvet with her fingers.

Her knees buckled. In moments she found herself landing on a lap.

Kurt’s lap, to be specific.

“Fräulein Bauer, what a pleasant surprise.” Very little light graced his eyes.

She studied his face, the angles of his cheekbones, the rise of his eyebrows. The world stilled even as the train lurched forward. “What are you doing here?” She slid from his lap, stood, and brushed off her coat.

“Some would call this a providential meeting.”

“Would you?”

“Providential or not, we will be riding this train together for a while.”

“I would say you’re following me.” Still dizzy, she had to catch her breath.

“Are you feeling any better?”

“Some, danke. There are so many people in this car.”

He moved over on the seat already overflowing with three amputees. “There is no reason you should stand.”

“The Holtzmanns should be the ones to sit.”

Pink suffused his face. “Of course, of course. If you feel fit enough.”

If she could forget the mass of humanity around her. “I will be fine.”

He rose from his seat and offered it to the women. Bettina cackled. “What a gentleman you are. God bless you, sir, for taking pity on a couple of old biddies.”

Katya glared at her sister. “I most certainly am not a biddy.”

“I am. And I’m not ashamed of it.”

Audra chuckled until the train jerked ahead, along with her stomach. They moved forward, picking up speed. Outside the window, people screamed, frantic to get onto the train.

Light streamed into the window and she knew they had passed from the bahnhof into the countryside. The wheels clacked against the track in a steady rhythm, one she wished her heart would copy.

Kurt had to shout above the noise of the crowd and the train even though she stood shoulder to shoulder with him. “Where are the others?”

“You don’t know? They aren’t in this car?”

“Nein. I shoved the girls on the train, but before I could get to Gisela, the crowd had separated us and I lost her.”

“At least we know the kinder are aboard.”

The train clacked along and Bettina’s and Katya’s excitement waned until they dozed in their seats, heads back, snoring like men.

Kurt leaned into her. He must not have been incapacitated for very long. His body was still lean and muscled. Nice.

“Josep is a good man, nein?”

Kurt’s question startled her. “I don’t know him well enough to say.” She noticed his intense blue eyes. He was screenworthy.

“You should talk to him some. Find out what he’s like.”

Why would he suggest such a thing? “I could.”

“You are very pretty.”

“What does that have to do with Josep?”

“He has a strange accent, when he speaks at all. You should ask him where he’s from. He’s dark. Perhaps he’s Jewish.”

Audra couldn’t care less about the Jews. “Why are you so interested? Are you going to turn him in?”

Kurt cleared his throat and stared out the window. “I am not. Not at all. But you should talk to him anyway.”

He fell silent. What a strange man.

She swayed on her feet, in rhythm with the train.

The Holtzmann sisters stirred. “Sister, look at that.” Katya pointed out the window.

Bettina squinted. “Cannes. You can smell the sea salt in the air. There is no other place I love more than the French Riviera.”

In a way, Audra envied the Holtzmanns, unaware of the trouble around them. She allowed her mind to wander. Bright flashbulbs would blind her as she stepped out of her car onto the red carpet. People would shout her name and ask for her autograph. Her house would be the biggest, grandest of them all.

She would make it. She would.

No matter what it took.

The strong arms lifted Gisela from the wooden platform and through the carriage window. She heard her coat tear on a shard of
glass. Grateful to be wearing pants, she planted one foot on the sill and pushed her body inside. She fell across several laps and wondered if she would ride all the way to Berlin with her feet hanging out of the window.

The man who brought her inside pulled her the rest of the way through. She managed to get to her feet—though she still stood between the seats—and examined the rip in her coat. The jagged tear extended from her elbow to her knee. Even if she had needle and thread, she might not be able to repair it. She tried to be thankful to have a coat at all.

“Danke, danke.” As she lifted her eyes to look at her hero, she noticed that his pants leg was empty, pinned up with a safety pin. The other men in the seat were also missing either legs or arms. The women with the knockwurst called this an ammunition train, but this car, at least, carried war wounded.

The soldiers sat in the faded and worn red-velvet seats. The women and children who managed to get aboard took up every available inch of aisle space. A little boy pressed against the side of the seat and clung to her leg, the three middle fingers of his right hand stuck in his mouth. No mother claimed him.

She turned to her rescuer. “I’m sorry to have caused you trouble.”

“I couldn’t leave behind a beautiful woman like you.” He tipped his curly head.

She had landed in the lap of a flirt. Like she needed another one of those. “I’m looking for my husband and my nieces.”

“Oh.” The single word carried his apology. “What do they look like?”

She didn’t know what help he would be. “Two little girls, three and five, blond hair, gray eyes, freckles. My husband is an SS officer. He has dark hair.”

The soldier put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. The
sharp noise halted the many conversations. “Looking for two girls and a man.” He rattled off the information Gisela gave him. “Has anyone seen them?”

“I know they aren’t in this car.”

“You are sure they got on?” he shouted over the already resumed din.

“Ja, the kinder did. My husband, I don’t know about.” The thought of leaving Mitch behind, of never seeing him again, was almost too much to bear. If they parted, they would never be reunited. A hard lump pressed against her windpipe.

The soldier shook his head. “I hope you will be reunited with them despite this chaos. They will pass the word to other cars and maybe you will get good news.”

“But I have to take care of them.” She should have never allowed Kurt to rip them from her arms. She had tried to stop him, but she should have tried harder.
I can’t fail them.

Another woman shouted above the noise. “My boys. I don’t know where my boys are. Ten and six. Blond, blue-eyed.”

Yet another woman’s voice rose to an anxious pitch. “My little one is missing. Just a year old. Wrapped in a blue blanket.”

“Bitte, help me find my babies.”

Oh Lord, help me find the girls.

Mitch didn’t know how much longer he would be able to keep pace with the train. The cars passed him one by one until there were only a few left. His legs cramped, his ears buzzed. The faces in the windows blurred.

What chance did he have of reuniting with his chums if he got stuck in Danzig? What if the rumors about the Russians were true?

And Gisela, all alone. He could hear his father’s words.
“A
gentleman always takes care of a lady.”
Mitch had no true obligation to her, but something drew him to her.

Then there was the fact that she had been part of the Hitler Youth. Might have supported this madman who had caused this trouble for all of them.

The whistle blew. His feet hurt with each step.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a man who leaped for the train. He missed. The train’s wheels took his life.

Five cars left. Now four. Now three.

Should he? Shouldn’t he?

The second to the last carriage.

With all he had in him, he leaped for the handrail. In the split second he flew through the air, he prayed as he had never prayed before.
Lord, let me catch this train.

His fingers grasped the metal and he managed to get all ten of his toes on the bottom step. That is as far as he could go. The stairs were jammed. All of them like a flock of birds, flying away in front of a predator.

Men, mostly older, clung to the ladders ascending the boxcars. The train picked up speed and the bitter cold wind bit his face. The countryside whipped by—farms and villages and burned-out towns—destroyed in the initial German attack in 1939. Not too many kilometers into the trip, his hands froze to the railing. His shoulders ached, then went numb.

The train made steady progress westward, away from tyranny and death, toward freedom and home.

Home. He imagined himself sitting in front of the fire, his mother’s red-and-gold Oriental rug at his feet, his springer spaniel Charlie by his side. Wonderful smells emanated from the kitchen and a pot of Earl Grey tea sat on the small, round table beside him.

The simple joy. One he used to take for granted. To be in that spot again.

Warmth rushed through him, even as he lost feeling in his toes.

And to tell his father he was sorry. No, not that he’d joined the 5th Queen’s Regiment with Xavier. He just wished he would have had his father’s blessing first.

Not that he would have given it.

Mitch’s arms quivered. His muscles screamed in pain and his eyelashes were almost frozen shut.

An old man fell from the car in front of him. The chap’s screams penetrated over the train’s clattering and chugging.

That man may have been the first, but he wasn’t the last. As the train puffed its way along, more of the men clinging to the outside of the train let go. Certain death. Those who weren’t run over by the steel wheels would freeze in the fields and forests.

Would he ever see the rolling green hills of his boyhood home again? Would he fish in the cold streams, race his car up and down the hills, fly over the countryside?

Not only his arms, but now his entire body shook. His grip slipped. He would never make it like this.

His hold on the railing slid a little more.

And more.

Then he heard the unmistakable drone of a Russian plane.

THIRTEEN

T
he train screeched to a halt. Mitch tried to grasp tighter, his hands frozen to the railing. He clutched to his tenuous position on the outside of the car, his boot-encased toes clinging to the edge of the step. In the quiet, fighter engines roared.

Like on the ice.

Like the day he lost Xavier.