Once More Unto the Breach

by Meghan Holloway

  We crossed over the tundra in a tight line hunched forward against the driving push of the wind. It was relentless at this height, and I could only hope that once we crossed the mountain, the far side would provide some shelter from its harsh assault.

  We reached the glacier field below the peak of the White Horse at midday, and the sun gleamed off the slush of snow that blanketed the ice mass. I shaded my eyes against the glare of daylight and studied the mountainside.

  “This way.” I led my small band up a rocky ridge adjacent to the glacier. We were south of the mountain’s summit now, but if we cut diagonally across the glacier, we could cross over the mountain north of its craggy peak and closer to the lake on the map.

  We climbed the length of the ridge until we could go no further without crossing plains of packed snow and ice. I crouched to remove the rucksacks on my back, and Simone crawled from the confines of the pack with a blanket clutched about her. Charlotte knelt beside me.

  “Can we cross this?” The wind had leached the color from her face and raked across her cheeks, the tip of her nose, and her lips, leaving them chapped red.

  “Not without some preparations. We—” Otto’s bark caught my attention and drew my gaze to where Hugo stepped tentatively onto the snow. “No!”

  It was too late. The thin layer of slick snow gave way under the boy’s feet. He fell to his belly, cracking his chin against the ice, and slid.

  I yanked the ice pick from where it was tied to the side of my rucksack and shoved Charlotte aside to lunge after him.

  Blood smeared across the glacier after him in a red wake, and I could not run quickly enough down the ridge to catch up with his increasing speed. He slid further away from my reach into the steeper drop beneath the mountain peak. He was silent as he plummeted down the mountainside, but the terror on his face was as loud as a scream.

  I dove onto the glacier after him. Given my heavier weight, I slid faster and caught up with him in seconds. I snagged his outstretched hand and swung the pick ax as hard as I could.

  The edge drove into the glacier and caught, yanking us to a halt so swiftly I was flipped onto my back, and I almost lost my grip on the handle. I gritted my teeth against the wrench in my shoulder.

  I adjusted my grip and pulled Hugo to my chest. He clung to me, shaking violently, his back heaving under my arm. “All’s well now, cariad. All’s well.” My voice was breathless. “I have you, I do.”

  Otto had raced down the ridge after us and stood barking off the side of the glacier. We were about twenty-five meters from the edge. Still anchored by my grip on the ice pick, I kicked my heels into the snow and ice until I created a deep enough ridge to brace my weight as I sat up.

  Charlotte caught up with Otto and skidded to a halt. “Jesus, Rhys!”

  “Stay there!” I yelled to her. Otto stepped out onto the glacier but his paws skidded and he leapt back to safety. “Keep Otto from coming out after us.”

  She knelt beside the poodle and buried her fingers in his curls.

  “Hold onto me now, Hugo. Just hold on.” The boy wrapped his arms about my neck and his legs about my hips, pressing his damp face into my throat.

  Braced against the small shelf I had scraped into the glacier, I levered the pick free from the ice and then leaned over and jammed it into place a meter to the side. Once it was lodged in place, I stretched out a leg and kicked a foothold ledge into the ice with my boot heel. I scooted us across the ice with my grip on the pick and then braced myself against the new ledge I had created to pry the pick from the glacier and hammer it into place further along. I repeated the process across the expanse of the glacier until we reached the rocky ridge.

  Charlotte and Otto both caught hold of me, the poodle locking his teeth into my sleeve, Charlotte gripping fistfuls of my coat at my collar. The pair pulled us over the edge to safety.

  I rolled onto my side, breathing heavily.

  “Are you hurt? There’s blood.”

  I shook my head and sat up. Otto snuffled at my neck and ears and nudged at Hugo, his whimpers sounding as frantic as the ones escaping the boy. I had to pry Hugo from my chest. Tears slipped down his face, and blood streamed from his split chin.

  “You are fine now, cariad bach.” I ran my hands over his head and limbs, relieved to find no other damage. “You’re fine, you are.”

  Charlotte tugged her scarf from around her neck and wound it over Hugo’s head and under his jaw. She spoke softly to him in French as she bandaged the gushing wound, her voice soothing but shaken by a tremor. She grabbed the pick and splintered off a chunk of ice from the glacier, tucking it into the folds of the scarf.

  “That should slow the bleeding.” She caught the movement as I rolled my right shoulder and grimaced. “Are you certain you are not hurt?”

  “Just sore. The other children?”

  “Are fine.”

  I looked up the mountain. We had fallen at least one hundred meters.

  “How are we going to make it across this?”

  I studied the grooves I had dug into the glacier. “I have an idea.”

  We ascended the ridge once more. I retrieved the crampons and strapped them over my boots and then tucked the ice pick into my belt and grabbed the ax. It would cut better than the pick.

  Charlotte approached and tied the end of one of the ropes around me. “I do not care to repeat that.”

  “If I slip and you cannot hold my weight, let go.”

  She did not respond, but her jaw tightened, as did her grip on the rope.

  The metal claws of the crampons bit into the snow and ice and held as I stepped onto the glacier. The rope pulled taut about me, and when I glanced back, Charlotte had the length wrapped around her waist, her boots braced wide apart.

  “Ease your hold. All’s well.”

  She fed the line as I made my way slowly across the expanse. And with each step, I used the ax and cut a level foothold into the ice. It was a slow process. The glacier was at least two hundred meters across, and the footholds had to be close together for the children to safely make use of them.

  The sun had climbed further to the west by the time I made it to the ridge north of the jagged peak of the White Horse. My back ached from my hunched trek across the glacier, and the wind stung my ears and knuckles.

  I straightened, stretching my back and rubbing my hands together. It was as if I stood atop the world, and for a moment, as I breathed deeply of the air so pure it made my lungs ache, it seemed as if I existed alone with the world spread beneath my feet and only the wind for company. There was no past, no future. Simply the moment. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply in this world stripped bare.

  And then I opened my eyes and turned back. Charlotte, Otto, and the children were mere figures in the distance, and I lifted a hand to indicate I had made it all the way across.

  We had run out of rope, and the slack trailed loosely after me. As I wound it around my elbow and palm, I looked to the east. Look to the water. It was there, just as Owain had written, a pure blue-green lake that glinted in the sun.

  16 February 1943

  Dear Nhad,

  The Germans are demanding that all men between the ages

  of twenty and twenty-three work for two years in the war industries for them,

  either here in France or in Germany. They have said it will be an exchange.

  Send the young men, and they will return the old and ill prisoners of war from Germany.

  It is little comfort to sacrifice one man to gain another.

  -Owain

  xix

  Charlotte and I tied the rope around each child’s waist, leaving slack between the knots. The ends we secured about ourselves.

  I tightened the straps of the pack holding Simone as Charlotte readjusted the sling cradling the baby. “Ready?”

  She nodded.

  I whistled for Otto. “Go on, bach. Lead the way.”

  He was hesitant,
though, whimpering at the edge of the glacier, placing a paw on the slope but backing away when he could not gain traction. I knelt and lifted the poodle to drape over my shoulders. He shifted uneasily for a moment before settling into place. “Remind the children to only step along the path I have made.”

  We crossed the glacier with slow care. There were no mishaps, and we summited the White Horse into the safety of Switzerland.

  The lake was made up of two large pools that appeared to be divided by a rocky promontory jutting into the water from the north. The lake lay protected by craggy peaks, sheltered in the high valley.

  A steep slope of scree separated us from the banks of the upper section of the lake. I kept Otto over my shoulders and left the rope secure about the waists of my small charges.

  We crossed the scree field in much the same manner we had crossed the glacier: cutting across the precarious slope at an angle rather than attempting to descend it directly. The children slid several times, crying out in fear when their footing gave way, but the rope strung between us ensured Charlotte and I could halt their fall.

  We reached the talus slope banks of the lake as the sun began its descent behind us. I placed Otto on his own four paws, and I removed the rope from about the children’s midsections.

  We picked our way over the boulders along the lake’s edge. The water was low at this time of year, and the ridge that bisected the lakes was cloaked in pines. The wind was not as bitter on this side of the mountain, but as the shadows lengthened, the air chilled.

  The trees provided some shelter from the wind. As Charlotte settled the children in for the night, Otto and I followed the faint trail along the curve of the ridge that formed the southern boundary of the lower portion of the lake.

  Look to the water. I saw nothing that gave insight into the words my son had written until I had circled to the far side of the lake.

  The mountain road was a narrow track of dirt and rock. I knelt alongside it and studied the faint markings left by a vehicle’s tires. They were set too wide apart to be anything but a truck, and the markings were faint, made days ago.

  Otto and I followed the track downhill until it curved around a bend. From this vantage point, I could see the serpentine route it took down the mountain before it disappeared around the next ridge. I crouched and watched the road below to see if anyone appeared as the sun set, but no dust stirred and the only sounds were those of the wind, mountain, and water.

  I pulled the letter I received months ago from my pocket and carefully unfolded the thin paper. The edges were worn and tattered from much handling. The ink was smudged in places, and my son’s scrawl was quick and slanted.

  Otto returned from his own investigation along the road and lay in the dirt by my side with a sigh. I rested my hand on his back.

  I did not need the dying light to read the words. I knew them, had read them countless times, was haunted by them.

  “Aye, machgen i.” Otto’s ears perked at my whisper. “Aye. I am proud.”

  _______

  “Should I follow the road in the morning and find where it leads?” Charlotte unwound the makeshift bandage from about Hugo’s head and tilted his face toward the moonlight. The gash along his chin was black in the pale gleam of light, but no blood flowed from the cut. She retrieved a plaster from the first aid kit and smoothed it along the curve of his chin, though, to ensure the wound did not open in the night.

  “Not yet. The road has been traveled, though I do not know how recently. Since Owain’s directions end here at the lake, that leads me to believe this place is significant.”

  “A rendezvous point, it seems.” She settled Hugo in with the other children on the bedrolls, tucking the blankets over them and around the poodle curled up in the center. She shifted onto her side, tucking an arm beneath her head and drawing the lapels of her coat together under her chin. “Should we make camp closer to the road?”

  “Here. Lift your head.” I sat close enough that I did not need to stand to reach her once I pulled the scarf from about my neck. She obeyed, and I leaned over and threaded the scrap of fabric around the slender column of her throat.

  “Thank you.” Her face was in shadow. I could not see her smile, but I heard it in her voice.

  I leaned back against the pine. “I do not know who may make use of this road. I think it is safer if we camp here and check the road at dawn each morning.”

  “I do not care to just wait and watch.”

  “Nor do I. But there is little else we can do.”

  We waited two days. In the hours before dawn, we led the children to the forest along the road and waited. Once the sun had risen, one of us kept watch while the other led the children back to camp. The mountain track remained empty. No one came.

  It was in the middle of our third night sheltered in the trees between the lakes that I heard the sound, like a rock rolling underfoot. I peered at the tree line adjacent to our position, the lake’s shoreline between still in the moonlight. I listened but heard and saw nothing more. It could easily have been a night creature prowling nearby, but the edginess and knot of awareness between my shoulder blades would not relent.

  I glanced at Otto where he lay at my side. He was alert, ears pricked, his lips curling back from his teeth in a soundless growl. I leaned over and placed a hand lightly over Charlotte’s mouth. She woke instantly, hands coming up to latch around my wrist. Her fingers relaxed when she realized it was me, and she tapped the back of my hand to indicate understanding the need for silence. I lifted my hand away from her face, and she pushed herself upright, wrapping the scarf she had used for a pillow around her neck.

  I bent close until my mouth brushed the curve of her ear. “We are no longer alone,” I whispered, voice barely a breath of sound. “Get the children deeper into the woods.”

  She nodded and quickly set to rousing the children and keeping them quiet. The baby did not understand, though, and awoke frightened, letting out a mournful wail that reverberated like a haunting animal call through the night.

  Charlotte clasped the little girl to her and stood frozen, and even in the darkness I could see how wide her eyes were when she looked to me.

  “Ffyc.” I caught the muzzle flash from the corner of my eye before I heard the report. “Get down!” I barked, yanking the three children closest to me to the ground and hunching over them.

  Charlotte staggered, and for an instant, I thought she had been hit, but then she dropped to the ground with Anne-Marie clutched to her chest, pulled her Colt, and fired off two shots in the direction from which the bullet had come.

  Gunfire split the night, and in the dark I saw four muzzle flashes at the edge of the trees along the northern shore of the lower lake. I whistled sharply to catch Charlotte’s attention, and when her head turned toward me, I motioned for her to hold her fire. A lull in the bullets came shortly after.

  The children I hunched over trembled but made no sound. I nudged them back further into the cover of the trees and held my hand flat against the cold ground to indicate how I wanted them to stay. They scrambled to obey, and I crawled to Charlotte.

  “Get the children further back into the trees and stay flat to the ground,” I whispered against her ear.

  She caught my elbow. “What are you going to do?”

  I drew the Luger and moved into a crouch. “I am going hunting.”

  “I will hide the children and then draw their fire to give you time to get behind them.” She handed Anne-Marie to one of the older girls and whispered instructions to the children.

  I hesitated, torn, studying the shadows that filled the delicate lines of her face. “Very well. I will flank them from over the ridge.”

  She hurried the children further away from the line of fire, and I ran hunched over, well within the tree line, climbing along the craggy curve of the ridge. When a silent shadow separated from the dark and attached itself to my side, I startled for a moment, but then dropped into a c
rouch to wait for Charlotte and rested my hand on Otto’s shoulder.

  When the crack of Charlotte’s pistol split the night and the four others responded, we ran. We skirted the shoreline and headed deeper into the woods, higher along the ridge to circle back.

  There were four of them, and they were German. They had moved just beyond the tree line to take cover behind a low rocky outcropping. They shot wildly into the woods where Charlotte and the children hid. There was no return fire from Charlotte now, and I forced my concern aside. Otto crouched at my side, coiled tight, muscles quivering. When two paused to reload, I attacked.

  I shot the one with the rifle first, catching him high in the shoulder. He spun even as he slumped sideways, yelping in shock and pain, and lost his grip on the rifle. My second bullet caught him in the chest, driving him back against the rock. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  A bullet whipped past me, so close I felt the pressure of the air change and my ears rang. Splinters of wood bit at my face and neck as the bullet buried itself in the tree next to me.

  Otto was a streak of shadow as he tore across the short distance and launched himself at the shooter. He left the ground in a flying leap and latched onto the soldier’s gun arm. The gun fired, but the bullet kicked up dirt and rock meters to my left. Otto’s momentum took both of them to the ground, and the man screamed as canine teeth bit through flesh and sinew.

  The two others scrambled to regroup. My third bullet went through the throat of the one who aimed his gun at Otto. He fell, hands futilely attempting to stem the fountain of blood that poured from him. The other soldier dropped the magazine he was fumbling to insert into his pistol, and he met my gaze, eyes wide. He let his pistol fall and was in the midst of lifting his hands, palms out, when my bullet hit his forehead. His head snapped back as if I had punched him.

  I did not wait to watch him crumble to the ground, but turned back to Otto and the last soldier. The poodle snarled, shaking the man’s arm as the German struggled to regain his footing. Moonlight glinted on the blade he raised high over his head.