“I can’t go back. Who do you think Herr Keller will blame for helping the prisoners escape? Not his men. They were too happy about their catch, talking about recognition and praise.”
Hot and cold shivers ran down her spine as the momentousness of Uwe’s sacrifice dawned on her.
“I…I didn’t want to get anyone in hot water. It’s all my fault.” Tears started slipping from her eyes, but she stubbornly rubbed them off her face.
“It was my own choice. Nobody forced me to help you. Might as well get comfortable for the rest of the night.”
A distinctive tension lingered between them, and for once, Lotte had no quick-witted answer. She looked around the small hut in the dim light of the candle. Huddled in the corner was a straw mattress. She laid it on the floor and plopped down, her hands around her legs, her head buried deep between her knees. Oh, how she wished to rewind time and make things right.
After a while, she sensed Uwe sitting down beside her. Close enough to feel the warmth of his body, but too far to touch.
“Uwe, I’m sorry I didn’t trust you.”
“You thought I turned you in,” he stated – not a question, just a fact.
“I didn’t know what else to think when I saw you at my aunt’s farm with Hans and his father.” The mention of her aunt threatened to start her tears anew. She sniffed. “You were the only one who knew I’d found the orphans.”
Uwe sighed. “Hans had been following you for a while already. I intercepted him and his father on their way to your aunt’s farm and tagged along, hoping I could somehow warn you.”
“I don’t know that it would have made any difference. Rachel and her siblings were going to leave at midnight anyway.”
A long silence ensued between them until Uwe spoke up again. “Hans had set his eyes on you, and every time you pushed him away, he became more determined to conquer you.”
Lotte shivered at the memory of Hans’ violent kisses. The way she’d felt defenseless and vulnerable in his steely grasp. Her eyes locked with Uwe’s baby blue ones, sending electric tingles rushing through her body. She wondered what it would be like to be kissed by a boy she liked.
She didn’t have to wonder for long. Uwe hesitantly reached out a hand to touch a loose curl, tucking it behind her ear. Instinctively, she leaned towards him until his hand cupped her chin.
“I want to kiss you,” he said.
I want to kiss you too.
Lotte nodded and closed her eyes as his lips met hers. His lips were soft and accommodating, no more than a whiff of sweet touch. After a few seconds, they both drew back, the wonderment on his face mirroring her own emotions.
They settled back on the mattress, putting a few inches between themselves.
Uwe took several breaths and then murmured, “I’m a deserter now.”
“But you weren’t supposed to report for duty until the day after your birthday,” Lotte objected.
“It won’t matter. Apart from that, I’m also on the run for helping five prisoners escape.”
Lotte reached out a hand to put it over his. “They were going to send Rachel and her siblings on a deportation train in the morning.”
“I know. I overheard the mayor talking to Hans. I couldn’t let that happen.” He took a long breath. “My two older brothers died at the front. We have no news from my father…but whenever one of them was on furlough, their eyes would tell the truth. They never explicitly told me, but I put two and two together. After the Wehrmacht has occupied a town, the SS is sent in…” Uwe’s voice creaked. “Having witnessed firsthand the cruelties Hans’ father and his SS friends have committed, it wasn’t difficult to imagine. I used to like the Nazis and thought Hitler was doing good things for Germany. That the war was a necessary evil, but now… I hate the atrocious things they do.”
Lotte opened her mouth, but he anticipated her question and shook his head. “Don’t ask because I won’t tell you. The SS like to boast about the inhumane things they do. It makes me sick.”
She nodded, and silence filled the small hut once again. After several long moments, she spoke quietly, “I’m sorry for your brothers. We haven’t heard from either my father or my brother in almost a year. Nobody seems to know where they are, or if they are even still alive. For all I know, they might be prisoners of war in Russia.”
“Is that where they were sent? The Russian front?” Uwe asked and wrapped an arm around her shoulders when she started to sob. “Shush, try to get some sleep. We’ll figure things out in the morning. Close your eyes and rest.”
Lotte believed she would never be able to sleep in her life again, but the security of his arm around her shoulders and his voice providing comfort soothed her into an exhausted slumber. Already dreaming, she sensed how he laid her down on the mattress and snuggled up beside her.
Chapter 14
Morning came, and Lotte woke with a stiff body. Late in September, the days were still warm, but the nights had become chilly. She glanced at her side and found Uwe murmuring in his sleep.
She tried to stretch without waking him but wasn’t successful.
“Morning,” he greeted her with a yawn.
Her grumbling stomach drowned out her reply.
“Hungry?” He propped himself on his elbow and glanced at her as if this was the first time he’d seen her.
“Starving.” Lotte raised a hand to her curly hair, which refused to be tamed and probably looked like a wild mess atop her head. He chuckled, and Lotte felt self-consciousness rising. She’d never given a penny for her looks before.
“Good.” Uwe smiled. “Let’s see if we can find us some breakfast. Here, take this.” He handed her a bucket and took another one for himself. He led her to a nearby creek, where they quenched their thirst and took a quick once over, refreshing themselves. Then they carried the buckets of water back to the hut and went in search of edible plants. In autumn, the forest blossomed with berries, mushrooms, nuts, and edible plants. For a few more weeks they would find enough food to survive.
“Shush,” Uwe whispered. He froze. In the clearing ahead of them, several rabbits hopped around. Uwe produced a slingshot from his pocket and crouched down, one hand searching for a stone while his eyes stayed glued to the rabbits.
Whoooshhh. The stone flew through the air, and one of the rabbits fell to its side while the others scattered in panic.
“Gee. You’re a good shot,” Lotte said in awe.
A proud smile spread across Uwe’s face. “Once learned, never forgotten. That’s our dinner for tonight. Now we just need to find some dry wood. We’ll need to be careful with the smoke, though. You know how to cook this critter?”
“I’ve only ever cooked chickens,” she answered truthfully.
“Well, let’s hope it works the same.” He chuckled. “I can gut and skin it, but the cooking is above my pay grade.”
Lotte watched him gutting the still warm animal and making short work of skinning it. When finished, he picked up the skin and the rabbit, and they returned to the hut, where he started a fire in the pit. Everything he did looked so easy, so normal.
Meanwhile, she searched for something they could use as a pot, but apart from the two metal buckets, there wasn’t anything of use.
“I guess we’d better grill our dinner. Yeah, let’s have a barbeque.” Lotte giggled and went in search of some sticks. Uwe sharpened them with his pocketknife and handed them back to her.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“A slingshot, a pocketknife…what else do you have hidden in those pockets of yours?”
“Well, that’s one good thing we learned with the Hitlerjugend. Always be prepared.” He chuckled and watched her as she threaded the rabbit onto the sticks, and then rammed the sticks into the earth, leaving the animal hanging over the fire. Then they settled on the ground, side by side, watching their dinner roast, turning it every so often.
“I’m worried. I’ve never been on my own,” Lotte said into the silence.
> “Me too. And I feel guilty for leaving my mom alone. She must be out of her mind.”
“Aunt Lydia will be crazy with sorrow as well. She must suspect something awful has happened, because I believe I saw her standing at the window when I was shoved into the police car.” Lotte stood up to turn the rabbit. “I never wanted to endanger her or my cousins.”
“What about your mother?” Uwe asked.
“Oh, goodness.” She had completely forgotten about her family. It wouldn’t take long before Aunt Lydia called Mutter and told her that Lotte was missing. She took a deep breath, swallowing the lump in her throat. “Mutter will be frantic.”
“Tell me about your family,” Uwe said as he stared into the fire.
A piece of her heart chipped off as she thought about them all. “You met my mother when she was here earlier this year, right?”
Uwe nodded.
“I’m the youngest. Baby, they like to call me.” She made a face, and he chuckled in response. “Vater and Richard are missing somewhere in Russia. My two sisters live in Berlin. Anna is a nurse.”
“I take it she hasn’t joined up?”
“God, no. Anna never wanted to become a nurse in the first place. Ever since I can remember, she’s been driven by ambition, has dreamed of becoming a biologist. But my parents opposed that. They said it was unheard of for a girl to be a scientist.” Lotte thought of the many times Anna had battled with her parents. Anna’s arguments that a woman had the right to choose her own destiny, and her mention of female scientists like Marie Curie or Lise Meitner, fell on deaf ears. After the outbreak of war, Anna had succumbed and given up her futile battle fighting both her conservative parents and the Nazis, who believed the place for a woman was her home and hearth.
“So, she became a nurse?” Uwe interrupted her thoughts.
“Yes. It seemed the logical thing to do. But my ambitious sister can’t fool me. I’m pretty sure she’ll bring up the topic of going to university again after the war.
“I can see a family pattern here. Two spitfire sisters. What about the third one?”
“Ursula. She’s the oldest. She’s totally different than Anna and me. You can’t imagine how good my sister is. She’s never once gotten into hot water. Not with our parents. Not at school. She has always followed the rules to a T. Ursula is obedient to a fault.”
“You sure she’s your sister?” Uwe teased.
“Well, some people do say she and Anna look like twins. So yes, there’s some family resemblance.” Lotte laughed and watched as Uwe got up to turn the rabbit. He cut off a chunk with his pocket knife and handed it to her. “Here, try it.”
The smell of the roasted meat reached her nostrils, and her mouth watered. Uwe’s eyes clung to her mouth as she chewed on the rabbit, causing her head to swirl and momentarily forget where she was.
“A few more minutes,” she said after swallowing.
“Is she a nurse, too?”
“Who?” After noticing his eyes, Lotte had all but forgotten their conversation.
“Your sister, Ursula.”
“Oh, no. She can’t stand the sight of blood. She’s a prison guard.” Lotte took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of roasted rabbit.
His eyes widened. “Baloney.”
“No, really, it’s true. She hates her job, but when the labor service bureau assigned her to become a prison guard, she raised no objection. As I said, she always does what she’s told.”
“Weren’t you at her wedding in January?” Uwe asked.
“You remember?” Lotte raised an eyebrow, and he cast his eyes downwards. “It was wacky. A marriage by proxy. Can you imagine? My sister actually married a steel helmet. Her fiancé couldn’t even come home for his own wedding.”
“Our food should be ready.” Uwe expertly pulled the rabbit off the spit and divided it into two halves. He gave Lotte the same size portion as he took, but she wasn’t having any of that.
“You’re bigger than I am and doing more of the heavy work. You need to eat more.”
Uwe argued, but in the end, he cut off a chunk from her portion. Then they ate the tasty animal with their fingers like barbarians and drank water from the bucket.
Being in the woods with Uwe was fun. It could have been carefree if it weren’t for the reason why they were there.
“Hans and his father are out for revenge. Do you think they can find us here?” Lotte asked in a shallow voice.
“I don’t know. We’re safe here for now.”
Lotte propped herself on her elbows and sighed. “I’m a fraud, I see that now.”
“Why do you say that? You’re anything but a fraud.”
“Look at me. I’ve been in Kleindorf almost three years, milking those damn cows. When, for the first time ever, I get the chance to do something really important, I mess it up and get caught.”
“You didn’t mess up, these things happen.”
“To me…yes. They wouldn’t happen to Ursula, or Anna, or anyone else.” She buried her head in her hands and continued in a grave voice, “I wish I’d listened to my mother and kept my mouth shut. See where being so impulsive got me?” Her voice dropped to a murmur: “Telling Hans he’s a coward was a horrible mistake.”
“You did that?” At the alarm in Uwe’s voice, she looked up and stared into his blue eyes, full of concern.
“Yes. I believe my exact words were, ‘You’re nothing more than a Nazi coward hiding behind your father’s coattails.’”
“No wonder he was livid,” Uwe said and cocked his head to the side. “Never tell a lad he’s a coward. That’s about the worst thing you can say.”
“I guess I learned that the hard way.” Lotte stood and gathered the remains of their meal to bury them in the earth.
Later, they walked to the creek and washed up, brushing their teeth with their fingers. Then Uwe carried another bucket of fresh water back to the hut.
Life over the next days carried on in a similar fashion, with Uwe killing some small animal for their dinner and Lotte finding wild lettuce, mushrooms, and berries to supplement their meals. For two glorious days, they pretended they were camping out, and then their situation changed.
One morning, they were lazing in front of the hut when voices wafted from the thick forest. Uwe raised his head in alarm and motioned for Lotte to crawl inside the hut. They huddled in the corner, scarcely hidden by the straw mattress, and waited. Lotte’s mind conjured up sounds of footsteps and images of SS men bursting through the door.
Chapter 15
After sitting almost an hour in complete silence, they dared venture outside again. They perked up their ears, but no sounds except for the wind could be heard.
“Whoever it was, he’s gone,” Uwe said and looked up into the sky where the sun was already hanging low.
“I was so scared,” Lotte admitted as she watched the goosebumps on her arms disappear.
Uwe took a step towards her and wrapped his strong arms around her. The warmth of his body dispersed her fear and made the images of SS men in black uniforms fade away.
Instead, she became extremely aware of the pressure of his arms against her body and his masculine smell. Heat rose in her chest, sending her heart thumping faster. She tipped up her face. For a moment, their eyes locked, and then his lips were on hers in a tender touch.
Instinctively, she opened her lips and felt his tongue explore her mouth with an unrivaled urgency. The pressure of his arms intensified as he pulled her flush against him, oblivious to anything except their feelings for each other. Then he skimmed his hands down her back, and Lotte sighed in pleasure.
She gripped his shoulders, holding onto them like a drowning woman to a lifeline. This kiss, unlike their previous one, showed no signs of hesitancy or nerves. It was sweet first love between two people who had come face to face with their human frailty.
“That was close,” Lotte murmured against his cheek as his lips skimmed over her jaw.
“Yes.” He brought his lips back to
hers once more, and after a lingering kiss, he hugged her close, burying his face in the crook of her shoulder. “God, I wish this war was over.”
“Me too.” She nodded and sat down on the grass, patting the space beside her. Uwe joined her, and she cuddled into his arm, letting the fear, worry, and tension seep out of her body.
“What did you want to be before the war?” she asked him quietly.
He didn’t hesitate. “A forest warden, like my father. I love the stillness. The distinctive smell of the air. The twilight under the trees. The sounds of the animals. I even love the sweat running down my back when I’m chopping up trees.”
Lotte giggled and ran her fingertips down his back. “Like this?”
“You slay me, but no, that’s even better.” Uwe kissed the tip of her nose. “How about you? What did you want to be before the war?”
“I have no idea. But I can tell you what I don’t want. I refuse to blindly follow orders, to keep my mouth shut when I see injustice, to obey rules that don’t make sense.”
Uwe grinned, but the expression carried a hint of sadness. “I’ll bet you were a troublesome youngster.”
“Possibly. My favorite time of the year was summer break.”
“No teachers telling you what to do?” he surmised.
“Exactly. My brother, sisters, and I would take a trip to the lake with my parents. Richard and I would spend the day swimming, running around, climbing trees…while my sisters gushed about boys I thought were truly awful.” Lotte sighed at the memory of happier times before the war. Ursula and Anna had been eighteen and seventeen, and it seemed all they talked about was boys.
Uwe chuckled. “Most boys in their younger years are truly awful where girls are concerned, so you weren’t far off.”
Some stay awful when they grow up. “I miss those days.”
“Me, too. And I will miss this place.” Uwe ruffled her hair and smiled, but she could see the sadness in his eyes. “We can’t stay here. Whoever was here will be back.”
She nodded. “I wish I could talk to my sisters. They would know what to do.”
War Girl Lotte Page 7