Lucas smiled at him. “Yes, Aron, it was a very good rabbit.”
“I caught it.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I caught our Christmas dinner.”
“You did a very good job.”
Müller was just getting into his vehicle when his radio man came running forward. “Sir,” he said urgently. “One of the patrols has found something you need to know about.”
Müller turned. “What is it?” he demanded.
The radio man started to explain.
Müller’s tracked vehicle pulled into the yard, the SS flags waving from the front bumper. Three German soldiers were waiting between the rock house and the wood barn; they snapped to attention when Müller stepped out of the open vehicle. It was nearly dark, and dim lights shone from the windows of the old rock farmhouse, casting yellow squares across the muddy yard. Behind the barn, the low hills climbed up toward the forest, where the trees were thick and heavy with snow.
A dirty sergeant ran toward Colonel Müller and saluted crisply. Fisser and the German lieutenant stepped out of the second vehicle but hung back.
“What have you got?” Müller demanded of the saluting sergeant without even returning his salute.
“An old farm wife,” he answered quickly. “Her husband went out early this morning. He should have come back. But she’s seen no sign of him, sir.”
Müller waited impatiently. “That’s it?” he snarled.
“No, sir. He had some hunting dogs he’d taken with him.” The sergeant pointed to the kennels in the back of the barn. “All three of them are back.”
Müller scowled, then started walking toward the farmhouse. Sergeant Fisser didn’t follow. “Sir,” he called out from behind him, “I’m going to go up the hill and take a look around.”
Müller waved agreement without looking back. Fisser turned to Lieutenant Acker and motioned toward the high ground. “Will you take a walk with me, sir?”
Acker nodded, and the men started walking toward the highest of the hills.
Fifteen minutes later, they broke out from the dense trees into a clearing at the crest of the hill. The top was completely treeless and the evening sky was clear over their heads. The moon was bright, and stars burned overhead, casting enough light on the snowy landscape to see pretty well. Fisser walked a tight circle as he looked around, then stopped and pointed toward the east. “The Bolsheviks have stopped shelling,” he said.
“They’re moving their positions west,” Acker answered. “They’ll be in the streets of Gorndask before morning.”
Fisser motioned to the north. “The Russians hit the highway and we folded. We’re falling back now like leaves before the wind.”
Acker shook his head in near despair. “Which means they’re on two sides of us now.”
“It might be even worse than that. We don’t know what’s happened to the south.”
Both of them were quiet.
“Colonel Müller knows what he’s doing, I’m sure,” Acker answered carefully. He kept his eyes on the command sergeant, looking for reassurance.
Fisser didn’t answer.
“I’ve heard things about the Russians,” Acker continued. “What they do with captured German soldiers.”
Fisser turned to him and smiled grimly. “Don’t worry about that. You won’t live that long.”
Acker tried to laugh, but Fisser didn’t smile with him, and he fell silent. After a few moments, he lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes and moved them across the distant forest, looking for fire, lights, anything that indicated movement there. All he saw was trees. Snow. A winding road and a small village. He could barely see the river in the distance, the water glinting in the moonlight. He finally dropped the binoculars. “We’re going to die chasing this last rebel,” he said in disgust, then quickly caught himself and glanced anxiously at Fisser.
Fisser pressed his lips together. “Maybe. But there are many inglorious ways to die now.”
“Yes, but I want to die for something more meaningful than this!”
Fisser nodded glumly, a moment of honesty slipping through. Acker watched him and realized that he was equally frustrated, and it made him angry. He had expected a rally speech, an “everything is going to be okay” speech. He wanted some assurance that Fisser, or the colonel, or someone had a plan. But he didn’t get any of that, and he was furious. He had seen enough wasted lives already, and it cut him to the core.
Fisser watched the young lieutenant, pondering what he could say. Half of him wanted to give Acker a bit of assurance. The other half of him didn’t care. “It’s not up to us to choose our dying,” he finally said.
Acker only nodded.
Fisser stared at the horizon and then started to whisper to himself.
How can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods.
Acker smiled grimly. “I don’t see any ashes or temples in this thing.”
“No temples here,” Fisser agreed as he aimed his binoculars to look west, watching a line of lights along the road. Acker lifted his own glasses and watched the lights. “The triple deuce,” he said. They were the last of the German ground forces heading west.
Fisser grunted. “We are alone.”
Acker lowered his glasses. “It’s hard…I mean, the colonel is so…determined.”
Fisser dropped his glasses as well. “Yes, but we’ll get the rebel, I have no doubt. The only question is, will the Russians encircle our position and leave us no way out?”
Acker pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and took a drag. He extended it toward Fisser, who took it and inhaled. They shared the cigarette together as they talked.
“What do you know about your new commander?” Fisser asked.
“Not enough, it seems,” Acker answered.
“Not enough, indeed. For example, did you know that Müller was on command staff at the Battle of Stalingrad? Answered directly to Field Marshal Paulus. As cold weather set in, he told Paulus again and again: ‘Pull back. Prepare for winter. Wait for a spring assault.’ He begged. He threatened. But Paulus didn’t listen. And you know the result.”
Acker shook his head and reached for the cigarette. “A significant loss,” he answered.
Fisser snorted in disgust. “Utter ruin would be a more accurate description. Two hundred and sixty-five thousand Axis and German soldiers pushed back. More than a hundred thousand captured. A few thousand of those survived. When Paulus was taken captive, Hitler took his rage out on those who made it out alive. He expected all of Paulus’s surviving staff to commit suicide. The fact that Müller had done everything in his power to avoid the loss didn’t matter. Müller refused to do it. He challenged the Führer to court-martial him and have him shot. Instead, Hitler decided to shame him to death. He ordered Müller out here about a year ago. A fitting end for a failed soldier, chasing a teenage rebel through the forest.”
Fisser suddenly paused and lifted his glasses to the horizon. He refocused, then nudged the lieutenant and pointed to the west. “Above the tree line. North side of the road. You can barely see in the light of the moon.”
The lieutenant lifted his own binoculars and looked.
“A Russian T-34?” Fisser asked.
Acker shook his head. “No. I think it’s a…looks like the top of a farming derrick. And it’s not moving…”
Fisser snorted at himself in disgust. “Curse my failing eyes.”
Acker dropped the glasses to his side.
“There’s one more thing you might find interesting,” Fisser added in a low voice. Acker smoked as he waited, always moving his eyes to scan the horizon.
“Last spring Müller’s wife and daughter came out to Warsaw for a visit,” Fisser said. “On their way back to Berlin, the
ir train was derailed by the Devil’s Rebels. There was a fire. A huge explosion. His daughter was burned to death. His wife survived, but…well, she doesn’t look the same.”
Acker shook his head, then took a drag on the cigarette. “Interesting,” was all he could muster. All of it was so discouraging to hear.
“And I haven’t told you the most surprising thing about the colonel,” Fisser offered in conclusion.
Again, the lieutenant waited.
“He’s never killed a man.”
Acker scoffed. “I find that hard to believe.”
Fisser took the cigarette, took the last drag, and smashed it in the packed snow beneath his feet. “It’s true,” he said flatly. “He’s ordered many people to die, but he’s never pulled the trigger. I think he always considered it beneath him, like cleaning a latrine. But he’s saving himself now for the last rebel. That man, he’s going to kill himself.”
“Unless he kills us first!” Acker voice was angry with frustration.
“Yes. Unless that.”
“But that is what’s going to happen. He’s going to kill us all. That, or we get captured by the Bolsheviks and have our entrails turned inside out. Or we go back and are hung for disobeying orders.”
“Unless…” Fisser offered, his voice trailing off. He turned and exchanged a knowing look with Acker.
“Yes. Unless that,” the officer said.
Three miles away, Lucas stood on another hill. The moon was mid-sky now, casting dim shadows among the trees. It was silent. Clear and calm. The evening breeze had died down. Lucas was alone, the children waiting on the dry ground underneath a clump of trees. He surveyed his surroundings. The terrain dropped suddenly below him to the flatlands. He could make out the road that led into a village and a few farmhouses along the road. Occasional headlights. The sound of military vehicles. He listened carefully, his head cocked to the side.
Behind him, Aron was wrapped in the blanket, shivering and cold. His eyes were closed and he looked exhausted. Cela waited anxiously beside him, her eyes focused intently on Lucas. He turned around and looked at her, his face illuminated by the moon. “We have to go,” he said to Cela.
She stood and came up beside him. “You’ve decided where we’re going?”
Lucas motioned to the flatlands, outlining what he was thinking by pointing as he talked. “There’s a road at the bottom of this hill, behind these trees, that leads to that village. If the Germans are waiting, they’ll be waiting for us down there. I’ve seen lights along the road, but I can’t tell who they are or what they are doing. But it doesn’t matter. One way or the other, they’re all bad guys. We have to go back the other way. It’ll be a little harder traveling, more hills and snow, but we’ll be safer if we stay as far away from the road as possible.”
Colonel Müller stood in the middle of the small farm kitchen. The interior was dimly lit by a single gas lantern sitting on the wood table. Small and cluttered with old pots and blackened pans, the kitchen smelled of grease and garlic. An iron cooking stove burned in the corner, kicking out a constant wave of heat, and the four German soldiers stood in the four corners of the room. Müller sat in a chair at the end of the table. The farmer’s wife stood alone beside the stove. Her face was tense with fear, tear tracks wetting her cheeks, and she clutched her hands at her chest.
All of them heard footsteps on the wooden porch, and they turned their eyes toward the sound. The woman took a step forward but stopped when Müller lifted a hand. The farmer stumbled through the back door, freezing in place when he saw the German soldiers. He glanced at his wife, his eyes suddenly wide with fear. She looked at him and gasped. His mouth was caked with dried blood, and one eye was black and nearly closed. His wife tried to run to him, but the nearest soldier pushed her back, throwing her against the hot stove.
“We’ve been waiting for you,” Müller said.
The farmer looked at his wife apologetically, communicating with her through unspoken words.
Müller stood up and moved toward him. “Yes, yes, we all know you’re sorry. Now, where have you been? And I don’t have much time.”
The farmer turned to him and stammered. “I was out walking…with my dogs. We go out every morning.”
Müller reached out and brushed at a patch of dirt on his jacket. “It looks like some forest creature may have gotten the best of you.”
The farmer lifted a hand to his face and touched the bleeding bruise on his lip. “Yes, he did,” he said in anger. “And I’d be happy to tell you anything you want to know about him.”
Lucas and the children came to a break in the trees and stopped. The thunder of artillery boomed behind them, and Lucas glanced over his shoulder at the sound. Moving to the edge of the trees, he suddenly crouched and slid back under the cover of the forest. The children ran and hunkered down beside him. Lucas pointed through the trees toward a farmhouse at the bottom of the hill. It was barely visible in the darkness, a block of shadow and a single light. “Do you see the farmhouse down there?” he asked.
Cela moved a little closer to him. “Could it be the hunter?” she asked anxiously.
Lucas shook his head. “I don’t think so. He came up from the other side. But he was chasing his dogs; he could have come up the canyon. If I could just get a little closer…”
Cela grabbed his hand. “Don’t leave us!” she cried.
Lucas held her hand tight. “But we could hide in the barn. It’ll be warm. In the morning we could make it to the river.”
Aron leaned forward as he peered through the darkness. “The Germans are down there,” he said.
Lucas glanced at him, not believing.
Aron lifted a small hand and pointed. “There’s an army truck on the other side of the barn.”
“Are you sure?” Lucas asked skeptically.
Aron pointed again. “Can’t you see it?”
“No, I can’t see anything.”
Cela squeezed on Lucas’s hand. “You have to trust him. He can see a bird from two miles.”
Lucas was uncertain, and he knelt down by Aron. “You can really see them? German soldiers are down there?” Aron nodded confidently. “Aron, looked beyond the farmhouse. Can you see the Oder River?”
Aron moved forward and strained his neck. “I can see it.”
Lucas moved anxiously toward him. “Do you see a road? Is there a bridge?”
Aron stared a long moment, then shook his head. “I don’t see any bridge.”
Lucas stifled a curse. “We are very close now. But we’ve got to find a way to cross the river,” he said, more to himself than to the children. He turned and started hoisting on his pack again. But Aron kept on looking.
“There are some soldiers at the farmhouse,” he said in sudden fear. “They’re coming up the hill!”
Lucas peered through the darkness, then grabbed the children. “Come on! We’ve got to go!”
Two squads of German soldiers were moving up the hill toward the trees. They motioned to each other, then split into pairs and fanned out.
Müller stood on the farmer’s porch and watched them. His face was intent and scowling. Fisser appeared from the kitchen door, then moved to stand beside him. “Your intentions, sir?” he asked.
Müller turned to face him. “We’ll stay here tonight,” he answered. “Give the patrols time to see what they find.”
Fisser motioned to the other soldiers. “Sir, it might be helpful if we were to position some of our men to the south, along the highway. The Russians are so close their artillery is arching over our position.”
Müller lifted an impatient hand. “Do the Bolsheviks know we are here?”
“I doubt it, sir.”
“Then how are they going to target us, Command Sergeant?”
“Sir, the point is, the Bolsheviks are moving and we are not. We will find ourselves with v
ery few options if we aren’t out of here by morning.”
Instead of answering, Müller pulled his small notebook out of his jacket pocket and opened it up. “Command Sergeant,” he said, as he turned through the pages, “are we still in range to communicate with our field radio?”
“I believe so, sir, but we haven’t turned it on. Your instructions were to leave it off, to stay out of communications until—”
“I know what my instructions were, Command Sergeant. But I want you to reestablish contact with the command post again. The refugee train is coming in the morning. I want to be ready to call in mortar strikes when it arrives.”
Fisser clicked his heels but then pressed his original concern. “And sir, what about positioning our men to maintain contact with our own forces?”
Müller started writing in his notebook. Fisser looked down to read what he was writing. Lucas Capek appeared in Müller’s scratchy writing across the dirty pages.
“We’ll stay here tonight,” Müller said without looking up.
Morning broke under a clear sky that was much colder than it had been the day before, leaving frozen crystals to hang like tiny diamonds in the still air. The sun rose above the low hills. A red fox wandered through the trees, stopped, sniffed, then turned and ran. An owl glided between the upper branches of the trees, landed, then spread its wings and flew again when Lucas came into view. He walked over to the children and looked at them a moment. Cela and Aron were wrapped up in their blanket on the bare ground beneath the overhanging branches of a large pine. The soft needles provided a sufficient bed, and the heavy branches protected them from the wind, but they still slept through chattering teeth. He leaned over and shook them gently. “Wake up,” he said. “Come with me.”
The children opened their eyes but didn’t move. Shivering, they held each other for warmth. “It’s so cold,” Cela muttered. Her voice was exhausted and almost lifeless. Aron closed his eyes again and didn’t say anything at all.
“Come on,” Lucas said. “We have to go.”
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