On Wings of Fire

by Frances Patton Statham

  Hoisting the rucksack to his shoulders, he began to walk. Like a mountain climber, Marsh trudged, helped by the long stick he had fashioned the day before to seek out the dangers beneath the layer of leaves. He prodded the ground in the same way he had when searching for land mines at the drop zones. The stick had already found an animal trap. And Marsh felt extremely lucky that the steel had snapped on the stick instead of his foot.

  Avoiding the barn, Gretchen galloped quickly across the stone bridge and disappeared from view. She urged the horse into the stream directly beneath the bridge, for the ground beyond was soft and she wanted no hoofprints broadcasting the direction in which she traveled.

  Buildings, long deserted by the herdsman and his family, lay east of the Schloss and overlooked the cemetery where her ancestors were buried—where her mother, too, was to be laid to rest.

  Gretchen followed the stream bed until it began to deepen. With a slight tug to the reins, she coaxed the horse up the bank and traversed the field until she came to the herdsman’s simple rock cottage with its attached animal shed.

  For a minute or so, she observed the cottage to make certain it was still unoccupied. Then she climbed down and led the horse into the yard.

  Like Gretchen, Marsh avoided the massive stone barn. But he had no hesitancy in seeking shelter for the night in the Schloss itself. Approaching from a different direction, he slipped into the turret wing where two exits provided a measure of safety if he were forced to retreat in a hurry.

  While Marsh foraged for food in the root cellar, Horst prepared a suitable meal for his commander. Unaware of each other in separate wings of the same house, Heinrich and Marsh—archenemies—settled down for the night.

  The slow, steady sound of rain pelting the roof of the herdsman’s cottage awakened Gretchen long before daylight. A slight whinny from the shed indicated that König, the horse, was uneasy, too. Gretchen arose and groped her way toward the shed to reassure the horse.

  “It’s all right, König,” she whispered, patting him on the flank. Crooning to him in the halflight of early dawn, she calmed him and then went back to bed. Gretchen knew that by daylight she would have to allow him to graze in the meadow, for the stored hay was moldy. If she were careful, she might even chance going to the Schloss to look for some salt for the horse.

  The rain stopped. The sun edged through the cracks of the wooden shutters. Gretchen arose, brushed her hair upward and then hid it under a cap. That was the extent of her toilette, for she had slept in her clothes for added warmth. Without taking time to eat the meager food left from the previous day, she walked to the shed, put the bridle on König, and led him to the field where she hobbled him to keep him from straying.

  Then she set off on foot in the direction of the Schloss. She had not gone far when she heard a vehicle. The sound of the motor grew louder and, in alarm, Gretchen raced back toward the field to unhobble the horse and lead him into the shed. It was imperative that neither she nor König be seen. She ducked into the cover of bushes and watched an old motor truck pass by on the road in front of her. She kept her fingers crossed that the three men inside the open truck would continue on their journey without becoming suspicious.

  The vehicle passed dangerously close to the herdsman’s cottage. But it kept going, only braking for the curve as the road wound down the hill toward the cemetery.

  The truck stopped; the men got out and took their shovels with them. Gravediggers. They had come to dig her mother’s grave. Now it was too late to put König back in the shed. Gretchen would have to leave him in the meadow until the gravediggers had finished.

  She came out of her hiding place and began to trace her route once more to the Schloss.

  Marsh woke to the sound of footsteps. Quickly he grabbed his knife, left the corner where he had bedded down for the night, and hid behind the drapery. At that moment he was sorry that the rucksack had not contained any weapon more lethal than the trench knife. But it would have to suffice if he were cornered.

  His hand tightened on the hilt of the knife as he watched the two men enter the room. Standing only ten feet from his hiding place was the German officer who had fired at him in the forest beyond Nijmegen. He held his breath and sweated despite the chill in the ar.

  “Horst, I like this room better than the one in the other wing. Please move my things in here this morning.”

  “I will do that, my Colonel, as soon as I have prepared your breakfast.”

  “The gravediggers have already come?”

  “Ja. I sent them on to the cemetery.”

  “Good. We will have to make the funeral appear genuine, even if there is no body.”

  “You think she will come—by this afternoon?”

  “If she doesn’t, then I have planned the trap for nothing.”

  “And what are you going to do to her, Herr Colonel, once she is caught? Shoot her?”

  A harsh laugh filled Heinrich’s throat. “Not at first, Horst. After several days, she may beg to die. But I shall decide later what I will do with her.”

  “You’ll have to be careful, my Colonel,” Horst cautioned. “It will not be like the young Dutch girl. Someone may recognize her at the funeral.”

  “That doesn’t bother me, Horst. Her death certificate is signed. How can a woman already dead cause trouble? No, Gretchen von Erhard is of no consequence. There is no one left to give her aid. Her life is entirely in my hands now.”

  Heinrich turned his back and began to limp from the room. As the door closed, Marsh’s hand began to relax on the hilt of the knife. His mind spun with unanswered questions. Who was being buried—or not buried? And who was Gretchen von Erhard?

  He had little time to ponder these questions. He needed to rescue his rucksack, which had been in view all the while, and get out of the room before the two reappeared.

  From the edge of the trees, Gretchen stood for a while and observed the Schloss. A tile had fallen from the turret to the ground. And grass had sprung up in the cracks of the stone courtyard. Her father had taken such pride in the Schloss, and it hurt Gretchen to see it in such poor condition.

  Cautiously, she began to reconnoiter, running a few steps, then stopping to listen. Breaching the last few feet beyond the servants’ entrance, Gretchen reached the slanted door to the root cellar. She removed the rusted metal bar, opened the door, and slid her way through the chute as she had done when she was eight years old.

  Feet first, she tumbled onto the dirt floor inside. Colored bottles lined the shelf at the window, and the cobwebs obscured the small amount of sunlight that tried to peek between the bottles. As Gretchen began to grope beyond the barrels that once contained dried apples, she bumped into one and sent it rolling.

  Up above the cellar, Heinrich lifted his head at the noise.

  “Do you think it might be. . .”

  “Hush, Horst and listen.”

  Heinrich got up from the table, removed his pistol from its holster, and walked toward the service entrance.

  Gretchen picked her way through the dried, shriveled apples that now lay in every direction. More accustomed by now to the dim light, she made certain she did not make any more noise. And she began to look for a block of salt, to take back to the horse.

  Unsuccessful in finding the salt, Gretchen knew she could not return to the courtyard in the same way she had come. She stopped and listened. The house was silent, beyond the slight scraping of a tree limb and the whistle of the wind through a broken windowpane.

  When she didn’t hear anything else to alarm her, she began to climb the stairs toward the honeycomb of pantries surrounding the mammoth kitchen, with its stone fireplace large enough to roast a whole pig or lamb on the spit; its ovens suitable for baking twelve fresh loaves of bread at the same time. But that was long ago. She would be lucky to find even a little salt hidden in one of the cupboards.

  As Gretchen opened the door, Marsh watched from his hiding place but did nothing to call attention to himself.

&n
bsp; She went from one cupboard to another, until she found a small amount of salt in a wooden container. Then, like a ghost, she disappeared through another door.

  Two other men stood at a window in another part of the Schloss and watched her progress as she darted from the service yard and into the trellised arbor. And although she was dressed as a boy, both Horst and Heinrich recognized her.

  “Why don’t you arrest her now, my Colonel?”

  “And spoil the fun of this afternoon? Horst, I’m disappointed in you. The drama must be played out to the end.”

  “She escaped previously. You are not afraid that she might get away again?”

  Heinrich’s lips tightened at the suggestion. But he relaxed when he glanced down at his watch.

  “The soldiers have already surrounded the estate. No, Horst. Not even a dog can slip through the net I have prepared.”

  Although Marsh did not overhear Heinrich’s boast, he soon discovered the truth of his words. From the moment Marsh had hidden behind the drapery in the bedroom that morning, he knew he had selected the wrong place for shelter. If a funeral were to take place, then the Schloss would be running over with people. It would be better for him to get out before all the activity began.

  With the rucksack over his shoulder, Marsh left the Schloss, being careful to avoid the wing that Heinrich had requisitioned.

  But too late. Guards were already stationed at the bridge to cut off his escape. Two others stood before the massive barn. And down below, at the road winding to the right of the Schloss, two more sentinels had taken their places. Marsh was hemmed in. The only thing left to do was to go back into hiding, until Heinrich had arrested the woman who was coming to the funeral.

  Only he could not return to the Schloss itself. He would have to find a new place to hide until the danger was over.

  Chapter 42

  At three o’clock in the afternoon, Gretchen watched the slow procession of black move over the road to the family burial plot.

  A priest led a small group of mourners behind the funeral wagon that held her mother’s coffin. Draped in black bunting, the wagon lumbered laboriously, a groan of the wheels protesting each turn.

  The iron gates to the cemetery opened; the wagon continued until it reached the freshly dug rectangular cut in the earth, then stopped.

  In the cracked mirror, Gretchen took a last look at her reflection. She wanted to make sure the rolled legs of her trousers were not visible beneath the dark cape that covered the boyish clothes. Satisfied, she swapped her tweed cap for the black hat with mourning veil that she had brought with her from the house in the Bavarian Alps. With a small bouquet of the last wild flowers, she hurried down the hill to join the end of the procession.

  From his hiding place overlooking the cemetery, Marsh Wexford also watched the procession. A rotund town official walked directly behind the priest. Marsh had seen many like him throughout Europe. He was dressed in black, with a ribbon across his stomach and a medal signifying his importance to the Nazi regime. Behind him came a handful of stragglers—official mourners, no doubt, little more than spies—interspersed with a few shabby villagers whose prayers for the wife of Gustav von Erhard might be genuine. Farther back into the cemetery, the gravediggers waited, with the old truck holding their shovels and a large tarpaulin to cover supplies from the rain.

  As Marsh observed the solemn gathering, his eye caught a movement of black to his left. He lowered his head and watched a figure carefully descent through the brush.

  The black cape, the hat with mourning veil concealing the facial features, seemed much too large and somber for the small figure beneath. What was the person doing, approaching the burial ground so stealthily?

  The realization of who it might be struck Marsh with a sudden force. Gretchen von Erhard. Could she be the woman for whom Heinrich had set his trap? This small figure—more like an unprotected child than a woman?

  “Gretchen? Gretchen von Erhard?”

  She froze at the calling of her name.

  Marsh’s voice was little more than a whisper. “You’re walking into a trap.”

  “Who’s there?” Gretchen questioned, for Marsh was invisible to her. But his words immediately brought fear to her heart.

  “A friend.”

  “If you’re a friend, then show yourself.”

  Ignoring her entreaty, Marsh continued, “Heinrich is waiting to arrest you. He has the place surrounded.”

  “What. . .what can I do?” Gretchen asked, wary of the man she couldn’t see, yet even more fearful of Heinrich von Freiker.

  Marsh, having seen the hobbled horse in the meadow, said, “You came by horseback?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is it now?” he inquired, for the horse had disappeared.

  “There’s no need for you to know.”

  “Gretchen, don’t be stubborn. If you want me to help you, then you must not make me waste time looking for the animal.”

  “In the shed attached to the herdsman’s cottage. It’s in the vale just over the hill.”

  The priest, standing at the foot of the grave and lifting his eyes to Heaven, saw Gretchen on the hill. It was too late for her to hide, for the priest motioned to her and indicated he would wait to begin the service until she had taken her place with the rest of the mourners.

  “I’ll have to go on. The priest has seen me.”

  “Then meet me at the truck as soon as you drop your flowers on the coffin. Be careful. And Gretchen? Roll up your trouser leg. It’s showing.”

  Gretchen glanced down quickly. A twig had caught on the right cuff and forced it down below the cape’s hem. She stooped down to fix it and then finished walking toward the cemetery, to stand at the back of the group of mourners. When she was in place, the priest began the service for the dead.

  While Heinrich and Horst stood on the road leading from the Schloss and watched from that vantage, Marsh left his hiding place in the brush and went to search for the horse. He banked on the priest’s taking his time with the funeral.

  While he searched, his mind was busy, planning the escape of both Gretchen and himself. A few minutes later, when he had found the cottage and located the horse in the shed, he took a sack of moldy grain and created a dummy, the same as he had done with rags the first time he attempted to escape from the prisoner-of-war camp. Only this time he strapped the dummy onto the saddle. And when he had covered it with the old threadbare blanket he’d carried in his rucksack, he was ready. His only regret was in losing the blanket, for the nights in the mountains were extremely cold.

  Leading the horse by the reins, Marsh skirted the cemetery and brought him to the edge of woods beyond the truck where the gravediggers waited. And there he hid König.

  When the priest had finished with the service, Gretchen shed no tears as she dropped the few flowers onto the coffin and walked away. She edged toward the empty truck, as she had been instructed, and glanced briefly at the three men seated a small distance away. While the others filed by the deep cut in the earth where the coffin had been lowered, she vanished into the woods.

  Seeing the woman in black disappear, Heinrich sounded an alarm. He motioned for the guards to pursue her and cut off her escape. But at that moment, Marsh, with an apology to König, placed a sharp burr under the saddle of the horse, gave him a slap, and watched him bolt. Gretchen’s cape, tied hurriedly over the sack wrapped in the black blanket, flapped behind the horse.

  “Stop the horse!” Heinrich shouted. But König kept going at a rapid pace. He cleared the barricade, raced over the bridge, and galloped toward the apple orchard while the guards watched, helpless to stop him.

  “Follow the horse,” Heinrich ordered Horst.

  “We will get bogged down, my Colonel.”

  “Do as I say!” he repeated, enraged at the turn of events.

  The car set off cross-country, but the terrain was too wet. The vehicle bogged down, axle-deep, into the soft earth as König disappeared in the trees.
/>   A disconcerted town official looked at the priest for a cue. The funeral was over. There was no need for the mourners to remain. The caisson left; the priest began to walk from the cemetery. The mourners followed, as the three grave-diggers started shoveling dirt into the hole.

  Once the people had gone, Marsh, with his cap pulled low over his eyes, casually walked toward the gravediggers. In German, he ordered them to stop.

  “Colonel von Freiker wants the empty coffin removed.”

  “But the body. . .”

  “There is no body,” he growled. “The coffin is empty.” And Marsh crossed his fingers that he had heard Heinrich correctly.

  “Dig it up and I’ll put it on the truck.”

  They did as Marsh instructed. Clearing the coffin from the dirt, the men hauled it up with the same rope that had been used to lower it.

  “He is right,” one of the men said, grinning at the others.

  “I will take it and clean it up, while you fill the hole.”

  “If we had known there was to be no body, we would not have dug so deep a hole.”

  “And then it would have been questioned by the priest,” Marsh answered.

  “That is so,” another man agreed, and began to spade the dirt. He glanced once or twice at Marsh, dressed little better than he. But he didn’t question Marsh’s presence or his orders. He was used to being told what to do.

  While the gravediggers continued with their work, Marsh took the empty pine coffin on the other side of the truck, where the gravediggers could not see it. With their backs turned, he motioned to Gretchen behind the large monument beyond the truck.

  He removed the lid and Gretchen climbed inside the box. A slight whimper escaped her as Marsh closed the lid.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered. “I’ll leave enough air for you.”

  He lifted the coffin to slide onto the back of the truck and then covered it with the tarpaulin, being careful to loosen the lid as he had promised.

  When the men had finished, they brought their shovels and placed them in the truck. Now began the most dangerous part of the plan. The guards, stationed at the bridge, knew that three men had entered. Only three could get out again without arousing suspicion.