Eva (22 page)

“One hundred and sixty-two kilometers from here,” Bock said soberly. “And it will all be through enemy-held territory.”

T
HE EXODUS FROM
Potsdam had been a nightmare. Thousands of people—refugees, slave laborers, fleeing troops—all of them terrified and quick to kill, had clogged the roads in a morass of savagery and panic. Wrecked and burned-out vehicles, military and civilian alike, littered the sides of the highways, many abandoned because of lack of fuel. And among them a pitiful jumble of broken carriages and bicycles and carts with dead horses collapsed in their harnesses. The going had been tortuous and by nightfall they had barely gotten out of town.

That first night Eva and Willi had simply collapsed in the grass of a little glade off the road near the village of Klaistow along with hundreds of other exhausted fugitives. It had been cold, and they had slept fitfully and uncomfortably, entwined with their bicycles to keep them from being stolen.

They had not been challenged once. But even if they had been, Willi was confident. Their false papers were excellent—and actually not false at all, except for the information in them. They had, in fact, been made by
Aktion Birkenbaum
—Operation Birch Tree—an SS branch that had been created especially to manufacture forged documents and foreign currency such as dollar and pound notes for the express purpose of supplying escape route travelers with foolproof identification papers and readily accepted funds.

And Konrad Bock had thought of every detail. He had even given Willi a small Luxembourg flag to fly from his bicycle. Crude, obviously homemade, its three bright, horizontal stripes of red, white, and blue fluttered gaily from his bike, clearly marking him as a liberated slave worker—homeward bound. Submerging themselves in the tumultuous scramble they had escaped scrutiny by enemy patrols.

At first Willi had been worried that Eva might be recognized. But he had soon realized that very few people even knew of her existence, let alone what she looked like. The realization that such recognition would not be a problem had been a relief.

The roads finally became less clogged, and they only ran into occasional groups of refugees or foreign workers trudging west past the scattered debris of battle—a disabled tank, an overturned cannon, a smashed-up troop carrier.

They had stayed off the main highways and kept to the back-country roads—some hardly more than dirt paths—traveling from one small village to another, encountering the same sullen, hostile faces in all of them, and the same disinterest from the occasional Russian patrol.

The second night they had spent in the remains of a partly burned barn at an abandoned farm near the village of Wiesen-burg, and the third night—the most comfortable—in a forest outside Güterglück, perched high in a
Hochsitz
—a sort of sheltered crow’s nest built up in a tree and meant for a hunter to sit in comfort and await an easy shot at an unsuspecting deer grazing below. They had hidden their bikes under branches and leaves and hauled the
Hochsitz
ladder up after them. It had been the only night they had felt safe. Eva had gone to sleep in Willi’s arms. It had seemed natural.

It was Friday, May 4, a few minutes past 1400 hours. Willi and Eva had just passed through a village called Förderstedt, according to Willi’s map, about twenty-five kilometers south of the town of Magdeburg. They were both fatigued. Eva was at the end of her strength. Every muscle in her body ached, her shoulders were cramped, her thighs were chafed raw by the bicycle seat and her legs sent waves of pain through her with every pump of the pedals.

Willi, hungry for news, had found part of a current newspaper crumbled up on the street as they rode through the village. A crudely printed, makeshift local tabloid. Hamburg had fallen to the British. The occupation troops in Holland and Denmark were surrendering. It would soon be all over.

They had stopped at a farm just outside the village and had asked to be allowed to wash themselves at the farmyard pump. The farmer had taken a resentful look at the little Luxembourg flag and had gruffly ordered them off his property.

Willi looked at Eva, valiantly pedaling along the road beside him. He admired her stamina and her determination. She had not complained. But he was gravely concerned. He knew she could not last much longer and he was worried that they might not reach their destination before she was forced to give up.

They gave way and rode out onto the road shoulder as a truck approached them from behind. It was an American weapons carrier. In the back sat a handful of soldiers peering out over the tailgate. They waved and yelled at Eva.

Willi was suddenly struck by an idea.

“Fall!” he called to Eva. “Fall off your bicycle!”

She turned to him uncomprehendingly.

The truck was rapidly drawing away.

Willi quickly brought his bike up next to Eva. He swerved toward her. He gave a quick kick to her front wheel.

Eva lost control. The bike went out from under her and she took a headlong spill.

Willi stopped at once. He threw his bicycle to the ground and ran back to Eva. He bent over her. He was aware that the truck had stopped. He did not look back.

Eva was crying. She was exhausted to the point of collapse. She hurt all over. She felt absolutely terrible—and . . . Why had Willi made her fall? She lifted her tear-streaked face to him. “Why?” she sobbed. “Why did you do that? I—I hurt my knee.” She tried to get up.

“Don’t!” Willi said tightly. “Stay down! And let me do the talking.” The urgency in his tone of voice sobered her. She obeyed.

Willi did not look up as the truck came backing up. One of the soldiers called to him.

“
Frau—kaput?"

Willi looked up at him. Carefully he helped Eva sit up. “
Ja,”
Willi said in German. “She has been hurt. Her knee is bruised.”

The GI threw up his hands. “
Nix sprechen sie Deutsch,”
he said.

“
Parlez-vous Français?”
Willi tried. “Do you speak French?”

The GI shook his head and shrugged. “
Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?”
he grinned. “That’s all I know, Buddy.”

Willi helped Eva to her feet. “Limp,” he whispered to her. She leaned on him as he helped her over to her bicycle. The GI—obviously the linguist among them, Willi thought contemptuously—jumped down from the truck. “Smile at him,” Willi whispered. Eva gave the man a wan smile. The GI pointed to the flag on Willi’s bike.

“
Luxembourg
—
nach Hause?”
he asked. “Home?”

Willi nodded vigorously. “
Ja,”
he said, still speaking German. “We are from Luxembourg. We are trying to get home.” He picked up Eva’s bike. He examined it. It was undamaged. He looked at her knee. It was slightly skinned.

The GI watched. He pointed to Willi, to Eva, and to the truck. “
Du,”
he said. “You.
Frau. Mitkommen.
Blankenburg?”

Willi gloated inside. They were being offered a ride. It was exactly what he had hoped for. The
Amis
were following his scenario perfectly. It was a good fifty kilometers to the town of Blankenburg in the Harz, and from there only seven kilometers to their destination. He grinned hugely and nodded vigorously.

“
Ja, Ja!”
he said. “
Bitteschön!"

The GI helped Willi load the bikes on the truck—and several eager and willing hands reached out to help Eva climb over the tailgate.

The hour-and fifteen-minute ride was full of laughter and pleasantries as the GIs tried to make conversation and solicitously administered to Eva’s knee with materials from their first-aid kits.

Eva seemed to regain her strength and spirit, Willi thought. She had winked at him, and he knew she understood why he had made her fall off the bike. Somehow it made him feel better.

She waved enthusiastically to the
Ami
soldiers as the truck pulled away after having deposited them and their bikes in Blanken-burg-Harz.

Willi looked after the departing truck. They were either fools, those
Amis,
he thought, or monumentally naïve.

The road to Rübeland was winding and mountainous, and they walked a good deal of the way, pushing their bikes. It was 1627 hours—an hour and five minutes later—when they rode into the sleepy village of Rübeland.

They had reached their destination.

The address in Rübeland Willi had been given by Konrad Bock turned out to be a tiny novelty shop that in the days of flourishing tourism had sold souvenirs of the
Baumannsböhle
—the ancient, spectacular cave that was one of the tourist attractions of the Harz Mountains. The shop was closed, but in the little display window some of the uninspired
Andenken
—mementos—were still exhibited. Faded, once-gaudy pillows with the embroidered message
Grüsse aus dem Harz
—Greetings from Harz; postcards and bits of rock from stalactites; dusty little glass balls filled with water around a fake cave scene and tiny white particles that would swirl around the miniature rock pillars when shaken; and a framed, amateurish oil painting of a scene from the caverns entitled
Saülenhalle
—Hall of Columns—with the legend,
Von Inhaber Herbert Kotsch Gemahlt
—painted by the owner, Herbert Kotsch. On the green window backing next to it was a rectangular area where the paint had faded in telltale manner.

Herbert Kotsch, a stodgy, taciturn man in his fifties, and his wife, Gertrud, lived in cramped quarters behind the souvenir shop. They had placed Willi’s and Eva’s bicycles in a ramshackle lean-to in back of the house, and taken them into their little
Stube.

Willi had been surprised—and not a little apprehensive—at seeing
Ami
jeeps and trucks moving through the village. There seemed to be more enemy activity than would be expected for such a remote area. It disturbed him. He asked about it.

“They will not bother you,” Kotsch said.

“It is because of the factories,” his wife said. Kotsch glowered at her, but she went blithely on. “Down near Nordhausen. Only forty kilometers south of here.”

“What factories?” Willi asked.

“The ones that make the
Vergeltungswaffen
—the Weapons of Reprisal—the V-l and the V-2. For Pennemünde. The factories are hidden in the underground caverns there. Huge they are. Thousands of foreign laborers worked there. That is why the SS troops defended it so stubbornly and courageously—and for so long. Only two weeks ago were the
Amis
able to overrun the Harz,” she said proudly.

Willi frowned at her. “With all the enemy activity will it be safe for us to hide out here?”

The woman laughed. “But of course! With them being so busy with the factories will they have time to look for anything else? And who would expect anyone to hide in the midst of the enemy? Besides,” she said mysteriously, “we will take you to a place no one could ever find you.”

“Tonight,” Kotsch said. “After dark. It is a place only I and
Mutti
know about. It is ready for you.”

It was shortly after 2100 hours when Herbert and Gertrud Kotsch led Willi and Eva to the entrance to the
Baumannshöhle.
Everything was boarded up except the heavy wooden door to the anteroom, which was locked. Kotsch unlocked it. Inside they each picked up a large reflector carbide lamp that had seen years of service and in single file, with Kotsch leading the way, they started down into the caves below.

It was an eerie, shadow-filled fairyland that unfolded itself before them as they made their way deeper and deeper down into the fantastic caverns. They walked along a narrow pathway through great halls with multicolored stalactites hanging like giant stone icicles from the vaulted ceilings, glistening and glittering in the light from their lamps. They wound their way through witching, unearthly galleries of tall, gnarled columns and misshapen toadstool stalagmites, past grottos of fluted, translucent sheets of rock, petrified waterfalls, and shimmering flowstones. It was grotesque and beautiful—forboding and sheltering.

They came to the last chamber of the caves open to the public.

Kotsch squeezed through a narrow opening. The others followed. Behind was a tight crawlway.

“This part of the caves is largely unexplored,” Kotsch said. “It is a dangerous place for one who does not know his way. There are pitfalls and other hazards, and it is easy to get lost in the labyrinth of passages.”

The crawlway widened and they were able to stand up. They walked on. Suddenly Eva stumbled. She put out a hand to keep herself from falling and scraped it along the rocky wall. She gave a little cry. Willi shone his lamp on her hand.

“It is nothing,” Eva said. “Just a little scratch.” She took a small handkerchief from a little pocket in her skirt. She cleaned the abrasion and wound the cloth around her hand. “It will be fine,” she said. Carefully they moved on. A short distance farther on Kotsch turned into a narrow side passage and they entered a chamber of softly rounded rock, craggy walls, and striated rock curtains.