Women Of Courage: Daisies Are Forever Part 14

He walked a few steps one way, then spun and marched a few steps in the other. Where should he begin to look?

The long train wound like an injured snake against the snowy-white background. The hulking engine flamed and smoked and a few other cars burned. He blew his warm breath across his hands and rubbed his fingers together. They didn't tingle, didn't hurt.

He slapped both thighs, hoping for feeling to return to them.

Moving would help. He decided to make a complete circuit of the train. Gisela's green scarf should be easy to spot. Please, Lord, don't let them be dead. Help me in my search . . .

He set off at a slow jog, screaming their names at the top of his lungs. Still no one answered his cries. Some began to file back into the train and the relative warmth of the cars. A few dark figures crossed toward what looked like a church steeple. Perhaps a town was there.

What if they now headed in that direction? His chances of locating them among these seemingly thousands of pa.s.sengers were small.

His heart rate ratcheted up two notches. He ran faster, called louder. "Gisela! Annelies! Renate!"

He scanned the crowd as thoroughly and as quickly as possible. No woman with amber hair and eyes to match. No little blond girls with freckles.

Upon reaching the caboose without spotting any of the three, he stopped to catch his breath, his hands on his knees. If they were even on the train, he had to keep moving. He rounded the back and started down the other side, his eyes flicking right and left and right again.

His throat burned, but he continued to yell their names. A few cars from the end, not far from the train, he saw it. A green scarf. Perhaps he was hallucinating. It seemed too good to be true. But this woman wore a brown coat, not black, and carried a child that, though she sported bright white hair, was too small to be either of the girls.

And there was but one child.

But it looked like Gisela.

He took a deep breath, fighting to stay calm.

Not trusting his eyes, he tramped toward the woman who now stood. She picked up the child and placed a kiss on his forehead.

The way Gisela kissed Renate. His heart hitched. He hurried in her direction. "Gisela?"

The woman focused her attention on him. "Mitch? Oh, Mitch."

She lumbered toward him through the snow, the child on her hip. He rushed to meet her in the middle.

She fell into his arms, her chest heaving. He patted her back until her breathing returned to normal. His breathing grew more erratic.

She stepped back. "The girls. Have you found them? Do you know where they are?"

"I haven't any idea. Did they make the train? I didn't know for sure if you did."

"We did. Kurt handed them through a window, but the train started moving before the women who pulled them in could grab me. I managed to get on a few cars later. I haven't seen them since. Not Kurt nor Audra nor the Holtzmann sisters either."

"Whose lad is this?" Mitch rubbed the small boy's back.

"He stood next to me. No one claimed him, so when the plane came, I grabbed him. But I hurt him when I fell on top of him."

Mitch stroked the toddler's cheek. "A little sc.r.a.pe is nothing. You may well have saved his life."

Filled with unshed tears, her eyes glistened bronze.

A man on crutches, one pant leg pinned up, hobbled toward them. "Gisela."

"Ja, Rolf."

"You found your husband, then?"

A blush crept up her neck. "Ja. This is Mit . . . um, Josep."

"Not the little girls?"

She shook her head.

"That is too bad." The soldier leaned on his crutches and stuck out his right hand, examining Mitch. "SS, is that so?"

Mitch nodded. "Ja." He shook the man's hand, though the soldier's perusal made him uncomfortable. "Any needs? We have to find the kinder."

"Go, look for them. I will keep my eyes open."

Gisela stomped her feet and hugged the child to her. Her forehead furrowed and indecision crossed her face. When she was little, she must have brought home all kinds of lost animals. Mitch didn't want this German soldier joining their group. One was more than enough. The time had come to move on.

Mitch nudged Gisela with his shoulder. "Then let's go." Not waiting for an answer, he trudged off. In a moment, he heard light footsteps squeaking in the snow behind him.

Both of them raised their voices, hoping for the girls to answer them. He checked around them for a little red hat and a little blue one.

The boy began to cry, his wail building with each pa.s.sing minute. If the girls did answer them, they would never hear. Mitch stopped, took the baby and slung him over his shoulder. His arms ached from hanging on to the side of the train, but he galloped in a semi-horse-like fashion and the child quieted.

They had almost reached the end of the pa.s.senger cars. "You said Kurt handed the girls through a window?"

"Ja. I don't remember which one."

"So they wouldn't have been in a boxcar?"

"Nein, he would never do that." Her words were sharp.

"I'm only trying to glean any information that will help us find them."

Her shoulders slumped.

They marched along. She was young and fit but fell behind him, even though he carried the boy. The boy who smelled like his nappy needed to be changed. She looked more deliberately, more carefully than he did. He scanned the crowds faster.

"Annelies! Renate!"

Their cries met nothing but silence.

Gisela and Mitch had almost reached the end of the crowd. They dared go no farther, no closer to the train. There might be more ammunition that would explode. Her heart beat with a wild rhythm for a moment, then stopped altogether for a few more before resuming its untamed ride.

Where could the girls be? Were they even alive? Please, G.o.d, let them have had a kind soul to help them. May they be safe. May they be alive.

Mitch marched on, not looking hard enough. A quick scan of the area satisfied him. But not her. They needed to make a thorough search of each and every person that had been on that train. Two girls didn't disappear into thin air, no matter how small they were.

She left Mitch's side, the boy crying again, and picked her way over and around people, refusing to let herself think of them as the dead bodies they were. "Annelies! Renate! Where are you?"

A hand tugged at the coat she wore-the dead woman's much warmer coat.

She spun to find an older man. "Can I help you?" She had nothing to offer him.

"Fritz? Oh, that is my Fritz. My grandson."

The little one wiggled and held his hands out to the older man. "Opa. Opa."

"G.o.d bless you, frulein. I don't know where his mother, my daughter-in-law, is, but I found him." The man buried his head in the little boy's neck.

Gisela couldn't wipe the smile from her face if she wanted to. "He was alone on the train."

"Danke, danke. My sweet boy. How can I ever repay you?"

"Only if you help me find my nieces." Since they called her tante, she might as well claim them as such, not just as cousins.

"Ja?"

She gave him a description of the girls.

"One you say is Renate?"

"Ja. Do you know where they are?"

"I remember Renate because that is my daughter-in-law's name." He swallowed a few times.

She crossed her arms and hugged herself. Was he preparing her for what he had to say? She squeezed herself hard.

Mitch drew her close. "Where are they? What happened to them?"

FOURTEEN.

The crackle of the fire burning the train and the crunch of footsteps in the snow whooshed in Gisela's ears. Even if the news from this old man was bad, she needed to hear it. Now.

"Bitte, if you know where they are, tell me." She scanned around them, but no sign of Annelies and Renate. The bile she had tamped down earlier rose in her throat.

The little boy, Fritz, squirmed in his opa's arms, still sucking the three middle fingers of his small hand. The man, shivering, smacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth a few times. "Saw two pretty ladies with them heading in that direction." He pointed to the farm in the distance and the river of people streaming that way. "They were afraid to go back on the train, but the girls needed to be somewhere warm. Told me that if I saw a young woman with a green daisy scarf I was to tell you where they went."

The description fit. Did she dare to hope?

All proper social convention long since abandoned, she hugged the old man, almost knocking him and Fritz to the ground. She steadied him, then kissed him on the cheek. "Danke, danke."

"I am glad I could repay the favor."

With her throat burning and aching, she kissed Fritz goodbye. Before her heart broke, she spun on her heel and set out across the white expanse.

Mitch tramped in the snow behind her. "Is this a good idea?"

She kept her focus on the farm. The frosty vastness of fields and small groves of trees stretched out before them, leading to a tiny village, the white houses all red roofed. "What choice do we have?"

"If the Russians return, we are exposed out here."

"Those girls are my responsibility. If you don't want to come, don't. Whether or not you join me, I'm going to that barn. I'm the one who left them alone on the train. I'm the one who has to retrieve them. Before the train leaves."

"Calm down. It's not going anywhere for a while. Maybe never."

"I heard talk they are sending another engine from Stettin. An engine alone should travel quickly and be here in a matter of hours. If you want to stay here, that's fine. I'm going to find the girls before it arrives."

"Even knowing what might happen."

She stopped and spun around. Mitch had been following in her shadow and ran into her when she halted. He reached his hand out and wrapped it around her to stop her from falling. How could he smell so manly when there was probably no cologne left in the entire country?

"Even knowing what might happen. Especially knowing what might happen."

Mitch released his grasp and stepped forward. "Then let's find the others and get back to the train."

"You're coming with me?"

"Why not?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't think you would. You have to get back to the Allies. A woman with two missing children and two AWOL senile ladies is holding you back."

He motioned to the train behind them. "That doesn't matter. I'm not going west anytime soon. Besides, for little girls, Annelies and Renate are pretty swell."

She leaned away from him and took a good look. His face remained serious. But weren't soldiers trained not to give away their emotions?

"I want to."

"Fine. Then let's go." She picked up her pace.

Right alongside of her, he laughed. "You're a tough bird."

She didn't feel tough. The few contents of her stomach agitated like b.u.t.ter in a churn.

What would she do if they didn't find the girls? The man might have confused them with someone else. He might have pointed them in the wrong direction.

How would she ever tell Ella that she had lost her children?

Audra sat shivering in the snow, Bettina and Katya standing nearby. The feeling of Kurt's body on top of hers while the tiefflieger fired on them hadn't faded. A wonderful dream combining with a bad nightmare.

"Are you hurt?" He touched her shoulder, a charge like electricity zinging up her arm, nearly stopping her heart, and she jumped.