Women Of Courage: Daisies Are Forever Part 3

She stopped to think a moment, trying to remember where they had left their belongings the night before. On the far side of the yard, she located their carts.

But no bicycles.

Where were they? Gisela pivoted around, sure they would appear.

Her search yielded nothing.

This couldn't be happening. Did they unhitch them and park them somewhere else? No, she would remember doing that. Then again, she had been exhausted.

She turned and stared at her cart. And at Herr Holtzmann's. How would they pull them, loaded as they were, without the bicycles? And how would she tell him? Her head spun. She stood with her hands on her hips and closed her eyes, trying to wish this all away. Yes, when she opened her eyes, she would see those bicycles.

Or better yet, find herself snug and warm and safe in her bed at home.

One, two, three.

Nothing.

She scurried from cart to cart, examining each bicycle. Someone must have mistaken Ella's for theirs. Many were similar. One looked like it but didn't have a scratch on the frame. She had fallen one day when the road was muddy and a rock nicked it.

Only looking at the bikes and not at where she was going, Gisela slammed into an older man, almost knocking him over. She took hold of his arm just in time. "I'm so sorry. I wasn't watching where I was going."

The man's mustache twitched. "No harm done. What are you looking for?"

Gisela swallowed back the tears. Crying would accomplish nothing. "Our bicycles. Someone stole them during the night. We left them hitched to our carts, but they're gone. Herr Holtzmann needs that bike."

He patted her shoulder with his gnarled hand. "Slow down, frulein, let me help you."

"Have you seen them? Can you help me?"

But they were nowhere around. They had vanished. She rubbed her throbbing temple.

Shouting drew her attention. The woman with the bedraggled hair and the screaming baby towered over two soldiers. "You dirty Brit, you killed my husband in Normandy. You are those men the SS was looking for last night."

"Nein, nein. We are German officers." The one man's hand shook as he drew it through his dark, wavy hair.

The woman, however, was right. She could tell it in his speech. He was British.

A friend.

An ally to an American such as herself.

She scanned the crowd. The woman's outburst had awoken and captured the attention of many. They knew the truth. Such a mob would be all over him in a matter of minutes. And they would do away with him.

Her legs moved forward of their own volition and her mouth formed the words she hadn't bothered to check. "Leave them alone. This one"-she pointed to the dark-haired one-"he is my husband. He fought bravely for the Fatherland." She stepped beside him.

He gave her a tepid smile, doubt and confusion in his fabulous brown eyes.

The woman shifted her weight and jutted out her right hip. "If so, then who is he?" She motioned toward the fair-skinned man with a shock of bright red hair sticking out from under his hat.

Her heart pounded, the full impact of what she was doing dawning on her. "My brother-in-law."

"Why are they here?"

Very good question. Very, very good question. She hugged herself to still her trembling. If she had thought through her actions, she would have a ready answer. She turned to her supposed husband who lifted his shoulders in an almost-imperceptible shrug.

Her mind refused to conjure up a reason.

The woman tapped her foot.

"They were shot."

"Sure. Millions of our boys have been shot. If they don't die like my husband did, they keep fighting."

The man beside her tapped her arm, then his chest.

"My husband was shot near the heart. Ja, the bullet just missed his heart. They were unable to remove it."

"I thought he was a POW guard."

The man could have told her that. Or he could have answered the question. "Ja, after he was shot, he went to be a guard. He can no longer handle the rigors of marching and fighting. It could kill him. He served our homeland."

"And your brother-in-law?"

"He is carrying a special message for the Fhrer."

"The Fhrer?"

Both men gazed at her, as did the woman shaking her head. With her stomach dancing in her abdomen, Gisela nodded.

The woman gave them all a look as hard as stone, then turned away.

Gisela released a breath she didn't know she had been holding.

"Brunhilda." The man touched her hand.

Warmth spread through her despite the frigid temperatures. "Pardon me?"

His eyes widened when he heard her speak in English. He replied in that tongue. "That's what I'm calling that old bird. Rather appropriate, don't you think?"

"I think you're lucky she didn't turn you in."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"American?"

She nodded.

"Now I understand why you helped us. You're a swell gal."

"It would be best if you didn't speak at all. Your German is poor and your English is dangerous. I'm Gisela Cramer."

"Mitch Edwards."

"Xavier McDonald."

Gisela pointed at the tall, thin man, Xavier. "You are Siegfried Munchen." She pointed at his friend who stood three or four inches shorter. "And you are Josep Cramer. You are supposed to be German and I am supposed to be your wife. Too many people heard that little exchange, so we will have to continue the charade for a while longer. Where did you come from?"

"Stalag XX-A." Xavier cracked his knuckles.

"A POW camp."

He nodded.

Great. Not only were they English, but they were escaped prisoners of war. Her headache got worse. "Are you going to wait here for the Soviets?"

Mitch leaned forward, his eyes darkening, intensifying. "Too much of a risk. We've heard that oftentimes the Russians treat other Allied soldiers no better than their German prisoners. They're brutal. That's the rumor in camp. Not the allies we want to meet up with. So we'll be moving on."

Gisela rubbed her hands together. This posed a problem. "You need to stay with me then, since we're supposed to be together and all. I'm traveling with three old people and my cousin's two young daughters. I have to tend to them, but be ready to leave as soon as possible."

One positive to the situation was that Mitch and Xavier could pull carts. Though they were skinny, they had to be stronger than Herr Holtzmann. They could prove useful.

She spun to return to the house to awaken the rest of her group.

Whether Herr Holtzmann liked it or not, their party had grown by two.

"Gisela, what took you so long?" Herr Holtzmann stood in the middle of the clan waiting for her in the front hall, the sisters carrying beat-up suitcases. The girls grinned and ran to hug her legs. She could manage nothing more than a slight smile.

"You look like the world is going to end." His words, as soothing as her opa's, almost did her in.

She studied the cracked leather of her brown shoes. So much had happened in the little while she had been gone. "That sounds very good right now."

"It is better if you spit out poison."

He had a point. "A thief stole our bicycles last night."

Herr Holtzmann sucked in his breath and let it out little by little. "Then we have to pull the carts by hand." He said it in such a matter-of-fact way.

"It will slow us. And we have two other members of our party."

Bettina shoved her bony elbow into her sister's equally bony ribs. "A party. What a splendid idea. Do you think my pink dress will do? Perhaps it needs to be altered."

Herr Holtzmann ignored his sisters as they planned the shindig of the century. "Anyone is welcome."

She dropped her voice to a whisper. "They are escaped English POWs masquerading as German SS officers. My concern is for the girls. Is it too dangerous?"

"Danger is what life is about these days. We never know when our time will come. Do you want to help these men?"

Crazy as it was, she did. The Lord had p.r.i.c.ked her heart. She nodded. "They would be a.s.sets, helping pull the carts or carry the girls."

"That's fine with me. Bigger problems are in front of us. Frau Becker told me, and I overheard it from some of the other men, that the road to Elbing has been cut off."

"Cut off?"

"Ja. The Russians are to the south of us and to the east and west."

The Frische Haff, a large lagoon on the Baltic Sea, lay to the north. "We're trapped."

"I would say so."

Much as she tried to control herself, her voice rose in pitch. "Then what do we do? Where do we go? Back to Heiligenbeil to face the inevitable?" Screams echoed in her head. Pleas for help. She took a deep breath. They couldn't go back. They couldn't. The girls stared at her, their mouths open.

The Holtzmann sisters took a break from their party planning. "Swimming in the Frische Haff in this weather?" Bettina tapped her forehead. "Brother, you have become addle brained in your old age. Wouldn't you agree, Sister?"

Katya nodded, her speckled gray hair peeking out from underneath her brown hood. "I don't much care for swimming myself."

Annelies tugged on Gisela's arm. "Are we going swimming?"

"Nein." Though if the Soviets continued their three-way a.s.sault, they may have no other choice. Her stomach clenched. She leaned closer to Herr Holtzmann. "How will we escape? Is there a way?"

"Don't worry. We will go over the Frische Haff."

"Your sister is right. You have lost your mind."

He chuckled. "My mind is right here. The lagoon is frozen. We will walk over it."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

An hour later, the vast whiteness of the Frische Haff stretched in front of the little band. Gisela stood unbelieving as a sea of humanity flowed forward, plodding across the ice of the lagoon, dark against the frozen brightness. She thought of her own black coat and how it made her vulnerable.

A road of sorts had been sketched out across the ice. The German army had placed small trees along the way to mark the path the refugees needed to take. Out in the blinding, unending whiteness, it would be very easy to get lost.

Mitch caught up to her and stood at her shoulder. "A far cry from the green hills of England."

"So you're not from London?"

"Not quite. The little town of Kendal. My mum and pop have lived there all their lives. My sister too, until she moved to Dorchester."

"You miss it. And them."

"My mum, anyway. It's been a long five years."

"That's how long you've been a POW?"

"Yes."