****
The mail clerk carried her daily bundle of undeliverable mail to her sergeant.
“Here’s mine for today.”
“Put them there.” The sergeant pointed to one of a row of baskets. “I’ll get to them as soon as I can.”
“From what I see that may take months.”
The thin, bright-eyed woman laughed. “Weeks, maybe.” She looked around her. “I’ve got a system. And it works.”
“If you say so,” the WAC private replied with skepticism.
“I’ll have you know I’ll have those out of here in three weeks. You mark my word.”
The private laughed. “Okay. I’ll be watching.” She shuffled through the stack she’d just deposited in the basket and picked out a strange looking postcard. “This one. I’ll keep my eye on it and see how long it takes.”
The sergeant took the card and eyed it curiously. She’d seen these before.
“What is it?” the private asked.
“It’s from a German Prisoner of War camp. One of our boys sending something…” She read the scrawled message. “to his girlfriend.” Her voice trailed off as she remembered seeing another one almost identical addressed to the same person.
She got up and went to a box she kept on a separate table.
“What’s that?”
“These are the ones I’m researching. The hard ones. The ones who’ve been reassigned so many times they’re hard to follow.”
“And what’s in there?”
She shuffled through the letters careful to keep them in order. “This.” She proudly held up another card with the same German printing on it and the same address written in the same hand.
“What is it? Another one?”
“Not just another one. Another card addressed to the same WAC at the same address and from the same man—Ted.”
“What do they say?”
“That he’s alive, and he loves her.”
“Oh,” her voice was soft and full of understanding. “You’ve got to find that one.”
“I will,” the sergeant answered, her face beamed with pride. “I’ll make a special effort to make sure these get delivered.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
The order to form up finally came. It was almost four a.m., January 28, 1945.
They stood in the bitter cold, wind-blown snow swirling around them, and waited, again.
Ted had the pack he’d made from a long-sleeved shirt slung around his neck and resting against his side. It contained his few personal possessions and what supplies he had squirreled away. His thin blankets were rolled tightly and hung from a string on the opposite side to even his load.
Others had fashioned suitcases from tin cans and cardboard or sleds from bits of wood.
Over the last few weeks, as the Russians pushed from the east, the Germans became more and more anxious. The prisoners’ senior officers met with the camp commandant and returned with orders to get their gear in order and prepare to move. The Germans planned to evacuate the camp before the Russians could take it, but they would not reveal their destination or the timing of the move.
Official word had come the night before. Ted’s compound had assembled in the darkness only to be told to return to their quarters and wait until the other compounds marched out. With their limited mobility, Ted and his companions had no idea how many compounds there were. The central compound housed about two thousand prisoners. If there were three or four more, then Stalag Luft III could hold ten thousand, a staggering number of men to move.
One of the men in his combine had cut an extra blanket into strips to use as scarves. Ted tied the strip of wool over his crusher cap then wrapped it around his face and neck to keep out the blowing snow and biting wind.
None of the men had real winter gear. Their uniforms were whatever they had been issued when they arrived at the camp. Like him, most had some type of overcoat, but many had worn out or inadequate shoes. Ted was grateful for the oversized boots he’d been issued. He always wore two pairs of socks, and he’d reinforced the soles by making cardboard inserts. He pitied the men whose boots were too small.
After the mandatory head count, the prisoners marched through the gate in their assorted uniforms and makeshift packs. As the ragtag bunch marched past the building where the Red Cross food packages were stored, men tossed the cardboard boxes to them.
Ted realized this might be their only food for the journey ahead. He ripped open the box and transferred its contents to his shirt-pack, grateful he would have something to eat.
Kitty came to mind, as she so often did. He pictured her sitting in front of a bright fire, her curly hair glowing in the light.
Her memory was his near-constant companion. For six months, six long months, he’d lived on the memories to survive the monotony and deprivation. He’d started imagining where she was and what she was doing. He even talked to her in his mind. He told her what he wanted to do when he saw her again, that he would hold her close and never let her go. He promised to marry her and dreamed of the children they’d have. Things he should have told her when they were together, but didn’t.
Oh God, what I would give to see her.
Much as he despised this place, leaving meant she couldn’t write him—if she ever got his cards, if she wanted to write him. He hadn’t gotten a single letter in all these months. Surely she hadn’t forgotten him. Even if she had a new man in her life, she would still write him. He just knew it.
Kitty kept him company as the march stretched on for hours. An all-out blizzard combined with the bitter cold slowed their progress. Men with frozen feet stumbled along. The stronger ones helped the weaker. More and more men collapsed from fatigue, from the freezing cold.
Ted focused on staying with the men in his combine. Traveling in a group, with each man looking out for the others, made sense. He’d never become close friends with any of these men. But they’d learned that life was better if they worked together.
The guards, many of them older men, struggled alongside the prisoners. Loaded with their own supplies plus the weight of their rifles and ammunition, their impatient threats to shoot slackers and anyone trying to escape rang hollow. Instead of shooting those unable to go on, the guards loaded them into the few, overcrowded trucks following the long procession.
They marched all day with only short breaks to rest. The snow continued.
Well after dark they entered a small village and stopped outside a church. Ted’s group shuffled inside the unheated structure before every inch filled with exhausted prisoners. The unlucky huddled outside against the walls or broke into mausoleums in the nearby cemetery.
On the second day the snowfall slowed, but the temperature fell below zero. The Germans gave each man a cup of warm water and a thin slice of their horrible black bread for their breakfast. After eating, the men formed up and walked on, following those in front, into the unknown.
Ted could barely feel his feet as he trudged along the snow packed road pounded hard by the thousands of feet that had gone before him. He gritted his teeth and resolved to survive. Even if he lost both feet, he would survive. And he would find Kitty and never let her go.
In the early afternoon, Ted saw a familiar figure standing like a statue in a snow bank beside the road. He faced a Christmas card scene of sparkling white stretching across a field to a cluster of evergreens at the foot of a small hill.
Ted stopped when the man coughed. The small, hacking sound could only come from his friend, Paul Wynn. Ted joined him. Beneath the snow-covered wool scarf that covered most of his face, Paul coughed again.
“Paul.”
Wynn turned his head just enough to see who was beside him. His eyes crinkled in a smile. “The ol’ bear.” He returned his gaze to the far hills.
“Why are you standing here, Paul? You need to keep moving.”
Another cough answered him. After a few moments, Paul spoke. “You go on. I can’t…”
Ted saw the man waver and g
rabbed him. “Don’t give up. You can make it.”
“Leave me here, where it’s peaceful.”
“No,” cried Ted. “I won’t leave you.” He wrapped his arm around his friend’s waist and pulled him back onto the road.
Jackson had stopped to see what Ted was up to. When he saw Ted wrestling with the near-frozen man, he grabbed Paul’s other arm. “Come on, ol’ man. Move your feet.”
Paul responded to their coaxing and started to walk with the two men holding him upright.
Ted had to do something to keep his friend moving, so he started talking. He told stories of his training days, his near-miss at Hoover Dam, his adventures in pursuit of the ladies. Anything to keep them going and their minds off the terrible cold.
Ted didn’t know how long he could keep it up. With only short breaks, they continued into the night. Finally they stumbled into a village. Someone directed them into a barn. Although it was unheated, they were out of the wind.
Ted found a spot on the crushed straw and settled his friend beside him. Paul, still coughing, fell into a restless sleep. But Ted couldn’t relax, couldn’t rest.
The smell of damp, moldy straw invoked a feeling of impending doom. He tried to shake it and make himself sleep. His body ached for rest, yet he waited for the disaster he knew was coming.
A vision flashed before him. He bolted upright and sat trembling from the impact of the vivid memory.
“Your father is dead!” His mother screeched as she shook him awake. “They shot him,” she screamed. “Caught him stealing and shot him.”
The memories flooded back.
They’d found an abandoned shed, half-fallen in. Old straw covered the floor where someone had slept there before.
His father had lost all their money. His mother angrily berated the man for his stupidity, for allowing thieves to assault and rob him. What could he have done? Yet she went on with her incessant harping.
When she’d finally run out of steam, his father told her to wait for him in the shed. He’d walk to the nearest town and send another wire to his father. The old man would send the train fare to get them to Nashville. They’d only have to wait until it arrived.
Ted remembered complaining of being hungry. The old guilt washed over him. Maybe if he hadn’t complained…maybe his father wouldn’t have tried to steal the food…maybe he would still be alive.
Ted forced himself to look around at the men lying and sitting on every inch of space in the barn. They reminded him of the hobos camped near the railroad tracks. Some were suspicious, some friendly. But by that time his father trusted no one. He’d led them away, until they’d found the shed.
He told himself his father had tried to protect him, had tried to feed him, take care of him. His mother, on the other hand, had come apart. Always demanding and selfish, the woman became distraught when her husband lost his job, then their home. She hated his immigrant parents and never wanted to ask them for help, but she finally saw it as their only hope.
The wire brought money for the trip from St. Louis east to Nashville. Had his father not been robbed, had they not been thrown off the train, his life might have been very different.
But no, after that fateful night, his life changed forever.
Looking back, he knew he’d been better off living with his grandparents. He’d been ashamed of their accents and strange ways. But they’d given him stability, a home…and their love. As a rebellious teenager he’d resented their rules, their advice, and when he graduated, he’d lit out, determined to find his mother.
He found her. The same flighty woman, making selfish demands on her new husband just as she had done years before. Age had accentuated her faults while stealing her looks. No longer the beautiful woman he remembered from childhood, she let him know she didn’t want a grown son hanging around, revealing her true age, something no layers of makeup could hide.
Hurt and unwanted, Ted impulsively signed on to the crew of a freighter and set out to see the world.
Then the Japanese attacked.
After the freighter went down, he’d returned to Jacksonville, to the mother who didn’t want him. The man at the airfield encouraged him to join the Army, fight the Japs.
And here he sat, a prisoner of the Germans, marching through the snow to some unknown prison camp, where he may or may not survive.
His father had hoped for the best and tried to do what he thought he needed to do to survive. Except he hadn’t. He’d died. And more than likely, Ted would, too.
Ted lay back on the hay, certain he would not sleep. He forced his thoughts to Kitty, the one bright spot in his miserable life.
That bright, sunshiny day, she’d smiled and told him he was safe. He had to believe he would be and he would see her again. It was all he had.
****
The third day’s march blurred into the cold, white landscape. After a short rest stop, Paul couldn’t get to his feet. A POW officer got the Germans to load him into one of their trucks. Paul was so weak and hopeless. Ted bid him good-bye and wondered if his friend would make it.
Well after sun up the next morning, they shuffled through another village and stopped at a tile factory on the edge of town. After days of bitter cold, the heat from the kiln shocked Ted’s body. He and his combine mates climbed up into the loft above the furnace and collapsed. The fires helped thaw frozen feet, hands, and bodies. Pain replaced numbness. Despite his aching feet, for the first time since leaving Stalag Luft III, Ted fell into a deep sleep.
The Krauts allowed them to rest in the factory for two days. The food they gave the Kriegies was barely edible: weak soup, hard tasteless bread, and lumps of white margarine.
When they returned to the road, the temperature had warmed enough to turn the snow to slush. Ted’s feet, now thawed, got wet. He began to cough, a dry hack that failed to clear the phlegm from his chest. And his insides churned into the beginnings of diarrhea.
After another seemingly endless day, they reached a railroad yard on the edge of a town. Tough, new guards loaded the Kriegies into boxcars, like cattle, and locked them inside. Fifty men overcrowded the dark, closed space. Body heat provided the only warmth. Shelter from the wind meant little air to breathe. No toilet facilities meant the stench grew worse as time passed. Lack of water added to the misery.
Only a few could sit while the others stood on painful, tired feet. Ted clung tenaciously to the spot he’d found near a wide crack where a whiff of air penetrated the putrid atmosphere. He found himself longing for the open road and the long march.
The train sat on the track for hours.
Ted’s cough grew worse. A heavy weight pressed on his chest. When his painfully churning bowels betrayed him, misery overtook him. Men grumbled and cursed around him. He pressed his face to the crack and forced himself to inhale. His thoughts went to Kitty, wondering where she was and grateful she could not see him in this unbearable condition.
When the train finally jerked into motion, the man next to him pulled himself up to his feet. He shoved Ted to one side. The guy he fell against shoved back. Lightheaded and weak kneed, Ted slid down to the soiled floor. His weakened body sank into the sea of misery that surrounded him. He gasped for air but damp stench brought on a spell of coughing.
The joke was on him after all. He told her he was a dead man. But he didn’t die when the plane exploded. No, that was too good for him. This special hellish fate better suited his worthless soul. He wanted it to be over. He understood Paul’s need to give up, to lie down in the clean, white snow and gaze out on the peaceful landscape.
But Ted Kruger, the arrogant SOB he was, told him to keep going. For what? His friend was probably lying beside the road, dead. And smart ass Ted Kruger sat in his own excrement at the bottom of a locked boxcar filled with sick, dirty, exhausted men.
Just let me die and be done with it.
Kitty couldn’t save him from this. She would be better off. With him gone, she’d find some nice, decent guy.
He l
eaned his head back against the wooden wall and listened to the train rumbling along the track. If he could only see her one more time. See her beautiful face surrounded by that halo of curly hair, telling him he was safe, that she loved him. He’d die happy.
****
Finally the doors slid open. Bright light and a gust of fresh air swept into the boxcar.
Men shuffled around him. Ted couldn’t move, couldn’t get to his feet. He closed his eyes and wondered if they would just leave him.
Men, other prisoners, pulled him to the door. They lifted him from the train and carried him away.
They had arrived at Stalag 7A outside Mooseburg.
Jackson and a couple of other men deposited Ted on a bunk in a cold, damp barrack. His combine crowded into an already occupied building. They complained loudly about the too small stove, no kitchen, no indoor toilets, and too many prisoners.
At least the march is over. At least we can rest. And maybe get warm.
Word came from the Kriegie commanders that the Germans had consolidated many POW camps into this one enormous facility. All nationalities and military types were thrown together. Stalag Luft III had been luxurious compared to this place.
After a few days Ted’s fever rose. They moved him from the barracks to the prison hospital, as it was. With no medicine and no doctor, little could be done except to keep him warm and force feed him warm soup and water.
He clung to Kitty, talked to her in his delirium, held her in his dreams. The image of her hovering over him, hair wild in the wind, and love in her eyes kept him struggling to hang on.
Chapter Thirty-Six
January 30, 1945
“Hurry and change. We don’t want to be late.”
“Okay,” Kitty answered, starting up the four flights of stairs.
“I’ll grab the mail. You go on. I’ll get yours, too.”
“Thanks, Betty.”
Kitty tackled the stairs and tried to convince herself that going to this shindig was a good idea. A banquet meant a decent meal. Live music would be a treat, for her anyway. She’d stayed in most nights when the other girls went out. Nothing interested her anymore.
Kitty's War Page 32
