Bitter tears, p.1
Bitter Tears, page 1
Bitter Tears
War Girl Series, Book 7
Marion Kummerow
Bitter Tears, War Girl Series, Book 7
Marion Kummerow
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All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 2019 Marion Kummerow
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This book is copyrighted and protected by copyright laws.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission from the author.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, and places in this book exist only within the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or locations is purely coincidental.
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Cover Design by http://www.StunningBookCovers.com
Contents
Reader Group
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Author’s Notes
Also by Marion Kummerow
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Chapter 1
April 1945, Poland
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Artillery shells exploded. Shouts, both in Russian and in German, echoed in the eerie silence between explosions.
Katrina Zdanek huddled inside the small farmhouse, trying in vain to chase away the fear. She longed for a time when life wasn’t so violent or scary. The fighting between the Red Army and the German Wehrmacht had been getting more intense over the last few weeks. At the normally quiet and peaceful lake only a stone’s throw from the farm, both armies had reached an impasse after their sluggish efforts to overtake one another locked them into a stalemate.
Mrs. Jaworski huddled beside her, breathing heavily and pressing a rosary to her heart, the beads moving between her fingers as she recited Hail Marys uncountable times.
Katrina looked at the older woman, who’d kindly sheltered her and Richard, her boyfriend, on her farm after the Nazis had burnt down the Zdanek farm.
“Don’t you think we should leave this place?” Katrina asked for the umpteenth time.
“Never. I was born on this soil and I will die on it,” Mrs. Jaworski stubbornly replied.
Die you will, if we don’t get out of the line of fire, Katrina murmured to herself. Since the front line had reached their village weeks ago, the world around them had become a living hell. Far from the quick liberation everyone had hoped for, they’d been stuck in a perpetual battleground like innocent prisoners caught in the crossfire of a futile war. The opposing armies were fighting tooth and nail for the strategic advantage of having the protection of the lake on their side.
With the world erupting in flames, most everyone had abandoned their homes and fled to less embattled areas.
A shell exploded outside, the reverberations shaking Katrina’s bones. She ducked her head even deeper, trying to become one with the stone wall that protected her body from the deadly impact. Half a minute later, the smoke from the explosion wafted through the shattered window and made her gag.
Her heart constricted with fear over Richard’s safety. Her boyfriend, a German Wehrmacht deserter, had been out at night, foraging the woods for something to eat. Now, heavily under attack, she worried not only for her own life, but also for his. Where on earth is he? Please, God… let him be alive and unharmed. Although he’d shed his uniform almost a year ago and taken on a fake identity as a Polish civilian, he was still in constant danger of being shot on the spot by either the Germans or the Russians should his real identity be revealed.
During a lull in the fighting, she held her breath, listening intently. An eerie silence cloaked her surroundings until she heard the telltale cuckoo call, and a burden fell from her shoulders.
Richard was alive!
Moments later the skirmish continued in full force and Katrina pressed her bony back against the wall, holding her hands over her ears and closing her eyes.
Hours passed and finally the battle noises subsided. Katrina dared to peer out the window, the picture of utter destruction grabbing her heart with an icy hand. She’d lost her own home… watched it burn to the ground, unable to do anything as the Nazis had rejoiced in adding fuel to the fire.
For the past eight months she and Richard had found a second home with Mrs. Jaworski, the mother of a dear friend. Katrina wondered what had become of her friend, Bartosz. He had fought alongside her brothers, Stan and Jarek, with the Polish partisans. Almost a year ago the Nazi pigs had tortured Jarek to death, leaving herself and his twin Stan with an empty space in their hearts.
Stan and Bartosz had stayed with the partisans, and none of them had the time to mourn a brother and a good friend. Not during this god-awful war, not when people were dying like flies all round. Her heart grew heavy and she willed the thoughts away. Now wasn’t the time to dwell upon grief. No, now was the time to fight for survival.
She got up and shook the dust from her skirt and blouse, before she held out a hand to help up Mrs. Jaworski. She had to give the old woman credit. Despite being pale as a ghost and shaking like aspen leaves, she resumed her tasks without uttering a complaint and started to sweep the floor.
Minutes later, Richard strolled into the house, his blond hair tousled, his beard badly shaved and his clothes covered in mud and thistle, but a huge grin softened his expression. God, how she loved this man who never stopped looking at the bright side of life. Despite having served two winters on the Eastern Front, deep in the Russian tundra, he refused to succumb to the dire straits of war, and somehow found a reason to flash his adorable boyish smile every day.
“Look what I found,” he said, and held up a bloodied, half torn-apart rabbit. The poor thing must have been hit. But now it would give them a delicious, hearty meal. Food had been scarce since the front line had reached their area and they were running low on everything except water.
“Goodness.” Katrina stepped forward to take the rabbit and pressed a kiss on Richard’s rough lips. She didn’t tell him how worried she’d been and she didn’t say a word about how bad today had been at the house. Some things were better left unsaid.
“It looks like both armies have entrenched themselves, waiting for reinforcements. It’s only gonna get worse and we should get out of here while we’re still alive,” he said, holding Katrina by her shoulders.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Mrs. Jaworski said. “If I leave now, what will there be to return to once the war ends? Nothing, I tell you. I won’t have my farm and no place to live.” She took the rabbit from Katrina’s hand and skinned it.
“I’ll get water from the lake.” Katrina grabbed two buckets on a stick that she placed across her shoulders.
“Let me help you.” Richard picked up a pail and hurried to follow her.
They walked the half a mile down to the lake in silence, before Richard finally said, “We need to convince her to leave, or we’ll all die.”
“I know,” Katrina said. They’d had this conversation countless times. “But we can’t leave her here by herself. She’s been so kind all these months.”
Richard nodded. “She’s persisting in the hopes at least one of her three sons will return and find her at the farm.” His voice became dreary.
Katrina squeezed his hand. Without saying a word, she understood his feelings. After deserting the Wehrmacht a year ago he hadn’t heard from his family and had no idea whether they were still alive or not.
“The uncertainty is bad,” she said. She hadn’t heard anything from her own brother, Stan, for months. And she’d all but given up hope of seeing her oldest brother, Piotr, ever again. He’d been missing since Hitler’s invasion in 1939.
“It is.”
They washed at the lake, accompanied by incessant battle noises. Then they filled their buckets, before Richard wrapped his arms around her and said, “Relax. It’ll all be over soon.”
“Let’s hope so,” she answered, pressing her body against his thin but muscular one. In his arms she always felt protected, and soon enough, his nearness dissolved the tension in her body and she sagged against him.
“That’s better.” He gave her a long, passionate kiss on her lips, before he broke away. “We better get going. I don’t like leaving Mrs. Jaworski alone for long.”
“Me, neither.”
Walking half a mile with two heavy buckets full of water was strenuous, and Katrina sighed with relief when the farmhouse came into sight. But the next moment she stopped in her tracks and Richard bumped into her from behind, spilling some of the precious water.
“We have to go look for her.”
“First, we must wait until the soldiers are gone,” he said, tightening his grip.
She defied the urge to fight him because she knew he was right. A rash action would only bring harm . If she barged into the farm right now, it might be a suicide mission. “You can stop holding me, I won’t run off.” She turned her head and smiled.
“Let me go ahead first.”
From experience she knew it wouldn’t help to argue with him, so she nodded. Richard ducked into the high grass and snuck up on the farmhouse. After several minutes he stood and waved her forward.
Leaving the pails of water behind, she hurried over to where he waited.
“All gone. We can have a look.”
But as soon as they entered the yard, Katrina put a hand across her mouth at the ghastly sight of Mrs. Jaworski torn to shreds. Searching for Richard’s gaze, she noticed the tightening of his jaw, a sure sign of his hapless anger. “We’ll bury her and then we leave.”
Katrina nodded and put her feet into motion toward the ruins of the house, to see if there was anything she could salvage. She didn’t find much. Some pieces of cutlery. Metal crockery. A big shawl. A book that had miraculously survived. She rubbed the dirt from the copy of Wilhelm Tell by Friedrich Schiller and wondered if the book served as an omen for their own lives. Shuddering, she knotted the shawl into a backpack and filled it with everything useful she found, including some stray potatoes lying in the yard.
Meanwhile, Richard dug a grave for Mrs. Jaworski in her yard and was about to lower her inside when Katrina returned. With wet eyes she watched the kind woman slip into the dark earth, and she folded the dead woman’s hands in prayer, before she helped him fill up the grave.
“I liked her, too,” Richard said as he took Katrina’s hand.
To prevent herself from tearing up, she showed him the backpack and said, “I gathered everything useful I could find. Including a copy of Wilhelm Tell.”
“How fitting. Let’s go.” Richard’s lip quivered slightly, revealing the depth of his own emotion. A little shiver of grief and regret tugged at Katrina’s heart. But now was not the time to mourn.
“But where will we go?” The Polish Home Army partisans they had been providing with food came to her mind, but the partisan unit had left the area weeks ago to join fighting units elsewhere.
“I don’t know.”
Sounds of artillery in the distance heightened her sense of urgency and she looked into Richard’s eyes. “The woods.”
Chapter 2
Two days had passed since their flight from the farm, and the savage fighting raged on. The forest wasn’t a great place to live, although it was safer than the ravaged villages. Richard held Katrina close, shivering in his damp clothes. As much as nature needed the life-giving moisture, he sure could do without the constant drizzle raining down on them.
Katrina moved in his arms and opened her eyes, looking at him. “What has you so worried?”
“Hmm …let’s see.” He tried a crooked grin. “Right now, I can’t think of anything to worry about.”
As he had intended, she laughed out loud and snuggled tighter into his arms. As long as they had each other, he’d never lose faith in a better future. His stomach growled, reminding him they hadn’t eating anything remotely filling for the last two days.
“We could see whether we can return to the village,” Katrina suggested.
It wasn’t a good idea, actually it was an awful idea, but there wasn’t much else they could do. If they hid out in the forest with the constant rain and cold and without food or shelter, they wouldn’t last much longer.
“I think it’s a great idea,” he said after a slight pause.
“You hate it.”
“I do, but since there’s nothing else…” He didn’t bother to finish his sentence.
When they arrived at the edge of the hill overlooking the village with Mrs. Jaworski’s farm, only rubble greeted them. Piles of stones strewn across the landscape. Scorched earth where fields had lain. Only the big green lake looked as still and peaceful as ever.
“What now?” Katrina tried to sound brave, but he knew her too well to miss the unshed tears in her voice.
“We can’t stay here.”
“I know. I’ve been thinking… I have extended family near Breslau – a cousin of my mother,” Katrina said.
“Breslau? That’s in Germany.”
“Not anymore.”
“What does this mean?” Richard stared at Katrina. These days accurate information was hard to come by, and without a radio at the farm they had been confined to the irregular newspaper and gossip in the village.
“About a month ago the state national council, Krajowa Rada Narodowa, with the backing of Stalin, announced that all German possessions east of the Oder-Neisse Line have been vacated and abandoned. Two weeks later they announced the foundation of the voivodeships Upper Silesia, Lower Silesia and a few more.”
Richard balled his hands into fists. How dare the communist puppets tell those lies and annex big parts of Germany? “You never told me.”
“I must have forgotten.”
A shudder ripped through him at the magnitude of that lie. He cocked his head, grinding his teeth. “And the real reason?”
She gave a little sigh. “I knew you’d have a fit of rage and would mope around for days. Look, I don’t like what’s happening either, but there’s nothing we can do. And I don’t have to remind you that it was your country that started this war.”
“Hmm.” He stubbornly stared into the distance for a while, then said, “I’m not going there.”
“Why not?”
“Because… it’s too dangerous.” His personal feelings aside, there was no real reason why he resisted her suggestion. They couldn’t keep hiding out in the woods, and one place was as good as the next one.
“It’s in fact much safer with my relatives than on our own.”
As much as he hated to admit it, she was right. Having the protection of friendly locals would help him to remain undiscovered. Mrs. Jaworski had known his true identity, and had dodged the nosy questions of the other villagers by introducing him as a distant, and grumpy, cousin from up North. He’d never ventured into the village and never talked to anyone.
But arriving as newcomers in another village would pique the curiosity of people and they’d ask all kinds of questions. Once they did, he’d be found out in no time at all, despite his passable Polish skills and forged papers.
“Are you sure we can stay with them?”
“If they are still alive, yes. If they aren’t, we can seek a place to live in Breslau itself. Your chances to blend in are much better in a big city.”
Again, she was right. “Hmm. Maybe. But it’s too far away.”
“It’s not that far, about seventy miles southwest.”
“And how do you suggest we get there? Call a taxi?”
Katrina laughed out loud. “I would like to do that, but I doubt there’s a single taxi left within a thousand miles.”
“See, it’s impossible!” he insisted, his stomach churning at the idea of living in a place that had been German for so long and now suddenly belonged to another nation. He didn’t want to see all the German citizens who, no doubt, would now be harassed in one form or another by the new Polish government.
