He was panting, breathless. He had talked to refugees at the top of the lane who had told him that a Russian captain had toured the town in a tank equipped with loudspeakers. Speaking in German, he had ordered all the German civilians to leave their homes and run for their lives because he could not control the troops coming behind him.
Her first thoughts had been for Sascha and his men. The last thing a retreating army needed was prisoners, and she knew the new guards would have no compunction about shooting them. She hushed Marius. He had quietened immediately, looking to the lodge where the guards were resting after eating their midday dinner. The snowstorm was still raging. The prisoners were locked in their loft.
Walking past Martha and Minna, who were standing, quaking, in front of the range, she had gone to the study, took her father’s keys from his desk, entered the gun room and unlocked the chain that held his hunting rifles. There were sixteen of them. Some had been her father’s, others her brothers’ and grandfather’s. Next to the gun cabinet was a cupboard that held the twins’ rapiers and swords, and her father’s hunting knives.
Not daring to risk Marius or Martha’s life, she had carried the weapons through the study and into the tack room herself. It had taken six trips. The whole time, Martha, Minna and Marius had watched the windows but the guards never left the lodge. When all the weapons were in the tack room, she whistled to Sascha. He opened the trap-door, his eyes widening in alarm when he saw the guns and the look on her face.
‘Your army is in Allenstein. It can only be a short time before they reach here.’ She had pointed to the guns. ‘You can have these.’ Before he could offer her sympathy, she returned to the kitchen and began shouting orders: to Marius to harness the farm cart with the strongest pair of remaining horses; to Minna to pack a bag with her own, Erich’s and her mother’s warmest clothing; to Martha to pack her own family’s valuables.
She’d run to the study, opened her father’s safe, taken his keys, the deeds to the estate, lifted the land grant from the wall, and stuffed them all into a knapsack as she dashed around the room. Upstairs she tipped the contents of her jewellery chests and her mother’s on top of the papers. Her brothers and father’s boxes of gold studs and tiepins, Irena’s jewellery …
She was pulling the protective linen covers from her own and her mother’s fur coats when she heard shots. She’d looked out of the bedroom window to see all four guards lying, broken and bloodied, face down in the snow-covered yard. Dropping the coats, she’d raced downstairs. Tearing open the door, she’d dashed outside to see the Russian prisoners crouched over the corpses.
Sascha was standing behind them, rifle in hand, an expression on his face she had never seen before.
A look that transformed him from prisoner to soldier.
She had stared at him, horror-struck by the sight of death in Grunwaldsee. Sascha returned her gaze. She knew he had seen her revulsion, but he chose to ignore it. He shouldered the rifle. ‘Stay with me. I’ll protect you.’
Despising the soldier he had become, she’d stepped away from him and continued to stare down at the bodies. All had been shot in the back. The young guard was still holding his gun, his finger curled around the trigger even in death.
‘How could you?’ She had wanted to scream the question but it was barely a whisper. ‘You had guns, you could have asked them to surrender.’
‘They might not have dropped their weapons. I wasn’t prepared to risk the lives of my men.’ He moved towards her. ‘What do you think war is, Charlotte?’
She didn’t answer. But she continued to retreat from him while his men rifled the corpses’ pockets for valuables and cigarettes.
‘What do you think soldiers do?’ His voice had been soft, pleading. ‘Your brothers? Your husband? Me? We had to kill them, Charlotte. It was them or us. Come with me?’
She had answered him with a single word, and she had screamed it so loud that crows fluttered upwards into the air from the snow-laden branches of the skeletal trees: ‘Murderer!’
Turning her back to him, she ran into the house. Minna walked towards her, leading her mother and Erich by their hands, the same panic, confusion and fear mirrored in all three faces.
The responsibilities she had shouldered on her father’s death had never weighed so heavy, and she had never felt so weak, or so alone, without even the illusion of love to sustain her.
At that moment she knew with a terrible certainty that Sascha had used her to survive. And she loved him too much even to blame or despise him for it.
Charlotte opened her eyes. It was no use, she couldn’t sleep. The past was so close she was back in the chaos, tragedy and terror of that final afternoon at Grunwaldsee. Her diary lay on the bed beside her. If ever there was a right time for her to relive her flight from East Prussia, it was now, after she had returned and seen her old home in its restored glory. Was it possible that she could finally lay her ghosts to rest?
JANUARY 1945
I do not know what day it is, or how much time has elapsed since I left Grunwaldsee. Days, possibly weeks … I could even believe years. My past life seems remote, as if it was lived by someone else, in another time and another country. The present feels unreal, as though I am trapped in a nightmare.
This paper is rough and difficult to write on, but it was kind of the officer to give me the logbook. He said I could use it to write to my family. When I asked him at what address, he pretended not to hear me and walked away.
My diary is in my rucksack, although I have been too afraid to open it since Leon returned it to me in the clearing. I can feel the shape of it through the canvas. It is proof that I had a life before this.
The other girls and officers ignore me most of the time, but I know they stare at me when they think I’m not watching them. They know what happened to me and despise me for it. I don’t blame them. The shame has burned into my soul but I lack the courage to kill myself.
I am only writing now so I have an excuse to sit as far from them as space allows. I know they don’t want me close by. It is so cold at the back of this open truck that the pencil has frozen to my fingers, but it is not so cold as it was that last day at Grunwaldsee.
The snow was falling – heavy, thick and silent, a horrible, dense silence that made me wonder if I had been struck deaf after hearing the shots in the yard. The bodies of the guards were soon covered. First by a thin layer that blotted out the blood, then by drifts that concealed their shapes so well the mounds could have been almost anything. But I could not forget what they were, nor forgive Sascha their murder – not then.
Martha, Minna, and Marius were dashing around, collecting things and loading them into the cart. Sascha’s men were packing ammunition and the remains of our food into bundles. I had my rucksack containing the family photographs, the land grant, deeds to the estate, the keys and the family jewellery. I saw that Martha had put blankets, clothes and food into the cart, and I simply couldn’t think of anything else to take.
The house was crammed full, not only with our possessions but all the von Datski clutter going back centuries, but there was only one small cart, and two tired old horses. It seemed unfair to choose any one thing over the rest, so I chose nothing.
Instead I stood in the yard waiting for the others. I was aware of Sascha standing close to me, but he didn’t try to make any more excuses for killing the guards and I was too numb to talk.
I looked past the lodge up the lane towards the road. The scene reminded me of a children’s shadow theatre. An endless procession of black silhouettes moved across a snowy backdrop, lit by a thin, grey-white winter light, in column after column of slow-moving vehicles and people. It appeared as though not only the whole population of Allenstein but the entire country was on the move.
I remembered what Wilhelm had said about our troops killing Russian civilians and wondered if the same scenes had been played out there when our army had invaded? People abandoning their homes, farms and everything they had worked for to flee for their lives.
Sascha took my hand into his. I pulled it away, not wanting him to touch me.
‘All the roads west will be jammed just like that one. There’s more snow on the way and there’ll be no food.’ His voice was hoarse, but I stifled my pity. I remember wishing that the bullets that had killed the guards had also killed my love for him. Despite everything we had shared, everything we had been to one another, we were suddenly less than strangers. We were enemies.
I pointed to the mounds of snow that covered the bodies. ‘You’re a Russian soldier. It’s your duty to kill Germans. If you shoot me now, you’ll save me the effort of trying to survive and your army the bother of finding me later.’
For all the pleading in his eyes I still could not forgive him, not with the guards lying dead in the snow beneath our feet. The child growing within me chose that moment to kick. I turned away. Sascha opened his arms and hugged me. I didn’t have the strength to fight him, but neither did I return his embrace.
‘Come with me?’ he begged.
It was then I realized that even if he and his men hadn’t shot the guards, we would have had to part. He might have been able to protect me as his mistress, but not Erich, Mama and Minna. No soldier can take care of an entourage of enemy women and children. All our hopes for the future had been no more than dreams of what could never be. I wonder if he had known that all along.
We were both shivering, although I was wearing practically my whole winter wardrobe. I was so well wrapped up I could hardly move. Sascha was wearing what was left of his uniform and Paul’s clothes. The cold was so intense it threatened to strip the skin from the bits that were exposed, my nose and the area around my eyes. Sascha, with bare head, face and hands, must have been really suffering.
Martha and Marius came out of the house dragging the last of the blankets and a sack of food. They had already piled the cart too high for safety. Stepping away from Sascha, I shook my head at Martha. She handed the bundles to Sascha’s men, then laid her arm around Marius’s shoulders and pulled him back into the shelter of the stable block.
She told me she and Marius were staying. She had prepared her argument well, insisting that she couldn’t leave Grunwaldsee when her daughter was buried in the churchyard. That Brunon was bound to return soon, and what would he think when he went to the lodge and she and Marius weren’t there to greet him? That the Russians held no terror for her. Sascha and his men were perfect gentlemen, every one of them, unlike the guards, who had deserved shooting. She was a Pole, born and bred, Marius was a Pole, and Brunon could speak Polish. When he returned the Russians would understand that he’d had no choice but to obey orders when he’d been conscripted into the German army.
I did all I could to persuade her. I reminded her that Brunon had asked me to take care of his family until he returned, but she remained adamant. Someone had to look after Grunwaldsee, and she and Marius were the obvious choice. Everyone knew what the Russians would do to German women and children, particularly the families of Wehrmacht officers, if they laid their hands on them. They wouldn’t differentiate between good and bad Germans, but Poles would be safe.
Minna put an end to the debate by leading Mama towards the cart. Poor Mama, she started to moan and cry. Suddenly strong, she pushed Minna aside and tried to run back into the house. Sascha caught her, and I explained that we had to go to Berlin to see Papa and Mama von Letteberg. She only heard ‘Papa’ and I didn’t disillusion her, but even then she wanted me to order the car. I explained that we had no petrol because of the war. She called for Wilhelm and Paul, saying I never knew where to get things but the boys did. In the end I promised her that we’d see them, too, but it still took Sascha and two of his men to lift her into the back of the cart.
She sat there, surrounded by blankets, sobbing into the wind, while Sascha helped Minna up next to her. Erich was clinging to my skirts. Sascha picked him up, told him to take care of his mother and put him on the front seat. He sat there, looking very small, frightened and bewildered, his white face peeping out from the layers of scarves Minna had swaddled around him.
I thought that I would never see Sascha again, but even if I’d found the words, there was no time for speeches. There was nothing I could say that hadn’t already been said. Snow was still falling, thick and fast, the flakes drifting around Sascha’s bare head, catching in his blond hair.
He swung me off my feet and held me close for an instant before hoisting me on to the cart, but I still refused to hug or kiss him.
Martha hissed, ‘For God’s sake go, while you still can.’ Sascha hit one of the horses and we began to move out of the yard. He and his men walked alongside us. It took ten minutes for us to find a gap so we could leave the lane and join the procession of refugees on the road.
It was packed solid with slow-moving carts, bicycles, people on foot, and even a few cars. Women and children, wrapped against the freezing weather like water pipes lagged for winter, were trudging through the snow, pushing prams that held babies and as many of their possessions as they could cram around them.
There were young boys I recognized from the town, boys who should have been having fun sledging and skiing through the woods. Instead they were hauling sleighs weighed down with their grandparents. But for all the people, there was very little noise, only the sound of feet crunching over compacted snow and ice.
I turned my head to take a last look at Grunwaldsee – and Sascha. Leon saw me and waved. Shouldering the rifles I had given them, the men were walking back down the line against the tide of refugees, heading towards the town and the Russian army. Only Sascha remained. He stood watching us, his face blurred by falling snowflakes and my tears.
Erich tugged at my sleeve, asking if we were going to see Papa and Opa. I whispered Opa, and when I looked back, Sascha had gone.
Charlotte dropped the diary and looked around. The past was so potent in sight, sound and smell, she was startled to see the bland decor of the hotel room.
Restless, she left the bed and opened the balcony doors. The lake glistened, its surface as calm and clear as glass. The air was already uncomfortably warm; even the flowers around the balcony hung limply. There wasn’t a hint of breeze. Shivering with a cold she hadn’t felt in half a century, her mind remained trapped in that other time. For sixty years she had tormented herself with guilt over the way she had parted from Sascha in Grunwaldsee.
She picked up her diary and carried it on to the balcony. Ignoring the scenery, she slipped effortlessly back into the past.
I hope I never experience such cold again. The frost pierced our clothes, our bones, turning our blood to ice, making the smallest movement slow, painful torture. Mama was soon too chilled even to moan, and what little I could see of Erich and Minna’s faces had turned blue.
Erich snuggled close to me on the seat, seeking warmth and reassurance I could not give him. Worried about Mama, I told Minna to heap blankets around both of them. When she finished I pulled a blanket over both their heads, and, taking another, wrapped it around Erich. I could do no more except keep the reins in my hands and the horses plodding steadily westwards.
The light was beginning to fade when an SS unit drew alongside us. A staff car overtook our cart, then trucks full of wounded barged through, forcing everyone off the road into the ditches. A motorcycle stopped ahead. An officer left the sidecar. He waved his arms and shouted at me, but I was too cold and tired to listen to him.
When the horses stopped moving, I cracked the reins and looked up to see him holding their bridles. He roared, ‘I requisition this cart in the name of the Reich.’
He was dressed in an SS major’s uniform, but he looked too young, too short and too dark to be an officer in the Führer’s new regiment. I heard him, but chose not to believe him. I thought no gentleman could turn two old ladies, a small child and a heavily pregnant woman out on the road in a snowstorm. I urged the team forward, and he pulled out his gun. I pleaded with him to let us go. Claus would have been appalled had he been with us. Firstly at the sight of his wife pleading with a junior officer, and secondly at the unkempt lout. The major’s hair was long, he hadn’t shaved in days, and his uniform was filthy.
He hesitated, and I offered him a ride in the cart. He replied by firing a shot in the air and hauling me down off my seat. Erich began to cry, I protested that I had a child and a sick mother, and that I was about to give birth at any moment. I told him my husband was a colonel in the Wehrmacht, my father-in-law General von Letteberg. That he could turn my belongings out of the cart to make room for himself and his troops, but I had to get my mother and child to my father-in-law’s house in Berlin.
I may as well have saved my breath. Half a dozen soldiers climbed into the back of the cart. Mama and Minna were thrown to the ground. Mama landed so hard, I was sure she had broken a bone. One man, a sergeant, older than the rest with sad brown eyes, handed me Erich, still wrapped in his blanket. I barely had time to snatch my rucksack from the seat before they moved off.
I ran alongside for a while, begging for blankets for Mama. I am sure the officer and his men heard me, but they turned away. All I could do was return to Minna and Mama. Sitting in the cart in the cold had been bad enough; walking was unbearable. My winter boots were good ones, pre-war, with thick rubber soles, but they still slid on the icy road.
Minna and Mama were still sitting where they’d been thrown. I tried to tell them that the soldiers had done us a favour, that it was better to walk because the exercise would keep us warm. Taking Erich’s small, woollen-gloved hand into mine and holding Mama’s arm with the other, I joined the mass of refugees. We kept our heads down because the wind cut into us like knife blades. Shuffling along, I concentrated on following the heels of the woman in front; that way I didn’t have to think about what I was doing, only how far it was to Berlin.
The baby chose that moment to move again, making me think of Sascha, when all I wanted was to forget him and the bodies in the snow. Then a plane flew low overhead and strafed the column.
Picking up Erich, I dragged him and Mama to the side of the road, lying on top of Erich until the bursts of gunfire moved on.
Afterwards Minna refused to get up, insisting that she couldn’t move another step. Poor Minna. I was very harsh with her. I threatened her with all sorts of punishment if she didn’t carry on. It wasn’t her fault. Forty years as a lady’s maid in the service of the von Datski family hadn’t prepared her for a trek through snow-covered countryside in the middle of freezing winter.