Macurdy frowned. With his bloody jumpsuit, he’d planned on sitting invisible beside Edouard, as navigator. But if anyone stopped them, they were out of luck anyway. With Berta and Lotta in back, and horses, they’d be in trouble if stop. He’d probably gotten blood on things, too. So nodding but pleased, he got behind the wheel and drove away.
Alone, Macurdy could have walked to Switzerland unnoticed, even with the Alps in his way. But with two sedentary urban adults and a child … The truck greatly increased the risk of detection, but it could also take them a long way to start with. The urgent first thing to do was get onto some other road, one that wouldn’t be used by military or police vehicles headed for the schloss.
They met no one, and Macurdy turned off at the first crossroad, in the village of Wiesenbach, nine kilometers from the schloss. The relief he felt showed him how tense he’d been. The road sign said LINDENDORF 11 KM, but neither he nor Edouard knew anything about Lindendorf. This was not a route he’d studied in training.
Well outside Wiesenbach, he stopped. “Look in my pack,” he said. “There is a flat canvas holder with folded silk maps. Let’s see where we go next.”
Edouard dug them out and handed them to him without a word. Macurdy unfolded one, and using the flashlight, plotted a course with his eyes. Lindendorf was not on a direct route to anywhere helpful, but at least this road wasn’t so immediately dangerous. He thought of bringing Berta and Lotta in front with them-they would be miserably cold in back, but crowded in the front seat, whoever sat by him would get blood on their clothing, and that needed to be avoided.
The back roads they took kept them clear of anything larger than a village, and again they met no other vehicle. He wasn’t surprised. Not only was it night and the country lightly populated; shortages of fuel, parts, and civilian vehicles, and stance from the war zones, dictated little traffic even by day. When dawnlight began to spill from the east, they were in higher, more rugged country than before, its farms mostly along the road, and even along the road, forest predominated. Pausing, he rechecked the map, not for the first time, then drove slowly on. After a few minutes he spotted a narrow truck trail that disappeared into the forest, and turned in on it.
“Where are we going?” Edouard asked. To hide the truck and take a nap.”But-it is too cold out there to sleep.”
Macurdy thinned his lips. He drove some 300 yards to the end of the road, then stopped, got out, and opened the door on the other side. “Out,” he said to Edouard, and gestured with a thumb. Edouard got out. Then he had Berta and Lotta get in; any blood on the seat should have dried by now. “Get some sleep,” he told them. “We have a long day ahead of us.” Then he climbed in back, and without asking for help, manhandled the heavy ramp quickly into place, led the horses down it, tied their halter ropes to stout saplings, and removed their blankets.
“Here,” he said, holding the blankets out to Edouard. “Take them. They won’t be enough, but they’ll help.”
Edouard stared, not taking them. “What will you use?”
“Take the goddamn things!” Macurdy said sharply in English. “I know how to keep warm without them.”
Flinching, Edouard took them, and Macurdy switched back to German. “You need to understand something: I am trying to save your life, yours and theirs.” He gestured toward the cab. “I could have avoided a lot of trouble by forgetting you. You would be dead back there in the schloss, buried in the rubble, and I would be gone. Nobody could see me, and I would have no trouble hiking out of here. But you were my friends. I could not abandon you.”
“Last evening I gave you a tool, a weapon, and told you to use it. You didn’t. I was afraid you wouldn’t, but I trusted you anyway. My error. By giving in to your own squeamishness, you have put us all in needless danger. Because if Manfred was dead, the police and SS would assume that everyone there had died in the explosions, except the handful of SS that I butchered outside. They would be watching for a force of airborne raiders, not a man, a woman, and a child; and me they would not see.”