Salt to the Sea - Ruta Sepetys Page 0,3

been one thing Father and I agreed upon.

“Proszę . . . bitte,” she begged, alternating between Polish and broken German.

I couldn’t stand to look at her, at the streaks of dead Russian splattered down her sleeve. I started to walk away, her sobs flapping behind me.

“Wait. Please,” she called out.

The sound of her crying was painfully familiar. It had the exact tone of my younger sister, Anni, and the sobs I heard through the hallway the day Mother took her last breath.

Anni. Where was she? Was she too in some dark forest hole with a gun to her head?

A pain ripped through my side, forcing me to stop. The girl’s feet quickly approached. I resumed walking.

“Thank you,” she chirped from behind.

The sun disappeared and the cold tightened its fist. My calculations told me that I needed to walk another two kilometers west before stopping for the night. There was a better chance of finding shelter along a field road, but also a better chance of running into troops. It was wiser to continue along the edge of the forest.

• • •

The girl heard them before I did. She grabbed my arm. The buzzing of aircraft engines surged fast and close from behind. The Russians were targeting German ground troops nearby. Were they in front of us or beside us?

The bombs began falling. With each explosion, every bone in my body vibrated and hammered, clanging violently against the bell tower that was my flesh. The sound of anti-aircraft fire rang through the sky, answering the initial blasts.

The girl tried to pull me onward.

I shoved her away. “Run!”

She shook her head, pointed forward, and awkwardly tried to pull me through the snow. I wanted to run, forget about her, leave her in the forest. But then I saw the droplets of blood in the snow coming from beneath her bulky coat.

And I could not.

emilia

He wanted to leave me. His race was his own.

Who was this German boy, old enough to be in the Wehrmacht, yet dressed in civilian clothes? For me he was a conqueror, a sleeping knight, like in the stories Mama used to tell. Polish legend told of a king and his brave knights who lay asleep within mountain caverns. If Poland was in distress, the knights would awaken and come to the rescue.

I told myself that the handsome young man was a sleeping knight. He moved forward, his pistol at the ready. He was leaving.

Why did everyone leave me?

The swarm of planes strafed overhead. The buzzing in my ears made me dizzy. A bomb fell. And then another. The earth trembled, threatening to open its jaws and eat us.

I tried to catch up to him, ignoring the pain and indignity beneath my coat. I had neither the time nor courage to describe why I couldn’t run. Instead I told myself to walk as fast as I could through the snow. The knight ran ahead of me, darting in and out of the trees, clutching his side, wrenched with pain.

Strength drained from my legs. I thought of the Russians approaching, the pistol on my neck in the earthen cellar, and I willed my feet to move. I waddled like a duck through the deep snow. Then suddenly, the sweet sound of Mama’s nursery rhyme began to sing in my head.

All the little duckies with their heads in the water

Heads in the water

All the little duckies with their heads in the water

Oh, such sweet little duckies.

Where were all the duckies now?

alfred

“Frick, what are you doing?”

“Restocking ammunition, sir.” I pretended to fumble with something on the shelf.

“That’s not your assignment,” said the officer. “You’re needed at the port, not in a supply closet. The order will be issued. We have to be ready. We’ll be assigning every available vessel. If we get stuck here, some murderer from Moscow will make you his girlfriend. Do you want that?”

Certainly not. I did not want a glimpse of the Soviet forces. Their path of destruction lay large and wide. Panicked villagers spilled stories in the street of Russian soldiers wearing necklaces made from the teeth of children. And now Russia’s army was headed right for us with their allies, America and England, blowing wind into Stalin’s sail. I had to get on a ship. Remaining in Gotenhafen meant certain death.

“I said, do you want to become Moscow’s girlfriend?” barked the officer.

“No, sir!”

“Then take your things and get to the port. You’ll receive further instruction once you get there.”

I paused, wondering if I should pilfer anything