The Kindly Ones

This march with the children lasted for several nights. I felt as if I were gradually losing control of myself, I had to make an immense effort not to hit them in turn. Thomas still kept his Olympian calm; he followed our progression on the map and with a compass, conferring with Adam about what direction to take. Before Gollnow, we had to cross the Kammin railroad, then, in several compact groups, the road. Beyond was nothing but an immense, dense forest, deserted but dangerous because of the patrols, which, fortunately, kept to the paths. We also began again meeting, alone or in groups, German soldiers, who like us were headed toward the Oder. Thomas stopped Adam from killing the isolated ones; two of them joined us, including a Belgian SS man, the others went their own way, preferring to try their luck alone. After another road, the forest became a marsh, we weren’t far from the Oder; to the south, according to the map, these swamps led to a tributary, the Ihna. Moving became difficult, we sank up to our knees, sometimes our waists, the children almost drowned in the bogs. It was very warm now, even in the forest the snow had disappeared; I finally got rid of my coat, still wet and heavy. Adam decided to escort us to the Oder with a smaller troupe and left part of his group, the girls and the smallest ones, under the guard of the two wounded children, on a strip of dry land. Crossing these desolate marshes took most of the night; sometimes we had to make considerable detours, but Thomas’s compass helped guide us. Finally we reached the Oder, black and gleaming beneath the moon. A line of long islands seemed to stretch between us and the German shore. We couldn’t find a boat. “No matter,” Thomas said, “we’ll swim across.”—“I don’t know how to swim,” the Belgian said. He was a Walloon, he had known Lippert well in the Caucasus and had told me about his death in Novo Buda. “I’ll help you,” I said. Thomas turned to Adam: “You don’t want to cross with us? Go back to Germany?”—“No,” the boy said. “We have our own mission.” We took off our boots to tuck them into our belts and I shoved my cap inside my tunic; Thomas and the German soldier, whose name was Fritz, kept their submachine guns in case the island wasn’t deserted. At this spot the river must normally have been about three hundred meters wide, but with the thaw, it had risen and the current was strong; the Belgian, whom I held under the chin as I swam on my back, slowed me down, I was soon carried away and almost missed the island; as soon as I managed to get my footing, I let the soldier go and pulled him by the collar, until he could walk on his own in the water. On the bank, I was overcome with fatigue and had to sit down for a while. Opposite, the marshes barely rustled, the children had already disappeared; the island on which we found ourselves was wooded, and I didn’t hear anything here, either, except the murmuring of the water. The Belgian went to find Thomas and the German soldier, who had landed farther up, then came back to tell me that the island seemed deserted. When I could get up I went through the wood with him. On the other side, the shore was also silent and dark. But on the beach, a pole painted red and white indicated the location of a field telephone, protected beneath a tarp, whose wire vanished into the water. Thomas took the receiver and made the call. “Hello,” he said. “Yes, we’re German soldiers.” He gave our names and ranks. Then: “Good.” He hung up, straightened, looked at me with a big smile. “They say we should stand in a row with our arms out.” We scarcely had time to get in place: a powerful spotlight on the German shore came on and aimed at us. We stayed that way for several minutes. “Good idea, their system,” Thomas commented. An engine noise started up in the night. A rubber dinghy approached and landed near us; three soldiers examined us in silence, holding their weapons until they were sure we were indeed German; still without a word, they herded us into the boat and the dinghy set off, bouncing through the black water.