The gunfire above soon came to an end, and she could hear voices. A man opened the trapdoor and came down to search. Hanna fled to the farthest end of the tunnel and could hear the man barking at his comrades.
“There’s nobody down here, nothing but dirt and cobwebs. I’d like to get home before midnight.”
“What do we do with the bodies?” asked another from the living room.
“Take their papers,” a third replied. “The families will be notified, and they’ll come get them. No reason we should have to do the dirty work.” Hanna heard snickering above; then the solider climbed back up the ladder, closed the trapdoor, and all was silent.
As her story came to an end, Hanna moaned sorrowfully, wailing like a wounded animal. She rocked back and forth, calling out for her father again and again, her cries filling the cavernous space. Robert feared she might be going mad and knew he had to get her out of there, quickly. He took Hanna by the hand and led her down the tunnel, snuffing out his lantern before they climbed above. “We have to be sure,” he said. “They might have left somebody behind to watch over those woods.”
Robert was lying. He hoped to spare Hanna the grisly sight of those brave, fallen men who had sacrificed themselves to keep the militiamen from finding her. The two walked through the lodge in darkness. But as soon as they made it out to the porch, Hanna stopped and begged to go see her father. Robert adamantly refused.
“You don’t want this,” he said in a choked voice. “Please believe me. You’d never be able to unsee it.”
They followed the path down into the dark woods. Robert wondered if Hanna would even be able to ride the tandem. But even if she could, he hadn’t the faintest clue where to go. Then he remembered Alberto once mentioning guides who smuggled refugees across the Pyrenees mountains. Spain was just over a hundred kilometers away. It would take three days to reach the border on the tandem, maybe less.
Five hundred yards from the hunting lodge, Robert sat Hanna down at the foot of a tree and stared into her eyes.
“I have to go back to the lodge to get some clothes. Mine are soaked through with blood, and if I’m spotted looking like this out on the road, we’ll be stopped at the first checkpoint. We need provisions, and most of all, I need to get your papers.”
“I don’t care about your clothes or those fake papers!” Hanna yelled. “I forbid you to leave me here alone!” Robert clamped his hand over Hanna’s mouth to muffle her cries. They weren’t far from a road where German patrols could easily be on the prowl.
“I have no choice. I’m on a mission, and I have to get my map with all the local weapon caches. I promised your father I would watch over you if anything ever happened to him, and I’m going to keep that promise. Hanna, look at me. I won’t leave you, I swear I won’t. You have to trust me. I will come back—it’ll be a half hour, at most. Until then, you sit and try to gather your strength. We have a long road ahead of us. Most of all, stay absolutely silent.”
Hanna had no choice but to let him go. Robert started the trek back up to the lodge. Once inside, he went to his bedroom and changed into fresh clothes, then went to check the kitchen. All the jars of preserves had been shattered, save one that had rolled under the table. Robert stuffed the jar into a large satchel he found hanging on a nail near the fireplace. Then he climbed down the ladder into the cellar and the darkness swallowed him.
They pedaled until the break of dawn, when Hanna was too exhausted to go further. Robert wasn’t faring much better himself. In the distance, through the hazy mist of sunlight glimmering on the plain, they could just discern the outline of a house with a barn beside it. Robert steered the tandem onto the dirt driveway toward the farm, where he hoped they could rest for a few hours and, with a little luck, find food and drink.
Hanna awoke after noon, opening her eyes to see a farmer with a rifle pointed straight at Robert.
“Who are you?” the farmer barked. “Talk. Now.”
As Robert rose cautiously to his feet, Hanna spoke for him. “We’re not thieves, and we’re not here to hurt you. Lower your weapon, I beg of you.”
“First, tell me what you’re doing in my barn.”
“We were traveling through the night, and we needed rest,” Hanna continued.
“And what’s with your friend? Can’t he speak? He hasn’t said a single word.”
“Why should he, if I tell you all you need to know?”
“If you’re traveling at night, it means you’re on the run. He’s a foreigner, is that it?”
“No,” Hanna assured him. “He can’t talk. He’s mute.”
“Ah. Well, maybe I can give his ass a nice little kick and we’ll see how mute he is! This fool has had his face pounded into mush. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out why and who you two are. I don’t want trouble. Not with soldiers, not with partisans. So, gather up your things and get out of here.”
“Get out? With my face all pounded into mush?” Robert asked. “We can’t travel in broad daylight, it’s far too dangerous. Let us stay in here until nightfall, then we’ll be on our way.”