Emil was already back up on his feet, swimming and throwing himself forward again and again, not seeing the tank stop on a terrace on the hillside a quarter of the way down. Another Soviet tank appeared, and a third. They clanked down to the first tank and stopped.
Emil, meanwhile, had flailed free of the deep snow and charged the wagon like some crazed snow creature. He scrambled up onto the bench, grabbed the reins, and yelled, “Hold on!”
Grabbing a buggy whip, something he almost never used, Emil lashed at the rumps of his horses while pulling the reins hard left. Oden and Thor coiled and drove forward, sending the wagon sideways before heading due south.
“There are Panzers in front of us,” Adeline said, holding the side rail for dear life.
“What?”
“From the tree line, coming our way. They’re in a low spot now. Six of—”
A punching roar cut her off, followed by two more in tight succession as the Soviet tanks opened fire. The horses screamed and bolted from the noise, galloping south even as the first Soviet rounds hit down range near that low spot, blast after blast after blast throwing ice and snow and fire that spiraled into the bitter air.
“Turn back!” Adeline shouted. “We’ll be safer behind the Soviets.”
“We’ll be dead behind the Soviets,” he shouted back, and whipped his horses again.
The Panzer tanks ahead of them returned fire, three guns simultaneously followed by two and then one, all of them brilliant enough flashes at the muzzle that the horses began to slow, not knowing what to fear, until Emil lashed at them again.
German shells erupted on the hillside behind them. Oden took charge then, broke back into a gallop, bringing the wagon sliding behind him until Thor found his stride and cadence. The wagon gathered speed. The wheels sliced and plowed through the snow.
Another Red Army tank had reached the crown of the hill behind them and fired its cannon before the other three tanks followed suit. The Soviet rounds again hit shy of that low spot where the Panzers lay, spewing flame and rock, but causing no damage. Emil could see the Panzers moving now, churning up out of the low spot and through the smoke and the snow blackened from the blasts, turrets pivoting for drift, cannon barrels rising for windage.
The German tanks began to fire on their own now, moving independently and evasively north across the snowy flat before pausing to send a round at the hillside, which was getting farther and farther behind the Martels. The Soviets opened fire again.
Four hundred meters separated the young family from the closest two of the six Panzers, which had slowed to a stop as their cannon barrels adjusted. Emil never stopped whipping his horses toward the oncoming German tanks, even when the Russian rounds hit and exploded between them, hurling pillars of flame and charred debris and snow into the sky.
Adeline and the boys were screaming behind him, but he couldn’t stop. The two closest Panzers were prowling again, coming toward them. The ground between Emil and the tanks narrowed. He reined his horses farther right, trying to get out of their way, and then lashed Oden and Thor as he never had, cruelly and with purpose, again and again, with every inch of his being.
A Panzer to their right fired its cannon, causing the horses to veer left. Emil pulled them back right, only to have the nearest German tank fire over their heads from less than one hundred meters away. The roar was deafening. The energy of the muzzle blast battered horse and man alike. The horses lurched. Emil felt it like a heavy vibrating punch that had him loopy as he tried to keep whipping the horses.
They shot through the gap between the two Panzers.
They were well beyond them when the Soviets opened fire again. The German tank that had been closest to them was hit and blew up, throwing fire and black smoke above the stark white fields.
A German army truck was suddenly right there four hundred meters in front of them, crossing left to right, heading to the southwest. The track. The road.
Emil finally stopped whipping his horses. His ears were still ringing, and he felt dizzy when he turned his heaving, coughing horses into the ruts created by the passing truck. Only then did he glance over his shoulder at his wife and children lying amid the jumble of their once carefully packed wagon. They were all gaping at him, in shock at having just survived a battlefield, still cowering at every blast in the fight raging behind them. He smiled and nodded, then looked back to his horses, saw their rumps were bleeding from open lash wounds, and felt so bad, he choked back sobs.
Chapter Four
Every muscle in Adeline’s body trembled. Her ribs hurt. Her throat was sore from screaming. Her ears buzzed, and everything sounded hollow and far away.
She could tell Will and Walt were just as stunned and overwhelmed by what they had endured, and her first instinct was to comfort them. But then she realized Emil was hunched over, shoulders shaking, and crying. She shook free of the daze, got up on all fours, crawled to him, and hugged him fiercely.
“You saved us,” she said, barely able to hear her own words. “You saved us all.”
Emil wiped at his eyes with his forearm, and then gestured at the blood trickling from their horses’ wounds before gazing at her in deep sorrow and regret.
“I know how you love them,” Adeline shouted. “But they will heal, and we are alive because of what you and they had to do.”
She did not know if he could hear what she was saying, but he seemed to feel it. Some of the tension drained out of him. Then he kissed her, got down, and gathered snow that he spread over the lash wounds. Each horse quivered
