Nazi escort. They must have come from Modena or elsewhere. Perhaps that accounted for the delay.
His heart began to pound. The vehicles drew closer. He could see that behind them walked a bedraggled procession of men, women, and children.
“They’re coming.” Marco kept the binoculars to his eyes.
“Do you see Sandro?” Elisabetta asked, excited.
“Not yet.” Marco watched the shifting view of families trudging down the road. They clung to each other, downcast. He searched every face, hoping it was Sandro’s or his father’s. The heads bobbed and moved, a shifting mass of men, women, and children.
He spotted Sandro, walking with his arm around Massimo, who was limping slightly. “I see him!”
“Thank God! Can I look?”
“Not yet. I don’t want to lose sight of him.” Marco watched as the Kubelwagens and the line of families turned the corner toward the entrance to the transit camp. The Nazis opened the gates and allowed the Kubelwagens to enter. Other Nazis hustled to the line and hurried the families inside with guns and barking dogs.
Marco watched as the families filed in. In time, Sandro and his father entered the transit camp and were hustled inside. The Nazis forced in the remaining families, then closed the gates. The families massed in front of the barracks, instinctively forming a group. Dogs barked and strained on leashes, terrifying the children. Mothers cradled babies, and fathers picked up toddlers.
Nazis brandishing weapons separated the men from the women and children, sending the men to the east and women to the west side of the barracks. Husbands and wives reached for each other, crying at being torn apart. Children screamed for fathers and grandfathers. They were forced to split up at gunpoint or menaced with the butts of rifles.
“What’s happening?”
“The Nazis are separating men from women.”
“And Sandro?”
“He and his father are getting in lines for the barracks.” Marco waited to see which barracks Sandro and his father were assigned to. Soon they were shoved in front of the third barracks from the east and forced to line up outside. The barracks had a white sign that Marco couldn’t read.
“Please, can I see?”
“Yes. He’s in front of the third barracks from the end, on the left.” Marco handed her the binoculars. “Each barracks has a white sign. What number is their barracks?”
Elisabetta raised the binoculars. “I see him! And he still has the basil! I wonder if he got my note.”
“What number is their barracks?”
“Fifteen. I wish we could go in there right now.”
“Not until nightfall. Stay with the plan.”
“Oh no, something’s the matter with his face!” Elisabetta moaned. “Do you think they beat him?”
Marco felt enraged at the thought.
It was time for action, and tonight couldn’t come soon enough.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-EIGHT
Elisabetta
18 October 1943
A cloud cloaked the moon, and Elisabetta and Marco hurried ahead in utter darkness. Their clothes were dark so they blended in. They raced across an open pasture to the east side of the transit camp. There were no grapevines or ravines in which to hide, and they were vulnerable, covered only by night. They approached the transit camp, crouching down. They stopped at a tall umbrella pine tree near the back entrance, close to Sandro’s barracks.
The transit camp was quiet. The prisoners were inside the barracks, asleep at this hour. The Nazi guards stood at their regular posts. Elisabetta couldn’t see their faces under their helmets, but it didn’t matter if she remembered them. It mattered only if they remembered her, from when she had pretended to be a country girl, carrying wine.
Elisabetta and Marco split up at the umbrella pine, without exchanging a word. There was nothing to say, and they both knew the plan. She stayed behind the tree while Marco ran to the construction site, on the west side of the transit camp. There was no perimeter fence around the construction site, and it was unguarded at night. A few lamps there had been wired on posts, but they weren’t lighted.
Elisabetta crouched behind the tree, hidden. Marco would reach the site any minute now. He would set a small fire, which would grow, giving him time to get back to her.
She was supposed to count off five minutes, then go into action. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she forced herself to count slowly. She told herself to stay calm. She would do whatever it took to save Sandro.
She didn’t see Marco, but she had to trust that he would come in time. She counted to two minutes, then three, four, and