Just before they left, Johan Keller approached Marie privately. He pressed a few coins in her hand. "I want chicks. I want to start a real chicken operation, now that we've got the freezer. Buy me as many chicks as you can find. The White Leghorns. They're good egg producers."
How they were going to transport live chicks-and keep them alive-for a hundred and fifty miles through a war zone wasn't addressed. But Marie promised she'd try.
****
Greta looked at the giant zucchinis and sighed. There was no way that Karl and Joseph were going to put up with yet another squash dish. She didn't want to freeze any more of the things, either. Listening to Johan Keller complain all winter wasn't something she cared to do.
Then she looked at the family's sow and her litter. Well, why not? So she chopped the thing up and placed it in the trough.
The pigs didn't seem to mind it at all. Greta grinned, then went off to tend the garden. The peppers were ripe and she intended to pickle as many as she could. That little bright orange pepper looked really good. Pickled whole they would make a bright addition to winter meals.
****
Pastor Althus sat in a comfortable chair in the tavern in Riesa to listen to tonight's VOA broadcast. It was illegal to listen to the radio in Saxony these days, but that didn't stop anyone. "Ladies and gentlemen, forces under General Lenart Torstensson are massing near Dessau for the liberation of Saxony." What? how? Until they reached Riesa, Pastor Althus had not been worried. While they were nominally traveling through a war zone, the truth was that most of the time the army was over the horizon somewhere. Armies are pretty small things compared to whole countries. Besides, hostilities hadn't actually started yet and Pastor Althus hadn't really expected them for at least another month. Also armies moved slowly.
Now this general's forces were on the Elbe, which meant that he, Marie and Johann were right in their path as long as they stayed in Riesa. And, as the report continued, it became clear that the enemy army was moving fast. The plan, from the radio reports, seemed to be pretty straightforward, precisely what you would expect. And the counter was equally obvious, at least according to the military commentator. The forces in Dresden would proceed down the Elbe to meet General Torstensson. They had to. If they stayed in Dresden they would be effectively ceding control of Saxony to the USE. If John George did that, he might as well abdicate.
The problem was that one of the most likely places for the two armies to meet was Riesa.
****
The next day found Pastor Althus, Marie and Johan going west from Riesa to Grimma. They had considered turning around and going back but two things had stopped them. First, they really needed that consolidation loan and they need it quickly. Second, they wouldn't be much safer back home on the Schwarze Elster, a tributary of the Elbe than they would be on the road.
The next day they walked twelve miles to Osthatz. There was no word on what the armies were doing. Pastor Althus presumed they were staying on the river, which meant that by now the armies ought to be approaching Tordau. That was where Pastor Althus guessed the battle would take place. He wished, heartily, that this town had a radio. They did hear, through village gossip, that General von Arnim had had troops in Leipzig. They would bypass Leipzig. The next night they camped in the woods north of Wermsdorf. The next night, in Brandis, they heard that the USE Army was still several days away but wasn't, as they had thought, staying with the Elbe. It was going overland. The good news was that two more days would get them to the Saale river and the railroad.
****
"Don't forget the tablets, Marie," Johan said. He reached into his pouch and plopped two water purification tablets into the bucket she'd drawn from the stream and carried to their campsite. They had shifted a good ten miles south of Leipzig and were camped by a little stream near the village of Zwenkau. "We don't have any idea how good the water is here."
"Nag, nag, nag," Marie muttered. "Yes, Johan. I fully intended not to purify the water because I'm such an idiot."
"Children," Pastor Althus warned. They both blushed. "That's better," he said. "Getting along together is important. I know Johan didn't mean to treat you badly, Marie, and you know perfectly well that he doesn't think you're an idiot."
Marie waved her hand at him. "I know. I'm just grumpy today."
When Marie stood up and walked to the bushes, Pastor Althus took the opportunity to speak to Johan. "Back off a bit, boy. She doesn't need you mother-henning her right now."
"But what did I do?"
It turned out that Johan hadn't paid much attention to the women and girls back home. As well, his mother had died when he was about five and his father hadn't remarried. There were lots of things about the female of the species that Johan didn't know. Pastor Althus enlightened him as best he could. It was not an easy task.
Besides, they were all tired from the trip so far. Pastor Althus shook his head and left Johan to contemplate female necessities while he went to visit the necessary.
****
Pastor Althus was digging the hole when his foot slipped on a damp rock and his ankle twisted. He called out and both children came running. Trying to put his weight on the foot simply demonstrated that he couldn’t support himself on that foot. By morning the ankle was swollen and multicolored, mostly purple and blue. The pastor wouldn't be walking any distance for several days. They discussed going back to Zwenkau but the reason they were camping by the creek in the first place was that the people of Zwenkau had an exorbitant notion of the proper rent on a piece of floor in the barn.
****
Two days later and Johan had constructed a crutch out of some limbs and twine using his eating knife. They were discussing when they should leave when they heard the noises. The children wanted to go see but Pastor Althus had a bad feeling. "Stay in the trees, Johan. Don't let yourself be seen. Pretend you're hunting with your papa.
"Why ca-" Marie started.
"Enough." Pastor Althus wasn't having any rivalry right at the moment. He didn't like the tenor of the sounds he was hearing. "Johan will go and be careful. You will stay with me."
A few minutes later Johan was back. "There's an army forming up on the far side of the creek." The creek, as they would learn later, was named the Pleisser River. Where they were camped the Pleisser was about ten feet wide and a foot and a half deep. And, precisely where they were camped, the Pleisser had few trees on either bank. Just a clump of trees suitable for gathering firewood, which no doubt the good people of Zwenkau were charging considerable rent on. Which was why they had made their camp inconspicuously within the clump of trees, rather than beside it.
Now Pastor Althus wished they had paid the rent for the floor of Zwenkau hay barn. They couldn't move. There was an army just across the river and if they popped out of their little clump of trees, they were just likely to get shot on the assumption that they were enemy scouts. Laboriously, the pastor made his way to the edge of the creek where he could see the army-no, armies-forming up into lines of battle. It had taken awhile. By the time he got to where he could see, the armies were a confused mass of pennants and marching men, with bugles and cavalry thrown in. It wasn't quite as bad as he had feared. The battle looked like it was going to take place perhaps a quarter mile away. Which meant no one should notice them unless they called attention to themselves. Then he noticed Johan running off back to the campsite.
"Johan, what are you doing?" Pastor Althus hissed.