My shoulders fell. “So we can’t use the bridge?”
“I could.” Lukas tilted his head toward the pack on his back. “I have forged papers that I used once when crossing with Ben. But I still wouldn’t dare return on the bridge, and you have no papers at all.”
I groaned. If I were going to make a habit of this, I would need papers. Crossing a cold river at night just once should be enough for a lifetime.
We were in a forested patch looking at the patrol of Cossacks ahead, with more soldiers than I could count in such low light. This must be the first layer of border security, with men standing close enough to see and hear one another. Which meant we must have already crossed the other two thinner layers, without even realizing it. That had to be good news!
“There are many farms along the river, so the soldiers pay little attention to anyone moving westward,” Lukas said. “It’s when we try to come east again that they ask about our business.”
From our relative safety inside the thick trees, I studied the line of soldiers. They stood in their assigned places, looking from side to side and then forward again, and occasionally calling out to one another, all while maintaining their forward stances. We’d never get past them!
“How far ahead can they see?” I asked. In other words, at what distance inside Prussia could they see us coming?
“Depends on the area,” Lukas replied. “But you should assume that if you can see the border, the guards can see you. It’s always better to be safer than you think you need to be.”
“Safer?” I nearly choked on that word. “Nothing about this feels safe.”
“Correction,” Lukas said. “Nothing about this is safe. Never forget that.”
I surely never would. But that wasn’t enough to make me back out now, not after coming all this way. I merely looked at him and asked, “When do we go?”
Lukas studied the movements of the soldiers a moment longer, then finally said, “It will be easier than you think, I promise. How about we cross now?”
I didn’t understand why Lukas thought it would be easy to sneak out of Lithuania beneath the steady watch of the soldiers. It seemed incredibly difficult to me. Lukas and I crept down the slope toward the river, sneaking past the soldiers on our hands and knees, aware of the crunch of each dry autumn leaf, the crack of every fallen twig, or the scattering of a startled bird or squirrel at our approach. By the time we stopped at the bank of the river, my hands had tiny cuts on them and my knees were
raw, and we hadn’t yet begun the difficult part of the journey.
Difficult, and dangerous. After we passed the approach to the bridge, Lukas led us beneath the planks as they rose overhead. I understood it was our best place to hide, but the soldiers were directly above us. One slip, one roll of a rock beneath our feet, and they would hear us.
Once we reached the river’s edge, Lukas silently pointed to the undergirding of the bridge. At first, I thought only wood beams were there, hardly enough to get a solid grip, but when I looked closer, I saw a rope that extended from one side of the bridge to another, directly under the feet of the soldiers.
I shook my head, but even as I protested, Lukas took hold of the rope with his hands and legs, then began pulling himself, hand over hand, above the river.
Overhead, one soldier shouted an order to the others to do a sweep of the area, which surely included checking the shores of the river. I had to go. Immediately, I copied what Lukas had done, wrapping my legs around the rope and moving hand over hand across the water. If I looked upward through the slats of the bridge, I saw the boots of the soldiers, heard them discussing their luck at being on duty after the cold wind had died down, and closed my eyes when their weight shifted and grit fell onto my face.
The rope lowered with our combined weight, but we remained in the shadows of the bridge. When Lukas finished crossing, the rope bounced higher and I was closer to the soldiers than before. If they looked down, they would easily see me. I was terrified.
Once on the other side, Lukas grabbed my arm and pulled me low, which was hardly necessary. I had no intention of standing tall and offering the soldiers a target.
“We’re in Prussia now, so they won’t shoot,” he said. “They have no way of knowing which side of the border we belong to, so they won’t risk a war. But if they suspect we’ve crossed, they’ll be more watchful for us trying to come back.”
My ears perked up. “Trying? Why didn’t you say we would succeed in coming back?”
Lukas only grinned, then tilted his head in the direction he wanted me to follow him.
From there, we trekked through the night, and the city of Tilsit came into view by early morning. Along the way, Lukas pointed out various places where it was safe to rest or to load sacks to smuggle back into Lithuania. “This territory has been claimed by Germany,” Lukas explained, “and so it’s still not our own land, as it should be. But Germany likes anything that makes life more difficult for Russia. They’re usually quite happy to overlook their own smuggling laws on this side of the border.”
I giggled and let Lukas take me on a tour of the town, though it wasn’t much of a tour. Half the time, I thought he only decided which road to lead me down when I was already on it ahead of him. Then he’d point to various landmarks and buildings and make up stories about them that couldn’t possibly be true, not unless fairies had built the bakeries and trolls had paved the roads. At least the stories kept me awake until the print shop was finally open.
Lukas greeted the printer by name. We were told that Ben had paid for the order already, but he was glad that two of us had come, for there were several books to be carried.
“Several books?” Lukas glanced sideways at me. “That’s too many. Only one of us is carrying the books back.”
That didn’t make sense to me. I wouldn’t trudge along beside him while he did all the work. So I shook my head. “If you can carry them, so can I.”
He nodded at the printer to give us a moment alone, then pulled me to a corner of the room and frowned.
“I’ll take half the books,” I said. “I’m strong enough.”