The moonlight shone on a row of tall thin poles which poked out of the ice at regular intervals. Like guideposts, they led us slowly forward. Sometimes the ice creaked, threatening to give way. Sometimes a layer of water floated on the surface, coloring it black. Partly submerged wagons and the carcasses of horses jutted out, the broken crust of the ice refrozen around them. A thin layer of snow lay on top. The scene was unearthly.
Far to our right, we heard occasional faint hissing sounds. The glow of flares illuminating the sky spooked our horses. Each time, Opa and Ilse struggled to regain control.
"Now what?" Oma grumbled. "First they warn us to travel under cover of darkness and then they turn night into day."
"Perhaps it's the Russians," Mutti whispered.
After that, no one said a word as we moved on; we listened instead for the drone of approaching Russian airplanes. The wagon wheels ground against the ice. The horses snorted as their hooves rhythmically tapped the hard surface. Once in a while one of the animals slipped and my heart skipped a beat. I had seen what happened to horses with broken legs. It was agonizing to watch their slow progress; how much worse it would be if we were forced to abandon our wagons and travel on foot.
As my eyes scanned the starry sky for the moving lights of Russian fighter planes, a hand tapped me on the shoulder from inside the wagon. Oma slipped me five cubes of gingerbread. I stashed four pieces into my coat pocket and popped the fifth one into my mouth. The gingerbread was frozen solid and I sucked on it until it was soft enough to chew.