Kitty and Delphine followed the GI down the row of boxcars. They found the mother of the newborn baby sitting on a suitcase, her son at her breast.
“I think they’re both okay,” Delphine said when she’d checked them over. “I don’t know how she’s managing to feed him, though—she looks half-starved.”
“We ran out of food the day before yesterday,” the GI said. He took them farther down the train to where a girl who looked like a child was crouched on the straw-covered floor of the wagon. Beside her was a young man who, like her, was probably only in his teens.
Delphine crouched down beside the girl. “Ask her how often the contractions are coming,” she said to Kitty.
The girl opened her mouth to reply to the question, but no words came out. Her face contorted in pain.
“We can’t wait for the trucks to arrive,” Delphine said. “We need to get her back to the camp now. Can you get Martha?”
Five minutes later, the girl was being carried to the car by her scared-looking young man. She sat in the back of the Opel with Delphine beside her. Delphine had her hand over the girl’s belly, trying to time the contractions.
Martha rolled down the window as she pulled away. “I’ll meet you at the gate,” she called to Kitty. “But if I’m not there, don’t let anyone through until they’ve been dusted down.”
The little boy was born in the back of the car, half a mile from Seidenmühle. Delphine had delivered several babies during her nursing career—but never in circumstances like this. The baby’s head had started to emerge when they were still some distance away from the camp. The girl was screaming out in pain, and Martha had pulled over to the side of the road. But Delphine had urged her to drive on. Luckily, the back seat was big enough for the girl to lie down on.
Martha drove right up to the entrance of the hospital. She and the baby’s father helped the girl through the doors into the ward while Delphine carried the baby. Wolf was there, making beds with one of the trainee auxiliaries. He ran to fetch Dr. Jankaukas.
“You don’t mind if I leave you?” Martha put her hand on Delphine’s arm. “I’d better get over to the gate.”
“No, we’ll be fine now.” Delphine glanced up as she wiped blood from the baby’s face. “Oh—are you all right?” There were tears in Martha’s eyes.
“Sorry.” Martha rubbed her face with her knuckles. “It’s just . . . I’ve never seen a baby being born before.”
“I’d ask if you’d like to hold him.” Delphine smiled. “But there isn’t time now. Maybe tomorrow.”
As Martha took a parting glance at the child, Delphine glimpsed something she’d never seen in someone looking at a newborn baby. If she’d been asked to describe the expression, she would have conveyed it with just one word: grief. What had caused that look? Had the failed marriage to a violent husband held more misery than Martha had let on?
Delphine stared at the door of the ward as it swung shut, wondering if the others ever thought about her the way she was thinking about Martha. She had tried—and failed—to control her own tears when the patient with the head injury had called out to his mother. Had there been other times, unguarded moments, when her secrets had shown on her face?
Martha was the only one of them who had confessed to unhappiness in her past—and to that unhappiness being part of her reason for coming here. That kind of honesty took courage. Delphine couldn’t imagine opening up the way Martha had. To let it all out would be to risk losing the fragile hold she had on her sanity.
The protests from the blockhouse leaders about there being no room for the new arrivals seemed to be forgotten when the DPs saw the procession of people winding along the road from the gates. Excitement ran like an electric current through the camp, bringing everyone outside to see who was coming: whether there was an aunt or an uncle, a distant cousin or a neighbor from their own village in Poland—anyone who might have news of those they had lost.
The men, women, and children from the train had a strange ghostly appearance; the DDT powder that had been squirted down collars and trousers and up skirts had settled on their hair and their faces.
Stefan, who had come to help Martha manage the transfer of people from the army trucks, led the procession. As they neared the cobbled street where the other DPs had assembled, he held up his hands and shouted something.
Martha could see that the crowd was already surging forward, about to engulf the weary travelers in the frantic search for a familiar face. But whatever Stefan said, it worked. They parted like the Red Sea, allowing the newcomers to pass through.