Giving up on sleep, she turned on her side and looked at Petr. “How was the hunt?”

Petr opened his eyes and looked back at her. His expression made it clear he had no idea what she was talking about. “My what?”

“Your hunt. You know, when I left you, you’d gone hunting, looking for a deer.”

“Oh yeah, that. It didn’t go well.”

Karen was disappointed. In her fantasy, Petr was such a good hunter he could keep them both well fed while hiding from the Nazis. “You couldn’t find a deer?”

“No, I found one all right. I just couldn’t get close enough to kill it. It kept smelling me or hearing me or something and running away.”

“Didn’t you have the pistol?”

“Yes, but you have to get close to use a pistol. They’re not really accurate enough for hunting.”

Karen’s optimism returned. He could hunt—he just needed a better weapon. “What about this? Would it have helped?” She held up the MP40 she’d taken from the Germans.

Petr shook his head. “That’s just like a pistol. It even uses the same type of ammunition. Throws out a lot of lead but not very accurately. What you really need for hunting is one of those.” He pointed at a nearby Mosin-Nagant, the standard Red Army infantryman’s rifle. They were everywhere.

“Maybe we could trade for one,” Karen suggested.

“Why?” Petr said. “You planning to go hunting?” There was a twinkle in his eye, as though he thought it was a joke.

“Anything to keep from starving.”

The twinkle disappeared. He’d forgotten how close she’d been to dying in Leningrad. He hadn’t meant to be insensitive. “You don’t have to worry about that, not anymore. You’ll be safe in Moscow.”

“In a few months, Moscow could be just like Leningrad.” Karen spoke the truth, even Petr had to admit—his face scrunched up thinking about it. “Why Moscow, anyway?” Karen added.

“I don’t know. I guess because it’s the capital?” Petr responded, misinterpreting the question. “The Nazis probably figure if they can conquer Moscow, they’ll have conquered Russia.”

“No, I mean, why are you going to Moscow? You don’t have to. You’re a soldier. You could have rejoined the army in Tikhvin. You didn’t need to get on the train.”

“You’re right.”

“So why did you? Are you afraid of fighting?”

Petr thought hard about his response. It was a complicated question, with no clear answer. There was a part of him that wanted to get back into the fight, that wanted once again to experience that altered state of consciousness he’d felt in deadly combat. But he also knew he couldn’t survive the war, and returning to it would eventually mean his own death. The problem was, meeting Karen had made his life matter again to him. “No, not afraid, not exactly,” he told her. “I mean, everyone’s afraid; even the Germans are afraid. You’d have to be insane not to be. But I’m no more afraid than anyone else.”

“What will you do when we get to Moscow?”

“Probably join a retraining battalion. Let them decide where to assign me next.”

“Couldn’t you have done that in Tikhvin?”

“Maybe. But Duck was from Moscow. I was kind of hoping I could find his family first.”

“His family? Why?”

“He was a soldier. When a soldier dies, the family gets a letter. I figure Duck’s family should know what happened to him, know how well he fought, how brave he was.”

“He was just a dog.”

“A dog who saved my life. Saved your life, too. Twice.”

Petr was right. Karen was ashamed of what she’d said. Of course Duck wasn’t “just a dog.”

“What about you?” Petr asked. “What will you do in Moscow?”

“Keep running east,” Karen replied without hesitation. “East as far as I have to, all the way to America if I can.”

Petr nodded. But his expression said that he didn’t believe Karen could make it.

“How will you find Duck’s family?”

“I have no idea,” Petr admitted.

Karen reached out and took his hand. “I’ll help if I can.”

Petr smiled. “Thanks.”

Dawn came, and still no help arrived. The cooks provided more gruel for breakfast, but it was even thinner than the night before. “How much food do you figure they have?” Karen asked.

“Only enough to get us to Moscow. A couple of days’ worth. That’s probably why it’s so thin. They’re already rationing it.”

That afternoon, a supply train bound for Tikhvin neared. It was heading in the opposite direction of Karen and Petr’s train, and when the engineers saw its smoke in the distance, they leaped up and ran toward it, waving their arms and yelling.

They’d let the broken-down locomotive’s fire go out to conserve coal, and so had no steam to blow their whistle. The trouble was, they sat on the downward slope of a hill, only a few hundred yards from the crest. They were hidden from the approaching supply train coming up the other side, and the train was hidden from them. They wouldn’t be able to see each other until the supply train crested the hill, and by then it might be too late. The supply train would be plunging downhill with only a few hundred yards to put on the brakes.

Karen and Petr didn’t know this yet. They only saw the engineers jumping off the locomotive and running up the hill like madmen, yelling and waving their arms.

“What do you think they’re doing?” Petr asked.

Karen pointed at the approaching plume of smoke. “You think that’s a train coming?”

“I think so,” Petr acknowledged, but he still didn’t understand the danger. “But why are they yelling? Isn’t that what we’ve been waiting for?”

They continued to watch the approaching smoke in contemplative silence. “I don’t think it’s slowing down,” Karen commented.

“No, you’re right,” Petr agreed.

“I don’t think that’s the train we’re waiting for.”

“No wonder they’re yelling,” Petr blurted out, suddenly alarmed. He jumped up and started sprinting toward the boxcars. “Come on!”

Karen leaped up and raced after him. “What’re you doing?”

“They’re going to collide. We gotta warn that train!”

As they reached the tracks, Petr turned from the boxcars and jumped onto the antiaircraft flatcar, their protection against a Luftwaffe attack. It was directly behind the locomotive. Petr would surely be killed if the trains collided.

Karen jumped on right behind him.

“Break open one of those ammo crates,” Petr commanded.

Karen leaned over and pried the lid off one of the metal boxes. It was filled with 37mm high-explosive shells. The flatcar was just a platform for the 37mm cannon mounted in the center. A stolen copy of the Swedish Bofors, the gun was basically a gigantic machine gun that could throw a stream of heavy shells into the air at eighty rounds per minute—enough to intercept the path of an approaching dive-bomber.

The trouble was, Petr didn’t know how to operate it.

Karen dragged the open crate of shells next to the gun. “What now?”

“I have no idea.” Petr ran his hands all over the gun in a panic. It looked nothing like a Katyusha rocket launcher. He couldn’t even tell how to load it.

“What are you doing? Get away from there!” The gunnery sergeant of the 37mm cannon was running toward Karen and Petr, irate that someone was messing with his weapon.

“We’ve gotta get this loaded, we’ve gotta warn that train!” Petr shouted back, unintimidated.

The gunnery sergeant mounted the flatcar brandishing his pistol—and understood all at once. His eyes went wide with panic as he stared at the approaching smoke cloud. He dropped his pistol, letting it dangle on a tether attached to his holster. He elbowed Petr aside and cracked open the gun’s breech. “Give me a shell!” he yelled.

Karen leaned down. The shell was heavier than she expected, almost four pounds. She picked it up with both hands and handed it to the gunnery sergeant, who slid it down the metal rack leading into the breech.

“More, more!” commanded the sergeant.

Petr helped Karen hand shell after shell to the sergeant. “Isn’t that enough?” Petr asked, trying to judge the approach of the supply train out of the corner of his eye.

“Let’s hope so.” The gunnery sergeant yanked the charging handle, loading the gun. “Turn those cranks!”

Karen and Petr focused on their appointed tasks, spinning separate cranks that turned the cannon and elevating it to point up and over the approaching supply train.

“Fire in the hole!” the gunnery sergeant yelled, and pulled the trigger.

The gun roared and kicked as shells rocketed into the sky and arced over the approaching supply train like rapid-fired flares.

Karen then realized why they’d had to load so many shells. Every fifth one was a tracer round, filled with glowing phosphorous that marked their path through the air. They helped the gunner aim—the other rounds traveled too fast to be seen, so the tracers marked their direction and path. The gun was far louder than a train whistle, but they wanted the drivers of the supply train to see them as well as hear them.

The gunnery sergeant fired every last shell. Using a rag to open the red-hot breech, he yelled, “Reload!”

Karen and Petr had cracked open another ammunition crate and dragged it toward the gun. But the gunnery sergeant held up his hand. “Wait…”

They could hear the screech of metal on metal. It was the supply train’s brakes. The engineers had seen and heard them.

But the supply train’s locomotive was already cresting over the hill. “Run!” Karen yelled.

All three jumped from the flatcar and tried to run down the embankment.

The gunnery sergeant stumbled but didn’t bother trying to find his feet. He just let himself tumble down, rolling painfully over the swinging pistol still tethered to his belt—fortunately, with the safety on.