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the other tables. “Where you folks from?” he asked, striking a match to a pipe.
    “We’ve just come from Warsaw,” Henryk said. “We’re heading to Krakow.”
    “Warsaw?” exclaimed the woman, removing the last of the empty plates. She backed into a chair and sat down heavily, holding the plates in her hands. “God in heaven, what will become of us? We heard more of those awful airplanes again this morning. I don’t know what to do.”
    The man got up and went into the kitchen. He returned a moment later with a map, which he spread out on the table. “I’ve been around here all my life. I know the back roads. I’ll show you how to keep off the main highways.”
    They stayed at the café awhile before continuing on. The couple had a telephone, and they made several attempts to call Anna’s father in Krakow, all unsuccessful. They listened to news broadcasts on the radio, but the information was confusing and contradictory. Some reports said the Germans were advancing rapidly while others said the Polish army was mounting fi erce resistance. But one thing seemed clear: Luftwaffe bombers were striking all over Poland with little or no resistance from the Polish Air Force.
    They left Deblin a little before eight, and by midday it was hot. The roads were abominable, and the jarring motion of the car gave Anna a headache. Their progress had been agonizingly slow all morning and now slowed to a crawl as they bumped along, choking on dust from two farm wagons ahead of them. The horse-drawn wagons, heavily laden with potatoes, creaked and lurched over every bump and rut.
    With her hand over her mouth to keep out the dust, Anna stared out the open window at the neatly planted fi elds, broken occasionally by small groves of trees. Farmers plodded behind mule-carts, fi nishing off the last of the late summer harvest. Cows grazed on the hillsides, and hogs wallowed in their pens. She thought that rural Poland had probably looked exactly like this for centuries.
    Henryk’s gravelly voice jerked her out of her lethargy. “Listen, can you hear it?”
    Anna glanced at him.
    Night of Flames
    33
    He was leaning over, trying to look up at the sky through the windshield.
    He stopped the car to let the wagons gain a little distance in front of them and allow the dust to settle.
    Anna peered out the window, squinting in the bright sunlight, searching the sky.
    “What is it?” Irene asked, gripping the back of the seat.
    “Airplanes,” Anna said. She had just spotted them, a dozen or so, high and off to the right. She held her breath, watching the sky as the planes passed overhead.
    Justyn stuck his head out the back window as Henryk put the car in gear and started moving forward again.
    “Oh God, look!” Anna yelled, pointing out the window on Henryk’s side.
    Two of the planes dropped out of the formation and banked sharply to the right, circling back.
    Henryk cursed and honked the horn, trying to get the attention of the farmers driving the wagons.
    The planes circled around until they were directly in front of them then plunged toward the road, growing frightfully large. The high-pitched screeching noise sent a wave of fear washing over Anna as visions of the horrifi c attack in Warsaw came fl ashing back.
    Henryk bellowed, “Get down!” He jerked the steering wheel to the right and stomped on the accelerator.
    The shrill clattering noise of machine-gun fi re drummed in Anna’s head as the car plunged into the fi eld, bouncing wildly over the rough ground. She braced herself against the dashboard as Henryk struggled to steer the vehicle, aiming for the safety of a grove of trees. Suddenly the windshield exploded, and the car careened out of control.
    The last thing Anna heard was the jarring crunch of metal as the car plowed into a large birch tree.
    Chapter 5
    For the fi
    rst time in his life, Thaddeus Piekarski felt helpless. His world had spun out of control, and he had absolutely no idea what to do next. He sat at