First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2019
Published in this ebook edition in 2019
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Text copyright © Stacy Gregg 2019
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover images and decorative illustrations © Shutterstock
Stacy Gregg asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780008332310
Ebook Edition © October 2019 ISBN: 9780008332327
Version: 2019-07-22
For Brin. Really? Yes, really.
Contents
Poland 1945
Chapter 1: The Master of Horses
Berlin 2019
Chapter 2: The Hunter of Grunewald
Chapter 3: The Emir
Chapter 4: The Devil and the Sea
Chapter 5: The Lesson
Chapter 6: The Red Army
Chapter 7: The Method
Chapter 8: Evil Unchecked
Chapter 9: A Hundred Falls
Chapter 10: Horses for the Führer
Chapter 11: The Sommergarten
Chapter 12: The Black Train
Chapter 13: Countdown to Grand Prix
Chapter 14: The Bunker
Chapter 15: Mira’s Journey
Chapter 16: No Horse Left Behind
Chapter 17: Grand Prix
Chapter 18: Champions
Chapter 19: Return of the Prince
Epilogue: The True Story of the Stolen Horses of the Second World War
Books by Stacy Gregg
About the Publisher
Zofia edged her way down the ladder in total darkness, feeling her way with bare feet from step to step. She had considered turning on the lights but dismissed the notion as too dangerous. For all she knew, the Colonel was sitting at his desk right now, staring out across the courtyard. From there he would see the lights glowing in the stable block and know that she was on the move.
In the darkness, the ladder wobbled beneath her, making her stomach lurch, but she knew she must be nearly there. Only a couple more rungs and then she’d be down on ground level …
Made it! She felt the cold concrete floor under her feet and paused for a moment to calm her racing heartbeat. Then she continued, reaching out into the pitch black, feeling her way blindly, inching ahead with shuffling, tiny steps, until her fingertips bumped up against the wall. From here, she had her bearings and now her hands would serve as her eyes. Her fingers crept like Incy Wincy Spider along the stones until they touched the rough-hewn wood of the first door. Over the door, footsteps quickening, and then she was touching stone again, repeating the process from one door to another – one, two, three – until at last she’d reached the fourth door.
Was she certain that she had the right one or had she miscounted?
Yes – he was here! She could hear him on the other side of the door, restless and moving about.
“Shhhh,” she whispered. “It’s OK, I’m here now. I’m here …”
He didn’t like being alone at night. Neither did she. They always stayed together. But tonight the Colonel had forbidden it. He’d taken her aside at dinner, his face very serious.
“It is important that you stay in the hayloft tonight,” he had told her. And when she’d asked him why, he’d simply replied, “Because we have visitors coming.”
Visitors. No explanation other than that. The way the Colonel had said the word, letting it hang in the air, was so sinister she’d known better than to ask anything more. That evening, after dinner was over and she had cleaned up the dishes after the men had eaten, she’d done as the Colonel told her and had taken herself up the frail wooden ladder that led to the hayloft.
The loft was dusty and filled with cobwebs. She never came up here in the winter and with good reason – the loft was freezing! To combat the cold, she tunnelled her way into the haystack, just as a rabbit might make a burrow, then lined her cave with burlap sacks. She moved other sacks round the edge of the skylight, pushing them up against the gaps in the timber to stop the wind whistling through. Soon, though, the wind had no way inside. The falling snow had smothered the roof in such a thick blanket it had sealed off the skylight completely. It was so deep that when Zofia tried to shove the skylight open to peer out and see where these so-called visitors had got to, the weight of the drifts was too much and the window wouldn’t budge.
That had been hours ago. Midnight had ticked by and the snow kept falling and the visitors hadn’t turned up. Janów Podlaski was almost inaccessible in bad weather. And