After the last of the hunting party had disappeared among the trees below them, David said, "Let's head back up the slope and into the hot pool to warm." He kissed Maria then added, "Good morning, Mama. How are the crutches working?"

"More awkward to use on the uneven ground, but I'll quickly master them in this stuff." Rachel started up the slope, using them to ease the weight from her ankle. "They're wonderfully crafted, really quite ingenious."

They arrived back at the tent, and the girls continued along the ten yards to the hot pool, while David took some towels and walked across to the cold stream to wet them.

"Keep your ankle up on the lip, Mama, elevated and out of the hot water," Maria said as they slipped out of their jackets and boots and slid into the deep pool.

David arrived less than a minute later and wrapped Rachel's ankle in a cold towel. "We've got to keep the swelling controlled for a while longer. Possibly heat will be good for it later, but now we need to make sure the swelling is controlled."

He slipped into the pool between them, and they were all quiet for a long while as they warmed and allowed the tensions of the last while to dissolve.

"I was intrigued watching you pee over there, Mama," David said, finally breaking the long silence. "I had never thought of how women pee, or from where. That's such a beautifully complex system you girls have down there, but I don't know where the pee comes out without a hose. You were squirting as far as I was."

"I'm getting a bit warm," Maria said, "Come over to the moss and I'll give you an anatomy lesson."

As they lay entangled half an hour later, still connected and along the slow descents from their summits, she quietly said, "I'll be starting my monthly bleeding down there tomorrow or Thursday. I'll have to wear cottons to absorb the flow for four or five days."

"Can we still play like this then?"

"Mama said it's fine, just a bit messy. Would you mind that?"

"Mess can always be cleaned, especially now with this abundance of hot water... Speaking of hot water, we should get back into the pool before we catch a chill."

"I've been in and out a few times," Rachel said as they slipped back into the pool beside her. "This is such a wonderful spot."

"We also did a lot of in-and-out. We explored that wonderful spot you told me about." Maria giggled. "Both of them. How's your ankle?"

"It's feeling much better. The throbbing has stopped, there's only a dull ache now, and the swelling appears to be going down. I've been playing with putting it in the pool for a minute or so, then resting it back up on the moss. The heat feels wonderful, lessens the ache, then back out, the evaporation cools it, not as much as the cold towels, but it sure feels nice. The alternating heating and cooling must be doing some good; it certainly feels so."

Maria moved around to her mother's ankle on the moss and examined it. "The swelling is definitely down; the taping around your foot is now loose." She placed one hand along the injured left side and her other hand along Rachel's shin. "The heat which was here last evening has nearly gone," she said and swapped hands. "Feels almost normal now."

"The throbbing is gone," Rachel said as she lifted her foot off the moss and put it in the water. "I'm going to do one more hot soak on it, then we should think of something to eat."

David watched the women interact, enjoying their close friendship. 

From their physical looks, it's easy to see they're mother and daughter, but from their interactions, they could easily be mistaken as sisters. They treat each other as friendly sisters, as equals.

He watched as Maria moved back toward him, mesmerised by the movement of her breasts as she sidled across. "I love the way your breasts float, the way they bob to the surface."

She looked down, then up into his eyes with a big smile. "I've never noticed." She looked down at her breasts as she moved up and down to adjust her depth in the water, playing with their buoyancy for a while before turning her face up to grin at him. "I'm pleased you're looking at them."

Rachel eased lower in the water and bobbed to get her breasts as she wanted. "That's how they once were, two decades and more ago, before nursing three babies," she said with a smile. "Suckling, age and gravity all take a toll on a woman's body."

"Your body is still amazingly beautiful," he said. "I've seen many in their twenties who would love to be as shapely, firm and fit as you are. You have a beautiful body and a beautiful spirit."

"He's right, Mama — think of the thick, slab-sided shapes of our neighbours. They all seem to have gone rectangular, but you're still so wonderfully shaped, so beautifully curvy. I love the look of your body — it gives me confidence that mine will continue to be as beautiful as I age."

"As beautiful as your bodies are, your real beauty is inside," David said. "That beauty radiates from your core, from your soul. It doesn't matter what the wrapper is. Though I must admit, the wrappers on both of you are superb. But enough of these physics, anatomy and philosophy lessons, we need to have breakfast. I'm starving."

They slowly climbed out of the pool. "Lace your boots well and mind your step," he said, "Our bodies are completely relaxed, and the forest floor is wet. I'll go fill the billy for tea, Maria, you light the Primus, and Mama, you just lie back and relax. Keep your foot up. I'll get you another cold wrap?"

"Today is Tuesday, 4 May," David said, as he looked up from his notebook after they had finished breakfast. "This morning my sick leave expires, so Fritz will soon be looking for Josef Krings. It will probably take them a few days to add the name to the list of deserters. If we are spotted and questioned, my altered document is now getting dangerous to use. Though it shows another ten days left, it still has the name Josef Krings written on it, and I can't see any way to alter that. I could change the regimental number, but the name's still there."

"Let me see." Rachel held out her hand.

He unfolded the paper again and passed it to her. "It has rather strange writing."

She studied the writing for a while and then looked up. "We could alter the name to Klinger with a few pen strokes. Josef is a common name, so it doesn't need changing, but Krings and Klinger are far enough apart that it shouldn't raise suspicion. Calligraphy is one of my hobbies, so I could practice with your pen in your notebook before I make the changes on the chit."

"Great! Don't worry about messing it up," he said with a laugh. "It's worthless paper as it is, so you can only improve its value."

She copied the style of the script from the chit as she wrote Krings a few times on a page and played with ways to change it. "This will work," she said as she began altering the document.

David watched as she added a tall loop, a round loop, two short strokes and an r. "Looks as if I've changed my name again. Now let's hope we don't have to use it."

After the ink had dried, he refolded the document and put it in his notebook, then pulled out and unfolded the topographic map and placed it on the bedding in front of them. "It looks like we have to cross the stream and the road which come down from Schluchsee." He ran his finger along their lines.

"The stream is easy to cross, and the road cuts through the forest for much of its length above this village, Häusern." Rachel pointed to the map and moved her finger along to tap on Grafenhausen. "We can stay in the trees along the crest of the ridge past this high village and continue along through the line of forested slopes between the little burgs of Ühlingen and Birkendorf."

"Remembering what you know about these small towns and villages, can you imagine places where Fritz might have set up guard posts?"

"Except for the towns of Sankt Blasien below us and Häusern up the valley from it, the population is small and scattered through this area of the southern slopes. I can't see their setting-up anything this far in from the border. Much of the movement here in the hills is locals cutting wood, mowing hay, tending crops and grazing their cattle. I would think the Germans will concentrate their efforts and their guards in a much narrower line along the border where the intention to cross is much more obvious."

"They're also now sending more troops to the fronts in France and Belgium," he said. "They need to respond to the growing force we're amassing there to counter their aggressive thrust. We've stopped their advance, and I'm sure they don't like that. They might thin out their efforts along the neutral border and concentrate more on the active fronts."

"I wonder what trust they have in the neutrality of Switzerland," Maria pondered. "They've been neutral a long time, but..."

"I'm sure Fritz has spies watching for any indications of troop build-up and any signs of increasing armament," he said.

"We should be pretty safe until we get to here." Rachel pointed to the ridge above the border. "From up in the rocks here, we will have a good view up and down the valley. We'll be about a hundred and fifty metres above the valley floor, which at that point is a rather flat strip three or four hundred metres wide." She tapped the map.

"From the cover of the trees above the road and railway, it's about a hundred and fifty metres across to the tree-lined stream, which is the Swiss border. Here's a bushy slough, still shown on the map," she said, moving her finger along the diagonal line of trees. "We used this a few times when the border guards were around. It's a bit of a tangle, but it runs the entire way from the road to the stream. I wonder if it's still there. That was fifteen years ago."

"How comfortable would it be to camp up on the ridge for a few days if we had to?" David asked. "Is there water nearby?"

"There's a cascading stream coming down a gully a short distance off to the left when heading up. We always topped up our canteens there. It'll be off to the right as we come down, maybe thirty metres from the ridge top. There are huge blocks of rock along the crest of the rib, it's quite wild. I'm sure there are many little nooks which would be comfortable for camp. We never looked for camp spots as we passed; it was much too close to home for that."

"That sounds like a fine spot for our purpose." David looked at each of them, then shook his head. "But let's get back to concentrating on where we are. We have a rack of ribs and a backstrap and a half of venison we need to concentrate on eating before it begins to spoil, probably another four days before we need to go to the dried meats. We still have a large quantity of mushrooms and plenty of garlic, but we're out of potatoes, we're down to our last turnip, and we have only five carrots and six onions left."

He looked up from his notes to see Maria's quizzical expression as she asked, "Why are you always rattling off our food inventory?"

"Probably simply habit... More than that, though. I spent a lot of time exploring unknown mountains, not knowing what was farther up or around the next ridge. Decisions on whether to continue, divert or to retreat often depended on how much food I had."

Maria nodded through his explanation. "That makes so much sense... Hadn't thought of that." She looked into his eyes and shrugged. "A lot of details I haven't thought about."

David smiled at her. "It makes sense to concentrate on using all the fresh supplies first, for a couple of reasons. First to use them before they spoil and second to reduce the weight we need to pack. The dried things last longer and weigh less. So, Mama, could you design a menu for us for the next four or five days? Something to keep us going here while your ankle mends enough to move along."

"Probably a good idea to save a couple of the onions and a carrot or two to add some flavour to the sausage stews we may have to eat on the ridge." Rachel smiled, then continued. "Also some of the mushrooms and garlic. Just because we're camping doesn't mean we have to deprive ourselves of flavourful food."