Just northwest of Tilburg, the Biesbosch area is a natural hideaway for evaders, I learn. A web of creeks, islands, and estuaries forms a labyrinth in the freshwater delta region that leads to the North Sea. On the map imprinted in my mind, the distance from here to the English shore appears a mere hop, but reality and the potential of lurking Germans will lengthen the crossing like no other.

When it’s finally dark enough, shortly after eleven, the skipper of the barge we’ve boarded directs the other passengers—seven males from teens to middle-age—to quietly pole us away from the river’s edge. Viewed as potential Engelandvaarders, literally “England paddlers,” we risk being captured by patrollers and dragged off to camps, if they don’t shoot us first. Only when we’re well away from the wharf and small surrounding town do we dare turn on the engine.

Under a hazy sky faint with moonlight, except for subtle shimmers, the water is black as tar. Halfway to the river’s mouth, the skipper drops anchor and uses a boom to hoist our boat from the barge’s hold, a smuggling tactic as cleverly basic as Russian dolls. Again the other passengers assist, guiding the smaller vessel as needed into the water.

I restrain my compulsion to help. They have it handled, and I have Evelien.

“Have you ever been in a small boat?” I whisper to prepare her. I haven’t ridden in one myself since my childhood in Michigan.

She shakes her head with a sense of intrigue, unafraid.

At least that’s one of us.

As we wait, I glimpse my silhouetted hands. I washed them clean in the clerk’s home before departing for the bus. I can still envision the reddish-brown water swirling down the drain. Now, same as then, I refuse to mull. Thankfully within minutes, it’s time for all but the skipper to pile into the smaller craft.

At ten feet long, with at least a third of it occupied by a motor, the boat isn’t exactly spacious. One more reason my and Evelien’s presence hasn’t been celebrated by all. Following our handoff by the clerk’s daughter in a shed at the wharf, two in the group were gracious and welcoming. The rest showed indifference or glowered. The addition of a useless child and woman wasn’t part of their plan.

But we’re here and squeezed in among them, the bunch of us brave or foolish. I keep Evelien on my lap, wrapped in a blanket gifted generously by the clerk. If only he could have supplied a life preserver as well. At the dock, none could be spared for a single one of us. My basic swimming skills will have to do if the sea grows tumultuous enough to—

I wad up the thought, toss it away with any others that will do us no good.

A long night awaits.