Red Ice

“Good. I think I have a use for it soon.” We felt worn and brittle from the cold. Every moment became an effort. Extremities began to numb with cold, ski poles banged stupidly against branches, skis clattered as tips came close to crossing.

“Leave me behind,” Vyshinsky gasped to Chamonix. His sad eyes flared with intensity. “I’m only holding you up. Your men are spent. They can’t keep this up in this cold.”

“No,” said Chamonix, not wishing to draw any further on his limited Russian vocabulary.

“I’m telling you leave me behind. I’m not worth all your lives.” This was as direct a challenge as he’d made in his life.

“No, we need someone to keep the recoilless rifle warm.”

Vyshinsky became quiet.

The trail ran close along a ledge. On the left the ridge ran straight up. On the right, seven feet over, it dropped off rapidly. The trail itself inclined downward at about thirty degrees.

“I knew this ledge was along here somewhere. Where’s that nylon line? Here I’ll take it.”

I stretched the line from a tree at the base of the rise on the left, about five inches above the trail, to a tree that hung over the precipice. The line itself did not cross the trail perpendicularly, but at a forty-five-degree angle. The lowest end of the line was at the precipice. With momentum a skier would catch the line at ankle height and then slide sideways out of control—over the cliff. Not fatally, the drop wasn’t that far, but enough to break that skier’s leg… and put him out of action.

A full half hour later we heard an agonized scream that ended suddenly. At last we were putting distance between them and us. But it was only a few hours until dawn. I checked my thermometer. It read ten degrees above, the first above-zero reading in eight days.

“Snow, dammit, snow.” Wickersham grumbled. “It’s going to snow, I know it. Why can’t it snow now?”

We were all waiting for the snow. The weather was giving all the right signs. If we could only run into a sheltering snowstorm. It would cover our tracks and hide us from aircraft.

“Okay, okay. All ahead flank, let’s redline for the next half hour. It’ll be dawn in another hour. If we can get a lead, and if it snows, we can shake those bastards.”

Kick, slide. My polypropylene underwear was soaked with sweat. If we ever stopped for long it would freeze solid. SNOW DAMMIT. We were low on ammunition and that dwelled on my mind. We had traveled light from the very beginning and had now been in two firefights. Furthermore, we showed signs of the punchiness that meant extreme fatigue, and which adrenaline might not override. The ahkio was difficult to control down the steeper slopes, but we couldn’t risk letting Vyshinsky slide free. Everyone prayed for snow—track-concealing, aircraft-downing snow.

We had to get off our old trail. If it didn’t snow, other paratroopers dropped ahead of us in the daylight would find it and work back. Going downhill at this pace we had covered four days ground in a day and a night. I fretted a half hour away without knowing it.

“All right, veer northeast. Break a new trail,” I said to Matsuma ahead of me. He sent the word up.

“Which way is northeast?” was the reply back.

I skied up to Puckins. “That way, I think.”

Not a star was visible through the cloud cover and it was too early for the sun compass. We began breaking a new trail as the sky lightened in the east.

The Russian squad slalomed down a slope to our left. They tumbled into firing positions mere yards from us. I sensed they were as surprised as we were. Apparently our pursuers had divided into two uneven squads, and this squad had been told to flank us from the north. They had expected us to be farther south—where we would have been, had we kept to our old trail.

Under the circumstances a retreat would have cost about the same as an assault. We assaulted. I cut down a tall Russian with a three-round burst and my weapon went silent, out of ammo. There were too many trees and we were too close for grenades. Still moving forward, I flicked the AK’s bayonet up and drove it into another Russian paratrooper, all the way up to the muzzle. Everyone had kicked off his skis by now.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Puckins fall, red splashes covering his white overblouse. I felt light-headed.

A terrifying, ungodly screaming filled my ears.

The Russians must have been short of ammo, too, because within seconds all firing had stopped.

The screaming wouldn’t stop. I thrust below another paratrooper’s bayonet, I impaled and lifted his body off its feet, and flung it at another charging Russian. The charging Russian’s bayonet stuck fast in his comrade as I pulled free. I smashed into his temple with a driving horizontal butt stroke.