RED ICE

by R. L. Crossland

  I called to Gurung in the point position, “Veer southeast, we’ll try to intersect our old trail. Let’s pick up the pace, under the circumstances a little sweat might be permissible.” It was a bad tactic to go out the same way you came in, but a broken trail would let us maintain our position relative to our pursuers. At present they had the advantage of following a trail we had broken. Well, we had a few tricks that would change that. I hoped that I was reading the sky right. We were in a race for time. Kick, slide.

  Within an hour my binoculars picked up paratroopers on a distant ridge. They were fresh, and moving quickly. Within ninety minutes they’d be on us. In two hours it’d be dark.

  I focused the lenses on one paratrooper. From the deference given him by the others it appeared he was an officer or NCO. His face showed clean-shaven and athletic features under his dome-shaped helmet. His features betrayed smoothness and arrogance, molded by the easy successes of garrison service, unweathered by the ravages of genuine conflict. He stopped and drew his field glasses from within his white jacket. Their lenses reflected light and suddenly I realized this smooth-faced officer was studying me as I had studied him. I slipped back into the trees.

  We covered ground rapidly as we moved downward and seaward, but we still hadn’t intersected our old trail. As they drew closer I counted about thirty men. So they had rated us a full third of their complement. The half-track trails they could understand, the ski and ahkio tracks must have mystified them. Once we reached a new ridge and began to climb, I gave the order to prepare to ambush. I sent Matsuma and Puckins on ahead. I had them ditch one ahkio and cram Vyshinsky and the recoilless into the other. We fanned out behind the ridge, took off our skis, and waited.

  “Fire one magazine only, then rally at the ahkio. Wickersham, no more than fifty rounds with your 67.”

  “Couldn’t fire much more than that if I wanted to. I’m nearly out of ammo.” The firefight at the camp had consumed more ammo than expected.

  “Make the rounds count.”

  We waited a long twenty minutes. Finally I could hear puffing and at a distance, the hushed talk of wary troops. Their point man skied right through us. He didn’t stop until he noticed our tracks had divided. By that time Chamonix had drawn a bead on him with the sniper rifle. We placed our elbows on our skis and pushed the skis to the top of the ridge. Chamonix dropped their point man with a shot to the head, just below the helmet.

  The paratroops were caught in the open, going uphill. Most immediately dropped into the soft snow and had difficulty bringing their weapons to bear from the prone position as their elbows sank in the white stuff. Others turned and skied back down the ridge. Their movement was slow, encumbered by the overequipage of conventional combat troops—shovels, gas masks, steel helmets, chemical-contamination musette bags. One-third to one-half of them went down in our volley. Of those, I hoped all were wounded. A wounded man in the cold needed someone to get him back to a medical station.

  We pulled back and raced to catch the ahkio. These paratroops were elite but green. Their fire continued for a full ten minutes after we had stopped firing. It was a colossal waste of ammunition and time on their part. It gave us more space and left the Russians smarting. They would move more cautiously now and their next point man would be more alert.

  We caught up with Matsuma, Puckins, and the ahkio just as they came upon our original trail. It was nearly dark.

  “We’re going to ditch all but one pack. Get rid of the tents, sleeping bags, armor vests. Save your candles, ammo, cooking gear, and half the food. Save only the clothing you can stash on you. We’re going to be traveling for speed from here on out.”

  It was ten below zero and the barometer had plunged five millimeters. We crashed along at breakneck speed through the darkness, more than once losing the trail. After an hour or two I could hear the Russian paratroopers behind us again. They were getting their confidence back.

  “Wickersham, break out the four ski booby traps. Gurung, cover him.”

  He set the first one in a ski rut where the trail entered a thicket of spruce. I was right; they were close on our tails. The booby trap detonated behind us not five minutes later.

  “Again.”

  This time he placed one just outside a rut near a bend. Several skiers could pass it unnoticed but one man skiing randomly at the bend would trip it off. He placed a second not far from the first. It was where a Russian paratrooper, in moving the first casualty clear of the trail, would stand.

  Once more a detonation shook the snow from the trees. A minute later another detonation followed the first.

  “Wait awhile on this next one, it’s going to have to get maximum mileage.”

  My throat was brick dry. We were sweating despite the ten-below-zero reading. At each stop my sweat cooled, making me shiver uncontrollably.

  It was well past midnight before I could hear the Russians again. This time they were more difficult to hear. Our people were cursing under their breaths with every spill, and fatigue was making them clumsy.

  “Put out the last one.”

  He laid it in a rut on a steep incline and covered it with snow. We schussed on. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed…but no detonation.

  “They must be breaking their own trail now,” Wicker-sham whispered. “Why don’t they call in air support?”

  “Probably aren’t sure where we are. They’re probably waiting for daylight.”

  “What’ll we do now?”

  “Did you ditch that nylon utility line?”

  “No.”

  “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 beginnin
g 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.

  Die, Frazer, die. You let them down. Two more Russians came at me from behind. I parried one’s bayonet—not before it tore into my triceps. The other thrust at my face, knocking off my fur cap and searing my scalp with his blade as I ducked low. From a squat I swept away his knees with another butt stroke. Brittle from the cold, the rifle stock splintered apart in my hands.

  Still the ghastly screaming continued. As I searched for another weapon, powerful arms began to choke me from behind. The hands tried to twist my neck enough to snap it. I crouched and dived at a tree. The tree hit the Russian with sufficient impact to loosen his grip. I turned and, grabbing the insides of his collar, started choking him. I hammered his head against the tree. Then he went limp. I looked at the big red stain around a small hole in his chest. It was the smooth-faced officer. He’d been dead before he’d throttled me, he just hadn’t known it.

  I looked around. Wickersham stood erect with his legs braced in the center of a pile of bodies. Chamonix swayed with a bloody shoulder. Matsuma was down on one knee wrapping some cloth around his thigh. I could not see Gurung. Then a Russian body rolled aside. Gurung lay flat on his back, soaked in his victim’s blood. He rose stiffly, unsure of his balance.

  The screaming had stopped. It had been mine.

  CHAPTER 25

  “Take a look at this.” Chamonix held forward a brace of Russian ammo pouches with his good arm. “Only a quarter full. They must have lightened their equipment, too, but they jettisoned ammo. They must have been pretty confident, those heroes of the Soviet Union.”

  Puckins, barely conscious, sat propped against a tree. Several bullet holes had perforated his midsection. A stomach wound developed irreversible peritonitis if not attended by a surgeon promptly. We had no surgeon nor would we be able to get one in time. Moreover, we could not stop his bleeding. He only had hours to live. We knew it. Puckins knew it.

  “Mister Frazer,” he said. “I owe you, sir.”

  “Owe me? I owe you—if anyone owes anything to anybody.”

  “No, sir, you don’t understand. I was partially responsible for those…those things. You know…the camera…the police bust…Captain Dravit’s leg…the regulators.”

  “You? Why?”

  I felt myself wobble with despair and squatted down to have my eyes even with his. He looked old for once. His eyes were glazed with pain, but there were lines of sadness around them, too.

  “It was Lutjens and me. Lutjens only at first, but then I got pulled into it. From the very beginning I suspected he…Lutjens…was up to something, from back when we made our little excursion to Kunashiri. He just wasn’t behavin’ quite right. Couldn’t put my finger on it for a long time, until later I remembered Lutjens braggin’…during the arm-wrestling match…about the big debts he’d run up in Germany before he had been forced to skip the country. I guess he was among the high-rollin’ damned from the very first, and he owed some shadowy characters no mean stack of silver. Must have noticed me watchin’ him because just before the police raid in Hokkaido, he bore down on me with a heavy lean.”

  What color he’d had seemed to have drained from his face. A snowflake on his cheek refused to melt.

  “You know the wife’s a Viet. Somehow…I can’t figure how.… Lutjens had connections in Washington. He had her records checked and of course her application for entry was irregular, awful irregular—enough to win her a quick deportation if someone wanted to press it. When we got married, she thought someone might stop her papers ’cause of her old man being a Saigon deputy police chief.…”

  The Saigon deputy police chief, the one in the photograph executing a VC terrorist with his police pistol. What the U.S. newspapers hadn’t said in their captions was this incident had occurred in the midst of one of the most cold-blooded, vicious attacks on noncombatants of the war. Special VC assassination squads had been sent into the homes of pro-American Viets and began—as planned—to execute family members one by one, youngest first, while the rest had been made to watch. The deputy police chief had managed to apprehend one of these terrorists.

  “So she gun-decked it. Her old man was a hard old Viet. How was she to know they couldn’t deport her for her old man’s righteous anger—but they sure as hell’s fire could deport her for a falsified application. Lutjens kept saying he had a friend named Denehy who’d have her back in Ho Chi Minh City faster than you could say ‘di-di mau.’ Then he’d laugh.”

  I’m sure Puckins hadn’t laughed. His eyes now reflected the haunting faces of nine laughterless children.

  “I played along for a while to get a little thinking space. There was something wrong with Lutjens, more than just a pile of bad debts. He didn’t seem to have been issued a full emotional register. I’ve seen people like him before. They see other people as just objects to be used. Anyway, he was a nasty customer but not really very sharp, if you know what I mean. So I managed to steer him into relatively harmless dead ends—except for Captain Dravit’s booby trap—he did all that on his own. Trouble was, Lutjens was getting thinking space, too, and next thing I know, he plunked a threat to get me yanked out of the Nav’ on top of it all. Mentions Commander Ackert, too. What was I going to do? First no wife, then no job, and nine kids under fourteen? Sulfur and salvation, there just wasn’t any way out I could see in the short run.”

  His head sagged. Wisps of steamy vapor seeped from his torn stomach.

  “God forgive me, I helped them, I did. Why, I even thought of the psych…psychological angle. It was my idea to help your girlfriend stow away on the sub. A woman can really work on your mind, I know. Really get you dizzy when you’re about to set in motion something really wild, like this project, even if they never say a word. She didn’t, did she? She was something, Mister Frazer. T
he regulator screw-up would have given you an excuse to back out.

  “Aw, damnation, I’m nearly a deacon and it’s just beyond me to do things the wrong way for long. Lord’s truth. Dep, my old woman, she’ll understand and forgive me, I hope. I just bided my time and trusted in Grandpaw and Uncle Ho.”

  He read the question in my expression.

  “Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? What I mean is, I pulled back in the face of a superior force—guerrilla style and waited for an opportunity. You know, playing it the way Uncle Ho—or really General Giap, I guess—told his troops to play it against our conventional ground-pounders. It was a strange feeling having to fight those fellows, Mr. Ackert and the others, that way. I waited and then on the submarine I saw my chance.

  “You know my grandpaw was an old gimlet-eyed circuit preacher. Well, he used to say as a good Christian he couldn’t pass judgment on a fellow mortal, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t put that mortal in a position where the scales of right couldn’t make their own decision. I unhooked Lutjens’s safety line—but no mortal’s hand swept him overboard.”

  It was an unusual way to justify a killing in self-defense and in the defense of others. Puckins was an unusual man, a man of hard courage and convictions.

  “Well I’m glad Lutjens and his friends failed. Bullheaded officers like you, Mister Frazier, are just a nuisance to try to stop. I was glad when we landed on the ice, that meant there was nothing else they or I could do.”

  So there it was, all laid out neatly.

  “The whole thing’s kind of funny.” He laughed, and then choked weakly.

  “How’s about wrapping me with a little belt of that leftover C-4, and unscrewing the detonator from one of these grenades? I might as well take a Russki or two with me.

  Wickersham brought over the plastic explosive. With his massive hands he worked it around Puckins as tenderly as a mother would with an ailing child. He handed Puckins the grenade works. When it was over, the chief threw back his head and sighed.