Blood and Ice Read Online Free Page A

‘that’s the plan. Let’s get on with it. Move yer arses!’

    Schulze slid through the snow-heavy bushes, grateful for the mountain wind and flurries of snow muffling their approach. Behind him Chink made no sound whatsoever. Schulze could not even hear him breathing despite the steepness of the ascent to the bunker. He was obviously an expert at this sort of thing. Metre by metre they crawled nearer to the still bunker, silhouetted against the night sky. Had they sentries posted somewhere outside? Schulze asked himself. German sentries would have crawled back into the warmth of the bunker, confident no officer would be around, but the Popovs were different, he knew that. They could endure a tremendous degree of cold, and besides in the Peasants’ and Workers’ Army it was not unusual for an officer to shoot a common soldier out of hand for the slightest dereliction of duty. Schulze decided there would be Popovs outside somewhere or other.
    They were about fifty metres away from the bunker. There was no sound save for the howl of the wind in the firs. Schulze stopped suddenly, as Chink pressed his shoulder firmly. Very deliberately the little Hiwi brought his mouth close to Schulze’s ear. ‘Ivan,’ he whispered, ‘to right!’
    Schulze felt his heart beat more rapidly. Two dark shapes detached themselves from the shadows cast by the trees and plodded across their path in the slow weary manner of infantry men all over the world, carrying out sentry duty in the middle of the night.
    ‘ Shit! ’ Schulze cursed to himself. The two sentries were directly to their front. He had to get rid of them before they could tackle the bunker, but the ten or fifteen metres of ground which separated them was devoid of cover. The Popovs would spot them before they managed to cover it. He remembered the Cheeseheads down below. If they opened up, it might well distract the sentries. They might run forward to the edge of the drop to check what was going on. In those few seconds, he and Chink would be on the bunker. A grenade through the door and they would be in. They could worry about the two sentries later.
    Schulze straightened himself slowly and whistled shrilly, hoping that the sentries would take the sound for that of some night bird. Nothing happened. Neither the sentries stirred, nor was there any reaction from down below.
    Schulze glared at the darkness angrily. Nothing!
    He tried again – again nothing.
    ‘They’re petrified down there, Chink. They’re not gonna move. The Dutch bastards have left us in the lurch!’
    Schulze was suddenly seized by an all-consuming rage. He pulled the heavy stick grenade out of his belt, ripped out the china pin and counted one-two-three . Then he hurled it over the edge of the drop down to where he imagined his men to be. It was an old trick. But it worked. In the same instant that it exploded in a vicious burst of scarlet just behind the Dutch men’s positions, they opened fire in wild, fearsome abandon. The sentries shouted something and ran to the side of the slope. Schulze waited no longer. ‘Come on Chink – at the double! ’
    They pelted across the snow and hit the bunker. From inside came the sounds of men stirring in alarm. The door was flung open. Chink moved first. His knife flashed and the Russian gurgled once as it opened his throat from the jugular to the carotid. He went down, drowning in his own blood.
    Schulze sprang over his writhing body. A half-naked soldier ran down the narrow corridor screaming. Schulze ripped off a burst with his Schmeisser instinctively. The man jacknifed, a froth of pink foamy blood spraying from his wide-open mouth. Behind him Chink opened the first wooden door to their right, tossed in a grenade and pulled it closed again. The wooden wall seemed to bulge like a live thing. Abruptly the room was full of screams and wild, agonized yells. In a flash, the whole corridor reeked of cordite, blood and death.
    The two of them ran on. Another little