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.”