by Leo Kessler
The sweat pouring from his body, soaking his uniform, he continued across and upwards. He reached a fissure. It was wider and deeper than he had first thought. ‘Come on, you lucky lads,’ he called down to Jap and Meier, ‘this is going to be a walk-over!’ Without even waiting to check their condition, he anchored himself on a good rock knob, and started upwards.
‘Three cheers for Stormtroop Edelweiss!’ Meier called, and followed.
‘Three farts for the Führer!’ Jap yelled, equally happily, and did the same.
Stuermer climbed steadily, but his strange, good mood was beginning to vanish. His head had begun to ache, and green and yellow stars were exploding in front of his eyes. Still be seemed possessed of amazing reserves of energy. He went at the rock like a man possessed and the other two him with the self-same strength and zest.
Suddenly there was a sharp crack. He swung round. Meier, his face abruptly contorted with fear, hands clutching at nothing, was falling!
Instinctively the colonel braced himself, flinging his whole weight against the rock face. There was a mighty tug at his shoulders. He caught himself just in time, knowing there was worse to come. The rope ran out. His waist snap held. The pressure was almost unbearable, dragging him outwards. Still he held on, his face purple with strain. And the rope had not broken!
He flashed a look below. Meier was swinging in the void, three or four metres below him, while further below Jap clung to the surface of the rock, as if his very life depended upon it.
‘You all right?’ Stuermer called.
Meier called back something in a strangled voice, which Stuermer could not understand, yet the fear had vanished from his face.
Stuermer acted. He knew that the other man hadn’t more than minutes to live, if he didn’t relax the pressure of the rope constricting him soon. Gripping the waist loop with both hands and exerting strength be never knew he possessed he swung round and faced the rock. Swiftly he made a bight with the rope and flung it over an anchor rock. An instant later he had freed himself from the rope, leaving Meier dangling there in mid-air, his big boots blindly seeking a foothold.
Taking impossible risks, Stuermer climbed down to the helpless NCO. ‘Feet — here!’ he gasped. Reaching out, he grabbed the other man’s feet and guided them to a hold. ‘Now — up you go!’ The big nailed boots scraped against the rock and stuck. A few minutes later the three of them were lying on the ledge at the top of the fissure, crimson-faced and glaring at each other, as if they were deadly enemies.
‘What did you want to do that for, you little yellow shit?’ Meier cried at his running-mate, murder in his eyes.
‘What did I want to do what?’ the other man bawled back at him, his hand instinctively reaching for his mountain knife. ‘You think I let you fall?’
‘Of course you did!’ Meier cried, flecks of foam at the edge of his mouth. ‘You were just your usual shitting careless self. Never worry—’
Stuermer flashed a glance at the altitude meter wrapped around his right wrist. The needle flickered at four thousand, six hundred metres. Suddenly he realized what the cause of their strange euphoria had been — and this equally strange quarrel between the two NCOs. ‘Stop it,’ he commanded. ‘Shut up, will you?’
‘But the big bastard accuses me—’ Jap began.
Stuermer knew there was no other way. Leaning forward, he slapped the little corporal sharply across his yellow, wrinkled face.
Jap started. ‘What did you have to do that for?’ he demanded.
‘Don’t you see?’ Stuermer answered urgently. We’re nearly five thousand metres above sea level — and without oxygen. We’ve all got the altitude sickness!’
‘That explains it,’ Meier said, shaking his head, as if he was trying to wake up from a deep sleep. ‘My head’s throbbing, as if it’s going to burst apart at any moment — and I feel, sort of light—’
‘Me, too,’ Jap agreed reluctantly. ‘It’s like not weighing anything, as if you were made of feathers. But I feel sick with it, too. I could puke any minute.’
‘All the symptoms of altitude sickness,’ Stuermer said bitterly. ‘That’s why we took that impossible traverse. Any sane climber wouldn’t have taken a risk like that.’ He shook his head slowly, hating to say what he was going to say next, but knowing he must.
‘We can’t go on any further this day. We’ve got to acclimatize to the air at this altitude. Tomorrow it’ll be different. Then — God willing — we’ll reach the summit.’
‘But what are we going to do till then?’ Meier protested his hectic look vanishing slowly now, exhaustion beginning to take its place. ‘We’ll freeze our nuts off if we spend the night up here in the open.’
‘I know, I know, Meier,’ Stuermer snapped irritably, nausea threatening to overcome him at any moment. ‘We’ve got to find the Pastuchova Hut. It must be around here somewhere. We’ll spend the night there.’ Wearily he rose to his feet. ‘Come on, let’s get on with it.’ Wordlessly the two NCOs rose and followed him, all elation vanished now.
Mount Elbrus would not be conquered this day.
THREE
‘No good…no good, Comrade Captain, ‘Lydia stuttered, ‘I…I can’t go on!’
Roswitha removed her clogged-up snow goggles and stared down at the girl, her fingers dug into the snow to hold herself against the wind which boomed and dragged along the face of the mountain. She opened her mouth to speak and the wind blew the breath back down her throat so she thought for a moment she might suffocate. She slumped down next to an exhausted Lydia and with frozen fingers started to undo the straps of the radio still attached to her back. Wordlessly she dropped it into the snow.
‘Leave it?’ Lydia shrieked above the wind.
‘Yes. We must find them…without help,’ Roswitha yelled back, her hands cupped around her mouth.
She stared up at the sky, flickering from burnt ochre to umber, heavy with flying snow, and told herself that even the world’s best climbers would have to take cover in such conditions; and for all she knew the Fritzes were alpine soldiers, not professional climbers. But where? Where would they find cover at this altitude?
The hut! The thought flashed through her mind. Of course, it was the only place — and the Fritzes would know about it. She stumbled to her feet and chipped off the clumps of frozen snow that clung to her boots, while Lydia lay there watching her, the tears running down her ashen face and freezing to long icicles on her cheeks. Finally she was ready. ‘Come on,’ she shrieked.
Lydia shook her head wearily. ‘Can’t…can’t go on, Comrade…’ the tired words trailed away to nothing.
‘Of course, you can. You are a Red Raven, Lydia.’ Roswitha remembered that exploratory hand that had reached out and touched her naked breast; and the harshness disappeared from her voice. She bent down and took hold of Lydia’s hand as tenderly as she could with her thick-gloved hand. ‘Here, I shall help you.’
‘But—’
‘You can, Lydia. Come on.’
Lydia moaned piteously, but she got to her feet and stood there swaying unsteadily, blinking her eyes at the glowing rushing sky. Swiftly Roswitha re-attached the rope, holding Lydia’s eyes with her own. She knew it was no use telling the exhausted girl to look for holds; the only thing she could do was to imprison her comrade with her own gaze, will her to move on and on, dragging her weary feet behind her, as if they were some great weight. ‘Here.’ She gave the girl her own ice-axe; Lydia had lost hers long before. ‘Support yourself on that. It will help.’ On sudden impulse she leaned forward and pressed her dry, cracked lips against Lydia’s frozen cheek. We will do it,’ she whispered. ‘Now march!’
Dwarfed by the mountains, with the wind bowling around them, attempting to pluck them from the rock face with its mighty invisible fingers, the two women, insignificant black dots against the sea of white, plodded ever onwards, hour after hour, their bodies racked with pain, the breath rasping through their tortured lungs in harsh gasps. Pebbles and frozen snow lashed
at their faces and ripped open the skin. But the wind was so powerful that the blood could not seep through. Each step became a major effort of will — reach up, struggling against that immense weight which seemed to be attached there, place the foot down and take hold with fingers that felt as if they were bales of wool. On and on, with the snow falling in great wet flakes and the wind booming around the mountains with the noise of exploding artillery shells.
Once Roswitha slipped on snow shale. Desperately she grabbed for a hold and screamed hysterically with pain, as the shale ripped off her thick glove and tore out the nails of her right hand at the roots. Still she went on, her hand afire with agony.
Once a great burst of wind tore at their frail bodies as they stood on a narrow rock shelf, and they clung together like two frightened children, while the wind whipped and lashed at them, as if this time it was determined to fling them to their deaths far down below.
On and on! Step by step, lurching, shaking, stumbling, suffocated by the wind, blinded by the snow, the pebbles whining off the rocks like ricochets. And then the wind began to die down. For a long while, the two pathetic mortals struggling across the face of the great mountain did not seem to notice. Chins sunk upon their breasts, they continued as before, concentrating solely on that next step. Slowly, very slowly, it seemed to dawn on them that the wind had dropped and the fury of the flying snow had begun to let up. Roswitha raised her head with infinite weariness and lifted her goggles.
Silence fell over the mountains, hurting her ears. She stared at the dying flakes in bewilderment. What did it mean? A hush began to descend upon them, and abruptly she could think clearly again. She turned to Lydia, standing there behind her numbly like a carelessly dumped sack of potatoes, and then looked at her altitude meter. It read four thousand, six hundred metres. ‘Lydia,’ she cried, as the snow stopped altogether, ‘we’ve done it.’
‘Wha…what?’ the other girl croaked.
‘We’ve reached the hut! Pastuchova Hut!’ she cried in triumph. ‘Come on!’
Her headache vanished and new strength flooded back into her legs. Dragging Lydia behind her, stumbling, falling and rising again, she covered the last ninety metres. Then she saw it. The Pastuchova Hut, almost submerged in the new snow. But the thin curl of blue smoke emerging from the chimney into the evening sky told all she needed to know. It was occupied. The Fritzes were in residence!
Meier portioned out the steaming mixture of coffee, cocoa and condensed milk, and the other two clutched the canteens with their frozen fingers gratefully, their feet extended towards the tired blue flame of the primus cooker, which was as starved of oxygen as they were. They had been forced to burrow their way through the snow into the wooden hut and it had taken them an hour of murderous labour to clear its interior. Thereafter, it had been another hour before Meier had finally managed to get the mixture to boil, and he had added a massive portion of sugar to give them new energy. Now, propped up against their stiffly frozen rucksacks, they sat there, shivering, grateful for the warmth of the mixture and the flickering primus cooker, which cast strange shadows on the gloomy white interior of the snow-covered little hut.
Stuermer took a sip of the steaming mixture and felt the canteen tear at his lips. He didn’t care. The drink was all-important. He could almost feel the new energy, engendered by the sugar and milk, flood into his infinitely weary limbs. ‘Now, gentlemen,’ he said hoarsely, ‘are you still summit-hungry?’ He grinned at their tired, frozen, unshaven faces.
‘Teufel und tit!’1 Ox-Jo growled, almost his old self again, ‘of course we are. Aren’t we, ape-turd?’
‘Clear as chicken-soup,’ Jap agreed, raising his greedy mouth from the mixture. ‘I’m ready to go up alone — now!’
‘Get off it!’ Ox-Jo said. ‘Showing off like ten naked niggers!’
Stuermer smiled. The two NCOs had recovered their strength, and to all appearances at least, they had overcome their altitude sickness. His own splitting headache and nausea had vanished at last. ‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘we’re higher than Montblanc, the Emperor of the Alps, now?’
Ox-Jo rubbed a massive hand, each finger split open by the cold like a burst sausage, over his bearded jaw. ‘Don’t know about that, sir. I’m more interested in climbing other kinds of tits than Elbrus’s twin peaks.’
Stuermer laughed happily. ‘And you shall have that pleasure too, once we’re down again. Undoubtedly the Greatest Captain of all Times will grant Stormtroop Edelweiss a leave in the Homeland to honour our victory.’
Jap’s dark eyes glinted wickedly. ‘You’re not pulling my pisser, are you, sir?’ he demanded.
‘No, your — er — pisser is quite safe, Jap.’
The corporal looked at Meier. ‘Did you hear that, Ox? Remember you owe me the price of three jumps, once we get back to civilization.’
‘I’ll buy you a whole private knocking-shop, once we get back to Munich,’ Ox-Jo agreed grandly. ‘Now sir, what’s the drill tomorrow morning?’
‘Well, assuming the snow continues to let up, this is what we do. We dump our rucksacks and weapons here. Everything unnecessary stays behind, except the flag.’
‘Not—’
‘No,’ Stuermer beat Ox-Jo to it. ‘We just take our own Edelweiss standard.’
Ox-Jo beamed. ‘That’s the stuff, sir,’ be said heartily. ‘That’ll make some people fill their breeches when they see the photos.’
Stuermer knew who ‘some people’ were, but be didn’t comment on it. ‘I’ll take the camera and you, Jap, you take the bottle with our names. We’ll plant it up there under a cairn. At least there’ll be some proof that we made it.’
Jap sniffed. ‘As you wish, sir. But I doubt if anyone will ever care, especially the Ivans. I bet they won’t want to put us in their record books as the conquerors of Mount Elbrus.’
Stuermer nodded. ‘I expect you’re right, Jap. All right, we’ll rope up immediately. I think there’ll be shale or lava stone up there too and you know how damn slippy that stuff is at the best of times — and tomorrow we’ll have snow and ice to contend with as well. We’ll take a zig-zag course, first to the north and then once we’re in sight of the twin peaks, we’ll head west to take the higher of the two. We’d better do this correctly, although there is only a difference of a hundred metres in height. I know it’s a propaganda exercise, but—’ He shrugged and hoped that the two NCOs could understand his concern that even now it should be an honest climb. ‘Well, that’s about it. Any questions?’
The two NCOs shook their heads.
‘All right, we’d better turn in. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.’ He zipped his sleeping bag up and turned his head to one side. The other two did the same. Within minutes they were all three snoring heavily, sunk into the blessed world of sleep, in which there was no pain, no exhaustion and no cold. At their feet the primus stove flickered blue, as the first air from outside started to enter the hut…
Notes
1. ‘Devil and tit’.
FOUR
Stuermer was the first to wake. The faint stirring in the snow at the entrance must have alerted something deep down within his bone-tired, sleep-drugged body. His eyes flickered open, closed, and opened again.
A face, hard and commanding, though beautiful, was staring at him from only two metres away. ‘What in three…?’ he began, startled.
‘Be still!’ the stranger commanded in good German. ‘Don’t move!’
In the eerie blue flame of the still-burning primus stove, Stuermer could see the pistol in the stranger’s gloved hand, and the glacial menace in the voice told him the newcomer was deadly serious. He froze, while the stranger, pistol held erect, crawled the rest of the way into the hut and shook the hood free to reveal a swath of matted blonde hair.
Stuermer gasped involuntarily. It was a woman! Instinctively he knew that she was one of the women they had left behind at Elbrus House. Next moment another woman had followed the first inside the hut and as the two NCOs struggle
d awake from a deep, clinging sleep, the first snapped, ‘Hands behind your heads and back against the wall!’
Awkwardly the three men struggled out of their sleeping bags and wormed their way under the low roof to the wall.
‘I know you,’ Ox-Jo breathed when he saw the first woman’s face clearly in the light of the primus. ‘You’re the—’
‘Be quiet!’ A grimace of hate distorted the woman’s face for a moment, as she shook her head to release the thick blonde hair.
Ox-Jo fell silent. The look in the woman’s eyes was enough. Roswitha turned to Colonel Stuermer, whom she guessed was the officer. ‘What is your name?’ she demanded, while behind her, Lydia warmed one frozen hand at a time — she, too, held a pistol — in front of the primus.
‘Stuermer.’
‘Rank?’
‘Colonel of the Alpine Corps.’ Stuermer answered, feeling the grey bitterness of defeat wash through him, a sour taste in his mouth, as he realized just how easily they had been caught when they were so close to the summit.
Roswitha looked at him curiously. ‘Not the Stuermer,’ she asked, ‘of the German Mountain?’
He nodded numbly.
For an instant the hard determined look on her pretty face softened. ‘I have heard of you, Stuermer. Before the war I would have been proud to have made the acquaintance of a climber such as yourself. In Moscow we all had heard of you and admired your climbs. But now—’ She hesitated and her face hardened again. ‘Now you are a Fritz, just like the rest.’ Without turning, she rapped, ‘Comrade!’
