Ice

© 2004 SS Hampton, Sr., author & Gav Sodo, illustrator
All rights reserved.

The pale sun rose through a haze of sparkling ice crystals that drifted out of a dark primeval forest across a snowy field dotted with white, misshapen mounds. The ice-crystal wind drove small clouds of snow before it like ocean waves that broke into swirling eddies around the mounds.

A faint, painful cough from among the snowy mounds was almost lost in the moaning of the sparkling wind. SS-Rottenfuhrer Walter Kirchner, his breath ragged and shallow, crawled slowly, painfully among the field of dead, leaving a steaming bloody trail as his burning wounds reopened.

Finally unable to use his legs any longer, he pulled himself up a snowy embankment by a war-torn evergreen tree near a shattered tram stop. Walter gasped as he rested against the trunk while snow and ice crystals coated his sunken face and tangled brown hair. He looked up at the torn green branches reaching down toward him. In the light of the cold sun, he saw that the branches and needles were encased in protective sheaths of sparkling ice.

He looked at the blotches of frozen and fresh blood and patches of frozen snow on his stiff field-gray greatcoat. Dully he studied his stiffening bloody hands resting in his lap; a tear rolled down his left cheek and froze.

Walter raised his burning eyes and stared at the distant onion domes of the Kremlin peeking over the top of the dark forest. Like a distant beacon against the deep blue sky of the early dawn, the domes gleamed in the sunlight, beckoning and taunting at the same time...

In the black night at a forest road intersection on the Volokolamsk-Moscow Highway, the hungry, exhausted, and frozen Landser, German infantry, occupied positions carved out of deep snow banks beneath a bright star-filled sky. A thin mist drifted among the dark trees, reinforcing the feeling that they were in a dark, primitive world.

Walter wrapped a thin woman's scarf around his head and across his face in a futile quest for protection against the frozen air, and replaced his helmet. He listened to the dark wind that moaned through the forest and thought of the once-proud gray columns that marched east into a barbaric wilderness behind the clanking gray panzers.

As the dry heat of summer flowed into cool autumn rains and then heavy winter snows, the gray columns grew thinner as faces tilted toward the heavens one more time and fell before a storm of weapons fire. Comrades disappeared within swirling clouds of dust as if magically spirited away, sank silently into watery, knee-deep mud, or vanished within howling, snowy winds. Many mumbled their way deliriously into eternity from fever and untreated wounds.

In the distance, Russian and German artillery rumbled while the faint firecracker popping of weapons fire sounded in the night. From the nearby three-man command post for their company, he heard the radioman pick up German radio from Belgrade. As the soft, mournful strains of "Lili Marlene," Lili of the lamplight who waited for her soldier, cut through the darkness, he felt like crying.

No Lili waited for him. There was only a good friend from a neighboring farm, Hanna, whose letters reached him occasionally.

In the dark labyrinth of the Russian forest, Walter remembered the last Christmas at home, after the blitzkrieg across France and before the sideshow in the Balkans, in the forested hills of the Odenwald.

He thought of the small warm kitchen filled with the delicious smell of hot, homemade bread, potatoes, and bratwurst, as his family celebrated his return. His skinny younger brother with thick eyeglasses and a damaged heart from rheumatic fever hung onto him and worshipped him as a god of war that he would never be. His mother, who worried about his weight and cooked all of his favorite foods, was proud of him and afraid for him.

His father, a decorated Great War infantry veteran, was proud of his son serving the Fatherland, yet disapproved of the uniform of the SS Division Reich that he proudly wore. His disapproval extended past the uniform to the Nazi Party though he was an honored 'Bauer,' or Peasant, under the Hereditary Farm Law. The law, backed by the Nazis, meant that he would never lose the farm due to debt and could pass it on to Walter.

The last night, after everyone else went to bed, Walter and his father, wine glasses in hand, sat in the quiet of the old parlor by the candle-lit Christmas tree while a warm fire crackled and popped in the fireplace. As music drifted from the radio they talked of life and war with an openness that was foreign to them, especially since the rift caused when Walter joined the Waffen SS. Just as his father disapproved of the SS and the Party, so Walter disapproved of his father giving food and aid to displaced and starving Jews forced off of their farms by the Party years before.

During a pause in their conversation, Walter stared out the window into the black night of the ancient Odenwald. In the darkness he caught a flash of white, as of a horse galloping along the edge of the forest that threatened to encroach on their hard-won fields. Huge snowflakes swirled out of the darkness against the warm glass, melted, and ran down the panes like tears.

As Walter stared at the snow tears he was proud of being a member of a warrior elite, he was proud of his role in restoring the honor of the Fatherland, and he felt immortal.

At the same time, a wave of unexplained sadness welled up within him.

Now, a year later, two weeks before Christmas, he felt despair as he waited behind a chest-high hard-packed snow bank with three other soldiers, on legs that he could barely feel, and stamped clumsy feet that he no longer felt. Tree limbs had been shoved into the carved snow bank and water poured over it so that the resulting icy bank would provide a minimum of protection against weapons fire.

Days without hot food, sucking on bits of frozen butter or frozen bread, fighting and sleeping in a bitter snowy cold that made his bones ache, left Walter with stomach cramps and a fever.

He knew he couldn't go on. As he did every night, he wondered if he would see the dawn. Even if he saw the dawn, so what? The Landser were exhausted. Moscow, with its warm sheltering buildings, was within their grasp, but they were too weak to make the final lunge into the ancient city.

"Cold enough?" a husky voice whispered. SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Rathar Wolff appeared out of the darkness. The tall, long-haired, emaciated company commander with one sunken eye, the other covered by a black eye patch, reminded Walter of a brutish barbarian. Unlike Walter's family, his embraced Nazism and all that it stood for. His father, a Great War storm trooper, was a veteran street tough for the Party in the early years and was awarded the Golden Party Badge that he gave to Rathar for good luck.

"Yes," Walter whispered, as if afraid to draw attention from the surrounding medieval forest to himself. In the distance a long burst of Russian gunfire was answered by scattered German gunshots. That they could fire at all was a miracle. Every bit of lubrication oil had to be removed from the weapons so that they could be fired, and even then they fired only part of the time.

"How are you men holding up?"

His three comrades glanced warily at their commander and nodded silently. "Be tough," Rathar smiled. He was a veteran of the Anschluss of Austria, the occupation of the Sudetenland, and war in Poland, France and the Balkans.

He had taken command of the company in the fall, after their previous commander had stepped on a landmine. Unlike everyone else, he reveled in the harsh environment of the barbaric war, comparing their sufferings to those experienced by Nordic gods and heroes. More sinister, though Walter and his comrades were used to the brutal war in the east, was Rathar's habit of hanging prisoners from a tree and stabbing them with a homemade spear tipped by a steel blade made by a dwarfish metalsmith from the Teutoburger Wald, while shouting, "Odin!"

"Be tough," he repeated, looking at Walter as he adjusted a checkered tablecloth on his shoulders, above a tattered bedcover over his long greatcoat to help protect him from the cold. For an unknown reason, Rathar had taken a liking to Walter the first time they met. "The Russians are finished. Another few days and we'll chase Uncle Josef out of Moscow."

"Of course." Walter nodded numbly as he shook from the cold. Only a fool would believe they could still take Moscow. Their company only had 45 men left and covered a wide front with isolated strong points built from packed snow. They were little better off than the army of Teutonic Knights that fell through the thin ice near Lake Chud when battling Alexander Nevsky, or Napoleon's Grande Armee whose bones marked the wintry retreat from Moscow.

"You don't believe?" Rathar smiled grimly.

"We're too weak, we've lost too many men," Walter whispered, as snow fell from tree branches due to the rumble of artillery fire. His comrades looked away from the conversation.

"Weak in body, but not in spirit," Rathar replied firmly. "Our spirit will carry the day. And the men we've lost aren't gone. Not really. Like ancient times, I bet they're in Valhalla, taken there by the Valkyries, the Choosers of the Slain. Feasting and drinking all night with Odin All-Father and fighting all day, dying every day, until evening when they feast again, waited on and loved by the beautiful Valkyries. What do you think?"

Walter looked at him from the corner of his eyes. If not for the uncanny way that Rathar led them untouched through enemy territory like predatory animals until he chose the moment for battle, he would have thought Rathar crazy.

"Myths," he stated through chattering teeth.

"Strip away the myth and you'll find a kernel of truth." Rathar chuckled as he sniffed the air. "Today we're a kernel of truth. Future generations will remember us stabbing into an eastern subhuman land as a proud myth." He sniffed the air again and surveyed the misty dark forest around them as scattered Russian and German gunfire echoed in the distance. He pulled his MP-40 machine pistol out from under his greatcoat and checked it.

In the distance they heard the faint sound of a galloping horse.

"Cossacks?" one of the men asked, wide-eyed.

"No," Rathar replied with a small smile. "Live the myth now," he said as he adjusted his grenades and spare ammunition magazines before moving on to the next position.

"Crazy bastard," Alfred, the MG-34 gunner, grumbled as their commander disappeared among the dark, snow-covered trees.

"He's done good by us so far," Walter admitted.

"He's crazy," the little man with frostbitten cheeks, who limped from being shot in the leg, snapped. "Him and that damned spear of his. I tell you, the Russians find their dead hanging from trees speared to death, they'll do worse to us if they catch us."

"You're just pissed off because you didn't get your medical leave," Walter grumbled, for lack of anything else to say.

"Like hell," Alfred hissed. "I told you, I'm lucky. That train of wounded I was supposed to be on got stuck in the snow. All of the wounded froze to death. They found all of them in their bunks, hands across their chests, like they just gave up and died."

The men lapsed into silence, listening to the fading strains of "Lili Marlene," written by a German during the Great War and still meaningful to those who heard it now.

After midnight they heard the stealthy crunch of breaking snow deep in the surrounding forest. Walter and the others shouldered their weapons, throats tight, teeth clenched, and waited silently as the sounds approached. At first in front of them, then to one side or the other, the sounds grew louder.

Rathar hurried silently out of the forest to join them. He pointed out the shadowy forms slipping among the dark trees and darting through patches of moonlight in the forest around them.

"Don't waste your ammunition," Rathar cautioned as he leaned on the snow bank and studied the gathering Russians. From deep within the forest came the faint coughing and growl of tank engines. He pointed with a thinly gloved hand at barely seen white camouflaged forms that patiently snaked their way across the surface of the snow toward their position. "Make your shots count."

Finally, with a nod of his head, Rathar pulled the cord on a hand grenade and flung it toward a cluster of barely discernible forms at the base of a large tree. Walter threw his own hand grenade at a group of forms that he watched converge on a snowdrift.

With the explosions of their grenades, the night air filled with the sudden rattle of submachine gun and mortar fire. Screaming Siberians, clothed in bulky winter camouflaged clothing and carrying winter-oiled whitewashed weapons, rose from the snow and poured out of the darkness around them.

Through the night Walter, Rathar, and their comrades held their position, cursing their automatic weapons and MG-34 machine gun that fired one shot at a time while Siberian tracer fire burned the air around them. Three times, after savage covering fire, the Siberians rushed them and left scores of torn bodies scattered around their position from weapons fire and barrages of hand grenades.

As the squat shapes of murderous, invincible T-34 tanks roared down the snow-covered road past them in the harsh light of drifting flares and the rushing Siberians flowed around them, they pleaded for artillery fire. Only a few shells exploded, barely noticeable in the roar of close combat.

A promised counterattack never materialized when the rally point was reported overrun by T-34s and Siberians, and their rescuers scattered.

Finally, crying with pain and exhaustion, they abandoned their position as the Siberians continued the rush to the rear and scattered artillery fire exploded nearby. They stumbled through the deep snow, sometimes ahead of, sometimes with, sometimes behind, the Siberians. Gasping for breath, with hearts pounding wildly, they paused to fire from behind trees and snow banks at the surrounding Siberians.

One soldier fell to a burst of submachine gunfire; Alfred was dragged screaming into the shadows by chattering Siberians; and the third disappeared among the trees, cursing his jammed weapon.

Only Walter and Rathar staggered on through the dark, misty forest, lit by the flash of artillery and mortar explosions and the flash of gunfire.

When they staggered out of the nightmarish forest into the ghostly moonlight, they paused as small groups of shadowy figures exchanged gunfire around them.

Small geysers of snow erupted around Walter, and his shredded legs crumbled beneath him as he cried out, dropped his weapon, and fell backwards into the freezing snow. Gasping, eyes wide with shock, his stiffening fingers fumbled uselessly for another magazine in his belt ammunition pouch while he groped for his weapon with the other hand. His legs and back were on fire.

"Hauptsturmfuhrer!" Walter's pain-filled shout was lost in the roar of explosions and gunfire.

"Odin!" He heard Rathar's well-known battle cry over the painful stuttering of the MP-40 and the answering roar of Russian PPSh submachine guns.

"Rathar!"

"Walter!"

"Here!" Walter responded as he tried to raise his head. "I'm hit!"

"Walter!" Rathar's voice sounded joyful. "Live the myth!"

"Fuck you!" Walter screamed hoarsely as the shouts of the Landser and their weapons fire faded into the distance while mocking Siberian voices and submachine gunfire drew closer.

In the harsh flickering light of drifting flares, as he propped himself up on one elbow, he saw the bulky forms of the Siberians loping in every direction across the snowy field like misshapen animals in a race. Their rough, excited voices filled the air as they fired long bursts from their submachine guns. The flash of their weapons gave a monstrous appearance to their hate-filled faces. One of the loping figures paused above him, face hidden in the shadows of a white parka hood, and pointed a PPSh at him. The submachine gun roared brightly.

Walter cried out and his head snapped back as if an invisible fist struck him in the face.

Lying in the snow, feeling warm blood filling his mouth, he stared into the dark sky filled with twinkling stars as he shook violently from the cold and the pain of his wounds. A flare exploded above him like a harsh sun without warmth while gunfire and mortar explosions shook the night around him...

As the cold air burned his throat and lungs, Walter studied the gleaming onion domes of the Kremlin shrouded in the hazy smoke of distant unseen fires. Moscow would live for another day, still beyond the grasp of a frozen, dying German Army.

Walter knew the German Army, like the Grande Armee, would leave a trail of bones across the wild primitive landscape, so different from the civilized lands of Western Europe.

In the distance, a lone figured trudged out of the forest and paused as if surveying the snowy field of death.

He frowned and stared as a snowy white horse emerged from the dark forest and trotted through the ice-crystal haze to the solitary figure. The rider, shrouded in brilliant sparkling white, rose up in the saddle and looked in his direction.

A gray- and white-washed column marched out of the forest.

The beautiful horse trotted among the snow-shrouded bodies, pausing here and there so the rider could dismount by some of the forms. The solitary figure made its way among the snowy mounds toward him.

Finally the beautiful rider looked down at him with sharp blue eyes through long blonde hair blown across her face by the icy wind. She wore a tunic of golden chainmail over a long, sparkling white dress that outlined her icy white, firm figure. A round golden shield decorated with spirals of silver and a sheathed sword decorated with silver and rubies hung from the horse's left flank.

He felt a desire for the woman that he couldn't explain, a desire that wasn't sexual. He wanted to be with her, but he was afraid of her. If he had the strength, if he could feel his legs again, he would crawl away from her.

"You've fought well," she said in a soft, musical voice as she knelt by him and gently cradled his head in her soft, cold hands. The scent from her icy breath, from her hair drifting across his face, brought images of tall trees, moonlight, and wind caressing peaceful snowy meadows. Beyond the meadow he saw a great stone hall with a shield roof and heard from within the sound of laughter and celebration.

"This world is no longer for you. Come with me."

"I can't feel my legs or hands," he whispered, as he looked into her bright blue eyes. In the depth of her eyes he saw the deep, dusty blue of hot summer skies that turned gray until her eyes sparkled with floating ice crystals.

"Come with me," she said in a soft voice that cooled his burning face. He heard the shuffle of boots breaking through crusty snow and saw the whitewashed, blood-stained column advance toward them.

Walter looked up at the torn tree limbs shrouded in sparkling ice against the dawn sky. The ice reflected the sunlight in a myriad of colors so bright that he thought of Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge that connected Asgard, the home of the gods, and Midgard, the home of man.

He was the son of an honored Bauer who tended a hereditary farm in the Odenwald in the new Fatherland. He remembered wintry childhood days when he watched the first falling snow and asked his mother if he and his brother could play in the snow after their chores. Just like they played in the snow during his last leave.

"I want to go home," he said slowly, through the rainbow fog that shrouded his mind.

"This is no death dream, my friend," the tall, gaunt Rathar said as he joined them, his MP-40 slung across his stomach and his broad-headed spear in one hand. His wind-blown hair covered part of his face, hiding the black eye patch. "I've known of you for a long time. I told Mist to choose you."

She smiled gently as she brushed his ice-covered eyelids and snowy face with soft fingers. She placed her other hand firmly on his bloody, snowy chest.

The column halted behind the horse, and pale, haggard faces looked down at him without emotion. They draped their weapons carelessly across their shoulders as if the war held no more concern for them. Flurries of snow and ice swirled around their ragged boots and bloody uniform trousers and drifted from their helmets and shoulders like wind-blown mountaintop snow.

"Live the myth, Walter," Rathar said. Then, to the beautiful woman who cradled his head, "Mist, take good care of him. And now, there's a panzer unit who needs a new commander."

"Yes, my lord." The woman dipped her head toward Rathar. With a smile he draped his bloody spear across the shoulder epaulettes of his panzer uniform and wandered back into the deep forest. To Walter she whispered, "Come with me."

"Yes," he finally answered in a hoarse voice, his eyes half-open as he felt icy fingers close possessively around his heart. She leaned forward, rose-red lips parting. He felt her breath on his eyes, his cheeks, and his lips as her soft blonde hair fluttered across his frozen face.

Her icy fingers tightened and his heart slowed.

She grasped his heart firmly and it stopped.

Walter felt warm and content as she kissed him within the bright, ice-crystal haze...

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