The Ice Soldier (8 page)
There was such a thing as a reserve chute, normally attached to the chest. But our Polish parachute instructor, a man named Zimanski, informed us a little too cheerfully that we were jumping so near to the ground that these reserve chutes would not have time to deploy if the main chute failed. In other words, if our main chutes did not open, we would not only be dead but would literally break every bone in our bodies.
“Even those little ones in your ears,” said the instructor, pinching the air between his thumb and index finger to show us how small the bones were.
Zimanski wore a black beret, as opposed to the red berets of the Royal Parachute Regiment. He had been part of what was known as the Free Polish Brigade, made up of those who had managed to escape from the German occupation of their country. Zimanski had been a member of a brigade under the command of General Sosabowski and had been involved with Operation Market Garden, the battle for the Arnhem bridgehead. The men of Sosabowski's brigade were pretty much slaughtered as they crossed the Rhine, and I'd heard that only a few made it back. Zimanski never talked about this, at least not in English. When he got drunk, however, which he did every night without exception on a homemade alcohol called
spiritus,
he would burst into our barracks when we were sleeping, turn on the lights, and yell at us in Polish. At times like this, it was impossible to imagine that he was even related to the quiet, broadly smiling man who taught us in the daytime. Invariably, Zimanski would be hauled out of our barracks by the military police. He never put up a fight. As soon as he saw the red caps of the MPs, he would sit down on the floor and wait to be dragged off. The next day, he would be back to his old self and seemed to have no memory of his tirades from the night before.
spiritus,
he would burst into our barracks when we were sleeping, turn on the lights, and yell at us in Polish. At times like this, it was impossible to imagine that he was even related to the quiet, broadly smiling man who taught us in the daytime. Invariably, Zimanski would be hauled out of our barracks by the military police. He never put up a fight. As soon as he saw the red caps of the MPs, he would sit down on the floor and wait to be dragged off. The next day, he would be back to his old self and seemed to have no memory of his tirades from the night before.
We were also put through a course in the use of various weapons, including the Sten submachine gun, the Webley revolver, and the Sykes-Fairbairn fighting knife. We also practiced throwing Mills bomb grenades and learned to hold our genitals when they went off only a few feet away on the other side of the practice trench, or risk being neutered from a vacuum created by the blast.
With little else to discuss, we speculated endlessly about what we would be asked to do and where we would be sent.
The training ended with a climbing exercise on a rock face overlooking Loch Amon. The tannic acid in the ground had stained the lake water almost black. A local legend held that in 1900, a boy had tried to swim across it on a dare. He had traveled halfway across when a huge creature rose up from below and dragged him down.
I was glad to turn my back on the loch as we began our climb. Despite the added weight we had been asked to carry, the ascent was easily accomplished and by the end of the day we had marched back into camp through the pouring rain. We were peeling off our wet and dirty clothes and listening to the showers groan and creak as warm water finally began to pour through them, when Sholto Lindsay came in, kilt swinging about his knobbly knees.
“Report to my office in fifteen minutes,” he said, then turned on his heel and walked out again.
All thoughts of rest evaporated. We knew this was the moment when we would be told where we were going.
There was no time to shower. We piled into any dry clothes we could find and shambled into Lindsay's office, having dashed across the empty parade ground under the steadily falling rain.
In Lindsay's office, I was astonished to see, sitting comfortably at Lindsay's desk, none other than Henry Carton. He was not wearing a military uniform. Instead, he had on a Norfolk jacket made of impossibly thick wool and a turtleneck sweater which bunched around his throat. His cheeks were rosy and the bristles of his mustache looked as stiff as pencil leads. Carton was leaning back in Lindsay's chair as if he owned the place.
“Gentlemen,” said Lindsay, closing the door, “you know who this is.”
Of course we did.
“Due to Mr. Carton's expertise in the specific nature of your task,” continued Lindsay, “he has very kindly volunteered to help us out.”
Carton had been smiling at us, but now the smile flickered and died. “Where is my nephew?” he asked. “Where is Stanley?”
“He didn't sign up with us, I'm afraid,” said Lindsay.
Carton stood suddenly, sending his chair scudding back against the wall. “Why didn't you tell me?” he spluttered.
Lindsay cleared his throat. His face turned red. “I wasn't at liberty to give out any specific names over the telephone.”
“But when you mentioned the group, I assumed they'd all be here.” Carton looked stunned. His eyes fanned across us. “I thought he'd finally come to his senses, instead of wasting away in that bloody sausage factory!”
“It's all right, sir,” said Sugden quietly. “We feel the same way.”
The rest of us glared at Sugden, because he had no right to speak for all of us.
Carton glanced around the room, as if he did not know
where Sugden's voice had come from. “It's bad enough that he dodged his military service, but now he's gone and let you down as well!”
where Sugden's voice had come from. “It's bad enough that he dodged his military service, but now he's gone and let you down as well!”
This time, nobody replied.
In the quiet of the room, we heard the wheezing of his ruined lungs.
“Where's the phone?” demanded Carton.
“There's one in the orderly room,” said Lindsay.
Carton stamped out of Lindsay's office and across the parade ground to the leaky, tar-paper-roofed hut which served as our orderly room.
For a while, we all just stood there in silence.
Then Lindsay spoke. “I wouldn't want to be that chap Stanley right about now.”
We mumbled in agreement.
A minute later, Carton reappeared from the orderly room and walked back to Lindsay's office. His face was red, his hands clenched into fists. He swung into the room and slammed the door, then returned to his place behind the desk. He was out of breath from even that short walk. “It's no good!” he said. “The little beggar won't listen to reason.”
Carton fumbled behind him for the chair and sat down heavily. He reached to the sides, spreading his arms like wings, and gripped the edges of the desk, as if it were the only thing anchoring him to the world. He blinked. There were tears of rage in his eyes.
Lindsay pulled down the blinds and flipped on the light. Rain tapped at the corrugated iron roof. The remains of a coal fire smoldered in the grate. Lindsay sat himself down by the fire in a chair whose stuffing was bursting out of a dozen broken seams. He propped his feet, which were encased in boots
so mirror-polished that they looked as if they were made of glass, upon an empty ammunition box. Then he folded his arms and nodded at Carton to begin.
so mirror-polished that they looked as if they were made of glass, upon an empty ammunition box. Then he folded his arms and nodded at Carton to begin.
Carton tried to compose himself. He tilted his head first to one side and then to the other, cracking the bones in his neck. For a moment, Carton stared at the green paper of the blotter on Lindsay's desk and pursed his lips, as if he did not know how to begin. Then he breathed in sharply and raised his head, looking at each of us in turn. “You're going to Italy,” he said. “How does that sound?”
“A damned sight better than the North Atlantic,” replied Forbes. His old half smile was gone. Instead, after two years of serving on a convoy ship, he bore the permanent expression of someone who has just seen a bad traffic accident.
“I'm afraid it's not going to be any sort of sunny holiday,” said Carton. “You're going into the Italian Alps. Actually, you're going to climb
my
mountain. That's why they've brought me in here, since I'm the only one who's ever done the climb who's still alive to talk about it.”
my
mountain. That's why they've brought me in here, since I'm the only one who's ever done the climb who's still alive to talk about it.”
We glanced at one another, smiling nervously. It was not a nervousness brought on by any lack of confidence. Looking back, I could not recall why we were so sure of ourselves. When you are trained to believe you are the best, and failure is never discussed, the idea of not succeeding becomes unthinkable.
There was a rustling behind us and we turned to see that Lindsay had pulled down a detailed map of the Alps on a rolling oilcloth screen. At first, I saw the map as just an overwhelming tangle of brown gradient lines, blue veins of rivers, and blank areas of white. The outer reaches of these white areas formed crooked fingers, marking the borders of the Lingua del Dragone glacier. Etched with blue contour lines
like the swirls on a human finger, the map made the glaciers seem clean and unimposing. But I knew it was really a desert of dirty ice, trenched with thousands of crevasses, exposed to the wind, their surfaces melting by day and freezing by night. Out there in the middle of the white sea, like a tiny island, was Carton's piece of rock. The summit ran along a north-south ridge, which I knew would be mined with cornices. These were waves of snow blown into overhangs, like the crests of breaking waves. Sometimes it was hard to tell what was solid ground and what was a cornice. If you fell through one, you might find nothing below you for thousands of feet. I could see from the contour lines that it rose up sheer on the eastern and northern sides. Anyone climbing it would have to approach from the south. The nearest height mark showed 3,374 meters, which was the summit of the Blinnenhorn, more than a thousand meters lower than the Matterhorn, and over six hundred meters lower than the Eiger; but as with the Eiger, height was not the challenge here. Even from the map, the loneliness and desolation of the rock was clear to see.
like the swirls on a human finger, the map made the glaciers seem clean and unimposing. But I knew it was really a desert of dirty ice, trenched with thousands of crevasses, exposed to the wind, their surfaces melting by day and freezing by night. Out there in the middle of the white sea, like a tiny island, was Carton's piece of rock. The summit ran along a north-south ridge, which I knew would be mined with cornices. These were waves of snow blown into overhangs, like the crests of breaking waves. Sometimes it was hard to tell what was solid ground and what was a cornice. If you fell through one, you might find nothing below you for thousands of feet. I could see from the contour lines that it rose up sheer on the eastern and northern sides. Anyone climbing it would have to approach from the south. The nearest height mark showed 3,374 meters, which was the summit of the Blinnenhorn, more than a thousand meters lower than the Matterhorn, and over six hundred meters lower than the Eiger; but as with the Eiger, height was not the challenge here. Even from the map, the loneliness and desolation of the rock was clear to see.
Then Whistler voiced the question that was on all of our minds. “Why are we going there?” he asked.
“You're to set up a radio transmitter,” said Lindsay. “It's what's known as a âsplasher.' Planes use it to home in on. We've been losing a lot of planes over the Alps recently. The Allies have got aircraft flying out of bases in the Po Valley to the south. They're heading north to hit targets like Ulm, Augsburg, and Colmar. This means they have to fly right over the mountains to reach their targets. On the outward missions, they're flying at altitude and in formation, but when they're on the way back, most of these planes are on their own and sometimes flying quite low. The navigators have been getting lost because they can't see the ground on account of the usual
cloud cover and also because even when they can see the ground, the landscape changes with every snowfall. And there aren't any beacons for them to use, so they end up either going down too low in order to try to get a visual bearing, in which case they crash into the mountains, or they run out of fuel, in which case ⦔
cloud cover and also because even when they can see the ground, the landscape changes with every snowfall. And there aren't any beacons for them to use, so they end up either going down too low in order to try to get a visual bearing, in which case they crash into the mountains, or they run out of fuel, in which case ⦔
“They also crash into the mountains,” said Carton, finishing Lindsay's thought. “Each of you is to carry the components for assembling this beacon, which you should be able to manage in addition to your regular climbing gear. Once the beacon has been turned on, aircrews will be able to pick up its signal and, because of its precise frequency, will be able to tell where they are, even if they can't see the ground. Major Lindsay has told me that the whole thing can be bolted together in under an hour and that once you have installed the batteries, the machine will function for up to three months, by which time, with any luck, the war will be over.”
“That is correct,” said Lindsay. “The beacon itself will be contained within a steel case. All you've got to do is assemble the beacon, open the case, pull a metal strip off the top of the battery so that the machine can begin drawing from it, install the beacon in the case, and turn the bloody thing on. Those bricks you have been carrying correspond to the weight you'll each have to manage with the various components.”
Carton explained the plan as best he could. He began by telling us that the mountain had been chosen because of its remoteness, and because there were no German troops in the area. We were to be parachuted in to an alpine meadow, beside a wood known as the Pineta di San Rafaele, above the village of Palladino. This was the only place they felt confident about our being able to parachute into safely. From there we would follow a dirt road until we reached the edge of the Lingua del
Dragone glacier. Carton produced a hand-drawn map to show the road and its surroundings.
Dragone glacier. Carton produced a hand-drawn map to show the road and its surroundings.
“What's that?” I asked, pointing to a neatly drawn square at the point where the road petered out into a dotted line around the edge of the glacier.
“It's an old customs house,” said Carton. “Around the turn of the century, a road was built from Palladino up towards the Albrun Pass. The Italians call this the Bocchetta d'Arbola. The plan was to link up with a road being built by the Swiss from the village of Binn on the other side. In the end, they didn't use the Palladino road because of avalanches. They diverted it to the town of Goglio, farther south.”
“Here!” said Lindsay, jabbing at the map and evidently pleased with himself to have found the spot.
“The customs house above Palladino was built but never used, but the old road still exists and you'll be following it to the border at Albrun. All of these roads are unpaved. The whole setup is fairly primitive, and the crossing itself hasn't been used in years.”
Carton went on to say that from the dropping point above Palladino, we had about a six-kilometer trek to the customs house, and from there another five kilometers across the glacier. “But that's as the crow flies,” he added. “In reality, boys, the journey will be much more demanding. It's just the nature of travel over glaciers.”
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