Free Crack of Doom by Willi Heinrich

downstairs. Crossing his arms, he remained standing by the window, and told Jozef to sit down.
    He looked at the pine standing in a bucket near the window. "Why don't you take it to bed with you?" he mocked. "Tomorrow I’ll stick it in the stove." He listened again for the noises from below and heard Margita pouring out abuse.
    The little she-devil, he thought fondly. He decided to get her away to Dobsina at all costs, by force if necessary. From below came the sound of one of the Germans laughing loudly, then, a moment later, a door slammed and all was silent.
    Nikolash met with Margita halfway down the stairs. She gave a rather forced laugh. "Nothing to do with us. They were looking for three German soldiers."
    "Three German soldiers?" Nikolash was baffled.
    They went to the front room and looked out the window. All they could see were the trucks' rear lights, which got fainter and fainter in the snow-storm and finally disappeared altogether.
    "That might easily have gone wrong," said Margita.
    "It was very clever of you to keep them downstairs," Nikolash pulled her toward him.
    The front door slammed and a second later Andrej came bursting into the room. When he saw the two of them standing there, his face relaxed. "Did they come here too?"
    "Yes," said Nikolash. "Where were you? At Elizabeth's? Did they come there?"
    "Three soldiers. They didn't want anything of us, they were looking for their own men."
    "Deserters perhaps," said Nikolash slowly.
    "And the Very light?"
    "What?"
    "They shot a Very light when they were finished. Didn't you see it?"
    Nikolash shook his head. "What color?" N "White."
    "Odd," muttered Nikolash, uneasy again.
    Andrej nodded. "A sign for someone or other. We must watch out."
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

 
     
    CHAPTER
    4
     
     
    Kolodzi had thought very carefully about his route to Kosice. Altogether he reckoned it must be a good fifty miles, a distance he couldn't possibly cover by the evening on foot and in this snow. But he trusted to his luck, for about six miles past Svedler the road met the railway line to Jelnice and there he might find a freight or a truck going to Kosice.
    The road to Svedler was easy enough, downhill all the way; and at half-past one he by-passed Svedler on a footpath.
    Back on the road he quickened his pace again. The snow gave him little trouble. During the four years in Russia his leg muscles had gained the toughness and resilience of steel springs. The division had marched two thousand five hundred miles from Upper Silesia into the heart of Russia, and almost as great a distance on their retreat now. There was a layer of calloused skin on his feet almost as thick as the soles o* his boots, and on the march his body worked like a machine.
    However, gradually the snow storm grew worse until he could hardly see ahead of him. He kept having to wipe the great, wet flakes out of his eyes; they lay on his shoulders and chest like a white armor. He started to sweat and stopped to catch his breath.
    It was so quiet he could hear the snow falling on the trees. On one side of the road a bare hill rose so steeply you could not see the top; it was like a white sheet hanging down to earth and fastened somewhere in the sky. A slight wind came up over the mountains, sweeping the snow along in front of it and making the telegraph wires whir like airplanes.
    Never before in his life had he felt so alone. The cold seemed to be seeping right into his marrow and he suddenly threw away his cigarette, finding it tasteless. He sighed. His thoughts strayed to Herbig and Vohringer, who would now be lying on the warm bench by the stove and sleeping. As he thought of them he caught himself wanting simply to turn back and give up the whole crazy plan. The snow storm persisted and the wind whirled big flakes along, and Kolodzi registered subconsciously that he would have the wind behind him if he stayed on the road to Ko§ice. Perhaps it was a sign. He was not superstitious, but at this