The Valhalla Exchange - Jack Higgins [52]
He stood at the door of the farm, smoking a cigarette, watching half a dozen of his men ski-ing down through the trees on the hillside above, led by the unit's senior sergeant-major, Matti Gestrin. Gestrin soared over the wall by the barn, jumping superbly, and they followed him one by one with rhythmic precision, tough, competent-looking men in reversible winter war uniforms, white on one side, autumn-pattern camouflage on the other.
'Did you see anything?' Sorsa inquired.
'Were we supposed to?' Gestrin grinned. 'I thought we were just out for the exercise. Still no word from headquarters?'
'No, I think they've forgotten about us.'
Gestrin, in the act of lighting a cigarette, stopped smiling, looking beyond Sorsa's shoulder. 'From the looks of things, I'd say they've just found us again.'
The field car came down the track through the snow, Hoffer at the wheel, Ritter beside him wearing a camouflaged parka with the hood up over his cap. Strasser and Earl Jackson were in the back seat. Hoffer drove into the farmyard and braked to a halt. Sorsa and Gestrin stayed where they were by the front door, but the rest of the Finns moved forward perceptibly, one or two unslinging their Mauser infantry rifles. Sorsa said something quietly to them in Finnish.
'What did he say?' Strasser asked Jackson.
'He said, easy, children. Nothing I can't handle.'
Another dozen or fifteen Finns came out of the barn, mostly in shirt-sleeves and all carrying weapons of one sort or another. There was total silence as everyone waited, just the snow falling perfectly straight, and then, with a sudden whispering rush, another white-clad skier lifted over the wall to land perfectly, skidding to a halt a yard or two away from Sorsa. Another, and yet another followed.
It was poetry in motion, total perfection, and there was a slight fixed smile on Sorsa's face that seemed to say: 'That's what we are. What about you?'
Jackson murmured, 'The greatest skiers in the world, these boys. They knocked hell out of the Russians in the first winter war. And they're great throat-cutters, maybe I should have warned you.'
'Wait here,' Ritter said tonelessly. 'All of you.'
He got out of the field car and walked across the yard to Sorsa. For a moment he confronted the tall Finn, who could see only the death's-head in his cap, then said, 'Not bad - not bad at all.'
'You think so?' Sorsa said.
'A fair jump, certainly.'
'You could do better?'
'Perhaps.'
There were several pairs of skis leaning against the wall. Ritter helped himself, kneeling to adjust the bindings to fit his heavy Panzer boots.
Hoffer appeared at his side and knelt down. 'Allow me, Sturmbannfuhrer.'
Sorsa took in the sergeant-major's black Panzer uniform, the Knight's Cross. There was a sudden change of expression in his eyes and he turned and glanced at Gestrin briefly.
Ritter stamped his feet and took the sticks Hoffer offered him. He smiled. 'A long time, Erich, eh?'
He pushed forward, past the field car, out of the gate, and started up the steep slope through the pine trees. Nobody said a word. Everyone waited. He felt curiously calm and peaceful as he followed the zig-zag of the farm track, totally absorbed, thoroughly enjoying the whole thing.
When he turned, he was perhaps a hundred feet above the yard, the track the Finns had made clear before him. Every face was turned, looking up, and he suddenly felt immensely happy, laughter bubbling up inside him.
He threw back his head and howled like a wolf, the old Harz woodcutters' signal, and launched himself forward, away from the track of the Finns, taking the steepest slope down, zig-zagging through the pine trees in a series of stem turns that were breathtaking in their audacity. And then he lifted, soaring effortlessly over the wall, the field