SNAFU: Hunters

When I came to I thought I’d been buried alive. I wasn't actually far off. The weight of the snow-covered branches above had crushed them lower to the ground, but as I grabbed at the first of them and rattled it back and forth a cascade of white plummeted down and the branches started to rise. Nature can provide sometimes. I’m lucky I wasn't buried under all of that snow forever. I’m lucky I didn’t freeze to death. Lucky, lucky man. Sometimes I forget how lucky I was to live through that. Not just the blizzard, though that was part of it. I mean the whole affair.

The silence was a living thing by the time I stood and shook myself off. The most impressive noises I heard were my own breaths and the sounds of snow falling in loose trickles from branches shaken by my passing.

It was World War Two in France and the Germans were everywhere. I should have known that would never last.

I had made only a quarter mile of travel at best; heading in what I believed was as a southerly direction. Crowley was, I was certain, either dead or gone. I was deep in the Nazi-ruled section of the country and I did not want to be. So I was headed south. I hoped. The problem was that the sun was hidden behind clouds too thick to let me even really guess the time of day, and after a few attempts my compass yielded nothing but a constant, slow spin of the needle, I gave up and moved on.

Have you ever walked through snow that was waist deep? I was half frozen and I was shivering but working up a hard sweat at the same time. It was all I could do and all I could think about.

Until the thunder came my way.

I knew it wasn’t real thunder, of course. It was the echoes of artillery fire blowing through the countryside and bouncing off the hills.

I stopped my forward motion and tried to decide where it was coming from. It didn’t take long. I was walking straight toward it. The ground beneath me shook and my boot soles vibrated right along with it.

The tanks were close. I couldn’t hope to know what had started them off. Maybe I was too cold to notice until they were close by. Maybe they had been stopped and had only just started moving again.

What I do know is that I heard Crowley’s voice amidst the chaos and was drawn to it. He was dangerous, I knew that, but he was familiar and I was desperate.

I can’t say I ran to his help. The snow was too deep. I did the best I could, pushing against a wall of cold and wet and trying simultaneously not to be spotted by my enemies.

The road came up abruptly. The tanks managed to force their way through or over the worst of the snow with little effort, and each tank following after made the path that much clearer.

I pushed myself until I reached the trench the tanks had cut in the snow and fell onto the road in exhaustion. My muscles shook and my breaths came hard and fast and left my sides feeling bruised.

When I got up, I looked at the path of destruction in my way and I followed it. Several of the Nazi soldiers were dead in that trail, broken and bloodied and lifeless.

Each corpse told a story that I could follow easily enough. They were behind the tanks, that much was obvious. The first few bodies I found had cut throats or broken necks. It wasn't hard for me to imagine Jonathan Crowley moving behind them in the snow and killing them one by one.

The snow still fell, you see. Despite a night of sleep and a half-day wasted in an effort to move south, the snow still fell from a dark, leaden sky and didn’t seem at all concerned with the deaths of a few Germans, but it made wonderful cover.

I counted ten bodies killed in quiet. I don’t know how many died before I found the trail. I wasn't about to go back and count. All I know is that ten men died before anyone sounded an alarm.  It was easy to understand. The snow was too heavy for anyone to notice much of anything. These days, they have all sorts of ways to track people without seeing them, but in the Second World War, you mostly used your eyes. Bodies fell and it wasn't long before the snow tried to hide them. By the time I passed the seventh body I reckon the first was already out of sight.

The tanks were moving and they were noisy, but they were barely silhouettes. I finally managed to reach the one at the end of the trail and Crowley was there.

The man was walking just behind the tank, letting the snow hit the monstrous thing and take the brunt of the force. He saw me and nodded.

He didn’t seem at all surprised to see me, which was kind of a strange thing, as I hadn’t expected to be there.

We couldn’t risk being heard over the tanks. It wasn't likely, but sounds can carry in the damnedest ways. So we slowed a bit and walked on, following the thunder down the road.

“I was beginning to think you’d tried for the Allied side of France.” His face was deadpan, but his eyes looked at me hard and I felt a blush coming on as I looked down at my feet.

“I thought about it.”

“Get lost?”

“Something like that.”