633 Squadron 8.Operation Thor by Frederick E.Smith

Author:Frederick E.Smith [Frederick E.Smith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Aviation, Military Fiction
Publisher: Thunderchild Publishing
Published: 2018-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

Unsteady with fatigue, Adams slipped and fell to his knees. As Steen bent down to assist him, he pushed him angrily away. As he stumbled forward again, Steen exchanged a glance with Johannson who, along with two other partisans, was helping the giant to drag a sledge. “We’re nearly there, Frank. See that lake and the wood? That’s where we’re going.”

Adams, whose lungs were burning from his exertions in the bitter cold, peered painfully ahead. The party were now travelling across the high, icy plateau, and the frozen lake to which Steen was pointing was little more than a snow-covered circle surrounded by sloping banks. In the moonlight Adams saw that one of the advance parties had already crossed it and were heading for a cluster of huts scattered around the fringe of a large wood on its far side.

Adams was finding it difficult to speak and when he managed a question it was hoarse and breathless. “What are they? Holiday huts?”

Steen shrugged as he hoisted a trace from the sledge back over his shoulder. “Some might be. But with the lake there I’d say most belonged to fishermen. You find huts like them all over Norway. Thank God you do. We’d be in a bad way without ’em.”

Adams knew he meant they gave cover to the Resistance. He wanted to ask if the Germans had ever carried out a national search of the huts but decided it was a question that would have to wait for another time.

The truth was Adams was near to exhaustion. Afraid of showing weakness in front of the tough, battle-hardened partisans, he had somehow kept up with them through the foothills and up the ever steepening slope to the top of the high plateau. He had not offered to help with a sledge: he had known that would be foolhardy. But he had refused, at first politely and then angrily, Steen’s suggestion that he took a rest on one. Instead, as his lungs burned for air and his legs screamed for a rest, he had gritted his teeth and stumbled forward on will power alone. Now, with his body at last threatening to take no more punishment, he was afraid Helga would be greeted by an inadequate creature travelling on the backs of men who had suffered a harder ordeal than himself. In spite of his gentle disposition, there was a pride in Adams that Valerie had never known or bothered to recognise.

His eyes kept blurring as he stumbled forward. For some time he had found it a help to count his steps to one hundred and then begin again. One, two, three, four ... thirty, thirty-one, thirty-two ... ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred. One, two, three, four, five ... By this time every step was a small triumph for Adams. In front of him the snow turned into the pallor of dead skin and he believed it was his eyes again until he saw a large bank of black cloud had slid over the moon.

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