That made Hans-Ulrich laugh out loud. "And the flea thinks the dog is his horse, too," he said scornfully. "We've got our soldiers and our planes here, and we aren't going to leave until we're good and ready." If the Poles didn't like that, it was their hard luck. They were only Poles, after all.

Chapter 25

No one had ever claimed Wales was a place where you went to enjoy the weather. There were good and cogent reasons why no one had ever said such a damnfool thing. Alistair Walsh had seen plenty of bad weather there, and even more in his army service. All the same, he'd never imagined anything like winter in central Norway.

The wind howled like a wolf. Snow blew as near horizontal as made no difference. He had a wool balaclava under his tin hat and a sheepskin coat a herder had pressed on him that was far warmer than his British-issue greatcoat. He wore greatcoat and sheepskin one on top of the other, and two pairs of mittens on his hands. He was cold anyway.

A British captain who was stumbling north with him said something. Whatever it was, that vicious wind blew it away. "Sorry, sir?" Walsh shouted back.

"I said"-the captain put his mouth as close to Walsh's ear as a lover might-"I said, without the bloody Gulf Stream, this country wouldn't be habitable at all."

Walsh considered that. "Who says it is, sir?"

"Ha!" The officer nodded. "Makes you understand why the Vikings went pirating so often, what?"

"Damned if it doesn't," Walsh agreed. "Even Scotland looks good next to this, and by God I never thought I'd say that in this life." The country up in the north there was bleak as could be, but this outdid it.

After nodding again, the captain said, "No fucking Germans in Scotland, either."

"Right." Walsh wished there were no Germans in Norway, either. Unfortunately, wishing didn't make them go away. They weren't nearly far enough behind the retreating Allies. German mountain troops had snowshoes and skis, and moved much faster than poor ordinary buggers stumbling up these indifferent roads.

Oh, the Norwegians had ski troops, too, and a few French chasseurs alpins were also equipped for winter warfare. But most of the allied expeditionary force was plain old infantry. And the plain old infantry was in trouble.

"One good thing," the captain bawled into Walsh's none too shell-like ear.

"What's that, sir?" Walsh answered. "It's one more than I've come up with."

"With the weather so beastly, the Luftwaffe can't get off the ground."

"Mm. There is that," Walsh said. "We can get shot and shelled, but the blighters won't bomb us for a while."

"Of course, our own planes are also grounded."

"Yes, sir," Walsh replied, and said not another word. The Luftwaffe ruled the skies in Norway and above the seas west of it. The RAF, along with a few French planes and what little was left of the Norwegian air force, did what it could against the Germans, but it wasn't enough. Stukas swooped, sirens screaming. Messerschmitts strafed almost as they pleased. The Fritzes' artillery spotting planes, the ones that could take off and land in next to nothing and hover in a headwind like a kestrel, flew here, there, and everywhere, showing the Nazis what to strike next. Clear weather favored the enemy. Well, there hadn't been much of it lately.

He trudged on. For all he could tell, the Germans were shelling them right now. The wind and snow cocooned him tightly. If the bastards didn't score a direct hit, he'd never know it. And if they did, he figured he'd end up in a warmer place than this. At the moment, eternal flame didn't seem half bad.

"Do you think they'll be able to pull us out, sir?" he asked.

"Maybe. If the bad weather holds and lets our ships into Namsos," the captain answered. He studied Walsh. The veteran noncom wondered why; neither of them showed more than his eyes. "What about you, Sergeant? I daresay you have more experience in these matters than I do."

Walsh only shrugged. "I may be older than you are, sir, but I've never been in anything like this."

"Last bugger who was in anything like this was Scott, and look what happened to him." The captain laughed harshly. "No, there was bloody Amundsen, too, and he was a Norwegian himself. He must have felt right at home at the South Pole, eh?"

"Wouldn't surprise me one bit." Walsh turned away from the wailing wind, cupped his hands, and lit a cigarette. Some people could strike a match in any weather, no matter how dreadful. The harsh smoke-he'd taken a packet of Gitanes off a dead Frenchman-gave him something to think about besides the blizzard.

"If only the German generals had given Hitler the boot," the captain said.

"If ifs and buts were candied nuts, we'd all have a bloody good Christmas," Walsh answered. "D'you really suppose they would have stopped the war? They're Fritzes, too, remember. I've never known those sons of bitches to pack it in while they can still fight."

"Something to that, I shouldn't wonder," the captain said. He brought up a mittened hand to the brim of his helmet. "Some sort of checkpoint up ahead."

"Maybe they'll tell us which way Namsos is." Walsh wasn't a hundred percent sure he'd been going north. He'd been steering more by the wind than by anything else: that and flocking with his friends. If they were wrong, so was he. Sheep liked to flock together.

"Maybe they will," the captain said as he and Walsh neared the crossroads. A squad's worth of men stood there-vague shapes through the flying snow. The officer let out a formidable bellow: "I say! Which way to Namsos?"

They didn't answer (or if they did, Walsh couldn't hear them, which was at least as likely). The staff sergeant clumped on. He and the captain were almost close enough to spit on the waiting soldiers when the other man shouted his question once more.

They heard him this time. One of them answered, "For you it does not matter."

"What do you mean, it doesn't matter?" the captain said indignantly.

"Sir-" Walsh grabbed his arm. "Sir, he's got a Schmeisser!" One German submachine gun wouldn't have meant much-he carried a Schmeisser himself. But… "They've all got Schmeissers!"

"You are our prisoners, gentlemen," the German said in excellent English. "Drop your weapons and raise your hands. Try nothing foolish. It would be the last mistake you ever made-you may be sure of that."

Some of the men with them started laying their rifles on the snowy ground. Walsh didn't know what made him take off and run. Stupidity, odds were. But there were a few soldiers between him and the Boches, and the sheepskin coat was a dirty white that might camouflage him in the swirling snow. Maybe they wouldn't even notice he was missing.

The captain ran with him. Misery loving company? Whatever it was, it queered the deal. The Fritzes shouted. Shouting was bad enough. Then they started shooting, and that was a lot worse. But sure as hell, they couldn't exactly see what they were shooting at. Some of the flying bullets came pretty close to Walsh, but he'd had plenty of nearer misses. And Schmeissers, wonderful as they were in close-in combat, weren't the least bit accurate out past a couple of hundred yards.

They could run after him. He risked a look back over his shoulder. They were running after him, as a matter of fact. It wasn't as if he didn't leave a big, juicy trail in the snow. But if he could get to the pine woods a bit more than a quarter of a mile away before he got shot or tackled, they'd have a lot more trouble catching up to him.

That captain-Walsh wasn't even sure of his name-was running on a different line. If the Germans wanted to grab both of them, they'd have to split up. They might not like that. Maybe the Allied soldiers were leading them into an ambush.