SS General by Sven Hassel Read Free Book Online Page B

jagged brick ruins which waited for us on either side of the track like so many open mouths.
    "Hold tight!" yelled Porta. "This could be it!"
    It was only too clear that the thick-headed idiot was enjoying himself. The sled shot screaming around the bend, rising vertically into the air as it did so. Men were flung about like skittles, and a young recruit lost his grip and was tossed out into the road, where the following sled ran over him. By the time we regained the horizontal and sorted ourselves out, the incident was over and forgotten. It seemed a silly way to go, to meet your death falling out of a sled, but probably no more pointless than treading on a land mine or running into the face of an enemy machine gun.
    Porta was singing a song, apparently indifferent to all the obvious dangers. We had survived the hairpin bend, but we were now running down into the village and the track was full of twists and turns. Just the spot for a few well-placed mines; we had already passed a couple of burned-out lorries.
    The heavy sled went bucking and rearing on its way. It needed only one small hidden obstruction and we should all be blown sky-high. Everyone except Tiny--nursing his machine gun in the front seat--curled into a protective ball, head between knees, arms hugging legs, prepared for a crash landing.
    The last bend brought us into the village. A sudden movement caught Tiny's attention. A fugitive figure in white had slipped out of one of the ruined huts. It raised its arm in a throwing action--and in the same moment Tiny's machine gun opened up. The figure was tossed, legs flying and arms waving, into the air. The grenade intended for us missed its mark and exploded harmlessly by the side of the track. Porta took his foot off the brake and the sled bounded forward again. Gregor and I exchanged haggard glances, and I wiped the perspiration from my forehead.
    "Jesus, it's cold," whined Gregor. "It's enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. I've never been so cold in my life. I don't know how they can expect . . ."
    "Aw, quit moaning!" snapped Tiny. "What fool invented these goddamn coffins on skates anyway?"
    "A German colonel," said Heide, always very well informed on such matters.
    "Yeah, it would be," said Tiny in disgust. "Trust a nincompoop colonel!"
    "I bet he's never had to travel in one," added Gregor vindictively. "Not in the freezing perishing cold without so much as a . . ."
    "Mine!" roared Porta.
    We spun around, eyes wide and staring. There it was, some way ahead of us, an innocent white hump in the middle of the track, the size and shape of an inverted meat pie. Some way ahead, but we were gaining on it fast. Porta slammed on the brakes and the sled reared up and almost did a backward somersault. It crashed down to earth, veered sideways and shot back into the path of the mine. It should have stopped by now, but instead, it raced straight on; the hydraulics had evidently given way, and we were tearing toward the mine at insane speed.
    "God almighty!" The Old Man stared ahead at approaching death, his hands tightly clutching the guard rail. Gregor and I clung to the MG as if it were a life raft. Behind us, the new recruits sat white-faced and uncomprehending. We knew what these mines could do, we had seen them rip the bottom of a sixty-ton Tiger, but what did the partisans and their constant booby traps mean to new troops, fresh out from Germany? They had not yet seen the twisted, broken bodies of men who had been blown up.
    "Jump!" yelled Porta over his shoulder.
    We flexed our muscles, preparing for the last moment, when we should have to take the plunge. Better to risk multiple fractures than sit tight and wait for the world to explode.
    I stared hypnotically at the inverted meat pie as we rushed down on it. It was a favorite trick of the partisans to steal out at night, dig a hole in the ice, deposit a mine and pour in some water, which soon froze over, leaving scarcely any trace of what lay beneath. To