An hour later I nearly walked into a Russian patrol. I was almost on top of them before I heard the low murmur of their voices. They were in a group, short men with round, sallow faces, black boots and brown tunics buttoned to the neck. The soldiers leaned on their rifles while two officers bent over a piece of metal that gleamed dully.
I wondered what they’d make of these scraps of metal scattered through the woods as I slipped past them and continued eastward. The snow thickened and the sky darkened. Patches of white showed in the gaps between the trees and these I had to avoid for fear of leaving footprints. In the gathering darkness and my growing weakness every shadow became a Russian soldier. My progress became wretchedly slow. Finally it was too dark to go on and I dug a hole for myself close under the low-sweeping branches of a large fir and lay down in it, covering myself with pine needles.
I finished the two sandwiches and drank the rest of the rum. But within an hour the warmth of the rum had completely evaporated; the cold of the night moved in on me, gripping my limbs like a steel sheet. Sleep was impossible. I lay and shivered, my mind a blank, my body in a coma of misery. The cold covered everything. The snow became hard and powdery, the trees cracked.
By midnight I was so frozen that I got to my feet and stamped and swung my arms. My breath hung like smoke in front of my face. The snow clouds had passed. Stars shone frosty-clear above my head and the moon had risen showing me a beautiful, fairy-white world of Christmas trees.
I started moving westward, walking blindly, not really caring where I went so long as I got some warmth into my limbs. And that was how I found Tubby’s flying helmet. I just stumbled on it lying on a patch of snow. I suppose what had happened was that it had been caught on one of the branches of a tree and when the snow weighed the branch down it had slipped to the ground.
I don’t remember feeling any excitement. I think I was too numbed with cold to have any feelings at all. And I had no sense of surprise either. I had been so determined to find him that it hadn’t occurred to me that I should fail. I have always believed that if you go out for a thing hard enough, you get it in the end, and I didn’t bother to consider the virtual impossibility of the task I had set myself. But though I had found his helmet I could find no trace of Tubby himself. There was just the helmet. Nothing else.
After a thorough search of the area I returned to the spot where the helmet had lain. The trees were very thick and in the darkness of the shadows it was impossible to see whether there was anything lodged in the branches. In the end I climbed to the top of the tree that overhung the spot. With my head thrust above the snow-laden branches I looked over a plain of white spikes that glistened in the moonlight. By shaking the tree I got rid of most of the snow. The needle foliage looked very green, but there was no sign of anything that would prove that this was the spot where Tubby had fallen.
I was half-way down the tree, back in the world of half-light and shadows, when my hand slid from the gritty surface of the bark to something softer. My fingers closed on it, feeling the smoothness of light material. I didn’t need to look at it to know that this was nylon. I pulled at it and my hand came away with a torn strip of parachute silk about the length of a scarf.
I was excited then. That strip of nylon silk showed that Tubby had pulled his parachute release before he hit the ground and I went tumbling down the tree, oblivious of the snow that fell on my neck and trickled in icy streams down my back, oblivious of everything but that single fact — Tubby wasn’t dead. He might have hurt himself, but he’d regained consciousness, he’d pulled the release and his parachute had opened. And I realised then how the fear of finding him, a mangled, blood-stained heap of broken bones and torn flesh, had haunted me. In a frenzy I searched the area again, trampling the snow in my haste to find out what had happened to him after he’d crashed through the trees.
But the snow hid all trace.
At length, utterly exhausted, I sat down on a dry patch of ground with my back against the bole of a tree and lit one of my last cigarettes. I had searched the area in a circle extending about fifty yards from the spot where I had come upon the helmet. I had found no trace of him. Clearly one of two things had happened — either he had been all right and had left the area on foot or else he had been injured and some woodman had found him and got him away. Or perhaps it had been the Russians who’d found him. Maybe the patrol I’d seen in the afternoon had come upon him and carted him off to Hollmind. The possibility that he might be dead was nagging at me again. I had to be sure that he was alive.
I got to my feet again. I would have to widen my search, radiate out until I found some trace. I began walking again, circling out from the spot where the helmet had lain. The snow helped me here, for all I had to do was walk outside the footprints I’d made on my previous circuit. The moon was high overhead now and it was much lighter under the trees. At four o’clock in the morning, after walking for over two hours in a widening circle, I stumbled upon a broad track running through the woods. One side of the track was sheltered by the trees and was clear of snow and there I found the marks of a farm cart. I traced it back to a spot where it had stood for some time. The tracks did not continue. They finished there and I knew then that Tubby was either dead or injured. Cold and wretched, I turned westward and followed the track till it left the shelter of the woods and ran out into the bitter flatness of ploughed land that was all white under the moon.
The wheel tracks were lost under the snow now, but the track was still visible — two deep ruts swinging south-west towards a Christmas card huddle of steep-roofed farm buildings. As I approached I saw the yellow glow of a light. It came from the half-open door of a barn. Inside the barn a man was filling sacks with potatoes from a deep, square hole in the floor. Wooden boards heavy with earth were stacked against the heaped-up straw and earth had been piled near the door.
The man must have sensed my presence, for he suddenly paused in his work and looked straight at me where I stood in the gaping doorway. He was short and wiry with a broad forehead and his eyes looked startled and afraid.’ Wer sind Sie? Was wollen Sie?’ ‘I am an English flier,’ I replied in German. ‘I am looking for a friend of mine who may be injured.’
He put down his fork and came towards me, his dark, frightened eyes peering first at my face, then at my clothes. ‘Come in then and close the door please. The wind blow it open I think.’ He fixed the latch with trembling fingers. ‘I was afraid it was the Russians.’ He laughed nervously. ‘They want everything — all my crops. For the East, you know.’ His speech was jerky. ‘To feed our pigs we must keep something.’ He held the lantern close to me, still examining me uncertainly. Apparently he was finally satisfied, for he lowered the lantern and said, ‘You look tired. You walk far, yes.’
‘What has happened to my friend?’ I asked ‘He was brought here, wasn’t he? Is he — is he dead?’ I waited, dreading his answer.
He shook his head slowly. ‘Nein. He is not dead. But he injure himself very much when he land in the trees. Now you lie down in the straw there. I must finish my work before it is light. Then I get you something to eat, eh?’
But I wasn’t listening. Thank God!’ I breathed it aloud. Tubby was alive. He was alive and I’d found him. I hadn’t killed him after all. I felt suddenly lightheaded. I wanted to laugh. But once I started to laugh I felt I should never stop. I held my breath, fighting to control myself. Then I stumbled into the straw, sinking into it, relaxing, knowing I had done everything I could and that God had been with me. I had found Tubby and he wasn’t dead. ‘When did you find him?’ I asked.