Men of Snow Read Online Free PDF Page A

bone.                                                                                                                                                      When the doctors thought he was ready he was put on a train accompanied by a nurse to a recuperation centre outside Cologne. It was a place of highly polished corridors and hushed voices. There he disappeared for a time into long bouts of sleep interspersed with food and check-ups. Finally began the process of regaining the strength in the rest of his body. It was only then that Franz started to feel himself again, to know what he had to do to resurrect his military career. It was his only concern. It was the force behind his determination to become stronger both physically and mentally than ever before.
    ‘Dear mother and father,’ he wrote, ‘there is no need for you to make the journey here. Soon I will be returning to school to continue my training. I am fit and well and have been told by the doctors that it will be a short time before I am released from the centre. The accident has made me even more determined. I will try and visit when I can. From now on if you want to write address your letters to the school because that is where I shall be.
    All the best to you and aunt Hildegaard,
    Franz.
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    On his last night in the hospital he remembered the girls by the lake.
    He had decided to go fishing, this time alone. Usually it was with some of his friends from the village, but not on this occasion.
    He had heard their laughter. To begin with he had thought it was the sound of the birds that came in from the north to do their nesting.
    On this summer afternoon he was hot, his skin itchy from the long grass that grew lush and deep in the mountain meadows flecked by thousands of summer flowers. The laughter became calls that set his heartbeat faster as he stepped carefully forward to the edge of the field where there was a fence and a few stunted trees before another stretch of meadow that sloped down towards the lake. Its water was a deep, smooth blue that was perfectly reflecting the line of mountains that were like sharp fingers probing into the hidden depths.
    The rumour was that nobody knew how deep the lake was. In the village there were stories of several people drowning over the years with no bodies ever recovered. The lake was the village’s mystery. In the winter its grey steel surface was cut by thousands of lines where the skaters crossed from one side to the other. But on this day the melt water had been transformed into a sun glistening blue in which everything was mirrored.
    He had felt the sweat sticking to his legs as he waited to see where the next human sounds would come from. He was suddenly the young teenage hunter, carefully alert to his prey. He was the soldier watching for the enemy.
    ‘No! Don’t!’ he had heard so clearly in the stillness.
    ‘Of course! Of course!’ came a sudden reply as the first girl appeared at an angle across the meadow towards the lake.
    His throat went dry as he watched her naked body through the knee high grass, her white skin so stark against the lush green. He could see her legs lifting and a side view of the dark patch at the top of her thighs and her small breasts slightly bouncing with each step as her long hair flopped around her shoulders.
    It was just then Franz’s thoughts were broken by a nurse asking him if he was alright. He looked up as she told him about the doctor’s final visit. After that he would be ready to leave the hospital.
     
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