Linda Evans - Sleipnir

When realization sank in, I kicked hard. There was a shelf of rock, very narrow, under my feet. I tried to brace myself on it; but the current was too swift. I ended up sliding sideways on tippytoes, trying to maintain contact with the ledge.

The roar had grown to a deafening thunder, and the current dragged at my clothes and pack, trying to drag me bodily off the tiny shelf. My head bumped into something extremely hard and I ducked instinctively.

I almost lost my balance, and flung both arms upward. My hands smacked against the ceiling. Primate instinct took over from the lizard brain. I jammed my feet against the bottom and braced my hands hard against the ceiling, and halted my slide toward doom. Thus supported, I was able to hold my position; but I wasn't sure how long I could maintain my stance, shivering as hard as I was.

There was obviously one mutha of a hole somewhere up ahead—and very close, from the sound of it. My tunnel was narrowing down so fast I'd be completely underwater soon—if I didn't get dragged down the hole first. I was so cold I couldn't think what to do; trying to reason felt like trying to swim in Jell-O. The only coherent thought I could dredge up wasn't particularly useful. To wit, if I let go of the ceiling, I was going to drown, assuming I didn't first hit the bottom of the hole into which the river was pouring.

The germ of a thought percolated into my numbed brain and I braced myself carefully, letting go with one hand to fumble inside my shirt pocket. Sure enough, my emergency cyalume stick was still there. Ripping the foil off with my teeth, I held one end against the ceiling and applied pressure to the other end. The plastic outer tube bent until the glass vial floating inside snapped. I shook vigorously, and was rewarded with a cool, chemical glow which lit my surroundings.

I stood jammed against one wall of a six-foot-wide tunnel, with dark water racing by so fast it made me dizzy to watch. The cave ceiling arced down to meet the water some fifteen feet ahead. Either that, or that was where the river dropped off into the hole, and the tunnel dropped off with it.

Somewhat desperately I scanned the wall and saw a roundish patch of darkness maybe two feet this side of the dropoff point. A side tunnel? Big enough for me to get into? Or just a small hollow that led nowhere? Even if it were a tunnel, could I hang on against the current long enough to drag myself into it? Not that I had much choice either way.

With nothing to lose but my life—which I figured was long since forfeit anyway—I clenched the cyalume in my teeth and inched forward, fighting the drag of the current, until my arms ached with the strain of pushing against the ceiling. The current tore at me so strongly, I didn't dare raise my feet. Instead I shuffled along, scraping my boots against the rock riverbed.

Closer, and I could see the opening: hole, all right, and big enough for me to squeeze into, even with the pack. The edges and inside surfaces were rounded and worn smooth from water, suggesting that the level of the river was considerably higher at times, bleeding off part of its flow into this side chute.

The side passage floor was at chest level. Could I drag myself up into it, with muscles frozen stiff and trembling from exhaustion, before the current dragged me into that bottomless pit? I didn't give myself odds on that one; but again, there wasn't much choice. I thought briefly about easier roads to Hell, and muttered something obscene around the lightstick clenched in my teeth.

I was not going to dive down that waterfall.

I reached the opening and braced myself. I was going to have to let go with my right arm. I shut my eyes, and drew a deep breath around the cyalume; then grabbed the edge of the hole. The current slammed me sideways. I bashed my elbow against the side of the new tunnel; but I wasn't swept away. I fought to shuffle back against the current, while pulling against the edge of the tunnel as hard as I could with my right arm. I gained about six inches, which put me more or less back in front of the hole again.

Walking my fingers along—while maintaining pressure against the ceiling with my palm—allowed me to reach the edge of the tunnel. I tensed and tried to ready myself for a lunge that would be my one and only chance. Bearing in mind Yoda's immortal words, "There is no try ..." I emptied my lungs, filled them again, and emptied them once more (which wasn't easy with a cyalume stick in my mouth). I attempted to calm myself and closed my eyes to concentrate... .

Water yanked my feet sideways. I landed with nearly rib-cracking force against the right wall. My breath slammed out in a guttural grunt and I almost dropped the cyalume stick. My right arm was crushed against stone. I dragged myself forward half an inch, an inch, two inches... .

The river pulled madly at my legs, dragged me back again. I clung sideways, face jammed against rock, left hand scrabbling for purchase, and thought wildly about the knife in my boot sheath, where it did me no good at all... .

I cursed; then dragged my right leg painfully up out of the water. I worked my knee up along the wall while I tried to find some sort of toehold with my other foot, and did it the hard way. I clung with my left hand; then made a grab for the knife—

My fingers closed around it. And as I twisted and slipped and started to fall back into the river, I jabbed the blade into solid rock. It sank straight into the wall. And held.

I pulled myself up two inches; got my other knee out of the water; felt the strain in the knife as it began to bend under my weight. I collapsed forward onto the ledge with startling suddenness. My feet hung out over space, clear of the water.

I rolled flat onto my stomach across the cyalume stick, and felt my hand drop. The haft quivered as my fingers slid away. I lay in utter blackness, my feet barely clear of the water.

I was still alive.

I tried to smile. Good old knife... it had even managed to get rid of Johnson for me. My eyes closed all by themselves. Poor, stupid Johnson...

The day had begun decently. It graduated to miserable in short order, and left me convinced to my socks that Somebody Up There had taken very serious notice of one otherwise insignificant GI.

It was supposed to have been a classic ambush. Things had started out well, in fact, despite the conditions. After a bad blizzard, the weather had turned clear, with bitter temperatures and worse wind chill. Hauling sixty-five pounds of gear, I had slogged through snow that drifted knee-deep in places. Johnson stumbled ahead of me, muttering incoherently. After the rainy warmth of Oregon, returning to Germany's biting cold had been a shock.

With Lieutenant Donaldson in charge of the exercise, Staff Sergeant Myers as our squad leader, and Wally as acting fire team leader, we had experienced, trustworthy personnel running the show. Which was something of a relief.

Donaldson barked orders into the freezing air and we got moving. Setting up the ambush beat standing around freezing to death. We positioned ourselves in a crescent-shaped deployment back up in the trees on a fairly steep hillside.

Below us a small road snaked along the edge of the hill; we centered ourselves on the outside of a ninety-degree turn, far enough from the crest not to be visible against the skyline if we stood up, but close enough to the top to scramble over it quickly. We'd spring our hit-and-run ambush on the convoy expected through sometime during the next two hours, then melt away over the ridge.

On the far side of the road, twenty yards or so distant, was another stand of woods. On our side, a snow-and-stubble covered field stretched away to the right, toward another woodline. We were in a good position; Donaldson knew what he was doing. Down on the far end of the crescent, Simpkins' squad had set up their M-60 machine gun to command a clear view down the road as it departed from the corner. At the other end, the weapons squad was setting up another M-60, positioned to rake the road in the other direction.