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five years, so you could hardly expect anything else, could you? Some people are completely crushed for ever and ever after a short turn in 'the dark', but this fellow was as chipper as could be, and so healthy it seemed almost indecent. But the worst thing anybody can do, in my opinion, is to be late for a meal. It ruins a meal when you have to rush through the soup and fish to catch the other shits up.'
    'Have you tried blue fish baked in the oven with Sauce Bearnaise ?' Gregor interrupts. 'It's simply heavenly. Me and the general loved it. It was our favourite after an especially bloody battle.'
    'I do hope we're in the neighbourhood of this lake, when the herring roe season starts,' says Porta, expectantly.
    'When we get 'ome,' says Tiny, by home he means the German lines, 'I'm gain' to organise a goose, fill it up with prunes an' apples, an' eat the lot myself.'
    'I'd rather have a turkey,' says Barcelona. 'It's bigger!'
    'I can't bloody stand it any more,' shouts Porta, desperately, jumping to his feet. 'Come on, Tiny, get hold of your rocker and fill your pockets with grenades'
    'Where we goin'?' asks Tiny, readying his Mpi noisily.
    We're going over to read the neighbour's menu,' answers Porta, swinging the Kalashnikov over his shoulder.
    'Want me to take a sack?' asks Tiny optimistically.
    'No, Ivan's got sacks,' considers Porta.
    'Anybody who won't take a risk to get grub's a bleedin' idiot,' Tiny belly-chuckles.
    'You'll get shot,' the Old Man warns.
    'You're nuts,' answers Tiny, unconcernedly. ' We're the ones who do the shooting!'
    'We're looking forward to some of that real Russian hospitality they're so famous for,' adds Porta as he disappears into the snow with a short laugh.
    'One of these days they're not going to come back,' mumbles the Old Man pessimistically.
    Several hours go by with no sound but the howling of the arctic storm. A long vicious Mpi salvo breaks the stillness.
    'A Schmeisser,' says the Old Man, looking up.
    Shortly after there is the sound of three handgrenade explosions, and a series of flares send a brilliantly white light out over the terrain.
    'They've met the neighbours,' whispers Gregor, in terror.
    'If they get through all right,' says the Old Man, worriedly, 'the devil take those two maniacs!'
    'You ought to report them,' says Heide, officiously. 'It's a serious breach of discipline. The enemy will be able to use it as propaganda. I can just see the headlines in Pravda:
    GERMAN ARMIES STARVING
Suicide missions sent out to
steal bread from the Red Army!'
    We sense, more than anything, the muzzle-flame from a heavy gun depressed to ground level. Loud screams and a long series of explosions follow. A couple of Maxims bark angrily.
    A long silence falls across the snow desert. Even the icy storm quietens. It feels as if the whole of the Arctic is taking a deep breath, and readying itself for something quite special.
    A colossal explosion which seems as if it will never stop rends the stillness of the night.
    'God save us all,' pants Barcelona, shocked. 'They must have mistaken the ammunition store for the kitchen!'
    'Alarm, alarm,' our sentries scream hysterically, certain that an attack is on the way.
    A gigantic column of flame goes up to the north-east of us, and the earth shakes to a long rolling explosion.
    A group of officers with the Oberst in the lead come rushing out of an igloo.
    'What in the world are the Russians doing?' asks the Oberst, nervously. 'Can they be fighting amongst themselves?' He turns to an infantry major: 'Have we anybody out there?'
    'No, Herr Oberst, this battle group has no contact whatever with the enemy.'
    Oberst Frick jams his monocle tighter into his eye and looks sharply at the major.
    'Do you know this to be true or do you merely think it to be so?'
    The major is obviously uneasy and has to admit that he really knows very little about what is happening within the group. He is a signals officer and has never before been with a battle unit.
    A long