Read The Cross of Iron for Free Online

thought, what a break. His relief made him feel almost light -hearted. If it were not for the burns around his mouth, he would be able to put the episode out of his mind. Again he ran his tongue over his lips. ‘Haven’t you any salve?’ he asked Zoll.
    ‘Think I’m a beauty shop?’ Zoll replied sulkily.
    Kern grinned. ‘Not a chance,’ he said. He liked Zoll no more than the others did. Zoll’s appearance was as unpleasant as his manners. There was something shifty about his face, and his eyes seemed to goggle behind his horn -rimmed glasses.
    They walked in silence for a while. ‘I wonder where the devil he’s taking us,’ Zoll said after a while.
    Kern tried to see beyond the man in front of them. But the line was now stretched out over a good distance. Steiner was out of sight.
    ‘There’s something up ahead there,’ Kern said.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘There, above the trees.’
    Zoll stretched his neck forward. ‘What the hell is it?’ he asked.
    ‘Must be the pylon of a powerline.’
    They quickened their step. Before them, the girders of a huge tower rose out of the trees, and a few yards farther on they came to a cleared ride through the woods. The men had gathered around Steiner, all looking in one direction. Zoll and Kern, when they came up to them, opened their eyes wide with astonishment. Below them was one long downhill slope. At regular intervals the steel pylons rose above the ride. To the west, as far as the eye could reach, all the way to the purple -tinged mountains on the horizon, lay a tremendous forest. The bright, even green of the trees flowed on wholly unbroken; nowhere was there a sign of a clearing, of human habitation. The scene took their breath away. Kern looked in awe at the great forest. ‘Like a sea. A green sea,’ he murmured reverently.
    They all were deeply moved and solemn. ‘Anybody got a camera?’ Krüger asked.
    Suddenly Anselm cried out: ‘There’s a city over there. See, just to the left of that mountain with the sharp peak.’
    ‘Yes, yes,’ Krüger said enthusiastically. He turned to Steiner. ‘Do you see it?’
    ‘I can see it,’ Steiner said quietly. ‘That’s Krymskaya. Where we’re headed for.’
    With mixed feelings they eyed the fine cluster of towers and roofs set at the foot of the distant hills as clear, as still, as incisive as a pen sketch. Krüger seemed utterly lost in the sight. After a while he sighed. ‘If only we were there already,’ he said.
    ‘We’ll make it,’ Dietz said, looking at Steiner with trust. Steiner nodded briefly. ‘By evening we’ll be there with the others.’
    ‘The others,’ Krüger murmured. He had a queer feeling in his chest. ‘Funny. I mean,’ he went on in answer to their questioning looks, ‘it’s a funny feeling to know that the rest of the battalion is somewhere out there.’
    ‘Yes,’ Schnurrbart agreed. Lost in thought, he took his pipe out of his pocket and began packing it. When Steiner sat down and folded his arms over his knees, Schnurrbart looked at him in surprise. ‘What’s up—aren’t we going on?’
    ‘We can spare a few more minutes,’ Steiner said. His impatience had suddenly vanished. It would be best to stay right here until the war was over, he thought. Nobody would look for them in this isolated region. But then he remembered that they had no rations with them. He bit his lips. There’s no getting away from it, he thought bitterly, and only then realized how familiar this pattern of emotions was to him. Whenever, after hours of climbing, he came to the top of a mountain and saw the land lying at his feet, his feelings had always been similar. Always in the past the knowledge that he would have to return to ordinary life had spoiled the pleasure of the mountainous solitudes. The tension which had driven him to climb steadily to the summit would snap; nothing would remain but the dull perception that the trivial burdens of existence were inescapable. Wearily, he lit a cigarette