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Back Siege Save as PDF
Chapters (25)
  1. Title Page
  2. Contents
  3. SPECIAL FORCES CADETS
  4. 1
  5. 2
  6. 3
  7. 4
  8. 5
  9. 6
  10. 7
  11. 8
  12. 9
  13. 10
  14. 11
  15. 12
  16. 13
  17. 14
  18. 15
  19. 16
  20. 17
  21. 18
  22. 19
  23. 20
  24. Chris Ryan
  25. Copyright

Sami looked from Max to the picture and back again. ‘Is that you?’ he said.

‘Course not,’ Max replied. ‘It was taken years ago, wasn’t it?’

‘Looks like you.’

‘Yeah, well …’ Max turned away from the picture. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

Outside, the snow was even heavier. It had settled as deep as their ankles and the Nissen huts were covered. Max pulled up the collar of his camo jacket and marched through the snow. He was suddenly overwhelmed with tiredness. It had been a long day.

He was only halfway to the huts when he felt it: a snowball on the side of his head. He looked round to see Sami, bright-eyed and grinning. Max quickly bent down, made a snowball and hurled it at his new friend. It missed by a couple of inches. Sami hooted with glee again, and did a funny little dance that made Max laugh.

‘I love snow!’ Sami shouted to nobody in particular. He raised his arms up into the air. ‘I LOVE SNOW!’

6

White-Out

‘I hate snow,’ Sami muttered under his breath.

It was 05:30 next day. The remaining recruits – twenty-five of them – were in a straight line on the parade ground. The snow was half a metre thick. The temperature was sub-zero. A biting wind felt like it was freezing Max’s bones.

It had been a long, cold night. The Nissen huts were unheated. Max and the others had slept in their clothes underneath their blankets. Even then, their teeth had chattered all night. Hector had woken them at 05:00. with a short, sharp instruction: ‘Up. Now!’ It was still dark when they trudged through the snow to the house, where they had been given a bowl of porridge and a cup of tea.

And now here they were, standing in the half-light of dawn. Max was colder than he’d ever been. The snow swirled around as thickly as last night, settling on their shoulders and heads. Lukas was on Max’s left, chewing gum as always and doing everything he could to ignore Max. He seemed hyped and kept running on the spot to stay warm. Sami was on Max’s right, complaining about the snow. Max wondered if his new friend was even listening to Hector.