Winter Warfare

Colonel Cold strode up the Line (tabs of rime and spurs of ice); stiffened all that met his glare: horses, men and lice. Visited a forward post, left them burning, ear to foot; fingers stuck to biting steel, toes to frozen boot. Stalked on into No Man’s Land, turned the wire to fleecy wool, iron stakes to sugar sticks snapping at a pull. Those who watched with hoary eyes saw two figures gleaming there; Hauptmann Kälte, colonel old, gaunt in the grey air. Stiffly, tinkling spurs they moved, glassy-eyed, with glinting heel stabbing those who lingered there torn by screaming steel.