Trying to ignore the ghastly tableau of dead bodies sprawled everywhere in the little valley, they lit great fires, both to illuminate the scene and to fight off the terrible cold. While the sentries posted on the heights in the trees kept an anxious watch, being changed every hour — for it was vital they kept fully alert, since the fires would certainly attract the attention of anyone out there in that snowy waste — the rest of the Wotan troopers laboured at their task. Even the Butcher, who was notoriously lazy, and the fat unhealthy Gauleiter worked willingly, for all of them knew that this might be their only chance of escaping from Soviet captivity or worse. Matz established which of the three tractors still had an intact engine. The one he found, however, had a badly split track which lay behind it in the drifting snow like a severed limb. After an hour of drawing it together they found the track was several links too short — they had disappeared in the explosion which had smashed the track!
