Wheels of Terror

by Sven Hassel

  ‘This is worse than waiting for the Berlin tube,’ said Porta.

  ‘By God, it’s like waiting outside an African whore-house with a crew of only ten tarts,’ whispered the Little Legionnaire. ‘And a hundred fellows in front before you get your helping …’

  ‘What of it? How can you be interested in a whore-house?’ said Tiny. ‘They fixed you, made you useless in Fagen, didn’t they?’

  ‘Repeat that,’ whispered the Little Legionnaire, ‘and I’ll empty my pistol in your skull.’

  ‘Quiet!’ Von Barring’s voice sounded angry.

  Waiting, waiting, insufferable waiting. One hour passed. The time was 1 p.m. Still nothing happened.

  The tightly packed force in the trench was beginning to get restive. With oaths and damnations they changed places. At the bottom of the trench the old reservists sat apathetically; they already carried the death-mask. The engineers stood smoking among us, the tank-gunners. We knew what to expect. Ivan was sure to throw in a heavy concentration of troops.

  Pluto arranged the strap round his shoulder to be able to run with his sub-machine-gun at hip-level when shooting began.

  To our surprise Tiny too had got hold of a sub-machine-gun although he was supposed to pull the gun-carriage. Nobody asked what had become of it or about the sub-machine-gun. Several hundred rounds in bandoliers hung in long ribbons round his neck and shoulders. In his belt was tucked a sharpened intrenching-tool ready for close combat.

  Porta lay with a flame-thrower beside him and the Little Legionnaire carried the petrol supply on his back. Porta looked completely insane as he lay there with his flame-thrower and his top-hat on his head.

  The artillery crews had sited their guns behind our positions, but because of the long-waiting period, some wanted to remove their guns, maintaining it was a false alarm.

  Von Barring had an angry argument with the lieutenant in command. It ended with von Barring forbidding the guns to be removed and threatening with the death sentence anybody who tried to take any away.

  Grinning, we nudged the engineers. Von Barring was an old fox. He smelt rottenness. He knew what he was doing. We could depend on him.

  Another half-hour passed. Several men suggested we should knock off for a meal. Von Barring forbade it. The old reservists noisily started to make trouble.

  Precisely at 14.05 it let loose. The whole hill disintegrated. It flew skywards in one black rushing storm cloud. Within a second completely and deathly silence reigned. Then tons of earth, stone and tree-stumps poured down over us.

  Simultaneously the Russian artillery let off. Mortar-bombs of every calibre dropped on what had previously been our positions. Although the artillery attack lasted only a short time, all our telephone wires were in shreds, and every aerial was useless, but only a few of the troops were killed or wounded.

  Our whole position was enveloped in a heavy, corrosive and nauseating smoke. Through it we could see Russian infantry soldiers storming our former positions, intent on capturing Height 268.9 before the Germans on the flanks discovered the position was blown skyhigh.

  ‘Storm-battalion, follow me!’ roared von Barring and jumped out of the trench, shooting furiously with his machine-pistol. Our legs moved of their own volition. Like savages we stormed the colossal crater. We reached the edge of it ten yards in front of the Russian storm-troops. To their amazement they were met with heavy firing.

  Close combat with sub-machine-guns at the hip and twenty to thirty flame-throwers would make even Satan blanch. The Russian soldiers became like burning catharine-wheels. Panic broke loose in the tightly knit infantry ranks. They threw down their weapons and rushed back to their positions with our artillery chasing them wildly with red-hot guns. Some managed, even so, to hang on to the other side of the crater-edge only twenty-five yards from our dug-outs. Now the Russian artillery let loose in earnest. For twenty-four hours it plastered the tiny area known to us just as a map-reference, with a hell of fire.

  We learned from the few prisoners we had captured that we had the 21st Guards Engineers, an élite unit, against us. The fighting was wild and furious while the artillery pounded our rear positions.

  Tiny swung his machine-gun with one hand like a truncheon; in the other he used his sharp spade. He was covered with blood from head to foot.

  Porta fought like a berserk. After his petrol-supply had run out he used his flame-thrower like a flail. With his top-hat on he stood in the small trench shouting wildly and murdering merrily left, right and centre.

  By his side the Little Legionnaire fought on with a captured machine-pistol.

  Hour after hour the close-combat fighting rolled up and down the narrow trench, but at last we had to give way.

  Leaving our dead and wounded behind, we leapt back to our own positions. The Russians immediately followed, but had to withdraw when our supports laid on a killing cross-fire.

  Breathing heavily we lay in our mud-filled positions. Bauer had got half his cheek chopped off. Möller’s nose was smashed. Tiny’s middle finger had disappeared. Funnily, he did not want to go back to the dressing-station. He was bandaged. Groaning and swearing he turned down the invitation.

  ‘Be off, you lousy pill-merchants! I’ll stay with these bandits. Tiny will die here, not in your muck-hospitals.’ He hit out at the orderly, jumped up on the edge of the trench and sent a wild shower of bullets at Ivan’s positions. Roaring like a bull he shouted:

  ‘Here you red Stalin-ponces! This is medicine from Tiny in the 27th Killer and Arson Regiment. I’ll castrate you, you bog-boars, just wait!’

  At once the Russians answered with a wild and aimless fire. Tiny stood completely without cover. With his machine-gun at hip-level and roaring insanely with laughter, he sprayed the Russians with fire.

  Bauer made an unsuccessful attempt to pull the obviously mad fighting-cock to cover. He stood splaylegged and like a rock.

  The madness spread. Pluto leaped up and started firing. Porta with his top-hat and flame-thrower followed, along with the Little Legionnaire. They stood beside Tiny, roaring like lunatics with laughter.

  ‘You bloody depot-animals, you can’t take us,’ shouted Porta. ‘Here, you carrion, let them have it!’ And his flame-thrower spurted death.

  The Little Legionnaire started yelling:

  ‘En avant, vive la legion!’ He stormed forward flinging his hand-grenades ahead.

  Porta flipped his hat in the air, grabbed it, smacked it back on his head and bellowed:

  ‘Follow the desert rat!’

  He hurried after the Little Legionnaire, as did Tiny and Pluto who were firing like madmen. The rest of the battalion became possessed by the same lunacy and ran, howling like hungry animals, after the others.

  This attack was irresistible. It shovelled Ivan out of his positions. We bit, growled, cut and hit during the insane hand-to-hand fighting, and we recaptured our positions. For three weeks these became home. During them we suffered under heavy artillery fire.

  Slowly our mixed storm-company disintegrated. Many got shell-shock and bashed their heads against the walls of the trench. Some ran out into the concentrated artillery fire to be turned into bloody bundles.

  For long periods Porta sat in a corner playing his recorder, and the Little Legionnaire played his mouth-organ.

  Lieutenant Harder twice got shell-shock. Tiny had made himself a punch-bag out of a sand-bag. Once when it swung back and hit him hard in the face he went mad with fury and ripped it to pieces with his combat-knife. He swore at the silent sand-bag like a lunatic.

  We had hardly any food while we stayed on Height 268.9, although Porta discovered an old depot with a few tins and we ran, jumped and crawled to momentary safety and back to our lines through heavy artillery fire with our prize.

  At last we got help from the division. They threw in two grenadier regiments and lots of heavy artillery. For two more days we battled for the damned hill, then were relieved by the 104th gunner-regiment.

  We buried our many
casualties by the side of those who had fallen during the advance in 1941. Both sides fell for a large lump of unknown earth. It is only marked on the general staff’s special maps. Even to-day anyone passing by on their way to Orel would never even notice it. Yet here lie ten thousand German and Russian soldiers.

  The only tomb-stones a few rusty steel-helmets and mouldy leather belts.

  10

  It was just like a cinema. We had to pay before entering. There were three different kinds of tickets: Red secured one girl for one quarter of an hour. Yellow two girls for two hours. Green – the colour of speed ahead – gave you a whole night’s love with five girls.

  The Field Brothel

  We were billeted in Moschny a little north of Cherkassy. It was a Russian village with dilapidated, clay-covered huts lining an enormously wide straight road.

  Little by little we relaxed after the wearing battles we had been in. New troops had arrived from the training batallion and we had regained our regulation strength of two hundred men. But the troops we got were very poor. They needed vigorous training before they could be used in the vicious fighting which had spread south of Cherkassy. That is a place few of us will ever forget. But at this time we were in happy innocence of what lay in store – the Second World War’s Verdun.

  It was cold and as we had very little fuel, Porta suggested we should play ‘arse-slap’, a brutal game suitable only for roughnecks. As the name suggests, one man bent over so that his trouser seat was taut. One of the players standing in a half-circle round him had to give him an almighty slap behind, and then he had to guess who had hit him. If he was right that man was in.

  Even if you used all your strength it was impossible to hit Tiny so that he noticed it. He pretended he did not even feel it.

  ‘Blimey, you’d think it was butterflies bumping against me,’ he grinned. ‘Why the hell can’t you white-livered rabbits put some strength into it!’

  When Tiny wasn’t the target, he always wanted to slap, with the result that the unlucky man who was ‘in’ was sent flying several yards forward.

  Tiny’s turn coming round again, the Little Legionnaire found a plank with a nail at the end. He winked as we stood round the expectant Tiny who laughed mockingly at us.

  Aiming with the care of a baseball player, the Little Legionnaire swung the plank and hit Tiny’s behind with a bang like a gun-shot.

  With a roar of pain Tiny leapt in the air, with the plank stuck to his seat. The nail had gone in full length. He beat the air with his gorilla-like arms and roared with pain and fury. His eyes rolled wildly about in search of the culprit as he tore off the plank with a growl and sent it flying to crash against the side of a house.

  ‘You lousy swine, is this the way to treat a pal?’

  Then he changed his tactics and asked gently but with a murderous smile on his lips:

  ‘Who was it? I know, but let’s see if he’s man enough to own up!’

  Accusingly he pointed at no one in particular.

  ‘If you volunteer I’ll let it pass, but if you don’t own up I’ll tear your guts out and strangle your bastard neck with them!’

  The only answer was a mighty belly-laugh from us all. Then he gave up acting the diplomat and growled:

  ‘You bloody Nazi rat! Own up or I’ll kill you!’

  ‘It was no party-member who hit you,’ gurgled Pluto.

  ‘Was it you, you bugger?’ bawled Tiny and stepped threateningly across to Pluto. He was curled up with laughter.

  ‘No, by God, it wasn’t. If only I could have thought of it,’ he hiccupped between roars of laughter.

  ‘If you know who it is, why ask?’ The Old Un said.

  ‘Cretins and curs, I don’t know, but the rotten swine who treats his faithful and affectionate pals with low-down tricks like this will get his desserts!’

  ‘“Faithful and affectionate”! Do you mean yourself?’ cried Stege.

  ‘Well, what of it, you student-codfish. Don’t get uppish because you can say backside in Latin!’

  ‘I’ll willingly teach you Latin,’ offered Stege.

  ‘Go to hell,’ said Tiny.

  He went from man to man quizzing each. Spit formed round his mouth.

  ‘Did you hit Tiny with a plank?’

  For answer he got grinning and head-shaking.

  ‘I’ll give that lousy son of a whore this if he doesn’t own up in ten minutes!’ He punched his fist into the grass but unfortunately a stone lay under it. Roaring with pain he kicked out at an imaginary enemy and swearing terribly went off followed by Porta’s neighing voice:

  ‘Does it hurt, Tiny? Did you graze yourself?’

  Bellowing, Tiny ran along the road to the village. The last we heard of him was:

  ‘Rotten lot I’ve landed with. Not one honest pal. But just you wait, I’ll get him later!’

  We were lying in one of the huts drinking vodka and smoking machorka.

  ‘I hear they’ve got a field-brothel in Bjel Zerkov,’ announced Bauer thoughtfully.

  Porta shot up, swallowed the machorka he was chewing the wrong way down and started to cough violently.

  ‘And you tell us only now! To keep back such information is high treason. That’s the place for me. I’m the boy for tarts – from fourteen to seventy!’

  Pluto wanted to know how Bauer had got his information.

  ‘A medical orderly I know. He serves at the field hospital at Bjel Zerkov. He says it’s a first-class stable full of French and German mares.’

  ‘Oh, my God,’ interrupted Porta, ‘how sweetly that rings. At last something to hear and feel. I’m fed up with that wireless whoring every night at ten when some stupid cow bays out ‘Lilli Marlene’. Old Un, get cracking for a bunch of passes.’

  The Old Un laughed quietly.

  ‘Don’t count on my company. Love on conveyor belts is not my idea of fun.’

  ‘Nobody is forcing you,’ said Porta amiably. ‘They’ll earn enough without your contribution. I’ll have one for at least twelve hours.’

  ‘You’ll come along,’ he said to the Little Legionnaire. Then he suddenly became visibly embarrassed and added: ‘Sorry, chum.’

  The Little Legionnaire merely laughed.

  ‘I’ll come to study. My dream has always been to open a whore-box in Morocco. War experience will count. I’ve never seen a German brothel. It’s bound to be instructive. You don’t mind me watching while you work?’

  ‘Not a bit,’ answered Porta. ‘But you’ll have to pay ten per cent of the cost.’

  ‘Any objection if I come?’ asked Tiny.

  ‘All right,’ Porta and the Little Legionnaire answered grandly.

  The Old Un went across to the office to see what he could do.

  One hour later we were on our way in a truck. Porta had brought twenty to thirty pornographic magazines which he studied in order to be well prepared.

  A field-gendarme with the head-hunter crescent on a chain round his neck stood outside the brothel to show the way. Just inside the entrance sat another field-gendarme to inspect our pay-books. Then we were turned over to a medical sergeant who checked us for venereal disease.

  Porta went wild with joy when he was let through.

  ‘Oh, Daddy’s going to work. Who knows when we’ll get another chance.’

  Tiny was radiant. He announced what he was going to try before he was dragged away.

  ‘A mattress-polka and a bullet in the skull, then you’d die a happy man,’ he sang.

  Porta had two quarts of vodka with him.

  ‘That’s for disinfectant,’ he said. ‘You never know what’s been going on before you!’

  A soldier was thrown out by the chain-dog who shouted with a schoolmaster’s voice after him:

  ‘Disappear, you baby, before I put you in the can. We don’t allow children under eighteen in here.’

  Comically enough, soldiers under eighteen were not allowed to have anything to do with women, smoke or drink: infringements were heavily punished.
But they were allowed to kill or be killed. Mark you, only when it happened in battle against so-called enemies. The Fatherland is often peculiarly fastidious.

  Pluto and Tiny stormed in. They brushed away the other soldiers in the waiting-rooms and passages. One artillery sergeant started to grumble. Tiny landed him one on the skull, and the fellow fell to the floor with a grunt.

  ‘Make way for the 27th Murder and Arson Regiment,’ shouted Porta. ‘Hand over the girls. Let us see the goods!’

  A chain-dog bawled:

  ‘Quiet, or you’ll be out!’

  Tiny gave him a threatening glance. The gendarme wisely drew back from the seven-foot giant.

  With a bang the doors to the living-room, or as the chaperones called it the reception-salon, flew open. Here sat a dozen females between twenty and fifty, dressed in the most provoking clothes, from deeply decollette party dresses to transparent pants and brassieres. They were ready to receive the love-starved invasion in its noisy infantry boots.

  Porta literally fell into the lap of a black-haired beauty in pale-blue underwear. He forced the vodka bottle between her lips and asked beguilingly:

  ‘Hey, my treasure, shall we shake ourselves warm?’

  Two minutes afterwards they had disappeared.

  Pluto threw himself enthusiastically at a heavy-weight – she was his ideal, he said.

  Tiny was left standing in the middle of the room staring from one girl to another. He could not choose! The result was that there were no girls left. Then he bellowed:

  ‘Thieves, robbers, bastards! Get me one. By Satan I want a bed-artist!’

  A chaperone tried to calm the huge bandit. He grabbed the impressive lady and cried:

  ‘Are you a whore? Get a move on, then, Tiny has arrived. This is a pleasure-house, not a mission-house!’

  The chaperone shouted for help as Tiny started to tear off her party dress. Another chaperone arrived, but Tiny had gone mad. After half-tearing the dress off the first one, he grabbed one under each arm and made for the door where the others had disappeared. With kicks and cries the two women tried to get away, but they were caught like two harpooned whales.