by Sven Hassel
Barcelona leans apathetically against a tree and begins to clean his nails with a bayonet.
‘I’ll shoot!’ repeats Moser threateningly. His whole body is trembling with rage.
‘You don’t dare,’ grins Barcelona. ‘I’m going to wait here for Ivan. I’m tired of Adolf’s marathon race. If you’re clever, Herr Oberleutnant, you’ll keep me company!’
‘Take him!’ recommends Heide excitedly. ‘Liquidate that traitor to the Fatherland.’
‘Shut it, you brown-arsed bastard!’ shouts Porta, knocking him flat on his back in the snow.
A threatening mumble comes from the company. Most of them are on Barcelona’s side.
‘I shall forget all this nonsense if you take up your arms immediately and follow my orders,’ promises Moser in a comradely tone.
‘You can piddle up and down your back,’ says Barcelona, jeeringly. ‘And when you get tired of doing that you can take a trip to the Führer’s HQ and piss all over Adolf with very best regards from me.’
‘One,’ Moser begins to count.
‘You bloody great German hero, you,’ cries Barcelona, uncertainly. ‘You can’t do it to an unarmed man.’
‘Two,’ hisses Moser desperately, his finger whitening on the trigger.
Porta swings his Mpi into position. The muzzle is pointed straight at Oberleutnant Moser.
If Barcelona doesn’t give way a massacre will take place here in a few seconds. There is no doubt at all that the Oberleutnant will shoot, but it’s just as certain that he himself will be dead before his magazine is empty.
‘Made up your mind, Feldwebel?’
‘If it amuses you then turn on your Goddam lullaby-maker,’ says Barcelona, apparently indifferent.
‘You asked for it,’ hisses Moser and crooks his finger on the trigger.
There is the sound of a shot and a bullet chops a neat furrow in Oberleutnant Moser’s fur cap.
‘Come death, come . . .’ hums the Legionnaire, playing smilingly with the sling of his Mpi. ‘Vive la mort!’
Without another word Barcelona swings his equipment up onto his shoulder and grins sheepishly.
Moser breathes in deeply in relief. He clicks the safety catch on his weapon to ‘safe’.
‘Come along! Let’s improve the pace,’ he shouts with an effort, avoiding Barcelona’s eyes.
Slowly and creakingly the company gets on the move.
Tiny staggers forward on his rotting feet. ‘Gawd! Oh Gawd! That bleedin’ ’urts! I’ll be glad when they chop the bleedin’ things off!’
‘Then you won’t be able to run any more,’ states Porta cheerily.
‘To ’ell with that! I never did like runnin’ anyway!’
‘But you won’t be able to go dancing when you get back to the Reeperbahn!’
‘Never learned ’ow!’ answers Tiny complacently. ‘Only thing I ever used ’em for seriously was to march on, and that I can do without any time. So you see I really ’ave no use for ’em at all. Don’t like runnin’, can’t dance, an’ simply ’ate marchin’. It’d be the best thing ever ’appened to me if I was to get rid o’ them bleeders.’
‘Think the birds’ll still crawl into bed with you when you’re short of a pair of trotters?’ asks Porta, doubtfully.
‘I’ll give ’em such a yarn about the ’eroic deed I lost ’em doin’ as their mouths’ll water that much with admiration they won’t ’ave bleedin’ time to notice what I’m up to with ’em. It ain’t the feet as counts when you’re rowin’ along in the old sleepin’ canoe, y’know.’
‘You’re not so crazy, maybe!’ says Porta, thinking aloud.
It takes us almost two hours to cover a miserable two miles. Even Moser seems to be getting to the end of his resources. He drops to the ground like an empty sack just like the rest of us.
I take out my little frozen piece of bread. Everybody is watching me closely. I look at it, take a bite, and pass it on to Porta. It goes all round the group. A bite for each of us. Should I have eaten it when no one was looking? On the march, perhaps? I couldn’t have done it. Not and stay with the company when we got back. To eat when they have nothing would have meant I could never have looked them in the face again. This comradeship is all we have left. It can make the difference between dying and getting through alive.
‘What would you do, Porta, if the war were to end right this minute?’ asks the Professor.
‘It won’t,’ states Porta categorically. ‘It’ll last a thousand years and a summer.’
‘Not on your life,’ protests the Professor. ‘The end of this war’ll come suddenly. Just like a railway accident. What would you do now, Porta, if they came up to you and said the war was over?’
‘Son, I’d find myself a demobilized Russian lady of like mind, and I’d do my level best to make her think that hostilities had broken out all over again.’
‘Is that really all you’d do?’ asks the Professor, wonderingly.
‘Don’t you think it’d be nice?’ grins Porta. ‘It’s more than enough for most of us. Even the biggest buck nigger in existence!’
‘And you?’ the Professor turns to Tiny.
‘Same as Porta,’ replies Tiny, sucking on a lump of ice. ‘Crumpet’s the most important thing in this world. If they supplied us with it when we was out in the field I just wouldn’t care if the war was to last a ’undred years. Comin’ back to your question there’s just a possibility I might take time out before I got on the job to bash a bleedin’ general!’
‘They send you to jail for that,’ says Barcelona.
‘Thirty days for disturbin’ of the peace,’ answers Tiny, optimistically. ‘That I’d do with pleasure just to ’ave the fun of kickin’ one o’ them red-tabbed bastards in the crutch.’
‘I’d take the Royal Suite at the “Vier Jahreszeiten” and then I’d die laughing at the sight of their faces when I couldn’t pay the bill,’ announces Barcelona, his face lightning up at the thought.
‘I would enroll immediately as a student at the War Academy,’ says Heide, with decision.
‘You must have a University Entrance Examination before you can get those red stripes up, mon ami,’ says the Legionnaire.
‘I want those red stripes and I mean to have them!’ shouts Heide, bitterly. ‘My father was a drunkard who spent most of his life in one or the other Prussian jail. My mother was forced to wash other people’s dirty clothes, and scrub floors for the fine folk. I have sworn to reach the very highest rank and then I will revenge myself on those swine!’
‘Where are you going to get the money you’ll need to live on while you’re getting your exam?’ asks the practical Porta.
‘They hold back seventy-five percent of my pay. That’s in War Bonds at twenty percent. I’ve been doing it ever since 1937.’
‘There weren’t any War Bonds in 1937,’ says Porta, protestingly.
‘No, there weren’t,’ says Heide, ‘but we had the five year plan. When they’re paid out I’ll have a nice little nest-egg.’ He pulls his blue State Bankbook proudly from his pocket and lets it go round. It contains nothing but entries in black ink.
‘By Heaven!’ shouts Porta in amazement. ‘No red figures. When you open mine you have to put on your sunglasses to protect your eyes from the glare!’
‘’Ow d’you know you’re suited for it?’ asks Tiny naively.
‘I’m suited,’ states Julius, categorically. ‘I’ll be Chief-of-Staff of a division when you’re called up again in ten years time.’
‘We won’t bleedin’ well salute you,’ says Tiny coldly.
‘I wouldn’t want you to,’ says Heide, superciliously.
‘You mean you wouldn’t even recognize us when you’ve made Chief-of-Staff?’ gapes Tiny, thickly.
‘I won’t be able to,’ answers Heide proudly. ‘I shall belong to a different class to you. A man has to burn his boats behind him eventually!’
‘Will you tighten your mouth like Iron Gustav?’ asks Tiny, looking at Heide as admiringly
as if Julius were already on the General Staff.
‘Tightening your mouth has nothing to do with it,’ answers Heide with a self-satisfied mien. ‘It’s a question of personal pride.’
‘Will you go round with a monocle screwed into your eye like old “Arse an’ Boots”2 used to?’ asks Porta.
‘If my sight should weaken, which I doubt, I would use a monocle as is the Prussian habit. I am absolutely against officers wearing spectacles. Spectacles are only for the coolies who work in offices.’
Passing through a frozen swamp we fall in with an infantry platoon led by a brutal-looking Feldwebel.
‘Where are you men from?’ shouts Moser, in surprise.
‘We’re what’s left of 37 Infantry Regiment, 1st Battalion,’ replies the Oberfeldwebel brusquely, spitting into the snow.
‘Who do you think you are, Feldwebel?’ says Moser, sharply. ‘Have you forgotten how to report to an officer in a proper manner? Pull yourself together, man! You’re speaking to an officer now!’
The Oberfeldwebel stares at the officer for a moment. His brutal face works with rage. Then he brings his heels together with a smart click, his left hand goes to the sling of his weapon and the right presses tightly down along the seam of his trousers in properly regimental manner.
‘Herr Oberleutnant,’ he roars in a parade-ground voice. ‘Oberfeldwebel Klockdorf and nineteen other ranks, the remainder of 37 Infantry Regiment, 1st Battalion, reporting for duty, sir!’
‘That’s better,’ smiles the Oberleutnant. ‘We are also a remainder. The German Wehrmacht seem to be holding a remainders sale at the moment!’
‘Did you really expect anything else?’ asks Porta half-audibly. ‘Any fool could’ve guessed how it was all going to end.’
Moser hears Porta’s remark and steps closer to the Oberfeldwebel. ‘Have you any idea at all of what is happening in this area?’
‘No, Herr Oberleutnant. The only thing I know with certainty is that the German Army is getting the shit knocked out of it, sir!’
‘You know nothing, then?’ shouts Moser. ‘Don’t you read Wehrmacht reports? It’s your duty to do so! Orders from above! Well above!’
A tired laugh goes round the ranks of the company.
The Oberfeldwebel looks at Moser in astonishment. Is he dealing with a madman? How’s this going to end? But German soldiers are used to dealing with madmen. He takes a deep breath and clicks his heels an extra time. Mad Prussians like that sort of thing.
‘Herr Oberleutnant I have a man in the platoon who was an Unteroffizier on the Staff of the Division. He tells me we are preparing a new front further to the west.’
‘What a mine of news you are, man!’ Moser grins broadly. ‘So we’re preparing a new front further to the west, are we? In front of Berlin, perhaps?’
‘Very possible, Herr Oberleutnant. Unless they’ve decided Paris would be better, sir?’
Late at night we march into what appears to be a ghost village without a sign of life. Small huts peep out fearfully from between mountains of snow.
Porta is the first to discover smoke coming from the chimneys.
Signs of life!
‘There’s somebody talkin,’ says Tiny, listening intently.
‘Are you sure?’ asks Moser, sceptically.
‘When Tiny says he can hear something then there’s something to hear!’ states Porta emphatically. ‘That boy can hear a hummingbird farting on its nest. And hear it twenty miles against the wind.’
‘Russian or German?’ asks the Legionnaire.
‘Russian. It’s women natterin’.’
‘What are they saying?’ asks the Legionnaire.
‘I don’t understand their foreign piss,’ answers Tiny. ‘Can’t understand why these bastards can’t speak proper German. Talkin’ foreign’s sneaky.’
‘Very good!’ decides the Oberleutnant. ‘We’ll spend the night here after we’ve cleaned it out.’
At the thought of warmth and something to eat the company livens up amazingly. There must be something eatable in a whole village.
Porta picks up a bread-bag and runs through it with practiced fingers. It’s empty. He throws it down in disgust. With weapons at the ready we search the huts. We take no chances. Fire at the slightest sound. Even children would be shot down if we felt they were dangerous, and children can be dangerous here in Russia. Before now a five-year old child has bombed an entire company to death. In that respect there is little difference between Russia and Germany.
‘Take care!’ shouts Moser warningly, as we enter a tileworks with the Old Man in the lead.
‘Hell!’ says Porta. ‘It’s as dark in here as the inside of a nigger-woman’s cunt!’
‘Shut it!’ whispers Tiny, stopping as if he had run into a brick wall. ‘There’s somethin’ wrong in ’ere!’
‘Tu me fais chier,’3 whispers the Legionnaire, going down on one knee behind a stack of tiles.
‘Some murderin’ bastard cocked a gun!’ answers Tiny, staring intently into the darkness.
‘Are you sure?’ asks Heide anxiously. He has a grenade ready to throw in his hand.
‘Go an’ ’ave a look,’ whispers Tiny almost inaudibly.
We drop to the ground with every nerve taut.
‘Close your eyes,’ whispers the Old Man. ‘I’m gonna let off a flare.’
There is a hollow report as the flare goes up into the ceiling.
Cautiously we open our eyes. The blue-white light burns them like fire.
Porta comes halfway to his feet and with the LMG pressed tightly into his hip lets off a burst. The belt flaps like a wounded snake. Tracer lines out and up into a distant corner of the tileworks.
Piercing female shrieks drown out the chatter of the machine-gun. An Mpi stutters viciously from a beam. A hand-grenade rolls to Tiny’s feet. Quickly he picks it up and throws it back. With a roar it explodes in the air.
I throw a potato-masher. Everything goes quiet.
Over in the corner we find six women in Red Army officer uniform. The head of one of them is shorn off cleanly as if by a giant knife. It lies quite naturally in a pool of dark blood. The eyes almost seem to be looking at us, examining us.
‘Nice-lookin’ bint,’ says Tiny, picking up the head. He sniffs at the hair. ‘What a lovely smell o’ woman. Pity the Fatherland requires a bloke to kill pretty little things like ’er.’ He spins the head and examines the profile with connoisseurmien. Blood runs from the shorn-off neck down onto his wrist.
‘Rough, tearin’ the ’eads off pretty women!’ He lays the head carefully under the girl’s arm.
‘When people were beheaded in the old days, they used to bury them with their heads between their legs,’ explains Heide.
‘Pretty girls, too?’ asks Tiny.
‘Everybody,’ states Heide firmly.
‘You’d think it was a bleedin’ cock-sucker on the job!’ Tiny grins long and loud.
‘On Devil’s Island the executioner holds up the head by the ears and says: Justice has been done in the name of the people of France!’ explains the Legionnaire.
‘Lord love us!’ cries Porta, ’and I thought the Frenchies were a cultured lot!’
‘But it is only criminals who are treated in this way, mon ami,’ the Legionnaire goes to the defence of French culture.
‘Only criminals,’ mumbles the Old Man. ‘You can’t tell these days whether you’re a criminal or a hero. They change the bloody rules every day.’
‘Yes they do ’urry things, nowadays,’ says Tiny, looking over at Heide accusingly. ‘Glad I ain’t a member of the bleedin’ Party.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ comes threateningly from Heide.
‘What I say,’ grins Tiny, pleased.
‘Come along,’ shouts Oberleutnant Moser. ‘Feldwebel Beier! Put some gunpowder under that gang of yours!’
‘Remove fingers! Get your arses in gear!’ shouts the Old Man. ‘Peace hasn’t broken out yet, you know!’
In short or
der the village is ransacked. Civilians come out of hiding. Everybody protests hatred of the Communists, and their great pleasure at seeing Germans.
‘These people must’ve been Nazis before Adolf even heard of it,’ Porta considers. He catches hold of an old woman, who isn’t as old as she looks. ‘Matj,4 you no like Commie partisan. You love Nazi!’
‘Up with your right arm, old thing, and shout after me: “Heil Hitler, grosses Arschloch!”’5
They shout it gladly without having the least idea of what it means.
‘I’ve never heard anything like it!’ Heide explodes. ‘If the Führer only knew what was going on!’
‘Stop that nonsense,’ orders Moser, irritably. ‘Tell them to boil potatoes, and get some big fires going.’
Porta explains to the Russian women that they are to boil potatoes and not spare the firewood.
The Old Man is bellowing at an artillery Obergefreiter who has been so foolish as to remove his boots. With a lost look the artilleryman stares at the fleshless white bones of his feet. Sanitäter Tafel throws up his hands in despair.
‘I’ll have to amputate! Boiling water!’
‘Can you do it?’ asks Moser sceptically.
‘I can’t not do it,’ replies the Sani. ‘He can’t be left here and we can’t shoot him either!’
‘Nobody is to take off his boots,’ shouts the company commander. ‘That’s an order!’
‘Gawd, if ’e was to start marchin’ off on them ’e’d scare the life out o’ bleedin’ Ivan!’ cries Tiny. ‘They think ’e was the old man with the scythe comin’ after ’em!’
The artillery Obergefreiter is strapped to a table with rifle slings. A woman brings boiling water. She helps the Sani as well as she can. Her husband and two sons are with the Red Army, she tells us.
The operation takes an hour. Before evening the Obergefreiter dies without regaining consciousness.
We lower him into an antitank trench and shovel snow over him. We hand his helmet on a stick and the Old Man adds his identity discs to the growing collection in his pocket.
We stuff ourselves with hot potatoes. They taste wonderful. After a while we feel as if we were born anew, and don’t even grumble when we have to go out on guard. The posts are double-manned. Thirty minutes on. Nobody can stand the cold for a longer period.
