Monte Cassino

by Sven Hassel

  Later that night we found ourselves at a fountain. Carl was swimming round in the basin demonstrating to me how to get into a lifebelt in dirty weather, while Otto and I manufactured waves. Then a window opened and a vulgar, sleepy voice spewed out threats and curses at us for our noisy life-saving demonstration.

  "You bloody querulous spaghetti," Carl shouted from the water. "How dare you disturb the German Navy during life saving practice?"

  Otto picked up a stone, threw it and hit the bellowing Roman full in the face. He was beside himself and tried to jump out of the window, but his wife clung on to him desperately. After all they were on the second floor. Then Otto threw another stone, but this time hit the adjacent window. Then all hell was let loose. The entire street was roused and a great fight started. It was rather like a minor revolution, from which we withdrew when it was at its height and people had forgotten what had started it.

  The next morning we decided that we would all go to the hospital, but Fate willed otherwise. As bad luck would have it, we found ourselves in the company of an Italian sailor on his way to the naval base at Genoa, He had with him a bersaglieri corporal just out of hospital in Salerno, where they had given him a false leg. He did not like his new leg, which hurt him, so he carried it under his arm and hobbled along on a crutch. Originally he had had two crutches, but he had sold one to a shepherd. Not that the shepherd was in need of a crutch, but he was a man with an eye to the future.

  "You never know what can happen in a war like this," he had said. "Something tells me that sooner or later there's going to be a shortage of crutches."

  They had come up to us, while we were sitting on the steps in Via Torino eating grilled sardines. We offered them seats and a share, and the five of us finished the dish. Then we all wandered on through narrow alleyways, fried potato cakes in a tin over an open fire in a little square. Then we were suddenly overcome with a crazy urge for cleanliness and went to the public bath. Unfortunately there was a fuss, when we broke down the door to the women's section and we had to run for it. Stark naked, clutching our clothes and things, we made good our escape across a seemingly endless succession of fences and sheds.

  We parted company on Ponte Umberto. The two Italians felt that they had better delay no longer. They had already been a month on the journey. Their papers were stamped, but the stamps weren't quite genuine. We waved as long as we could see each other, then we just shouted.

  "Boys, we'll meet when the war's over. The first third of November after peace," the Italian sailor shouted from a side street.

  "That won't do, sailor," Carl shouted back. "Suppose the war stops on the fourth of November, it would be a whole year till we met. What about exactly three months after the war. Meeting here?"

  "Do you mean where you are or where we are?" yelled the sailor.

  We were now too far apart that it was difficult to hear each other. People stopped and looked at us uncompre-hendingly. Carl put his hands round his mouth like a megaphone.

  "Meet in the middle of Ponte Umberto and each bring a case of beer."

  "O.K. What time'll suit you best?" shouted the Italian.

  "Eleven fifteen," Carl yelled.

  "Will you come by train or ship?" bawled the sailor.

  "Don't ask such silly questions. Do you go by train unless you have to."

  "There's a bus every hour from Anzio to Rome," came the sailor's voice from the distance.

  We shouted a few more times to each other at the top of our voices, but we were now so far away that our answers were only faint echoes.

  We reached the hospital in Via di San Stefano early in the morning next day. We arrived in a cab, the driver of which was sitting on the passengers' seat and the three of us on the box, taking it in turns to drive. It had taken a little persuasion to get the cabby to accept the arrangement, but he had done so eventually.

  "Now for the difficult bit of keeping to the channel," Carl said as we turned in through the gate.

  "I'm keeping hard aport, so we should be all right," said Otto who was steering.

  The orderly stared at us in bewilderment. He had never seen such an arrival before. Otto swung round smartly and drew up by the steps.

  "Let go the hook," Carl ordered.

  We said goodbye to the old cabby and his horse over a couple of bottles of beer.

  "Where are you for?" the orderly asked peevishly.

  "Have we asked you, where you're going?" Carl retorted. "What bloody business is it of yours?"

  "I have to ask you," the orderly replied.

  "Well you've done that; so shut up," Carl said.

  The man shrugged and made his way back to the gate. An arrow indicated the way to the office.

  "I promise you I'm not taking much from those iodine-heroes," Carl said. "If they're nice and polite to me, there's a slight possibility I'll be polite to them. Otherwise, they'll rue the day they had anything to do with Carl Friedrich Weber."

  Paying no attention to a notice that said "Knock and wait", we burst into the office.

  A medical Unteroffizier in a tailored uniform was seated in a rocking chair, both feet on the desk, busily anointing his hair with brilliantine and arranging it into waves. There was a big portrait of Adolf Hitler on the wall behind him.

  "Hallo, there!" Carl said, dropping his rifle and kitbag with a clatter on the floor.

  The highly-scented Unteroffizier did not deign to look at us.

  Carl made another attempt to draw his attention to our presence.

  "Hi, you boil-smith. Customers!"

  The hospital-hero picked his teeth with a laryngoscope, and gazed out of the window.

  "You must have come to the wrong address."

  "We bloody well haven't. This set-up is a hospital isn't it?"

  "Correct. You are in Ospedale Militare, speaking to the chief clerk. Here one gathers up one's weary bones into the regulation attitude and vomits a report on why one happens to be here."

  "Oh, bugger off," said Otto.

  "What did I tell you?" Carl snorted. "Let me get hold of his throat. Such a shitting medical squitter!"

  "Come on, chum, be sensible," Otto said, doing his best. "We have to come into dock here."

  "You've come to the wrong place, then. You happen to be in hospital and not a shipyard."

  "Don't let's talk with him," Carl said. "Let's give him one on the muzzle and then bugger off."

  Otto made another attempt.

  "I don't know what you call it in your medical lingo. We are to bunk here. For repairs. Overhaul."

  The medical Unteroffizier was busy studying his gleaming hair in a mirror on the opposite wall. He dabbed his face with eau-de-cologne.

  "In other words you mean that you are to be admitted? I presume, then, that you are in possession of papers from your MO. Are you wounded?"

  "Yes," Carl nodded. "But that was a bloody long time ago. That's not why we've come."

  "I've got a bad prick," Otto volunteered.

  "Then you've come to the wrong address. This is the surgical wing." The man smiled condescendingly.

  "How can you be bothered to argue with the bugger," Carl said. "Kick him in the balls, chuck him through the port-hole and let's get out of here."

  The medical Unteroffizier paid no attention to these well-intended warnings.

  "You must report to the Department for Skin and Venereal Diseases, which is in the medical hospital. The Town Major's office will tell where that is; the movement control officer at the station will tell you where the Town Major's office is, and any policeman will direct you to the railway station."

  "Don't you know where this bloody prick hospital is?" Otto asked in irritation.

  "Of course. I have to."

  "Then spit it out," Otto exclaimed indignantly.

  "Sailor, I am head clerk of a surgical hospital, not an information bureau."

  "What actually do you do, when you are not a soldier?" Otto asked.

  "Actually, I cannot see how that can concern
you," the Unteroffizier replied smoothly, "we two will never associate in private life; but as you are obviously interested, I shall for once break my rule and tell you. I am head clerk, 2nd class, in the municipality of Berlin."

  "Now, I've had enough," Carl exclaimed, hitching up his trousers. "Head clerk municipality, pah! Clerk! Lousy pen-pusher. The lowest thing on earth." He picked up a bottle of ink and flung it at the wall behind the man. Books followed. In no time at all a large bookcase was emptied.

  Carl and I jumped onto the desk and seized the man by the hair and banged his face down against the top. Otto opened a tin of strawberry jam and rubbed the contents well into the man's brilliantined hair, while Carl poured brilliantine and eau-de-cologne over his tailor-made uniform. We tore a couple of cushions to pieces and let the feathers fly. Then we emptied a couple of jars of marmalade, smeared it on the man's face, rubbed it into the feathers until he looked like a sick hen. A nurse peered in, but disappeared in a hurry when a medical dictionary hurtled close past her head.

  Before we left, Carl rammed a bundle of papers down the throat of the yelling Unteroffizier. Then, well satisfied with ourselves, we left the office we had wrecked. The orderly at the gate let us pass without fuss.

  "We'll be cured before we get to hospital," Otto wailed. "We've been three weeks on the way already."

  We had got a good distance up Via Claudia, when a Kubel drew up beside us and two steelhelmeted bloodhounds jumped out

  "You're under arrest," one of them said.

  "Don't know anything about that," grinned Carl.

  His belt buckle struck the first MP a wicked blow in the face. The man dropped to the ground and crawled about, blinded and moaning. The street emptied in a matter of seconds. A cab with two women passengers disappeared at a gallop.

  The second MP snatched at his holster. I leaped onto his back and sank my teeth into his ear. Carl dealt him a kick in the stomach, and smashed his fist with a resounding thud into the shouting man's face. Then we pounded both their faces on the cement.

  I hopped into the Kubel, started the engine, engaged second gear and jumped out. With a crunching noise the car crashed into a building on the corner of Via Marco Aurelio.

  We walked on. At the Colosseum Carl had an idea. After rummaging in his kitbag, he produced a bottle of rum and with this we walked back to the unconscious bloodhounds.

  "Rinse, please," Carl said, pouring half a glass down each of their throats. We sprinkled their uniforms all over, until they stank of rum a mile away, and then we chucked the empty bottle into the front seat of the smashed car.

  "The cork," Carl remarked thoughtfully.

  Otto let out a great guffaw, a real belly laugh and, going back to the two policemen, he stuffed the cork into one of their trouser pockets.

  "And now where's a telephone," Carl said, grinning delightedly.

  We all three squeezed into a telephone box. After a lot of squabbling we managed to find the Town Major's number. Otto was to do the 'phoning, as he had the most convincing voice.

  "Herr General, oh, well, then, Herr Oberleutnant, it's all the same to me what you are. Who isn't to be impertinent? What the hell's that to do with you? Do you think I haven't seen these sword-swallowers before? You want to know whom you're talking to? Do you think I'm weak in the head? Why am I ringing? What the hell's that to do with you? Hallo, hallo! The swine's rung off." Otto was openmouthed with astonishment.

  "Bloody cheek they have," Carl growled. "Give me that 'phone! Have you the number? You did it all wrong. I'll show you how to do it." He asked for the number. "Give me the duty officer," he snarled. "This is Professor Brandt speaking. Until a moment ago I thought the military police were here to maintain order, but then what do I see? Your damned constables fighting with drunken civilians whom they drive round in their service vehicles. It's scandalous, Herr Hauptmann, that you allow such things. Your men are now lying dead drunk at the corner of Via Marco Aurelio and Via Claudia having smashed their car." Grinning all over his face, Carl banged the receiver down.

  We resisted the temptation to stay and see what happened next.

  We spent a further day and night together, then I parted company with them at the V.D. clinic of the medical hospital. As I walked away they shouted from a first floor window:

  "Don't forget our meeting on Ponte Umberto, when the war's over."

  "I'll never forget that," I shouted back.

  I walked backwards all the way to the corner, so as not to lose sight of them. I waved and they brandished their sailors' caps.

  "We'll celebrate peace at Mario's," Otto bawled.

  I walked off, but I was only half way down the street, when I had to turn and run back to the corner. It was such a pity to leave them. They were still in the window. When they caught sight of me, they swung their caps and sang the sailor's farewell. Then I ran off down the narrow street, as hard as I could go. I had to get away from them, or something would happen.

  I went and sat in a park, filled with longings. The wind was in the south and you could hear the guns at Monte Cassino like an uninterrupted menacing thunder. I went to the Movement Control at the railway station to get my leave warrant changed, intending to go to the airport and see if I could find room in a transport 'plane.

  An Oberfeldwebel looked at me searchingly:

  "Don't you know what happened yesterday?" He stood there weighing my leave papers in his hand. Then slowly he tore them across:

  "Major offensive. All leave stopped throughout Army Corps South."

  XI

  Palid Ida's brothel was no ordinary brothel. It was not officially a brothel at all, though every soldier from Sicily to the Brenner Pass knew it.

  There were several ladies in hiding from the Gestapo among Ida's staff and one or two whom the partisans were after. Ida got them all yellow passports. She divided her girls up according to their appearance and milieu. There were four departments at Ida's: privates, NCOs, officers and staff officers. Only the choicest girls who spoke two foreign languages and could quote Schiller and Shakespeare, attended to the needs of the last. Ida had a weakness for Schiller, and in her enthusiasm for him had had painted on the wall of the room in which clients were received:

  Und setzt Ihr nicht das Leben ein nie wird das Leben gewonnen sein!

  One night Porta and Tiny altered two words, making the quotation better suited to its surroundings.

  Ida was an American. Just before the war, she had come to Paris on the classic tour of Europe. The German advance had proved too swift and she had not managed to get away. She told herself that the war was going to be a long one and decided what she was going to do. It was no surprise to her when the Americans finally came in. She used an Oberleutnant as a springboard into the German commander's bed after which she had achieved all-round security.

  At the beginning of 1942 she moved her residence from Paris to Rome, taking six French girls with her. It was not a bad start.

  KILLER PATROL

  We strewed dirty jokes around us and put on airs in front of the grenadiers and paratroopers. We were going on a special mission behind the enemy lines. They regarded us with a certain amount of awe. Everybody had heard of these special jobs.

  "Are you lot volunteers?" a Stabsfeldwebel with a knight's cross round his neck asked.

  "When we go to the bog, yes," Porta laughed.

  They helped us pull the new close-fitting battle-dresses over our black panzer uniforms. Tiny sharpened his close-combat knife on an old grindstone.

  "This is so sharp I could cut the balls off a colonel without him noticing," he announced.

  We moved our arms and legs about to take the stiffness out of the battle-dress. The sides of the camouflage caps could be pulled down and buttoned under the chin. The peaks could also be pulled down to cover one's face. They had slits in them for one's eyes.

  We had just spent two whole days at Palid Ida's. It had been a good party. We had each had three girls, one or two of them even being officers' g
irls. The grand finale had been a glorious fight with some ack-ack men.

  Porta and an Italian had had an eating competition. Porta had won with a score of two and a half geese, half a goose ahead of the Italian. The Italian had collapsed and they had to use a stomach pump on him. Porta's face was pale, but he managed to keep it down. If you were sick during or shortly after such a competition you either lost or were disqualified. Porta knew the trick, which was to sit absolutely still for an hour keeping your mouth firmly shut. It was a mystery to us, where he put until there was not a crumb left. He would get to his feet with his stomach distended like a pregnant bedbug, yet it all disappeared, God knows where, for, a few hours later, he would be as thin as when he first started. Porta was a real champion, where eating was concerned, and his powers were famed on both sides of the front. Three times the Americans invited him to an eating race. Twice he refused, but the third time he accepted and he and a huge negro corporal met for the contest in a shell hole in No-man's land, everything being scrupulously checked by both sides.

  Porta won. The negro died.

  We were in Mike's dug-out lying on our bellies studying the map, which was spread on the floor. One-Eye lay between the Old Man and me.

  "What about the artillery commander?" Heide asked. "He has a cool head, I hope."

  "No need to worry," One-Eye said. "I know him. He was at the artillery shooting grounds at Leningrad. He knows his job. In ten minutes he'll pump 800 shells at them. The Yankees here will be lulled by that, thinking that the Indians are going to get whatever's coming."

  Porta settled his yellow tophat on top of his camouflage hat. One-Eye narrowed his eye. The sight of it always made his face twitch, but he had long since given up trying to fight against it. But now, when he saw Tiny cramming his light-grey bowler on to his own head, he could scarcely contain himself; but all that came was:

  "You two are crazy!"

  Tiny tried to cut his nails with the wire clippers. Pieces flew all over the map.

  "As you're so fond of using those," One-Eye growled, "you can crawl out first through the wire in your damned bowler. Cut the bottom two wires."