Guns At Cassino

by Leo Kessler

  Von Dodenburg fired his last flare. The green light hushed into the darkening sky. A few metres away, Schulze pressed the power button. Slowly the secret weapon nosed its way out of the cover of the forward bunker and began to climb over the pile of rubble, silent save for the slight rattle of well-oiled tracks.

  `Jesus H - ' Schulze whispered to himself, as he started to steer it towards Half-man's Point, 'puts the wind right up you!'

  Still the Tommies had not noticed the ton of high explosive heading in their direction. Perhaps the noise of bombardment drowned the sound; perhaps they were too busy preparing for their own attack which would go in as soon as the bombardment ended. Metre by metre it crawled forward, only just visible in the ever-growing darkness, sensing its way over and around the obstacles of the shell-pitted no-man's land. It was almost as if it had a life of its own. Von Dodenburg felt the small hairs at the back of his neck rising. There was something uncanny about the Goliath as it crawled towards the enemy, bearing its deadly gift.

  It detected the half-man. It hesitated for an instant. But it did not attempt to avoid him. It simply rolled over the corpse. Von Dodenburg shuddered. He felt sure he had heard the ghastly ribbon of gut hanging from the body squash under its weight. Suddenly there was a yell of alarm.

  `Hey, lads, what do you make of that?' The Tommy line was too dark for him to see the face of the speaker, but he could imagine it: shocked and puzzled. How would they react now?

  With his free hand, von Dodenburg signalled the survivors to prepare for their dash forward to the peak. There was a single shot from the enemy lines. He heard the slug whine off the Goliath's armour.

  `Good God,' he prayed to himself fervently, 'don't let them use artillery!'

  `What do you make of the bugger?' a coarse voice floated across.

  `Search me, mate. Who do you think I am – sodding Jesus Christ?'

  `Give it a burst of bren,' a third voice suggested.

  The slow British machine-gun chattered. The morse of a tracer burst zipped across the night sky. Still the Goliath came on. Someone screamed:

  `Where's the sodding mortar platoon? You can never find the bastards when you want them. Sergeant, where's - '

  His words were drowned in the roar. A huge spurt of red flame tore the darkness apart. In its blood-red light von Dodenburg could see the bodies flying into the sky. The Goliath had hit the Tommies' line! He sprang to his feet, Schmeisser at the ready.

  `Battle Group Wotan,' he yelled at the top of his voice above the screams of pain from the Tommy side, 'Follow me!'

  They streamed after him, firing as they ran. The Tommies were in complete chaos. Von Dodenburg saw one of his men stumble over the body of one Tommy he had just shot. Before he could right himself, the wounded Tommy pulled out a grenade and blew them both sky-high. But that was their only casualty. The enemy machine-gun was knocked out before it could open fire, the gunners scattering under the rush. A couple of the covering infantry sprang out of their pits and tried to hold them. But they were bayoneted before they knew what hit them. Within a matter of seconds they had burst through the Tommies' positions and were running, leaden-lunged and gasping frantically, for the dark cliff ahead.

  The climb was easier than they had anticipated. They lost only one man, who slipped, clutching frantically at a patch of coarse scrub which held him for an instant before being torn out of the stony soil and plunging him screaming with fear into the red-splashed, confused darkness below.

  The steep slope downwards into the darkness and the safety of their own lines beyond proved different. Their chests heaving with the effort, their breath coming in broken harsh gasps, the survivors stared numbly at the void below their feet.

  `Heaven, arse and twine,' von Dodenburg rounded on them. `What's the matter with you? Do you want me to carry you down on my back? For Christ sake, get a move on, the Tommies will be up here after us at any moment!'

  `Time to go!' Schulze yelled and flung himself over the top. He disappeared into the darkness in a shower of dust and rocks. `Come on,' his voice trailed after him. 'You'll get the para's badge for this one - without a parachute.'

  The sudden burst of machine-gun fire somewhere to their rear, followed by an angry shout, did the rest. In a miniature landslide, they sprang over the side and down the steep slope. Some slid down on their rear and tore their pants to shreds. Others grabbed madly at the olive trees and thick shrubs as they raced down, nearly wrenching their arms from their sockets whenever they managed to get a hold. But down they went, following Schulze's laughter floating up from below.

  One by one they crashed to a stop at the bottom. Von Dodenburg went face first into a tree. He felt his nose smash. But he did not care. They had managed the first stage successfully. He shook his head to clear it and wiped the blood away with his sleeve.

  `All right,' he said, thickly, his mouth full of blood. 'No time for hanging about. By dawn we want to clear this damned mountain completely. Or we're sitting ducks. Now it's march or croak, lads.'

  He slung his machine-pistol and stepped out. The long march from the mountain to the rear had begun.

  It was a strange night, full of alarms and sudden frights. On all sides they heard the snap and crackle of the intensive fire-fight which was reaching its crescendo now, as the full weight of the enemy attack was flung in on the sacred mountain. The covering Peak 555 had gone; now all that was left was Monte Cassino. More than once they heard German spoken close by. But von Dodenburg did not allow them to stop. Wotan would fend for itself. Twice they ran into the reserve positions of the Poles who were now within rifle-shot of the shattered Monastery and they had to clear them at bayonet-point.

  A line of undefended barbed-wire entanglements barred their way - whether they had been built by the Germans or the enemy, they did not know. But they seemed to stretch for kilometres to right and left; and von Dodenburg knew there was no time to reconnoitre. They took a chance and blew them with their last bangalore torpedo. The explosion shattered the night into a thousand fiery splinters. But no angry shouts in a foreign tongue followed, and they ran unharmed through the reeking gap in the barrier.

  They followed a track of loose stones, sheltered by a rough stone wall. It led them to a ruined house. But it was occupied all right. Crouched in the darkness, hardly daring to breathe, they could see the yellow light coming from one of the battered windows and could hear the sound of a woman's laughter.

  `Well, I'll be buggered,' Schulze cursed softly. 'A shitting mobile whore-house!' He cocked his head to one side. 'And listen to them bedsprings - going like a Yiddish fiddler's elbow!' He licked his lips longingly.

  Von Dodenburg nudged, him in the ribs. 'Come on Casanova, there'll be time enough for that when and if we get out of this!'

  Schulze sighed.

  `It's a sore temptation, sir. So close - all hot and steaming - and yet so far.'

  Von Dodenburg chuckled and led them cautiously past the strange house.

  The hours passed. They stumbled on slowly, hanging on to the tunic of the man in front, only kept on their feet by their desire to escape and von Dodenburg's inspired leadership. Now, he, Schulze and Schwarz, bringing up the rear, were carrying three rifles, each of soldiers too weary to bear the weight themselves. Kilometre after kilometre. The rattle of the small arms fire grew fainter. Now the only sound was the steady rumble of the heavies pounding the flaming peak of Monte Cassino. But the burning mountain, soon to be consumed by the Allied fire, served its purpose for them. For von Dodenburg in the lead it acted as a bearing. But even as he marched northwards, he realized that those flames which guided them also symbolized the end of Germany's hopes in the south of Italy. The Cassino Front was finished. Now the great race for Rome would begin. And from there? Who knew? One thing was certain, he told himself, biting back the pain of his blistered feet and his broken nose, Wotan would never be wasted again. Whenever the elite of the SS were used again, he would ensure that they would be employed only in the decisive bat
tles. They had gone through too much to be thrown away at the whim of the men in Berlin. From now onwards, he would decide on their employment.

  `If we are to dig our own graves,' he whispered to himself, his teeth gritted with pain, 'we shall make our own decisions where they will be ...’

  Just before dawn they began to run into well-organized defensive positions: a marked minefield, barbed wire entanglements, the first hump of a well dug-in and camouflaged forward observation post. They overcame the minefield easily, crawling along in three lines with Schulze, von Dodenburg and Schwarz prodding for the flat mines with their bayonets. They turned out to be Schuh mines.

  `Do you think they are our own positions?' Schwarz asked, wiping his wooden hand across his sweat-drenched brow.

  `Could be,' von Dodenburg replied. 'Anything's possible. The front is so terribly confused. But let's assume the Tommies are waiting for us at that F.O.P. (1) We'll take it easy.'

  They pushed closer to the wire. A young corporal still had a pair of wire clippers. He crawled up to them and began to snip through the first rusty strand.

  Whistles shrilled. White alarm flares hushed into the dawn sky alarmingly. The spandaus began to hiss their deadly song. Red tracer started to cut the air low over their heads; and Schulze screamed hysterically:

  `We're home, lads! We're home! The shitting stubble-hoppers are just letting off a few fireworks to welcome us, that's all.'

  They collected themselves behind the infantry battalion's CP. Most of them were swaying dangerously now. The stubble-hoppers had sacrificed their schnapps ration for these torn, bloody survivors of Peak 555. Its effect had been disastrous on them.

  Von Dodenburg, a silly grin on his bloody face, looked at them. They were a sorry-looking lot for Germany's elite. Uniforms ripped and torn, faces covered in white dust and blood, they looked like a bunch of scarecrows. He felt his nose gingerly. It seemed twice the normal size. He looked down at his uniform. One trouser leg was gone and the sole of his right boot flapped like an extra tongue. Obviously he looked no better than his men did.

  `Watch it,' he bellowed through cracked lips. The command did not seem right somehow, but it had its effect. The battered survivors of the battle for the Peak came to a semblance of 'the pre-attention position. 'Battalion – battalion, attention!'

  `But Major,' the infantry CO cried. 'The trucks to pick you up - ' The words died on his lips.

  `Battalion – right turn!'

  The hundred men left turned right.

  `Forward – forward march!'

  While the infantry gaped at them as if they were crazy, the survivors of Wotan began to limp after their officers, their pain-wracked faces set and determined, heads down as if they could go on for ever. The infantry Major shook his head in puzzled despair.

  `The SS, gentlemen,' he murmured, turning to his officers, `the shitting courageous SS.'

  And behind them, emerging from the fog of war like some great ship, Peak 555 glowed in the sun of the new day, its summit littered with the thousand bodies of the young men from Wotan who would never rise and fight again. But the survivors limping northwards with the retreating German Army did not look back. Peak 555 was the past. However grim and uncertain, theirs was the future.

  Twenty-One

  On that June 5th, the Commander of the US Fifth Army, General Mark Clark drove proudly into Rome. The Italian capital had fallen at last and he luxuriated in the applause of the crowds and the broad smiles of the sweating triumphant dog-faces, marching through on their way north, flowers sticking out of the muzzles of their Garands. Pearson, at the wheel of the General's immaculate jeep with outsize lieutenant-general's stars, grinned to himself. Clark was really enjoying this moment: the tangible sign of his breakthrough at Cassino.

  Just short of the Colosseum, the crowds of screaming, flag-waving Italians made them stop momentarily.

  `Goddam dagoes,' Clark muttered under his breath, but he responded to their hysterical enthusiasm with an imperial wave of his hand. Next to the jeep a young soldier in a similarly stalled infantry company took his eyes off the great Roman landmark and whistled softly:

  `Jesus, General,' he said in awe, 'I didn't know that our bombers had done that much damage to Rome.'

  Clark laughed. But as the mob of screaming Romans parted to allow them through, he snapped to Pearson:

  `Stupid dumbell. But make a note of it, Pearson - I'll need it for my memoirs.'

  ‘Yessir, General,' Pearson cried as he put the jeep into first. `Roger.'

  Under his breath, he muttered, 'Memoirs - oh, my aching back!'

  With Clark directing him, Pearson picked his way through the crowded streets, trying to find the Capitoline Hill, on which was located the Town Hall. Clark was intent on getting the full mileage out of his conquest. Like an old Roman General, he intended that the city should surrender itself to him formally; and behind him the next jeep was full of photographers so that the historic moment could be recorded for posterity - General Mark Clark, conqueror of Rome.

  After half an hour of twisting and turning through the crowded streets, they were lost, Pearson sweating and angry, and the General very nervous. Finally they were forced to ask a shock-haired, shirt-sleeved youth the way. Thus the twentieth century conqueror of the old imperial city drove to accept its surrender, led by a teenager on an ancient racing bike, shouting excitedly for everyone to get out of the way because il Generale Clark was on his way to the Capitoline Hill.

  Finally Pearson spotted the big balcony from which Mussolini, the deposed Duce, had once harangued his 'new Romans', who were now cheering their new master with Latin abandon. Solemnly Clark got out of his jeep and pushed his way through the crowd. He marched up the slope of the hill towards the great door of the Town Hall. The crowd fell silent. Pearson, marching stiffly behind the tall General, felt instinctively that they were awaiting some dramatic gesture from Clark. Imperiously Clark halted in front of the oaken door. He formed his fist into a club and struck it. There was a hollow boom, but nothing else. No one came to open at the command of the captain who had come three thousand miles to conquer the 'mother of all cities'. He struck another blow on it. Still no response. Angrily he seized the iron handle and turned. The door did not open.

  `For Chrissake, Pearson,' he cursed, turning red-faced, 'the goddam stinking door's locked!'

  `Ah well, General,' Pearson consoled the crestfallen commander, as they wandered somewhat shame-faced through the disappointed crowds back to their jeep, 'at least you've beaten General Eisenhower into France.'

  Clark's craggy face brightened.

  `Sure! Of course.' He chuckled softly. 'Wouldn't I give something to see Ike's face now! He sure will be riled when he sees me in the headlines all over the front pages tomorrow.'

  It was June 5th, 1944. Eisenhower's great invading armada was already at sea. Tomorrow would be D-Day.

  And on that same day of hollow triumph for their commander, the Poles were collecting their dead from Peak 555 and Monte Cassino. Soon they would erect a cemetery for the four thousand who had fallen, with a memorial, which would dominate the shattered height, long after its scars had been hidden by the process of time. The inscription on it would be simple:

  `We Polish soldiers

  For our freedom and yours

  Have given our souls to God

  Our bodies to the soil of Italy

  And our hearts to Poland.'

  And one hundred and fifty kilometres away, the survivors of Wotan celebrated their last day in Italy, before they returned to the Reich to reform. They spent it in the same way as they had spent every day since the breakout: drunk and in the brothels of Milan's red light district, greedily trying to make up for the lost days on the mountain.

  The new Colonel von Dodenburg, commander-designate of the Wotan Battle Group, made love to the Countess Lisa for the last time. She wanted to talk. But he kissed her violently, brutally, thrusting her back on the eighteenth-century bed. He wanted to forget what must
come: the blood, the stench of war, the stink of men in unwashed, battle-stained field-grey, the mass graves filled with shattered bodies.

  Now his eager hands groped beneath the tight silk skirt. The expensive white blouse burst open to reveal her generous, olive-skinned breasts. He pressed his blond head to them greedily like a hungry child. She stared down at him, her dark eyes full of tears. He left her breasts with his lips. Their half-open mouths pressed together passionately. Their tongues flickered back and forth. Desire overcame him. He tore the expensive clothes and spread-eagled her on the big bed, her black underwear strewn everywhere. Her red fingernails ripped the length of his muscular back. He thrust himself between her legs. She whimpered as passion overcame her and she answered his desire. Her slim body rose and fell wildly, her mouth open, the red lips slack. And when he had finished and fallen to one side, gasping like an old man, the tears of parting flowed down her beautiful dark-skinned face, again unheeded.

  In Madame Rosa's 'House of the Tight Little Whore', there was no time for love – just money. The new Senior Sergeant Schulze of Battle Group Wotan knew it too. He dumped the dirty bundle of Liri notes in front of the vast-bosomed Madame with her frizzed dyed hair piled up at least half a metre above her face.

  `Money,' he said thickly, swaying dangerously, 'earned honestly by flogging what's left of our rations on the black market - before those shitting kitchen-bulls. Now,' he took another swig of the grappa bottle, 'where's the cunt?'

  To make his meaning quite plain, he poked a dirty forefinger through a circle made with the thumb and forefinger of the other hand. If Madame Rosa did not understand the slurred drunken flow of German, she certainly understood the money and the gesture. Her forbidding look vanished.