by Leo Kessler
“Wilco, Skipper,” the American answered and hurried up the swaying helicopter to where the command radio operator was waiting.
Sergeant-Major Schulze, the Headhunters” senior NCO, thrust his pornographic magazine into his pack with a sigh. “Why all the fuss, Colonel?” he said with a lazy grin on his broad, good-humoured, Hamburg face. “One good blast from my fart cannon, after all that pea-soup we had yesterday, and I’d blast Uncle Ho and all his Slant-eyes from here to Moscow.”
Schirmer smiled and started buckling on his helmet. “Yes, you big rogue, that’s what I’ve been thinking all the way here. I’m surprised the damn chopper’s still flying.” His voice hardened. “All right, Headhunters, prepare to land!”
Now all was swift, purposeful activity in the command helicopter. The hardened veterans of six years of fighting in Europe and eight years in Asia slapped machine-pistol magazines to check they were securely fixed, heaved their packs higher on their shoulders, grabbed hold of the hand-holds, held their breath and prepared to bale out.
Schirmer poised at the door, the wind whipping his uniform tight against his lean, muscular body. Suddenly his blouse was damp with sweat from the heat coming up from the reen mass of the jungle. He looked down, his stomach tightening as it always did at this moment. Were they going to land right in the middle of the Slant-eyes? He swallowed hard and dismissed the dread thought.
The command pilot eased back on the cyclic. The helicopter’s nose came up. Speed dropped until they were almost hovering. The chopper started to vibrate crazily, as if it would fall apart at any moment. Long grass, flattened by the prop blast, and the grey stream of the smoke marker appeared suddenly.
“DZ!” Schirmer yelled above the racket.
The Headhunters rose as one and shuffled towards the open door. Schirmer tried to dismiss the thought that at this very moment one of the Slant-eyes might be drawing a bead on him as he crouched there. He raised his right thumb, to signify that they were right above the dropping zone.
They were about twenty metres above the ground. He threw a glance upwards. The blue spurts of exhaust flames were everywhere; the racket was impossible. The whole battalion was dead on target. Fifteen metres… ten metres… He could wait no longer. The chopper was virtually at stalling speed. He drew a deep breath. “ALLES FUER DEUTSCHLAND!” He gave the old Waffen SS war-cry and flung himself out of the door.
Colonel Schirmer hit the ground hard, rolled over and came up, grease-gun at the ready. All around him in the swirling, elephant grass and whirling leaves, thrown up in a mad dance by the roaring choppers’ rotors, the Headhunters were slamming to the deck, completing the same roll and dashing for the cover of the tree-line, weapons at the alert.
“First Company, ready to march!” a coarse, beery voice sang out to his right. That would be Spider-Arse, officially Lieutenant Kurtz, a survivor of the old 666th SS Para Battalion.
“Second Company, ready to march!” Lieutenant Thiel, formerly of the Bodyguard, cried somewhere to Schirmer’s front.
Schirmer nodded his approval, but still he didn’t relax his hold on the grease-gun and his eyes searched the jungle for the slightest sign of suspicious movement.
“The girls of the Third, ready to sway their delicate, sweet little bottoms!” an affected, feminine voice shrilled. Schirmer grinned despite his inner tension. Lieutenant “Pansy” Petersen, formerly of the Death’s Head, holder of the Knight’s Cross and Oak Leaves, was running true to form.
“Colonel Schirmer, sir,” Tod’s sickly whine cut through the racket close to the CO’s ear.
Schirmer spun round to face Tod, the ex-Gestapo man, who was officially the Headhunter’s political officer but whose real function was still that of torturer. Involuntarily Schirmer wrinkled his nose in disgust. The sallow-faced, bespectacled officer with the wet, slack, drooling lips was crouched there, as if he expected to be shot by a Slant-eye at any moment, his splay-fingered hands playing nervously with his good-luck charm: a tobacco-pouch made from the tanned skin of a negress’s breast, complete with dun-coloured nipple.
“What is it, Tod?” he snapped irritably.
“I’ve just found something, sir.”
“I’ll piss in my boot,” Schirmer roared above the racket as the choppers, having dropped their cargoes, were beginning to rise once more. “What — one of those juicy arsed little boys’ bums you drool over?”
“No, no, not that, sir,” the ex-schoolmaster answered hastily, blushing a deep-red with embarrassment. “You know I’m almost normal. I would never…”
“Piss or get off the pot, man,” Schirmer interrupted him brutally. “What have you found?”
“Footprints, sir.”
“What!”
Tod repeated what he had just said and, tugging Schirmer’s sleeve, led him to a spot a couple of metres away. “There,” he announced, pointing at the trampled grass. And they can’t be from our Legion boots. Those are the marks of their sandals!”
Colonel Erwin Schirmer did not need to be told who “they” were, for already he could smell the stench of nuoa-man, that nauseating, rotten fish-paste the Slant-eyes used to season their rice; there was no mistaking it.
“Slant-eyes, Skipper?” White Lightning’s calm voice asked quietly behind him.
Schirmer nodded grimly, as the sound of the departing choppers began to die away and vanish altogether. “Looks like it, Major,” he said slowly.
“What now, sir?” Tod quavered, eyeing the jungle ahead through his gold-rimmed spectacles with undisguised apprehension.
For what seemed a long time, Schirmer did not answer. The other two waited, no sound disturbing the silence now save the rustle of the damp tropical breeze in the trees. Finally Schirmer shook his head like a man coming out of a deep sleep and said quietly, “What now you ask, Tod? What else can we mercenaries do but march, fight and die.” He raised his voice harshly, “All right, you dogs of death, do you want to live forever?” he bellowed. “Headhunters — advance!”
Five minutes later the jungle and the night had swallowed them up completely. The march into Massacre Valley had commenced…
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