by Sven Hassel
‘Let’s change the subject,’ says Porta, blowing on his coffee. ‘It’s no doubt wisest to pay for your cunt, if you can’t do without it, and avoid all that nonsense afterwards.’
There is a whistling howl and a large section of brickwork falls down into the prison. We are half-buried in bricks and mortar.
The coffee-pot flies out of Porta’s hand, straight up into the air.
‘Outside fast!’ screams the Old Man. ‘Ivan’s attacking!’
A flare goes off straight up above our heads. An automatic cannon hammer quite close to us. Large pieces fall from the sooty walls.
I slide a good way down the slippery road and end in a shell-hole from which Porta and Tiny are already firing. The MG is almost glowing.
Albert and Heide appear, moving like greased lightning.
‘Don’t shoot, man. It’s only us,’ shouts Albert, at the top of his voice, crossing a wrecked T-34 in almost one leap.
But Porta fires anyway. At the party of Russians who are chasing after them.
‘No, stop man!’ screams Albert. ‘The neighbours are after us with all kinds of shit!’
‘What do you think I’m shooting at, you silly, black sod!’ snarls Porta, clipping a new drum on the MG.
‘Come down here,’ I shout, waving to them. I take over the MG and send covering fire at the women’s wing.
‘Hell, man,’ pants Albert. ‘You trying to cut our arses off?’
The firing ceases. We hear the pound of running feet. The earth shakes at a fall of shells. In front of us.
‘They ours or the neighbours’?’ asks Heide, fear in his voice.
‘Who the hell knows,’ answers Porta. ‘Let’s get out of it, anyway! I’ll take this pointy-eared sod with me,’ he says, picking up the Russian MG. ‘The neighbours don’t care what they get killed with.’
I jump down into a long dip, and sense figures at the far end of it.
Porta turns ‘pointy-ears’ on them and empties the drum.
We rush on, fast as ever we can move, run as if the devil himself were at our heels.
I stumble, somewhere, over a body. Head over heels we slip and slide down into a position. Our weapons fly from our hands. I hammer my face into a wrecked Maxim MG.
‘Hell’s bells, man! Ivan’s coming,’ howls Albert, twisting round in the air as he jumps with the agility of an acrobat. His Mpi chatters off a long burst at a party of white-camouflaged Russians who come rushing out of the forest.
‘The neighbours,’ shouts Tiny. ‘The bleedin’ neighbours.’
‘Let’s get out of here,’ says Porta, getting up and putting the Russian MG on his shoulder. ‘I have no desire to die for Führer, Folk and Fatherland!’
The cutting wind howls through the gulch, blows icily over the open plain, and is now almost a storm. Its howl makes it impossible to talk to one another. Nobody in his right mind would stay out in it longer than absolutely necessary. But who asks a soldier when he’s in the line. In reality we should have frozen to death long ago. The frost cuts at us, and seems to be slashing out our very lives.
‘Tell us miserable life,
How can you grow, and flower, upon the ice?’
sings Porta, as we rest for a moment behind a storm-battered hedge.
‘What in the name of hell, man, is the highly praised German infantry doing?’ curses Albert.
‘Lying in holes, letting their arses get a look at the Russian full moon,’ answers Porta, sending a long burst out into the curtain of snow.
‘Let’s get on!’ says Heide.
‘By the seven devils, man, but it’s shit-cold,’ grumbles Albert, his teeth chattering like an entire orchestra.
‘Plop!.Plop!’ mortar bombs drop around us.
Bending forward we run on down a winding track.
Suddenly I get caught in a blast of wind, which spins me round and sends me over the edge. Icy storm winds hit me like fists. Desperately I catch at a ledge, but my gloved hands slip on the ice-clad surface. I go on down, in a raging storm of snow and ice crystals, which whip at me, stinging like scorpions. It feels as if I am moving at terrific speed through a maelstrom. Everything spins around me in a crazy whirl. A flare goes off close to me, blinding me completely. Tracer tracks speed by, both above and below me. I feel as if I am falling endlessly, down, down through the icy-cold air. Crystals of ice fill my mouth, threatening to choke me. Suddenly I realise I am falling head downwards. Trees and rocks projecting from the snow come rushing towards me with express speed. Desperately I try to remember what they taught us at the guerilla warfare school. ‘When falling from a great height, spread out your arms, glide like a bird!’ I kick out with my legs and strike out with my arms, but cannot change my direction of fall. Helplessly I rush on down to be crushed on the great rocks, which seem as if they were coming up at me. I scream, am stiff with terror, hope only that it will be all over quickly.
With a long, gliding movement I land softly as if on a giant sack of feathers. A whole mountain races past me. A row of trees follows. These too I pass at high speed. All the wind is knocked out of my lungs. I feel a burning pain lance up through my right side. My sight dims, but I come to myself again, surrounded by snow, snow and more snow. I realise I have landed in an enormous snowdrift. Above me tower huge cliffs. In some way I must have turned in the air, landed feet first, and then tobogganed for many yards on my back through the soft snow.
My Mpi is gone. My P-38 too. All I have to defend myself with is my combat knife and two plastic grenades.
The storm howls deafeningly above me. A machine-gun chatters viciously from somewhere in the forest.
I shout desperately, but shouting is hopeless while the storm continues. Even someone standing next to me would not be able to hear me. Now, I suddenly feel the cold. A merciless, killing cold. I must move. It is not possible to stay alive for long in this inhuman frost. Round about me trees burst with a noise like rifle shots.
A long drawn out scream sounds, not far away. When I turn, in alarm, I see a pair of eyes shining in the darkness, and can just see the outline of a snow wolf. I hit out at it with a branch. It snarls, but stays where it is. Gently I draw my combat knife from my jackboot.
‘Get away,’ I shout, lashing out with the branch.
It turns and slinks away. From the concealing curtain of snow it howls its hatred at me.
I cannot remember how I get out of the deep snow. I remember walking a long way on an icy, slippery track, which I continually slip and slide on.
A sharp, commanding ‘Stoi!’ sends me to cover behind the roots of a tree. I throw one of my grenades at the shape. The explosion rings through the woods. The Russian is thrown into the air. He lands again and remains still.
His Kalashnikov has almost been thrown into my arms by the explosion of the grenade. I grasp it, and work my way towards him, silent as a snake. His stomach has been torn open. The blood has already frozen to ice in the hard frost.
Then I see the four others. All killed by Mpi bursts. They have obviously walked into a trap. The man I have killed is the only one who has escaped. If he had kept quiet, and hidden behind a tree, it would be me who was dead now. He was probably crazed with fear. Its no fun running around in a dark, frost-cracking forest with all kinds of mad killers sneaking about in it.
I leave the track and force my way through the snow and in between the trees. I have readied the Kalashnikov and am fully-prepared to shoot anything that moves.
An arm goes round my throat and cuts off my breathing. A barde knife is at my throat.
‘One more’n you’re dead, Fritz,’ snarls a voice, in Russian.
I am completely paralysed. The blood in my veins turns to ice. The pressure of the knife against my throat increases slightly. I wait for the unavoidable end. With a quick movement he will slash open my throat.
There comes a roar of laughter. A hard push in the back, and I fall on my face in the snow.
‘Scared you, didn’t we?’ laughs Porta.
/> I feel as if I would like to go straight for him, I am so furious.
From between the trees come Tiny and Albert, grinning broadly. They seem to think they have perpetrated the joke of the year on me.
‘Lucky for you it was us you ran into,’ says Porta. ‘Now maybe you’ll know bener than to walk around in these parts as if it was peacetime.’
‘Shut up you shit,’ I snarl, viciously, picking up the Kalashnikov. ‘Hell, I was scared!’
‘You must be mad as a bleedin’ ’atter to go walkin’ along like that in the middle of a Commie forest in wartime,’ says Tiny, reproachingly.
‘Maybe you ain’t understood it yet, but the neighbours are ripping chunks off our poor bleedin’ arseholes!’
‘Let’s go home,’ says Porta. By ‘home’ he means the front-line.
We have only just got through the ruined village when we meet the remains of the Company. Oberleutnant Löwe is covered in blood, and talking from a hole in a heavy bandage which covers his head and goes down onto his chest.
In a long column of single file we march out over the frozen lake. What is left of the regiment musters at Bajkanskij.
Lips compressed, Oberst Hinka receives the strength figures from his company commanders. Losses are very great, due to the late commencement of the artillery covering fire.
5. Company: 19 men, reports Oberleutnant Löwe. 98 fallen, 36 wounded, 51 missing. By ‘missing’ he means those who have been blown to unrecognisability, left dying, or taken prisoner. It is doubtful if any of them will ever be heard of again.
A thunderous, whistling sound becomes audible. With a long roar a salvo explodes amongst us. In seconds Bajkanskij is a sea of flame.
A torn-off leg, still wearing its boot, hits me in the back and knocks me to the ground.
‘Thank you, man,’ says Albert. ‘That guy must’ve been real mad at you to throw his whole leg at you like that!’
We run through the flames, firing as rapidly as we can. The Russians are following a plan they often use. A sudden, violent artillery attack, followed by a madly fanatical attack by the infantry, who have been lying in wait close in front of our positions. We can usually beat them off with our automatic weapons, but this time is different. They are superior in strength and continue to press their attack.
We withdraw. Fleeing for the second time through Bajkanskij with grenade-thrower and mortar fire at our heels.
‘Follow me!’ says the Old Man, raising his Mpi above his head.
Above all, we have learnt about death, at an age at which it is more natural for us to regard ourselves as being immortal.
P. Caputo
Porta draws his P-38 from its holster, and moves carefully up towards the wide main door, which is standing half open.
‘After you,’ he suggests to Tiny, standing politely to one side.
‘You believe, maybe, that my ’ead is filled with Russian earth?’ answers Tiny. ‘I ’ave been takin’ part in this war long enough to ’ave discovered years ago never to go through a door first unless you are desirous of a ’ell of an effective an’ sudden death.’
‘The devil!’ Porta swears, staring at the wide door, so temptingly open. An open door could mean a lot of things. There could, for example, be some sneaky type standing behind it ready to knock a chap on the head with a T-34, if a chap were dumb enough to put his head inside. ‘To hell with it,’ he mumbles, throwing himself through the door. Before he has finished sliding across the floor he has turned and is shooting at the place behind the door. No-one is there! He rolls over, and sends a bullet through another door. ‘Empty as a politician’s head,’ he shouts, looking up cautiously over the edge of a table.
‘Bleedin’ right,’ roars Tiny, coming thundering into the hall, and sending a couple of bullets through a door, for the sake of good order.
We are about to open the hatches when a long chattering Mpi burst sounds. The man who comes rushing out on to the landing of the staircase disappears in an explosion of scarlet drops. His head flys off, like a tall hat in windy weather.
First comes Tiny rushing down the stairs. With a leap of Olympic dimensions he lands in the Kübel. Porta follows at a speed which appears to be no more than two yards slower than the speed of light. He dives headfirst into the Kübel’ s driving seat. He backs, then shoots forward, in between all kinds of tanks, followed by the startled looks of both Russian and German tank commanders. They almost fall out of their turrets to see what is happening.
1Jabo: Jagerbombemaschinen (Fighterbombers).
2Nevaéssta: Sweetheart.
3Vaernútssa, dassvidánya: I’m off home, goodbye.
4Blitzmädel: Woman Telephonist (Signal Corps)
5
War Debris
Hot blood drips down on me, melting the snow which has covered my face. Both his legs have been torn off at the knee. This is where the blood is coming from. Every tiny movement I make makes me scream with pain. After a while I manage to edge my head out of the steel-helmet, and turn it slightly to one side, so that the drip of blood from the man hanging across the beam above me just misses my face.
Over by the empty ammunition boxes lies Porta, rolled up like a dog. Beside him lies Barcelona in a pool of blood. After a while I find them all. Tiny is sitting with Albert, on the remains of what was once a tank turret. The gun barrel has been opened up like a banana skin.
‘I wish I was a hen’
sings Albert, in a hoarse voice.
I cannot remember what has happened, excepting that the earth seemed to open and throw out fire and steel.
A Hauptmann walks, stiff-legged, down through the litter of bodies. His Mauser swings in his hand. He gives orders to troops he no longer has.
A bare-headed Padre appears, like a spectre, from a hole. He quacks something un-understandable, and gives out a mad laugh.
‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ screams the Hauptmann, and shoots the Padre through the head. With a shrill laugh he staggers on over dead and wounded. He does not even see the T-34 which comes up over a rise in the ground and comes rattling towards him. He is thrown up in the air and lands with a hollow thud on the turret. His body slides down over the back of the tank, and is crushed under the broad tracks of the T-34 following it.
‘Another damned Germanski less,’ laughs the tank driver, as he feels the tracks bump over, and crush, the Hauptmann.
The Old Man bends over me. His helmet is cut open, as if by a can-opener. Shrapnel has gone in through the neck-piece and out at the front.
It is one of the new helmets which are supposed to be proof against shrapnel.
‘You’re still alive,’ he smiles, comfortingly, and wipes the blood from my face. ‘Where are you hit? Doesn’t seem anything wrong with your head.’.
I point upwards.
‘It’s his blood.’
‘Yes. Well, we won’t have to bother about him,’ says the Old Man, glancing up at the legless body hanging across the beam.
‘I must have got it in the guts,’ I say, painfully. ‘Hell, but it hurts, and I can’t move at all.’
‘Take it easy, now,’ says the Old Man, patting me on the cheek. ‘It’s almost never as bad as you think it is.’
‘What about the others?’ I ask, worriedly.
‘They’ve had a rough time of it, too,’ answers the Old Man. ‘Albert’s gone mad, I think. Singing all the time. The whole load dropped right in the middle of us. I was thrown miles away. The infantry in front of us were simply blown to atoms. Not even a button left.’
‘Are my legs still there?’ I ask, fearfully. ‘I can’t feel them at all.’
‘They’re still firmly attached to the rest of you,’ smiles the Old Man. He lights his silver-lidded pipe and blows a cloud of blue smoke out into the cold air. ‘But you took a hell of a trip through the air. Stay quite still now. But we’ ll have to get on the move before the neighbours come running.’
‘Devils in hell,’ groans Barcelona, his voice full of pain and horror. ‘I�
�� ve been to the gates of both Heaven and Hell, but neither place’d have me. How can that be? I don’t understand.’
‘Natural as Creation,’ mumbles Porta. His eyes are on Gregor, who is lying in the barbed wire talking to a Russian body.
A line of infantrymen appears from the forest. An Oberfeld-webel glares sourly at us.
‘Got both your arseholes an’ your guts shot out of you, looks like,’ he comments and is about to continue on his way without helping us.
‘Take us with you,’ shouts the Old Man. ‘We can’t manage on our own.’
‘All right, then. Cut the cackle, chum!’ growls the Oberfeldwebel with a wicked grin. ‘You wanna play big white chief? There’s two of us can do that, then!’
‘Up you brother,’ snarls the Old Man. ‘You take us with you! If you don’t I’ll find you again sooner or later! Your arse won’t like it, then!’
‘That’s what you think,’ the Oberfeldwebel gives out a confident peal of laughter. ‘We’re the last, son! Rearguard you might call us! After us’re the neighbours’n the end of the world for you lot. However, I’m in a friendly mood today so we will take you with us. But no further’n till the neighbours catch up. Then it’s the sailor’s farewell, chummies! Pick up these poor sods!’ he orders his men. ‘If one of ’em dies on you drop him off!’
‘What the fuck’ve these shits to do with us?’ protests an Unteroffizier with a flamethrower fuel-tank on his back.
‘Shut your trap,’ snarls the Oberfeldwebel, brutally. ‘Get movin’!’
‘We can’t take ’em all,’ shouts a Gefreiter. ‘Some of ‘em’ll have to stay here‘n hope Ivan’s in a Sunday mood when he gets here!’
‘Those farthest back in the queue get left,’ decides the Oberfeldwebel, shortly.
Roughly and unwillingly they pull us to our feet, taking no notice of our groans.
