Forced March

by Leo Kessler

  Five minutes later Mitzi had pulled off Schulze’s dice-beakers and black slacks and was running her delightful snub little Viennese nose along the length of his erect penis, as if she were smelling some particularly beautiful flower, when in the other bed Matz moaned suddenly.

  ‘Schulze!’

  ‘What is it, you stupid bastard?’ Schulze demanded angrily. ‘Can’t you see you’re putting me off my stroke?’

  ‘But I can’t … can’t –’

  ‘Can’t what?’

  ‘Can’t get on her!’ the little one-legged corporal answered tearfully.

  With a muttered curse Schulze turned round. In the dim red light, he could make out Matz’s girl naked on the bed, her slim brown legs clutched in her hands high above her head expectantly. Matz, however, was still sitting on his chair, naked and obviously very ready for the task ahead, drooling at the sight.

  ‘She’s gonna get a very bad cold with her legs open to the draught like that,’ Schulze commented.

  ‘Please Schulzi, no jokes!’ Matz pleaded, his eyes desperate. ‘I’ve been dreaming of this for months.’

  Schulze jumped off the bed. Hastily he padded across the room on his bare feet, his instrument stuck out in front of him like a cop’s club. ‘Come on, yer lousy perverted little cripple.’ With one sweep of his bandaged hands he gathered up the one-legged corporal and deposited him in the cradle of the girl’s legs. ‘Now try that one for size,’ he growled.

  The whore grunted with pleasure and Matz went into action at once, the bedsprings squeaking like red-hot engine pistons.

  Schulze wasted no further time either. Outside the bombs were beginning to fall thick and fast. With every fresh explosion, Mitzi gave a delightful little start that added to his pleasure immensely. He took advantage of it, the sweat flooding from his big muscular back.

  From the other bed, Matz cried in wild exuberance, ‘Race yer Schulzi – race yer, yer old bastard.’

  * * *

  ‘Stehenbleiben!’

  The elegant, monocled staff officer reined back his black mount in alarm. ‘In three devils’ name, what are you men up to?’ he stuttered, his left eye bulging behind the monocle at the sight of a one-legged drunken soldier sprawled in a night-shirt in his bathchair, clutching a chamber-pot full of brown liquid, with a pair of red lace pants on his shaven head, being pushed by an equally drunken brute of a fellow, his flies unbuttoned, his hands encased in plaster and a wooden leg stuck over his shoulder.

  ‘Taking the morning air,’ Schulze said helpfully. ‘It’s very nice now the Tommies have unloaded their square eggs and gone.’

  ‘Fine morning!’ the elegant staff officer exploded. ‘Man, it’s drizzling!’

  Schulze looked up and vaguely felt the raindrops on his broad tough face. ‘So it is, sir. Didn’t notice. Hey, Matzi, put yer hand over me beer. God’s pissing in it!’

  ‘Blasphemy, too!’ the officer bellowed and reined in his mount. ‘What in the name of God is the Armed SS coming to?’

  ‘Shit in the wind!’ Matz said drunkenly and took another drink of the stale beer that they had brought with them from the brothel an hour before – ‘to keep us fit while we’re looking for the Wotan. Shitty warm brother on a shitty old nag!’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Don’t take him serious, sir,’ Schulze tried to placate the red-faced officer. ‘They’ve got to pump the urine out of him every two hours – that’s why he’s carrying the piss – er chamberpot. It makes him light-headed. The weight being lifted, you see.’

  The officer choked. Stretching his neck out of his tight collar like a strangulated ostrich, he gasped: ‘Will you shut up! That man, he … he insulted me!’

  ‘Insulted you,’ Matz inquired with drunken innocence. ‘All I said was shit in the wind. Now I don’t call that insulting anybody. If I really wanted –’

  The rest of his words were drowned by the officer’s shrill whistle as he blew the silver alarm pipe hanging from his tunic, his face crimson with rage.

  The chain dogs appeared as if from nowhere, four of them led by a sergeant, and all of them armed with carbines. The NCO snapped to attention in front of the officer, the silver crescent plate of his office gleaming in the red ball of the sun which was now beginning to shine through the smoke of the raid. ‘Sir?’ he rapped.

  ‘Arrest those two disgusting animals,’ the officer spluttered. ‘Arrest them at once. They have just insulted me – an officer of the Greater General Staff.’

  The burly chain dog eyed Schulze warily out of the corner of his cold eyes, taking in the chestful of decorations and the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross hanging askew from around his open neck. ‘What exactly did they say, sir?’ he asked.

  The staff officer began to explain while Matz laughed uproariously, threatening to fall out of the ancient bathchair more than once.

  ‘Shit in the wind, the little one said, Sergeant,’ the officer concluded, trembling with rage now, ‘shit in the wind to an officer of the Greater General St –’

  It was then that Matz threw the chamberpot full of stale beer at the officer, soaking the front of his elegant tunic.

  ‘Now look what he’s done!’ the officer screamed, beating off the liquid with his grey leather glove, as if it were concentrated sulphuric acid, ‘he’s thrown a pot full of piss at me!’

  The chain dogs crowded in on the two SS men. Schulze raised the wooden leg protectively. The big sergeant unslung his carbine. Another chain dog clicked off his safety threateningly. ‘You’d better come quietly,’ the sergeant commanded. He took a step forward, big hand outstretched to grab Schulze.

  But that wasn’t to be. With a sudden squeal of brakes a big black Horch came skidding to a halt on the wet cobbles. Huge black-uniformed SS adjutants, every man of them a head taller than Schulze, sprang from the running boards and faced outwards grease-guns at the ready. The sergeant dropped his hand. All around him his men stiffened to attention as they recognised the stiff metal standard flying from the Horch’s bonnet.

  ‘Christ on a crutch,’ Schulze breathed, as the back door of the big car opened for a portly man with a sallow face and a pair of schoolmaster’s pince-nez, his black general’s tunic devoid of any decoration save the bronze Sport Medal, third class, ‘It’s the Reichsheini himsen!’

  ‘What is the matter here?’ inquired the most feared man in Europe. ‘Why are you brawling with my SS men in the middle of Berlin?’ Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler’s dark eyes filled with a genuine look of concern. ‘And both of them wounded too!’

  ‘GVHs,’1 Schulze snapped. ‘But they can’t make us KVs2 a moment too soon, Reichsführer. We’re ready to go back to the front as soon as possible.’ He attempted to click to attention, but drunk as he was, he nearly fell over.

  Himmler’s eyes sparkled warmly. ‘That’s what I like to hear from my loyal SS men.’

  ‘But Reichsführer,’ the staff officer tried to protest.

  Himmler withered him with an icy glance. The staff officer’s horse seemed to be as frightened by the look as his master and fidgeted restlessly. Reichsführer SS Himmler tuttutted impatiently. Then his eyes fell on Gerdi’s red panties which adorned Matz’s shaven skull. ‘But why are you wearing what appears to be a – er – female undergarment on your head?’ he asked.

  Matz, suddenly aware of the fix they were in and not wishing to be sent to the feared Torgau Military Prison from which he had volunteered for the SS, lied glibly. ‘It’s because of the blood, Reichsführer.’

  ‘Blood?’

  ‘Yes sir. You see it’s nearly a month ago since I was wounded, but it still keeps bleeding. The bone-mend – er – doctors can’t seem to stop it. So when my comrade here pushes me out for my morning walk in the fresh air, I wear the garment so that the civvies don’t see the blood. I feel, Reichsführer, that it would be bad for morale to see a bleeding soldier in the middle of the Reich’s capital.

  ‘Laudable, highly laudable,’ Himmler said thickly an
d dabbed his suddenly moist eyes – he was a very emotional man in matters which concerned his elite formation. ‘You base stallions who have all the time in the world to go riding when the Reich is in danger from all sides should take an example from my brave, suffering SS men.’

  ‘Yessir,’ gulped the staff officer.

  Himmler dismissed him with a wave of his hand then turned to the two SS men again, his sallow face set in a soft smile. ‘And now, what can I do for you two heroes?’

  Schulze jumped at the opportunity. Even in his drunken stupor, he knew it was the chance he had been looking for these last few days: a means of escaping the white clinical boredom of La Charité. ‘Reichsführer, we would like to return to our battalion at once.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘SS Battalion Wotan,’ Schulze bellowed, as if he were back on the parade ground at Sennestadt.

  Himmler smiled fondly. ‘Ah, Wotan,’ he exclaimed, ‘I have heard very good things about your battalion.’

  Nevertheless Schulze thought he noticed a furtive look of hesitation in the Reichsführer’s eyes, as he beckoned Schulze to come a little closer. ‘Your unit is at Dieppe, Sergeant,’ he said softly.

  ‘Dieppe, Reichsführer?’

  ‘On the French coast,’ Himmler explained.

  ‘But there’s no front there, Reichsführer,’ Schulze said, puzzled. ‘And there hasn’t been ever since the Frogs surrendered two years ago. Wotan is the Führer’s Fire Brigade, we’re always where the action is.’

  Heinrich Himmler winked, an unusual gesture in such a humourless man. ‘Don’t worry, my brave Sergeant,’ he murmured confidentially, ‘the Tommies will be taking care of that problem soon.’

  Notes

  1 GVH: Garnisonverwendungsfahigheimat, ie fit for home duties.

  2 KV: Kriegsverwendungsfahig, ie fit for frontline duty.

  THREE

  The British Prime Minister wallowed in the bubble bath. ‘Well Mountbatten,’ he demanded, ‘what news of the operation?’

  The handsome young aristocratic head of Combined Operations seized his opportunity. New to his important job since the sinking of HMS Kelly1 had left him without a command, he wanted to make instant success of it, as he had done with everything else in his meteoric wartime career. ‘I’m afraid, Prime Minister, that the Boche seem to be on to something. Our friends of the Resistance inform us that the Boche are moving in elements of a new panzer division into the area and two units of the Adolf Hitler Bodyguard have been spotted in the Rouen area. They were badly hit in Russia according to our Intelligence and are reforming at the moment. Then yesterday evening we picked this up from Radio Paris: Roosevelt has given Hopkins and Marshall2 full power to provide Great Britain with all the help she might need to try a second Narvik, short of sending American troops of course. Churchill should be warned that in attempting a second Narvik, he risks a second Dunkirk.’ Mountbatten looked up. ‘It might mean they’re guessing we’re going to have another crack at Norway.’ He shrugged slightly. ‘Or it could mean, Prime Minister, that they knew we’re really heading for France.’

  Churchill did not speak. His face remained expressionless, almost as if he had been expecting the news. Mountbatten licked his lips and waited for the Prime Minister to speak. But Churchill remained obstinately silent.

  In the end, Mountbatten spoke himself. ‘Of course, the Boche might simply be doing a little bit of inspired guesswork, Prime Minister. Though we must take into account the fact the op has been on since April, and Field Security has clear proof that the Canadians have been talking about it openly in their pubs on the South-East coast.’ He smiled thinly, showing his excellent teeth. ‘Our Colonials are a somewhat loud-mouthed bunch, I’m afraid.’

  Churchill sat up suddenly. He dipped the end of his cigar into the big jigger of brandy conveniently located at the edge of the bath and stared belligerently at the youthful Head of Combined Operations. Mountbatten told himself that the PM looked like the Chinese God of Plenty with a severe case of bellyache.

  ‘You know why we are putting this op of yours in, don’t you, Mountbatten?’ he demanded suddenly.

  ‘Well, sir, we haven’t done anything since the big Nazaire raid in March, and to use your own words, “the hand of steel, which comes from the sea, and plucks the German sentries from their posts” has been rather idle of late.’ He grinned disarmingly.

  Churchill glared back. ‘It’s more than a raid, Mountbatten, much more!’ he growled, pointing his big cigar at the sailor. ‘The Reds are kicking up a devil of a fuss about their losses and how they are bearing the brunt of the fighting. Only last week Uncle Joe3 stated publicly that the Red Army has no desire to exterminate the German nation, nor destroy the German state. A perfectly clear indication that the Red bugger is prepared to make a separate peace with Hitler if the situation in Russia gets any worse. Naturally President Roosevelt is worried, that’s why he is forcing that new chap of his in Grosvenor Square, General Eisenstein –’

  ‘Eisenhower, General Eisenhower!’

  ‘Yes, some sort of un-English name like that. Well, he’s now busy, at Roosevelt’s request, drawing up plans for an invasion this year. Second Front Now, you’ve seen the Communist signs painted everywhere on the walls between here at Chequers and London?’

  Mountbatten nodded. Overnight there had been a sudden rash of the signs sprawled in glaring white paint on every available wall. They were obviously the work of the British CP.

  ‘But who will bear the brunt of that invasion, Mountbatten?’ Churchill thrust out his pugnacious chin and stared accusingly at the naval officer. ‘The British Army. Mount-batten, I would not be doing my duty to my Monarch if I let a new British Army be slaughtered in France. It has taken us two years since Dunkirk to train those ten new divisions and I’m not going to have them thrown into a great battle for which they are not properly prepared, and faced by a German superiority of two and a half divisions to one in France. The British Army will not suffer another defeat on the beaches of France in 1942.

  ‘But my ally demands a landing in Europe this year. There is no way round it, Mountbatten. I have given my word to Roosevelt that they – he and that monster Stalin – will have it. Oh, yes they will get their landing in France in 1942!’ He blew a smoke ring slowly into the air above the big bath and said softly. ‘Mountbatten, I want a sacrifice from your commandos and the Canadians who will go in with them.’

  ‘A sacrifice?’

  Churchill looked at him carefully through half closed eyes. ‘Mountbatten, I knew your father. He was able and ambitious like you. But he lacked one thing – political savoir faire. And it was that which ruined him. He was unable to see the way things were going in time and ally himself to a powerful political figure. It ruined his career.’

  Mountbatten remained silent, knowing that Churchill was right. His father’s German name of Battenberg, which had roused the ire of the hysterical anti-German mob at the start of World War One, had been only part of the reason why he had been forced to resign from the Royal Navy. Papa had also found himself completely isolated politically when the mob had demanded he should go. His father’s ruin had been an object lesson for him throughout his naval career and now that war seemed to be opening up hitherto undreamed-of possibilities for him, he was beginning to realise that he would also need powerful friends at court when the time came for him to make the next jump upwards.

  ‘I know you will not make the same mistake as your father.’

  ‘I hope not, sir,’ Mountbatten replied, vaguely uneasy at the direction the conversation was taking.

  ‘Good, then we understand each other. As I say then, my American ally must have his landing so that he is prepared to take over the task of placating the Russian bear. But Mount-batten, that landing must show our American ally just how bloody and wasteful of human life an undertaking of that kind is. Roosevelt must be convinced that a second front this summer is absolutely out of the question. My boy, the future of the British Empire might well
depend upon the outcome of this operation. If the British Army were to be destroyed this summer, we would never be capable of producing another one – the barrel is about scraped clean and you can imagine what our fate would be in the years to come? For remember, God is always on the side of the big battalions.’

  ‘But, sir, you can’t expect me to send in –’

  Churchill cut him short with an imperious wave of his hand. ‘Mountbatten, understand this. Failure at Dieppe is what I demand of you!’

  Notes

  1 The destroyer he commanded which was sunk off Crete.

  2 Roosevelt’s special advisor, and the Chief of the US Army.

  3 Nickname for the Soviet dictator Stalin.

  FOUR

  ‘Morning, soldiers!’ yelled Colonel Geier above the roar of the waves hitting the base of the French cliffs upon which SS Battalion Wotan now stood rigidly to attention.

  ‘Morning, Colonel!’ eight hundred hoarse young throats roared back, sending the seagulls sailing away in alarm into the hard blue summer sky above the sea.

  ‘Stand the men at ease please, Sergeant-Major.’

  Sergeant-Major Metzger wheeled on his heel. He took up his position in the centre of the hollow square, boots wide apart, chest and jaw thrust out, beefy butcher’s hands on his hips. It was a pose he had once seen in an old film about the Kaiser’s Army and he had practised it secretly in front of the full-length mirror in his married quarter until he had it perfect. He savoured the moment, running his eyes along the Battalion’s rigid ranks. But not one of the men, new recruits as well as the old hands who had survived the Russian carnage, gave him cause for complaint. Every single man was standing woodenly to attention in the prescribed position, eyes fixed hypnotically on the distant horizon. ‘Shitehawks,’ he told himself, ‘yer’d think the dummies were trying to see to England.’

  ‘Stand at ease – stand easy,’ he bellowed and set the gulls sailing off into the sky again.