Forced March

by Leo Kessler

  ‘I know it’s only French gnat’s piss,’ the Butcher bellowed. ‘But it’s gonna be a cold night, prost!’

  Like automatons, the NCOs guzzled the frothy French beer sucking it down in noisy gulps until their mugs were empty. Then, as the traditional Army ceremony prescribed, they banged the mugs down on the scrubbed wooden tables and rubbed the bases round three times in noisy unison.

  The Butcher wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his hairy hand, his face already beginning to sweat in the August heat. He looked at Schulze. ‘Sergeant Schulze,’ he barked, a smirk on his broad face, ‘you reckon yourself the Battalion comic, tell us a joke.’

  ‘And make it a juicy one, Schulze,’ chuckled Sergeant Gross, who made a habit of chewing razor blades when he was drunk. ‘I always get a stiff one when I hear a juicy one, pox-cop.’

  Schulze, his face angry and glowering, stumbled awkwardly to his feet. He thrust up his plastered paw. ‘Why don’t yer sit on that, Gross,’ he snorted. ‘Give yerself a cheap thrill! A joke, Sergeant Major? What about the two nuns practising hymns together in bed?’

  ‘Eh?’ the Butcher looked at him blankly.

  ‘Shit,’ breathed Matz, sitting next to Schulze, ‘that bastard’s so dumb he can’t even eat soup with a spoon.’

  ‘Well, what about the one of the plastic surgeon who hanged himself?’ Schulze persisted.

  ‘You call that a shitty joke?’ the Butcher growled. ‘Give us one to make us laugh. We don’t want those lemons, you rooting sow. We want something to make us piss our pants!’

  Schulze looked up at the ceiling desperately, as if appealing to God to snatch him away from so many fools. ‘Well, Sergeant Major,’ he said carefully, trying the joke he had told on these occasions for the last three years, ‘did you hear what the soldier said to his missus on his first night home after six months away from her?’

  ‘No,’ the Butcher said eagerly; the French waitresses had almost finished refilling the glasses now.

  ‘Take a good look at the floor, darling, because you’re not gonna be seeing anything except the ceiling for the next shitting forty-eight hours!’

  The room exploded with laughter, while Schulze stared at his comrades’ red sweating faces with undisguised disgust. ‘Now that’s what I call a joke, Schulze!’ the Butcher gasped, tears running down his face. He grapsed his mug. ‘All right, comrades, let’s sink this one before it gets too cold. Kameraden – prost!’

  Schulze looked out of the window at the brilliant, sun-drenched square, and hissed through his beer, ‘Matzi, don’t swallow so much o’ that parrot pee. Remember we’ve got better things in front of us.’ He smiled, remembering the revenge he would be soon taking on Sergeant-Major shitty Metzger, and winked at Matz.

  The one-legged NCO winked solemnly back.

  * * *

  The same brilliant sunshine that shone down on the barracks of Assault Battalion Wotan that Tuesday afternoon, 18th October 1942 scorched the roads of Southern England too, transforming the long lines of vehicles queuing up outside the ports into stifling boxes. They rumbled past ancient, stub-towered Saxon churches and squeezed through narrow cobbled high streets towards the gleaming green stretch of water below. Here and there grubby children in ragged shirts, making tar horses from matchsticks and the melted tar at the roadside, waved. But their mothers, emaciated, long deprived of their husbands, their hair in iron curlers, stared at the convoys apathetically. They had seen too many men drive down to the ports never to return during these last black years.

  Now the little south coast ports were filled with marching Canadians, their transports left above on the heights overlooking the boats. Essex Scottish Regiment … Fusiliers Mont-Royal … Royal Hamilton Light Infantry … Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada … Five thousand of them, marching through silent streets scrawled with the fading ‘SECOND FRONT NOW!’ slogans, echoing to the stamp of steel-shot ammunition boots.

  Nobody waved. Nobody shouted. No bands played. And it was fitting that they didn’t. For of the five thousand men crunching over the cobbles, swinging their arms fiercely, sweating in the hot afternoon sun, only two thousand would ever see England again.

  * * *

  ‘Meine Herren,’ said the Vulture, ‘I know it is hot, but may I crave your attention?’ He looked at the Wotan officers with barely concealed boredom.

  The Wotan officers, clad in black breeches and their white summer jackets, faced their red-faced CO.

  ‘In a moment we shall be going across to the NCOs’ Mess to endure yet another of those social evenings which the Reichsheini with his petty-bourgeois weakness for such impossible occasions, has forced upon us.’ The Vulture looked challengingly at his officers to check whether any of his National Socialist fanatics were prepared to take offence at his remarks about their Supreme Leader. But they feared him, more than they respected Himmler and they remained silent.

  Von Dodenburg smiled to himself. The Vulture had really tamed the Battalion’s Party hotheads. A mere twelve months ago, he himself would have taken offence at remarks of that kind. But that had been before Russia.

  ‘Now I do not know your capacity for strong waters. All I know is that the gentlemen of the SS NCO Corps will undoubtedly drink themselves into insensibility this evening in their usual piggish fashion. My officers will not do so, however much they are pressed to do by those guzzling swine over there.’ He waved his riding crop in the direction from which the first and inevitable chorus of Oh, du schoener Westerwald was coming. ‘You will accept a maximum of three schnapps – in the case of you younger lieutenants a sniff at the waitress’s apron should suffice – and that is all. The Tommies could land at any moment and I don’t want any of you getting your turnips blown off because your brains were too schnapps-addled to react fast enough.’ He laughed harshly and fingered his Knight’s Cross. ‘After all, I need you alive so that I can cure my throatache with a few diamonds.’

  A few of the older officers laughed, but not many. The Vulture was deadly serious. He would sacrifice them all if it would gain him the coveted ‘diamonds’ for his Knight’s Cross.2

  Kuno von Dodenburg walked out into the brilliant sunshine with his CO and blinked his eyes rapidly. The hot glare cut at his eyeballs like a sharp knife.

  ‘Phew,’ he breathed and wiped away the sweat. ‘Do you think they’ll really come in this heat, sir?’

  ‘They can cool off in the sea when we kick them back into it,’ the Vulture said, apparently unaffected by the temperature. He levelled his cane at the flat oily-slow swell of the water below. ‘Ideal for a landing, that sea. For all we know, my dear Major they may be beyond the horizon at this very moment.’ He laughed and allowed von Dodenburg to open the door to the NCOs’ party.

  * * *

  It was now 6.10 p.m. With a soft plop the buoy with its green flag slipped into the calm sea from the leading ship of the Royal Navy’s 13th Minesweeping Flotilla. The first marker through the German minefield that barred the way of the invasion fleet to follow had been laid. Swiftly the little minesweepers started to surge forward in a tight V to begin clearing the Channel.

  Behind them, in the south coast ports, covered by a thick, choking smoke screen, the troopships, disguised all these weeks as merchant ships, began to shed their camouflage. The soldiers began to march up the gangplanks, labelled and numbered like a package. In the galleys the sweating, dirty cooks in their torn undershirts started to hand out the last supper many of the troops would ever eat.

  ‘Sodding hell,’ Colonel the Laird of Abernockie and Dearth cursed, looking down at the greasy mess at the bottom of his mess-tin, ‘ruddy soya links and cowboy beans. Trust the Navy to make sure that us brown jobs spill our guts before we ever sodding well get there!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, sir,’ Freddy Rory-Brick answered imperturbably, spooning up his beans, ‘it’s weally wather good!’

  * * *

  As the officers led by the Vulture entered and the assembled NCOs stamped to
their feet, Schulze whispered to the plump, big-breasted waitress Marie, with whom he had been sleeping the last few nights, ‘Come over here, Juicy.’

  ‘Why do you call her Juicy?’ Matz queried.

  ‘If you had your dirty big paw where I’ve got mine just now,’ Schulze answered, ‘you’d know why.’

  ‘Filthy bugger!’ Matz said disgustedly, as Marie giggled with delight.

  Schulze had to hurry if he were to carry out his plan successfully this evening. He passed the waitress the phial of liquid he had stolen from the bone-menders that afternoon.

  Juicy giggled again when she saw the dark brown bottle. ‘The boom-boom?’ she queried, eyes sparkling.

  ‘Very boom-boom,’ Schulze said mysteriously. ‘That stuff should go off like Vesuvius exploding.’

  Still giggling, the waitress went off, leaving Matz looking at Schulze in bewilderment. ‘What’s all this, Schulze?’ he asked, when they had taken their seats again, and the officers with them.

  Schulze chuckled with undisguised joy. ‘It’s concentrated brown bomber for the Butcher,’ he exclaimed.

  Matz’s mouth fell open. Like everyone else in the Battalion, he feared the tremendously powerful laxative that had been dreamed up by the fiendish Doctor Hackenschmitt, Wotan’s new surgeon. ‘Shit, Schulze, one drop of that stuff makes yer fart like a flamethrower!’

  ‘Exactly, my little crippled friend,’ Schulze replied calmly, raising his glass in false comeraderie to the Butcher, whose big hand was now gripping the doctored beer.

  The Butcher let his attention wander from the Vulture’s conversation and took a mighty swig.

  Schulze nudged Matz in the ribs. Matz spewed a mouthful of beer on to the table. ‘What yer shittingly well doing?’ he gasped, ‘trying to break me ribs?’

  ‘He’s drunk it,’ Schulze whispered urgently. ‘The Butcher’s drunk it! Now we’ll have a few fireworks.’

  ‘But what’s all this in aid of?’ Matz demanded. ‘What yer giving him the brown bomber for?’

  ‘Cos we want to get out of here without trouble.’

  ‘Leave a free piss-up!’ Matz exploded.

  “There are higher things, Corporal Matz,’ Schulze said solemnly.

  ‘Tell me one.’

  ‘C-U-N-T,’ Schulze spelled out the word slowly.

  Matz’s sullen look vanished. ‘Oh, well, that’s something different,’ he agreed heartily. ‘I didn’t realise we were talking about religion. But where?’

  ‘The Café de la Belle Alliance.’

  ‘Rosi-Rosi, Schulze! But she’s the Butcher’s piece. If we buggered off now and he found you in the pit with her later on, he’d have the eggs off’n yer with a blunt razor-blade.’

  ‘My poor simple soldier,’ Schulze said pityingly, ‘tonight the Navy’s out on an exercise, this lot here are getting pissed and soon Sergeant-Major Metzger will suffer an unfortunate accident which will keep him close to his personal thunderbox for the rest of the night. So, Matzi, what do you conclude from that?’

  ‘That you’ll be able to shove yer meat into Rosi-Rosi and I’ll have the pick of her whores.’ Matz rubbed his hand delightedly. ‘I might spoil myself tonight with a couple of ’em.’

  ‘Come on, let’s sneak out, Matz.’

  Carefully the two of them pushed back their chairs and strolled with apparent casualness towards the door.

  ‘Hello, where are you two going?’

  It was Major von Dodenbuug, a glass of beer, hardly touched, in his hand.

  ‘It’s Matz, sir,’ Schulze rose to the occasion immediately. ‘He’s got a touch of migraine. I think it’s the company,’ he added. ‘The noise and the rough talk.’

  Matz looked wan.

  ‘I think I’ll get the little feller back to his bunk, and settle him down with Goethe’s poems and a cup of weak tea.’

  Von Dodenburg grinned and pulled down the corner of his right eye. ‘Can you see any green there, Schulze? Now what are you two –’

  He stopped as the head of the table was shattered by a tremendous burst of wind, which set the glasses rattling. The Vulture’s monocle popped out of his eye with surprise. It was only with difficulty that he restrained himself from falling backwards. Seated next to him, Sergeant Gross grabbed his throat frantically, eyes crossed dramatically. ‘Gas alarm!’ he cried as if he were choking. ‘Gas alarm!’

  As the Butcher staggered to his feet, his face a sickly green, his hands clutched to his ominously rumbling stomach, Schulze said hastily: ‘I think we’d better be going now, sir. And I’d advise you not to stay too long, there are a lot of rough types about!’

  * * *

  Von Dodenburg watched them stagger down the road towards Dieppe, their bodies shaking uncontrollably. Then he shrugged and dismissed them from his mind. Slowly he crunched a path across the fine grey gravel of the parade ground towards the First Company area. Already the night was beginning to slide long black fingers across the ground. Soon it would be time for the men in the barracks to put up the blackouts. He dropped the cheap Dutch cigar that someone had offered him at the NCO’s party and ground it out, staring at the youthful, unlined, unspoiled faces of his men, their cheeks tanned and glowing with good health, their gestures quick and assured. Suddenly he felt a warm glow of pride in them. The drunken cries, roars, snatches of dirty songs coming from the NCO’s party were forgotten. There was no dirtiness, no corruption here, von Dodenburg told himself. Here there was only dedicated devotion to Folk, Fatherland and Führer. Here was the new Germany, unburdened by the dirty compromises of the past, the clean young men who would run the Reich when the war was won.

  Warmed by the thought, Major Kuno von Dodenburg yawned hugely and then turning, began to make his way back to his own quarters. He was suddenly very tired. He would make an early night of it. Tomorrow would be another day.

  * * *

  They were through the minefield. There was a half moon and the sea was as smooth as glass. But the faint rustle of the wind and the lapping of the waves covered the stir of the ships’ screws and the subdued yet precise snap of commands. Everything was running smoothly. Yet there was a taut quality of suspense everywhere. For the CO of the 7th Commando it was as though it were his first raid and the first time he had crept through the undergrowth towards an unsuspecting German sentry. He took another sip of ration whisky from his silver flask and offered it to Freddy.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked softly, as if on the invisible enemy coast, German soldiers were straining their ears to catch his words.

  ‘The usual balls-up, sir, I wouldn’t be suwpwised.’

  ‘The lads okay?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t know, sir,’ Freddy answered easily. ‘I leave that sort of democwatic stuff of the NCOs.’

  ‘Big streak o’ piss,’ the Colonel said severely. ‘Gimme that flask back, you glutton.’

  For a moment the two officers were silent as the fleet of 250 little ships started to form up into groups for the final leg of the voyage to the French coast. Freddy Rory-Brick focused the borrowed night glasses and for want of something better to do began to count them aloud.

  ‘Five … six … seven … ten … eleven … twelve …’ Suddenly he stopped.

  ‘What’s up, Freddy?’ the Colonel asked casually, finishing the last of the Scotch.

  Freddy hesitated.

  ‘Well come on, pee or get off the pot!’

  ‘It’s the gwoups, sir,’ Freddy answered unhappily.

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘Well.’ Again he hesitated.

  ‘Oh, come on Freddy, get yer bleeding upper-class finger out, will you! We’ll be in sodding France by the time you get it out – the way you’re going on.’

  ‘It’s the number of groups sir.’ He licked salt-dry lips almost fearfully. ‘There are thirteen of them.’

  Notes

  1 Roughly equivalent to a British Army ‘smoker’.

  2 The very rare additional class of the Knight Cross. (Transl.)


  ELEVEN

  ‘Shit on the shingle!’ Schulze had exclaimed delightly, pressing the rouged nipples of her tremendous breasts in his hairy ears. ‘God, I’m going deaf – I can’t hear a fucking thing!’

  That had been the last thing he had said before he had passed out, exhausted by too much love-making and drunk with the Marc she had fed him purposefully all the night.

  Now Rosi-Rosi gently released his big snoring face from between her naked breasts. With surprising agility, she slipped out of the double bed and opened the door to the bedroom.

  The cafe was silent. It had been a quiet night and most of the whores had left early complaining about the lack of business. Now there was no sound except the big German sergeant snoring, and a soft regular squeak higher up where presumably his one-legged companion was still occupied with Claude and Gi-gi.

  ‘Jo-Jo,’ the whore called softly. ‘Are you awake?’

  Her diminutive lover appeared from behind the zinc-topped bar. ‘Is the Boche pig asleep?’ he whispered.

  She nodded. ‘Snoring as if he were sawing down a forest.’

  Jo-Jo yawned and helped himself to a pernod from the half-empty bottle on the counter. ‘Good, it’s about time for the Englishman to come.’

  Rosi-Rosi picked up an apron. Jo-Jo grinned sleepily as she bound it round her naked stomach. ‘What’s the matter – do you think the Englishman has never seen one of those hairy things before?’

  ‘Salaud!’ she cursed calmly and shrugged, her breasts trembling like puddings as she did so: ‘You never know with the English,’ she said. ‘They are a very virginal people.’ She strode over to the bar and poured herself a glass of beer. She sank it in one gulp and belched contentedly. ‘Why do you think he wants to see us tonight, Jo-Jo?’

  Jo-Jo shrugged his skinny, consumptive’s shoulders. ‘Who knows? He is a man who keeps to himself. They all are.’ He sipped his pernod pensively. ‘You know, Rosi-Rosi,’ he said, ‘if I had to choose between the English and the Boche, I’d pick the latter.’