by Leo Kessler
Matz, his face still streaked with the sweat of battle and dirt, limped out of the deepening shadows towards his waiting mate. ‘Who was it?’
‘Rundstedt, I think.’
‘He had a face like forty days’ rain. You’d think he’d be happy. After all he’s just won another victory. It’s a bit more to put him in the history books one day.’
Schulze shrugged. ‘Victory, do you call it?’ He waxed a big paw at the shattered landscape and the waxen faces of the dead.
Matz nodded slowly. Even he was awed by the sight of the thousands of dead Canadians, lying stiff, still and abandoned on that beach. His voice was low as he said, ‘Aw come on, Schulze, let’s shitting well get on with it.’
In silence, with Matz limping a little behind Schulze’s massive bulk, they began to explore that dreadful strand, searching each Service Corps vehicle carefully for what they hoped to find.
‘Where there’s a shitty Scot, there’s shitty Scotch whisky,’ Schulze had lectured Matz after the Butcher had mown down the little runt of a Tommy in his ragged skirt and they had realised that he was a Scot, ‘and it’s up to Mrs Schulze’s little boy to find it.’ Now the grim sight of the thousands of dead men littering the beach made him regret his decision. Nevertheless he had promised Major von Dodenburg that the depressed, exhausted survivors of the First Company would have their whisky this night before, ‘those thieving bastards of base stallions – kitchen-bulls, bone-menders, shit-shovellers and head-hunters – got their flippers on the loot.’
Thus, while the Mark IV rattled along the promenade parallel with them ready to transport back the loot to the waiting youngsters of the First, they combed the beach wordlessly, depressed, trying to avoid looking at those countless, sightless eyes, which somehow seemed filled with reproach at this intrusion.
Finally they found what they sought – an amphibious jeep, bearing the green and white sign of the Service Corps, its axle wrecked, its driver slumped with his bloody head against the shattered windscreen, but with the wooden crates in its back still intact.
‘Sabre!’ Schulze snapped laconically.
Matz gave him his SS dagger.
Wordlessly Schulze dug his blade under the wooden lid and heaved. It came away to reveal the bottles stacked neatly in their piles to straw.
‘Whisky,’ Matz said without triumph.
Schulze nodded and putting his thumb and forefinger in his mouth, whistled shrilly. It was the signal for the corporal to halt the tank. With the practised ease of someone who had spent his youth heaving hundredweight sacks of cement at Hamburg’s docks, he thrust a case of the whisky into Matz’s waiting hands.
Matz set off towards the waiting Mark IV. Far away Schulze could hear the steady tramp of heavy boots. Military police patrol, he told himself, and swung two cases on each shoulder. He caught up with Matz just as he clambered up the sea wall to the tank waiting in the deepening shadows.
‘Here,’ he grunted and heaved the four cases on to the tank’s deck. ‘Get that stowed. The headhunters are on their way!’
The corporal thrust the cases down the turret into the eager hands of the new driver. Finally he said, ‘what about that one?’ He indicated the case still on Matz’s shoulder.
Schulze shook his head. ‘We’re keeping that one for ourselves. Now be off with you, back to those thirsty greenbeaks before the headhunters nab you for looting – and tell the CO he’s just granted us two days’ special leave in Dieppe for services rendered.’
The corporal opened his mouth to protest; then he changed his mind. Hurriedly he disappeared into the turret and the tank rattled away into the growing darkness. Matz, still clutching the case of whisky in his hands, waited till the roar of its motors had died away, then asked: ‘And what was that in aid of, Schulze?’
Schulze took the case from him and deposited it on his own big shoulder. ‘Listen carefully, wet-fart, I’m going to explain it simple to you. This whisky’s worth a fortune, ain’t it?’
Matz nodded.
‘So what is Mrs Schulze’s little boy gonna do with it?’
‘He’s gonna flog it on the black market,’ Matz replied. ‘I know that, you dum-dum. But what are yer gonna do with the green moss you’ll get for it?’
‘We’ll join the Resistance,’ Schulze announced and slipped the big thumb of his free hand between two of his dirty fingers in an explicitly obscene gesture.
Matz’s wicked little eyes sparkled for the first time since they had first seen that terrible beach. ‘You mean Rosi-Rosi’s?’
‘Right in one, bird-brain. With the Marie we’ll get for this firewater, we’ll hire the whole shitty place for the next forty-eight hours. Just for me and you, Matzi.’
‘Holy strawstack,’ Matz breathed, ‘what a way to go!’
Schulze’s big face hardened for a moment, but only for a moment. ‘Yer know what they say, Matzi,’ he said seriously, throwing a last glance at the myriad dead now disappearing into the black clutch of the night, ‘war’s hell, but peacetime –’
‘Will shittingly well kill yer!’ bellowed Matz. When the MP patrol swung stolidly round the corner, they were already running wildly up the promenade towards the brothel, laughing like crazy men.
Also by Leo Kessler and available as an ebook in The Dogs of War Series
No. 2 The Devil’s Shield
No. 3 SS Panzer Battalion
No. 4 Claws of Steel
No. 5 Blood Mountain
No. 6 Death’s Head
No. 7 Blood and Ice
No. 8 The Sand Panthers
Copyright
First published in 1976
This edition first published in 2004
Spellmount is an imprint of
The History Press
The Mill, Brimscombe Port
Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
This ebook edition first published in 2012
All rights reserved
© Charles Whiting 1976, 1984, 2004, 2012
The right of Charles Whiting, to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 8880 6
MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 8879 0
Original typesetting by The History Press
Ebook compilation by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
