Cauldron of Blood

by Leo Kessler

  ‘But rape,’ she whispered fearfully. ‘I couldn’t stand the thought of them raping me! After all I am a German.’

  ‘They’re not racially prejudiced,’ Schulze whispered back, feeling her udder and telling himself that at her weight he wouldn’t like to buy her by the pound. ‘They’ve nothing against Germans, as long as they wear skirts and no bloomers.’

  And then there were the first hoarse cries of ‘arriba Espana’ to their rear and the shrilling of officers’ whistles. She clutched his arm desperately, her raddled face contorted with fear beneath the tiny helmet which perched absurdly on her dyed blonde hair. ‘What’s that?’ she gasped.

  ‘Never fear,’ Schulze said, rising reluctantly to his feet, realizing that in spite of the tense situation his flies were embarrassingly tight. ‘The spaghetti-eaters are counter-attacking.’

  ‘Thank God!’ she sighed fervently.

  Cautiously, Schulze peered through the shattered window. The Cossacks were indeed withdrawing, urging their steaming mounts over the low fences, springing over the moro dead who lay everywhere, with some of them triumphantly brandishing looted German loaves on the ends of the curved sabres.

  Half-heartedly he fired a burst at their backs. Without success. They were already too far away. But even as he crossed to the door and flung it open to welcome the advancing spaghetti-eaters, led by an angry-faced Little Napoleon, armed only with a silver-topped cane, Schulze knew, with a sinking feeling, that the Popov riders would be back. Soon.

  THREE

  ‘And how did you get in a place like this — er — miss?’ Matz asked, as the curious Wotan troopers crowded around the whore, who Schulze had brought to their quarters in the Citadel.

  ‘Call me Fraulein Gerda,’ the whore simpered, fluttering her false eyelashes in mock modesty. Schulze groaned. ‘I was with a front theatre,’ Gerda said. ‘Soprano, you know. A very dainty voice, I have, my teacher always told me back at the — er — conservatory.’

  ‘Yeah, back at the knocking shop!’ Schulze growled, angry at the interest the sex-starved troopers were showing in the whore. ‘I bet the only singing you’ve ever done is on yer back with yer legs spread.’

  But no one was listening to the disgruntled Schulze — they were far too interested in the first German woman they had seen in many a week.

  ‘We were — performing,’ she lowered her gaze delicately at the word, ‘for our brave boys at the front when we were surprised by the enemy attack. After that it was sauve qui peut.’

  ‘Eh?’ Matz queried. ‘Sorry, Fraulein Gerda, I’ve been too long with these rough fellas here to know my manners. What did you say, gracious miss?’

  ‘Sauve qui peut,’ she repeated with a little girlish smile at the wizened one-legged Corporal who was beaming entranced directly into the cavern between her mighty breasts, ‘It’s foreign. It means bugg... leave hurriedly, with every one for him or herself. And that’s how I came here.’

  ‘But why didn ‘t they let you go on?’ Matz persisted. ‘I mean you can’t fire a rifle or anything like that. You’re a — if you’ll forgive me, gracious miss — a useless mouth to feed.’

  ‘I felt it was my duty as a loyal Folk Comrade to — er — succour our Spanish allies.’

  ‘In what way?’ Matz asked, while all around the others jostled and elbowed him in an attempt to get a look too at those magnificent rose-tipped peaks that put the Himalayas to shame.

  ‘Red Cross stuff, Corporal, you know. Comforts and little helping hands here and there....’

  ‘She’s a horizontal, you silly sod!’ Schulze broke in crudely, annoyed at the love-lorn look now plastered on Matz ‘s features. ‘She ain’t seen the floor since she arrived here. Only the ceiling.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Matz sighed dreamily. ‘Let us forget the past. All I know is that I love you dearly, gracious miss.’ He reached over, took the beaming whore’s fat pudding of a hand and pressed her sausage-like fingers tenderly to his lips.

  ‘Watch it,’ Schulze commanded. ‘You could get leprosy kissing hands which have been where those pinkies have been.’ He pushed Matz aside and snapped. ‘Look, Fraulein, we’re up to our hooters in crap here—’

  ‘Sergeant Schulze, please watch your tongue!’ Matz protested.

  Schulze ignored him and continued, ‘If we don’t get out soon, we’re all going to go hop here – you and us. Now you’ve been on the outside all the time. You know the setup. Have you any idea of how we can break through those black bastards before the Popovs turn up again in force?’ As if on cue, from outside there came the pop-pop of the ancient Soviet wooden biplane known to the frontline swine as ‘the sewing machine’ on account of the noise its engine made. ‘That’s a Rata reconnaissance machine,’ Schulze explained hastily. ‘Now those shitting Cossacks have reported we’re here and the weather’s improving, they’re beginning to scout out our positions before they attack.’

  ‘He’s right,’ the Butcher growled, while at his side Munich-Kirn groaned piteously, as if it were all too much for him. ‘They’re out for our blood. It won’t be much longer now.’

  ‘Well?’ Schulze demanded.

  The whore hesitated for a moment. ‘As an artist,’ she commenced slowly. Schulze groaned in mock agony, while Matz nodded his head encouragingly. ‘I know little of such things. My life has been devoted to my art, naturally.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Matz echoed lovingly.

  ‘But the black gentlemen have sited their crap — er — ablutions, near a frozen-over stream, walled on both sides by high banks. They are very particular about their bodily functions, you see, Sergeant,’ she added hastily, eyes averted modestly.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Schulze growled. ‘I’ve seen ’em with their knickers down, doing a little bit of bedroom gymnastics, remember? Get on with it.’

  ‘And this place of theirs is situated someway off their positions. I was taken a little short myself once and had to use it. Thin-shit, you know,’ she beamed at an anxious Schulze, all too well aware of just how quickly time was running out, as the ‘sewing-machine’ droned round and round above their heads. ‘I think one could well work one’s way through their lines by means of it.’

  ‘Crawl out via a thunderbox!’ the Butcher snorted. ‘I’m not gonna shuffle through shit for anybody.’

  ‘Shuffle through shit or look at the taties from below,’ Schulze answered, making up his mind immediately. ‘It’s your choice, Butcher. But I know which of the two I’d pick. The shit!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, slopehead, that that’s the way we’re gonna get out of this mess before it’s too late.’

  ‘But how we gonna get out of this place?’ the Butcher protested. ‘We’ve got our weapons admittedly, but they keep us locked in and there’s no chance of bribing the spaghetti-eaters to let us all out.’

  Schulze pondered for a moment, while the rest stared at him expectantly. Outside all was silent again. The ‘sewing-machine’ had disappeared, obviously flying back to whence it had come to report its findings.

  Schulze knew the Butcher was right, and even if he could bribe the Spaniards to let them all out, there were still the moros with their machine guns to get through in broad daylight. No guard, who wanted to live, would risk incurring Little Napoleon’s wrath by allowing them outside the prison after dark. In essence, he guessed, they might have some twenty-four hours left after the Rata had reported the little town possessed no anti-aircraft or anti-tank artillery worth talking about. Then the Popovs would put in the usual air attack, which would be followed by an artillery bombardment that would provide the cover for their typical tank-infantry assault. One complete day to do a bug-out. But how?

  Surprisingly enough it was Matz, love-sick as he was, who provided the answer. ‘Schulzi,’ he breathed, not taking his smitten gaze from the peroxide blonde’s pudding-face for one instant. ‘If we’ve got to shovel through sh... excuse, gracious miss... ordure to escape, why don’t we start doing the same thin
g here?’

  ‘What do you mean, bird-brain?’ Schulze snapped, startled out of his train of thought.

  ‘The latrine!’ He indicated the door to the rear of the barnlike structure from which came an evil smell. ‘Even in Popovland, the — er — ordure has got to run off somewhere. There has to be a drain — and the drain’ll take us beneath the wall and out.’

  ‘Of course, you little wet-fart! Of course!’ Schulze chortled. ‘That’s it!’ He slapped Matz on the back and sent him flying forward, saved from hitting the wall only by Gerda’s massive breasts, which submerged his face for one moment, much to the envy of the other Wotan troopers. Schulze forgot Matz. He swung round on the others.

  ‘Now listen and listen good, both you Wotan men and the rest of you shit-shovellers — and I mean that! For that’s what we’re all gonna become if we’re gonna get out of here with our turnips intact. My guess is that we’ve got the rest of this day and tonight before the Popovs hit us. After all, in broad daylight tomorrow, we ain’t got a chance. So I suggest that we take it in shifts, watching the door for the spaghetti-eaters and having our turn tunnelling out through the latrines. Thirty minutes on and thirty minutes off.’

  ‘But we ain’t got no shovels,’ one of the Wotan troopers protested.

  Schulze bellowed uproariously. ‘What do you think you’ve got paws for?’ He held up his own two hands which resembled small steam-shovels. ‘Ain’t you ever heard anyone say that all the ordinary squaddie is good for is to get his turnip blown off — or shovel shit!’ He thrust forward his hands, fingers outspread as if he were thrusting them into a mess of mud and scooping it up. ‘So let’s get shovelling...’

  *

  All that day they toiled under the cover of the evil-smelling open latrine to the rear of the long building, lifting the long wooden seat which could accommodate forty-eight men at one sitting, shoring up the sides against the noxious mess and then commencing tunnelling.

  Up on the roof, Schulze and Matz, who had left the supervision of the tunnelling to the Butcher, surveyed the horizon, alert for the first sign of any unusual activity which would indicate that the Soviets were beginning their attack. They were not alone in their vigil. Down below, the Spaniards were nervous too. They had already exchanged the red berets they usually wore for steel helmets and their skinny, undersized frames were draped with extra ammunition bandoliers and bags of stick grenades, as if they were expecting an all-out enemy attack at any moment.

  Matz took his eyes from Little Napoleon who was striding through his men, slapping his cane imperiously against the shaft of his gleaming boots, clasping a soldier’s arm melodramatically here, offering a word of encouragement there, every inch the Great Captain, and said morosely, ‘What do you think, Schulze?’

  ‘Think about what?’ Schulze stared hard at the black spots on the far horizon.

  ‘About our chances of getting out of this dump before all hell breaks loose here?’

  ‘Dunno, Matzi,’ Schulze answered taking his gaze off the black dots and hoping that they were not what he suspected they were. His jaw hardened. ‘I don’t think old Wotan has ever been in such a tight fix as this before. We’re still fifty klicks behind their lines, stuck here by command of that madman down there and the lads are not in particularly good shape.’

  ‘Not surprising on a diet of raw frozen turnips and bits of scraggy roof-hare, boiled in piss,’ Matz agreed glumly.

  Together they stared at the black dots which were getting larger now, each preoccupied with the same problem — were they enemy or not?

  *

  The first bomb fell some fifty metres away. The Citadel rocked with the impact and the wide-eyed, ashen tunnellers, crouched against the shored-up side of the latrine, hunched their shoulders instinctively as the shrapnel whined off the walls outside, ripping great chunks out of the brickwork as they did so. Instinctively the Butcher opened his mouth in order to save his eardrums from being punctured and immediately wished he had not done so, as his nostrils were assailed by the noxious odour from the piled-up mess only millimetres away. All around him the tunnellers choked and coughed as the hot acrid air was forced into their lungs, and the building rocked once more under the impact of the second stick.

  ‘What if we take a direct hit?’ one of the Hermann-Goering cried in sudden panic. ‘That boarding won’t stand much. We’ll be buried alive under shit!’

  ‘Yeah, Sarnt-Major?’ one of the Wotan troopers agreed. ‘What we gonna do?’ He dropped the board with which he had been attempting to dig the frozen earth out of the side of the trench beneath the last layer of stonework. ‘We’ll be trapped down here!’

  ‘Ay, ay, we ‘ll be trapped!’ the cries of alarm rose on all sides, as the enemy bombs fell everywhere now and the dust started to drift down from the ceiling like a miniature snow-storm. ‘Trapped!’

  The Butcher stared around at their panic-stricken faces, suddenly aware that he too could share their fate if he were not very careful. ‘Don’t worry, lads,’ he gasped with the last of his authority, as the Citadel swayed and rocked alarmingly, ‘I’ll see you’re all right. Now forget the bombs and get on with it. I’ll just go up topside and see what’s going on. Be back in a flash!’

  Without waiting for their reaction, he swung himself out of the crowded hole doubled down the long latrine and only by a sheer effort of willpower forced himself to pause and lock the latrine door behind him so that the tunnellers could not follow him out. Two at a time, he dashed up the stairs that led to the roof, heading instinctively, like all panic-stricken people, for the supposed safety of the outside.

  He emerged onto the roof just as the next wave of Stormoviks came racing in at four hundred metres altitude, seemingly halting in mid-air directly above his head, hovering there like evil black hawks, suspended as if for an eternity. Abruptly the leader wagged his wings. It was the signal. Suddenly the Soviet dive-bomber appeared to fall from the leaden sky, hurtling down at 500 kilometres an hour, sirens screaming shrilly, heading for the ground on a collision course.

  Petrified, his ears full of that murderous wail, gaze fixed hypnotically on the black plane howling down directly towards him, the Butcher stood there open-mouthed until virtually the last moment; then the jumble of black eggs tumbling helter-skelter from the plane’s evil blue belly awoke him to his danger. As the stick of bombs straddled the town, he flung himself to the floor, which heaved and trembled beneath him like a crazy thing.

  The explosions seemed to go on for an eternity, as Stormovik after Stormovik dropped from the sky, hurtling down in an ear-splitting scream, to drop their lethal load on the helpless town below. Within minutes they had turned it into a crazed inferno, sending great buildings crashing into rubble and starting scarlet flames shooting for the sky. The Russian planes were carving a line of death and destruction in their course and leaving behind, as they winged their way eastwards once more, mission executed, a great evil-black mushroom of smoke which rose slowly into the unfeeling heavens. For what seemed an age, the three Wotan men sprawled there, while the drone of the departing planes grew ever fainter to be surmounted by the first shrill alarm whistles and the hoarse cries of the Spanish NCOs waking up to the new danger which was beginning to present itself.

  Schulze raised his big head and wiped away the grey dust, spitting and spluttering as he tried to rid his mouth of it. He saw the Butcher still sprawled there, hands over his ears like some frightened child trying to blot out the alarming cries of the night and the nightmare which had terrified him. He rose to his feet and planted a great angry kick in the Sergeant-Major’s ribs, while behind him Matz, alarmed by the whistles, rose to his knees and stared open-mouthed over the parapet.

  ‘Raise your curly head, Sleeping-Beauty! The bogeyman has gone now.’ He levelled another kick at the prostrate man which made his ribs crack audibly. ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded. ‘Why aren’t you down there with the rest of the shit-shovellers, you slime-shitter?’

  The Butcher raise
d his head cautiously, as if it were worked by rusty springs, ‘Have... have they gone?’ he asked.

  ‘What gives?’

  ‘They pissing themselves. They want out,’ the Butcher quavered. ‘They think they’re gonna be trapped down there in the thunderbox.’

  ‘What did you say?’ Schulze roared.

  Meekly, the Butcher, still lying on the debris-strewn floor told him once more.

  Schulze’s broad face flushed an angry crimson. ‘By the Great Whore of Buxtehude and all that is holy to me, I’ll have the eggs off ’n ’em with a blunt razor!’ he cursed. ‘If it’s the last thing I—’

  ‘Don’t speak too soon, Schulze,’ Matz’s voice cut in drily.

  Schulze swung round, face burning, fists clenched. ‘How long have we herded pigs together, you little tin-legged bastard?’ he exploded at the interruption.

  ‘Don ‘t piss yerself, Schulzi,’ Matz said unimpressed. ‘Range yer glassy orbs on that first!’

  A little bewildered, still stuttering with rage at the men down below, Schulze’s eyes followed the direction of Matz’s outstretched hand. Down on the floor the Butcher instinctively did the same. For a moment or two they waited for the smoke which hung over the burning buildings to clear again. Then it did and the Butcher gasped in horror.

  Stretched from north to south along the whole length of the horizon, there was a line of dark shapes crawling purposefully towards the burning town and it didn’t need the panic-stricken cries of the spaghetti-eaters running to their battle positions or the furious whistles and commands of their officers and NCOs, to tell Schulze to what army those sinister black steel monsters belonged. ‘Holy straw-sack,’ he breathed, ‘it looks like the whole of the Red Army is heading straight this way.’

  Matz nodded his head solemnly. ‘It does indeed, Schulzi. I think old lad, you’d better get the shit-shovellers up from the thunderbox. There’s not going to be any running away this particular day.’