The Bloody Road To Death (Cassell Military Paperbacks)

by Sven Hassel

  ‘Is that forbidden?’ asks Wolf, cockily, throwing himself down in a chair.

  ‘No, decidedly not,’ laughs the Inspector, ominously, ‘but you forgot to tell the QM officer that there was a little surprise item added to this tea!’

  Wolf throws a sharp questioning look at Porta, who is at that moment taking a swig at a bottle to liven his spirits up.

  ‘Surprise? I don’t know about any surprise!’

  The German General Staff knows all about it, though,’ roars the Inspector, red as a turkey-cock in the face. ‘They are all in process of shitting themselves to death. There aren’t shit-houses enough to go round.’

  Gregor explodes into a roar of laughter, which infects the whole room. Even the two gorillas at the door break out laughing.

  The Inspector is moved to laughter, but more discreetly.

  Only Wolf and Porta seem to have lost their sense of humour. Wolf is noted for always being able to see the funny side of a joke, particularly when it’s against somebody else.

  ‘Where did you get that tea from?’ Zufall throws the question at him, as the laughter dies away.

  Wolf points silently at Porta.

  ‘Ah yes! Obergefreiter Joseph Porta,’ the fat Inspector murmurs. ‘I have heard of you and long wished to meet you.’

  ‘An honour, sir,’ says Porta, bowing in a servile manner.

  ‘And from where did Herr Porta obtain the tea?’

  ‘From a parachute,’ says Porta, truthfully.

  ‘Don’t joke with me,’ snarls Zufall viciously. ‘Tea doesn’t grow in the sky. Both of you tea dealers are under arrest. A whole lot of generals want you roasted over a slow fire. You’ll curse the day you went into the tea trade.’

  ‘We only know about real tea,’ Porta defends himself. ‘Maybe the QM put something in it on the way to the General Staff.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s affected the gentlemen’s stomachs. It might make ’em shit if they’re not used to proper tea, you know,’ suggests Wolf.

  Inspector Zufall smiles falsely.

  ‘The tea has been analysed at the laboratories. It contains a strong aperient – a laxative – the working of which our doctors have not been able to stop. Before long, if it continues, these gentlemen will have shit themselves away down the toilets.’

  ‘Did you put anythin’ in it?’ Porta turns to Wolf.

  ‘D’you think I’m crazy? I’m a businessman, not a bloody saboteur.’

  ‘One thing of which we are certain,’ sighs the Inspector. ‘The tea came from you two. If the enemy were to attack now they would have an easy task. Thanks to your tea, the entire General Staff is out of action. They have been shitting now for sixteen hours and this seems only to be the beginning. A group of specialists are flying from Berlin. If you intended sabotage, you have succeeded beyond all measure. In all my thirty years on the force I have seen nothing like it.’

  ‘We don’t know a thing about it,’ whispers Wolf, weakly. He feels a dreadful sucking sensation in the region of his stomach. He can almost see the entire General Staff sitting in a row in the latrines with Generalfeldmarschall Model sitting off there on the right flank. Where else would the Generalfeldmarschall be placed in such a situation?

  Porta looks at the little, overfed Inspector helplessly.

  ‘You must realize we’d never sell laxative tea. Even a drivelling idiot from the padded cells at Giessen’d know better than to do that.’

  ‘So I think, myself,’ answers Zufall. ‘That is why I want to know where you got the tea from? I do not imagine you to have started a tea plantation here in Russia.’

  ‘I bought the tea from Obergefreiter Porta,’ declares Wolf, and obviously feels that this clears him completely.

  ‘And it was wafted down to me from the sky attached to a pair of yellow parachutes,’ affirms Porta, assisting his explanation with gestures.

  ‘Do you really expect me to believe that story?’ asks Zufall, who is in possession of a large degree of healthy distrust. He believes only what he can see and feel. ‘Why in the world should anybody drop tea by parachute?’

  ‘Obviously to get the German Army to shit itself out of its mind,’ says Porta, without realizing that he has guessed right.

  ‘From what I can see of you two tea traders, you will go to any lengths to ensure your leaving the Army with respectable fortunes,’ says Zufall, with a bitter smile.

  ‘Too true we are,’ Wolf emits a forced, noisy laugh. ‘It ain’t forbidden to try to make your fortune, now is it?’

  ‘Honest people rarely get rich,’ considers the Inspector, philosophically.

  ‘Let’s say, only the stupid stay poor,’ Porta suggests quietly, ’and most people do stay poor.’

  ‘Poor people are good people,’ says Zufall, and thinks of himself. ‘Civil servants do not often get themselves seen in wealthy circles.’

  ‘No, by God!’ comes spontaneously from Wolf. ‘My old man was both good, poor and a civil servant. There wasn’t much grey matter under his hair either, but he had a good reputation. Nobody doubted him to be trustworthy. He was at peace with both God and his neighbours. On holy days there he was in church, and at night you could hear him sleeping the quiet peaceful sleep of the just. If the entire police force had come banging on his door between two and four at night he’d have snored comfortably on. Rich he never was. We were nine kids and he had his worries gettin’ clothes to put on our backs.’

  ‘Did any of your brothers or sisters follow in your father’s footsteps and enter the civil service?’ asks Zufall interestedly. He feels for Herr Wolf senior.

  ‘Not on your life,’ grins Wolf. ‘We all took after our mother’s side where brains was concerned. She’d a bit more’n German blood in her veins.’

  ‘Jewish, perhaps!’ Zufall lets the question fall innocendy.

  ‘Couldn’t swear she wasn’t. But a drop or two of Jew blood ain’t for a man to turn his nose up at. It clears the thinking. An’ this Aryan certificate’ll soon be out of the way.’

  ‘You don’t believe in the final victory, then?’ asks Zufall with an odd note in his voice.

  ‘Do you?’ grins Wolf.

  The gorillas at the door laugh with the rest of us. But they are not aware of what they are laughing at.

  ‘I do not wish to answer your question at this time,’ answers the Inspector, turning his head away.

  When they arrive at staff HQ, the first person they meet is the QM, Zümfe. He rushes up to Wolf.

  ‘Jackal, hyena!’ he howls. ‘You’ll swing for this. How could you do it to me? I’ve always treated you well, you dirty bastard!’

  ‘I didn’t want to sell you the tea,’ Wolf affirms. ‘Quite the opposite. You threatened to confiscate it if I wouldn’t sell it to you. It’s your own headache you’ve sold it to the General Staff, Who knows, you may even’ve mixed that shit-powder in it yourself. You look mean enough to’ve done it.’

  ‘You are my witness,’ shouts Toadface, gripping the police Inspector by the arm. This man is making false accusations against me? He is working for the Red Army and uses weapons forbidden by the Geneva Convention.’ He doesn’t get any farther. He has to make a run for the toilets. He unbuttons his trousers as he runs. All the seats are taken and with a despairing scream he dashes to the reserve toilets. These are all taken too. With both hands pressing the pink cheeks of his bottom tightly together, and with his trousers flapping down round his riding boots he rushes for an open window, where red roses sway in the breeze. Sighing he drops his backside out over the window edge. He sputters like a machine-gun in full swing.

  It is a comical sight but nobody feels like laughing. Particularly when two red-tabbed generals come rushing in on one another’s heels and practically throw a major and an oberst-leutnant off their seats. In the German Army rank has its privileges, even in the toilets.

  Porta and Wolf watch the gold-braided generals with interest. They are staring straight ahead with the dead eyes of zombies.

  They look
like a pair of drowned cats,’ Porta permits himself to remark.

  ‘Pity the bloke who thought of it couldn’t be here to see it,’ grins Wolf.

  The Toad comes panting back. He has a few more things to say to Wolf.

  ‘You’re the wickedest man I’ve ever met,’ he sobs, waving a threatening fist under Wolf’s nose. ‘Do you realize I’ve been arrested because of your damned tea? No, no, not again!’ he howls, hopping away up the corridor. He falls into a seat next to the generals, pushing aside a rittmeister whom he outranks.

  Tell me! Where does Generalfeldmarschall Model do his shittin’?’ asks Porta with interest.

  ‘He has had a toilet installed express in his office,’ explains Zufall, despondently. Thank God I didn’t taste any of that tea. I came close to it, but that snobbish bastard, the adjutant, refused to allow me even a sip, and chased me out of the casino. He doesn’t like civil servants.’

  ‘If he’d only known there was shit-powder in it he’d ’ve forced you to drink a bucket of it!’ grins Wolf.

  ‘He’s got something else to think about now, that bastard,’ says Zufall, happily. ‘He’s shit himself unconscious.’

  Porta and Wolf are taken to the Army secret police, which is in a state of feverish activity all aimed at finding out where the tea came from originally. After an hour of interrogation they are confined in separate cells. They pump the water out of the toilets and are able to talk to one another.

  ‘We’ll show those German shits that at least we know how to die, when they execute us,’ shouts Porta gloomily down into the empty w.c. bowl.

  ‘Yes, we got to keep our chins up,’ stammers Wolf, nervously. ‘Keep smilin’ an’ take defeat the way we took victory.’

  ‘Yes, it’s some consolation that this is the last and biggest defeat and shoot us dead more than once they can’t do,’ says Porta, with dignity.

  After three days they agree to go on hunger strike, but after two days of this the guards come along with steaming bowls of brown beans with a large piece of pork floating in each bowl, and they have to give up.

  ‘My favourite food,’ says Porta, regretfully, and the contents of the bowl are inside his shrunken belly in the twinkling of an eye.

  They plan an escape. Digging themselves out presents difficulties since they have only a wooden spoon each to do the job with. A crooked obergefreiter amongst the warders gets them a pair of hacksaws but before they even get started the whole affair is over. A thorough investigation has been made and the authorities feel they have found the solution. A British Lancaster MK II had been observed over the lines. There is proof it has dropped containers. The times fit those in Porta’s statement. The tea has come from England, or, at any rate, it has been dropped by the English.

  ‘You’ve been lucky,’ sighs Inspector Zufall, openly disappointed. He points to a row of carbines, as they walk down a long corridor, ‘Twelve of those are loaded and ready for you two. I’ll be keeping an eye on you, and we’ll keep them loaded for a bit! I think we’re going to have a use for them.’

  ‘Faith can move mountains, they do say,’ says Porta virtuously, in a religious tone.

  ‘I consider you both to be my opponents, and I shall do my best to combat you,’ says Zufall, darkly.

  ‘Nice to know your enemies,’ smiles Porta.

  They are taken before Generalfeldmarschall Model who has now recovered sufficiently from the tea to be able to hold his monocle in his eye again. He is a small man with a hard face, slim as a young girl. His personal courage is legendary, but there is a comically schoolmasterish air about him. He walks round them for ten minutes looking at them through his big monocle.

  ‘So that’s what you look like, is it?’ he begins, in his own special tone. He seems to spit words out as if he hated them.

  ‘Herr Generalfeldmarschall, sir!’ roar Porta and Wolf as if with one voice. They crack their heels together violently. They know that if they make a bad impression now, it’s the scrap-heap for them.

  ‘You’ve reached the limit!’ Model runs his fingers over his Knight’s Cross with oak leaves and sword.

  ‘Yes sir, Generalfeldmarschall, sir!’

  ‘If you have any of that terrible tea left I suggest you send it as a gift parcel to our Russian opponents.’

  ‘Yes sir, Herr Generalfeldmarschall, sir!

  ‘I ought to have you hung up by the heels . . .’

  ‘Yes sir, Herr Generalfeldmarschall, sir!’

  ‘But I intend to be merciful to you, since you are partially free from guilt in this tea party affair.’

  ‘Yes sir, Herr Generalfeldmarschall, sir!’ Porta nudges Wolf.

  ‘But there are some very nice things said about you in these!’ Model bangs his hand down on a pile of reports lying on the desk in front of him.

  ‘Yes sir, Herr Generalfeldmarschall, sir!’

  ‘Permission to speak, sir? One shouldn’t believe everything one hears, sir,’ says Porta hurriedly.

  Model polishes his monocle and looks out of the window, Then he turns round slowly, screws the monocle into his eye, and runs his finger again over his decorations and gold braid.

  ‘Has no one ever told you that the penalties for black market dealing are most severe? That death is one of them, in certain circumstances.’

  Yes sir, Herr Generalfeldmarschall, sir, we have been told!’ It comes from them with one voice.

  Model flexes his knees, walks round them a few times and looks at the adjutant who is standing as stiff as a wax dummy against the wall. He seats himself on the edge of his desk. He is so small that his feet do not reach the floor.

  ‘Your business methods are quite reminiscent of black market dealing.’

  ‘Permission to speak, sir, no sir, we do not have anything to do with the black market, sir,’ shouts Porta. ‘We do not touch ’ot things, sir, an’ we never go outside regulations, sir, an’, sir, we do not take big profits, sir!’

  ‘Do you consider me to be a fool?’

  ‘No sir, Herr Generalfeldmarschall, sir!’

  ‘It appears to me that you are trying to pull my leg! What are you laughing at, man!’

  ‘Permission to speak, sir, no, sir, not laughing, sir!’ Porta rattles it off. ‘Beg to state, sir, it’s my nerves, sir! When I’m scared, sir, I look like I’m laughing, sir. The MO, sir, says it’s like gallows ’umour, sir!’

  ‘Get out of my sight!’ orders the Feldmarschall, pointing to the door.

  Safely outside they let out a long breath of relief. Smartly they salute a generalmajor who drags himself, pale and tor-tured-looking past them.

  ‘Jesus George,’ says Wolf, with relief. ‘That was a close ’un! Those English are a dirty lot o’ swine!’

  ‘It was a wicked thing to do to us,’ Porta admits, ‘but maybe we’ll get a chance to pay it back one of these days.’

  They agree that it would be bad business to throw the remainder of the tea away. Wolf promises to give Porta twenty per cent, if he can get rid of it, but Porta demands fifty, with the guarantee that Wolf’s name won’t enter into it if things go wrong again.

  Porta finds an Italian division, and in record time has sold the tea to a Quartermaster who is organizing transport of illegal goods to Milan in a big way.

  ‘I’d be packing my bags for a trip to Sweden, if I was you,’ says Gregor, darkly, when Porta tells them about the deal.

  ‘When them Spag’s start shittin’, boy, you’ll have the whole goddam Mafia breathin’ down your neck. I wouldn’t be you, son!’ says Buffalo.

  For a while Porta is packed and ready to move off at the drop of a hat, then without warning the Italian QM turns up with nodding plumes in front of Wolf’s stores, where Porta is sitting drinking morning coffee.

  Before he can make a move the Italian is by his side. But there is no danger. It isn’t the Mafia who have arrived in the cross-country Fiat but a delighted Italian who embraces him and kisses him on both cheeks. He is disappointed when he hears there is no more tea for
sale.

  ‘You must get more of that so wonderful tea, Signor Porta!’ begs the befeathered Bersaglieri QM, bobbing his plumes in Porta’s face. ‘Signor comrade, I promise you. The Italian military good service order will look well on your chest!’

  But Porta cannot supply any more tea. There is none to be had.

  When the Italian has gone Wolf and Porta discuss the phenomenon. Porta comes to the conclusion that the English have used a highly refined laxative, so cleverly compounded, in fact, that it only works on Germans.

  1. Spiess: Slang for the German equivalent of a CSM.

  2. Stalin: See Legion of the Damned.

  3. Padre Corps: See Wheels of Terror.

  4. See: Legion of the Damned.

  5. Even though death walks by our side,

  Walks with us up and down.

  Even though winds blow through the ride,

  For us the sun ne’er goes down.

  ‘Hitler is true to nobody. In a few years time he will also have betrayed you, Herr Generaloberst!’

  General Ludendorff to Generaloberst von Fritsch,

  Spring, 1936.

  Himmler looks coldly at ‘Gestapo Müller’ as he reports to him that SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich has been seriously wounded in an assassination attempt at Prague and has been admitted to the Bülow Hospital.

  ‘He is alive?’ whispers Himmler hoarsely, and clenches his hands until the knuckles become dark blue. ‘I will fly to Prague immediately! Make the arrangements! Send Kaltenbrunner to me!’

  ‘Very good, Herr Reichsführer!’

  Teleprinters heated up. The telephone services were blocked with calls. A state of emergency was proclaimed in Prague. Hundreds of arrests were made. It is as if a wasps’ nest had been stirred with a stick.

  In RSHA1 on Prinz Albrechtstrasse when the news comes through, all hell breaks loose. With screaming sirens and warning lights blinking, Himmler’s black Mercedes rushes across Berlin to the Tempelhofer Airport.