The Bloody Road To Death (Cassell Military Paperbacks)

by Sven Hassel

  A line of clouds marches across the moon, and everything goes completely dark. A couple of puffs of wind blow in, carrying dirt from no-man’s-land with them.

  The tin-cans hanging from the barbed wire defences rattle warningly, as if someone was trying to break through. I stare into the periscope and listen intently, but I can neither see nor hear anything. It must be the wind, I think, attempting to calm myself.

  The marshy ground, south-east of our positions, lies in pitchy darkness. It is said that they have constructed a path through it below ground level. The Russians are good at that kind of devilishness.

  There is an hour for me to get through before my relief comes. The watch I have caught is the worst one of all. Two to four. The death watch we call it. If anything at all happens it happens then. Still, if they had been going to pull any tricks tonight they would have been pulled already, I think to myself. I slide a few berries from the grass stalk I have threaded them on. Everybody is plucking berries and threading them on grass stalks. Porta has collected two large pailsful of berries. We are planning to steal a cook-pot from the QM and make schnapps out of them. We have sugar, and yeast is easy to get hold of.

  I shoot off a rocket for the sake of appearances. As it floats down the rocket reveals a fantastic sight. The only trouble is you get even more nervous when the magnesium flare goes out, and darkness sweeps down on you again. The rocket also has the effect of bringing the front to life again for a short while.

  Nervous trigger fingers contract and send bullets fleeting out over the shell-torn ground. With bad luck it could be the last rocket one’s sent up.

  The lowered cannon thunders and a series of explosive shells strike behind the maze of entrenchments. Shrapnel whizzes over my head and buries itself in the walls of the trench. Then all is quiet again.

  A faint noise further along the connecting trench makes me start. Pebbles rattle down to the floor of the trench. In a second I become a beast of prey, taut and expectant with all my senses wide open, ready to receive impressions. Can it be the patrol on its way back? Or is it some crazy officer who thinks he is still in garrison and is out inspecting the guard? More than a few new officers have lost their lives in this fashion. It is highly dangerous to move around in the trench network at night. It would be just like von Pader to do that very thing. He would love to catch a sentry napping.

  I cock my Mpi, safety off, decide to shoot if it does happen to be von Pader. Nobody can prove I recognized him. It would never be murder, merely self-defence. He wouldn’t be the first idiot to have been killed by a nervous sentry.

  By now I am quite sure there is somebody in the communicating trench. I hear metal clink on metal. I catfoot a little way further along the trench. The night is black as ink. I can see no more than a few yards in front of me. An animal screams from the marshes. There is an answering scream from close at hand.

  ‘Who goes there? The password!’ I shout, nervously.:

  No reply.

  I can perceive a large shadow, a little further along the trench. I press the trigger but the gun merely clicks. The lost fraction of a second is enough to bring the world falling down around me.

  A broad dark form bounds at me. The barrel of the Mpi is pushed to one side. To struggle to hold on to it would be madness, the end of me.

  I let go of the weapon and push the attacker’s Mpi to one side, just as he has done mine.

  A series of shots explode into the air. A bullet tears the collar from my great-coat. At the same time something hits me hard in the stomach, but I am still mobile and let out a kick which gets him in the crotch. He is an officer. I feel the broad shoulder-straps under my hands. I pull him towards me by them and crash the brim of my helmet into his face. A Danish kiss, they call it. I didn’t learn it in Denmark but at the battle school at Senne.

  Fear of death gives me superhuman strength. I bite, kick, and tear with my nails. My helmet flies off. My Mpi has gone the same way. I cannot reach the combat knife in my boot.

  The Russian officer has a slight edge on me for size and he is as fast as lightning.

  ‘Ssvinja,’ he snarls, grinding his teeth and trying to put me out with a swing of his edged hand. I twist to one side and his hand hits a stone. He curses viciously.

  I manage to jolt my knee up between his legs. He falls forward and I sink my teeth into his throat. Blood runs down over my face but I don’t notice it. I am fighting for my life. He struggles desperately to tear himself loose, but I clamp my teeth together like a mad bulldog. My mouth fills with his blood. He makes a long rattling noise and a terrible shiver goes through his body. I have bitten his throat out. There are whole rows of figures behind him. They push and shove but the trench is too narrow for them to pass one another.

  I suddenly realize that they are afraid to shoot as long as we lie entangled with one another in the bottom of the trench.

  ‘Help!’ I scream, in horror. ‘Ivan’s got me! Help!’

  An Mpi chatters furiously close by.

  ‘Job tvojemadj! Khrúpkij djávol!8’

  ‘Help!’ I shout with all my might. ‘Help! Ivan’s in the trench!’

  I wriggle underneath the body of the dead Russian and get hold of his Mpi. I turn it towards the others and pull the trigger but the magazine is empty. With all my strength I hammer the muzzle into the face of the foremost of them. With a shrill scream he collapses. His face is a bloody ruin.

  ‘Job tvojemadj!’ sounds furiously from the others.

  They rush towards me. The first of them knocks me head over heels with the butt of his Mpi. They don’t want me alive any more. Their kidnap patrol has failed in its object. Now their aim is to get back with whole skins and to kill as many of us as possible whilst doing it.

  A spade chops down less than an inch from my face. I avoid it by rolling over. A steel-shod boot hits my shoulder. I creep under the SMG and my hands fall on my own Mpi. I am almost crazed with fear. I cock it like lightning. Get it off a few times. A tall thin soldier in a green NKVD cap knocks me off my feet again. He tries to stab me with his combat knife. The others are right behind him. A machete swishes through the air, striking my Mpi and showering sparks up and around us.

  ‘Job Tvojemadj! Djávol!’

  ‘Help! Help!’

  The soldier in the green cap raises his combat knife. It is one of the long Siberian knives, double-edged and deadly.

  ‘Finished!’ flies through my brain.

  The butt of a weapon crashes down, crushing green cap’s shoulder. He falls back into the arms of his comrades.

  I smash the Mpi muzzle into his face. The sight slashes it open lengthwise. Flame shoots from the muzzle. The chest of the nearest Russian is torn open. I change magazines, tear back the bolt, and the Mpi rattles again for a moment before going on strike.

  ‘Bloody German shit,’ I curse it. A cartridge has jammed. I use it as a club.

  ‘Fire along the trench!’ I hear Porta shout.

  ‘I’m in the elbow,’ I scream. ‘Shoot for Christ’s sake! They’re murdering me.’

  I am bathed in noise. Blue muzzle-flames spit from the darkness.

  I rush forward and fall over a Russian lying in the bottom of the trench. At first I think he is dead, but he is fully alive and only taking cover from the desperate fire in the narrow trench. Like a steel spring he shoots up and aims a blow at me with the spade. I manage to kick him in the face. It cracks open like an egg. Madly I kick him until he is dead.

  The fighting in the narrow trench is desperate. Every man burns with blind rage. We strike, kick, stab, bite! When our magazines are empty there is no time to change them. We use our weapons as clubs.

  Through the din we hear Tiny’s murderous battle-cry:

  ‘Slaughter ’em! Slaughter ’em!’

  ‘Vive la mort!’

  Porta comes rushing helter-skelter with the bear at his heels. It catches hold of two Russians and smashes them together. The bodies it throws whirling up into the air. It snarls murderous
ly and shows its terrible teeth. Mpi’s bark devastatingly in the close confines of the trench. Any minute hand-grenades may come flying through the air and tear us to pieces. If the Russians once get out of the trench they won’t bother about their comrades, alive or dead. They’ll use grenades, and grenades have a terrible effect in the confined space of a trench.

  I have got hold of a Russian Mpi. One which works.

  A man appears down by the long trench.

  I shoot immediately friend or foe. He goes down with a sickening death-scream. I smear my boot across his face. It is better than risking a hand-grenade coming after me.

  We hear hoarse commands in Russian, and running steps rapidly disappearing.

  ‘Kill ’em, the shits!’ screams Porta, from the darkness, and an Mpi spits blue flame.

  From the other side comes a whole series of shots.

  ‘I’ve got me a ’eathen!’ roars Tiny. ‘Call bleedin’ Rasputin off ’im, willya. The bleeder’s eatin’ me prisoner!’

  ‘Stoi, up with your hands!’ howls Gregor, excitedly, pointing his Mpi at me.

  ‘Don’t shoot, you twit! It’s Sven!’

  ‘You were lucky,’ he grins, panting. ‘I was just getting ready to send you straight to the Russian district of hell!’

  ‘See what I bleedin’ found,’ shouts Tiny, pleased, as he appears dragging with him a giant of a man in the uniform of a Russian lieutenant.

  Has he got any gold teeth?’ asks Porta, with interest, bending over the prisoner. ‘I’ve been told that the ten best at the officer training schools get their traps filled up with gold to show they belong to the elite.’

  Tiny grips the cursing officer by the throat.

  ‘Open up, djádja9 so we can see if you’re in the top ten or only a bleedin’ durák10.’

  The Russian officer bites Tiny viciously in the hand.

  ‘I don’t know whether ’e’s got gold teeth or not, but sharp they bleedin’ are,’ snarls Tiny, wiping the blood from his hand.

  ‘Where in the world did they come from?’ asks the Old Man, examining the terrain through the periscope.

  ‘Obvious! Through the marshes,’ answers Heide, in a superior tone.

  ‘’Struth,’ cries Barcelona in amazement. ‘They must’ve had canoes on their feet to get through that lot.’

  ‘How did you discover them?’ asks the Old Man, looking at me.

  ‘I just don’t know. All of a sudden there they were.’ I wipe the sweat from my face with my sleeve. The reaction is coming now.

  ‘Was it you bit the throat out of that NKVD chap?’ asked Barcelona, admiringly.

  I nod and begin to throw up violently.

  ‘Pas mal, mon ami,’ the Legionnaire praises me and pats me on the shoulder. ‘A man can do much with his teeth when he has to.’

  ‘I bit a bleedin’ ’orse once,’ announces Tiny, solemnly. ‘It was when I was with the bleedin’ dragoons. A white bleedin’ ’orse, as the band ’ad, fixes ’is choppers in me chest, when we’re supposed to be gettin’ matey, like. I stopped ’is fartin’ in church for’im I did!’

  ‘“Bite me will you, you bleedin’ goat!” I shouts into ’is long ’orse’s bleedin’ face, an’ I sinks me teeth into ’is nose. Up ’e goes on ’is ’ind-legs with me followin’ ’im up ’angin’ on with me teeth for dear life. It took two bleedin’ wachtmeisters to get me off the white bleeder. Then the dragoons wouldn’t ’ave me no longer an’ sent me to the infantry who didn’t keep me very long neither. They ’ad ’orses as pulled the machine-guns an’ they used to get ’ay-fever whenever I came near ’em. So that’s ’ow I wound up in a Panzer bleedin’ Regiment.’

  Hauptmann von Pader comes trotting up in his squeaky boots. He has even put on his spurs and has a riding whip under his arm. He stops in front of me, spreads his feet, and looks me up and down with a sneer.

  ‘So it was you, you Jonah, on sentry duty? Why the devil didn’t you sound the alarm?’

  ‘Beg to report, sir, I had na time to sound the alarm. They were down in the trench before I observed them!’

  ‘Are you insane, man?’ he screams, and his little, chinless face puckers into a grimace. ‘Do you mean to say that the Russian untermensch can surprise a German soldier? Isn’t it true that you left your post without permission?’

  ‘No, sir, I have at no time been absent from my post!’

  He takes a gold cigarette case from his pocket and taps a perfumed cigarette thoughtfully against the lid. Arrogantly he lights the cigarette and blows smoke into my face.

  ‘If you did not leave your post then you were asleep at it,’ he states shortly.

  ‘In no other circumstances could the untermensch have got down into the trench. I shall see to it that you go before a court-martial.’

  ‘Herr Hauptmann, sir, I will guarantee that this man has not been asleep at his post!’ the Old Man breaks in.

  ‘Have I asked your opinion?’ shouts the Company Commander, in a rage. For a moment he looks as if he is going to hit the Old Man with his riding whip.

  ‘Sir, I am i/c this section, and it is my duty to defend my men if they are abused without cause!’

  ‘So! That is your duty is it? I am perhaps to ask your permission before addressing one of your swine? It is your duty to keep your mouth shut and speak only when you are spoken to.’

  ‘As long as I’m in charge of this section I shall speak up on behalf of my men,’ answers the Old Man, clenching his jaws. ‘I will not permit them to be called out without cause!’

  ‘You are relieved from your duties as section commander. You will be charged with mutiny.’

  ‘Oh shut up, you stupid shit,’ comes jeeringly from somewhere in the ranks. ‘We’ll soon pull your arsehole up over your ears!’

  ‘Who said that? One pace forward, that man!’ screams von Pader in a shrill voice.

  ‘It was the wicked ol’ witch of the swamp,’ shouts Porta, cheerily. ‘She’ll come and rub mud all over your little mary, she will, one of these days!’

  ‘The whole company will be charged with insubordination,’ howls von Pader, and flies off down the communication trench. ‘You will all be in front of a firing squad before long!’ he shouts from a safe distance.

  Porta throws a Russian hand-grenade after him, without removing the pin.

  Von Pader screams wildly in terror and throws himself down into the mud so fast that it splatters up above the trench parapets. He crawls off on hands and knees.

  ‘Joke’s gone too far,’ the Old Man prophesies, ominously. ‘He’s got pals in Berlin who can make it hot for us!’

  ‘Shit!’ says Tiny, optimistically. ‘We got bleedin’ mates in the Führer’s ’eadquarters, ain’t we?’

  ‘Who the devil do you know at the Führer’s HQ?’ asks Barcelona in surprise.

  ‘The Führer ’imself as God ’as sent to lead us, o’ course,’ says Tiny, looking down his nose at him and kicking a skull out of his way.

  Hauptmann von Pader goes personally to Oberst Hinka to charge No. 5 Company with mutiny. He has a senior NCO, Unteroffizier Baum, with him as witness.

  Oberst Hinka receives them lying on a field cot, and listens, without a word, to the stream of words which pours out. Then he swings his legs off the cot and pushes his feet into a pair of battered old straw slippers. His slate-grey riding breeches are stained and worn. There is a marked contrast between the one-armed oberst and the elegant, scented hauptmann.

  ‘What is that man doing here?’ asks Hinka, nodding towards Unteroffizier Baum, standing stiffly, and looking important, at von Pader’s back.

  ‘He is my witness,’ replies von Pader with a confiding smile.

  ‘Witness? Isn’t your own word to be believed? Unteroffizier, get back to your company. At the double, man!’

  ‘But he’s driving me!’ shouts von Pader, fearfully, as his batman and bodyguard is sent about his business.

  ‘Tell me, Herr Hauptmann, are there not certain things to do with this regiment that you hav
e not yet fully understood? Who says you have to be driven? Are you not aware that petrol is precious? I cannot imagine it to be vital to the war effort that you should be moved by motor transport wherever you go. March like the rest of us. That’s an order, Herr Hauptmann!’

  Hinka tears the long charge sheet from von Pader’s hand.

  ‘Tell me now. Are you out of your mind? You come here to me and charge a company of elite troops with mutiny and want the best section commander in the regiment court-martialled!’ Hinka shakes his head and slaps the closely-typed sheets against his false arm. Tour charge is not accepted. It is pure fantasy. Shall we tear it to pieces and forget it? Or shall we continue with this nonsense?’

  ‘Herr Oberst, I request that my charges be sent forward to the Divisional Commander.’

  ‘You mean to say that you consider me to be incompetent?’ asks Hinka, in a dangerously soft tone, sitting down on the edge of his desk.

  ‘Very good, Herr Oberst!’ answers Hauptmann von Pader, chalk-white in the face. And yet his thin lips draw back in a confident half-smile. He thinks of his friends in Berlin. There an oberst counts for nothing. To be removed as easily as fly-shit from a window-pane.

  Hinka snatches up the telephone and orders the adjutant to get over to him on the double.

  In a very few moments, the adjutant, Oberleutnant Jen-ditsch, is in the hut. He looks oddly at Hauptmann von Pader as he enters the room. Oberst Hinka rocks on the balls of his feet and nods to the adjutant.

  ‘Who is No. 5 Company’s acting commander, Jenditsch?’

  ‘I haven’t heard of any acting commander, sir,’ answers the adjutant, smiling. ‘Until I entered this room I believed Hauptmann von Pader to be in command of that company.’

  Hinka jumps down from his desk and goes over to stand close to von Pader.

  ‘Am I to understand that you have left your company without advising Regimental HQ the name of the acting commander you have appointed in your absence? Am I to understand that No. 5 Company is now in the front line with nobody in command?