Monte Cassino

  The Divisional intelligence officer came up, but he could not get anything out of him either. They sent him back with a patrol, and that evening we heard they had shot him. They had discovered the significance of the seeds: the white ones were tanks; maize was guns, sunflower seeds machine guns; apple pips regiments. He was only ten years old, but a brilliant spy. He had seen his father and mother shot in some sidestreet in Rome and that had made him hate us so much, he had himself cut the throat of a military policeman.

  Two days later the Americans made enquiries about him. We told them what we knew. They cursed us and shot five of ours in reprisal.

  There was a tree in the ravine of death with a peasant girl strung from one of its branches. She had been caught red-handed burying mines. By the river's bank were two commando soldiers sitting tied together with barbed wire. They had been caught far behind HKL. The headhunters had brought them up, killed them with a shot in the back of the neck and placed their bodies there, right in front of the Americans' noses as an awful warning. They were already beginning to disintegrate, but we were forbidden to remove them under pain of severe punishment. Soon we no longer saw them. They were part of the landscape, like the old willow tree that was trying to drown itself in the river.

  It was our instinct told us, the sure instinct of the front line soldier, and so, without anyone ordering us, we began digging one-man fox holes, the infantry's best defence against tanks.

  The grenadiers from the 134th laughed at us.

  "There aren't any tanks here. You panzer-boys have tanks on the brain."

  "Va te faire cuir un oeuf," said the Legionnaire. They'll come. Just wait and see."

  And they came. At a time of day we least expected: just after midnight.

  We ran back from our positions into our fox holes, from which we mowed down the infantry following the tanks and destroyed tank after tank. Thirty six reeking bonfires we lit. Only ten tanks got back.

  Porta and Tiny were out hunting for gold teeth, even before the attack was over. They had been told that the Japanese were usually well supplied with them. Loud was their disappointment when an energetic search yielded only nine. They decided that they would examine the corpses again by daylight. They could have overlooked some in the dark. For at least the twentieth time Major Mike threatened to court martial them, but they remained unmoved. Nothing could overcome their hunger for gold. Tiny proudly displayed a magnificent eye tooth.

  We were moved to new positions by Hill 593, on the other side of which lay the 34th Texas Division. We could see as far as Rocca Janula, on which shells were raining. Mike spent hours with the glasses glued to his eyes searching for faces he knew, for 133 US Infantry regiment was slightly to one side of us and Mike had been in it as a recruit.

  We could see that he was concocting some dirty trick to play on them. He had a grudge against them. Suddenly he saw a few he recognised. He shoved the artillery observer aside, seized the field telephone and demanded to be put through to the major in command of the unit Leutnant Frick tried to stop him:

  "Don't, Mike. They'll smash us."

  Mike grinned evilly and stuck one of his big cigars into his mouth.

  "Bugger off! This is my private war. I've looked forward to this for many years." He summoned Porta, who was going about with a seven foot bow he had found lying beside a dead American. Mike pointed out a target for him. "Can you see those three bushes just beside that five-sided rock?"

  Porta nodded.

  "Slightly to the right, three fingers about, there's an opening," Mike went on. "Can you see it?"

  Porta peered through the glasses, then gave a long whistle.

  "I've got it. An observation post."

  Mike grinned and chewed at his cigar.

  "Not it! It's their command post. There's a turd there, who was in F Company with me. Can you get an arrow across with a note?"

  "Could do," said Porta.

  Major Mike tore a leaf from his message book and wrote swiftly:

  "Joe Dunnawan can you remember Michael Braun? We were in Shuffield Barracks together. You split on me, Dunnawan. It was your fault I was chucked out. Now I'm a major.

  "We're coming across to pull your arse hole over your face. There's a lot of interest on our account to be paid, Joe, and Joe, I'm going to get you even if you hide in General Clarke's HQ!

  "In exactly three minutes I'm sending a bunch of shells across. Take cover, Joe, or your head will go flying, and I wouldn't like that. I want to get you alive. By Jesus, Joe, you're going to yell, as we slaves in the garrison jail used to when Major One-Leg beat us up.

  Be seeing you, Joe!

  Mike Braun.

  Major Company Commander"

  Porta tied the paper to a long arrow, drew the bow, took careful aim and with a whine the message sped away.

  Mike started his stop watch, rushed to the field telephone, snatched the observer's calculations and, a satanic smile on his face, gave his orders to the heavy howitzer battery. Then he asked for the rocket battery.

  Exactly three minutes after Porta shot his arrow, there was a roar as if a hundred runaway express locomotives were rushing past overhead. Involuntarily we dropped to our knees. A wall of fire, earth and stone rose above the enemy positions. That was the howitzers. Ten salvoes they fired. Five seconds later the rocket battery joined in. The howitzers were nasty, but they were nothing compared to the 30 cm rockets which then came sweeping with long tails of fire behind them. We had experienced it many times, yet it never failed to send us cowering in terror at the bottom of the trench. We knew that the rocket battery had three projectors, but each projector had ten tubes. That made thirty of those terrifying things, and all because Major Mike bore a grudge against a man. There he sat on the bottom of the trench, legs wide apart, an evil smile on his face.

  The silence was uncanny after that rain of shells.

  "Look out," Leutnant Frick said. "They're bound to answer."

  And they did. For a whole quarter of an hour they pounded away with every gun they had. Then peace returned.

  Mike was sitting in his dug-out concocting some fresh devilry. Soon after darkness fell there was a call for volunteers, for a storming party we were told. But everyone knew of Major Mike's private war and no one volunteered. Mike jeered and called us sissies, but we didn't care. "I'm leading it myself," Mike said, as if that meant anything. We had no confidence in Mike as leader of a night storming party. He did not dare order us out. It could have had very nasty consequences for him, if he had and things had gone wrong. They weren't amateurs on the other side. So, there was no storming party that night. Mike even promised Porta and Tiny 60 opium sticks and as much gold teeth plundering as they liked, if they could get a group together. They did what they could with threats and wonderful promises, but we just weren't having any.

  The next morning the Americans began jeering at Mike. They flung an old infantry boot with a dead rat inside it across to us. The message was obvious. Then they began using an amplifier:

  "We haven't forgotten you, Braun. You're the nastiest renegade ever wore American uniform. You fit in well with the krauts. I'm here waiting for you; but don't keep me waiting too long. I don't want a corn on my bum because of you. Ersatz-Major Mike Braun. We promise 20,000 dollars and as many cigarettes as two men can carry, if your squadron will cut your head off and chuck it across to us. And if they don't cut your turnip off, we'll slaughter the lot, when we come to fetch you."

  Their snipers were busy all day and killed eleven of us. Just after midnight they killed our sentries, and it was only due to the Legionnaire that they didn't clear the trench. He had gone out of his dug-out to pee and saw them running up. He at once opened fire from his LMG, and it took ten minutes hard fighting to turn them out. That cost us another dozen men. But now we had had enough. They had gone too far.

  Mike rubbed his hands delightedly when the Legionnaire came up and reported that the storming party was ready. We were going to slip down and fetch Mike's friend
just after 19 hours, when they would be in the middle of issuing rations. They would be intent on their food, and as we had ours doled out at roughly the same time, they would never in their wildest dreams imagine that we would come across at such a time. It was the Legionnaire's idea and met with considerable opposition from the food-hogs like Porta. Mike did not like it much either, but the Legionnaire had his way. Tiny and Heide cut a way through the wire and we crawled through at lightning speed. We assembled in a couple of shell holes in front of the enemy position. We unscrewed the caps of our grenades, undid the safety catches of our pistols. We were so close we could hear them joking about the contents of the mess kids. One said it was a stew of dead German telephone girls. Two were squabbling over a bottle of whisky.

  Mike picked out the way through his infra-red glasses. Whispering, he told Tiny to come with him and help bring Joe Dunnawan back. The Americans seemed to have forgotten everything but their food. Mike let his hand fall, the signal to attack.

  We rushed toward. One mess kid flew high into the air when a hand grenade landed in it. We flung mines and hand grenades into their dug-outs and swept the trench clear with our machine pistols.

  There was enormous confusion. Within a few minutes we were on our way back. We had just had time to destroy their mortars and heavy machine guns before we went. We landed back in our own trenches thoroughly out of breath.

  Mike was almost speechless with fury. Tiny had been too rough with Dunnawan and throttled him, so all Mike could do was kick his dead body. What angered him even more, perhaps, was the fact that he could not even punish Tiny for his ham-handedness, as the whole undertaking was quite irregular.

  During the next few days we amused ourselves shooting with bow and arrow and blow pipe.

  It began to rain. We froze in our camouflage dress. We could look across at the monastery that was like a menacing clenched fist. Early one morning, the entire southwesterly horizon seemed to go up in flames. The heavens opened and we found ourselves staring into a line of enormous blast furnaces. The mountains trembled. The whole Lire Valley quaked with terror, as eight thousand tons of steel fell thundering over us. The greatest artillery battle in history had begun. In one single day as many shells fell on our positions as were fired during the whole of the fighting for Verdun. It went on implacably, hour after hour.

  Our dugouts kept collapsing and we had to dig ourselves out with hands, feet and teeth. We became moles. We squeezed against the trench walls, or rather what was left of them. It was the worst shelling hell we had experienced. We saw a 38 ton tank go soaring through the air. Scarcely had it landed, tracks in the air, balancing on its turret, when blast sent it hurling back to where it had come from.

  An entire company making its way along a communication trench was buried alive in a couple of seconds. All that remained of them was the barrel of a rifle poking up here and there.

  That night the shelling began to drive people mad. We had to knock them down and beat them to restore them to their senses. But we did not always manage to get hold of them in time to prevent their running out into the rain of shells, where no one survived long. The whole place was an inferno of red-hot flying steel.

  Leutnant Sorg had both legs blown off and bled to death. Our two medical orderlies were killed. One was crushed by a balk falling on him. The other was cut in half, when a shell landed just in front of him as he was going to Leutnant Sorg. Tiny's nose was cut off and the Legionnaire and Heide held him, while Porta sewed it on again. This was done under cover of a pile of corpses. So it went on all night and all the next day. Our own field batteries had long ago been silenced, and our tanks had been burned where they stood.

  Suddenly the barrage lifted, moved on behind us. Then they came, emerging out of craters and holes. They were devils. They shouted and screamed. Confident of victory they stormed forward, sure that none of us could be left alive. But we lay crouched behind our machine guns and flame-throwers in shell holes and between rocks. The first ran on past us, as we shammed dead. More and more came. One of them kicked my steel helmet and made my head ring. Wait, you swine, I thought. You won't get back alive. Through my lashes I could see running feet, long American laced boots, white French gaiters, English puttees. They were all mixed up. Then some negroes came, quite grey in the face with fear.

  A hoarse voice commanded:

  "For-ward. For-ward!"

  A machine gun began to bark. I rolled on to my face, heaved the machine gun and stand out of the mud. Tiny shoved a belt in. I loaded, fired. Tracer went hissing into the backs of the khaki clad soldiers, mowing them down. They tried to surrender, but Death just harvested them.

  We went at them with bayonets and spades. We trampled bodies, scattered and slipped in spilled guts, throttled our fellow humans with our bare hands.

  Kill, soldier, kill for your country and the freedom you will never enjoy!

  I swung my spade and sliced off the face of an American negro sergeant. His blood spurted over me. I leaped into the cover of a three-foot hole. Something moved beneath the mire. A face appeared beneath a flat helmet. I gave a cry of fear, clasped my spade, emptied my pistol without even hitting him. He rose up, dripping mud. I dealt him a kick in the belly. He came at me with a bayonet. I stood up, knocked the bayonet from his hand and hacked him again and again in the face with my knife-sharp spade.

  Pro patria! Forward, my hero, on with your bayonet and spade.

  X

  It was Carl's idea to block Via del Capoci and a traffic policeman helped us to place a rack across the street at either end. Mario fetched the bowls and we began playing Petanque. Some people made a fuss, but the policeman just roared at them. The entire street joined in. It was wonderful, except for a few slanging matches with drivers who could not understand why the street was blocked.

  The quiet was broken only by the pleasant click of the bowls striking each other. We knelt and aimed, measured and argued. We played all day and only stopped when it began to rain.

  We did not remove the blocks before we left. We might want the street again the next day.

  Then we set out for the brothels in Mario de' Fiori, but before we got so far, we became involved in a fight with some Italian mountain troops. That was outside the big confectioners in Via del Corso. We went through one of the glass windows. Then the carabinieri arrived, but it was only Italians they caught. The rest of us took up position in a brothel.

  "It's lovely here in Rome," Carl said.

  IN ROME ON LEAVE

  Several times the truck felt as though it would go over, as it lurched over the countless shell holes. My leave pass rustled in the breast pocket of my stiff camouflage jacket, promising me a fortnight's oblivion in Hamburg. The adjutant had whispered something about a chance of getting it stamped to allow me across into Denmark. The regiment could not do that for me, but if I could get it done in Hamburg, I could go on to Copenhagen. But what should I do there? Hop across to Sweden and be handed back by the Swedes? That was routine with them. Three days before we had provided the firing squad for a couple of airmen who had deserted from Rome and got as far as Stockholm. They had travelled back in handcuffs. The Swedish police had escorted them to Halsingborg, where they were handed over to the military police. And eventually we had shot them. One of them died cursing the Swedes.

  "Where are you off to?" an elderly obergefreiter with the red braid of the Grenadiers on his shoulderstraps, asked.

  I gazed at him in silence. I could not answer.

  "I asked, where you were off to?" he said with peasant stubbornness.

  "What bloody business is that of yours, you stupid swine? Have I asked where you are going?"

  "You seem to want a bash in the face, you young bugger. I'm old enough to be your father."

  "Come on then. I'm ready." I whipped off my belt and wound it round my fist, ready to fight.

  He hesitated, unable to understand why I was so angry. But I had to take it out on someone or other, and the old chap would have done
very well. If he would just hit me, I'd kill him. I didn't care what would happen to me. I just felt I had to do something desperate after 62 maddening hours in the stinking turret of a tank.

  I seemed to be surrounded by Service Corps men, but away at the back I caught sight of two sailors in crumpled, oil-smeared uniforms. The buttons on their jackets were green with verdigris. One had lost his capband and even with the best will in the world, you could not read what was on the other's. The badges on their sleeves told me they were in submarines. I felt that I would not mind a chat with them and imagined that they would be glad of a chat with me. But, like me, they were no doubt afraid to make the first move. Perhaps we would never exchange a word throughout the 100 miles we had to go in that lumbering truck.

  We got to Rome in time for me to catch the express north, but first I had to go to No. 12 Hospital to deliver a packet for One-Eye, a packet addressed to a woman doctor. It was incredible, but our General One-Eye was in love. I was eager to see the girl. If she was One-Eye's equal in looks, she would not be up to much. But the girl turned out to be amazingly pretty and I hopped into bed with her as One-Eye's deputy.

  My pockets were stuffed with letters that I was taking so that they did not go through the field censor, a nice collection of highly treasonable missives. The worst, no doubt was Porta's. It was to a friend of his, a deserter spending his fifth year in hiding, who had started a sort of 'illegal group' along with a policeman giving help to those who could pay for it. But woe betide you if you got into their clutches without being able to pay. Porta had some sort of business agreement with them; what it was, was a bit of a mystery, but it was undoubtedly something on a grandiose scale. After the war Porta's friend became chief of police in a well-known town in Germany. I won't say which, in case he brings a libel action against me.