Porta walked up very close to the car and spat yet again on the pennant.
‘I don’t give a monkey’s crutch piece for Paul Bielertl’ he declared. ‘Paul Bielert can go and get stuffed . . . Sod Paul Bielert!’
The SS man narrowed his eyes and regarded him in stupefaction.
‘You dare to say that about the Standartenführer?’ He shook his head, bewildered. ‘You must be a raving nut . . . a certifiable bloody lunatic . . . you can’t go round saying sod Paul Bielert and get away with it! Bielert’s just about the biggest bastard in the whole of Germany! He’ll have your guts for garters if he ever gets to hear of it . . .’ His voice took on a note of pious wonderment as he spoke. ‘Even SS Heinrich shits blue bricks whenever he hears the name Bielert. Only one man I ever heard of what could stand out against him and that’s Gruppenführer Heydrich . . . and we all know what HE’s like.’
Porta leaned against the side of the car and looked down at the earnest driver.
‘How about you, then?’ he said, casually. ‘If he’s as bad as you say, you must be pretty scared of him yourself?’
‘Everyone’s scared,’ retorted the driver. ‘And so would you be, if you had any flaming sense . . . And just remember this, pal: it’s all very fine and grand standing out here cursing and blinding, but you won’t be so bloody cocksure when the time comes!’
‘Time?’ said Porta, innocently. ‘What time?’
‘The day of your reckoning, that’s what time, mate . . . the day when you have to stand up and face the Standartenführer.’
What makes you think I ever will have to?’
‘I don’t think, I know . . . because I can go to the authorities any time I damn well feel like it and spill the beans about your drug trafficking. And when you’re standing in front of Bielert you’ll wish you’d never tried to push your luck so bleeding hard . . . Only the other day he had nine men executed, just for the hell of it. When I say executed, I mean heads off, down on the old chopping block . . . Nine at a blow! Nine heads rolling about in the basket! I’m telling you – you get in his hands, you don’t stand a chance. He doesn’t have men butchered because they’ve committed crimes, he has ’em butchered because it amuses him!’
‘Christ,’ said Porta, scornfully, ‘that’s nothing. I had a CO once, he was practically a homicidal maniac. Lindenau, his name was. Papa Lindenau, we used to call him . . . as a mark of our affection, like.’
Porta grinned, as if savouring some particularly delightful memory.
‘He was burnt to a cinder at Kiev Pavlo. I watched it happen.’ He laughed uproariously for a few minutes, then looked down again at the SS man. ‘I tell you, Bielert’s a babe in bleeding arms compared with Papa Lindenau.’
‘How do you know?’ asked the man, jealously. ‘You’ve never had anything to do with the Standartenführer.’
‘That’s what you think. You’d be surprised the people I’ve had dealings with in my time . . . the people I happen to be on personal terms with.’
The driver frowned.
‘Personal terms?’ he repeated. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘People in my position,’ said Porta with dignity, ‘have dealings with both them at the top and them at the bottom. And when we have dealings with people, we tend to get on personal terms with them . . . you have to, otherwise you couldn’t have dealings, could you? I mean, you know too much about each other, see? Like if I offer you something and you buy it, you could say we was on personal terms with each other . . . If you get my meaning?’
The driver remained silent a moment, reluctant to believe what Porta was saying yet not quite able to dismiss it outright. Porta closed one eye, took careful aim, and for perhaps the tenth time scored a bull’s eye. The driver leaned farther out of the window and stared accusingly at the bonnet of the car.
‘You keep your bloody spittle to yourself!’ he screamed. Look at my flag! It’s ruined!’
Porta looked at it and slowly smiled.
‘Yeah . . . looks like it’s been out in a rainstorm,’ he agreed.
Red-faced, the driver stormed round to the front of the car and tried unsuccessfully to dry the pennant on his sleeve.
‘You do that again,’ he told Porta, returning to the driving seat, ‘and you’ll be asking for trouble.’
‘Think I care?’ jeered Porta.
The SS man slammed the door shut and put his head out of the window. He looked up suspiciously at Porta.
‘Have you really had dealings with the Standartenführer?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’
‘Well, I’m asking you . . . have you?’
“You think I’d tell you? Why don’t you try running to him like you said and telling your little tales. You’ll soon see whether I’ve had dealings with him or not . . . But one word of warning.’ Porta bent down and put his face very close to the other’s. ‘I don’t advise you to try it unless you fancy a good long stay in Torgau.’
‘Who said anything about Torgau?’ The driver withdrew his head and stared up at Porta in hurt innnocence. ‘Who said anything about running to the Standartenführer?’
‘You did. Just now. Remember?’
The driver hunched a shoulder.
‘Forget it. One says these things . . . just a load of bull, really. Didn’t mean a word of it.’ He attempted a laugh. ‘I thought you were going to tell me about your old CO? Papa Lindenau who got burnt to death at Kiev Pavlo?’
‘How about the fags?’
‘I’ll have them, don’t worry, I’ll have them!’ said the driver, eagerly. ‘Just name your price . . . and I’ll tell you what, I’ll throw in the address of a place I know, as well.’
‘What sort of place?’
‘Very classy. Very superior establishment.’ The driver closed one eye. ‘Take it from me, it’s a cut above the usual.’
‘Well . . . I’ll consider it,’ said Porta, graciously. ‘But no more talk of running off to Bielert, eh? Little men like you didn’t really ought to meddle with this sort of thing. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. Now take me, for example—’ He puffed out his chest. ‘You don’t get into a disciplinary regiment for nothing, you know. You people in the SS, you have it too easy. Makes you soft. I’m not at all sure I’m doing the right thing, offering you this stuff. How do I know you’re not going to balls it all up? And if you do, you mark my words, your pal Bielert ain’t going to be very happy about it. He’s a professional, I’ll give him that. But you—’ Porta pulled a face – ‘you’re just an amateur. Like as not you’ll lose your nerve at the last minute and drop us all in the shit.’
‘I never have before!’ protested the man, indignantly.
‘No, but this is pretty hot stuff. I’ve never sold you stuff like this before.’
The driver licked his lips.
‘Look, I’ll make it 3,000 instead of one . . . and I’ll throw in a case of powdered milk, as well. How about that?’
‘Where’s it come from, this powdered milk?’
‘Denmark,’ said the man, proudly. ‘Nicked it from the Todt Organization over there, didn’t I?’
‘Is it safe?’
‘As houses . . . And I’ll let you have that address I promised you. Can’t say fairer than that, now can I?’
Porta seemed to reflect a while. He scratched under one arm, stretched between the cheeks of his bottom, pushed his helmet from the back of his head to the front. Thoughtfully. he sucked at one of his few remaining teeth.
The SS man, now coveting the opium above anything else in the world, grew desperate.
‘Just remembered something else,’ he said. ‘I got a whole bundle of photos you can have, if you like.’
‘Photos?’ said Porta, disdainfully, ‘What would I want them for?’
The driver gave a sly wink.
‘They’re worth having. You take my word for it.’ He made a few vaguely obscene shapes with his hands. ‘Not the usual sort of crap, believe me! Real arty farty so
rt of stuff. Everything you’ve ever dreamed of. All tastes catered for. Enough to make a castrated monkey take himself in hand.’
‘Don’t know any castrated monkeys,’ objected Porta; but nevertheless he seemed drawn to the idea. ‘Where are these photos?’
The driver grinned craftily.
‘I got ’em on me . . . not the sort of stuff you can leave lying around just anywhere.’
‘Let’s have a gander.’
Porta held out a dirty hand and the driver shook his head.
‘Come off it! You think I was born yesterday?’
‘O.K. Stuff your sodding pictures. Much I care.’
Porta withdrew his hand and stood up. He shouldered his rifle and prepared to depart. The driver at once leaned out of the car and clutched at his arm.
‘Don’t be in such a hurry . . . we can come to some arrangement.’
They eyed each other warily.
‘Let me see the pictures.’
‘I’ll hold ’em up and let you take a dekko from a distance,’ temporized the driver.
‘You know something?’ said Porta, contemptuously. ‘I could sell this stuff elsewhere for treble the price you’re offering. ‘I’m only letting you have first option because I got a kind of funny idea you’re liable to become one of us pretty soon.’
‘One of you?’ The driver shot him a quick look of alarm. ‘What d’you mean, one of you?’
‘One of our lot . . . Welt look at it this way. You’ve dabbled your dirty little hands in too many pies to get away with it for ever. You just ain’t smart enough. Sooner or later they’re going to catch up with you, and the rate you’re carrying on it’s going to be sooner rather than later. And when that happens, mate, I reckon we’re going to have the pleasure of your company . . . marching along beside us, hiding in the trenches with us . . . And then you’ll know you’ve really arrived. After a short spell in Torgau, of course.’
‘Yeah? You think so? Well, that’s just where you’re wrong, mate. If the day ever comes when they chuck me out of the SS and into a disciplinary regiment, it won’t be with your scrubby lot, it’ll be with the cavalry. They’ve got their own mob, and that’s where I’ll be heading.’
‘Ah, now you’re talking about the 37th Uhlans,’ said Porta. ‘Only trouble is, you’re all out of date. They don’t exist no more. The 49th Kalmykrytterdivision made mincemeat out of ’em some time ago. Only about ten survived and they didn’t bother to re-form the Regiment, so you’re out of luck.’
The driver stared at him, his eyes almost starting from his head.
‘Is that the truth?’
‘Would I tell you a lie?’
There was a long silence. Porta stood by the side of the car, nonchalantly picking dirt from beneath his finger nails.
‘So if I – ah – came to you, then,’ said the driver, at last, ‘how do you reckon I’d make out?’
Porta shrugged.
‘Hard to tell. Some last, some don’t. Some go under, some come to the top.’
‘Do you have any buglers in your Company?’
Porta looked down at him and grinned.
‘Fancy being a bugler, do you? That’s a change of heart, ain’t it? A minute ago you wouldn’t even look at us. Not quite so cocky now, are we?’
‘I never was cocky,’ declared the driver, vehemently. ‘I wouldn’t be such a fool. It never does to be too damn sure of yourself in this sodding awful world. Everyone knows you don’t make old bones, being under the Standartenführer. I’d probably stand just as much chance with your lot . . . Suppose they did send me to you – is there anything you could do to help me?,’
‘Help you?’ said Porta, at once suspicious.
‘To be a bugler . . . Hang on a minute, I’ll show you.’
He plunged a hand into the glove compartment and emerged with a bugle, brash and shining, with me gold ribbon of the cavalry.
‘Look here.’ He pointed to four rosettes fixed to the instrument. ‘See those? I won them at competitions. I’ve played this bugle all over the place. I played it at one of Adolf’s blow-outs, when all the nobs came to nosh with him . . . I played it for old King Carol . . . I played it back in 1938 when Chamberlain came over and had his head talked off. There was even a picture of me in the English newspapers. They had my name and all. People paid more attention to me than what they did to Adolf and Chamberlain.’
‘Not surprising,’ said Porta, dryly. ‘Who’d want to listen to them two clowns drivelling on?’
‘Look, if you don’t believe me—’
‘I believe you, for God’s, sake!’ Porta pushed the bugle angrily away as the man raised it to his lips. ‘Don’t blow the bloody thing, we’ll have the whole flaming barracks running out to take a look.’
‘Well, but I just wanted you to know—’
‘Don’t worry. Wait till it happens and I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Will you have a word with your CO about it?’
‘Look,’ said Porta, ‘you got the wrong idea, mate. I don’t have to have words with no CO. It’s me what practically runs this bleeding Company. I say you’re going to be a sodding bugler, then you’re going to be a sodding bugler and that’s all there is to it.’
The driver looked at him doubtfully, and Porta clapped a suddenly friendly arm about his shoulder.
‘Come down to Bernard the Boozer’s some time and bring the blower with you. Show us what you can do . . .’
‘And what about the fags?’
‘Well, what about ’em? You want ’em or not?’
‘I want them all right. It’s just a question of the price . . . If only you’d take my photos, I swear you wouldn’t regret it. I’ll tell you this for nothing, you’ll never find any as good as this little lot. They’re worth twelve pipes of opium on their own. Look – just take a look.’
He pulled a small folder from his pocket and selected a picture. Porta stared down at it coldly, apparently unmoved. Only the glittering of his small eyes betrayed his eagerness to lay hands on the photographs, and this did not pass unnoticed by their owner. Slyly he pushed back the photograph and drew out another, depicting a scene of such pornographic boldness that it took even Porta by surprise. Unable to contain himself any longer, he stretched out a hand towards it. The SS man grinned and at once moved it out of reach.
‘Not bad, eh? And that’s one of the milder ones . . . You wait till you’ve seen some of the others!’ He licked his lips and winked. ‘Give you wet dreams for a month on end!’
Porta groped for some of his lost dignity. He stepped back a pace and sniffed.
‘I can get plenty of the real thing,’ he said. ‘What do I want with pictures?’
The SS man smiled.
‘Wait till they send you back to the trenches. I bet it’s not so easy there . . .’
‘There are ways,’ said Porta, darkly.
‘Yeah? Well, if that’s the way you feel . . .’ He flipped quickly through the photographs, dwelling here and there upon one that specially took his fancy, titillating Porta still further with a rooty chuckle or a prim downturning of the lips. ‘Mind you, you’re passing up a good investment. Should have thought you were smarter than that . . . After all, you get tired of looking at ’em, you can always trade ’em in for a new set or sell ’em off to someone else for a good price. Still, if they don’t do nothing for you that’s all there is to be said . . .’
‘Wait a minute.’ Porta held out a hand. ‘Let me have a quick dekko, make sure they’re all genuine and what you say they are. I been caught that way once already and it ain’t going to happen again.’
‘How was that, then?’
‘Some bloke sold me thirty-five photos. He showed me the first four and I was mug enough to take his word for the rest. when I got ’em back home I found I’d been done . . . the others was all pictures of bleeding scenery and bits of building and suchlike. I spent eight days looking for that bastard. I’m still looking . . . I even promised Tiny a couple bottles of vodka if he
could lay hands on him for me. And I’ll catch up with him one day, don’t you worry. I never forget a face. And when I lay my hands on him—’ He bent down to the car window, and suddenly there was a knife in his hand. He ran it swiftly through the air, only centimetres away from the driver’s throat. ‘He won’t live to sell any more dirty photos, you can take my word for that.’
‘I do,’ said the driver, his top lip twitching. ‘There’s no need to demonstrate.’
‘I just thought you’d like to know.’
‘You surely don’t tink I’d be fool enough to try the same trick? Not on a pal? Not on someone like you?’
‘Why not?’ growled Porta. ‘I’d try it on you fast enough, if I thought I’d get away with it. I’d try it on with anyone what was fool enough to let me. And you and me, mate, we’re blood brothers, we are. What I’d do, you’d do, and we both know it. So let’s have a gander at those snapshots before we decide anything.’
‘Well, I dunno . . .’ The driver scratched thoughtfully at the lobe of his ear with the ignition key. ‘I’ll make a bargain with you: I let you have a quick whip through the photos and you let me have a fag while you’re doing it. Just to hold it As a security, like.’
‘O.K.’
The exchange was effected. Porta could hardly get his’ hands on the photographs fast enough. The driver sat holding his opium cigarette, watching Porta’s face change as his little elephant’s eyes gobbled up one piece of pornography after another.
‘Like ’em?’ he said, casually.
Porta swallowed a few times, cleared his throat, made an attempt to speak in his normal register.
‘Not bad,’ he allowed. ‘Some of ’em were quite horn-making . . . I suppose,’ he said, grudgingly, ‘I could always let ’em out for hire when I’ve had an eyeful . . . Tiny’s fool enough to promise me a year’s pay just to have ’em in his hands for a while . . . Yeah, all right, it’s a deal.’
The remaining eleven cigarettes were handed over. Porta put the photographs in his pocket and the driver produced three bundles of bank notes, each with a band round it. Porta stood stolidly counting them.