Heide is too shocked to reply.
A couple of miles further along we run into some Russian MPs lurking about amongst the fir trees. Everything happens so quickly we do not realise what has been going on until the action is over.
Machine-pistols bark, and battle-knives flash in the twilight. We drag the dead policemen away from the path so that they will not be found immediately.
The artillery fire, on both sides, is ebbing out, and a strange, threatening silence falls over the huge forests.
Porta’s reindeer has vanished. Despite the Old Man’s protests we go back to look for it.
Tiny finds it amongst some trees where it has dragged itself to die. Its throat has been slashed open lengthwise by an explosive bullet.
Porta throws himself down, unhappily, by its side. It looks at him with a glance full of affection, and we are close to tears. Gregor fishes out a morphine ampoule and gets a needle ready.
‘It’s the last of them,’ he says, ‘but why should he suffer because us crazy humans want to knock one another’s brains out?’
Soon after, the reindeer dies. We bury it, so that the wolves will not find it straight away.
Suddenly Tiny jumps up and listens, tensely.
‘Dogs!’ he says. ‘Bleedin’ dogs!’
‘Are you sure?’ asks the Old Man, doubtfully.
‘Dead sure,’ asserts Tiny. ‘Can’t you ’ear ’em, really?It’s a’ole pack of ’em, an’ big ’uns too!’
Several minutes pass before the rest of us can hear a deep, continual baying.
‘War dogs,’ whispers Gregor, nervously. ‘They’ll tear us to pieces if they get to close quarters!’
‘Them stinkin’ ’ounds can just ’ave a go at gettin’ to close quarters with yours truly,’ grins Tiny, diabolically. ‘I’ll tear their bleedin’ tails out their arseholes I will, so they’ll forget all about bein’ war dogs!’
‘Wait’ll you see ’em,’ says Gregor, with fear in his voice. ‘A hungry tiger’s like a bloody housecat alongside them!’
‘What the devil do we do?’ asks Barcelona, straightening the heavy bandage which covers the whole of his face.
‘Let’s go south,’ suggests Heide, ‘They won’t be expecting us and in the forests there’s more cover.’
‘Not against Siberian war dogs,’ says the Old Man, checking the magazine of his Mpi.
‘Let’s talk Russian to ’em, then,’ suggests Tiny, ‘then them Communist ’ounddogs’ll think we’re pals! With the clothes we’re wearin’ we could just as like be neighbours!’
‘You can’t fool a war dog,’ says the Old Man, with conviction. ‘They’ve tasted the whip so often when they’ve made a mistake that they just don’t make mistakes!’
‘I’m so homesick, suddenly,’ says Porta, beginning to run into the woods towards the west.
‘Yes, that way,’ shouts the Old Man, grimly, ‘forward and straight on through! Spread out, and give one another covering fire, and have your battle-knives ready! Keep the knife pointing upwards when they spring. That way they’ll open themselves up when they leap at you!’
With a great deal of noise we force our way through the thick underbrush, run across a frozen stream, and come out into open country.
Behind us we hear a voice bawling gutturally, and a machine-pistol burst throws up the snow around us, but the trees give us good cover. It is difficult to hit a moving target in the forest.
Like a bulldozer, I force my way through the brush.
A shrill scream, which turns into a death rattle, sounds behind me.
‘What was that?’ I ask, fearfully.
‘Feldwebel Pihl,’ answers Gregor. ‘Looked as if his hair and his helmet went off at the same time!’
In between the trees we fling ourselves into cover. Rapidly we reload our automatic weapons. Silently we lie waiting.
They come at us standing and give one another courage with loud, penetrating shouts.
The Old Man lets them come close, before dropping his arm. At short range the machine-pistol is a terrible weapon. You just have to be careful not to hit any of your own chaps.
The violent automatic fire paralyses them for a moment, and before they have pulled themselves together, they are knocked to the snow.
Raging we run at them, over them, kicking them, smashing their faces with our gun butts.
The Finnish corporal goes down just in front of me. I have no time to find out if he is dead or merely wounded. Now we are so close to our own lines that nobody wants to get killed helping a wounded comrade.
Three huge Siberian wolfdogs come loping out of the forest. The first of them springs at Barcelona but he manages to whirl and finish it off with his Mpi.
The other two seem to work together. They are going straight for the Old Man, who falls over a tree stub and drops his Mpi. Terrified he puts out his hands to protect himself from the murderous animals.
Gregor kills one of the dogs with a pistol shot. Mpis we cannot use, or we’d kill the Old Man too. Mpis spray such a terrible lot.
The last of the dogs falls dead on top of the Old Man with the Legionnaire’s Moorish dagger in its back. Even in death it still snaps its teeth at the Old Man’s throat.
‘Jesus’n Mary,’ groans Porta, as a new baying is heard in the forest, and half a score of fierce, bloodthirsty hounds come rushing over the cleared ground.
The Westphalian goes down, screaming and kicking, with two slavering hounds on top of him. In a few seconds there is nothing but a heap of bloody rags left of him. An Mpi salvo kills the two animals, as they look up, with blood-dripping jaws, from the heap of bones and bloody flesh which a moment before had been a living human being.
A great, grey hound, like a ghost, comes straight at me. I duck instinctively and the monster soars over my head and rolls in the snow.
Heide catches one of them in the air on his battle-knife and rips up its belly so that its entrails fall to the ground.
The dog which has attacked me is making ready for a new spring. For a moment I stare, hypnotised, at its great, yellow incisors, bared in a demoniacal snarl.
Desperately I empty the whole magazine into it. The burst throws it backwards and literally rips its coat to ribbons.
Tiny catches one of the great dogs in mid-air, tears off its head and throws it at the next attacker. He catches the next one by the tail and swings it furiously round above his head. Whether it is the dog which makes the most noise, or Tiny, is hard to say, but the dog flies back the way it came, without a tail. Tiny has that in his hand.
Now there are only two dogs left. They stop in the middle of their attack, turn off a few yards from Tiny, and fly, whining, towards the forest, with Tiny after them, shouting at the top of his voice,
Just before they get to the forest Tiny catches the rearmost dog by the neck and picks it up as if it were a puppy and not a vicious Siberian wolfdog, trained to kill. He comes back on the run with the dog trailing behind him like a sack.
‘Shoot that vicious cur,’ screams Heide, furiously, lifting his Mpi and aiming at the dog.
‘You shoot ‘im,’ snarls Tiny, ‘an’ I’ll tear your Nazi ’ead off of your lousy shoulders! ’E’s goin’ ’ome with me an’ I’m gonna teach ’im to clean them Kripo sods out of David’s Station!’ He pats the growling dog, which is sitting undecidedly in the snow showing its teeth. ‘You’re gain’ with me to ’Amburg, you are, an’ you’re goin’ to bite the arse off of Otto (bleedin’) Nass!70 Panjemajo, tscharny trohort?’†
‘I won’t have you take that devil of a dog back with you,’ decides the Old Man, briefly, his Mpi held ready, and pointed at the snarling dog.
‘Shit on that,’ shouts Tiny, stubbornly, pulling the dog close to him. ‘Frankenstein, that’s ’is name, is from now on a member of the Greater German Army! ’E’ll take the oath, soon as we get back!’
‘Let him go,’ orders the Old Man. ‘Let him run off home!’
‘’E’s stayin’,’ shouts Tiny, stubbornly.
‘Cross of Jesus, but he’s a wicked-looking bastard,’ says Porta. ‘Watch out he doesn’t bite your face off!’
‘You may pat ’im,’ offers Tiny. ‘Won’t touch any friend of mine, ’e won’t. Do you like ’im?’
‘Ye-e-es, when I look at him properly. I do like him,’ says Porta, hesitantly, ‘but he’s not what I’d call a lapdog!’
‘You’re mad, mad, mad,’ the Old Man gives in. ‘Always animals in tow. But this Siberian war dog is the limit, understand! That devil’s only waiting his chance to eat the lot of us!’
The silence is shattered by long bursts of firing behind us. It is the dog soldiers who have caught up with us, and are furious at the sight of the dead animals lying in the snow. Completely disregarding our defensive fire, they rush forward, shouting, intent on avenging their dogs. Only a few of them live through the attack.
From the German-Finnish lines flares go up in all colours. They have obviously been disturbed by the violent firing from the Russian side.
The Old Man breaks open the flare pistol, and inserts a shell. With a thump the flare flies towards the heavens, and opens out into a five-pointed star, which slowly descends, and goes out over the forest.
‘We’re back!’ mumbles the Old Man, exhaustedly.
We stumble and fumble our way across the rough ground, with our weapons at the ready and every sense alert. The last, short distance is often the most dangerous.
I fall head over heels into a communications trench and knock my shoulder out of joint by the fall. Despite the pain I snatch at my Mpi. It’s happened before that people have jumped down, happily, into the wrong trench.
The section mixes with the trench company, Finnish Jäger. The OC, a lanky, young first lieutenant, with the Mannerheim Cross around his neck, greets us, and hands round cigarettes from his private stock. A dirty, bearded lieutenant, who looks fifty, but is probably not yet twenty, brings out vodka and beer.
We have no more than sat down, when a whistling and roaring is heard in the air, and the whole position rocks as if struck by a violent earthquake.
‘The Avengers,’ smiles the Mannerheim knight, passing the vodka bottle to the Old Man. ‘They never miss. They throw everything at us, but the kitchen sink, every time a band of partisans gets through.’
We are asleep before we reach our quarters in the rear area. Somebody says something about the sauna being ready for us, but we couldn’t care less. We have only one wish. To be allowed to sleep.
It is far into the next day when we finally get up on to our womout legs again. We have slept so deeply that we did not even hear an air attack that left half the village in ruins.
Porta cooks up mashed potatoes with small cubes of pork. There is melted butter too. It isn’t real butter, and the margarine is rancid, but we couldn’t care less. We eat like men preparing for a seven-year famine.
The sound of the guns is a faint rumble in the distance.
‘This is how I enjoy being me,’ says Porta, stretching luxuriously. His stomach bulges, as if he were nine months on the way, and he is annoyed at the fact that he cannot get another spoonful of food down. For once he is filled up. Right up to his uvula.
‘Coffee, anybody?’ asks Porta, rising to his feet.
Just as the coffee is ready, and we are relaxing in the light of the Hindenburg candles, Hauptfeldwebel Hofmann pushes open the door and enters in a whirl of snow.
‘Hell, but it’s cold,’ he says, blowing into his hands. ‘Got a cuppa coffee for me?’ He takes a couple of sips, and swears when he burns his tongue. He looks round at us for a moment. Takes another sip. Then he pulls a sheet of paper from his cuff and hands it to the Old Man.
‘You’re off in two hours’ time! You get artillery cover when you go over!’
All conversation has ceased. It is as if the angel of death had passed through the low-ceilinged room. We cannot believe what we have just heard.
Hofmann narrows his eyes and watches us. He pushes his pistol holster in front of him, as if accidentally.
‘By hell!’ shouts Porta, flushing red. ‘We’ve got a right to eight days rest after a six-week trip!’
‘You’ve got no rights,’ answers Hofmann. ‘The order came from the top. Oberst Hinka complained! He didn’t stop complaining until they threatened him with a court martial!’
‘What about the section? We’re short of men!’ asks the Old Man. ‘I can’t bloody well go over on the other side with nine men! And my 2 i/c, Barcelona Blom, is in hospital with a smashed-up face!’
‘Don’t worry about that,’ says Hofmann, drily. ‘The Army looks after all that sort of thing. Your replacements are here already. You’re gonna be the most mixed section that ever existed. There’s Russians, Lapps and Finns amongst ’em. The lorries’ll be here in two hours’ time, and so’s not to tire you they’ll stop right outside the door. Hals and Beinbruch!’ he says, and goes out of the door.
‘This is the kind of thing that can make a man pray to get a leg shot off,’ shouts Porta, trembling with rage. ‘Then you’d know, once and for all, you’d never have to go fatting about in never-never land with the guerrillas no more.’
‘A leg! Are you nuts?’ shouts Tiny. ‘’Ow’d you be able to run away when the David’s Station bleeders come after you, with their truncheons an’ their blue, bleedin’ lights? No, sonny! An arm! That’s all right! You can’t use a machine-popper with only one arm! See?’
‘An arm’s worse,’ says Gregor. ‘What’d a moving-man do with only one arm?’
‘Get a pension for the rest of his life,’ says the Old Man, ’if he’s left it out here!’
‘You won’t get a sausage if we lose this war,’ considers Porta, ‘even if you throw both arms away.’
We begin to get our equipment together, and have hardly finished the task when the lorries are at the door.
It is snowing so heavily that we can hardly see anything, but that is to our advantage when we have to cross the front line. A night like this makes the job of the observers a difficult one.
Tiny is having trouble with his war dog. It doesn’t want to go. It growls and bares its teeth. We have to lift it into the lorry.
‘I can well understand him protesting,’ says Porta, patting the dog. ‘Once they’ve got out of the Soviet Union who’d want to go back?’
Chief Mechanic Wolf is standing, leaning against a tree, and watching us with a broad grin.
‘Last night I dreamt I saw you shot so you fell apart in in two halves,’ he shouts to Porta, as the lorries swing from the unit lines.
We can hear him laughing a long time after he has disappeared from sight.
The lorries swing on to the Sala road. We know where we are off to. The Arctic front!
We fall asleep before we reach the front, and fall up against one another when the lorry brakes.
Some soldiers, from the Finnish Sissi battalion, take us on from there. Silently they watch us as we crawl over the parapet of the trench and through the barbed-wire.
A machine-gun barks, viciously, at an angle to us. A flare whirls up into the sky and falls slowly to earth.
We wait, quiet as mice, until it blinks out!
THE END
60 Vigi vres (Russian) = Hands up!
61 izmeejik (Russian) = traitors.
62 Na doma (Russian) = Come on home.
63 Einmal etc. (German) = (freely)
But someday glasses will clink again,
For every war must have an end.
64 Nitschewo (Russian) = Never.
65 Paschall (Russian) = Forward !
66 ligun (Russian) = Liar.
67 Pjors (Russian) Dog.
† Malltschal (Russian) = Shut your mouth.
68 Je wenn’s etc. = A German equivalent of
When this cruel war is over,
Oh how happy I will be . . .
etc. etc.
69 Il est con etc. (French) = He is as stupid as my prick is pretty.
70 Danish text.
Kriminalkommissar Otto Nass = Superintendant Otto Nass (why ‘bleedin’?).
† Panjemajo etc. (Russian) understand, you black devil.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
About the Author
By Sven Hassel
The Bridge
The Battle Group
Court Martial
The Execution
Flight
The Spurious German
Nova Petrovsk
The Red Angel
The War Dogs
Sven Hassel, Court Martial
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