‘You’ll soon find out, Klockdorf,’ smiles the company commander, sarcastically. ‘We’ll be dead, Klockdorf!’
Tiny has got hold of a brand-new Russian machine-gun in beautiful condition. He hugs it, tenderly as a mother nursing her newly born infant.
Porta throws a tin of pears over to me. I swallow the contents and feel new strength flow into me.
We advance in a wedge across a stretch of open ground. Halfway over a raging machine-gun fire opens up on us from a group of trees and is supplemented by rifle fire from the flank.
Porta sweeps the foreground with machine-gun bursts, and covers us while we work our way forward towards the trees.
Moser dashes forward, closely followed by the command group. He stops a moment to throw a hand grenade.
Tiny jumps and passes the company going like a tank. The machine gun hammers, grenades explode in the forest, screams and curses arise:
‘Job tvojemadj, germanskij, germanskij!’
Branches and twigs crackle and snap under fast-moving feet. A burst from an MG knocks over two Pioneers. Sani bends to help them.
‘Get on!’ shouts Moser, pushing Tafel on in front of him.
No. 2 Section rolls over the Russian group, and finishes them off with spades and bayonets.
Tiny breaks the neck of a woman captain, with a chop from the edge of his hand, just as she lifts her gun to shoot him. Her head hangs crazily down her back as if she were trying to see herself from behind.
Panting, we rush forward through the loose snow. Often we go in up to the shoulders and have to be pulled out. The snow is like a bottomless swamp sucking you down into its depths. Three Russian infantrymen are stuck in the snow. Only their heads are showing above it. Klockdorf liquidates them with shots through the back of the neck. Blood-red rings colour the whiteness around them.
When we stop we find we have lost twenty-three men. A machine-gun section has disappeared without trace.
‘Damnation!’ curses Moser, bitterly. ‘That wouldn’t have happened if they’d kept in touch as ordered. Their names?’
Nobody knows them. They have only joined us quite lately.
‘Nothing we can do about it,’ decides Moser. ‘We can’t go looking for them. Once again, then! Keep contact! It’s your one and only chance of getting through. Death is running with us!’ Four times in succession Tiny falls into giant snowdrifts. He is as hard to get out of them as a horse would be. When it happens for the fourth time running he goes quite mad and fires a burst down into the snow in hysterical rage. He sends two bodies sailing into the forest.
‘Out o’ the way, you dead bastards! Out o’ the way o’ men an’ the war! You’ve ’ad it, you ’ave, see!’
The Professor falls behind. His strength is quite gone. He falls sobbing into the snow.
The Legionnaire takes him by the arm and drags him along with him.
A little later he finds he has lost the ammunition bags, and wants to go back after them.
‘Tiny’ll kill me for losing the bags,’ he moans, weeping.
‘Pas d’objections!’11 snarls the Legionnaire, dragging him on.
‘You can pick up a couple of full ones when we hit Ivan again, which won’t be long now.’
Shortly afterwards Tiny catches up with them. His rage at the snowdrifts has cooled somewhat, but breaks out again when he discovers the Professor has lost the ammunition.
‘D’you mean to say you’ve thrown the ammo away?’ he roars, pointing a big, dirty accusing finger at the Professor.
‘I’ve lost the bags,’ admits the Professor, feebly.
‘Lost the bags!’ howls Tiny, his great beery, bass voice echoing through the forest. ‘’E’s lost the bags, ’e says. You ’aven’t got the brains of a frozen bleedin’ Bolshie monkey! You don’t lose your bleedin’ ammo in the middle of a bleedin’ war! Where’d we be if everybody was to do that? There soon wouldn’t be no war, would there? No ammo no bleedin’ war! Where’d we be then? Go back an’ find it! ’Ow’d you expect me to make coffins for Ivan without any nails to put in me bleedin’ ’ammer? Want me to go rushin’ at ’im without no ammo in me gun an’ frighten ’im to bleedin’ death? I’ve never ’eard nothin’ like it! A loader what throws away all ’is bleedin’ load! That’s what you get for lettin’ these barmy bleedin’ arf-arsed alien bastards into your bleedin’ army!’
‘He stays here!’ says the Legionnaire, decisively.
‘Say that again!’ says Tiny, unbelievingly. ‘You must’ve swallowed a bleedin’ date-stone when you was wanderin’ round in Africa an’ got a bleedin’ moudly date palm growing up through your brain, mate! You’re sabotagin’ the Second World War. Thought o’ that? You ain’t still fartin’ around with that gang of flat-footed Legionnaires you ’ad in the ’ot Sahara sun ’avin a ’igh ol’ time watchin’ them mirages of Arab cunt winkin’ at you from the bleedin’ clouds’
‘Don’t forget I am an Unteroffizier, Obergefreiter Creutzfeldt. I order your loader to stay here! Compris?’
‘Oh you do, do you?’ snarls Tiny, raging. ‘All right then! I ain’t got no alien loader any more, see? You can stick ’im straight up your rotten sand-filled arsehole if you should feel like it, and all ’is snow-capped, icy, bleedin’ mountains after ’im, an’ then you can get yourself transferred to the Engineers an’ make a livin’ shittin’ gravel onto the roads for the rest o’ the bleedin’ war. That’s what you can do, mate!’
He disappears into the forest with the Russian machine-gun under his arm like a walking stick. We can hear him for a long time, cursing Norway and Morocco as if those two countries were to blame entirely for the loss of his ammunition bags.
‘Who the devil is that shouting?’ asks Moser, who is bringing the company together again.
‘It’s Tiny,’ grins Porta. ‘He bit off a commissar’s prick in the fighting in front of Moscow, and now he’s just discovered he hasn’t had his monthlies. He’s cursing the Maternity Corps because they won’t give him a free abortion.’
‘Your section again, Beier!’ snarls the Oberleutnant, viciously. ‘It’ll drive me out of my mind! Either you get out of 5 Company when we get back, and take that crazy crew of yours with you, or I ask for a posting away from the company altogether! I can’t stand it any more!’
‘There’s a shower o’ yellow Commie monkeys a mile the other side o’ the coal-mine,’ comes Tiny’s deep voice, as he steps from the thick forest. ‘They near shit themselves when I turned up an’ took a couple o’ bags of ammo away from ’em.’ He swings the filled ammunition bags above his head. ‘’Ow about nippin’ over an’ fixin’ ’em proper? They’re only bleedin’ militia, an’ it’d be easy as stampin’ on a frog.’
‘God damn your eyes, man!’ screams Moser. ‘My cup of patience is running over!’
‘Cup?’ asks Tiny, looking round him. ‘If they’re dishin’ out tots I’m due for a double ration. I was ’avin’ me prick looked at last time we ’ad a ration issue.’
‘Shut up, shut up, shut up!’ rages Moser, taking a step towards Tiny and clicking over his safety-catch. ‘Open your mouth just once more, Creutzfeldt, and it’ll be the last thing you’ll ever do in this world!’
Tiny goes over and stands by Porta.
‘This bleedin’ war’s gettin’ worse an’ worse,’ he says, injuredly. ‘Ain’t even allowed to open your mouth, now. ’Fore you know where you are it’ll be forbidden to go for a shit!’
The company commander sends him a killing look. ‘Let’s get on,’ he turns, resolutely, to the Old Man.
Now the artillery fire is thunderous. The Russian artillery positions can’t be far away. Flashes show continuously above the trees.
Silently Porta holds up his hand in the signal for Halt! Without a sound the company sinks down in the snow.
A thunderous roar and a muzzle flash which makes everything light as day splits the darkness. A Russian heavy-calibre gun is firing only a few yards away from us. By the light of the flash we see the artillerymen rushing around prepa
ring the gun for the next shot.
‘Mille diables, a 380 mm!’ whispers the Legionnaire. ‘It will take them at least fifteen minutes to ready her again. Let’s take them just before they’re ready. Then they’ll all be looking at the gun. They won’t even feel themselves dying! Vive la mort!’
There is a jingle and rattle of steel on steel from over by the gun. Short, sharp commands are given, the loading crane groans under the weight of the heavy shell being hoisted up to the breech.
‘Ready?’ whispers the Old Man, drawing his combat knife from his boot.
‘Like a hungry stork about to nip up a big fat frog,’ answers Porta, splaying out the legs of his LMG.
Moser brings back his arm and throws a grenade into the middle of the gun crew. As the gunner falls he fires the gun. The chatter of our weapons is drowned in the muzzle report, and we dart forward.
I stumble across a body, come quickly to my feet, and roll down a steep incline. Thorns tear the skin of my hands and face to ribbons.
Porta is right on my heels. He twists like an eel as he falls, and fires a burst at some figures which come running along the top of the ridge. The tracer tracks seem to sweep them over backwards.
Tiny comes down with a rush like an avalanche, a Russian clutched tightly in his arms. They are thrown apart and come to their feet together with a roar. The Russian has a bayonet, but Tiny kicks him in the crutch and smashes his head open against a stone.
We rush on. A machine-gun hammers at us from a split-trench. Grenades explode snappingly, flares pop. In the twinkling of an eye we have taken the machine-gun nest. We are desperate men. They were blocking our way to safety.
The Signals Feldwebel is hit in the throat, and his blood spurts over me. He cries out hoarsely and tries to staunch the wound with snow. Too late! A main artery has been cut. Two SS-men fall into a Stalin trap, and are spitted on the rusty bayonets in the bottom of it. Their screaming can be heard a long way off. There’s no time to take them with us. Breathlessly we arrive at a little cluster of sheds used by shepherds as shelter for them and their flocks.
Tiny is in the lead. He throws a grenade through the open doorway and drops into cover. The grenade explodes with a heavy thud.
‘Hear anything?’ asks Porta.
‘Not as much as a fly scratchin’ ’imself!’ answers Tiny.
‘Something smells,’ says Porta, suspiciously.
‘It ain’t our friends the enemy,’ mumbles Tiny, staring anxiously at the sheds. ‘I’d be able to ’ear ’em breathin’!’
I raise the signal pistol and send up a flare. Slowly the umbrella of light sinks down, illuminating the huts. Still nothing to be seen.
The Old Man and the company commander come crawling over to us. ‘What the devil are you waiting for?’ asks Moser. ‘Get on, you lazy sacks! There’s not a minute to waste.’ He is about to get up when Tiny restrains him.
‘’Arf-a-mo, sir, or I’m afraid we’ll be parted from another before even you’d like! A black cat’s walked through them sheds.’
‘What do you mean, a black cat?’ asks the Oberleutnant uncertainly, crawling further under cover.
‘I don’t know,’ answers Tiny, thoughtfully, ‘but there’s been one in there.’
Some rear echelon soldiers come racing up from the hedgerows. We don’t even know their names. We found them, almost dead from terror, in a pill-box three days ago.
‘Get down!’ shouts the Old Man, warningly. Ignoring the shout they rush madly on seemingly crazed with fear, shouting:
‘Tovaritsch, tovaritsch, nicht schiessen!’12
They seem to think we are Russians. With hands held high above their heads they run straight for the huts.
‘Holy Mother of Kazan,’ mutters Porta. ‘You think a Siberian commissar was gnawing at their arses the way they run!’
‘Get down! Halt! shouts Moser, signalling to them with both arms.
‘Nicht schiessen, nicht schiessen, tovaritsch!’ is the only answer he gets.
The first of them has reached the huts and is about to kick open the door.
‘Heads down!’ cries Porta, terrified.
A volcano breaks loose. The huts disappear and a series of explosions follow on the first.
There is nothing left at all of the frightened soldiers.
‘God save us,’ cries Moser in amazement. ‘What in the world was that?’
‘A present from Stalin,’ grins Porta, happily. ‘When those Supplies heroes opened the door they set off the lot!’
‘Jesus, what a bleedin’ bang,’ says Tiny, happily. ‘I was right, about that cat. Ivan ain’t bad at ’andin’ out them Stalin Prizes! The echelon boys drop in every time. I can’t for the life o’ me understand ’ow anybody in ’is right mind’d dare go into a place like that. It’s just made for Ivan to ’ave ’is little bit o’ fun in.’
‘Well, let’s get on,’ says Moser, shortly, pushing his Mpi under his arm.
‘Let’s just take another little breather for a minute, Herr Oberleutnant,’ says Porta. ‘Ivan’s coming to see who it was took the Stalin Prize this time.’
‘And ’ere’s the winner, boys!’ grits Tiny, opening up with his machine-gun.
A party of Russians fall screaming under the hail of bullets.
‘Move!’ shouts Porta, and off we go as fast as we can through the deep, powdery snow.
The Russian soldiers lie bleeding amongst the trees. One of them looks down in astonishment at his ripped body and moans softly to himself.
The company closes up. Moser orders a count of heads. Fourteen men missing. Only seventy-three of us left. Over three hundred lie dead behind us.
The company commander seems almost to be losing heart. His hand plays, thoughtfully, over his Mauser.
Tiny tries to roll a cigarette out of the fluff in his pocket, and manages to get a cigarette out of it. He takes a deep drag, holding the smoke in his mouth for a long time. Then he hands it on to Porta. There’s a draw for all of us in No. 2. Artillery thunders and shells whistle through the air towards the German positions. The whole of the western sky is a dancing sea of flames. At the horizon everything seems to be on fire.
‘Who said the Red Army was beaten?’ asks Porta, sarcastically.
‘Oh cut it out,’ growls the Old Man, irritably. ‘It makes me sick to think of it.’
‘If it’s going to take much longer to get through,’ continues Porta, ‘you can scratch Joseph Porta, by the Grace of God, Obergefreiter, off the Greater German Army List.’
The Professor is completely beaten, and lies weeping in a snowhole. Tiny bends over him.
‘It was bad shit for you gettin’ into this lousy, bleedin’ war, my son! But now you are in it I’d advise you to cork your life away, see? Keep close to me. I’ll see you get back to your bleedin’ mountains again.’ He pushes half a pear into the Professor’s mouth.
‘Chew that slow, an’ swallow the juice. It’s as good as puttin’ pepper up the backside of a lazy ‘orse. Makes it want to run away from its own arsehole!’
Several times I get stuck in deep snowdrifts, and the others have to come back to pull me out. The soft, powdery snow is hellish stuff. At last I’m so worn out that I beg them to leave me where I lie. I cry, as the Professor cried before. For most of us, our supply of nervous energy is stretched to the breaking-point.
We go straight through a wide patch of thorny brush, which tears our skin and uniforms to ribbons. Blood streams down our faces, mingling with the sweat.
Slowly it stops snowing. A full moon shines through the clouds. The sky becomes almost clear. We can see a long way in front, and won’t run into the enemy by accident, but it’s easier for the Russians to see us, too. Our footsteps become strangely hollow. We stop fearfully and listen. It sounds as if we were walking on hollow tree-trunks.
‘Bong! Bong!’ it sounds at every step.
‘Faster!’ the Old Man is chasing us. ‘Don’t piss yourselves, my sons. We’re only walking over a swamp. Lucky it??
?s frozen.’ Man-high reeds and swamp rushes hide us. This thick forest of swamp plants makes us feel safe. Suddenly we are in the middle of a village.
We go down by the nearest huts like lightning.
‘Stoi kto!’13 comes from the darkness. A submachine-gun spits tongues of flame. The burst smashes the face of Befreiter Böhle.
‘Forward!’ roars Moser. ‘Fire at will!’
The sentries are swept away as every weapon speaks. We storm forward, throwing grenades through windows, kicking open doors, emptying magazines into sleeping soldiers. We go to cover behind great stacks of ammunition.
Thoughtlessly Porta slings a mine in amongst the boxes. The resulting explosion literally blasts us out of the village. In a second the whole place becomes a thunderous hell of flames, with explosion following on explosion.
‘You are the biggest, stupidest idiot I have ever met in the whole of my life,’ shouts Moser as he gets up cautiously, with blood streaming down his face.
‘Nice little bang,’ grins Porta, unworriedly. ‘Ivan must’ve shit a new commissar when that went up.’
We have been marching some time down a narrow road churned up by tank tracks, when Tiny suddenly sinks to the ground.
‘Panzers!’ he whispers, pointing to a long row of T-34s waiting in readiness in between the trees.
‘Got anything we can use for the Last Supper?’ whispers Porta. ‘Wish I’d been a better imitation of the Virgin Mary’s Son!’
‘’E wasn’t unlucky enough to get mixed up in a World War,’ sighs Tiny, tiredly.
We make a wide detour round the T-34s, work our way through a wood consisting solely of saplings, and come out again on a wide, open plain. In front of us are some hills which we will have to cross.
A long column of Russian lorries with blue black-out lights is moving slowly towards the west. Flares are going up everywhere. Klockdorf and the Old Man climb up to the top of the heights, while the remainder of the company stays under cover.
‘We’ll have to pass through a Russian position at the foot of those hills,’ explains the Old Man, when they return.
‘Move!’ orders Moser sharply, changing the magazine on his Mpi. The company spreads out and moves crouching-over towards the heights. A phosphorus flare hangs, like a lamp without a wire, over the terrain, lighting it up with its ghostly illumination. We can see the lines of trenches and pill-boxes clearly.