The Russian straddles an armchair and uses his machine-pistol like a scythe. He sweeps it round the big room. Plaster and the dirt of years explode from the walls.
The Pioneer Feldwebel remains standing for a fraction of a second, made visible by the muzzle flash of the Mpi. Then his body rockets backwards across a long table, on which freshly killed hens are lying. The rain of bullets pours into him, making his body twitch violently. He falls to the floor, taking the hens with him.
The Russian grins and clips in a new magazine. There is no doubt that he is enjoying himself. As most people do when they can kill without penalty.
By Sven Hassel
The Commissar
O.G.P.U. Prison
Court Martial
The Bloody Road to Death
Blitzfreeze
Reign of Hell
SS General
March Battalion
Liquidate Paris
Monte Cassino
Assignment Gestapo
Comrades of War
Wheels of Terror
The Legion of the Damned
O.G.P.U.
PRISON
Translated from the Danish by Tim Bowie
CASSELL
A WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON EBOOK
First published by in Great Britain in 1982 by Corgi
This ebook first published in 2010 by Orion Books
Copyright © Sven Hassel 1982
Translation copyright Transworld Publishers Ltd. 1982
Translated from the Danish by Tim Bowie
The right of Sven Hassel to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 0 2978 6421 9
Orion Books
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
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5 Upper St Martin’s Lane
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An Hachette UK Company
www.orionbooks.co.uk
Born in 1917 in Fredensborg, Denmark, Sven Hassel joined the merchant navy at the age of 14. He did his compulsory year’s military service in the Danish forces in 1936 and then, facing unemployment, joined the German army. He served throughout World War II on all fronts except North Africa. Wounded eight times, he ended the war in a Russian prison camp. He wrote LEGION OF THE DAMNED while being transferred between American, British and Danish prisons before making a new life for himself in Spain. His world war books have sold over 53 million copies worldwide.
Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
About the author
By Sven Hassel
1 Obstacle race to the glasshouse
2 Infantry attack
3 Fire controller
4 OGPU Prison
5 War debris
6 Eighty per cent
7 The boxing match
8 The tigers
Dedicated to my friend the Spanish poet, Joaquin Buxo Montesinos
The one thing our Fuhrer is afraid of is peace, but he needn’t worry his head about that. Our enemies wouldn’t dream of making peace with him.
Porta in conversation with Tiny,
at a crossing of the Dniepr in July 1942
Happy was our laughter there where death became absurd and life still more so.
Wilfred Owen
‘Après moi le déluge, ‘the Staff Padre explains, goggling up at the Oberst, who is gazing stonily down at him from the saddle of his horse. ‘Me mum left me when I was just a little lad, ‘he sobs, self-pityingly.
‘You’re drunk, ‘says the Oberst, and taps his riding boots with his whip.
‘Wrong, quite wrong, Oberst ol’pal, ‘hiccups the padre, emitting a long cackle of laughter, which echoes in the morning quiet of the streets. ‘Take a closer look, ol’ Oberst pal, an’you will observe I am quite, quite sober. Even your horse don’t notice it when I breathe straight in his face.’
With the aid of a lamp-post he achieves the difficult task of getting to his feet and saluting. ‘Oberst ol’ sir, I wiil not attempt to deceive you, ‘he says with solemn honesty. ‘I am drunk. Terribly, terribly drunk! ‘He gives himself a penance of ten “Our Father’s” and fifteen “Hail Mary’s”, but then loses the thread and says ‘God, sir! Permission to speak, sir? I am staff padre at Third Army Corps, sir!’ He embraces the neck of the horse and begs to be arrested, put in irons and carried off to jail. ‘But please, ‘he begs, with a sly cackle, ‘please put me in Alt Moabitt jail. They’re having beans for dinner today! Come with me Herr Oberst, ol’ sir, an’ you’ll see. They’re the best beans you ever, ever tasted in all your life!’
1
Obstacle Race to the Glasshouse
Gregor Martin swears for a long time without repeating himself.
‘Escort duty,’ he snorts. ‘Why in the name of the half a hundred heathen hells does it always have to be us? Why can’t they just put ’em on the tram, or something? All that shit with leg-irons an’ handcuffs an’ loadin’ with live! As if any one of ’em was crackers enough to bugger about escaping!’
‘You don’t understand a thing,’ smiles Porta, happily. ‘It is laid down in HDV1 that prisoners are to be taken to jail in irons and under armed escort. The Army takes this kind of thing seriously. Send ’em on the tram! You must be round the bend!’
‘Shut it, now,’ growls Gregor, sourly. ‘And if you start one of those stories of yours, and its about some prisoner, I’ll bloody shoot you, I will!’
‘My stories are not to be sneezed at,’ whinnies Porta. ‘You can learn a lot from ’em. We were once escorting prisoners from Altona to Fuhlsbüttel, an’ when we reached Gänsemarkt, we all agreed to take a tram. But the escort commander, Oberfeldwebel Schramm, had some kind of eye trouble and had to wear tinted glasses. We told him it was a number 9 tram we were getting on and it ought to be a number 6, but he told us to shut it, like you just did. Wouldn’t admit to himself his glasses played him tricks more often than not!
‘Up you, Schramm, we thought, and nipped up on the number 9, which had its terminus at Landungsbrücke.’
‘All right, that’s enough,’ shouts Gregor, gruffly. ‘We all know how its goin’ to end.’
‘Not a bit of it,’ smiles Porta, condescendingly. ‘We wound up, three days later, with Marabou2 at Fuhlsbüttel, but before that Oberfeldwebel Schramm had gone bananas and we’d had to take him to Giessen3. When this lot was all over the escort became prisoners and the C.O. had to detail a new escort. This one was placed under the command of Feldwebel Schluckemeyer who had some kind of ear trouble. . . .’
‘If you’re goin’ to tell us he went batchy too,’ shouts Gregor, ‘I’ll do somebody or other a bloody mischief!’
‘Oh no-o! said Porta, looking insulted, ‘I always stick to the facts. Feldwebel Schluckemeyer never went mad. He did shoot himself, just before we got to Fuhlsbüttel, and that caused us a bit of trouble, because, you see, we couldn’t just march into the glasshouse and report without any escort commander. . . .’ Gregor snatches his P-38 from its leather holster.
‘One word more an’ I’ll fil you full of holes!’
‘Have it your way,’ sighs Porta, shrugging his shoulders carelessly. ‘But you’ll regret not having drawn on my wealth
of experience. I am the expert on escorts, from both sides of the loaded rifle.’
‘Shit!’ says Gregor, irritatedly, slamming his pistol back into its holster.
Porta, who knows Berlin like the inside of his own pocket, takes the lead, but as we cross Neuer Markt and swing into Bischoffstrasse, one of the prisoners, infantry Gefreiter Kain, points out we are marching the wrong way.
‘What the devil do you know about it?’ Porta bubbles, furiously, ‘I might be taking a short-cut, mightn’t I?’
‘Balls!’ says Kain, stubbornly, ‘I was born in this town and know it inside out. Go down here and you run straight onto Alexander Platz.’
‘Don’t you tell me what’s what, you jailhouse shit! I know what I’m doin’,’ says Porta.
‘Prisoners speak when they’re spoken to,’ howls Tiny from the back of the squad.
‘If we’re goin’ to the glasshouse,’ interjects an artillery Wachtmeister, ‘then we‘re right off course.’
‘Chatter, chatter, chatter,’ Porta chides, in a superior tone. ‘You sound like a flock o’ flippin’ parrots in a knockin’-shop. Get the Christmas spirit going, Gregor, and free the slaves from their chains. I’m setting ’em up at “The Crooked Dog” on the other side of “Alex”.
‘There’s always something doing at “The Crooked Dog”,’ explains Porta, with a cheerful, guttersnipe grin as we rattle to a halt outside ‘The Dog’.
‘Last Wednesday some feller rushed out after another feller, an’ shot him in the arse for trying to nip off without paying. Last night a meeting between the railwaymen and the boys off the trams wound up with one of ’em getting a chronic case of hurdy-gurdy fever, and every night somebody or other leaves headfirst via the window.’
‘You politicals?’ asks Tiny, interestedly, as he unlocks a Pioneer Gefreiter’s handcuffs.
‘You could say that,’ the Pioneer answers, phlegmatically. ‘Accordin’ to the evidence I ought’ve been a Cabinet Minister at least.’
‘Red Front an’ all that shit?’ asks Tiny, with a sly grin.
‘Worse’n that,’ declares the Pioneer, darkly. ‘I got chucked out o’ “The Frog”. The watchdogs swarmed around like a lot o’ ducks gettin’ onto a lump o’ bread, an’ I have to tell ’em about Adolf bein’ just a liar from Brunau what the Austrians had sent us out of wicked malice.’
‘You got just one chance,’ explains Tiny, omnisciently. ‘When they drag you up in front of the court, up with your bleedin’ arm, click your ’eels an’ shout, “ ’Eil ’Itler!” This you do every time you answer a bleedin’ question. Then what they do is they send you to the ol’ trick-cyclist. Up with your arm again an’ give ’im the same treatment. Then ’e’ll ask you to do somethin’ barmy, like puttin’ bits o’ wood in ’oles, or puttin’ words together, or somethin’. What do you do? You shout out: “Führer, befiehl, wir folgen!” An’ this you keep on with even when they throw you into solitary. After a bit they’ll find out as ’ow you’re unsuitable for punishment, an’ put you in the nut ’ouse for life. Then you’re saved! You just sit there nice an’ peaceful like, an’ wait till Germany’s got the shit knocked out of ’er. When that ’appens they’ll kick your arse out o’ the loony-bin an’ fill it up with Adolf an’ ’is mates. In the new Germany you ought to ’ave a good chance of makin’ mayor at least.’
‘Bit dodgy this, isn’t it?’ protests the artillery Wachtmeister pessimistically, as they find seats in the smoke-filled, beer-stinking saloon.
The host, a tiny man wearing a big, black bowler hat, embraces Porta with a happy grin. The first round is on the house.
‘Any of you lot due for the chopper?’ asks Porta, after the second round has gone down. ‘If so, don’t be nervous. It’s all over before you’ve time to think about it. I know the feller who does it, and he knows what he’s up to. Only made a mess of it twice, an’ one of them was a bint. Put him off by cryin’ an’ sayin’ it was all a mistake. It was too!’
‘I don’t believe they’re cruel as all that,’ an infantry Feldwebel puts his oar in. ‘We Germans are a humane people.’
‘Tell that to the boys in Germersheim4,’ says Porta, jeeringly.
‘You may not believe it,’ says the Feldwebel, ‘but I am really innocent.’
‘Of course you are,’ Porta nods agreement. ‘We‘re all innocent. Unfortunately it‘s often more dangerous to be innocent than guilty.’ He bends forward over the table and speaks in a confidential tone. ‘I once knew a Herr Ludwig Gänsenheim from Soltau. He was a careful man. So careful he even walked along the street with his eyes shut so’s not to see anything he oughtn’t. When the talk turned treasonable he’d put his fingers in his ears. His toes too, if there’d been room. Well, one day he got mixed up in a KDF5 march with everybody screaming “Heil Deutschland, Heil der Führer,!” By the time they’d got to Leipziger Strasse and rounded the tramwaymen’s building, our neutral friend, Herr Ludwig Gänsenheim, had got himself brainwashed into being a faithful follower of the Führer without even wanting to. When the happy crowd thundered over the Spree Bridge he went all to pieces and screamed: “Death and gas to all Jews and Communists!” He was so far gone he didn’t even notice himself go down an’ the mob tramp all over him. On they rushed to the Chancellory to get a flash of Adolf, an’ while they were doin’ it a Schupo squad was sweepin’ up what was left of Herr Ludwig an’ ten other poor innocents like him. Off to the morgue with ’em, and maybe somebody eventually identified ’em.’
‘War’s terrible,’ the infantry Feldwebel breaks in, the corners of his lips drawn down so far they almost meet under his chin.
‘All sorts of people get killed one way or another, innocent an’ guilty alike.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Porta continues, enthusiastically. ‘In wartime no worry! Some get their chops shot off at the front, others lose their bonce in Plötzensee. Sooner or later we all get it, so’s our descendants can see we did do somethin’ during the war, an’ didn’t just run round in circles like a flock of hens with a fox nippin’ at their arses! World Wars have to wind up in blood and shit, to get a good word in the history books. You don’t think Adolf’d accept a war nobody even noticed. It’s the really wicked dictators and generals who get remembered!’
The rain has turned to slush when the prisoners and their escorts turn out of ‘The Dog’. Outside the Hitler Youth hostel on Prenzlauer Strasse they are hauling down the flag. We turn the corner and march down Dircksen Strasse.
‘Shit,’ growls Gregor, wiping slushy snow from his face. ‘I’m about tired o’ this bloody war. Always goin’ round waitin’ for a bomb to drop on your nut.’
From a door a few steps up from the level of the street a man comes flying, rolls like a living wheel straight across the street, and crashes into the wall of the house opposite. His coat and hat come flying after him, and, after a pause, an umbrella.
Porta laughs, expectantly. ‘Gents we’re there! This is “The Crippled Frog”, and things seem to be livening up. Be nice an’ quiet now,’ he continues, in a fatherly tone, ‘because this is a decent place, with a piano and a set o’ drums, an’ this is where the war-widows come to get consoled for their great loss.’
‘I been ’ere before,’ declares Tiny, his eyes shining. ‘The cunt there is in this place you wouldn’t believe. Not much room though. Can’t go for a piss yourself. You ’ave to send your shadder!’
‘What’ll we do if the watchdogs turn up?’ asks Gregor, nervously, depositing his Mpi on a shelf under the bar.
‘No problem,’ Porta laughs, unworriedly. ‘Both the watchdogs and the Schupo always ring before they raid this place.’
The host, who has two wooden legs, embraces Porta heartily and asks where he is going. ‘Taking four poor bastards to be strung up,’ says Porta.
‘Oh, shit! says the host. ‘First round on the house. Beer and schnapps.’ After the first four rounds of beer and schnapps Porta begins to tell treasonable anecdotes.
‘When the Tommy’s get hold of him, t
hey’ll really stretch his Austrian neck for him,’ he says in a secretive tone, to a tramdriver who is leaving at dawn with a troop transport.
‘’E’ll be for makin’ a speech before they pulls the bleedin’ floor out from under ’im.’ Tiny laughs uncontrollably and bangs his fist down on the table, making the glasses dance.
A Schupo in semi-civvies laughs so heartily he swallows his cipr.
The host hits him on the back with his third wooden leg, which is always kept in reserve behind the bar.
He chokes up the cigar which, to our amazement, is still alight.
Two women, dressed in black, white and red, and sitting under the picture of Hitler, begin to sing:
I once shot a copper
Now is wife’s a’gettin’ it proper. . . .
A party of wounded are sitting at the long table running their hands up the girls legs.
Sophia she was stinkin’ drunk. . . .
sings Porta in a beery baritone. A medical officer, half-asleep by the stove, opens one eye in conspiratorial fashion and stares around the room.
‘Malingerers! Malingerers, the bloody lot of you. What do you care about the Fatherland?’ he thunders, ecstatically. ‘I’ll fix you, I will! Kv6 the lot of you and off to the front!’ With a deep sigh he slumps across the table and falls asleep again.
‘Drunk! Drunk as a cunt!’ says the host, shaking his head in disapproval. ‘Farts about on some commission declarin’ everything an’ everybody Kv. Give ’im a medal for it, they did. Last week ’e declared a bleeder with only one leg Kv. Got right up to the front line with ’is false leg under ’is arm before they stamped ’im GVH7 and sent ’im back to depot. Now ’e’s at the Hauptfeldwebel School ’opin’ some time to get back at that bleedin’ M.O.!’
‘Ten minutes for a five-spot, and twenty-five for all night,’ the red white and black women are offering.