‘I’ll go an’ have an understandin’ talk with him,’ promises Wolf, his eyes glittering. ‘We’ll take the boys with us. They can tell him what the Chinese an’ the blacks do to people they don’t like. We’ll let Albert start by breathin’ on him a bit!’
Together with Tiny, Albert and Gregor, Wolf and Porta march, noses in the air, down through the huge ordnance storehouse, which is packed with all kinds of heavy pieces of artillery. Guns stand, side by side along the walls, barrels angled up towards the skylights. Stubby, thick-barrelled howitzers fill the middle of the floor space.
Field Ordnance Master Kunze, ‘Old Leatherlegs’, sits behind his desk, fat and broad, and literally oozing power and authority. He is wearing a wooden, Herrenvolk expression.
‘What do you want?’ he asks, trying to look severe, but with a total lack of success.
‘I imagine it’s only a rumour I’ve heard, that you are refusin’ to move all your shit?’ Wolf opens the conversation. He blows smoke past the ordnance man’s ear. ‘Or have I heard wrong?’
Kunze passes a fat hand over his totally hairless head, and stares at Wolf with doggy eyes.
‘I’m just saying,’ he says in a whining, angry falsetto. ‘Not you, and not Porta, can come in here and tell me what to do. You’ve no business here at all. Everything here’s mine. Note that!’
Porta claps his hands together, and doubles up in a spasm of laughter.
‘Cut it out, you puffed-up twit! You don’t own one bit of this ironmongery. You don’t even own the studs in your boots. The Army’s lent ’em to you. It’s the Army’s lot. The Army owns you, too, and who’s the Army. If you want to know, the Army’s us!’
‘I’ll report you to Corps HQ,’ threatens Kunze, furiously. He gets up from his chair, panting and with considerable difficulty. ‘Then we’ll see what the QMG has to say. He’s tough! Tough as Krupp steel!’
‘We piss from a great height on your QMG,’ grins Wolf, looking superior. He pushes a stiffened finger hard into Kunze’s chest. ‘You are gonna do just what we tell you to. Otherwise something nasty’s gonna happen!’
‘Set the bleedin’ dogs on ’im,’ suggests Tiny, wickedly.
Gregor spreads some large drawings out on the desk.
‘This is what we suggest,’ he declares, with the air of a promoter, pointing at the plans.
‘I won’t have this,’ says Kunze, in his whine of a voice. He falls heavily back into his chair, somewhat deflated.
‘You don’t have to have anything,’ declares Porta. ‘You just do what we tell you. All these bloody guns’ll have to be got out of here!’ He looks, searchingly, through the small windows, and his eye falls on ‘Timberwolf’, Kunze’s special duty labour squad boss. Timberwolf has served four years inside, at Torgau, for negligence with firearms. He and a friend from the Unter-offizier School, went into the Dresdener Bank, at Bielefeld, to get a quick loan. They had guns in their hands at the time. Instead of a loan they gave them four years imprisonment, broke them to special labourers, and posted them ‘unworthy ever to carry arms’. ‘Come here, jailbird,’ orders Porta, waving grandly at Timberwolf.
‘Don’t get big’eaded, yokel,’ explodes Timberwolf, angrily. He stands where he is, provocatively stiff-legged, and Porta has to go out to him.
‘Listen to me, tortoise,’ Porta begins. ‘We want seats along all these walls, and everything, I repeat everything spick’n span and in place by 12.00 hours on Saturday.’ He pauses artistically before continuing, almost solemnly, in a low, threatening voice. ‘That’s when the spectators’ll be comin’, and they won’t be a very patient bunch!’
‘What’ve you got up there?’ asks Timberwolf, spitting contemptuously on the spotless concrete floor. ‘It’s Wednesday today,’ He counts on his fingers. ‘Only three days to Saturday!’
‘Count the nights too. That makes six,’ says Porta. ’Whatever, the spectator accommodation’s got to be ready by midday Saturday, when the greatest boxin’ match in history comes off. If not, then you’ll be out sweeping mines before you know what’s hit you! That’s a bit more dangerous than waltzing about with a worn-out Russian broom, like the job you’ve got now!’
‘What’s Kunze say?’ asks Timberwolf, cautiously, looking across at the little office, from which voices can be heard. Field Ordnance Master Kunze’s shrill whine is overborn by Chief Mechanic Wolf’s harsh, barrack-square roar.
‘Who cares what he says?’ rages Porta. He opens his mouth wide, very wide, determined to drop a whole load of Army adjectives on Timberwolf: ‘You fuckin’ woodcutter you, you do what I tell you! Get hold of your shit-shovellin’ squad of crap-eaters! Get hold of some tools and get your arses movin’! Quick about it, now, before I lose my temper’n get really rough!’
‘I don’t think you know our Mr. Kunze,’ warns Timberwolf. ‘You ought to know he’s got connections. High-up connections. Higher’n you’ll ever get! Squashin’ an Obergefreiter like you ain’t anything for Kunze. He’s broke the back of an Oberst who came here tryin’ to piss on us!’
‘Close it,’ shouts Porta, furiously, ‘and carry out my orders. Otherwise you’ll soon learn what connections I’ve got!’
Chief Mechanic Wolf struts down the great ordnance hall, enjoying the jingle of his non-regulation spurs!
He lifts his feet like a fighting-cock, and brings them down sharply, so that the sound echoes between the steel supporting beams of the huge roof. There are guns everywhere, camouflaged in brown and green, artillery tractors, brand-new trucks, ammunition carriers, tracked and half-tracked vehicles. All lined up in long, perfectly straight rows.
Wolf spits contemptuously on an 88 mm A.A. gun, and lights a fat Brazilian cigar, striking his match on a sign which says:
SMOKING STRICTLY FORBIDDEN
‘What’s that bell-wether standin’ there scratchin’ his balls for?’ he asks, pointing at Timberwolf with his British officer’s swagger-stick. ‘Got nothin’ to do has he?’
‘Stupid, that’s all! Stupid as a cow’s arse!’ says Porta.
Kunze comes rushing out of his little office, his legs creaking like a harness factory, and sweating with nervousness.
‘Get out of my gun-shed!’ he whines furiously, almost losing his false teeth in the process.
‘I think, you know, you’d do best to obey orders,’ says Porta, his eyes drilling at Kunze.
‘This shed’s gotta be empty as a vacuumed out whore’s cunt on Christmas morning,’ he adds, threateningly.
‘But, but listen,’ whines Kunze, unhappily, his false teeth clicking. ‘I can’t put all these guns just anywhere! D’you know what only one of ’em costs the German people? They’re valuable! And they’ll be needed, too, when the big offensive they’re talking about just now, at Führer H.Q., gets started. An’ anyway they’re not my guns. They’re 4. Panzer Army pieces!’
‘Well that’s all right then,’ thunders Chief Mechanic Wolf, in satisfaction. ‘We’re 4. Panzer Army! 4. Panzer Army’s us!
‘What do you mean?’ mumbles Kunze, in amazement, staring open-mouthed from Porta to Wolf and back again. They are standing like true Prussians, bobbing up and down from the knees like a pair of Fieldmarshals.
‘I say,’ says Wolf, with a superior smile, ‘that we are 4. Panzer Army!’ He taps Wolf on the nose with his pay-book. ‘Says here, in black and white, we belong to 4. Panzer. So, as you said yourself, this iron junk’s all ours, and we want it out of here, you dusty storeman, you!’
‘And if you don’t get movin’ sharpish,’ continues Porta, triumphantly, ‘you can come outside’n make the acquaintance of Chief Mechanic Wolf’s Chinese. They’d love to play with you. But you wouldn’t like the games they play!’
‘You threatenin’ me?’ asks Kunze, making an abortive attempt to pretend he is still making the decisions.
‘You’re a quick one,’ sneers Porta. ‘People who get their legs screwed off, like you, usually lose some of their brains. Oozes out through the holes in their thighs!’
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‘Those guns stay where they are,’ says Kunze, severely. He slaps one of his Army artificial legs with his ruler. ‘And I’m telling you Obergefreiter Porta. Don’t you come into my storehouse puffing yourself up. I am a military servant, mark me! I’m not just a louse, like you, that any stray dog can piss on.’ He slaps his narrow green shoulder tabs, proudly, ‘I’m a kind of an officer, I am!’
‘Holy Agnes,’ grins Porta, superciliously, ‘breaking boys like you’s easier’n plucking the hair off the arsehole of a lame Russian cow.’
‘I won’t stand for that,’ howls Kunze, insultedly. ‘You’ll speak to me in a proper manner!’
‘You must understand that we have to get these guns out,’ Wolf attempts a diplomatic approach. False friendliness oozes from him. ‘Be sensible now, Bernt. Take off your government face and get back to normal! We are promoting a boxin’ match the world’s never seen the like of. People’ve paid for seats. We can’t ask ’em to sit up there balancin’ on a gun barrel, can we, now? Sittin’ up there, they’d look like a loada fuckin’ lovebirds chatterin’ an’ watchin’ a parrot havin’ a fuck at a wanderin’ llama!’
‘It’s not because I’m not co-operative,’ wheezes Kunze, weakly, ‘but it just won’t do! Soon as we put the first gun outside, Russian Intelligence’ll know all about it. And who’s the silly bleeder then? Me, Field Ordnance Master Kunze! It’s me who gets courtmartialled, and maybe shot! Now you don’t want that to happen, do you?’
‘We’re not really worried,’ answers Porta, cheerily. ‘All we want is this junk out of here, so’s we can get ready for our fight!’
‘I’m tired of all this talk, talk, talk,’ roars Wolf, in a sudden rage. ‘This shitheap’s gotta be emptied, so we can get organised.’ He blows a thick cloud of cigar smoke at Kunze, who coughs protestingly. ‘If you don’t want your leather under-pinnin’ jammed down your throat’n your ears cut off, you’ll get these guns rolled outside, quick!’
‘You must be sensible,’ almost weeps Kunze, twisting his hands on his ruler. ‘What’d you say if I was to come and demand you move all your trucks!’
‘Not a thing,’ grins Wolf, ‘I’d let my Chinks cut you about for as long as they felt like it. They don’t usually tire easy!’
‘There, you see,’ says Kunze, victoriously, ‘I take the same stand, even though I’ve got no Chinks. The guns stay with me. Inside the shed where it’s nice and dry.’
‘Put your nose outside, man,’ shouts Wolf, impatiently. He waves his British swagger-stick in the air, irritably. ‘Out there it’s dry as the Gobi Desert, where water’s something they’ve only heard about. The Commie bloody sun’s shinin’ down as if it thought it was up above a highly-developed capitalist country. It’d do your guns good to get aired a bit!’
Deep inside Kunze’s aching head, a woolly cloud begins to form. It seems to concentrate in a knot behind his forehead. He opens his mouth and screams, but it does not help. Then he begins to knock his head on a shell casing which hangs, swinging, on a wire. That helps a little. He begins to shout out a confused stream of orders.
‘Invited guests will sit there,’ decides Porta, in a loud voice, pointing at the space taken up by thirty-five heavy howitzers. ‘Come on, you lot, get moving,’ he shouts, at a group of work soldiers. They are sitting on a gun-carriage, drinking beer, as if nothing had anything to do with them.
‘Get that military junk out of here! Civilisation’s coming in! Make room for Western culture, as the Russian peasant said when the liberators burnt his house down!’
‘You don’t give the orders here,’ says a labourer, who resembles an overgrown gorilla with a head too big for its body. ‘Nothin’ gets moved in here. This is a shed for guns, an’ what’s in here stays in here, ’less we get orders in writin’, stamped and with four copies!’
‘Jesus’n Mary, are we goin’ to stand ’ere listenin’ to that kinda shit?’ roars Tiny, his arms beginning to swing. ‘The man’s bleedin’ barmy. Acute attack o’ superiority complex, ’e’s got. Let me kick some sense back in ’is German bleedin’ jacksey!’
‘Hang on a mo’,’ says Porta, catching Tiny, who is already on his way over towards the man. ‘These coolies haven’t found out yet that I don’t like complications. I prefer the straight road!’
‘This is a shed for guns,’ says the gorilla man, stubbornly, ‘not a playground for sportin’ idiots! You wanna fight, go an’ have yourselves a coupla rounds on the muck’eap outside!’
‘No bleedin’ labourer’s gonna get away with talkin’ like that to me,’ raves Tiny, savagely. He gives the man a kick in the stomach which makes him double up with a grunt, grabs him by the hair and smashes his face down on a metal sack-truck.
The labour squad begins to get moving. Particularly after Tiny has thrown another of them headfirst out of the window into a muck-heap buzzing with flies.
The first of the howitzers begin to roll out into the open air.
Kunze runs round in circles like a confused hen.
‘Be careful of them! Be careful of them!’ he babbles, nervously. ‘Line them up nicely in rows, and keep the calibres separate, or we’ll never be able to sort ’em out afterwards.’
When a long-barrelled 105 mm gun slides into the nearby river, Kunze sinks down, in despair, onto a pile of shells.
‘Don’t take it so hard,’ Porta comforts him, handing him a sausage sandwich. ‘What’s one gun? We’re going to lose the war anyway!’
For the next three days nothing but the sound of hammering and sawing is heard from the ordnance stores. Between times the Match Committee holds meetings at Chief Mechanic Wolf’s, where ‘Heavenly Apples’ and Jewish pastry are served, washed down with ‘poor man’s champagne’ — Slivovitz and beer mixed.
‘’Oo’s the winner goin’ to be?’ asks Tiny, inserting a large piece of ‘heavenly apple’ into his even larger mouth.
‘The winner, of course,’ answers Porta, his mouth stuffed with Jewish pastry.
‘Why?’ grins Tiny, cunningly. ‘When David’n me used to fix up matches for the sports-barmy, back in ’Ein ’Oyer Strasse, we used to know the Winner long ’fore we started!’
‘So that’s what you mean,’ laughs Porta, slily. ‘That’s all fixed up. People’ll play the right bloke, so’s we come out winners. There’ll be such a lot of nice, nice coppers for us.’
‘What about if we get caught, man?’ asks Albert, his brow wrinkling.
‘Only one way for us, then. Over to the Russki’s, fast as we can go!’
‘We ain’t African banana-eaters, here,’ jeers Wolf. ‘We got six bouts before the main one, son, an’ in them six the marks’ll get a fair crack o’ the whip. In the main bout, the heavyweight championship fight between the Soviet an’ German champions, we go to town!’
‘And Greater Germany will win, of course,’ declares Heide, with patriotic self-assurance. He smiles the smile of a victor.
‘No, my lad, that’s just what Greater Germany won’t be doing,’ grins Porta, digging his elbow into Chief Mechanic Wolf’s ribs in conspiratorial fashion. ‘All the suckers, dropped by a German bint complete with swastika an’ salad dressin’, will be backing old Germany to win, an’ all the cash they can scrape together’ll be riding on the German twit!’
‘An’ they lose the lot,’ shouts Wolf heartily, ‘’cause the sub-human Soviet specimen’s gonna knock the shit out of the noble representative of the German herrenvolk!
‘Aren’t you afraid there’ll be trouble?’ asks the Old Man, worriedly.,
‘Not a bit of it,’ answers Porta, his eyes sparkling. ‘The only ones who’ll have problems, are the dopes who’ve backed the German. When the first six fights are over, they’ll be giving out German victory whoops an’ll be that far gone in superiority complexes that by the time the main show comes on they’ll pawn their arseholes to get a bet on. Convinced that the Germans are unconquerable.’
Wolf hammers the table, in glee, so hard that the ‘heavenly apples’ bounce a
bout on the dish, and a blob of jam lands on his cigar.
‘They’ll be wild,’ says the Old Man, darkly, ‘and then there’ll be trouble — with a capital “T”!’
‘We’ll be gone by then,’ grins Albert, his whole face splitting open in a snowy grin.
‘How can we be sure the fighters won’t get together, and do us?’ asks Barcelona, who was born suspicious. ‘Somebody might just point out to ’em that it could be worth their while?’
‘Something in that,’ admits Porta. ‘We’d better take out some insurance against that, just to be on the safe side. But how?’
‘Cages!’ says Tiny, his mouth full of jam.
‘Cages?’ asks Porta, blankly.
‘Monkey cages,’ shouts Tiny, grinning all over his face, ‘pulled up under the roof. There’s a pet shop bloke on Paljma in town’s got bags of ’em. ‘E’s got a real good ’un, with a black panther in it just now, a wild-lookin’ sod with yeller eyes. ’Im after you, an’ even a broken-down nun’d beat Jesus Owens’s world record!’
‘No panthers,’ protests the Old Man, excitedly, ‘that’s an order! No panthers!’
‘Why not?’ asks Porta, blankly. ‘You can have a lot of fun with a pussy-cat like that!’
‘You’re off your rocker,’ shouts Barcelona, siding with the Old Man. ‘Do you realise what they eat?’
‘People,’ admits Tiny, happily. ‘I know plenty of people I wouldn’t mind feedin’ to a black panther.’
‘Quel bruit pour une omelette,’ remarks the little Legionnaire, drily. ‘Let us buy the cage without the panther.’
‘’E’s got some o’ them execution cages too, like they ’oisted Jew Süss up in,’ explains Tiny. ‘Bloke gets a noose round ’is neck. Up ’e goes in the cage, out goes the bottom of it, an’ down ’e goes till ’e gets to the end of the rope. Then ’e stops up sharpish with ’is neck broke!’
‘I don’t see how we could use ’em,’ says Porta, thoughtfully. ‘We don’t want to execute the boxers.’
‘Sometimes you’re dead slow,’ shouts Tiny, impatiently. ‘They don’t get no rope round their necks. We just ’oists ’em up under the roof in these cages. Then nobody can get at ’em, an’ talk ’em into doin’ us in the eye. Soon as the bell goes, we open the bottoms of the cages, the two shits flop down into the ring, an’ start ’ammerin’ away at one another!’