He follows, with his eyes, the howling path of a shell, before going on:
‘Now, we take a drop of tarragon vinegar, a splash of white wine, a knife-tip of white pepper, a teaspoonful of Chili pepper, and, in honour of the devil, we press one lemon to the very last drop of its juice. The whole mixture is then poured over the partridges as they lie on the pan. Over the fire with them, and there they stay until they are tender. After, this, place them on one side to cool. The essence of the thing, you see, that one must enjoy them cold.’
‘Oh shut up, for Christ’s sake,’ groans the Old Man, fishing a piece of dry bread from his pocket. ‘Makes a man more hungry than ever listening to you!’
‘It occurs to me, seeing you sitting there chewing on that ancient crust of yours,’ Porta smiles, broadly. ‘It comes back to me, that there is a Moroccan dish they call coconut bread. First steal two pieces of white bread from a baker while he is chatting up a girl or something, dip them in cream, pull them through a pan of coconut flour, which you can also steal from the same cunt-crazy baker, and toast them lightly over a small coal fire. They should be served piping hot, with, for example, ice-cold cherries or stewed apricots. I prefer cherries. A cultivated Moroccan eats three or four slices, before taking off his baggy trousers, and moving on to the pleasures of the harem.’
‘One word more’n it’ll be your last!’ screams Barcelona, drawing his pistol, ‘I’ll blast your brains out, so help me!’
‘You, Albert, whose forebears come from wilder parts, will perhaps know the Indian dish known as “Sweet Noodles”?’ Porta continues, disregarding Barcelona’s threats. ‘I got the recipe from a tame savage, who kept a cannibal kitchen in Berlin.’
‘See all them mushrooms we drove past this mornin’?’ remarks Tiny, from the darkness.
‘No!’ shouts the Old Man, putting his hands over his ears, ‘and we don’t want to know about ’em!’
‘Mushrooms,’ sighs Porta, smacking his lips. ‘If you can find that place again, we can fix up that Chinese dish, “Singing Mushrooms”. The recipe for that one I got from a Chinese major, who visited the Army Ammunition Depot at Bamberg. I had to explain to him how the new explosive cans worked, but there must have been some kind of misunderstanding, language or something I suppose, because he blew himself straight down into the Chinese hell, or up maybe, with two of ’em. Anyway, I was lucky enough to get die recipe for “Singing Mushrooms” from him before he went off. Its a pièce de résistance) both with a meat or a fish course. It is also a source of comfort to the stomach with boiled rice or. . . .’
‘Knock his bloody wig down round his ankles,’ roars Gregor. ‘That madman’s driving us all nuts!’
Shortly before dawn the regiment moves off. Two hundred and sixty tanks with the heavyweight Tigers in the lead. A broad earth road lies, straight as a string in front of us. We crash right past Russian units, who stare after us in amazement, without making a move. With a roar and a rattle of tracks we rush through a village, a gigantic cloud of dust rolling up behind us. We send short, wicked, bursts of MG fire at Russian soldiers we see in full flight.
‘What the hell’s this?’ shouts Porta, braking the heavy Tiger close to a bridge. The road in front of us is packed with animals. Sheep, thousands upon thousands of sheep. They press around us, pushing and shoving so that the framework of the bridge creaks.
The radio quacks impatiently.
‘Company Commander to 2. Section. What in the world are you stopping for, Beier? Forward! Move! Move! Movement, blast your eyes! Under no circumstances must you stop! How often do I have to tell you?’
‘But, sir!’ the Old Man attempts to protest.
‘I won’t hear a word,’ screams Löwe, hysterically. ‘Forward! Roll over anything that stands in your way. Want me to cut it out in cardboard for you? You stop again, and you’re on a courtmartial! Message ended!’
‘2. Section! March! March!’ orders the Old Man, sharply.
‘Oh no,’ groans Porta, in despair. ‘All that lovely food! I’ve got a wonderful recipe for lamb chops with cognac and fennel seeds. So stimulating for people with strong stomachs. I’ve been told it gives a man a special increase of sexual potency. Just the thing, before visiting a knocking-shop!’
‘Shut up and drive,’ snarls the Old Man irritably, sliding down from the turret.
‘It’s such a shame,’ protest Porta, ‘but have it your way!’
Until now none of us knew that goats and sheep could scream. Now we find out. Their screams are like the screams of terrified children.
The bridge and the road are turned into a shambles of steaming blood, meat and bone. Clouds of torn-off fleece are blown into the air, as we press through the crowding herds of animals. We are hardly free of them, when, a couple of miles further on, we overtake a column of civilian refugees, who press forward, shouting and screaming, choking the whole road from side to side.
‘Come death, come,’ hums the Legionnaire softly over the radio.
‘I’ll strangle that little sod someday,’ snarls the Old Man, furiously.
‘What now?’ asks Porta. ‘I can’t go round them. Not a chance. It’s pure swamp. Go out there and we won’t stop going down till we’re balancìn’ on the tip of Old Nick’s prick!’
As if answering his question, the radio blares. ‘Forward! Go over them! The crew that stops, goes on courtmartial!’
‘Panzer Marsch! 2. Section follow me!’ orders the Old Man. He bangs both fists down on the edge of the turret in helpless despair.
The civilians flee. Out into the swamp. A boy throws his bicycle in front of the tanks. A crazy, desperate thing to do to stop a Tiger. Perambulators, carts with small children in them, invalids. All are left to their own resources.
Those who escape the clattering steel tracks of the tanks, are drawn down into the clutches of the swamp. The last we see of them, are their helplessly clutching hands, appealing uselessly to heaven, before they disappear with a gurgling, sucking sound into the green ooze.
‘It’s sheer murder,’ groans the Old Man, in horror.
Russian motorcycle escorts come, with horns tooting, from a side road, leading a line of tractors pulling factory-new howitzers.
OGPU soldiers, with Mpi’s held across their chests, signal us down with stop signs. They discover, too late, that we are Tiger tanks from the competition and that we do not let stop signs get in our way.
A commissar gets to his feet in the leading sidecar, waves his arms about feverishly and goes down riddled with tracer.
‘Enemy target straight ahead,’ orders the Old Man, shortly. ‘Range 350 yards. H.E. load! Halt! Fire!’
The heavy artillery tractors are blown to pieces. Howitzers go over on their sides. The motorcycle escorts are blasted into the forest, their machines draped around the heavy-boled trees.
An OGPU NCO is thrown up over the turret, hangs for a moment on the motor cover, then slides down, sizzling, onto the red-hot exhaust pipes. The fat in his body ignites and burns with small, wavering flames. The stench finds its way inside the tank, making us feel sick.
The sun has risen. The countryside lies in front of us bathed in a lovely, golden light. We open the hatches, take deep gulps of the invigorating air, and forget the war for a second or two. A flock of pheasants flies noisily low across the road.
‘Holy Mary,’ shouts Porta, staring after them with the eyes of a starved fox. ‘If we’d got hold of a couple of those chaps there, I’d have given you “Pheasant à la Hannibal”. All we’d have needed, besides the birds, was a few bits of cinnamon, a handful of dried apricots, plums, cherries, a little saffron, cloves and some chopped mushrooms. Finally a glass of white wine and a teaspoonful of sugar. A marrow-bone from a calf would not hurt since these lovely birds are plump at this time of the year.’
‘Haven’t you finished yet, you wicked swine?’ roars the Old Man, throwing an empty shell-case down at him.
A large infantry personnel carrier turns out of a field road at full
speed, spins round like a top and turns over on its side. The soldiers in it are thrown, headlong, out into the road.
Barcelona’s Tiger roars down a hill and tries to brake, but the 68 ton tank continues to slide on, with tracks blocked. It crashes through the soldiers lying in the road, turning the tipped-up lorry to a heap of scrap, and continues on until stopped by the wreck of a personnel carrier.
‘What the hell,’ shouts Porta in terror, peering through an observation slit, ‘the road’s on fire!’
‘They’ve put out flamethrowers,’ groans the Old Man. ‘We’ve had it!’
Barcelona’s Tiger is already in the middle of a hell of fire, with the Legionnaire’s tank only a few yards behind. Hundreds of flamethrowers jet fire out over the road, turning it into a seething oven of flame. Paintwork bubbles up in great blisters. The air is so hot that our breath burns in our throats and lungs.
‘I can’t see a rotten thing!.’ coughs Porta, pouring water over his head.
‘Get on!’ screams the Company Commander on the radio. ‘If you stop we’re lost!’
Half-way through the sea of flame the engine begins to cough. The flame-throwers are taking all the air.
‘Gear down,’ shouts the Old Man, ‘bottom gear needs less air!’
‘Don’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs,’ snarls Porta, irritably. ‘Look after the shooting end of it and leave the machinery tô me! I’m Chief Engineer on this ship!’
Suddenly we are out of the fire belt. Careless of what may be outside, we throw open all the hatches, only one thought in our minds — air!
‘Well, at least we know now what it’s like being roasted,’ moans Porta hoarsely, dabbing his swollen face with damp cloths.
‘Forward! Full speed ahead!’ rages the Company Commander, impatiently, over the radio. ‘Don’t stop!
No. 5. Company storms through a village, ignoring infantry fire from the houses, and rolls on through endless fields of sunflowers. Exhausts flaming, we rattle into a large market town where Russian soldiers, in summer uniform saunter carelessly about as if they were on garrison duty in peacetime.
Outside a house which resembles a castle a couple of squads are drilling. They are practising saluting on the march. They goose-step past the NCO, bring their hands up to their caps and turn at the hips in typically clumsy recruit fashion.
With a rattling crash the company comes to a stop, turrets swinging round to cover us against attack from any direction.
The Russians stare at us as if we had dropped from the skies. One soldier continues to march at the salute, because the NCO has not given the order to halt. If he had not walked into a wall he could have marched straight across Russia, through China, out into the Pacific Ocean, and drowned. An officer with broad shoulder straps throws open a window and shouts something unintelligable.
We are almost as surprised as the Russians. Nobody fires a shot. Nobody runs away. Even the skinny hens stand still, staring with necks stretched.
A party of officers comes out of the castle. All kinds of hand-weapons are thrown together in a great heap in the middle of the town square, at the foot of a memorial from the First World War, which points up at the heavens like a stone finger.
A Russian Lieutenant-general, Commander of a Reserve Tank Corps, is taken prisoner by No. 2., together with his whole staff, without a shot being fired.
‘What the devil are we to do with them?’ asks Porta, worriedly. ‘If they start thinking things out, our backsides’U be black as Albert’s before we know where we are!’
‘Let’s shoot at ’em a bit,’ suggests Tiny, ‘then they might run away’n we’re rid on ’em. A general like ’im with all that staff can give us a lot o’ problems!’
Before the Old Man has reached a decisión, Oberleutnant Löwe swings into the square at the head of No. 5. Company.
‘What the hell’re you stopping for, Beier?’ he screams, white with rage, from the open turret. ‘Didn’t I order you not to stop? D’you want to spend the rest of your life at Germersheim?’
‘Beg to report, sir, No. 2. Section has taken a general, corps commander, and his staff, prisoner!’
‘What have you done?’ gapes Lôwe, looking around him for the first time.
Hatches clatter open, and Lôwe springs from the turret, tugs his oil-stained uniform straight and adjusts his grey field-cap regimentally. He salutes the Russian general formally, and his salute is returned in a reserved manner. Hands are shaken, and civilised politenesses observed.
‘There you are, you see,’ snaps Porta, throwing out his hand in the direction of the officers clustering on the broad terrace, ‘just one dirty big clan! That’s what those shiny-buttoned sods are. Us coolies they’ve completely forgotten. Löwe’ll get something nice to hang round his neck and we’ll get a kick up the arse for havin’ stopped!’
A little later HQ Company rattles into the square. Oberst Hinka salutes the general and his staff and, soon after, 5. Company is on its way again at breakneck speed.
‘Where the devil’s the neighbours got to?’ asks Porta, wonderingly, when we have driven for several hours without seeing a sign of a Russian.
‘Ivan’s gone ’ome! ’Ad enough of this bleedin’ World War, I reckon,’ thinks Tiny, optimistically.
The forest spreads around us like an endless green ocean when we stop for a moment on a hill to check the oil level. This is one of the Tiger tank’s weaknesses. If there is too little oil the engine over-heats and may catch fire.
The careless chatter over the radio becomes less as we go deeper into the endless forest. Even Porta is silent. We fill up at a deserted Russian petrol depot before continuing.
I press my eyes against the rubber-padded periscope eyepiece, staring tensely at every single climb of trees where an anti-tank gun could be in ambush. I long to hear the sound of a rifle shot. It would ease the nervous pressure of this ominous silence.
Porta is pressing the Maibach engine to the uttermost of its power, snaking his way past shell-holes and burnt-out vehicle wrecks. Bodies of soldiers and civilians are strewn across the road. Bloated corpses, covered with millions of fat, blue nies. They buzz up in clouds, disturbed by the roaring passage of the heavy Tigers.
The Legionnaire is in the lead when he sights, luckily for the section, a heavily fortified tank barrier, covered by the new Russian A.A. guns which can be turned into highly effective anti-tank weapons by a simple adjustment. At 300 yards they are deadly to Tiger tanks. At that range the shells go through our four inches of front armour like a knife through butter.
The Old Man gives the order to halt, and examines the dangerous obstacle carefully through his binoculars.
‘Further advance completely impossible,’ he reports over the radio.
‘Go round, down to the river arm, and cross there,’ the order comes back.
We crash through the forest, stopped for a moment by a forest lake, large enough, almost, to be called a sea. ‘Seal hatches,’ orders the Old Man. ‘Up schnorkel!’
In line abreast we continue out into the lake. Tigers can go down to about twelve feet below water level, but we are always feverishly nervous when we go down in places we do not know. Tanks have been known to stick in the bottom ooze, and sink down into it in short order. When, and if, the tank is hauled up again, the crews are long dead from suffocation.
‘Hell, but that lake looks wet,’ curses Porta, lifting his shoulders and shivering.
‘Look ’ere then. See this. There’s ’erring swimmin’ all round us,’ shouts Tiny, in amazement, pressing his eyes eagerly to the periscope eyepiece.
‘If we were to stop for a minute,’ suggests Porta, ‘we could nip outside and shovel up a bushel of mussels, maybe. Then I could do my “Mussels à la Normande” for you. We can easily find some charlotte onions, chop ’em together with parsley an’ chervil....’
The Old Mari draws his pistol and presses the muzzle into Porta’s neck.
‘One word more about grub, and that bloody Berlin br
ain of yours’ll get splattered up on the ceiling!’
‘You’ll never be a gourmet, I’m afraid,’ sighs Porta, contemptuously. ‘You remind me strongly of Herr Kamphalter, who used to live in the rose gardens outside Paderborn. . . .’
‘Shut up,’ roars the Old Man, wildly. He is cut off by a crash which makes our ears ring. We are thrown forward onto the instruments and up against the steel armour.
‘What the hell was that?’ asks the Old Man, shocked, wiping blood from his forehead, which has been in collision with the turret edge.
‘A great big atheist Commie rock got in our way,’ answers Porta, taking a long pull at his water-bottle.
‘Can you get round it?’ asks the Old Man nervously. ‘The bottom here’s soft as fresh cow shit you know!’
‘Stop shitting in Adolf’s pants, will you,’ Porta says confidently, swinging the tank round and stirring up so much mud that we are totally unable to see anything. We drive along the side of the cliff Porta has run into for what seems an eternity before he manages to find an opening big enough for the Tiger. Finally we feel firm ground under our tracks, and come up on land again with the dangerous anti-tank position behind us.
A company of T-34’s is lined up a little behind the spot where four roads meet the main highway to Charkow. We open fire on them from 15 yards range. They burst into flames and we roll straight on over the wreckage.
A couple of squadrons of Russian dive-bombers howl down on us, but their bombs explode out on the steppe and in the woods with a wet, muddy “plop”, doing us no damage. Without meeting serious resistance we are through, and see the silver glitter of the river in front of us. Capsized boats whirl on its surface. Bloated bodies sail along between green banks, where flocks of wading birds stand, staring in wonder.
Shells fall behind us, throwing earth and snapped-off tree trunks up into the air.
‘2. Section at river,’ reports the Old Man, over the radio.
‘Cross,’ comes the brusque order.
‘2. Section follow me,’ orders the Old Man, signalling with his hand in the direction of the bridge.