Comrades of War

  He remembered Captain Meier, Obersturmführer Gratwohl. And what didn’t that gang do to Sonderführer Hansen!

  Icy beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead. Should he cry for help? Maybe some of his friends from the SS were nearby and would hear him. Ah, if they only were a few steps nearer. Then those swine over there would dance, penal-battalion swine! He would tell the SS soldiers everything they intended to do and everything they’d said. Some neck-shots would be fired. He cheered up at the mere thought.

  But what the hell was this? Porta was getting up and starting to walk toward him: he came on very slowly. He seemed to be playing the game of jumping from flagstone to flagstone without hitting the line.

  ‘Don’t touch me, you,’ he wanted to shout. But not a sound came from his lips. He wasn’t capable any more of breaking a silence which meant death. DEATH! He felt his tongue becoming thick, dry and swollen. He felt very warm.

  The Legionnaire, Moroccan monster, that little, disgusting, scarred, inhuman thing, was coming toward him with a grin on his face.

  Still this paralyzing silence. God, how vile silence can be! And then Tiny, the gorilla, and Julius Heide, the rowdy. They walked slightly stooped, as if they were about to butt someone. That common thief Brandt pulled out his battle knife.

  But they couldn’t possibly kill him. Oh, yes, easily. Very easily. No, no, they couldn’t. The Old Man said it was murder.

  And yet! They slowly killed Sonderführer Hansen. It was murder. And they hanged Gratwohl. That was murder. And they shot Captain Meier. That was murder.

  Devilish brutes! Traitors! He would fight. Fire with his storm rifle.

  A clattering sound. He looked down and didn’t understand at once. Christ! Porta had struck the rifle out of his hand. Now he would be defenseless against their knives and automatic storm weapons.

  They were grinning noiselessly. With bared teeth and snarling sounds. Would he really die now? He didn’t want to die. Ah, how wonderful to live! He’d only done his duty to his country. Nothing more. But did those criminals understand anything of that?

  The Old Man looked at him in silence. The Old Man’s eyes were dark. It was no longer the Old Man. He was his enemy. The Old Man didn’t say: It’s murder!

  The circle became narrower. They stood close around him. He stood in the middle like a bull’s eye in a target.

  They struck. They jabbed. A searing pain tore through his body from head to foot. He screamed as Gerhard had screamed.

  ‘Jesus Christ, help me! Help me! Holy Virgin, help me!’ He fell down. ‘Oh, Holy Virgin,’ he cried, but only a gasp came out. ‘I’ll be a priest for the rest of my life! Good God, I’ll serve you and never deny you any more. Oh, help me against these devils!’

  The mountains tipped over. The sky split open.

  They tied him up with biting straps. They let him lie and suffer while they smoked in silent indifference.

  Then the birch tree slowly slid to the earth like a catapult. He knew what was coming. He let out a savage rattling shriek. Could he be going insane?

  God didn’t hear him. Only the devil heard him and rejoiced.

  He died with every limb, every bone, torn out of joint.

  He screamed for ten full minutes before he died. Porta thought it wasn’t long enough.

  The Old Man said, ‘Swine!’

  The little Legionnaire spat at him before we rolled him down a narrow deep ravine.

  He was forgotten.

  The patrol trudged on. By a sooty ruin, still smoking, we ran into a body of SS men. We didn’t shoot. The long battle cry of the little Legionnaire, ‘Allah el Akbar,’ was no longer heard amid the mountains.

  Our blood lust had been satisfied on an unknown SS man.

  Gisela was sleeping. I kissed her. She woke up and stretched. She threw her sleep-drugged arms about me and kissed me passionately. She had slept long.

  ‘That Jew you met, did he die?’

  I kissed her again. Couldn’t bother answering.

  Number 12 rattled down the street. The panzer soldier and the girl in the lilac slip again came together in the old four-poster, while Gerhard Stief kept rotting in his grave.

  The brothel had been tidied up. There was no more dust on the rafters. Fresh girls had arrived. The big fish suspended over Madame’s table had disappeared. In its stead a bull’s head had been hung on the wall. Someone had hung a sheer stocking and a pair of light blue panties on one of the borns. They were left hanging there like a sort of trade mark.

  The Legionnaire, of course, couldn’t take part in the game. When the rest of us went off with the girls, he settled down at a table with five bottles of wine and a bowl of Pein-Pein from the Chinese saloon in the cellar.

  Two girls who’d been to Africa stayed behind to entertain him. You could almost smell the camels. You could veritably feel the Kabilah.

  A stark naked woman was dancing on a row of tables. She twisted and turned during the dance, pushed her abdomen forward and revolved like a wheel. Colored spotlights played over her body, and the red beam always stopped at the most intimate spots.

  Tiny could hardly be held back.

  Finally the Legionnaire had to knock him out with a bottle.

  VII

  Tiny Gets Engaged

  I got back to the hospital after my nightly excursion just before inspection.

  My comrades had covered for me, but as usual ‘the Battleship’ was where she shouldn’t have been. She saw me come in. I got a murderous look, while her mannish voice trumpeted through the cloistral corridors. ‘Get to your ward in a jiffy, you little pig!’

  ‘Certainly, matron,’ I mumbled softly.

  The expressions which rumbled behind me like dying thunder when I reached the ward were anything but maternal.

  ‘Was it nice?’ Tiny asked curiously. Without waiting for an answer he grinned. ‘I just came from a tumble myself. Three at once. Did you ever try that, boys? It’s like flying straight into heaven – the heaven that Czech swine Mouritz talks about – to be greeted by harp music and songs of young girl angels in lilac ass-cases and ribbon-like tit cups with red bows in the valley.’

  He smacked his tongue and licked his well-fleshed lips. He was about to embroider on the night’s experiences in more detail when interrupted by inspection.

  Dr Mahler stopped at Mouritz’s bed, glancing at the case sheet which the Battleship handed him. As usual he was humming. Humming with his lips. He read a little and hummed again in a deep tone of voice, looking intensely at Mouritz, the volunteer from Sudetenland.

  ‘How is our adventurer today?’

  ‘Not so good, Herr Oberstabsarzt,’ Mouritz shouted, just as the sergeant had taught him to do when he was in training.

  On Dr Mahler’s humming lips appeared a subtle smile.

  ‘Really? My dear friend, you are far from being as sick as you think you are.’

  He turned around and looked at Tiny, who lay at attention in his bed, his arms extended along his side. He looked marvelously stupid.

  ‘The patient feels better!’

  Tiny uttered a frightened gasp, but Dr Mahler didn’t hear it. He smiled and again hummed with his lips.

  ‘The patient’s general condition is excellent under the circumstances. The patient requests a discharge to the convalescence field battalion of his division.’

  Tiny got up on one elbow and stared at Dr Mahler in utter astonishment. The doctor looked at the big hooligan and smiled.

  ‘Since it is possible to grant the patient’s wish, he will be discharged on . . .’ Dr Mahler counted on his fingers . . .

  ‘Tuesday the 7th,’ the Battleship helped him out.

  Dr Mahler smiled his delicate pale smile and gave her a friendly nod. ‘Fine, matron, Tuesday the 7th!’

  Tiny gaped. Terror was written in his eyes. He understood just as little as the rest of us what Dr Mahler was up to.

  The Battleship took down the dictation with a fountain pen which scratched in protest. Her roun
d cheeks glistened.

  Tiny gave her a heart-rending, imploring look.

  Dr Mahler turned quickly to Mouritz’s bed. He took the hand of the Sudeten lad and said to our relief: ‘Live well! I hope you’ve had a good rest with us.’

  Relieved, Tiny fell back on his pillow.

  ‘The patient looks pale,’ Dr Mahler said, looking at Tiny.

  The Battleship snorted and handed the head surgeon Tiny’s bulky case sheet, which said more of disciplinary penalties than sickness. He tapped Tiny’s big scar and listened to his heart. Then he put the stethoscope to Tiny’s pulmonary region.

  ‘The patient has pronounced difficulty in breathing. Bronchial tubes inflamed,’ he dictated.

  The Battleship recorded this reluctantly with her scratching fountain pen.

  Tiny’s face assumed an expression of boundless suffering.

  ‘Markedly bad breath and tongue heavily coated.’

  Tiny’s tongue hung far out of his mouth. A huge piece of grubby meat, almost ruined by tobacco and alcohol.

  ‘How are things otherwise, my friend?’ Dr Mahler asked sarcastically, looking into Tiny’s deeply suffering face.

  ‘Herr Oberstarsarzt, when I’m lying like this I’m really quite all right,’ Tiny breathed in a dying voice. ‘But as soon as I’m up and about I’m no good any more.’ He waved his hand in an expressive gesture. ‘Then I feel cockeyed, Herr Oberstabsarzt, sort of woozy in my head. My paws turn to jelly, like when you’re getting back to the flea-bag at four o’clock in the morning after hitting all the joints in town. Rotten, Herr Oberstabsarzt, really rotten. Only the horizontal agrees with me.’

  ‘H’m.’ Dr Mahler nodded, while pensively humming the Radetsky March.

  For a moment it looked as if Tiny intended to join the humming, but before he managed to start, Dr Mahler nodded. ‘I understand. No appetite, only thirst?’

  ‘No, none,’ Tiny groaned feebly, not having the slightest idea of what appetite meant.

  Dr Mahler nodded with a smile and went on to dictate: ‘Patient on fever diet for a week. Strict confinement to bed. Hot pads. Warm compresses. Contrast baths. Enemas. Also, we’d better have a test meal, with the rubber tube.’

  The Battleship smiled maliciously, baring her yellow teeth. Dr Mahler nodded to Tiny and sailed on to other patients.

  Tiny didn’t realize the full horror of what had happened till inspection was all over. He cursed and swore, but knew there was no reprieve for his fate.

  The Battleship was personally in charge of the enema, and she didn’t handle him with kid gloves.

  They shouted, growled and threatened. The two of them were only conscious of each other and of the injector. Tiny had to hold the tube. The water sloshed over. The matron fumed but refused to give in. Tiny roared he would take a crap at her and meant it literally.

  ‘I’ll let the MPs come and get you and have you court-martialed,’ the Battleship cried, swinging the injector. Her face was red and puffy.

  ‘There isn’t a single court-martial in the whole world that’ll care whether I crap on you or not,’ Tiny bawled.

  The Battleship howled, Tiny hissed. But he received his enema, every drop of it, though it took some time.

  ‘Don’t lose it now,’ the matron thundered before she strode out of the ward with the dry injector.

  Knowing full well that the matron would be back to give him his injection again, he kept it for the hour, while emitting a ceaseless stream of blasphemy. Tiny was the only patient who received his injection from the matron personally. She used the oldest and thickest needle she could find for the injection and pushed it in extra slowly so she could hear him roar. To her it was a very sweet music.

  She had no sooner bent over Tiny and shot the needle into his hairy behind than it happened. An oozing discharge and a couple of detonations. By comparison, an eruption of the Vesuvius was like the small summer fireworks in an allotment garden. But she held her ground, though her apron stank horribly already. Then the volcano erupted in full force. She gave a howl of terror and started back coughing, while Tiny laughed till the whole bed shook. He pulled out the injection needle and hurled it crashing against the wall.

  ‘Disgusting pig,’ hissed the defeated Battleship. ‘You’ll answer to a military court for this. I’ll have you locked up till you rot.’

  ‘Shit-piece,’ Tiny decided and discharged a stream of tobacco juice through the open window.

  Growling like an animal, the Battleship rushed at Tiny, grabbed him by both ears and pounded the back of his head against the edge of the bed.

  ‘Merde,’ the Legionnaire said laconically and went on reading the Koran.

  The Battleship wasn’t the only one who had profited from the volcanic eruption. Lava was lying everywhere in the ward. Even the clock on the wall ran irregularly for the next few days, a clear sign that the mechanism had been hit.

  Tiny didn’t receive any more enemas.

  Eight days later he got prodigiously drunk and forced his way to the Battleship, who was sitting in her room reading her favorite novel, The Wife with Two Husbands.

  There was a fantastic uproar, which nobody wanted to get mixed up with. The doctor on duty, who was new, was warned at the last moment by a nurse in the ward. He was smart enough to take her advice and avoid getting involved in the battle of the giants.

  After an hour had passed there was complete quiet.

  We figured that one of them had been killed. When the silence extended to two and a half hours, we started wondering if we should check what had happened. But suddenly we saw them coming down the stairs, walking arm in arm, Tiny with a black eye and an incredibly well-brushed uniform. His boots and his belt sparkled as never before.

  The Battleship was dressed in a red coat fitting her like a bursting potato sack. On her head she had a blue hat with a pheasant feather in back. Without even bothering to glance at us they rumbled down the stairs and vanished on Zirkusweg in the direction of the Reeperbahn.

  They returned in the early hours of the morning. Tiny was impossibly drunk. The Battleship giggled like a teenager. She had a red balloon around her wrist.

  Babbling away, Tiny tumbled into the wrong bed. When the owner made objections, he was hurled to the other end of the room. Tiny grinned in his sleep and smacked his lips like a glutted boar. The saloon smell penetrated far and wide.

  Mouritz, the Sudeten German, was praying. Intermittently he would stop praying and curse that scum Tiny.

  Tiny was in love. His behavior was peculiar. If we had dared we would have laughed at him, but we didn’t dare.

  It was great fun to look at him getting ready to go out. Up to now he had looked at any kind of soap as pure crap, used only by fools and sissies. A comb was a sign of far-advanced degeneration. He looked at perfume and hair tonic in the same way.

  At the moment he was standing in the middle of the ward trying to part his hair in the back. But it didn’t quite come off. Despite all his efforts, the cowlick still bristled up.

  ‘Give me some perfume, or whatever the hell they use,’ he muttered and turned his head in front of the mirror with a helpless look in his eyes.

  ‘Hair tonic,’ the Legionnaire helped him out and chucked a quart bottle to him.

  Promptly, Tiny poured the whole bottle over his head. All for love. He spat on a clothes brush and tried to get the cowlick to come round by massaging with the brush, but to no avail. He looked about him despairingly, grabbed a pair of scissors and cut off the bristly wisp of hair.

  He looked dangerous, even more so than usual.

  After forcing one comrade to polish his boots, another to press and brush his uniform, he placed himself in front of the little Legionnaire. He resembled a slightly overgrown boy who’d been scrubbed and dressed up by his mother and then sent to a Sunday School Christmas party.

  ‘Do I look good now, Desert Rambler?’

  The Legionnaire pursed his lips and slowly swung his legs out of bed. He circled him with a scrutinizing
glance, giving him a thorough overhauling.

  ‘Hell, you look great,’ the Legionnaire decided and gave a nod of satisfaction. ‘Maybe the trousers are a bit full over your buttocks.’

  ‘You think so?’ came from Tiny in an anxious voice, while he passed his hand over the great mass of excess material in his trouser-seat.

  ‘But, damn it, that isn’t noticeable,’ the Legionnaire reassured him. ‘Just take off and you’ll go over big. You really look sharp. And I assure you, you have a rich fragrance.’

  He threw himself on his bed again, pulled a bottle from under the mattress and drank in long gulps.

  ‘Well, I’m running up to Emma,’ Tiny grinned and once more adjusted his tunic.

  He stopped by Mouritz’s bed and pointed a commanding index finger at the horror-struck volunteer from the Sudeten.

  ‘You lousy fink will say a nice prayer for me, or I’ll break your neck, you little pig.’

  To underscore the seriousness of the command he gave Mouritz a smack in the face with his forage cap. Then he vanished.

  A few minutes later he came rushing back to the ward like a mad bull, tore Mouritz out of bed and hurled him from one end of the room to the other. Three others took the same ride before he managed to blow off some steam.

  He sat down by the Legionnaire’s bed, scowling, hatefully around the room.

  ‘Lice, scab-mites,’ he grumbled. ‘A pig like that from a ramshackle cow barn throws me, Tiny, out saying I stink like a bankrupt whorehouse!’

  ‘You stood for that?’ the Legionnaire asked, astonished.

  ‘Only because I was surprised. I’ll be damned if I’ll stand for it a second time,’ Tiny said, urging himself on. ‘An over-stuffed plant louse like that! Throwing me out because I smell like a gentleman – that’s going a bit too far.’

  Tiny slumped down a bit, propped his heads on his hands, and gazed up at the Legionnaire, his idol, who followed the dumbshow as he was lying on his stomach in bed.