An enemy officer, with the red star gleaming on his fur cap, suddenly stepped out from behind some rocks and raised both arms over his head. He was holding an S mine in each hand, but before he could throw them, a shot rang out and his face shattered in fragments like broken glass. Porta laughed sardonically and lowered his rifle. Eyeless and faceless as he was, the man still tried to drag himself over the ground towards us. Tiny gave an exultant shriek and plunged the point of his bayonet into him, pinning him to the ground. It seemed that all the world had gone mad. We were killing in a frenzy, killing for the sake of killing, wallowing like animals in a bath of blood.
Slowly, the hillside fell silent. The enemy had departed, and there was nothing left to kill. Only the dead and the injured to dispose of. We could hear the moans of dying men as we trailed back to our rocky plateau, and Heide picked up a can of petrol, unscrewed the cap, and tossed it down the slope towards them.
‘What are you doing?’ screamed the Colonel, who had so far taken no part in any of the night’s activities. ‘What the devil do you think you’re doing? Lighting a funeral pyre?’
Heide bowed his head.
‘It seemed the easiest way, sir.’
‘The easiest way? What do you mean, the easiest way?’
‘To clear the place up, sir.’
‘Clear the place up?’ The Colonel was almost beside himself with indignation. ‘There are wounded men out there, Sergeant!’
Almost imperceptibly, Heide hunched a shoulder.
‘I hear them,’ he said.
‘I forbid you to kill any of those men!’ snapped the Colonel. ‘For God’s sake, if we must fight a war let us at least try to keep it clean!’
‘Just as you wish, sir,’ said Heide, with arrogant indifference.
It was just as well the Colonel did not see Tiny and Porta slipping off together into the darkness, their pliers in one hand, wash-leather bags in the other, to go pillaging for gold teeth and fillings. The Old Man had tried too often in the past to put an end to their sordid post-battle forays. Now he just shrugged his shoulders and let them go.
‘There’ll come a time,’ he said, ‘when their greed will cost them dear.’
Not this time, however. They returned with quite a little goldmine, bitterly complaining that it was always the enemy who possessed the most profitable mouths, never the Germans.
‘On one Mark a day,’ said Barcelona, sourly, ‘it’s scarcely surprising, is it?’
The Colonel came flouncing up again. He was trying to organise a burial party. We stared at him, blankly. We were liable to come under attack again at any moment. Did he really expect us to go back down the hillside and start digging holes in the rock?
‘Sergeant, what is the matter with your men?’ The Colonel turned angrily to the Old Man. ‘Have they all come from a lunatic asylum? Have you no control over them? Have you no—’
Tiny suddenly held up a hand and made an impatient gesture for silence. The Colonel stared at him with eyes like dartboards. Could it be that this cretin of a corporal was actually daring to interrupt a lieutenant-colonel in the middle of a sentence?
‘Sergeant,’ he said, in a menacing tone, ‘if there is very much more of this impertinence, I shall be forced to—’
‘Belt up, can’t you?’ said Tiny. ‘I can hear tanks.’
‘Tanks?’ shrieked the Colonel. He rushed to the parapet and leaned over. ‘Did you say tanks?’
We all stood listening. As usual, Tiny was proved correct. It was not long before the rest of us could also hear the grinding of tank tracks, and could feel the hillside faintly shaking beneath us with their approaching bulk. The Colonel pressed the back of his hand to his mouth.
‘We’re done for,’ he said. ‘If they’re sending tanks against us, we’re done for.’
‘We probably were in any case,’ said the Old Man, prosaically. ‘Tanks or no tanks, we never stood much of a chance.’ He stuck his empty pipe into his mouth and sucked on it a while. ‘I’m buggered,’ he said, ‘if I can understand why they’re taking so much trouble with us. What could they possibly want with this miserable lump of rock?’
‘Has it occurred to you,’ said the Legionnaire, coolly, ‘that they may be out for blood because they think we’re SS? In which case’ – he ran a finger across his throat – ‘God help the lot of us.’
There was a pause.
‘Why?’ said Lenzing.
We all turned to look at him.
‘Why?’ said Gregor, as if he could hardly believe his ears.
‘Why God help us?’ said Lenzing.
The Legionnaire placed a paternal arm about his shoulders.
‘Because, my dear child, if we fall into their hands they will butcher us by very slow and painful degrees, that’s why . . . They certainly won’t take any prisoners. They won’t even be merciful enough to put a bullet through the back of your head. They’ll string you up and torture you until you’re on the very point of death, and that’s how they’ll keep you for just as long as they feel like titillating themselves . . .’
The Colonel edged back from the parapet.
‘What the devil are we to do?’ he demanded, a trifle fretfully.
The Old Man chewed thoughtfully on the stem of his pipe.
‘We can’t fight ’em,’ he said. ‘A handful of men can’t compete with an army of tanks, that’s for sure. And I certainly don’t advise surrender, unless you have a fancy to be strung up by the knackers and left to rot—’ The Colonel swallowed uneasily, and the Old Man took his pipe from his mouth and stood frowning at it. ‘Try it and see, if you don’t believe me, sir. Those little slant-eyed bastards, they’re not like ordinary human beings. They don’t just kill, they pull you to pieces bit by bit and laugh while they’re doing it. I’ve seen the results of some of their handiwork. It’s not a very pretty sight.’
‘So what are you advising?’ said the Colonel. ‘Mass suicide?’
‘I’m advising that we pull out,’ said the Old Man. ‘Stay and fight as long as the ammo lasts, and then pull out.’
‘And which way do you suggest we go?’ asked the Colonel, with heavy sarcasm. ‘Straight back down the hill into the arms of the Russians?’
‘I had thought,’ murmured the Old Man, ‘of finding some other way . . .’
‘There is no other way! You know that as well as I do. If there were any other way, we should doubtless have taken it long ago. Do try to talk sense, Sergeant! We obviously can’t go down by the same route we came up, and since that’s the only route there is, it seems to me to be quite senseless to talk of pulling out.’
‘Excuse me, sir, but there is one other route.’
The Old Man pointed with the stem of his pipe towards the far side of the parapet, directly opposite the path by which we had come, and up which the Russian tanks were now advancing. The Colonel let his mouth sag open.
‘But that’s madness! That’s lunacy! It’s almost a sheer drop! We might just as well try flying to the moon and have done with it!’
‘Well, of course, if that’s the way you feel, sir—’
‘Eh, Old Man!’
Tiny suddenly appeared reeling and staggering across the rocks. He was clasping a bottle to his chest, and he was uncertain on his feet. He collapsed with one arm affectionately round the Old Man’s shoulders, and there he hung, reeling and hiccupping and attempting to push the bottle into the Old Man’s mouth. The Colonel regarded him with horror and contempt.
‘Sergeant Beier, is this man drunk?’
‘I believe he is, sir.’
The Colonel leaned forward to investigate. He received the full blast of an intoxicated belch, and took a hasty step backwards.
‘This is disgusting, Sergeant Beier! This is a disgrace! Your men are like pigs! They are worse than pigs! They are lower than the beasts of the field! They are not fit to be in the German Army!’
‘One Mark a day,’ said Tiny, suddenly remembering Barcelona and his grievance. ‘One lousy sodding M
ark a day.’ He raised the bottle to his lips and drank deeply. ‘It just ain’t worth it,’ he said. ‘There ain’t nobody could afford gold teeth on one Mark a day.’
The Colonel made a noise of suppressed displeasure somewhere in the back of his throat.
‘I shall report this man,’ he said. ‘If we ever manage to get out of this mess alive, I shall make it my business to do so.’
He turned sharply on his heels and strode off towards the far edge of the parapet to study the sheer drop which was to be our escape route. Kuls, one of our stretcher-bearers, nervously approached the Old Man.
‘You’re mad,’ he said, hoarsely. ‘You’re a raving nutter. We’ll never get down that mountainside in one piece. If I had my way, we’d show the white flag right here and now before they get to us—’
‘Fortunately,’ snapped the Old Man, ‘you’re not very likely to get your own way!’
‘You’ll regret this,’ said Kuls.
‘You’d regret it yourself,’ retorted the Old Man, ‘if you tried negotiating with that load of homicidal maniacs down there. Don’t be such a fool, man! They’d tear you to pieces in no time.’
He walked across to the Colonel and stood gravely at his side.
‘Well, sir? Can I ask what decision you’ve come to?’
The Colonel shrugged. He knew, and all the rest of us knew, that the decision had already been made for him. If the Old Man said we went over the side, then we went over the side. It was as simple as that.
‘We shall hold the position as long as we can.’ The Colonel turned away from the parapet and stood pulling at his chin agitatedly. ‘As long as we can, Sergeant. Mark that. As long as we can. There must be no disgrace attached to our withdrawal.’
‘Naturally not, sir.’
The Old Man respectfully lowered his head. A flare was sent up, and by its light we could see a long line of T34s making their way up the hillside towards us. Fully-grown pine trees were snapped like twigs and cast disdainfully aside. Vast boulders and chunks of rock were dislodged and sent crashing down into the valley. Each tank was smothered in infantrymen, hanging on by toes and fingernails, great clusters of them draped over the rear hatches like bunches of human grapes.
The sight of the enemy seemed suddenly to have sobered Tiny. He was no longer reeling and hiccupping. I saw him, quite steady on his feet, making his way down the path towards the oncoming tanks, with T mines and grenades slung over his shoulder.
Lenzing was following the Old Man like a puppydog and appeared loth to let him out of his sight.
‘You reckon we’re going to get out of this alive?’ he said, with a show of careless bravado which deceived no one.
‘Could be,’ said the Old Man, calmly sucking on his empty pipe. ‘Could well be . . . Just keep your head and try not to panic. When we’ve dealt with the first few tanks, remember, there’ll still be the infantry to reckon with. Try to keep them at bay as long as you can. And no ideology, eh? Those murdering bastards down there are no more your blood brothers than Himmler is mine. So shoot to kill, and just remember that it’s either you or them, and that’s all there is to it . . . Pass me that box of grenades, there’s a good lad.’
‘I’m scared,’ said Lenzing.
The Old Man smiled.
‘Who isn’t?’ he said. ‘Fear’s nothing to be ashamed of. Just don’t let it get the better of you, that’s all.’
The first of the tanks were coming within striking distance, their long cannons trained upon us. The leader skidded several times on the narrow path and seemed on the point of crashing down into the abyss below, but the tracks held and it managed each time on the very brink of disaster to right itself.
We stood in our stronghold waiting for them. The Old Man had put his pipe in his pocket and was chewing thoughtfully on a wad of tobacco. Little Lenzing was still at his heels, clenching his fists and frowning fearsomely with the effort of keeping his nerves under control. The very sight of him made me feel almost sick with fear myself.
In a crevice in the rocks Porta was busy opening a tin of meat with ‘Produce of the USA’ written on the label. Porta always stuffed himself silly before a battle. He claimed it was a nervous reaction. According to all the best medical advice, a man should never go into battle on a full stomach. It appears it’s not too healthy if you get your guts ripped open, there’s a danger of peritonitis setting in. But Porta declared he’d sooner face a quick death with a good meal in his belly than a slow death half starved. I watched him now as he dug out chunks of bright pink meat with the point of his bayonet and washed them down with a bottle of sake, which he had taken from a dead Mongolian. He finished the first tin and instantly prised his way into another. I couldn’t make out what it was, but from the way he was shovelling it in he seemed to be enjoying it. It made me want to heave just watching him.
The leading tank crawled slowly onwards. Suddenly, from nowhere, Tiny appeared. He darted forward, clapped a magnetic mine under the belly of the tank and dived back headfirst into his hiding-place. The explosion was almost instantaneous, and even as the dust and the débris was settling the second T34 came ploughing its way through – men and metal churned up together in its tracks. A shower of grenades rained down upon it, and it was the clinging groups of infantrymen who were hit. They slithered and slipped off the sides of the tank in time to receive the third of the monsters which ground them up beneath it before they had a chance to disentangle themselves from the blood and bones of those who had gone before. I heard Lenzing catch his breath, and I looked across at him. Sentiment would avail him nothing. Let him keep all his pity for himself: he was likely to need it before very long.
The Legionnaire went tearing down the path towards the leading tank. He hurled a petrol bomb at the turret and threw himself to one side, rolling behind a pile of Russian corpses for protection from the blast. A long blue flame leapt skywards from the crippled vehicle. The hatch burst open and a man appeared, but before he could jump clear he was blown to pieces along with his companions who were trapped inside.
A shell from the third tank suddenly burst somewhere behind us. I spun round to see what damage had been done, and found a gaping hole in the earth where a second earlier Sergeant Litwa and his men had been. The entire group had been wiped out. Within the crater was a tangled mess of human remains, unidentifiable obscenities that made your guts rise up into your mouth even as you looked.
I turned back hastily to my post. I saw Tiny reappear, clasping a couple of mines in his right hand. He sprang on to the tank and hammered on the hatch with the butt of his revolver. The hatch opened cautiously and a face peered out. Tiny instantly rammed it down again. He thrust the mines after it, slammed the hatch shut and threw himself over the back of the vehicle, all in one quick, practised movement.
The Old Man waved his arm over his head and shouted at us to follow him. We streamed after him, down the hillside, with bayonets and flame-throwers. The Russian infantry were in a state of confusion, but they were backed up from below by heavy mortar fire. I saw Sergeant Blaske running forward, plunging over the body of a wounded Mongol. He tripped and fell, and before he could scramble to his feet the man had tugged the pin out of a grenade and blown them both skyhigh.
Down in the valley the ground was shaking with the thunder of artillery fire. There must have been heavy fighting along the river. I wondered if the bridge had been blown or whether it was still standing, but either way it was a purely academic question, since we had no earthly means of reaching it.
The mortars were now beginning to find their length, and we were forced to retreat to the plateau. Porta came running past me, followed closely by Tiny. He waved a hand and yelled to me.
‘What are you hanging around for? Let’s get the hell out of it!’
‘What about the wounded?’ panted Kuls, who had decorated himself with a Red Cross armband in the hope that the enemy would thereby treat him with respect.
‘Fuck the wounded!’ shouted Porta, over his sho
ulder.
The Colonel said nothing. He could hardly have missed hearing Porta’s words, but he must have known as well as anyone that it was quite impossible to take wounded men over the parapet with us. We had neither the time nor the necessary equipment to lower them by ropes and stretchers. There were no footholds in the smooth face of the rock, and it was going to be a question of launching oneself over the top and trusting to luck that we would reach the bottom without too many broken bones.
Heide was still fighting his own rearguard action over on the far side of the parapet, running amok with a flame-thrower. The Colonel was creating havoc among the rest of us by firing off a succession of flares, with which he seemed suddenly to be obsessed. He was evidently under the impression that he was lighting our way down the sheer slope of the mountain-side. But with the constant swinging to and fro from brightness to blackness we were thoroughly confused and dithered about on the edge like a pack of mentally deficient sheep. The night itself was not so dark that we could not pick out the general shape of things, but the flares were too dazzling, they blinded rather than illuminated. The Colonel strode up to the Old Man in a state of self-righteous fury.
‘What the devil is the matter with your men, Sergeant? Do they want me to carry them down there on my back? If they don’t make a move pretty quickly, I shan’t have any more flares left . . .’
Heide came running towards us.
‘Time to go!’ he said, and without more ado he flung himself over the edge and disappeared.
In a shower of dust and stones, the rest of us followed. I found myself instinctively curling into a ball with my hands over my head, bumping and bouncing from one outcrop of rock to the next, never knowing when I might be hurled into space. Some slid down on their backsides and tore themselves to shreds. Others attempted to snatch at trees and bushes as they hurtled past and had arms almost wrenched from their sockets. I heard Porta screaming with manic glee as he zoomed downwards like a human bobsleigh. I heard a bloodcurdling yell of terror as someone else was thrown clear into the void, disappearing to God knows where. I found myself gathering momentum, scarcely aware any longer whether I was still in contact with the hillside or whether I was falling into the gaping chasm below. And then my headlong flight down the mountainside was brought to a sudden and shattering halt by a pine tree. I went crashing into it when I was doing what must have been about fifty miles per hour. My helmet flew off and went racing on down the mountain all by itself, bouncing from rock to rock, while I hung gasping to the trunk of the tree and wondered how many bones I had broken. Blood was pouring from my nose and my mouth. I felt sick and giddy and almost paralysed with terror. From somewhere below me came a shout.