Reign of Hell (Cassell Military Paperbacks)

  ‘Let’s get cracking,’ said Porta, giving Tiny a shove up the basement steps. ‘Best to get to market before the crowds arrive.’

  Porta was one of the earth’s natural scavengers. You could set that man down stark naked on a raft in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and he would sail into port as calm as a cucumber three hours later, dressed in a Savile Row suit, stuffing himself with fresh lobster and washing it all down with a bottle of the best hock. Being in Warsaw in the middle of a battle, he couldn’t quite run to lobster and hock, but at the very least he would turn up with a side of horse and a flask of vodka.

  They were gone, the pair of them, for the better part of two hours, and when they came back they were carrying half a pig between them. It was wrapped up in a sheet, leaving a trail of blood behind.

  ‘Where the hell did you get that from?’ demanded the Old Man, nervously. But for once they were not particularly interested in boasting of their exploits. They had something far more exciting to talk about.

  ‘Sod where we got it from,’ said Porta. ‘It’s what we saw while we was getting it that’ll make your hair stand on end.’

  ‘Oh? What was that?’

  The Old Man looked apprehensive, as well he might from the expression of evil satisfaction that Tiny was wearing on his face.

  ‘What was it you saw?’ he said.

  ‘Dorn,’ said Tiny, in tones of gloating wonderment, as if even now he could not quite bring himself to believe his luck. ‘We saw Dorn, that’s what we saw.’

  ‘Dorn from Torgau?’ said Gregor.

  ‘The very same,’ said Porta. ‘The butcher himself.’

  ‘All got up like a dog’s dinner,’ added Tiny. ‘Leather boots, tin hat, P38, all brand-new and shiny.’

  There was a stunned silence. Dorn of Torgau, here in Warsaw? Carl Dorn, the Torgau torturer, fighting at the front? It seemed scarcely possible. The war must be nearer its end than we had thought, if even men like Dorn were being flung into battle.

  ‘It was just as we was chopping up the pig,’ said Tiny. ‘We seen him coming round the corner.’

  He turned and began to imitate Dorn’s self-important strut. There could be no possible mistaking it. It could only have been Dorn. Slow smiles of triumph began to paint themselves over our faces. Carl Dorn sent to the front, and not a single soldier in the whole German Army who wouldn’t shout aloud for joy on hearing the news.

  ‘Did he by any chance happen to catch sight of you?’ inquired the Old Man, still uneasy.

  ‘You bet he did!’ said Tiny.

  ‘You don’t meet an old pal in the street and totally ignore him,’ added Porta. ‘We naturally turned and waved to him, didn’t we?’

  I could imagine their waving. I could imagine the two extended fingers, and the jeers and the catcalls which would have accompanied them. So, quite obviously, could the Old Man. He passed a hand across his brow.

  ‘You realise of course,’ he said, ‘that the first thing he’s going to do is come round here in search of you?’

  ‘So what?’ said Tiny, indifferently.

  ‘So you’re heading straight for a load of trouble!’ snapped the Old Man. ‘Use a bit of common sense, for Christ’s sake! What do you propose to do when he turns up here asking a whole load of awkward questions about half a side of bacon that someone’s pinched?’

  ‘Stick a grenade up his arse,’ suggested Porta.

  ‘Drown him in a bucket of puke,’ said Tiny.

  ‘String him up by the knackers—’

  The Old Man stoically heard them through to the end.

  ‘If you’re sure you’ve quite finished?’ he said, at last.

  ‘Not really,’ said Porta. ‘But I guess it’s enough to be getting on with.’

  ‘If he survives that lot,’ said Tiny, ‘we can always think up something else.’

  ‘Are you out of your tiny little birdbrained minds?’ demanded the Old Man, impatiently. ‘Do you really imagine that Dorn is going to be such a bloody fool as to turn up here without a whole posse of his mates for protection? You really think he’d voluntarily come within ten miles of a couple of cutthroats like you unless he was one hundred per cent sure of his ground?’ He shook his head, warningly, at them. ‘Just don’t try any funny business with Dorn,’ he said. ‘You’ll never get away with it.’

  There was a mutinous pause, and then they caught each other’s eye and shrugged their shoulders. Tiny and Porta were a law unto themselves, but the Old Man was no fool and they must have realised that he was talking sense. Dorn may have been dragged from his cosy niche in Torgau and sent to the front to do some fighting at last, but he was nevertheless a Sergeant-Major attached to the General Staff, and as such could be classed in the category of privileged persons.

  ‘You lay so much as a finger on Dorn,’ said the Old Man, ‘and you’ll pretty soon find yourselves laughing on the other side of your faces.’

  ‘You mean you want us to let the shit get away scot-free?’ cried Tiny, indignantly. ‘Not even give him so much as a kick up the arse to be going on with?’

  ‘Some other time,’ said the Old Man. ‘Some other time.’

  ‘Well, fuck that for a laugh!’ said Tiny. He snatched up the bloody bundle of meat and slung it over his shoulder. ‘If that’s the way you feel, we can always find someone else who’d fancy a nosh-up,’ he said.

  He disappeared up the steps, followed by a self-righteous Porta. It was the last we saw of them for several days, and the last we saw of the pig, either, except for a few tantalising spots of blood on the floor to remind us of the meal we’d almost had.

  Barely seconds after Tiny and Porta had flounced out, we heard other footsteps on the pavement outside, and Lieutenant Löwe appeared in the doorway, accompanied by Dorn, Sergeant-Major Hofmann and three military policemen. All six came down the steps into the basement. Löwe was looking bored and cynical even before he began. Hofmann was leering at us behind Dorn’s back. Dorn himself was full of his usual importance. He was dressed up in a brand new uniform, still spotless and uncreased, and his little, evil, deep-set eyes moved unflickeringly in search of his vanished prey.

  ‘Sergeant Beier,’ said Löwe. ‘Sergeant-Major Dorn has reported to me that earlier this morning he saw two of your men slaughter and carry away a pig to which they had no right.’

  ‘A pig?’ said the Old Man.

  Löwe turned for confirmation to Dorn.

  ‘A pig, I think you said?’

  ‘Half a pig,’ said Dorn.

  Löwe turned back apologetically to the Old Man.

  ‘Half a pig,’ he said.

  There was a pause.

  ‘This is very serious,’ said the Old Man. ‘Very serious indeed.’

  ‘It most certainly is,’ agreed Löwe. ‘Looting is punishable by death.’ He turned back again to Dorn. ‘Well, Sergeant-Major? Are you able to identify the two men?’

  Dorn strutted forward. His eyes narrowed accusingly.

  ‘They’re not here,’ he said.

  ‘How about the pig?’

  ‘Half a pig, sir.’

  ‘Half a pig, I beg your pardon. Do you see it anywhere?’

  ‘Of course I don’t!’ snarled Dorn, suddenly losing patience. ‘They’ve obviously hidden it somewhere!’

  Löwe raised an eyebrow at the Old Man.

  ‘Sergeant Beier, I must ask you this question: are you hiding half a pig?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said the Old Man.

  ‘Nor any part of a pig? Pig’s cheek? Pig’s trotters? Side of pig?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Well, then, Sergeant, that being the case I am sorry to have wasted your time. I bid you good morning. Shall we go, gentlemen?’

  Dorn stepped angrily forward.

  ‘You’d don’t mean you’re going to take his word for it?’

  ‘Why not? I have the utmost faith in Sergeant Beier’s integrity.

  ‘But it’s a lie! It’s a downright lie! I saw them take it, I saw them bring it h
ere!’

  Löwe heaved a deep sigh and glanced at his watch.

  ‘Sergeant-Major Holmann,’ he said. ‘You’ve known Sergeant Beier a fair time. Have you ever had cause to doubt the veracity of anything he has ever said to you?’

  Hofmann stood facing front, not looking at Dorn.

  ‘Never, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Then let us go,’ said Löwe. He walked up the steps, and turned at the top of the flight. ‘Naturally, you will inform me immediately should half a pig or any part of a pig come into your possession,’ he said.

  The Lieutenant, followed by all his retinue save Dorn, left the cellar. Dorn stood a moment, staring down at the floor. His feet were standing in a pool of fresh blood. He looked up at the Old Man and he curled his narrow lips in triumph over his sharp yellow fangs.

  ‘Nasty accident you’ve had there,’ he said. ‘I think I’d better tell the Lieutenant about that. He could find it interesting. Very interesting.’

  He clattered back shouting up the steps. I wondered if Tiny and Porta had left a trail of blood behind them all over Warsaw.

  ‘Roast pork,’ moaned Gregor, rocking back and forth on his heels with his arms wrapped round his belly. ‘We could have been eating roast pork if they hadn’t gone and sent that stupid bastard to the front! Why couldn’t they keep him in Torgau where he belongs? Why send him out here to annoy us? Why—’

  He broke off in confusion as a shadow appeared in the doorway. It was the Lieutenant come back. There was a silence as he walked slowly down the steps. He stood a moment, thoughtfully studying the pool of blood. Then he looked up, and his eye fell on Heide, the only one of us whose face had seen a razor for well over a week.

  ‘A nasty cut you’ve given yourself, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘You really will have to learn to be more careful in the future. It doesn’t do to be so careless, you know. It really does not do . . .’

  ‘It doesn’t matter where we are fighting: it doesn’t matter who we are fighting. We shall kill when we have to in the interests of our country, and the taking of a man’s life shall be no more to us than the slaughter of cattle . . . Only with that philosophy behind us can we set out confidently on the path of victory.’

  Himmler. In a talk to the Foreign Branch of the SS.

  Whatever the men of the Dirlewanger and Kaminski Brigades may have lacked in strict military discipline, they more than compensated for in the zest with which they pursued their campaign of terror and torture. Burning, looting, raping, murdering, they advanced on the centre of Warsaw, leaving behind them a long trail of death and destruction. They killed quite indiscriminately. Pole or German, young or old, man, woman or child – anyone who crossed their path was eliminated.

  Horrified at the crimes that were being committed daily, General Hans Guderian, Chief of Staff of the German Forces in Poland, told Hitler in no uncertain terms that he could expect his immediate resignation unless both Brigades were withdrawn from Warsaw and their commanding officers put on trial before a court martial.

  At the same time as General Guderian delivered his ultimatum, the Commander of the SS Fegerlein Brigade, a relative of Eva Braun, the Führer’s mistress, informed Hitler that the men recruited by Dirlewanger and Kaminski were nothing but criminals and psychopaths and that the reign of terror in Warsaw would be an eternal stain on the honour of the Fatherland.

  Reluctantly, but far too late, Hitler was forced to take action. He ordered Himmler to withdraw the two Brigades and to replace them with one of the regular Waffen SS divisions. Then, and only then, did General Bor Komorovski agree to surrender.

  On 23rd December 1944, Kaminski was shot dead – almost certainly on the orders of the Reichsführer, although this was never proved. As for Dirlewanger, he was captured at the end of February 1945 and met a fitting end at the hands of the Polish guerrillas.

  The End of the Race

  We were gathered outside the Krasinski Theatre, lost in contemplation of a photograph of two naked girls, when Tiny came lumbering excitedly up the road towards us.

  ‘Hey! Look what I’ve got!’ he shouted.

  We dragged our eyes reluctantly away from the photograph. Tiny was carrying a couple of squalling, spitting cats by the scruff of their necks.

  ‘Food!’ said Porta, his face lighting up.

  ‘Food be buggered,’ retorted Tiny. ‘These cats ain’t food. These is racing cats.’

  ‘Knickers,’ said Gregor, making a grab at one of them. ‘Why don’t we skin ’em and flog ’em to the SS as rabbit? Make a fortune.’

  ‘Piss off out of it!’ snarled Tiny.

  The cat reached out a claw and slashed viciously at Gregor’s face. We all took a couple of hasty steps backwards.

  ‘So what you got ’em for?’ demanded Porta, aggressively. ‘What you got ’em for if we ain’t going to eat ’em and we ain’t going to flog ’em?’

  ‘I told you,’ said Tiny, tucking an animal under each arm. ‘They’re racing cats, ain’t they? Been specially trained for the job.’

  ‘Who told you that load of codswallop?’ sneered Porta. ‘Cats don’t bleeding race, they’re not bleeding stupid enough, you stupid git! You’d believe any old rubbish, you would. You’d believe Adolf was made of green cheese, you would . . . Racing cats, my arse! Load of bleeding wank!’

  He turned back contemptuously to the two naked girls, and the rest of us turned with him. There was a pause, and then Tiny started up again.

  ‘I seen ’em,’ he said, earnestly. ‘I seen ’em do it.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Race,’ said Tiny. ‘They shove dynamite up their arses and they go like the clappers. Jumps and all, just the same as horses.’

  Slowly, we turn back again. We looked with grudging interest upon the cats.

  ‘This here one,’ said Tiny, jerking his head towards a mangy grey creature with a cauliflower ear, ‘this here one’s beaten all records over four hundred yards.’

  ‘Yeah? And what about the other one?’ said Heide, looking with disfavour upon the bundle of spitting orange fur which had torn Gregor’s face to shreds.

  ‘Ah, well, this one,’ said Tiny, ‘this one’s more in the nature of a sprinter, like. Hundred yard dash is more in its line. But it’ll still give ’em a good run for their money. It’ll still put up a pretty good—’

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ said Porta. ‘Hang on a minute . . . Whose money are you talking about?’

  ‘Them as lays bets with us,’ said Tiny, simply.

  There was a thoughtful silence, as Porta, the financial whizz kid, scraped his one remaining tooth with a filthy fingernail and considered all the possibilities.

  ‘Yeah, all right,’ he said, at last. ‘All right, we’ll give it a go. There could be something in it.’

  We made our way down to the park, where there was a temporary lull in the hostilities, and began clearing an area round the statue of Napoleon. We set up a fine race-course, with a variety of jumps and other obstacles, and prepared the animals for a trial run. Two people held them, while two others tied tin cans to their tails, and on the firing of the starting pistol set light to the fuses. The unfortunate creatures tore neck and neck round the course with the cans clattering and clanging behind them.

  ‘See?’ said Tiny. ‘They go like a bomb.’

  By the time we had set it all up and had a couple of practice runs, a fair-sized crowd of would-be punters had gathered to watch. Porta strode about, self-importantly inviting them to place their bets for the first race.

  It very soon became obvious that we were going to need more than two runners if we were to keep alive a healthy interest in the sport. Tiny and Gregor were accordingly sent out scavenging, while in the meantime one or two people turned up with animals of their own which they were eager to pit against the mangy grey and the spitting marmalade tom. Someone produced an enormous black monster which looked as if it had been crossed with a sewer rat. The bets were laid thick and fast, but the creature proved to be a nonstarter after all. As
soon as the fuse was lighted it turned in a manic feline fury and began attacking the tin can with tooth and claw. Finally succeeding in freeing itself, it set off round the course in the wrong direction and caused havoc amongst the other runners. It was immediately disqualified and its owner fined.

  Tiny and Gregor returned with a piebald tom and a small white fluffy creature which showed a quite amazing turn of speed. A sergeant from the Pioneers, who had heard of the goings-on from one of his mates, journeyed half-way across town in order to set his sleek tortoiseshell against our mangy grey. The tortoiseshell was an Italian cat, and it had accompanied the Sergeant all the way from Monte Cassino. The Sergeant’s devotion was really quite touching. He carried round a pocketful of stinking sardines with which he kept feeding the beast, and half-way through the first race, when the tortoiseshell was almost two lengths ahead of the rest of the field, he suddenly began shouting about cruelty to dumb animals and had to be forcibly restrained from plunging into the middle of the track and rescuing it. He was a rough, tough, hatchet-faced brute who would undoubtedly have slit his mother’s throat for sixpence, but he and his cat were all the world to each other, and after the first race, despite threats and protests, he withdrew from the field, tucking the tortoiseshell under his arm and offering to shoot the first person who attempted to wrest it from him.

  Strange how even the most war-hardened of men can develop such fierce attachments to the most curious of creatures. I once knew a corporal who carried a toad in one of his ammunition pouches instead of ammunition. He used to make it comfortable each day on a nest of damp leaves, and sometimes when we were resting it would come out and squat like a gargoyle on his shoulder. It was an ugly little brute covered in pus-coloured warts, but the corporal cried like a baby the day it got loose and was run over by a truck.