While Porta was still gloating over his triumph, a well-aimed shell obliterated the entire 1st section of the Seventh Company. All that was left was one empty coat-sleeve drifting in the air. When the dust had settled, we discovered a few fragments of bone and pieces of twisted metal. The WUs were thrown into such a state of panic that we were given orders to shoot if need be.
Parson Fischer was cowering in a dugout with an ex-postman from Leipzig. The postman had been caught stealing registered packets (an offence which carried the death sentence), but the man must have had friends in high places for he escaped with his life and ten years’ imprisonment. He had been lured like a fool into 999 battalion with promises that if he behaved himself he would be reinstated in his old position at Leipzig. There are some men who will believe anything, even Nazi propaganda. It had taken only a short time at Sennelager to dispel the illusion, but by then, of course, it was too late to back out.
‘Eh, parson!’ he said, digging the trembling Fischer in his skin-and-bone ribs. ‘How about if we made a run for it?’
He jerked his head in the direction of no-man’s-land. Fischer hesitated. He stared out across the marshy wastes towards the Russian front line.
‘The way I see it,’ said the postman, ‘it can’t be any worse on that side of the fence than it is on this.’ Fischer turned a pair of filmy blue eyes on him. They seemed in some way to be questioning the assertion. The postman grabbed hold of his arm. ‘Look at it this way,’ he said. ‘They’ll kill us for sure if we stay on here—’
Even as he spoke, the firing came to a sudden halt. A thick curtain of silence fell over the marshes. And then slowly, one by one, a whole new range of little sounds came creeping in towards us. We heard the crackling and spitting of fire as a nearby village went up in flames. We heard the distant lowing of terrified cattle. We heard the groans of the wounded, and the calls of the dying for their wives and their mothers.
And suddenly a new sound. The sound of men’s voices raised in song. It was the old German tune of ‘Alte Kameraden’ – and it was coming to us from somewhere behind the Russian lines . . .
‘See what I mean?’ whispered the postman, excitedly. ‘See what I mean?’
The music faded away. We heard the sizzling of hidden microphones, and then a whole network of loudspeakers burst into life.
‘The Red Army salutes number 999 battalion – and in particular all political prisoners who have been forced against their will to fight for a corrupt régime. We urge you to use your best endeavours to bring Hitler’s infernal war machine to a halt! We are your comrades, and you shall have all the support we can give you . . . Listen to us, German soldiers! Hear what we have to say to you! This morning you were told that your rations had been cut to half because saboteurs had blown up the railway line. That is a lie! That is a Nazi lie! Your supply lines are still open. We know, because we are out there, waiting to cut you off whenever we feel like it. But for the moment we are staying our hands. We have seen the trains come in. We have seen the food unloaded – enough for everyone, and some to spare. So where has it gone, you ask? Look to the viper in your bosom, German soldiers! Ask your Sergeant-Major Bode of the Eighth Company what he has done with your rations . . . Ask him where he has hidden the two hundred cartons of cigarettes and the twenty-three bottles of vodka! And if he refuses to talk, look for yourselves behind the truck which is numbered WH6 651.557. Look underneath the petrol tank, and see what you will find there. And if you should have any difficulty, get the Polish woman, the whore Wanda Stutnitz, to take you there and show you . . . Tomorrow evening, your General Freiherr von Weltheim is throwing a party at Matoryta. Laskowska Street, Matoryta. Remember the address, German soldiers! All the drinks and all the cigarettes are being supplied by Quartermaster-Sergeant Lumbe. They have been stolen by him from the Fourth Tank Regiment . . .’
The voice stopped, and the speakers blared forth once again with the menacing strains of martial music. No one spoke. No one moved. We just stood still and stared, glassy-eyed and vacant, like a herd of bovine creatures waiting for the butcher’s axe. The music crackled into silence and the harsh, guttural voice of a German-speaking Russian returned with more propaganda.
‘Comrades! German comrades! Hear what I have to say! Throw down your arms and liberate yourselves! Throw off the yoke of imperialism and come to join your brother workers! The Free Army of the Socialist Peoples is waiting to welcome you. Marshal Rokossovsky offers you an honourable place among his troops. Here you will be treated as one of our own Russian soldiers. Your Nazi officers call us a sub-species – low, mindless creatures of the bogs and the marshes. We laugh in their faces! Who is it, I ask you, who is it who has won victory after victory ever since the débâcle of Stalingrad? You of 999 battalion who have been forced against your will to take up arms to defend your overlords – it is you to whom I address myself. Throw off your shackles and join us in our fight for freedom! Have they promised you rehabilitation? And have you trusted them? Have you put your faith in them? Have you believed them in their lying promises? Comrades, do not let yourselves be deceived! You will never see Germany again. None of you. Your death warrants have already been signed. You have been sent out here to die for them. You have been sent out here for us to kill . . . But we do not want to kill you! Come to us now, while there is still time, so that we may avoid spilling the blood of our brothers! We can offer you the hope of a new life. We can offer you a war of revenge against the Nazi criminals who are condemning you to die for them . . . We shall fight and we shall be victorious! We shall not stop until we reach Berlin! Come and join us in our struggle. We shall not let you starve, nor go to your deaths in a dishonourable fight of worker set against worker . . . This evening we shall be waiting for you to come to us. Between 1900 and 2100 hours. We shall give you covering fire and protect you on the crossing. Take heart and have courage! Rise against your persecutors and put them to flight!’
The voice shouted itself to a raucous halt. In their dugout, the postman and the parson sat together shivering. The postman was the first to break the silence.
‘You heard him,’ he whispered. ‘You heard what he said. It’s only the same as it was earlier. It stands to reason, doesn’t it? There’s only one sensible thing to do, and that’s get the hell out while there’s still a chance . . . How about it, padre? You coming with me?’
Slowly, Fischer shook his head.
‘I can’t;’ he said. ‘I wish you luck, but I cannot desert my people. They have need of me and I must stay with them.’
The postman stared at him.
‘Are you off your saintly rocker? You must be raving bloody potty! What’s the point of staying here to succour that load of perishing shits? You want to be a martyr, do you? Is that what you want? You want to be a bloody martyr like that Jehovah’s flaming Witness?’
‘Christ died on the cross,’ murmured Fischer, a trifle obscurely. ‘I will meet whatever fate the Lord has in store for me. I will not turn my back on what I consider to be my duty.’
‘Duty!’ said the other, scornfully. ‘Well, it may be your idea of duty to stay here like a sitting duck and get your holy head blown off, but it certainly ain’t mine! I’m going to make a break for it while the offer still holds good.’
Fischer turned a pair of mild blue eyes upon him.
‘If I were you,’ he said, gently, ‘I shouldn’t place too much reliance on the Russians keeping their word. They also have their concentration camps and their political prisoners. I fancy they will use you little better than the Nazis.’
The postman shrugged a shoulder.
‘That’s a risk I have to take, old man. It may not be much of a chance, I grant you that, but at least it’s better than nothing . . . I hope you won’t shoot me in the back as I make the crossing?’
‘I would never shoot any man,’ said Fischer, gravely. ‘May God go with you.’
In all the other shellholes and dugouts, the WUs were mumbling and muttering among themselves a
s they considered the implications of the Russian offer.
‘You heard what they said? You heard what they just said?’ Paul Weiss, ex-banker, ex-swindler, ex-con man, turned agitatedly to his companion. ‘Why don’t we give it a go? Eh? Why don’t we give it a go? I’d as soon die fighting for the Reds as for the Nazis. Sod the Party and the lousy flaming Fatherland! What have they ever done for the likes of you and me? There’s certainly never been any freedom in Germany. Not in my lifetime, there hasn’t. Every move you make, there are Gestapo snapping round your heels like a pack of starving dogs. Why not make a break for it and see what the world looks like from the other side of the fence for a change?’
Shortly before 1900 hours it began to rain; a tremulous grey drizzle quickly covered the area in a watery haze. Almost at once, the Russian barrage began. The artillery fire, which until then had been spasmodic, gradually gathered in intensity. Shells began ripping up the earth in front of the trenches, and a shower of napalm bombs set the ground alight behind us. This was no doubt the Russians’ subtle way of encouraging any would-be deserters, by demonstrating just what would be in store for them if they chose to stay behind and fight for Hitler.
Promptly at 1900 hours, the firing stopped. Only one large shell broke the sudden silence as it exploded. The noise came from behind us, somewhere near the village where Hofmann was still amusing himself with his two female telephonists from the Luftwaffe.
‘Let’s hope it got the bastard,’ muttered Tiny, with all his accustomed goodwill towards his superiors.
From their forward position, Paul Weiss and his companion peered through the creeping mist towards the enemy lines, which appeared to be deserted. We knew we were being spied on from all directions, but there were no signs of activity anywhere.
‘OK, this is it,’ hissed Weiss. ‘Let’s get a move on before the crowd arrives. It only wants a few more of ’em to get the same idea into their heads, and this place is going to be packed out like a pleasure park on a Sunday afternoon . . . Come on, let’s shift!’
His companion hesitated. Before they could move, a couple of WUs from a neighbouring shellhole crawled across to join them. Weiss clicked his tongue impatiently.
‘Well? Are you coming or aren’t you?’
Under the dubious eyes of his companions, he took a leap forward into no-man’s-land. He landed in a crater, fell flat on his stomach and was gone from sight. Seconds later, Sergeant Repke arrived. He looked at the three remaining men and frowned.
‘What’s going on round here?’ He put his field-glasses to his eyes and peered suspiciously into the mist. ‘There were four of you a moment ago. Where’s the fourth one gone?’
The three men exchanged fearful glances.
‘He hasn’t gone anywhere, Sergeant—’
‘We’ve been together all the time—’
‘Just the three of us—’
‘Together—’
Repke coldly ignored them. Finding nothing in the gathering gloom of the mist, he shouldered his M.PI and strode off, without a backward glance, to inspect a nest of machine-gunners. The three men wasted no more time. Repke would be back again for sure, and they had no intention of hanging about to be questioned further on the subject of Weiss and his disappearance. Jettisoning their arms, they dashed helter-skelter into the rain towards the north.
The artillery of both sides had now started up again. The earth shook beneath the pounding of the heavy guns, and shells exploded right and left. We waited, immobile.
‘Let ’em have their fun,’ said the Old Man, dryly. ‘They’ll wear themselves out before very long.’
The drizzling mist had turned to a steady downpour. A wind blew up, and within seconds we were soaked to the skin. The distant hills occupied by the Russians gradually faded to a dark blue haze as night began to fall. It was a grand evening for deserters.
Staff Sergeant Wolte was standing with Bugler and Treiber, a couple of WUs. He was staring fixedly towards the Russian lines. Bugler looked at Treiber, and they both looked at Wolte and nodded at each other.
‘Sergeant,’ said Bugler, in a suitably humble tone of voice, ‘excuse me troubling you like this, but do you happen to know if we’re likely to get anything to eat today? It’s not that I’m bothered on my own account, of course. It’s just that my belly’s rumbling so loud I reckon they can hear it half a mile off.’
Sergeant Wolte slowly turned to regard the pair. He pushed his helmet to the back of his head.
‘Well now,’ he said, ‘why ask me? Why not nip across and ask the Russians? They seem to know more about it than we do. You heard what they said, didn’t you? Over there you can have all the food you want. Why not go across and get it?’
Treiber nervously fell back a step, his mouth sagging slightly. It seemed almost as if Wolte was giving them an open invitation to go and join the enemy, though that would have been impossible. Wolte was a good Nazi. He believed in the Party and the Führer. Wolte would never contemplate desertion.
Bugler swallowed a few times before replying.
‘You’d shoot us,’ he said, thickly. ‘You’d shoot us down the minute we moved.’
‘You think so?’ Wolte let his eyes rove back again towards the Russian front lines. ‘Who knows what I might or might not do? I might even join you. The more that turn up, the more inclined they’ll be to give us a decent welcome . . .’ He suddenly stretched out an arm and pointed. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Look over there. Four more of your companions waiting for the off . . . Suppose we were to join forces with them? If things went against us and it looked as if we weren’t going to make it, we could arrest the four of them and bring them back here with us. Who could possibly dispute the fact that we had gone out in pursuit of them?’
Bugler looked uncomfortable.
‘Yeah, that’s all very well,’ he said. ‘That’s all very well, but somehow I don’t reckon we’d get much of a welcome from the Reds if we turned up with a Nazi in tow. They’re not fools, are they? They’re not bleeding stupid. Even if you tore all that crap off your chest, all them badges and things, they’d still know you wasn’t one of us.’
‘You think I haven’t already considered that? You think I haven’t already made provision?’ Wolte smiled; a tight little smirk of self-congratulation. ‘I have taken very good care to supply myself with two sets of papers: one for everyday use, and one for emergencies . . .’
There was a grudging pause.
‘So. All right.’ Bugler hunched a shoulder. ‘So you’ve got false papers and they’re not going to find out you’re a Nazi. So perhaps it might be worth giving it a try. But there again, perhaps it might not. I mean, how do we know they were speaking the truth? How do we know they’re going to keep their word?’
‘We don’t,’ said Wolte. ‘It’s as simple as that. You never do know, with the Russians. One minute they’re slapping you on the back and toasting you in vodka, the next they’re sticking the muzzle of a Nagan into your mouth. It’s a chance you have to take.’
‘Well, in that case,’ said Bugler, ‘I’m not sure that I want to take it.’
‘I shouldn’t worry too much about it.’ Wolte tapped a finger against the small canvas satchel which was slung over his shoulder. ‘I’ve got one or two little goodies in here which I fancy Ivan will be only too pleased to get his hands on. With this lot in his possession, he can wipe out the entire German front line at a blow. I reckon that should be enough to earn his gratitude.’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘But what?’ Wolte gave a short crack of laughter. ‘If it’s me you’re scared of, you might bear in mind that I’ve said enough already to get myself hanged. Surely that’s sufficient proof of sincerity.’ He paused. ‘Incidentally,’ he said, ‘one word of warning before we set off. No funny stories about Sennelager. It really wouldn’t be worth your while. Because if you shop me, just remember that I can always shop you in return. The Russians don’t care for the criminal classes any more than the Nazis do. If they ever got
to hear of your past records, it would be straight down the lead mines for you two. So no telling tales out of school. All right?’
Bugler hesitated.
‘I guess so,’ he said, resentfully.
Wolte turned to his companion.
‘And you?’
‘I’m game,’ said Treiber.
‘Good. In that case—’ Wolte held out a hand. ‘Let me have your papers.’
There was a momentary flicker of doubt, and then, with obvious misgivings, they passed them over. Wolte selected a couple of blank pages and on them he scrawled the letters ‘PU’.2 From his canvas satchel he took a rubber stamp on which was the Colonel’s signature. He carefully printed it below the handwritten letters; and then for good measure added the word ‘Buchenwald’. He handed back the papers, and a broad smile of relief spread over Bugler’s face as he examined the Sergeant’s handiwork.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘That’s fine. Buchenwald, eh? That makes me feel a whole lot safer.’
Wolte stowed away his rubber stamp.
‘Let’s get cracking,’ he said. ‘It’s now or never.’
The journey across no-man’s-land was surprisingly swift and simple. Our men put their heads down and ran like stags. Almost before they knew it they had reached the first of the Russian trenches. They tumbled into them with their hands held high, and a crowd of others soon followed. It seemed that the whole wide stretch of land between the two armies was suddenly filled with violent activity. Russian propaganda had done its job well.