Far into the night the plans for the most important and top-secret action of World War II are complete. They are given the codename RICHES.
Oberfeldwebel and departmental head Sally, of War Ministry 4th Office, is on his way to Russia two hours later in a JU-52 mailplane with highest start and landing priorities.
In a three-axled Mercedes, with a General Staff flag fluttering from the front fender, businessmen Porta and Wolf drive to the airport to receive His Excellency ‘War Minister’ Sally. Sally swaggers. like another Frederick the Great, down the steps from the aircraft standing some way out on the landing strip. He is wearing a tailor-made cavalry uniform, highly-polished boots and a big. insincere grin. Around his neck is the War Service Cross. Knight’s Class, which has been arranged for him by his many shady connections.
The Luftwaffe men salute him stiffly. He nods kindly to them. A Field-Marshal could not have done it better. He tiptoes across the wet asphalt. He does not want his highly-polished boots to be smirched by the Russian mud.
‘What a country to live in,’ he says, shivering, as he creeps into the large Mercedes. ‘Why couldn’t you have chosen a warmer country to liberate?’
‘Nobody asked us,’ grins Wolf.
‘How’s the outside world looking these days?’ asks Porta, tucking the almighty ‘War Minister’ up in a bearskin to prevent him from the aching cold. He is unused to the Russian climate.
‘They’re dropping bombs on us all the time. The Brits by night and the Yanks by day. It’s hardly possible to lift a glass to your lips any more. Half of it gets spilled by the constant shaking everywhere. Wherever you look there’s misery. The Home Front shuffles around in old clothes, and everybody’s hungry. Don’t think you lads out here are the only ones having a rough time. We are also suffering badly at home. But we do our duty uncomplainingly, and willingly go hungry to save old Germany!’
‘Well, you don’t look as if you’re suffering much from the shortages,’ says Porta, with a knowing chuckle.
‘I didn’t say I was, did I now?’ the ‘War Minister’ replies. He offers American cigarettes round, and French cognac from a silver hip-flask.
‘“The Lame Gendarme’s” still where it was. for God’s sake?’ asks Porta, worriedly. ‘If those bloody British and Yanks have dared to as much as scratch the paintwork they’ll have me to reckon with! And that won’t suit them one bit.’
‘I’m sure they’re aware of that,’ smiles Sally. ‘The only thing left on the square is the “Gendarme”. I looked in there this very morning, and was asked to pass on everybody’s regards. They asked if you weren’t tired of fighting for Führer. Folk and Fatherland. I don’t understand myself how you lot can stand living here.’
At the last second Porta manages to swing the heavy Mercedes round the still-smoking wreck of a lorry. Round about lie soldiers, their faces to the ground.
‘What’s your opinion, as “War Minister”, of this war we were forced into starting?’ asks Porta, turning his head to look at Sally, sitting there shivering. ‘No danger of us winnin’ it, I hope?’
‘Be easy,’ says Sally, knowledgeably. ‘The other lot’s got its collective finger out, so we will lose the last battle just as we usually do, and will be able to use the usual excuses of ambush and treachery as the cause of our losing!’
‘That’s the German way,’ says Wolf. ‘It’s in the tradition. We win our way straight into defeat!’
‘Thank the Lord, ‘Porta breathes more easily, dragging the Mercedes around another wrecked lorry. ‘Sometimes I get nightmares thinkin’ we might win!’
Porta treads on the accelerator. He gives the car everything it can take. The Divisional Commander’s standard on the front fender makes everything else on the road give way.
‘See that fat chap there, with the narrow shoulder-straps an’ the silver braid,’ he remarks with a laugh. ‘Don’t often see a salute that smart out here!’
‘They all get the shits, when they see the flag of General “Arse-an’-Pockets” on the front of a car,’ says Wolf, condescendingly.
‘We’re more’n “Arse-an’-Pockets” is,’ says Porta. ‘He’s only a general! We’ll soon be rich. We can buy and sell generals, if we want to!’
Three MPs start screaming and waving their arms to clear the way for them.
‘Going nicely, now. ain’t it?’ grins Porta, in satisfaction. He pushes down even harder on the accelerator.
‘Keep to the right, you dogs!’ roars Wolf in his well-oiled voice of command.
Two Unteroffiziers and a squad of soldiers jump for the ditch, and sink up to their necks in snow.
‘That’s the way.’ nods Wolf happily.
‘I’m givin’ it all it can take,’ says Porta. ‘Livens up the day for the coolies!’
A bottle of Napoléon cognac goes the rounds.
‘This just arrived from my French Connection,’ remarks Sally, taking another big swig at the bottle. Half of it comes spurting out of his mouth again as Porta bangs his foot down on the brake pedal with all his might. The heavy staff-car goes into a spin on the slippery surface of the highway. With the touch of a master he directs his vehicle between the trees, jumps a tall hedge and stops it with its nose buried in a haystack. It was at the eleventh second of the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour.
Two RATAs with red stars on their wings come roaring out of the clouds. They rush along above the road, the muzzles of their machine-cannon flashing.
‘Good Lord preserve us,’ stammers Sally, his eyes rolling nervously. ‘They dogo to it in this country. The reports say the front is steady, and all’s quiet!’
‘Those devil’s children come over like that every day,’ explains Porta. ‘You can set your watch by ’em. We call them the traffic police. They can get the traffic jams out of the way like nobody else can!’
‘I lost two ten-tonners last week, right in the middle of church service on a Sunday,’ says Wolf, looking sad. ‘That’s what you have to put up with when you’re fightin’ the godless. I only lost the crews, thank God! The waggons could be repaired!’
‘Those devils won’t be back again, will they?’ asks Sally, looking nervously up at the grey clouds. ‘Thank the Lord I’m only visiting here. I was born to wear a uniform, but not in wartime. Lord above, no!’
‘Yes,’ smiles Porta, ‘it’s impossible to imagine how the history of the human race might be changed, if you was to come out here and take an active part in the battle.’ He laughs so much he doubles up over the steering wheel, and comes close to crashing into a wrecked gun. The bodies of its six horses lie dead in the road.
‘Do they go on like this every day?’ asks Sally, staring at the dead horses, lying there stiff-legged with mouths agape.
‘As I said, you can tell the time by ’em,’ answers Porta, indifferently. ‘When they’ve done five missions they give ’em a medal. Pulls in the cunt, y’know. The flak gunners shot one down the other day, a puffed-up sod who’d only talk to officers. He had eight bars on his ribbon, so he must’ve knocked out a good few of truck-owner Adolf’s rolling-stock!’
‘What happened to him?’ asked Sally.
‘SS strung him up,’ answers Porta, carelessly. ‘He was too much of a hero for ’em to call him an untermensch. Alive he’d have been bad for propaganda. Fellow with a bit of a headache there,’ he goes on, pointing, as they go by, to an old supply-soldier, sitting in a pool of blood with his steel helmet upside down on his head.
‘By the way, did you ever hear any more of that chap they called “Polka Porky”?’ asks Sally, maliciously. ‘He took you to the cleaners all right. There wasn’t much of your 80 per cent left after he’d been there, was there?’
‘He’s turned over a new leaf,’ says Porta, spitting out of the window. ‘Stopped stealing from people. One of my pals, feller who cleans the windows for the Gestapo at Prinz Albrecht Strasse, took him to the dentist to have his teeth looked at. There was some trouble so my pal borrowed the dentist’s drill to fix i
t for him. Slipped a bit now an’ then and made a hole or two in his tongue.’
‘Don’t suppose “Porky” liked that?’ laughs Sally, wickedly.
‘No, he didn’t, to be sure,’ answers Porta, with a hard laugh. ‘There weren’t any teeth left, and the holes in his tongue make him stammer. He has trouble asking for other people’s 80 percent now. People get tired of waitin’ for him to finish what he’s saying.’
‘Yes, he boasted a lot about his having put one over on you,’ says Sally, handing Porta the cognac bottle. ‘Remember that fellow “Fat Pino”, who used to be always boasting about how big he was? Well, a fellow steps out of a car on the Hohenzollerndamn right in the middle of the day. He throws his arms round “Pino”, gives him a big, smacking pansy kiss right on his mouth, and pushes a knife into his back at the same time. Straight to the heart, and all finished very neatly. He was off, knife and all, before people had finished staring at what had been happy “Fat Pino”, only a moment before.’
‘They call it the kiss of death in Sicily,’ explains Wolf. ‘I’ve used it a couple o’ times here in Russia. Makes the opposition pull in its horns for quite a time, an’ gives a bloke room to work in!’
Porta swings off the highway, and edges the heavy staff-car through narrow, snow-covered streets, sounding his horn continually. Pedestrians dodge to all sides. With a flamboyant swing he stops outside Wolfs residence with its forest of ‘No Entry’ signs.
The Chinese goons open the double doors to allow plenty of room for Wolf and his two companions to enter.
Two Russian POWs stand ready to polish Wolfs boots. They are graciously permitted to polish ‘War Minister’ Sally’s boots as well.
Porta sits drinking cognac while these operations are carried out. ‘Time enough to polish your boots when the war’s over,’ he thinks.
Chairs clatter as they enter the main office, and the clerks spring to attention.
Chief Mechanic Wolf touches the tip of his swagger-stick to his cap-peak. He has seen British officers do this in films. Things like that give a man class, he feels. His two bookkeepers, specialists with erasers and forged signatures, put thoughtful expressions on their faces as ‘Field-Marshal’ Wolf goes by. He tramps heavily on each step of the iron staircase on his way up it, making his spurs jingle merrily.
‘Hi!’ he greets his two wolfhounds, who are lying with fangs bared, ready to attack. ‘They had a swamp German for dinner last week,’ he laughs. ‘Wasn’t a lot left of him! The idiot came in here, somehow, without warning, and said he’d pinched something or other from King Michael’s army. Or whatever it is their boss’s called down there in Rumania!’
‘Now then! Let’s get down to business,’ says Sally, when they are seated at an extremely well-furnished dinner table. Wolfs bodyguards have been thrown out, and the door locked behind them. ‘After what I’ve heard I doubt very much whether this deal can be carried through. It fairly stinks of untermensch treachery and Jew-boy traps!’
‘Now don’t come here puffin’ yourself up, as if you were somebody,’ shouts Porta angrily, pointing his fork at Sally. ‘You do what I say. You don’t need to do no more or no less to put this job through. And you get 5 per cent for doin’ it. Personally I’d have thought half that was enough.’
‘You don’t think it’s too much.’ Sally smiles acidly. ‘That’s enough for today! You going to drive me to the airstrip, or do I have to take a taxi?’
‘Have a good trip.’ grins Porta, ‘an’ see you soon!’ He helps himself, with apparent indifference, to a plateful of pickled pigs’ trotters.
Wolf goes mad, and explodes with rage. He knocks the pigs’ feet out of Porta’s hands and rushes after Sally, who has his hand almost on the door knob.
‘Hands off, you dope.’ he screams. ‘Want to blow us all to bits? You’re not back in your bloody vicarage now. You’re in a headquarters that’s important to the war effort. An’ I’ll tell you something else, too, you brain-fucked little pygmy. We don’t care a streak of piss what you do or don’t have doubts about. You do what we tell you. or you’ll soon be finished with creepin’ around playing War Minister. We’ve knocked off bigger meatheads’n you, you imitation, operetta shagbag you! Panjemajo?’
‘Very well, then.’ grumbles Sally, sitting down again at the table, but keeping his silk cap on. Angrily he snatches a piece of black pudding, spoons sugar over it and then syrup, ‘I usually play along with the people whose bread I have eaten.’ he says, stuffing his mouth with the black pudding.
‘What a shit you are,’ says Porta, round a mouthful of trotters. ‘Don’t you try to shove me around like that. When it comes to it you’re not a real War Minister, you’re just a bloody clerk in a lousy office. Any prat can be one o’ them!’
‘Oh, to the devil with it,’ Sally gives in. ‘Good health, boys! And let’s get on with it! We’ll all end up in shit creek anyway, sooner or later.’ He takes a swig at his glass, and gives out a long, ringing belch. ‘But why in the world,’ he goes on, thoughtfully, ‘don’t you just pick up that gold yourselves. Nice and quiet. It’d be cheaper and easier for you, surely? By what they say in Berlin, Russia’s fallen on its backside. There’s nothing left to do but a routine clean-up, so. as far as I can see, the gold’s just normal spoils of war!’
‘An’ you call yourself “War Minister”?’ Porta shouts, contemptuously. ‘Man, you sound more like a pregnant virgin in a Turkish knocker!! This kinda job can only go through with the help of sensible Russians, who, like us, don’t give a shit for the Fatherland an’ its need for lebensraum We can stick together like shit to a blanket. Look, the plan’s worked out an’ ready. I’m fuckin’ a bint just now as has been parked here by her Teller. He’s a commissar. She’s got that fond of my joystick she’s told me all about this Kremlin gold that her commissar husband had the job of hiding away till peace breaks out again. He’s got the brilliant, genius-type of idea of goin’ on his travels and taking the gold with him. We put together a combined German-Russian battle group. The commissarfixes things up back where he is, and we look after things here. Fits like a prick does up Lizzie. We drive off to Liban with the liberated gold, and from there we sail to Sweden. Goodbye to the Thousand Year Reich and the Soviet Paradise both!’
‘The Swedes no longer have customs and passport checks then?’ asks Sally, taking another mouthful of black pudding. Syrup dribbles from the corners of his mouth. ‘You’re out of your minds. Bullshit, the lot of it! I have to deal with paperwork acrobats every day. We run into a couple of inky-fingered coolies in the wrong place, and they’ve had it. That kind of thing’s too easy!’
‘Sven’s looking after all that! He talks the lingo,’ says Porta, confidently. ‘All he does is tell the Swedes we’re resistance. And it ain’t even a lie! That’s what we’re doing, leaving Adolfand Joe’s armies. Social Democrats, we bloody are!’
‘Two thousand three hundred and twelve kilometres and four and a half metres,’ says Sally thoughtfully, looking at the General Staff map spread out over the food on the table. ‘That’s only to where the gold is hidden! We also have to get back again. A Panther goes 100 kilometres on a full tank, and then there’s the lorries. Got to have them! You can’t carry the gold in your pockets. Where’s the petrol coming from? They say the petrol pumps’re all closed down in the neighbours’ area.’
‘You worry too much!’ shouts Porta, waving a sausage around angrily in the air. ‘This commissar whore o’ mine guarantees all that. They’ve got a petrol reserve big enough for an armoured division, if you’ve got one to spare. All you’ve got to do is cover us with the sodding Prussians, so they don’t go pissing around the world looking for us. You get us departure orders, battle orders, movement orders, and all the rest of the paperwork shit we need to get around in this bloody war. And the orders’ve got to be top priority. Get that straight, Mr “War Minister”! We don’t want every barrack-square bastard with a brain the size of a walnut, an’ coloured rag on his hat. tryin’ to stop us!’
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‘Is that all you need?’ replies Sally. ‘That’s easier than wiping your backside and shaking the drops off your cock afterwards. You’ll get papers. Papers signed by Field-Marshal Keitel with all the usual loops and squiggles. No asexual iron-hat’ll start shouting at you. He’ll just salute, and pass you on!’
‘Well then,’ smiles Porta,’ why all the nonsense? All you do’s what you used to do when mum sent you down to the shops with a list in your hot little hand!’
Wolf fills their glasses quickly, and shouts ‘Skole!’ before Sally realizes what Porta has said to him.
‘We’ll also want you to have a flat-bottom lying in Libau,’ Porta goes on, emptying his glass in one gulp. ‘The Navy job, with the propeller that goes round twice as fast as any of the other grey-painted bathtubs. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be in a hurry, just about then.’
‘Small stuff for me,’ declares Sally self-confidently, adding a new note to his long list. ‘It’s only a question of finding the right papers and stamping a red GEKADOS* across the lot. With the right documentation those Navy pricks’ll sail you where you want to go, and never ask what’s in the boxes. But who’s going to help us in Sweden? My stamps and signatures have no force there!’
‘The Swedes?’ grins Porta, easily. ‘I’ll buy ’em. They’re only Social Democrats. They stopped using their brains long ago.’
‘Social Democrats!’ mumbles Wolf. ‘We got to share with them? Don’t they believe everybody should have the same pay?’
‘You’re stupider than you were the day you were born,’ bubbles Porta. ‘When it’s money you’re talking about, the secret’s to keep the share-out to as few as possible! The commissar’s bint an’ me have got everything worked out. In the end we do the lot of ’em in the eye and off we go with all the loot.’
‘You were perhaps thinking of pissing us in the eye, too?’ asks Sally in an obviously threatening tone.
‘What the devil do you take me for?’ asks Porta, with a deceiving laugh. ‘You two are with me. The others ain’t!’