The Commissar

  ‘The pock-marked marble eagles stared blankly at the procession, and the angels with Prussian profiles looked around them proudly. Here in the garrison churchyard there could be no doubt of who was somebody and who was only a coolie. The last-named had only a miserable tin or wooden cross. Some had the honour of a steel helmet perched on top of the crazy cross. A company commander had a stone pillar with an Iron Cross engraved on it, while staff officers were awarded a granite stone with the bird on it, and a short note of the places in which they had played hero for the greedy Fatherland. Generals had tons of marble on their graves and cornerpieces decorated with lions or eagles with the wickedest faces a man could imagine. But the Field-Marshals broke all records. Granite was rolled over them in huge blocks, with batons chiselled out of marble and piled on top of a giant Iron Cross. What a trip we did have up that cemetery hill! Snow slashed’across our faces, and melted snow trickled down our uniform collars, and played Ice Age games down our spines.

  ‘On the first stop in the side of the hill I suddenly remembered that my general had ordered me to sing before they let him down into the hole. To get into the right frame of mind I took a couple of good swigs of some Slivovitz I’d brought along in a hip-flask.

  ‘An Oberst from Führer HQfell on his bum and slid back down the hill. When he finally got back on his feet again and had untangled his spurs, he got his sabre caught between his legs and went down again.

  ‘I was walking a long way back in the procession. The Adjutant had ordered that. He said the higher officers would suffer from shortage of breath if they had to breathe the same air as me. On the seventh swig slivovitz, a belch a bit too loud came back. An Oberstleutnant turned round and looked at me in surprise. It was one of these Staff shits with red stripes down his pants. He said somethin’ or other to a shaky old Major-general who was tip-toein’ along as if his boots were full of shit. Now they both stared at me, with court-martials in their eyes. But by the time they’d got the paper in the machine an’ started to dictate I’d have been a long time back in Russia, and who the hell can find anybody in Russia.

  ‘The civvy top hats had all put up their umbrellas. God. how it did snow! My general and our monocle had certainly picked an ugly day for the last sleigh-ride. Under the snow-laden birches some leather-coated chaps in trilby hats were slinkin’ about, lookin’ as if they didn’t belong. A blind loony could’ve seen they were keeping an eye on things. Even my general’s Mazda could see that “the Devil and the Gestapo were listenin’”. Nobody said a word so long as the melancholy birches and the leather-coats were still in sight. A smell of corpses hung around us long after we’d passed ’em.

  ‘Part way up the steep path, where we could see the birches from above and only just catch a glimpse of the leather-coats, a high-born lady in black and wearin’ a veil, fell on her arse. She went all the way down like a bobsleigh out after a new world record, and straight in under the birches where the leather-coats were waiting, just longin’ to make an arrest. The black-clothed lady with the veil didn’t come back to the procession any more. When we staggered past the war memorial for 1870-71, I happened to give another belch. It was quite painful, really. I should never’ve ate Eisbein mit Sauerkraut before going on the Valhalla march.

  ‘It was when we started up a very narrow path, more like a sort of staircase, made of logs and slippery as all hell, things really began to go wrong. A cavalry Leutnant amongst the bearers got into trouble with his spurs, and let out a screech. Then he went down, with the result than an engineer Leutnant doin’ the dead march just behind him went on his arse too. The whole procession halted wondering what was going to happen next, and I can tell you a lot did happen, an’ in a hell of a quick time. The bearer officers tried desperately to hang on to the wooden box, but it got away from ’em and off it went thunderin’ down the path with the six Leutnants after it.

  ‘“Stop him! Stop him!” they were all shoutin’. You’d have thought my general was a shoplifter spurtin’ off with his loot out of a supermarket.

  ‘A Lieutenant-general, a mummy from 1914, who was standin’ there rubbin’ his toothless gums together, got knocked over. He gave out a shrill howl, as if the whole of Verdun, and the Siegfried Line after it, had been dropped on top of him. His pickelhauber went up in the air, and was never seen again. It probably ended up danglin’ by the point from St Peter’s backside. The prehistoric sabre with its silk tassels flew off to one side as the general-box steamrollered over the uniformed mummy. The whole procession, with veils and top-hats and dress swords under their arms, went running offat top speed in front of my late general, to avoid getting their bones broken by the coffin coming rushing down from the heights. Magda was in the lead, spooked to death by the runaway coffin. Right to the end my general showed everybody he was a tanks officer who fully realized the value of a surprise attack. It was only when he got over on the other side of the tree-lined alley that he dropped down through the gears. It was lucky the gate with the helmets on the pillars was open, or God knows what mightn’t have happened.

  ‘Down there the devil got into the six black artillery horses, who had been standin’ thinking over what Magda had told ’em about my general. Off they went with the gun-carriage, and the two postillions who were sitting slumped half-asleep on the backs of the two lead-horses went flyin’ off into the ditch. Where the hell the six blacks and the gun-carriage wound up I’ve no idea, but they made a nice thunderin’ noise away in the distance.

  ‘The Padre General and the Staff Padres sent up a quiet prayer, while the Adjutant wobbled his menur scars, and the Chief-of-Staff talked to the bearer officers in a manner which left them in no doubt that they were on their way to a front-line battalion. It isn’t done to throw a general around, on his way to the hero’s table in Valhalla, like than!

  ‘“They were holdin’ that wooden jacket like a nun holdin’ a seaman’s.” I said to an infantry Feldwebel, who was standing there alongside me chuckling with laughter.

  ‘The Adjutant gave us a shellackin’ and promised us we’d get to know him. A reserve bearer from tanks took the place of the artillery nance. He’d broke his foot, and was still lyin’ up there in a privet hedge groaning.

  ‘“Coffin, lift” commanded the Chief-of-Staff. “Funeral party! Slo-o-ow march!” And off the procession started again with the regulation sad faces in place. The drummers from the Infantry Band rattled out that thing “Argonner Wald um Millernachi”*. You could literally hear all the chalky military skeletons rattlin’ to attention in their graves!

  ‘Even in death my general showed his sense of style. He’d planned the whole burial himself, and it was certainly a funeral that’d be remembered. I’ve only heard of one that was better. That was an admiral’s funeral where a bridge broke in two and the whole procession, box. sailors an’ all, fell into the Kiel Canal. Fifteen of ’em drowned an’ the admiral sailed off out into Kiel Bay. There he run into a surfacin’ submarine. The sub’s crew was that frightened they fired on the admiral, thinking he was some new kind of secret weapon they’d collided with. The admiral went down with his coffin.

  ‘“Call this a funeral?” groused the Divisional Chief Clerk, an overweight Staff Feldwebel. “It’s more like a battle course with all the trimmings!”

  ‘The procession had thought that my general would have selected a grave plot on the first hill, but they were wrong. After a short rest and an inspection of a view of snow-covered misery we struggled down the first hill, and up the next. Two of the mummy warriors had strokes on the way.

  ‘The Pioneers from the Landesschiitzen stood to attention with shouldered spades and drawn faces. The hole they’d dug for my general was enormous. A special detachment had decorated the grave with oak branches and flowers in the national colours. The wreaths were enormous too; the biggest of them from Grofaz. The red scarf on it said: “The Führer thanks you!” It seemed a bit funny somehow, when you think it was the Führer that’d sent him suicidin’ off to Valhalla by his own hand
.

  ‘The funeral procession ordered off according to regulations. Top hats to the left, and uniforms to the right.

  ‘Up came the Padre General again. He waved his fingers at us, and made a kind of a salute. Then he ranged a firm, both military and religious eye, in on the dark clouds.

  ‘“Our God in the highest,” he began, folding his thievin’ fingers on the hilt of the sabre, “receive this. . .” He didn’t get any further. By then he’d begun to slide down into my general’s hole.

  ‘The Orderly Officer, a creeping Jesus, who we suspected of bein’ a brownie, tried to stop the servant of God. Instead the perfumed officer went down into the hole with him. “Bang!” went the oak coffin. My general probably thought the artillery was usin’ him to sight in on.

  ‘The Pioneer soldiers began to laugh, but their laughter died away quick when the Adjutant booked the lot of ’em for front-line service.

  ‘“So long mate!” I whispered to the bloke standin’ nearest me. “You’ve lived most of your life! Enjoy what you’ve got left of it!”

  ‘He whined a bit, and said it was all a load of shit. I wouldn’t deny it.

  ‘The Padre General’d got his balance again, and the Orderly Officer had been fished up. So the bishop started off on his sermon again. My general had been a very great soldier, he said. An example to us all. He had always been ready to pile up a heap of bodies on the altar of the Fatherland, and the bullet-riddled heroes were all waiting to receive their great leader at the gates of Valhalla. “I bet they’ve got their hands full of some hefty clubs, ready to welcome him with,” I thought, kindly. But, of course, I didn’t say it out loud.

  ‘“This German warrior,” bawled the Padre General, sanctimoniously, in a voice which frightened all the churchyard pigeons to flight, “was a truly believing person, who followed the words of the Gospel. He was an officer of the Kaiser as he was of the Führer! Oh, Jesus Christ!” he went jabbering on, saluting, “here we bring to You a soldier, a man of steel, who without thought of self carried out the heavy orders which were laid upon him by the Supreme Warlord. Oh God, receive, him as the hero that he is!”

  ‘All the generals nodded in satisfaction. The Chief-of-Staff rattled his sabre applaudingly, and the Adjutant showed all his teeth in a grin, and ordered his mensur scars by the right.

  ‘The God of the Germans’ll open his peepers all right when he meets my general, I thought. It won’t be long before the whole of Paradise is made over into a tank manoeuvre area with all the trimmin’s. God and His Son’ll be hauling targets an’ acting as markers; St Peter’ll be on the cardboard clock and St Paul keeping check of the ammo, so’s none of the angels get away with a couple of live’uns. Well, anyway, now I know how I’ll be spending my time in the Heavenly Halls!’

  ‘How?’ asks the Old Man, without understanding.

  ‘It’s obvious,’ grins Gregor. ‘I’ll be my general’s chauffeur again, of course, and get promoted to Feldwebel, soon as I kick it. I pinched the Divisional flag by the way, before I took off for the front. My general’ll be really glad when I turn up with it as a dead’un. I’m sure he’ll forgive me, even, for once having washed an’ ironed it.

  ‘“On your knees in prayer,” commanded the Padre General, and off we went praying, the lot of us. The Adjutant still managed to catch a couple of the bicycle fellers who weren’t prayin’. They were amusing themselves talking about a game the Finns play called “the grenade game”. A lot of Finns stand round in a ring and one of them pulls the pin of a grenade. Then they throw it from hand to hand. The bloke whose hand it explodes in has lost. It’s a most exciting game, but you have to be a Finn to really get bit by it.

  ‘With a lot of sweatingand whispered cursing the Pioneers had managed to get the coffin up out of the hole again, so it could be let down properly with whirling drums and ranting bugles. Ta-ta-ta-ta! But there was no luck being handed out that day. The bugles were frozen stiff and all that came out of them was some hoarse noises, like owls make. They frightened the cemetery crows nearly to death.

  ‘The Chief-of-StafF whispered something viciously, and the poor musicians got orders to swop their bugles with hand-grenades an’ rifles. Off to the front for them, too!

  ‘Well, they Finally got hold of some warm bugles, that could be played on, and down went my general into the cold ground to the tune of “Alte Kameraden”*. Everything looked as if it was going all right, until some dope of an infantry Leutnant wanted to rub his hands together because the rope was chafing him.

  ‘BANG! came the hollow sound, and the box tipped up on its end down in the hole. The worst part was that the end came unjointed, and there was my general’s pale face starin’ up at us complainingly out of the bust-up coffin. The most amazing thing was our monocle, that it still remained in his eye. It must have been good glue I’d used.

  ‘Some of the top-hat and black veil brigade crossed themselves, and the Padre General gave the Staff Padres a rol-lockin’ as if it was their fault the coffin’d broken up.

  ‘Down the Pioneers had to go into the hole again to get my general out, while the coffin was repaired. We laid him out on top of a granite memorial of some place or other where German blood had been poured out in rivers.

  ‘Three carpenters from the Engineers under the command of a Field Works Supervisor came dashing up in a Kübel. They splashed out slush all over the pickelhaubers, the polished tin-hats and the silk cylinders. First the supervisor had to make a drawing. This was done all very shipshape and to scale, while the procession stood around dancin’ up and down on their freezing toes. Most of ’em had lost their burial faces by now, and just looked thoroughly browned-off. Still it was a funeral nobody who took part’d ever forget.

  ‘I laid a blanket over my general. He looked that cold lyin’ there on the granite slab in dress uniform without a cape. I saluted him. Our monocle glittered and it was as if I felt a heavy blow on the top of my head. It must have been my dead general giving me an order.

  ‘Finally the supervisor was finished making his plan, and the carpenters could get on with the repairs to the goodbye-box.

  ‘While the infantry musicians rattled away on their drums they piloted my general back into his last quarters, and suddenly I realized what it was that was annoying him. I’d forgotten to sing! Oh, Hell! I thought and off I went to the head of the oak coffin where they’d placed the sword of honour and the cushion with the medals back in position again. And then I started off, and sang all five verses about Death rushin’ off on his black steed. It raised quite a bit of a commotion. Yes, even the leather-coated lot slunk a bit nearer. Everybody stared. The tin hats, the pickelkaubers, the black veils an’ the silk toppers. I reckon they thought I’d gone off my head, but to be perfectly honest I don’t think I sang it too badly, even though it had to go through a cloud of Slivovitz, and I may have swayed on my feet a bit now and then.

  ‘The Adjutant and his mensur scars were standing there ready to jump on me, but I got through the five verses all right. When I’d got through ’em I managed to wait with the next swig of Slivovitz till I’d saluted and reported to the open coffin.

  ‘“Orders executed, Herr General, sir!”

  ‘Then I did a half turn in proper regimental fashion, and saluted the Adjutant and all his scars.

  ‘“God’s Peace!” I said.

  ‘You should’ve seen his expression. His scars wriggled like a load of eels. Just fora minute I thought he was goin’ to cut me down with his dress sword.

  ‘Then I sneaked off, back of a privet hedge, and took a gulp of Slivovitz, to get me back to normal.

  ‘My song caused a bit of a commotion in the big funeral procession.

  ‘I could clearly hear they were talking about me. There was no doubt I’d gone into first place, with my solo song.

  ‘“Shovels up!” the Chief-of-Staff commanded, but before the Pioneers could start shovelling a G-Staff Oberst went over and whispered in his ear.

  ‘“Stop!” shouted th
e Chief-of-Staff. The Pioneers dropped their shovels as if they had become red-hot. The salut d’honneur had been forgotten, and up my general had got to come again out of his hole.

  ‘After a bit everything was ready again, with the exception of the soldiers to fire off the salute. They’d gone off home in the meantime. An orderly doubled off to the grenadier barracks, and after a long, cold waiting period up comes a squad under the command of a Leutnant.

  ‘There were a couple more minor accidents. A Gefreiter fell down into the grave, and his rifle went off and wounded a veiled lady. He got sent to the front too. Finally a volley went off with a bang, and down went my general into the hole. The Pioneers started shovellin’ dirt, and it rattled down on to the lid of my general’s coffin.

  ‘I bet my general’s thinking he’s getting fired on by the enemy, I thought.

  ‘“Almighty Father! Eternal German God!” sobbed the Staff Padres, “We Germans are yours for ever and ever. Amen!”

  ‘And at last it was all over. The procession sloshed back through the wet snow. They left their funeral expressions behind them. All they were thinking of was hot coffee, fresh pastry and a drink to wash away all that sorrow.

  ‘Some of ’em went on their arses on the way down the slippery path, but nobody noticed that but the ones it happened to. The funeral service was over. The leather-coated lot mixed in with the procession to pick up any loose talk that might help the enemy. They didn’t want to get back to Admiral Schröder Strasse without somethin’ to report.

  ‘I saluted a German hedgehog that was sneaking over a couple of graves. “God’s Peace,” I said.

  ‘Lord, how it did snow, and now it started to blow up too. I got a lift from the Field Works lot. Nobody on the staff’d have me along. I was a pariah!

  ‘Down at the mouth, I went in to “The Red Duck”, to wet my singin’ organ again, and while I was having a highly treacherous talk to the landlord I suddenly realized my general had disappeared out of my life altogether. Everything was over between us. Never again would he give me a rollorkin’ for washing and ironing the flag, or whatever it was I’d been up to between our trips in the staff-car.