‘Wow!’ cries Tiny.
‘Right on the coconut!’ laughs Porta, happily.
‘Wow!’ repeats Tiny. ‘Was that lady mad?’
‘I should think so, too.’ replies Barcelona. ‘Who wouldn’t be, with a gang of gun-crazy bums going round shooting people’s windows up in the middle of the night?’
‘Was it’er as shot off the gun?’ asks Tiny.
‘No, we must’ve been wrong,’ says Porta, shaking his head. He cranes to get a better view of the fat lady, who is crawling round swearing in the middle of the snowdrift. ‘God, what a lovely creature! Just my style! Between her legs the Thirty Years War wouldn’t seem a minute too long! Hej! Olga!’ he yells,’ come on over here and let’s have a jump together!’
‘Let’s try shootin’ the other way and see what happens,’ suggests Gregor, his fighting blood up.
A long MG burst kicks up the snow along the whole length of the market-place. A bullet burns a furrow in Porta’s left boot.
‘Ow-ow-ow! Blood!’ howls Albert. A ricochet has slashed his cheek.
‘Frostlips’ has regained consciousness, after his meeting with the floor-vase. He jumps back and takes cover behind Porta. He holds out the heavy Nagan in front of him, clenched in both hands. Unwittingly he is aiming it directly at Porta.
‘Jesus. Son of Mary!’ cries Porta, turning round and looking straight into the black muzzle of the Nagan. He can see the rifling clearly, and can sense the round-headed 11 mm bullet waiting down there to be fired.
‘You’re dead!’ howls ‘Frostlips’, quite out of his mind with fear.
Porta ducks just as the gun goes off. The bullet passes only a fraction of an inch from his cheek. His eyes turn up, showing the whites, and he falls backwards into the snow. He claims he is dead.
‘Hell, man! That bullet went straight through me! I never heard a bang like that before in all my life!’
We have to show him his face in a mirror, so that he can see there is noentrance hole, before he realizes he is still alive and that ‘Frostlips’ has missed. It takes him a while to get over the shock.
‘Reminds me a lot of a fight I was in once in Wedding in Berlin,’ he says, ducking under a burst of machine-pistol fire. ‘Me old dad comes home blind-o an’ thinks the long-haired’s been having a bit on the side! While he was punishing her for that, he finds out the pork roast has got itself burnt. So he makes up his mind to smash up the whole street, before he goes back to knocking the old woman about. Well, then the coppers turn up and they start in beating him up and everybody else with him. They never thought to ask where the blame lay!’
‘Let’s get over there,’ shouts Tiny. He grabs a Schmeisser and starts off at top speed across the market-place, careless of the bullets that are flying round his ears.
The crazy Maxim gunner on the far side of the houses knocks snow into the air again with a new long burst. He is traversing the square.
Porta rushes down the street, stops at a cellar window and sends a whole magazine through it. Suddenly the machine-gun stops firing, and everything becomes strangely still.
Tiny goes up the long cement stairway in two big jumps. He crashes the door in with his boot.
‘Shut the door, you fool,’ roars a voice. ‘There’s a crowd of madmen out there shooting at us!’
Tiny grips the long magazine of the Schmeisser firmly, and presses the stock in under his elbow.
A captain with green OGPU shoulder-boards gives a shout, and goes down behind a desk with both hands clamped down on top of his head.
A big figure stands in the middle of the room, waving a ’45 around. A single shot sounds, but from another direction. Tiny believes for a moment that he is dead, so shocked is he. He swings the snub-nosed German machine-pistol in a half-circle.
The big Russian with the’45 gives a shout, as he looks down the black barrel of the Schmeisser. He drops his pistol and raises his hands in the air.
Along the filthy wall stand a group of half-dressed supplies soldiers, staring in astonishment at Tiny and the Schmeisser.
A corporal goes forward a couple of steps, and blinks his eyes. Realizing that what he sees is really there, he stops and pulls his head down between his shoulders like a tortoise.
The Schmeisser chatters like a runaway circular saw. Blue flames spit: long gashes appear across the walls. Chalk-dust comes down like heavy snow.
A little soldier, who is very drunk, zig-zags across the room at top speed, dives across a table and crashes headfirst into the floor. He stays down there, with both hands protectively covering the back of his neck. Cautiously, he turns his head to see if what he thought he saw was really what he did see. It was.
A group of Russians sit there staring, quite paralysed by the number of things which have happened in such a short space of time. Then they fall over backwards, the legs of their chairs shot out from under them.
A funeral party, armed with black umbrellas, comes running up the stairs to see what is going on. They need a little amusement after the melancholy atmosphere of the churchyard, and push forward behind Tiny to peer over his shoulder. Those in the lead catch sight of the Schmeisser with its bulldog snout and long magazine. Then they see the ugliest face they have ever set eyes on, and quickly realize that something is happening which should not be happening. They fall over one another’s feet to get away: slip on one another’s hats and galoshes, which have fallen off, and involve themselves inextricably in wet black umbrellas, some of which have turned inside out.
A large, damp, unbelievably ugly dog lollops over and sniffs at Tiny. It looks up at him and licks his hand. It seems as if it is smiling at him. It closes its eyes when the firing starts. Splinters of glass fly through the air and are pulverized into powder. Woodwork splinters. Stray bullets gouge into walls. The dog opens its eyes again, and is so happy its tail seems ready to fall off.
Roars and hysterical screams are heard, in time with the flaying, raging stutter of the German mpi. Bullets ricochet and fan out, whining across the room. A waterpipe bursts, and water spouts in all directions.
A large oval object rolls to rest in front of Tiny’s feet.
The wet dog sniffs at it cautiously, and backs away.
‘Holy Mother of Kazan,’ howls Tiny, in terror. ‘A rifle-grenade, a bleedin’ rifle-grenade!’ With a well-aimed kick he sends the dangerous thing into the furthest corner of the room. There is an earsplitting explosion. Then a 6-foot tall, red-hot stove comes flying through the air.
Tiny and the dog duck in unison as the stove passes over them, and stare after it fearfully as it goes crashing on, taking the double doors with it, and making the civilian funeral party run even faster. They think the red-hot stove is the devil himself out collecting souls to take back down to hell!
A hand-grenade comes flying through the air, hits the door-post and screws back again like a billiard ball which has been given wrong side. It explodes on top of a buffet. Blood flows everywhere. It resembles a butcher’s block.
A sergeant, wearing only one boot, and with his helmet on the back of his head, comes rushing along with wildly staring eyes and throws his arms round Porta, who is on his way through the swing doors,
‘Tovaritsch, Tovaritsch, do something or other!’ he screams, beside himself with fear.
‘We are doin’ something!’ answers Porta, tearing himself from the man’s embrace.
‘You’re all wrong,’ roars the sergeant at the top of his voice, although he is only an inch or two away from Porta. ‘We are Russians! We are friends!’
‘That’s just what we thought,’ screams Tiny, equally loudly. ‘We’re Germans, man!’
‘I know it,’ roars the sergeant. ‘You belong to the Volga Brigade!’
‘What’re you shooting at us for then?’ asks Porta, in a ringing voice. ‘We thought you were counter-revolutionaries that we were supposed to shoot the heads off of?’
‘No, no! You’re wrong!’ shouts the sergeant. ‘We are all in a service and supplies c
ompany! We never do nothing to nobody?
‘Come on out then,’ shouts Tiny, waving invitingly with the Schmeisser. ‘It’s all over. All a mistake!’
‘Mistake?’ sighs the Old Man, his eyes widening as he looks at the wreckage around him. ‘Preserve us! What a mess you’ve made out of this place!’
‘It was their own fault.’ Porta defends himself. ‘It was them that started with grenades!’
A Russian with his fur cap right down over his eyes and his cloak fluttering out from his shoulders, comes rushing down the steep street as if the devil were at his heels.
‘Paratroops, paratroops,’ he screams in panic fear. He misses his footing and slides a long way on his stomach. When he finally gets up enough courage to look up from the snowdrift in which he has ended he stares, paralysed, into Albert’s coal-black face. He makes some strange noises, and then his heart stops beating. He has, quite simply, died of fright.
‘Well I’m damned,’ cries Porta in amazement. ‘Before we know where we are Albert’ll be our secret weapon. We hold him out in front of us and they all die a natural death. Their hearts stop beating at the sight of him!’
‘Job tvojemadj! curses a sergeant, picking bits of glass from his face. ‘And one Schmeisser can do all that! If I hadn’t got down behind that cupboard quick that fucking machine-shitter’d have cut me in two. Shot every bit of rotten life I’ve got out of me, it would have!’
‘I was close to shitting myself, when that sod started up with the Schmeisser,’ admits a corporal, his face chalk-white. ‘If I hadn’t fell down the stairs it would’ve been all up with me.’
A white-haired warrant officer is sitting in a heap of broken glass and wall tiles. He is holding his leg, which has been slashed open from the instep to above the knee.
‘My leg! My leg!’ he gasps in despair,’ and those cursed liars told me it was a piece of cake in supplies! I’d never hear a shot fired in anger, they said. In the last five minutes I’ve heard more shots fired than ever there was in the whole of the First World War!’
Suddenly a new burst of fire rakes across the market-place, and a guttural voice rings through the night:
‘Pull in your heads, you pigs! Here comes Michael Yakanashi! And he’s not coming alone!’
A long shimmering salvo from a Kalashnikor terminates the threatening message.
‘It’s that crazy captain again,’ explains the pale corporal, crawling under a bench. ‘I wish the devil’d crawl down his throat with a sack o’ dynamite on his back! He won’t give up till he’s killed the lot of us. He can thank his good connections he hasn’t been strung up long since. It was “shiverin’ pig” that caused it all!’
‘“Shiverin’ pig”?’ asks ‘Frostlips’, blankly.
‘Jellied pork,’ nods the corporal, solemnly, throwing his arms wide. ‘The crazy bastard hales “shiverin’ pig”! They say he killed his wife for givin’ it him every day.’
A very young soldier with a heavy blood-soaked bandage round his neck, and with eyes which bug out like a frog’s, drops down, out of breath, between Porta and Tiny.
‘I’ve got such a headache,’ he moans. ‘All that noise!’ He lifts his Kalashnikov and empties its 100-shot magazine at the spot where he thinks the mad captain has taken cover.
‘Come on! We’ll take care of him,’ shouts the Old Man, furiously. ‘I want to get some peace, dammit!’
Singly, in short crouching rushes, we move towards the building. In between the chatter of the mpis and MGs we, hear shouts coming from the third floor.
‘Down with the counter-revolutionaries! Death to the Trotskyite traitors!’
‘That mad bleeder’s got shit where’is brains ought to be!’ growls Tiny angrily. He runs across the market-place at top speed, tracer whistling around him.
‘You meet these flag-waggin’ idiots everywhere these days,’ says Porta, hitching his equipment to a more comfortable position. ‘They’ve got the national rag hangin’ out of both their ears and their arseholes, just so’s nobody’ll make the mistake of thinking they don’t love the lousy Fatherland!’
In a shouting, confused mob we land in a deep gutter which gives us some cover.
‘This the first time you been on a job like this?’ asks ‘Frostlips’, with a grin. ‘Ever been with the cops?’
‘Only arrested by ’em,’ answers Porta. ‘I’ve never been out shooting with them!’
‘Then you’ve missed a lot,’ grins ‘Frostlips’, sending a couple of shots from his Tokarev up at the third floor. ‘Blokes like him up there I know all about! See here, the end of the show’s nearly always the same! They bang away till they get tired of playing. Then they put the cannon in their mouth and send it off with their big toe!’
‘That one with the big toe ain’t easy,’ says Porta, knowingly. ‘Usually goes wrong and they live on with half their nut blown off.’
‘Right!’ grins ‘Frostlips’, ‘and then they’re on a forced diet for the rest of their lives! No pork! No Minis!’
‘Down with Trotsky.’ comes a roar from the top of the stairs. The captain has opened the battle for control of the house.
He keeps us pinned down on the landing for over an hour.
‘He must have enough ammo for a whole corps,’ mumbles Porta, shaking his head. He presses himself close to the wall as a salvo from above smashes in the door of an apartment.
‘Why the hell did we have to stop here, anyway?’ the Old Man turns to the Commissar. ‘If only we’d gone on! This caper is pure madness!’
Now the situation has got completely out of hand. 131 gun-crazy German and Russian soldiers literally shoot to pieces the building which the mad captain has chosen for the scene of his last battle.
‘He’s switched on the lights,’ screams the young corporal with the bug-eyes. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here! That mad bastard’s put the lights on!’
‘He’s got us now,’ shouts ‘Frostlips’, in terror. He tries to creep down the stairs backwards, but a couple of shots from above pin him down where he is.
‘He can stay there and put holes in the lot of us, easy as pie,’ roars Porta, getting even closer to the wall.
‘Put the bleedin’ light out,’ shouts Tiny, ‘before that dummy shoots our ’eads off!’
21 automatic weapons are aimed at the staircase light. On. the films one shot would have been enough. But it is not like that in real life, and we feel the fear of death creeping up to the very roots of our hair.
Several hundred shots are fired. The ceiling and walls hang in shreds. We cough at the chalky powder filling the air and the acrid smell of cordite.
‘You’re all mad!’ says the Old Man. getting to his feet and stepping across Porta and the Commissar, who are lying with their machine-pistols in firing position.
‘The lights,’ babbles the young corporal. ‘That crazy bastard can see us!’
‘God help him when I get hold of him,’ promises a fat sergeant, picking at a jammed cartridge.
‘We’ll ’ave to cool that barmy bleeder to get ’im out of ’ere,’ hisses Tiny, his finger curling itself reflexively on the trigger of his mpi.
The Old Man edges along close to the battered wall, keeping a careful eye on the staircase opening. When he reaches the fuse-box he calmly reaches up and screws the fuses out of their sockets.
‘Wow!’ says Porta, in surprise. ‘Why didn’t we think about that long ago? That’s the army for you! Why do it the easy way when there’s a hard way?’
There is a bang and a flame shoots out of the primitive fuse-box.
The young corporal gives out a high screech, and almost falls down the stairs. He thinks they are throwing grenades.
A hysterical burst sprays the staircase. Bullets chisel away at the handrail.
21 mpi muzzles are directed at the madman. Muzzle-flashes light up the stairs. The noise is terrific.
A heavy object whirls down from the top landing, taking the handrail with it. With a sickening thump it lands at the bo
ttom of the stairwell. Blood splashes up on to us.
‘Looks like a plate of “shiverin’ pig” himself now,’ says Tiny. He stand up and swings his mpi up on his shoulder.
‘Get him out of here!’ orders the Commissar, making a grimace.
There are crowds in the street. All the umbrella people are back, and have brought their children with them. The fathers hold them up over their heads to let them see the body, which is being carried out by four supply soldiers. Some give a cheer.
We go back with the Russians to the wrecked canteen. Porta has found a cauldron filled with Bortsch-koop*. He adds a few things to it, which make it even tastier, and soon the whole canteen smells beautifully of meat soup.
Porta and a sergeant go out after supplies. There is a wild argument over a case of mutton sausages which the sergeant refuses to hand over without a requisition. The Commissar signs one gladly, and gives it all kinds of official stamps.
Now the sergeant is free of responsibility, and Porta can have anything he wants. But when he comes back carrying two large baskets of eggs the Old Man protests. He can see what could happen with eggs inside a tank.
‘You’re out of your bloody head!’ shouts Porta, angrily. ‘Wait till I do you Greek Musaka. Then you’ll be glad I brought the eggs along!’
‘Do you not use eggplants – aubergine sautée?’ asks the Legionnaire, astonished. ‘I have never heard one uses eggs!’
‘There’s sure to be a lot you haven’t heard, while you were soddin’ about in the desert shooting the arse off the Arabs, ‘Porta jeers. He hands the basket of eggs to Tiny. ‘When I say, I make Musaka with eggs then I mean I make Musaka with eggs! Now all we need is a bit of minced beef, some onions and tomatoes. Butter we’ve got!’