ESCORT DUTY
‘’Ow d’you feel without the bleedin’ stars?’ Tiny asks feld-webel Schmidt as they slant across the flat, marshy artichoke fields.
‘All right, all right, bighead,’ growls Schmidt surlily. ‘Mightn’t be all that long before you’re on the way to the jug yourself with no stripes up.’
‘So what?’ says Tiny carelessly, spitting into the wind. ‘Life with Barras1 is bleedin’ uncertain.’
‘Too right it is,’ sighs Carl moodily. ‘A week ago a feldwebel an’ today lower’n shit, an’ all for refusing to fire on a flock o’ soddin’ Greeks.’
‘Who was the twatt who made you a feldwebel?’ asks Porta, shaking his head and handing Carl a piece of mutton sausage. ‘Refuse to shoot a civilian, indeed!’
‘’E’ll learn to obey orders in Germersheim,’ grins Tiny maliciously.
‘I don’ believe it’s as bad as they say,’ mumbles Carl.
‘Been there?’ asks Porta looking at him out of the corners of his eyes.
‘No, I’ve got a clean sheet.’
‘You’ve shit on it now all right, my son!’ says Porta.
‘Ten years in the bleedin’ nick,’ shouts Tiny, joyfully.
Unimpressed, Porta cuts another slice from the long mutton sausage.
‘I can tell you a lot about Germersheim, that they don’t teach the kids in school.’
‘We’ve got some nice little stories about Torgau, Glatz an’ Fort Zittau, too,’ grins Tiny, taking a piece of sausage.
‘Bullshit the lot!’ Carl brushes it off, stubbornly.
‘You’ll be surprised,’ smiles Porta. ‘I’ve seen the toughest nuts break like eggshells five minutes after they’ve clicked their heels in front of Hellhound Heinrich.’
‘You’re off to where the devil roasts chestnuts,’ shouts Tiny loudly, dropping an encouraging hand on Carl’s shoulder. ‘You barmy bleeder, you’re goin’ to be sorry you didn’ knock them Greeks off, son.’
They regain the Corinth road and try to hitch a ride on a convoy but nobody stops for them.
Tiny chatters on about his experiences at Germersheim.
‘I’ve drilled five bleedin’ hours on end, in water up to me bleedin’ neck, an’ that was under the personal command of Iron Gustav2. All I’d done was drop a full piss-pot on ’is ’ead, but ’e ain’t a bad bleeder really. ’E can crush your bleedin’ ribs in that fast it don’t even ’urt you while ’e’s doin’ it.’
‘Watch out for Hellhound Heinrich,’ says Porta with a quiet smile. ‘If he throws you in Cell 42. You go in goosestepping and come out mincemeat!’
‘Get into No. 3 Ausbildungskompagni3’ Tiny advises. ‘The Flea’s got that – Rittmeister Lapp. ’E ’ops round on tin legs what squeaks that much, you can ’ear ’im comin’ a bleedin’ mile orf. ’E’s stone bleedin’ blind, too, nearly, an’ that’s a good thing ’cos ’e ’ardly can tell who ’e’s talkin’ to ’arf the time.’
They reach Corinth late in the afternoon, and catch a goods train.
It’s raining in Athens when they arrive next morning, and the express to Salonica has just left. They get their orders stamped at the RTO and agree to take a look at the historic city now that they are there.
‘We’ve got three weeks,’ shouts Porta ecstatically. ‘Three bloody weeks with travel money and rations! Do you realize what intelligent men can do with all that?’
They look into every bar they come to.
Carl worries about missing the train.
‘Choke it orf, son!’ says Tiny. ‘We, your superiors, take full responsibility. You’re our prisoner an’ you’ll be in chokey soon-a-bleedin’-nough. Don’t forget that travellin’ time is part of your sentence and whatever ’appens to you with us is better’n what ’Ell’ound ’Einrich’ll be dishin’ out to you when ’e gets ’is ’ands on you.’
‘He can’t forget he used to be a feldwebel and that two obergefreiters are now telling him what to do,’ says Porta under-standingly.
‘It’s difficult after ten years in the rank,’ sighs Carl apathetically.
‘Well, you’ll ’ave ten years in the nick to get used to it,’ grins Tiny.
‘You’ll learn there what obergefreiter stripes mean. It’s them ’as keeps the keys to the blocks!’
They go along Ermou Epmoy and reach Syntagma Place, the rendezvous of the Athenian upper class.
In a pavement restaurant outside the Hotel Grand Bretagne Tiny’s eye falls on an overfat gentleman balancing on a white iron chair.
‘Look at bleedin’ fatguts there,’ his shout echoes round the square. He inspects the fat man with interest. His buttocks hang down on both sides of the small chair seat.
‘He must weigh at least twenty stone.’ Porta thinks aloud, sucking his lower lip in between his teeth.
‘Thirty,’ guesses Tiny. ‘Put ’im up on a elephant an’ it’d go bleedin’ swaybacked.’
‘In the middle of a war with rationing and hunger everywhere,’ shouts Porta indignantly. ‘It makes me mad when I see things like that.’
‘He very much money. Many ship in Piraeus, many villa on islands,’ whispers a shoe-cleaner warningly.
A servile waiter spoons stewed bilberries on to the fat man’s plate. Another sprinkles sugar, and a third pours cream. They do not conceal the fact that they expect large tips.
‘Shit, see him eat,’ says Porta hungrily.
‘It’s i-bleedin’-moral,’ says Tiny, and grasping a spoon he smashes it down into the plate three or four times. Bilberries fly to all sides.
The fat millionaire falls over backwards, making noises like a railway-engine giving off steam.
All is confusion. Police-dog tags glitter from the other side of the square. From the Ministry of War a combined German-Greek police patrol comes sprinting with drawn truncheons.
‘’Ell, no peace for the wicked!’ shouts Tiny, irritatedly, placing a boot on the fat man’s stomach and letting his weight come on to it.
‘You come,’ shouts the shoe-cleaner running in front of them down Miltropo Street. They cross a backyard and crawl through an open window into a room where some ladies are trying on dresses.
‘Gas inspection,’ says Porta helping the shoe-cleaner through the window.
When Tiny follows him the ladies begin to scream.
‘Take it easy,’ grins Tiny. ‘We’ll put off readin’ the meter till next time!’
‘Rotten whores!’ screams the shoe-cleaner, spitting on a picture of the King.
‘You axe a nice girl,’ says Porta, pinching one of the girls’ behinds.
She screams sulphurous curses at him. A piece of firewood flies past his head.
‘Women as swears an’ talks dirty, they’re the best,’ states Tiny with a knowledgeable air. ‘We ’ad one o’ them in Sanct Pauli. When she opened ’er mouth the shit flew. Everybody thought she was a real bitch because of that, but they was wrong. Cinderarse knew what she was doin’. She wound up marryin’ a baron an’ drivin’ to the church behind milk-white ’orses. We never see ’er on the Reeperbahn again, but the luxury pimps used to meet ’er in the top joints along the Alster an’ raise their ‘ats to ’er though she never condescended to reply. She’d got that upper-bleedin’-class she couldn’t even take a deep breath an’ shout arsehole after ’em. Just sniffed real loud, like a cow sniffin’ a bull in the arse. Them tough nuts from Sanct Pauli got that worked up they threw all their bleedin’ lids away so’s not to keep gettin’ shat on by ’er.’
They stood outside a travel bureau where Kraft durchFreude is advertising trips to Venice.
‘Hey, what about taking a trip to Venice and having a ride in a gondola?’ asks Porta, pointing at a colourful poster.
‘You out of your mind, or something?’ protests Carl, nervously. ‘We can’t go to Venice when we’re supposed to go via Vienna.’
‘An’ you been feldwebel in a 500-battalion!’ sighs Tiny, shaking his head despairingly. ‘Do as we order, man, for Jesus Christ’s sake! Nob
ody can blame the bleedin’ prisoner for the bleedin’ escorts’ travel arrangements. Who the ’ell can prove we don’t think Venice is a short-bleedin’-cut to the pokey? We didn’t get top marks in geography, did we now?’
They drive to the Acropolis in a horse-drawn cab.
‘Now we are here, we might just as well see the sights,’ considers Porta. ‘Here, where we are driving at this very moment, the legions of Rome once trotted along,’ he explains with pathos in his voice.
‘They still bleedin’ are,’ says Tiny unimpressed, pointing to two Bersaglieri laboriously ascending the hill with three girls.
‘Whoa mares, like a trip?’ cries Porta pointing invitingly at his flies.
The girls laugh and climb up into the waggon. The Bersaglieri snarl like hungry tigers whose meat has been taken from them.
‘Anything to see up there?’ asks Porta pointing to the Acropolis.
‘No much. Stones and broken steps you can break a leg on.’
‘Turn back,’ Porta orders the cabman. ‘You can tell us what you’ve seen, that way we won’t waste time.’
‘Do you fuck?’ asks Tiny. The girls prefer not to reply.
They stop at a tumbledown restaurant owned by the cabman’s brother. After the third bottle of wine, Tiny and the cab-driver dance the tjaka till the house shakes.
‘My ’usband ees at the front,’ says Sula, a dark-haired, very pretty girl.
‘Which one?’ asks Porta practically.
‘I do not know,’ she confesses.
‘’E ees an officer. Greek ’ero.’
‘May I touch you?’ asks Porta, apparently overwhelmed. ‘I’ve never met a hero’s wife before.’
They walk through the royal park, pausing by the temple of Zeus, where they eat birds from the Seich-Sou woods. It is nearly light when they tip-toe up the stairs to Katina’s flat.
‘Please go quiet,’ she whispers. ‘There would be trouble eef anyone found we ’ad Germans here. They all Communists in thees quarter.’
‘Ought to be bleedin’ shot!’ shouts Tiny, spitting on a crudely drawn hammer and sickle.
‘Red Front!’ shouts Porta to an old woman, peering inquisitively through the crack of a door.
She snarls at him and bangs the door.
The Party is always right,’ grins Carl, kicking at the door.
The flat smells of cheap perfume. Sula throws herself on her back on a broad bed and kicks her feet in the air, exposing a stretch of bare thigh above her stocking-tops.
Tiny rolls his eyes and pushes Katina on to a large sheepskin lying on the floor.
She screams indignantly, presses her legs tightly together, pulls down her skirt around them and hangs on to it with both arms.
‘That’s right,’ whoops Tiny with satisfaction. ‘Nice girls ’ave their drawers took off!’ He finds a goosefeather and tickles her under the arms to make her let go of her skirt, but she is not ticklish.
‘What ees thees theeng you do?’ she asks in wonder. ‘Ees thees some new German perversion? I ’ave a captain one time, ’oo scratch me weeth a nail. When thee nail make marks on my legs ’ee shoot ’ees load!’
‘I’ll fix you up with some marks, my girl,’ promises Tiny solemnly, ‘but not with no bleedin’ Greek nail I won’t!’ He catches her by the ankles and holds her up as if she were a hen hanging for sale in a Sicilian market.
Katina turns her body in the air like an acrobat and sinks her teeth in his crotch. With a howl of pain he drops her and presses both hands between his legs.
‘I need to pee,’ she giggles and runs out to the unbelievably tiny toilet, use of which makes pins-and-needles an occupational disease.
Tiny bulls after her. From his experience he expects her to make a run for it. His huge body blocks the door opening.
She hums happily. Water tinkles into water.
Tiny thrusts a cigar between his lips and expels a cloud of smoke.
‘That’s enough pissin’ for a kid of your size,’ he shouts impatiently and grabbing her by the hair he drags her back into the room.
She lets out a piercing scream, kicks him in the shins and bites one of his ears almost off.
‘Jesus Christ, she loves me!’ he howls in his cracked bass.
‘I ’ate you, bastard!’ she snarls, struggling wildly to free herself.
You love me, you bitch!’ Tiny shouts with pleasure. ‘Give us a kiss!’ He tears at her clothing, but it is made of stout material not easily ripped. She is wearing a knitted skirt which gets longer and longer the more he pulls at it.
She rolls over and over until she resembles a roll of carpeting. They battle fiercely over the skirt. Coat, blouse and brassière have long since been torn to bits. He seems to be trying to tie her into knots. His sighs of passion alternate with roars of pain. At one moment he is on his knees on the bed, the next his head is hanging over the edge of the table.
Somehow they arrive up on top of the enormous wardrobe. It topples and falls with an ear-splitting crash.
Suddenly they are out in the kitchen drinking water. There is a scream of terror to alarm the whole house.
Tiny is hanging out of the window head downwards, while she smashes away at his crotch with a rolling-pin.
‘Feelthy peeg, enemy of my country,’ she screams and pours a can of petroleum over him.
Porta and Carl get there in time to stop her setting fire to him.
In two giant jumps they are back in the living-room and continue their battle for the remains of her clothing.
‘Jesus Christ you’re the best bleedin’ tart I ever did meet,’ gasps Tiny, biting her in the thigh, ‘but now you’re goin’ to get the lot!’
Before she knows where she is she has only one stocking and a shoe left.
A tangled ball of jackboots, leather belts, stockings, shoes and suspender belts rolls across the floor and under the bed.
There is a second of silence. Then a piercing howl is heard and the wide bed is lifted on end so that Porta and Sula are thrown out of it.
Tiny rushes round the room, out of the kitchen and up the narrow staircase, with Katina riding him like a jockey.
A little later they come crawling down again. Tiny with a split upper lip and with a bunch of black hair gripped in his hand. They roll across the table, fall to the floor with a crash, but no matter what Tiny does Katina always turns the wrong way. With a wrestling grip he immobilizes her arms and legs but somehow, suddenly, she is free again. Over by the window, still grappling, they come close to falling down the fire escape.
‘If they fall out,’ whispers Porta fascinatedly, ‘we’ll be going to a funeral tomorrow!’
Mysteriously they regain their balance and fall back into the room. Katina jumps up and down on his stomach and hits him in the face with a high-heeled shoe. He spins her like a top, attempting to make her dizzy.
With a shattering noise they fall over the wardrobe and go through the thin backing in a shower of wood and splinters. The wardrobe turns over, the doors fly open and out comes Katina. Tiny is after her with blood in his eye.
Carl and Thea manage to duck just in time as the two fly over their heads.
Then Tiny is on top. She kicks her feet up towards the ceiling.
There is a sound like a baker kneading dough. Sucking, slapping, panting, gasping.
‘Maybe we’ll get some peace now,’ sighs Porta wrapping his arms round Sula. They go at it energetically in the big bed.
When they get hungry they toast sausages out on the tiny balcony. Then they change partners. Katina climbs into bed with Carl and tells him he is the man she has been waiting for all her life.
Tiny throws himself flat on the floor and says he is dead, but Sula pulls him on to the bed and sits herself across him.
Thea and Porta join them. Soon satisfied sighs and gasps are heard.
In the middle of it all an eiderdown splits and the air is filled with tiny, spinning feathers like snowflakes.
Sula gets cramp in her belly from la
ughing so much.
Suddenly the door slams open with a crash and a huge man, completely bald, with a dried fish swinging in his hand, rolls into the room.
Katina, who is hanging round Carl’s neck, tears herself away and begins screaming at the top of her voice.
The German peeg ’as raped me!’
‘Did he?’ roars the bald man. Catching her by the hair he pulls her down over an old-fashioned box-sofa and beats her viciously with the dried fish.
Then he opens the box-seat and throws her into it, grabs Carl and throws him in on top of her, and sits on it to make it close properly.
‘Fuck!’ he roars wildly. Tuck till your fuckin’ hair falls off an you’re bald as me! Fuck! Then I’ll fuck you both till your arseholes are spread all over Athens!’ He falls down heavily at the table.
‘My wife’s a whore,’ he addresses the air. ‘She’s fucking the enemy, the sow! I’ll kill ’em both! Fucked if I won’t!’
‘That’s the way,’ says Porta in a friendly voice, pushing a bottle of beer within reach of the cuckolded husband who is lying sobbing across the table.
‘Old Greece is goin’ under,’ he sobs, ‘our women’ve got their noses up the enemy’s arsehole.’
‘True, true!’ Porta heaves a deep sigh. ‘People have no moral backbone anymore. It is because your king has left you.’
Sula dresses herself slowly. First she pulls her stockings up over her outstretched legs, and wriggles into a black and red striped suspender belt. She plays with her brassière before fastening it in front and cupping it to her breasts. A short black underskirt is draped over the table.
Tiny kneels on the bed and watches her interestedly. He is still wearing his jackboots.
Over at the table the bald man sobs even more loudly.
‘Striptease arse-about-face,’ mumbles Tiny delightedly.
‘It’s enough to make all ten toes on a castrated Arab stand on end,’ says Porta.
‘An’ turn ’im into a bleedin’ rapist,’ whispers Tiny.
Sula smiles, and wriggles her bottom inside the tight black panties. She has everything a man wants a girl to have and she knows it.
Tiny takes the electric light bulb out and throws it into the street. It gets no darker. He hasn’t noticed that it is now daylight again.