Wheels of Terror

by Sven Hassel

  6

  ‘Would you like a bath in beer?’ Porta cried enthusiastically and poured the large jug of beer over the head of the blonde waitress. He did it slowly and carefully and then threw the jug in the air. It fell bang on the counter and the last of the beer splashed all over the place.

  We jumped up and swore. Porta rubbed the beer off his hands and slapped the behind of the blonde, well-known under the title of ‘The Cab Tart’.

  Everything was wet. Tiny wanted to fight. The canteen had a great day.

  Tiny and the Legionnaire

  No. 2 Troop had been sent to the big tank and motor factory where we, with many other experienced front-line soldiers, were to try out new tanks and their guns. It was a lovely gentlemanly life, even if we often had to work fifteen or sixteen hours a day. Monotony in the depot was comfortably distant. Here we were able to hide among hundreds of civilian labourers of all nationalities.

  Porta romped like an elk in heat. There were about two thousand female employees there, and he regarded them more or less as his private possessions. The foremen were nearly always willing to give us a pass to go outside the wired perimeter.

  One day, though, Pluto went too far. He stole a lorry and drove from pub to pub, becoming more and more drunk. In the end he ran the truck into a wall three yards from the police station. It cost him fourteen days in the glasshouse. He could thank one of the foremen that it wasn’t worse. The fellow swore he had given his permission for the vehicle to go out, and that Pluto was indispensable at the factory. But Colonel von Weisshagen gave him a full-scale dressing down in the presence of the whole depot and fourteen days. While the noble defenders of the Fatherland listened piously, he told the big, stiff-standing Pluto whose turn-out was made up of German uniformed splendour from four different decades:

  ‘You are a stain on the military honours roll; a piece of stinking rottenness! God knows who smuggled you into your clean and disciplined training unit!’

  As the military prison was over-filled, fate decreed that Pluto should share bread, bed and cell with ex-Sergeant Reinhardt, who had earlier fallen from grace and been forgotten by everyone, including God and the military judges. As it turned out, he stayed under arrest until the Americans liberated him in 1945. They made him a prison-inspector. Somebody had to be one, so why not Reinhardt? He knew the prison well. A good and conscientious warder, he followed the new régime well, so well that three years later he was in clink himself. A great shame, he confided to his cellmate: the uniform had become him so well!

  In the beginning our platoon commander, Lieutenant Harder, often swore at us for un-military behaviour. At last he gave up, and in silent resignation sat in the employees’ canteen drinking away his nineteen-year-old’s idealism.

  Unfortunately, during the war there were precious few people like that. They first appeared after the war. Then they had all been enemies of Adolf Hitler, even Himmler’s closest colleague. Work that out, if you can!

  Our lives were a noisy mixture of joy and misery. Live today, to-morrow you’ll be dead. We lived wildly and violently. Not to think, only to forget. We were ruffians with the noose round our necks and it only needed the hangman to tighten it. Many would call us bullies and criminals. About seven million Germans did so. Don’t forget we were C-class people. Our experience had taught us to take everybody for scoundrels till the opposite was proved. The proof we wanted was often a hard test for the ones we tried. Those not belonging to our little circle were looked upon as enemies. We tolerated them, but never lifted a finger to help them. We were quite indifferent whether they lived or died. We drank everything alcoholic we could lay hands on. We deadened our misery with opium-cigarettes. We went to bed with any female we got hold of. The bed was often a sentry box or a ditch. Even a lavatory was not scorned.

  We had seen people die in their thousands; friends executed in front of our eyes. People dressed in the same uniform as ourselves had been shot, butchered and hanged. We had acted as military executioners, seen German men and women kick the sand, stain it red with blood. We had seen countless numbers fall on the Russian steppes, in the mountains of Caucasia or choke in the bogs of the Ukraine. Sometimes we wept, but only if we were drunk enough not to know what we did. We carried the stamp of the Man with the Scythe. We were already dead, but never talked about it.

  Now, hanging about in the canteen, we ribbed the three waitresses.

  ‘Here you,’ Porta said to the blonde. ‘What about taking some free exercises with me?’

  No answer. Just a hurt toss of the plump neck.

  ‘You try it with Daddy, then you’ll want to run away from all this and come to the front with me.’

  ‘Are you off to the front?’ she asked curiously.

  ‘Nobody said a word about that, but you never know what “Backside and Boots” will do,’ grinned Porta. ‘I am just inviting you to take a trip with me to the hammock. It won’t cost you a dime. It’ll be the experience of your life.’

  ‘Doesn’t interest me, smart guy,’ she said to the shelves of bottles.

  ‘Good God,’ roared Porta, ‘are you a Lesbian, my soiled lamb! That won’t part us, my experiences are manyfold. Meet me outside “The Merry Cow” at seven. Give me a pint of Münchener Hofbrau – the light one – that’s all I ask.’

  She hit out for Porta and hissed, copper-red in the face:

  ‘I’ll report you!’

  ‘Do that. I collect reports.’

  Tiny elbowed his way between us and shouted:

  ‘Here! Beer! Five glasses at once.’

  He turned to a little scarred fellow who stood by the counter and drank alone.

  ‘You’ll pay for my beer, or I’ll knock your block off!’

  ‘By Thor and Odin, you don’t mean me, sir?’ the small chap asked, and pointed to himself with such a ridiculous expression on his badly cut face that we burst into laughter.

  Tiny, who was the biggest fighting-cock and bandit in the whole of the command district, stared at the little one and answered, savouring each word:

  ‘Just you, rabbit’s scut.’

  Carrying five large glasses he turned to the waitress and said casually:

  ‘That piece of turd has promised to pay for this lot.’

  Complete silence reigned while the small scarred man drank his pint, licked his mouth and dried it with the back of his hand.

  ‘Are you Tiny?’ he asked the seven-foot tall gorilla-like ruffian, who hadn’t yet reached his table.

  ‘Pay up and shut up,’ answered Tiny.

  ‘I’ll pay for my own, but I’m no swineherd. I don’t provide the swill for pigs. Fancy letting a pig like that come here,’ went on the scarred little man. ‘You belong in the pigsty, but you only get there to mate, I suppose. Funny, though, the last litter, looked like you.’

  Tiny stopped dead. He let go of the five glasses. They crashed to the floor. In a couple of big smooth jumps he was at the counter, where the little chap stood quietly unconcerned, just reaching to Tiny’s lower ribs.

  With saliva foaming round his mouth, Tiny roared:

  ‘What the hell did you say, you louse! Just say it again!’

  The small man measured him from top to toe:

  ‘Are you deaf? I didn’t know pigs had poor ears.’

  Tiny became white-faced and drew back his fist.

  ‘Take it easy, great pig. Let’s go outside and fight. We don’t want to ruin the fine furniture.’ The small man smiled disarmingly. ‘That would be a great shame!’

  He pushed his glass away and started for the door.

  Tiny waved his gorilla-arms wildly and roared, almost inarticulate in his fury:

  ‘I’ll thrash you, you whelp, make mincemeat of you.’

  The little chap laughed:

  ‘Such a lot to do in your sty, little boar. Mind you don’t tire yourself.’

  Deathly silence fell on the crowded canteen. We could not believe our ears. The tyrant, the big killer of the factory, was being challenged a
nd mocked by a shrimp of a man, barely five feet. The white armband with the word ‘Sondersection’, framed by two skull-bones indicating a penal regiment shone on his new grey uniform.

  No sooner were the two outside, than the three hundred men in the canteen ran out to see the massacre of the small chap.

  Tiny was shouting and roaring and swinging his arms. The other chuckled:

  ‘Take it easy, pig. You’ll exhaust yourself and be so useless in the sty, even the little ones will disown you!’

  Then the impossible happened. The little fellow suddenly shot in the air, kicked Tiny in the face with his hobnailed boots, and the huge fellow fell down like a skittle.

  The small man was on top of him quick as lightning, turned him face down, planted himself splay-legged on top and grabbed his red-blond mass of hair: then he ground his face in the sharp gravel and kicked him in the kidneys, spat contemptuously at him and went indifferently back to the canteen. The three hundred spectators stared open-mouthed at the fallen tyrant.

  Ordering a pint of light beer, he drank it with great content. We went back to our places and stared curiously at the solitary drinker who had beaten the invincible bully. We were dumbfounded.

  Pluto offered him a cigarette.

  ‘Can you take an opium-cigarette?’

  A short ‘thanks’ and he lit it. Another pint was put in front of him.

  ‘With the compliments of Corporal Stern,’ said the waitress.

  He pushed the glass away and said:

  ‘Return the compliments, but Corporal Alfred Kalb from the 2nd Regiment of the Foreign Legion never accepts drinks from people he doesn’t know.’

  ‘Have you been in the French Foreign Legion?’ asked Pluto.

  ‘You heard, or have you poor hearing too, perhaps all big fellows have?’

  Pluto turned his back and pretended he did not exist.

  Tiny came back and sat in his corner by the window and muttered the most hair-raising threats. His face looked like mincemeat. He stood up and went across to the sink and put his face under the tap, rinsing off the blood and gravel. He was snorting like a seal.

  Without drying his face he fetched himself three pints of beer and shut himself off in his corner.

  Porta had jumped over the counter to be nearer the blonde Eve. In a manner worthy of a high-spot in a comical film he tried to kiss her.

  ‘Has anybody told you, Eve, you have smart fetlocks? Are your thighs up to standard?’

  He shot back over the counter, and turned like lightning to the former legionnaire:

  ‘I overheard your remarks to my friend Pluto. You can perhaps get along with your Legion methods in the whore-shops of Morocco, but that doesn’t mean to say you can stand up to Joseph Porta from Moabitt, Berlin. Or in good German: answer properly when asked or else shut up.’

  The legionnaire slowly rose and bowed politely to Porta, at the same time swinging his service cap off in an old-fashioned aristocratic fashion, while his eyes widened comically.

  ‘Thanks for the tip. Alfred Kalb from the 2nd Regiment of the Foreign Legion will remember Herr Joseph Porta from Moabitt, Berlin. My cradle also stood there. I don’t want to fight, but if I have to, I can cope. That’s not a warning, only an announcement.’

  ‘What regiment do you belong to, chum?’ asked The Old Un, peacefully.

  ‘27th Tank, Ist Battalion, 3rd Company from 11 a.m. today.’

  ‘What the hell, that’s us!’ burst out Porta. ‘How many years did they give you?’

  ‘Twenty,’ said Kalb. ‘Been locked up three for a “social attitude”, that is, being politically unstable and having illegal service in a foreign army. Last resort Fagen Camp, Bremen.’

  Tiny approached the counter, threw a mark down and ordered:

  ‘One light Dortmunder.’

  He remained at the bar and drained his glass in one swallow. He moved to the little legionnaire, put his hand out and said:

  ‘Sorry, chum, all my fault.’

  The legionnaire gave him his hand.

  ‘Good, good, all right. Forget it.’

  He had hardly finished when he was pulled like a comet against the big bully who smashed his knee into the face of the surprised legionnaire. At the same time killing blows rained at his neck. He was half unconscious. Tiny kicked him in the face, broke his nose, stood up and brushed his hands together and surveyed the crowd in the packed canteen.

  Pluto took a swig of his beer and said calmly:

  ‘They didn’t know that trick in the 2nd Regiment of the Foreign Legion, but take care, Tiny, one day you’ll be with the transport to the Eastern Front. I know three thousand men who’d want to put a filed bullet in your mug.’

  ‘You’re welcome to try!’ snarled Tiny. ‘But I’ll return from hell to kill him.’

  To the growl of our cursing he left the canteen.

  ‘That character will meet a violent death,’ observed The Old Un. ‘And nobody will mourn him.’

  A week later we were standing with the little legionnaire, who had had part of his nose cut out due to Tiny’s kick, looking at a big metal drum being riveted. One end of the drum rested against the wall. Tiny happened to pass by and the legionnaire called cheekily to him:

  ‘You’re strong, come and hold on to the rivets, they keep jumping out. We haven’t got the strength to hold them.’

  Tiny like all bullies was stupid and full of brag. He proudly shot out his chest and jeered as he climbed into the drum:

  ‘Weaklings! I’ll show you how to rivet.’

  No sooner had he entered the drum than we pushed a cement-loaded tip-wagon across the opening. We put wedges under the wheels to make it immovable. Tiny was caught like a rat in a trap.

  Hell was let loose. Ten-fifteen pneumatic hammers and large mallets performed a hellish concert on the steel drum.

  The little legionnaire pressed a steam-hose against a rivet hole and let the scalding, whistling steam off. It would have killed anybody except Tiny.

  He spent three weeks in hospital, and when he turned up again, bandaged from head to foot, he at once got himself into more wild fights.

  One day, Kalb powdered a glass and put it in Tiny’s soup. We waited gleefully for his inside to burst, but he only seemed to have more joie de vivre.

  A little later Porta saved the little legionnaire’s life when he noticed Tiny pouring a dose of pure nicotine into his pint. Without a word Porta knocked the glass out of the legionnaire’s hand. The little man had been accepted.

  7

  It started by chance with something as boring as coffee and sweet cakes – it ended with an air raid and marching orders.

  War is war, morals disappear and love is short and unsure.

  Fudge if you dare! It is only old women and men who have never known love who cannot understand those who seek, find it, and have to experience it.

  Love Scene

  High-heeled female shoes hit the wet pavement with firm taps.

  In the sleepy light from the blue black-out bulb swinging on a rusty bracket from the wall where I stood hidden I was sure it was she: Ilse, my girl.

  I remained in the dark so that she would not see me. I enjoyed seeing and not being seen. She stood, walked up and down, stood again and stared up the street leading to the poplar avenue. She looked at her watch, then tidied her green scarf.

  An infantry soldier walked by, slowed down, stopped and asked:

  ‘Come with me, I’ll give you compensation.’

  She turned down the street away from the love-hungry soldier. He laughed a little and went on his way.

  She came back to the light. I started humming:

  ‘Unsere beiden Schatten sahen wir einer aus,

  dass wir so lieb uns hatten, dass sah man gleich daraus,

  Und alle Leute sollen es sehen, wenn wir bei der

  Lanterne stehen …’

  She whirled round, stared into the darkness, and I went slowly forward. She was about to scold when she saw me but burst out into a ring
ing laugh.

  Arm in arm, dead against military regulations, we turned and walked through the ruins. The war and the waiting were forgotten. We were together.

  ‘Where to, Ilse?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sven. Where can we get away from soldiers and the smell of beer?’

  ‘Let’s go to your house, Ilse. I’d like to see it. We’ve known each other five weeks and spent them in pubs, grease-stinking coffee bars or in the dirty ruins.’

  We walked on a bit before she answered:

  ‘Yes, let’s go to my house, but you must be quiet. Nobody must hear you.’

  Our transport was a rumbling, shaking tram-car. Sad grey people were our fellow-travellers. We got off in a suburb. I kissed her and stroked her soft cheeks.

  She pressed my arm and laughed quietly. We walked slowly on. There were no ruins here; only private houses and terraces where the wealthy lived. It didn’t pay to drop bombs here; not enough would be killed.

  The air-raid sirens sounded. We pretended not to hear them.

  ‘Have you a night-pass, Sven?’

  ‘Yes, till 8 to-morrow morning. Pluto organized it. The Old Un has gone to Berlin on three days’ leave.’

  ‘Has everybody got leave?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She stopped and pressed my arm. Her face was white. The eyes shone wetly in the light from the black-out lamp.

  ‘Sven, oh Sven, does it mean you’re going?’

  I did not answer but nervously pulled her along and was silent. Soon she said in a whisper as if she had read the irrefutable fact in my silence:

  ‘Sven, then it’ll be all over. You are going. Even if my husband returns one day you have given me something he couldn’t Sven, I can’t do without you. Promise you’ll come back.’

  ‘How can I when I’m not my own master? The Ruskies and others decide. I’m not asked. I love you. It started as an adventure. You being married only added to the attraction. But it became more. Maybe it’s just as well marching orders will part us.’

  Silence again! She stopped by a garden gate and we tiptoed to the house. Away to the east we could see tracer-bullets from anti-aircraft guns soar into the sky.