Wheels of Terror

by Sven Hassel

  ‘When you’ve found the proper animal, draw off a pint of juice from the milk-container. It is an apparatus under the stomach and looks like an electrical fitting. Pour the milk into the mashed potatoes but, for the sake of the holy Elizabeth, be careful you’ve not found a goat or a donkey. It would be a tragedy to pour the milk of a she-donkey on the lovely spuds because donkey’s milk is used for bathing in.’

  ‘Oh, hell,’ Tiny burst out, ‘it’s bad enough bathing in ordinary water, but in milk it must be horrible. I’d rather carry my dirt around until the funeral-fellow scrapes it off. It’s a lie. Porta. Where did you get that from?’

  ‘Read it, my lad. Once upon a time there was a tart named Poppaea Sabina. A beauty from Italy. She snitched that emperor-fellow Nero away from an old witch called Octavia. This Poppaea was fished out of a brothel by the emperor. Of course she got an aggrandisement complex and started washing in donkey’s milk. So, you see: no donkey’s milk in the spuds. They are not a sewer-cleaning station.

  ‘When the pure cow-milk has been poured on the spuds, stir round elegantly and well. Then take a pinch of salt and gently drop it in the spuds, but for heaven’s sake with feeling and for the sake of Saint Gertrude stir with a wooden spoon all the time. If you haven’t got one, use your bayonet. Remember to wipe off any blood or oil.

  ‘Then, break ten eggs and in your most charming manner stir them up with sugar. Pinch the sugar from the quartermaster, but for the sake of Holy Moses’ blue eyes, stir slowly, dear friends, slowly!’

  ‘Why slowly?’ Tiny wanted to know.

  ‘What the hell’s it got to do with you, you stupid flat-footed vulture? Just pour it slowly as I told you and stop interrupting. You’re always such a nosy parker. Boil the whole thing on a slow fire. Never use manure for fuel. It stinks!’

  Porta stopped and glared at Tiny who had put up his hand like a schoolboy.

  ‘What do you want now!’ Porta asked angrily.

  ‘I only humbly ask, Herr Super-Cook Porta, if I may use birch-wood soaked in petrol stolen from Hitler’s vehicle park?’

  ‘By God, you may! Any more questions? If so, ask now.’

  Tiny shook his head.

  We who lay near him saw that he wrote in large childish letters: ‘Birch-wood and stolen petrol may be used.’

  ‘The pork is browned over a glowing fire made of birch-wood,’ Porta added quickly and looked at Tiny whose tongue-tip was sticking out of the corner of his mouth in an effort of concentration over this difficult office work.

  ‘You cut the pork conscientiously into cubes and let the pieces slide into the mash. It must be done with loving care and feeling. The most important thing is to put one’s whole Catholic soul into the job.’

  Tiny roared:

  ‘Have you got to be a Catholic to make potatomash?’

  ‘Of course,’ answered Porta, ‘ever since the Thirty Years War it’s been an established fact.’

  ‘All right,’ said Tiny, ‘I’ll find a Catholic to make my mash under my direction.’

  ‘While singing a Russian autumn-song,’ went on Porta, ‘you cut up a few chives and with a winning smile you spread it over the mash. A pinch of paprika is also very good. And not to be despised is a half-full cartridge-case of pepper. But for the sake of the Holy Jordan don’t leave it on the fire too long. You see, lads, this is called “Burning Love”.’ He looked warningly at Tiny: ‘Don’t you dare say anything obscene about this holiness!

  ‘Before you sit down to eat this manna, rinse your spoon well in boiling water. It would be a truly deadly sin to eat the mash with a dirty spoon.

  ‘Remember to use the meat of a white pig for the cubes; at a pinch use a black one, but never a red one. That would be blasphemy.’

  He lifted his behind and put an effective full stop to the lecture. The quietness of the wood heightened the effect.

  A little later The Old Un throws away his cigarette-end and we trudge on.

  The lane has become a narrow path, winding between huge dense firs and spruces.

  We reach a sharp bend in the path. Suddenly we are faced with a Russian patrol. Like ourselves they are evidently surprised.

  For a few seconds we stand and stare, our cigarettes hanging from our mouths and our weapons over our shoulders.

  Not one of us thinks of firing. The surprise is too complete. Both parties turn and run, the Russians one way, we the other.

  Porta is far in front of us.

  Tiny shrieks with fright, his legs moving like a cyclist’s in the ‘Tour de France’. In his terror he has lost his machine-pistol.

  We would have run ourselves to death if Porta had not stumbled over a root and fallen down a fifteen yards steep incline. He screamed like a horse with wolves at his heels.

  After much trouble we got him up. A wild discussion started about how many Russians we had met.

  The Old Un and Stege maintained it was a company.

  ‘A company,’ screamed Porta. ‘You must have been hit in the eye by a wood pigeon. It was a battalion at least.’

  ‘At least,’ Tiny said. ‘It swarmed with Russians.’

  ‘Ma Foi, they stood there in hundreds between the trees rolling their eyes,’ said the Little Legionnaire. ‘You may stay on here, but for my part I’m off.’

  At company headquarters we cheekily reported we had met an enemy battalion. At once the report was relayed to the regimental HQ.

  Field-telephones were blocked. The division was alerted. Three storm-battalions were sent to the frontline. Firing orders went out to the 76th Artillery Regiment and the 109th Mortar Regiment. Two storm battalions of light artillery advanced.

  Shells and rockets rained down on the spot where we had reported meeting the enemy ‘battalion’.

  The Russians too were busily shooting. Our colleagues must also have reported a similar exaggerated number of their foes. Meanwhile they sat in their trenches as we sat in ours and admired the energetic work of the artillery.

  Porta said dreamily, while his eyes followed the screaming track of a large shell in the black night:

  ‘It makes me quite proud to think this festive firework display is all our own work.’

  17

  She was slim and lovely. Dark and passionate. The most experienced lover a woman-hungry man could desire.

  What I did not know about women she taught me.

  We loved, clung as if for the very last time. When it dawned on me that I might be punished for race-outrage, I laughed as I had not for a long time, and my friends laughed with me.

  Leave in Berlin

  I had to wait seven hours in Lemberg. The waiting room was cold. Invisible frost sneaked in under my great-coat. It rained and blew from the east.

  Russia gave me a cool welcome after four day’s leave – four lovely, unforgettable days. All leave has only one drawback. Half of it is ruined by the thought of the return to the front.

  You must remember what you did. Not forget anything. They are expecting to hear everything, those out there who drew blanks when the only leave-pass in the company was distributed. Von Barring had placed two hundred paper-slips in a steel-helment, but one hundred and ninety-nine were blanks. Number 38 was a pass and I drew thirty-eight. They congratulated me with a lump in their throats. The disappointment and envy were hard to hide. I was about to give The Old Un my pass, when he said as if he had read my thoughts:

  ‘Good thing it wasn’t me. Then I’d have had to forget all over again how nice it is at home.’

  He did not mean it and he knew I knew. He wanted the pass very much.

  Tiny was honest and unostentatious. He threatened me first with a beating if I did not give him my pass. When the others took my part he offered to pay for it. Porta overbid him; but I would not sell. They knew I wouldn’t. But it was worth trying if the man with the pass had gone mad with joy about winning the jack-pot.

  Porta, Pluto and Tiny tried to make me drunk, still hoping to buy the pass, and, just before I stepped into the truck to tak
e me to the station, Tiny tried again. He offered me his next ten leave-passes if he could have mine now.

  I shook my head and drove off as they sang:

  ‘In der Heimat, in der Heimat,

  da gibt’s ein Wiedersehen!’

  The journey to Berlin went quickly. I stepped into a hospital-train at Jitomir and at Brest-Litovsk got a straight-through leave-train. In this way I gained an extra day.

  It was dark when the train for Minsk steamed into the station. All the carriages were filled with soldiers. They lay everywhere. On the luggage-racks, under the seats, along the corridors, in the toilet.

  At daybreak we passed by the border-town of Brest-Litovsk and rolled towards Minsk. Late in the evening we arrived.

  I was so tired and sore I could hardly walk. In Minsk I had to report to the MTO. My papers, which I had got from Berlin, stated: Berlin-Minsk over Lemberg-Brest-Litovsk.

  In the station office I was received by a sergeant. He consulted some lists, stamped my papers and said:

  ‘You are going to Vjasma. There you must report to the MTO and get a new route, but hurry up – your train is on track 47.’

  I arrived at Vjasma the following day about three in the afternoon. Hungry, tired and wet through, I fumbled my way to the MTO office.

  An NCO disappeared into an office with my papers. A little later he re-appeared with a stout, elderly captain. Placing himself in front of me with splayed legs and gloved hands on hips, he glared nastily at me and asked:

  ‘What the hell are you thinking of?’ He croaked like a hoarse raven. ‘What are you doing here, travelling half round Russia. You’ve had leave and now you’re playing truant?’

  I stood stiffly to attention and stared blindly into the room. A stick in the stove crackled. It smelt of fire-wood, birch-logs.

  ‘Is he dumb?’ coughed the captain. ‘Answer, spit it out!’

  (‘Choose the right answer Sven. What you say now will decide your fate. How that captain reeks of sweat and grease.’)

  ‘Yes, Herr Hauptmann?’

  ‘And what the hell does that mean?’ he raged.

  The flames in the fire played warmly. It looked cosy and lovely. (Your leave is over, quite finished.)

  ‘I humbly report, Herr Hauptmann that I travel round half Russia.’

  ‘Ah, you rat, you confess. Wise of you. Take that chair, jump ten times at the double and then another ten. Quickly now, front animal!’

  Stiffly I bent my knees, gripped the heavy office chair and held it with straight arms while jumping with bent legs.

  The captain grinned contentedly.

  ‘Faster, faster!’ He beat the rhythm with a ruler.

  ‘One, two, one, two, big jump – one, two, big jump!’

  He was not content with two times ten, but three times ten satisfied him.

  With the station staff loudly applauding him, he ordered:

  ‘Other way round, now, lazy animal!’

  A respirator container hit me hard on the neck as I raced across the desk and crawled underneath a row of chairs placed to resemble a tunnel.

  It blackened in front of my eyes. The blood pumped. Far away I heard the raven’s croak:

  ‘Faster, faster, idle dog!’

  Who shouted ‘Room to attention?’ I stopped automatically and stretched my dirty fingers along my trouser seams and stared stiffly at a photograph of Hitler. Did the picture move? Or did I?

  My head ached. Red spots danced in front of my eyes. The picture came and went.

  A razor-sharp voice cut the silence:

  ‘What’s going on here?’

  Silence. The fire was full of joy. It smoked birch-sticks. It smelt beautifully of forest and freedom (birch-trees are friends. Friends are birch-trees. Oh, nonsense!).

  ‘Now then, are all you gentlemen struck dumb?’ It was the cold voice again.

  ‘Herr Oberst, Hauptmann von Weissgeibel, detailed for station duty humbly reports the punishment of a gunner who has been dawdling behind the lines. The punishment is completed.’

  ‘Where’s the gunner, Herr Hauptmann von Weissgeibel?’

  The voice was rough but polite.

  The captain, small, fat, glistening with grease, pointed a sausage-finger at me. A cold, smooth face beneath a white fur hat stared at me.

  ‘Easy!’

  Automatically my left foot slid out to the side. The hands relaxed a little. Every muscle is ready to spring to attention again if the small mouth commands. A colonel’s mouth. A colonel with many crosses, white, black, red and blue.

  ‘Gunner? Come here, Herr Hauptmann. Where are you?’

  The captain rolled across, glared at me and shifted his short legs in the far too large boots.

  ‘I humbly report, Herr Oberst, this man is a tank-gunner.’

  ‘You think so?’ The colonel smiled thinly and dangerously. ‘Forgotten the German army’s rank badges?’

  A long finger encased in black leather touched my belt buckle.

  ‘Report, soldier!’

  ‘Report, Herr Oberst, Fahnenjunker Hassel, 27th (Penal) Panzer Regiment, No. 5 Company, travelling from Berlin to Minsk via Brest-Litovsk after completion of leave. From Berlin MTO office orders of new route in Minsk. Ordered from Minsk to Vjasma. Humbly report arrival at 15.07 hours with train No. 874.’

  ‘Easy, Fahnenjunker!’

  A hand is stretched imperiously out.

  ‘Your papers.’

  Boots bang across the wooden floor. Heels click together. Voices report humbly. The colonel says nothing. He reads the papers with the green and red markings, thumbs the tickets, screws in a monocle, studies the rubber-stamps. The monocle disappears in the pocket between the third and fourth button. He considers the situation.

  Like arrows the orders shoot out. The captain trembles. The NCOs shake. The clerks at attention beside their desks swallow hard.

  Only the front-line soldier wishing his pals were here does not listen very carefully to what happens. The amusements have been interrupted by a fighting officer on his way to front-line headquarters. A small colonel with only one arm and a merciless, smooth and handsome face. A colonel who is dead inside. A colonel who hates everybody because everybody hates him.

  A clerk takes his seat behind his typewriter. Springily the colonel walks up and down before him dictating, the empty sleeve hanging loosely.

  He looks at the typewritten sheet. With two fingers he hands it to the captain.

  ‘Sign it; it is to your liking, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Herr Oberst,’ stammers the Captain nearly weeping.

  The colonel nods.

  ‘Read it out, Herr Hauptmann!’

  It is a short and concise military application for a transfer. When the captain reads the thanks to Colonel von Tolksdorf for his concern in so quickly sending off Captain von Weissgeibel and his station staff’s transfer request to an infantry battalion, his eyes bulge.

  Indifferently, quite impersonally, the colonel puts away the three folded applications in his pocket. The station staff’s fate is sealed.

  A few minutes later I am in a train on my way to Mogilev.

  In front of the engine we push an open truck filled with sand. A precaution against mines. How it works only God and the German railway-security service know.

  The ice-roses on the window change into faces. The faces come and go. Berlin – House Vaterland – Zigeunerkeller – and all the other places where we had been, she and I.

  She approached me as I stood on the Schlesischer Station in Berlin.

  ‘On leave?’ she asked. Her eyes measured me, coolly and firmly.

  Deep grey eyes, heavily framed by mascara, with a little grey-blue. She was the woman, the woman every soldier on leave must have. It was my duty to get a woman.

  In my imagination. I undressed her. Maybe she had got a girdle like that girl in Porta’s picture, a red one. I nearly trembled. Perhaps black underwear?

  ‘Hell and death,’ Porta would have shouted if he had been me.r />
  ‘Yes, I’m on a four days’ leave.’

  ‘Come with me, and I’ll show you Berlin. Our lovely Berlin of the eternal war. Party member?’

  Without answering I showed her my armlet: special section framed by two death’s skulls.

  She laughed quietly and we walked quickly down the street. My footsteps drowned the elegant tapping of her high heels.

  Kurfürstendamm – Lovely! Friedrichstrasse – dark, but lovely – Fasanenstrasse – a wonder. Leipziger Platz and last but not least Unter den Linden. Lovely, eternally young Berlin!

  Her face was calm, beautiful, a little hard but picturesque. Her chin was lifted high and haughtily above her elegant fur collar.

  Her long fingers stroked my hand.

  ‘Where to, my kind sir?’

  Stammering a little I got out that I did not know. Where does a front-line soldier take an elegant lady? A front-line soldier with pistol, gas-mask, steel-helmet and heavy crashing infantry-boots.

  She threw me an inquiring glance. I suspected a smile in the cold eyes.

  ‘An officer doesn’t know where to take a lady?’

  ‘Sorry, I’m no officer, only a Fahnenjunker.’

  She laughed a little.

  ‘Not an officer? Much happens in this war. Officers become privates, privates officers. Officers become dead bodies dangling from ropes. We are a great and well-disciplined nation which does as ordered.’

  What was the matter with her?

  The train gave a violent jerk. It nearly stopped. A long whistle and it was on its way again. Rat-tat-tat-tat. The ice-roses again became a picture-book of a leave which now seemed far, far away …

  Zigeunerkeller with soft music. Sighing violins which wept for the gypsy prairies. She knew many people. A nod, an understanding smile, a whispered conversation and many bottles with scarce labels appeared on our table …

  Her girdle was red, her underwear sheer. She was insatiable in her erotic wildness. She collected men. She was a drunkard, an erotic drunkard. Men were her drug.