by Sven Hassel
‘Which one?’ asks Porta interestedly. ‘The one with the yellow badges or the white one?’1
‘’Is riverence with the white pipin,’ answers Tiny, rolling his eyes skywards in the manner appropriate when referring to holy things or to persons belonging to the holy hierarchy.
‘I hope for your own sake that you can prove your accusation against this virtuous officer, Obergefreiter Creutzfeldt,’ threateningly from Porta.
‘Goddamn it, I can!’ shouts Tiny. ‘That bleedin’ bible-puncher was pissed as a coot yesterday, an’ ’ad ’is ’and up the clouts of that ‘umpty-backed old ‘ore of a babuschka2 down at the bleedin’ ferry. An’ ’e’d got a look on ’is face like a Jew with ‘is ’and fulla bleedin’ gold ducats. ’Ard luck it was gettin’ dark so I ’eard more’n I seen, but ’e was soakin’ the piss up like a sponge.’
‘How d’you know that, if it was dark?’ asks Barcelona suspiciously.
‘I got all ’is empties over where I was lyin’ listenin’,’ answers Tiny injuredly. ‘They went orf singin’. ’Im tellin’ ol’ ’umpty as ’ow she was ’is only true love an’ ’ad bin sent from Garwd. It’s true, by Christ, as ’e was sent to the front for ’ittin’ the piss. Nobody’d ’ave nothin’ to do with ’im in Leipzig because of it. When ’e was preachin’ ’is last sermon in the garrison church there, ’e fell outa the bleedin’ pulpit into the Commandin’ General’s bleedin’ lap as ’e was explainin’ the parable o’ the man sick o’ the bleedin’ palsy. ’E’d just got to the well-known words: “Pluck up thy pailliase and piss orf promptly!” when over the railin’ ’egoes an’ picks up ’is ticket to points east!’
‘It reminds me,’ Porta takes up the thread, ‘of the time I was chief clerk to Padre Kurt Winfuss of the 7th ID at München. He was what you’d call a happy maniac with his nose into everything he should’ve kept it out of. One evening he decided to make a check on the prevailing rumours of drunkenness and immorality in München and we started at the Hofbräuhaus where the good citizens and the villains meet over sauerkraut and beer and where you can slip your dicky into a few fur coat without too much difficulty. We got there about eight o’clock, when the crowd waiting to get in is always at its worst. You couldn’t hardly’ve got a postage stamp in edgewise. Everybody and his brothers and sisters were there!
‘“We’re all right now, boys,” shouted a well-oiled infantryman, “there’s a sky-pilot in the party so neither the wallop nor the crumpet’ll go off tonight.”
‘“They’ve come to set up an altar to the god of Germany right here in the Hofbräuhaus!”
‘And all these rude soldiers began to sing:
Onward Christian soldiers
Onward as to war
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before . . . . .
‘If I could’ve got through the mob I’d have sent that pig of an infantryman for a burton. My padre took it pretty hard.
‘They were at him all the time we were in that queue. I was promising bashings right, left and centre but they couldn’t’ve cared less. Booze and bints was all they’d got in their heads.
‘We got inside eventually, the soul-saver and me, in the posh part of course, up on the first floor. There we planned our campaign against drink and immortality. We stood in a corner so’s not to get pissed on by the customers as they came swaying in.
‘“Porta,” said the padre, “I trust you. You are a young, intelligent man in whom I find much that is good and laudable. You are hard-working, modest and have attained an understanding of the work of the Church in the military field. You have never made a muddle of things as did my earlier assistants. I have never seen you smoke or drink. During the period in which you have filled the position of chief clerk with me not a drop of altar wine has ever ‘evaporated’ and we have never ‘run short’. You do not gamble and where women are concerned your papers are unsmirched. As far as I am aware you have no debts, and you are a good comrade, often helping those who are in need. The pay sergeant tells me that you have never asked for an advance of pay. I have been happy to find that you are quick and efficient at paperwork and your handwriting is as good as an academician’s. It has been of satisfaction to me, furthermore, to note that you are economical with paper and turn envelopes so that they may be used twice. You allow nothing to go to waste. You are the first to arrive at our field services, straighten and snuff the candles and call to order those who spit on the floor during our holy celebrations. You type almost without error on any make of machine. No sacristan could be an improvement on you. And at High Mass you never go wrong in the singing. My last assistant always got Our Father and the Creed mixed up. Your uniform is perfect, your boots well-polished, your neck-cloth clean and white. I will, therefore, now confide to you a great and dangerous task, but do not allow yourself to fall into temptation! The Devil is everywhere in this the Sodom of Bayern. You will now go down into the common hall and observe what is happening. Here is 100 marks for your expenses since I do not wish you to use your own money. I will go up to the Ludwigssaal which the officers use. Tomorrow we will write a report on what we have seen and heard. We meet at nine at the Field Chapel.”
‘“Jawohl, Herr Padre!” I roared in a voice which lifted three drunks, coughing and farting in chorus, up in their chairs. We didn’t take any notice of this, the padre being of the opinion that farting was a human reaction condoned by circumstances and surroundings.
‘I went down to Pay-Sergeant Balko who sat waiting for me in the middle of a lively party. I let him order a 4-litre3 tankard for me before asking him for my outstandings – 700 marks.’
‘Were you an eighty percent man even then?’ Barcelona Blom asks with interest.
‘I was that long before I got to the Divisional Chapel at München and took over the souls of the infantry there.’
‘Didn’t your religious superior know about this?’ asks the Old Man with a glint of humour in his eye.
‘No,’ grins Porta. ‘He only knew what I felt he ought to know – about me.
‘But it was Balko’s night, so he started immediately with a new loan of 700 marks. I did pretty good business whilst I was with the Army Soul Service.
‘We drove back to barracks in horse-drawn carriages and by the time we got home the horses were as drunk as we were. They even whinnied in tune with the choruses of “Oh du schöner Westerwoll”. They slept it off down behind the guard-house. They wouldn’t come up with us.
‘But my holy boss had fallen in with bad company. A party of officers had fixed him with raspberry juice which they’d “blessed” in advance, so that he was well cut when we met in the Field Chapel around midday. He promised me the hand of a sister I knew he hadn’t got, and then he tried to get me into bed with him in the belief that I was Louise from Zell-am-See. Later on he confided to me a great deal about the sex life of John the Baptist. Finally he began to cry and asked me to beat him for he had sinned. I fulfilled his wish but unfortunately hit him too hard and he wound up in the garrison infirmary and I wound up on a charge. He accused me of having shit in his dress boots but he’d done that himself. The officers at the Hofbräuhaus had given him laxative pills instead of aspirins when he’d become dizzy during the party.
‘On CO’s orders I was sentenced to 21 days for having struck the padre. Our Oberst wouldn’t hear of any heavier punishment. As I was marched away between two guards with loaded rifles and fixed bayonets there stood the padre in his field uniform, waiting for me outside the garrison gaol.
‘“You are a lying scoundrel,” he raged at me with an expression on his face like that of a martyr being torn with glowing pincers outside the gates of Rome. “God and I will have nothing further to do with you,” he stated, and pointed towards the clouds where he thought God lived. “It will go badly for you if you continue on the broad path leading to damnation!”
‘After a while he became more human and gave me two packets of Juno. He was rash enough to promise that Jesus would forgive me if I soon retu
rned to the Lord’s little vineyard. He followed me right into the guard-house and ordered the glass-house Warrant Officer to treat me well and without brutality. I must be allowed to keep the cigarettes. I was a God-fearing man who had been tempted into evil ways by low persons. Next day he sent his batman with a basket of extra rations. In amongst all the sausages there was a Field Bible bound in green, the colour of hope. On the fly-leaf he had written: Soldier, Turn towards God! Do not forget to pray! And the star of Hope will illumine your dark cell. We had light enough from the carbide-lamp so Jesus was saved the trouble.
‘The Glass-house WO moved into my cell as soon as he discovered this horn of plenty.
‘My cell-mate, a transport soldier, who looked for all the world like an export-quality pig, could imitate all kinds of animals. He had been on the stage before he became a soldier and had been a favourite in the country districts where the rustics think it funny to hear a city dweller grunt like a pig or cackle like an old hen.
‘At two in the morning there were complaints about the noise from the gaol-house. We answered them with:
Mein Hut, der hat drei Ecken,
drei Ecken hat mein Hut,
und hat er nicht drei Ecken,
dann ist er nicht mein Hut.
‘Then we moved on to the song of the 10th British Hussars “Moses in Egypt”. The transport soldier did the trumpet. The Warrant Officer imitated horses’ hooves with two mess-tins and I did the kettle-drums. What a row! It sounded as if a whole regiment of cavalry was drilling in the gaolhouse. But we were having a wonderful time. We got schnapps and beer sent over from the café “Friends of Gaiety”. The cell we were using was really the death cell. There were a lot of interesting things written on the walls. One of the newest was a crisp military message:
Calling all bastards!
Feldwebel Paul Schlüntz.
Born on the Führer’s birthday, 20th April.
Leaving 3rd May (1938).
Unfortunately he will not be accompanying me.
‘On the other side of the wall was written in very large letters:
SS-man Boris Brause, shot by
Swamp Germans 7.4.38.
“They said I would go to Valhalla,
But I couldn’t accept their views.
So I’ve booked myself a ticket
For the Paradise of the Jews,
And Oberstürmbahnführer Ritter,
Can shove that up his shitter!
Every Christmas!
Heil Me!
‘Under the window a short sharp missive:
I go at 4 o’clock tomorrow.
With a German Weidersehen.
Helmut Wenzel, SS-Sturmmann.
P.S. You can all kiss my arse!
‘For emphasis he had drawn two swastikas one on each side of his name. A political philosopher amongst the inmates of Cell 9 had written on the ceiling:
What is Marxism in reality?
It is National Socialism’s non-aryan
grandmother!
‘Now we three were sitting here, in this pleasant cell with its sad memories, enjoying ourselves so much that the prisoners on the other three floors sent a collective complaint to the Garrison Commander about the noise we were making after lights-out. The party widened and became even noisier with the arrival of Hauptfeldwebel Putkammer. He was on his way home from a wedding after being thrown out for having three times attempted to rape the bride: once during the meat course; once after the dessert; and the third time in the bath-tub. He rang the bell at the door and demanded entrance in a loud, commanding voice. Nobody heard him, and he knocked again with the point of his sabre. He was in full dress uniform.
‘Still getting no answer he threw a stone through a window and fired three shots into the air, shooting down the official blue light over the entrance door.
‘We named him prisoner-of-honour in Cell 9.
Deutschland, Deutschland, ohne alles,
ohne Butter, ohne Speck,
und das bisschen Marmelade
frisst uns die Verwaltung weg.4
‘Our song echoed back from the stables on the other side of the square where the dragoons slept with their horses.
‘“Brothers, we meet at last on the scaffold,” shouted the Haupfeldwebel, beating his breast.
‘Dulce est decipere in loco.5 Later on he got rough and claimed we were a pack of rogues who were leading him astray.
‘On the fourth day the padre visited us and to please our benefactor we agreed to be confirmed. It was such a solemn affair that the transport man got an attack of sobbing and grunted like a pig. The service was conducted in the Garrison Church. The CO was furious when he heard about it and gave us eight days extra for making fun of the Church. The padre was posted to a far distant and very grim border town. He excommunicated us just before he climbed onto the train.
‘“By God, I’ll confirm you,” our Oberst promised us on CO’s orders. “More than you’ll fancy too. I’ll cram your prayer-books down your gullets and haul ’em up and down again on a piece of barbed wire, you wicked men!”’
In closely-packed sections the khaki figures of Russian infantry swarm across the steppe. Thousands upon thousands of them. A wave of humanity sweeping forward through the waving grass. The field-grey German infantry looks insignificant in comparison with these enormous brown hordes. They press forward with fixed bayonets taking no apparent notice of our concentrated machine-gun fire.
Our infantry are retreating in panic from their positions. Officers try to stop them. German bullets kill German soldiers, but nothing can stop the fear-maddened flight from the trenches. Officers who stand their ground are trodden into the earth.
It’s no longer the Fatherland we are fighting for but our very lives. Red flares shoot up signalling to the artillery. A barrage of unbelievable power hammers down in front of the Russian regiments. Hundreds of machine-guns stammer tracer into the advancing hordes.
Our company takes cover behind a tile-works. Shells sweep the steppe like fiery brooms.
We move our tanks slowly forward up onto a height from which we can observe clearly many miles to the west. In the distance Russian troops can be seen marching in close column.
In a wide V-formation the tanks move forward, without infantry support, crunching through walls and ruins. Our machine-guns spit continuously. A horse-drawn battery runs away. The guns swing crazily behind the horses, until these fall under the rain of shells and guns and limbers go flying over them to land in a tangled heap of metal, wood and human and animal flesh. The ventilators hum softly, sucking acrid powder fumes out of our combat cabin. Sack after sack of casings is emptied out of the hatches. The tank shakes and shivers from the continuous shocks of firing. We are in the grip of a kind of hunting fever; laugh when we see we’ve made a hit. We have no thought of the fact that we are killing human beings. Time stands still. The heat is unbearable. It’s an unusually hot autumn day. Have we been fighting one hour or five? We’ve no idea.
Infantry fire drums deafeningly against the vehicle’s steel sides. Several times tank-killers try to get alongside us with magnetic bombs but we see them and our flame throwers burn them to cinders.
‘Enemy tank attack!’ comes the alarm from the loudspeaker. Three or four hundred T-34s come crawling up over the hills away towards the horizon. With a terrific crash the regiment opens fire with all guns. The earth flames. The leading T-34s go up in an inferno of fire and smoke but very shortly terribly many P-IVs are exploding into whitely glowing bonfires. Black oily smoke climbs up towards the clear blue of the heavens.
Shell after shell leaves the long barrels of the guns to bore whiningly into the mass of enemy tanks.
More and more tanks on both sides explode and break apart.
Only a few crews get away. Most of them die in the flames. This is the lot of the tank soldier.
Suddenly the enemy tanks turn and disappear at full speed over the hills. For a moment we believe they are running from us but we soon see wha
t they are after. They swing round again and roll without stopping through out thinly-manned infantry positions a few miles to the north. They are using German tactics. Punch through where resistance is least. To put it short: Blitzkrieg!
Oberst Hinka sees the danger at once and gives the order for immediate withdrawal.
‘Panzer withdraw. March, march!’
The boys in the trenches are left to their fate. The tanks leave as fast as their tracks can take them.
We stop for a moment to pick up wounded. They are piled up on our rear shielding in layers, more like sacks of flour than human beings. There is no time to be careful. They can thank their stars they are being moved at all.
They lie all over us. On the front shields, on the turret, on the runway, where they need almost superhuman strength to hold on as the tank bounces and slithers over the uneven terrain.
‘Comrades, take us with you!’ they scream to us, those whom we must leave behind. ‘Don’t leave us!’ Pleadingly they stretch their hands out towards us.
We look the other way and they disappear in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes as Porta puts on speed. There is no room for more on the vehicle and if we get into combat those who are aboard will be sitting ducks for the enemy MGs.
At a terrific pace we crash through brush and ditches. The 25 ton P-IV sways like a ship in a rough sea.
Without slackening speed we smash straight through an artillery park. We can just make out the dust of the regiment far in front of us. It is a race with death. If the pincers close on us before we get through they’ll be able to shoot us down like clay pigeons.
‘Faster, faster!’ comes continually from the loud-speaker. We stop to take Barcelona’s damaged tank on tow. The wire breaks with a whining howl and the back lash chops the head off one of ‘our’ wounded. A Feldwebel. Sweating and cursing we make a new wire fast. With Barcelona’s P-III on tow behind us we roll through a burning village at considerably reduced speed.