Court Martial

by Sven Hassel

  ‘Bamberg! I know that place,’ shouts Tiny, happily. We used to blow up trains an’ lorries with some bleedin’ stuff they called TNT. There was a couple o’ them ammo bleeders went up there too. One on ’em was in ’is bed at the time. It turned out as ’ow some wicked bleeder of a Gefreiter ’ad shoved a load under ’is bed an’ sent ’im to kingdom come that road.’

  ‘Squad leaders on me,’ orders the Old Man, brusquely.

  ‘Peace in our time,’ says Tiny, laconically, fishing a huge cigar out of his gas-mask container. He always smokes cigars. He considers them high-class.

  Our squad has the job of looking after the bridge to the north of Pulosero. Trees have been planted to camouflage it and the work has been so well done that we are only a few yards away when we discover it. It is an enormous railway bridge. The steel supports stretch right into Lapland. We have been detailed to blow up bridges and dams all the way down to Pitkul. A stretch of around 150 kilometres. This should put the railways and the most important road communications out of commission for a considerable time.

  ‘Wonder if we’ll get leave after this, so we can get ’ome an’ ’aye a gander at the Reeperbahn?’ dreams Tiny, his eyes swimming at the thought.

  ‘They’ll piss on us and send us on a new outing, without even giving us the chance of a sauna,’ reckons Barcelona, pessimistically.

  ‘Should’ve been a Finn,’ says Porta, decisively. ‘They get treated like people’

  ‘Don’t look on the dark side,’ shouts Gregor, optimistically. ‘They’re sure to pin a few medals on us for this.’ He loves fruit salad, just as Heide does.

  ‘Par Allah, all I want is a Heimatschuss3 and a good sleep in a clean hospital bed,’ sighs the Legionnaire, tiredly.

  ‘Be satisfied if you get home alive,’ advises the Old Man, drily.

  ‘Can it,’ shouts Tiny. ‘Let’s get these bridges blown away, so’s we can get a bit o’ fun out of this bleedin’ war.’

  The explosives are shared between us. Our special packs are full. We say good-bye to one another before we disperse silently into the white desert and are swallowed up by the forest on the far side of the frozen lakes.

  Our squad goes round the river bed and continues along the road leading north. We are challenged several times by drivers and guards who, because of our uniforms, take us to be security troops.

  Tiny brings us close to catastrophe when he shouts ‘Arschloch’4 after a Russian truck, which splashes snow over us.

  At the road bridge south of Lapland we say good-bye to the Legionnaire’s party.

  ‘Do it proper, now,’ Tiny exhorts them, paternally. ‘Make it go off in one long bang, my sons, or else nothing’ll ’appen to the bleedin’ bridge. If I was you I’d’ve asked me to do it for you!’

  ‘Merde, you are not the only one who knows how to blow things up,’ answers the Legionnaire, and disappears at the head of his party.

  ‘Bridges are ’bout the ’ardest thing there is to blow up,’ Tiny tells Porta. ‘If the charges ain’t right even a million o’ them Lewis bombs won’t do it.’

  ‘Watch out you don’t make a balls of it some day,’ says Gregor, grumpily. He has a neurotic aversion to anything that can be called an explosive.

  ‘It’ll never ’appen,’ boasts Tiny. ‘When a bridge ‘as a run-in with me, it’s the bridge what falls on its bleedin’ arse!’

  A few hours later we arrive at our bridge. Tiny goes round patting its huge steel girders appreciatively.

  ‘Lord love us, ain’t she a lovely bridge?’ he grins.

  A goods train a kilometre long thunders across it. A fur-clad soldier waves to us from a brake-van.

  ‘That boy doesn’t know how lucky he was catching that train,’ says Porta, thoughtfully, ‘the next one’ll get blown all to hell!’

  The bridge is tougher than we’d expected. It is unbelievably difficult to clamber up on the ice-slick concrete, and there is nothing to get a grip on. Only ice, and rough concrete that rips our hands to shreds.

  Tiny raves like a madman each time he slips down and slides comically along on the ice of the river.

  ‘Who the hell’s the idiot, who didn’t think we’d need climbing irons?’ Porta curses viciously, as he slips back down for the twentieth time.

  When we finally get up there, after several hours of exertion, we run into a new obstacle which comes close to discouraging us.

  We sit down silently and stare at the coils of wicked-looking barbed wire with which the immediate under-pinning of the bridge is thickly entangled to prevent access to its most vulnerable parts.

  ‘Jesus, Jewish son of the German God,’ exclaims Porta, ‘all we need now is for the lot of us to be booby-trapped, and them and our Lewis bombs’ll get us out of uniform quicker than Hitler got us in!’

  ‘Piss’n porridge, there wouldn’t be a button left,’ mutters Tiny, peering under the barbed wire.

  ‘Oh well, with the Blessed Virgin and good German knowhow on our side we’ll probably get by,’ says Porta, philosophically.

  ‘If we should ’appen unexpectedly to touch something or other off,’ says Tiny, ‘it’ll be us as gets blown up for a change!’

  ‘Some nerve,’ sniffs Gregor.

  ‘Hold on to your hats!’ warns Porta, and begins to cut the wire.

  The first rusty strands whip past our faces. Porta tires quickly, and hands the wire-cutters over to Tiny who goes at the wire like a bulldozer.

  ‘Hell, watch out you fool,’ warns Gregor, terrified. ‘You cut just one wrong wire and we’ve all had it!’

  ‘’Ere’s a fuckin’ mine,’ shouts Tiny in amazement, bending forward. Carefully he pulls the T-mine towards him. ‘Wires are ’ere,’ he goes on, pointing to a row of grey cables running under the mine.

  ‘Careful, careful,’ shouts Porta, nervously. ‘Leave it where it is and screw off the cap! We’ll climb down while you’re fixing her. No need for the lot of us to get killed!’

  Unworriedly Tiny starts disarming the monster, screws out the detonator and leaves the mine dangling down amongst us.

  We’re so frightened we hardly dare breathe.

  ‘Be more careful for Christ’s sake,’ Porta shouts up to Tiny, who has found three more mines, of a type we’ve not met before,

  ‘Look at these!’ shouts Tiny absorbedly. ‘There’s a little bleeder ‘ere you can bend!’

  ‘Christ man, don’t bend that!’ howls Porta, fearfully. ‘It’s the sodding detonator!’

  ‘What you want me to do with it, then?’ asks Tiny, blankly. ‘Kick it in the soddin’ teeth?’

  ‘Leave it be, for heaven’s sake,’ moans Gregor, wild with fear.

  ‘I can’t go on cuttin’ wire, without it goin’ up,’ explains Tiny, poking cautiously at the nearest mine.

  ‘Isn’t there a red flap on the one side?’ asks Porta, getting well down behind a heavy concrete column.

  A goods train rattles over the bridge. All talk stops as it passes over us.

  ‘Blimey, it’s rainin’,’ says Tiny, wonderingly, when the train has passed.

  ‘One of the neighbour’s boys has pissed on you,’ shouts Porta, convulsed with laughter.

  ‘I’ll strangle the bleeder,’ roars Tiny, shaking his fist at the train roaring in the distance. ‘Nobody gets away with pissin’ on me! Stink like a backyard shit’ouse, I do! Commie shit all over me lousy ’ead too!’

  ‘You can have a wash when we get back,’ grins Porta. ‘Better to get hit with shit than shrapnel! See if there’s a red button on one side of those rotten mines!’

  ‘There’s a red flap,’ states Tiny, ‘an’ a big ’un too. There’s the ’ole ’istory of the socialist revolution written ‘longside of it.’

  ‘What’s it say?’ asks Porta.

  ‘They ain’t started payin’ me Russian translator money yet,’ says Tiny, insolently.

  ‘Now, let’s go slow on this one and see what happens,’ says Porta. ‘Push in the red flap and hold on to that lever at the same
time. If the lever shifts, then up she goes!’

  ‘Very interestin’,’ bawls Tiny, his voice echoing under the bridge.

  ‘Mad as a bloody March Hare,’ groans Gregor, resignedly, pushing himself deeper into the snow.

  ‘No need to take cover,’ comforts Porta. ‘We’re relatively safe down here. Mines always blow upwards!’

  ‘What about Tiny?’ I ask, innocently.

  ‘He will have died for the honour of Greater Germany, and his name will be engraved on the heroes monument outside the barracks,’ intones Porta, fatalistically.

  ‘I’ve pushed the flap in,’ shouts Tiny, unconcernedly. ‘Now what?’

  ‘Bend it inwards, but slowly! If it begins to fizzle, jump down to us, but move, unless you’re tired of living!’

  ‘She’s dead as a nit,’ replies Tiny. ‘But I reckon she’s maybe just lyin’ doggo!’

  ‘Now open the lid,’ explains Porta. ‘Put your hand into the slot, feel round for a little square gadget and pull it downwards.’

  ‘Got it,’ says Tiny, in a satisfied tone, hurling the mine over the edge. ‘I’ll fix the rest quick as a randy Turk shaggin’ a bunch o’ bints!’

  ‘Careful,’ warns Porta, ‘careful and hold on tight to that lever! If you let go of it, you’ve met your last mine!’

  ‘Wait a bit ’fore you shit yourself,’ boasts Tiny, selfassuredly. ‘I ain’t never lost one yet. It’s all right to come up again now!’

  ‘Look where you’re cutting now,’ says Porta. ‘A cable might have got entangled in that wire, and if you cut it well get our arses blown off!’

  We lay the disarmed detonators under the great steel cylinders. Porta feels they cannot do much damage there.

  We work our way slowly through the wire in to the supporting girders, taking care not to touch off a mine.

  I am sweating with fear despite the arctic cold. I am just as afraid of the mines as Gregor is. During the many hours we have been working under the bridge, countless trains have passed above us. We hold our groundsheets over our heads in order to avoid an experience like Tiny’s.

  When we are finally finished with the barbed wire the serious job of getting the explosives up from the sledges begins. I get the worst job, carrying the Lewis bombs from the sledges to the foot of the various piers. After a couple of hours of this I am so worn out that I drop on the snow and refuse to continue without a rest. My arms and back are aching so much that I’m ready to scream at the slightest movement.

  Porta and Tiny are engaged in a bitter argument as to which of them is to place the explosive.

  ‘If we take a pier each, it’ll go quicker,’ says Tiny, who is mad keen to get at the Lewis bombs.

  ‘You do as I tell you, you walking shit-house, you,’ shouts Porta, throwing a spanner at him.

  ‘You ain’t no more’n me,’ rages Tiny. ‘An Obergefreiter’s an Obergefreiter and neither God nor the Devil can tell one of them what to do. Where’d we be, I’m askin’, if any bleedin’ Obergefreiter was to get up an’ go round orderin’ other Obergefreiters about?’

  ‘I attended the Army School of Ammunition and Explosives at Bamberg,’ crows Porta, ‘while you were pissing about at the Army Catering School learning how to ruin sauerkraut! Even you ought to be able to accept that on this job, I’m the boss!’

  ‘Strike me blind,’ answers Tiny, resentfully. ‘As if I ’adn’t been at Bamberg. They even give me a medal for exceptional diligence, costin’ the lives of two instructors!’

  After a great deal more quarrelling and argument they agree to share the work between them. Tiny finds a clever way to fix the bombs to the piers so that they do not slide down. But the most important thing of all is still to get them wired up properly.

  It is far into the night before we get one side of the bridge finished, and then Porta demands his dinner.

  ‘The rot’s spread from your arsehole to your brain,’ cries Gregor, excitedly: ‘It’s suicide to sit down to dinner right here, under Ivan’s own bridge!’

  ‘’E’ll ’ave a stroke if ’e finds us ’ere, won’t ’e?’ grins Tiny, unconcernedly.

  But Porta still stubbornly demands his dinner, which he has a right to according to HDV5.

  While we sit eating, NKVD security guards cross above our heads. They are so close to us that we could touch them by merely putting our hands up between the planks of the bridge.

  It’s a break-neck trip over to the other side of the bridge and several times we are close to falling. When we get there, there is more of that damnable barbed-wire to cut through.

  We throw the explosives from base to base of each pier. The primary charges are the most dangerous. A knock can set them off. If we dropped one the security guards would be all over us in a minute, and we have no illusions about the treatment we’d get from them.

  ‘You’re pretty good at it,’ Porta praises Tiny, patting him on the shoulder.

  ‘Long as we keep the wolf from the door,’ Tiny grins with pleasure, ringing the nearest concrete base with Lewis bombs.

  He swings under the bridge, with the agility of a monkey, to make the wiring fast.

  It makes me dizzy just to look at him.

  ‘How the hell’s he do it?’ mumbles Gregor, nervously.

  ‘For the love of the holy St Agnes, don’t ask him,’ warns Porta, ‘it’d make him fall! He’s no idea how piss-dangerous it is!’

  A faint noise makes us look up. Three security police are crossing above our heads. We can hear the warning clank of the Mpi’s.

  ‘Adolf ought to ’ave a go at this,’ roars Tiny suddenly, his voice ringing through the silence.

  I tear my Mpi from my shoulder and aim at the security guards on the bridge.

  A train comes thundering in the distance. The sound of the salvo drowns in the noise.

  Three men in long fur coats topple over the low fence along the bridge and whirl down between the ice-blocks far below.

  Porta peers cautiously up between two sleepers. Luckily there were only three of them.

  With a steely roar the train crosses the bridge.

  What you shootin’ for?’ shouts Tiny, in amazement, looking round a concrete pier. ‘Tryin’ to shit-frighten everybody, are you?’

  ‘Because you can’t keep that bloody great Hamburg gab of yours shut,’ answers Porta, viciously. ‘Didn’t I tell you not to talk German in these parts?’

  By flashing signals to one another we manage to bite the glass capsules open at the same time, ensuring that the explosions are synchronised. This is very important with a bridge of this type. Otherwise the bridge will break at only a few points along its length, and the Russian engineers can easily repair these.

  Porta is last man off the bridge. He trails a thin wire after him, and behind the bend in the river he connects it to the plunger box which Tiny is carrying on his back.

  We ready ourselves at a safe distance from the bridge on the opposite side of the lake.

  Tiny swings the handle like a mad thing in order to build up enough of an induction charge for the explosion, while Gregor watches the meter which tells us when there is enough current available.

  Tiny takes a short breather after his strenuous work and lights one of his big cigars. A solemn moment like this, he feels, is worthy of a cigar. With the expression of a padre throwing earth on the remains of a fallen field-marshal, he pulls the plunger to the ready position and gives out a belly chuckle of innocent expectation.

  ‘Grab your ’ats, boys, she’s ready to go,’ he says, solemnly, patting the box.

  ‘Don’t you push that till I say so,’ Porta admonishes him, nervously. ‘The priming charge has got to go first or not a shit will happen to that damn bridge!’

  ‘Jesus wept!’ cries Tiny, in horror, ‘that’d be like goin’ to the pictures an’ findin’ some Yid ’ad ’ooked the bleedin’ film.’

  ‘That can happen,’ says Porta, seriously. ‘Happened to me once in Berlin’

  ‘Don’t be fright,’ Tiny assur
es us. ‘I never met one I couldn’t beat yet! An’ this fiddlin’ little bridge ain’t goin’ to be the first!’

  ‘Little bridge, you say?’ asks Gregor, in surprise. ‘It’s the biggest I’ve ever seen!’

  ‘Enjoy it while you can, then,’ laughs Tiny, raucously, ‘couple o’ minutes’ time an’ it won’t be there to enjoy!’

  A goods train pulled by two large steam engines rolls slowly on to the mined bridge. A red flag flutters from every other wagon.

  ‘Holy Agnes, God’s stepmother,’ shouts Porta, his eyes bugging ‘An ammo train!’

  ‘An’ look at them tankers piss-full of pet,’ shouts Tiny, pointing towards the road, where a long line of trucks are moving along beside the railway line.

  ‘Get a good grip on the ground,’ says Porta, worriedly, ‘or you can risk flying off it together with that blasted bridge!’

  ‘Hope they don’t notice the priming charges begin to fizzle,’ says Gregor, darkly, watching the kilometre-long petrol column through the glasses. ‘God save us all, there’s enough gas there for a whole army!’

  ‘Balls,’ Tiny quiets him, in a fatherly tone. ‘They’ll be flyin’ around the Milky Way lookin’ down at us before they’ve time to wonder about anythin’.’

  ‘Bugger, we should have fused ’em shorter,’ says Porta, in annoyance. ‘Shouldn’t believe everything those Bamberg dopes tell you. We know more than they’ll ever learn.’

  ‘Like Christmas ain’t it? When you’re ’avin’ a peep through the key’ole to see the Christmas tree your ol’ dad’s pinched, and tryin’ to find out what the presents are they’ve bought on the never-never,’ says Tiny, with a happy expression on his face.

  ‘If it doesn’t go, we’re for a court martial,’ says Gregor, darkly, bringing the glass up to his eye again.

  ‘If it does go,’ laughs Porta broadly, ‘and Ivan gets us, then we’ll have another kind of court martial!’

  ‘Oh, stop thinkin’ so much,’ says Tiny, optimistically. ‘Whatever you do they can ’ave you for it in the army! Court martials’re always ready an’ waitin’!’

  With a noise like distant thunder the train rumbles across the bridge, and from the other end another train begins to roll on to it.