by Sven Hassel
‘M-m-me neither,’ dribbles the padre, kissing the lamp-post fervently. ‘We forget God when things go well. Are you, by the way, a C-c-catholic or a P-p-protestant?’
‘Well padre, sir, I’m a bit of both, you might say. Whatever is suitable at the time,’ admits Porta, diplomatically.
‘I like it! I like it !’ laughs the Staff Padre, slapping Porta’s shoulder, in friendly fashion. ‘I’ve just been with the Bishop. The Vatican is asking after me. Something big’s goin’ to happen. I might be able to use you, Obergefreiter. I’ll have you transferred to m-m-military sp-sp-spiritual service. It would be a pity to see a man like you wasted on the bloody altar of the Fatherland!’
‘I do agree,’ whispers Porta, making a rapid sign of the cross.
‘Come on then,’ says the padre, striking out at an invisible enemy. ‘Right wheel, left turn, forward march! You know the way. “The Maid” in Berg Strasse.’
‘Spiritual advisers who talk about friendship are not to be trusted,’ says Albert, darkly. Moving away from the padre.
As we march along beside the tall hedges of the Stadt Park, a resounding ‘Halt!’ breaks the morning silence of the street.
The cloaked and capped upper half of an Oberst appears above the hedge. Gregor almost drops his Mpi in terror. The night silence is broken by strange sounds. The noise is like that of a shipload of passengers struck simultaneously with seasickness. It comes from the Staff Padre who is getting rid of everything he has consumed at 5. Panzer Regiment Mess. It is not a little.
The hedge parts and a brown horse with an Oberst on its back comes through like a T-34. The horse sniffs at Porta and closes one eye as if to say: ‘Watch this, now!’
‘What kind of a pig-stye is this?’ screams the Oberst, furiously, slashing his riding boots with his whip.
Gregor falls over his own feet, salutes, and cracks his heels together.
‘Herr Oberst, sir! Beg to report, sir! Five prisoners and escort en route for jail, sir! All properly handcuffed, sir! Accordin’ to regulations, sir!’
‘We meet again, Herr Oberst,’ shouts the Staff Padre, happily, pushing Gregor to one side, as if he were a piece of refuse. ‘And how is your lady wife, sir? Does she still love me, sir? I hope soon to see her in the confessional, sir!’ His noisy laughter rings along the street.
‘You’re drunk, man!’ snarls the Oberst, nasally.
‘R-r-rubbish, man. You insult my spiritual honour,’ he strikes out at the Oberst, as if his riding-whip were a sabre. ‘Y-y-you just watch yourself! I’ll cut you up into sauerkraut, I will. Don’t you think I’m frightened of an ersatz Oberst like you just because he’s sittin’ on a horse! You’re ugly bastards, you are. Both of you!’
‘Put that man in irons,’ orders the Oberst, his voice cutting through the night.
Tiny throws himself at the padre like a hungry polar bear, and throws him to the ground. Filthy snow splashes up onto the Oberst’s well-polished boots.
The horse whinnies and rears up in protest. The Oberst slides backwards, but saves himself by catching it round the neck. It rears again and this time he loses his seat and falls with a smack into the slush alongside Tiny and the padre.
‘Welcome to our house,’ sniggers the padre, saluting, flat on his back.
Shaking with nerves, Gregor assists the Oberst to his feet. Nobody notices Porta give the horse a slap on its rump which sends it off at a gallop through the hedge and across the park.
‘Beg to report, sir! Horse deserted, sir!’ shouts Porta, clicking his heels twice over.
‘Catch it!’ orders the Oberst, brusquely.
Escort and prisoners dash off into the darkness after the galloping horse, which circles and comes back to the Oberst. He is in the process of having a fit. Putting on his hat, he has discovered it to be full of slush.
Tiny stands at attention in front of him with his hand at his cap, attempting to report. He gets out, ‘Herr Oberst!’ He is cut off by a roar of rage.
It is only when the Oberst has swung himself back into his saddle that some measure of relaxation falls over him. He bends forward over the neck of his horse and stares fiercely at the padre, who is still sitting in the slush talking to himself.
‘Put him in irons!’ rages the Oberst. ‘He has attacked a Prussian officer! Put him in irons! he repeats, revengefully.
‘Herr Oberst, sir! Beg to report, sir! We ain’t got no more irons, sir!’ trumpets Tiny.
‘Tie him up, then!’ thunders the Oberst. ‘Take that stupid look off your face, man! You, Obergefreiter! You!’ he shouts at Tiny.
‘Beg to report, sir! Born with it, sir! Marked down barmy, sir, by the Army psychopaths, sir, I was! In 1938, sir, by order of Herr General der Kavallerie Knochenhauer, sir, as I was batman for, sir! Beg to report, sir, ’e was Commander 10. Army Corps, Hamburg, sir!’
‘I know General Knochenhauer very well,’ shouts the Oberst, patting his horse on the neck as if it were the general himself. ‘You must have been a wicked man, soldier, if you couldn’t get along with General Knochenhauer!’
‘Beg to say, sir! Beg to say as the general an’ me ’ad contact problems, sir!’ smiles Tiny, contritely.
‘What kind of man are you, anyway?’ snarls the Oberst, bending forward over the neck of his horse to get a closer look at Tiny.
‘German, sir! A German man, sir! That’s what I am, sir!’ roars Tiny. Banging the butt of his rifle down on the flagstones and sending up a shower of sparks.
‘You’ll hear more from me,’ the Oberst promises him, with obvious distaste. He pulls his horse round and rides off into the park.
‘What in the name o’ hell do we do now?’ asks Gregor, looking worriedly after the Oberst disappearing into the rain.
‘You’ve got a problem, friend,’ admits Porta, sombrely. ‘An Oberst from G-Staff has ordered you to arrest the good padre and to take him in with the rest of your prisoners. You should have protested that order. You’re skating on very thin ice. You can’t take him with you because you’re short two escorts. Do it, an’ you’ll be contravenin’ Army Regs. You’ll lose your tapes and you’ll be lucky not to get two years in Germersheim. You can’t not arrest the padre. An Oberst has given you a direct order to do so. Not do it an’ you’re refusing to obey an order. That can cost you your napper, my son!’
‘What the hell am I to do?’ whines Gregor unhappily. He curses the day he was made an NCO, and could be made escort commander. ‘Get me out of this,’ he pleads.
‘Well, just this once then,’ smiles Porta largely. ‘Though I’m not much for mixin’ in with NCO’s decisions.’
‘Cut that crap!’ Gregor breaks in, hope gleaming in his eyes. Tell me what to do.’
‘Before the Oberst an’ his horse turned up, the Staff Padre gave you an order. He ordered you to take “The Rosy Maid” in Berg Strasse. The padre is a staff officer equivalent in rank to a major and to disobey his order could cost you a lot. And he has not recalled that order.’
‘For Christ’s sake what do I do, then?’ Gregor almost weeps, feeling the ice get thinner and thinner under him. ‘A prisoner can’t give his escort commander orders. Specially not orders to go into a boozer!’
‘Your birth must have been a difficult one,’ considers Porta, in wonder. ‘Can’t you understand? You have not yet met the Oberst and his horse!’
‘Got it, got it!’ Gregor’s eyes light up, as he sees a safe shore ahead. ‘We march straight to “The Rosy Maid”, and let that padre sod fill us up with giggle water. When we leave “The Maid” we carry out the Oberst’s order, an’ arrest the bloody parson. While we’re in “The Maid” we detail off a couple more escorts.’
‘You keep saying “we”,’ puts in Porta, wonderingly. ‘You are the boy who carries out the orders, and you are the boy who carries the can. You, not “we”! You’re the boss!’
‘Thank God I never became an NCO,’ sighs Albert, showing two rows of pearly-white teeth. ‘It’s dangerous, it is!’
‘You’re fit for duty,’ shouts the medical officer, from the darkness, rattling his handcuffs menacingly.
‘Shut it, shit’ead,’ Tiny scolds, hitting him on the back of the neck with his rifle butt.
‘Prisoners and escort, quick march!’ commands Gregor, in a voice which clearly reveals he has given up caring.
The Staff Padre leads the column with his riding whip on his shoulder as if it were a sabre. Now and then he changes from a march to take a couple of dance steps. He sweeps his cap off in a courtly gesture each time he passes a civilian.
‘Drinkin’ spirits is vulgar,’ declares the M.O. with a satanic grin. ‘Don’t think you’re going to dodge the front line,’ he turns to the artillery Wachtmeister. ‘Even if your hobnailed liver gets big enough to choke you, I’ll mark you fit!’ He pokes the negro in the back. ‘You want to get to know Dr. Alfred Hütten better? Now’s your opportunity. I could send you off for a dry-clean job that’d turn you into a snow-white German. The SS Reichsführer has ordered everybody to become Arians. The ones with the hooked noses’ll have to get ’em straightened. How’d you get yourself that colour, anyway, Herr Schwartz?’
‘Can it, quack,’ snarls Albert, throwing a punch which the M.O. ducks.
‘Black or white you’re fit for duty, and back you go to the front, my lad!’
‘Live together in the spirit of the Lord, and you will go to Heaven,’ intones the padre, swinging his whip around his head.
‘Priests are like girls legs,’ grins Porta. ‘They promise you a better time when you get higher up!’
‘Slay me,’ the padre demands, with a saintly look on his face. ‘Place my head on a pole outside the Garrison Church. I’ve always wanted to become a martyr.’ He falls to his knees at a tramstop and passes his hands lovingly over the cast-iron base of the sign. ‘We meet again, my beloved Copernicus!’ His stentorian voice echoes round the square.
‘This feller’s got his arse where his brains ought to be,’ groans Gregor, resignedly. ‘Wicked Emil’ll make a whole platoon of martyrs out of him when he gets him in the cage!’
Suddenly the M.O. throws his arms round Tiny and begins to lick his face, like an excited dog.
‘I thought you were dead, comrade. Your disguise is fantastic but I’ve seen through it. You’re the boy who used to fuck the stiffs in the mortuary at Klagenfurt. Take off your hat when you address an academician,’ he burbles, knocking off Tiny’s steel helmet.
‘Keep your rotten paws off my tin’at!’ roars Tiny, angrily, picking up his helmet.
‘My hat has got three creases,
Three creases has my hat. . . .’
chants the Medical Officer, happily, attempting to dance some steps of the Charleston. His legs tangle and down he goes.
Facta sunt alea9’ announces the padre in a loud voice as he leads the escort column into ‘The Rosy Maid’.
‘Oh no-o!’ groans the host, dropping two filled tankards. ‘That goddam parson again!’
With a sound like a pack of hungry wolves going into action the padre attacks a large dish of smoked pork with sauerkraut and dumplings. He uses neither knife nor fork but shovels away at the food with both hands.
The landlord claps his hands to his head.
‘God help us he’ll eat the lot. An’ that was for six people! What’m I goin’ to give the rifle club?’
‘Let ’em eat the parson,’ suggests Porta, practically. ‘We can do without him!’
‘’E’s a terrible man,’ moans the host. ‘The seven plagues of Egypt all rolled into one. There ain’t an officers mess in the entire Brandenburg military zone as don’t live in fear of a visit from ’im. They do say as he was at a dinner with the Reichs-marschall an’ before the guests were finished with their hors d’oeuvres ’e’d eat everythin’ laid out on the table includin’ the bloody flower decorations. Another time ’e ruined Herr Göring’s electric train by loadin’ it up with diced pork. There was three cooks standin’ at the other end of the track choppin’ up suckin’ pigs as’d been roasted on a spit into little bits an’ loadin’ up. When the train passed ’im ’e’d empty the wagons. By the time ’e’d finished the train was that greased up it took the Reichsmarschall an’ all ’is train specialists three weeks to get it runnin’ proper again. They do say as ’e was the indirect cause the Luftwaffe didn’t win the Battle o’ Britain.’
‘Lovely food,’ says the padre, clapping the landlord on the shoulder in comradely fashion.
‘Glad you liked it, then,’ answers mine host, sourly.
‘It was good enough, landlord. A few more dumplings perhaps, but I’m not complaining. The pork was good. Home-smoked I’ll bet. You’re a crafty fellow, landlord. I know all about it. Illegal pigs in the backyard, eh? When’re you slaughtering again? I’ll drop by. Now let’s have tea with rum. When we’ve had that I’ll buy a round of beer and a nutty schnapps. Fut it on the bill as usual, landlord.’
‘This drunken skypilot’ll bust me,’ moans the landlord, miserably.
‘Whyn’t you throw him out, landlord?’ asks Porta. ‘A quick boot in his holy arse and out the door.’
‘Can’t,’ sighs the publican, heavily. ‘You ’eard ’im. Knows all about the pigs out the back. If only some rotten English-man’d drop a soddin’ bomb on ’im. The worst of the lot is the way ’e keeps on sayin’ that tomorrow ’e’ll be startin’ a new life an’ll pay all ’is debts.’
‘Yes, yes, we all have our troubles,’ says Porta. ‘I once knew a stationmaster, a Herr Leo Birnbaum, who ran the main station at Bamberg. A nice, understanding sort o’ chap, but with a weakness for the bottle. On even dates he drank Hollands gin with beer and on uneven dates he drank beer with Bommer-hinder schnapps. Every New Year’s Eve he’d make a resolution that from the first of January he’d be a good, sober citizen. When he woke up after the party it was always the third or fourth of January and so it was too late and he had to wait till next first of January. Where the German Railways were concerned he seemed to think they’d been invented for him to have fun with.
‘“Plauen, all change!” he’d shout sometimes when trains’d come rolling into his station.
‘When the passengers started fighting to get off, he’d shout at them asking what they were up to and couldn’t they read? Didn’t the signs say, Bamberg? He could get away with murder, because his father-in-law had been the Führer’s barber before 1933 and was now the local Gauleiter.
‘But it came to an end at last, and even the barber-Gauleiter couldn’t save him. It was shortly after he’d first started to eat salt herring. Somebody’d told him it was good for a hangover. It was the forenoon of the 22nd of February. A little before eleven o’clock, I think it was, when everything started to go wrong. Stationmaster Birnbaum was standing on platform 5, chewing on a salt herring, with a green flag in his left hand and a red flag in his right, when to his great surprise he saw goods-train 109 coming in to platform 3, instead of platform 5. He waved both his red and his green flag, wildly.
‘“109, 109! What are you doing on that platform?”
‘Goods train 109 didn’t seem to hear him. Over the tracks he went, still waving his two flags. On platform 3 he trod on a greasy old hat which someone had lost and slid straight between two full petrol wagons addressed to 35 Panzer Regiment, Bamberg. The brakeman in the last wagon tried to grab him. That was a mistake! Herr Birnbaum fastened on to the brakeman’s arm and pulled him down with him under the tank-cars. The off-side wheels cut the head off Stationmaster Birnbaum, very neatly, while the near-side wheels cut the head, just as neatly, off brakeman Schultze. This was particularly sad for the latter who was still on trial for the job and never became a permanent employee.
‘There was a nasty epilogue. Accidents seldom come singly. German National Railways cleaning assistant (female) second grade, Mrs. Amanda Grimm, was standing on platform 2, resting her German chin on her German Railways broomstick, and wondering where the two officials had disappeared to. When the goods-train had passed she
glanced tiredly at the track and saw the head of Stationmaster Birnbaum lying there winking at her. She emitted a German scream of terror.
‘“The Stationmaster’s lost ’is ’ead,” she howled and ran into the telegraphist’s office. He, believing she was drunk, slapped her face. She reported him for this, later. She was, after all, a kind of civil servant, and she was on duty at the time, which could be proved by the fact that she still had her broom in her hand. This was not the end of the matter. The Kripos10 received the report and some fool of a clerk filed it under “homicide” because another fool of a clerk had marked the file in red pencil: Case no. 2988-41 — “Decapitation of Stationmaster.” Finally the case got on to the desk of a reasonable detective, who was just passing the time until he reached pension age, and wasn’t interested in promotion an’ all that shit. This did not, however, end the matter. The same night the RAF bombed Bamberg. They weren’t aiming at Bamberg, of course, but at Munich. This was discovered later when one of them had to make an emergency landing. The Kripo man who had the case in hand got hit during this raid, while relaxing gently in “The Crooked Goose”.
‘Now the case was passed over to another Kripo. A young fellow with a really German civil servant frame of mind. He started every interrogation with a burst of knowledgeable laughter, and made it clear to witnesses that repeated lies would only make things worse for themselves when they finally told the truth. When he saw the words “Decapitation of Station-master” he actually licked his lips. Here it was at last. The big, big case which could get him promotion to an inspector’s chair in the RSHA11. He pulled down the brim of his hat, put on his leather overcoat and went into action.
‘“Confess,” he snarled at Mrs Amanda Grimm, the cleaner. “Lie, and you’ll be sorry!”
‘She was interrogated so many times that in the end she went quite crazy, and thought she herself had pushed the Stationmaster under Goods-train 109. She signed a confession in the necessary eight places. But she wouldn’t confess to killing the brakeman.