by Sven Hassel
The Hauptfeldwebel grinds his teeth together so hard that it is a wonder his jaws don’t go out of joint. His eyes begin to roll wildly in his head.
‘Beg to report further, sir,’ continues Porta, without stopping to draw, breath, ‘this escort wasn’t out of the mire yet, sir. They were marching smartly over Maria Theresien-Platz when two soldiers came running so fast you’d think there was a blow-lamp playing on their arses, sir. Over from “The Golden Beaker” there came a loud bang, sir, and there was a Leutnant, sir, hopping around in the swing-door as if he’d just been given a swift kick in the arse, sir. Well, it’d’all started with a Stabszahlmaster Zorn, sir. . . .’
The Hauptfeldwebel takes three or four deep breaths. Then he begins to roar. The words leave his lips so quickly that it is impossible to understand what he is saying. When he finally regains control of himself he falls back into the chair, which groans protestingly.
‘You! You shut up!’ he spits at Porta. ‘You are driving me crazy. You chatter like a cage-full of lovebirds. I can’t even hear myself think. What in the name of all the hells has your escort from 7. Army Corps to do with me? We’re in Berlin. I don’t want to know what happened in Munich. I don’t give a shit for Munich, nor for the entire 7. Army Corps, and I order you too not to give a shit for Munich!’
‘Sorry sir! No shit available just at the moment, sir,’ Porta smiles in friendly fashion.
‘Were you sent here by Satan himself?’ screams the Haupt-feldwebel, foaming at the mouth. ‘Maybe you were a prisoner that time, in Munich, Mr. Obergefreiter?’
‘No sir, no indeed sir! I had nothing to do with that escort. Not as a guard. Not as a prisoner. I heard about it for the first time when a Feldwebel came to make confession to Wehrkreis-Pfarrer Weinfuss. It was the time when I was assistant to the padre there. That was at 7. Division in Munich, sir. There, by the way . . . .’
The Hauptfeldwebel hammers both fists down on the desk so hard that papers, pens and other impedimenta fly round our ears.
‘One word more and I strangle you!’ he threatens in a hoarse voice. ‘Why are you telling me all this?’ he asks, unhappily, after a short pause.
‘Well sir, since you ask, sir, it’s so as the Hauptfeldwebel can understand how it was we brought the Staff Padre along with us . . . .’
‘Prisoners’ papers,’ the Hauptfeldwebel cuts in, sending Porta a killing look.
Pale and silent, Gregor hands over the few papers.
The four ‘regular’ prisoners disappear into the depths of the Garrison Prison.
For a while silence presses down on the office. We watch the Hauptfeldwebel, the notorious ‘Wicked Emil’, and he watches us back. Leather equipment creaks. Rifle butts scrape against the floor. A fly settles on the blotter and sits there cleaning off its wings. Everybody stares at the fly.
Porta opens his mouth as if about to say something, but gives up and closes it again.
Albert’s black, round football of a head splits in a pearly smile.
‘What the hell are you grinning at?’ rumbles ‘Wicked Emil’. ‘Think you’re back in Africa getting ready to eat some poor missionary, do you? Shut your head, man! In Germany we only laugh when we’re ordered to. Got that? Tell me. How the hell did you get into a Greater German uniform? Far as I know the Führer’s said all blacks are untermensch just like the Yids?’
Albert throws a pleading glance at Porta, who comes to his aid immediately.
‘Permission to speak, sir. Albert, sir, he’s not a real nigger, sir. He’s a Reichsnigger, he is. His father was a Wachtmeister of hussars. I can explain it all to you. It’s a long story . . . .’
‘Stop! No explanations,’ shouts ‘Wicked Emil’, with a look of terror in his eyes. ‘Papers for the rest of the prisoners. Get on with it, man. Get on with it. Don’t think you can come in here and jettison just anybody. No, not even a murderer who’s slit his own general’s throat will I take without proper paperwork.’
‘Beg to report, sir,’ Porta assures him, ‘the paperwork’s on the way. They’ll be coming by post, sir, any day now, sir. Beg to report, sir, when we met the brown horse with the Stadtorts-kommandant, sir, Oberst . . . .’
‘I don’t want to hear about it, not about horses, not about Obersts! Have you understood me Obergefreiter! Stop begging! Stop reporting! You’re driving me mad! Papers, papers!’
‘Beg to report, sir that’s just what I was going to report . . . .’
‘No, no, NO!’ sobs ‘Wicked Emil’ falling forward despairingly across the desk.
‘Something to drink, sir,’ Porta smiles, in friendly fashion, handing a glass of water to the Hauptfeldwebel.
‘Wicked Emil’ snatches it like a drowning man grasping at a piece of driftwood, and slobbers the water down with a noise like a choked-up sewer being cleared. He tears open his desk-drawer, pulls out an army pistol, and places it on, the desk in front of him. ‘Know what this is, Obergefreiter?’
Porta bends forward and examines the pistol with interest.
‘Beg to say, sir, its a Walther, sir, Model 38, sir. I have one here just like it, sir.’ He pulls a well-oiled pistol from its holster and points it towards ‘Wicked Emil’. The Hauptfeldwebel’s eyes begin to twitch at the corners.
‘Don’t point that thing at me,’ he stammers holding his hands defensively in front of him. ‘It might go off!’
‘Beg to report, sir, that that has happened, sir. Happened to a cavalry Wachtmeister in the prison at Paderborn. The men used to call him “The Dwarf’ because that’s what he looked like, sir. Well, sir, he got shot by a cavalry Obergefreiter from Kavallerie-Schützenregiment no. 4, sir. The Obergefreiter was just showing the Wachtmeister his ’08, as we might be doing now, sir. Not even three officers from the JAG Branch could ever find out how the gun happened to go off but somehow or other it did, and there was the cavalry Wachtmeister dead as mutton, sir. At short distances, sir, the old ’08 makes a big hole in a man, and, sir, a P-38 makes a pretty big one too, if you take my meaning. I could prove that to you sir, if . . . .’
‘Put that gun away,’ screams ‘Wicked Emil’, desperately. ‘I want this case closed, and no more horses or obersts or pistols mixed up in it. Why is this padre and why is this medical officer here? You shut up, Obergefreiter,’ he fumes, pointing a fat finger at Porta. ‘I never want to hear your voice again. Not even if you an’ me’re the only two left alive after this war! I’d rather talk to myself. Answer me, you! Unteroffizier,’ he roars at Gregor.
But Gregor is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and can only emit strange sounds.
‘Wicked Emil’ begins to tremble. His whole body shakes. He clasps his forehead with both hands, despairingly.
‘Jesus, Joseph, Mary and all the Holy Family! What’ve I got myself into? Have I gone mad, or is it all my imagination.’
‘Beg to report, sir,’ rumbles Tiny, in his deep bass. ‘Beg to report as ’ow the Standortkommandant for Berlin/Moabitt ’as ordered the arrest of the Staff Padre, sir, an’ ordered us to take ’im with us seein’ as we was already goin’ to the glass’ouse. The Standortkommandant says as ’ow ’e would ring to the Prison Commander, an’ ’ave a talk with ’im about the padre, sir.’
‘But what am I to arrest him for?’ moans ‘Wicked Emil’. ‘I must know what to book him for. I can’t just write a receipt for “one (1) Staff Padre received herewith”. This is a Prussian jail, not a left luggage office!’
‘With your permission, sir, the Staff Padre, sir, ’as insulted the German God,’ lies Tiny, consciencelessly. He watches, with considerable interest, as ‘Wicked Emil’ scratches feverishly on the prison arrivals form.
‘Very well,’ growls ‘Wicked Emil’ with satisfaction, as his pen continues to scratch away.
‘No more, I hope?’
‘Only a bit of defamation of the Führer,’ says Tiny, giving out a long-drawn sigh.
‘Couldn’t you’ve said that straight away, you stupid turtle,’ thunders ‘Wicked Emil’, furiousl
y. ‘Now I’ll have to alter the form, and alterations have to be witnessed by three reliable persons. That’s not easy to manage in Germany today. Everybody knows insulting the Führer comes before insulting God!’
He begins to erase desperately. He knocks over the eraser fluid, goes into an acute fit of rage, and begins to chew on the block of admission forms. He calls the guard and orders the Staff Padre taken to cell 210 in the officers’ wing.
‘Dominus vobiscum’ we hear the padre’s blessings receding into the distance.
‘What about him, there?’ asks ‘Wicked Emil’, pointing to the M.O.
‘Beg to report, sir,’ drones Tiny’s voice. ‘The doctor’s ’ere by ’is own orders.’
‘Holy Greater German God,’ chatters ‘Wicked Emil’. ‘Where’d it all end if any German could just go and arrest himself? We’d have to build at least a thousand new jails!’
‘Easy there! I’ll take care of you,’ shouts the M.O., swaying perilously. ‘No malingerers where I am! You Hauptfeldwebel, you! You’re fit for duty.’
‘Beg to explain, sir,’ Porta breaks in suddenly. ‘Obergefreiter Creutzfeldt has got spots on the brain, sir. He once got kicked by a horse, you see. He’s forgotten we met Major von Ott, acting commander of Wachtbataillon Berlin. He ordered us to take the doctor with us, sir, because he interfered with the guard party and, against regulations, took a bandleader’s baton from him and got the band playing forbidden music.’
‘I heard something about that,’ sighs ‘Wicked Emil’, shaking his head from side to side. ‘It’ll cost him dear!’
‘Beg to state, sir,’ continues Porta, unworriedly, ‘there was this Field Apothecary with 8. Army Corps in Vienna. He wanted to conduct the Hoch und Deutschmeister Regimental Music Corps. Well, sir, it cost that apothecary dear too. He can’t even . . . .’
‘Shut your mouth, now. You, you Obergefreiter, you! To hell with your apothecary and to hell with Vienna too!’ roars ‘Wicked Emil’ crashing his pistol down on the desk top. ‘If I don’t get those papers today, I’ll hold you responsible. What’ll I do with prisoners with no admission forms? I’ll have to keep ’em here for ever. Till long after we’ve started on the Third World War. If they’ve not been admitted how can we ever discharge ’em? Nobody’ll ever call ’em up for interrogation. No interrogation no confession, and no courtmartial can be held! Poor old Emil’Il have these unlawfully arrested bastards on his hands for ever! You can see for yourself I’ll be up shit creek. Some Kriegsgerichtsrat or other’ll have me up for unlawful imprisonment of army personnel. And in this case a kind of an officer.’ He gives a long despairing sigh and collapses into his own fat.
Porta sighs with him.
‘Beg to say, sir, it’s hard and merciless times we’re living in. Why, sir, a world war always brings hard times with it.’
‘How right you are,’ ‘Wicked Emil’ gives up, in resignation, and orders the guard to take the M.O. to cell 209.
‘Is ’e allowed to ‘ave readin’ matter?’ asks the guard, a Gefreiter of Jaegers with an expression of quite unbelievable stupidity.
‘No, devil take me, he read more’n enough when he was reading for his medical degree. I hate these stuck-up half-educated students who have to have somebody to hold their pricks for ’em when they go for a piss in the dark.’
‘Beg your pardon, sir,’ Porta begins, brightly, ‘there was this professor of medicine who . . . .’
‘Put a sock in it,’ roars ‘Wicked Emil’, ‘or I’ll put you inside too. Don’t you ever let yourself get put in my jail. The Devil’s a Sunday School teacher ’longside o’ me!’
‘Beg to report, sir,’ begins Porta again.
‘Get out! thunders ‘Wicked Emil’, and gives the desk a kick. ‘God help you, Obergefreiter, if ever we meet again.’
‘That Hauptfeldwebel of yours is out of his mind,’ Porta confides to the Gefreiter clerk, as they clatter down the long corridor. ‘First he says he’d like to have me inside here! Then he threatens me with all kinds of desperate things if he ever sees me again.’
‘You wouldn’t like to really get to know “Wicked Emil”,’ interjects a guard, with a dark look. ‘If he kicks you in the arse you’re shittin’ from between your teeth for the rest of your life!’
‘We’re reckoned to be the toughest army jail. Not only in Greater Germany, but in the whole world,’ boasts the clerk, proudly. ‘There ain’t another jail worse’n ours anywhere!
‘It’s not half bad,’ considers Porta, ‘but compared with the old days it’s a piece of cake.’
‘You wouldn’t talk like that if you were inside this place,’ snorts the Gefreiter clerk, with a sneer. ‘They don’t only shout an’ scream at you an’ knock your teeth down your throat here. You’d be surprised, perhaps, at getting burned with cigarette ends or havin’ your nails pulled out, or your balls bashed loose with a hammer?’
‘You get to Heuberg,’ interjects the guard, with a satanic laugh, ‘and you end up in the stables. There they spreadeagle you like a plaice fillet, baste you with flour and salt and let some rough-tongued goats loose to lick you clean. You’d the laughing!’
‘Bah! Small stuff,’ shouts Porta, contemptuously. ‘Wouldn’t even make a Jap grit his teeth. You lot should’ve lived in the Middle Ages, when the Church used to look after the wretches and the heretics. They used to start off proving their innocence by walking on burning pitch and drinkin’ melted iron. When that was over they’d pinch you here and there with red-hot pincers. After which they’d rip your tongue out and put out your eyes. They had that one where they’d harness four horses to the villain’s legs an’ arms, and when they were off people could see clearly they must be guilty. I have heard that when women were being persuaded they were really witches and had a pact with the Devil they’d scream so terribly you’d think knives and glowing pokers were being used on their backs. But then when they had confessed it wasn’t all over. Oh no! Then they used to cut ’em in pieces and nail the bits to posts alongside the church or the Town Hall, as a dreadful example to the other wretches. People who’d been through that lot’d think the Gestapo was a band of suckin’ infants by comparison. Getting yourself dead was a major problem then. Today they cut off your head or break your neck on the end of a rope and it’s all over in no time. In the old days they’d take off a toe, and then a hand, and then maybe a leg, or perhaps an arm, before getting to your head.’
The heavy prison gates crash to behind us.
With slung carbines we slouch down the wet street.
‘Must be rough being that “Wicked Emil”,’ says Albert, with a deep sigh. ‘Not a hair on his head. He must feel very lonely. Nobody loves a bald man. Tell me, for example. Who loves Mussolini?’
‘Shouldn’t think anybody! Bald men are nearly always wicked men,’ says Porta.
An hour afterwards we are back with the company, and the escort has been dismissed. Off goes the alarm warning. The whole barracks resounds to the noise of busy men packing ready to move. The regiment is to go to the front. New weapons and equipment are being issued. We march off by companies to the goods station.
The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,
And the flesh’d soldier, rough and hard of heart,
In liberty of bloody hand shall range
With conscience wide as hell. . . .
William Shakespeare15
He straddles an armchair and uses his machine-pistol like a scythe. He sweeps it round the big room. Plaster and the dirt of years explode from the walls.
The Pioneer Feldwebel remains standing for a fraction of a second, made visible by the muzzle flash of the Mpi. Then his body rockets backwards across a long table, on which freshly killed hens are lying. The rain of bullets pours into him, making his body twitch violently. He falls to the floor, taking the hens with him.
The Russian grins and clips in a new magazine. There is no doubt that he is enjoying himself. As most people do when they can kill without penalty.
‘M
urder is fun,’ said the SD men of Sonderkommando. It seemed that a great many other people were of the same opinion. There is a devil in all of us, and war brings it to the surface amazingly quickly.
The Russian spins round and almost falls off the armchair. The Mpi spits towards the door, through which a Pioneer Leutnant and two NCO’s come rushing.
The Leutnant seems to hang in mid-air. His legs flap like a scarecrow in the wind as bullets smash into his knee. The two other soldiers are thrown back against the wall. For a moment the scene looks like an explosion in a paint factory.
Albert and Gregor fire simultaneously. After the noise of the Kalashnikov the P.38’s sound like air pistols, but the results are different. The Russian swings round, hit in the shoulder. Then in the stomach. He lets out a roar and begins to collapse. The next burst rips his head half off his shoulders. He goes down with a splashy thud, his feet still resting on the armchair. More blood!’
‘Mad bastard,’ says Albert, wiping sweat from his shiny black face. ‘Hell! He could’ve got the lot of us!’
‘Shithead!’ says Porta. ‘Norn he’s finished knocking people off, anyway. Let’s go through the house just in case.’
Tiny shoots a cat by mistake. It sat washing itself on a windowsill.
‘Rotten swine!’ rages Porta, and doesn’t speak a word to Tiny for the rest of the day.
1 HDV: Heeresdienstvorschrift (German): Army Regulations
2 Marabou: Notorious Commandant at Fuhlsbüttel: See ‘Wheels of Terror.’
3Giessen: Insane asylum.
4 Germersheim: Military prison near Karlsruhe.