by Sven Hassel
‘Now I’ve heard it all!’ he foams, furiously. ‘Haven’t you understood a word of what has been said? Of course it’s you who gives the bloody orders. That’s what a Fire Controller’s job is! Controlling the fire of the guns!’ The Oberst slits his eyes suspiciously, and stares at him. ‘You haven’t lost your mind, have you?’
‘No sir, no. I’m all right, sir. My head’s going round a bit, and I feel very tired and dizzy. I haven’t slept for the longest time,’ he adds, shamefacedly, after a short pause.
‘There are plenty more of us who haven’t slept either,’ the Oberst says, coldly. ‘You, of all people, have no reason for complaint, Hauptmann. You have enjoyed a pleasant period of three years garrison service at Jüterburg, while we’ve been living like rats out here. And now you’re crying like an old woman with a rheumatic backside, just because you’re short of a little sleep! If you don’t feel you can do the job then spit it out before it’s too late! I can always use you as a runner!’
‘Oberst, sir, I am specially trained as a Fire Controller, and I do not regard this particular operation as being specially difficult,’ answers Henckel insultedly.
‘That sounds promising,’ laughs the Oberst, acidly. ‘Make a mess of it, and the General will tear your liver out up through your throat! Get on and get your connections checked out. This has got to work properly! Hals und Beinbruch, Henckel!’ he adds kindly, swinging himself into the Kübel. It disappears in a whirling cloud of snow, closely followed by the adjutant’s vehicle.
‘Self-centred idiot,’ mumbles Henckel. ‘Without the war that fool’d never have made Oberst. The best officers are kept back home as instructors. Good instructors make good officers. I know more about fire control than you do, you self-important front-line pig! Took you twenty years to make Oberst and I’ve made Hauptmann in three! When this is over with, I’ll be called back to Jüterburg with the rank of Major!’ With an insulted mien he gets into his own vehicle, and pulls his fur coat more tightly round his shivering body.
‘Jesus, Hauptmann, sir! Listen to ’em bumpin’!’ groans his driver, an old Obergefreiter of Tiny’s type.
‘Keep your cheeky remarks to yourself, Obergefreiter,’ trumpets Henckel, rebuffing him, ‘or I’ll take care of you! Speak when you’re spoken to!’
The Obergefreiter lifts one eyebrow, in wonderment. ‘Conceited shit!’ he thinks. ‘We’re the ones, who have to look after you! We’ve knocked off better blokes’n you by the dozen!’
‘Herr Hauptmann, sir, Obergefreiter Schwarz requests permission to request your destination instructions, sir!’
‘You know where we’re going,’ snarls Henckel, angrily.
‘No sir. No idea, sir!’
‘To Fire Control Centre, you fool!’
‘Which one, sir? There are a lot of them, sir.’
For a moment it seems as if Henckel is going to explode. He clenches his gloved hands, and gives the cheekily smiling Obergefreiter a killing look.
‘The Artillery Fire Control Centre! Where did you think?’
‘I don’t think, sir. They taught me not to do that when I was a rooky. Leave it to the horses, they said. Their heads are bigger, anyway!’
‘You think that, do you?’ Henckel spits out, ragingly. ‘Leave me at the Artillery Fire Control Centre, and report yourself as returned to duty with the battery. I never want to set eyes on you again!’
‘Very good, sir,’ grins the driver, carelessly. He sets off with a great clashing of gears, and with his foot on the floorboards, he drives at breakneck speed over the uneven road. He takes the snowdrifts at an even higher speed, but despite the wild, bone-shaking ride Hauptmann Henckel falls into a deathlike sleep.
Obergefreiter Schwarz looks at him out of the corners of his eyes. A humorous expression appears on his face, and he begins to sing full-throatedly:
Es geht alles vorüber,
es geht alles vorbei,
das Ei von Dezember
kriegst du im Mai!
Zuerstfällt der Führer,
und dann die Partei!2
At one spot the Kübel goes into a slide, swings round twice on its own axis and slips sideways down a long slope.
Schwarz laughs loud and long and seems to think it all highly amusing. He glances over again at Hauptmann Henckel who has slipped down on to the floor of the vehicle, half unconscious.
‘You think you can fire me, do you, you puffed-up stowaway? You’ll find out! Even if you stand on your head and blow orders out of your arsehole, you won’t get rid of old Obergefreiter Schwarz!’ He brakes the vehicle violently outside the Fire Control dugout.
‘Beg to report, sir, we’re home and dry, sir! Wake up, mate, you’ve got to get out an’ start throwin’ scrap iron at old brother Ivan you have! Bang off wrong and they’ll fill you up with iron!’ He shakes the heavily sleeping officer roughly, but it does not seem to help. ‘Wake up, Goddammit, you gold-braided arsehole! The taxi’s got there! Hi, Herbert!’ he shouts to a Gefreiter, slouching in the entrance to the dugout with a carbine slung nonchalantly over his shoulder. ‘Come and gimme a hand. Here’s a shiny leather bastard wants to sleep the rest O’ the war away!’
‘Kick him in the balls,’ suggests Herbert, uncaringly, and takes a huge bite of a frozen sausage.
‘Can’t do that, mate. This is one of the big chiefs,’ grins Obergefreiter Schwarz, happily.
‘Where’d you find it?’ asks Herbert, sauntering slowly over to the Kübel.
‘It’s the new Fire Controller! cast iron, and got a sabre blade for a backbone!’
‘Shit’n haemorrhoids,’ growls Herbert, pulling Hauptmann Henckel out of the Kübel as if he were a sack of potatoes, and letting him roll down the snowy slope.
‘Where am I? What’s happening?’ shouts Henckel, in confusion, waking up as he rolls into a snowdrift.
‘Beg to report, sir. You’re in Russia, sir!’ shout the two soldiers in chorus, saluting with mock clumsiness.
‘Russia?’ mumbles Henckel. He looks nervously up at the sky. A ‘Coffe-grinder’ is buzzing on its way up there. On the horizon multi-coloured flares go up. An automatic cannon thunders viciously. In the distance grenades explode with a hollow sound. Away in the forest the meteorology unit is just visible. Shadowy forms move busily about. A beam of light goes straight up into the air, measuring the height of the clouds.
On feet which seem far, far too heavy, Henckel wobbles, drunk with sleep, into the Fire Control dugout, and salutes the two Leutnants who receive him.
‘Everything in order?’ he asks, arrogantly. Here he feels at home. This he knows. Along one wall are the large telephone switchboards, served by four signalmen. The fire chart, with target points marked on it, lies across a broad table.
Together with the Leutnants he takes out the coordinates and notes the necessary time intervals.
A runner brings the meteorologists report.
Henckel complains. The report is carelessly written. He demands it rewritten.
‘Regimental two finger margin too, if you please!’
The two Leutnants look at one another, and keep their thoughts to themselves.
‘I’ll lie down for a while,’ he mumbles, sourly. He throws himself down on a bench, and pulls his fur-lined hood over his face.
All present look at him in amazement. They do not believe their own eyes.
‘He must be crazy,’ whispers Leutnant Rothe. ‘Sleeping just before the big artillery attack! The chap must have nerves of steel. He hasn’t even bothered to check the telephone network!’
As he speaks a telephone shrills alarmingly.
‘If it isn’t the Chief of Staff or the C.O. then let me sleep,’ mumbles Henckel, in a sleepy voice, pulling his fur hood even further up over his head.
‘Very good, sir,’ answers Leutnant Rothe, uncaringly, picking up the jangling telephone. ‘SNOW HARE here. Leutnant Rothe. Yes, Oberstleutnant, sir! All in order. As you wish, sir! Over and out!’ He replaces the receiver. ‘Howitzer boys,�
� he sap to Leutnant Hassow.
For the next fifteen minutes the telephones ring incessantly. The various artillery units are reporting themselves cleared for action.
Three clerks are working furiously preparing the orders for all sub-units. The Fire Control Centre is a scene of feverish activity. The two Leutnants are working like horses to get the complicated work of preparation ready in time. Only the Fire Controller himself sleeps on peacefully, as if none of this activity had anything to do with him.
‘God save us,’ says Leutnant Hassow, lowing up from the piles of fire tabulations lying in front of him. ‘What a bang this is going to make. Enough to frighten the bravest. Thank God I’m not Fire Controller, with responsibility for this lot. It’s unbelievable what they’ve dragged together here. Two brigades of “Nebelwerfers”. That’s twelve sections with four batteries in each section, and each battery’s got four “werfers” with ten pipes to each of ’em! Then there’s the 210 mm howitzers. Four guns to each battery gives thirty-six in all. Then there’s the heavy section with three batteries. Nine guns altogether. And our own lot with ninety-six 105 and 150 mms.’
‘Not forgetting the specialists with four batteries of 280 mm peashooters,’ Rothe puts in. ‘That’s another twelve! We’re going to make some noise in the world,’ cries Leutnant Hassow. ‘And there’s mountains of ammunition!’
‘It’ll feel like the end of the world,’ mumbles Rothe, ‘those poor sods that lot’s going to drop on. Even their lice and the rats won’t live through it!’
‘Won’t be much left for our infantry to do,’ laughs Hassow. ‘Do you realise? Just under five thousand shells’ll go off in the first six minutes! Frightens you to think of it. Then the next salvoes at three minute intervals. Good Lord above! And there he lies fast asleep! He must be stark raving! Do you realise what could happen if something went wrong somewhere?’
‘Don’t need much imagination for that,’ answers Rothe, laconically. ‘We get him to sign everything, so we don’t have to carry the can! I’ve got a nasty feeling about what might be going to happen!’
Henckel feels as if he has not been asleep for more than a few minutes when Leutnant Rothe shakes him awake a couple of hours later.
‘Hauptmann! Wake up! Division’s on the line. Wake up, sir!’
Confused and yawning, Henckel finally gets on his feet.
Rothe looks at him doubtfully. ‘You’re not sick, are you sir? You were so far away I thought for a moment you were dead.’
‘Why the devil did you wake me? What’s up? Can’t you manage the tiniest thing yourselves without coming running to me for help? It’s necessary I get a little sleep before the attack starts.’
‘Sir! Division demands you come to the telephone immediately!’
‘Division?’ mumbles Henckel, still in a state of confusion. Suddenly he realises where he is, and straightens up so quickly that he crashes his head into a beam supporting the low roof. ‘Hell!’ he shouts, putting his hand to his head on which a huge lump has already risen. ‘What damned fools made this place with such a low roof? Have it changed tomorrow, Rothe. Blasted incompetence is what this is! Bring the man responsible before me at 09.00 hrs. Understand, Leutnant!’
‘You’re a nut,’ thinks Rothe. ‘You ought to be glad you’ve got a roof over your head at all, when most others have only got a hole in the ground.’
Henckel takes the telephone and gives his code-name sleepily.
A wide-awake voice at the other end says: ‘Justa moment, sir. I’ll put you through to the Chief of Staff.’
In quick time the Chief of Staffs cutting voice sounds on the line. Henckel finds it hard to understand what is being said. Something about attack timings and connections.
‘Very good, sir,’ he answers automatically, doodling meaninglessly on his pad as he replies.
‘Understood?’ snarls the Chief of Staff, after a short pause.
Henckel sways on his feet as if he is about to fall. He listens with closed eyes.
Leutnant Rothe grips his arm and shakes him violently.
‘Hell! Wake up, sir!’
Henckel looks at Leutnant Rothe, his eyes swimming in his head. Rothe continues to shake him, until the Hauptmann pushes him away, irritably.
‘Not understood, sir,’ he says in a voice that sounds as if he were speaking through cotton-wool.
‘Are you stark, staring mad?’ roars the Chief of Staff, fiercely. ‘I’ll repeat the times again! God help you if you don’t get down every single one of them!’
He rattles off a series of figures into Henckel’s ear at lightning speed.
‘Repeat them back!’ hisses the Chief of Staff when he has finished. He drums his fingers impatiently on the table.
Luckily for Henckel, Leutnant Rothe has been listening on the line. He pushes a pad with the timings in front of Henckel.
In a hollow, unreal voice Henckel repeats them to the Chief of Staff.
‘Henckel, you sound as if you’re asleep on your feet? What’s the matter with you?’
‘I’m very tired, sir!’
‘So bloody well am I,’ the Chief of Staff’s voice explodes in Henckel’s ear like the roar of a hungry carnivore. ‘The General’s tired! We’re all tired! I don’t want to hear any more of that shit from you! You’re an officer and you’ll do your duty like one!’ He cuts off with a noise that crashes in the sleepy Henckel’s ear. He stands staring at the telephone for a moment, then turns and staggers back to the bench.
Hardly has he pulled his hood up over his face, before he is again called to the telephone. Cursing he gets to his feet and snatches it up to his ear.
‘Write this down, Hauptmann,’ comes the adjutant’s pleased voice: ‘H-hour BERTHA HELGA LUDWIG ADOLF BERTHA. Repeat! Over!’
‘H-hour BERTHA HELGA LUDWIG ADOLF BERTHA. Over!’ replies Henckel, tiredly, wishing the adjutant and the entire staff were roasting in hell.
The connection is broken. Sleepy as he is he thinks it is the adjutant who has rung off.
His hands trembling, lying half across the chart table, he writes down the message. He has heard nothing of the time comparison.
‘Let me sleep in peace, now!’ he says, throwing himself down again on the bench.
The two Leutnants look at him and shake their heads at one another.
‘Queer that call was cut off,’ remarks Leutnant Rothe. ‘I’ve got a feeling there’s something missing.’
‘My God! I’m more dead than alive,’ groans Hauptmann Henckel when Leutnant Rothe wakes him again half an hour later. He pours a bucket of ice-cold water over his head to come to himself. It helps only briefly.
A Feldwebel brings him the latest reports. Together with the two Leutnants he checks the various connections and time-tables. Slowly the timings are gone through again.
‘Come on Rothe, you read ’em out,’ Henckel orders, sleepily. He throws himself into a chair with his hands folded behind his head and his eyes closed.
‘Fire command to be given 05.06 hours.’ Rothe reads out, loudly. ‘05.12 hrs. Heavy artillery opens fire with 75 mms. Plus two minutes panzer and infantry attack. Barrage lifts over them and creeps forward to ready ground for assault troops following.’
‘Mere routine. Nothing difficult in that,’ remarks Henckel, indifferently, stretching his long, booted legs. He yawns, noisily, until his jaws almost go out of joint. ‘The devil, I nearly dropped off again! If I didn’t know better I’d think I’d got sleeping sickness. Give me a large vodka. It freshens a fellow up!’
Looking askance at Leutnant Rothe, a Feldwebel brings him a glass of vodka.
Henckel throws the spirits down with a flick of his wrist. It goes down the wrong way and he goes into a spasm of coughing. He jumps to his feet to avoid choking.
‘Wouldn’t you rather have a cup of coffee, sir?’ asks Leutnant Hassow, carefully. ‘We’re going to have to keep our heads cool, and I wouldn’t call vodka the best kind of cooling mixture!’
‘Don’t tell me what
to do, Leutnant,’ roars Henckel, harshly. He demands another glass of vodka, and swallows it greedily.
Leutnant Hassow pushes over some documents for signature. Henckel signs them with a flourish, without reading them.
Rothe looks relievedly at Hassow, as if to say: ‘There goes the can!’
‘Let’s try our connections,’ orders Henckel, slapping the Signals Feldwebel on the shoulder. He looks at his watch. It shows 04.45 hours, ‘Put me through to the “Werfers”. Those part-time soldiers always need more time than anybody else.’
After a short conversation with the ‘Nebekoerfer’ commander he asks for the fire charts and memorises the targets. Together with the Leutnants he runs quickly through the Army orders. Then he asks to be connected with the advanced artillery spotters. There seems to be some disagreement with the spotter at 104. Infantry Regiment. Henckel puts him in his place, brusquely, and cuts off the connection. Satisfied, he leans back again in his chair and orders a third glass of vodka.
‘Do you think that is wise, sir?’ asks Leutnant Rothe, worriedly.
‘If I want your opinion I’ll ask for it, Leutnant!’ Henckel rejects the advice, sharply, and hangs a long Russian cigarette with a cardboard tube between his lips. He swallows half the vodka, and stretches until his joints crack. He looks at his watch again and notes that it is eight minutes to H-hour. For a moment he considers taking another nap before the fun starts. The vodka has made him optimistic. He is looking forward to unleashing his own private hell of fire. It is the first time he has aimed at live targets. ‘I’ll make ’em open their eyes, those stuck-up fools,’ he thinks, with satisfaction. ‘Who knows, I might even win an Iron Cross for perfect fire control. Why not?’ He throws the rest of his vodka down his throat, and looks contemptuously at the two young Leutnants standing bent over the target charts. He selects another of the long Russian cigarettes. They look well, he thinks, just right for a man in uniform. Before he manages to light up the telephone shrills impatiently. With a self-satisfied mien he takes the receiver from Rothe’s hand.
‘What the devil are you up to?’ comes in a furious voice from the Chief of Staff. ‘Why have you not opened fire as ordered?’