by Sven Hassel
The giant prison on the hill is pecked at unceasingly by innumerable shells from the heavy guns.
I don’t know how long I have been lying alongside a camouflage-uniformed soldier, before I realise he is a Russian. We have huddled close together, seeking protection and consolation from the fiery rain of metal. It is as if all the powers of evil have been unleashed in one mad, uncontrollable raging convulsion.
The mill on top of the first hill disappears in a cloud of snow, earth and fire. Literally pulverised. When the artillery fire moves on, only its five huge chimneys are left pointing accusingly at the sky.
I look nervously at the Russian, and he looks, fearfully, back at me. He is a little, fat man wrapped in a greatcoat much too big for him. We smile, carefully, at one another. Weak, frightened smiles. Without saying a word we promise one another: ‘If you don’t kill me, I won’t kill you either!’
For a short moment there is a terrifying silence. It is as if the guns are taking a deep breath, before readying themselves for a new attack.
In front of and behind us flames shiver in a crazy devil-dance. From all sides come the groans and cries of the wounded. A roaring sound commences, far off in the distance. It comes quickly closer. It is as if the earth is being turned inside out. Bodies whirl up into the air and come down again with a loud, final slap.
No. 4. Section is sucked up in a spiral. High in the air they seem to explode into a mist of flesh, bones and blood. The river boils like a kettle. The yard-thick ice is long since gone. Large sheets of it lie far out from the banks. The lower part of a man comes running out of the orange-yellow smoking hell. Where is the rest of him? In all its horror the occurrence seems almost comical. A pair of boots and trousers rushing along all on their own through the snow.
‘It’s the nerves,’ says Julius, who always knows it all.
‘Für Führer und Reich, Heil!’ crows Porta, ceremoniously, watching the legs, which have sunk down in a bloody bundle into the snow.
A giant shell explodes in the middle of the long, white house. The house disappears in the blast.
The company which has been taking cover behind it is blown away. Along the entire street houses are cut across the middle. Suddenly the streets are filled with blood-spattered civilians, milling around and screaming in horror at their plight.
In the midst of the smoking ruins a platoon of shocked German infantrymen sit staring with dead glassy eyes. Dead, yet still alive.
‘New lot for Giessen, there!’ nods Porta.
Tanks and armoured sleighs pour out from the prison hill, and descend the slopes, each in its cloud of snow. With a crash they land, and bounce forward over the cleft. The tracks of many of them are broken. Shells whine over us and explode behind us like brilliant red poppies.
From the forest an increasing roar can be heard. It is the remains of the German tanks starting up. They have been held back in readiness. They sweep past in broad arrow formation.
From a shell-hole and a half-destroyed dugout a group of machine-guns fire on anything which moves. Even the dead do not escape. Bodies jump at the impact.
‘Take them!’ roars Oberst Hinka, pointing with his Mpi.
The flamethrower crew creeps forward through the tumbled snow. Two men cover a wicked looking Obergefreiter, who has the heavy equipment on his back.
A spear of flame shoots towards the battered position. A scream of terror is heard. Burning shapes appear. Fall to the ground, writhing. Two more jets of flaming oil pour over them. Rags of flesh and uniform spurt from firing-slits as if from an exploding powder-keg.
The MG’s fall silent.
The Obergefreiter with the flamethrower looks around him for a new target.
Like red lightning the flame pours over another machinegun nest. Even in death the Russians continue firing. The tongue of flame returns. Rolling like a coloured ball, it seeks out every hiding-place in the shell-hole.
A filthy stench of burnt meat hits us like a clenched fist.
I feel as if the sweat on the back of my neck is beginning to boil. The terrible smell sickens us.
All around us we can hear the crack of tank guns. Burning tanks send up great mushrooming clouds of oily smoke.
Slowly, our section works its way forward. We have advanced a good way up the hill. We jump over twisted skeletons of steel, our feet slip on the remains of dead humanity.
The ground opens again in a sea of flame.
‘Stalin organs!’ roars Barcelona, going head-over-heels into a hole which is still smoking from a shell-burst. In the distance we hear a mad howling which changes to a cyclonic roar. Then the third movement. Strike and explosion. A long, monstrous, rolling roar, louder than any until now.
Time after time we are buried in mountains of snow. We fight madly to escape before we are suffocated in it.
‘Forward! Come on! Up with you!’ shouts Oberst Hinka.
We crawl, run and slide towards the prison, which towers threateningly in front of us.
We storm into the Russian defence positions.
‘Roll ’em up!’ comes the order.
We wipe them out in no time. With uniforms soaked in blood we rush onwards. We begin to be able to see details of the long prison building.
The dark skies open, and Jabo’s1 appear, cannon fire jetting from their wings.
We try to find cover in the ruins of the mill. Clouds of flour and bran almost choke us. It is as if our throats are stopped with lumps of dough.
I slide down a long chute. I glimpse a Russian with a lifted spade. I let off a whole clip at him. He jack-knifes, screaming, and falls into a boiler filled with a heavy gruel. A few bubbles form on the surface and burst.
‘I can’t! I can’t!’ groans Leutnant Haase from 3. Platoon. His voice is choked with tears. His eyes stare wildly. A terrific blast wave throws him back against a concrete wall. He creeps back, screaming.
‘No! No!’ he babbles. He pushes forward his Mpi and sends bullet after bullet into a bloated corpse. It explodes, gassily.
‘Shell-fucked ’e is!’ growls Tiny, dropping on him with all his weight.
‘Knock him out!’ orders the Old Man.
Tiny swings his enormous fist. It hammers into the Leutnant’s face with a heavy thud. He crumples like an empty sack.
A P-2 tank comes flying through the air and crashes through an outhouse. It bounces onwards like a huge rubber ball. Trees, ruins, snow, even the river, seem to flame where the Stalin organ’s rockets have fallen. The flames lick the heavens, dancing through the spectrum from sharp yellow to violet and blood-red. The heat strikes us, like a glowing blanket falling down on us from the rose-coloured clouds.
We stare, fascinated, at the unbelievable sight. A thundering rolls through the winter night.
‘Full cover!’ screams the Old Man, rolling down like lightning into a depression in the ground.
A party of shocked Russians appear from the uneven ground, closely followed by an equally terrified party of Germans. Far behind us we hear a howling, whistling sound.
‘It’s them!’ cries Gregor, in terror.
‘280 mm’s! Jumpin’ Jacks by Christ!’
The entire salvo drops in the middle of the fleeing Russians and Germans. Their bodies explode into an enormous pink cloud. It falls on us like a heavy rain. That salvo should have dropped two hundred yards in front of us. Half an hour ago! Now it drops straight on top of us, killing both Germans and Russians. They promised us massed artillery support. A fire concentration of which we had never seen the like. They were right! They were not exaggerating. Their fire has completely destroyed our own men. At least eighty per cent of our attacking force is lying out there smeared into the snow.
‘That Goddam artillery’s killing us!’ groans Porta, forcing his way into cover beneath some charred beams. ‘How little do you have to make yourself to get through this lot alive?’
All around us great lumps of frozen snow, earth, rock, snapped-off tree trunks, and twisted metal are blown tow
ards the sky. Terrified men are pinned to the earth by long spears of steel which come flying through the night. Arms and legs are torn from quivering bodies and thrown to one side like rubbish. The whole area becomes a giant dump of human spare parts in the course of seconds. It steams with blood and ripped out entrails.
‘It’s our own fuckin’ artillery shootin’ us down,’ screams an Oberfeldwebel, desperately, getting up to run to cover. A blast throws him up against the remains of a stone wall. He is crushed like an egg-shell.
The ex-Oberst jumps to his feet, and emits an echoing scream.
Gregor grabs at him, and pulls him half under cover. The next second his head leaves his body. Cut off as if by a giant knife. Startled, Gregor lets go of his ankle. The headless body sits up, with a thick stream of blood spouting from its neck. The head, its eyes widely open, rolls along over the hard-packed snow.
We avoid the rolling head, automatically lifting our feet to let it pass. Tiny, who is consuming the remains of a frozen duck he has liberated from a dead commissar, does not notice the head, which rolls on and stops at his feet.
‘Well I’ll be?’ he cries, in surprise, forgetting to bite into the duck. ‘Who do you think you’re starin’ at, you silly sod? It ain’t my fault you’ve lost your body, now, is it? Gerrout on it!’ he snarls, waving the hand holding the frozen duck. He gives the head a kick which sends it flying out over the snow.
A major of Panzer Grenadiers screams hysterically at Tiny and threatens him with a court-martial. But the major disappears in a sea of flame. Only his steel helmet is left behind, rocking desolately in the snow.
By my side lies an elderly Hauptmann whose whole side has been torn open. It resembles the offal bin of a slaughterhouse. Splintered bone and shreds of flesh. His face is a mirror of pain and horror. War is a hell of agony and shredded nerves, fear and terror. When will it be me? Me who will be thrown up into the air. A geyser of smashed bone, flesh and blood.
Flames shoot up from the earth. Glowing fragments of weapons, houses, animals and human beings rain down over the positions.
A cook-waggon, spouting soup and potatoes, comes flying through the air. The horses whirl, screaming, head over heels together with the waggon. A storm comes rushing over us, followed by a piercing howl. The next second the earth shakes to renewed colossal explosions.
A sleigh company is caught on its way into the gulch and paints the steep sides of it with a slick of blood and crushed bone. The heavy motor sleighs are reduced to heaps of twisted metal scrap.
The OC of 2. Company has both legs torn off, just above the knee. He crashes down with a shrill scream. He reminds us of a torn rag doll, lying there. Nobody goes to his assistance. There are too many wounded and dead. We cannot interest ourselves in their fate.
‘C’est la guerre!’ says the Legionnaire. ‘More garbage for the military muck-heap!’
Obergefreiter Lamm gets hit just as he is taking a huge bite at a Westphalian sausage. With a completely astonished, lost look on his face, he slumps against the wall of the entrenchment. A piece of shrapnel has left only a tiny hole in his forehead. Hardly any blood issues from it.
‘By all the devils of Castile,’ cries Barcelona. He grabs at his throat. Blood trickles out between his fingers.
‘You’re ’it!’ shouts Tiny, in dismay, bending over him. ‘Jesus’n Mary it’s gone right through you! Lucky you weren’t eatin’ at the time. That Commie bullet’d ’ave took your grub with it!’
‘This is what comes out of going to war with generals who shave their heads and wear monocles,’ says Porta, applying dressings to the hole. ‘They’ve got only one thing in their heads, those boys. That’s getting their names in the history books. We lot foot the bill by getting ourselves shot to bits!’
‘Want to go back?’ asks the Old Man, jogging up from the far end of the position.
‘No, I’ll stay here,’ answers Barcelona, decidedly. ‘I don’t want to get separated from the boys!’
‘Think you’ll be all right?’ asks the Old Man, doubtfully, staring at the entry hole. ‘You can see your feet through that!’
‘I’m stayin’,’ mumbles Barcelona, firmly. ‘There’s something tells me if I leave you lot I’ll never come back!’
‘The God of Germany’s pissin’ on us,’ Tiny explains to a Russian corporal who just jumped down to us by mistake. ‘Panjemajo?’
‘Nix panjemajo,’ answers the Russian, handing Tiny a machorka, in the belief that he has asked for a cigarette.
Tiny accepts it and offers the Russian a swig from his water-bottle.
‘We ought to’ve run into one another on the Reeperbahn,’ he says, with a broad grin. ‘Might’ve ’ad some fun together. I could’ve got you bags of ’Amburg cunt cheap, and between times we could’ve taken the piss out of Commissioner bleedin’ Nass. Bleedin’ pity we ’ad to ’ave a war ’fore we could meet one another. Specially when its ’ere, where a bloke can risk gettin’ killed forty ways from Sunday!’
‘Nix panjemajo! grins the Russian, sheepishly. He fishes a snapshot from his tunic pocket. ‘Nevaéssta2’ he explains, kissing the greasy photograph. It is dog-eared from having been looked at so often.
‘Be all right on a sheet, she would!’ Tiny says appreciatively, laughing like a Cheshire cat. ‘ ’Aven’t got them yellow monkeys quartered on your village I ’ope? They say them Mongol bleeders fuck ’em that fast even the rabbits go dizzy watchin’ it!’
‘Nix panjemajo! says the Russian, putting the photograph back in his pocket. ‘Vaernútssa, dassvidánya3.’ He gets up suddenly and shakes hands all round.
We help him up over the lip of the trench. Just before he disappears from sight in the snow, he turns and waves to us.
‘Think he’ll get through?’ asks the Old Man, doubtfully.
‘They’ll shoot him,’ says Porta, knowledgeably. ‘It’s high treason to exchange two words with us capitalists.
‘We ought to ’ave given ’im the schoolteacher to take back as a prisoner. ’E’d ’ave been all right then,’ says Tiny. ‘And we’d ’ave got rid of the whinin’ little shit. ’E’s that bleedin’ dumb ’e can’t find ’is own arse’ole even when ’e uses both ’ands!’
The bitterly cold wind has now turned to a raging blizzard. Huge clouds of snow and crystals of frost sweep across the icy, shivering earth. Snowdrifts move like waves in a storm-tossed sea, burying tanks, guns, horses and soldiers irrespective of uniform.
The murderous gunfire continues incessantly. Countless horses are stuck fast in the snow. Teamsters’ whips crack, but the animals only kick themselves deeper and deeper into the snow. Their screams cut through the thunder of the shells. Roads have disappeared, buried in mountainous drifts. We try to mark them by pushing long sticks with wisps of straw tied to their ends, deep down into the snow.
Dragging our feet we force our way forward, leaving many behind in the white hell. The frost soon finishes them off. The catastrophe is complete. Our artillery has certainly done a good job — on us!
A Russian colonel, the tails of his open greatcoat flapping behind him, comes running through the snow. He rushes on, fully convinced that everyone is trying to kill him. He stumbles and rolls a long way.
‘Germanski! Germanski!’ he screams with mouth agape. He is swallowed in a fountain of flame which shoots up from the earth and takes the shape of a giant, violet mushroom.
Now the barrage rolls along the ground like a carpet of steel. Every battery is engaged. What has been happening previously is as nothing to the destructive fire which roars down on us now.
Six runaway horses come bolting over the frozen snow with a 100 mm field-gun bouncing behind them. Three gunners hold on for dear life. One of them loses his grip and is crushed under the heavy wheels of the gun-carriage. The gun bangs up and down like a toy cannon.
A Supplies NCO is hit by a ricochet and falls from his horse. His foot catches in the stirrup. With a loud crack his head smashes against a rock.
Three P-4’s
come roaring from the remains of the shot-riddled village. The leading tank suddenly spins on the icy surface, slides backwards and to one side, and rolls, crashing and clanging, down a steep slope. The flame of an explosion spurts from its turret. Coal-black smoke mushrooms up. Another P-4 goes into a skid. The commander in the open turret hatchway tries to get out. Halfway, the steel hatch cover snaps down on him, crashing his hips. The heavy tank rolls over on him, crushing him to a bloody pulp.
A party of unarmed German infantrymen comes sliding down a slope. They have only one thought in their heads. Escape. Escape anywhere. If only they can get away from this thundering, flaming inferno which is ploughing up the heights.
A Kübel, with a G-staff flag, brakes on the icy snow and goes into a long sideways slide. It is a wonder it does not crash down onto the wrecked tanks.
An Oberstleutnant with carmine G-staff tabs jumps from the Kübel with Mpi at the ready.
‘Back, you cowardly dogs!’ he roars, swinging a punch at a Leutnant in a uniform filthy with blood. ‘Back to your positions, you dirty deserters!’ He lifts his weapon and sends several short, well-aimed bursts into the troops crowding down from the flaming heights.
‘Kill the bastard!’ screams a Feldwebel, furiously, attempting to wrest the Oberstleutnant’s Mpi from him. ‘First they smash us up with our own guns, now they’re tryin’ to mow us down with their machine-pistols!’
‘To hell with you, you war-mad sod!’ shouts a Jaeger Unteroffizier. He throws himself on the Oberstleutnant, foaming at the mouth with rage, grasps him by the throat and strangles the life out of him.
The driver of the Kübel snatches up an Mpi and sends a long, barking burst into the mob of furious soldiers who are stamping the Oberstleutnant’s body into the snow.
‘You fuckin’ sons of bitches,’ he shouts, in a white-hot rage. He throws a grenade into the crowd. Panting at the exertion he drags the body to the vehicle and throws a greatcoat over it. He threatens the fleeing mob. ‘Die then, like the shit you are!’ he screams, with tears of despair choking his voice. ‘You don’t deserve any better. Arseholes of the Army you are!’ He edges under the steering wheel and takes the Kübel off in a cloud of powdery snow.