by Sven Hassel
Porta rounds the half-ruined statue, across from Franken Strasse, like a bulldozer and runs straight into the arms of the gunman, who is now carrying a machine-pistol. It is impossible to say which of them howls loudest. The screams alert Tiny. Without hesitation he fires across the street. Shop windows, and the display cases outside the closed cinema, disappear in a rain of glass and splinters which shower out onto the road.
‘Thank Christ we’re still fit from Russia,’ groans Tiny, taking cover in the gutter.
The gunman races down a narrow alley. Porta is right on his heels, with the Nagan held out in front of him. Windows and plate-glass shop fronts are smashed on the way. Now and then a car windshield is shattered.
At the tram terminus Porta stops, panting, to allow Tiny to catch up with him. He comes thundering down the street, his hob-nailed boots striking sparks from the cobbles.
‘Jesus,’ he cackles, excitedly, as he comes to a stop alongside Porta. ‘That rotten civilian’s sure got ’is tail on fire! Think we managed to get a chunk shot off of ’im? ’E was spoutin’ blood up to the rain-gutters when ’e beat the lights at Bellevue Strasse.’
‘I do believe I did nick him a bit,’ says Porta, peering up and down the street with the light of the chase gleaming in his eye. Heads are beginning to poke out cautiously from doorways.
The sound of a police siren becomes audible, approaching from Link Strasse. Flashing lights hasten towards the area where the shooting started.
‘Never there when they’re wanted, those Schupo shits,’ grumbles Porta, reloading his Nagan. ‘May the holy German god cut off the cheeks of their arseholes with a wooden knife!’
‘Know who it is who’s bangin’ off at us?’ asks Tiny. ‘You were close enough to ’im to be treadin’ on ’is ’aemmorhoids. Even a fly, with ’is little eye, ought to been able to recognise ’im!’
‘It’s a fellow called “Strawberries’n Cream”,’ says Porta, thoughtfully, blowing into the muzzle of the Nagan and eyeing the cross-filed dum-dum bullet in the chamber. ‘When we’ve finished with him they’ll change his name to “Strawberry Jam”.’
‘Why’d they call ’im “Strawberries’n Cream”?’ asks Tiny.
‘Red hair, white chops. Looks as if they’d dipped him in flour. Soft in the head, too!’ answers Porta. ‘Looks just like what they call him!’
‘Must be batchy,’ considers Tiny, craning his neck to look down the street. ‘Runnin’ round in the public streets, and bangin’ away like a bleedin’ madman, where other people can see it. Don’t ’ave to be a bleedin’ trick-cyclist to find out as ’e’s got shit where ’is brains ought to be, an’ ’as got ’is brains tucked up ’is arse’ole!’
Thoughtfully, Porta tilts his cap, and scratches his head with the sight of his pistol.
‘Let’s piss off down Koester Strasse. If I’m not very much mistaken he’s on his way to the docks to find himself a hidey-hole in amongst all them packing-cases.’
As they turn into Hafenplatz a rain of bullets comes at them from the far side of the road. They whine off the walls behind them, and send chalk and cement dust down over their heads.
Tiny’s P-38 roars, tearing half a brick out of the corner of a building and blowing a window in. Glass rain’s over one of the occupants.
‘Come on out, you rotten helping of strawberry flan,’ howls Porta, wild with excitement. He lets go with his Nagan, so rapidly that it sounds like a machine-gun.
‘Stick your ’ead up, so we can get a shot at it,’ roars Tiny, hot for action, and reloading his P-38.
The gunman loses his head, unfortunately for him. He races across the square, swings himself up and over a tall fence, and falls into some dustbins on the other side with a noise like a T-34 going through a china shop.
‘That sour strawberry’s ’ad it for sure now.’ Tiny is jubilant. He takes off, in Olympic Games high jump style, over the fence, only to go straight down into the stinking contents of one of the tall dustbins. Snorting with rage he puts his head up over the edge. Six feet away his eye falls on ‘Strawberry’ sitting on a sack of onions and banging at his Mpi. The magazine is stuck and he cannot cock it.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he howls, throwing the Sten on the ground, desperately. Now it works. The whole magazine goes off in one burst. Bullets shower the house-tops.
Cautiously, Porta puts his head up over the top of the fence. He takes in the situation at a glance. He jackknifes over onto the other side and fires as he is still in the air. Bullets whine and ricochet all round Strawberry, who throws himself, screaming, to the ground. He thinks he is already dead.
It is all over. Porta and Tiny stand over him, each aiming a gun at his head.
Strawberry closes his eye and waits for the shots. To his great surprise nothing happens. If he had been in their position he would have fired long ago. Experience has taught him the wisdom of that.
‘That all you’ve got to show us?’ asks Porta, in a disappointed tone, giving him a kick. ‘Up you get, you green strawberry, and tell us where Egon and the dwarf are hiding out! Don’t try pulling the wool over our eyes. We’re not going to let a rotten berry like you take us! Open your stinking mouth to warn ’em and your tiny little brain’ll get splattered all over Moabitt! And when we let you go, make tracks for the setting sun, panjemajo?’
‘Why don’t we kick ’is arse all the way to Egon’s an’ the dwarf’s ’ide-out?’ asks Tiny, longingly.
‘You’re one of these cunt-crazy bastards who like girls with riding boots on, aren’t you?’ asks Porta, jabbing his gun-barrel into Strawberry’s ribs-to stimulate his mental activity.
Strawberry nods sheepishly, and wipes garbage from his face. He was on the receiving end when Tiny displaced the contents of the tall dustbin.
‘If you don’t do exactly what we want, and tell the truth,’ cackles Porta happily, wagging his finger under Strawberry’s nose, ‘you’ll never, ever, see another pair of riding boots on a girl’s legs. Your next set of footwear’ll be the concrete ones we fit you for before we toss you off one of the Spree bridges. Now then, where do we find Egon the cunt-wholesaler?’
Strawberry looks round desperately, like a drowning man searching for land. He cannot see any, and decides that it would be wisest to answer Porta’s question truthfully, and to hope Porta will have shot Egon before the latter discovers who has given away his hide-out. He draws a couple of deep breaths, and attempts to put an honest expression on his face.
‘Egon’n the dwarf are at the crazy zoo keeper’s, waitin’ for word you two’ve been shot!’ he whispers secretively, looking around on all sides.
‘Is it that mad sod who buys all sorts of dead animals and stuffs ’em?’ Porta drills at him. He slaps him about a little to clear his mind.
‘Yeah, yeah!’ answers Strawberry. ‘You get a shock when you go in there first. He’s got ’em mil of clockwork’n they roar and move about like they’re alive!’
‘It’s Egon and the dwarf as’ll get the shock, when we turn up,’ grins Tiny, delightedly.
‘Don’t you move from here till half an hour after we’ve left,’ warns Porta, as they climb back over the fence. ‘Do, and you’ll be a very dead son of a bitch, but smartly!’
They sneak through the garden and up to the keeper’s house.
‘Now,’ orders Porta, when they arrive outside the door. They are dripping wet from a fall into a swimming pool in which the keeper washes the dead animals before he starts operating on them.
They meet an obstacle in the shape of an oversized housekeeper, who has a chain on the door.
‘Good-day, mum,’ nods Porta, smiling at her and saluting politely.
She wrinkles her forehead and looks suspiciously at the guns in their hands.
‘What do you men want here?’ she asks, in a ‘Prussian’ voice. ‘The Chief Keeper is in conference, and does not wish to be disturbed.’
‘I’m ’is brother, ’ere on a visit,’ grins Tiny, cheekily.
‘Are you now?�
� she asks, with obvious disbelief in her voice.
‘I’ve never heard the Chief Keeper had a brother. Is your name Taut, too?’
‘Brothers usually do have the same name,’ smiles Porta, in friendly fashion.
‘Get out of the way,’ roars Tiny, suddenly losing his patience and putting his P-38 half-way down her throat. ‘Maybe you want a lead pill to steady your stomach?’
‘Oh God! No,’ she stammers, putting her hands to her face.
‘Get that chain off, and keep your mouth shut, and nothing’ll happen to you,’ says Porta. ‘We don’t want to do anything, to a nice, sweet lady like you; that’d be painful, and cause a lot of writing back and forth to the insurance people!’
With shaking hands she takes off the chain, and moves away from the door.
’That’s better now,’ grins Tiny. He pushes her into the toilet and locks the door.
As silently as great cats stalking their prey they move through the Head Keeper’s house. Tiny is in a furious rage and overflowing with incontrollable force. He is ready to go straight through a concrete wall to get hold of Egon and the dwarf. They look under sofas. Open cupboards. Tiny even opens the windows and looks down into the garden.
They find them on the first floor together with the mad keeper and two streetwalkers. The girls are lying on separate sofas, doing things which would make any film censor faint clean away.
The dwarf has a pistol in his hand which is nearly as big as himself.
‘Stop, or I’ll shoot,’ he crows, waving the pistol about, as if he were shooting hens out of a flower bed.
‘You’ll piss, is what you’ll do,’ laughs Tiny. He catches him by the chest in one giant fist. ‘On a point of order, I’d say you’ve got your bollocks caught in a rat trap.’
‘Head first out the window,’ orders Porta, firmly.
‘ ’Ow far’ll I throw ’im?’ asks Tiny, using the dwarfs head to smash the window pane. Glass rattles on the cement below.
‘Far as you can,’ snarls Porta, ‘and make sure he drops on a big, sharp rock.’
Tiny holds the dwarf above his head in up-stretched arms. He takes a pace back to give more power to his throw.
The whores hide their faces and pitifully begin to whimper.
‘Goodbye, then, you pygmy prick,’ bellows Tiny, and throws the dwarf straight through the window. He takes frame and all with him down into the garden.
The dwarf lands with a nasty-sounding thud, but he is a long way from being dead. Quite the opposite. Like an arrow from a bow he dashes through the fruit bushes, and disappears over the sopping fields, taking an unwilling trip through the keeper’s swimming pool for dead animals on the way.
‘Now then, you’ve hailed your last taxi,’ shouts Porta. With a practiced movement he slips a thin cord round Egon’s neck.
One of the girls goes into action. The girl in the black dress. She jumps on Porta’s back and gets her teeth into his ear. With a scream he lets go of Egon. The Poof is on his way through the door when Tiny drops on him. They roll down the steep staircase, wrapped tightly in one another’s arms, making a terrific noise in the process. They crash into a large stuffed orang-outang, which is full of clockwork and which begins to move. It opens its enormous red mouth, and swings its arms from side to side. Tiny cannot believe his eyes. He fumbles for bis pistol, gives out a shout of horror, goes straight up into the air, like a cat on a red-hot spring, jumps out of the window and stumbles through a series of deep puddles. Water and mud splash up around him. He passes through the keeper’s swimming-pool once again. This time he does not even notice it.
Egon, who is lying on his face, rolls over with difficulty, to see where Tiny has gone. But instead of Tiny he sees a huge, hairy monster approaching him, rocking from side to side with huge yellow fangs protruding from a gaping red mouth. From the depths of the brute come two terrific roars. Egon, who is half-way up on his feet with the intention of running, falls back in a light coma. Life comes back into him with a rush when.the orange-furred monster, with glowing eyes and gnashing fangs, falls on top of him. He attempts to roll from under it, but becomes paralysed with fear from top to toe when he feels its fangs brush against his cheek. He screams twice. The second time is when he finds that his head is inside the gaping mouth of the orang-outang. It is the last thing he ever feels in his short, stormy life. He does not even have time to be really frightened. His heart breaks down completely. One spasm after another constricts it. He dies on the spot from shock, with a scream, and a deep, deep intake of breath.
‘Hell,’ shouts Porta, shaking off the girl in the black dress.
‘We’d all better get out of here pdq. The yokels who’ve come to the big city for a bit of excitement are already crowding the street down there. They’ve heard there’s a “Berlin happening” going on in the house. The Schupo’s’ll be here in a bit, and they use guns!’
‘Will they shoot us?’ ask the two girls, in chorus.
‘You bet your life, they will,’ answers Porta. He drags them after him down to the street, where they mix with the expectant rubber-neckers. They look as if they have come straight from the train, from Silesia or Westphalia.
‘Jesus on the Cross,’ cries Porta, faking a long, long breath, as he sits in Sally’s office a little later.‘Now I’ve just got to relax a bit, so I can think clearly like a normal person again.’
‘I’ll tear that fuckin’ dwarfs ears off for him,’ promises Tiny. As usual, he is lying face-down on the floor. ’We just can’t let ’im get away with things like ’e ’as. ’Im as ’as got the mental equipment of a back-arsed gorilla, that’s knocked its ’ead on a tree gettin’ born!’
‘First of all we need some new irons, which can’t be traced,’ says Porta thoughtfully, scratching his pigeon chest. ‘Can’t be lice again, can it?’ he asks, trying to look down himself inside his uniform.
‘What you want new irons for,’ asks Tiny, without understanding. ‘I got my own iron, as I can ’it a fly between the eyes with, on a night black as the ’ob of ’ell itself. New irons you’ve got to get used to!’
‘You’re stupider now than the day you were born,’ shouts Porta irritably. ‘Can’t you understand, man, that when you’re out shootin’ people, outside the war, you need a cannon they can’t trace back to you! That makes for painful problems, and a lot of silly questions. If you get caught, and the prosecutor’s standin’ there with a peashooter they can prove is yours and it’s been used to blow some dope away with, it would be a source of great wonder to all if the jury didn’t find you guilty. Do you understand now why we’ve got to get hold of some new hand-artillery that belongs to somebody else and don’t have our name on it?’
‘I’m on my way to organise some,’ grins Tiny, happily. ‘It’s easy as kiss me arse. I can pick ’em up from the guards in this place. All their shit’s ’angin’ on ’ooks down there. Only got to put your ’and out’n take ’em!’
‘No, I protest,’ shouts Sally, shocked, jumping up from his officer’s desk-chair. ‘No War Ministry fire arms! Our escutcheon’s blotched enough already!’
‘All right, then, I’ll go over to Prinz Albrecht Strasse,’ declares Tiny, unworriedly. ‘I know a dog’s ’ead over there as runs on rails like a bleedin’ train! When the bulls from Alex find out the soddin’ dwarfs been blown out of ’is boots with SD cannons, they’ll call it a legal execution an’ drop it like a ’ot brick!’
‘Not so stupid,’ admits Porta, with a touch of admiration.
When Tiny returns with three large P.P. 7.65 Walthers which he’s picked up at Gestapo HQ on Prinz Albrecht Strasse, Sally almost has a stroke.
‘How did you get ’em out?’ he enquires, open-mouthed. ‘Didn’t they search you on your way out?’
‘As I said before, I know a bloke over there as runs on rails,’ answers Tiny, superciliously.
‘Himmler in person, maybe?’ asks Porta, with a crooked smile.
‘I know ’im too,’ grins Tiny, in a state of reckless
happiness, ‘but luckily ’e don’t know me. I picked up some “greens” too, while I was over there. They’re enough to give a eunuch a jack on,’ he goes on, taking a box of green pills from bis pocket.
Porta and Sally immediately take two each, while Tiny takes three. He says, he feels a bit down. They wash them down with Sally’s whiskey.
‘Those greens’re fantastic,’ says Porta. ‘They start working halfway down your throat already. I don’t know how they take you, but right now I feel like a panzer division with auxiliary weapons going all out to roll a village flat. That dwarf 11 be more than lucky if he lives through today, and I’d like to see anybody get nasty with us about it when they hear he’s departed this vale.’
On their way through Berlin they look into ‘The Golden Pig’, but nobody there has seen the dwarf for some time.
‘That place is usually hopping,’ says Porta, as they cross Gendarmenmarkt. ‘At a Christmas party there once, some camel driver or other who was working at Siemens sticking cartons shut, got himself crippled for life, and a couple of his dark-skinned mates got knocked right off. That was a real good Christmas party, that was. Or so they say. The place’s been shut down for three months, by the way. Some big, fat Commissioner, who sells pigs, came along and said “We’re closing now, boys!” ’
‘And did they do it?’ asks Tiny, amazed.
‘They had to,’ smiles Porta, ‘this fat commissioner had all the Schupos in the world with him, and they had their guns out!’
They look into a lot of places. In ‘The Wooden Leg’ they meet an acquaintance of Porta’s. He is sitting on a tall bar-stool, wearing hat, fur coat and sun-glasses, despite the darkness and the heat inside.
‘You seen the dwarf?’ whispers Porta, conspiratorially.
‘I don’t know you anymore,’ says ‘Sun-glasses’. ‘You’ve had it in Berlin.’ With a movement not to be misunderstood he slips his hand inside his coat.
There is a loud thump. Sunglasses and hat hit the ceiling, and their wearer is rotating in the swing-door. Tiny has given him a tremendous kick in the backside.