by Sven Hassel
‘Leave her be!’ said the Old Man, sharply.
Tiny and Porta swung round to face him.
‘What’s up with you, Granddad?’
‘I said leave her be!’ snapped the Old Man.
He picked up the Major’s discarded tunic and handed it to the girl. Silently, she wrapped it round herself.
‘OK, let’s go.’
The Old Man led her across to Ladislas, who all this time had stood by the wall with his hands over his face, as if even after all these long and painful years of war, he could not bring himself to acknowledge the truth of man’s brutality.
‘We must look for your wife,’ said the Old Man, gently. ‘Take us over the rest of the house.’
Down in the cellars we found them, his wife and his young son. Surrounded by a crowd of drunken Cossacks sleeping off their debauch, in the blood of their victims. The woman had been raped and slashed open with a knife. The child had been spitted on a bayonet. There was no need to look twice to see that they were dead.
We stood in silence. Lenzing turned away with a hand to his mouth. The Old Man stretched out an arm towards Ladislas. The Legionnaire took the girl and led her outside. Even Porta was at a loss for words.
And then, quite suddenly, Ladislas, gentle, frightened, rabbity Ladislas, gave a howl of agony and hurled himself at the nearest Cossack. He had choked the life out of three of them before Tiny came to his senses and leapt forward to join in the slaughter. Within minutes the butchery was complete. There was no one left to kill.
We made our way up the cellar steps and out into the farmyard. There was no more reason for exploring the house. Porta and Tiny, never ones to suffer from over-sensitivity, at once set off to round up the remains of the food and drink while they still had a chance. Kuls was heard to be muttering again about his brother. From behind the stables came a sound of water as if poured from a jug. The Legionnaire and I crept up to investigate and found a semi-conscious Cossack emptying his bladder into a rain-butt. The Legionnaire turned to me and winked. Silently, he drew his knife from the side of his boot. I left him to it.
Someone had been round the farmyard slashing throats. The carcass of the cow had been stripped bare. The fire was still smouldering gently, the embers glowing crimson in the darkness. Tiny and Porta had disappeared, and we ran them to earth in one of the outbuildings. There they were, seated astride a barrel of home-made wine and singing patriotic songs in loud and raucous voices. In the space of ten minutes they had managed to drink themselves almost senseless.
Barcelona came running up with the news that he had discovered three Russian trucks loaded with petrol drums parked under the trees. The Colonel then appeared, from heaven knows where, stinking of vodka and slightly unsteady on his feet. He had about the same intelligence as Barcelona.
‘Sergeant, what are we waiting for?’ he said, in a voice that was thick and slurred. ‘There are three perfectly good trucks beneath the trees. Why do we not make use of them?’
We surged back again into the open air and followed Barcelona and the Colonel across the yard. Before we left, we liberally sprinkled the entire place with petrol – house, outbuildings and stables. We opened the doors for the horses, and after a moment or two of surprise they threw up their heads and thundered away into the security of the forest.
‘All bleeding well for them,’ said Gregor, jealously. ‘The war’s over as far as they’re concerned.’
‘Quite right, too,’ said the Colonel. ‘Dumb animals have no place in the bloody affairs of men.’ He suddenly hooked an arm about Gregor’s neck and leaned confidentially towards him. ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘Before all this began, I had a stable full of the most magnificent beasties. Wonderful creatures. Most beautiful animals you’ve ever seen . . . You know what happened?’
‘No. What?’ said Gregor.
‘They took them away,’ said the Colonel. ‘Took them away for horse meat. Shocking business. Shocking.’
‘Fucking awful,’ said Gregor, sympathetically.
The Old Man was doing his best to round everyone up and make preparations for departure. Half the company was stoned senseless, and the other half was still foraging in the farmhouse for smoked hams and cheeses to carry on the journey. There wasn’t a man among us who didn’t have a couple of bottles of wine or vodka pushed into his pockets. There was a general reluctance to leave, and it wasn’t until Ladislas went berserk and tossed a lighted match into the courtyard that the Old Man was able to impose at least some semblance of order. Men came running from all directions as the petrol leapt into a thousand roaring tongues of flame. Unfortunately, the trucks had not yet been moved, and they were among the first things to disappear in the ensuing conflagration.
We backed away into the trees and stood watching as the fire caught hold of the farmhouse. I thought of all those comatose Cossacks inside, and I wondered how it must be to slip from life to death without ever being aware of it.
‘Not such a bad way to go,’ said Barcelona, at my side. ‘A drunken funeral pyre . . . Not at all a bad way to go!’
1 You understand?
2 Yes.
3 Security Service of the Reich.
4 Sweetheart.
‘I want the youth of Germany to be bold; to be brave; to be violent and remorseless . . .’
Himmler. Letter to SS Hauptsturmführer Professor Dr Bruno
Schultz, 19th August 1938.
One hour after the Warsaw uprising, the Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler was informed of what had taken place. At first he was not able to believe it. It was impossible, after all, that these sewer rats, these Poles, these miserable Jews, should set themselves against the might of the German Army and hope to get away with it. Not even a Pole – or a Jew – could be so criminally insane. It was nothing more than suicide. Had they run mad?
Evidently they had. When the news at last sank in, the Reichsführer was seen to have fallen prey to great and disturbing agitation of mind. He paced about his room, up and down, corner to corner, taking his spectacles on and off his nose and repeatedly wiping a hand across his glistening brow.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Very well, then . . . We shall show them how we deal with animals which have the impertinence to show their teeth to their master!’ He turned to face his subordinates, who were humbly standing in the centre of the large room awaiting their instructions. ‘For this we shall wipe Warsaw clean off the map. Every man, woman and child shall be destroyed . . . every living creature. Every building shall be razed to the ground, and every paving stone shall be torn up!’
He stalked to the window, and there he stood, rocking on the balls of his feet, breathing heavily through flared nostrils, hands twitching convulsively behind his back.
‘In addition,’ he said, turning back into the room, ‘every Pole in every prison camp shall be liquidated. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes, Reichsführer.’ Obergruppenführer Berger bowed his head. ‘Perfectly clear.’
‘All those who were born in Warsaw or who have relations living in Warsaw shall be shot this very night. I shall personally make a check that this has been done. I shall expect a full list of the dead to be delivered to me within twenty-four hours.’
‘Very good, Reichsführer.’
Himmler pinched his nostrils together and drew a long, thin breath. He looked back again to the window, staring out at the rain as it fell on the cold, grey city.
‘As for Gauleiter Fischer,’ he said, ‘he shall be hanged for not having prevented the uprising . . .’
It was General Erich von demn Bach-Zalewski of the Waffen SS who had been given the task of crushing the Warsaw uprising. Neither he nor the Reichsführer ever seriously imagined that a relatively small group of Polish partisans could give them very much trouble. There were twelve thousand German troops stationed in the district, plus the ten thousand SS of the Kaminski Brigade. Under the circumstances it was difficult to imagine how Gauleiter Fischer could have allowed the situation to get so o
ut of hand.
It was doubtful if at that stage either Himmler or Bach-Zalewski fully realised the strength of the revolt. They were not left in ignorance for long, however. The Poles, under the leadership of General Bor-Komorovski, an ex-officer of the Austrian Army, promptly moved in to occupy the Wola district and the entire central area of the town, wiping out both the Gestapo HQ and the command post of the German garrison. They next took over control of the power station and the central telephone exchange. By the third day, the Germans were in retreat and the victorious Poles had taken possession of the several arms depots and ammunition dumps in the town.
Himmler was forced to withdraw three SS divisions and six divisions of the Wehrmacht from the Russian front – mercifully quiet at that period – and send them out to repair the damage. At the beginning of September, the German troops in Warsaw were issued with the latest weapons, and three squadrons of Stukas were sent over to bomb the city.
Himmler had played his ace, and still there were small groups of partisans who refused to give in. He had only his joker left, now. He played it, and from then until the final surrender a total of five thousand Polish prisoners were murdered every day . . .
The Way over the River
Throughout the rest of the night and the whole of the next day, we followed Ladislas and his sister through the forest towards the point where we should be able to cross the river. We travelled slowly, with frequent halts to allow enemy patrols to pass by. Kuls was constantly complaining that we were being led into a trap and would be sorry when it was all too late. It did cross my own mind that we seemed to be taking a somewhat roundabout route, but we had no reason for mistrusting our guide, and the Old Man appeared to be quite happy to follow him.
Towards midnight on the second day we reached the towering cliffs which overhung the river. There was a sheer drop into the gorge far below, where the waters roared and crashed and threw up an angry, white-flecked spray high into the air. I could see rocks sticking up like rows of needle-sharp teeth, and I moved hastily away from the crumbling edge of the cliff and scrambled back to join the others.
‘So what are we supposed to do?’ said Kuls, sourly. ‘Flap our wings and fly?’
The Old Man jerked his thumb upstream.
‘According to the Pole, there’s a bridge half a mile further on, but it’s too risky to attempt the crossing at night. We’ll kip down for a few hours and give it a go in the morning.’
‘Bridge!’ said Kuls. ‘A likely bloody story!’
I rather thought so myself. I could certainly see no signs of any bridge, and if there was one it was bound to be heavily guarded. However, our guide obviously knew the district. He led the way to an opening in the rocks, a crevice which widened into a fair-sized cavern, and there we installed ourselves for the night. We set up the machine-gun at the mouth of the crevice, camouflaging it with creepers and branches. We felt we were in comparative safety. The rocky cavern was like a luxury suite after the misery of the mud and the marshes. It was dry and it was warm, and for the first time in days we had an adequate supply of food and drink. Even sleep was possible for those who had cultivated the happy knack of closing their ears to all external sounds. The Legionnaire curled into a ball and never moved a muscle all night long. For my own part I was unable to blot out the continuous drunken bickering of Heide and Porta, interspersed with the inane guffaws of Tiny and the general roaring and belching. I passed the hours until dawn in an irritable stupor somewhere between waking and sleeping, and I was thankful when the first light streaked across the sky and the Old Man called us to our feet.
We dismantled the machine-gun and set off behind the Pole and his sister along the cliff tops. The sky was grey, gold-tipped on the horizon with the waking of the sun, and a large black crow slowly beat its way across the river on undulating wing. I had an uncomfortable feeling that our own passage was not likely to be quite so free and easy.
‘There,’ said Ladislas; and he stood pointing upstream, to a point where a giant pine had come crashing down and now lay stretched across the chasm, its torn roots on one side and its branches on the other. ‘There is the way we must go.’
Even the Old Man betrayed a moment of doubt.
‘Is it safe?’ he said.
‘Safe?’ said Ladislas. He shrugged a careless shoulder. ‘Who can tell if it is safe or not? Maybe it fall – maybe we fall. Maybe it break. Maybe the wind blow. Maybe the Russians come.’ He spread out his hands. ‘Who cares?’ he said.
Not, apparently, Ladislas, or his sister. They walked on together, hand in hand, towards the fallen pine. After all they had been through, they probably felt they had nothing left to live for. So let them commit suicide if that was what they wanted; the rest of us were not so keen.
‘What did I tell you?’ said Kuls, savagely. ‘What did I bloody tell you?’
We hung back and watched as Ladislas first and then his sister took off their boots and stepped barefoot on to the improvised bridge.
‘Ever been across this way before?’ asked Barcelona, casually.
‘Never,’ said Ladislas.
‘Why should we?’ added his sister. ‘Always before there is a bridge to walk on.’
Slowly and carefully, one foot after another, they shuffled out into space. Ladislas had his hands on his hips to give him better balance. The girl had her arms stretched out at shoulder level. Both held their heads high and stared straight across at the opposite bank. They moved like sleepwalkers in slow motion. As they passed the half-way mark the trunk began to tremble. The girl caught her breath, and stood poised for a moment on one foot. Ladislas braced himself firmly, legs apart, and held out a hand towards her. The girl tilted slightly backwards. Ladislas bent forward from the waist. It seemed impossible they could maintain their equilibrium, but inch by inch they straightened up, the girl managed to regain her footing and they continued calmly on their way along the swaying trunk. About six feet before it reached the far bank it narrowed considerably. It was scarcely the width of a man’s shoe. We could see it sagging beneath the weight of the two people. It must have been a temptation for Ladislas to take a flying leap on to the bank, but had he done so the girl would almost certainly have been flung into the air by the springboard reaction of the slender tree trunk. He pursued his course grimly to the end, and when at last he reached the opposite side, he turned and held out a hand. The girl snatched at it, and together they clambered to safety.
‘Where one can go,’ said the Old Man, with a faint smile at the Legionnaire, ‘the rest can surely follow . . . Who’s next?’
There was silence. Not even Porta opened his mouth. Ladislas and his sister stood on the opposite bank and waved and shouted to us, but all I could see was the swaying tree trunk and all I could hear was the angry rushing of the waters far below. The Old Man made an impatient noise in the back of his throat.
‘Well, come on!’ he said. ‘We can’t hang about all day. There’s only one way to go, and that’s across the river . . . And there’s only one way to cross the river, and that’s the way we’re going.’
‘Like hell!’ snarled Kuls. He drew his lips back over his teeth, showing his gums like an angry dog. ‘I’m staying right here, and no one’s going to budge me!’
The Old Man took a step towards him. Kuls backed away. He pointed his rifle at the Old Man.
‘You come another step and I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you, so help me God.’
The Old Man took another step. With one hand he slapped Kuls hard across the face. With the other he snatched his rifle away from him. Coldly and contemptuously, he slung it over the edge of the cliff.
‘And that’s exactly where you’ll end up yourself if I have any more trouble with you,’ he said, grimly. He turned back to the rest of us. ‘So who’s next for the high wire?’
‘Not me,’ I said.
It made me dizzy just looking at the thing. For once I was in full sympathy with Kuls. Wild horses weren’t going to drag me across that tree trunk
.
‘Do I have to drive you all at gun point?’ demanded the Old Man.
There was a general muttering, and an uneasy shuffling of feet, and then Tiny suddenly gave a great roar of anger and plunged forward. He ripped off his boots and slung them round his neck. He pulled out his one remaining bottle of raspberry wine and emptied it down his throat. The bottle flew over the edge of the cliff in the wake of Kuls’s rifle, and for one moment I thought that Tiny was going to follow it. He charged forward, head down, like a tank out of control, and he was half-way across to the opposite bank when he lost his balance and slipped. Someone screamed. The tree trunk was twanging up and down like a rubber band, and Tiny was hanging on with both hands, suspended in space with his legs dangling. All the blood in my body turned to water, and I was chewing on my bottom lip as if it were a piece of particularly tough rump steak. However much I wanted to turn my eyes the other way, I found myself compelled to watch.
‘He’ll never make it,’ said Barcelona. His fingers closed over my arm and bit deep into the flesh. ‘He’ll never make it—’
Tiny swung himself up and hooked his legs round the tree trunk. Slowly and carefully, hanging upside down like a koala bear, he inched his way along. Hand over hand, foot over foot. He reached the last couple of yards. There was an ominous creaking sound. Ladislas and the girl grabbed hold of the branches, as if their combined weight would be any sort of counterbalance to Tiny’s vast bulk.
‘Christ almighty,’ said Gregor, his face like a stale mushroom drained of all colour. ‘Sweet Christ almighty . . .’
Tiny had reached the edge of the trunk. He stretched out a hand and caught hold of a stunted tree growing from the side of the cliff. With one foot he felt round for a ledge or a crevice, and at last he found one and was able to haul himself somewhat ponderously to safety. From his pocket he pulled out the filthy bloodstained rag which had once been his handkerchief and mopped his brow with it.