Reign of Hell (Cassell Military Paperbacks)

by Sven Hassel

  He collected up the mangled remains of the unfortunate padre and dragged him down to the river. There was a loud splash, and then silence. Seconds later, Tiny returned with a pair of boots in one hand and a crucifix in the other.

  ‘Where did you get those from?’ said the Old Man, suspiciously.

  ‘These?’ said Tiny. ‘I found ’em, didn’t I? Found ’em down by the river . . .’

  We began to make our way back to rejoin the Company, but by now the Poles were attacking in force from the direction of the Momoro Bridge and we were unable to get through. We were forced to hole up for a while in the ground floor of an abandoned house, with shells exploding all about us. The tower of a nearby church received a direct hit and went thundering to the ground. It was only with the greatest difficulty that the Old Man was able to keep Tiny from running out to examine it, to see if the cross were made of gold. A couple of shells demolished the building next door and brought the ceiling down on our heads. The top floor was in flames and in danger of collapsing. We were finally driven out by the smoke. The streets were on fire all round us. Heavy artillery was pounding the whole area, and buildings were caving in on every side with a roar of falling masonry.

  We caught up at last with the rest of the Company, which was in a state of considerable confusion. It was in the process of being reformed under the command of Lieutenant Löwe, who had one hand heavily bandaged and whose face had been splashed on one side with burning petrol.

  It was noon on the following day before we were pulled out of the battle area and allowed a few hours’ respite. Men’s thoughts turned instantly to food, and Tiny, Porta and I were the unfortunates selected by the second section to go in search of it. The field kitchens were some distance away, and in order to reach them we had to retrace our steps through areas that were under constant bombardment.

  We managed to collect the mess tins and plunged back with them into the chaos of bursting shells and flying bullets. A sheet of flame suddenly reared up in front of us and we fell back, choking. Turning down one of the side roads, we heard a shell land on the roof of a nearby building and we had to hurl ourselves to the ground to escape the falling rubble. We turned the corner and were instantly met with a hail of machine-gun bullets. Only a few yards further on, a rooftop sniper with an automatic rifle began taking pot shots at us.

  ‘For God’s sake!’ roared Tiny, almost beside himself with rage. ‘Knock it off, can’t you?’

  To our amazement, the firing immediately ceased. I gazed upon Tiny with a new respect.

  ‘You must try that again some time . . . I wonder if it would work with T34s?’

  There were three field kitchens set up in the Place de la Vistule. Three field kitchens and three queues each half a mile long. We tagged on at the end of one, and settled down, disgruntled, to await our turn.

  ‘What’s on the menu today?’ yelled Porta. ‘Stewed sock and dumpling?’

  The cook looked sourly down the line at him. He and Porta were old enemies.

  ‘You’ll find out when you get here,’ he said.

  Someone turned round and volunteered the information that it was bouillabaisse. A derisive cheer went up. Bouillabaisse was a polite term used to describe a mess of rotting fish bones floating in a pool of greasy, grey liquid. Still, it was better than Porta’s stewed sock and dumpling, otherwise known as ragoût of beef. Even the smell of putrefying fish could make a man lick his lips after almost twenty-four hours without food.

  We moved tantalisingly slowly towards the head of the queue. Porta began to tell us about a real bouillabaisse he had once eaten in France. He described it in mouth-watering detail, dwelling morbidly upon each mouthful, until, you could smell it and taste it. I closed my eyes and I felt it slowly slipping down my throat, towards my grateful belly. Even such a rare treat as Piotr’s roast crow and cutlet of dog could not altogether satisfy the constant craving.

  The sound of an explosion brought me sharply to my senses. I opened my eyes and found the place full of smoke. All round me, men were milling in panic with their empty mess tins.

  ‘The bloody food’s gone up!’ shouted Porta.

  A stray shell had landed in the centre of the square. Porta’s enemy, the cook, had been dismembered. But never mind him – it was the bouillabaisse that mattered. We stared down at our feet in unbelieving horror. Across the square ran a stream of greasy grey liquid, carrying its cargo of festering fish bones down to the gutter . . .

  1 JS – Joseph Stalin.

  ‘Intellectual methods of education hold no interest for me. What is essential is that we should push youth to the very limits of his endurance, and even beyond, so that in those who survive we shall have a race of men and women who have learnt to rise above pain and to conquer the fear of death . . .’

  Himmler. In a letter to Professor K. A. Eckhardt dated

  14th May 1938.

  It was the élite Kedyv Regiment who were still fighting in the ruins of the ghetto. General Bor-Komorovski had given the order that the ghetto must at all costs be held, for it was the only area in the centre of the town where General Sosabowski2 and his paratroops could make a landing.

  The Regiment fought on, but it was a battle which had already been lost. It would not be General Sosabowski and his paratroops who came to liberate the city, but Polish communists from Moscow. Bor-Komorovski and his army had already been condemned to death; not only by Himmler in Berlin, but equally by Stalin in the Kremlin. The German with his full-scale slaughter was paving the way for the Russian, and Stalin could afford to sit back and smile. He was in no hurry. Let the Reichsführer complete his task of destruction. Then it would be time to move in.

  In despair, when the paratroops failed to arrive, Bor-Komorovski despatched one of his colonels to Moscow to speak to the Russian Marshal Rokossovski. For an hour and a half the Colonel pleaded the cause of the Polish partisans. He described their plight in heart-rending detail, while the Russian listened in unyielding silence.

  ‘All we ask is that you should let us have the support of our own two divisions. Release them and let them come to us! It’s not as if we’re asking you to send us any of your own troops . . . For God’s sake, won’t anyone lift a finger to help us?’

  No one would. Not the British, nor the Russians. The mission was a failure.

  The Colonel disappeared on his way back to Warsaw. No one ever knew what became of him. Bor-Komorovski waited in vain for the two divisions he had requested; but like Sosabowski and his British paratroops, they never came.

  2 Fighting with the British Army.

  The Brothel

  It was Tiny and Porta who led the stampede up the staircase to The Kaiser’s Night Cap. The noise of their boots on the uncarpeted steps thundered through the darkness like a herd of wild bullocks on the run.

  Awaiting us on the landing was Madame Zosia Klusinksi, proprietress of one of the most elegant brothels to be found anywhere between the Volga and the Rhine. She stood with arms folded close over vast, swelling bosoms, and the expression on her face was frankly forbidding.

  Tiny pounded up the last few steps and staggered into the wall. A vase of flowers standing on a cabinet was flung over the banisters and went crashing down to the ground floor. It sounded like a bomb going off. Gregor at once flung himself to the ground and put his hands over his head. We were all drunk, but Gregor was drunker than any of us.

  Madame gave us a look that was plainly intended to put us off.

  ‘I should be grateful,’ she said, ‘if you gentlemen would endeavour to make less noise.’

  Heide put a finger to his lips. Gregor attempted to haul himself up by the banisters, but they broke under his weight and a large piece of wood followed the vase down to the ground floor.

  ‘Sh!’ said Heide, turning mottled red with rage.

  ‘Arsehole!’ shouted Gregor.

  He climbed up the stairs on all fours and dragged himself to his feet by means of the cabinet. The cabinet toppled over and fell, and Grego
r clutched out wildly at the first thing that came to hand. It happened, unfortunately, to be one of Madame’s voluminous breasts.

  ‘Where’s the whores?’ said Gregor, thickly.

  Madame gave him an adroit jab in the ribs with a sharply turned elbow. Gregor tottered backwards into Tiny.

  ‘Where’s the whores?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve come here for the whores. Who’s this ugly old bitch? She’s not one of ’em, is she?’ He pulled himself upright and snatched at the ticket which Porta was holding. ‘See here,’ he said, thrusting it under Madame’s nose, ‘I paid twelve hundred pissing zlotys to get into this dump, and now you’re trying to withhold the goods . . . I demand my rights! I demand to see the whores!’

  Madame calmly fitted a Russian cigarette into a long holder.

  ‘All in good time, gentlemen. All in good time.’ She led the way into a large room crowded with expensive knick-knacks. ‘This is a very high-class establishment, you understand. We cater only to people of taste and discretion.’

  ‘Bring on the whores!’ bellowed Gregor.

  Madame sighed. She walked across to a bureau and pulled out two large albums, which she laid before us on a table.

  ‘Perhaps you would care to look through and make your choice?’ she suggested. ‘Though naturally, you understand, I cannot guarantee that all the young ladies are available just at present.’

  ‘Balls!’ said Porta, sweeping both albums to the ground.

  Madame turned her frosty eye upon him.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said.

  ‘I said balls!’ shouted Porta. ‘Gregor’s quite right! Bring on the whores and let fucking commence!’ He caught Madame round the waist and slapped her hard on the bottom. ‘If your arse were as big as your tits,’ he told her, ‘I’d almost be tempted to have a bash at you . . .’

  Heide, almost as drunk as Gregor, had found a bright red parrot in a cage and was poking at it through the bars. The bird jumped away, slashing him viciously with a claw.

  ‘Damn you!’ screamed Heide.

  ‘And damn you too!’ screeched the parrot in reply. ‘Damn your eyes, go to hell and burn alive!’

  Heide picked up the cage and rattled it.

  ‘Bloody parrot! Bloody Yid! Look at its beak, it’s a bloody Yid!’

  He hurled the cage across the room. It landed in my arms, and I stood holding it, trying to decide whether we were playing a game of some sort or whether it was a grenade which was going to blow up in my face.

  ‘Fuck off!’ said the parrot.

  I set the cage on the floor. Gregor was trying to light some candles which stood on the table in a silver holder. It was his third attempt, having twice before set fire to his hair – having to be rescued by Tiny wielding a soda syphon.

  ‘This is disgraceful,’ said Madame. She thrust Porta to one side and like a battleship surged majestically to the window. ‘I shall call the police,’ she said. ‘I shall call the police and have you arrested.’

  She struggled a moment with the catch of the window, and when it did not immediately yield, Tiny gallantly decided to lend a hand. He hurled the soda syphon across the room. It tore through the window creating a show of splinters, leaving a jagged frill of broken glass behind it.

  ‘There,’ said Tiny. ‘Now you can put your head out.’

  Heide, who had by now been reduced to floor level by his total incapacity to remain upright, came crawling across to the parrot. It seemed to fascinate him. He studied it a while, then solemnly outlined the shape of its beak with his fingers. He felt his own nose and he compared the two shapes.

  ‘It’s a Jew,’ he said. ‘There’s a filthy Jew loose in here. I’m going to kill it.’

  He tore open the door of the cage and attempted to get both hands round the parrot’s neck and throttle it. The parrot stretched out a claw and scored a bright red line all the way down Heide’s face.

  ‘Ten to one on the parrot!’ yelled Gregor, growing excited.

  I bent down for the empty cage, and with a vague intention of being helpful attempted to cram Heide inside it. Before I knew it, he had me on the floor with him and was trying to tear my throat out with his teeth.

  ‘Ten to one on the parrot!’ shouted Gregor, chasing the bird about the room.

  The door suddenly burst open. The parrot scuttled out screaming obscenities at the top of its voice. Just then a bullet embedded itself in the ceiling. Uule Heikkinen and half a dozen of his Finnish guerrilla fighters had arrived.

  ‘OK, Grandma! Where are you hiding them?’ A second bullet zipped across the room and landed in the opposite wall. Everyone instantly dived for cover. ‘We want the goods, you whoremongering old bitch! We’ve been away fighting Russians while you’ve been sitting here on your great fat slobbering arse raking in the shekels . . . I reckon we deserve a little fun now we’re back in civilisation, don’t you?’

  Madame rose up from her hiding-place. She was quivering all over like a big pink jelly, but I think it was more from rage than fear.

  ‘Get out of here!’ she screeched, and her voice had lost its veneer of gentility, it was harsh and grating and could have belonged to any old slut from the nearest gutter. ‘Get out of here, you load of filthy shit! I wouldn’t let a single one of you anywhere near my girls! You’re not fit to fuck a pig!’

  Uule flung back his head and laughed appreciatively. Porta lifted one leg high in the air and farted.

  ‘Do you mind?’ said Tiny. ‘This is a very high-class establishment.’

  ‘Run by a very high-class lady,’ added Gregor, and he put his hand over his mouth and made a sound that outrivalled even Porta’s effort at vulgarity.

  The very high-class lady aimed a vicious kick at his crutch. Gregor caught her round the neck and held her hard against him. He had a knife in his hand and he was pressing the sharp edge against the rolling fat of her belly.

  ‘Well? Which is it to be, you old cow? You or the girls?’ He leered down into her face. ‘You’re an ugly old biddy, but I guess we could always put a bag over your head.’ He turned her round to face the rest of us. ‘What do you reckon?’ he said. ‘Who wants first poke?’

  Heide, still lying on the floor, deposited a neat pile of vomit in the parrot’s cage.

  ‘Two at a time,’ he said. He sat up and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. ‘One up the back and one up the front. We can draw lots for who has what.’

  ‘Let’s see what it’s like up there first,’ said Tiny; and he stepped forward and rammed his hand between Madame’s ample legs. ‘Like a horse’s collar,’ he announced. ‘I don’t mind having a bash at it.’

  Madame broke away from Gregor. She snatched up an SS knife which was lying on the mantelshelf.

  ‘Over my dead body!’ she said.

  Uule leapt eagerly forward, his revolver twitching in his hand.

  ‘That’s easily arranged!’

  A shot rang out. Madame gave a scream and fell backwards. She lay on the floor in a great heap of palpitating flesh, and Heide crawled forward to examine her. He sat back on his heels and looked up wonderingly at the rest of us.

  ‘You know something?’ he said. ‘I never screwed a stiff before.’

  ‘Me neither,’ I said.

  Gregor kicked out at the quivering mound.

  ‘So aren’t you the lucky one?’ he jeered. ‘It’s all yours, mate! And welcome.’

  Heide thrust an experimental hand up Madame’s skirt. There was a shriek of outrage, and the corpse sat up and punched Heide full in the face with a clenched fist.

  ‘You keep your hands off me, you filthy Nazi!’

  Heide fell back with a bloody nose. Madame was on her feet in an instant. She showed surprising agility for one so heavily encumbered by rolls of fat. She snatched up a potted cactus and made straight for Uule. Before he could defend himself, she had brought it down on top of his head. Uule crumpled slowly to the floor, and Madame stared wildly around in search of another weapon.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t, old woman!�
��

  One of the Finns, a massive fellow even larger than Tiny, stepped forward and grabbed her by the folds of flesh round her neck. He put both his hands to her throat and began to squeeze. Madame turned slowly from blush pink to purple. Her eyes began to bulge. Her body grew limp.

  ‘OK,’ said Porta. ‘That’ll do. Let her go. I reckon she might be feeling a bit more co-operative by now.’

  He was quite right. Madame had looked death in the face twice in quick succession, and she knew now that we meant business.

  We set her on her feet and slapped her about a bit and rammed half a bottle of brandy down her throat. She eventually tottered off quite meekly to fetch the girls. They had been well worth waiting for. These were none of your ordinary, workaday whores. They were something special, the crème de la crème, whores par excellence. Madame’s capacious bosoms swelled with pride as she presented them to us. She was playing the role of general now, strutting and prancing while her troops lined up for inspection. She advanced them in line, one by one, and the parrot came waddling in with them, shrieking its usual blasphemies. Madame thrust it into its cage and threw the tablecloth over it, hushing it to silence.

  ‘Well, gentlemen,’ she said.

  She looked at us rather sternly. Her gaze rested a moment on Heide, with his bloody nose, moved across to Uule, still sprawled on the floor with half a cactus on his head, moved on to Tiny and Porta and Gregor. The scum of the lower ranks. A slight shudder rippled through her body. The place already resembled a battlefield. It was like entertaining a herd of swine fresh out of the pigsty . . .

  ‘Well, gentlemen,’ she said again. ‘I hope we shall have no more trouble?’

  She only got away with the remark because everyone’s attention was riveted on the girls. Heide and Uule staggered to their feet. There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Tiny gave a loud whoop of glee and galloped forward. He seized the nearest girl round the waist and thrust a hand beneath her skirts. The girl gave a small shriek of outrage and delight. Madame flew at Tiny like an incensed tigress. She began beating at him with both fists, kicking at his legs and shouting obscenities even the parrot could not have dreamed up. Tiny recoiled like a dog shaking water from its coat. Madame hurled herself at the window. She thrust her head through the jagged hole in the glass and began screaming at the top of her voice for the police. Uule gave a great guffaw. He crossed the room and hauled Madame back inside.