Do the Birds Still Sing in Hell?

by Horace Greasley

  It was all too much for Horace. For him there was no celebration, no songs he could draw on that told of the futility of war, of the wickedness of mankind and of humiliation, genocide and desperation. No one had penned those words; no one had composed such a song. No one sang the lyrics of a forbidden love in impossible circumstances; no words… no words.

  As they approached the outer districts of Prague, half the truck wallowed in a drunken sleepy stupor while the rest seemed to struggle just to focus on the man sitting opposite. Everyone except the lone silent Russian. Horace couldn’t blame the men, couldn’t and wouldn’t deprive them of this moment, yet it seemed he was one of very few sober persons on board.

  As Horace climbed from the back of the lorry the scene that unfolded before him was like something from a horror film. Every Russian soldier appeared to be drunk – even the driver that climbed from the cab clung to a bottle of vodka. As he bounced into a lamppost Horace wondered how they’d ever made it to Prague in one piece. The streets of Prague were littered with dead or dying bodies, dead German soldiers hung from lampposts burnt to a cinder, and the smell of petrol and burning flesh lingered in the still evening air. Horace watched the tattered, blackened corpse of an SS soldier swinging eerily from a protruding metal shop sign.

  ‘There are many Germans hiding in the city, comrade.’

  It was the English-speaking Russian officer who had liberated them and who had conversed with Sergeant Major Harris.

  ‘I will not stop them. They must have their revenge. The Germans have slaughtered my countrymen by the million.’

  A group of Russian soldiers had found a young German girl cowering in a coal bunker underneath an ironmonger’s shop. The name on the shop had been a giveaway: Herbert Rosch. Herbert was her father, German by birth, his wife Ingrid a native of Prague, a proud Czech. Herbert detested the Nazi regime as much as his wife did. They had fallen in love and married in 1928. Both had been burned alive from a lamppost an hour earlier as their only daughter had watched in horror from a small slit window below ground. She’d covered herself in coal trying to escape the mob but a young Russian soldier had spotted a piece of exposed flesh. Her face was blackened from the dust. She was no older than 16. The Russians threw her to her knees.

  ‘What does she know?’ cried Horace. ‘She was a child when the war started. Please, make them stop!’

  The Russian officer turned away as one of his sergeants began unbuttoning his trousers. His comrades cheered as he waved his large erection in front of the girl’s face, his comrades ripped and clawed at the girl’s clothes until she was naked. She was unceremoniously thrown across the sidecar of a motorcycle combination and two of the men forced her legs apart. As the sergeant moved in behind the screaming girl and inserted his fingers roughly into her vagina, Horace lunged towards her in a vain effort to offer some protection. From nowhere the all too familiar feeling of a rifle butt connected with his temple and he was aware of the ground rushing towards him at a speed difficult to comprehend.

  When he came round an hour later, Flapper relayed the story. The sickening spectacle had sobered him up rapidly. At least 20 Russians had vented their sexual frustration and fury on the poor girl as they’d taken turns to rape her. A Russian general had eventually put her out of her misery with a bullet through the back of the skull. The onlooking crowd had cheered the execution.

  ‘They’re as bad as the Germans, Jim. You didn’t see the worst of it.’

  Tears streaked Garwood’s face. The muck and grime from the march ran in tiny rivers down the big man’s face.

  ‘At first I thought it was just the German girls they were raping. In a strange way I could understand that. But it didn’t make any difference Jim. Anything went. They raped the Germans and the Czechs, the Poles and the Slavs – and their commanders just looked on. Young and old, it didn’t matter, Jim. They raped them on the pavements and in the doorways of shops and any poor bitch even suspected of having a pint of German blood in her was executed right there on the spot when she’d served her purpose.’

  Garwood was crying now, sobbing like a baby.

  ‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Jim. It shouldn’t have ended this way.’

  Horace held him as his tears flowed too.

  They arrived at the holding camp on the outskirts of Prague shortly after midnight. Despite fears that they’d be split up, Horace and Garwood, Jock Strain, Dave Crump and Freddie Rogers had managed to stay together. They’d be separated in a few days, they were told, so make the most of it. A Russian soldier was assigned to their billet and slept in their dormitory. It was the young man who had sat in tears on the truck that had brought them to Prague. Horace studied him as he sat on a bunk and stared into space. His eyes were sunken and hollow; they told of horror and suffering. He carried the worries of the world on his shoulders.

  Horace approached him. ‘You speak English, my friend.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  The Russian nodded. ‘How did you know?’

  Horace placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘The song of the Irishman on the truck, it moved you to tears.’

  The Russian stood. ‘It did, comrade, it did. He sang of the free birds singing. It was beautiful… he sang like the bird in the song.’

  Tears welled up in his eyes once more.

  ‘And why does that sadden you so much?’

  The Russian sighed as he paced the wooden floor. ‘I have been to a place where the birds do not sing. I have been to a place called hell.’

  ‘What is your name, soldier?

  The young Russian looked up. ‘Ivan… my name is Ivan.’

  Things resembled normality the next morning. The Russians were sober, most nursing hangovers, and many Allied men complained about the worst headaches they could ever remember. Flapper Garwood had spent his hours of slumber in a nightmare hell reliving the events from the night before. Horace had managed to snatch just a few hours’ sleep, his dreams drifting between the heavenly vision of Rose and the all too real picture of a battered, bruised and murdered teenage girl. How on earth could the exact same female form appear so different, arouse such different emotions in a man?

  Then he heard it: a roll call. Would you believe it? A bloody roll call, Horace thought to himself as he stood on parade and shouted his name, regiment, rank and number to the English-speaking Russian corporal. It was to be expected, he supposed. The Russians would need to split the men into regiments or even counties in order to arrange the required number of planes to Britain.

  After a huge breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausages and toast they were told they were free to roam the city but warned there might still be pockets of German resistance holed up in the suburbs. They were given a generous amount of money and told to be back in the camp by nightfall. Ivan accompanied them.

  The streets were strangely quiet and there was little to do. They managed to find a few cafés with a supply of overpriced Czech beer and a few of the men managed to seek out the numerous Czech prostitutes still doing the rounds.

  Horace sat in café Milena with Freddie, Ivan, Jock, Ernie and Flapper, and nursed a small glass of beer for three hours. Jock and Freddie had upped the pace a little and Flapper was drinking like there was no tomorrow, trying to block out the memories from the night before. Ivan stuck to coffee. It was just after noon when they heard the commotion from outside. A Czech burst into the café; the barmaid relayed the gist of the conversation in broken English. Two German SS men had commandeered a Russian T34 tank. It would be their swansong, their last, suicide mission, and they were determined to kill as many Allied soldiers and destroy as much of Prague’s historic architecture as possible as they blasted at anything and everything with the 85mm guns.

  Russian tanks had surrounded the SS men and blocked off their avenue of retreat, but the Germans were putting up a good fight. The tank rumbled and roared towards café Milena. Horace and his friends took a step back as a frenzied mob seemed to crawl over the tank like ants on a dead
fly. Incredibly, inexplicably the tank seemed to slow down.

  ‘He’s out of fuel,’ Freddie Rogers offered by way of an explanation.

  Sure enough, as Rogers uttered the words the tank seemed to splutter, a plume of black smoke puffed from the rear exhaust and the tank came to a halt 20 yards from the doorway of the café. The friends watched as the crowd battered and prised and jemmied at the turret of the tank, using anything and everything that would let them get to the enemy inside. Horace could only imagine the fear the SS men inside the tank would be feeling.

  A cheer rang out from the crowd as the escape hatch suddenly broke free. The hands of Russian soldiers and Czech nationals clawing at the cover peeled it back like a can of tomatoes. Three or four attackers seemed to reach inside and physically pull a man from within. As soon as his body was exposed to daylight the crowd attacked him with fists and clubs. One man used a wheel jack, blow after blow raining down on the German’s skull and shoulders. He was nearly unconscious as the main body of the mob joined in with their boots.

  Oberfeldwebel Lorenz Mayr was in no condition to know the horror of being burned alive. He was stripped of his SS uniform and strung from a lamppost with a rope in an undignified state of undress. As the crowd cheered, he was hauled 15 feet in the air. Blood rushed to his brain and escaped from the fractures and holes in his skull. It was all too much for him and he lapsed into an unconscious state from which he would never recover. He knew nothing of the petrol that doused his body and even less as the flames licked around it.

  Then the crowd turned their attention to the other SS man cowering in the depths of the tank. Their patience was exhausted; this time they turned to the power of petrol as they poured gallon upon gallon into the small space. The crowd whooped and cheered as the terrified SS officer, soaked to the skin in combustible fuel, emerged with his hands held high in a pathetic demonstration of surrender.

  Horace closed his eyes as the first match hit the German’s sodden clothing. He screamed as an uncontrollable fireball erupted around him and he ran down the street. As he screamed, the mob cheered. Within ten seconds he had fallen to the pavement. He was silent. It was all over. At first Horace thought the crowd were stamping at him to put the flames out. But even after the fire had subsided they still stamped at the man, still kicked at his face and body long after he’d breathed his last breath on earth.

  Ivan stood in the doorway and watched in horror. ‘Mbl Haųucma,’ – we are worse than the Nazis – he muttered to himself.

  A week had passed, and most of the pockets of German resistance – the tail-enders, the desperate men who had been left behind for whatever reason – had been flushed out and murdered. The ex-POWs were getting restless now, a little agitated that the planes had still not been sent to take them home. The Russians explained that hundreds of thousands of Allied prisoners were waiting to be sent back home and they would need to be patient. There required number of aeroplanes simply wasn’t available.

  It was a lie. Although they didn’t know it, the prisoners were being used as bargaining tools, pawns in a bizarre negotiating game. Stalin had insisted that 1.5 million Soviet prisoners of war were to be sent back to Russia. These POWs had surrendered voluntarily to the Germans; thousands had even joined the German war effort; others were simply anti-communist. Repatriation to Russia would mean certain death in the gulags, and both Churchill and Harry S Truman – the new president of the United States – had flatly refused Stalin’s request. Stalin was simply biding his time as the people of Britain and America demanded to know when their men would return home.

  It was 6 June 1945, the day the Allies agreed to divide Germany into four areas of control. The Russian army sent to rid Prague of the Nazis had stood down. Many were on their way to Berlin. Those remaining in the city had seemingly calmed down after three weeks of violence, rape and mass murder; some played football in the parks and streets. For the first time Horace noticed the normal people of Prague trying to rebuild their lives, going about their daily business. For the first time, the girls and women of the city ventured out onto the streets.

  Ivan and Horace, Jock Strain and Flapper were walking along the banks of the Vltava river in the shadow of Hradcany Castle. It was a stiflingly hot summer day but the sun had not yet made an appearance. The river mirrored the dark grey, sinister-looking sky, and reflected the mood of the men. They were free to walk the city, to talk and eat where and when they liked, and free to come and go from their camp on the outskirts of the city at any time, as long as they were available for a roll call at nine each morning. But all the men wanted was to get back home.

  Horace suspected that Ivan had his orders to watch over the men, make sure they didn’t run off or attempt anything stupid. He carried his rifle at all times. The men questioned him from dawn till dusk, but it was clear to Horace he knew nothing about when exactly the Allied planes would take them back. Horace and Ivan sat down on a bench by the river and gazed out over the troubled waters that had witnessed so much death and destruction during the past few weeks.

  Ivan spoke. ‘I have been here since early May, in this beautiful city that the Germans have occupied for many years. I have heard the tales and the stories of the uprising and how the citizens of Prague fought the Nazis with bare hands and stolen small arms.’ He paused and looked at Horace. ‘And still my comrades raped and murdered them for fun.’

  ‘It’s not your fault Ivan, you mustn’t blame…’

  ‘It is my fault. It’s my fault Sergei died,’ he snapped, ‘my fault that I did not lift a hand to stop them raping and killing, my fault… all my fault.’ Ivan buried his head in his hands and the tears flowed. ‘Always my fault.’ He spluttered through steepled hands as his body heaved up and down through the sobs. Horace took his hand.

  ‘It isn’t your fault, Ivan, it’s the fault of the playmakers, the politicians and leaders who allow normal men to commit such acts. It’s the fault of the captains and generals who do nothing to stop it.’

  Ivan looked up. His eyes were bloodshot, the tears streaked his face and he raised a false smile. ‘You are right, comrade.’ His bottom lip trembled as he wiped the tears from his face. ‘It isn’t my fault; I didn’t ask to be sent to the war.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Horace smiled, ‘me neither.’

  As the group of men walked away from the river, Horace asked the question.

  ‘Tell me who Sergei was, Ivan.’

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Two days later the same group of men found themselves on the same bench overlooking the river. It was Ivan who heard the commotion. A dozen Czech citizens were screaming and pointing across the street. ‘Come quickly!’ he commanded the men. ‘They have spotted a Nazi in that furniture shop.’

  By the time the group arrived, a large crowd of civilians had gathered at the doorway of the old store. Horace looked up at the imposing, boarded-up three-storey building as Ivan spoke to one of the citizens. The district below Hradcany Castle was in one of the more elegant parts of the city and Horace imagined the store in another, pre-war era, the successful owner reaping the rewards of a lifetime’s labour – a pleasant house in a smart suburb of the city, a pretty wife and several children. What had become of the owner? he wondered, as he dragged his finger through the dust on the brass hinges and fingered a bullet hole two inches from the opening.

  Ivan interrupted his thoughts. He pointed to an old lady. ‘This woman spotted an SS man at the window on the top floor.’

  ‘She’s sure?’ Jock asked.

  Ivan nodded. ‘They have no weapons. They are too scared to go in.’

  Flapper took a step back. ‘It looks like it’s up to us, then.’ He ran at the door with his shoulder and the rotten wood frame splintered on impact. Flapper took another two running kicks at the door and eased himself through the gap he had made. Ivan and the rest followed.

  ‘Here,’ Ivan unclipped his holster and handed his Russian-made Nagant revolver to Horace. ‘Be careful,
comrade. I have a nasty feeling that the old lady may be right.’

  The four men heard the noise at the same time.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Sounded like a child crying.’

  The sound came from the basement. Flapper walked towards the door he’d just broken down. ‘I’ll guard the door, you three check it out.’

  Horace handed the pistol to Flapper and they made their way down a darkened stairway that led to some sort of cellar. A door was slightly ajar and this time there was no mistaking the sound of a child. But she was not crying: the child was wailing, a girl’s cry, screaming as if her life depended on it. When the three men reached the girl she cowered away. Her arms and legs were twisted at a grotesque angle. They were broken. Ivan knelt down and spoke in Czech. He talked slowly, he soothed the child, and after a few seconds she spoke. The girl groaned, raised her broken limb barely an inch and pointed to the corner. The tiny crumpled body of her small brother lay in a heap.

  Jock rushed over. ‘He’s still alive – barely. He’s unconscious. Jesus fucking Christ, his little arms and legs are snapped in two.’ Jock fought back the tears. ‘What sort of bastards could do this?’

  Ivan spoke. ‘The SS.’

  The little girl spoke in her native tongue between the tears and through the pain barrier as Ivan listened and relayed her words to Horace and Jock.

  ‘The girl and boy found an opening at the back of the store. It was a playground to them; they thought they were the only people that shared a secret. They played among the boxes and bounced on an old sofa to see who could jump the highest.’