by Sven Hassel
The Vlassov Cossacks arrive on sweating horses. They slash at the bodies with their long sabres. A German rittmeister in Cossack uniform receives instructions from the train commander. ‘Squadro-o-o-n, form line abreast! Forward!’ he screams in a shrill voice. And long after they have disappeared from sight the thunder of their hoofbeats can be heard.
A flare rises in the distance and angry machine-guns make themselves heard.
‘Now they’re slaughtering ’em,’ says a feldwebel of Pioneers gleefully, and continues stripping his Mpi.
‘Who’s slaughtering who?’ asks Porta contemptuously.
‘The Cossacks are the partisans,’ grins the feldwebel with satisfaction.
The wind plays around the shattered waggons, with a sound like ill-adjusted mandolin strings. Far away, dogs have begun to bark. The sun rises over the mountains and sends its hot rays down over the smashed train. The corpses on the slope begin to swell. Millions of flies swarm, glittering blue-black in the sun and feeding on great open wounds.
‘War’s a good time for flies,’ says Porta disturbing a swarm. They are crawling on a torn-off arm. The hand has lost three fingers.
‘Wonder where the bleedin’ rest of ’im is?’ Tiny asks, interestedly.
‘The devil knows,’ says Carl, ‘but he must’ve been a seaman. See all the tattoos.’
Porta picks up the arm and examines the tatooing more closely.
‘He’s been in Bangkok. This is Chinese here. Pity a nice artistic arm like this has to be eaten by a swarm of Yugoslavian shit-flies.’
Tiny rolls over comfortably on to his back, puts his hand into his dirty grey shirt and pulls out a flattened packet of cigarettes. He shakes it impatiently until a cigarette comes up, and takes it with a pair of bloody lips which have been in recent contact with a rifle butt. Silently he offers the packet to the two others. The cigarettes are English navy cut; he has taken them from a partisan body.
‘Lying here with a good cigarette, you could almost forget there’s a war on,’ says Carl dreamily, putting his feet up on a torn-off door. ‘Noticed how pretty it is here?’
‘Bloody beautiful,’ says Porta with satisfaction, pushing his gas-mask container under his head for a pillow.
‘Maybe the bleedin’ war’s ended while we’ve been lyin’ ’ere,’ dreams Tiny. ‘Takes time to get news out to places like this.’
‘I could do with a fat nigger bint,’ laughs Porta, lecherously, blowing smoke through his nose.
‘All the cunt there is in the world an’ the women’ve got the lot,’ says Tiny, emitting a long-drawn-out fart.
‘Cunt ought to be supplied from the Army canteens,’ considers Porta.
‘You’d better get all of it you can while we’re on this bleedin’ escort trip,’ says Tiny to Carl. ‘Once you’re inside, mate, you’ve ’ad it, far as that’s concerned, for ever.’
‘What do you mean, for ever?’ asks Carl, taking the cigarette from his mouth. ‘I’ll be out again in ten years’ time.’
‘They’ll kill you, son,’ prophesies Tiny, ‘’eed the gypsy’s warnin’. They finish all the long-timers off. They’ll put you in a minefield clearance unit, and that gives you five days, if you’re very lucky.’
‘Why should they kill me, if I keep me nose clean?’
‘Anybody who’s been in pokey more’n a year ’as seen too much,’ states Tiny firmly. ‘Officially there ain’t any prisons in Germany. Don’t forget we’re a socialist state with a leanin’ to the right!’
‘Lot o’ swine!’ sighs Carl.
‘Now you’re talking sense!’ laughs Porta. We found that out long ago.’
‘When you’re workin’ in the common graves, you really ’ave to watch it,’ Tiny explains. ‘Can ’appen they buries you along with the real bleedin’ dead ’uns.’
‘Have you seen that happen?’ asks Carl, doubtfully.
‘I ain’t seen sod-all,’ grins Tiny. ‘I read about it in Grimm’s Fairy Tales.’
‘I won’t get amongst the mines nor in no mass graves neither,’ says Carl. ‘I don’t volunteer for anything, if they put me in solitary for the whole ten years for it.’
‘You don’t know what you are talking about,’ laughs Porta jeeringly. ‘You’ll be willing to eat shit to get out of that cell.’
‘It’s only half ten years anyway,’ says Carl. ‘The war’ll be over in five years time, an’ I’ll be marching home a hero.’
‘Perhaps,’ answers Porta doubtfully, and shrugs his shoulders.
‘’Ow’d she ’ave to look, this piece o’ nigger cunt you was talkin’ about?’ asks Tiny, coming back to matters of more interest.
‘Not too fat and long black hair,’ says Carl. ‘I can’t stand these frizzy Lizzies.’
‘To hell with the hair,’ grins Porta. That’s not what you’re after. Mine’ll be fat and with muscles in her titties strong enough to break your jaw if she swings ’em in your face.’
‘Gimme a long thin ’un with music in ’er arsepart,’ shouts Tiny joyfully. ‘I ’ave ’eard as nigger wenches are the best in the bleedin’ world. When they spins their ’ips you wind up with a prick you can use to pull corks with, for ever an’ ever, amen!’
A signal rocket explodes far on the other side of the mountains, but the noise does not reach the train.
‘Them bandits are up to somethin’ again,’ reckons Tiny. ‘It ain’t just to see the pretty colours they shoot bleedin’ rockets orf.’
‘Think they’ll be back?’ asks Carl, nervously.
‘They won’t let up, until this bleedin’ train’s spread all over the Struma bleedin’ valley,’ says Tiny, weightily.
‘I’d suggest we move off sharply before that happens,’ says Porta. ‘We have, after all, no real meeting point of minds with those fellows.’
‘Are you mad? That’s deserting the colours,’ whispers Carl, terrified. ‘I couldn’t do that. I’ve always done my duty as a soldier.’
‘That’s probably why they give you ten years,’ grins Tiny. ‘You was born in too clean a bed. Do as we do an’ you’ll manage all right.’
‘Pack your shit and let’s move,’ decides Porta resolutely, getting to his feet. ‘There’s a couple of boxes of flares over by that smashed waggon. I’ll lay an tgg in one of ’em and as soon as they start going off we make tracks. They’ll all look that way and not notice we’re making a tactical withdrawal.’
This could shorten us by a head,’ sighs Carl resignedly.
‘Or lengthen our lives by a lot,’ says Porta, with a short laugh.
‘Wise boys always leaves the ship in the first lifeboat,’ philosophizes Tiny, picking up a hand-grenade. ‘The captain’s the idiot as leaves last.’
Carl looks at him in horror as he screws the blue cap off the grenade.
‘’Old on to your knackers!’ grins Tiny happily. ‘Thunderstorm blowin’ up!’ He swings his arm and the grenade drops neatly between the boxes of flares.
He laughs until he almost chokes when signal rockets and flares fly up into the air, and fizz in and out between the waggons and carriages.
‘Ta-ta, love. The key’s on the window-ledge,’ shouts Porta, taking to his heels.
An Mpi barks viciously and the bullets plough up the ground just behind Tiny, who has got himself hung up in some barbed-wire.
‘Job tvojemadj!’4 he screams, and pulling round his Mpi sends a whole magazine at the train, where everybody takes cover. He loosens himself from the wire and races headlong after the others.
Breathless, he lands in a narrow crevice in the ground.
‘Bleedin’ shower o’ shit’awks!’ he curses. ‘They bleedin’ shot at me! One of their own bleedin’ countrymen!’
‘All Germans are bastards,’ says Porta, ‘but don’t let these considerations hold us back. They’ll all be here soon. At the moment I feel we’d be safer with the partisans than with our own lot.’
‘What a load of shit you sods’ve got me into,’ rages Carl. ‘Be shot as a soddin’
deserter more’n likely, before I even get into the jug.’
Breathlessly they push through heavy brush and enter a long valley. As they turn round a rock bullets whine past their heads. High on the hill-top stands the train commander threatening them with an Mpi.
‘Going for assistance, sir!’ shouts Porta encouragingly, waving his tall yellow hat.
‘Come back, you swine!’ screams the major hoarsely.
’East, west, ’ome is best!’ shouts Tiny happily, and disappears around a cliff abutment, taking time to wave to the train commander as he goes.
They keep moving all day, avoiding villages and roads.:
Towards midnight the sky lights up brilliantly and a long rolling explosion makes the earth shake.
‘That was the train,’ says Tiny, looking back.
‘We can forget about getting assistance, then,’ says Porta.
‘That’s that, then,’ laughs Tiny.
‘Hard luck on the bods,’ says Carl quietly.
‘It’s always hard luck on the bods,’ says Porta throwing his arms wide, ‘but great eras crave great sacrifices. We belong to an unlucky generation.’
After a short rest they move on and by the following morning reach a wide road. They are about to move onto it when Tiny puts up a hand and drops down into the ditch.
A black three-axled Mercedes passes them at top speed and stops a mile further on at a farm. Five men in mouse-grey uniforms jump out.
A short burst of Mpi fire is heard. Then everything is quiet again.
‘SD-ghosts,’ whispers Tiny. ‘I ain’t a Greater-bleedin’-German obergefreiter if they ain’t ’ead-’untin’.’
‘Let’s get out of here,’ stammers Carl unhappily.
‘We’re doing nothing but,’ grins Porta unworriedly.
‘What about ’arf-inchin’ their bleedin’ gondola, eh?’ asks Tiny, smacking his lips thoughtfully.
‘It is less tiring to drive than to walk,’ says Porta.
‘Don’t think I’m going to get mixed up in stealing a waggon right out from under the soddin’ Gestapo,’ shouts Carl, aroused.
‘Nobody asked you,’ decides Porta brusquely. ‘You’re a prisoner under escort. Whatever kind of song and dance you make about it, you still do as the escort says or get executed on the spot.’
‘An’ now we’re orderin’ you to drive in a black Mercedes!’ says Tiny with severity. ‘Prisoners must obey orders! Or what will things be coming to?’
‘You pair o’ crazy bastards!’ Carl shouts, stamping on the ground with rage. ‘I’ll write a report about everything when we get to Germersheim.’
‘Report?’ Porta laughs aloud. ‘It’ll be a novel! And nobody’ll believe it.’
‘They’ll send ’im to the nut’ouse at Gressen,’ considers Tiny.
Carefully they approach the big Mercedes which is standing under a large tree practically shouting ‘police-car!’
Carl lags behind, cursing and almost in tears from sheer fright.:
Porta tiptoes around the car a couple of times. He is wearing an MP brassard and badge.
‘I won’t do it,’ whispers Carl, stubbornly, shoving at Tiny.
‘You just stay ’ere then an’ explain to the Gestapo who it was as run away with their bleedin’ gondola,’ grins Tiny. ‘They’ll be that pleased, they’ll bore their Mpi barrels straight up your poor bleedin’ arsehole! An’ then they’ll ’ave you for breakfast, mate. They do that with prisoners y’know.’
Porta waves at them.
‘There are four full reserve jerricans,’ he whispers. ‘We can drive straight to the gates of hell in this bucket.’
‘It probably knows the way too,’ says Carl. ‘Steal from the soddin’ Gestapo! Jesus Lord Christ! I’ll be white-headed by the time we reach Germersheim.’
‘God ’elp us if they ain’t left the bleedin’ keys ’angin’ in ’er,’ grins Tiny in delight. ‘You’d think they wanted to get shut of it. Wonder if they stole it themselves.’
‘We won’t get far with SS number plates,’ pipes Carl despondently. ‘And black too. It stinks of Gestapo a mile off.’
‘Who’s to say we ain’t Gestapo?’ asks Tiny. ‘Them bastards use real army uniforms too, y’know.’
‘We’d better push it down the road a bit,’ says Porta, releasing the handbrake.
Gravel squeaks under the wide tyres.
‘She’s bleedin’ ’eavy,’ groans Tiny, getting his shoulder behind the car.
Porta edges himself in behind the wheel. Tiny springs athletically over him and takes the front seat by his side. He polishes the half-moon MP badge carefully with his sleeve.
Carl crawls into the back seat and makes himself as small as possible.
‘Jesus if this comes off!’ he mumbles nervously.
‘And now we must start quietly,’ says Porta, groping around the dashboard.
‘Ain’t she a beauty!’ says Tiny admiringly, running his hand over the polished instrument panel. ‘Wouldn’t I like to roll down the Reeperbahn in this baby. Old bleedin’ Nass’d lose ’is leather coat an’ is turned-down ’at-brim at the sight of it.’
The motor gives out a sucking sound as Porta turns the starting-key. It sounds like a roar to them, but not even the feeding hens react to it.
Porta tries with a little more choke but the motor merely sighs and gives off a strong smell of petrol.
‘If them SS bleeders come out I’m cuttin’ loose,’ snarls Tiny, positioning his Mpi.
Carl bites nervously at his hand and sends a silent prayer to heaven, although he is not a believer.
‘What the hell’s wrong?’ asks Porta, wiping sweat from his face. ‘These high-compression jobs start off if you just look at ’em, as a rule.’
‘Might be an idea to get a move on,’ says Tiny, blowing his nose on his fingers. ‘Even if we are a kind of MP it’d be a bit difficult, maybe, to explain to them SS fellows what we’re doin’ sittin’ in their bleedin’ car.’
‘I can’t understand it,’ sighs Porta, shaking his head. ‘Can it have flooded? Stinks like a blasted Arabian oil-field.’
‘Try to give it the lot,’ suggests Tiny, always an advocate of violence.
Porta pumps desperately at the choke and treads on the self-starter. The motor sighs gently.
‘Hell!’ he shouts, pushing the choke in irritably.
The engine starts with a roar and the exhaust bangs like a gun-shot.
‘Jesus!’ gasps Porta. ‘There must be a bundle of dynamite under that bonnet!’
An SD man comes rushing out to the gate just as the car begins to roll away.
‘Stop!’ he shouts. ‘That’s our car. Stop you bastards!’
Stopping is the last thing in the world Porta is thinking of doing.
The car shudders and shoots forward like a shell from a gun as Porta treads heavily on the accelerator.
An Mpi burst whines above their heads.
‘No peace for the bleedin’ wicked,’ growls Tiny, turning round angrily. He lifts his Mpi and sends two short bursts at the SD man who sinks to the ground.
The heavy Mercedes roars along the road, taking the curves with a long rising whine. The exhaust is backfiring continuously.
‘Holy Mother of Kazan!’ groans Porta. ‘I’ve met a lot of queer vehicles during my time in this blasted army, but this one has ’em all beat. We’ll have to exchange it, somehow, before it turns my stones to bloody gravel.’
Tiny sets the siren going and looks importantly to all sides.
‘You crazy bastards,’ rages Carl from the back seat. ‘You’ll have the Gestapo on our tails in a minute.’
They roll into Brod at a more than respectable speed. Porta stops outside a large army workshop with long rows of wrecked cars lined up outside. He wrestles two WH5 numberplates from an Opel and hands them to Tiny.
‘Put these on instead of those bloody SS plates. I’ll take a look round while you’re at it.’
‘This is forgery, fraud with Army property,’ pro
tests Carl. ‘A court-martial board of deaf, dumb and blind Kaffirs’d hang us for what we’ve done, only up to now, even.’
‘Shut it!’ orders Tiny. ‘You’re shakin’ like a bleedin’ jelly, man!’
Porta disappears, whistling happily, into the large workshop, and runs straight into the arms of a mechanic with obergefreiter stripes.
A carton of cigarettes disappears into the workshop man’s boiler-suit. Porta accepts three tins of paint and a triangular command flag from the wreck of a Horch.
‘All right for movement orders?’ asks the obergefreiter mechanic. He seems to have a sense for the practical.
‘Yes,’ says Porta, thoughtfully, ‘you’ve got something there. May I invite you to partake of a little something in the canteen?’
‘Never been known to say no,’ answers his colleague. ‘See that glassed-in office over there? When you enter the door to the left you’ll find a bookcase behind a blue curtain. In this are kept open movement orders. Take a bundle. There’s enough in one to take you to America, at least.’
‘Rubber stamps?’ asks Porta, with a cheeky grin, as the third glass follows the first two. ‘Where the Prussians are concerned, orders which haven’t been stamped aren’t worth as much as shithouse paper.’
‘When you have the movement orders,’ explains his colleague, pushing forward his glass for the fourth time, ‘go up the stairs to the gallery, second door on the left. There you’ll find all the rubber stamps you’ll ever need. Take one with an FPO number. They are in the yellow rack. Copies are in the black rack. Look out for Pigface. He’ll shoot you on the spot if he catches you.’
‘How’ll I know Pigface?’ asks Porta, practically.
‘You’d expect him to grunt at you,’ answers his colleague.
‘Live till you die, and make a handsome corpse!’ grins Porta, encouragingly, and stamps up the stairs to the gallery, having removed a whole bundle of movement orders. He looks carefully into the office, and finding it empty walks nonchalantly in and removes two rubber stamps.
‘What are you doing here?’ comes a falsetto voice from behind him.
Porta draws a deep breath, whirls round, and clicks his heels together.
A major of Engineers with a face which bears a remarkable resemblance to that of a pig is standing before him.