The Bloody Road To Death (Cassell Military Paperbacks)

by Sven Hassel

  ‘Veruski roj!’

  ‘But they lay no weapons down. I do not know how many times he shouts ‘Stoil!’ through his machine. I am not a bookkeeper but it was many. No man in God’s image can persuade these Communist bitches to lay down the guns and end the fighting.’

  Jussi sends a long stream of spittle out through the window and takes a fresh piece of sausage. He is chewing tobacco at the same time.

  ‘Does that taste all right?’ asks Carl in wonder.

  ‘Otherwise I would not do it, would I?’ answers the little Finn carelessly, biting into the bread. ‘In the end we get these bitches backed up against the sea where they could only have got home again by swimming,’ he continues, ‘but their politics had not made them sa mad. Now we are Christians, most of us, and we feel it is wrong to shoot women dead, even when they are Communist bitches of soldiers. We do not go so hard at them at the start but soon have to change our minds. They sing heathen songs and go at us with infantry spades so we have to stitch them up back and front with our machine-gun bullets. Our Suomi’s9 were red-hot. But we have to go on until every one of them is dead as a herring on the square at Wiborg. Then we liberated what there was and there were many good things to take with us. Our captain, that son of a devil, took all their hair. Out of this he made fine brushes to hang on the walls of his house and remind him of these bitch soldiers from Leningrad.’

  The nurse comes back with two Medical Corps feldwebels who are looking for some action, but before they can say a word Jussi gets down from the table, bangs the big Finnish ski-cap on his head, salutes, and breaks into a roaring song:

  It was war that led our feet

  through hail and snow and sleet.

  We went where bullets whined

  far from country, kith and kind.

  Life in the trenches here

  is not all skittles and beer,

  and maybe in the end

  we’ll die for what we defend.

  ‘Don’t say any more,’ he turns to the nurse. ‘I have got down from the table, and I will take my officer’s uniform from the lamp and I will go to bed. But make no mistake. This I do because I wish it, not because you say I must.’ Without a glance at the nurse and the two feldwebels he hangs the Finnish captain’s uniform on the rack behind the bed, brushes it off carefully with a small clothes-brush, polishes the Finnish lion on the lapels and salutes it.

  Silently he undresses and rolls his own uniform up, as is the custom in the Finnish Army.

  ‘What kind of a uniform is that you’ve got there?’ asks Porta with interest.

  ‘You can see it is the uniform of a Finnish Captain of Jaegers.’

  ‘What the ’ell do you go around with it for? You ain’t a captain!’ asks Tiny.

  ‘Lord Jesus but these Germans are stupid people. I do not understand how you ever have dared to get into a war! You do not even know that the hen is bigger than the chicken. Who has said that I am a captain of Jaegers? If anyone has, then I say that he is a liar. I am a corporal in the Sissi Battalion, and the uniform I have fetched from the tailor at Kuusamo. Captain Rissanen should use it for a fine party, but Lord Jesus be praised we have not paid a mark for it yet. The captain will no doubt still be sitting waiting for me in his underpants. He had only his battledress which he had been chasing the enemy in for many months, so that it had become a little worn and stained. Nobody can go to a fine party with pretty women and smart staff officers in an old Finnish summer battle blouse, even if there are stars on the collar. Sooner or later I will get this uniform to him. I think I must ring to him before I get back. I must tell you that Captain Rissanen can get very angry indeed in the head. He was, for some time, at the Lapintahti Asylum near Helsinki because, in a rage, he had shot a Forest Ranger, but when this war came they are short of officers and declare him well again. The Colonel has orders not to excite him. When he is not angry he is a very nice man. If it had not been for you stupid Germans, Captain Rissanen would have had his uniform long ago and would have been able to go to many fine balls and parties.’

  ‘Don’t talk shit,’ laughs the flak gunner. ‘How could us Germans be responsible for your captain not getting his uniform?’

  ‘If you had ever met your SS mountain artillery regiment “Nord” you would not be asking the question of a fool,’ replies Jussi throwing his arms out helplessly. ‘They commanded me to go with them, made a very great noise and said a lot of nonsense in German. As you can hear I am able to speak good German, but these peasants could not understand me. In Oulu I was suddenly, in some strange way, on board a large steamship which carried the name of S.S. Niedeross, and on this ship we travelled to many places which I would never have seen if these skull people had not made me accompany them. They then sent me from regiment to regiment. It is not impossible they have wished me well and would relieve the monotony of this war for me. I was in Ssennosero, Kliimasware, Rovaniemi and Karunki, and then one day I was sent to Hammerfest with the 169th Thuringian Infantry Division. From there we continued by ship, an ugly piss-pot of a ship, and it seemed to me that everyone was in some way afraid. We moved as if Satan himself was behind us turning the screw. We would go ashore then quickly away again. We were many, many places in Norway. I do not know the names of all the towns. They were not specially noticeable, so there was no reason to remember them.

  ‘One morning we come to a new country. Sweden. All the waggons were sealed and these Swedish men ran about with weapons and tried to look very terrible. They looked foolish instead. If the enemy had seen them he would have gone home comforted.

  ‘In Engelholm twenty-three men disappeared. The Germans said that men always disappeared in Engelholm no matter how careful a watch was kept. It was as if Engelholm swallowed them up. That trip was very strange trip altogether. Everyone sang and was happy until we reached Engelholm but as soon as we left it you saw nothing but sad and disappointed faces.

  ‘In Trelleborg I go for a walk, but this is something one should not do if one is not Swedish. Everything is idiotic and the other way round in that country. You wait quietly to cross the road looking to the left as you have been taught at home, and suddenly there is a truck which almost takes off your nose. You panic and begin to run, still looking to the left, but these devils keep coming at you from where you least expect them. When you come to the middle of the road and begin to look to the right, as sensible people do, they come racing at you from the left and hunt you like a rabbit. I became so angry that I pulled out my bayonet and began to shout the Finnish Army’s ancient war-cry:

  ‘“Hug ind, nordens drenge!”’10

  ‘You can believe me when I say these Swedish men moved. Our Russian neighbours could not have been quicker. One of their police with a sabre at his side tried to stand in my way.

  ‘“Crawl back up where you came from! Up your mother’s cunt!” I cried. “Make way for Finland’s free sons!”

  ‘More came and tried to arrest me, but they did not succeed. No long thin-legged Swede can stop a Finnish corporal of Jaegers who has blown more than a hundred of our godless neighbours to Satan. But then the German MP’s arrived with victory helmets of iron and all the personal artillery they could carry hanging on them. They shouted all kinds of heathen words at me. It sounded like Russians having a party.

  ‘We enjoyed ourselves for half-an-hour or so. Blood flowed freely and uniforms hung in ribbons. It was a lovely day.

  ‘“God be thanked,” I thought, when I was again on board my ship. “Now you are on your way to Finland again with Captain Rissanen’s new uniform.” But I was to be disappointed. I was landed in Germany! “Very well,” I told myself, “now you will see Germany, Jussi. You will have some stories to tell when you get back to Karelia!” But they will think it all to be lies. Will you do me the favour of writing your names in my pay-book? Stamped all over it is. I would not be happy to think they might put me against the wall for a deserter when I get back home again.’

  ‘You’ll need a devil of a lot of st
amps to get that tale believed,’ chuckles Porta.

  ‘Let them doubt me, then,’ cries Jussi, banging his fist down on the blanket. ‘Doubt does no harm. It is a healthy thing. What if we were to believe all the lies the politicians tell to the poor?

  ‘In Berlin I met a Finnish major, a tall thin man with his cap pulled down over his eyes as if he was afraid of being recognized and taken before a court to answer for his crimes. He was a bad man, with spurs and black riding boots although he was not even a dragoon. I do not like these people who wear spurs but have not even been issued with a bicycle. He wore on his face the same look that all these high gentlemen have and militarism radiated from him. He boasted that he could have me sent back to Finland very quickly.

  ‘Two men from the Finnish Military Mission took me to the train. On the way to the station we had a look at the town and we managed to get a good Finnish drunk on. After some discussion with the Germans at the station we were allowed to pass through the barriers. The Germans helped me into the train and off I went. My two Finnish friends waved and shouted hurra as long as they could see the train.

  ‘What had happened in Berlin I do not know,’ continues Jussi, ‘but the train was going in the opposite direction. Instead of getting to Helsinki I am now in Belgrade and here I have been wounded. They are mad here. They shoot at people from all over the place. “Stop, you sons of Satan! I am no German! I am a Finnish corporal of the Jaegers, who has nothing to do with this war here!” I shout to them. But still they kept shooting at me and in the end they hit me, those devils!’

  He pulls his blanket over his head, rolls himself into a ball like a dog, and falls straight asleep. The rest of his time at the hospital he does not speak a word to anyone.

  Early one morning they are discharged and given new movement orders. They are, as Porta says, become as new men with all their old sins forgiven.

  At the railway station they are told that their train will not leave until late at night, and they go over to Tri Sesira where Porta extravagantly orders Basansk cufe. They eat the meatballs cold, but this does not make them taste less exquisite.

  They run into three prostitutes and go home with them. ‘Just,’ as Carl says, ‘to see how they live.’

  All Porta remembers of this episode is naked girls and a kitchen chair which collapses.

  ‘It’s all right, Nico, all we want is a few titbits,’ explains Porta pleasantly to the head waiter in evening dress at the high-class restaurant ‘Zlatni Bokal.’

  A string orchestra is playing Strauss and there is a scent of expensive perfume in the air.

  Well-dressed people crowd the foyer.

  ‘My name is not Nico!’ says the head waiter, coldly.

  ‘No? The resemblance is striking!’ smiles Porta, swaying on his feet. ‘Step aside, Nico, and let us at the trough!’

  ‘My name is not Nico!’ snarls the head waiter, his cheeks reddening. ‘My name is Pometniks!’

  Porta bows from the waist and raises his yellow hat.

  ‘Obergefreiter Joseph Porta, and this is obergefreiter Creutzfeldt. Come here Tiny and pay your respects to Monsieur Nico!’

  ‘’Ello, mate,’ grins Tiny foggily, grabbing the head waiter’s tiny white hand and crushing it in his giant fist.

  Pometniks draws a deep breath and straightens his white tie.

  ‘I regret M. Porta. This is an exclusive restaurant. You would not feel comfortable here, and regrettably all tables are taken.’

  Tiny breaks out into a meaningless roar of laughter and runs his hand through the head waiter’s well-oiled hair, making it stand up in spikes.

  ‘Nico, Nico, you’re a bleedin’ cardl There’s a table empty there with two chairs.’ He lifts Pometniks up so that he can see over the heads of the crowd of guests.

  ‘Great stuff!’ shouts Porta. ‘We’ll take one of these chairs!’ And with a chair under his arm he pushes his way through the thickly-carpeted restaurant.

  Pometniks has to run to keep up with them. He is swearing softly, but viciously, in Serbian and German.

  The table is reserved,’ he pants, ‘you can have that one in the corner, but only for one hour. Then that too is reserved.’

  ‘And when are you reserved for, Nico?’ asks Porta, tickling him under the chin.

  ‘Pometniks,’ he wheezes.

  ‘You mean to say you aren’t Nico, the notorious sex criminal? Unbelievable, the resemblance!’

  ‘You’re all right!’ grins Porta pushing his hand through the head-waiter’s hair again. He takes off his uniform jacket and hangs it on the back of the chair, pulls his tie and shirt open and scratches his hairy chest.

  The guests gape over at their table. The orchestra misses a beat as the leader forgets to swing his baton.

  A tiny waiter with a face like a mouse hands them the menu and waits with pencil poised.

  ‘Mickey, remove the reading matter!’ says Porta. We’re not in a library, are we?’

  ‘Is ’is name Mickey?’ asks Tiny, looking at the waiter with the expression of a hungry cat on his face.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious,’ laughs Porta. ‘He’d never get past a hospital. They’d have him inside in a cage with the rest of the experimental animals in a minute.’

  The messieurs wish?’ asks the little waiter, unwillingly.

  ‘Prase,’ Porta demands arrogantly, leaning back and rocking his chair.

  ‘Regret, monsieur, we have not sucking-pig roasted on the spit.’

  ‘Mouse-arse, can you perhaps manage Djuvic?

  ‘With pleasure, monsieur. You wish it to be strong?’

  ‘Of course, Mickey. You don’t think we eat Serbian hash that’s not strong? But let’s have a good big dish of Poddvarac first to sharpen our appetite.’

  ‘Chicken in sauerkraut before the hash}’ gasps the waiter. ‘I do not think the messieurs can manage . . .’

  ‘Think, stink!’ grins Tiny. ‘Bring it on, mate!’

  ‘Bring us first of all some plum tea to get the shit out of our teeth. Better make it two bottles immediately,’ orders Porta.

  The waiter has hardly opened the first bottle before it is empty.

  ‘That’s the best bleedin’ tea I ever did taste in my life!’ shouts Tiny excitedly.

  ‘It hasn’t got a fuck to do with tea,’ answers Porta. ‘It’s spirits.’

  ‘Why they call it tea then?’ asks Carl in wonder.

  Then they don’t have to lie to their wives when they say they’ve been out drinking tea,’ explains Porta.

  When they have finished the second bottle Tiny drops his arm over the shoulder of a lady at the next table who is wearing a low-cut dress and flips one of her breasts out.

  Porta begins to sing an obscene song in a high piercing voice.

  Carl grabs the cigarette girl and begins to dance the spjetka with her. They trip and cigarettes fly all over the floor.

  The head waiter comes rushing over followed by two waiters and a doorman.

  ‘This is enough,’ he shouts, softly. ‘This is not a brothel. Out with you!’

  ‘We’ve not eaten yet,’ protests Porta. ‘Be a good boy, now, Nico. Mother said we could go in here on our own!’

  ‘Out, or I call the MP’s!’

  ‘Don’t bother, we’re here already!’ Porta holds up his invaluable brassard.

  ‘Throw them out!’ the head waiter orders the commissionaire.

  The man puts out a respectably-sized hand towards Tiny.

  ‘Come on, don’t let’s ’ave no trouble now!’

  ‘Hit him in the teeth!’ shouts Porta, catching up a plateful of sauerkraut rolls from the table next to him and dashing them into the head waiter’s face. He throws a glass of red wine back at Porta. In a few seconds there is nothing left on the table to throw. Tiny swings back his iron-tipped boot, size 12, and lets it go. It contacts the doorman’s instep. He lets out a scream and dances round on one foot.

  Two waiters, in green hussar uniform jackets, grab at Carl, who cracks a chopping b
oard down onto their heads.

  The cigarette girl comes running and scratches Tiny’s face. He throws her into the orchestra, which all the time continues playing the Blue Danube waltz.

  Porta drives a fork into the head waiter’s hand. A tureen flies through the air, lamb soup showering out in all directions.

  The guests roar with laughter. They think it is an act. In ‘Zlatni Bokal’ there is always some kind of surprise act.

  A Generalmajor laughs so heartily that his false teeth fall into his soup.

  As they leave, Porta takes two bottles of Slivovitz from a shelf and declares them confiscated by the military police for analysis.

  As Tiny passes the buffet a pot of Servian hash is pushed out from the serving-hatch. He regards it as a gift, but puts his head through the hatch first to say thank-you.

  Nobody protests. The head waiter is glad to see the back of them. He could see his whole establishment on the way to being smashed to bits.

  ‘I’ll put a Molotov cocktail into that joint, sometime!’ screams Porta, as they climb into a horse-cab and drive to the station. They go into the first class waiting-room, where the chairs are softer, place the Slivovitz and the pot of hash between them and go to work on them.

  ‘We ought to go back and shoot that bleedin’ Nico bastard’s ’ead off!’ shouts Tiny with his mouth full of food. Then we ought to set fire to that doorman bleeder, an’ watch ’im cook. That’s what I think. We’ve lost face, we ’ave! We’ve let ’em piss on us. We ain’t represented the Fatherland as we ought to’ve done!’

  A railway official, who is on his way over to them to throw them out of the first class waiting-room, changes his mind when he hears Tiny’s remarks.