by Sven Hassel
Tiny has got hold of some cigars. He went past the office where they had been careless enough to leave a window open, and commandeered a whole box which had been left on the sill. We know that they are the property of Hauptmann von Pader. This makes them taste twice as good.
There is a nasty rumbling in the distance. They’re dropping at least fifteen miles away but still the ground trembles where we are.
The good weather continues, but the whole front seems strangely nervous and sniping increases. In one day there have been nine shot through the head in our company alone.
Porta holds up a helmet and immediately there is a hole in it, but Tiny gets the sniper.
When we pass through the open machine-gun posts we have to move like lightning. The Siberian snipers are trained in on these spots, and even though we have warned the rookies they still get two of them in the course of the afternoon. This kind of thing annoys us. It seems so unnecessary. A bayonet in you during an attack we can understand, but this sniping business is damnable.
Hauptmann von Pader is sitting half-dead with fear down in the company deep shelter. Whenever a shell goes off close by he throws himself flat on the ground with his hands over his ears. We regard him with contempt. A tough and ruthless commander we can respect, but not a coward. Oberst Hinka has sent for him twice, but von Pader sends back the excuse that the artillery fire is too heavy for him to be able to get through to Regimental HQ. The orderly who tells us this almost dies laughing. He is Oberst Hinka’s personal Obergefreiter Müller, called Little Jesus because he looks like Jesus. Together with a battalion orderly he has picked a whole pail of raspberries on the way from Regimental HQ to the front line.
‘It’s that peaceful you could set up a bloody knocker out there!’
‘Isn’t the oberst doing his nut about this yellow bastard not comin’ runnin’ when he sends for him?’ asks Barcelona, wonderingly.
‘He’s hoppin’ bloody mad, he is,’ laughs Little Jesus, ’but this von Pader shit has got such good connections in Admiral Schröder Strasse that he can shit on obersts both before and after breakfast.’
Tiny loves the early mornings. He is always first up. We live like the best families on the French Riviera, with coffee and toast every morning. We go hunting too, but not often with any luck. The war has taught the game a few things, speeded the animals up, but we do manage to hit a wild boar. We roast it and the aroma wafts along the whole front. Two of the Ivans run over to us. They have cucumbers with them.
All night long we can hear motors roaring over on the other side. They are getting ready for something. If they mount an attack with tanks we’ll be finished. Our spotting planes have reported long columns on the move, some with up to 200 tanks. They are the new Josef Stalin tanks.
Panzerfausts4 are issued, a suicide weapon. They look very effective in the propaganda films, but the reality is quite otherwise. If you ever hit a tank with one you can be dead certain of getting smashed by the next tank. In most cases the rocket glances off, and before you get the chance to load again you’re getting mixed up with the tank’s tracks. But, by now, we’ve been so long at the front we don’t worry about what’s going to happen an hour from now.
Tiny leans up against the assault ladder and sings to the music of Porta’s piccolo:
Der Sieg ging an uns vorbei,
verbrannte uns die Finger.
Zum Todesschmaus der Wodka fliesst,
doch niemand ist betrunken . . .5
A machine-gun coughs long and viciously. The trench mortars spit out their bombs.
Porta takes the piccolo from his lips and looks into the periscope.
‘Sounds as if they’ve got something up their sleeves for us,’ he says, thoughtfully.
‘Let’s send ’em a couple o’ callin’ cards,’ suggests Tiny, ’to stop ’em gettin’ too bleedin’ big in the bonce. They’ve just got replacements in over there. Pissy bleedin’ Guards, from Moscow, sent out to get a whiff o’ powder ’fore it’s too late. You’ve all seen ’em. Collar an’ tie bleeders, who’re frightened they might lose the crease in their trousers and ain’t tried shit-tin’ their pants yet.’ He screws the grenade cup on his rifle and sends a couple over. The Maxim goes silent.
Tiny laughs hollowly, lies back against the ladder again and continues his song:
Aufs Wohl ist erster Trunk,
und darauf folgt der zweite,
der fünfte und der zehnte, – dann
der bittere, der Abschiedsschluck. . .6
The expected attack does not develop. The days go by and the good weather continues. None of us dare think of the winter, the third Russian winter. No one who has not been through a Russian winter in the trenches can know what winter really is. But now the sun is shining and hares and rabbits gambol behind the front line.
Porta and Tiny get hold of an electric hailer and amuse themselves with the Russians.
‘Russki tovaritsch! roars Porta, so that it echoes along the front. ‘We know you have to use gravel to wipe your arseholes dry with! Come over to us, an’ we’ll show you how to polish ’em with ni-i-i-ce, so-o-o-oft, shit’ouse paper!’
‘Fritz! Fritz, your old sausage women are getting sausages stuffed up the other end from the sausage boys at home,’ comes back from the other side.
That’s great! Tiny howls back happily. They’ll be well greased for us lot when we get back to ’em!’
‘Ivan you crazy alik,7 what do you think the boys at home are doin’ while you dummies are fartin’ about here?’ shouts Porta. ‘Why, they’re fuckin’ your bandy-legged old Tartar mares all to bits. There’ll only be bones an’ hair left of it when you get back!’
An angry burst of machine-gun fire is the answer.
‘Ivan, Ivan, ’ow can we take you anywhere?’ Tiny shouts reproachfully. ‘Don’t bite the ’and that’s feedin’ you good advice!’
For hours they continue, tirelessly, without repeating themselves once.
‘Hey, neighbour, you old tramp, you! Scrape the shit out of your ears and hear the news,’ shouts Porta. ‘We’re comin’ visiting tonight. We’ve taken the edge off our knives so it’ll take longer to saw your throats open!’
‘Fritz, bighead! It’s us that are coming over to chop off your tiny little pricks and take ’em back to Moscow to give the girls a laugh!’
A few days later these shouted exchanges are forbidden by Regimental HQ. Instead we throw hand-grenades with insults written on them.
The earth shudders as if in an earthquake when a 380mm shell drops on the section of trenches next to ours.
‘Holy Mother of God, those things can certainly dig up a potato patch,’ cries Gregor admiringly, following with his eyes the course of the bodies thrown high into the air.
Ten minutes later another one drops, this time even closer to us. The blast wave hits us like a hot wind and throws Barcelona to the floor of the trench.
‘God’s death,’ he mumbles as he gets up. ‘Better have a little chat with the sky-pilot, maybe, so’s to be ready for a sudden departure!’
‘What about strengthening the sentries?’ asks the Legionnaire, looking at the Old Man, who is sucking thoughtfully at his silver-lidded pipe.
‘It appears that this war, which has been forced upon us, will be conducted with increasing violence,’ Gregor imitates the tone of the Wehrmacht communiques.
At eleven o’clock I relieve Porta at the SMG. It is quiet again along the front. We cannot understand what the violent shelling meant.
Far to the south there is an unceasing rumble of shell-fire, and the entire horizon is a bloody red. Perhaps they are trying to make a break-through there. If they succeed we’ll be left hanging in the air. Before long they will be behind us.
‘Watch out, keep awake,’ the Old Man instructs me when I take over sentry duty. ‘They captured two men from the boys next to us last night, without so much as a squeak out of them. They’ve got a depressed gun just over there. They have a go with it now and again, so keep well d
own behind the parapet.’
‘Nice work if you can get it,’ I answer, pulling the hood up over my helmet. It is cold at night.
Mist rises from the marshy ground. Fear is a dead weight in the stomach.
The Old Man pats me encouragingly on the shoulder and disappears silently around the elbow of the trench to check the other sentries.
Now I am alone and scared. Through the periscope I can just see the Russian lines. I can feel the presence of the forward posts. Everything seems peaceful, and not at all dangerous, but as a veteran of the trenches I know that there is nothing at the front which is not dangerous. Death never takes a holiday.
The front is dozing with a faint rumbling noise like a heavy snoring. A couple of magnesium flares light up the terrain. In their glare I can clearly see the sunken road behind the Russian position. Death Alley we call it. It is paved with bodies. The position is not called Demon Heights for nothing. It is not really a hill but the brow of a ten-mile-long fold in the ground.
I turn the periscope. Bodies everywhere. Hundreds of skeletons and partly mummified corpses. They lie singly, and in heaps, covered with reddish-yellow filth. Just in front of me a boot projects from the ground. The rest of the body is buried in the earth. It is a German boot. A little farther out, a skull grins at me from beneath the brim of a Russian helmet. Over there an arm, with a rag of grey-green uniform fluttering from it. The fingers of the hand point accusingly at the heavens. A young German Jaeger lies across a torn-off gun wheel. The weight of his pack stretches his body in a bow. The wind plays with his hair, which is longer than regulation length. He screamed for a whole day and died last night. Several of the company tried to bring him in but had to give up and come back with an empty stretcher. The Siberian snipers do not know the meaning of mercy.
Wherever I turn the periscope I see bones, joints, arms stripped of their flesh, hands, vertebrae, grinning skulls, staring, glassy eyes under battered helmets, fresh corpses, corpses half rotted away, corpses, expanded by the gases of degeneration, which burst like balloons if one happens to tread on one of them. The breeze carries a sweet, sickening stench over to me.
I become sleepy, have terrible difficulty in staying awake. My eyelids feel heavy and inflamed, but it is dangerous to doze off. Not only is it punishable by death, but also in the mere wink of an eye they can be on top of you. They can have rolled up a whole trench before I know where I am. It has often happened that two whole enemy companies have sneaked up on a trench company, and once they are down in the trench not many are left alive.
I press my tired eyes against the rubber eyepiece surround of the periscope, wriggle my toes in my boots, bite my lips, do everything I can think of to keep myself awake. I count the bodies again. Are there more than there were? I am wide awake in an instant. Fear trickles like ice-water down my spine. For a moment I think I see dark shapes. I count them again and keep an eye on the bodies. It is an old trick, moving forward pushing a body in front of you.
A couple of shells explode in bursts of flame just behind the line. Lines of tracer come whistling from a hidden MG. A mortar barks with a hollow sound. Then everything goes quiet again. A rabbit, grown accustomed to war, hops down towards the reeds, stopping to sniff at the dead German Jaeger. Its long ears turn, first towards the Russian position, then towards the German.
A shot sounds. The rabbit rolls over and over. I have seen the muzzle-flash. It is enough for me. I sense him, jumping up in the air, over there. I hit him. He won’t shoot any more rabbits. God knows who he was? How he lived? Was he young? He was, at any rate, a Guardsman, and belonged to the fanatics.
I examine the MG. Check that all the belts are filled. Our lives depend on this. I look through the periscope. Something is moving. Movement in no-man’s-land means enemies. I have the flare pistol in my hand. Should I send a light up for safety’s sake? My front-line instinct warns me. Every nerve in my body responds to the alarm.
‘Pop! Whi-i-sh!’ the signal flare spreads a ghostly white light over the dead, lying out there in the shattered landscape.
Now I am quite sure. There is something not as it should be out in no-man’s-land. In one leap I am over at the SMG, tear the canvas cover off and snap the lock. Cautiously I bend down. The snipers have got the new infra-red sighting telescope and a Siberian sniper does not need much time to take a human life.
The MG rattles wickedly. A long pearly row of tracer hastens towards the Russian position. An explosive bullet goes off close to me. I drop, in fear, to the bottom of the trench. I pick up my Mpi and wait a moment before showing the helmet above the parapet.
‘Crack!’ comes the shot immediately.
Splinters of steel whizz about my ears. The helmet spins from the muzzle of the carbine. There is a sizeable hole in its side. He is observing my area. He knows I am here. Now the question is, is he just an ordinary murderer, or do the shots have a much more dangerous meaning? A patrol out clearing up, or perhaps sent out to take prisoners?
I lie, quiet as a mouse, and wait. I cannot see very far to either side along the connecting trench, but years in the front line have sharpened my hearing. I could hear a cat coming on tip-toe. I have readied my Mpi, and press myself close to the wall of the trench. I screw the caps off two grenades, for safety’s sake. Our patrol must also be on the way, but they do not make much noise either. I can hear them now. They are at least four bends away.
‘Password!’ I dare not make the challenge loud. The chaps across the road must not hear it.
‘Shit and shankers!’ comes Gregor’s soft reply. That is better than any password. I recognize the voice.
Suddenly Tiny is in front of me pushing his Mpi into my stomach. I let out a soft cry of fright. I neither heard nor saw him. He must have floated in.
The patrol has two new recruits along. They are to relieve sentries alongside me. Heide gives them explicit instructions.
‘Don’t show your heads above the parapet, or your lives’ll be bloody short ones!’
The patrol disappears as silently as it came.
‘If you catch a woman soldier, give me a shout!’ calls Porta. ‘We’ll ail bang her before we send her back.’
‘Send ’er back? Tiny shouts in annoyance. ‘What do you mean send ’er back? What’s Rasputin done, then? Ain’t ’ad a fuck in a month o’ Sundays that poor bleedin’ bear ain’t!’
The Old Man scolds us softly. He doesn’t like filthy talk.
I can hear the rookies talking. They are crazy and it is very, very dangerous. If the kidnap squads are out, the noise of voices is an invitation, and who is to say they are not lying out in no-man’s-land waiting their chance?
Over on the enemy side a steel helmet is moving about oddly. I watch it inquisitively through the periscope. It disappears for a moment. Then it comes into view again, alongside the opening where they have placed an SMG. That fellow must be the world’s prize chump I think, and feel a burning urge to let go at him. A dangerous hunting fever flames up in me. The sniping rifle is already in my hand, but front line instinct warns me. Suddenly I dare not even move over to the SMG. There is something I don’t understand about that bobbing helmet. It draws me like a magnet, yet, at the same time, it shouts a silent warning at me. I have my rifle half up, but lower it cautiously again. The recruits in the section next to me have also seen the helmet. The dangerous hunting lust has also taken hold of them. They have never before fired at a live human target. Shaking with excitement they camouflage a firing slit with twigs and sods of grass. Carefully they rest their carbines in it. They are wildly excited. Silently they agree to fire one after the other.
Calmly the first of them presses the stock of the carbine against his cheek, takes the first pull, restrains his breathing; all exactly as he has been taught on the range at Sennelager.
His comrade waits his turn anxiously. It will be their first Russian. Something to write home about, at least.
‘Ping!’ sounds the shot.
A long whine, and a rain
of sparks explodes before the eyes of the marksman. A violent blow knocks his head back. He is dead before he hits the bottom of the trench.
His comrade gives a frightened shout, and stands up. At the moment he rises he feels a blow on the side of his head, as if from a piece of red-hot iron. His helmet flies far away and the explosive bullet tears off half his face.
I realize what has happened as soon as I hear the scream and sound the alarm.
The whole section arrives at the double, Porta working feverishly at the flame-thrower as he runs.
‘What the hell’s up?’ asks the Old Man, excitedly. ‘Where’s Ivan?’
‘The slit-eyed bastards’ve knocked off the two new boys,’ I answer.
‘Fools!’ says Heide, annoyed. ‘And I told them to keep their heads down.’
‘C’est la guerre,’ sighs the Legionnaire, tiredly. ‘You can talk till you’re speechless, and still they don’t – or worit – understand. They’ve got to learn the hard way before it sticks and then it’s usually too late.’
Stretcher-bearers remove the bodies and the guard goes back to the dugout. Soon the brief intermezzo is forgotten.
I whittle at a walking stick to keep myself awake. Everybody is making walking sticks whilst on sentry duty. Some of them are real works of art. Behind the lines they are willing to pay almost anything you ask for one of these beautiful sticks. Volchow sticks they call them. Not because they have been made by that particular river, but because that was where the soldiers first began to make them.