The Bloody Road To Death (Cassell Military Paperbacks)

by Sven Hassel

  ‘P.4-F.6.A-R. KARLA-4, come in!’

  ‘WERNER,’ repeats Heide five times, with short pauses, and then at a demoniacal speed 90 he sends the report.

  Oberfunkmeister Müller is just as fast. Only the very best telegraphists can make anything of a message sent at that speed.

  Gregor, who is assistant telegraphist, loses his way early in the signal and never catches up again. Resignedly he lowers his message book.

  Heide closes the set and hands the Old Man the clean copied message:

  CONTINUE ACTION. PLUCK WHEN RIPE.

  REPORT AT AGREED TIME. END OF MESSAGE.

  ‘It is unbelievable that the untermensch have designed so good a transmitter,’ says Heide, admiringly, stroking the little set lovingly. ‘These small Soviet sets are fantastically good.’

  ‘Yes, there ain’t no limit to what the untermensch can do when they try,’ says Tiny, patting his kalashnikov with a shake of his head in acknowledgement. ‘Who else ’as a balalaika like this ’un, ready to reel off a bleedin’ tune at the drop of a ’at?’

  We lie in the forest, dozing, for the whole of the day. The prisoner has told us that Oltyn leaves the officers’ mess every night in high spirits. The club is in a small chìteau a short way out of town. He has drawn us a map and given us all the details. We simply cannot go wrong.

  Late in the afternoon the Old Man and Barcelona go over to feed the prisoner and find him slumped against the ropes. Strangled!

  The Old Man goes berserk and threatens to shoot the lot of us.

  ‘I want that murderer, and I want him now,’ he roars. ‘I’ve had enough! I won’t take any more of this!’

  ‘Murderers?’ answers Porta, smilingly. ‘Do you intend to insult us?’

  ‘We could ’ave you pinched for sayin’ things like that,’ shouts Tiny.

  ‘Murderers, I said!’ screams the Old Man furiously. ‘Oh what a lot of wonderful bloody ornaments you are for the new Germany! Kill a poor defenceless prisoner, you cowardly bastards! But I’ll find the shits who did it! There’s not more’n three of you who’d use a wire!’

  ‘Eh, eh! Ain’t you the bleedin’ tec?’ shouts Tiny, admiringly. ‘If I’d got that much in me ’ead I’d ’ave ’ad a go at gettin’ into the Kripo’s. You’re better’n Pretty Paul14 any bleedin’ day. If ‘e drops ’is Party badge on the bleedin’ floor ‘e ’as to get the ‘ole bleedin’ section an’ Customs and Excise to ’elp ’im find it again!’

  ‘Life is ugly and hard,’ sighs Porta, moodily. ‘That poor little heathen boy is no more.’ He wipes his eyes falsely on a filthy handkerchief.

  ‘Wicked shower!’ shouts the Old Man, angrily. He pushes a large chew of tobacco into his jaw and spits fiercely.

  ‘He was a commissar. A tool of international Jewry,’ snarls Heide, coldly. ‘He deserved to be liquidated!’

  ‘Shut your filthy mouth,’ shouts the Old Man, red as a turkey-cock in the face. ‘If your Führer ordered commissars to be liquidated a thousand times over, I’ll see you in front of a court if it was you did it!’

  ‘My Führer?’ asks Heide, threateningly, and with slitted eyes. ‘Your Führer too I hope, Herr Feldwebel?’

  The Old Man looks at him wickedly.

  ‘You voted him to power. I didn’t!’

  ‘It will be interesting to hear what the NSFO has to say to this,’ answers Heide, and begins to whittle viciously at a twig.

  Porta cuts thick slices from a long Russian loaf. We toast it at a small fire and cover it with preserved tomatoes and garlic It tastes wonderful.

  ‘This was Red Spain’s secret weapon during the civil war,’ says Barcelona, taking a huge mouthful.

  ‘That’s why they bloody lost,’ laughs Porta.

  The moon is high when we leave. Its light shimmers like silk through the leaves.

  A dog barks in the distance and the fur rises on Rasputin’s neck. He is, as usual, in the lead, together with Porta.

  Strangely there are no blockades at all outside the town. Perhaps they cannot imagine the possibility of an attack. There are not even police patrols in the streets. All breathes peace and quiet.

  In a side-street a party of soldiers sit singing with their girlfriends.

  We march to attention and give the eyes right to a passing major. It is not difficult for us to imitate Russian soldiers. Their service regulations and drill are a true copy of our own. The same kicking goose-step, the same swing of the arm up and across the belt buckle.

  Porta notices two personnel trucks standing parked in a yard.

  ‘Let’s commandeer those waggons,’ he suggests in a whisper, ‘they’ll give us a quicker getaway when we’ve picked up the meat course!’

  Tiny tiptoes closer and takes a look into the yard.

  ‘There’s only two ‘alf-asleep bleeders in there,’ he whispers. ‘We can ’ave them in two shakes of a lamb’s tail!’

  ‘Right then,’ nods the Old Man, ‘take ’em, but no noise!’

  Two seconds later the two Supply Corps men are dead, strangled. We throw the bodies into a well. We push the lorries out of the yard and only start them when they are out on the street.

  At breakneck speed we flash through the narrow street. Nobody takes any notice of us. That is the way Russians drive. Suddenly we find ourselves inside a large barracks. Some sentries scream at us as we roar back out through the gates.

  ‘Job tvojemadj!’ Porta screams back at them.

  We turn into a narrow cul-de-sac in which there is a prison.

  An NKVD man looks pleased. He thinks we are bringing prisoners, but we have to disappoint him.

  ‘What’s your destination?’ he asks, sourly.

  ‘Vojenkom Oltyn,’ answers Porta. ‘Could you tell us how to get there, mate?’

  The green-capped NKVD man comes right up to the leading truck.

  ‘That’s a hell of a dialect you’ve got there. Where are you from? Not Tiflis at any rate.’

  ‘Karelia,’ laughs Porta, cheekily. ‘Me mother was a Finnish whore and me dad a Russian elk!’

  ‘You look it, mate,’ laughs the NKVD guard and tells us the way to the chìteau.

  ‘What the ’ell was it, now, that bloody password was for tonight?’ asks Porta, taking a chance. ‘Us Karelian sons of ’ores don’t remember so good.’

  ‘Tarakan15 and you answer Papojka16.

  ‘Yes, that’s it,’ chuckles Porta. ‘Sounds good don’t it? Are there a lot of cockroaches here since you use ’em for a password?’

  ‘No,’ answers the NKVD man, ‘nor parties neither!’ He offers a packet of Papyros.

  Porta hands him his water bottle. He takes a healthy swig of the vodka it contains.

  We back out of the blind alley and soon afterwards we have parked the trucks under cover of some large lilacs in the park surrounding the castle.

  Porta swings his kalashnikov over his shoulder, pulls the round Russian steel helmet down over his eyes, and saunters aimlessly towards a soldier who is standing close to the steps up to the castle. Heide and the Legionnaire sneak along the wall to get behind the sentry. He has the whole of his attention fixed on Porta, who comes dancing towards him over the open ground singing softly:

  Sonce nysenko17

  spischu do tebe,

  wetschir blysenko,

  letschu do tebe . . .

  He kicks at a fir cone, dribbles it like a footballer, and shoots it at the sentry who traps it smartly and passes it back. Then he is dead. A few flustered jerks of arms and legs. The Legionnaire tightens the wire a little more. They drag the body into the rhododendrons, empty the pockets, and take whatever they have a use for.

  ‘Idiots,’ sighs the Legionnaire. ‘As soon as they are out of earshot of the front line they think there is no danger any more, and wander about like so much poultry in a wired-in yard. G est la guerre!’

  Porta takes the place of the dead sentry, but keeps in the shadows, in case somebody should come by who knows the Russian.

  A clock chime
s the hour, sonorously, from its tower, and plays a little tune.

  A group of officers comes noisily laughing from the château-One of them trips and tumbles down the steps.

  ‘Oh, oh, Nikolajewitsch, can’t you take tovaritsck Oltyn’s champagne?’

  Porta shoulders his Mpi and brings his heels together.

  A fat officer with a green pelisse over his shoulder snaps a finger carelessly at the peak of his cap. A cloud of schnapps and garlic surrounds the group, as they disappear, singing drunk-enly, over towards a long building.

  ‘Drunk pigs, untermensch,’ mutters Heide, contemptuously.

  He is lying under one of the trucks with his LMG ready.

  Porta pulls an apple from a tree and crunches it noisily.

  ‘He’s crazy,’ whispers the Old Man, ‘makes as much noise as a horse eating a frozen turnip.’

  Four women in Red Army uniform come giggling out of the club. One of them pulls up her skirt and there is a merry splashing.

  ‘’Oly Mother of Kazan, Jesus Christ Almighty,’ cries Tiny in a whisper. ‘Guncunt! Let’s take ’em along with the bleedin’ Hromoj!’

  The girls stop by Porta and dance teasingly around him. They promise him all sorts of good things if he will come over to them when the guard is changed.

  ‘He’d better not try,’ mutters the Old Man, fearfully.

  ‘Jesus,’ groans Tiny, as one of the girls slips her hand between Porta’s legs and lets out a scream of delight, ‘shell’ole ’ores!’

  ‘They could do with a car in the garage,’ mumbles Barcelona.

  Some officers come out of the club, and the girls leave hurriedly. They have a dog with them. It stops and looks in our direction, sniffing the air, and begins to growl.

  Rasputin, who is sitting in the cabin of one of the trucks, begins to hop up and down. The springs creak. He shows his teeth at the dog, which runs a little way towards us.

  A sharp voice calls it back.

  One of the officers looks closely at Porta as he passes him, and orders him to get a haircut. Russian soldiers are clipped close to the head.

  We release our safety catches, but the officer goes on without further comment.

  ‘Hell,’ groans the Old Man. ‘I can’t take much more of this!’

  ‘Excitin’, ain’t it?’ says Tiny taking a deep breath. ’Amazin to think, ain’t it, ’ere we are lying right in the bleedin’ middle of ol’ Ivan’s lair. Close enough to spit in ’is bleedin’ eye, if we wanted!’

  ‘They’d shit bricks if they knew we were here,’ grins Gregor, unworriedly.

  ‘’Ow long we gonna ’ang around ’ere, anyway?’ asks Tiny, impatiently.

  ‘If it was me as ’ad the section I’d be in there an’ ’ave the bleedin’ meat out an’ off.’

  ‘Yes, try that kind o’ shit and you’d be off, with an entire division hanging on to your arse,’ hisses the Old man, pressing tobacco viciously into his silver-lidded pipe.

  The wind gets stronger. Clouds cover the moon and the darkness becomes complete.

  ‘The German God is with us,’ whispers Barcelona, cheer-ingly.

  ‘Too right He is. It says so on our belt-buckles,’ laughs Buffalo.

  Another noisy group of officers comes clattering down the steps. A little, thin lieutenant berates Porta for dirty boots and long hair.

  ‘Report to me in the morning for two hours punishment drill,’ sings out the lieutenant. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Private Serpelin, sir!’ Porta replies quickly, crashing his heels together.

  ‘I’ll remember you,’ promises the lieutenant, as he turns away.

  ‘You bet he will,’ grins Gregor, convincingly.

  ‘My feet are going to sleep,’ complains Barcelona.

  ‘I’m lying on a stone,’ I say.

  ‘Move it,’ suggests Gregor, yawning widely.

  ‘Or move yourself,’ comes in an irritable tone from the Old Man.

  I roll away from the large stone I am lying on and drop my Mpi, which goes rattling away down the slope.

  A bird screams piercingly from a tree. The others curse viciously and call me names. Only Tiny laughs. He does not care what happens as long as something does. A Sunday child, who believes nothing can go wrong for him.

  Rasputin is nervous. He presses against the windscreen, which bulges outwards. Gregor has to go over and quieten him.

  There is silence for some time. From the chìteau comes the sound of music and song. A dog howls long and mournfully. A guard party marches past down on the road. We hear sharp commands and the rattle of weapons.

  ‘Hell,’ cries Barcelona, ‘now we’re up shit creek all right!

  Porta can’t change! Even if they do wipe their arses with gravel and don’t believe in God they’ll soon see he ain’t one of theirs!’

  ‘’E’ll be well away before they get to ’im,’ Tiny is optimistic. ‘Nobody what ain’t got pure shit under ’is bleedin’ ‘at’d stand there waitin’ to tell the neighbours ‘e’s over from the other bleedin’FPOI’

  The Old Man pushes his Mpi up in front of him.

  ‘D’you think it’s the relief?’ asks Heide nervously.

  ‘Might be,’ answers the Old Man, ’and it might also be a patrol. We’ll find out!’

  Porta marches to and fro, kicking his feet out in the Russian manner. He calls to a cat, which comes walking over the open ground with its tail in the air. It comes slowly over to him. He picks it up and begins to stroke it.

  ‘I’ll choke that sod, I will, if he drags a Soviet cat back with him,’ snarls the Old Man.

  ‘We’ll brainwash the bleeder, an’ make ’im a good Nazi,’ grins Tiny, happily. ‘We’ll soon get them Commie ideologies out of ’im. We’ve broke worse cases’n a bleedin’ Commie country cat. We’ll make the bleeder learn Mein Kampf by ‘eart!’

  Several tanks start warming up. The air trembles with the noise of their heavy Otto motors.

  ‘T-34’s,’ says Heide, knowledgeably.

  Heavy trucks roar at the other end of the town. Running feet and loud commands can be heard.

  We strain our ears, listening, but it cannot be anything serious or they would not still be sitting at their party in the club.

  Windows are opened wide and light splashes the grounds around the chìteau. Nobody seems to be worrying about the blackout. They probably do not consider the German Air Force dangerous any longer.

  Women’s voices scream excitedly. We hear laughter and song. An accordion is being worked hard. There is the stamping of Russian dances. The women scream again.

  ‘They’re takin’ their clothes off, now,’ says Tiny, licking his lips lustfully. ‘There ain’t nothin’ as much fun as when they’re all goin’ at it in a ’eap in the middle 0’ the floor, an’ all the bare arses bobbin’ up an’ down in time like a shoal of ‘errin’ winkin’ in the sun in August.’

  ‘Filthy pig,’ the Old Man scolds him. ‘Haven’t you anything else in your head?’

  ‘Let’s go over an’ find out, shall we,’ says Tiny. ‘I like bein’ what they call a voyeur!’

  ‘That might be fun!’ laughs Buffalo, pleased with the thought. ‘Then when the heathens’ve done their job we could take over!’

  ‘I ’ave ’eard that Russian wenches like to get on top of a man,’ says Tiny. ‘If we was to stick our old tomatoes inside there we could decide that question once and for all!’

  We glare enviously at Porta who is standing quietly looking through the open window. He turns round, looks over at us and clicks his tongue.

  ‘Don’t you think we ought to cut ’im, just a little bit, this wicked Russian-German commissar feller, when we do get ’old of ’im?’ asks Tiny, expectantly.

  ‘Watch yourself,’ answers the Old Man sharply.

  It seems to me we have been lying here for hours. My whole body itches and tingles.

  Several owls flap around between the trees. A horned owl screams ominously.

  Suddenly a tall, broad figu
re appears at the head of the castle steps. A long cape flaps about him. He wipes at his completely bald head. A soldier runs, bowing and scraping, to bring him his cap and pistol belt.

  18 Cest lui1’, whispers the Legionnaire, hoarsely. ‘No more mistakes now!’

  Nach der Tur zur Hintertreppe,

  auch ais Hintertür bekannt,

  lebt im Haus ein schwarzer Kater,

  der dort seine Wohnstatt fand. . .19

  sings the commissar loudly in German.

  By the door to the back stairway,

  Also called the backstairs door,

  Lives a dirty great black tomcat,

  And it sleeps upon the floor.

  ‘We’ll give him tomcats,’ growls Gregor, sucking at a dry cigarette butt.

  The commissar takes a few dance steps. He is drunk and goes three steps down and two up, then suddenly roars with laughter.

  Porta breaks out of the bushes, marches noisily up the gravel path, and throws his helmet clownishly up in the air.

  ‘What the hell, you dog, you,’ roars the commissar, in amazement, ‘are you drunk then, you son of a bitch?’

  ‘Job tvojeniadj, dad,’ shouts Porta, laughing foolishly.

  ‘Stoi, you bastard, you,’ screams the commissar.

  ‘Job tvojemadj,’ Porta repeats the insult.

  ‘Stoi,’ roars the commissar, raging, and rushes down the steps. ‘Stoiy you son of all the stinking Mongols from the steppes. I’ll have you in the cage at Vladimir for this!’

  Porta stops in front of the lilacs where the section is hiding. The commissar rushes over to him.

  ‘You damned Kalmuk hyena, what do you thinkyou’reup to?’

  ‘Easy now, dad, easy now,’ hisses Porta, pressing the muzzle of his Mpi against the commissar’s stomach.

  ‘What the . . .’ The rest is smothered in the heavy cloak which is thrown over his head. A pair of mighty arms press the breath from his lungs.

  ‘’Ome to the family you’re goin’, me old troll o’ the German forest!’ grins Tiny. ‘’Ome to the dear ol’ Fatherland!’

  The commissar kicks and struggles desperately. Gregor and Barcelona catch his legs and pull him to the ground. Tiny hugs him in a crushing grip and falls heavily on top of him.