by Sven Hassel
‘Leave my wife alone!’ the corpulent gentleman threatened, getting up.
The rest of us watched. His wife! Imagine taking your wife to this place. He must be an imbecile.
The sailor didn’t see him. He bent over the lady once more and whispered something about ‘bed.’
‘Leave my wife alone, sailor,’ the corpulent man shouted indignantly.
‘Why?’ the sailor asked curiously.
‘Because she’s my wife!’
‘Is that your husband?’ the sailor asked skeptically, again leaning over the lady.
‘Yes, it’s my husband. And now, leave me alone. I’m not at all interested in you.’
‘The interest will come after we know each other a little better. I’m crazy about married pieces!’
The corpulent man seized the sailor’s arm. ‘Haven’t I told you she’s my wife!’
‘Well, so what?’ grinned the sailor, who was quite drunk. ‘I’ve made up my mind to go to bed with your wife. Can’t you grasp that, brother?’ He put his hand up higher under the lady’s dress. She hit out at him furiously. He guffawed, took a long swig of beer and shouted: ‘You’re just my number. There’s nothing as interesting as a little resistance, and tomorrow I glide out to sea on U-189!’ He made a gesture of embrace and whispered intimately, ‘It’s my last trip!’
Another crash caused the ceiling plaster to sift down upon us like fine snow.
The U-boat sailor looked up. He had hunched up his shoulders. He smiled contentedly.
‘That piece of candy wasn’t far away. But it won’t hit me. I’ll shortly be going on my last voyage. A fortune-teller told me I’m going to be suffocated in the front torpedo room. U-189 is a rotten heap. And the commander, Lieutenant von Grawitz, is a pile of shit!’ He looked across at the Legionnaire. ‘Hey, you panzer coolie with the smashed face, do you know that pile of shit von Grawitz? A man who wears the Knight’s Cross about his ostrich neck as a token of gratitude for all those he has sloshed down in the North Atlantic.’
‘Shut up,’ the Legionnaire said and continued his mumbled conversation with Aunt Dora. He was in the middle of a lengthy description of shark-fin soup as served in Damascus.
When the bomb exploded, the corpulent gentleman had flopped onto a chair. Now he got up and skipped in short steps up to his wife and the sailor. He puffed himself up before him, trying to appear awe-inspiring. The sailor, who was standing with a full glass of beer in his hand, looked curiously at the pasty-faced manikin.
‘I order you to leave my wife alone,’ he cackled. ‘And to offer an apology immediately.’ His fists were clenched.
‘Merde, est-ce-que c’est possible? The imbecile wants to take on the merman,’ the Legionnaire laughed.
‘What’s that to us?’ Aunt Dora said and blew away a thick cloud of smoke. ‘Trude, another keg!’
The sailor flung his beer at the corpulent man’s head, bent down over the woman and kissed her violently. The man staggered. Then he aimed a blow at the sailor and hit him on the jaw, while reeling off a string of abuse that no one could understand.
His wife screamed. He swung his arm and hit the sailor again, knocking over his new beer, a double ginger-beer, which was hard to get. This made the sailor mad. He cried ‘sabotage’ and sent the corpulent gentleman to the floor with a kick in the belly.
He received another glass of beer, but not ginger-beer. Then he roughly embraced the lady, bent her back and kissed her noisily. She kicked, and her skirt slipped up.
‘Magnificent legs,’ cried an infantry sergeant and clapped his hands. ‘Chuck her onto the counter, sailor, and take what you want! You’ll see, she’ll clap her paws about your hips like the girls in Tripolis.’
The husband was again on his feet. He was raving. He grabbed a chair and tried to smash it against the U-boat man’s head, but instead he hit his wife, who collapsed without a sound and slid to the floor like a rubber doll.
The sailor stepped over her and pulled down the edges of his tight-fitting dark blue blouse. He stoked up and shot toward the corpulent man like a torpedo boat.
‘Damn it, man, now you’re going to get a spanking,’ the sailor said and gave the corpulent fellow a searing blow behind the ear. He hit the floor face down.
The Belgian threw him into the street.
‘Really, what a stupid pig,’ the U-boat man said. He lifted the lady onto the counter. ‘Hitting a lady!’
One leg dangled over the edge.
‘Now you can take her!’ the infantry sergeant cried. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got in you!’
‘Oh shut up, you swine,’ Aunt Dora fumed.
‘Can’t he take her?’ the sergeant asked, looking into our niche from the adjacent one where he was sitting. He was in his shirtsleeves. Everything was sagging on him. About his forehead he had a big bandage, very white. He smelled of an army hospital and beer.
A Schupo came stumbling through the door.
The Belgian glanced across at Aunt Dora, but as she didn’t give any danger signal, he sat on, pretending he was asleep. Under his chair lay a stocking filled with sand.
‘All Kirchenallee is on fire,’ the policeman said. ‘There won’t be a bean left.’
He removed his helmet. He was very pale and had black stripes across his face. His uniform smelled of smoke.
‘Good Lord, how it’s burning!’ he said and ordered a double, which he finished in one gulp. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand: ‘A fat fellow is lying blubbering in the street outside. Is it someone you threw out?’
He didn’t wait for an answer, but pointed at the lady lying on the counter, moaning and tossing her head.
‘Did she get hit over the head?’
‘So you’re curious, huh?’ the sergeant cried, tottering to his feet. ‘Would you like to fight me, cop?’
‘Goodness, no,’ the policeman answered and again wiped himself with the back of his hand. Soot was now daubed all over his face, and he looked very grimy.
‘You’re a little rat,’ the sergeant said. He aimed a blow at him, but missed.
‘Go and sit down now, infantryman, will you,’ came patiently from the policeman. ‘Christ, how it’s burning,’ he went on and turned around. ‘Give me another beer, Trude. You get so thirsty from all that smoke.’
A girl spat on the floor in front of him. ‘You turd,’ she said and spat again.
The Schupo ignored it.
‘She says you’re a turd,’ the infantry sergeant grinned. ‘And do you know what I say?’ he jeered, itching for a fight. ‘You’re a stupid ox. No, you’re something far worse than that.’ He flung his arms around and nodded with conviction. ‘You’re a real ass-kisser, sweetening up those Nazi piles of shit. Will you fight me now?’
‘Go away, infantryman. I don’t strike a wounded man.’
The sergeant swayed and hit out at the policeman. He lost his balance and fell against the bar. Trude gave him a push and he fell to the floor.
He managed to get up, though with great difficulty, grabbed a bottle and slammed it over the policeman’s head. The policeman jumped back with a roar, pulled out his pistol and cried frantically: ‘What the hell, are you crazy?’
‘Yes,’ the sergeant guffawed. ‘I’m raving mad!’
He rummaged about in his pockets and pulled out a piece of paper which he thrust under the nose of the Schupo. The latter exclaimed in wonder: ‘What the . . .’ He smeared the blood over his whole head. ‘A game license! An honest-to-goodness game license! That’s your luck. If you hadn’t had that game license, you’d have been dead now. Through! I’d have plugged you straight between the eyes.’
‘You’re a pig,’ the sergeant babbled and staggered into a nook where he was received by a couple of girls.
Trude handed the policeman a towel. He rubbed his whole head with it.
‘What a monkey! You know he really took a rap at me!’
The seaman again put his hand under the lady’s close-fitting skirt. ‘I’ll just tickle
her a bit, then you’ll see how she revives,’ he grinned.
‘How do her bloomers look?’ cried the sergeant with the game license.
With a twitch the sailor pulled off her skirt. ‘They’re pink,’ he shouted with joy, displaying the lady’s backside in tight panties. He gave her a smack. ‘Wake up, now. Tomorrow I pull out to sea, it’ll be my last trip. Heinz won’t come to Hamburg any more!’
Another crashing bomb row. Glass clattered down from the shelves. The lights went out. A girl screamed. The sergeant started singing:
Denn wir fahren
seit vielen Jahren
mit grauen Haaren
gegen Engel-land . . .
‘Let’s have some light,’ called a man way down at the other end.
‘And some beer,’ another called.
‘I’ll sock you one,’ the sergeant shouted.
The policeman’s helmet had rolled into a corner when the bombs were coming down.
The sailor kissed the lady. He grinned happily.
‘Take her now,’ the sergeant cried. ‘Damn it all, man, show us what you can do!’
‘You’re right, pal. It’s about time,’ the sailor muttered. ‘It’s my last journey.’ He cursed. Something wasn’t going right. ‘You pig, now you’ll get to know the Navy!’
‘Bravo, sailor. Go ahead and torpedo her, then throw her out to the beggar.’
The lady let out a scream. A scream and a moan.
The Legionnaire laughed. Aunt Dora laughed.
‘A round of beers for the wedding party,’ someone called.
All of us laughed and drank to the sailor and the lady.
‘Can’t you behave yourself, you bitch,’ the sailor’s voice came from the darkness. ‘It’s my last passage out. By tomorrow night U-189 will have gone down.’
Trude brought a candle. By its flickering light we could see something dark lying on the floor.
Someone started playing the piano. The woman broke out in a long and ringing scream. The policeman yelled: ‘You son of a bitch! Leave the lady alone!’
‘Shove it, you beat-pounder,’ the sailor answered. ‘This is my last chance.’
Aunt Dora got up. Noiselessly and confidently she felt her way through the darkness.
The music struck up a tune:
This will soon be over,
There’s an end to everything.
Adolf and his Party
Will together sink.
‘Quiet,’ roared the policeman, who by now was frantic. A beam of light swept the floor and moved in on the sailor and the woman. Cursing, the policeman bent grimly over the sailor and separated them. The sailor laid about him savagely, broke loose and roared insanely. He stormed towards the door. The Belgian was swept aside.
‘Halt!’ the policeman called after him. ‘Halt or I’ll shoot!’ He cocked his weapon.
The sailor staggered up the basement stairs. There was a smacking of fire picks. Liquid spread out on the asphalt. Fire kindled. Blinding flames shot up. There was a glare as from a blast furnace. Calls for sand were heard. The shadows lengthened. There was nothing except a glaring, bright pale yellow. The street was on fire. All Bremerreihe was on fire.
Aunt Dora lit a white cheroot, the twentieth since the air attack. The Legionnaire hummed: Come now, death, come!
The sailor, the U-boat man, was on fire: Slowly he melted down to a tiny mummy. A scorched, singed doll.
The woman he had raped before his last journey sat on the floor staring blindly ahead of her. She rocked from side to side. A long muffled scream escaped her. She began pounding her head against the wall. Faster and faster, like an accelerating train.
The sergeant with the game license laughed.
Aunt Dora slapped the woman with the back of her hand. Four times she did it, and very hard. The woman quieted down.
‘Carl is dead,’ she whispered. Then she screamed again. She hopped around the floor like a chicken that has had its head chopped off. She began singing a chorale, which rose to a shrieking treble. She seemed to want to outsing the howl of the bombs.
‘She’s gone batty,’ said an engineer NCO with a missing arm. A flame-thrower had burnt it off in the retreat from Kharkov.
Aunt Dora spat on the floor and glanced briefly at the singing woman. ‘Get her out the back way,’ she ordered, and nodded to the Belgian and Ewald, the pimp.
A new wave of bombs shattered the houses. The screams were drowned in the torrent of fire, which swept everything before it on the other side of Hansaplatz. An enormous vacuum cleaner devoured everything, good and bad.
Aunt Dora brought grilled chestnuts. We dipped them in the common salt standing in the middle of the table.
The Schupo picked up his helmet, put it on and walked toward the door. He was furious over the affair with the sailor.
In the same moment a Security patrol stepped in. There were four SS men and an SS Oberscharführer. They looked at the Schupo in gay amazement. One of them played with the magazine of his sub-machine gun. He was smiling, but not with a real smile. It was rather the contented purring of a cat when confronting a mouse that has forgotten where its hole is.
The SS Oberscharführer blew a long whistle.
‘Well, look what we found! A dirty copper. Warming himself in the chimney-corner, eh? I dare say our coming here was quite a surprise to you. But that’s life, you see. Chock full of good and unpleasant surprises. It might really be nice, you know, if you delivered a report.’
The policeman got up and spluttered out a report: ‘Police Sergeant Krüll, Precinct 15, Hauptbahnof, carrying out ordered patrol. Nothing special to report.’
The SD patrol laughed. The Oberscharführer scratched his ear with his little finger.
‘Imagination certainly isn’t your problem, gramps. Half of Bremerreihe is gone, and yet you say you have nothing special to report. Right above the stairs are two small lumps of cinders that were people not so long ago. Still nothing special to report?’
The SD patrol laughed again.
The Legionnaire was spitting out chestnut shucks. Aunt Dora lit another cheroot. The sergeant with the game license shouted: ‘Hang him!’
With a grin the SS Oberscharführer held out his hand to the Schupo. The policeman gave him his service order and his muster roll without saying a word. The SS Oberscharführer indifferently leafed through the gray booklet. He didn’t read the service order. Then he put them both in his breast pocket.
‘You seem to be very eager to get a bullet through your brain, eh, grandpa?’
The policeman blinked and muttered something under his breath.
‘The court-martial are smacking their lips for you,’ the Oberscharführer grinned, tipping the policeman’s nose with his finger.
‘And we are the court-martial,’ smiled the SS man who resembled a cat. The Oberscharführer nodded.
‘He can allow himself to sit in a whorehouse making himself comfortable, while the rest of us carry out the Führer’s order about defense and duty!’ He walked full circle round the policeman and examined him carefully, pulling out his Mauser pistol from its holster and sticking it in his own pocket. ‘You’re just the one we have been waiting for. We’re going to make a fine example of you. And now, get your snoot to the wall, and be quick about it!’
The man who looked like a cat seemed to be in a glorious mood. He nudged the policeman with his sub-machine gun and dangled the barrel before his nose. He looked hungrily at him.
‘You’re going to swing, you lazy flat-foot. And you’ll have a little tag on your breast with only one word on it: DESERTER.’
His four pals broke into a roar of laughter.
‘And then we’ll twine the pilfered sausages around your neck, you kleptomaniac,’ the Oberscharführer bawled. He walked over to Trude at the counter.
‘Five doubles, and make it snappy.’
Aunt Dora put away her cheroot and got up. She winked at Trude, who disappeared into the back room where the telephone was. Aunt Dora took
Trude’s place behind the counter. She pulled fiercely at the long cheroot.
The SS Oberscharführer gave her a searching glance. He seemed to become uncertain of himself at the sight of the short plump woman with the brutal eyes indifferently looking at him, as if he were a fly on the wall.
‘Five doubles.’ His voice was shrill.
Aunt Dora slowly removed the cheroot from her mouth and blew the smoke in his face.
‘Why’re you making so much noise? We aren’t deaf.’
‘Then let’s have the five doubles.’
‘No.’
It rang like a shot from a 9 mm storm rifle.
We looked up. The Legionnaire smiled ominously. Lazily he got up and slid over to the bar stool beside the Oberscharführer.
‘Smart chap?’ he asked Aunt Dora and nodded toward the man. She shook her head.
‘No, he’s not smart. Stupid.’
‘Who’s stupid, you pimping broad?’ the Oberscharführer cried.
Aunt Dora again blew smoke in his eyes.
‘You, my boy. If you’d been smart, you and your housecarls over there would’ve been far away from here by now.’
Trude appeared. She nodded imperceptibly to Aunt Dora. She glared at the SS men with malicious pleasure.
The SS Oberscharführer was getting worked up.
‘Are you threatening us, you screwed up whore? It seems to be about time for you to take a trip up to Headquarters. Then I’ll personally beat you to mincemeat.’
His men laughed boisterously. The one who resembled a cat placed his sub-machine gun on the counter. The Legionnaire gave it a push with his finger. It crashed to the floor.
‘What the hell are you doing, you louse?’ the cat cried.
The Legionnaire bared his teeth in a vicious grin.
Aunt Dora once more glanced at Trude, who again nodded reassuringly.
‘Pick up that sprayer,’ the SS Oberscharführer ordered his housecarl. He turned to Aunt Dora. ‘And now, look sharp about those doubles I ordered, or we’ll help ourselves.’
‘You can’t have anything,’ Aunt Dora said, placing a bottle on the second shelf from the top.