by Sven Hassel
He pulled a bottle of rotgut from under his mattress and guzzled down nearly half of it. He looked around him briefly before handing it to me, and I passed it on further. He said, as if talking to himself: ‘Bon, so you’d like to lay George out?’
‘I have as good as told you so twice,’ Tiny bawled sullenly, hitting his glass. It wasn’t responding as it should. He threatened Stein: ‘When are you going out to pinch some schnapps for Tiny, you rat?’ He kicked at a pair of light-blue panties lying on the floor and jumped at Bauer: ‘How long will those ass holsters be lying around here, egging people on to whoring?’
Bauer began collecting the undies and stuffing them into George’s rucksack. Then he meticulously laced it up and pushed it under the bed.
He glanced at the Legionnaire, who sat on his bed playing with three dice. He was continuously tossing them in the air and catching them again in his hand, now with the back of his hand, now with the palm.
‘In God’s name,’ Bauer whispered hoarsely, holding out his hand. ‘Give me that knife and I’ll cut up George so bad that not even his own mother will recognize him!’
The Legionnaire looked up. A subtle smiled played around the narrow, brutal mouth in the scarred face. Without a word he pulled the Siberian knife, sharp-edged on both sides, out of his boot and handed it to Bauer. Bauer’s face was deathly pale as he took it and hid it under his pillow.
Amid uproarious laughter George and the other men entered the ward. In his hand George had a large cake. One of the nurses had given it to him. All the nurses loved the little twenty-one-year-old flak private who looked only sixteen.
‘Give me a knife, someone, so I can cut the cake,’ he called.
An ugly smile spread across Bauer’s face as he pulled the Siberian knife from under his pillow and gave it to George.
‘Use it, pal. It is good both for cutting cake and for cutting up a whore!’
For a split second George stiffened. Then he laughed in his boyish way, took the knife and started cutting the cake.
‘Is anyone going whoring with me?’ Erich, a big engineer, called.
He accepted a piece of cake which George handed him. He gobbled it all up in a mouthful. Then he shadowboxed along the floor, knocking out his formidable opponents.
Tiny stood for a short while looking at him. The Legionnaire gave an imperceptible nod, and as Erich came close to Tiny, the latter gave him a crushing blow and commanded in a stentorian voice: ‘Don’t waste your energy, you fake hero! Get your pennies together and buy beer for Tiny, or I’ll show you some shadowboxing!’
With a howl Erich landed in the bed of Thomas Jensen from North Schleswig. Thomas got up and moved over to another bed. He never mixed himself up with anything. He was said to be a volunteer from 1939. Thomas himself neither confirmed nor denied it. The most he would say when asked was ‘Why?’ But anyone could see that Thomas Jensen was homesick. Volunteer or not, he’d had enough war. People even said he’d shot his arm to pieces himself and that he’d had a close shave escaping prosecution before a special court. When you wanted to find out something from him, he clammed up.
The Legionnaire had ordered Tiny to seek information from the Matron, who definitely knew everything about Thomas. But Tiny had managed to ruin this chance in the course of twenty seconds by saying coolly: ‘Emma, the Desert Rambler told me I should ask you about Thomas Jensen, you know, that ass from North Schleswig. Because, if he’s a volunteer, there’s a thrashing in store for him, but if he plugged himself with a Nagan, he damn well deserves a bottle of cognac. You should do it quietly, Emma, the Desert Rambler said, you understand, so they can’t guess what we have in mind.’
The Matron had looked at Tiny, long and thoughtfully. Then she nodded reassuringly. Tiny received his bottle of cognac, and then they went to bed.
Afterwards they came down to the ward together. The Matron walked up to the Legionnaire, who was lying asleep without a care in the world. She seized him by his chest, lifted him out of bed and hurled him to the floor with a crash.
‘You Moroccan snake! Tempting Tiny to be a spy! You brute!’ In her fury she kicked him. Then she turned around and left, but first she patted Tiny on the cheek. ‘My little darling, just trust me, Mother’s going to look out for you!’
Tiny almost tied himself in knots with pleasure and blew kisses after her. When she had closed the door he trumpeted through the room: ‘Holy Moses, great God, how hot Tiny’s balls are!’
The Legionnaire had got up and stood in front of Tiny, who looked affectionately at him in his big and stupid way.
‘You’re the biggest ass in the world. What the hell did you tell her?’
Tiny kicked the bed and smiled happily at the Legionnaire.
‘I admit, Desert Rambler, it came out rotten. I know it. I got the words topsy-turvy. I get everything wrong when I’m in a hot spot.’
The Legionnaire gave up. Shaking his head, he said: ‘By Allah, how true!’
‘Aren’t you coming with me to the bird cage, George, to pick up a sweetie?’ Bauer turned to George, staring hard at the little flak soldier. ‘A twenty-year-old bunk athlete should be just the thing for you.’
George laughed.
‘No, that’s not for me. I follow the watchword of Dr Goebbels for young soldiers, to keep away from alcohol, tobacco and women.’
Bauer picked his teeth with the Siberian knife which George had handed back to him.
‘Yes, that watchword is quite right. Women are a nuisance. You can catch syph from them, the whole works. It would be better to liquidate them all, don’t you think?’ He burst into a roar of laughter and made an eloquent gesture with the knife. ‘Cutting them up with a knife like this?’ Again he broke into a roar of laughter.
George had stopped eating his cake. He sat with open mouth, staring at the guffawing Bauer, who was swinging the Legionnaire’s knife above his head.
‘Why do you say all that?’ he asked quietly.
‘I just think broads are trash. What do you think?’
‘I don’t understand you at all,’ George answered. ‘You never acted like this before.’
He put the half-eaten cake on the table and walked around the room restlessly. He stopped in front of Bauer.
‘I’ve nothing against women. Those I know are all good to me. My mother also was always good. I remember her coming to say good night to me before I went to sleep when I was a boy – how wonderful it was! Now she’s dead. They burned her. Phosphorus splashed all over her, but now she’s in heaven.’
‘God only knows where she is,’ came brutally from Bauer, who had stopped grinning. He squinted at the Legionnaire, who sat on his bed playing with three green dice as if outside it all. ‘You’ve never been in a cathouse playing pig?’ Bauer asked, leaning slyly across the table.
Stein started whistling. He was nervous. Like the rest of us he felt that Bauer was going too far.
‘No,’ came from George, like a scream. ‘I hate it. Don’t you understand, I hate it. You are animals, repulsive animals, when you think about women, and when women want the same thing you do, they are a devil’s trap.’
Bauer fell back in horror when he saw how wildly George’s eyes stared at him. There was a gleam of insanity in them.
George grabbed his hair and pulled as if wanting to tear it up by the roots. He flopped down on his bed and covered his face with his hands. Every fiber in his slight body was shaken with violent sobbing.
The room became quiet. We looked at the little soldier in amazement. Only five of us knew what was wrong.
Tiny got up, hitched up his trousers and wobbled over to George.
The Legionnaire jumped up like a panther, caught Tiny by the shoulder and said severely: ‘Come along, Tiny, we’re going down to have some beer!’
Tiny smiled cheerily and asked in surprise: ‘Beer, on you?’
The Legionnaire nodded and pulled Tiny out of the room.
‘Shouldn’t I finish him up?’ asked Tiny naively. He pointed
over his shoulder at the sobbing George, who fortunately didn’t catch on to anything.
Stein and I went with them.
When we came back a few hours later the excitement in the ward had subsided. George sat with the nurses, helping a student unrolling bandages. They had fun and their laughter could be heard from far away.
Bauer lay on his bed staring emptily at the ceiling. He looked at us out of the corner of his eye and muttered, ‘I’ll do it tonight. It’s necessary.’
The Legionnaire nodded. ‘The earlier the better.’
We sat down and started drinking. We did it quite openly, not caring that it was forbidden. Tiny walked up to the Matron.
It was very late, and we were quite drunk when the Matron suddenly walked in, out of uniform, wrapped only in a robe of verdigris green. She had never done a thing like that before.
Walking noiselessly, as if on padded paws, she bore straight down on Bauer, stretched out her hand, and whispered hoarsely: ‘Give it to me!’
Bauer looked at her in a fright. ‘What do you mean?’
She bent down close to him and whispered, in order not to wake those who were asleep. ‘You know well enough! Hand it over!’
Bauer got up and looked dumbly at her. ‘I swear I don’t know what you mean!’
‘You don’t know? You should be glad I’m the one who came and not the head-hunters.’ She stuck her hand under his pillow, pulled out the battle knife and put it away under her robe. Then she sailed out of the room without looking at anybody.
The Legionnaire flared up. ‘That silly ass talked!’
‘What the hell are we going to do?’ Bauer asked, casting a frantic look about him.
‘What’s up?’ someone asked in the darkness.
‘What’s that to you?’ the Legionnaire dismissed him.
It was already late morning when Tiny came down. He was in an exalted mood and was making a lot of noise.
The Legionnaire and he whispered together. They went out to the toilet and continued their conversation there. When they came back, Tiny was almost sober. He was silent and slightly uneasy.
The Legionnaire threw himself on the bed and began smoking. He said nothing and acted as if he didn’t hear our inquisitive whispers. We could almost feel his brain working.
Inspection, headed by the boss, Oberstabsarzt Dr Mahler, went off as usual. The Matron looked officially strict. Not with the slightest glance did she reveal what had occurred during the night.
The new patient, an artilleryman with an amputated hand, grinned foolishly when Dr Mahler asked him how he was.
‘Fine, Herr Field-butcher, stinking fine! Been to the cathouse, had cognac. Report I’m damn fine! Dismissed, Field-butcher!’
All at once we came alive, expecting an eruption. But Dr Mahler just looked at the artilleryman for a moment and patted him on the shoulder.
‘It’s nice you’re so well, Fischer. If only all of us were.’
The Legionnaire glanced at me and pointed a finger at his forehead.
As the last one to leave, the Matron turned around in the doorway and looked at the Legionnaire. Their glances sank deep in each other’s eyes. Those two understood each other. The hardened soldier and the equally hardened army nurse. One of them lean and wiry, the other big and ample.
The door shut with a resolute bang.
George was rummaging in his rucksack. Looking up, he moved his eyes searchingly around the room. Again glanced into the rucksack. Then he seemed to make a decision. Quickly, he tied it up and shoved it far under the bed. He took a few quick turns between door and window. Suddenly he stopped, let out a loud cry and ran stumbling out of the room.
‘What on earth got into him?’ the Legionnaire asked Bauer, who lay on his bed sucking on a pickle.
‘Haven’t the slightest idea. He must’ve gone crazy.’
‘They’ll turn around and crush you,’ bawled Leo Fischer, the artilleryman. He burst into an insane fit of laughter and cried: ‘They’ll crush you slowly. They’ll squash your bones. Hurrah, comrades, forward! In battle we are never alone! We are panzer-jägers, the stupidest swine on earth!’ Again insane laughter.
‘Shut up!’ roared the East Prussian, who’d had his abdomen riddled by a burst from a Russian tommy gun.
Leo looked archly at him, clicked his heels and whinnied in treble: ‘Yes, Herr General, we’ll shut up! I believe in the Holy Trinity and victory! In Adolf’s name, amen!’
The East Prussian raised himself on his elbow and looked in surprise at Leo, who had by now started to whimper.
‘He must be stark raving mad,’ he said.
The Legionnaire got up and nodded to Tiny, who followed him like a shadow, just in case. They placed themselves in front of Leo, who was weeping while standing severely at attention.
‘At ease, gunner,’ the Legionnaire commanded. As if he were on the drill-ground, Leo put his foot forward and relaxed. He stared at the Legionnaire, yet he seemed to see nothing.
‘Go to sleep,’ the Legionnaire commanded, and Leo hopped over to his bed like a crow, came to attention in front of it, and called:
‘Battery in position, fire! Excess crew take cover!’ With an enormous jump he landed in the bed. He rolled over on his back, lay quiet as a mouse and stared up at the ceiling.
‘That beats everything,’ the East Prussian exclaimed. ‘Christ, he’s nuts!’
Shortly after dinner had been brought in, the door opened. A large red-haired figure with a Tyrolean hat on the back of his head pushed himself in, followed by a bull-like, dark-skinned fellow in a filthy gray felt hat pushed over his forehead as if too large for him.
‘Heil!’ saluted the red-haired fellow.
Fifteen men looked up from the nettle soup with interest. The East Prussian answered modestly: ‘Shove it up your ass!’
The red-haired fellow grinned: ‘Drop in to see me some day, you future hero, and I’ll stoke up under your balls till you can boil eggs on them!’
‘Are you from the Winter Collection?’ Tiny asked, peering inquisitively at the two civilians.
Red roared with laughter.
‘Winter Collection? That’s a good one! Nah, small fry. We do come from a collection, but that isn’t it!’ Doubled up with laughter, he slapped the shoulder of the dark-skinned fellow, who maintained an air of uncanny seriousness.
The Legionnaire watched them attentively. Squinting, he asked: ‘Police?’
Red nodded.
‘Righto. You hit the nail on the head. We are Kripo joes. You haven’t seen any such before, have you? Which of you tired heroes is George Freytag? Flak gunner George Freytag of the 76th Flak Regiment?’
We looked at George, who was sitting at the table. He was pale as a sheet.
The red-haired policeman puffed himself up in front of him.
‘Well, my angel, are you flak gunner George Freytag?’
George opened and shut his mouth without getting out a word.
Red bent forward, smiling. ‘Lost your voice, you little rabbit? Lost it from fright because Uncle comes to visit you from Kripo? Maybe we have a nice message about a big inheritance from a lady who just conked out. With a good conscience there’s no need to be scared of Uncle from Kripo.’
Trembling as if seized with a convulsion, George remained speechless.
There was an ominous silence in the ward. Then the basso boomed again: ‘So you refuse to chat with Uncle? What a shame. Do you mind if we take a look at your baggage to check if you’re the heir we’re looking for?’
Without waiting for an answer he bent down and pulled out George’s rucksack.
‘No,’ George screamed. ‘You can’t touch that. It’s mine.’
Red laughed, as if he didn’t hear the screaming protest.
The dark-skinned fellow stood like a rock behind George, keeping a watchful eye on him.
Red began rummaging in the rucksack. His black leather coat opened, showing a light brown leather belt by which his shoulder holster was held in plac
e under his armpit. You could sense the heavy .38.
George stared hypnotically at Red as he brutally pulled the neatly folded military underwear out of the rucksack. A can of marmalade rolled along the floor, followed by a fluttering picture of a gray-haired lady.
‘Mother,’ George screamed frantically, following the photo with his eyes.
A couple of schoolbooks were thrown to the floor. A Bible followed. A knife in a sheath appeared. The sort of knife Finnish soldiers always carry in their belt.
Red slowly pulled the knife out of the reindeer sheath and looked briefly at the shining steel with the deep blood track.
‘It’s yours, isn’t it, my little friend?’ He slipped it into the pocket of his black leather coat.
Then, between two fingers, the Kripo cop held up a pair of white undies for our inspection. A blue pair followed. Again a white pair. All in all, six pairs.
He stood up, nodded to George. All his friendliness seemed blown away. It was the bloodhound that barked: ‘The comedy’s finished! You’re the one who murdered the girls! Denying it will only make it worse for you. So come along!’ He nodded towards the door. Both he and the dark fellow caught George by the shoulder.
‘Leave me alone! I’m sick. I have fever!’ George screamed desperately. He tried to kick the two large men.
‘Take it easy,’ the dark fellow said. These were the first words he had uttered.
Far down the stairs we could hear George cry: ‘Leave me alone, leave me alone! I have fever!’
When the car halted at the Reeperbahn shortly afterward, George succeeded in tearing himself loose from his guards. He rushed along Glacis Chaussee and jumped over the fence to the sports ground.
The two policemen followed close on his heels.
‘Halt!’ they roared. Three times they called ‘Halt!’ as demanded by regulations. Then there was a crack of volleys behind George. It was like a fleeting kiss. The bullets from the two machine guns swept him into the air and made him hover there for a moment as if on an air cushion, then flung him brutally to the ground again.
He scratched the black earth with crooked fingers and stammered unintelligibly.
Red turned him over with the toe of his boot. ‘Our job is done,’ he decided tersely. ‘He’s kicked off. Let’s hurry off to Pretty Paul with the body.’