Comrades of War

by Sven Hassel

  The police officer laughed uproariously and ran off to join a couple of ladies.

  Lieutenant Ohlsen again ended up over in the corner, where Busch stood explaining to a tall gentleman in dark civilian dress what the SS were doing while the others enjoyed life at the front.

  ‘We’re nothing but refuse collectors,’ he explained to the dumbly attentive gentleman, on whose lapel gleamed a microscopic Party emblem in gold.

  Slowly the civilian gentleman lit a cigar. He was obviously a connoisseur. He was one of those mysterious Germans who had lived in South America in the time between the wars. Once he had been consultant to the secret police of Bolivia. Later he sold Krupp arms to Paraguay, Bolivia’s opponent in the protracted war between the two states. At present he was one of the big wheels in Berlin, with an office on the top floor in Prinz Albrecht-Strasse.

  ‘We liquidate everyone,’ Busch shouted in a thick voice, swaying ominously. He spilled cognac on his uniform. ‘First we’ll knock off the Jews, every damn one of them.’ The gentleman with the black cigar nodded in silence. ‘Then comes the turn for the gypsies.’ The gentleman with the black cigar nodded once more. Busch slurped from a bottle of cognac which one of his comrades had filled half with vodka, half with Danish akvavit. He belched. ‘Then we plug the Polacks. You see, we boys are creating Lebensraum, Lebensraum for the victorious German people. They’ll gape in amazement when our Special Action Groups get rolling. Whole nations will vanish from the surface of the earth. There’s room only for us Germans. Forward, comrades, long live the SS!’ He slammed his heels together, raised his arm and bellowed: ‘Sieg, Heil!’

  All those present joined in, roaring rapturously. Someone started singing the Jew song. Others joined in at the line: Jewish blood shall flow.

  An SS Hauptsturmführer from Eicke’s extermination division jumped on a chair and screamed frantically: ‘The last Jew will be hanged on Brandenburger Tor!’

  ‘We’re the greatest nation in the world,’ Busch bawled. ‘We’ll liquidate all the others.’

  He was interrupted by a girl who tore screaming through the room. Her hair was disheveled and she had no dress on. She was hotly pursued by an officer in shirtsleeves, with wide peasant braces flapping behind him.

  An officer with the black badges of an SS general on his lapel commanded: ‘Ready, to the beds!’

  A yell of enthusiasm almost blew off the ceiling of the villa.

  This was the signal for a wild woman hunt. A refractory lady was taken by force in a window niche. Another stood on her hands, exposing her elegant black lace panties, which revealed more than they concealed. An officer poured red wine from the Rhône valley over her. He did it very slowly and with feeling. That much one owed the good wine, thought SS Obersturmführer Stenthal. He formerly had a wine cellar in Bonn. Now he was director of interrogations in the police unit at Buchenwald.

  He pulled the panties off the acrobatic girl and carried his jest further, with no one apparently taking offence at it. Meanwhile three of his comrades sang:

  Röslein, Röslein, Röslein rot,

  Röslein auf der Heide.

  They outdid one another in insane erotic whims. They bellowed like royal stags at rutting time.

  Lieutenant Ohlsen had gotten drunk. He straddled a chair as if astride a horse. Before him on the floor lay a naked woman. The only thing she had on was stockings. Long stockings, held up by wide black garters with red roses. An SS officer lay half across a chair. He was dressed only in jacket and long underwear. Underwear with a patch, poorly sewed on at that.

  Lieutenant Ohlsen grinned at the patch on the long underwear.

  ‘Super Teutons in long patched underwear.’ He spat out what he had in his mouth and succeeded in hitting the patch on the SS officer’s underpants. ‘Slime,’ he said in a tone of complete conviction. ‘Tomorrow I’m going over to Prinz Albrecht-Strasse to find that acquaintance of Heinrich on the fifth floor. I’ll tell that dog some things about the whore I’m married to.’ He grinned again.

  A platinum blonde came over to him and sat down on his lap. She stroked his hair.

  ‘You may call me Ilse if you like,’ she said.

  ‘Ilse,’ Lieutenant Ohlsen said. He spat once more at the patch on the SS underwear.

  Ilse doubled up with laughter.

  They sat silent for a moment examining the patch.

  Another lady came up to them. She had on a golden dress, cut to her hips in the back.

  ‘You looked peeved,’ she said to Lieutenant Ohlsen. ‘Why don’t you have fun? Don’t you like girls?’

  ‘Are you a whore?’ Lieutenant Ohlsen asked.

  ‘You’re fresh,’ the girl snorted.

  ‘That’s true enough,’ Lieutenant Ohlsen grinned, ‘and you’re a pig.’ He kicked at the girl and almost lost his balance with the chair. He grabbed for his glass standing on the floor. It was a one and a half liter beer glass, filled with vodka and cognac. A police lieutenant had said it chased one’s sorrows away. That’s why he drank it.

  An SS Hauptsturmführer came reeling over to them. He hauled a chair after him. He had only one eye. The other was covered by a black monocle, which he was constantly losing. But his pockets were crammed with spare monocles. Where the eye had been was a big red moist hole. He just loved making others look at that hole. Seeing it made them lose their appetites.

  He slumped down beside Lieutenant Ohlsen and looked around with his one eye, a pitch-black, ferrety eye. He looked at Lieutenant Ohlsen.

  ‘Would you care to come out to the camp tomorrow and have a fencing-bout with the traitors?’ He puffed and pointed at Ilse, the platinum blonde. ‘Shall we be friends and play nookie, nookie?’

  ‘Not with you,’ Ilse said. ‘You’re a creep.’

  The SS officer grinned. He lost his monocle. It rolled along the floor.

  His red eye glowed. Ilse shivered.

  Lieutenant Ohlsen sucked at a cigarette holder and looked indifferently at the moist red flesh that wouldn’t cure.

  ‘You’re probably quite a little tiger,’ the SS officer said, grinning at Ilse. ‘A panther to be tamed with a whip.’ He grinned fiendishly.

  ‘Why the eye bit?’ Lieutenant Ohlsen asked. He drank a little more from his large tankard.

  ‘He’s nuts,’ said the platinum blonde. ‘He’s stark raving mad. They say he has crucified Biblical scholars in his camp.’

  Lieutenant Ohlsen looked at the SS officer who sat there grinning absurdly. His one eye looked perfectly insane.

  The SS Hauptsturmführer nodded.

  ‘What you say is true. Four nails, whether it is a black-robe or a Talmud swine.’ He looked meditative. ‘Those Talmud guys are the toughest, but the blackrobes squeal louder so it’s more fun. Won’t you come out with me, Lieutenant, and observe me nailing one of them to the beams? You’ll have one too. A new transport has just arrived. In my quarters I’ve two heads the size or an orange. One of them sat on a Talmud wench. The other is Polish. There’s a French girl in the camp. She’s in my section. I want her head too. It sort of cheers you up to have a few of these heads on your writing desk. When some day the war’s over I’ll be sure to make a lot of money from those heads. It’s much easier to pick up shrunken heads in Berlin than to go to the heart of South America, and besides there’s no hazard.’

  Lieutenant Ohlsen took three long drafts from his mug.

  ‘What do you have there?’ the one-eyed officer asked.

  Lieutenant Ohlsen looked at him without answering. He had made up his mind not to have any further talk with the collector of heads.

  ‘Lieutenant, did you ever taste woman’s blood in cognac? It has a lovely taste.’ He grabbed platinum-blonde Ilse and like a striking snake cut a gash in her wrist and squeezed some blood into his glass. He grinned savagely and emptied his glass.

  Ilse shrieked with pain and fright. There was a great hubbub around her.

  The tall gentleman in the dark suit came over to them, followed by some SS men in
white jackets. He listened in silence to what had occurred.

  Shrugging his shoulders, he turned around and muttered as he went away: ‘For God’s sake, nothing more. A little jest.’ He whispered to a huge SS man who helped serving: ‘Have the bitch arrested and brought to the camp, charged with insult to the SS. But not yet. Later.’ He lit another black cigar and looked pleased at a couple who were more than slightly engrossed with each other. Then, as he left the room, he hummed: ‘How beautiful is life, divinely beautiful.’

  The head-hunter who drank women’s blood stood up. He poked the naked girl lying on the floor.

  A little later he showed up again. Now he had a light gray cape hanging across his shoulder. His white shirt front and dress uniform were stained. He had put the black monocle in his pocket. The flesh shone fiery red in the inflamed socket. He was drooling from a corner of his mouth. He nudged Lieutenant Ohlsen with the gold handle of his riding whip.

  ‘Are you coming with me to the camp, you army lieutenant, to nail a couple of Talmud swine to the beam?’

  Lieutenant Ohlsen looked at him. He would have liked to say a great many things to him. The kind of things that others also would have liked to say. Everything one would say in a novel. But this was not a novel. And Lieutenant Ohlsen didn’t say anything. He just took a long pull from his mug, which again had been filled with the mixture. Lieutenant Ohlsen wanted to forget.

  The SS Hauptsturmführer shrugged his shoulders and turned around, a bit uncertain on his feet. He staggered, lurching ominously like a ship hit by an awkward wave, but managed to right himself. He looked over his shoulder, grinned, and with the back of his white glove wiped the red flesh that wouldn’t heal.

  ‘I’m going now, but in case you should change your mind, Lieutenant, ask for Oberscharführer Schenk. He’ll drive you out to the camp. And if you come we’ll separate the Talmud swine from the blackrobes and then we’ll be able to see who scream the loudest.’ He walked out of the room with clanking spurs. He had gold spurs on his ankle boots. He was from the SS cavalry division.

  The dark girl asked Lieutenant Ohlsen to unbutton her brassière. It was too tight, she said.

  ‘Are you on leave?’ blonde Ilse asked.

  ‘Yes, I’m on leave,’ Lieutenant Ohlsen answered.

  ‘Don’t you have any family?’ the dark girl asked. Her eyes were half closed like those of a cat purring by a fireplace.

  Lieutenant Ohlsen didn’t answer.

  ‘You’re welcome to sleep with me,’ said Ilse, the platinum blonde.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Lieutenant Ohlsen said, again taking a swig from his mug. He was very drunk now, but no one could notice it. He put away the mug and looked at the platinum blonde. ‘If I were you I’d leave this place.’

  ‘Why should I?’ she asked and tossed her head, making the light flash in her hair, which hung loosely down her back.

  Lieutenant Ohlsen smiled.

  ‘Because I’m telling you. Steal out the door without anybody noticing.’

  ‘Good Lord, what stupid rot,’ she snapped. She walked up to an SS Untersturmführer with the SD insignia on his collar. Soon his hands were going up her skirt.

  They went upstairs together.

  Lieutenant Ohlsen didn’t see her any more. She was arrested shortly after she had been in bed with the SD man. And it was he who arrested her. They led her out the back way, where you could get out into a side street through a little wicket in the wall.

  Next day she was found in Grunewald. A brief notice in the afternoon paper announced that she had been run over by an unidentified car. She was spoken of as one of Berlin’s antisocial women. People shrugged their shoulders and said:

  ‘A whore.’

  Abendblatt carried a picture of the corpse. It was lying on the road with clothes mussed up. The head was covered with a blanket.

  ‘Her head seems to have taken a regular beating,’ said a drayman in a tavern. He stood leaning against the bar drinking beer while he looked at a sign which read: BERLINERS SMOKE JUNO.

  Someone slapped Lieutenant Ohlsen on the back. It was an SS Sturmbannführer with the Knight’s Order of the Iron Cross dangling from his neck. He was very young. Around one arm he wore a narrow black band, with an inscription in elaborate Gothic letters; Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. The bodyguard to the Führer. His breast was covered with decorations.

  ‘Would you like a ginger ale, my friend?’ the young SS major asked.

  It was the first time someone there had said ‘friend’ to Lieutenant Ohlsen. He looked at him in amazement.

  ‘Ginger ale?’ he said. ‘You get sick from that.’ He raised his big mug and drank. He drank slowly, but even so he started coughing.

  The SS major laughed. He sniffed at Lieutenant Ohlsen’s glass.

  ‘Jeez, it’s strong.’

  ‘Yes, it’s strong,’ Lieutenant Ohlsen said. ‘It’s all strong,’ he added.

  The SS major from Hitler’s bodyguard nodded, then looked around the room.

  ‘This is a filthy pigsty.’

  Lieutenant Ohlsen said nothing. He merely nodded agreement and thought: It’s far worse than a pigsty.

  ‘When this war’s over we’ll all be presented with a long, long bill for everything these guys are doing,’ the SS major said.

  ‘They crucify people,’ Lieutenant Ohlsen said.

  ‘I know they do,’ the SS major said. ‘Altogether they are a damn tough bunch of boys right now.’ He bent down over Lieutenant Ohlsen and whispered: ‘Do you know what I want to do, friend? I want to shoot myself. I want more . . .’ Again he looked cautiously around him. An ironical smile played about his mouth. ‘I’m going to do it right here in this joint.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be foolish?’ Lieutenant Ohlsen asked.

  ‘It might, friend, but they’ll all be gaping.’

  ‘Are you drunk?’

  ‘Not a bit,’ the SS major maintained. He couldn’t be more than twenty-five, very slim. Over six foot three. His hair was yellow like ripe wheat. He was very handsome.

  He drew himself up to his full height.

  ‘Just watch now, friend.’ He walked across the floor in the direction of an SS general with decorations from World War I, the Party emblem in gold, and honor chevrons on his right sleeve.

  The young officer flicked at the general’s lapel, glittering with silver oak leaves. He smiled and said very loudly:

  ‘SS Gruppenführer, now you’re going to see something funny. The best joke of all time.’

  The General, past sixty, looked annoyed at the tall dashing officer. He was standing with the gentleman in the dark suit and three ladies. Ladies from UFA. The ladies laughed expectantly.

  ‘Well, let’s hear the joke.’

  The young officer laughed. His laughter was very contagious and warm.

  Lieutenant Ohlsen took another slight pull from his tankard, then made himself more comfortable on his chair. He felt as if he had been specially invited to a theater just before the performance was to begin.

  The SS major pointed at the SS general.

  ‘SS Gruppenführer, you’re a pig, a vicious Nazi pig!’

  The General started back. All the blood faded from his bloated face. His mouth opened and closed.

  The SS major smiled. ‘The whole lot of you guys from camps and offices behind the front are a pack of filthy bastards and sex killers. But to your pleasant surprise I am able to announce to you that we have lost the war. Our brothers from the other side are on their way to Berlin, and they are in a hurry.’

  Someone caught him by the arm. He rapped his hand and snarled: ‘Your fingers off me, you cur!’

  The SS Untersturmführer who had caught him by the arm released his hold. The Bodyguards armband and the flashing Knight’s Cross made him cautious.

  The SS major drew his pistol and cocked it.

  There was dead silence. The General and the gentleman in the dark suit stared hypnotically at the heavy black army pistol in the hand of the la
ughing young officer.

  ‘I feel like a dog because of the uniform I wear,’ he said. It came out slowly and with weight on every word. ‘I am ashamed of my German mother. I am ashamed of the country which is called my own. I sincerely hope that our opponents in this war are sensible enough to shoot every damn one of you like the mad dogs you are. To hang you by your own braces on the walls in your barracks and prisons.’ He put the pistol to his belly, clicked his heels and fired. He dropped the pistol, swayed back and forth but didn’t fall. He drew his blade of honor, the long pointed and sharp-edged weapon he carried on a chain by his side. With the smile still on his lips he slowly drove the blade into his belly and cut from left to right. The blood poured out over his hands. Again he swayed like a tall tree in a storm. He fell on his knees. ‘That you didn’t expect, you filthy swine,’ he wanted to say, but he didn’t say anything.

  With violent exertions he again got up. Then he collapsed.

  The whole thing took place in three stages. He looked at Lieutenant Ohlsen straddling his chair. He raised his hand for a salute. A hand soaked in blood.

  ‘Wasn’t it fine, friend?’ His eyes became dim, but he still smiled. The Knight’s Cross clinked against his buttons. He tried to stand up. He coughed blood. He was lifted up and placed on a table. They cut his uniform and trousers. He looked into the face of the person who bent over him, someone with bluish skin from his tough beard.

  ‘Damn you all. I have returned my club membership card. Sorry as hell I didn’t have the chance to see you hanging on your walls.’ He nodded. It hurt. God, how it hurt. ‘Perhaps, my friend, it was foolish after all,’ he whispered. Kneel down and pray to Lord Jesus, his mother had said. Grandfather was a pastor. He remembered him. His starched white collar was always yellow at the edge from sweat. Grandfather always spoke as if he cried, but he always cheated at marriage when they played in the back room of the tavern where no one could see them.

  The sharp light from a crystal chandelier stolen in Prague hurt his eyes. He could hear someone pacing the floor, back and forth.

  ‘He mustn’t die,’ someone said.

  He wanted to laugh, but only had the strength to pull back his lips and bare his teeth. You’re wrong there, I’ve resigned. Actually he didn’t mind dying now, but it was fun to stall and play a joke on them. But how it hurt. Why the hell did he have to stick that knife in his belly? It was foolish, friend. It was all the fault of those Japanese. It looked smart when a yellow monkey like that committed hara-kiri, but he had never believed it could hurt so much. And not in this way. How could is possibly hurt all the way up to your throat and down your back? If only there was no God. For he wasn’t one of the good boys. He knew that very well. Maybe the pains he suffered now would profit him if God was waiting for him. Maybe Grandfather with his yellow collar would put in a good word for him.