Comrades of War

by Sven Hassel

  Very pale, the General bent over the table where they had laid him. He looked like a very old man.

  With incredible exertion for a dying man the young SS major sat up angrily. Blood surged up in his throat. He coughed, could no longer breathe. The blood tasted sickly sweet.

  Abusive voices were heard everywhere. The General’s light trousers became bespattered with blood. Furious, he croaked something about a ‘filthy mess.’

  A girl sobbed.

  He fell back heavily on the table. Now it didn’t hurt any more. In fact, he was quite comfortable. He stretched out and died.

  Without realizing it he suddenly stood in front of the large gray building, Prinz Albrecht-Strasse 8. He stared at the oval sign with the black SS eagle and the words: GEHEIME STAATSPOLIZEI. Secret State Police.

  Mechanically he walked up the stairs and opened the heavy door. The bandle was placed so high it made you feel like a little kid.

  The SS sentries didn’t condescend to give him a glance, in spite of his officer’s uniform.

  On the fifth floor he halted outside a gray door with a little brass plate inscribed: STAPO B. 2.

  He gave himself a shake as if he were cold.

  A little further down the corridor a door was opened. Black glittering SS helmets appeared.

  A woman was half dragged over to an elevator, which disappeared down to the basement with a buzz.

  A tall slim man with flaxen hair and aquiline nose – a figure modelled to Himmler’s own heart – asked what he could do for Lieutenant Ohlsen.

  ‘Forgive me, I have come to the wrong place,’ he mumbled.

  He almost ran down the stairs and cleared out of this Devil’s stronghold. He breathed a sigh of relief. He would be able to meet the glance of the Old Man and the Legionnaire without feeling ashamed of himself.

  XVIII

  A Casual Affair

  It rained as Lieutenant Ohlsen left the villa. He was without a coat. He held his cap in his hand so the rain could flow through his hair.

  He stood still, turning his face to the sky. He enjoyed the rain, it cooled his burning-hot skin. That Leibstandarte officer had put up a wonderful performance. God, how wonderful! It spoiled their celebration.

  Lieutenant Ohlsen laughed softly at the thought that the celebration had been ruined.

  He again started walking down the street. What if he had possessed that much absurd courage! He dwelt on the thought. A wonderful thought: Go home, ring the bell. Ring real long. Stroll nonchalantly in to his arrogant parents-in-law. Glance at Father-in-law sitting big and heavy in his wide chair. Tell him exactly what he thought of him. Tell them they were just sausage Germans. Sausage Germans with diamonds gleaming on their pudgy fingers. It would be wonderful to observe their dull fish eyes as he slipped his bayonet into his belly. The thought made him brace himself and walk faster.

  A black Mercedes with a police license plate swerved by him. He had a glimpse of some officers and ladies. A woman’s laughter came from the car.

  He missed his gang. Years seemed to have passed by since he left them. Perhaps they weren’t even alive any more. Fear crawled up his spine. He saw the little Legionnaire. The brutal face with the knife scar seemed to hover by the lilac bush over there. A face without body. Lieutenant Ohlsen said aloud:

  ‘Hi there, Alfred.’

  The little Legionnaire smiled his dead smile. Only his mouth smiled. Never the eyes. He had forgotten how to smile with his eyes and heart a long time ago.

  ‘You won, Alfred,’ Lieutenant Ohlsen nodded. ‘Christ, how you won. We’re pigs, born of pigs, and shall die on a dunghill like pigs. Vive la Légion Etrangère!’ Without being aware of it he shouted the last words loudly. He looked around nervously.

  A Schupo came strolling along. He suspiciously stared at the wet Lieutenant. The eagle in his helmet flashed. The rain flowed from the helmet down his raincoat, which glistened with wetness.

  Lieutenant Ohlsen quickened his pace, while the Schupo stood still, peering after him.

  The cop was in high spirits despite the rain. No air raid. He walked on.

  Lieutenant Ohlsen turned the corner. He recalled the time they were lying in their positions by the Elbruz valley. It was very hot. The sun was scorching. There were no trees. No shade. It was long ago. There were alarmingly many head wounds in those positions by the Elbruz valley. He saw a long line of faces before him. All of those who received head wounds. NCO Schöler, Pfc Burg, tank gunner Schulze, fire team leader Mall and Sergeant Blom, who wanted to go to Spain and grow oranges when the war was over. He was constantly talking about the orange grove. Though he never got to Spain, he had learned a few words of Spanish. He had an ancient dictionary with a great many pages missing. ‘Dos cervezas,’ he would say when he ordered beer, regardless whether he wanted ten or two. He also knew how to say ‘mañana’ and ‘hermana.’ He used to say this to all the girls. To old people he said ‘abuelos.’ The day he died – the Siberian sniper hadn’t hit him quite right, just above the root of the nose, and it took him three minutes to die – he said to those standing by: ‘Yo no me figuraba.’ The little Legionnaire, who knew Spanish, nodded and answered in Spanish. It cheered Blom greatly. He died with his mind on the orange grove he never got to see. They buried him down by the crooked cactus, where the fallen rock was lying. They buried a tiny dry orange with him in the grave. The Legionnaire squeezed it into his hand. Afterward they trampled the earth very firm. They jumped up and down on it, to make sure the wild dogs wouldn’t dig him up and feed on him. They did this only because he was ‘Barcelona-Blom.’ Usually, they didn’t do it. So many died, and the wild dogs also had to live. But with Blom it was different. All of them knew that orange grove, had heard so much about it. Next day Lieutenant Colonel von Herling was killed. A Siberian sniper hit him right at the edge of his helmet. He died instantly. They didn’t pack the earth down on his grave. He was new with them. The next day they found part of him. The dogs had dug him up. The Commander had gone clean mad, had threatened them with court-martial. But it was so hot in the Elbruz valley that before evening the Commander had forgotten all about it. He was Colonel von Lindenau, who later was killed in Kiev. He was burned to death. That they could see when they got to his tank. He was half hanging out of the turret, completely charred. Porta said he looked like a steak forgotten by a cook. Porta said much more. They had laughed noisily at Porta’s remarks. Von Lindenau had been with the regiment for a long time, but no one missed him. They left the whole thing there till Ivan came to clear up. Ivan’s demolition squad had carried the colonel’s corpse on two forks to a hole and thrown some earth on top of it. No one had any idea where von Lindenau, landowner, colonel, count, had been buried.

  Lieutenant Ohlsen shook his head in the rain. What a war. He had gone all the way down to Havel. He sat down on a bench in the rain. He was drenched to the skin, but didn’t care. He discovered he was right beside Prinz Albrecht-Strasse, where Heinrich’s friend had his office on the fifth floor.

  A girl came strolling by. A girl in a red leather jacket and a very wet hat on her head. She smiled at him. He smiled back and wiped the rain from his face.

  The girl stopped and sat down beside him on the wet bench. He offered her a cigarette.

  They sat smoking for a little while. The cigarettes were damp.

  ‘It’s wet here,’ the girl said. She had heavy legs, he noticed.

  He nodded. ‘Very wet.’

  ‘Do you like going for walks in the rain?’

  ‘Nah,’ Lieutenant Ohlsen answered. ‘I can’t stand it.’

  The girl puffed hard at her cigarette. ‘I can’t either.’

  They both laughed.

  Then they sat again for a moment, both with their own thoughts. It was the girl who broke the silence.

  ‘You’re from the front,’ she said without looking at him.

  ‘Yes, from the Eastern Front. I’ll soon be leaving again.’

  ‘Would you like to walk me down the street?’
the girl asked and got up. They walked together down the street along the Havel.

  ‘My sweetheart also was home on leave,’ the girl said and changed step to fall into step with Lieutenant Ohlsen. ‘He stayed home.’

  Lieutenant Ohlsen looked at her sideways. She wasn’t a pretty girl. Her nose strained upward like a kitten’s.

  ‘Did he desert?’

  The girl nodded and wiped some raindrops from her face.

  ‘Yes, he didn’t want to go out there again. They shot it off him.’

  ‘Shot it off him?’ Lieutenant Ohlsen asked dumbly.

  The girl asked for a cigarette.

  ‘Yes, they shot the whole thing off.’

  Lieutenant Ohlsen didn’t know what to say. Captain Fromm had also been castrated. The Russians had done it. They found him in a peasant hut tied to a table. He was dead when they found him. His entire abdomen was dark blue. They killed seven prisoners with neck-shots for this business with Fromm. Not because the prisoners had had anything to do with it, but it seemed to them they had to do something to someone in retribution. And so they shot those seven prisoners. They knelt on the ground and the Commissar went from one to another, pressing his .38 to the nape of the neck of each of them and pulling the trigger. They fell forward like Mohammedans at prayer. They were seven Georgians from the 68th Grenadier Regiment, a border unit. All of them from Tiflis.

  ‘What happened to your sweetheart?’ Now he used the familiar form speaking to her. What had happened to her sweetheart created a bond between them. In a way she had become a combat soldier. It must be bad to have a sweetheart who couldn’t do it any more. What was a girl to do? The little Legionnaire had also been castrated. It happened in the Kz camp.

  ‘They caught him,’ the girl said. She took off her hat and whisked off the rain.

  ‘Not so good,’ Lieutenant Ohlsen mumbled.

  ‘They shot him in Morellenschlucht. They shot him with a general from the Air Force. I picked up his ashes at the central court-martial.’

  Oh, go to hell, thought Lieutenant Ohlsen. What do I care about your castrated sweetheart?

  ‘I received him in a shoe box,’ the girl said. ‘I signed a receipt for him as if it were parcel post.’

  ‘What did you do with the box?’

  The girl smiled and glanced toward the river. ‘I scattered him in the Havel.’ She indicated the river flowing by, gray and muddy. Even wetter than usual. The rain was playing with it. ‘So I come down here every morning, saying: Hello, Robert. I always throw something out to him. Today he got an apple. And when I’ve given it to him I say: So long, Robert, the war isn’t over yet.’

  ‘I understand very well,’ Lieutenant Ohlsen said, astonished that he really was able to understand it.

  They went home to the girl’s place. She tossed her red jacket on a chair and said she would make coffee, but discovered she didn’t have any. Then she wanted to make something else, but she only had a few bottles of beer and two quarts of vodka which Robert had brought home with him.

  They drank vodka. They drank it from tankards.

  The girl lay down on the sofa.

  Lieutenant Ohlsen kissed her. She opened her mouth. She bit his lip.

  He told her about Inge. About Gunni. He told her he would have his revenge.

  ‘That won’t help you,’ the girl whispered, cuddling up to him. ‘You won’t get them back.’

  He could feel the buckle of her garters through her clothes. She had on a short and very tight skirt.

  He put his hand around her knee. She stroked his hair.

  ‘You have beautiful hair. Robert’s was just like yours, jet black.’

  He passed his hand higher up her leg. Her skirt was so tight. He couldn’t manage to get his hand very far up.

  She pulled her legs slightly apart. As if unconsciously. She sighed, caught him round the neck.

  ‘You mustn’t,’ she whispered.

  He didn’t answer. His fingers reached a bit higher. He felt the top of the thin stocking. Just above the edge she had a deep scar. He played with his fingers over it.

  ‘What is it?’

  She sighed and kissed him. ‘A bomb splinter. It happened two years ago.’

  He put his hand more firmly on the scar from the bomb splinter.

  She made a little room so he could better feel the two-year-old scar. It had bled a lot that night. A sailor on leave from the minesweeping service had ligated her thigh with his hat-ribbon, with the name ‘Kriegsmarine’ facing front. If it hadn’t been so serious she would have laughed. But it hurt terribly. The bomb splinter sat very deep, a jagged edge impinging on the bone. One millimeter further, the surgeon had said, and the leg would have gone. She lifted her leg to look at it.

  ‘I don’t have nice legs,’ she noted.

  He looked at her legs. He put his arms around her, kissed her. She opened her mouth. They lost themselves in hot kisses. She panted. He pulled up her narrow skirt. She helped him by raising herself a little bit.

  ‘You mustn’t,’ she whispered. ‘We don’t know a thing about each other.’

  His fingers, a bit inexperienced, explored playfully.

  Suddenly she threw herself vehemently up against him, pressed her half open mouth against his in a long kiss. She was a little afraid of what had to come. Nervously excited. Her tongue played against his. She uttered small screams.

  ‘Not that,’ she whispered and nevertheless helped him.

  Her skirt lay on the floor beside the sofa. She took away his hand and put it around her.

  They kissed savagely. They whispered foolish words. He bit her neck, nipped her ear. She was lying on her back with slightly parted lips and closed eyes. Her breast was bare. He kissed her rough nipples and played tag down her shoulders and back with his fingers.

  Then they forgot about everything. The point was to find everything in the moment. Tomorrow you will die.

  She wept, but why, she didn’t know herself. For Robert who was ashes and lay at the bottom of the river? For herself?

  An air-raid siren started wailing in shrill treble.

  They half got up and for a moment listened closely to the infernal concert sweeping over the city.

  Then they fell back into each other’s arms again.

  ‘It’s the English,’ she said. ‘They always come in the daytime.’

  ‘Is it?’ he said and kissed her.

  They could hear airplanes high up.

  ‘How can they really find Berlin in such weather?’ she asked, listening for the droning engines.

  ‘I don’t know, but they do,’ he answered.

  She nodded. They did.

  The bombs started exploding. The windowpanes rattled.

  ‘Should we go to the basement?’ Lieutenant Ohlsen asked.

  ‘No, it’s disgusting,’ she said. ‘Damp and nasty. Let’s stay here.’

  They made love again. Then they fell asleep, closely embraced and exhausted.

  When they woke up it was evening.

  It was still raining.

  They drank, ate, and made more love. They suddenly felt very young.

  Next morning her sister came. She worked in the office of the SD. She was always saying: ‘What crap.’ She said it so often that Lieutenant Ohlsen got fed up with her.

  ‘I suppose the two of you have been playing house in the dark,’ she laughed. ‘What crap it all is. What if you got children. Heavens, what crap.’ She walked into the kitchen, where she began clattering with pots and pans. ‘They are preparing a new prosecution,’ she called into the room. She put her head through the door. ‘It’s secret. What crap. They’ll nab the last of the Talmuds. A whole regiment of SS boys have come from Poland and the Sudetenland. One of them, an SD-U-Scharführer, snatched me in the toilet. He apparently thinks that Central Security is a brothel. Well, it is one,’ she added. She dropped an egg. ‘What crap,’ she fumed and kicked the shell.

  ‘Alice is a pig,’ the girl said to Lieutenant Ohlsen, ‘but she’s k
ind enough. You can say anything to her. She is not a squealer. She has covered up for a Jew beside us here, and she also covered up for a colonel. But she wouldn’t help Robert. She can’t stand deserters. She says they’re cowards.’

  Lieutenant Ohlsen shrugged his shoulders. When all is said and done those who didn’t desert were probably the greatest cowards. Because, if they all went back home the war would be over.

  ‘Would you be able to desert?’ she asked.

  ‘Who has deserted now?’ Alice called from the kitchen. She didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Don’t you have a dishcloth?’ she called. ‘Well, here it is. God, what crap.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d dare,’ he said.

  ‘It must really be very bad on the Eastern Front. Aren’t you ever afraid?’ She stroked his cheek.

  ‘Yes, I’m always afraid, but if you stay, you have a chance. If you desert and you’re caught you have no chance at all. Then you’re tied to a post in Senne or Morellenschlucht.’

  ‘Do they shoot many?’ She was leaning on her elbow and looking down at him.

  He nodded. ‘Incredibly many.’

  ‘Are you setting out again soon?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he answered.

  She sighed and kissed him. Her lips were full and swelling like the river Inn in the spring.

  Alice brought in the food. She looked them over carefully.

  ‘You can probably do something about it. Heinz will be coming this evening and then we’ll do something about it.’