by Leo Kessler
Schulze shook his head. ‘Palestine ahead, what would the Führer say?’
Five minutes later the train left the dying city behind. Budapest was finished.
On the hill the battle entered its final stages. As the Russians swarmed into the old castle, General Pfeffer-Wildenbruch ordered the sweating radio-operator to send the 9th SS Mountain Corps’ last message.
It read: ‘After fifty-two days of heroic battle, the Armed SS must end the fight this day. Peoples of Europe whom we once defended against the attacks of the Asiatic barbarians listen to the alarm bells now ringing in Budapest. It will be your turn next.’
There was a burst of automatic fire from the next room and someone screamed out in agony. The radio operator’s finger hesitated on the key wet with his own blood.
‘Carry on,’ the drunken Corps Commander ordered, drawing his pistol.
The radio operator completed the message: ‘Remember us Europe, for we have died for you.’
The next moment the door caved in and a horde of firing soldiers poured through. Far away in Berlin, the operator who had picked up the message heard a long continuous buzz.
Then there was only silence.
SECTION SIX:
THE ARMOURED TRAIN
ONE
During the night the train had left the plain surrounding Budapest unnoticed by the Russians, and was climbing slowly into the mountains, chugging gently through a long, fir-wooded valley. Snow was falling, not too many kilometres ahead.
In the firecab, Attila the Hun, assisted by a fireman called ‘Gypsy’, divided his attention between the controls and the weather. He did not want to be caught on an ascent in new snow. ‘More coal,’ he barked to the fireman. ‘Move your lazy Gypsy ass!’
‘Cracking the whip again?’ Schulze said cheerfully, dropping down on the swaying cinder-littered metal floor of the cab from the tender. ‘How we doing?’
‘Lousy.’
‘What’s wrong now?’
‘That’s wrong.’ Attila pointed to the grey sky ahead. ‘If that lot comes down on us while we’re on a gradient like this, with the weight we’ve got to pull, then we could be in trouble. There are still a hundred kilometres to go before we’re out of Russian-held territory.’
Schulze swung himself back on to the tender and began to pick his way over the heaped-up coal towards the first coach. The refugees had just finished eating their breakfasts when Schulze flung open the door for an instant and let in the freezing air. They raised their heads with the look of alarm common to the persecuted.
‘Anything wrong, Schulze?’ Janosz asked.
‘Not much, but that happy-go-lucky Magyar at the wheel seems to think its going to snow again soon – and that’s bad according to him.’
Janosz nodded his understanding. ‘Please sit down, Schulze, I’d like to show you something.’ Schulze sat down at the table opposite him and Janosz pulled out a map from his robe and spread it on the tables Western Hungary is occupied up to here, beyond Stuhlweissenburg, by the Russians, though your people are back in charge in the town itself I am informed. Now, if we continue as present we shall run to the north of Stuhlweissenburg, along the northern bank of Lake Balaton to where the main Russian frontline is located – here at Hidekut. Or so my informant at Russian HQ tells me.’
‘Another recipient of Christian charity?’ Schulze said mockingly, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together.
‘Problem number one is to get there quickly before Marshal Tolbuchin finds out that we have gone westwards and not eastwards. Problem number two will be how to get through the front. But we’ll worry about that one when –’
His words were drowned by a screeching, banging clamour as the train started to slow down, the bumpers banging into each other.
‘Shit, what’s up now?’ Schulze cried and grabbing his machine pistol, he doubled out and dropped on to the snow at the side of the train, as the coaches came to a stop. ‘All out there,’ he yelled at the men peering out of the door of the guards van. ‘Gunners man the turrets.’ The big NCO ran through the deep snow to the locomotive. What’s wrong, sunshine?’ he cried up at the driver, who was fumbling with the controls.
‘The steam regulator,’ Attila called down. ‘Perhaps the retainer nut has come off.’
Anxiously Schulze looked up at him. ‘Is it serious?’
‘Five or ten minutes. But we’d better get it started before the snow starts. On this slope and with this weight, it could be damned difficult to get it started otherwise.’
MAP 2: The escape route from Budapest – February, 1945
Schulze ran back to the van, where the men not manning the turret were assembled, shivering a little in the icy air after the pleasant hothouse fug of the van. ‘You Frogs!’ he rapped, ‘get yourselves up to the front of the train and keep guard over that Magyar maniac at the controls. At the double now! Pat and Patichon,’ Schulze said to the two Danes, ‘you follow me.’
Together the three of them, weapons at the ready, swung round to the other side, conscious of the scared eyes watching them everywhere from the coaches as they headed for the thick fir forest which fringed the track. Down below there was a heavy silence, broken only by the steady whack of Attila’s hammer. The men split up, on the look-out for partisans.
In spite of his confident grin, Schulze was worried. Attila had been right. Any moment now, it would start snowing and that would spell disaster.
Pat the Dane was caught off his guard. He had just rested his Schmeisser between his knees when a sudden slither of snow dislodged from one of the firs alerted him to the danger. Less than three metres away, a bearded, wolfish face under a shaggy black fur cap was smiling at him cruelly. The partisan had a knife, raised ready to throw, in his hand. There was no time to level his Schmeisser. The Dane acted instinctively. His right hand grabbed a handful of the frozen snow and in that same instant, flung it at the partisan’s wolfish evil face. It caught him off balance. The knife aimed for the unsuspecting sentry’s heart struck him in the shoulder. He yelped with sudden agony, but the searing pain did not stop him diving forward. His good shoulder thumped hard into the attacker’s stomach.
The partisan went down with a gasp. He reacted instinctively: his hands reached up and grabbed the knife stuck in Pat’s shoulder. The Dane screamed as the man snatched it out ready to strike again. But he knew he must overcome the pain. He was fighting for his life. His hands sought and found the partisan’s shabby fur jacket. In that same moment he flung himself backwards with all his remaining strength and with his back supported by the snow, he rammed both his heavy boots straight into the other man’s stomach. He screamed and went flying over the prostrate Dane’s head.
Pat was on his feet first. His head swimming wildly, his vision blurred, he grabbed his Schmeisser, just as the groaning partisan attempted to get up. He pressed the trigger. At that short range, the wild burst virtually sawed the partisan in half. He collapsed against a tree trunk, trailing bright-red blood after him.
The burst of fire acted as a signal. Suddenly the wood was full of hoarse cries in Russian and Magyar, as the partisans started to run from cover. Pat, his eyes glazed, swung his Schmeisser from side to side, backing out of the trees into the open.
A bullet struck him just after he had cleared them. He dropped to one knee, his pale young face contorted with agony. Still he kept on firing. Then the Schmeisser tumbled from his limp fingers and he pitched forwards into the snow and lay very still.
Schulze reacted at once. ‘Patichon back off – move towards the train. At the double!’
From the shelter of the trees, the partisans poured a stream of inaccurate fire at the two figures sprinting across the gleaming white surface of the snow. Suddenly the armoured train opened up as the twin Spandaus were brought to bear on the wood. At a rate of 700 rounds a minute, the slugs tore into the trees in one long, high-pitched burr. The partisans went down everywhere, falling in agony among the flying wood chips and the severed branches. Schulz
e made the cab. He reached up and sounded the steam whistle. The signal for all his men to withdraw.
‘Get moving!’ he yelled to Attila.
The Hungarian eased open the throttle, just as the first howling grey wave of snowflakes enveloped the train, covering the rails in an instant. There was the hiss of escaping steam and the metallic chatter of racing wheels. But nothing happened. The driving wheels were not gripping.
Attila rapped out an angry order to the fireman. Outside the snow was so thick now that Schulze could no longer see the advancing partisans and he knew his turret machine-gunners would be firing blind. The fireman jerked at a wire above his head. Schulze knew he was opening the sandbox, which allowed sand to drop on the track around the driving wheels. He said a quick prayer that this time the wheels would grip, just as the first dark shape of a partisan loomed up out of the whirling grey gloom.
He ripped off a burst. The partisan was bowled over screaming, as if he had been punched by a gigantic invisible fist. Behind Schulze, Attila eased the throttle open once more, hoping against hope that the sand had not already been dissipated in the new snow.
‘Look out!’ the fireman cried wildly.
Schulze swung round. A dark shape was clambering across the heaped coal of the tender, the whirling, grey-filled wind tugging at his clothes. In that confined space Schulze could not fire for fear of ricochets. He let the Schmeisser drop to his chest by its strap, and seized a piece of thick pine firewood. It whirled madly through the air and caught the partisan in the chest, just as he was about to jump down. He disappeared screaming over the side.
Behind Schulze Attila opened the throttle more. Slugs were pattering along the whole length of the train now. This was their last chance. The driving wheels spun on the slick rails. The laboured puffing of the engine increased. Clouds of smoke belched from the stack. In the howling gloom outside a grenade exploded in a burst of angry scarlet. Shrapnel howled off the metal side of the cab. A face appeared at Schulze’s feet. His heavy ‘dice-beaker’ crashed into it. The partisan disappeared into the snowstorm. ‘Come on! Come on!’ Schulze cried, leaning his body forward, urging the locomotive forward physically.
Slowly the wheels bit. Attila gave the locomotive more power. She started to move forward. The green needle on the speedometer began to creep upwards. As the armoured train’s speed increased, the hail, of fire against her steel sides diminished. Sergeant-Major Schulze leaned weakly against the cab side and gasped, ‘Never do that again, Attila. I’ve just pissed myself.’
TWO
The whole staff was drunk, with the exception of the Marshal himself and the Commander of the Grey Eagles, who was still brooding over his losses of the previous month.
Stalin had called Tolbuchin personally from the Kremlin to congratulate him and there had been an official cable from the Stavka1. The new puppet Communist government, picked long before in Moscow, had made a brief appearance, fighting their way to HQ through the long stream of their fellow citizens being herded eastwards by the NKVD, armed with whips, to ‘thank our Soviet brothers for the boon of freedom now conferred upon us’.
Now the Russians were alone, celebrating their victory in the typical Russian fashion by getting blind drunk, as if that were the only way to escape from the grim reality of their daily lives. But Tolbuchin, renowned throughout the Army for his drinking ability, had no stomach for the celebration. Despondently he sipped his pepper vodka and waited for news of the missing train.
That damned priest had turned the tables on him. What if it came out that he had taken a bribe? He took a hasty sip at his vodka and shuddered slightly at the thought. Everyone in the top echelons knew just how corrupt Stalin and the rest of his cronies of the Kremlin’s inner circle were, with their women, the orgies, their accumulation of treasure; all the same ‘Old Leather Face’ tried to maintain the appearance of simple peasant morality to the outer world. He would not hesitate one minute to punish even a Marshal of the Soviet Union if he thought he had been bribed.
The telephone on the desk in front of him rang. No one else noticed it save a gloomy, sober Suslov. Tolbuchin picked up the phone and barked ‘Speak!’ Suslov watched the Commander of the Ukrainian Front curiously, wondering what was so important about the telephone call.
Tolbuchin eventually put down the receiver and stared blankly into space for a while. Abruptly he became aware of Suslov’s scrutiny. He flushed almost angrily and then his red-faced, angry look was changed to one of thoughtfulness. He crooked a big finger at the Major.
Suslov rose immediately and shoving his way through the drunken staff officers came to attention in front of the Army Commander. ‘Comrade Commander!’
‘Suslov, I regret that I was not in a position to allow your Grey Eagles to take part in the final assault on the position of those SS swine. It didn’t fit into my plans, although I know you requested that honour as revenge for what they did to your battalion in the Vétes Mountains.’
Tolbuchin looked up at him cunningly. ‘What would you say if I told you that all those Fritz SS men did not perish on the Castle Hill?’
Suslov looked at him sharply. ‘What?’
‘Yes, that phone call just reported that one of our partisan units has brushed with a train-load of Hungarian civilians – capitalist trash the lot of them – fleeing westwards to their German allies. During the course of the fighting they noted SS men among the defenders. The sole German casualty bore the armband of the Europa. Now what do you say to that, Suslov?’
‘What are we doing about. it, Comrade Marshal?’ Suslov asked, trying to control his excitement.
‘Under the present circumstances and weather conditions in the mountains, very little until they reach our frontline.’ He paused slightly.
Suslov rose to the bait. ‘Comrade Marshal,’ he said, ‘in the name of my dead Eagles and their living comrades, I request permission to deal with those Fritz SS. They owe my Eagles a debt – in blood.’
Tolbuchin’s brain was racing. Suslov was a very violent and a very loyal man. In his present frame of mind, neither the Germans nor the Hungarians would ever survive if he and his Eagles caught up with them. They would wipe them out in revenge for the Vértes Mountains business. But he had to make quite sure that Suslov would keep his mouth shut later, come what may.
‘You realize the difficulties, the weather, the terrain, the fact that the Fritzes have somehow or other stolen a small armoured train?’
‘I know no difficulties, Comrade Marshal. I see only murdered Eagles, who demand their revenge from the other side of the grave.’
‘How would you do it?’ Tolbuchin inquired, still not revealing his hand. ‘The terrain is so snowbound now that none of our own armour in the area could ever get through in time. And infantry wouldn’t have a hope in hell against an armoured train.’
Suslov seized eagerly at the chance offered him. ‘Paradrop – somewhere twenty or thirty kilometres ahead of the train in a spot where I would have time to prepare a defence – perhaps destroy the track, that sort of thing, Comrade Marshal.’
‘Paradrop!’ Tolbuchin exclaimed. ‘You must be mad, Suslov – in this weather!
‘Comrade Marshal,’ Suslov said proudly, his eyes gleaming. ‘Every last one of my Eagles is prepared to lay down his life to pay back the debt in blood.’ Tolbuchin knew he had the fool. The man was too good to be true. ‘All right, Suslov,’ he said slowly, ‘I shall let you and your Eagles go – but you go without permission. If anyone finds out, I know nothing. You understand that?’ he added severely.
‘I do.’
‘Good. Let me give you this piece of advice to avoid future complications. When you ambush that train make sure that not a single Fritz or Hungarian civilian remains alive.’ He looked hard at the other man. ‘Is that clear?’ Suslov’s face was expressionless, but when he spoke, his words were eloquent testimony of just how ruthless he would be.
‘Clear, Comrade Marshal. Not one of them, soldier, civilian, man, woman or child wi
ll survive. My Eagles will see to that.’
Note
1. Soviet High Command
THREE
The train was deep in the spectacular mountain country, which bordered Lake Balaton. The snow blizzard had passed and from where Schulze sat, he could see the rails, glittering in the winter sun, as they wound round and round the mountainside, through the white firs, until they reached the spidery, gleaming metal bridge spanning the gorge ahead. Everything was bright, sparkling, seen with the preternatural clarity of vision that always follows a fall of snow.
‘Sergeant-Major Schulze, could I have your attention?’
Schulze took his eyes from the view. The old Jew was speaking. ‘On the other side of that bridge, Schulze, there is a very steep descent almost to the valley floor along which the main Russian line runs. Now, if my information is correct, the Russians have barricaded the line there. They have not destroyed it because they hope to use it to transport their own troops westwards once their advance starts again. Nor have your own people on the other side of the valley destroyed their section of the line. Presumably they have the same hope of using it if they resume the offensive again. Look!’ He shoved the map across the table towards Schulze.
The descent looked very steep indeed to judge from the contours, with the track swinging round a bend and going straight down to the valley floor. He used his thumb to measure the length of the straight run against the distance scale. It was about a third of a kilometre.
Well?’ Janosz asked finally.
‘Well,what?’
‘Have you any suggestions on how to get through that barrier? According to my informant it is composed of old track and wooden sleepers from the permanent way, reinforced with drums of concrete.’