by Leo Kessler
Schmitt put the question into German. For a minute the station-master was unable to answer. He opened his mouth, his white lips trembled, but nothing came out but meaningless grunts.
‘Punch him!’ Suslov ordered. ‘But not too hard.’ Schmitt punched him in the stomach and then slapped him across the face for good measure, before putting his question again.
The old man quavered something or other.
Well?’ Suslov demanded, not taking his eyes off the line.
‘Dodemann Pass,’ Schmitt answered. ‘That’s its name in the local dialect.’
‘And what does that mean in Russian?’
‘Dead Man’s Pass, Comrade Commander.’
Suslov smiled icily. ‘An appropriate name,’ he commented, ‘a very appropriate name – for them!’
The armoured train was slowing down now to conserve fuel. Attila knew that once they did not show up in Bratislava, the station authorities would start making inquiries; they would have to go all out then along the branch line to get to Pamhagen. Perhaps, the surly driver considered, he should make a fuelling stop at Dodemann Station. In the leading coach, most of the tired civilians and SS troopers sprawled on the gangway floor were snoring gently, believing now that they were out of real danger.
Schulze and Chink, who had kicked a couple of the younger Jews out of their seats on to the floor in order to sit in comfort, discussed their own plans softly, while the others slept.
They stopped short, suddenly all tiredness and the projected acquisition of a Reeperbahn brothel gone from their minds. The train was slowly coming to a halt, although no stop was scheduled until the Austrian border. Schulze sprang to his feet and simultaneously blew his whistle and kicked a snoring SS man in the ribs to waken him.
In an instant all was noisy confusion as the middle-aged civilians and the soldiers started from their sleep, the civilians fearfully, the soldiers solely concerned with grabbing their weapons and getting to their posts in the armoured train before it came to a final halt.
Attila swore viciously. The station-master was standing in the middle of the track, opposite the empty platform, waving his red-and-white tin kelle1, as if he were at Budapest’s main station instead of this provincial dump. He could either run the silly old fool down, or stop. He decided to stop. Perhaps he could coal up here after all.
He began to ease the brake back and close the throttle. The driving wheels locked, there was a soft clatter of buffers and the armoured train finally came to a halt just as Sergeant-Major Schulze dropped into the cab with an urgent: ‘Why are we stopping?’
Attila took his hand off the throttle. ‘Him,’ he said laconically. Schulze peered over the side towards the old man, dressed in a shabby uniform. ‘The old boy looks as if he’s going to wet his knickers at any moment,’ he commented.
Schulze felt there could be nothing to fear this far behind the German front. Besides, apart from the old Hungarian, the place appeared deserted.
‘I’ll see if he’s got any coal in his bunker for us,’ Attila said. ‘Yes, the old Monsignor’ll give him some of his famous Christian charity if he comes across with some.’
‘You have any coal?’ Attila the Hun cried, leaning out of his cab. ‘We’ll see there’s something –’ He never finished the sentence.
Firing from the open station window, Suslov, who had had his automatic pistol trained on the cab these last sixty seconds, caught the Hungarian driver with a full burst. Attila screamed, his face suddenly ripped apart and jetting blood. He was dead before he reached the snow-covered earth.
‘Down!’ Schulze screamed, just as the little hamlet erupted with angry small arms fire. As he hit the cinder-covered metal floor, he knew, with a hopeless sinking feeling, that they had walked right into a trap.
Note
1. A signalling device used on continental railways instead of a flag or whistle.
SIX
Schulze sagged against the inside of the door. ‘Shit!’ he breathed and mopped his sweat-lathered brow in relief. ‘I thought the bastards had done for me back there.’
Janosz, unafraid but clearly very worried, tugged a small bottle out of his pocket and thrust it towards the bareheaded NCO. ‘Here, drink some of my medicine,’ he cried above the vicious snap and crackle of the battle outside. Schulze seized the bottle gratefully. He downed its contents and coughed throatily.
‘It’s bad out there. The engine driver’s copped it. They’re dug in in strength on both sides of the rail and there’s a lot more of the Ivan buggers further up the slope. I’ve got the Swede on the cab with the fireman – he’s got the other spandau and we’ve taken no casualties, except for a couple of flesh wounds from ricochets.’
‘The fireman – can he drive the engine?’ Janosz demanded. ‘Yes, I think so. But at the moment, he’s scared shitless – there’s not much we can do with him. He’s certainly not going to move the train forward.’
‘Forward, you say,’ Janosz emphasized the word, a sudden flash of hope in his dark eyes. ‘What do you think they’ll do?’
‘They can’t hang around here for ever, so far behind our lines. My guess is they can do one of two things: they’ll ask us to surrender or they’ll rush us as soon as it is dark enough to do so. In both cases they’ll attempt to collar the train for themselves so that they can barrel their way through those hopeless Luftwaffe sods back there into their own positions.’
‘And if we surrender?’
Schulze made a gesture with his big forefinger, as if he were pulling a trigger.
‘But why?’ Janosz protested. ‘We haven’t injured them in any way. Why are we so important?’
Schulze shrugged. ‘Better ask Stalin that. But if they think we’re important enough to send troops in so far behind enemy lines, you can bet your last matzo, they’re not going to just shake our hands and tell us to go home – the game’s over. No, if we surrender, we’re for the chop!’
‘Do you really think so?’ Janosz said horrified ‘I don’t really think so – I know so.’
‘Ceasefire!’ Suslov yelled, hands cupped around his mouth.
‘Stop firing everywhere – there’s no need to waste any further ammunition!’ Across the way in the trapped armoured train, the firing ceased too, as if in anticipation of the ambushers’ next move.
The echoing silence which followed was broken by the voice of Schmitt, the Volga German, speaking the dialect that his German forefathers had brought to Russia nearly three centuries before It was strange yet comprehensible, as it boomed through the megaphone: ‘Germans, you have one chance – surrender!’
‘Fuck off!’ Schulze yelled.
‘Come out with your weapons,’ Schmitt went on. ‘Throw them to the ground immediately you leave the train and then raise your hands. Continue walking to the station-house. You will not be harmed. All we want is the train. You can go on your own way. We will not harm you,’ the metallic voice echoed and re-echoed across the battle-littered snow. ‘Surrender now!’ Schmitt lowered the megaphone and waited.
There was no reaction from the train.
‘Fritz bastards,’ Suslov cursed. He knew that time was running out for the Eagles too. In spite of the fact that they had cut the wires connecting the remote hamlet with the outside world, it was after all on the main line to Bratislava. Someone would discover them on the German side sooner or later. He glanced at the afternoon sky. It was darkening rapidly. The snow would begin to fall again soon.
He jabbed his elbow angrily into the Volga German’s side. ‘Try them again!’ he ordered.
‘All right, Gypsy, are you ready?’ Schulze asked, crouching next to him in the armoured cab.
‘Will they fire?’ the fireman quavered.
‘Well, they won’t exactly be throwing roses at us,’ Schulze snorted. ‘You ready too, Swede?’ The dour blonde Swedish SS man, manning the machine-gun on the tender grunted a moody ‘yes’.
‘All right,’ Schulze commanded. ‘NOW!’
The fireman le
t go of the brake and opened the throttle wide. For one brief moment, the driving wheels spun on the icy rails and the clouds of dark smoke belched from the stack purposelessly. Then the wheels bit. The armoured train began to roll.
‘The Fritzes are moving, Comrade Commander!’ Schmitt cried. Suslov sat up and peered through the shattered window. ‘Fire!’ he yelled angrily. ‘Fire – Eagles!’
‘But they’re moving, Comrade Commander!’ Schmitt protested. Instead of moving up the slope ahead, the train was rapidly puffing back down the way it had come, the Eagles’ fire wildly off mark.
‘Ceasefire…ceasefire.’ He rose to his feet and shouted the command, knowing that his men were wasting their ammunition. The train was already almost behind the cover of the next bend.
‘What will they do now, Comrade Commander?’ Schmitt asked. ‘Our patrols have torn up the track a kilometre from here. That’s as far as they will be able to get.’
‘What will they do?’ Suslov echoed his question. ‘Once they know that there is no way back, they will attempt to rush the slope with their train – even if they abandoned the train, there is no road, no other way up over the mountain save that railway pass. And when they make that attempt we will have a little surprise waiting for them, Schmitt – a very unpleasant little surprise.’
‘Here they come again, Comrade Commander!’ Schmitt shouted. Suslov awoke immediately from an uneasy doze. He sprang to his feet, machine-pistol at the alert. The armoured train was steaming round the bend at top speed, a menacing black outlined against the streaming white of the snowstorm. Suslov fired a quick burst into the air to alert the men in the station and higher up on the slope. ‘Stand by!’ he barked and dropped behind his cover once again.
Ragged firing broke out on all sides. Suslov could hear the slugs whining off the train’s metal sides. He took careful aim as the locomotive, great clouds of brown smoke steaming from its stack, came ever closer. He fired, but the tracer bounced off the cab’s armour like hailstones. With a great clatter of wheels and hiss of escaping steam, the train hurtled through the station, not one shot coming from it.
The black locomotive smashed through the barrier they had erected across the line, tossing the sleepers high into the air, as if they were made of matchwood. It rattled on, its speed obviously diminishing now, as it started to take the steep slope. Suslov cried to his men to follow him and they ran heavily through the streaming snow towards their comrades dug in higher up.
The train, its speed considerably slower now, laboured up the steep slope ever closer to the Eagles’ positions. Thick smoke streamed from its stack and the waiting men, tensed over their weapons, could hear the strain the locomotive was undergoing.
It was almost alongside them now. Behind the rocks, the Eagles tensed. The senior NCO raised his hand and then brought it down sharply as the locomotive came level with is hiding place. A line of violet flashes ran the length of the Eagles’ positions. Tracer flew through the snow like a swarm of angry red and white hornets and slugs whined off the armour. Yet still there was no answering fire from the train. It might have well been some ghost train, steaming through the dark, eerily impervious to human influence. Now the Eagles were standing up everywhere, unafraid and confident that the men within were condemned already. Their faces, wet with melting snow, were wild like those of country boys at some local fair blazing away at a shooting booth. Still the train did not falter in its course.
It passed through the last Russian position and began the final stage of the ascent, the Eagles’ fire dying away behind it.
All noise, save that of the locomotive labouring its way upwards, ceased as the Russians shouldered their weapons and watched it go to its death.
Crump! The crash of the first explosion, accompanied by a blinding white flash, merged almost simultaneously with the second. For a moment nothing seemed to happen, and Suslov thought with a flash of horror that his trap had failed. Then the train came to an abrupt halt and the two rear coaches toppled sideways, hesitating as if they were fighting to avoid the terrible fate awaiting them. Next instant they sailed out into the void of the precipice. Almost lazily they turned over in mid-air, while the Eagles watched, their mouths open in awe, and then with ever increasing speed they tumbled to the valley floor below. With a thunderclap of sound, they crashed to the bottom.
The locomotive and the first coach still teetered on the edge of the line. Steam was escaping furiously from the locomotive’s ruptured boiler. Then the first coach began to sway, until it could be held by the shattered locomotive no longer. Amid the rending of metal and the splintering of heavy sleepers, the great black monster was dragged inexorably over the edge of the precipice. A second later it hit the valley floor and exploded with a great echoing roar that seemed to go on forever.
SEVEN
‘Well?’ Suslov demanded.
The snow-covered Eagle hauled himself over the edge of rock and slumped down in the snow, his big chest heaving with the effort of the long climb.
‘What did you find?’ Suslov asked again, impatient to hear just how successful their operation had been so that they could begin making their way back to their own lines under the cover of the snowstorm. The Eagle swallowed hard and looked up at his C.O., his face crimson and wet with melting snow. ‘Nothing, Comrade Commander,’ he answered.
‘What ?’ Suslov’s voice expressed utter bafflement – a shattering of comprehension.
The climber pulled himself to his feet. ‘I said, Comrade Commander, that the coaches were empty. There wasn’t a soul in either of the two I managed to reach.’
‘But that’s…that’s impossible,’ Suslov stuttered, his legendary calm destroyed for the first time in many years of war. ‘It can’t be!’
The climber shrugged, an air of injured patience on his broad White Russian face. ‘Then I suggest you go down there and have a look yourself, Comrade Commander.’
Suslov was too shaken to notice the impertinence. ‘Did you check the locomotive?’ he snapped quickly.
‘Yes.’
‘And what did you find?’
But the broad-shouldered climber never answered that question. For at that moment, Sven Hassel, the Swede, his lean face set in a look of implacable cruelty, squeezed the trigger of his spandau and sent a high-pitched burst of bullets into the group around the climber. The stream of lead ripped into his broad chest and he sailed over the edge of the precipice, trailing a long, thin scream after him.
The burst of machine-gun fire from the height overlooking the Eagles’ positions was the signal the little force of SS men had been waiting for. Machine-guns burst in frenetic, frightening life.
‘Down!’ Suslov screamed desperately. But it was already too late. The attack caught them completely in the open. Man after man went down, some screaming, some silent, some with a violent, threshing of their arms, some gently as if they were eager to lie down on the soft carpet of snow and die. It was a massacre!
‘Every man for himself!’ Suslov cried desperately, knowing that his Eagles were finished. Now it was a question of saving one’s skin. Everywhere his Eagles dropped their weapons and tried to run for it. It was futile. They fell on all sides, mown down by the murderous weight of fire.
Suslov was consumed by a burning, overwhelming hatred which triumphed over all fear. If he had to die, then he would make the Fritz bastards pay the price for his death. Raising his head as much as he dared, feeling the cold wind of the bullets scything through the air only millimetres above it, he surveyed the scene. There were machine-guns on the three heights to their north, south and east. The sheer side of the precipice was not covered though. Why should it be? The Fritzes obviously thought no-one could get out that way. No-one but Major Suslov, Commander of the Grey Eagles.
Suddenly he was up on his feet and running, bounding nimbly over the bodies of his dead soldiers, pushing those still not dead out of his way, running straight for the cliff-edge. The Fritzes spotted him almost instantly. Lead struck the grou
nd all around him. He zig-zagged crazily. Time and time again the bullets missed. Then he was hit. A burning, searing pain in his right thigh. For a moment he felt he must fall. Abruptly the pain had gone and in that same instant he was diving over the edge of the cliff and out of sight.
Schulze took off his helmet and waved it over his head wildly. ‘That’s it,’ he cried, jubilation in his voice that the plan had succeeded. They had a long walk in front of them to Austria, but now the way was clear at last. ‘Stop your firing. Knock it off there.’ Reluctantly the young SS troopers took their fingers off their triggers, as if they could not get enough of death, eyes gleaming with an almost sexual excitement.
Janosz left the gun he had been manning and started to limp over to Schulze. The killing had finished and he was glad. There had been too much killing in Europe, a whole half a decade of it. He wanted to see no more of it. Palestine would mean peace.
He halted in front of Schulze, who was surveying the dead Russians lying everywhere in the snow in front of them ‘I shall go and fetch my people now.’
Schulze nodded and turned to Chink. ‘You’d better go with him and give him some cover.’
‘Right-o, Schulzi,’ said Chink, who had suggested the way of jamming the locomotive’s throttle which had formed the basis of their plan. Now the Jews were without a train, but Schulze could imagine that Janosz’s cunning mind and a liberal use of ‘Christian charity’ would find some other way of getting his refugees to Italy. There was no doubt about that
‘And make it snappy,’ Schulze ordered. ‘We want to be over the border by morning.’
‘I make Yid move like very hell,’ Chink said happily, slinging his rifle. ‘Schulzi and Chink must get Hamburg, open knocking-shop –’
A face suddenly appeared over the edge of the cliff-side. A terrible face, torn, lacerated, flayed into a mass of red gore by the rocks, out of which blazed two absolutely wild, animal eyes, filled, with unspeakable hatred. A clawlike hand, from which the flesh trailed in dripping red strips, rose into the air. Chink saw the black round object it held. ‘No!’ he screamed and held up his hands, as if to ward it off with his naked flesh.