Blitzfreeze (31 page)

‘Shouldn’t wonder when we’ve just blown a factory out from under ’em,’ remarks Stege drily.

‘What you see?’ asks Vasilij pushing his machine-gun into Tiny’s shoulder. All this time the big man has been lying with the field glasses glued to his eyes.

‘Soviet cunt,’ breathes Tiny, with a lustful grin. ‘When they go up the stairs, I can see up their skirts. Should’ve joined the fuckin’ medicine-men. Be more fun stickin’ glass cigars up dirty great soldiers brownies than racin’ round blowin’ up bleedin’ factories.’

‘Vasilij have little look at nanny! Long time since little boy have good time in nice warm house.’

Before Tiny realizes properly what is happening Vasilij has taken the glasses. But he soon has them back.

‘Me make suggestion,’ says Vasilij, ‘make clever plan. Take Commie nurse back home Hitler Army. Say them know secret medicine things. We have good fun before we give to General. They shout rape, we shout Dirty Commie propaganda. What you say?’

‘He ought to be in the Ministry of Propaganda,’ grins Porta. ‘I could find it in my heart to promote him brother to me.’

‘When shitty war over, peace break out, we throw chopper down, you go with Vasilij on big trip my cousin Hong Kong. Him have eating-house “Little Hen.” Many China man come
selling forbidden thing. Cousin make big eating. First serve
Tang-ts’u-yu
. That be sweet pickled fish. Then we eat beautiful
Fuh-rung-chi-p-ien
. That be velvet hen with shrimp. Now finish first course, give good appetite
Pao-yang-reo
, back of sheep with vegetable. We take little rest now, go then to
Cheng-chiao-tze
, steamed spring roll. Now many pretty nanny come from joy-house and play game with us, we wash throat with
sake
.’

‘Can you learn to eat with chopsticks?’ asks Tiny doubtfully. He tries to pick up a piece of ice with two bayonets, but keeps dropping it. ‘Can’t even pick up a bleedin’ piece of ice,’ he breaks out irritably. ‘’Ow the ’ell’d you ever get a mouthful of rice ’tween your choppers?’

‘Let’s move,’ says the Old Man, tightening his shoulder straps.

Detonators and P-2 sticks are shared out. As soon as the oiled paper covering is torn from a couple of sticks of explosive a heavy odour of marzipan spreads around us.

‘Queer how a little roll of dough like this can blow up a whole factory,’ says Barcelona, pushing pencil detonators into sawdust bags.

‘No fumbling now!’ says the Old Man, sternly. ‘If you get wounded and can’t keep up, then finish yourselves. The straight trip to Heaven’s better than the detour through the NKVD interrogation cells!’

‘You sound like a bloody parson,’ jeers Heide. ‘You forgot the Amen!’

‘I wouldn’t in the least mind leaving
you
behind with a wound,’ snarls the Old Man. ‘It’d be interesting to see whether you’d have the nerve to finish yourself! Wouldn’t you think the Führer’d expect it of you?’

‘They’ll mash our bollocks for us,’ says Porta, laconically.

‘They’ll have a job with Tiny. His are as tough as the balls on a granite boar. They’ll have to machine ’em down with special tools!’

‘Shitty NKVD got such tool,’ Vasilij informs them, happily. ‘NKVD got
all
tool for them job in Ljubjanka. Very
clever people. Got all thing make hole-in-head German sing pretty song for NKVD.’

The back of the factory is on fire. Three large fire-engines stand just inside the gates, and brass-helmeted firemen are rolling our hoses.

‘The things you do see in wartime!’ whispers Tiny, thrilled. ‘I love fire-engines. I’d really rather’ve been a fireman ’n join the Army. But they wouldn’t ’ave me ’cause I’d ’ad a trip inside for a bit of arson as didn’t even catch light properly an’ was only attempted really.’

‘What were
you
trying to burn?’ asks Porta, with interest.

‘Davidswacht Police Station! Them wicked bastards caught me red’anded when I was stackin’ it. A trick cyclist save me from the nick. Said I ’ad a complex about coppers in uniforns. If ’e’d said I ’ad a complex about Inspector Otto bleedin’ Mass ’e’d ’ave been a lot closer. I ain’t really got anythin’ against Schupos.
²³
There’s many a little warnin’ note I’ve ’ah stuck in me ’and when I been called in to ’ave a coffee with Otto. I ’eard, not so long since from a chum from ’Amburg, as Nass was due for a trip. ’E’d ’eard ’e was posted to Copen’agen. If ’e does I ’ope the bleedin’ Danish underground turns ’is toes up for ’im. If they don’t, then they ain’t the Vikings there’s such a lot o’ talk about.’

‘Shut your face, Tiny,’ whispers the Old Man. ‘You’re making enough row to be heard in the Kremlin. If those chaps on the gate as much as hear us draw breath in German they’ll open up with their choppers straight off.’

‘It’s bloody dangerous with all these different languages,’ mumbles Tiny. ‘If everybody talked German there’d be no trouble. The Russians’ve got you straight away. All they need to do is ask you to say the “Our Father” in Russki and where are you? Out on your arse!’

‘Do the Commies all know the “Our Father”,’ wonders Stege. ‘It’s supposed to be forbidden.’

‘If it’s forbidden then everybody in Russian
does
know it,’
says Porta. ‘They learn it from their grandmothers before they can walk even. Old whores always go holy when they’re getting towards the end.’

We tramp in step through the gates. No trouble. The Germans and the Russians both goose-step.

An NKVD sergeant stands to attention and salutes Vasilij, who is marching on the flank with his
kalashnikov
regimentally slanted across his chest.

A white finger of light from one of the watch towers falls across us for a moment.

‘Arseholes tight, boys,’ whispers Porta. ‘I can’t stand the smell of shit!’

A column passes us. The lieutenant in charge gives Vasilij a comradely slap on the back. They both laugh loudly.

Vasilij rejoins us a little later.

‘Him lieutenant much glad. Catch big group Brandenburg commando today. Now they fetch tools grind bollocks off so they tell secret Hitler things! Him lieutenant say me come with. See prisoners make funny faces! No time, say Vasilij, big important job on. That no lie!’

On a large open square at least 500 brand-new T-34’s stand ready for the front.

‘What about organizing a couple of chariots, so we can roll home first-class?’ suggests Porta.

‘Not a bad idea,’ answers the Old Man in a low voice. ‘See if they’re armed and munitioned?’

Porta is up in the nearest tank quick as a weasel, whips the hatch off, lays his Mpi aside on the shielding, and is down the hatch in a flash.

Tiny lets his hand run gently over the broad tracks.

‘Jesus, boys, what a vehicle! If we’d only ’ad a coupla thousand of
them
! What a battlewaggon! See ’er slippers! An’ ’er lovely round arsepart. Just like an expensive French ‘ore!’

‘With these T-34’s Ivan’s going to win his war,’ says Stege decidedly.

‘Victory doubter,’ fizzes Heide appalled. ‘I intend to make a Duty Report to the NSFO. Comparing German weapons
unfavourably to those of the enemy is high treason. It’ll cost you your head.’

‘Cut it out, Julius,’ whispers Tiny, ‘or maybe I’ll just ’and you over to the NKVD for special treatment!’

‘They’ll experiment on him and mash him together with an incorrigible Commie. They’ll get a whole new Party out of it,’ grins Barcelona, pleased at the fantastic thought.

‘Him Julius crazy in turnip,’ states Vasilij. ‘Him no understand
shit
! This way all political idiot. Them think them only one think right think!’

‘Not enough in there to fill the hole in a frog’s arse,’ reports Porta, twisting up out the hatch. ‘Not even gas. Julius’ll have to
push
us home!’

The whole section grins at the thought.

‘Your lot seems nervous,’ the Brandenburger Feldwebel turns viciously on the Old Man. ‘Reckon I’d as soon do this job alone.’

‘Hear, hear!’ comes from Porta. ‘Let’s go!’

‘Shut it! Let’s get on with it,’ snarls the Old Man. ‘Twenty minutes from now you’re all outside the gates! You know the fuse length of these pencils. The first’ll go off in half an hour. Get your fingers out, and
move
! If we’re lucky there’ll be a bang they can hear in Berlin!’

‘What about layin’ a chunk o’ marzipan under this lot?’ asks Tiny. ‘Then we won’t meet them at the front, anyrate!’

‘No,’ answers the Old Man. ‘Can’t afford it. We’d have to fix marzipan on the tracks. Blowing the coffins themselves is no good.’

We move about amongst busy NKVD men and workers. The factory seems to be in wild confusion.

A worker says something to us.

‘
Job tvojemadj!
’ answers Porta rebuffingly, and the worker hurries on.

I am sweating so much with fear that my clothes stick to my body.

Porta walks quietly into a large power station. An NKVD corporal looks after him curiously. I ready my Mpi and keep
an eye on the guard. Even if I have to shoot it won’t be heard in the thunder of the machinery. The noise is so violent it makes your head throb with pain. It is unbelievable people can work here day and night without going mad.

Porta comes out of the power station wiping his hands professionally on a piece of waste. He wads it and throws it at the NKVD corporal, with a big grin. The corporal catches it and throws it back. They play at this for a few minutes. I almost scream with nervousness. Porta must be crazy.

I don’t know whether I ought to salute the corporal or not. They should have given us a better briefing on Red Army service regulations. I decide to salute in a semi-friendly way. I can’t believe he’ll bother to book me if I’m wrong so better a casually cheeky salute than none at all. Corporals, no matter the uniform, are always touchy about salutes.

He stares at me for a moment and makes a step forward, stops, nods condescendingly and waves me away. I smile a friendly smile to him but his face remains frozen. An NKVD corporal doesn’t smile to a private soldier.

We walk on through the factory as if we owned it. Porta stops and points upwards.

I look up and move quickly to one side. A giant crane is dropping a complete T-34 down on to my head.

A long row of railway wagons is shunted out of the factory. Each wagon carries a T-34. Wet paint gleams in the arcs.

Headquarters should see this, I think to myself. Then maybe they’d realize the Red Army wasn’t beaten yet by a long way. In the Zim factory alone there are enough tanks to equip five divisions. When
they
begin to roll then God help the Wehrmacht.

Quickly we jump onto a wagon going to Shop 9. One of my sacks of marzipan begins to slip. A passing worker pushes it back under my arm with a friendly smile. I get a firmer grip on it.

We drop off just before we get to Shop 9. The stillness outside the shops feels like a punch in the solar plexus.

In the Gun Shop, where tank turrets lie in stacks, the noise is deafening. Even a gun-shot would be drowned in it.

Porta is well in front of me, talking and gesticulating with two workpeople. It’s impossible to hear what he’s saying. Every word is drowned in the noise of the machines. We understand quite a lot of Russian but not enough to manage a conversation.

An electric locomotive shunts railway wagons into the workshop. Firemen with brass helmets run past pulling hand-drawn fire pumps after them.

A railwayman shoves me irritably and shouts something or other. ‘
Job tvojemadj!
’ I scream in his ear.

He shakes his fist at me. I point my
kalashnikov
at him. He immediately becomes friendly and apologetic. An NKVD man with a
kalashnikov
is always in the right.

The flats slacken speed and I duck under them. Porta is pushing a stick of marzipan under a steel-converter from which there comes a thunderous bubbling of molten metal.

A red warning lamp winks, up under the ceiling. What does it mean? Do they know we’re here?

A squad of NKVD soldiers hastens across the shop floor and out through a small door.

Porta leads a couple of wires into a fuse-box. My job is to cover him. I’ve removed the blue caps from the grenades, ready for use. Cheekily he cadges a cigarette from a worker who has just finished rolling it in a little machine.

The man grins and gives him a light. Porta offers him a cheroot.

‘
Germanskij ssigara!
he roars.

‘
Spasibo
,’
²⁴
the worker howls back, lighting up and drawing the smoke deeply into his lungs.

In Russia a steelworker like him doesn’t get many luxuries. I feel almost like warning him to get out before the explosion. Why couldn’t they have sent us to the Kremlin instead. There’d have been some sense in
that
!

A new NKVD squad goes by at the double going in the opposite direction to the previous one. They look excited. Have they caught any of us?

A sergeant stops and waves at us.

Porta makes a Russian gesture which is the equivalent of ‘
Job tvojemadj!
’

The sergeant hurries on. When a Russian doesn’t obey an order he must be covered by another order. Every Russian in uniform knows that.