Court Martial (33 page)

'Stop it, you filthy-mouthed swine,' roars the Old Man, with every sign of disgust.

'A pig like that to be allowed to wear the honoured uniform of Germany!' rages Heide, turning disgustedly away.

The two officer guests look at one another in silence, and think about the Army to which they belong.

'Did you
really
get it
blinked
off?' asks Porta, curiously, after a long, painful silence.

'She wanted to,' answers Tiny, without a sign of shame.

'You were taking a big risk,' muses Porta. 'Think if you'd got her pregnant and she'd had a kid with a glass eye in the middle of its forehead! They'd have charged you with racial pollution!'

In the course of the night the wind has dropped, and the sun, just above the horizon, is so big and red that it seems as if a man could touch it just by stretching out his arm.

The Old Man spreads a green army handkerchief out in a hollow in the snow.

'Piss on it,' he says to Porta.

'Why not?' grins Porta, and empties his bladder on to the handkerchief. Slowly it changes colour from green to white with a reddish tinge.

The Old Man stretches the handkerchief out on the stub of a tree, looks through the sighting mechanism of the special compass, twists the adjusting screw a few times, and finally presses both sides of the instrument. A narrow green tape appears at the top, by the adjusting screw. He tears it across, breaks off the top edge, makes a square frame of the tape, and lays the compass in the middle of the square. The colour of the handkerchief is now rose, like the piping on our uniforms. He notes some figures down from the compass, and looks up at the sun, which is about to disappear. Then he clips the handkerchief firmly to the frame.

'I'll be damned,' cries Porta, in astonishment. 'Is my piss so strong it can make a snot-rag go all different colours?'

Without replying, the Old Man twists the noses from two cartridges, and blows gun-powder across the handkerchief until it completely covers it. He waits a few minutes and then blows it away.

He places the compass in the top right hand corner and presses a tiny screw. The compass throws a sharp blue light over the handkerchief, which has now become a topographical map on which even the tiniest insertion can be read. When the material is lighted from below he can read the name of the objective for our top-secret mission.

'Nova Petrovsk,' he says, shortly, rising to his feet.

'Where the hell's that?' asks Barcelona. 'I've never even heard of it!'

'Plenty more haven't either,' says the Old Man, drily. 'Nova Petrovsk is so secret it's never officially existed.
Abwehr
51
has its information from Russian V-men.
+
There is no town, only a huge camp, camouflaged to look like a forest, with a defence zone 100 kilometres in depth. If you are found inside that area without permission it's good-bye to life. Our job is so GEKADOS
52
that only the top officers on Canaris's staff know about it. The rockets the supply-planes dropped us are of a completely new design. Nothing concerning them must fall into the hands of the enemy. I imagine I have made myself clear enough?'

'Us Germans are a bright lot,' says Tiny. 'We rub our 'eads up an' down the wall an' out comes something like that 'andkerchief trick. I'll bet both my bollocks that if the neighbours catch us they'll blow their noses all over that snot-rag without ever findin' out they're wipin' their 'orn on the German GEKADOS job of the century.'

'Are there mines where we're goin'?' asks Barcelona, with fear in his voice. Since that time in the minefield he has been neurotic about mines.

'Course there's bloody mines,' answers the Old Man, gruffly. 'What did you think there'd be? Whatever you do, walk in the front man's tracks. Our lives can depend on a step an inch to the wrong side . . . If one of you treads on a mine it won't only be him that goes up but half the section with him.'

'Mines aren't nearly as dangerous as people think they are,'
says
Feldwebel Schroder, with a superior expression.

'You sound off like you knew what you were talking about,' Barcelona answers him. '
I've
been blown up three times, that high I could've tickled Jesus's footsoles, and
I
know what mines
are
!'

'And you they made a Feldwebel,' jeers Schroder.

Barcelona is about to go for him, but the Old Man steps smartly between them.

'When we've blown this shit away you can cut one another's throats all you want. Until then save your energy! This is the most dangerous and serious action we've ever gone on. Now there's three hours' rest, and stoke up on the rations. There'll be neither food nor rest from the minute we march out of here till we've smashed that bloody camp.'

We dig ourselves in in the snow. Away from the icy wind, which sweeps across the snowy waste with
a
long drawn out, melancholy sound.

Porta opens some tins and shares out the contents between us.

'The rockets'll be released with the help of a launcher which is in that green case,' explains the Old Man. He holds up one of the new rockets, so that we can all see it. 'Listen closely,' he continues, 'you too, Tiny! If you make a balls of it with one of these there won't be as much as a button left. You turn this dial to the left and stop at the figure 5. Push it up until it clicks. Turn the dial to the figure 9. Push it in and turn it back to figure 5. Now the rocket is armed, and nothing can stop it exploding in five hours time. The rubber gadget on the top of the rocket is a suction cup, which attaches itself to the object hit. If anyone attempts to pull it loose the rocket will explode in that person's hands. As soon as all the rockets have been fired the launching apparatus will be destroyed. Nothing, not the slightest fragment, must fall into the hands of our neighbours! If you should happen to be surprised whilst preparing for the launch, pull out this pin and one second later you and the rocket will have been blown to atoms! Understood?'

'The bleedin' Army's got us by the balls all right,' says Tiny, apathetically. 'Now they've got us committin' suicide by numbers!'

'Life is a throw of the dice,' sighs Porta. We're shooting for a six every single day!'

'I won't pull any pin out,' says Gregor with certainty. 'The fellow who does that is, to my mind, the dumb cluck of the world. The safest way to live through a war is to meet up at the enemy's place with something top secret in your pocket!'

'Wouldn't it be a better bet to go straight over to Ivan and pass 'im the lot, an' fuck the Fatherland!' suggests Tiny.

'High treason!' howls Heide, furiously.

Leutnant Schnelle shakes his head, and moves pointedly away from Tiny and Gregor.

'Each group will be issued with three rockets and a homing device,' continues the Old Man. 'You will inform me, by radio, as soon as the rockets are armed and ready to fire, and I will fire them. Once more: turn only to the left and remember you must hear the click. If it does not click, or you turn the dial to the right, the whole lot'll go off in your hands! Did
you
understand, Tiny?'

'Completely,' Tiny assures him, knocking his knuckles on his forehead. 'It's chiselled into me bonce for ever an' ever amen! Instructions on explosives I
listen
to, mate!'

'I bloody well hope so,' laughs Porta, 'or it's good-bye for now, see you later!'

'Let's get going,' says the Old Man, working the bolt of his machine-pistol. 'No smoking whatever permitted!'

Every now and then a blue flash lights up the sky above the forest. The sound of engines grows louder and louder.

In the course of the night we creep past the outer A-A positions. We are so close to them we can smell their machorka. 'Mines,' warns the Old Man, lifting his hand as a signal to us to take even greater precautions.

The Legionnaire takes a mineprobe from his pack and offers it to Feldwebel Schroder with a sarcastic smile.

'
peau de vache
, this must be just the job for you,' he whispers, wickedly.

Schroder shakes his head nervously, and withdraws a pace.

'I have no experience of that kind of thing!'

'Then keep your blasted mouth shut another time when somebody's talking about mines,' growls Barcelona, tautly.

'
Cuillon
,' snarls the Legionnaire, jeeringly, and works a wooden mine carefully from the snow. 'Come death, come . . .' he hums, while Tiny cuts the cables.

The Old Man turns on the blue compass light and measures the distance on the chart. 'The V-men's information's dead right!'

Step by step the section works its way through the mined area. The least mistake and a roaring explosion will tear us to bits.

Fahnrich Tamm nearly steps on a string but the Legionnaire grabs his foot and puts it down gently alongside the innocentappearing cord.

'You bloody cow,' the Old Man rates him. 'My God, to think of being burdened with a moron like that!'

'
Par Allah
,' hisses the Legionnaire. 'Do that once more and I will take your life with
my
cord.'

Out in the darkness a dog barks furiously. Two others answer it from further away.

'Bloody dogs,' curses Gregor. 'I'll kick their curs' arses for '
ern
if they come here!'

A spotlight goes on. A finger of light searches over the snow, stopping at intervals. It sweeps round in a wide half-circle, turns suddenly back, and stops, just before it reaches me. Paralysed with fear I press my body into the snow and await a deadly MG salvo. The guards shout reassuringly to one another. We know how they feel. Sentry-go in the dark is frightening for anybody. When a sentry is killed at his post it happens so quickly that he hardly knows he is dead, before it is a fact.

We crawl the last part, and despite the heavy equipment we are dragging with us, we pass through the defences quickly. No sound of treacherous metal against metal is heard, to warn the sentries in the darkness.

Lorry after lorry rolls through the two great wooden doors of the fortress-like depot camp. Field lamps shine briefly as the NKVD guards check the lorries' papers. Nobody gets into this place without high-priority authorisation.

'Ivan's on his toes all right,' whispers Porta, tensely. 'They don't even trust their own coolies!'

'No bloody wonder,' answers Gregor. 'Take a sniff. Must be a million gallons of petrol inside there!'

'Yes, enough for another Thirty Years War, or more,' whispers Tiny, overcome.

'Was it to the left or the right we were supposed to turn those warheads?' asks Porta, nervously.

'To the right,' says Tiny, confidently. But I don't remember if it was
5
or 9 as come first! It's gotta go click though or else it goes off!'

Suddenly we are all in doubt. Tiny suggests, with his usual optimism, that we can take it in turns and see what happens. Then it would only be every second rocket that blew up.

'Jesus, man, don't
turn
that thing!' I warn him, in terror, as Tiny is about to turn the dial. 'We could get our arses blown off!'

'If it does, let's hope they've lit the landing-lights back home,' grins Porta, fatalistically.

The Old Man comes crawling over to us from behind a great stack of shell casings.

'What in the name of hell are you farting about here for?' he snarls, sourly. 'First and fourth groups have got theirs set up already!'

Was it to the left or the right we were supposed to turn it?' asks Porta, holding a warhead out towards the Old Man.

'God in Heaven have mercy on us,' groans the Old Man, despairingly. 'To the left you mad sods! Ivan'd die laughing if he could see you now!'

'Give him a shout, then,' suggests Porta. 'Then the war'd be over, and we'd go down in history as Adolf's secret weapon!'

'An' turn it to 5?' asks Tiny, with his hand on the dial.

'Not
now
, you great shithouse, you,' hisses the Old Man, slapping his fingers. 'Set 'em up and aim 'em first! What do you want to blow up here?'

'Lorries,' says Tiny, happily. 'There's masses on 'em.'

'Piss off, man,' snarls the Old Man. 'And to hell with the vehicles. These rockets are to be used against the most distant targets. You don't seem to have understood anything of what I explained to you! First we hit the distant targets with the rockets, then you place Lewis bombs and radio mines in the square you've been assigned to. Even a dummy could follow that. Try, for Christ's sake, to
listen
when I'm telling you what to do. When you get to the big open area where the trains are standing, be on your toes. They've planted signal-mines there with trip-wires.
Don't touch the trip-wires
!Don't even
breathe
on 'em! If they go off they'll send up parachute flares and the whole damned enemy camp'll be lit up like daylight!'

'Don't be nervous,' Porta comforts him. 'We can skin a louse without it even noticing!'

'I was at the Jews' pickpocket school on the Reeperbahn,' boasts Tiny. 'I could draw the rags off the throat of a whore with 'em on an' she'd never notice it!'

'How dumb can you get?' snarls the Old Man, angrily, disappearing again.

Squabbling, we reach the place where the rocket launchers are to be set up. We assemble the parts. The firing base seems a primitive affair, almost like an unfinished wooden packingcase. The one thing it does
not
look like is a firing base.

At the lower end of one of the aluminium rails are three small wheels with dimly lighted, graduated scales. These are used to adjust the launching base.

Tiny puts the 52 centimetre tube in place, and I screw on the warhead.

Porta attaches the odd-looking cables, which look as if they'd been taken from the inside of a spring mattress.

'Think it'll work?' asks Tiny, doubtfully. 'I'd rather 'ave a spray-gun.'

'It'll work,' says Porta, with conviction, shading the spiritlevel on the firing ramp with his hand.