Legion of the Damned (15 page)

Also, it seemed rather strange that he should get his foot crushed just before we went into action.

"It's all the same, what it seems," said The Old Un. "There's not one of us doubts that he did it on purpose. But as long as they can't prove anything, all will be well. And they can't do that as long as we stick to that explanation."

"We must just hope they don't soften Hans up," sighed Porta. "The devils."

We then went to bed to get some sleep as we were to move up to the front during the night. We were roused at one o'clock.

Titch managed to light a Hindenburg candle and by its flickering gleam we got ourselves ready, though we were scarcely properly awake. Porta was sitting upright in the straw clawing at his dirty, thin pigeon chest, his red mane standing out in all directions. The Old Un and Pluto were catching lice, which they threw into the flame of the candle where they exploded with a little pop and gave off a nauseating, oily smell. Within a quarter of an hour we had got our equipment on and, trembling with cold, we climbed into the tank. We had wound our greasy scarves round our necks and pulled our caps with snow glasses down over our ears.

What a difference there is between the rubicund, spruce, straightbacked young hero gazing steadily into the distance, the woman compelling male warrior whom you see on the recruiting posters of the whole world, and the snuffling, scared devil with a cold, bad breath and pasty face who is the reality of war. If the artists who drew those poster heroes knew how tragic was the task they were undertaking with their ridiculous art they would seek other work. But probably they could get none, for when you look more closely you soon discover that it is only sixth- or seventh-rate artists who take on that kind of commissioned "art." The military recruiting poster is the field of very minor talents.

The battalion's many engines were humming and singing all over the village. Now and again there was a brief flash from a torch, otherwise everything was done in pitch-darkness out of respect for the "coffee grinders," as we called the Russian planes because of their comical chugging noise, which were very much on the alert as they flew, invisible, above our heads, sometimes so low that we could hear the noise of their engines through the din of our own.

We left the village by companies. It was pitch-dark and you had to be careful not to crash into the tank in front. To make it easier for Porta, who sat down beside the tank's instruments and steering rods, Pluto and I perched ourselves up on the turret and gave him directions by telephone. We rattled and roared along at thirty-three mph. All at once we heard a crunching sound. Half a minute later it came again, and at the same time large pieces of wood came flying round our ears. When this had happened five times, we realized that we were knocking the telephone poles down and at once directed Porta back onto the road. A little farther on we almost went into the tank in front, which had halted because we had come to a bridge that the tanks could only cross one at a time. Two of us had to stand, one on either side of the bridge, holding glowing cigarettes to guide our heavy monster across. An inch or so more to one side or the other and the Upa River would have had the prey it was waiting for.

About four o'clock we halted on the fringe of a thicket. The motors were switched off and a strange silence descended upon us. The only sound was the stuttering and chugging of the "coffee grinders" up above. Every other moment a parachute flare came floating down, lighting up the countryside as brilliantly as day.

While our officers were with the regimental commander getting their battle orders, we tried to get a little sleep, half-lying on the steel floor of the tank. We had just dropped off when the order to fall in came. Our section commanders told us our tasks.

The 27th tank regiment together with the 4th, 18th and 21st Divisions is to attack the Russian positions at Serpuchow, north of Thula. The positions are to be broken through with a view to a drive on Moscow. The tank regiment of the 12th Panzer Division will form the head of the attacking wedge, with the SS guards as reserve on the right flank. Our company will be on the extreme left flank and has the task of penetrating behind the Russian positions and preparing the way for the companies following. 3 Company is the leading company.

"Honor the memory of 3 Company," said Porta, with a laugh. We were to move up to a battered village just behind the main fighting line. There, panzer grenadiers from the 104th Riffle Regiment were to get up behind our tanks.

06.40 hours. Stukas attack.

06.48 hours. 3 Company attacks.

06.51 hours. Our company follows.

A barrage will be laid three kilometers behind the enemy lines at 06.50 hours.

It was a magnificent sight. Tracer projectiles of all the colors of the rainbow passed screeching across the heavens. Woods and villages were in flames all along the horizon so that the sky was tinged with reddish violet. Individual shells exploded with sharp reports and white flashes, but otherwise there was that utter stillness that precedes the storm. Now and again a machine gun crackled, sounding like furious watchdogs, and stray bullets spattered into the ruins around us.

It was a magnificent drama. A battle is the big show, the real attraction. War with its prolonged apprehension, dirt, hunger and unheroic misery culminates in a gripping display of splendor and savagery. The scared soul frees itself and rises on strong wings and flies to meet its mighty destiny. It is the suffering civilian's great hour. His soul has never had an opportunity to unfold in riches and luxury; it has become dusty in an untidy office where it has been fashioned to the shape laid down by the personnel officer. Nor has it found any opportunities in the world of the spirit; it was not of that caliber and money had been too scarce for a literary education and outlook. And when the soul has paid a visit to Love, perhaps it was no more than briefly in a doorway, then a baby, marriage lines, a dreary flat in a viewless street, bills sweat, lust with clipped wings and a woman who quickly becomes the bane of life, a deadly boring woman.

In battle the little civilian mobilizes all his accumulated dread, and there is much of it, and goes off to battle and liberates his soul in that great life-and-death drama.

No! The soul is not liberated. That is a caricature. Far from becoming a free human being, it is a crazy, hysterical cur it becomes, blindly obeying the prompting of his own fear of doing anything on his own. What it does is exactly what it never wanted to do, or at least never dared do, but which it had been tempted to do all its life: it kills for food.

And because it exposes itself to a crazy risk of death by doing so, it believes that its possessor is a brave man, and that he will neither have lived nor died in vain.

Such is the prosaic truth.

At any rate I do not believe in the lyric poets of war. Nobody will persuade me that war is a dashing, exciting adventure for he-men, a safari for hunters even richer and more powerful than millionaires.

The Old Un had often told me of tank attacks in which scores of tanks had been set on fire by the enemy's antitank guns and their crews burned to death inside them. I had also been told innumerable times that to lead an attack was an enterprise from which few emerged with their lives. And we, the penal regiment, would always be the spearhead.

"Well, Sven, have you remembered to write a few words of farewell to your mother and sweetheart?"

The Old Un's grave voice intruding upon my thoughts made me start. I got a piece of field letter paper and scribbled a few words by the faint light of the instrument panel. When I had finished Porta handed me up a bottle and said with his mocking grin:

"Take a swig of Dutch courage, then you'll forget that they're not using blanks over there. It'll be just like an exercise."

Porta's Dutch courage proved to be pure ninety-six per cent spirit, honorably filched from the infirmary. I have drunk lots of it since, but never undiluted. Porta laughed when he saw my face.

"Excuse me! I forgot to tell you to push your uvula to one side and put the stuff down quickly."

To my amazement Titch put the bottle to his lips and gulped it down without turning a hair. Porta had to wrest the bottle from him.

"That's enough. We're not at a Jesus feast with Christmas tree and crackers, you ass."

"Thanks for the present, dear Porta," said Titch, and belched loudly. "If I should happen to go up on this little trip, I'll order an assortment of angels and have them waiting for you when you come."

"Lord preserve us," said The Old Un. "Listen to them. They think they're going to heaven. No, my little ones, the feathers we get will be of the singed variety."

From outside came the sound of muffled orders and shortly afterward some grenadiers mounted the tank. They peered in at us, grinning. We lit a last cigarette.

"Ready to attack! 5 Company--forward march!"

With engines roaring we rolled through the battered village. The hatches of our turrets were still open and up behind us sat the grenadiers, ready to jump off when the fun and games began. Porta kept his eyes glued to the narrow vision slits and his hands were clenched on the steering rods. The Old Un stood in the turret staring rigidly through the round observation ring, while Pluto was ready to fire the heavy gun the moment the order to open fire was given. Titch had all the ammunition lockers open and stood ready to slam shells into the gun as the empty cases came out, red hot. Where I sat, down by the radio set, I looked for the twentieth time to see that my machine gun was in order and arranged the long cartridge belt that twined about me like a broad, flat snake. A laughing voice sounded:

"No. 5 Company, 5 Company. The Staff Company calling. All tanks open fire!"

Thereupon hell broke loose. Our heads were filled with the roaring, crashing, banging, rumbling of unleashed energy.

Long, yellowish red flames protruded like knives of fire from the muzzles of the guns. The inside of the tank was like a witches' cauldron. Smoke from the shells stung and burned our eyes and throats. Each time the gun fired a pointed flame stabbed out from its breach block. The empty cases accumulated and rolled with an appaffing clatter into the well of the tank.

I sat with gaping mouth staring out at the landscape across which we were rumbling. All at once I caught sight of some Russian infantry straight ahead. Automatically I squinted down the barrel and over the fore sight; my index finger curled round the trigger in the regulation way--now! With cold gaze and narrowed eyes I watched where the tracer bullets struck, corrected my aim and murdered away. Suddenly I was flung forward with a violent jerk, and if I had not been wearing a leather-padded crash helmet I would have torn my face to ribbons on the lock of the machine gun. The Old Un swore at Porta, who had driven us into a shell hole several feet deep.

"Just wait till I start driving your puffer as, in my humble opinion, a puffer ought to be driven," shouted Porta.

The Russians' antitank artillery began to answer back and the first smashed tanks were already standing burning with fiery red flames licking up round their steel hulls and cascades of thick, velvety, coal-black smoke pouring up toward the sky.

We worked our way slowly forward, our grenadiers crouching under cover behind, ready to deal with the Russian infantry once we had thrust through the positions. About midday Ivan withdrew. As soon as we had got more gas and ammunition we set off at full speed after the retreating enemy. Now and again we stopped at a village where Ivan had dug his heels in and from which he had to be smoked and burned out; within a quarter of an hour there would be no village left, just fire, in which we rattle around, mowing down everything: soldiers, men, women, children and animals. If there was a burning house in our way we roared straight through it, sending a cloud of sparks swirling round us, while burning beams fell over the tank and were dragged with it for some distance, making it look as though it, too, were on fire.

The Russian soldiers understood how to die. More than once we saw a handful of them occupy a strategically important point and delay our advance until their last cartridge was used, or till they themselves were crushed beneath our tank tracks. It is odd seeing a person lying or sitting or running or hobbling away right in front and for you not to turn aside, but drive straight on, over him. Odd. You do not feel anything. You are only aware that you cannot feel. Perhaps some other day, in a week, a month, a year, fifty years. But not just at that moment. There is no time for feeling; the whole business is just something that is happening, going on, pictures and noises, most acutely perceived and immediately shoved automatically to one side to be analyzed later.

We made acquaintance with the Russians' heavy tanks, enormous brutes of ninety or one hundred tons with a huge twenty-two cm. gun sticking out from their mighty turrets. In such fighting, however, they were no serious danger to us. They were too slow, those mastodons. We smashed them one after the other without difficulty.

After eight weeks' uninterrupted advance our fighting power dried up and we came to a stop at Podolsk, southwest of Moscow. We came to a stop in the middle of the Russian winter, whose savagery knows no bounds. Thousands of German soldiers perished from appalling frostbite. An endless transport had to be organized to send home those whom gangrene had robbed of a leg or an arm.

Our supplies broke down. There was no gas or ammunition for the tanks. We were in the middle of Russia in temperatures of minus 58degC., and almost no one had furs or other winter equipment to keep the howling snowstorms at arm's length. Many a time the mad pain in our hands and feet made us scream and whimper like babies. No one could stand on guard for longer than ten minutes at a stretch; to do so meant certain death. If a man was hit he was usually found frozen stiff in the same position in which the bullet had struck him. It was a daily occurrence to find such a frozen corpse leaning up against a tree trunk or the wall of a trench.