Liquidate Paris (17 page)

'You stupid murdering sod, I'll get you for this!'

It was me, and not the machine-gun, he was addressing. As a sign of good faith he hurled his last hand-grenade in my direction and followed it up with a volley of shots from his naga. Believe me, when that unthinking monument of bone and muscle lost his temper you didn't stop to argue. I turned and ran but slipped on a patch of oil and went sprawling. Little John was on me in an instant, I could, feel his breath hot on my face and his huge hands closing round my neck. I was no match for him in size or strength, but sheer terror heaved my body from under him. I wrenched my ankle in a shell hole, tripped over a heap of bricks, stumbled up a slope on hands and knees and came face to face with a Churchill that had pulled
to
a halt by the side of two wounded soldiers, hot on my heels came the maddened bulk of Little John. Dazed with fear, I pulled out my revolver and fired two crazy shots that flew harmlessly into the void. I took a step forward
and
promptly fell head-first into a ditch of muddy water. Somewhere close at hand I heard the voice of Lt. Lowe furiously shouting orders, but much I cared for Lt. Lowe at that moment. A field-marshal himself could not have stopped me. I staggered dripping from the ditch, hared across an open field and crouched panting behind the cover of some bushes.

Enemy troops began appearing from nowhere, running like the clappers alongside the bushes where I lay hidden. Compared with Little John they were harmless as babies. I wondered where the devil he was, whether he was spying on me from behind a tree, and I began fervently praying that a grenade would blow his head off for him.

Suddenly I caught sight of him away to my right, blundering through some bushes with a flame-thrower in his hands. With a yelp of panic I hurled myself into the nearest ditch and scuttled along it, scrambled out again about half a kilometre further on, vaulted over a gate into a side road and ran' head-first into Lt. Lowe and the rest of the section. They were not, on the whole, very pleasantly disposed towards me.

'I'll have you up before a bloody court-martial, so help me God!' yelled the Lieutenant.

The others stood by, sullen and hostile, while he tore strips off me. I tried to explain about Little John and his blood lust, but it impressed no one.

'Serves you right if he catches up with you!' snarled Lowe, unfeelingly.

Heide looked me up and down and curled his lip in a contemptuous sneer.

'Where's the M.G.?' he demanded.

'Yes, where's the M.G.?' agreed Lowe, seizing upon a new grievance.

'I--ah--lost it,' I said.

'Lost it?' repeated Lowe, incredulously. 'What d'you mean, you lost it? Nobody loses machine-guns in this outfit! Bloody well go back and get it and don't let me see you again until you have!'

'But I----'

'Don't make futile excuses, man! You'll get that M.G. back even if it means asking Montgomery for it personally!'

'Stupid sod,' hissed Heide. 'You nearly killed off the whole bloody company!'

Porta hawked a disgusted gout of spittle in my direction. As if this were a signal for the enemy to start up again, grenades began raining down upon us and the rest of the section dived for cover. It hardly seemed tactful to join them. I jumped back over the gate and sought shelter once more in my ditch. When I dared again to raise my head they had all disappeared, leaving me to my fate. I heard the sound of heavy boots and English voices and at once doubled up and held my breath. They passed so close I could smell the new leather smell of their belts, and it was another ten minutes before I could bring myself to venture out into the open.

Soon I was back at the spot where the Churchill had pulled up beside the two wounded men. The Churchill had gone, and in the interval one of the men had died. The other stared at me out of dull eyes. He looked too weak to do me any harm, but I cautiously circled round him, fingering my knife and prepared to finish him off at the least sign of trouble.

'Water! ' he muttered, urgently.

I regarded him with continuing suspicion, but he was too badly wounded to be dangerous. Half his belly had been torn away, presumably the work of a shell or a grenade, and blood was trickling from the side of his mouth and down his chin. I stretched out a hand to him, forgetting that I was clutching the knife, and he drew back piteously, evidently under the impression I was about to slit his throat for him. I stuck the knife back in my belt, wiped the blood from his mouth and held out my packet of field dressings as a sign that I meant him no harm. Carefully I pulled open his uniform, some of which was embedded in the open wound. There was nothing I could sensibly do for him. I patched him up as best I could, more as a gesture than anything else, and when the bandages ran out I tore the tail off my shirt and wound that round his belly. He was still feebly moaning for water. He shouldn't have had any, wounded in the guts as be was, but it was obvious that he was dying and I supported his head in one hand and with the other held my water-bottle to his lips. I had no cigarette to offer him, only a handful of chocolate. I crammed one or two pieces into his mouth and he munched them with apparent pleasure and attempted a smile. If I could have been sure he would die within the next few minutes I would have stayed with him, but he could well linger on for another half hour and that lost M.G. was preying on my mind. I didn't need to be told that a machine-gun was of far greater importance than a shoulder. I could have lost my life with honour, but not a machine-gun.

I put a gas mask over the man's face, stuck a rifle into the ground, near by him, with a helmet slung on top of it to help the stretcher-bearers spot him when they came to clear up after the slaughter was done. What else could I do? Not very much. Only leave him the rest of the chocolate and put into his hand a photograph of his wife and child that I had found in his pocket. That way, at least, he would not be alone when he died.

Three enemy fighter-bombers screamed past, skimming the ground. I waited until they had gone, then cautiously retraced my steps through the ruined village. Miraculously, the M.G. lay where I had dropped it. In my relief I forgot to take the elementary precaution of spying out the land. I ran straight up to it and was almost immediately engulfed beneath the bodies of two English soldiers. I didn't stop to ask myself where they had come from, and in any case there were enough shell holes to hide a whole army. I reacted instinctively, as we had learned during training and as I had put into practice many times since: I doubled myself up, rammed home a knee into the groin of one of my attackers, gave a quick chop in the throat at the other. Thank God they were not veterans or they would have been prepared for it. I was in too much of a hurry to finish them off, I simply picked up the M.G. and ran for it, back up the road, over the slope, into the field.

The wounded soldier had died in my absence. I could see at a glance that he was dead, but I had no time to take a closer look. A hail of bullets splattered into the earth at my feet, and turning I saw a group of English soldiers, led by a sturdy sergeant, clambering up the slope after me. I turned and ran, set up the M.G. with bullets sizzling round my head, managed to get her working just in time. I saw the sergeant go down and the rest of them fall back. By now I was pretty low on ammunition: two belts for the M.G., three hand-grenades. I snatched up the gun and dashed off across the field, bent double, until I reached my old friend the ditch. Bullets followed me all the way ripping up the earth and my boots as well. The entire sole was torn off one of them and I finally tripped over it and fell head-first into the muddy water. Panting and trembling,
I
tore the pin out of a grenade and hurled it towards the oncoming English. One of them snatched it up but before he could return it it had exploded in his face. I hurled the other two after it and set off once again on my mad flight. I was by now no means certain of the direction I was taking. I was just running blindly, away from one danger and headlong into another.

Round a bend in the road I came face to face once more with the enemy. But this time only one of them. A small man with a dark skin, wearing a grey turban wound about his head. It was one of the dreaded Ghurkas, who, so rumour had it, would slice off your ears as soon as look at you. It was hard to tell who was the more terrified, him or me. We hurled ourselves upon each other, fighting like wild beasts. I gave him a swift chop across the throat, which sent him flying, but quick as greased lightning he was up again with a vicious-looking knife in his hand. He raised his arm and I hurled myself at him; we fell to the ground, turn and turn about on top of each other, biting, clawing, kicking. With the kriss in his left hand he aimed a blow at the top of my head, at the same time giving me a kick which sent me rolling away from him. Then he was coming for me, and instinctively I lowered my head and butted him in the belly like an enraged billy goat. He staggered back. I seized him by both ears and began bashing his head hard against an outcrop of rocks until he was a senseless mass of blood and pulp and my own hands were red and sticky. Even then I was too terrified to let him die in peace: I picked up his fallen kriss and plunged it into his chest, just to make sure.

Pausing only long enough to catch my breath, I picked up the M.G. and staggered off with it, my legs trembling beneath me. It was one hell of a journey, over fields, through woods, paddling across streams, hiding in ditches, late into the night, until at last I stumbled upon a section of our own engineers and thought maybe I could relax. No such luck: their C.O. treated me with the contempt that I no doubt deserved.

'Don't tell me! Just don't tell me! You've lost your unit and you don't know how to get back to them... Well, all I can say is, no soldier worth his salt would ever get himself into such a degrading position! If I had my way you'd be court-martialled for desertion!' He looked me up and down a few times, as if I were a peculiarly nasty specimen fresh out of its bottle. 'All right, let's have it! Which regiment?'

'Twenty-seventh Panzer S.B.V., 5th Company, sir.'

They had positioned themselves in a hamlet about four kilometres away to the west. My arrival provoked a general outburst of jeers and catcalls, but by then I was past caring. I presented myself wearily to Lt. Lowe, who was in conversation with Hauptfeldwebel Hoffmann.

'Fahnenjunker Hassel, sir, reporting back with the lost M.G. 42.'

'About time, too,' said Lowe; and left it at that.

I trailed back to my own section and discovered Little John now in excellent humour.

'Bloody good job for you I didn't catch up with you! Remind me to ram your teeth down your throat for you some day when I'm in the mood.'

'What's more to the point,' said the Old Man, sourly, 'is what the hell you've been up to all this time?'

I shrugged my shoulders and made no reply. Just sank to the ground and began mechanically to clean the cursed M.G. that was the cause of all my troubles. Porta at once sat down beside me and jabbed me humorously--and painfully--in the ribs.

'Well? What was she like?' he demanded. 'Why didn't you bring her back so's we could all have a go?'

'Give it a rest,' I said. 'Do you mind?'

Seconds later, whistles were blowing and Lt. Lowe was bawling at us to get cracking, we were moving on again. Major Hinka came up to inspect us, and as Lowe saluted I noticed for the first time that he had a bandage round his forehead.'

'Fifth Company ready to move, sir. We've lost one officer, three N.C.O.s sixty men. One N.C.O. and fourteen men hospitalized. Four men missing... Oh yes! And one machine-gun lost and now recovered.'

Hinka, apparently indifferent, returned Lowe's salute and cast an eye upon us.

'Thank you, Lieutenant.'

He moved slowly along the line surveying each man in turn. He saw nothing to excite either his wrath or his admiration until he came to me and almost threw a fit.

'Lieutenant Lowe, why is this man in this disgusting condition ? Button up your jacket, tuck your shirt into your trousers! Let me see that machine-gun.'

Fortunately the M.G., at least, was dean and beyond criticism. The Major grunted and thrust it back at me.

'Take a note of this man, Lieutenant. I will not tolerate slovenliness!'

Lowe nodded resignedly and made a sign to Hauptfeldwebel Hoffman, who at once took out his notebook and officiously wrote my name in capital letters on a blank page.

The Company moved off along the road, boots pounding in unison on the tarmac. Someone started up a song, the rest quickly joining in :

'Weit ist der Weg zuruck ins Heimatland

So weit, so weit!

Die Wolken ziehen dahin daher

Sie ziehen wohl ubers Meer

Der Mensch lebt nur einmal

Und dann nicht mehr...'

'Sing!' urged Little John, marching on my left.

'I'm knackered,' I said, petulantly. 'Piss off and leave me be!'

I was too tired to march, too tired to sing. Too tired to do anything but lie down and die. My eyelids drooped and I felt myself swaying on my feet.

'Sing, damn you!' hissed Little John. 'Bloody open your mouth and sing or I'll ram your teeth right down your flaming throat!'

'Long is the path to home, long is the road to the sea,

And the clouds in the sky are restless and wild

And they lead me far off from my home, from the place

where I'm longing to be.

And a man has one life

And when that is done

He's vanquished for ever
--

One life; just one
..."

Hesitantly at first, then louder as my spirit grew stronger, I began singing with the rest.