March Battalion (23 page)

Before we were finally despatched from Torgau the Colonel came to bid us the customary farewell. He shook hands with only one person, and that was Little John. And Porta swore that as he turned away he was smiling.

T
JESTNANOVNA.
A small town near the Rumanian frontier and overlooking the Black Sea. Once it must have been full of people and traffic, the shops crowded out with goods for sale, the neat rows of whitewashed houses basking in the sunshine. Now it was deserted, abandoned by most of its former inhabitants, reduced virtually to rubble by repeated bombardments. At the start of the war it had been a railway junction, and the main road to Velkov had passed through the centre. Now it was a forgotten town; a place of no importance. Almost, it might never have existed.

We had occasion one day to go inside one of the empty houses, and we saw for ourselves with what frantic haste the occupants must have fled the town. Dirty cups and plates still lay in the sink; the kitchen table was still laid out as for a meal. Cupboard doors swung open, beds were unmade. In one room we found a single shoe, lying dismally by itself in the middle of the carpet. Half-way up the stairs we tripped over a yellow teddy bear. We stood staring at it for a while, each in his own way visualizing the scene of the family's departure.

'What a bloody war!' burst out Alte, suddenly. 'Can't even leave the bloody kids in peace!'

'Why should it?' said Little John, adopting cynicism as a way of covering his own emotions. 'What use was they to anyone? They can't fire a gun or drive a tank.'

With a contemptuous swing of the foot he sent the teddy bear flying up and over the banisters. It landed with a thump in the hall below.

'Who cares what happens to a bunch of lousy kids?'

It was the first time I had ever seen Alte lose control of himself. He swung round on Little John, his hand on the butt of his revolver.

'You shut your filthy mouth! I'm telling you now, if ever I catch you laying your hands on a child I'll kill you, so help : me, I'll kill you!' .

With this threat ringing in our ears, we watched the Old Man stamp down the stairs and go out through the front door. Little John turned to look at us, his eyes wide and puzzled. 'What's chewing him up, then?'

'I reckon you touched him on a soft spot,' muttered Porta.

'But he.knows damn well I'd never lay a finger on a child!' roared Little John.

Porta shrugged, indifferently. We all of us had our moments of blind rage, or panic; the complete breakdown of self-control. It had happened to the rest of us, and now it had happened to Alte. Little John knew it as well as anyone, but nevertheless the incident had hurt.

'I'm the last person to hurt a kid ... YOU know that! How many times have I gone out of my way to save one of 'em? What about that kid at Lugansk? What about the transport at Majdanek? Who risked his life shooting at the guards, just so the little brats could make a break for it? And what,' he wound up, with relish, 'about that S.S. man I fed to the dogs?'

We all winced at the memory of the S.S. man.

'That was going too far,' objected Porta. 'I said so at the time, and I still say so now.'

That night in Poland was one we should never forget. In company with nine Polish partisans, we had come unexpectedly upon the transport - Jewish children, torn apart from their parents, dragged away from their homes, being taken God knew where for God knew what purpose. Little John had gone completely berserk, and one of the partisans, horrified by his behaviour, had made a futile attempt to calm him down. He informed us self-importantly that he was a Polish officer, and he pulled out a photograph of himself in uniform to prove the point. We informed him, without troubling ourselves with proof, that we were generals in the German Army. He almost certainly didn't believe it, but he hunched his shoulders and loped off into the woods, followed by six of his fellow partisans and those of the children who had managed to escape, and left us in peace to deal with the S.S. officer that Little John had shot. Two of the partisans remained behind. I'm not sure that it wasn't their idea to cut out the dead man's heart, but any rate they and Little John fell to with vigour while the rest of us stood watching, horrified and yet undeniably fascinated. When they had finished, they hanged the mutilated corpse by its ankles from the branch of a tree. Little John always claimed that the heart had been eaten by the local dogs, and possibly he was right.

In the deserted town of Tjestnanovna we found a deserted villa, and we took it over as our temporary barracks. It was splendid, perched high upon a hillside and looking out over the Black Sea. The first and second storeys were honeycombed with bedrooms, there must have been dozens of them, all done up in deep rose and pale blue, very frilly and feminine with deep looking-glasses whichever way you turned. We installed ourselves in the downstairs sitting-room, sprawling over the armchairs and sofas, our heavy army boots tramping across the fluffy rugs and leaving black marks on the pastel shades of the carpet.

'God bless Rumania!' shouted Little John, intoxicated by the faint, clinging odour of scents and lacy petticoats that filled the house. 'I shall spend the duration here!'

Porta swaggered across the room and flung open the french windows, which gave on to a terrace and overlooked the extraordinarily blue waters of the so-called Black Sea. Far beyond, in the distance, the war was still being waged; but for the moment it was none of our concern.

Later that same day, Little John, prowling about along the corridors of the first floor, came upon an enormous fat woman in the act of bundling clothes out of an airing cupboard. He was, on his own admittance, scared out of his wits, but he pulled himself together and bellowed to the rest of us to come to his aid. When we arrived, he and the woman were silently wrestling with each other. It was hard to judge which of them had the upper hand.

'What's going on here?' demanded Alte. 'Who is this? What does she want?'

Panting and blowing, the woman fetched Little John a sharp kick on the shin. With a howl of rage, Little John closed his enormous hands round the woman's neck.

'Let her go!' ordered Alte, striding forward

Reluctantly, Little John loosed his grip. The fat woman fell back into the airing cupboard, her multiplicity of bosoms heaving and trembling.

'Who are you?' repeated Alte. 'What do you want here?'

'I came to collect some things. I don't live here, but the house belongs to me. I need some more bed-linen... my family has typhus.'

At the sound of the word, we all instinctively took a step backwards. The woman seized her opportunity. Muttering her apologies, she swept up a pile of sheets and blankets and waddled from the house. The Legionnaire followed her departure with thoughtful eyes.

'There's something odd about the walking lump of fat.'

'You reckon she's a whore?' asked Little John, eagerly.

'A whorekeeper, more like. I recognize the type... Let's go take a closer look at her.'

The Legionnaire picked up his cap, armed himself with both revolver and knife, which he pushed down into his boot, and made for the door.

'Anyone coming with me?'

None of us was really very interested in the woman - only Little John, and wild horses wouldn't have dragged him out of the villa. During a solitary prowl about the town he had discovered a mass of provisions heaped up in the abandoned Kommandantur, and now his bedroom at the villa could have withstood a year's siege. Cigars were piled high on the bedside table. A whole regiment of bottles marched along the skirting boards, whisky, vodka, French cognac. He invited us inside to admire his handiwork, and, within reason, to help ourselves.

'What's this?' demanded Barcelona, picking up a large porcelain jug from the side of the bed.

'That's my pissing pot,' said Little John, jealously snatching it from him. 'Pink and blue flowers and golden cupids ... I think it's very suitable and I can empty it straight out of the window into the sea when it gets full.'

'Which it soon will,' murmured Barcelona, eyeing the array of bottles.

The Legionnaire soon arrived back, full, of news and good humour. He installed himself in Little John's bedroom, sitting cross-legged on the bed with a bottle of cognac in one hand and a cigar in the other. He and Alte were the only two who liked cigars, but we were all determined to smoke at least one as a matter of principle. Heide had already been sick twice, but that was probably due to the bottle of vodka he had drunk rather than the cigars.

'Well?' we inquired, eagerly. 'What did you find out?'

The Legionnaire gave a triumphant laugh and poured half the cognac straight down his throat without flinching.

'Do you know what this place is?'

'No,' said Little John, sounding like a music hall comic. 'What is this place?'

'You'll be very pleased with me when you know,' said the Legionnaire, smugly.

'Come to the point!' urged Little John.

'Very well, then. To be brief - when business is normal, we have a red light burning outside our front door.' Those of us who were in the act of drinking nearly choked ourselves to an early death; those who were smoking turned blue in the face. Little John was simply too stunned to speak.

'You mean we're living in a brothel?' whispered Porta, hardly daring to believe the good news.

'Your actual brothel,' the Legionnaire assured him, with a slightly pitying smile.

The Legionnaire himself did not care overmuch for the delights of such places.

'But where are all the women?'

'The women!'

Little John suddenly gave a whoop of delight. Before our astonished eyes he did a quick striptease, retaining only his boots, his gun belt and his old bowler hat.

'I'm not going to need those a long, long time,' he announced, tossing his uniform trousers into a cupboard.

'What about your boots?' asked Alte, somewhat taken aback.

'Going without knickers is one thing. Walking about bare-footed is quite a different kettle of fish. Be prepared is my -motto. Either way--' He waved a hand towards his apparel, or lack of it - 'I am now prepared for any eventuality.'

Porta, too, was busily preparing himself for coming events. His clothes followed Little John's into the cupboard and he pranced naked before us, yelling like a demon and stamping up and down with his boots on.

'Dressed up like a dog's dinner! Where are the whores? Where's the keeper of the brothel?'

'You've already met the lady,' said the Legionnaire, amused. 'She lives just down the road in a house that makes this place look like an air raid shelter. She herself is a stinking old sow who pours gallons of perfume over herself each day to cover the stench of her own sweat and save the trouble of washing. But I should say the establishment she used to run here would have been well worth a visit for those who like that sort of thing.'

Little John jerked his head.

'Would have? Whatdyamean, WOULD have?'

'That's your misfortune,' admitted the Legionnaire, with a sigh. 'According to the old sow, the girls all took fright when they thought Uncle Jo Stalin was coming... They rushed off towards the west, and now, presumably, they're whoring some place where there's more demand for their services than here.'

Little John gave a loud shriek of despair and fell backwards on to the sofa.

'There isn't any place where there's more demand for their services than here!' declared Barcelona, wrathfully. 'I'm so randy I could have a go at anything!'

'What about the old sow?' wondered Porta. 'She'd be better than nothing--'

The Legionnaire shook his head.

'I don't advise it. I should say she's got one like a horse's collar ... once get lost inside it and you'd never find the way out.'

'The way in is all I care about at the moment!' snapped Porta.

'Suit yourself,' said the Legionnaire, hunching a shoulder.

'I shouldn't think she's got anything against the idea ... She's called Olga,' he added, and he spoke the word with an air of the uttermost distaste.

'Olga,' said Little John, trying it out. 'I can't say I really fancy anyone called Olga--'

'I could fancy anything, from Olga to a milk bottle,' declared Barcelona. 'Why didn't you bring her with you, for God's sake?'

'Hang on a minute.' Porta turned solemnly to face us. 'You don't reckon the old bitch is trying to pull a fast one, do you?*

'How do you mean?'

'Well - telling us the girls have pissed off, simply because she doesn't like the look of us. We're not the smartest bunch of soldiers you ever saw.'

'I suppose it's a possibility. But where the blazes could she have hid them?'

'Wherever they are, I'll dig 'em out!' promised Little John. 'And if the old bird's been lying to us she'll live to regret it.'

'Don't do anything stupid,' begged Alte. 'A woman like that's bound to be well in with the police. You start bashing her about and you'll soon find yourselves in trouble.'

'Arsehole,' said Porta. He snatched up his trousers and threw himself into them. 'Come on! Let's go and knock her up.'

With the Legionnaire at our head, we swarmed down the road to
Mme.
Olga's. In his excitement and anxiety Little John had completely forgotten his lack of clothes. Nothing, now, would have prevented him from leaving the villa, abandoning his horde of cigars and alcohol, and marching off in pursuit of the elusive whores. He swung naked down the road, and we cheered him on.

'This is it.'

The Legionnaire turned in at the gate of a rambling snow-white villa, which seemed to float above the earth like a wedding cake resting on a cloud of flowers. Ignoring the notice on the front door, which requested one please to knock before entering, the Legionnaire led us boldly in. We marched six abreast across a vast entrance hall tiled in marble, straight through to a salon where
Mme.
Olga was seated at an elegant writing desk, her bosoms flowing across it like tidal waves. She turned apprehensively at the noise of our footsteps. We must have sounded like a whole army on the march in that great echoing hall.