The Bloody Road to Death (31 page)

‘Jewish, perhaps!’ Zufall lets the question fall innocendy.

‘Couldn’t swear she wasn’t. But a drop or two of Jew blood ain’t for a man to turn his nose up at. It clears the thinking. An’ this Aryan certificate’ll soon be out of the way.’

‘You don’t believe in the final victory, then?’ asks Zufall with an odd note in his voice.

‘Do you?’ grins Wolf.

The gorillas at the door laugh with the rest of us. But they are not aware of what they are laughing at.

‘I do not wish to answer your question at this time,’ answers the Inspector, turning his head away.

When they arrive at staff HQ, the first person they meet is the QM, Zümfe. He rushes up to Wolf.

‘Jackal, hyena!’ he howls. ‘You’ll swing for this. How could you do it to me? I’ve always treated you well, you dirty bastard!’

‘I didn’t want to sell you the tea,’ Wolf affirms. ‘Quite the opposite. You threatened to confiscate it if I wouldn’t sell it to you. It’s your own headache you’ve sold it to the General Staff,
Who knows, you may even’ve mixed that shit-powder in it yourself. You look mean enough to’ve done it.’

‘You are my witness,’ shouts Toadface, gripping the police Inspector by the arm. This man is making false accusations against me? He is working for the Red Army and uses weapons forbidden by the Geneva Convention.’ He doesn’t get any farther. He has to make a run for the toilets. He unbuttons his trousers as he runs. All the seats are taken and with a despairing scream he dashes to the reserve toilets. These are all taken too. With both hands pressing the pink cheeks of his bottom tightly together, and with his trousers flapping down round his riding boots he rushes for an open window, where red roses sway in the breeze. Sighing he drops his backside out over the window edge. He sputters like a machine-gun in full swing.

It is a comical sight but nobody feels like laughing. Particularly when two red-tabbed generals come rushing in on one another’s heels and practically throw a major and an oberst-leutnant off their seats. In the German Army rank has its privileges, even in the toilets.

Porta and Wolf watch the gold-braided generals with interest. They are staring straight ahead with the dead eyes of zombies.

They look like a pair of drowned cats,’ Porta permits himself to remark.

‘Pity the bloke who thought of it couldn’t be here to see it,’ grins Wolf.

The Toad comes panting back. He has a few more things to say to Wolf.

‘You’re the wickedest man I’ve ever met,’ he sobs, waving a threatening fist under Wolf’s nose. ‘Do you realize I’ve been arrested because of your damned tea? No, no, not again!’ he howls, hopping away up the corridor. He falls into a seat next to the generals, pushing aside a rittmeister whom he outranks.

Tell me! Where does Generalfeldmarschall Model do
his
shittin’?’ asks Porta with interest.

‘He has had a toilet installed express in his office,’ explains Zufall, despondently. Thank God I didn’t taste any of that tea. I came close to it, but that snobbish bastard, the adjutant, refused
to allow me even a sip, and chased me out of the casino. He doesn’t like civil servants.’

‘If he’d only known there was shit-powder in it he’d ’ve forced you to drink a bucket of it!’ grins Wolf.

‘He’s got something else to think about now, that bastard,’ says Zufall, happily. ‘He’s shit himself unconscious.’

Porta and Wolf are taken to the Army secret police, which is in a state of feverish activity all aimed at finding out where the tea came from originally. After an hour of interrogation they are confined in separate cells. They pump the water out of the toilets and are able to talk to one another.

‘We’ll show those German shits that at least we know how to die, when they execute us,’ shouts Porta gloomily down into the empty w.c. bowl.

‘Yes, we got to keep our chins up,’ stammers Wolf, nervously. ‘Keep smilin’ an’ take defeat the way we took victory.’

‘Yes, it’s some consolation that this is the last and biggest defeat and shoot us dead more than once they can’t do,’ says Porta, with dignity.

After three days they agree to go on hunger strike, but after two days of this the guards come along with steaming bowls of brown beans with a large piece of pork floating in each bowl, and they have to give up.

‘My favourite food,’ says Porta, regretfully, and the contents of the bowl are inside his shrunken belly in the twinkling of an eye.

They plan an escape. Digging themselves out presents difficulties since they have only a wooden spoon each to do the job with. A crooked obergefreiter amongst the warders gets them a pair of hacksaws but before they even get started the whole affair is over. A thorough investigation has been made and the authorities feel they have found the solution. A British Lancaster MK II had been observed over the lines. There is proof it has dropped containers. The times fit those in Porta’s statement. The tea has come from England, or, at any rate, it has been dropped by the English.

‘You’ve been lucky,’ sighs Inspector Zufall, openly disappointed. He points to a row of carbines, as they walk down a long corridor, ‘Twelve of those are loaded and ready for you
two. I’ll be keeping an eye on you, and we’ll keep them loaded for a bit! I think we’re going to have a use for them.’

‘Faith can move mountains, they do say,’ says Porta virtuously, in a religious tone.

‘I consider you both to be my opponents, and I shall do my best to combat you,’ says Zufall, darkly.

‘Nice to know your enemies,’ smiles Porta.

They are taken before Generalfeldmarschall Model who has now recovered sufficiently from the tea to be able to hold his monocle in his eye again. He is a small man with a hard face, slim as a young girl. His personal courage is legendary, but there is a comically schoolmasterish air about him. He walks round them for ten minutes looking at them through his big monocle.

‘So that’s what you look like, is it?’ he begins, in his own special tone. He seems to spit words out as if he hated them.

‘Herr Generalfeldmarschall,
sir
!’ roar Porta and Wolf as if with one voice. They crack their heels together violently. They know that if they make a bad impression now, it’s the scrap-heap for them.

‘You’ve reached the limit!’ Model runs his fingers over his Knight’s Cross with oak leaves and sword.

‘Yes
sir
, Generalfeldmarschall,
sir
!’

‘If you have any of that terrible tea left I suggest you send it as a gift parcel to our Russian opponents.’

‘Yes
sir
, Herr Generalfeldmarschall,
sir
!

‘I ought to have you hung up by the heels . . .’

‘Yes
sir
, Herr Generalfeldmarschall,
sir
!’

‘But I intend to be merciful to you, since you are partially free from guilt in this tea party affair.’

‘Yes
sir
, Herr Generalfeldmarschall,
sir
!’ Porta nudges Wolf.

‘But there are some very nice things said about you in
these
!’ Model bangs his hand down on a pile of reports lying on the desk in front of him.

‘Yes
sir
, Herr Generalfeldmarschall,
sir
!’

‘Permission to speak, sir? One shouldn’t believe everything one hears, sir,’ says Porta hurriedly.

Model polishes his monocle and looks out of the window,
Then he turns round slowly, screws the monocle into his eye, and runs his finger again over his decorations and gold braid.

‘Has no one ever told you that the penalties for black market dealing are most severe? That death is one of them, in certain circumstances.’

Yes
sir
, Herr Generalfeldmarschall, sir, we have been told!’ It comes from them with one voice.

Model flexes his knees, walks round them a few times and looks at the adjutant who is standing as stiff as a wax dummy against the wall. He seats himself on the edge of his desk. He is so small that his feet do not reach the floor.

‘Your business methods are quite reminiscent of black market dealing.’

‘Permission to speak, sir,
no
sir, we do
not
have
anything
to do with the black market,
sir
,’ shouts Porta. ‘We do
not
touch ’ot things,
sir
, an’ we
never
go outside regulations,
sir
, an’,
sir
, we do not take big profits,
sir
!’

‘Do you consider me to be a fool?’

‘No
sir
, Herr Generalfeldmarschall,
sir
!’

‘It appears to me that you are trying to pull my leg! What are you laughing at, man!’

‘Permission to speak,
sir
, no,
sir
, not
laughing
, sir!’ Porta rattles it off. ‘Beg to state,
sir
, it’s my
nerves
, sir! When I’m scared,
sir
, I look like I’m laughing,
sir
. The MO,
sir
, says it’s like gallows ’umour,
sir
!’

‘Get out of my sight!’ orders the Feldmarschall, pointing to the door.

Safely outside they let out a long breath of relief. Smartly they salute a generalmajor who drags himself, pale and tor-tured-looking past them.

‘Jesus George,’ says Wolf, with relief. ‘
That
was a close ’un! Those English are a dirty lot o’ swine!’

‘It was a wicked thing to do to us,’ Porta admits, ‘but maybe we’ll get a chance to pay it back one of these days.’

They agree that it would be bad business to throw the remainder of the tea away. Wolf promises to give Porta twenty per cent, if he can get rid of it, but Porta demands fifty, with the guarantee that Wolf’s name won’t enter into it if things go wrong again.

Porta finds an Italian division, and in record time has sold the tea to a Quartermaster who is organizing transport of illegal goods to Milan in a big way.

‘I’d be packing my bags for a trip to Sweden, if I was you,’ says Gregor, darkly, when Porta tells them about the deal.

‘When them Spag’s start shittin’, boy, you’ll have the whole goddam Mafia breathin’ down your neck. I wouldn’t be
you
, son!’ says Buffalo.

For a while Porta is packed and ready to move off at the drop of a hat, then without warning the Italian QM turns up with nodding plumes in front of Wolf’s stores, where Porta is sitting drinking morning coffee.

Before he can make a move the Italian is by his side. But there is no danger. It isn’t the Mafia who have arrived in the cross-country Fiat but a delighted Italian who embraces him and kisses him on both cheeks. He is disappointed when he hears there is no more tea for sale.

‘You must get
more
of that so
wonderful
tea, Signor Porta!’ begs the befeathered Bersaglieri QM, bobbing his plumes in Porta’s face. ‘
Signor
comrade, I promise you. The Italian military good service order will look well on your chest!’

But Porta cannot supply any more tea. There is none to be had.

When the Italian has gone Wolf and Porta discuss the phenomenon. Porta comes to the conclusion that the English have used a highly refined laxative, so cleverly compounded, in fact, that it only works on Germans.

1
. Spiess: Slang for the German equivalent of a CSM.

2
. Stalin: See
Legion of the Damned
.

3
. Padre Corps: See
Wheels of Terror
.

4
. See:
Legion of the Damned
.

5
. Even though death walks by our side,
Walks with us up and down.
Even though winds blow through the ride,
For us the sun ne’er goes down.

‘
Hitler is true to nobody. In a few years time he will also have betrayed you, Herr Generaloberst
!’

General Ludendorff to Generaloberst von Fritsch
,
Spring, 1936
.

Himmler looks coldly at ‘Gestapo Müller’ as he reports to him that SS-Obergruppenführer Heydrich has been seriously wounded in an assassination attempt at Prague and has been admitted to the Bülow Hospital
.

‘
He is alive?’ whispers Himmler hoarsely, and clenches his hands until the knuckles become dark blue. ‘I will fly to Prague immediately! Make the arrangements! Send Kaltenbrunner to me!
’

‘
Very good, Herr Reichsführer!
’

Teleprinters heated up. The telephone services were blocked with calls. A state of emergency was proclaimed in Prague. Hundreds of arrests were made. It is as if a wasps’ nest had been stirred with a stick
.

In RSHA
¹
on Prinz Albrechtstrasse when the news comes through, all hell breaks loose. With screaming sirens and warning lights blinking, Himmler’s black Mercedes rushes across Berlin to the Tempelhofer Airport
.

‘
I must get to Prague first,’ he thinks, and slaps his gloves impatiently on his long black riding-boots
.