The Bloody Road to Death (44 page)

The Crow disappears with an earshattering roar. We see nothing of the tanks.

When the Crow is out of earshot we continue, skirting the edge of the forest. The road disappears in the end in tall grass but the earth is so firm that we are able to keep moving.

Suddenly a huge shadow falls across us. It is the Crow, gliding along with motors cut off.

The pilot sees us and begins to drop bombs. Shrapnel tears great holes in both trucks.

We fly helter-skelter into the shelter of the trees. Tiny has the MG at his shoulder ready to fire at the Crow when it returns.

‘We’ll stop
his
farting in church for him,’ hisses the Old Man, tight-lipped.

There he is!’ shouts Porta, pointing.

‘I’ve got him!’ roars Tiny, pressing the butt into his shoulder.

All three MG’s fire simultaneously. A long row of smoke-tracks bore themselves into the pilot, who falls forward. The machine wobbles and puts its nose straight up into the air. The pilot is thrown back.

Joyfully we watch his death flight. There is not a soldier in the Army who doesn’t hate the Crows.

The plane flies straight into the tall tree-tops and seconds later the silence is torn by a gigantic explosion. Bombs, petrol, everything on board the Crow, goes up in one blinding sheet of flame. A yellowy-red finger of fire shoots up over the forest and changes to a great black mushroom of smoke.

‘One Communist less,’ says Heide, folding the MG supporting legs together.

‘Climb aboard!’ orders the Old Man. ‘Let’s get on. It won’t be long before those tanks are after us.’

A little later we turn in to the forest. The grass comes halfway up the sides of the trucks.

‘Let’s hope there’s not a tree trunk across the road,’ mumbles Porta, nervously.

‘If there
is
we’ll turn a somersault that’d sure be worth big money in a circus,’ considers Buffalo.

We drive along the Sehtschara, circle Selwa and disappear
into the Bialowiejer forest. Now the road becomes impossible. Brambles have grown together to make tunnels down which we drive, despite the strong autumn sun, in a sinister green twilight. Even Rasputin does not like it. He becomes hard to handle when a herd of wild pigs crosses our path at the gallop and disappears into the forest.

Tiny is going to shoot at them but the Old Man forbids it.

‘You silly sods,’ he rates us, when we agree with Tiny. ‘Start shooting and we’ll bring the whole of the Red Army down on us. Not forgetting that there are large partisan units in these forests!’

We can only move at all now by using the booster gear. We are continually having to navigate round large holes and up over steep inclines. The engines are boiling.

We stop for a moment. In the distance we can hear the roar of heavy motors. The tanks are on our track.

‘So the Crow
was
in touch with those four bastards,’ says Tango, scratching his thin chest nervously.

‘Bad shit,’ says Tiny, looking back in the direction of the deep rumbling.

‘Now they’ve got you!’ says the commissar, triumphantly. ‘As soon as you took to the forest you’d had it!’

‘Shut your trap, you dirty bleedin’ traitor,’ hisses Tiny, pricking him with his combat knife, ‘or just maybe the bear’d like your liver for bleedin’ hors d’oeuvres!’

‘Cut his ears off,’ suggests Porta. ‘He won’t listen to what we tell him, anyway, so what does he need ears for?’

‘You’ll find out soon,’ jeers the commissar, ‘soon you’ll be finding out what it’s like being dragged behind those tanks!’

‘Old ’un, let me turn this shit off,’ shouts Porta, angrily.

The Old Man does not reply.

Now we can hear the noise of the. tanks even above our own engine noise. They are gaining on us steadily and we are easy to track. Our broad tyre marks show clearly in the damp ground.

‘Can’t you go faster?’ shouts Buffalo, nervously.

‘Sure, son,’ grins Porta,’ but you’d fall off!’

‘’Ow much bleedin’ further to ’ome?’ asks Tiny, impatiently.

‘A damn long way yet,’ answers the Old Man, moodily.

Porta brakes the truck so sharply that the Old Man flies forward over the bonnet. If the windshield had not been down he would surely have broken his neck.

Porta has stopped the truck at the last moment, on the very brink of a cliff. We sit semi-paralysed, gaping down into the depths below us.

‘So far and no farther,’ sighs the Old Man, quite worn out.

He is right. It is impossible to turn the truck and even more impossible to go round this enormous gap. Behind us the sinister rumble of the motors has become louder. Every moment the tanks are closing on us.

‘Empty the trucks,’ orders the Old Man, ‘at the double now, lads!’

We snatch up hand-grenades and ammunition, load all magazines. Luckily there are two automatic loaders in the truck and we get it done fast.

‘Into the woods,’ orders the Old Man, ‘spread out!’

Porta and Tango pour petrol over both the personnel waggons, throw the empty cans into the cabin and dash to cover amongst the brambles just as the first of the tanks noses it’s way round the bend. It is an old Landsverk 30.

‘Where the devil did they get
that
from?’ whispers the Old Man, wonderingly. ‘Far as I know they haven’t been to war with Sweden long as tanks’ve existed?’

‘No, but with Finland,’ answers Heide, who knows everything. ‘The Nyeland Dragoon Regiment had them on trial.’

The Landsverk sends a long MG burst above the trucks in the belief that we have taken cover on the other side of the ravine. Bullets smoke their way with a thud into the trees.

Two BA-64’s round the curve. They are close together, a proof that they are inexperienced. A little behind them comes the most dangerous of them, a Humber Mk II. The turret flies up and an officer examines the ground cautiously.

‘A
Starschi Leitenant
²¹
,’ says Porta. ‘He must be tired of living, the way he opens his turret before he knows where we are.’

‘He’s probably been brainwashed that much by the Commie buddies, he doesn’t know what day it is,’ reckons Buffalo.

21
. First lieutenant.

‘They shouldn’t use such strong soap for washin’ brains with,’ says Tiny, seriously, pushing off the safety catch of the MG.

‘Shut it,’ whispers the Old Man.

The Russian platoon leader has trained his glasses straight on us.

The trapdoors of the other tanks clang open. A fat sergeant crawls, with difficulty, from the Landsverk.

‘They’ve got away,’ he shouts, annoyedly. ‘They’ll have cut the
Hromo’fs
throat by now!’

‘Good luck to ’em then,’ shouts a warrant officer from the leading BA-64.

Tiny nudges the commissar, who has again been gagged with a cap.

‘Your bleedin’ comrades don’t seem to like you. Thats ’ow it goes with all wicked men! You get pissed on, an’ you don’t even know it!’

The commissar sends him a killing look.

The lieutenant lifts his arm and the motors stop. All four tank commanders jump down and saunter over to the deserted personnel lorries.

‘The German dogs have poured petrol over them but haven’t had time to set them on fire,’ says the lieutenant and laughs aloud.

‘Here’s
Hromoj’s
cap,’ shouts a corporal, holding up the commissar’s green cap. ‘Let’s hope they manage to liquidate the bastard, before we get our hands on them!’

Tiny nudges the commissar again, and nods encouragingly.

‘Real comrades o’yours, ain’t they?’

The Old Man holds up a magnetic mine. The Legionnaire nods his understanding and sneaks over to the nearest tank. Porta and I are to take care of the two which arrived last. I am afraid of the Humber and Porta takes it. Heide crawls towards the Landsverk.

The Old Man disappears into the thick brambles with the rest of the section.

I am only two yards away from the rearmost BA-64. All the doors are wide open. As long as I get to it unseen there will be no problem in putting the mine through one of the open doors.

The Legionnaire is over by the tracks of his tank. In two jumps I get to mine and throw the charge through the trap.

The explosion is terrible. Blast throws me through the air and bangs me up against a large tree. A torn-off tank turret buries itself in the ground beside me.

Half a man is smeared across it. For a few seconds I lose consciousness.

Machine-guns chatter all around me. The section opens fire at the four amazed commanders standing by the trucks. They disappear in a sea of flame. It was a good idea of Porta’s to soak the trucks in petrol.

‘See,’ says Tiny exultingly to the commissar, as we stand by the glowing wrecks. ‘Our German God looks after
us
all right, don’t ’e?’

‘You’ll never make it,’ snarls the commissar, stubbornly. ‘You’ve still got to cross the Pripjet Marshes!’

‘We’ll manage,’ boasts Porta. ‘We got our training with the special swamp trolls commando.’

‘Idiot,’ sneers the commissar. His Saxon dialect irritates us enormously.

Gregor advises him to learn proper German before he is dragged in front of a court-martial.

‘All Saxons are traitors,’ considers Heide, striking out at the commissar, who ducks the blow.

‘Leave him be,’ orders the Old Man. ‘You can volunteer for the execution squad when the court-martial has sentenced him.

‘And you call that justice?’ jeers the commissar. ‘Sentence a man before his case has even begun!’

‘Yes, and that kind of justice we learnt from you Soviet pigs,’ shouts Buffalo, making an easily-understood sign with his finger across his throat.

We slide down the steep slopes and cross the bottom of the ravine.

The Old Man chases us hard. He wants us as far away from the smashed armour as possible. He feels sure they have kept in continual radio contact with their parent unit.

We make camp when darkness falls, and sleep through the night and most of the next day. In the distance we can hear security units combing the woods.

The commissar listens, his eyes wide. He is like everyone else and clutches at the slightest hope. He will not accept the fact that we will kill him before we are captured, even though Tiny constantly lets him sniff at his long, pointed combat knife.

Everything superfluous is jettisoned so that we can move faster. The darkness is so thick that we can only see a few inches in front of us. The moss we walk on absorbs every sound. Where we are marching all is silence. Not even the call of a bird, nor the croak of a frog.

I am afraid of having lost the others and stop for a moment. Buffalo runs into me, and the machine-gun mounting.

‘What the hell are you standin’ here for, boy?’ he whispers angrily, rubbing himself. ‘Throw that goddam thing away!’

The Old Man ordered me to bring it along,’ I whisper back.

‘He’s a goddam sadist,’ says Buffalo.

We move along silently over the thick moss. We feel as if we are walking on heavy rubber. Suddenly I run into the back of a man.

‘
Mushyk sstarashyt borof
²²
!’ he shouts, irritably.

Without a word I push my combat knife up into his back. He makes a rattling noise and collapses. I stab him again. He must not, above all, be allowed to alarm the other sentries who must be posted all about us.

‘Ivan!’ I whisper in horror to Gregor, who is just behind me.

There is no doubt that the Russian sentry thought I was a comrade stationed close by.

We lie, still as mice, beside the body. Warm blood runs across my hands. ‘Alex, what’s the matter?’ comes a nervous voice from the darkness.

Gregor disappears in under the leaves. There is a short frightened cry. Then everything is quiet again.

Gregor has cut his throat.

‘Filthy job,’ he whispers, wiping the combat knife on his trousers. ‘Must’ve had
hundreds
of gallons of blood in him!’

‘Alex, Pjotr, keep your cursed mouths shut!’ roars a hoarse voice from the brush. ‘You know damn well those German swine are coming this way! When we’ve caught ’em you two stupid bastards can shout all you want!’

‘Get him!’ orders the Old Man.

Porta and the Legionnaire are swallowed up by the darkness.;

Shortly after a horrified scream rings through the forest. Another one. It dies away in a long gurgle.

The section drops flat and holds its breath.

‘Those two have sodded it up,’ snarls the Old Man, viciously.

‘Probably cut ’is prick off first,’ Tiny grins, hollowly.

‘He saw us before we could finish him,’ explains Porta, emerging from the brush. ‘Let’s get moving! They’ll have heard that howl back in Moscow!’

‘People ought to learn ’ow to control themselves when they’re bein’ killed,’ declares Tiny aloud.

‘You’ll never get through,’ states the commissar, maliciously.