The Commissar (12 page)

We throw ourselves flat, as their artillery lays a carpet of fire over the large park.

With fear gripping at my entrails I press myself down into a small stream, without knowing how I have got there. I don’t even feel the coldness of the water, or hear the ice cracking under me. Huge shells fall behind me. A burning house crashes in on itself.

I realize I must get away from the stream. The artillery will centre in on the burning row of houses behind which I am lying.

Immediately after the next rain of shells I jump to my feet and rush straight across the road through the park. I throw myself down, senselesly, into a shell-hole which still stinks of iron and powder smoke. The shelling rises to a furious crescendo. It is as if the entire world is being turned inside out.

They are using everything they’ve got. Field-guns, howitzers, mortars, tank and infantry weapons. The mortars are the worst. They come almost silently and explode with a wicked sound. I am so frightened I feel like screaming, and running away as fast as my legs can carry me. But I have been long enough in this filthy war to know it would be certain death if I did. I force myself further down into the narrow shell-hole, making myself as small as possible. I rest my chin on the butt of my machine-pistol.

A shell falls not far away from me. My steel helmet is pushed back by the blast. I am unconscious for a second. The helmet strap has almost strangled me. My brain feels empty. My hands are cold as ice. It seems an eternity before life flows slowly back into me.

Now the tanks come. They are not far from my shell-hole. I hear the rattle of their tracks. T-34s and the enormous KW-2s speed through the park. The screams of men dying under their treads cut through the noise.

I hear German machine-guns firing madly, sending glowing lines of tracer through the darkness.

Five or six flares explode in the heavens, and turn the night to a ghostly, pale sort of day.

I look up cautiously and catch sight of the T-34s on their way through the park, alongside the path. Infantrymen can be clearly seen sitting up behind on the tanks.

Now the anti-tank guns start up. When the 88 mms go off, the sound is that of a huge steel door clanging shut.

A T-34 explodes in a ball of fire; another one goes up.

I hear tracks rattling close to my shell-hole, and the ticking ring of an Otto engine.

A T-34 stops close by, and I feel the warmth of its exhaust
blow down over me. It is so close I could put out my hand and touch its tracks.

My heart almost stops beating from fear. Shivering with terror I bore my fingers into the earth and try to get even closer to it. The T-34’s gun goes off, and it feels as if my head is about to burst open. The force of the explosion is impossible to describe. A tank-gun is the devil’s own personal invention.

An Unteroffizier from 3 Section arrives at a run. A machinegun burst from the T-34 rips across his chest. He is smashed over backwards. The LMG flies from his hands, his steel helmet following it.

A Fahnenjunker runs, limping like a winged bird. He stops, and stares in panic at the huge, armoured colossus. The tank-gun flames again. The Junker falls forward like a log.

I think for a moment that he is dead, but there is still life in him. His fingers claw at the earth and he begins to crawl slowly towards my hole.

‘No,’ I whisper. ‘Not here. If the tank sees him, we’re
both
finished!’

Engines howl, and the T-34 begins to move forward slowly, the earth shaking under its steel tracks.

The tracks come slowly towards me, cowering there in my shell-hole. Feverishly I tie two grenades together to make a heavier charge.

The T-34 swivels halfway round. Its tracks throw earth and stones high in the air. They rain down on me.

The tank slides sideways down into a ditch. I am about to throw the grenades, when it turns half round again on its own axis, and rattles toward the Fahnenjunker. He presses himself down, desperately, behind a large round stone, then gets halfway to his feet. The tank knocks him back down and crushes him under its tracks. A bloody pool is all that is left of him.

The T-34 makes off with a thunder of engines. It smashes over a wooden bridge, which collapses under its weight in a
rain of splintered planks and beams. Two infantry men, who were hiding under the bridge, are crushed into an unrecognizable mass.

How long I run before I come to a halt I never know. I have lost all idea of the passage of time. My knees tremble under me; my thigh muscles are hard and knotted. My mouth feels as if it were full of sand. In a panic I spring across the ditch, and push my way through the bushes lining it.

Porta catches me by the ankle, and I fall forward.

‘Calm down,’ he says, easily. ‘It’s not
that
bad. The neighbours are just pointin’ out to us that they’re still around. They don’t want us to go thinking we’ve won the war just yet!’

‘Where’s the Old Man?’ I ask, breathlessly.

‘Lying over there, enjoying the cool of the evening together with the rest of the boys. We didn’t get off too badly, but there’s not a button left of 3 Section, and they say the division’s got its balls shot off. Arse-an’-Pockets has made a real mess of this one!’

The Old Man comes sliding down between the rose beds, with Gregor at his heels.

‘We’ve got to get through now,’ says the Old Man, breathlessly. ‘Ivan’s over on this side with all his pots an’ pans. Half the division’s got the shit shot out of it. Let’s move. Go down behind that furniture factory. There’s a bit more room there.’

‘There’s tanks behind us,’ I put in. ‘Both T-34s and KW-2s, and they’re banging away like mad.’

‘Sod
them
,’ snarls the Old Man. ‘Don’t look at ’em. We’ve
got
to get through.’

‘Tiny,’ he calls, softly.

‘’Ere I am!’ answers Tiny, avalanching down past the rosebeds.

‘Got the stovepipe
*
still?’ asks the Old Man.

‘Too right,’ grins Tiny, ‘
an
’ a packet o’ acid drops for it. Its Dad’s Day in Russia y’know!’

Barcelona looks over the top of the roses. ‘Adjutant’s just been here. Wants us to work our bloody way up to the sunk road.’

‘That clever sod could make a pancake without breakin’ eggs,’ snarls Porta, furiously. ‘
This
feller’s not goin’ anywhere near any sunken, rotten road. All the bloody Red Army’ll be goin’ that way an’ll shoot us full of holes. Those people from the officer factory’ll kill the lot of us before they’ve done!’

‘We’re going back,’ says the Old Man, getting to his feet with his mpi at the ready.

‘Follow me!’ he orders, jumping over the roses.

Suddenly I begin to feel the cold, and the water which has seeped into my boots.

‘Heavens above, but I’m
cold
,’ I mumble, pulling my collar up around my ears.

‘You’ll soon get warmed up,’ grins Porta.

‘Spread out, blast your eyes,’ commands the Old Man. ‘How often do I have to
tell
you. Don’t crowd together!’

Behind us we can hear the rumble of the field-guns, and, in between the sharp crack of tank-guns.

Two tanks are on fire. Tall flames shoot up from them. One of them explodes in a rain of red-hot steel splinters.

A Russian in a flapping brown cloak rushes past us with his long queerly-shaped bayonet fixed.

I raise my machine-pistol and send a short burst into his back. He gives out a long, ululating scream, and his rifle and bayonet fly from his hands.

I follow the others down a partly overgrown path, jump over a wrecked anti-tank gun and go head over heels down a steep flight of steps.

‘Keep your distance,’ shouts the Old Man. ‘You want to all get killed at the same time? Spread out, you rotten sacks, spread
out
!’

‘Mines,’ shouts Barcelona, warningly, stopping short as if he had run into a wall. ‘Mines,’ he says again, standing as if rooted to the ground. He is in deadly fear of mines, having been blown up by them several times. Even though these
experiences occurred a long time ago, he has never forgotten them.

The whole section has stopped. It is best not to think too much about mines. It can stop you moving forward altogether.

‘Get on, get on,’ the Old Man shouts, giving me a push.

A flare bursts above our heads. The 25 men of our section turn into 25 statues. We stand, for several minutes, defenceless, bathed in its deathly white glow. Protecting darkness falls around us. The night seems to be filled with running, leaping figures; everywhere is confusion. We run around in the dark, Russians and Germans together. Hand-grenades are thrown into houses. Wounded and dying soldiers scream shrilly.

In the middle of the street a T-34 spins wildly round. It explodes in a blinding flash of light.

From the centre of the town come explosions and the noise of battle.

‘Hope they don’t smash up Tanya’s place with all their shooting,’ says Porta, worriedly.

‘P’raps it’s the commissar, on his way to pick up his woman,’ says Gregor, with a short, sad laugh.

‘It’s all a fart in a colander,’ sighs Porta. ‘The longer I live the more I realize that the only thing of value anybody’s got, is his own poor, rotten life.’

We throw ourselves down, tiredly, behind a small hillock.

‘Ducks!’ cries Porta, assuming his pointer attitude. He is right. The quiet quacking of a flock of ducks can just be distinguished.

‘If we can get hold of a couple of ’em, I’ll do you duck an’ Portuguese rice,’ he promises, licking his lips hungrily at the thought. ‘It’s a feast for the Gods! First you take some rice – that
is
when you’ve got your ducks – then some onions they’re easy enough to find – and so is a bunch o’ carrots. Finally some tomatoes, oil, salt an’ pepper. The rice has to be boiled in duck-fat, adding water slowly as it comes to the boil, says the recipe, but I prefer wine to water. Smooth out
the rice nice an’ even, an’ lay your portions of duck carefully on top of it. Then, chop your tomatoes fine together with the onions and spread ’em out over the whole thing. I tell you, my sons, the aroma is that beautiful you’d think it was a Christmas Eve before the war.’

‘Shut your trap, man,’ snarls Albert viciously, from the darkness. ‘You make everybody more hungry than he is, just listenin’ to you talk.’

‘Shut it the
lot
of you,’ snarls the Old Man, in turn. ‘Ivan’s smack in front of us!’ He takes his cold pipe from his mouth, and beckons me over to him. ‘Listen good, now’ he whispers. ‘You go first over the stream, but quietly as possible, understand? The rest of us’ll wheel round in an arc behind the ruins over there.’

‘Why me?’ I protest, nervously.

‘Because I say so,’ answers the Old Man, nastily. ‘Get off with you! But keep your ears open and send up a green flare if you run into the neighbours.’

The ducks scatter, quacking, in front of me, as I wade cautiously into the cold water. The icy teeth of it bite into me. After a few minutes I can no longer feel my fingers. I stop for a moment by a deserted MG position, and pour water out of my boots. They’re the most stupid boots in the world, these German leather dice-cups. I wish the devil had the genius who invented them. The Russian puttee over a shorter boot is a thousand times better. Our boots are only good for goose-stepping in.

Behind a large farmhouse I meet the section again.

‘Spread out,’ orders the Old Man, waving his mpi at us as if we were a flock of hens he was shooing out of his way.

Cursing we crawl between bramble hedges. The thorns tear our skin, and it hurts more than ever because we are so cold.

‘You two stay here,’ the Old Man turns to Gregor and me. ‘But don’t, for God’s sake, start shooting all over the place. Fire only at muzzle-flashes. Albert! Crawl over to that turnip heap, and cover the house, but God help you if
you make a noise! They’re here, an’ we can count on ’em being frightened all to hell. Frightened people’ve got sharp ears an’ sharp eyes, and they let off at any sound they hear.’

‘I’m frightened all to hell, too, man,’ whines Albert, piteously. ‘Jesus but I’m frightened! Think of gettin’ knocked off here. And the little I’ve got out of my short life.’

A hoarse, stifled cough, out in the darkness, makes us start and listen shakily.

Like a couple of snakes the Old Man and Barcelona glide away over the wide field.

Porta presses his face down into his cupped hands to stop himself sneezing, while Albert puts both hands to his ears in terror.

Porta draws his breath in deeply a few times and smiles happily, at having succeeded in stifling his sneeze. It would have been a catastrophe. It doesn’t need much to set the guns going off at you, when you are lying right under the noses of the other army.

A loud sneeze comes from the pig-sty. It is followed up by three or four more, sounding loud as gunshots in the night.

‘Ivan’s as snotty-nosed as we are,’ whispers Porta pityingly. ‘Shame for him, it is.’

‘It’s this rotten war that’s to blame,’ mumbles Gregor sourly. ‘If you don’t get your turnip shot off, you catch all sorts of aches an’ pains. I hurt all over, and I can’t get a pill even for any of it. And they talk about human rights. A feller’s hardly started living before they get hold of him and knock every single, individual trace of a thought out of his head. I’ll never forget Paust, the Feldwebel I was a rookie under. He’d got a face as red as a lobster, and his breath stunk like a shithouse. He had gaps between his teeth, an’ the teeth were yellow as ripe cheese. I was dumb enough to jump to one side instead of catchin’ a fuckin’ dummy gun he threw at me.