The Commissar (5 page)

‘This beats everything,’ shouts the Old Man, in a rage. ‘Leaving their post in the waggon during battle! This is the worst thing they’ve done yet!’

‘I’ll swear to it for you,’ offers Heide, his face lighting up. ‘Desertion in the face of the enemy. That’s the charge!’

‘You shut your trap, you!’ orders the Old Man, grinding his teeth together. He puts his head up cautiously over the rim of the turret to try to get a sight of the turkey hunters.

‘It is your duty to charge them, so that those two can go before a court-martial,’ shouts Heide, his bloodthirsty non-com mentality coming to the fore.

‘I told you to shut up,’ hisses the Old Man. He draws his P-38 from its holster. ‘
Do
it, or I’ll shoot your head off for refusing to comply with an order.’

‘You gone nuts over there?’ comes Barcelona’s voice scratchily over the communicator. ‘
Cojones
^*
, they’ve got ’em! Let’s get this caper over with quick so we can get our chops round some roast turkey!’

‘Beg to report two prisoners taken,’ cries Porta, jubilantly, as he crawls back through the driver’s hatch with the maddened Russian turkeys dangling from his hand.

In a moment the whole interior of the tank seems to be filled with panic-stricken turkeys. Wings flap across our faces like whip-lashes. Blood is running down Tiny’s cheek from a turkey’s pecking beak.

‘’Elp!’ he howls. ‘The sod’s tryin’ to
eat
me.
Shoot
’im!’

The terrified turkey flies up onto Heide’s back and begins to hammer away at the back of his head as if it were trying to peck its way through to the other side. He screams in shock
and pain, and thrashes at it with his fists.

‘Fanatics, that’s what these two are,’ cries Porta, desperately. He aims a blow at one of the turkeys, which seems to be running completely amuck.

‘I can’t stand any more of it,’ sobs the Old Man, bending over the turret rim despairingly. ‘Dear God above, help me to go far, far away, far away from 2 Section! What have I done to deserve so hard a punishment?’

The communicator scratches and howls.

‘What in the name of heaven have you stopped for, Beier?’ comes the company commander, Oberleutnant Löwe’s, angry voice. ‘Get on, damn it, man, or you’ll be for it. It’s always your cursed section that’s out of step. Clear that road-block away at the bridge, and clean out the nests. Take care, now. The area’s mined. But
get on
with it, gentlemen!’

He pauses for a moment to get his breath. ‘You’re the lead, Beier. You and that shitty section of yours, that I’d like to see slowly roasting in hell. Your job is to go – and to
keep on going
. You stop and everything else stops. The Divisional Commander wants this job over fast, repeat fast!’

‘Rotten rat-race,’ mumbles the Old Man angrily. He peeps cautiously over the turret rim. ‘The bridge,’ he hisses. ‘But fast!’

‘Two more dead un’s for the list,’ grins Tiny, proudly, holding up the two dead turkeys.

‘2 Section follow me,’ the Old Man says into the communicator. He is so angry we can hear the sound of his teeth grinding.

‘What you mad at?’ asks Tiny, looking up at him with his head on one side. ‘You’re gonna get ’ot roast turkey with all the trimmin’s, just like it was
really
Christmas. Enjoy the war, the peace’ll be terrible! There won’t be no parties ’eld in the synagogues for us thousand-year soldiers.’

Porta pulls to a halt just before the bridge and falls back resignedly in his seat.

‘The tour makes a temporary stop here,’ he says, with a
short laugh. ‘The neighbours’ve dropped half a forest across the road. Call the Pioneers. That’s what
they’re
for.’

‘They don’t give a damn for us,’ snarls the Old Man. ‘Two of you get out and sling a wire round those tree-trunks so’s we can pull ’em out of the way.’

‘Not me,’ cackles Porta. ‘The driver is not to be used for any work other than driving, and is to be rested on every possible occasion. I’m bein’ rested!’

‘Julius and Sven! Outside! Quick’s the word,
please
!’

Super-soldier Heide is out of the tank in a flash. I hesitate before opening the hatch and leaving the protection of the tank’s steel walls. There one is safe from the bullets and hand-grenades of the infantry at least. The air outside hums with the sound of them, like a nest of angry wasps.

‘What if the neighbours attack us?’ I ask nervously when I am outside.

‘That’s an easy one,’ grins Porta, racing his motor. ‘We go into reverse. The 1000-year Reich didn’t entrust us with this valuable tank to let any silly sod of a neighbour go smashin’ it up. Far as you two are concerned you can be proud an’ happy. You’ll fall like heroes, an’
Grofaz
’ll send your families a postcard.
Heil! Sieg
!’

We look up fearfully at the rough sides of the tank as Porta crashes the hatch cover shut.

‘Cowardly swine,’ hisses Heide bitterly, as the Old Man follows Porta’s example and closes the turret hatch.

‘The vaunted heroic death comes to us in a dirty snowdrift,’ I whisper to myself.

‘What the hell are you mumbling about?’ snarls Julius, staring at me. We take cover behind the huge tree-trunks, and work feverishly to get the wires into place.

I cannot be bothered to answer him. He would never understand, anyway, with his
herrenvolk
mentality.

Tracer from the turret MG whines over our heads, drawing firefly chains into the Russian tank defence positions. In a hail of whistling shrapnel fragments we finally manage to make the tow-wire fast around the first of the treetrunks.
We haul the wire after us to the tank and loop it over the tow-hooks. Our hands are cut to pieces, and blood drips from our fingertips. I drop the wire for a second to blow on my mutilated hands. Heide explodes into a howl of rage.

‘You lazy pig. Letting me do all the work.’ He rips his pistol from its holster, and points it at me with outstretched arms, like a film actor. ‘Get up, you cardboard soldier, or I’ll shoot your head off!’

At that moment I hate him so much it hurts, the puffed-up shit. How annoyingly pompous he looks, standing there tall and slim, with lips so thin they are almost invisible, and icy-cold, blue eyes. Not even the newest war-mad recruit could be so regimentally correctly dressed as Julius. When it came to it what did he know more than a recruit does? Nothing!

Raging I climb back onto my feet, murderous thoughts whirling through my brain. I know Heide is crazy enough to really shoot me if I don’t get up quickly. And worst of all he would get away with it.

The Maybachs howl in top output, and the wire is drawn tight as a violin-string. After several attempts the logs begin to roll. We jump like madmen to avoid being crushed by them.

A Russian MG sweeps the road with a short burst. Bullets ricochet, howling, from the steel sides of the tank. It sounds as if a group of drummers have suddenly run amuck on their instruments.

We have almost finished clearing the road-block, and look forward to getting back to the safety of the tank when Heide gives a yell, and goes down into the ditch in one long spring. He slides like a bulldozer through the gruel of ice and water in its bottom.

‘Mines!’ he screams.

I stand gaping, out on the road between two enormous logs, without understanding a word. I see a large grey-red box with Cyrillic lettering on it. A lever sticks up vertically
into the air. The mine is armed and ready to explode. For a moment I am completely paralysed.

Our tank is rolling backwards at full speed. Porta has obviously also seen the wicked piece of machinery which is waiting to spread death and destruction on all sides.

Suddenly I am on my own in the middle of a tangle of great tree-trunks and wrecked trucks. I stare, as if hypnotized, at the flat grey-red instrument of death. Then I come alive again.

‘Mines!’ I yell, ‘mines!’ As if they didn’t know it. When the lead vehicle runs into mines, the news travels back fast.

I throw myself face-down into a large, half-frozen puddle, and hardly notice the water running down into my felt boots. Soon it will turn to ice and my feet will begin to burn like fire.

‘God help me,’ I pray. ‘Help me! Don’t leave me to die here!’

There is complete silence. Even the heavy Maxims have ceased firing. It seems as if the whole world has stopped dead. As if the war is holding its breath and waiting for the mine to go off.

An eternity goes by, and still nothing happens. It should have exploded long ago. A count of five is usually enough. I have already counted to thirty-five.

The turret hatch opens slowly, and the Old Man’s head appears.

‘Get off your arses, you weary warriors. Get rid of that mine.’

‘You must be off your rocker,’ Heide shouts back furiously. ‘You can see the bastard’s got delayed-action fuses.’

‘Shut up, and obey my order,’ shouts the Old Man, impatiently. ‘Get that thing out of our way, and I mean
now
. I don’t care if it’s got
ten
delayed-action fuses. I want it out of the way! D’you think they’ll stop the war just because you lot trip over a mine?’

Porta peers cautiously through the driver’s observation slit.

‘What’re you playin’ at? Don’t you
want
to get your heroic names on the big porous stone in front of the barracks at Paderborn? Very big honour that is, let me tell you. A great, national reward!’

I lift my head and take a look at the strange menacing thing. The lever points up in the air like a warning finger. I take a grip on the insulated pliers in my pocket, and ready myself to crawl over to the mine and dismantle it. It is at times like this that a man feels he never should have taken that bomb-disposal course.

The next moment everything disappears in a roaring jet of flame. Pieces of logs whirl through the air and rain down everywhere. I am totally deaf for several minutes, and feel as if my insides have been squeezed by a giant hand. Two minutes later and there would not have been a shred of me left. But the road-block has gone.

We jump up onto the tank as it comes rattling past.

‘Nice job you did, there,’ the Old Man praises us, with an approving smile. ‘Speed up, Porta, give it more gas. We’ve a long way to go yet!’

‘Yes, if it’s China we’re headed for that
is
a bit of a way off,’ grins-Porta, exuberantly.

‘China?’ mumbles Tiny, racking shells in the ammunition locker. ‘Ain’t that the place where they eat with sticks an’ fatten up on rice? Let’s get movin’. I can’t think of anythin’ better’n boiled rice with tiny ’errings.’

‘I can give you the address of a good eating-house in Pekin,’ grins Porta, putting on speed.

The armoured division rolls relentlessly on, pushing deeply into the Ukraine. Many fall, more are mutilated. The landscape is grim. The grey coldness of a Russian winter is approaching. Tanks rattle and roar through sooty-black villages, plough past huge piles of coal. We do not see a single tree. Vegetation, grass, all green things are gone. Not the least trace, even, of the much vaunted sunflower fields is left. The wild madness of war has eaten up everything in its path. Omnivorously.

The company halts for an hour before a middle-sized provincial town. We have never heard the name of it before. A Russian armoured division has taken it over and turned the town into a hedgehog defensive position. Then our Stukas come roaring out of the grey, snow-filled clouds with sirens howling relentlessly’. Heavy bombs whirl down through the air. One swarm of dive-bombers follows the other. The town disappears from the face of the earth –
ausradiert
as they say in the propaganda programmes.

Then the tanks pass over what is left of it, killing everything left alive and crushing the dead to pulp under their tracks.

When we reach the next town the Stukas have already visited it, and prepared it for the taking. The dust of pulverized bricks and mortar hangs like a red-grey cloud in the air. Artillery and Cossack horses lie in the shattered streets, stiff-legged and with swollen bodies. Guns lying on their side, wrecked lorries and mountains of tangled equipment, are scattered amongst heaps of bodies. Dead and wounded Russian soldiers lie against walls, or hang from gaping window openings.

Dispassionately we stare at the bloody scene. It has become an everyday sight. In the beginning we puked and felt sick to our stomachs. It is a long time since any of us puked.

‘That’s the way to take a town,’ shouts Julius Heide, enthusiastically. He leans triumphantly out of the forward hatch. With a jeering smile he stares at a Russian soldier sitting up against a wall and looking blankly at his crushed legs.

‘You’re wearin’ the wrong uniform,’ says Porta. ‘You talk like those puffed-up arseholes in the shit-brown uniforms, an’ the yellow leather equipment to hold their fat guts in. You’re a shit of shits, you are, Julius! You’re blinded by your crazy belief in the Führer. I really think you’d be glad if one of the shit-brown sods knocked on your mother’s door one day an’ screamed: “Heil Hitler, Frau Heide! Your son,
Unteroffizier Julius Heide, has fallen for the Führer and Greater Germany! We feel for you in your proud sorrow, Frau Heide! The Führer thanks you!’”

‘Old Man, you are my witness,’ explodes Heide, in a rage. ‘This is an insult. I will not stand for it!’