The Cross of Iron (14 page)

‘But it was smoking in the other two,’ Maag said.

Steiner turned to Hollerbach. ‘Listen, you can come with me around the next corner. The range is shorter there. But there are only two houses left to worry about; that makes it easier.’

He started forward slowly. Suddenly he stopped. His tense expression was replaced by a look of utter incredulity. The men froze in their tracks. Steiner stood with head cocked, listening. Then he beckoned to the others, and they approached on tiptoe. They were only a few steps away from him when he raised his finger to his lips. From the house came low moans and sobs that were unmistakably the voices of women. Their faces went blank with astonishment. Schnurrbart opened his mouth, pinched his own arm and began rolling his head back and forth. ‘I’ve gone crazy,’ Maag stammered. Kern shook with silent laughter. He turned to Maag and gasped: ‘Women!’ Maag took a deep breath, his fear vanishing. He ran his tongue over his lips, half expectantly, half fearfully. ‘Maybe it’s a brothel,’ he whispered. Kern grinned. Why not, he thought. Maybe the Russians have set up mobile brothels. In his enthusiasm he tugged at his pants and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

Hollerbach shook his head in vexation. ‘You’re both nuts. Is that the first thing you think of?’

‘Maybe it’s a maternity hospital,’ suggested Schnurrbart, who was the first to realize the humour of the situation. ‘Boys, we’ve stormed a maternity hospital.’

‘We’ll get a maternity medal,’ Kern gurgled joyously. He slapped Maag wildly on the back. Steiner threw him an angry look. ‘Cut out the noise,’ he said sharply. ‘We don’t know anything for sure yet.’ He glared at all of them. ‘You’re acting like children. Wait and see where we stand first.’

He was far from charmed by the turn of events. The action he had been conducting in deadly earnest was turning out ridiculously. He felt that he had been made a fool of. As he approached the house, his face was set and mean. He took one leap up to the top step and shook the door latch. The sounds inside stopped. ‘It might be a trap,’ Schnurrbart whispered, raising his tommy-gun suspiciously.

Steiner continued to try the latch. ‘Locked,’ he said. ‘Two hand grenades.’

Schnurrbart took two stick grenades from his belt, unscrewed the locking cap, and passed the grenades on to Steiner. ‘Watch it,’ Kern said anxiously, retreating a step. Steiner put a short loop of string through the rings and fastened them to the latch. Then he gestured with his head toward the comer of the house. They hastily took themselves off in that direction. When the last man had vanished, Steiner gave a powerful tug, pulling the two wooden sticks down. Then he let go of them.

The grenades dangled under the doorknob and began hissing like a tea kettle filled with boiling water. The men began to count: ‘Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four -’ Steiner came rushing around the corner; the explosion followed immediately. The thunderous noise echoed and re-echoed from the woods, and was still ringing in their ears as they followed Steiner back to the steps, which were now littered with splinters of wood. The shattered door hung askew from one of the upper hinges. Schnurrbart kicked it in. Tensely, they peered into the room. It seemed to be a kind of entrance hall, at the back of which a miscellany of things were heaped- As their eyes became accustomed to the dim light, they saw two doors, one on either side of the hall. Steiner raised his gun. Slowly he moved across the threshold, followed closely by the men. Under their nailed boots the floorboards creaked. From outside, where the reeds rose high in the warm sunlight, a bird’s cry sounded strangely loud and penetrating in the dusk of the room.

But suddenly there was another noise. Steiner halted and listened. At first it seemed to be coming from the back of the hall. It sounded like the hollow moan in a stove on a dark, rainy night, when the wind howls over roofs and chimney-tops. The moaning swelled in volume, then faded into soft sighs. Then again it seemed to be coming from above, to be trickling through the walls and filling the entire room. There was something horrible about it.

Steiner’s eyes were narrowed to tiny slits. Vainly he tried to escape the hypnotic effect of those uncanny moans. While his mind persistently sent orders racing through his body, he was curiously outside of himself, aware of his own ego in all its helplessness. He seemed to be standing off from himself, just a few yards away, and observing his own weakness with the eyes of an outsider who had no way to interfere. Sweat ran down his face and dripped from his chin. He could feel himself oscillating wildly, painfully, between rage and shame. From some misty distance he heard Kern’s voice stammering incomprehensible words. Then there was a thudding crash which abruptly brought the moaning and whimpering to a stop. Steiner reacted like a turbine revolving at high speed that is suddenly relieved of its load. He whirled around, caught a glimpse of Kern’s rifle lying on the floor—that must have been the thud— and saw Kern spring to the door and rush out into the broad daylight. Schnurrbart and Maag were staring agape after him. The episode struck Steiner as so funny that he lost all control of himself. He suddenly began to laugh in a frightful manner. He doubled over, his body jerking in unnatural, ugly movements. And each time he raised his head, gasping for air, and saw the horrified faces of Schnurrbart and Maag, the abnormal laughter burst from him again. Schnurrbart tensed; he felt his nerves going to pieces. He glanced quickly at the door, where Hollerbach’s alarmed face appeared. Hollerbach stood staring in bewilderment at the scene, gradually lowering his tommy-gun, which he had been holding ready to fire. ' Have you gone off your heads? he bellowed. ' What the devil’s the matter?’

The loudness of his voice rather than his words brought Steiner to his senses. He slung the gun over his shoulder and rubbed his face with his hands. Then he turned swiftly to the door on the left and opened it. It gave on a narrow room, one half of which was filled with a huge stove built of clay. From an iron rod above the flickering fire hung a soot-blackened kettle; the water was boiling over and falling hissing and steaming into the flames. There was a long table, on which cooking utensils stood, along the opposite wall. A few chairs and a bench completed the furniture. Steiner glanced over the room and turned around. He bumped into Schnurrbart, who was staring past him at the Russian pots and pans. The others also tried to see into the room. But Steiner pushed them ahead of him back into the hall and approached the opposite door. Just before he reached it he turned to Hollerbach. "Where is Kern?’ he asked.

Hollerbach grinned. ‘I don’t know. He raced past me toward the bridge.’

‘Did he!’ Steiner regarded him malignantly. His voice became a shade sharper. ‘And where are you?’

Stunned, Hollerbach gaped at him. At first he thought it was a joke. But there was nothing but anger in Steiner’s expression. Uncertainly, he answered: ‘Right here—where do you think?’

‘Right,’ Steiner said fiercely. ‘And where are you supposed to be?’

Hollerbach started. He suddenly realized that he was supposed to be standing outside, guarding the windows. He rushed out the doorway. Schnurrbart turned to Steiner and asked: ‘What’s the matter With you?’

‘What do you mean?’

Schnurrbart hesitated. It was obvious that Steiner was behaving like a madman. The question was, should he tell him so. Perhaps it would be better not to at the moment. He shrugged: ‘I only mean-’ he began tentatively. Again he shrugged: ‘Anyway, this business is beginning to get on my nerves. Did you see those pots?’

‘I’m not blind,’ Steiner answered curtly.

Maag had been witnessing the scene uneasily. He would have liked to have followed Kern out, but the favourable moment was gone now. With a worried look at the closed door, he said: ‘I wish I knew what that queer howling was.’

Steiner said nothing. He was gnawed by the feeling that he had behaved like a woman. Twist and turn the thing whatever way you liked, the fact remained that his nerves had simply given out. It was the first time anything of the sort had ever happened to him. As he glared indecisively at the door, behind which the owners of those cooking utensils must be, he became aware that he was afraid. A few hours ago that would have seemed an impossibility. Now he was constrained to accept the fact and wonder why. Strangely, his recent conversations with Dorn came to mind. But before he could put it all together, Schnurrbart took the initiative. He had been watching Steiner in silence. But when minute after minute passed while Steiner stood utterly motionless, his patience gave out. He brushed Steiner aside, planted himself in front of the door, raised his tommy-gun, and fired the entire contents of the magazine at chest height through the planks. At the first shot Steiner had started. Now he stood watching almost indifferently as Schnurrbart pressed down the latch and shook it. The door was locked. Quickly Schnurrbart reloaded, took a step back, and fired at the lock. With the first few shots the door sprang open. Steiner slowly raised his gun, while Maag crouched against the wall. They stared at Schnurrbart who stood at the door slowly letting the barrel of his gun sink. He said a few words. Steiner slapped his left ear. The hammering of the tommy-gun in the narrow hall had left a droning in his head so that he could not hear. Schnurrbart had to repeat loudly, ‘Come over here,’ before he understood. They stepped up behind him. ‘Take a look at that,’ Schnurrbart said.

Steiner looked and swallowed hard. The entire long wall of the room was taken up by a heap of straw covered with blankets. In the comer opposite the door stood an old wardrobe chest. Crowded together in the rear half of the room, faces half-defiant, half-terrified, were a dozen women in Russian uniform. They carried no weapons. They stared fixedly at the men. When Steiner slowly entered the room, they moved closer together and their faces paled. At their feet, bedded down on the straw, lay a younger woman, the clothing stripped away from the upper part of her body and a blood-soaked bandage covering her right breast. Her eyes were closed, and as Steiner stepped forward she began to moan again. It was the same weird sound that had unnerved the men when they were outside in the hall. Steiner stopped in the middle of the room, as he looked down at the woman in amazement. So that was it, he thought; that had made him lose his nerve—a groaning woman, a. . . Rage sent his thoughts scattering in all directions; he burned with shame. Schnurrbart, sensing his feelings, laid a hand on his arm. ‘Keep your head, Rolf,’ he said. ‘It can happen to anybody. We’re all of us on edge. Better let it be something like this than anything else. Now what do we do with them?’

His calmness was itself an affront. Steiner turned toward him and stared absently at him. Then he looked back at the women. Hoarsely, he said: ‘What do you do with armed guerillas, male or female?’

‘These are not guerillas,’ Schnurrbart replied quietly. ‘They’re regular uniformed troops. Besides’—he grinned—‘they have no arms.’

Steiner had recovered. ‘If they belong to regular troops, we’ll treat them as we must treat all prisoners in our situation.’

‘You mean shoot them?’ Schnurrbart gasped.

‘Do you see any other way? If one of them escapes and gets to the Russian front before us, we’re done for.’

Maag had recovered from his astonishment and spoke up. ‘Steiner is right. The women must be killed.’

They stood in the middle of the room not knowing what to do. Schnurrbart irritably gnawed his lips. The idea of shooting women shocked him, and he tried to think of a better solution. Finally he turned to Steiner and suggested: ‘We can tie them up. I mean, we could tie them and lock them in here.’

Steiner glowered scornfully at him. ‘You’ve read too many cowboy and Indian stories. This is Russia, not the Wild West.’ His voice took on a hysterical note. ‘What are you going to tie them with? With their panties? Or their bras? And where are you going to lock them in? This place here has more holes than all the women put together. Cut the cackle. I’m going to-’ He fell silent abruptly. His glance fell upon the woman lying on the straw. She had opened her eyes and these were fastened upon him now. Perhaps his loud words had roused her to consciousness. Her winsome oval face bore an expression of such wild horror that Steiner’s rage evaporated. Quickly, he raised his eyes and looked at the other women. They all looked about the same to him, with Slav cheekbones and smooth black hair combed straight back. A few of them had more delicate features, which gave their faces a certain attractiveness. They wore the usual Russian uniform. Their full blouses, reaching down over their hips, were gathered at the waist by broad belts. They were big-breasted, stocky women and the blouses made them look the more so. Their breeches were tucked into high leather boots such as Russian officers wore.

Schnurrbart said: ‘We better do something; the others will be going crazy out there.’

Steiner nodded. He hung the tommy-gun from his shoulder. ‘They’ll go crazier when they see the women,’ he said. ‘Send Krüger in to me. Add a man each to the guards on the road. Take the rest into the next house and bring everybody who’s in there over here. Watch your step; there must be another man among them.’

‘How come?’

‘Obvious. The two Russians we killed must have been the drivers of the wagons, and there were three wagons.’

‘Don’t you want to go along?’ Schnurrbart asked in surprise. 

Steiner shook his head. He looked around. As Schnurrbart went to the door, Steiner beckoned to Maag. ‘You stay here,’ he ordered. ‘We’ll see what’s the matter with the woman.’ He went up to the wounded woman. As he bent over her, he met her frightened eyes. She tried to roll back against the wall. Steiner held her firmly. ‘Take it easy,’ he said quietly. ‘What do you think I want to do?’

Carefully, he lifted the bandage. The wound was a big one and looked bad. From nipple to waist there was a dark-brown rent in the flesh almost an inch wide. When Steiner removed the bandage, it began bleeding heavily. Thoughtfully, he looked down at her. Then he ordered Maag to bring hot water. The other women had not changed their position. They still stood close together against the wall, fearfully watching each of his movements. As he stared down at the woman’s bleeding breast, he became aware of the absurdity of his behaviour. He looked at her face; she had closed her eyes again. Above her right eyebrow was a small scar. His gaze moved down along the fine nose to the full mouth and lingered finally on the uninjured half of her breast. It quivered from the beating of her heart, and for seconds he felt tempted to close both hands around that soft flesh. With each heartbeat the blood ran down along her narrow hips. An ugly stain on the woollen blanket was steadily spreading. When she opened her eyes again, he stooped down and asked: ‘Are you in pain?’ When she nodded, he knew she understood. ‘The pain will be all over soon,’ he said. Her face fell. She moved her lips without uttering a sound.