Wheels of Terror (13 page)

Another bullet whined and landed in the middle of the forehead of one of the tank-gunners. Bits of skull and brains spattered the Little Legionnaire who scraped them off with his bayonet, grimacing.

The gunners from the 104th Artillery whom we were relieving, confessed we had landed in fairly thick soup.

'Take good care about seven o'clock in the morning and five in the afternoon, that's when Ivan really lets go. Apart from then you've only got to cope with machine-gun fire and mortars and a little sniping.'

We lit our Hindenburg-candles in the dug-outs, and No. 2 Platoon settled down to some recreation.

Porta got out the greasy old cards. The top-hat he had found somewhere he placed on his head, elegantly askew. It had a few dents in it and the silk was a little worn, so Porta had painted one blue and one red ring round it. It looked like the funnel of a steamer. He screwed the monocle he had got in Roumania into his eye. It had had a few knocks and a deep crack made his eye look completely idiotic. Its black-horn frame was fastened to his shoulder-tab with a black cord, part of some girl's underclothes.

As if he were a croupier in Monte Carlo he superciliously shuffled the cards and cried:

'Stake your money, but no credit, mind. I've lost dough before because some silly sod got bumped off by Ivan before paying out. Smallest stake 10 Hitler-marks or 100 Stalin-roubles.'

He dealt out twelve cards and turned the thirteenth up: it was the ace of spades. Without a word, he scooped the stakes into his empty gas-mark container which hung round his neck. He won eight times running. Then we started staking more carefully. Nobody said what was in their minds: Porta was cheating. For on each side of him lay a machine-pistol and behind sat the Little Legionnaire caressing a P.38 with the safety-catch off.

The Old Un was reading a book his wife had given him. From time to time he took out his old, worn wallet in which he carried some snaps of her and the children. He suffered unbelievably hard from home-sickness. We had often seen him shed tears over the family snaps.

Captain von Barring and Lieutenant Harder came into the dug-out, sat down beside The Old Un and chatted quietly.

'We can expect Ivan about 3 p.m., so Intelligence tell me,' confided Barring to The Old Un. 'You'll see that everything is OK here. The commander of the gunner-company we have replaced said we've landed in a hellish corner. Battalion orders are that in no circumstance must we evacuate map reference Height 268.9.

'As long as we can stay here we dominate this area. Let Ivan through and the whole division will have to retreat, or capitulate, and Ivan knows that only too well.'

'That means,' said The Old Un thoughtfully, 'that we can be pretty sure Ivan will throw in his whole machinery against us. Do you think he'll use tanks?'

'Not while the ground isn't frozen, but as soon as frost comes he'll be over us. Hope we've got our own armour here by then,' said von Barring tiredly. He glanced round the dimlit dug-out and spotted Porta in his tall, colourful silk-hat.

'God help us,' he burst out. 'What have you got that mad hat on for again? Get your cap, and stop fooling around with that thing!'

'Yes, sir,' answered Porta, as he shovelled another lot of winnings into his bursting gas-mask container. Then he placed his uniform cap on top of his silk-hat.

Von Barring shook his head and said with a laugh to The Old Un and Lieutenant Harder:

'That scoundrel is impossible! If he runs into our battalion commander with that thing on his head he's for it!'

Just at that moment a terrible din came from the players. Tiny had discovered that Porta had used two aces of spades. He roared and was just about to thrash Porta when he was stopped effectively by the muzzles of a P.38 and a machine-pistol with the safety-catches off.

'Do you want a few more holes in your body apart from your mouth and your backside?' asked the Little Legionnaire as he rose and kicked Tiny in the stomach. The big man fell back with a grunt.

Captain von Barring and Lieutenant Harder ignored the incident and cleared off. Shortly afterwards play went on. We pretended we had no evidence of cheating. Tiny took part and was allowed to win a couple of times. This put him in a very good temper. He hit Porta enthusiastically on the back and humbly begged his pardon for having entertained the idea that Porta had cheated. He had forgotten he had ever seen two aces of spades. Soon, however, he was losing again and imploring credit, but Porta was unmoved.

Tiny groaned with frustrated gambling passion. Quickly he tore off his wrist-watch and pushed it across the table. He asked 300 marks for it.

Lazily the Little Legionnaire bent forward and examined it closely; then he announced:

'We'll give you 200 marks, and that's plenty!'

Porta polished his cracked monocle, tilted his hat and examined the watch like a professional watch-maker. Then he pushed it back to Tiny with disgust:

'Stolen goods, 150 marks and not a fraction more, but hurry up, or you can go!'

Tiny wanted to make trouble as usual, but instead he just opened and shut his mouth a few times, then nodded agreement dumbly.

Two minutes afterwards the watch lay snugly in the gasmask container with all the other winnings.

Paralysed Tiny stared at Porta, who went on dealing as if nothing unusual had happened.

When everybody but the banker was broke play stopped for sheer lack of momentum. Porta shut his bulging gas-mask container with a snap, sank down on the straw-covered ground and pillowed his head on his winnings. He grinned knowingly at Pluto and the Little Legionnaire. Then he pulled out his recorder and started to play the number about the girl who was made love to electrically in a factory. The other two joined raucously in the unbelievably filthy song.

Tiny tried, unsuccessfully, to make trouble. Nobody could be bothered to fight.

9

The divisional commander was famous for being a complete nitwit: a typical German soldier of the Third Reich. Oddly enough he was deeply religious. He was in possession of that peculiar Prussian ability to mix Christianity with Chauvinism.

Every morning Lieutenant-General von Trauss prayed at his mobile field-altar with the divisional padre von Leitha. They prayed for a complete victory for the German forces.

He made long nonsensical speeches about a coming German hegemony when all sub-humans were to be exterminated. Everybody who did not carry small swastikas in their brains were sub-humans. Porta of course suggested a more suitable placing for the swastikas.

At 11.30 a.m. The Germans
will be Blown Sky High

It was The Old Un who woke me up.

'You and Porta are going out on a listening-post job. Take one more man along, but not Pluto or Stege. I can't do without either if Ivan should attack.'

'I can see why you've been made a sergeant,' snapped Porta. 'You're good at dishing out rotten messages at breakfast time.'

'Shut up, Porta. Who will you take with you? Time's short, Ivan's got something on, and I can't send any half-wits across there.'

'Oh, thank you! Fancy you saying I'm intelligent after being declared a complete imbecile by a trick-cyclist over that burglary in Dahlem.'

'Shut up, Porta, who will you take?'

'Easy, Grandpa. Don't let it go to your head because the Prussians have given you a little silver on your shoulders, a cheap carpenter like you! We'll take the Frenchman.'

He started shaking the sleeping Legionnaire who lay curled up like a dog.

'What the hell's the matter with you, you red-haired bastard!'

'What do y'think, brother? We're off on an excursion to meet the giant of the steppes, and he'll just love you.'

'Bloody nonsense, where are we off to?' The sleepy Legionnaire did not respond kindly; he sat up in the straw scratching his lice-bitten chest.

'Wait and see, brother,' Porta answered shortly. 'Maybe we're off to count the spots on Ivan's face.'

We strapped on our equipment and packed our extra rations. Then we followed The Old Un up to the heavy machine-gun post.

He explained the territory.

'You can stay hidden about three fingers' breadth left of that bush. From there you can see the white of Ivan's eyes without being seen yourselves, but mind - no movement. Return only after dark. Colonel Hinka is sure Ivan is up to some dirty tricks. That's why you're going out to listen in.'

'Blimey, you're sending your best pals across there! You bloody jumped-up sergeant! Haven't we got enough Iron Cross candidates who were born for the job?' Porta demanded indignantly.

Captain von Barring and Lieutenant Harder materialized out of the darkness. In whispers von Barring explained a few things The Old Un hadn't known.

'See too, boys, that you don't stir up any trouble out there. Safety-catches on the rifles. No shooting if you can help it, only in extreme danger.'

We placed our combat-knives in our boots, put the egg-grenades in our pockets and the machine-pistols in our belts.

Von Barring pointed speechless at Porta's tall silk-hat, and managed to get out:

'Do you intend to keep that thing on going across to Ivan?'

'It's my lucky charm, sir,' said Porta simply and crawled out after the Little Legionnaire.

We snaked along on our stomachs. The ground was muddy and rough. We crawled under the barbed-wire defences. Not a sound disturbed the silence. We were surrounded by a treacherous darkness, varied only momentarily when the moon peeped out between the rushing clouds.

I was the last to reach the bush. The Little Legionnaire put a finger to his mouth to remind me to keep quiet. I got a shock when I saw how near we were to Ivan's positions. Ten yards away two Russians were manning a huge machine-gun. With great care we placed our machine-pistols on the ground beside us. Then we covered ourselves with a camouflaged tent.

A few of the Russians were quarrelling and swearing so much you would have thought Tiny was among them. Soon they were having a real scrap.

For two hours we were as quiet as corpses. Then Porta soundlessly took out his field-flask. The vodka gave us warmth. We smiled at each other. The Little Legionnaire pointed to a spot in the Russian positions where a staff-colonel and two other staff-officers were apparently on a tour of inspection. They stopped almost beneath us to talk to a couple of infantry officers. We took a firmer hold on our weapons.

The colonel moved across to the heavy machine-gun and ordered a couple of bursts to be fired at the German line. The Germans immediately retaliated. The colonel grinned and said something about paying out those Nazi dogs.

When darkness fell and we were about to return we heard a voice from the enemy lines:

'We can't make contact with the battalion. The communication-trench is flooded. The river has broken its banks. Fritz up there is dry enough while we're likely to drown in this dump, but then ...'

The voice faded in the darkness which was heavy and ominous. We could only dimly see the Russian positions. Soundlessly we returned.

We went back to the same spot for four days running without hearing anything of worth and von Barring decided we should bring back a prisoner. Then we heard that a patrol had found a Russian telephone-wire. Two minutes later we had made a connection and were tapping the conversations. Two days passed before our patience was rewarded. Porta suddenly woke up and threw the receiver at me. A rough voice came gratingly:

'How are you getting on, George?'

'The same old grind. Wish the whole outfit to hell.'

Then followed a few Russian curses.

The first voice laughed hoarsely.

'Got any vodka?'

'Yes, a large ration arrived to-day. If only we had a few tarts too, everything would be all right. Shall I send you some vodka, Alex?'

'No, thanks. We're joining you to-night.'

Surprised George asked:

'What's going on?'

'To-morrow morning at 11.30 we're blowing the Germans to hell. The whole hill will fly up. It's going to be beautiful fireworks. The green lice will be blown to hell!'

The Little Legionnaire hurried back to Captain von Barring, who immediately reported to headquarters.

We got as much help as could be scraped together. One company from the 104th gunners, one 8.8-cm. anti-aircraft gun, two poor 7.5-cm. guns on gun-carriages, along with a useless company of 50-year-old reservists. The whole lot became a storm battalion under the leadership of Captain von Barring. While the morning mist still covered everything in a protective veil, he ordered the trenches to be evacuated to avoid the risk of being blown in the air with the hill. We prepared a warm welcome for Ivan when he advanced after the explosion.

To our immense joy a company of engineers with flame-throwers arrived too. We knew them and could depend on them. They were experienced front-line soldiers like ourselves. None had cleaned his nails since 1939.

We were waiting in the reserve trenches, our hearts thumping with anxiety. The hands on the watch-face scarcely moved. Tiny was lying beside Pluto. He did not say anything, but it was obvious he preferred the company of the big docker in an emergency.

Stege and I lay beside Porta and on his other side the Little Legionnaire hung on like a limpet. To our left lay Moller, Bauer and the others.

The hand-grenades felt sweaty in our hands. Cigarette after cigarette was smoked in one long endless chain during this nerve-racking waiting period.

Somewhere deep in the earth the Russian sappers were working with the explosives under the hill which was meant to be our grave. Instead we were lying waiting for the fireworks to begin, all because an alert patrol had discovered a thin telephone wire.

The watch said 11.15. In fifteen minutes hell would be let loose. Tensed, we stared across the foggy swamp-landscape. Nothing yet. Another fifteen minutes. Still nothing happened.

Suddenly it dawned on us that the Russians' time of course was one hour behind ours.

'This is worse than waiting for the Berlin tube,' said Porta.

'By God, it's like waiting outside an African whore-house with a crew of only ten tarts,' whispered the Little Legionnaire. 'And a hundred fellows in front before you get your helping ...'