Wheels of Terror (20 page)

'Only one reason for giving up membership will be accepted: a bullet in the head,' said von Barring.

'Maybe that applies to Moller,' interrupted Tiny. 'But not to me. I don't dream about being shot by these snotty-nosed steppe-bandits across there!' He half stood up and shouted at Ivan: 'Hey, Tovarich! Hey Russki, Russki!'

A voice from the Russian positions answered:

'What d'you want, you German swine? Come here and we'll castrate you, Fascist-dog!'

'Come here, you scabby gipsy, and I'll boil you in your own grease!' Tiny roared back.

For half an hour the most obscene swear words were exchanged, then Captain von Barring stopped it.

Silence fell over the white wastes. Then all at once to the right of our position: Roosh-roosh-roosh!

Astonished we ducked down into our holes.

'What on earth was that?' asked Bauer staring at the wood where the shells had fallen with ear-splitting explosions.

'Mine-throwers or nebelwerfers,' grinned Porta. 'And they are ours.'

Another explosion was heard and the fire-radiant projectiles flew through the night.

'I'm willing to bet Ivan's getting what he asked for now,' laughed Stege. 'If only we had a couple of "stovepipes" like that here we'd be able to stop their bragging.'

They went on firing the big stuff all night long and kept us awake. To fall asleep was deadly dangerous.

At dawn Porta and the Little Legionnaire started to throw hand-grenades at something we could not see. A couple of machine-guns sited in front of the big bunker barked in prolonged bursts.

We peeped nervously at them.

'Is Ivan breaking through again?' asked The Old Un without getting an answer.

We took a firmer grip on our weapons. We were ready to receive Ivan again, but in the next quarter of an hour the shooting died away.

The Old Un cupped his hands and roared across to Porta:

'What's going on across on your side?'

Porta answered:

'Will you promise not to tell anyone?'

'Yes,' replied the astonished Old Un.

'We're having a war, my pet,' was Porta's answer.

The regiment again got in touch with us. They ordered us to hold our positions. They promised to help us soon, but three days passed before the promised help came. Then it arrived with a vengeance.

On March 8th in the morning we heard the Russians for the last time on our radio.

'How's N getting on?' the enemy commander asked his regimental commander.

'We can't raise our heads. We're under heavy machine-gun fire. They have also got heavy mortars and this morning they've got support from the air.'

'Where have you got to?'

'The regiment is lying just west of N. Our last tanks were stuck in the snow and the crews were liquidated by Fritz.'

'That's impossible. A ruined village with a few hundred Germans still holding out! Attack at once with all you've got, and I mean all. Take care that N is occupied. When you've taken N, bring the enemy commander to me. You're responsible with your life for the fall of N with this attack. Finished.'

It was the fifty-third attack staged by the Russians during our stay in Novo-Buda. When it started, to our great joy we got support from a whole squadron of fighter-planes. They came roaring along very low with the guns spraying the Russians, who were panic-stricken at the flying death which screamed over them.

The fighting-group attacked at once. With hoarse cries we stormed into the enemy. Deep in their positions we fought like lunatics. We were drunk with blood-lust. We stabbed and cut on all sides while the planes rained bombs on the enemy artillery in the rear.

Porta let his huge flame-thrower spray into the bunkers to burn every living soul lurking there.

The hand-grenades burst with their hollow detonations. The crisp rattling of the storm-carbines mingled with the harsh barking of the machine-guns.

A party of Russians began to charge us from the left only suddenly to wheel round and disappear.

We could hear the voice of a commissar whipping up the men with slogans from the inevitable Ilya Ehrenburg. A little later they came out, but the attack was half-hearted. We had no difficulty in warding it off with concentrated machine-gun fire.

Stege jumped with a roar at a Russian commissar. Evidently he wanted him alive. But the Red was a small quick fellow and dodged deftly in order to avoid capture. The chase went on a little longer, then Stege stopped running, raised his machine-pistol and shot off the commissar's head: he fell instantly as if his legs had been shot off as well. Stege hurried to him and tore off the gold-encircled red star on the commissar's arm. Like a Red Indian who has taken a scalp, he gaily brought the emblem to von Barring.

Lieutenant Harder's machine-pistol had jammed while he was fighting a whole pack of Russians. One shot him in the neck and a thick gush of blood pumped out of his throat. With difficulty we got him bandaged and transported to the bunker where our many wounded lay.

During the night we were withdrawn and put in a quieter sector to rest.

14

Such were their conversations. Such their big and small sorrows. Such their comradeship. The bushman's fright. The Stone Age man's brutality.

They were not like that in the beginning, but time, tyrants and war made them what they were.

Rest Camp

'You see, lads,' announced Porta, 'once again our guild has escaped from the Russian riflemen. D'you know what it proves?'

Tiny looked at him and blinked his eyes.

'It proves we are lucky.'

'God help you, you tart-expert, what else would we expect from you!'

'Are you being fresh?' said Tiny belligerently.

'Yes,' said Porta, 'which is more than you are.' He pointed at him with an accusing finger and said: 'Lie down, big mongrel, or Ivan'll come and bite you. No, it proves I'm a smart and courageous warrior. You lousy Prussian dogs! Can you honestly believe you could cope with Ivan without my help? No, you stinking skunks, this war is finished when I, Joseph Porta, Corporal by God's grace, am pensioned off - or is it post-war credits they call it?'

'If it's post-war credits,' laughed The Old Un, 'I've waited nearly ten years, but don't be scared, Porta, you'll get neither pension nor post-war credits when this war is over. At best you'll get a kick out of the army or into that concentration camp they fetched you out of to fight nicely and properly for Herr Hitler.'

'God knows what'll happen when the war is over,' said Bauer dreamily. 'I wonder if it'll be possible to be normal again?'

'Not for you,' screamed Porta. 'You've never been normal since you were an infant at the breast and drank all that Nazi science from your National-Socialist mother. It's different for me. I'm Red, and I've got papers to prove it. Got 'em before you were able to pick your nose. Not one of you dim-wits has ever been normal. You are and will remain cattle. Your horizon stops at becoming section-leaders in this path-finder society. Do yourselves and the world the service of falling for our beloved Adolf-Fuhrer and the Third Reich in a nice regulation manner. Then the victors will be free of the duty of punishing you.'

'Oh, put a sock in it, you clown,' stuttered Pluto. 'I'm an honest, dutiful thief from Hamburg, and that's just as good as a Red from Berlin. But I'm only asking--'

'You heard!' shouted Tiny, 'I'm also a nice and polite thief who'll be sorely needed when the war is over.'

Pluto leant forward on his straw bed, which stank of damp and mildew, while he bobbed his coal-black naked toes up and down in front of Porta's nose.

'You see, Porta, you don't understand what community-spirit is. But I'll give you a little instruction, you red-haired bull. When this thirty years' war has ended in a nice and decent way with the whole caboose in ruins to the satisfaction of the generals, the community will have to be rebuilt. That means they'll throw out the gang now sitting in the chair and biting his nails, for a new gang just like the one we have now. They'll take their seats on the big sofa, put up new wall-paper to suit their tastes and make a few new laws. New laws - that's all poppy-cock. It'll be all the old paragraphs, and it'll stay just the same. Keeping inside the law, they'll keep on stealing from those who are fools enough to let it happen. So they'll need the help of smart chaps like Tiny and me while Red dogs like you'll be in the back-seat.'

'Shut up, you big bastard,' cried Porta and threw an empty shell-case at Pluto who quickly ducked.

Tiny asked naively:

'Is it true that you've done some crooked business, Porta?'

'No, by God, I haven't.'

'Oh, yes, you have,' chuckled Pluto, 'you stole from the goods you brought from the shops when you were an errand-boy in Bornholmerstrasse.'

'Put your vodka-stinking snout away,' threatened Porta, 'or else the Children's Society will come and fetch you away! What is this peculiar stink in here?'

Stege was completely convulsed with laughter at Porta's wonderful appearance. He sat there with his monocle and top-hat sniffing the air.

Porta grabbed his cat by the neck-fur and dipping its nose in a saucerful of vodka said menacingly:

'Drink, you red cat-pig!'

Pluto bobbed his black toes a little nearer and whispered sweetly:

'Put your conk a little nearer to the ground and you'll soon discover the source of this wonderful fragrance!'

Porta stared down and discovered Pluto's toes.

'Shame, filthy fellow! Aren't you going to wash your toes? They're still full of muck from Caucasia and of old dry goat's shit into the bargain.'

Tiny leaned forward the better to study Pluto's feet.

'Well, they're a bit dusty. You can't visit your tart like that.'

'Well, what's the matter with that? Maybe I keep my boots on, like you,' said Pluto.

The Old Un sucked furiously at his pipe.

'Well, well, children. You always talk about the end of the war, and who can blame you? To-day I'll bet the whole world talks of nothing else. The children say they'll have new clothes. Where they haven't felt the hammering of war people say: "When the war's over we'll see all the places where battles raged and air-raids happened!" Others say: "When the war's over rationing will end!" The front-soldier just says: "When the war's over we're going home to eat ourselves silly and sleep!"'

'Yes, and make revolution,' said Porta, grinning and pushing his top-hat a little forward.

'By God, yes, and first and foremost whoring,' burst out Tiny radiantly.

'Didn't you get enough the last time you embraced a tart?' asked the Little Legionnaire.

'Enough? Why ask? Tiny never gets enough. I could keep twenty well-stocked harems fully occupied!'

'Well, if you fancy you're so good at it,' said the Little Legionnaire, 'I'll give you a life-membership card for all the Moroccan brothels I intend to open once the war's over.'

Porta screwed his monocle into his eye and leaning forward to the Little Legionnaire said:

'Tell me, desert-wanderer, is a Moroccan bird all that good?'

Before the Little Legionnaire was able to answer The Old Un broke in:

'I wish you'd shut up for a few minutes, Porta!'

Porta put his hand to his lips and shushed at The Old Un.

'One question at a time, dear friend. Well, desert-wanderer, are those Moroccan parcels good?'

The Little Legionnaire laughed quietly.

'Yes, you can lose all reason when they wiggle their bottoms.'

'That sounds good,' said Porta. 'Get me the timetable for the trains leaving for Morocco.'

Tiny started howling with laughter.

'Me too. Those Morocco tarts'll make me sign on for seven years with the Legion.'

'Oh shut up, can't you!' The Old Un said with real determination.

'Is that an order, dear Old Un?' asked Porta. 'Since you're a sergeant why can't you say in a nice and military fashion: 'I order Obergefreiter Joseph Porta to shut his mouth!'

'By God then, it's an order! Shut up, will you!'

'Now, don't get fresh, you Unteroffizier-crap. When you speak to me you're kindly asked to do so in the regulation army manner addressing me in third person. Full stop.'

'All right. I, Unteroffizier Willy Beier, 27th (Penal) Panzer Regiment order Obergefreiter Joseph Porta to shut up!'

'And I, Obergefreiter by God's grace in the Nazi army, Joseph Porta, who's beaten the world record in obstacleracing, am completely indifferent to the Herr Unteroffizier's orders. Amen.'

'What did you want to tell us, Old Un?' asked Stege.

'Oh, about our eternal natterings about the end of the war. First, it'll be a long time yet. Second, I doubt very much if any of us'll live to see it. Shouldn't we try to live together without always speaking of the future? It's only got horrible things in store for us. We'll have to learn to understand that the only thing which matters to us is the present and that all we possess is a noisy loneliness where important and less important things have no value. We curse the Nazis and we curse the Communists: the snow, the frost, the gales; the summer with its intolerable dust and heat and mosquitoes. We swear at the mud in the spring and autumn; we are furious when Christmas comes because we're here. We damn the "lame ducks" when they drop their bombs over us. How many oaths and damnations haven't we blown off at the Russians? Children, children, we're once and for all at war and we'll have to put up with it. I don't think one of us'll get home now. The 27th Regiment was grey and unknown when the war started. It'll burn to grey ash before it's over. Just think of all those in the 27th who've disappeared. At Stalingrad 5,000 went to hell. At Kubaner bridge-head another 3,500. At Kertsch 2,800. Here in Cherkassy we've already lost at least 2,500. In '41 in the Mediterranean 4,000 were lost. Then add every small battle and scrap we've taken part in. What's the cost in dead? Do you really believe we'll get away with it? We've got to live, live all the time, every minute. To have taken part in the swine-war to surpass all swine-wars is also living. To sit in the doctor's surgery after a spell in hospital and to be declared fit for war is also living; to curl up in a heap of straw after having eaten your fill of stolen grub is also living. Yes, even cleaning your rifle is an enjoyable life. It should be done with slow movements without thinking of why you do it or of how many hours you've wasted doing it. Everything has beauty in nature, and as we are nature's beings we have to search unceasingly to find what is beautiful in it or else we'll crack up.'