Blitzfreeze (17 page)

‘It’s different with them,’ answers the Old Man, puffing violently at his silver-lidded pipe. ‘They were probably ordered to open fire on us, tried to discuss it, and the NKVD won the argument.’

‘It’s not
clever
startin’ discussions with the NKVD
nor
the bleedin’ Gestapo. You gotta work ’em a flanker,’ says Tiny looking sly. ‘
I’d
a’ said to these ’ere NKVD
tovaritsches
: Gimme a cannon, mates, an’ see ’ow I’ll neck them Germanskij bastards. I’ll ’ave ’em laid out in rows by the bleedin’ company. Comin’ ’ere without even bein’ invited.’

‘Do not forget who you are, and what uniform you are wearing,’ comes threateningly from Heide.

The
balanda
was only enough for two spoons full each, and hunger gnaws worse than ever.

The cold becomes even more intense. We rest in a ruined tile-works. There are a lot of charred Russian bodies just inside the main gates.

‘Flame-throwers,’ comments Stege.

We drop to the floor half-dead from fatigue. Our feet feel like lead in our frozen boots. Nobody says a word. Not even Porta. I sit beside him inside one of the large ovens. We’re out of the wind here, and inside the oven it is slightly warmer. Most of us sleep. Oberleutnant Moser lies rolled into a ball across a heap of ashes. He is wearing a Russian captain’s fur
coat. Risky if he is taken prisoner. The Old Man shoulders in beside us and takes something out of his padded coat. He hands it to us. A little sugar and a piece of mutton sausage.

‘Where in the world did you get it?’ I ask in amazement.

‘Shut up and eat,’ growls the Old Man. ‘It’s little enough for three. D’you want the others to hear?’

‘Got any more?’ asks Porta chewing away fiercely.

‘A little sausage, a little bread and some soup powder,’ nods the Old Man.

‘Holy Mother of Kazan! We’re the richest bloody soldiers in this man’s army,’ laughs Porta his eyes shining again. ‘Let’s have the rest of the sausage and the bread. We’ll keep the soup till tomorrow.’

‘Jesus, I think we’re going to make it,’ I say confidently as I feel the warmth spreading through my body.

‘Reminds me of a butcher in Berlin-Moabitt,’ says Porta. ‘He had so much black sausage left on Christmas Eve that he had to
give
it away. He was from Breslau and thought they ate black pudding in Berlin too on Christmas Eve. Late in the afternoon he was standing outside his shop on Schlesischer Strasse with a box of black pud’ in front of him shouting: Come one, come all! Free Christmas sausage! Free Christmas sausage!

‘Three Schupos dropped down on him and dragged him off to the psychiatric section. The sausages they sent for chemical analysis. Their idea being that he was either stark staring bonkers or else he was a mass-murderer who was trying to depopulate Berlin with poisoned sausages. No normal Berlin butcher ever gives anything away.’

‘Cold?’ asks the Old Man laying his arm around my shoulders.

‘As hell!’ I answer pulling my thin summer coat closer about me. Winter equipment hasn’t got to us.

‘Turn your back towards me!’

His strong fingers take hold of my neck. He begins to massage me hard, at the same time blowing his warm breath down my neck. Slowly warmth comes back into my body.
When I’m quite warm I do the same for him. Then we both go to work on Porta. Now we feel good. We roll together in a heap like animals in the woods and fall into a heavy sleep. . . .

Nine men of the company freeze to death that night. A pity for them, since we wake up to a wonderful morning.

The cooks have got through to us with supplies. There’s a whole herring per man and half a mess-tin of
Kipjatok
. Best of the lot we get half a pound of bread. We feel like multimillionaires.

‘Kiddies, kiddies!’ enthuses the Old Man skipping joyfully around. ‘They’ve not written us off entirely yet!’

The rest of No. 2 Section sit round in a circle, every man with a frozen salted herring in his mouth. Not a morsel goes to waste and a frozen herring takes a long time to eat. You break off a small piece of it and put it in your mouth where it thaws out slowly. God how we enjoy it. A solemn silence sinks over us. We huddle close like fledglings, and feel the body heat from the man next to us. It is a long time since we’ve been so happy. Each piece of food goes into our mouths as if we were performing some holy rite. Slowly the herrings disappear; head, fins, bones, tail, every last part of them. Not an atom is left. Even a cat couldn’t have done it better. We dip our bread in sugar and hold it in our mouths long enough for our own spittle to make it swell hugely. The sugar trickles down our throats in a wonderful stream and we feel its strength bubbling out into every corner of our body.

‘Bread and sugar just about beats every other kind of eats in this whole damn world,’ says Porta dipping a small piece of bread in sugar and handing it to the Old Man.

Suddenly a whole lot of bread and sugar goodies are on the way over to the Old Man. The Old Man is not only our section leader, he is our father and mother, this stocky little carpenter from the Berlin slums who has been forced into a Feldwebel’s uniform. It’s
our
lives that are at stake if anything happens to the Old Man. If we lost him our section’s finished. We know that.

Oberleutnant Moser pushes in amongst us bringing tea with him. A big can. We get a swig apiece.

Porta digs out two cigarettes, and they go round three times!

1
Long is the road to the Fatherland, so long, so long!
There where the stars show at the woodland’s edge, blooms the New Day,
yes, the New Day.
Each brave Grenadier longs in his heart for you,
yes, long is the road to the Fatherland, so long, so long!
The clouds come from it and to it, crossing even the sea.
Humans live but once and never more!

2
Gröfass (Grösster Feldherr aller Zeiten): The Greatest Military Leader of All Time (contemptuous nickname for Hitler).

3
Iron Gustav (Gustav Dürer): See ‘March Battalion.’

4
Merde
(French): Shit.

‘They know nothing about reality, these incompetent careerists, bureaucrats and adjutant-minded souls, all the high Wehrmacht officers, the leaders of the General Staff. They are now classified under one generic title: Adjutants. Have you noticed, how they tremble when they duck their heads before me?’

‘Tomorrow morning, gentlemen, we attack Borodino,’ began General-Leutnant Weil. ‘Here, on the historic ground on which we now stand, the Emperor Napoleon, on 7 August 1812, defeated the Russian General Kutusow. I am happy that we can repeat this victory and be spoken of in the history of our nation with honour and pride. When Borodino has fallen the way to the Kremlin is open, with only a few unimportant hindrances.’ The General stopped for a moment and took out a cigar. A dozen lighters snapped out smartly. Outside, artillery roared. The little chateau trembled slightly. The glass of the chandeliers tinkled. The General smiling and well-satisfied, looked around at the officers.

‘Gentlemen, I almost dare to say that it would be a fine thing to meet one’s fate on this historic earth. We have . . .’ His words were drowned in the roar of an explosion and a sun-burst of light illumined the scene. With a deafening crash half of the ceiling fell in.

Oberst Gabelsberg, commanding infantry, bent over the General and together with the chief-of-Staff carried him to a sofa. A shell splinter had torn open his back. The medical officer could do nothing to save him.

‘Gentlemen and comrades, our General is dead,’ said Oberst Gabelsberg quietly. ‘Let us take leave of him in a proper manner.’
He brought his heels together and raised his hand to his cap in the salute. All the officers followed his example. ‘Like the remarkably brave soldier he was, Herr General Weil has led our division, over a long period, from victory to victory. It is because of him that we have always been permitted to fight in the forefront of the battle. Thanks to him we have, in this present war, added many names to the great battles already named on our colours, which were present at Waterloo. Our General died the death he would have desired. God has ordered his discharge and has taken him into a greater army. Comrades, Sieg! Heil! Honour our dead heroes!’

The officers stood with their field service caps in their hands looking sorrowfully at the ground. It was expected of them.

‘As senior line-officer I now take over the Division,’ Oberst Gabelsberg hurried on. He had difficulty in concealing his delight at the General’s death. ‘Our Panzer Division has the noblest traditions of any in the Greater German Wehrmacht, and as Commander of the Division I shall see to it that this tradition continues. We will not mourn our dead but thank God that they died for the honour of the Division. Gentlemen, I would be proud to fall within the hour for my Führer, my Fatherland, my fellow countrymen!’

The farewells were solemn. A General had fallen on the field of honour. The occasion demanded the employment of tact.

Cigars were not lighted, and women were not mentioned. The German officer corps were cultured men.

The new Divisional Commander drove away in his Kübel, mud splashing behind the car. The heavy vehicle swung and slid over the bottomless mud plowing through ridges of dirty snow.

The driver sighed with relief when he felt the road firm at last under the wheels.

The Commander wrapped three blankets around him, pushed his feet into lambswool footwarmers, and pulled the fur collar of his great-coat up around his ears. A German Oberst didn’t allow himself to become cold. He leaned back comfortably. He had time to take a nap. He would hand over the Regiment to Obersleutnant Reuff and then back to Division and a
real bed. Now the war would become a more pleasant affair. The Oberst felt that he deserved some refreshment. He took a long deep pull at his cognac flask.

Poor General Weil, he thought. He never saw Moscow. Now he, Oberst Gabelsberg, would lead the Division on to the Kremlin. He would be a General several years ahead of time. This wasn’t such a bad war after all.

In the same instant a terrible explosion blew the Kübel into a thousand flying pieces. The bodies of the Oberst, his adjutant, and the driver were blown into the air and fell to drive deeply into the mud.

Shadowy figures disappeared quickly into the forest. The partisans had been laying mines.

The Hauptfeldwebel sits staring stiffly in front of him. His arms are lying across the desk. He is wearing a fur-lined winter great-coat and a beautiful astrakhan cap decorates his large square head.

Porta and Tiny salute smartly, report their arrival, smash their heels together three times, raise their right arms stiffly in the Nazi salute and march noisily towards the Hauptfeldwebel. They grasp him firmly under the arms, lift him from his chair and send him flying in a beautiful curve straight through the window. He falls and remains in a sitting position in the snow. He looks so natural that two infantrymen salute him smartly as they pass by.

Porta and Tiny go through everything in the mobile office snatching up rubber stamps and blank forms. By the time they leave they are equipped with passes, stamps, and tickets enough to send a whole regiment on a sight-seeing tour of Europe five times over. They are already well past the frozen Hauptfeldwebel when Tiny stops as if struck by lightning.

‘What the hell’s wrong?’ asks Porta nervously.

‘I’m afraid you an’ me must be gettin’ old,’ answers Tiny,
shaking his head worriedly. ‘We forgot to look if ol’ fatguts ’ad any gold in ’is chops!’

Without a word they go back to the body and tip it on its back.

A gun-muzzle between the teeth and a quick operation and Porta is in possession of two gold teeth.

‘You’ve got to keep your wits about you when you’re in a war,’ he explains. ‘There’s valuables all around us. Old fatguts sits there and lets himself freeze to death. There was even ice in his mouth. Probably deliberate, to keep honest people like us from finding the gold in ’em.’

‘Reckon we’re gonna leave the army rich men?’ smiles Tiny, putting the bag of teeth carefully into his breast pocket.

‘No doubt about it,’ Porta assures him. ‘We went into this dam’ war piss-poor but we’ll get out of it rich as a couple of Jew gold-dealers and dressed up in tailor-mades with officer’s boots shining like shit on a slate.’

‘Think we’ll get to be officers?’ asks Tiny sceptically.

‘No, I wouldn’t consider it probable, but I wouldn’t consider it
im
probable either. In the service of God and Prussia anything’s possible!’

‘I wouldn’t ’alf like the chance of bein’ some kind of Oberst,’ Tiny grins with a revengeful glint in his eyes. ‘Best’d be one of them big guns on the General Staff with the rosy-coloured stripes down their strides. I’d ’ave Hauptfeldwebel bleedin’ ’Ofman crawlin’ on ’is gut in pigshit eight hours a day. An’ Julius soddin’ ’Eide up in the ’ighest tree in the forest with orders to shout “
Sieg
”, “
Heil
”, from dawn to bleedin’ dusk. With ’is gas-mask on, too!’

‘You don’t have to be more than a Leutnant to do that,’ states Porta, ’and you’ll make that quicker than you’ll make Oberst. Learn to quote regulations backwards and forwards and you’ll be a sword swallower before you even know it.’