Blitzfreeze (34 page)

Porta jumps up and down like a giant frog shouting like a happy boy. He is quite smitten with the fat girl.

‘This is the best long distance warm-up I’ve ever struck!’ he shouts excitedly.

An hour later we’re on our way. We cross the ice by the Dorogomilovsky churchyard, and pass a great pile of bodies awaiting burial. Casualties from the air-raid and the artillery attacks. We move round a small house and are challenged by a guard.

‘Better me speak,’ whispers Vasilij. ‘He no get dead scare, shout out!’

In the wink of an eye the Legionnaire has strangled the officious guard. We throw his body, still warm, up to the others.

Tiny turns over one of the bodies.

‘What about a little gold minin’, eh?’ he asks, nudging Porta.

‘Just try it!’ snarls the Old Man pointing his gun at him. ‘Try it! That’s if you want to join the great majority of the Goddam pile here!’

‘Fuck
me
, but you’re difficult!’ shouts Tiny, irritated. ‘The face you been goin’ round with just lately ain’t good for our nerves, you know. It’s psychological cruelty, that’s what it is. You can get
divorced
for that!’

By the film studios we run into a large column of militia. An old major blows himself up to the size of a general and demands
propusk
.

He can’t see our badges in the dark and Vasilij has to make it clear to him that he is talking to the NKVD and risking a long holiday in Ljubjanka and Kolyma. Without more discussion we march off. Vasilij on the flank of the column.

The major remains, standing stiff as a poker at the salute, for as long as we are in sight.

As soon as we’re across the railway line we run as fast as our legs can carry us. You never know what an old officer like that can hit on when he’s had time to do a bit of thinking.

On the Mozhaishkoe road we hitch on to a large troop unit, so that it looks as if we belong to them, and are soon in open country.

A storm blows up that makes every step a battle. Mountains of snow drive across the road. We hold on to one another’s belts to avoid getting lost in the white hell of the blizzard. We take a couple of hours rest in a deserted sheepfold and reach the front area the following day. There we meet the Brandenburgers who are nervous, and vocally irritable, at having been kept waiting.

The rest of our trip up to the front line goes off without any brushes with the Russians. They have their hands full preparing an important offensive. All sorts of units are on the move. The whole area behind the front line is fluid.

‘Damn good us, they busy make shitty big attack,’ says a satisfied Vasilij. ‘Them no time squash crazy German louse.’

We creep out through the Russian lines when night falls and reach our own forward positions shortly after dawn.

The Brandenburg Feldwebel is the first into the trench, but there isn’t a sign of our people.

Porta runs to the command dug-out. Empty. No SMGs in the nests. A ruined baseplate is all that is left of the mortar group alongside it.

‘
Fritz, Fritz, idisodar
,’ sounds behind me and an MG hammers tracer the length of the trench. In a second we are down and shooting down the straight with everything we’ve got.

A party of Russians fall back as if struck by a battering-ram.

Grenades fly through the air and explode hollowly. Torn-off human limbs are blasted along the lip of the trench and sink soggily into the breast-work.

‘Get moving!’ cries the Old Man. ‘I’ll cover you. Run for your lives!’ Quickly we are up and over the lip of the trench and storm southwards. Behind us machne-guns crackle.

I fall over a body, a fallen Brandenburger, and slide into a shell-hole filled with dead. Frozen arms and legs point accusingly at the sky. Crooked fingers seem to catch at me. It’s as if they are saying ‘How dare
you
remain alive when
we
are dead?’

Porta jumps across the hole. I try to go after him but slide back twice down the icy sides. The ice is red. Frozen blood. A beautiful sight, really, only to be seen in war. The Old Man is right when he says: ‘Even in war there are moments of beauty.’ The Russians are right on our heels with their inviting call: ‘
Fritz, Fritz, idisodar!
’

We keep on at top speed over a wasteland carpeted with the dead. We almost jump down into a Russian position but they fire too soon, and we manage to turn off.

Tiny leaps down into a shell hole and turning like a top in midleap has his LMG in position as he lands.

The leading Russians fall only a few yards from him.

I stop for a moment to throw a few grenades. It’s like rolling up a trench. As if in slow motion I see Russians blown to pieces. A torn-off hand flies past my head. Then we’re off towards the west again. Our people must be
some
where. They’ve probably only straightened the front.

A few yards in front of me is the Brandenburger Feldwebel running with long athletic strides. I stop suddenly as if I had run into a giant fist. The earth gapes in front of me. A column of flame shoots up into the air and the Feldwebel goes up with it. He seems to spin like a ball juggled on the tip of the flame. His body lands at my feet with the sound of a wet cloth. The mine he has sprung has blown off both his feet. Nothing can be done for him. Blood pulses in thick jets from veins and arteries. I hasten past without looking at him. His
screams follow me. It is best for the badly wounded to die quickly! Often, though, it takes them a wickedly long time.

Finally we reach our own trenches. Firing commences from both ends.

‘Cease fire! Cease fire!’ screams the Old Man, desperately. ‘We are Brandenburgers!’

A boyish Leutnant, with
Hitler Jugend
eyes, sticks his head cautiously from a corner of the trench and demands the password.

‘Get fucked!’ shouts Porta insubordinately and takes cover immediately. They might be just frightened enough to shoot. Nothing is so dangerous and unpredictable as terrified soldiers led by an inexperienced officer.

‘Are you German?’ comes a shout from the corner where the Leutnant seems to be.

‘Come out ’ere, you wicked bastard!’ shouts Tiny, ‘an’ I’ll prove it to you before I strangle you!’

A potato-masher whirls through the air and explodes in front of Vasilij throwing him several yards into the air. He falls with a heavy thud and a streaming pool of blood grows under him.

‘Them crazy shitty German we run to,’ he groans. ‘You kill for me! Vasilij go Great
Kunfu
. Great pity no know how war end and we no eat velvet hen with cousin in Hong Kong.’ His body arches like a stretched bow. He struggles to get to his feet. Gets halfway, presses the Old Man by the hand. ‘
Dasvidanja
, Feldwebel!’ He is dead!

An uncontrollable rage grips us. With submachine-guns chattering we rush the trench containing the Leutnant and his men. In seconds we have disarmed them. The young Leutnant presses himself against the trench wall, white in the face.

The little Legionnaire literally cuts his uniform off him with his Moorish knife.

‘Don’t kill him!’ shouts the Old Man, warningly. ‘He’s only a boy!’

‘That little shit murdered Vasilij,’ screams Porta furiously.

Before the Old Man can hinder it the Leutnant is thrown to the other end of the trench.

A Feldwebel springs at Porta and gets his throat cut in a flash.

We stand on the edge of the trench with armed grenades and guns at the ready.

‘Down on your faces! Hands behind your neck!’ shouts the Old Man. ‘Or you’re dead men!’ The whole trench complement goes down.

‘And we’re supposed to win a war with this kind of material,’ says the Old Man, shaking his head, despairingly. ‘Who was it said our German soldiers were marvellous? God preserve us!’

Oberst Hinka arrives shortly after with a group of officers. He welcomes us back, almost embracing Porta, and hears our report in silence.

Cigarettes and schnapps are passed round.

‘You’ve given this trench complement a terrible shock,’ laughs Hinka. ‘Why did you not follow my orders?’ he turns severely to the Leutnant, who is keeping his distance. ‘You knew we were expecting a commando group back!’

‘They were in Russian uniforms and could not give the password,’ the Leutnant defends himself, redfaced.

‘Did you expect them to arrive in dress uniform with a pass in a cleft stick?’ shouts Hinka.

‘I thought …’

‘You’ll come to explain what you thought,’ answers Hinka, turning on his heel.

‘Bastard!’ hisses Porta, spitting at the Leutnant’s feet. The young officer tries to say something.

‘Just one word,’ snarls Porta, lifting the butt of his weapon. ‘One word that’s all! And I’ll smash your silly HJ face in!’

We bury Vasilij on a height from which the towers of Moscow can be seen in silhouette. A Brandenburger plays the Dead March. His submachine-gun and his kukhri go with him to the grave. Only women go unarmed to Great
Kunfu
.

In the evening we march back to 27 Panzer Regiment. Chief Mechanic Wolf can’t believe his own eyes when he sees Porta alive.

‘God strike me dead!’ he shouts. ‘And I’ve paid for three candles for you on the field altar!’

He is so shocked that he invites us to dine on roast wild-pig that evening. We eat till we nearly burst. All next day we spend sitting in the latrines playing dice. They even have to bring us our meals there. It’s not worth getting up. Everything runs straight through us. That wild-pig must have been sick. Maybe that was why Wolf invited
us
to dinner.

1
Wolf: See
Comrades of War
.

2
Basura
(Spanish): Dustbin (Porta is emptying it on Wolf.)

3
GEKADOS (Geheime Kommandosachen) (German): Military Secrets.

4
Kunfu
: Confucius.

5
Hals und Beinbruch
(German): ‘Break your neck and leg.’ An expression equivalent to ‘Good luck,’ by opposites.

6
Nix karosch
(Russian): No good.

7
Tekuai
(Chinese): Express train.

8
Beijing
(Chinese): Peking.

9
Prasstitutka
(Russian): Whore.

10
Mulkt sakt
etc. (Tibetan): Zone strictly out of bounds.

11
Tjurjma
(Russian): Prison.

12
Plljudji
(Russian): People.

13
Politsyja
(Russian): Police.

14
Propusk
(Russian): Pass.

15
Nejmtsamat
(Mongolian): Strictly forbidden.

16
Brat
(Russian): Brother.

17
Gefüllte Fische
(German): Stuffed fish.

18
Brust Flanken
(Yiddish): Corned beef – Beef a la mode or Allemand.

19
Marabu: See ‘
Assignment Gestapo
.’

20
Tanganskaya: Notorious Russian political prison.

21
Djaevuschka
(Russian): Girls.

22
Rjaegully
(Russian): menstruation.

23
Schupo (Schutzpolizei) (German): Uniformed police.

24
Spasibo
(Russian): Thanks.

25
Stoi koi
(Russian): Stop immediately.

26
Natschaljniks
(Russian): Bosses.

27
Je te pisse
etc: (French): I’ll piss up your arse!

’Traitors must be rooted out, and the children of traitors; nothing of them, nothing at all, must be allowed to remain.’

A little past 3 o’clock on the morning of 11 January 1942, two men, in long leather coats and wearing black steel helmets, rang long and impatiently on the door of a flat on Admiral-von-Tirpitz-Ufer, across from the Potzdamer Brücke. When no reply came they began to bang with their fists on the tall oak panels of the door.

‘What do you people want? The Herr General went to bed long ago. What is this hooligan behaviour? I am Regierungsrat Dr Esmer. I can assure you a complaint will be made tomorrow!’

‘Get out!’ snarled one of the black-helmeted men, ‘if you don’t want to jump through the hoop yourself!’

The Regierungsrat noticed, for the first time, the silver collar dogs with the SS emblem. He seemed to shrink into himself and retired quickly into his flat. In the dubious safety of their marriage bed his wife berated him violently.

The following day the Regierungsrat reported sick and left on a recreational visit to Bad Gastein.