Blitzfreeze (9 page)

‘Shoot the arse off ’em!’ screams Pjotr, fanatically.

The two soldiers work with machine-like accuracy. Their bodies bend, lift, stretch at their bloody work like automatons. They have no thought of flight. Anybody suggesting it would be shot down on the spot. The regimental commissar’s words still ring in their ears: ‘Comrades, kill the Fascist invaders! Crush them, destroy them like the vermin they are! Die before letting them pass. It is the duty of every Russian soldier to take a hundred Fascist swine with him. If you do not reach that target you are a traitor and your family will suffer for it! Long live Stalin! Long live the Red Army!’

‘Enemy PAK straight in front!’ sounds the Old Man’s quiet voice as he sights Pjotr’s anti-tank gun.

‘Target acknowledged!’ I echo.

Points dance in the sight. The green lamp blinks.

The hum of the turret stops. The PAK shows up clearly in the sighting mechanism. The gun-muzzle winks hungrily at the Russian position. There is a short violent explosion of light and sound and the gun commander is flying away from us, the gun turning and twisting end over end until it lands a pile of scrap. As we drive over the position the gunner is caught in the tracks and dragged after us. An arm drops to one side a leg to the other. The lower part of his body catches on the off-side light cowl.

The incident is over. Forgotten!

A party of infantry appears in front of us. One of them throws his machine-gun at us in desperation. He dies under the tracks together with his comrades.

‘If only blood wasn’t so sticky,’ grumbles Porta. ‘Can’t get it off. If God’d thought of tanks when He created the world He’d’ve made blood that wasn’t sticky, and could be washed off with plain water before inspection.’

Heide enters into a complicated explanation, involving red and white blood corpuscles, of just why blood sticks to tanks.

Slowly we fight our way through the village. Two companies of the 41st Infantry have been liquidated – neck-shot.

Propaganda says it’s the NKVD, but there are a lot of Mpi
³
cases round the bodies. There’s a rumour that they’re would-be deserters shot down by the SD Special Commando. When we go to have a closer look at the bodies we get chased off. A mortar bomb drops into the middle of a group of SD-men. A torn-off arm, the hand still gripping a pistol, is thrown through the driver’s hatch into Porta’s lap. He picks it up and waves it admiringly.

‘Look at that, boys! That’s the way we fight in Adolf the Mighty’s army! Even a torn-off arm hangs on to its bloody weapon! Reminds me of when my biological father went off to war with the 67th Potsdam Infantry who were so inspired by the thought of dying for the Fatherland that they marched away decorated with roses in black and white organdie.
⁴
The third day in action they deserted to the enemy. They’d had enough of fighting for the Fatherland, but before they left they gave themselves time to beat up some Austrians from Vienna who were shouting traitorously:

‘“Hurra, hurra, long live the King!” cried the 67th as they ran across no-man’s-land.

‘The officers never dreamt what these fervent patriotic cries really meant. They thought these coolies were shouting for Wilhelm, King of Prussia. But the Berliners were thinking of Peter of Serbia. The 67th had a drunken Feldwebel called Mateka who had been in front of a court-martial in irons several times, and had it explained to him equally often that a bigger fool than himself had never existed. The Feldwebel’s trouble was that he was a Sudeten German, and as such was forced to change his allegiance the way other people change buses; without feeling any particular interest in either the new or the old one.’

‘Where’d ’e come from?’ asks Tiny who is sitting on a body eating a tomato.

‘He was from Prague,’ explains Porta. ‘His mother was a Pole from Lemberg who’d lived with a Jew horse-trader from Libau who bought Russian horses for the Scandinavian market.

‘These nags from the steppes were so old the Jew had to dye their muzzles before he loaded them. On the way he salted their food so much that they always arrived with nice round bellies from drinking all the time. The oldest of them he doctored with a shot of pepper up the arse to make ‘im seem frisky on arrival. If any of them had been cut out for sale by the Cossacks because they were lame in a leg, this was no problem for him either. The Jew lamed ’em on the
other
side so the purchaser wouldn’t notice it. If pepper-stick couldn’t liven ’em up he’d gave ’em a dose of schnapps laced with arsenic and believe you me
that
made ’em jump about as lively as crickets!’

‘Come
on!
What
about
Feldwebel Mateka?’ interrupted the Old Man impatiently.

‘Jesus! I nearly forgot
him!
He reported to a Persian Rittmeister of dragoons who handed him over to the care of Polizei-Watchtmeister Joseph Malán. Malán was the type of policeman who was continually beating his own record for idiocy.

‘After the first bottle of Slivovitz they were calling one
another traitors and deserters and swore that each of them would be on the end of a good hempen rope before the evening meal. By the time they opened the third bottle they’d got to singing good patriotic songs and compiling crazy reports and despatching them to places far outside that particular police district. Then they went off arm-in-arm singing away down the Libjatkastrasse. I don’t suppose anything would have come of all this is they hadn’t run into the wife of the CO of the regiment, and slipping their hands up under her dress remarked that it was like feeling-up a frozen Polish cow on a rainy day in November. The well-born officer’s lady rushed straight to the Oberst of dragoons who rang to the Rittmeister of police and demanded that order be kept in the district so that God-fearing married women could walk the streets in safety without the risk of being compared to Polish cows.

‘The Rittmeister of police was well away when the dragoon Oberst rang to complain about the treatment his wife had received here in the middle of a war. After opening a new bottle of Tokay and thinking about it for a while, he paraded his force and numbered the men in threes. Nos. 1 received a slash across the face from his riding-whip, as was usual when officers and gentlemen, as happened occasionally, ran across the rank and file. Nos. 2 were given a regimentally correct kick in the pants. Nos. 3 got a punch on the jaw for being last in numbering-off.

‘“You villains! You’re not Royal Serbian Police at all!” roared the Rittmeister. “You’re nothing but a shower of flat-footed pot-bellied parsons in uniform. You’re the Royal Austrian Steers!” he added thoughtfully as he looked at his sleepy herd.

‘The Rittmeister was generally known as a notorious nutcase who sprayed insults and curses around whenever he was under the influence. Which was almost always.

‘“I hate the bloody sight of you!” he continued. “You stand here on parade thinking all the time that the Fatherland and the war effort can all get fucked as far as you are
concerned. But the Fatherland has no intention whatever of getting fucked! You would be surprised what the Fatherland
does
intend and
will
do! With
you
however it will have nothing whatsoever to do”

‘He went on to speak of discipline and regulations.

‘“Presumptuous persons, who put their hands up under the skirts of officers’ wives in the public streets, shall be handcuffed and taken to the police-station. The lady will also be taken to the station as a witness, but
not
handcuffed, you witless fools! At the station the crime can be reconstructed for the report!”

‘He withdrew a circular from his cuff and began to read aloud:

‘“From the All-Highest Royal Ministry of War it is made known that it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that spies and similar criminals are operating, by reason of the present war, within the country. It is the Royal Police’s highest duty to apprehend these suspicious persons and make provision, according to the law, for their being hanged.”

‘The Rittmeister of police from the Zagreb Military District was, all-in-all, a highly respected idiot who every Saturday evening at the officers’ weekend parties stripped himself completely naked. He was close to disgrace once, when he lay down in front of the Tihomil statue in Petersplatz with a kipper stuck up his backside and explained to passers-by that he was a mermaid on tour to Monte Negro. It wouldn’t have been half so bad if the drunken fool hadn’t had his sabre with ceremonial trappings clanking around his naked loins, and if he hadn’t had his garrison cap hanging on his dick. He explained this later as being due to personal modesty. They took him to the main guardroom where the warrant officer in charge of the cells, Brieler, ordered him to be hung in irons and gave him a thorough going-over with the bastinado.

‘“We’ll teach a civilian bastard like you not to take the piss out of the fighting forces. Lying down in front of King Tihomil and farting straight up in his noble granite features!”

‘The next day the warrant officer was broken two grades and fined a quarter’s pay for disrespect to an officer. His excuse, that the Rittmeister was naked and in this condition bore a remarkable resemblance to a civilian, did not help him in the least. Further, he suffered from piles. This latter was, however, deleted from the report to save the face of the Army. No officer could possibly be afflicted with piles. This affair cost the Rittmeister a packet. He was posted to a miserable frontier district, where the people were so suspicious of one another that they took their bikes in to church with them, which is a thing they do in certain parts of France. . . .’

‘Can it, Porta!’ sighs the Old Man, ‘
and
climb aboard! We’re moving!’

‘This war’s getting on my bloody nerves,’ shouts Porta furiously. ‘What the bloody hell’s it got to do with me, anyway! It’s just the same as with old Levinsky, the gents’ bloody tailor from Königsallee in Düsseldorf, who was a specialist in turning jackets. When you turn a jacket, naturally the breast-pocket comes out on the wrong side. There was one hell of a row over that in the Kaiser’s War in 1916, one Monday. Herr Oberstleutnant von Schletwein had had this civilian jacket turned. The first time he wore it he met a major of hussars who asked him interestedly what it felt like to pull a fountain-pen out of the wrong side of a jacket. That’s when the Obersleutnant discovered that there were problems involved in having a jacket turned.’

‘Shut your great gob!’ yelled the Old Man. ‘We don’t give a sod for your Düsseldorf tailor and your Oberstleutnant! Start the bloody
motor
!’

‘Don’t you even want to know what happened to Levinsky when he was called up in the 7th Uhlans, which had been turned into a foot regiment because all the horses had been eaten. Their Oberst wasn’t too clever where war was concerned and advanced in column of route. He was against all the new-fangled stuff they were teaching the young officers.

‘“Machine-guns are of no importance,” he explained to his adjutant, “and I’ll prove this by making my advance in column of route. When these Frenchmen recognize our blue Uhlan uniforms advancing towards them they’ll run from their
machine-guns
like
rabbits
.”

‘It was a costly proof for the cavalry Oberst and his Uhlans. The Frenchies mowed the lot of them down with those same machine-guns. Even as he lay dying the Oberst still sobbed! “Machine-guns are of
no
importance in war. . . .” The only man of that regiment who got out alive was Levinsky the tailor who was discharged for the loss of a leg, and this . . .’

‘One word more,’ hisses the Old Man, pressing his revolver muzzle against Porta’s neck, ‘and I’ll blow your bloody brains out!’

A 100 mm anti-tank gun is dug-in in the ditch alongside the road, behind a heap of agricultural machines and burnt-out lorries. ‘Fire!’ the gun commander’s hand chops down. The shell flies above the leading T-34. Too high! A slight correction is made to the sights. The next shot is a hit. The gun crew are jubilant and thump the aimer on the back. He is an old soldier with nerves of steel. A necessity for a good antitank man.

It’s a hit, all right. But the only result is a shower of fat sparks struck from the tank turret as the shell bounces off.

‘Fire!’

Another hit! Without effect! Again and again the antitank guns fire but they might as well be using pea-shooters.

‘God have mercy on us!’ pants the gun-commander fearfully.

‘What the devil
is
that monster!’ asks the loader nervously. He has never met a T-34 before. Until now they have only operated singly. This is a whole formation of them.

‘And they say Ivan’s finished!’ mumbles the gunner. Shaking with fear the gun crew stare at the giant tank with the unbelievably broad tracks, the sloping green sides and the
enormous gun projecting from the round turret with the red Soviet star on each side.

‘Fire,’ roars the anti-tank NCO in despair. ‘Maximum rapid! Try to hit the swine in the same place every time!’

But the results are equally ineffective. The fear of death comes over the gunners. They send shot after shot at the steel monster rocking and roaring evilly on the same spot. A loaded lorry is crushed, unnoticed beneath its 38 tons weight.

The twenty-fifth shot crashes from the PAK-gun and glances off the enemy tank with as little effect as all the others.

Suddenly the turret opens. A leatherclad figure appears and threatens the German positions with a clenched fist.