Chink’s dark eyes gleamed with undisguised admiration.
‘Can you take me and a few of my fellows with you?’ Schulze persisted.
‘How many?’
Schulze told him and he thought for a moment. ‘Yes, that would about do it, my friend.’
‘Do what?’
Janosz hesitated for a fraction of a second. ‘Schulze, my fare was paid by a certain number of citizens of this city who want to escape.’
‘Why pay you?’
‘What do you mean, Schulze?’
‘I mean they are fleeing by the thousand out there. Why should they pay you anything to do the same?’
Janosz beamed at him, as if he were a stupid child, who at long last was asking a reasonably intelligent question. ‘All those people you have seen are going east. My people want to go
west
. They are the kind of people who will not survive long in the glorious new socialist republic that will soon be founded here in Hungary.’
Schulze nodded his understanding. ‘Now I get you. But how are you going to do it?’
‘By courtesy of Comrade Marshal Tolbuchin of the Second Ukrainian Front.’
Schulze sat up in amazement.
‘I saw him two days ago and he gave me permission to move my – er – flock out of danger. It was a true expression of Christian charity.’ Janosz made a gesture as if counting money. ‘A train of three coaches and room for 18o people at 1,000 silver forints a person.’ He shrugged. ‘Even Soviet marshals are not immune apparently to the temptations of capital, eh?’
‘So it would seem,’ Schulze said drily.
‘We are all bound – God willing – for Palestine; you see, all the passengers will be Jews.’
‘But how the hell are you going to get to Palestine via the east?’ Schulze protested.
‘We are not going east. We are going west. Of course, the good Marshal does not know that. You see Schulze, I do not trust our Soviet friend. I feel that once we have handed over the money to him and we are safely out of the immediate area of Budapest, travelling eastwards; we are going to suffer an unfortunate accident.’
‘What do you mean?’ Schulze asked.
‘The train will be attacked by partisans, rogue Cossacks, who knows what? But attacked we will be and the good Marshal will ensure that we go no further as living evidence of the little grease he has taken, and then he will loot our bodies for further gain.’
‘My God !’ Schulze exploded in sheer admiration. ‘You think of everything!’
‘I am a Jew,’ Janosz said, as if that were sufficient explanation.
‘That is why it is opportune that you have appeared now, Schulze.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I would like to hire you and your good friends of the Armed SS to protect the train on its journey westwards against the dangers that face us.’
‘
Hire a unit of the Armed SS to protect a trainload of Yids!
’ Schulze looked incredulous.
‘It is my last chance to get to Palestine, Schulze, I must take every precaution. Now listen. Admiral Horthy’s
1
armoured train is still in the sidings at Buda main station. The locomotive and the carriages are all armoured and have machine-gun-turrets and that sort of thing. You’ll probably know what I mean? Now for a large consideration – and as we have already obtained a clearance from the good Marshal to leave Buda – the station master of Buda Station will let us have that train, already fuelled and with a trusted driver at the controls. Again for a large consideration, the rail track staff at Buda and throughout Western Hungary will ensure that the train passes safely into Austria.’
‘You mean they’re going to arrange it so that the train doesn’t go east, as the Ivans expect, but westwards?’
‘Exactly. My plan is to pass through Western Hungary into Austria, which is still in German hands. Hopefully, Christian charity will still prevail there among your fellow countrymen – at a price naturally – so that we will be able to continue into Italy. There with luck, the British and their new Italian allies will not stop us getting to the port. The Hagannah –’
‘The what?’
‘A Jewish underground organization to which I happen to belong.’
‘
You
would,’ Schulze said, completely mesmerized by the little Jew.
‘As I was saying, the Hagannah will ensure that there is a ship organized for us to run the British blockade off Palestine.’ He paused and looked up at the big NCO expectantly. ‘What do you think, Sergeant-Major?’
‘I think – what do we get out of it?’
‘A free trip out of this hell-hole.’
‘Not enough, Yid,’ the Chink said before Schulze could speak. ‘You pretty shit-smart man. You pay more.’
‘Yes,’ Schulze grunted ‘What’s in it for us?’
‘One kilo of coffee, a half bottle of schnapps, one carton of cigarettes – American,’ Janosz said, his eyes on the ground sadly like a man whose heart had just been broken. ‘Per soldier.’
‘Make it two cartons and you’re on?’
‘One American – and one Turkish?’ Janosz asked swiftly.
‘Done!’
‘Good!’ Janosz beamed at him and stuck out his skinny hand. ‘You will receive them on the day.’
‘And when is that?’ Schulze asked.
‘Tomorrow night, at eight.’
‘Where?’
‘We assemble in the yard of the old locomotive factory. You will meet us there with your men in Russian uniform. It is better.’
‘We’ll get it,’ Schulze said and rose to go. As the woman extinguished the light so that they could pass out unnoticed into the darkness, Monsignor Janosz intoned in his most saintly voice, ‘And may Jesus Christ, Our Lord, watch over you, my son.’
‘Ballocks!’ was ‘his son’s’ sole reply.
Note
1.
The recently deposed dictator of Hungary.
On the following morning, 12 February, 1945, Marshal Tolbuchin launched his final assault on the German SS divisions grouped around the
Burg
in Buda.
1
Heedless of the civilians still there, he began a massive two-hour long artillery bombardment as a preliminary to his advance.
One after another the German strongpoints at the University, the museum, the radio station were knocked out and the surviving SS men sent streaming back to dig in furiously elsewhere. The bombardment ended as abruptly as it had started and the T-34s – hundreds of them, supported by infantry – began to move in.
For a couple of hours, a group of SS men from the
8th Cavalry
managed to hold the Moricz Zsigmond Square against a huge force of Soviet tanks and Guards infantry. But in the end they broke too and fled towards the old castle, which dominated Castle Hill, and was the main German headquarters.
Made cautious by the defence of the square, which had cost him twenty tanks and a hundred Guards killed, the commander of the Narva Tank Regiment, leading the attack, radioed his HQ for artillery support.
To the surprise of the German interception experts crouched over their radios in the castle’s ancient cellars, Marshal Tolbuchin himself replied from somewhere on the other side of the Danube. ‘The hour of decision has come,’ he barked over the air. ‘Now we must chop the paws off the German beast. Comrade Colonel – attack now, or don’t bother to come back here!’ The threat was undisguised and the commander of the Narva Regiment knew it. He threw in his tanks.
At their posts all around the Castle, the men of the
8th
and
22nd SS
and of the
Europa
, watched open-mouthed as the T-34s started to crawl up the twisting, turning streets which led to the heights. On all four sides the heights were black with the crawling metal monsters. It was as if a ring of steel were about to garrotte them to death. The SS commanders knew that their young soldiers might well panic and break, if nothing were done. General Rumohr, who like General Zehender and Colonel Habicht had taken up his place in the fortified line, grabbed a
panzerfaust
out of the hands of a mesmerized grenadier. ‘Follow me!’ he shouted, springing out into the open.
A handful of his staff followed. Tearing down the hill, he stopped a hundred metres away from the nearest T-34. Standing completely in the open, ignoring the tracer cutting the air wildly all around, he aimed as calmly as if he were standing at some peacetime range. Blue flame jetted from the back of the anti-tank weapon. The long wooden projectile with its squat round metal head wobbled clumsily through the air. In the same moment that a burst of Soviet fire cut Rumohr down, the bomb exploded directly underneath the tank’s turret. At that short range, the impact was tremendous. An instant later the bomb exploded and the turret rose into the air. Within seconds the rump was a sea of greedy red flames.
Rurnohr’s sacrifice broke the spell. Everywhere the young grenadiers opened up with their
panzerfaust
weapons. The air was suddenly full of the awkward projectiles. Tank after tank was hit, its covering infantry running wildly for the safety of the nearest house, tracked by German machine-gun fire. But still they kept on. It seemed Regiment Narva had an inexhaustible supply of T-34s. Slowly the
panzerfaust
s began to give out.
Deep in his cellar HQ, filled with dead and dying grenadiers a drunk, desperate Pfeffer-Wildenbruch asked for volunteers to tackle the tanks with adhesive bombs. But there were no men left to volunteer, save the wounded and the medical personnel. In the end it was the men of the X-ray unit, pale-faced bespectacled medics, who seized the sticky bombs and went out to do battle with the metal monsters.
The ‘X-Ray Commandos’, as they called themselves during their short-lived existence, proved themselves bold, daring infantrymen. Perhaps it was because they did not realize the risks they were running. Time and time again one of them would dart out of the rubble and stick his bomb to the side of a T-34. The hollow clang of metal adhering to metal would alarm the Russian crew and they would swing their machine-guns round to deal with their attacker in one swift burst of fire. But there was nothing they could do about the bomb stuck to their metal side like a deadly limpet. A few managed to bail out, but only a very few. The rest remained in their battened down vehicle and waited for death with almost stoical resignation.
Within the hour the slope was littered with the bloody white-robed figures of the ‘X-Ray Commando’ among the smoking burning hulks. But the Russians still kept coming on. General Zehender’s remaining positions were overrun. His
SS Cavalry
had no heavy weapons left to stop the tanks. The tankers ground their 30-ton vehicles round and round over the SS men’s slit trenches until the sides began to give in and the whole weight of their T-34s descended upon the terrified screaming men below. When they emerged their tracks were red with blood. Zehender’s
SS Cavalry
started to break. Here and there, panic-stricken young soldiers dropped their weapons, sprang out of their holes and raised their hands in surrender to the advancing Russian infantry.
Angrily Zehender attempted to stop the rot. ‘Get down you bastards!’ he cried and sent a furious burst from his machine-pistol flying over the heads of the men with the raised hands.
The Russian infantry concentrated their fire on the man who had suddenly appeared only a hundred metres away, dressed in the uniform of an SS general. He didn’t seem to notice. He kept firing at his own men running towards the advancing Russians, his heavy face flushed an angry red. The first slug struck him. He staggered, but kept after his men, crying, ‘Come, back, come back, do you hear?’
Another bullet hit him. He staggered badly. The machine-pistol fell from his hands and he sank to his knees. ‘Come back,’ he cried desperately, the tears rolling down his cheeks.
‘
General!
’ a Russian in an earth-coloured blouse cried and pointed his tommy-gun in the direction of the dying German.
‘Capture him and he’s good for a medal and fourteen days’ leave.’ The infantry surged forward with a guttural ‘
urrah!
’
Zehender seemed to understand. His fingers fumbled with his pistol holster. Somehow or other he managed to get the Walther out. With a hand that trembled visibly, he raised the wavering pistol, placed the muzzle against his right temple, pressed the trigger and his head disappeared in a sudden spurt of scarlet.
After this sacrifice the heart finally ebbed from the German defenders of the hill. It would not be long before what was left of them started to surrender.
Habicht put down his glasses. ‘Schulze,’ he cried above the roar of the Soviet artillery.
‘Sir.’ Schulze dropped to his knees next to the Colonel outside the dugout CP.
‘The Cavalry are having a very bad time of it,’ Habicht said. ‘They’re taking tremendous losses: We must help them.’
Schulze looked at him in alarm. The three or four hundred survivors of the
Europa
were in a good position. There they could be overrun and taken prisoner without too many casualties. Schulze thought he had done his duty by the men; now it was time that he and his little picked band should make their way to the locomotive works. ‘What do you mean – help them?’
Habicht did not seem to notice that he had omitted the ‘sir’. ‘A flank attack. That is what is required. We could catch them off their guard. We’d be through them like a hot knife through butter. The Red bastards think they’ve got it all worked out. But they haven’t reckoned with the
Europa
, have they Schulze?’
‘Did you say – flank attack?’
‘Yes.’ Already Habicht was surveying his front, working out a rudimentary swift plan of attack. ‘We’ll go in on both sides, taking him down there where –’
‘But goddamit, they’ve got a score of tanks down there to our front!’ Schulze exploded. ‘How in Christ’s name are we going to break through them? –
with tin openers?
’
Suddenly Habicht became aware that the Regimental Sergeant-Major was shouting at him, his face crimson with rage, the veins standing out at his temples an angry red. ‘Why are you talking in this manner?’ he demanded coldly.
Schulze gasped for air. ‘Because you’re crazy!’
Habicht glared at him, his hand falling to his pistol holster. ‘You mean you intend to disobey my order, Sarnt-Major?’ he yelled.