Authors: Sven Hassel
I ran my hand menacingly, caressingly, along the barrel of the machine-gun. I had only to push back the safety catch and she would be ready for her task of destruction... God, how I loathed their so-called democracies with their sanctimonious tirades and their ceaseless lies! So easy to sit back and give advice when you're safe indoor with a full belly and warm feet. What about the 275,000 unemployed in Copenhagen? In Copenhagen alone? Why not shoot the lot and be done with it? That would solve a few of their democratic problems for them.
That last Christmas in Copenhagen... how I remembered that last Christmas! I remembered slouching through the streets with my gloveless hands in my split .pockets, scuffing up the snow with my threadbare shoes, looking up at the glittering lights on the tree in the middle of the Radhuspladsen. I hated that tree. It was a symbol of smugness and security. Their security, not ours. I walked over and pissed up it, right up as far as it would go, and then I walked away again leaving a steaming yellow stain in the crisp snow.
I wandered alone down the Vesterbrogade. Behind each window was a little tree or little lights or pretty paper baubles. Happy Christmas! Happy Christmas everyone! The catchphrase on people's lips. Happy Christmas, merry Christmas. Just a catchphrase, nothing more. It didn't mean a thing. You try knocking on a door and begging for a mouthful of Christmas goose and you'd find yourself on your arse in the gutter before you knew where you were. And yet for all that, it was the season of goodwill and they were satisfied with themselves and at peace with the world.
On the day after Christmas, late in the afternoon, I met up with a boy I knew called Paul. Most people were hurrying on their way to the cinema, for this was the day on which the programmes were changed and new films were shown. I remember there were many films about war, and one about the death of Al Capone. All very bloodthirsty and suitable for the season of the year. Paul and I seated ourselves in a cafe and shared one cup of coffee and a croissant. There was a police station down the road, so neither of us was quite able to be at ease.
'How'd you like a job?' said Paul, after a while.
Very casually, as if offers of work were an everyday affair.
I just looked at him and raised a sceptical eyebrow.
'A real job with a real pay packet every Friday,' he said, as casual as ever.
'Get lost!' I said.
'I'm serious.'
There was a pause. I looked at him challengingly, not believing a word of it, daring him to go on and commit himself. After a bit, he hunched a shoulder.
'I thought you might be interested... It's an address in Germany I was given. They're actually short of labour over there, if you can imagine that... They're willing to teach you the work and pay you at the same time. It's a factory of some kind... I'm told that by the end of a year you can save quite a tidy sum.'
I sat for a moment in stunned silence. A job... a pay packet... food in your belly and clothes on your back and, a real bed to sleep in... Even now I hardly dared believe in the truth of it. Before I could ask any more detailed questions the owner of the cafe was at our side, gesticulating angrily towards the door: there was a limit to the amount of sitting and talking they allowed for one cup of coffee and one croissant.
Fifteen days later Paul and I arrived in Berlin, having made the journey as stowaways in a goods train. Very shortly after that, Paul was killed in an accident at the factory, and I joined the Army as a result.
For the first time in more years than I could remember I ate three meals a day and slept in a bed at night. The work was hard, but the factory had been harder. I slowly put on weight, my hollow cheeks were filled out, my muscles developed. My rotten and broken teeth were cared for by the Army dentist as a matter of course, and all for free. I was issued with a smart uniform and knew the luxury of clean linen once a week. Suddenly, I was a human being. Suddenly, I realized what happiness was.
And then came the war, and with it the breaking up of my new-found joy in life. The companions I had lived with since I joined the army were killed or maimed or transferred to other units. As soldiers we were no longer treated as human beings but as a necessary commodity of war. We were essential, if the game were to go on, but so were tanks and guns and land-mines. The days of clean linen and free dental treatment were gone. We became ragged and filthy, unwashed and bug-ridden. The smart grey-green uniforms of which we had once been so proud faded until they were the colour and consistency of old dish-rags. The regiment lost its identity, merged with the rest of the war machine. And always we seemed to be on the march. We marched in the rain, we marched in the sun; we marched in extremes of heat and extremes of cold; in fog and snow and ice and mud. We quenched our thirst from scum-covered pools or rank ditch water. We bound our feet with rags when our boots wore through. And what did we have to look forward to, to keep alive airy ray of hope? There were only three possible futures for any of us: either you could be so badly wounded that you were dismissed as useless; or you could be taken prisoner and sit out the war in a p.o.w. camp; or--most likely--you could end up under a solitary slab by the side of some unknown road.
My dreaming was brought to an end by the blinding light of a flare burning in the night sky. Instinctively I threw myself down and crawled to cover. No need to wake up the others: their reactions had been as immediate as my own. What was happening, out there in no-man's-land? I released the safety catch on the machine-gun. The Old Man fired the Very pistol and the ground ahead was illuminated by the crude light of the flare. We held our breath and listened. From somewhere in the distance we heard the throbbing of heavy motors, the occasional harsh chatter of a machine-gun.
'Tanks,' whispered Gregor, rather nervously.
'They're coming this, way,' agreed Porta.
The Old Man fired another flare. Silence. Out in the blackness beyond the flare nothing moved, and yet we knew that something was there. We stood stiffly, with strained ears and staring eyes. Major Hinka's empty coat-sleeve flapped to and fro in the wind. The flare died away and as it did so we heard the grinding and clanking, of chains coming out of the darkness. The tanks were arriving. Instantly, we moved into action, preparing the anti-tank guns.
There was a whole army of tanks. The ground shook and rumbled beneath them. We could see the first of them now, advancing along the top of the cliffs, part of a long, grey column of prehistoric monsters.
Under the cross-fire of heavy machine-guns we crawled out into no-man's-land to install the Pak anti-tank gun. It was not long before we had her in working order, and not longer before her missiles found their mark. There was a sound as of thunder, then a vivid streak of red lightning flashed across the sky. The leading Churchill had stopped a grenade just under the turret, and what, seconds ago, had been a menacing steel fortress advancing greedily upon its prey, was now abruptly transformed into a gigantic firework.
Fifty metres away on our right a Cromwell was lumbering towards us. Little John turned, calmly shouldered his bazooka, took aim, with one eye tight closed, pressed his finger on the trigger. A long tongue of flame shot out. Cromwell met the same fate as Churchill.
The scene was repeated, with variations, many times over. Many tanks went up in flames, many men were burnt alive, but always there were more moving up to take their place. Men and tanks came upon us in a relentless stream. The Pak had been wiped out, the enemy artillery were enjoying themselves at our expense. The air was full of flying debris, some of it human in origin. Acrid smoke filled our lungs, burnt our throats and our eyes. Our ears resounded painfully with the after-effects of constant explosions. I lay pressed into the ground, my fists clenched, my head half buried in the sand, I saw now why men called her Mother Earth and worshipped her. Dirty and blood-stained as she might be at the moment, she was still a great comfort.
A few metres away from me I saw an English private, flat on the ground as I was myself. He saw me at the same moment. And at-the same moment, I dare say, we prepared to kill each other. I didn't want to kill, I had no personal animosity towards him, but then, on the other hand, I didn't want to be the one to die. And very likely it was the same with him. The laws of battle said that one of
us
had to die, and there was no time just then to sit and ponder whether the laws were wise and good. It was a question of killing someone else that you might live.
I had a grenade in my hand. So, no doubt, did the, English private. I tore out the pin with my teeth. Lay there and counted. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four... The grenade whistled through the air towards the English soldier. On its way, it passed his grenade whistling through the air towards me. He had thrown at exactly the same moment. But no damage done. We obviously share the same reactions and had both rolled out of range in time to save our skins. I leaped for the machine-gun and feverishly fired several rounds. A second grenade exploded. Almost had me, that time. There was a vivid flash in front of me; my head, safely encased in its steel helmet, nevertheless felt as if it were bursting open at the seams. For a second I felt fear, and then, almost immediately, a mad fury overtook me. Until that moment I had not personally hated my enemy. Killing him had been a necessity. Now it had become a perverse pleasure. I certainly had no intention of dying in the muddy fields of France.
We hurled ourselves bodily at each other. It was a fierce struggle for survival, no holds barred. We battered each other with rifle butts, kicked at each other with heavy boots, slashed and fought with bayonets. The Englishman caught me in the calf and I felt a sharp stab of pain. I dived at him with renewed fury. It was unfortunate for him that his helmet came off. He received a gash across his forehead, deep enough almost to accommodate a man's fist.
I myself was too exhausted to continue the fight. For the moment it was not necessary, the man was lying at my feet. I watched him, warily, wishing he would die and put an end to it. I could have put an end to it myself, but as suddenly as it had come my blood lust disappeared. The man was staring up at me, his eyes expressionless, his breath coming in quick, painful gasps. Blood was pouring down his face, trickling from the corner of his mouth. I felt weak and vulnerable. My leg was paining me, and if any of his companions found me there I could expect no mercy. I turned to go, but the rattling breath of the man I had tried to kill held me back. Impatiently I knelt at his side, bound up his forehead as best I could, held out my water canteen.
'Drink,' I said, curtly.
He continued staring at me, but made no move to take the water. What was the fool waiting for? For me to put it to his lips and risk a knife in the ribs? I left the water within his reach and ran hell for leather back to the shelter of my own side, regardless of the danger of flying shrapnel and stray grenades. I found the Legionnaire crouched beneath the burning wreckage of a Churchill, firing quick bursts from his L.M.G. Not far away I saw Little John, his face illuminated by the flames and looking almost satanic. I dragged a handkerchief from my pocket and tied it tightly round my leg.
The enemy had been beaten off--for the moment. We had a period of respite, but it might well be brief and we made the most of it. Porta noisily consumed his fifth tin of Corned beef, Barcelona passed round a bottle of gin, the Old Man played idly with a pack of cards. Behind us, Formigny was on fire. The heavy Wellington bombers were in the air over Caen and the flames rose high into the sky. The ground beneath us trembled and shook, as if in anticipation of. some catastrophe.
In an abandoned Jeep Porta had found an old gramophone and some discs. We played them one after another, drunk with the sudden sound of music after the hideous and familiar sounds of battle, and when we had come to the last one we started over again at the beginning. We were on our third time round when a group of soldiers came up to us out of the dim light. They seemed unarmed. They carried a flag decorated with a large red cross, and their helmets bore the same emblem. Little John snatched up his rifle, but before he could fire the Old Man had knocked it angrily from his grasp.
'What the hell do you think you're playing at?'
Little John turned on him indignantly.
'Why are they only taking care of their own wounded? What's wrong with ours?'
'Anyone fires on the Red Cross,' said the Old Man, grimly, 'and he gets a bullet from me straight through the eyes. Is that clear?'
There was a moment's uneasy silence, then Porta laughed.
'You're in the wrong war, Old Man! You ought to join the Sally Army, you'd be a general in no time!'
He turned and spat, but the Old Man wisely held his peace. No one showed any inclination to pick up a rifle.
The last of the wounded had been collected, the last of the stretcher-bearers was on his way back to enemy lines. All was peaceful. And then, suddenly, further up in the trenches, a young lieutenant gave a sharp cry and fell down in the mud. A bullet from a maquisard had found its mark. Another came sizzling across to us, and within seconds the whole bloody fight had started up again. Three machine-guns rattled out their reply and some of the stretcher-bearing party fell. The Legionnaire was on his feet before the rest of us and was running ahead, yelling to us to follow, as he had done so often before, on the frozen Russian steppes, on the slopes of Monte Cassino.
In the fierce skirmish that ensued, almost the entire stretcher party and the wounded they had collected were wiped out. The ground was once more strewn with the bodies of men from both sides. A new stretcher party was needed to pick up the new wounded. Attack, counterattack. Death was the order of the day.
There was no quarter given in Section 91.
Porta was playing about with the radio set, twiddling the knobs this way and that, attempting to isolate the sonorous voice of the B.B.C. from all the other wild gabblings and cracklings that were going on.