Authors: Sven Hassel
Porta smiled amiably round. The inscrutable Gestapo faces were starting to twitch with irritation. They had come to the barracks to thrash out the important matter of stolen coffee, and here they were, bogged down by Porta's inanities. And seemingly no way out.
'How long?' said Schluckbebier, mechanically. 'How long is it since you received your money?'
'A very long time indeed! I've kept an account, though. As of this moment I'm owed seventeen Reichsmarks and twenty-four pfennigs. And in one hour's time that'll be thirty-six pfennigs.'
Hoffmann came suddenly storming down the room.
'This is ridiculous! I never heard such rubbish in all my life! Boot money, for God's sake! Here we are at war, and you're worrying over boot money! I'd like to know what General von Choltitz would have to say about it!'
'
So
should I, sir,' agreed Porta, earnestly. 'Unfortunately these little things that worry us ordinary soldiers never get taken to anyone in real authority. And this may seem trivial to you, sir, but they mean a lot to us I can tell you.'
'Obergefreiter Porta, I'm ordering you here and now stop wasting everyone's time! Another word out of you and I'm liable to do something we shall both regret--and you more than either of us! My patience is fast running out--and this time it's the Army that's talking not the Gestapo!'
Schluckbebier turned round and snatched away someone else's water carafe. He drank avidly. The Army that's talking, indeed! And who did the Army think they were? A fine state of anarchy the Third Reich would be in if the Army took over. He finished off the water and looked round for some more.
'Time he went off for a slash,' muttered Little John.
'Excuse me, sir,' Porta was humbly saying to Hoffmann, 'but did you know an officer is expressly forbidden to threaten or intimidate a man of inferior rank while the man is voicing his grievances? It can lead to very serious consequences, sir. I was reading it just the other day, made a note of it, somewhere... Page 42, line 3 of the Regulations... Signed by a lieutenant-colonel of General Reibert's staff. I thought I ought to tell you sir.'
Hoffmann turned away, his face purple. I saw his fist clench and unclench, and I pitied him. I could almost have hit Porta myself when he put on that unctuous treacly voice.
Schluckbebier seemed in two minds. Obviously it was annoying that this uncouth Obergefreiter should waste his time like this. On the other hand, there was no denying the man knew the regulations back to front, he knew what his rights were, and had not Adolf himself said, 'the same law for those at the bottom as for those at the top.
Over on the far side of the room, Lt. Lowe was leaning against the wall with a sublime smile on his face. He himself had many times been subject to the same treatment from Porta, and it was doubtless amusing to see others now undergoing it.
'Obergefreiter,' said Schluckbebier, quite friendly and pleasant, 'have you sent in a bill for the money owing to you?'
'Of course I have!' said Porta, indignantly. Hoffmann spun round.
'That's a lie! That's an absurd lie! The oaf isn't even capable of signing his name properly, let alone making out a bill! And as for those boots he's wearing, I can tell you where he got those from... he stole them, the same as he steals everything else! And now he's trying to charge it up to the Army! I ask you!' Hoffmann strode excitably bout the floor. 'I've had my eye on this man for the last three years. He's a psychopath, a swindler and a crook! You can take it for granted that it was him who stole the coffee! He should be put under arrest immediately, he's a disgrace to the Army!'
There was a delighted burst of laughter from Lt. Lowe, immediately echoed by Captain Gickel of the First Company. Slowly the ripples washed against the assembled body of men, and soon the whole room was shaking with hoots and guffaws. Porta smiled and clicked his heels together very smartly in acknowledgement.
'Herr Kriminalrat, have I your permission to defend myself against these slanderous accusations made by Hauptfeldwebel?'
Schluckbebier raised an eyebrow.
'Certainly, it's your right. And it seems as if you have any amount of witnesses to call on.'
'Let me begin!'
Hoffmann came up
to
our semicircle of chairs and pointed a finger at Little John.
'Creutzfeldt!'
Doubtless he felt quite safe with a buffoon like Little John.
'You're on oath, man, so don't try lying to me! Did this idiot or did he not steal the boots that he's wearing from a dead American soldier? And, incidentally, it's a serious crime to rob corpses!'
'I'm sure Obergefreiter Porta would never rob a corpse,' said Little John, looking very shocked. 'At any rate, I've never seen him rob one. And as for the boots, I know he bought four pairs off the sergeant-major of the 177th Infantry Regiment the day they set fire to the depot.'
Little John sat down again, looking pleased with himself. Hoffmann gnawed at his lower lip.
'That is a whole pack of lies and you know it!'
With perfect calm, Porta heaved a sheaf of papers
from
one of his pockets, sorted through them, and produced an account signed by Stabszahlmeister Bauser, 177th Infantry Regiment. Schluckbebier pounded on the table for some more water.
'Obergefreiter Porta, it would seem that you have--what was it?--seventeen Reichsmarks and twenty-four pfennigs standing to your account.'
'Very nearly thirty-six pfennigs,' corrected Porta. ' matter of principle,' he added, piously, 'I like to get things exact.'
'Quite right.' Schluckbebier nodded to Hoffman, you see that this man is paid straight away, Hauptfeldwebel? Better to keep the matter within these four walls. We don't want to trouble higher authority with it, do we?'
'I'll give him the money myself!' snapped Hoffmann tossing a handful of coins at Porta.
Schluckbebier leaned forward, smiling.
'Any more complaints, Obergefreiter?'
'Yes, several,' said Porta, frankly. 'But I shouldn't
want
to trouble you with them now, Herr Kriminalrat. I know you have more important things on your hands--and we are, after all, fighting a war.'
'Cant!' muttered Hoffmann, and turned disgustedly away.
Schluckbebier remained thoughtful a while--doubtfully wondering if he could now return to the vexed question of the coffee; how he could establish Porta's undoubted guilt, and, at the same time, come to terms with himself turning a blind eye in exchange for half the booty. The sacks of coffee! It was practically a fortune, and half of it would make the prospect of a fifth year of war almost bearable. But Porta was evidently not such a fool as he looked. He had a measure of cunning and almost certainly a strong sense of self-preservation, and they would need to tread carefully.
'About this coffee,' began Schluckbebier, feeling his way. 'It pains me to return to the subject, but you have been accused of the theft, Obergefreiter.'
'Alas, yes,' agreed Porta, with a reproachful glance at Hoffmann. 'I wish I could help you, Herr Kriminalrat. Unfortunately I know nothing about the coffee. I never drink the stuff, you see.'
At this point, while Hoffmann's mouth was again dropping open at the enormity of Porta's statement, the door opened in a hurry and Feldwebel Winkelmann, who was in charge of the depot, burst into the room. 'Herr Oberinspektor!' He went galloping up to Schluckbebier, waving his arms excitedly. 'Good news, Oberinspektor! I've just checked through the sacks coffee again and found them all present and correct!'
'I beg your pardon ?' gasped Schluckbebier.
'All present and correct,' babbled on the Feldwebel, blissfully. 'The missing sacks had been left behind the stocks of Jugoslav barley. They had no right to be there, one naturally never thought of looking. It's the men they me to look after the stores, Herr Oberinspektor. They just don't care. Everything's jumbled up together, here's no order anywhere, I'm sometimes at my wits' end how to cope. These things will happen, you see, if I'm not given the men to do the job properly.'
Schluckbebier pursed his lips. He had by now settled firmly in his mind that five sacks of
coffee
were due to him. Whichever way you looked at it, therefore, it was still question of theft.
'This is ridiculous!' declared Hoffmann, impatiently. You're lying, Winkelmann! You know perfectly well we hunted the sacks together and went through all the stores with a fine tooth comb.'
Schluckbebier, Hoffmann, two other leather coats and the Feldwebel trooped off in a solemn line towards the depot. Seventeen sacks of Brazilian coffee, marked with regulation army stamp, were lined up side, by side.
Each sack was opened and the contents carefully passed beneath avidly quivering nostrils. Each sack unmistakably contained pure fresh coffee. It was obvious to Hoffmann that the Feldwebel had pulled a fast one, but how he had done it was beyond him. He considered, for a moment, the possibility that he had worked in conjunction with Porta, but reluctantly dismissed the idea. Porta was sufficiently adept at pilfering army stocks to scorn the help of an amateur such as Winkelmann.
'It seems,' said Hoffmann, reluctantly, 'that we were mistaken about the coffee----'
'Ha!' Schluckbebier pulled his hat down over his eyes. 'Now we're coming to it! False reports, slipshod work, deliberate waste of the Gestapo's time... Paragraph 309 covers it, you'll find. It's by no means a minor offence! Hauptfeldwebel. It could get you into serious trouble. Very serious trouble indeed.'
One of his acolytes was already jingling the handcuffs in his pocket. The group, minus Winkelmann, walked slowly back to the dining hall. Hoffmann was obviously deep in thought, but he didn't look particularly worried. I wondered what he was hatching in that dark brain of his.
'Obersekretar,' he said, abruptly, 'while you are here,' so as not to waste your time completely, I should like to demand an inquiry into an incident that took place three years ago involving the Fifth Company of the 27th Tank Regiment, 2nd Section, 1st Group. I accuse them of high treason, refusal to obey orders and cowardice in the face of the enemy... Among other things,' he ended, darkly.
Schluckbebier raised a repressive eyebrow.
'Can you possibly substantiate such an accusation?'
'Certainly!' said Hoffmann.
It was an incident we all remembered. Two Tigers had broken down directly in front of the enemy lines. They had been abandoned and a colonel at staff headquarters had blandly given the order that they should be recovered. Lieutenant Lowe, knowing only too well the number of lives it would cost to rescue the tanks, had point-blank refused to do it. There had been a violent quarrel between the two officers, brought to an untimely finish by the explosion of a stray grenade in the Colonel's face. Porta had been sufficiently indelicate to stand laughing above the body of the dead officer, whereupon Lowe, thoroughly exasperated, had slapped him across the face. There had been no hard feelings between him and Porta, who frequently fell out on the question of discipline and accepted it as purely a matter of course, but the affair had somehow reached Hoffmann's ears and he had doubtless been hugging it to himself ever since, waiting for the chance to turn it to advantage. On two counts: refusal to obey orders, and the striking of an Obergefreiter by a superior officer. That chance had now come, and Hoffmann was making the most of it.
Schluckbebier, listened with growing interest to the story. He belonged to that class of men who had no sympathy with officers, and particularly not with those who had been in the front line. This, then, was his chance as much as Hoffmann's. The affair was serious, and if the charge were proved it could well lead to promotion for the men who brought it to light. Strictly speaking it did not fall within Schluckbebier's province, but rather within that of the Feldgendarmerie, but he could almost certainly arrange matters with them.
He turned now to Lt. Lowe, standing pale and tense nearby.
'Is this true, Lieutenant?'
There was a pause. We waited anxiously for Lowe's reply. He may have been an officer, but we were all in sympathy with him.
'Is it true?' repeated Schluckbebier. 'Did you strike a subordinate?'
'Yes,' said Lowe, very low.
Schluckbebier affected surprise and horror.
'You struck a subordinate? You, an officer? Laid hands on one of your own men? You have the effrontery to stand there and admit it?'
The tirade continued for almost ten minutes. It leapt from one pinnacle of astonishment to another. It gathered force and ran off into a mad crescendo of hysterical rage, pouring scorn and invective upon all officers in general and Lowe in particular. Half-way through it, Porta stood up and opened his mouth to speak, but Schluckbebier was unable to brake so suddenly and it took him another few minutes to grind to a halt.
'Herr Kriminalrat,' began Porta, in the horrible oily voice he reserved for such occasions, 'all that you say is only common sense. I quite agree with you. All officers are swine and should be hanged.'
An expression of faint alarm flickered across Schluckbebier's face. Had he really said that? It was true, of course, but perhaps he should not have gone quite that far. It could be dangerous.
Porta slapped a theatrical hand on his belt, over the words 'Gott mit Uns'.
'God alone,' he said, piously, 'watches over the common soldier. Officers can behave how they like, and get away with it. We air know that. If only the Fuhrer knew it! But I'm sure you'll be able to drop a word in his ear now that you know how things stand, Herr Kriminalrat. A word from you would be very influential.'
Poor Lowe must have found it hard to believe that it was Porta who was speaking out against him. The two could hardly have been classed as friends, but there had always been an understanding between them, a certain sympathy and even respect.
'I have in my time,' continued Porta, 'received many blows from my superior officers. I usually accept them as part and parcel of serving in the Army. But this affair that the Hauptfeldwebel just told you of, I really saw red then. I admit it. I was so mad, to tell you the honest truth, that I took the matter up with some friends I have at the G.G.S.A. It was "all settled long ago.*