Blitzfreeze (35 page)

A servant opened the door of the General’s flat.

‘We wish to speak to General Ställ,’ barked one of the SS officers, pushing the servant roughly aside.

‘Gentlemen!’ mumbled the servant plaintively.

‘Shut your mouth!’ answered Hauptsturmführer Ernst.

The servant fell into a chair and stared open-mouthed after the two tall, lean officers who walked straight into the general’s study without knocking. In the twenty years he had been in service here no one had ever dared to do that. The General was an aristocrat who kept strictly to the forms of etiquette.

‘Are you General-Leutnant Ställ?’ asked SS-Sturmbahnführer Lechner, stony-faced.

‘I am,’ replied the astonished General, getting up slowly from his desk chair.

‘The Führer has sentenced you to death for dereliction of duty and sabotage of orders! You have, without permission, given your division orders to retreat.’

‘Are you mad, man?’ was all the General managed to get out before four pistol shots followed one another in quick succession.

A piercing scream rang through the house. Frau Ställ came rushing in and threw herself desperately across her husband’s body.

‘The swine is still alive,’ said the Hauptsturmführer, and tore the woman away from the dying General.

Lifting the head by the hair he pressed his pistol muzzle against the neck. Two shots cracked hollowly from the heavy service revolver.

The General’s face splintered like glass. Brains and blood spattered across a painting of his children. His body writhed briefly.

‘Dead!’ confirmed the Hauptsturmführer brusquely, holstering his Walther.

‘Heil Hitler!’ They saluted with raised arms and left the flat without hurrying.

A black Mercedes with an SS-Unterscharführer at the wheel waited in the street.

‘And now?’ asked the Sturmbahnführer, leaning back into the soft cushioning.

‘To Dahlem,’ growled the Hauptsturmführer.

The black car disappeared swiftly across the Landwehrkanal.

A long threatening rumble from the Russian side of the front wakes us from an uneasy sleep.

‘
Mille diables
,’ shouts the Legionnaire, shocked into
wakefulness. ‘What in the world is that?’

‘Hundreds of batteries firing!’ answers the Old Man and listens nervously.

‘Who said Ivan was finished?’ mumbles Porta.

‘What a lot o’ gunpowder Ivan must ’ave,’ says Tiny. ‘’Ope the bastards ain’t goin’ to start a big ’un. Sounds bleedin’ like it!’

‘That shower’s coming right at our heads,’ says Barcelona with foreboding.

The far away metallic ringing increases to a roar. Thousands of shells are coming closer in a mounting crescendo of sound. We’re out of our bunks and down on the floor in a second. We envy the lice at times like this. Shells don’t bother
them
. The shells fall with a murderous noise, tearing at the earth. In an inferno of flame, earth, ice and razor-sharp splinters of steel fly hundreds of yards from the striking point. When a shell falls on to a position it simply disappears.

The mounting thunder of exploding shells beats at us from all sides. The earth, air, river, snow, forest; the town of Lenino; everything about us, seems to be changed in a moment into a giant anvil ringing incessantly under the strokes of gigantic triphammers.

Explosions of unbelievable power claw and rip at the frozen ground. Dirt, snow, whole trees are thrown up into the air, balancing on volcanoes of flame which seem to originate in the very bowels of the earth. Poisonous smoke rolls backwards and forwards across the wounded soil. Wherever we look there is a greenish broth of melted snow, blood and shredded human flesh. We are in the midst of a deadly cauldron.

The dug-out bobs and dances like a cork in a high sea. Men go mad. We knock them about, our own recipe for the treatment of shock. The forest burns. The ice on the river is splintered and black waters fountain upwards. This river is to be the graveyard of many Russian and German soldiers. I press myself hard into the floor of the dug-out, flat as a dry
leaf. Shell splinters whine through the narrow windows. The sandbags we blocked them with have been blown away long ago. The dug-out cracks and groans. Can its heavy timbers stand up to this?

A new shell, one of the big coal-scuttles, literally throws the dug-out into the air. I can feel a scream welling up from the pit of my belly. It won’t be long before my nerves go.

‘Jesus!’ shouts Porta. ‘He’s showing us all his samples today!’

‘I don’t like it,’ says Tiny. ‘If one o’ them pointed boxes ‘its us on the ’ead, you can all throw your bleedin’ toothbrushes away. ’Cause you’re all gonna need new teeth.’

The Old Man turns the handle of the telephone, and whistles into the mouthpiece.

‘What’re you ringing for?’ asks Porta. ‘If it’s a taxi you want then I’m willing to go halves. Probably be a long wait though on a rough night like this!’

‘I’ve got to get hold of the company commander,’ snarls the Old Man. ‘I want orders! This is a big attack.’

It seems as if the noise of the shells moves back a little.

‘Curtain,’ we shout all together, grabbing at our equipment.

‘Attack,’ confirms the Old Man confidently, puffing at his silver-lidded pipe.

‘Where would these Soviet
untermensch
get the men and material to mount an attack?’ jeers Heide. ‘The Führer has said they are crushed. The rest of the war will be a parade-ground exercise.’

‘There’s the door,’ grins Porta. ‘Quick march, Julius! I’d like to see the boys from here who’ll go on parade with you!’

Magazines are prepared. Pockets filled with ammunition. Potato-mashers down our jackboots. Magnetic bombs ready.

We live from second to second, minute to minute, readying ourselves for death in that bellowing inferno.

The company is on the march. A shell howls down from the sky and the road in front of us is gone. Comrades are blown into the fields. Most of them are dead. Soon after, the
survivors are on the march again, looking for faces known to them, finding few or none. They form new acquaintances. Until a new shower of shells come from the clouds. Now they become ‘difficult’, dare not form the slightest of ties with anyone.

We take cover in shell-holes, dodge the swarming thousands of devilish things which infest the air, storm on with flashing bayonets, split faces with our sharpened spades, queue at the cook wagon for a bowl of nettle soup, go to the medics to have a wound dressed. Everybody dreams of a white bed in a hospital at home. The Medical Sergeant grins jeeringly and sends us back into hell!

With three aspirins and a light dressing on his flesh-wound the wounded man marches on, is picked up by a strange unit and made company runner, dashes with messages from shell-hole to shell-hole through the barrage and over mine-strewn terrain until he is again wounded or perhaps killed. He moves from unit to unit. Seldom sees a letter. When one does arrive his longing and his homesickness rip his nerves to shreds. His entire twenty-year life collapses around him. Get out of it, he tells himself. The Fatherland, what’s that? I don’t owe it anything. And now it wants my life! He swings his belongings on to his back and walks off. The Watchdogs liquidate a number of deserters. Penal troops from OT
¹
fill up the graves. Deserting the colours goes out of fashion for him. Mass execution as a deterrent has worked, and brought his reason back.

‘Were you leaving us?’ they ask him confidentially at the company, as he throws his equipment roughly into a corner.

‘What do you take me for?’ he lies, with a laugh.

‘Are we really goin’ to give up this lovely place?’ asks Tiny. ‘Bleedin’ ’ell, we could’ve seen the winter through real nice in ’ere!’ He looks around him sadly.

‘Stay on, if you fancy it,’ grins Stege. ‘
I’m
off, anyway!’

A terribly close strike makes the dug-out bounce like a
rubber ball. The roof falls in on one side. The stove-pipe breaks off in sections, and the room fills with a choking smoke which puts out the Hindenburg candles.

‘I must get through to the commander,’ says the Old Man, snatching up his gun. ‘There’s a mass attack on the way!’

‘
Hamdoulla
,’
²
shouts the Legionnaire. ‘There won’t be as much as a button left of you, if you go out there!’

‘It’s a big ‘un’ mumbles the Old Man, taking an extra big bite of his plug, before sitting down again. ‘He’s presenting his bill. It won’t be pleasant!’

‘It’s the Jews fault!’ shouts Heide, fanatically. ‘They started it all by crucifying Jesus!’ Nobody bothers to answer him. He is only barking senselessly like any other dog.

‘Last time I was on leave I picked up a dose,’ says Feldwebel Jacobo, gratuitously. ‘It all started very promisingly in the “Zigeunerkeller”. That’s where I ran into Sylvia. Her husband, a ground-staff pilot in the Luftwaffe had been posted missing, but
we
didn’t miss him. Sylvia took my load out in the toilets. It was a solemn occasion, I can tell you. The orchestra was playing
Düstere Sonntag
³
all the time we were on the job. Later on that evening I gave it to Lisa while the ladies’ orchestra was playing
Mädchen wie schön
.
⁴
They certainly get you in the mood at the “Zigeunerkeller”, and I took one for the road with the girl driver of the cycle-taxi that took me home. My wife was out when I crawled into bed. She’s very pretty with everything in just the right places. She’s the kind a man can only have shares in. Real good stuff, like her, you can never keep all to yourself. When she got home, she got the whole gun, even though she
was
dog-tired. She’d been with an Oberst from the night-fighters. They say they get really lecherous up there fighting above the clouds. My wife had got a bit more than she fancied, anyway, but after a bit she warmed up and began to tell me that a Feldwebel was a lot better than an officer.’

‘Is your wife a racehorse, or something?’ asks Porta with interest.

‘Not really,’ smiles the Feldwebel, ‘though she
is
very good on the run-in. We must live, and preferably live well, so when you’ve got a good product why not sell it?’ He pulls a photograph from his pay-book. ‘See here. My wife’s a frigate; she sails straight for any gold-plated bollard she sees on the horizon. You can bet your sweet life Grethe’s got a paying guest in our marriage bed right this minute.’

‘And you stand for it?’ cries Heide disgustedly. ‘I’d have her picked up by the MPs. The Führer says unfaithful wives should be sent to the brothels. They are unworthy of being allowed to live in our National Socialist society. Germany must be cleansed of whoredom!’

‘They’ll be some dreadful types, them that are left!’ grins Porta.

The Old Man turns the handle of the telephone desperately and whistles into the receiver.

‘Who the hell are you so anxious to get hold of?’ asks Porta. ‘Nice piece of crumpet?’

‘The OC damn your eyes,’ curses the Old Man, taking a new bite at his plug. ‘We’ve got to have orders,’ he growls.

‘Make up your own,’ says Porta. ‘It’ll all be the same in the end. We’re going backwards! The trip home has begun, and I’d be a lying bastard if I said I was sorry!’

‘Crazy bastard!’ the Old Man swings the handle again. ‘The line’s gone,’ he growls. ‘2 Section, two men! Get it fixed. I’ve got to speak to the OC.’

‘
Merde
not now?’ protests the Legionnaire. ‘It’s madness. Fix it one place and it’ll go in another and we’ll go with it.’

‘Let’s get out,’ suggests Porta, draping another belt of cartridges round his chest.

‘Two men,’ orders the Old Man, roughly. ‘I want the OC!’ Two signallers are detailed from 2 Section. An Unteroffizier and a Gefreiter. Carelessly they put on their helmets and adjust their gasmasks. There are as many poisonous vapours out there as if we were under a gas attack.

Bending low they work their way through the hell of exploding shells. The Unteroffizier in front with the cable running through his fingers. They find the first break, repair it, test with their own apparatus. Still dead! They move on, dodging shells all the time. Find the next break.

‘Stop,’ snarls the Unteroffizier. He scrapes the wire clean with his combat knife and twists the ends together. Insulating tape binds them. Seven times they have to repeat this job before the Old Man gets his connection.

‘Very good, sir,’ he shouts into the telephone. ‘Yes! Hold the line at all costs! A mass attack, Herr Oberleutnant, sorry, Herr Major! I thought I was speaking to Company, sir! 2 Platoon, 5 Company, Feldwebel Beier, here, sir! Platoon torn to pieces. Fifteen men. Very good, Herr Major, understood! My neck? What I’ve got in front, Herr Major? Don’t know, sir! Army Corps I should think. No, sir! Not being insolent sir! This connection’s cost me five men, you puffed-up bastard!’ he concludes, but not until after he has broken the connection.

We stare at him expectantly. Now it’s up to him. Will he follow the battalion commander’s orders, or do the only sensible thing and get out in a hurry.

He takes a new chew of tobacco and begins to study the chart, pushing the plug around between his teeth and pulling thoughtfully at his beetroot of a nose.