Court Martial (45 page)

'Let's get moving,' wheezes Gregor, jumping up and down on the spot, to try to get some warmth into his body. 'If we stay here much longer we'll all be blocks of ice!'

After several hours of inhuman toil we reach the edge of the cliffs.

The Old Man lies down on his stomach, and examines the steep declivity down which we shall have to go. Listlessly he lowers the binoculars.

Far below us rages the White Sea. Mountains of green, foam-specked water surge and thunder against the fanged rocks.

'Once we reach the beaches,' says the Legionnaire, 'it is not far, at the most one hundred kilometres.'

'That all,' laughs Porta, jeeringly. 'Just a little country walk for a party of heart cases.'

'Go on, laugh,' sighs the Old Man, downheartedly. 'It'll be a rough trip,
I
can tell you!'

'
Par Allah
, we have no choice. We must go over this edge,' says the Legionnaire. 'I have a feeling the Russians are at our heels!'

'Then we've had it,' decides the Old Man, tiredly, lighting his silver-lidded pipe.

'
C'est le bordel
, but I have seen tireder soldiers than this section,' growls the Legionnaire We can still fight!'

The Old Man goes down on his knees and looks round at the section, spread out apathetically in the snow.

'Hear me,' he shouts. 'We're going on a little climbing expedition and we'll have to let ourselves down on ropes. Once we're down there it's not far to home. Now then, spit on your hands, lads, and let's pull together!'

We crawl over to the edge and peer down. The first part of the cliff face looks reasonable and not too difficult to manage, but further down there is a smooth vertical wall which goes straight down towards the sea. Before getting there, however, about half-way, it goes sharply inwards. There we will have to swing ourselves in to obtain a foothold.

'Lord save us,' sighs Barcelona, looking
as
if he feels like giving up before he has even started.

'We've
got
to do it,' decides the Old Man, heavily, taking the glasses from his coat pocket, where he has put them to keep the lenses from freezing up.

He examines the cliff face all the way along. Then he hands the binoculars to the Legionnaire.

'I think there's a small man-made gap a good way down. If I'm right we can get through there!'

The Legionnaire stares for a brief moment in the indicated direction.

'
Tu as raison
, but what a job it will be to get there, and if we make one mistake we end in the White Sea!'

'If we had suction cups on our hands and feet and an extra one tied on the end of our pricks, we'd never get over that bulge,' says Porta, creeping, shivering, back to safety.

'Oh, arseholes,' rumbles Tiny, crawling back from the edge in his turn. 'Giant bleedin' stones, loads of snow an' ice, an' a 'ell of a lot of cold, green water! More'n enough to drown all the barmy soldiers in this whole World War, who've volunteered to go out an' get theirselves killed!'

'Get ready,' orders the Old Man, harshly. 'It'll be the roughest climb of our lives!'

Gregor makes the ropes ready. He is the only one of us who has attended the mountaineering school. With a supercilious expression he explains to us how to let ourselves down on the ropes.

Squabbling amongst ourselves we share out the ammunition between us and adjust the balance of our weapons.

The Old Man almost has a fit when Porta suggests our leaving the two light mortars and the heavy boxes of bombs behind.

'If we get home by Christmas,' says Gregor, solemnly, taking cover behind a snowdrift, 'I want a sun-lamp for a present!'

'I'll give you one,' Porta promises him. 'I know a shop that sells 'em, and also how to get into it after closing time!'

Gregor stands on the edge of the storm-battered heights, takes the loop of the rope over his head and makes it fast under his arms. He leans forward against the storm as if it were a solid wall. His chapped lips part in an optimistic grin. With his feet braced against the face of the cliff he begins to slide downwards. At the vertical wall he stops and looks up for a moment. Then he seems to disappear into the abyss. A moment or two later he appears in sight
again
. He has managed to gain a foothold on the dangerous bulge, from which he will have to swing inwards.

'We could get a job in a circus with this number,' says Porta, shuddering.

'World wars are pure
shit
,' grumbles Tiny. 'Let you in for all kinds of pissed-up jobs! No wonder they've got conscientious objectors in all them free countries!'

'Your turn, Barcelona!' shouts the Old Man.

'I can't go yet,' protests Barcelona, with fear in his voice. 'I want to see if anyone breaks his neck first!'

'If you don't come now I'll see to it you go last!' rages the Old Man. 'And then there'll be nobody left up here to hang on to the rope!'

But before Barcelona can reach the edge, Heide is on his way and after him the Legionnaire goes down.

Barcelona is anxious to go, now. The Old Man's threat of leaving him to the last is enough to give him cold shivers.

We have to lower the Finnish captain down. Several times he is dashed violently against the cliff face, but to our surprise he is still alive when he gets down. One of his legs has been crushed from the foot to above the
knee
. His chances of survival are not good.

Now it is my turn.

'Take it easy, now,' warns the Old Man, who sees how scared I am.

'Brace hard with your feet all the time. There are enough of us up here to hang on to the rope. As long as you don't lose your nerve, you'll be all right!' He adjusts the hang of the machine-pistol, slung across my chest, so that it will not get entangled with the guide-rope.

'I can't do it,' I protest, in panic fear, staring down into the roaring abyss.

'Off you go,' the Old Man sends me off with a push, and I am over the edge.

Far beneath me the White Sea thunders in all its Arctic fury. I scramble desperately for a foothold, but my boots only scrape on the snow. I hit the first ledge, with a bump which presses the magazine pouch painfully into my ribs.

Porta waves to me and flips the rope.

I hang on for dear life to the narrow ledge. Round me the storm howls and roars like a raging monster trying to smash me.

Three hard tugs on the rope give me the signal to continue. Carefully I crawl over the sharp edge. This is the part of the climb which cannot be seen from above.

I kick the toes of my boots into the snow and obtain a foothold. I inch my way down. Several times the terrible Arctic storm comes close to blowing me over the edge and smashing me against the cliff face. For a moment I consider jettisoning the ammunition pouches, but I know what the others will do to me if I get down without them.

At last I reach the narrow bulge. Only a bit over 300 feet to the bottom. I crawl carefully across the snow. It is slippery as glass. With fear clutching at my throat I slide over the edge and lower myself slowly down. At least the sea is no longer directly below me. To my relief I feel hands clutch at my boots and guide me on to safe ground.

'Well done,' Heide praises me, giving me a playful punch in the stomach.

As if in a dream I see the rope disappear upwards.

Soon the next man is on his way down.

Porta and Tiny come last. They stand right out on the edge and play the fool, Porta throws out one hand.

'After you, sir!' he says to Tiny.

'I'll
shoot
those idiots,' shouts the Old Man, exasperatedly.

They come down together, like a couple of Siamese twins, pushing off strongly against the cliff face. The rope shakes above them.

'Bloody jumping-jacks,' shouts the Old Man, fearfully. 'You'll break your necks!'

'It is your duty to report them,' says Heide, solemnly.

'Shut your damn mouth,' roars the Old Man furiously. '
I'11
decide who's to be reported or not reported. Just remember that, will you, once and for all?'

'Got a pain somewhere?' Porta asks the Old Man, when he gets down to him. 'You told us to get a move on, and weren't we down twice as fast as anybody else?'

'I'll get you two a court martial,' shouts the Old Man, angrily. 'This is the
limit
!'

'Blimey, 'ow
mad
can you get?' says Tiny, admiringly. 'Watch out you don't 'ave a stroke, now!'

'I curse the day I ever took over No. 2 Section! You are the biggest shower of shits in the entire blasted German Army!' the Old Man flares up at them.

'If we were to leave you you'd die of grief,' smiles Porta, flatteringly.

'The whole damn world can get to hell far as I'm concerned and No. 2 Section with it! I wish the whole bloody business was all over and done with!' rages the Old Man,

Gregor laughs.

Ja, wenn's aus sein wird

mit Barras und mit Urlaubschein,
dann packen wir unsere Sachen ein
und fahren endlich heim,'
68

he sings softly.

Just before we reach the strange-looking ravine a volley of rifle shots splits the icy air.

Unteroffizier Kehr spins round like a top, staggers forward a few steps, and falls to the snow. The bullet has hit him in the stomach. It feels as if a boxer has punched him in the solar plexus.

'What bloody shit hit me?' he asks. With blood dribbling from the corners of his mouth, he goes down like a dog-tired man. The new, powdery snow rises and falls back to cover him like a shroud. 'Hell, the bloody Russians got me,' he mumbles and looks in surprise at his hand which is filled with blood.

Two shots crash, and the snow spurts up in front of me. Frightened, I push myself down into the snow and send a burst of tracer at the ravine. Off to my left an automatic rifle barks noisily. Behind me, in a depression, Heide and Gregor wrestle with the mortar.

'Give 'em a couple of backscratchers,' shouts the Old Man, from over by a big snow drift. Eagerly, Gregor opens the box containing the queer, Japanese grenades, which we call backscratchers. They have a different kind of explosive charge, and are only issued to special service units. We are exhilarated at the thought of what will happen in the gulch when the backscratchers fall there.

'Plop, plop,' goes the mortar.

We follow the curved flight of the vaned bombs with our eyes.

'Forward,' orders the Old Man, giving the hand signal for one man to double forward at a time.

Machine-gun fire hammers viciously at us, throwing up lumps of ice.

'Get opened out,' shouts the Old Man, leading us on in a peculiar sideways run, peering continually behind him. 'Open out,' he repeats. 'Why the hell can't you open out? Get your arses into gear!'

'Cool it, afterbirth!' howls Porta, furiously:

Tiny goes down, throws away his Mpi, and tries to dig himself into the snow with hands and feet to escape from the tracer bullets which buzz around us like a swarm of wasps.

Porta stops at his side, and prods him with the butt of his weapon.

'Come on, you big Hamburg shithouse! Think you can lie there sawing wood all day while we do all the work?'

'I ain't got piss in my nut like you lot,' screams Tiny, hysterically, digging himself deeper into the snow. ''Im as kills people with a machine-shooter shall 'imself get a burst in the bonce, Lot's wife says!' He is getting his Bible stories mixed up, as usual.

Heide rushes up in a cloud of snow, and stops in amazement when he discovers Tiny down in the hole.

'Now I've seen it all. Cowardice in the face of the enemy. Cost you your head!'

'Creep back up into the German Nazi cunt you crawled out of,' bawls Tiny, dangerously. He pulls out his P-38 and empties the whole magazine at Heide, who flies off in terror towards the Russians.

'I 'ope they shoot your fascist balls off,' snorts Tiny after him.

'Who's got a Kaspanos?' shouts the Old Man, throwing himself under cover from the violent fire from the gulch.

'I've got two,' I answer, holding them up.

'Off you go, then,' the Old Man orders, brusquely. 'Put 'em both under Ivan's arse!'

'Think I'm mad?' I protest violently.

'It's an order,' roars the Old Man, turning his Mpi on me. 'Get moving, you cowardly shit!'

For a moment there is silence where we lie behind cover. They all look towards me. Then something happens up in front. The Russians are attacking. '
Uhraeh, uhraeh
,' they shout harshly. They come at us at an amazing pace, half sliding, half running down the slope, their automatic weapons rattling incessantly.

'Kaspanos,' shouts the Old Man, crawling further behind cover.

I throw one of them over to him. It is one of the big
five
kilogram jobs that can tear a Stalin tank to pieces.

Tiny takes the Kaspanos from the Old Man, bites off the pin and slings it forward in a great arc. It explodes with a roar that sounds like the end of the world.

The leading enemy group is literally pulverised.

'Plop, plop,' sounds from behind us, as the mortars spit out their devilish bombs.

They explode in front of us, sending stones and snow into the air. There is a continual roaring and whistling to all sides of us. The sound of the explosions is accentuated enormously in the cold
air
.

'
Allah-el-Akbarr
screams the Legionnaire, fanatically, and gets to his knees. His machine-pistol smashes out death into the deep snow, where the NKVD troops are advancing in a long line.

'Forward,' shouts the Old Man. 'Let's get that gate open!'

We excite ourselves to animal rage and follow the Old Man uncaringly into the rain of tracer coming at us.

Barcelona falls to his knees, and presses his fur gloves to his face. A stream of blood runs out from between his fingers.

'Dig yourself in, we'll pick you up later,' shouts the Old Man, rushing on.

Barcelona rolls down into a hole and thinks of other head wounds he has seen. Usually they mean instant death, and he comforts himself with the thought that since he is still alive his wound cannot be so bad.