Crack of Doom (30 page)

"Then we'll go over the peak," declared Giesinger. He turned to Margita and pointed up the mountain. "That way."

She nodded, and began climbing.

Baumgartner scowled after her. "That woman will be the death of me," he said, as he stamped off behind the others.

During the next half hour the ascent was continuous. Giesinger kept being forced to give short breaks for all the men to catch up. They did not hurry themselves unduly, and he bawled at them.

Eventually they reached a level plain, which after about three hundred yards turned into a steep descent. The mist had thickened again, clinging stickily to the men who were weaving after the officers in a long ghostly line. Giesinger was just wondering whether to allow another rest, when the grey wall of mist was torn to shreds by a harsh glare of light so fierce that for the moment he was blinded, and had to close his eyes. Involuntarily he stopped, then opened them wide in wonder.

Below him the mountain dropped about a thousand feet, to end in a gentle curve leading almost horizontally to woodland, which ran due south for another three hundred feet and then descended into a valley. Beyond that the glittering snow made such a tremendous stream of light that he again had to turn his eyes away. In the distance the mountains flattened out, and far to the south the land rose like a vast cupola, scintillating with a thousand reflections, toward the blue sky.

Margita, her face pink with the cold, pointed down the mountain, and made some remark. The men looked at Kolodzi, who shaded his eyes against the sun and stared in the direction to which she was pointing. Then he nodded. "The hut's down there."

Giesinger was with him in two strides. "Where, man?"

"Just where I'm pointing now, perhaps ten yards inside the wood. I can make out the roof."

"I can see it too," said Schmitt, who had his binoculars to his eyes. Giesinger grabbed them from his hands. The hut looked so near you could almost touch it. Its pointed roof, with a blanket of snow on top, just stuck out above the low pines. The blood coursed through Giesinger's veins in excitement; he saw himself already racing up to the hut, and pushing the door in. When he lowered the binoculars, his eyes were shining feverishly.

Schmitt told Roos to take three men and surround the hut.

They entered the wood in a wide arc about two hundred yards from the hut. Now the others, who had been watching, went down the mountain too, crossed a flat hollow, and then had wood in front of them again. They had covered two-thirds of the distance when shots rang out. Automatically they went on their knees and stared at the edge of the wood, where the tops of the pines were moving. At that moment a savage rain of bullets pelted round their ears. They flung themselves to the ground.

They swung their guns around, pressed the trigger, and emptied their magazines, then crawled back a few yards, changed the magazines, and fired again. It took them a quarter of an hour to cover the thirty yards to the hollow, with Baumgartner, Kolodzi and Herbig the last ones. While these three were still firing at the wood's edge, Schmitt and the others already lay crouched in the hollow, where Giesinger had unbuttoned his trousers and was regarding three bleeding holes in his right thigh.

Schmitt asked Teltschik for a field dressing and bandaged the major's leg. Baumgartner came crawling into the hollow. "There are at least fifty partisans," he said, as he put in a new magazine. He noticed Giesinger, who was lying on his back, staring up wide-eyed into emptiness. "Did he get something?" asked Baumgartner.

No one answered. They were all half stunned, and avoided each other's eyes. Now Kolodzi came down, and said to Schmitt: "We must go on."

Schmitt examined the hollow. It was fifty yards long, thirty yards wide, and shaped like a tub. In the middle it was deep enough to allow a man to stand upright without being seen by the partisans, whose bullets were still whizzing over their heads. A bit further beyond, the mountain climbed sheer toward the sky. From where he was Schmitt could only see the enormous expanse of its south side with the cloudless sky above.

"I'm afraid we must write off Roos and his men," said Kolodzi.
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we wait any longer, the same will happen to us."

"You surely don't imagine we can get up there by day?"

"Not all of us, but a few. Assuming the others stay and give them covering fire."

"Which others?"

Kolodzi looked at him coldly. "I leave that to you." He went over to Margita and pulled her off the ground. "You knew there was more than one man up here," he said in Czech.

"I didn't," she answered vehemently.

"Don't lie. K we die here, you'll be the first." He let her go, and said to Schmitt: "Who are you going to send?"

"Nobody. All of us are getting out or none."

"Then let's at least send one man to Szomolnok for help."

"It's too late for that"

"Why?"

Schmitt looked up again at the mountain. The sun was now right in the south, transforming it into a coruscating glitter of crystals. "Because we have now evacuated Szomolnok," he answered. "By midday this morning the Russians will be there. The front's being withdrawn to Roznava."

Kolodzi stood stock still. "You're telling me that now?"

"Remember who you're talking to," said Schmitt, and bent over to Giesinger. "Anything I can do for you?"

Giesinger stopped looking at the sky. "Hopeless, is it?"

"Depends if you can hold out till this evening. Do you have any pain?"

"Very little. Only when I move my leg."

"Well, that's good," said Schmitt tonelessly. He straightened up to watch Baumgartner and Herbig firing at the wood. "Stop shooting now," he told them. "It's not doing any good, and we have to save ammunition."

Herbig looked back. "How about someone else coming up here?"

"The Gestapo man will relieve you," Schmitt decided.

The firing from the wood abated, with only single shots passing over the hollow. While the Fat One took Herbig's place on guard, Herbig sat down in the snow by Kolodzi. "What exactly are we waiting for?"

"Ask the Old Man."

"Didn't he say anything?"

"No. I think he wants to wait till evening."

"The partisans want that too."

"Of course."

"And then?" asked Herbig.

Kolodzi took a puff at his cigarette. "Then the Russians will come for us."

"Russians?"

"They've broken through. The front is going back to Roznava today."

Herbig went pale. "Who told you that?"

"Schmitt."

"Damn!" They looked across at Schmitt. "Then we're done for," Herbig said.

Kolodzi nodded.

"I'm sorry for the woman," said Herbig.

"I'm not. She must be in with the partisans."

"Not on your life. Look at her face." Margita sat with her legs out in front of her, her head drooping.

Kolodzi became doubtful. If she really has nothing to do with them, he wouldn't be in
her
shoes now. He called her over. "Sit on my groundsheet," he said, and offered her a cigarette. She accepted it, and Herbig held out a lighter, finding her rather attractive.

Kolodzi rose and crept up to Baumgartner: "How does it look?"

"They're hiding in the wood. You can see the trees wiggling. Will you take over here?"

"Yes. Go and get warm."

"Aren't you funny!" Baumgartner crawled back into the hollow, and went to Herbig. "What's that whore doing here?" he asked roughly.

"Got anything against her?"

"Do I? It was she who led us into this shit."

"She's
in it as much as we are."

"Serves her right," sneered Baumgartner. He pinched Margita's cheek. "She's got a pair of eyes like my old woman," he said, and relapsed on to the ground with a groan, his face suddenly softened.

They gazed across at the wood. Suddenly a dark object high in the air came hurtling toward them and landed in the snow about twenty yards ahead. It made a noise as if ten hand-grenades had gone off at once. They heard the sharp hiss of the big splinters, and pressed their heads on their arms.

Kolodzi crawled back a few yards, then ran past the frightened men to Schmitt, who asked: "What was that?"

"A mortar-bomb," answered Kolodzi. "They may have more of them. If we wait till it's dark, they'll get so near that the next one will drop in here."

"We just have to keep a good watch."

"Easier said than done."

"If you keep your eyes skinned, you'll see the partisans. Go back to your post. . .. Don't you hear me?" he yelled.

"You said it loud enough," said Kolodzi, and pointed to Giesinger, who was listening with his eyes closed. "Are we to carry him back?"

"Haven't you gone yet?"

"We can't carry him back," Kolodzi went on stubbornly. "It's nearly twenty miles to Roznava as the crow flies. Besides we'll never get him out of this hole."

"Are you trying to tell me what I must do and not do?"

"You'll have to put up with that if you don't know yourself."

Schmitt looked at him speechlessly. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Giesinger feeling for his pistol. Seizing Giesinger's arm, he said hoarsely to Kolodzi: "I'm only sorry it didn't hit
you
instead of the major. I'd like to hear the way you would have talked then."

"I
wouldn't talk at all," Kolodzi answered. "I'd put a bullet through my brain, so that at least the others would get through."

"You'll be the last man I send off."

"I didn't say a word about myself. If you like, I’ll stay here alone with the major. Only I don't see why we should all croak for his sake." He turned round, went back to the others and sat down.

"Why didn't you let me shoot the man?" groaned Giesinger.

Schmitt squatted near him. "He'd have shot you first Besides, he's right."

"You too?"

"Not in the way you're thinking,'' Schmitt answered, looking at his sunken, harshly lined face. He knew as well as Kolodzi that they wouldn't get Giesinger out of the hollow. And even if they had managed it, he'd have lost his leg, like that air-force officer in Dresden, whose wife had run away screaming at the sight of her husband's ugly stump. Strange, thought Schmitt, as he looked forlornly up the mountain, which to him was still no more than an immense white expanse of harsh glare. He felt his eyes growing moist, and let his head drop, gazing apathetically between his legs. It was warm in the hollow, the sun was incredibly strong.

Schmitt squatted in the snow, and without taking in what he saw, looked at the men sitting around brooding silently. From time to time two of them got up and relieved the posts. They exchanged a few words, then the men who had been relieved sat down on their groundsheets and lit cigarettes. He saw it all through a dull glaze. He had lost all sense of time, but at one point, when he turned his head, he noticed the dark shadow of the mountain pushing over the edge of the hollow and slowly creeping toward them. He waited till the shadow reached the tip of Giesinger's boots, then stood up and called down the posts. "I need one man to stay with me," he told them all. "Who'll volunteer?"

Teltschik took a step forward. "Me, sir." His face was pale, and Schmitt looked at him a long time. Then he turned to the others. "You can try your luck now if you like. I doubt whether you'll make it, but if you want to. . . ."

"That's madness," said the Fat One, his teeth chattering. "I'm staying here."

"Anybody else?" asked Schmitt.

No one answered. Schmitt would have liked to say something more, but the tears had come to his eyes again. And because he did not want the men to see them, he turned around abruptly and crawled with Teltschik to the place where the posts had been lying.

Glancing at Margita, Kolodzi made a silent gesture toward the mountain, then looked round for Baumgartner and Herbig. "Ready?"

"What are we waiting for?" muttered Herbig between his teeth. They looked at Schmitt again. He had two tommy-guns and some magazines lying near him. Now he picked up one of the guns and started firing.

The three men started racing up the mountain side. When they emerged from the hollow, the wood behind them became alive with gunfire. Margita, who started to follow them, lost her nerve and slid back into the hollow, where she lay stiff with terror, looking up at Schmitt who was firing at the wood with each of the guns in turn, while the faithful Teltschik changed the magazines.

He did not stop till he had run out of ammunition. Far above he saw three figures zigzagging up the mountain. Margita and the Fat One were both sitting on the ground watching the three men grow smaller and smaller. Giesinger too had managed to sit up a bit. When Schmitt came over to him, he relapsed on his back with a groan. "Why did you do that?"

"So that they'll live to tell the tale." Schmitt looked at Teltschik, who was now standing in the middle of the hollow and now slowly raising his arms. The Fat One also had jumped up and was doing the same. Margita still sat on the ground, staring in the same direction as the two men, her face white.

The partisans were standing above the hollow with sub-machine guns at the ready. Almost indifferently Schmitt watched them coming down. His gun was wrenched from his hand, fists gripped his coat, and thrust him forward. Behind him Giesinger screamed, and looking around, Schmitt saw the partisans dragging him through the snow by his feet. Then Schmitt himself got a blow in the back that made him stagger out of the hollow, where Teltschik already stood.

"Why didn't you watch. . . ." Schmitt began, and then the butt of a sub-machine gun crashed over his mouth. He could feel his teeth breaking, and he dropped whimpering into the snow. The partisans pulled him to his feet again, and half stunned, he tottered into the wood ahead of them. Snow from the pines sifted onto his head and down his neck, but he was not aware of it. They reached the hut.

Matuska stood in the doorway and watched them come up. His piercing eyes ranged slowly over the prisoners; he looked on impassively as his men dragged Giesinger along and threw him into the snow like a log of wood. Two others had Margita between them. They brought her to Matuska, who looked her up and down, and finally asked: "Who are
you?'