Legion of the Damned (14 page)

When we had had them five days all forty of us were naturally hopelessly in love with all three of them; and, rather like boys who have found a nest of baby birds, we had no idea what we were going to do with them. We were continually discussing this and producing the most fantastic and impractical suggestions. We agreed, however, that in no circumstances could they come with us right to the front and then try to find an opportunity of escaping across to the Russians. This was partly because it would have been too awkward for us having them in the field, and partly because, as many insisted, if they were unlucky enough to cross in a sector held by men of some remote, primitive Asiatic people, they would be raped by the whole lot of them on the spot.

It was Fleischmann's brother who solved our problem for us. One day Fleischmann came rushing up and told us that his brother was oberfeldwebel on an armored train that was halted a little farther along in a siding. The train was going to France and the girls could go with it. We hurried to get them ready for the journey. They did not immediately grasp what was being done with them but thought that the Gestapo had caught up with our train, with the result that Maria began to cry. But Porta said with a grin:

"Quietly now, little Maria, you're off to the heavy artillery. You're going in an armored puff-puff all the way to France. Fleischmann's brother is arranging that."

We doubled across an infinity of tracks, several times almost having to carry the nervous girls to get them along, and at last found ourselves standing beside the gigantic armored train, its great guns pointing threateningly at the sky. Fleischmann's brother had everything ready when we got there and had even put a couple of men on guard. He smiled grimly.

"Hurry up and jump in. And no peeping out. Just stay in the bunk the whole time; we'll bring you everything you need. You'll have to share one upper bunk as best you can. But we'll get you little girls safely home again, you'll see."

We lifted them up into the car and climbed in ourselves to see where they were to live. They had an upper bunk in the farthest and most inaccessible end of the steel car that was filled with a jumble of arms and ammunition. We each received a kiss on the mouth from the three girls. Porta called them his baby doves, so they each gave him another kiss. Shortly afterward we stood watching the great train as it rumbled off westward and disappeared. Whether they ever saw France again I don't know, but the train at least got there.

Fleischmann's brother was killed by a French partisan at Le Mans six weeks later. Shot from behind and his pistol taken. If that French patriot had known about the three girls it would never have happened. But that is war. Senseless!

Our transport train rolled on ever eastward toward the great steppes and wild, black forests of Russia. The stove in the car was kept red hot, but we froze. Day and night we sat huddled in our greatcoats, with our caps pulled down over our ears. But however hard we stoked, however much we put on and however close we huddled, we were still miserably cold.

It was late in the afternoon and in the midst of a snowstorm when we rolled into the station at Pinsk. We were given brown beans in the Red Cross canteen and for once there was so much that we could eat our fill.

The Old Un got talking with one of the Red Cross sisters, and she recommended us to go and see a magnificent old church there was just behind the station. She pointed it out herself, and as we did not know what else to do with ourselves we trotted across to see it.

The church came fully up to her description, being both very old and fragrant with the incense of the centuries and very lovely. It was full of massive things, elaborate carvings, magnificent gilding and Catholic snugness, little lamps and live flames, little corners with intimate saints painted in simple, bright colors, sky red and sky blue, many of them yellowed and primitive as the drawings of adult children, and in the corners small altars with white cloths, and in the center a large, a huge space, high enough to let souls soar aloft and rise up to the Heavenly Father of God's good children, under the zealously watchful gaze of the priests, Whether mild or strict, ever-patient or eternally embittered, ascetically restrained or overfed and fornicating.

Porta thought it pretty silly to go and gape at a church when it was so icy cold; but then he discovered the organ.

"Now you'll see me play!" he said, grinning delightedly and all at once looking like an expectant child.

We found the stairs leading up to the organ loft. Porta asked a couple of us to go behind and work the thingumajig that provides the air for organ playing. Pluto had the strength of three at least, so he went to work the bellows alone. Porta gave us another happy grin as he sat down at the big organ.

"Now you'll see how Joseph Porta plays!"

The Old Un had perched himself on a rail where he sat puffing at a pipe of his own manufacture which he now removed from his mouth:

"Let's have that bit of Bach you played for me in Yugoslavia," he said.

Porta did not know what piece The Old Un meant, so Titch had to whistle a few bars. It was J. S. Bach's
Toccata and Fugue
. As soon as Porta realized what it was The Old Un wanted his face lit up. Then he called to Pluto:

"Treadle away, old galley slave, and Joseph Porta, by God's grace obergefreiter, will show you how you play this thing."

He seemed to take a deep breath and expression drained from his face. It was like emptying a glass of a residue of stale beer for it to be refilled with noble wine.

Porta began to play. It looked as though he were just amusing himself. The notes fluttered out into the church like flocks of birds, some small and chirruping, some with a great swishing whirr of wings. When he ended, we laughed with enthusiasm. He lit a cigarette and settled himself more comfortably. The Old Un gave me a nudge and, never taking his eyes off Porta, whispered:

"Now you will hear things. Now he's got going."

The Old Un was like a delighted, proud father, his heart filled with pure and unaffected devotion for something of real merit.

Porta did not disappoint him. His playing was superb. First be played lightly and carelessly with the keys; then all at once be became hypnotized by his own playing: Beethoven's
Die Himmel ruhmen des Ewigen Ehre
; the anonymous
Schiafe mein Prinzchen schiaf ein
, which he played so ineffably gently that tears came into the eyes of both The Old Un and me, and we felt a great melting joy at there being so much that was good in life after all, and sorrow at our being fettered to darkness.

Then Porta went wild. He pulled out all the stops and shook the church with a hurricane of sound. It was dancing and shouting for joy, it was all things live and dead united in a song of praise. A mighty, blaring fanfare, blown by a thousand heralds. The dance of the myriads of snowflakes on a still Christmas night in time of peace. The birds of the forest and field pointing their beaks at the zenith and letting their throats emit a celestial chorale.

We were as though turned to stone as we listened. An ugly, dirty soldier, and then this colossal, this all-conquering, pure hymn of joy.

I happened to look down into the church and, to my amazement, I saw that it was hall-filled with motionless, silent people. Beside the altar stood a tall, gray-haired priest, and a little farther on a cluster of rapt civilians staring up at the gallery. In the middle of the church sat and stood soldiers in dirty greatcoats and caps pulled down over faces sallow with undernourishment. Among them I could also see one or two Red Cross sisters; but though such beings are usually objects of our wistful interest, I forgot them for Porta's lovely music. Eventually he stopped, and in the deathly silence we could hear Pluto gasping for breath at his post behind the organ. Porta looked across at The Old Un and me.

"Damn fine playing in a church," said he. "Damn fine."

He, too, was happy--gravely happy.

The Old Un's voice shook with emotion:

"Porta, you ugly old idiot! You red-haired numskull."

Shortly afterward the priest came. He embraced the grinning Porta and kissed him on both cheeks.

Then Asmus came running up and called out that we were leaving. The stately priest held a cross over us:

"God bless you, my children."

Then we were out in the swirling snow fighting our way back to our boxcar and to the dirty straw on its floor. We covered ourselves up as well as we could and continued on our shivering way toward our unknown goal. We were unloaded at Smolensk.

"Back, BACK, damn you! He's got his foot under the rollers!"

Porta's reaction was almost instantaneous. The tank jerked back and Porta leaped out of it, and together he and I caught hold of Hans who was standing, as white as a sheet, holding onto the tank. We got him inside the cottage and The Old Un lit a cigarette and stuck it between his blue lips. He shook his head as he cut the boot off Hans's crushed foot.

"Children, children, are you crazy?"

We were quartered on the outskirts of Smolensk in civilian billets. As soon as we had drawn our rations we sauntered off to the big market square, which was swarming with men of every possible army: SS troops with grinning death's heads in their caps; parachute troops; cavalry in buckskin breeches and long boots with spurs; infantry in queer leather jackets painted with splotches of brown, green and blue; Romanians and Hungarians in clumsy khaki uniforms--every kind of soldier from the various armies of Central Europe was to be seen there in the market place of Smolensk, from monocled, elegant air force officers to filthy, lousy infantrymen.

The place, too, was thronged with Russian civilians in wadded clothes, many of them incredibly ragged. They had shapeless felt boots on their feet. Six or seven women came trudging along, each with a sack on her back, all jabbering away a mile a minute. All at once one of them stopped, straddled her legs and the next moment there was a loud splashing and a large puddle spread across the ground between her legs. As soon as she had finished she walked calmly on.

"Well, I'm damned. Just like an old cow." Porta looked from the puddle to the old woman. "Well, I'm damned," he said again.

The Russians gave the impression of being quite unaffected by the appalling cold which had such a bad effect on us.

We stayed only a couple of days in Smolensk, then trucks took US to Bielev, where the 27th Regiment was quartered. Our company went to 2nd Battalion under Oberstleutnant von der Lizdenau, with Major Hinka as second in command. If only we had not had such a swine as Meier for company commander all would have been well.

Porta maintained that the Lord had appeared to him in a vision and said that the season for swine hunting would soon start and also that the company would soon have a new commander. That was what the Lord had said to Obergefreiter Porta, amen.

There was much talk of swine hunting in the company. Meier allowed himself the most incredible liberties with us; he cheated us and persecuted us at every opportunity. His crowning act was to give us drill and route marching, a blunder where troops in the field are concerned. All the officers shook their heads and thought him crazy, and from that moment we all knew that no one would be interested in the cause of Meier's death. After that, Meier was ours. He did not know it himself, but we did. We stopped talking about swine hunting and many of us made dumdums. There was nothing more to discuss.

One of those who took Meier's swinishness most to heart was Hans Breuer. He asked me once or twice whether we should not desert together, but I did not dare.

"Devil take it, Sven, can't you see that we must get away from all this, no matter how?" he added thoughtfully.

I looked at him. "Hans," I said earnestly, "don't do anything stupid now."

One evening orders came to prepare the tanks for action. We filled them with gas and oil and loaded them with ammunition: twenty thousand rounds of machine gun ammunition, that was ten thousand for each of our two machine guns; one hundred high-explosive shells, one hundred armored shells, fifty armorpiercing S shells; hand grenades, flares, ammunition for our small arms and oil for the flame throwers.

Porta was on his belly, so deep in the motor compartment that you could just see his legs protruding, while he cursed at the lousy army that turned people into swine. Now and again he gave a suppressed laugh and called down from his cylinders and valves:

"Hey, Old Un, I'm getting a nice bull's-eye this time. God's just told me."

"If someone does not get in ahead of you," said The Old Un. "There are seven hundred in the company."

Porta's answer was to whistle a hunting call. The Old Un and Titch went into the cottage to prepare our evening meal, while Pluto went to the quartermaster for our rations. Porta and I were to drive the tank close up to the house and camouflage it with branches and snow to prevent it being seen by the Russian planes that every night came flying over and dropped parachute flares.

Before we had got the tank maneuvered into place Hans came across and told us that he had just had a letter telling him that his wife had gone to the hospital with a serious abdominal complaint. He was very depressed. I still blame myself for not keeping an eye on him. I
knew
that I ought to; I just did not think, and the next moment it was too late.

I was standing in front of the tank signaling with my hands to Porta so that he could drive the tank properly into place without knocking our cottage down. Then I heard Hans give a little cry and I knew that he had done it. When I got to him he was standing with one foot caught between the track and the heavy roller.

When the ambulance had driven away we discussed the report The Old Un would have to write. We agreed on saying that Hans had tried to climb up onto the tank from the side, and that at that moment Porta had backed, thinking that that was the signal I had given him. As a result, Hans had slipped off the roller and his foot had caught. That sounded plausible but it was not immaculate, since it was strictly forbidden to climb onto a tank from the aide. You always had to mount from the front, where the driver could see you.