Liquidate Paris (20 page)

'Gee, they sure are tough with you boys,' said the corporal, feelingly.

He took the banjo from Porta and strummed a few chords on it. Barcelona at once snatched up the accordion, Porta pulled out his flute and Little John his mouth organ.

'Jesus,' said the Old Man. 'Don't you people ever learn?'

'Too old to pick up new habits now,' said Porta. 'Let's try "Three Lilies"... Ready? One, two, three----'

'Dreg
Lilies, dreg Lilies
[we sang, loudly],

Die outflank' rich au mien grab...

Three lilies, three white lilies,

I shall plant them on my grave
...'

Far away in the distance a battery of artillery burst into action, as if in response to our song. We followed the blazing trails of the rockets, doubtless heading for Caen. Seconds later we heard the explosions. And seconds after that the whole sky was lit up and the air was full of shrapnel. Porta, his flute at his lips, danced gleefully round the trench like some wild creature celebrating midsummer rites. The rest of us more prudently took cover. The American private flung himself flat, Barcelona dived head-first into a pile of farmyard manure, Wither, one of the S.S. men, attempted to seek shelter in a chicken run and became wedged fast in the doorway, half in and half out. He was set free by Little John, who tugged at one of his legs and brought the whole flimsy construction down about his ears. Chickens flew hysterically in all directions.

'What the hell's going on here now?'

It was Lt. Lowe again. I crouched trembling beneath a pile of empty grain sacks and prayed that I was invisible. Porta was still dancing and playing his flute, and now the American corporal and Little John had joined him, with the banjo and mouth organ, all three crazily cavorting round the trench.

'What's that Yank doing here?' demanded the Lieutenant.

He fought his way forward through a demented flock of chickens, but before he had gone very far the situation had abruptly and incredibly altered. Loud bursts of machine-gun fire ripped the night apart. I felt a stream of bullets tearing the grain sacks off me,.and in a panic I dashed forward towards the ruins of the chicken run. As I did so, the American corporal gave a loud shriek, spun in a circle and collapsed at the bottom of the trench. I saw running figures silhouetted against the skyline, and realized with horror that the English were almost on top us. I could see their bayonets gleaming and their already raised to start showering us with grenades. It no use seeking for shelter, it was every man for himself in hand-to-hand fighting.

We defended ourselves with whatever weapons were most readily available, knives, pitchforks, shovels, naked fists. It was difficult, in the turmoil, to keep any sense of purpose other than just staying alive, but at last I managed to fight my way over to the spot where we had the M.G. camouflaged, Little John joined me, and together we set it up. A few paces ahead of us we saw Wither stoop to pick up a grenade that was rolling innocently towards us. Before he could hurl it back at the enemy it had exploded in his face. The next second it was Winter's severed head, and not the hand-grenade, that was rolling towards us. Barcelona stopped a bullet in his right lung, and Gregor, panting and gasping and bleeding like a pig from a head wound, dragged him to comparative safety behind the M.G. Concerned though we were about Barcelona, we had no time to pause and inquire as to his state of health. His life and our lives, and the lives of the entire section, if it came
to
that, now depended upon the M.G.

As soon as it was set up,. Little John yelled at me to start firing. I needed no prompting on this occasion. The English were victorious, and they knew it, but they momentarily fell back before the rapid firing of the M.G. and we were able to pull out, with heavy losses of men and equipment, making our way across the open fields under cover of the dead American's goddam hedges. We took up a new position in some ruins about a couple of kilometres off. Barcelona was alive but in a bad way. It was obvious he needed urgent medical attention, and while transport was being arranged we gathered round his stretcher and began piling him up with all the cigarettes and all the money we had on us. Barcelona was sobbing rather querulously, weak from loss of blood, and moaning at us not to send him away.

'What do you think I am?' he maundered. 'A bleeding baby?'

'You're certainly behaving like One,' said Lowe, sternly. He laid a hand on Barcelona's shoulder. 'You know perfectly well that hospital's the only place for you. Why don't you just thank your lucky stars you're still alive and can look forward to a nice long rest? There are many of us who'd be only too pleased to be in your shoes right
now
.'

'The war will be over by the time I get back,' he complained, feebly.

'No such bleeding luck,' commented Little John.

Lowe smiled.

'Don't be ridiculous, the war couldn't end without you! I'll tell you what, you'll be back with us again inside a month. Here----' He searched his pockets, found an empty cigarette packet and his gold lighter. Heroically, he handed over the lighter. 'Take this. It's a good luck charm. That'll see you through all right.'

The only transport available was a motor-cycle combination. We wrapped him up in blankets and a ground sheet and installed him as comfortably as possible in the side-car, with a machine-gun on his knees, just in case he should need it, then stood sadly waving as he was borne off into the darkness.

'All right,' said Lowe, wearily. 'Get fell in and let's see what our losses are.'

Each section leader took a count and reported the number of men dead or wounded or missing. A dispatch rider was then sent off t
o
the Regiment. Five minutes later, the enemy was on us again. Porta had his field-glasses to his eyes at the time. A bullet tore them from his hands and he regarded the shattered pieces with stupefaction. Had it not been for those field-glasses, Porta would almost have certainly been a dead man.

Enemy troops were coming at us from two directions at once. Again we were forced to retreat, I stumbled after the rest of the section, the M.G. doing its best to trip me up. There were times when I wished I was not the, best machine-gunner in the Company. There were times when I wished someone else could drag the perishing thing about with him in the teeth of enemy fire. A hand-grenade came rolling towards me. I kicked it savagely out of the way and had the satisfaction of seeing it explode at the feet of two soldiers dressed in khaki. Serve 'em right, the bastards! They didn't have to contend with a damned heavy M.G.

I caught up with the rest of them sheltering behind a high ridge of ground. Lieutenant Lowe was yelling at them again for some misdemeanour or other. He was threatening, for probably the thousandth time in the past week, to put them all on a charge. It appeared that Little John was missing, that no one had seen him fall, and that Lowe, knowing Little John, was inclined to think that he had disobeyed the order to pull out.

'He was here a while ago,' said the Old Man, defensively.

'I don't give a damn where he was a while ago! I want to know where he is now! Don't you have
any
control over your section, Feldwebel Beier?'

'Over some of them,' said the Old Man. He looked hard in Porta's direction. 'Not over others.'

'I've a good mind to put the whole lot of you on a charge!'

The Legionnaire hunched a cold shoulder.

'If it amuses you,' he said, and turned away.

'What did you say?' screamed Lowe. 'You dare to talk to an officer like that, you--you trench rat!'

The Legionnaire gave one of his superior smiles.

'Excuse me, sir,' I said meekly.

He swung round on me.

'Well? What is it now, Hassel?'

'I just thought you'd be pleased to know that I've still got the M.G. with me, sir.'

'For God's sake!'

The Lieutenant raised one clenched fist in exasperation and went storming off again. We passed the rest of the night in comparative calm, untroubled either by enemy or by officers.

Towards morning, Little John showed up. He came whistling over the hill towards us, as unconcerned as a hiker out for a dawn stroll. Under each arm he carried a large tin of jam. We sat up and stared at him, our mouths sagging. He began bawling at us when he was still some distance away,

'Why did you all go tearing off like that? You should have hung around a bit. I ended up with the place to myself... Thirty-one gold teeth I got! There was one sergeant, he had a whole denture made out of the stuff... You should have been there, it was some sight!'

'We'll go halves?' said Porta, greedily eyeing the two bulging sacks that hung from Little John's belt.

'Drop dead!' said Little John, prudently buttoning up his combat jacket.

We had time only for a quick coffee and some bread and jam, and then a fresh lot of orders came through: the second section were to go out on reconnaissance towards the north-west, to the forest of Ceris. The Regiment required to know whether or not it was in enemy hands.

For once it was not raining. The sun was high above us before we had been out more than an hour, and on the whole I think I should have preferred the usual downpour. Clothes that stuck to your back with sweat were even worse than clothes that stuck to your back with rain. The Old Man, taking a firm line with us, refused even a five-minute break until we had reached our objective.

We entered the forest and began moving cautiously through it, weapons at the ready for the first sign of trouble. Suddenly, away to our right, we heard unmistakable sounds of human activity. The Old Man held up a hand. We listened, but were unable to make out what was happening. Stealthily, we moved forward--and stopped in astonishment at the sight that met our eyes. It was an entire corrugate village in the middle of the forest. We saw half a dozen men in Yank uniform busily working among drums of petrol and vast heaps of grenades. Four trucks stood by, each attached to a trailer piled high with boxes of ammunition.

'Bloody hell!'said Porta. 'It's an arms depot!'

'What do we do?' I hissed.

'Wait and see what happens. We don't know how many of them there are.'

'If it's only those six, I reckon we ought to have a go at 'em right away,' urged Porta,' shouldering his machine-gun.

'I don't care if it's sixty-six,' said Little John, with his usual thirst for blood.

'Put that thing away!' snapped the Legionnaire, jerking Little John's arm as he saw him reaching for his revolver.

One of the Americans left his companions and began walking towards us. He appeared not to have noticed us, and was obviously making for the trees for some reason of his own. At my side, I could feel the Legionnaire tensing his muscles, ready for action. The man had not even the time to cry out before the Legionnaire, practising the skills of his Foreign Legion days, had one, arm round his neck and a knife in his back.

The remaining five men were hard at it loading drums of petrol on to one of the trailers. The Old Man jerked his head at us. Silently we crept forward, moving stealthily across the clearing, placing our feet with care as the Legionnaire had taught us. One man turned his head at the last moment. The others were taken by surprise. We bounded forward like so many panthers and had silenced them probably even before they knew what was happening. It was an art we had acquired, of necessity, when fighting in Russia.

The Old Man glanced round and jabbed a finger towards a long, low, prefabricated building. We crept up to it and cautiously peered through the windows. Inside, men were seated at two large tables eating breakfast. Outside, doubtless, there were sentries patrolling the entrance to the hut. The Legionnaire and Little John went off in opposite directions to deal with them. The rest of us grimly pulled out hand-grenades.

A series of explosions. The men seated round the tables jerked into the air, fell forward with their noses in their mess tins. We saw Little John and the Legionnaire burst through the door on the far side, saw a startled group of men come running out of the showers, clutching damp towels round their naked bodies. They were mowed down by
the
Legionnaire's machine-gun, and at a signal from the Old Man we hauled ourselves up and made our entry through the windows.

'All right, hold your fire! There's too much petrol lying around this place for my liking.'

'Here, take a gander at this!' yelled Little John, who had opened another door and found a provision cupboard behind it.

'Food!' shouted Porta, making a dive for it.

The Old Man attempted to hold him back, but it was too late. Little John had already cracked the first bottle of whisky; Porta had already plunged his bayonet into the first tin of pineapple.

'Leave that stuff alone!' roared the Old Man.

'Have a heart,' said Gregor. 'I haven't seen so much grub since the food started.' He rushed to join the two rebels and gave a great shout of joy. 'Champagne!'

Really, it was too much. I darted forward with the others and snatched up a bottle. The floor was soon awash with corks bobbing jauntily on a sea of champagne. While the rest of us drank, Porta was feverishly stuffing a large saucepan with every particle of food he could lay hands on, corned beef, meat balls, potatoes, tomatoes, bacon, eggs, butter, cheese...

'Why wasn't I born a Yank?' he sighed, blissfully stirring the mess with a wooden spoon.

The Old Man gave a howl of indignation, but Little John seemed to be of the same mind as Porta. He pulled an American tunic off the back of a chair and forced his way into it, splitting all the seams as he did so. A champagne cork hit him smartly in the nape of the neck.

'You're dead, you're dead!' chanted Heide, drunkenly reverting to the days of his youth.

He giggled stupidly as Little John hurled an empty bottle at him. The air was soon full of flying missiles.

'Stop arsing about and come and eat! ' screamed Porta, above the din.

It was like some marvellous Bacchic dream. Only fir a wonder it was reality.