March Battalion (7 page)

A stunned silence on the part of the crowd. And on the part of the Russian, who finally fell back on the usual irascible demand for papers.

'Get stuffed!' shouted Heide. 'You can keep that sort of rubbish for p.o.w.'s. It won't wash with us. The German Army doesn't take shit from anyone!'

Slowly, the Russian surveyed each one of us, taking in the details of our uniforms. When he spoke, there was a note almost of supplication in his voice. 'Njet Russki?' he whispered.

Alte took a step forward, his revolver at the ready. The crowd closed in all round us, suddenly given new courage by the sight of their dreaded enemy humbled and at a loss for words. Somewhere a woman cackled with malicious mirth. Little John picked up one of the barrels of alcohol and held it out to the Russian.

'Drink a toast,' he commanded. 'Here's to us and the downfall of our enemies! Confusion to the Russians! Heil Hitler!'

The man drank. He seemed dazed to the point of total non-comprehension. We could understand how he was feeling. The presence of German soldiers so far behind the Russian lines - German soldiers,' moreover, wearing the uniforms of a Russian tank regiment - must have seemed a nightmare impossibility. And yet there we were, standing foursquare and insolent before him.

At that moment we felt no particular animosity towards the man. Somewhere in the village they had found and roasted a whole side of pork, and we now invited our tame Russian to join us in a victory meal. He protested faintly that the pork was Soviet property and we had no right to be eating it, but I think even he realized the futility of his words.

We sat him down amongst us in the village street and tore at strips of the roast meat with our bare hands. The barrels of liquor were passed round freely. All differences were soon forgotten. Barcelona fetched the Russian an affectionate blow on the shoulder with the butt of his revolver and shouted 'Vive Moscow!' The Russian belched and shouted encouragement to Little John, who was doing his drunken best to violate a fat, trousered lady of the village.

'Vive Stalin!' cried Barcelona.

'Vive Stalin!' echoed the Russian. 'Long life to Lenin, protector of the proletariat!'

He lost his balance and fell on his side in the snow, and the Legionnaire pulled him upright again. The Russian pointed a finger at him.

'You're under arrest,' he told him. 'All of you, under arrest. I've had my eye on you for some time... filthy Trotskyists!'

He cleared his throat, spat over his shoulder, informed the Legionnaire that Karl Marx was a habitual drunkard, fell over again and clutched amorously at Porta. Then he looked all round him, as if to ensure himself of a degree of privacy, leaned forward and whispered hoarsely.

'Tovaritch, tell me one thing: where did you learn to speak Russian?'

'Why, at home,' hissed Porta, with an equal air of secrecy. There was a pause, then the Russian rocked with loud laughter.

'You must teach me some day!'

'Gladly,' said Porta. 'Or perhaps you'd rather learn German?'

The Russian became suddenly sullen once again. 'Where are your papers?' he demanded. 'I haven't seen your papers... Do you have any papers?'

'Naturally,' said Porta. 'But it's not worth the bother of showing them to you. They're all forgeries.'

In the midst of the general mirth, the joke seeming to be much appreciated by our friend Piotr, Fjodor shuffled up to Alte and muttered urgently in his ear. By a mixture of sign language and pidgin Russian the old man was able, in a limited way, to converse with us, and I knew at once from the expression on Alte's face as he turned towards me that the time had come to cease merrymaking and return once again to the sordid business of war.

'Sven! On your feet, and make it snappy! According to Fjodor there's an N.K.V.D. patrol on its way here.'

'Right! I'll get the sledge ready straight away.'

Already the news had communicated itself to the villagers. They were as anxious to be rid of us as we were to be gone, eager to eliminate all traces of our presence. Alte dragged Little John away from his lady friend, shook the Professor out of a drunken trance, picked Heide bodily off the ground and prepared ourselves for a hasty departure. The Russian sat watching us, cradling an empty barrel of alcohol on his lap, obviously at a loss to understand the sudden breaking up of the party.

'What about him?' demanded Porta, jerking his thumb towards him.

Heide would have disposed of him there and then, but Fjodor showed signs of such agitation at the thought of a dead Russian left behind in the village that we had no alternative but to take him with us.

'You shoot later,' begged Fjodor. 'Much later. But you shoot all right. You cut throat, maybe. Bury in snow.'

'With the greatest of pleasure,' said Heide. 'I'll take care of him.' He seized the Russian by the shoulder. 'Come on, you! Time to be off.'

Apathetically, the Russian strapped on his skis and reached out for his abandoned machine gun. Heide promptly took it from him.

'Voina plenny (prisoner-of-war)', he told him. 'No need for guns any more. You do what you're told from now on.'

The dog team was harnessed, Paul was made comfortable on the sledge, the whole village assembled to wave us farewell. With a crack of the whip and a cry of 'Ohai!' from Alte, we were off. The leader of the team bounded forward, the sledge moved away. The village was left behind and the usual combination of snow and wind quickly dissipated the remaining effects of the drink and the roast pork that had warmed our bellies and raised our spirits. Once more we were alone in a hostile country, trekking along a familiar road in hell.

For three days our prisoner-of-war maintained a continuous and sullen silence. The first words he spoke were to Alte.

'There's going to be a storm,' he told him. 'You'd better get the tent up immediately, unless you want us all to die of exposure.'

Alte stuck his pipe between his teeth and looked up at the low, racing clouds on the horizon.

'All right,' he said, at last. 'If that's your advice we'd be wise to take it. You know your own country better than we do.'

The Old Man's calm seemed to agitate the Russian.

'When I say immediately, I mean immediately! The storm's going to be right overhead in less than an hour's time, and if that tent's not up we'll be dead within minutes. The temperature's going to drop right down. At least 48. degrees below freezing.'

'He's right,' declared the Legionnaire. I've seen plenty of sandstorms in the Sahara and I don't fancy a snowstorm in the middle of Russia, I can tell you.'

Porta looked aghast.

'You're not going to go by what this slob says?' he demanded.

'Why not? He knows the country, doesn't he?' 'You're bloody mad,' began Porta, heatedly, but Alte intervened.

'Shut up and get cracking with that tent.' Slowly, and with rather bad grace, we began to unload the sledge, Porta muttering mutinously to himself and Heide mouthing the usual obscenities towards the dog team, as if they personally were responsible for the weather. Quite suddenly, as if from nowhere, a tremendous blast of wind with an icy cutting edge like the blade of a knife hurled itself furiously upon us, overturning the sledge and us with it.

'Now perhaps you'll get a move on!' screamed the Legionnaire.

Working as fast as our numbed fingers and the continuing wind would allow us, we set up the frozen canvas of the tent, stiff as a board already and almost impossible to handle, and at the Russian's suggestion began hacking out blocks of ice and snow to form a protective rampart against the coming storm.

By the time the work was done we were all exhausted. We fell asleep huddled shoulder to shoulder, leaving the Professor to keep watch over us and our prisoner. Somehow it always seemed to be the Professor's turn to keep watch.

We were woken by the storm. It was a storm such as none of us had ever seen before, and it could surely only have happened in Russia or the North Pole. For four or five hours it required our combined efforts to keep the tent upright. At last the wind dropped to a more normal pitch, and the Russian relaxed and nodded to the rest of us.

'O.K. We can sleep now.'

'Sleep?' said Alte. 'It must be nearly daybreak. We've got to push on.'

The Russian smiled, pityingly.

'Why don't you try? Take a step outside and see how far you get.'

Little John, of course, had to make the attempt Uttering words of scorn and bravado, he stepped outside the tent, fell into a snowdrift several feet high, staggered upright again, was promptly knocked over by the wind and rolled head over heels back into the tent, completely covered in snow.

'Fancy a big strong chap like you being bowled over by a little gentle breeze!' jeered Porta. 'How long is this lot likely to last?' demanded Alte.

The Russian shrugged uncaring shoulders.

'Three days, if you're lucky. A week if you're not.'

His estimate was correct. For three days the storm buffeted the snow across the plains. Conversation was almost impossible and our voices became hoarse through constant shouting. From time to time we staggered outside into the freezing white world and saw the dogs curled up nose to tail in the lee of the tent, almost invisible beneath a thick covering of snow. Inside, we fought and quarrelled and slept and woke and fought and quarrelled as the monotonous hours dragged on. Little John and Steiner battered each other almost raw; Steiner then picked oh the Professor and half killed him; Heide came to the Professor's rescue and was straightway accused by Porta of supporting the S.S.; in a fury, he then knocked the Professor stone cold and turned to vent the rest of his spleen on his old enemy Little John. Finally, we all banded together against the Russian, sitting silent and morose in a corner, and found ourselves for once in accord in our general decision that he was to blame for the entire war.

On the fourth morning we awoke to an uncannily silent world. The snow was falling heavily from the leaden sky, but the wind had dropped. Drifts were piled as high as mountains, and we played in the snow like children, rolling in it, jumping in it, scooping up great handfuls and hurling it at each other.

Two weeks later we were at last approaching the German front lines. We had exhausted our stocks of food and were all half dead with fatigue. For three days we had been without the dogs. They had been in no condition to continue, and we had simply let them loose to fend for themselves. The sledge had been disposed of and lay at the bottom of a ravine. Our prisoner-of-war was growing increasingly ill at ease. His former arrogance had vanished, and it was plain that all his thoughts were turned to the possibility of escape. Which of us would not have been the same, in his position?

During alt this time, we had encountered no one on our march across the steppes, but there came a day when the luck had to break. We were approaching a wood and were about half a kilometre away when suddenly, echoing across the plain, the dreaded cry resounded.

'Stoi!'

Porta and the Legionnaire turned in an instant and sent a volley of shots in the direction from which it came.

'Under cover!' shouted Alte. 'Make for the trees!'

Heide and the Professor threw themselves face downwards behind a ridge of snow to cover our hasty retreat. It was the occasion for which the Russian had been waiting. He began running across the open country towards his compatriots, waving his hands in the air and shouting 'Uhrae Stalino!' at the top of his voice. It was the moment, also, for which Heide had been waiting. He had promised Fjodor, back at the village, that he would personally eliminate the Russian, and at last he could legitimately do so. There was a burst of machine gun fire. From the shelter of the trees we saw the Russian suddenly jerk backwards, as if pulled by an invisible string. He turned a full circle, then slowly crumpled up in the snow and lay still. Heide's gun rattled off another hail of bullets. By now, we had the heavy artillery bombarding the enemy from the shelter of the woods. Heide stood up, defiantly hurled three hand grenades one after another before running for cover in the wake of the Professor. The grenades exploded in a welter of snow and human debris. Heide sang triumphantly as he joined the rest of us.

He was a born killer, was Julius Heide. In peacetime he would doubtless have been locked away as a dangerous psychopath, but this was wartime and Heide passed as an excellent soldier, fearless, unimaginative, always in the thick of every fight and ready at a moment's notice to shoot anything that moved. They decorated him for his courage and rewarded him for his aggression. If he survived the war - and of course he was the type who would - he would become an instructor in a military school. Society can always turn the instincts of a Julius Heide to its advantage if it only recognizes them in time. Nevertheless, he was not a man you really enjoyed having around. .

Panting and exuberant, he dropped down behind the heavy machine gun manned by Porta and the Legionnaire.

'I got at least twenty of 'em!' 'That.must have given them something to think about... being fired on by their own troops.'

' They probably think we're Brandenbergers.'

'Then God help us, if they ever get their hands on us.'

They strangle them with barbed wire,' said Steiner. 'I once saw a couple of Brandenbergers they'd captured. They'd strangled one with barbed wire and they'd roasted the other alive over a spit'

'Charming,' said Porta. 'And here's me who can't stand the heat.'

'In any case,' gloated Heide, 'I shouldn't imagine there are any of that little bunch left alive to recognize us again.'

We pushed on through the trees but had scarcely covered more than a few metres when we heard the unmistakable sound of tanks not far ahead. With one accord we bounded off the road and dived into the undergrowth as the first T.34 came into view. A grenade whistled past us and we flung ourselves flat on the ground. Porta went racing off down a narrow pathway and crashed headlong into a Russian sergeant, who naturally took him to be friend rather than enemy. He did not live long enough to discover his mistake: Porta emptied his revolver into him at point blank range and seized upon the flame thrower that the man had been carrying.