Monte Cassino (24 page)

"The cork," Carl remarked thoughtfully.

Otto let out a great guffaw, a real belly laugh and, going back to the two policemen, he stuffed the cork into one of their trouser pockets.

"And now where's a telephone," Carl said, grinning delightedly.

We all three squeezed into a telephone box. After a lot of squabbling we managed to find the Town Major's number. Otto was to do the 'phoning, as he had the most convincing voice.

"Herr General, oh, well, then, Herr Oberleutnant, it's all the same to me what you are. Who isn't to be impertinent? What the hell's that to do with you? Do you think I haven't seen these sword-swallowers before? You want to know whom you're talking to? Do you think I'm weak in the head? Why am I ringing? What the hell's that to do with you? Hallo, hallo! The swine's rung off." Otto was openmouthed with astonishment.

"Bloody cheek they have," Carl growled. "Give me that 'phone! Have you the number? You did it all wrong. I'll show you how to do it." He asked for the number. "Give me the duty officer," he snarled. "This is Professor Brandt speaking. Until a moment ago I thought the military police were here to maintain order, but then what do I see? Your damned constables fighting with drunken civilians whom they drive round in their service vehicles. It's scandalous, Herr Hauptmann, that you allow such things. Your men are now lying dead drunk at the corner of Via Marco Aurelio and Via Claudia having smashed their car." Grinning all over his face, Carl banged the receiver down.

We resisted the temptation to stay and see what happened next.

We spent a further day and night together, then I parted company with them at the V.D. clinic of the medical hospital. As I walked away they shouted from a first floor window:

"Don't forget our meeting on Ponte Umberto, when the war's over."

"I'll never forget that," I shouted back.

I walked backwards all the way to the corner, so as not to lose sight of them. I waved and they brandished their sailors' caps.

"We'll celebrate peace at Mario's," Otto bawled.

I walked off, but I was only half way down the street, when I had to turn and run back to the corner. It was such a pity to leave them. They were still in the window. When they caught sight of me, they swung their caps and sang the sailor's farewell. Then I ran off down the narrow street, as hard as I could go. I had to get away from them, or something would happen.

I went and sat in a park, filled with longings. The wind was in the south and you could hear the guns at Monte Cassino like an uninterrupted menacing thunder. I went to the Movement Control at the railway station to get my leave warrant changed, intending to go to the airport and see if I could find room in a transport 'plane.

An Oberfeldwebel looked at me searchingly:

"Don't you know what happened yesterday?" He stood there weighing my leave papers in his hand. Then slowly he tore them across:

"Major offensive. All leave stopped throughout Army Corps South."

Palid Ida's brothel was no ordinary brothel. It was not officially a brothel at all, though every soldier from Sicily to the Brenner Pass knew it.

There were several ladies in hiding from the Gestapo among Ida's staff and one or two whom the partisans were after. Ida got them all yellow passports. She divided her girls up according to their appearance and milieu. There were four departments at Ida's: privates, NCOs, officers and staff officers. Only the choicest girls who spoke two foreign languages and could quote Schiller and Shakespeare, attended to the needs of the last. Ida had a weakness for Schiller, and in her enthusiasm for him had had painted on the wall of the room in which clients were received:

Und setzt Ihr nicht das Leben ein nie wird das Leben gewonnen sein!

One night Porta and Tiny altered two words, making the quotation better suited to its surroundings.

Ida was an American. Just before the war, she had come to Paris on the classic tour of Europe. The German advance had proved too swift and she had not managed to get away. She told herself that the war was going to be a long one and decided what she was going to do. It was no surprise to her when the Americans finally came in. She used an Oberleutnant as a springboard into the German commander's bed after which she had achieved all-round security.

At the beginning of 1942 she moved her residence from Paris to Rome, taking six French girls with her. It was not a bad start.

We strewed dirty jokes around us and put on airs in front of the grenadiers and paratroopers. We were going on a special mission behind the enemy lines. They regarded us with a certain amount of awe. Everybody had heard of these special jobs.

"Are you lot volunteers?" a Stabsfeldwebel with a knight's cross round his neck asked.

"When we go to the bog, yes," Porta laughed.

They helped us pull the new close-fitting battle-dresses over our black panzer uniforms. Tiny sharpened his close-combat knife on an old grindstone.

"This is so sharp I could cut the balls off a colonel without him noticing," he announced.

We moved our arms and legs about to take the stiffness out of the battle-dress. The sides of the camouflage caps could be pulled down and buttoned under the chin. The peaks could also be pulled down to cover one's face. They had slits in them for one's eyes.

We had just spent two whole days at Palid Ida's. It had been a good party. We had each had three girls, one or two of them even being officers' girls. The grand finale had been a glorious fight with some ack-ack men.

Porta and an Italian had had an eating competition. Porta had won with a score of two and a half geese, half a goose ahead of the Italian. The Italian had collapsed and they had to use a stomach pump on him. Porta's face was pale, but he managed to keep it down. If you were sick during or shortly after such a competition you either lost or were disqualified. Porta knew the trick, which was to sit absolutely still for an hour keeping your mouth firmly shut. It was a mystery to us, where he put until there was not a crumb left. He would get to his feet with his stomach distended like a pregnant bedbug, yet it all disappeared, God knows where, for, a few hours later, he would be as thin as when he first started. Porta was a real champion, where eating was concerned, and his powers were famed on both sides of the front. Three times the Americans invited him to an eating race. Twice he refused, but the third time he accepted and he and a huge negro corporal met for the contest in a shell hole in No-man's land, everything being scrupulously checked by both sides.

Porta won. The negro died.

We were in Mike's dug-out lying on our bellies studying the map, which was spread on the floor. One-Eye lay between the Old Man and me.

"What about the artillery commander?" Heide asked. "He has a cool head, I hope."

"No need to worry," One-Eye said. "I know him. He was at the artillery shooting grounds at Leningrad. He knows his job. In ten minutes he'll pump 800 shells at them. The Yankees here will be lulled by that, thinking that the Indians are going to get whatever's coming."

Porta settled his yellow tophat on top of his camouflage hat. One-Eye narrowed his eye. The sight of it always made his face twitch, but he had long since given up trying to fight against it. But now, when he saw Tiny cramming his light-grey bowler on to his own head, he could scarcely contain himself; but all that came was:

"You two are crazy!"

Tiny tried to cut his nails with the wire clippers. Pieces flew all over the map.

"As you're so fond of using those," One-Eye growled, "you can crawl out first through the wire in your damned bowler. Cut the bottom two wires."

"I can't count," Tiny said beaming.

One-Eye overheard the remark.

"Porta, you follow Tiny," One-Eye went on. "Three minutes exactly between each man. It will be light shortly before five. Half an hour later the morning sun will have gone. Our artillery commander is coming here in person. We must send them the usual morning salutation, otherwise they'll smell a rat. So you must be in your places by then. The gunners have them marked on their maps. They will be firing only the 10.5s. The guns are already aimed. Your worst time will be from half past six until fourteen hours. I'll go through that again. And you listen, too, Tiny. This is the last time. Make a mistake and you'll be massacred. At 5.32 10.5 shelling as a bluff. This will stop at 5.48. At 12.45 mortar fire right in front of the Americans' noses. 12.57 automatic covering fire for 30 seconds. Then you come in: fingers out of your arses and forward. Sven, you deal with the advance machine gun nest. There's only one man there. He's relieved at 13 hours. Five metres beyond is a dug-out with six men in it. As soon as you have cut the throat of the machine gunner, you will liquidate those in the dug-out with hand grenades. Heide, you deal with the two rear machine guns. They are both on stands, but at the bottom of the communication trench with a tarpaulin over them. Their crews are in a shared dug-out three metres to the right. They have made three dummy dugouts. They get into the proper one through a small hole in the lefthand wall, but you can't go wrong. There's a pile of empty tins outside the entrance that they've been too lazy to clear away. Two hand grenades will be enough. One far inside and one in the middle. As soon as Sven and Heide have reached their objectives, you others get moving. It's ten yards up there and you have to cover it in 2.5 seconds, no more, no less. You will rake the trench, but don't link up. Always know where each of the others is, so that you don't bump them off. Shoot at everything that isn't wearing your kind of camouflage jacket with green and black rings. In the whole world there are only 22 of you who have it. If you see a German field marshal's uniform, shoot the man down! Every single man in the Americans' position is to be killed. Not one must escape to tell the others what has happened. Your job is to shock and make them afraid. They must and will believe, it's ghosts or phantoms behind them. This sort of thing will put their coloured troops into a fine panic. Barcelona you won't move from your hole. Be a limpet. Your job is observer, while the others are clearing the trench. Green Verey light and you run as if the devil was at your heels."

"Oh, we always do that," Porta said cheekily.

"Shut up and listen," said our general. "Two seconds after that light signal, our artillery will start up and you, Barcelona, will put up a world speed record and catch the others up. The adjacent sectors won't know what to make of it all. If all goes as we plan, things will be pretty confused. You have five seconds to get off the height. Our guns will lay down a barrage right on your heels. We'll cover you to the river, where partisans will help you across. You then have 145 kilometres to your objective. How you get there is your affair. But you've got to." He pointed to a spot on the map. "At this point exactly you will have panzerfausts and demolition charges dropped to you. If anyone gets wounded, he must deal with it himself. You are most strictly forbidden to cart wounded along with you. Hide him and go and see if he is still there when you come back. Only one thing more: this task has got to be carried out, if only one of you gets through. The operations hut lies in this wood here, and the tanks stand camouflaged at the fork in the road there. There are fifteen mechanics at the most with them. They live in tents."

"Have they so security?" the Old Man asked in surprise.

"No. They feel quite safe. It doesn't enter their heads that there could be any danger. As soon as you have destroyed the tanks, two of you will attack the staff hut, while the rest of you fire on it from the south. You will seize the first staff officer you see and you will, you must, bring one back alive. The others are to be killed. No one must have any idea what has happened otherwise the whole point of the action will be lost. Then off you go back to the bridge. But, I forgot this before, you will leave two men at the bridge who will fix demolition charges, while the rest of you are dealing with the tanks and the hut. These two will blow the bridge up as soon as the last of you has got back across it. If the enemy is so close behind you that you can't get across, you must sacrifice a machine gun group to make sure that you get the staff officer across. You go on north until you come to the river. You follow that eastwards." His fat finger pointed to a place on the map. "This is an English divisional HQ. Wipe it out." He chucked down some colour photographs of Allied uniforms. "There you see the staff tabs and badges."

"Then we must hope they aren't in their nightshirts," Heide grinned, "or do they have badges on their bums?"

"That you must find out for yourself," One-Eye said curtly.

We co-ordinated our watches and checked our weapons for the last time. Everything was firmly fixed. Nothing rattled.

"Don't forget the soldier's books and identity discs of any who get killed," One-Eye reminded us. "Otherwise someone in the SD might suspect a smart bit of deserting. And one thing more. And this goes specially for Porta and Tiny. Don't plunder the dead. If they catch you with gold teeth in your pockets, they'll string you up. They have no sympathy with gold-collectors."

"But they do it themselves," Porta said defensively.

"I know, but nobody knows about it." One-Eye took hold of Porta's collar, "and nobody knows about it here either. Do I make myself clear enough, Porta?"

"Jawohl, Herr General."

"Today I'm not your General. I am One-Eye! Three days for not being able to remember it. You'll report to the hen-house to do it, when you get back."

"Right," whispered the Old Man.

A minute later Tiny disappeared over the parapet. In the north numbers of guns were rumbling away. I stared at the luminous hands of my watch. 90 seconds. My hands felt over my equipment. 60 seconds. My legs were quivering. 45 seconds. I began to tremble violently. It was impossible to keep my hands still. 30 seconds. I looked at the others. The ones I had been with so long. I wished we still had our Finnish teacher, the Lapp, with us. A sergeant who came from up by the White Sea and who taught us their methods of fighting.