Monte Cassino (28 page)

Heide tried to escape, darting like a squirrel up the slope, but in a moment Tiny was over him, seized him and flung him several yards away, shouting:

"I'm after your pins. Haven't you tumbled to that?"

Heide capitulated. He was allowed to keep his gold teeth, but he had to hand over 275 dollars, the Pope's ring and his Russian machine pistol. That was the worst blow. We had only two of those splendid weapons. The Legionnaire had one, and now Tiny had the other. We were prepared to commit any crime to get hold of a Kalashnikov. Not a few had lost their lives trying. The owner of a Kalashnikov slept with it tied to his arm, yet even so some had been stolen. We also had four PPSH's, model 41, another Russian pistol. With one of those you could have bought a battery of heavy howitzers, but as Porta said to the gunner who had proposed the deal:

"How in heaven's name am I to cart four heavy howitzers about with me?"

The gunner had even offered Porta the battery's twenty-four horses, but as, at the time, we were stationed in a stores depot, Porta was not interested.

Five times Heide tried to steal his Kalashnikov and ring back, and the last attempt very nearly succeeded. That was the night we left Cassino, the day before we were given tanks again. Tiny all but killed him. In fact, he was only saved by the appearance of One-Eye, who came along just as Tiny was tying Heide to the muzzle of an antitank gun. Heide went to mass three times to try and make sure of God's support in his fight with Tiny, but obviously God did not wish to be involved.

We had some difficulty in finding the hut from which we were to get our British Staff Officer. The sentries were half asleep at their posts and had their throats cut without their making a sound. We surrounded the hut. Having eaten all our narcotic chocolate we were now chewing Indian hashish to calm our nerves. We had been out six days. A faint glow came through one of the black-out curtains.

"They've closed themselves up like a bull's arsehole in the fly season," Porta muttered. "They'll shit a fine turd when they see us."

"Do you think they'll have any gin?" Heide said dreamily. "I'm very fond of gin."

"And corned beef," Porta added. "A couple of tins of that mixed up with mashed potato can make a corpse smack its lips."

"Let's knock politely," suggested Tiny, who was lying behind a fallen tree gazing at the door of the hut. "When they open it a bit, I'll stick my good Communist Kalashnikov in their mugs. Then things will start moving. Staff buggers like that always shit their pants, when they look into the muzzle of a MP."

"We'll have a colonel this time," Porta said. "We haven't had one of those yet."

"And I want to lead him," Tiny demanded. "I'll have a rope round his neck and have him trotting behind me like a goat going home to be milked."

The Old Man asked for quiet.

"This has got to be done quickly," he whispered.

"Everything we do is," Porta said.

Tiny pointed to the hut:

"Did you see the shadows on the curtains? They had bottles in their hands."

We fell silent and gazed in amazement as a woman in uniform walked briskly across the open space.

"God, they've got cunt as well," Porta breathed ecstatically.

"It was a WAAF," Heide explained.

Tiny gazed at him uncomprehendingly.

"Do they bark?"

"Idiot!" hissed Heide.

The woman opened the door. In the light from inside we could see that she was pretty. A pretty girl in an ugly uniform.

Barcelona had found the telephone wires and reported that he had cut the 'gabble strings'. The Old Man nodded, satisfied.

"Three stay here to cover us, while the rest pay them a visit."

"They'll piss in their pants," Porta crowed.

"That tart must wash before we fuck her," Tiny said.

"Claw,"
Barcelona bleated. "Camp followers must practise a little hygiene when visitors come."

"Don't forget their corned beef, when we've laid them cold," Porta reminded us.

A window in the hut opened and a man looked out He had red tabs with gold embroidery on his lapels.

"That's our man," Heide whispered. "He's longing for us."

A figure appeared out of the darkness, startling us. It was coming straight towards us. The Legionnaire crouched ready to leap, put his machine pistol down and drew his knife. It was a giant Englishman.

Then we heard a familiar chuckle.

"Tiny," Barcelona exclaimed.

"That's me," grinned Tiny. He was wearing an English greatcoat and helmet. "I ran into a sentry round at the back there. Deaded him with my sling." He showed us two gold teeth.

The Old Man cursed him.

"Sooner or later you and Porta are going to dangle because of these gold teeth."

"He was black," Tiny went on by way of explanation and held up a neatly severed ear. "Here's one of his listening-flaps. He told me their password. His relief's coming in ten minutes, so I'll just breathe 'Wellington' in his ear before I throttle him and collect his ear, if he's black too."

"You're crazy," the Old Man said. "The sight of those ears makes me sick."

"Why on earth?" Porta asked, uncomprehendingly. "Those brown devils cut our ears off, so they must expect us to take theirs. Nobody can object to that."

"It's going too far," the Old Man said.

"I suppose nobody's got a camera?" Tiny asked. "I'd like a snap of myself in these Churchill rags. Strange what thoughts come to one when one wanders about alone in the dark. Back there it occurred to me that it might be a good stunt to pick you all off and shout alarm to the Tommies. When it was all over and you were dressed by the right in your common grave, no one would be able to contradict me, when I said I had been forced to join you. Who knows what they mightn't have led to? Saving a whole Churchill staff isn't a trick that's performed every day. It was my chance of having a statue."

"A strange thing to think," said Porta. "You had better give up thinking, Tiny, or you'll come to a sticky end."

"What do you think they want the staff officer for?" Heide said.

"Produce him to the propaganda boys, as if he was a randy chimp in a zoo," Porta, the omniscient, explained. "I wonder what they'd say if we came back with a corporal instead of an effing colonel?"

"They'd only send us back to get one," the Old Man said dryly.

"Well, it's time for me to totter along and get that other ear," said Tiny with a broad grin. Jauntily he sauntered across to the hut, his English helmet on the back of his head, his carbine bumping on his back. He had his Kalashnikov hidden under his greatcoat.

"J'ai peur,"
the Legionnaire muttered. "I'm going after him. He's bound to have forgotten the password."

It was a good thing the Legionnaire had such foresight, because Tiny lost his temper when the relief guard began cursing him and forgetting everything shouted at him, in German:

"Shut up, you striped pig. If you want to talk to me, speak German."

The Englishman leaped back, scared, only to die in the steel grip of the Legionnaire's fingers.

There wasn't a second to lose now. We all rushed forward, kicked the door of the hut open, knocked the window in. Our automatic pistols spat death. Porta and Heide seized a staff officer, flung him through the door and knocked him unconscious with the butt of a pistol. All the others in the hut were killed.

We disappeared at a run.

Two figures appeared ahead of me. I fired from the hip. They crumpled and fell over, dead, on the path.

Tiny came racing up, still wearing his British greatcoat and helmet.

"Get rid of that British muck," the Legionnaire called.

"I got fourteen gold teeth," Tiny cried delightedly.

Automatic weapons chattered away behind us. The Legionnaire pulled me down into a hollow beside the path. Porta and Heide appeared dragging the unconscious officer. Olle Karlsson came up, called something incomprehensible and turned towards the muzzle flashes we could see in the darkness. His automatic pistol barked angrily. Then he uttered a piercing screech, doubled up and rolled round and round on the path.

"Milles diables,"
hissed the Legionnaire.

Three of the others came running and disappeared into the darkness. Then Rudolph Kleber ran up. He kneeled down, sent short bursts into the darkness. All at once he let his automatic pistol drop, clapped his hands to his head and fell forward.

The three others came back and tried to drag him along with them. I wanted to shoot, but the Legionnaire shook his head and put a warning finger to his lips.

One of the three fell, almost cut in half by a burst of machine gun fire. The other two began to run, but one gave a sudden yell and put his hand to his eye: "I'm blind, b-1-i-n-d."

An Englishman, bareheaded and in his shirtsleeves, came into view. He had a light machine gun clamped under his arm. Seven or eight others followed him. One of them was armed with a Mark IT jungle rifle, a thing we all coveted. The Legionnaire pointed to him and nodded. The blinded man was on his knees scrabbling round in circles. The Englishman in shirtsleeves put the muzzle of his gun to the back of his head and fired a burst. Then he grinned: "Damned Kraut!" he said.

I pressed the butt of my PPSH into my shoulder. A whole flock of men appeared out of some bushes. They were panting and cursing and we kept hearing the word 'Kraut'. They kicked vengefully at the dead on the path. Rudolph groaned and a corporal raised his Sten gun and emptied the magazine into his quivering body. Then I saw red. We would show them. The Legionnaire began singing: "Come now death, come only death."

The Englishmen on the path went rigid. Then deep from the Legionnaire's throat came the ringing Moroccan battlecry:
"Allah-el akbar"
and simultaneously he opened fire with his Kalashnikov. They went over like ninepins.

We stood up and fired at any who still moved. The Legionnaire laughed shrilly. He dipped a finger into a pool of blood and drew a cross on the forehead of each of the dead. He flourished the jungle rifle. He pulled the body of the corporal who had killed Rudolph out of the heap of corpses and ground his ironshod heel into the dead man's face.

We caught the others up. The officer, a lieutenant-colonel, had recovered consciousness. We placed a noose round his neck and explained that if he made any trouble, he would be instantly throttled.

"Who is in command here?" he asked arrogantly.

"What concern of yours is that?" Heide said. "Be careful we don't all get tired of you."

"Shut up," snarled the Old Man, shoving Heide angrily aside. "Herr Oberleutnant, Feldwebel Willie Beier. I am in command of this special detachment."

The officer nodded.

"Then teach your men how to address an officer."

"Oh, piss on the shit," Porta called. "Oberleutnant lousy prisoner-of-war. Bang him a couple on the knob. That's what we'll get if they catch us. What a bugger. Oberleutnant!"

The Englishman did not even bother to look at Porta.

"You must maintain discipline, feldwebel, or I'll complain when I meet your commander."

Porta gave his top hat a flourish worthy of a seventeenth century French aristocrat, put his chipped monocle in his eye with a foppish gesture, produced a snuff box and took a pinch. He blinked at the British officer.

"Sir Lieutenant-Colonel, may I introduce myself." He took another pinch of snuff and went on speaking through his nose. "I am the famous Obergefreiter by God's grace Joseph Porta of Weding. Perhaps I may be of assistance to you, for example with a kick up the backside." Porta walked round the man, inspecting him curiously through his chipped monocle. "Feldwebel Beier, where the devil did you get this sardine? A comical figure, I must say!"

The British officer turned furiously to the Old Man:

"I will not stand for this."

"I'm afraid you will bloody well have to," grinned Barcelona.

Porta again stepped up to the British officer, who was jawing away, and began to count aloud:

"One, two, three."

The officer looked at him uncomprehendingly.

"How many gold teeth have you, Sir? I got up to three."

The lieutenant-colonel's voice rose to a high squeak of fury and he threatened the Old Man with all sorts of disasters.

"Let him alone. He'll only make things unpleasant for us, if we get him back," the Old Man said irritably.

Despite Tiny's violent protests, the noose was taken from our prisoner's neck. The Legionnaire stuck close to him.

"Mon Lieutenant-Colonel, one squeak and I'll slit your belly open" and with a smile he produced his Moorish knife.

We could hear the guns firing up at the front. Day had come and things were on the move, long transport columns and marching infantry. For a while we marched alongside a battalion of Moroccan troops, who took us in our camouflage suits for some kind of Special Unit. One leap and the British officer would have been safe, but the point of the Legionnaire's knife was pressing into his left side and in his back he could feel the muzzle of Barcelona's automatic pistol. In front of him was Tiny's huge back. It would have been certain death to have made the attempt.

We went into cover behind the American lines and waited for the night. The front was disturbed. As far as we could see were lines of tracer.

We fought our way through shortly after midnight, leaping from shell hole to shell hole. Two Indians, who were in our way got mown down and we lost three men in our own infantry's fire.

Exhausted, we collapsed in the battalion commander's dug-out. One-Eye came across to us, gave each of us a hug and Mike offered us his big cigars. Padre Emanuel shook our hands. People from the other sectors came and welcomed us back. We had lost half our number, among them Rudolph and Olle Karlsson.

We were given five days leave. As we walked along towards the rear, a big field-grey Mercedes swept past us. In the back seat sat our British prisoner beside a German general. We were spattered with mud.

We spat at the great luxurious car. Then we began envisaging what we should do when we got to Palid Ida's whorehouse, and at the thought of her girls all else was forgotten.