Monte Cassino (32 page)

We were fighting in the ruins of the monastery. The Moroccans cut the ears off those they killed, so as to be able to show how many they had accounted for, when they returned home. They wore brown hats pulled down over their heads.

The Legionnaire exulted in murderous joy, when he saw them. He vented his savage Moroccan war-cry.

"The brown boys are here," he yelled, flinging his head back in crazy laughter. "Kill them!
Avant Avant, vive la Legion."

We followed him as so often before. One-Eye tried to halt us. A crazy thing to do. He flung his stick after us in a fury. We were firing from the hip, changing magazines as we ran.

The Moroccans halted in amazement. A paratrooper leaped down from a rock right in among them and spun round like a wheel, his LMG spilling out bullets.

We hit out with spades and rifle butts, we throttled them with our bare hands. Tiny flung a good dozen out over the edge of the cliff.

Porta and I were lying with a 42 in position behind a heap of corpses spewing death around us.

The Moroccans and Ghurkas had now dug themselves in.

When darkness fell, we sneaked out under command of the Legionnaire and without so much as a sound crept up on them and cut their throats.

Heide had gone back to his favourite pastime of sniping. He had a couple of the new rifles with night telescopic sights. He chortled aloud every time he hit.

Leutnant Frick became more and more indignant.

"I hit him right in the ear," Heide called delightedly. "A poor tame bugger with two bars on his helmet." Heide was using explosive bullets.

"Damned idiot," Leutnant Frick shouted, hitting at Heide's rifle.

Heide gave him a scornful look, threw his rifle to his shoulder and another shot rang out.

Away over there a shape leaped into the air. We thought the leutnant was going to spring at Heide.

"Shoot once more and I'll report you for insubordination," he shouted furiously.

"Yes, Herr Leutnant," mocked Heide. "May I ask, am I to pass on the order to the other side and then perhaps you could arrange a football match in the market place in Cassino? Are we to unload our weapons and throw our hand grenades away, Herr Leutnant?"

Leutnant Frick narrowed his eyes.

"Unteroffizier Heide, I know that you are the complete regulation soldier, the best in the German army. I know, too, that you have certain connections in the Party. But you are also the filthiest murderer I have yet encountered. You and that filthy uniform you wear are admirably suited. You are an adornment to your Fuhrer's guards."

"Cold feet?" laughed Heide.

Swiftly Leutnant Frick bent down, seized up a mess-tin full of spaghetti that Porta was cooking over a spirit burner, and flung the contents right into Heide's face, sending him staggering back with a bellow of surprise. Without any alteration in expression, Leutnant Frick put the empty can down beside Porta. Then he caught hold of Heide by his tunic.

"Look, Unteroffizier Heide, now you can send in a report that your superior officer laid hands on you, uttered treacherous statements, mocked the German uniform and insulted the Fuhrer. I should think that would be enough to be hanged five or six times over." The leutnant then turned on his heel and ran across to Major Mike, who was sitting in an adjacent hole popping lice.

"You are my witnesses," Heide shouted hysterically, wiping spaghetti from his face.

"What are we witnesses to?" Porta asked, challengingly.

"Don't pretend to be dumb," howled Heide. "You heard him say we've lost the war and I'll make you sign my report, you'll see. I am going to see that lousy beast dangle."

"What actually are you talking about?" Barcelona asked. "I haven't seen a sign of the leutnant and
I've
been here all the time. Have you seen a leutnant, Tiny?"

Tiny removed a piece of sausage from his mouth.

"Leutnant? Yes, but a long time ago."

"Tell me," said Porta getting to his feet, "what the hell do you mean by this impertinence: taking my spaghetti and pouring it over your head? This'll cost you something. It had bits of pork and tomato ketchup in it. Which you are going to pay for! Hand over your Grifas and opium-sticks."

"I'll shit on your spaghetti," Heide promised, furious. "I'll personally break the neck of that officer's prick." He looked round in search of more willing witnesses. He pointed at Padre Emanuel, who was sitting in a corner with Eagle. "Padre, dare you swear by Jesus Christ's holy cross that you did not hear him insult the Fuhrer? I warn you that this matter will go before a courtmartial. Don't lie, Padre. You are in holy orders."

The Padre grinned broadly, cocked his head on one side, making himself look a complete idiot.

"Do I understand, Heide, that you stole Porta's spaghetti and poured it over your own head?"

Heide loaded his machine-pistol.

"Padre, you saw that ersatz-leutnant chuck it at my head!"

"Are you crazy, Unteroffizier Heide?" Padre Emanuel asked with well-feigned horror in his voice. "No leutnant would throw spaghetti at a subordinate's head."

Heide turned swiftly to Eagle.

"Panzerschutze Stahlschmidt, on your feet. Pull your bones together when an Unteroffizier addresses you and don't lie to me, your superior and Group-leader. There's a courtmartial with a rope on the table awaiting you, if you do. You heard what the Leutnant said?"

Eagle was shaking all over. His water bottle was full of schnaps--fell from his hands.

"Well, you down-at-heel jail-bird, did you hear what I asked?" Heide roared, excitedly.

Eagle was about to reply, when Porta banged the back of his head with the empty mess-tin.

"You heard what Heide said about the Fuhrer, didn't you, Stahlschmidt? This is the moment when you decide whose side you're on, Panzerschutze Stahlschmidt."

Eagle was deathly pale. He gulped, moistened his cracked lips with the tip of his tongue.

Heide cleared his throat impatiently, flexed his knees. Eagle had almost taken his decision, when his eyes fell on Porta, who was nursing a flamethrower in a most significant way.

"I heard Unteroffizier Heide say that the Fuhrer was a great arsehole."

Heide was beside himself.

"You great, fat, lousy traitor! I'll settle with you one day. Meanwhile, dream of prison, because, believe me, that's where you're going." He pointed his bayonet at him. "Stahlschmidt, I shall personally take you in chains to Torgau."

"Don't preach so much, Julius Jew-hater." Porta interrupted, prodding Heide in the stomach with the flamethrower. "Out with those opium-sticks of yours. That perhaps will teach you not to steal peaceable people's spaghetti. In this country that's a sacred dish, that even the Pope eats."

"You're not getting a thing," Heide announced, selfassuredly and kicked at the flamethrower.

"Aren't I?" laughed Porta and sent a jet of flame spurting over Heide's head. It was so close, we could smell singed hair.

"Stop that tomfoolery," Major Mike called, looking up for a moment from his louse-hunt.

Heide leaped behind a rock for cover.

Another jet of flame.

Heide emerged from behind the rock, blackened and with fear in his eyes.

"Stop that. Or you'll burn me!"

"Only just realised that?" said Porta with a devilish smile and got ready to give him another burst of flame. "Hand over or I'll turn you into a handful of ashes."

A roll of narcotic cigarettes came flying through the air. Porta picked them up, smelled them and gave a nod of satisfaction.

"And now you'll get me a mess-tin of spaghetti with diced pork and tomato ketchup. And I wouldn't say no to a little browned onion."

Heide capitulated, but at the same time swore by Padre Emanuel's prayer book that he would be avenged on all leutnants in the great German army. Then Mike summoned him and sent him to Divisional HQ as orderly. Objective: obtaining cigars for Major Mike.

Heide asked for more detailed instructions.

"It's not my farting business, where you get them," roared Mike. "You can pull them out of Kesselring's arse, as far as I'm concerned, but don't you dare come back without a box of cigars. And if you aren't back within six hours, I'll post you as a deserter and put the Military Police on to you."

Swearing and fulminating, Heide set off on his quest, Porta calling advice to him, as he went.

"Holy Mother of God, look at that!" Padre Emanuel was pointing up at the sky.

We looked up and refused to believe our eyes. Innumerable vapour trails were shining in the cloudless sky. An enormous swarm of bees. Only the bees were colossal bombers.

We fought for the field glasses.

"Jesus," murmured Barcelona, "there are at least a thousand! And they're American Flying Fortresses. I wouldn't like to be where they unload."

"They're B 17s," whispered Leutnant Frick fearfully and instinctively crept further into the dug-out.

Mike let a louse go, as he stared up at the sky.

"Where the hell have they come from? They're coming from the bloody North!"

We didn't realise then that that great shoal had taken off from aerodromes in England that same morning. Swarms of fighters had escorted them across France. They had ruthlessly violated the neutrality of Switzerland, where gunners in near-mediaeval helmets had shot at them without so much as scratching their paint. Our Focke-Wulffs had gone for them, but they had kept on their course. It was not for nothing we called them the Pig-headed. Their navigators were given a course at the start, and that is what they flew, even if the devil in person appeared in front of them. The twenty-four year old pilots sat in their cockpits chewing gum. Their faces were covered with oxygen masks. A couple of bomb aimers new to the game, went off their heads. One leaped out through the bomb-hatch, followed by an oath.

Hour after hour the great engines roared. They went bald-headed through a thunder storm and on into a barrage of ack-ack. They tore off their oxygen masks. The second pilot handed a thermos flask to the pilot. The navigator put five Camels in his mouth, lit them together and handed them round. They smoked as they gazed at the red notice saying "Smoking prohibited." They looked at the muzzle flashes of the 8-8's. A Focke-Wulff, its nose painted like an attacking shark, came for twenty-two year old Captain Boye-Smith's B.17.

"Get that filthy kraut," he called to his tail-gunner.

Whether it was that that tail gunner was a magnificent shot or just wonderfully lucky, at all events his first burst hit the screaming Focke-Wulff, which shot past beneath the bomber with a plume of thick smoke streaming out behind it, then reared up like a horse before an exploding shell and described a figure of eight in the air, before hurtling down to earth. It fell in the village of Pantoni, west of Firenze, killing two children and a young wife, who was washing clothes. The pilot, Baron von Nierndorf, was killed by the first spurt of flame high up in the air.

The leading arrowhead of fifty B.17's was exactly over Monte Cassino. The air roared, as a hurricane of steel was born.

"What the hell," exclaimed Mike in the act of holding a louse up for inspection.

We rolled over onto our bellies, crawled in under an overhang of rock and waited for death.

The Americans in their positions were just as surprised. GI's everywhere were diving for shelter. "Damn it, they're bombing us!"

The first rain of bombs shaved the mountain. A line of houses in the valley was blown right away. A heavy ack-ack battery, lurking behind the locomotive-sheds in Cassino, was wiped out in a second.

Then the next wave came. More bombs plummetted on to the monastery. Everything was enveloped in a venomously yellow mist. The holy mountain was enveloped in a flame-spluttering hurricane. After the B.17's came British Mitchells, so-called precision bombers that went straighter for their objective.

Wave after wave came. That night One-Eye appeared with his adjutant, Oberleutnant Hartwig, who had lost his right arm at Charkov a year before. That time, when we were fighting in the dentist's apartment.

One-Eye summoned the company commanders.

"We're disengaging tonight," he said. "But they must not notice a thing on the other side. The paratroopers are to pull out first. Then No. 1 Battalion. No. 5 Company will be the last to go. But, no matter who is here or is not here, you leave this shit here at 2.05 precisely. One group will remain. Two batteries will lay down harassing fire higher up."

"And that last group," Porta called from the background, "is of course No. 2 Group. Haven't you nearly had enough, my heroes? Rejoice, children will read of us in school. My top hat and my dentist's forceps will end in a museum."

One-Eye looked at him thoughtfully.

"As you've suggested it, Porta, so let it be. No. 2 Group."

"Will you never learn to hold your bloody tongue," said Barcelona.

Porta lobbed a hand grenade at Eagle, who sat cowering in a corner.

"Don't look so unappreciative, you halting hero!"

The Companies peeled off at the times ordered, floating away from the positions without a sound.

"Good luck," whispered Leutnant Frick, just before he disappeared.

Major Mike patted the Old Man's shoulder.

"Be seeing you, Beier." Then the darkness swallowed him up.

Feeling somewhat nervous, we huddled behind our machine guns.

"If they get the least suspicion that our chaps have pulled out," Porta whispered, "they'll be over us in a trice."

"I'm shitting my pants with fright," Barcelona muttered.

"If they come, I'll give them one belt, but don't count on me after that," Porta said in a subdued tone of voice. "I shall run for it, and run as I've never run before. I'm not going to Texas to break stones as a defeated kraut."

The Old Man was studying his watch.

"In five minutes the artillery starts up," he whispered. "Dismantle your MG and keep yourselves in readiness. Tiny, you take the mortar."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Tiny protested. "If you want that old stovepipe along, you can bloody well tote it yourself. The Legionnaire has given me my job. I'm taking care of the jar with the booze."