The Cross of Iron (60 page)

The reasoning seemed cogent. ‘Let’s hope you’re right,’ Krüger said. ‘I wouldn’t like to run across there again. I was thinking we were all done for when the shooting started.’

The memory of that wild flight through the artillery fire marked dark shadows upon his face, and the faces of the others darkened also. ‘It was sheer madness,’ Schnurrbart growled bitterly, ‘It serves them right, the goddamned heartless slave-drivers. Why didn’t they try it from the other side?’

‘Higher strategy,’ Steiner said. He crushed out his cigarette. As he was about to stand up, the door opened and Triebig appeared. They stared at him without rising. He turned to Steiner. ‘How many men do you have left?’

Steiner gave him a look of disgust. ‘I haven’t counted them yet,’ he murmured.

‘Then do so at once. You will attack in fifteen minutes. With a shock troop, and from the south. When you are inside the factory, fire a green flare. That will be the signal for me to follow with the rest of the company. Order of the battalion commander.’

There was a silence in the room. Triebig saw the masklike faces of the men and shrugged slightly. ‘Order of the battalion commander,’ he repeated in a somewhat softer voice. After a moment’s hesitation he added: ‘Before I forget: you must bring down that flag. The commander wants the flag.’

‘To wipe his arse with?’ Schnurrbart asked loudly.

Triebig whirled around. ‘What are you thinking of! Stand up when I talk to you.’

Steiner, at the lieutenant’s last words, had put his feet up on the table again. He lit a cigarette and let it droop from the corner of his mouth as he spoke. ‘You don’t have to play the big shot here. Besides which I’d advise you not to get on Schnurrbart’s nerves. Since that last wound in his head he’s got into the habit of firing at anything stupid enough to cross his path. Don’t forget that he’ll be in the factory before you.’

‘What has that to do with it?’ Triebig asked sharply.

Steiner wagged his head pityingly and glanced at Schnurrbart, who was glaring narrow-eyed at the lieutenant. ‘Simple enough,’ Steiner explained. ‘If we get to the factory before you, you’ll get there after us, and it just might happen that a stray bullet would meet you in the darkness.’ He watched calmly as Triebig’s face turned pale. With his tongue he shifted the cigarette from the right to the left corner of his mouth. Triebig stared at him. This was the first time Steiner had taken this tone to
him
in the presence of subordinates. To preserve a last remnant of authority, he would have to do something effective. But his fear of Steiner was even greater than his agitation, and he chose the worst imaginable way to reassert his authority. ‘I’ll inform the commander of that statement, you can depend on it.’ His voice was shaking and he felt as though he might burst into sobs at any moment.

Steiner stared him down. ‘I don’t know what good you think that will do you,’ he said. ‘Do you imagine you’ll find anyone here to confirm your charges?’ He turned to Krüger. ‘What were we talking about?’

The East Prussian grinned. ‘About the shock troop action.’ 

‘There, you see,’ Steiner said, turning to Triebig again. ‘You’re an officer, aren’t you? What do you need a big brother for?’ His voice was full of contempt. Triebig started to speak several times. Then he stared into the faces of the men as though imprinting them on his mind. ‘Very well,’ he whispered, and left the room. After the door had closed behind him, there was a silence for several minutes. At last Faber spoke up. ‘If I hadn’t been here, I wouldn’t have believed it. There’s going to be a big fuss, I imagine.’

Steiner shook his head contemptuously. ‘There won’t be a big fuss nor a little one, but something else entirely, and very soon.’ He stood up and turned to Krüger. ‘How many of us are left?’ 

‘About twenty.’

‘That’s enough. Get ready.’

As he went out of the room, the men reached for their gear. Krüger cursed. ‘What a damned swindle. How are a few poor bastards like us going to occupy that whole factory? It’s madness, I tell you.’ He had slung his assault pack on his back and now stood with his clenched fists leaning on the table. ‘Are you mad?’ he asked. They looked at him blankly, and he laughed furiously. ‘First Dietz, then Anselm and the Professor, then Hollerbach and Pasternack, and today Kern and Maag. You know what I think?’ He looked at each of them in turn. ‘I don’t think a single one of us poor bastards is going to come out of this bridgehead alive. That’s what I think.’

Schnurrbart nodded. ‘I’ve known that for a long time. That’s nothing new.’

‘So it isn’t,’ Krüger whispered. He stood motionless for a few seconds. His glance fell upon a crystal vase that stood on the table beside the candle. Suddenly he picked it up and hurled it with all his might to the floor. It shattered into a thousand pieces. He picked up a chair and hurled it at the sideboard filled with glasses and dishes. Fragments shot in all directions. But as he started to pick up the table, Schnurrbart jumped at him and held his arms. ‘Stop that,’ he roared angrily. ‘I don’t see what good this does, you damned idiot.’ He pounded him hard on the chest. The blow brought Krüger to his senses abruptly. He dropped like a log into his chair. When he looked up, he met Faber’s eyes; the woodsman had been sitting motionless at the table all the while, face expressionless. Now he spoke. ‘You can’t fight against it. You can see it coming, but you can’t do anything about it, and that is good.’ 

‘That is good,’ Krüger aped him, raging. ‘What’s good about our dying, what?’

‘It’s good no matter how it comes,’ Faber murmured. He said no more. Krüger stared at his wooden face, biting his lips. Like a gravedigger, he thought. The guy looks like a gravedigger. He bowed his head. They sat in silence until Steiner returned. He merely glanced at the wreckage in the room, did not waste a word on it, and beckoned the men to follow him.

The others were waiting in front of the house. They stood close together, wearing steel helmets and assault packs, talking in whispers. When Steiner appeared among them, they fell silent. In a low voice he gave them instructions. Before they started, Steiner tied ten stick grenades into a bundle. The platoon moved forward. The men kept close to the fence and followed the street around the factory yard. It was about eleven o’clock. Above the roofs hung a narrow crescent moon, the huge mass of factory buildings towered black and threateningly toward the stars. Further to the south artillery explosions rumbled steadily. Now and then tracer shells hissed past the gleaming white limestone slopes of the mountains which were lit to their very tops by the glare of tremendous conflagrations. The line of houses past which the men were marching looked like an abstract stage-set, the vacant windows gaping blackly out of the whitewashed walls. Schnurrbart stayed beside Steiner. He was so fearfully tired and indifferent that even the impending assault could not wring any emotion out of him. He held his right hand over his gas mask so that it would not knock against his mess tin and said: ‘You’d think Triebig would have turned up again.’

‘What do you want with him?’ Steiner replied irritably. ‘I’m happy not to see the bastard.’

‘Sure, so am I. But we ought to have discussed the details with him. He doesn’t know where we’ll be waiting for him.’

Steiner snorted. ‘Do you know?’ he demanded. ‘He’ll see where the flare comes from.’

Schnurrbart glanced speculatively across the street. It turned sharply to the west at this point; they ought to be at the place for their assault in a moment. The fence on this side had been shattered by many shells and they could see the factory building ominously close at hand beyond the crazily dangling pickets. Luckily it was so dark in the street that movement behind the fence could scarcely be detected. After another fifty yards, Steiner stopped and waited until the men had closed ranks. Krüger pressed through the group to him and whispered: ‘What now?’

‘The place is right,’ Steiner answered. He turned to the men and explained his plan. ‘I don’t know what it’s like inside, but I imagine there’ll be one long room. Perhaps with machinery in it. Once we’ve got ourselves established in the first floor, we’ll fire the flare and wait for the others.’ He spoke to Schnurrbart. ‘You stay here with the boys. I’ll try to get under the window and throw this thing in.’ He indicated the bundle of hand grenades which he carried in his right hand. ‘When it goes off, come over, and then in we go. Clear?’

‘Clear enough,’ Schnurrbart said unwillingly. ‘But wouldn’t it be better for us to go all together?’

‘Rot. If they discover us, we’re all sunk. Besides...’ He dropped abruptly to the ground. From one of the lower windows a flare rose, hissed over their heads and smashed into the wall of a house. It dropped down and burned out on the ground. The men lay motionless, pressed up against the fence. When all was dark again, Steiner turned his head and brought his mouth close to Schnurrbart’s ear. ‘Did you notice which window?’

‘I can see without glasses,’ Schnurrbart muttered. ‘Must be an MG there.’

‘Must be,’ Steiner agreed. He rose to his knees. The men shifted restlessly. Anxiously, they eyed the silent factory front. ‘Damn shit,’ Krüger muttered, watching Steiner sling the tommy-gun around his neck, grasp the bundle of grenades in a throwing position and cautiously crawl through the damaged fence. He continued on all fours. Halfway to the building he reached a deep shell hole. He dropped carefully into it and waited for the next flare. His shirt was sticking damply to his back and he had to clench his teeth. Never before had he felt such intense fear. When he laid his head on his arms, his whole body shook. Blast this hero’s death, he thought, closing his eyes.

AFTER THE HOT EXCHANGE
of words with Steiner, Triebig made his way straight to the battalion commander. Quivering with fury, he spilled out his story. ‘It’s an impossible relationship,’ he concluded angrily, forgetful of his customary servile manner.

Stransky sat at his desk, face indifferent, puffing easily at his cigarette. When Triebig finished, he shrugged disdainfully. ‘You know as well as I why the fellow takes such liberties. Legally there isn’t much I can do about him. Legally, Lieutenant Triebig.’ He smiled malignly. ‘But there are other ways. Happily there are other ways.’ He asked Triebig to sit down and looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling. During the pause in the conversation Triebig examined the furnishings of the room. After the unsuccessful attack of that morning, he had looked around very carefully for a suitable command post, and had finally decided on a third-floor flat facing the courtyard of a group of houses. ‘The higher the better,’ he had decided. ‘We don’t know how the business will turn out, and if the Russians undertake a counter-attack it’s better to have them under us than over us.’

The pause was prolonged. Finally Stransky seemed to have come to a decision. His voice sounded vexed as he said: ‘I would rather you had avoided that clash with Steiner.’ As Triebig opened his mouth to defend his conduct, Stransky raised his head soothingly. ‘Never mind. What’s done is done. I don’t like it, but it can’t be changed now. You will have to be all the more cautious.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We don’t have much more time. Steiner will start in five minutes, and you must follow him at once with the rest of the company. Whether or not he gets into the factory is his business. But you must make it yours to see that he never leaves it again. If you succeed, you’ll be first lieutenant in a few days, as sure as my name is Stransky.’

‘Do you mean that?’ Triebig asked dubiously.

Stransky smiled maliciously. ‘When I make such a statement, you have no reason to doubt it. Incidentally, I may as well tell you that I have already taken steps to have myself transferred from here back to France. I expect the order to come through any day now. Perhaps’—his smile deepened—‘perhaps I can also do something for you in that connection. Or would you have any objection to continuing on as my adjutant in some French city?’ The news took Triebig so much by surprise that for a moment he merely gaped. This moment erased all the humiliations he had suffered from Stransky. The prospect of transfer made him slightly giddy. ‘You don’t know how grateful I would be to you for that,’ he stammered at last.

Stransky nodded patronizingly. ‘You will have the opportunity to prove your gratitude—promptly.’ His voice changed; it rang like steel. ‘Get that creature Steiner off my neck and I guarantee that you will survive this war. He must not come back, not even if you have to kill him with your own hands. I want to know that he’s dead,
dead, dead.'

Triebig involuntarily shrank from the savage expression on his superior’s face. ‘I’ll do everything possible,’ he said hastily.

But Stransky shook his head violently. ‘You must do more than everything possible. You must stop at nothing, and the more daring you are, the higher I will value your achievement. Only manage it cleverly, so nothing is apparent. Bear in mind that I cannot cover you if the story should come out.’

Triebig hesitated. He did not like the idea of bearing the whole responsibility, and the more he thought about it the more worried he became. But Stransky gave him little time for weighing the matter. He stood up quickly, went over to the lieutenant and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘You have no cause to be concerned,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll make the business easier for you, as far as is in my power. Once you are in the factory with
him,
there will be a hundred opportunities; it will be up to you to seize one of them.’ His voice became persuasive. ‘In any case it is the lesser evil. I know from reliable sources that the men in the bridgehead have been written off. There is no longer any intention of evacuating. Within at most two weeks the Crimea will be a sack with a closed neck. The Russians are close to Perekop now, and everyone south of Perekop will suffer the same fate as the Sixth Army. Do you want to be here then?’

‘How do you know that?’ Triebig stammered through bloodless lips.

‘I know. A relative of mine is in the Army High Command. Before that day comes I shall be on my way to France. France...’ He shook Triebig by the shoulder. ‘Do you know what that means? It means life, Triebig, in Biarritz or Arcachon or Mont de Märzan or Paris. Think of it, man. Paris, Notre Dame, Champs Elysées, Montmartre... What the devil is there to consider?’