Wheels of Terror (31 page)

The sun broke from behind clouds and lit up the two men. One pushed his cap with the green cross back on his head. A whip - the nagajka - dangled from his wrist.

With a shock we realized the significance of nagajka and green cross. These were NKVD.

The rolling thunder from three machine-pistols rapes the silence. The tearing rat-tat-tat lasts only a few seconds.

Two brown men with green crosses in their caps and Siberian prison-nagajkas at their wrist fold at hip-level and pitch forward. Bloody foam oozes out of mouths and ears. Steel rattles against steel as new magazines are loaded in three German machine-pistols.

The silence of the forest again descends.

Porta whistles like a bird, a long calling note. The birds answer, at first a little timidly but soon in a great chorus.

We lie waiting tense as steel-springs.

The Old Un orders us to fan out silently. The four light machine-guns are sited to cover a wide field of fire.

The Little Legionnaire creeps forward and slinks down in some thick bushes with Heide. They have the 'stove-pipe'.

'
Ji fob tvoi matj
,' someone whispered in the thicket.

We were able to see only the upper parts of their bodies. The rest was well hidden in the bushes. Silently they moved forward, about thirty soldiers led by a lieutenant.

A loud cry. They stopped and gathered round a sergeant. They had found their comrades.

'
Mjortyvj
,' one said. They looked about. '
Ubjivat
,' another said.

The Old Un who had raised one hand let it fall with a chopping motion.

Muscles were flexed. The green cross decorated men with the long nagajkas were about to receive their extreme unction.

A long, sharp and terrible cry of revenge rent the air:

'
Allah
... !
Allah Akbar
... !'

A knife glinted, whined through the air and then buried itself in the lieutenant's chest.

Machine-guns and machine-pistols spat at the closely grouped Russians who were all but paralysed by the frightful shriek.

Suddenly the firing was stilled. We stormed forward, cut, thrust, and hacked.

Breathlessly we sank down, dipping our faces in the stream and drinking voraciously.

Heide and two others began to collect the pay-books from the fallen Russians.

One feigned death, but a bayonet in his thigh soon got him to his feet.

Stammering, he told us they were a prison-transport detail. The prisoners farther back were guarded by twelve men under a sergeant.

Porta knotted a piece of steel-wire round our prisoner's neck and made him understand that he would be choked at once if he played us false or failed to lead us to the other party.

Pluto first found the enemy position. Three men were sitting in a tree. Pluto's machine-pistol rattled, and they dropped like ripe apples. One was still alive but a P.38 did for him.

The Old Un made the platoon spread out. The machine-guns took up their positions as our section advanced.

Porta, who was in front, suddenly cried out sharply:

'
Stoj kto kidatj gjearp
!'

He beckoned us forward. We joined him behind a tree. He pointed at ten men in brown uniforms in the open with their hands in the air.

Stege and I remained behind the tree with our machine-guns covering our friends as they went forward.

Porta lifted a knife to the throat of a big sergeant.

'Where are the prisoners?'

The sergeant answered in a language we did not understand. One of the Russians translated.

'The prisoners are behind the trucks back in the forest.'

Tiny and the Little Legionnaire went off and a little later returned with a dozen German soldiers and some civilian Russian men and women.

Bauer fetched The Old Un who at once ordered the Russian soldiers to be searched. Then he shrugged his shoulders and nodded to Porta:

'You know what we've got to do. We can't bring them along and we can't leave them here to warn the whole battalion.'

Porta smiled wolfishly.

'I'll willingly shoot the NKVD lice.' He waved to Bauer and Tiny. 'Let's get them into the forest.'

Pointing with the machine-pistols they made the prisoners march along in front of them.

A German corporal who had been with the prison transport shouted:

'Give me a machine-pistol. I'll shoot the swine. Last night they shot a hundred and five of our company. Across there.' He pointed in a northerly direction. 'Our company commander Lieutenant Hube had a cartridge-case knocked into his forehead after they had tied him to a tree. And we had an awful lot more civilian Russians when we started off on this trip five days ago.'

Pluto threw him a machine-pistol.

'Let 'em have it.'

Some whipping volleys echoed through the forest. There were a few cries, then the sounds died away.

Porta dressed himself in a Russian uniform. The Little Legionnaire had to hold up a pocket-mirror in order to let him admire himself.

'Why don't you put on the lieutenant's uniform?' asked Tiny.

'By the Holy Peter, you're right! That's my only chance of becoming an officer in this war.'

He ran off and a little later came strutting out of the bushes dressed in the NKVD lieutenant's uniform. The long nagajka swung from his wrist. He hit out after us and shouted:

'Off with you, filthy bastards. Here comes Super-Comrade Commissar Lieutenant Josephski Portaska!'

'Stop that nonsense,' ordered The Old Un.

The civilian Russians humbly made way for the shouting and thrusting Porta.

He tried to mirror himself in the stream.

'It's a bloody shame we haven't a camera,' he raged. 'It would make'em sit up in old Weddingen if they got a postcard with Herr J. Porta as a Stalin-SS-Stormfuhrer.'

Tiny also wanted to put on a Russian uniform, but could not find one big enough. He made do with a cap with a green cross.

Trying to do a cossack-dance with a nagajka in each hand, he got himself tangled up in the long whips and rolled into the stream.

In single file we went on with our interrupted march. A mile farther on we found the bodies of the hundred and five troops killed by the NKVD men. They had all been shot in the back of the neck by Nagan-pistols.

Flies and ants now crawled on the twisted bodies.

One sobbing woman among the rescued collapsed and refused to get up. She exhibited her worn, holed felt-boots which barely covered her bloody feet.

With an indifferent shrug we moved on. For a while we heard her crying like a wounded animal. The forest folded round her. The shadows lengthened. The night hid the living and the dead, the forgotten and the deserted.

Deep in the darkness one Russian with a fractured skull crawled about. He stumbled, cried upon God, cursed his country and shouted brokenly for his friends. Another, sobbing, endlessly searched his pockets. Another, dying, clutched a tuft of soft moss and wept quietly for his mother behind the great mountains of Georgia. A Ukrainian peasant-girl ran panic-stricken in circles trying to escape the darkness which threatened her reason. Twenty-eight German infantrymen and panzer soldiers, with fourteen Russian men and women, fought wearily through the dark forest.

It was early morning when we reached the new frontline area. We stayed the whole day. Tired and worn-out we lay under the bushes half-asleep on top of our weapons. Every sinew and muscle ached.

Some civilians had not been able to keep up with the tough-trained troops who were now lying on the edge of the forest waiting for darkness.

Porta removed his boots. His feet were bloody. Carefully he cut the lacerated skin away with his combat-knife. He sniffed it with interest, nodded with satisfaction and went on cutting.

'Doesn't it hurt?' asked Tiny, who was sitting with his legs outstretched chewing a piece of wood.

The Little Legionnaire lay on his back with his hands folded under his head, sleeping heavily.

Stege and the SS man sat in a tree. They were camouflaged with branches. You saw only the machine-gun peeping menacingly through the leaves.

As darkness fell we broke camp and followed a narrow path. Porta walked in front dressed in the Russian uniform. The long Russian coat fell in folds about his thin body. He had changed his top-hat for a tall Russian fur-cap. His machine-pistol at the ready was under his arm.

Behind and flanking him, the Little Legionnaire and Pluto marched.

A hollow cough made us halt as if hit by lightning. Porta found his wits first. He pushed Stege in front and shouted:

'
Isiso dar
?'

A large Russian appeared. He swore at Porta's shouting, but his voice changed amiably when Porta brayed in Russian:

'I've caught a German!'

The sentry suggested they ought to shoot Stege at once. He cocked his machine-pistol and with the barrel pushed Stege to his knees. He had a little difficulty to get Stege to bow his head properly.

Suddenly the Russian's arms fanned the air. He dropped his machine-pistol and fell over backwards gurgling hoarsely. Porta lifted him and got his wire-noose free. He had tip-toed up behind the sentry flinging the wire round his neck. In less than two seconds the man had been strangled.

Stege gave a strained laugh.

'Don't try tricks like that again, you daft swine!'

Porta only chuckled.

Silently the Very-lights travelled up over the frontline. Machine-gun fire rattled from both sides. In the sky we heard bombers growling westwards. Tracer-ammunition rose at them and faded again.

Porta lifted his hand. Noiselessly we stopped and stood like tree-trunks among the trees. Just in front stretched a Russian trench. We could clearly see the dug-outs. A figure passed and disappeared up a traverse.

Porta waved us forward. A quiet whisper and we raced over the parapet, across the trench, over some earth-mounds, fell, rose, fell again, slipped on the greasy soil and rolled down a slope. A machine-gun started to stutter. Bullets whined. Automatic weapons emptied their magazines at us. A couple of mortars barked hollowly. The bomb-splinters hissed past us like angry wasps. We lay flat at the bottom of a shell-hole.

A German machine-gun started to send long bursts over the hole. One of the Russian women began shrieking and before we could stop her she was over the edge. She swayed backwards and folded up with a dying inarticulate scream. The whole of her abdomen was perforated with machine-gun bullets.

The Old Un swore.

'Now they'll know something's going on. I wouldn't wonder if they started bombarding us with heavy guns.'

He had hardly finished when the air shook with mortar-bombs and 7.5-cm. shells. Star-shells burst, and then the Russians started.

One of the prisoners got his face ripped off by a shell-splinter. Three others were killed trying to scramble out of the hole.

At daybreak the firing ceased, but to get away we had to wait for darkness to fall.

Tiny stared at the dead. A wounded man whimpered loudly. Tiny pointed to the man's torn face.

'What a lot of muck one's got in the face when it's opened up. What's that grey stuff?'

Stege bent forward.

'Brains, and that other stuff's crushed bones. Look, that eye hangs down to what used to be his mouth. How large the teeth look when all the jaw-bone's gone. Blimey, what a sight.' He turned to Tiny. 'What the hell are you staring at it for, you nosy bastard.'

'Shut up, Stege,' interrupted Porta. 'Leave Tiny alone. You're always getting at him.'

Tiny was quite moved.

'That's true. The whole lot of you are always ill-treating Tiny. I never bother anyone.'

The Little Legionnaire patted his shoulder.

'Don't cry, Tiny, you're making me weep too. We'll be nice to you and chase away the bogey-man.'

A sergeant-major among the freed German prisoners burst out irritatedly:

'Is it necessary to make fun of everything? You're not all there, you gangsters.'

Porta half rose.

'Tone down a little. You're our guest. If you don't like it, push off. Two steps up and straight ahead. If we hadn't come you'd have been on your way to Kolymna, and I don't mind betting you'd have been buried at Dalstroj within two years.'

'What the hell are you thinking of?' stormed the sergeant-major. 'Since when does a corporal speak to a sergeant-major this way?'

Porta shook his head wonderingly.

'God Almighty, man, have you lost your reason? Do you still believe it's the old days when you opened your gobs and us poor bastards licked your boots?'

'I'll talk to you when we get back,' snapped the sergeant.

'By Christ,' said Bauer, 'It sounds like a threat. Court-martial, jail, twelve men on special detail. A courageous fellow, this infantry-boy. Great hero. What's his name?'

'I'll talk to you when we get back,' snapped the sergeant-major.

Pluto bent towards him and examined his shoulder-tabs.

'Judging from your white cords you're an infantry-man all right.'

'Silence!' raged the sergeant-major. 'I'll see to you yet.'

'We'll see to everything ourselves meantime. I'm giving the orders here,' The Old Un said quietly.

The sergeant-major turned and stared at The Old Un. He was lying at the bottom of the hole with his eyes shut.

'Forty yards to Ivan, seventy to our blokes and the ground between not too much chewed up. A very courageous fellow, this infantry-boy,' sneered Bauer.

A couple of hours after darkness the Little Legionnaire crawled noiselessly out and stomached his way to the German lines to warn the gunners not to fire at us.

Three hours passed before the expected signal of two Very-lights came.

One by one we snaked across the ground until we jumped into our own trenches.

Porta was the last one to arrive. The sergeant-major was missing. Nobody knew what had happened to him.

20

For dinner we had our most fantastic wishes granted. We became insane with grandeur. Porta even ordered Stege to polish his boots.

Half-smoked cigars were grandly thrown away. Tiny insisted he always did that.