Authors: Sven Hassel

Court Martial (23 page)

In seconds the whole street is ablaze. Phosphorus flows down into the cellars. People run, burning, panic-stricken, through the night directly into the sea of flame. They sizzle and shrink to charred caricatures of humanity.

High above the burning town rumble the heavy Wellington bombers. Inside them, youthful airmen work like automatons unloading their deadly cargo. Not one of them thinks for a moment of what is happening down there in the blacked-out city, where thousands of human beings are burning to death. They are looking forward to getting back to their bases, somewhere in Scotland, where bacon and eggs and a nice hot cup of tea are waiting for them.

As soon as the first bombing wave has released its load, and turned noses towards the north, a new wave of Wellingtons comes in from the north-west and again Berlin is carpeted with bombs. Fifteen-sixteen-year-old boys serve the flak-guns. They work until they drop or until fragmentation bombs or incendiaries put an end to them.

The queen of the guns, the 8.8 cm flak gun, thunders unceasingly. One attack in depth silences the four flak batteries by the Zoo. Nothing is left of them. They are reduced to dust. A few moments ago they were spitting out shells defiantly. Now a great bonfire of phosphorus roars in their place, engulfing everything.

An SD patrol turning in from the riding path is thrown into the air and disappears into the furnace.

An old man with two artificial legs lies under a bridge and watches the terrible scene through a crack in the concrete. When he is found the heat has melted him down to the size of a monkey. There is nothing left of his artificial legs. They throw him up on to the corpse wagon in company with other shrivelled-up mummies, as they do every morning in Berlin.

'We'll be there soon,' mumbles Menckel hoarsely, pushing into a half-collapsed ruin.

They catch sight of an SD patrol at the far end of the street, slinking along the walls of the houses in search of victims.

'Where the devil did they get to?' whispers Wisling, furiously. The patrol has disappeared as if it had sunk into the earth.

'I think they're in that gateway over there keeping an eye on us,' Menckel says, pressing himself hard against the wall.

'If they cross the street and come towards us, we open fire,' says Wisling, going down on his knees. There is a narrow niche in the wall into which he can press himself.

We'll never make it,' stammers Menckel, holding his Mpi at the ready.

'Think we ought to put up our hands and let them hang us on the nearest lamp-post,' growls Wisling, jeeringly. 'Those boys won't give us a chance. They ask one question: Papers! And if you haven't got any you get it in the back of the neck or get to dangle from a lamp-post with a card on your chest saying:

ICH HABE DEN FUHRER VERRATEN!
41

'They're nothing but crazy murderers,' whispers Menckel in a voice shaking with rage.

'What's it matter?' smiles Wisling. 'I do believe every one of us is more or less crazy just now. Even our escape is crazy!'

A stick of bombs falls with a roar in the street next to them. The flame of the explosions lights up clearly the faces of the SD patrol across the street. They look like faces chiselled in stone.

'Get on,' snarls a voice accustomed to giving orders and being obeyed, and the death patrol moves off hugging the smoke-blackened walls. One hand holds the magazine firmly, the other is at the neck of the butt with a finger on the trigger.

The patrol has not gone more than a few yards down Leipziger Strasse when a series of shots crack through the dark, followed by a brusque, metallic command.

'
Halt! Hande hoch
!'
+

Two women step out in the middle of the road and lift their hands above their heads.

Greedily the SD patrol surrounds them. They laugh, and sound like a party of satisfied hunters who have just brought down a long-sought-for animal.

'You ladies been out plundering?' asks the patrol commander, squeezing one eye shut slyly, as if he had said something amusing.

'
Herr Oberscharfuhrer
,' stammers one of the women.

He smashes the back of his hand brutally across her face, knocking her over backwards.

Her shopping bag slides across the asphalt and two packets of butter and a bag of flour fall from it.

Practised hands search her friend. Two rings, a necklace and a packet of ration coupons are found in her pockets. Explanations and excuses pass unheard.

'String 'em up,' orders the Oberscharfuhrer, and points to an ancient lamp-post from the time of the Kaiser.

'Come on, girls,' grin the two young SD men. 'Up you go and enjoy the view.'

A long-drawn female scream echoes down the street, back and forth from the houses in Spitaler Markt.

'Shut up, you bitch, cut that screaming
out
!' scolds an SS man.

Soon the two women hang kicking alongside one another from the antique lamp-post.

Nonchalantly the Oberscharfuhrer hangs a card around their necks:

ICH HABE GEPLUNDERT
42

The SD patrol sneaks on its way across Spitaler Markt, and stops for a moment outside 'DER GELBE BAR'.
+
One of them tries the door but it is locked.

'Damnation,' he swears viciously. 'I could have done with a couple of cold beers an' a shot just now! One of those bitches pissed on me!'

'They always do. Fear!' says one of the others.

They do not hear the bomb on its way. It is one of the small ones which do not make much noise. The just have time to flinch from the enormous flash of flame before the blast throws them straight through the wall behind them.

The Oberscharfuhrer does not die immediately. He looks down in surprise at his legs, torn off and lying beside him. He opens his mouth and screams. A long howl like an animal. Then he is dead.

'That's where my friend's wife lives,' says Menckel, as they pass Alexander Platz just at dawn. 'We were in the same regiment. He was the OC. Let's hurry there.'

'No,' says Wisling. 'It's too late now. We must wait until it gets dark again. If the caretaker sees us we've had it. He
has
to tell the SD if strangers enter the house.'

'Those bastards,' groans Menckel, 'they've got their spies everywhere!'

They move instinctively closer to one another when the sirens blow the all-clear.

People come up from cellars, hastening along with grey, tired faces. Their eyes are bloodshot, their faces smudged with smoke and dust.

'Let's get away from here,' says Wisling, pulling Menckel after him into a maze of small backyards.

In the middle of the labyrinth of tunnels and corridors they find an ancient half-timbered house. A low door, half rotted away, leads down to a cellar.

For a moment they stand listening in the darkness. Far inside a cat miaows. Silently they creep forward, feeling their way through the dark. The cat miaows again.

Wisling bangs his head against one of the low beams. He curses viciously, biting his lip in pain.

A long way off a faint light flickers.

'Look out,' whispers Wisling, stopping so suddenly that Menckel runs into him. 'There's somebody there. Stay here and keep me covered with the Mpi!'

The cat miaows again, complainingly. It's eyes shine in ghostly fashion in the dark. It comes slowly towards them, looks up at Wisling, purrs and rubs itself against his legs.

In the flickering light they catch sight of an old woman lying on a heap of sacks and straining her eyes to see them in the dark. An acrid stench of damp and half-rotted wood reaches them.

'Anybody there?' cries the old woman in a piping, asthmatic voice. '
Is
there anybody?' she repeats.

'Yes,' says Wisling, stepping forward.

The woman stares at him suspiciously.

'What do you want?' she asks and goes into a violent attack of coughing which for a moment seems close to choking her.

'Can we stay here until it gets dark?' asks Wisling, when her asthma attack is over.

'You're welcome,' she smiles tiredly. 'There's nobody here but me and my cat.'

Wisling looks around the stinking cellar, which has formerly been used for coal and coke. Now there is no coal and only a bucket of coke a day to a flat.

'Do you live down here?' asks the doctor, in amazement, looking down at the old woman. Her skin is the horrible blue-grey colour which people get who stay too long in the dark.

'You could say that,' answers the old woman, with a tiny smile. 'I lived in the house above for seventy-six years, but when they'd taken all my family, and I was the only one left, I took shelter down here. Now they haven't been here for a long time. One of the neighbours told me I'd been declared dead. He's a soldier, too old to be sent to the front, so he's been put on service in Berlin. He's one of the few who aren't frightened to bring food down to me.' She collapses in a new violent attack of coughing.

Menckel helps her, and wipes the sweat from her face.

'Don't you get any medicine?' he asks, naively.

'No,' she smiles sadly. 'Can't you see? I'm a Jew! There's no medicine for us. It's no wonder people are afraid to help us. They kill people who give us food. These are
bad
times.'

'Yes, they are indeed bad times!' agrees Menckel. '
Sick
times!'

'God of my fathers,' she cries in a muffled shout, as she realises that the strangers are wearing SS uniform.

'Have mercy on me, poor thing as I am!' The words come in stammering bursts. 'God is my witness I never did a bad thing to anyone, dead or alive.' She strains for breath. Her chest whistles; her lungs wheeze. 'Both my daughters' men fell at the front and the rest of my family you
have
taken from me long since.'

'Easy, easy,' says Menckel, 'we are not SS. The uniforms mean nothing. We are escaped prisoners.'

Steps sound from the street. All three listen, wild-eyed with fear.

'The dustmen,' says the old woman, after having listened for a time in silence.

Berlin is awake again. People throng the streets on their way to factories and workshops. Between air-raids they work hard. To stay away from work without valid reason is regarded as sabotage. Twice in a row brings the death penalty.

'Are you the only one of your family left?' asks Wisling, looking compassionately at the old woman.

'Yes, all the rest are gone. Whether they're dead or not I don't know. I've never heard from them since they were taken.'

'It is terrible to be a Jew in Germany today,' says Menckel.

'I don't suppose there are many left,' sighs the old woman. 'The soldier who brings me food says that there used to be long goods trains filled with Jews going east. Now they've stopped. So maybe there are no more Jews to be sent. And what are we anyway? Just ordinary Germans like yourselves. My family has always been German and lived here. My parents. My grandparents. Many of them were officers in the army of the Kaiser. My husband was in the 1st Grenadier Guards Regiment and fought for Germany from 1914 to 1918. Three times badly wounded. After the war he worked in a Ministry until they said he was an
untermensch
and sacked him in 1933. Then he shot himself. When they came for him that evening there was only a body. They spat on him. Called him "cowardly Jewish pig!" They crushed the medals the Kaiser had given to him under their jackboots. Yes, we are Germans. From Berlin. We have always lived here. I love this town,' she says, and smiles dreamily. 'It was such a
happy
city, but now it is sick and will die. As will I. Before we used to sail on the Spree every Sunday and dance in the Grunewald. Then that was forbidden to us'

For a while there is silence. They listen tensely to the many sounds which filter down from the street.

'I think you would do best to get rid of those uniforms,' says the old woman suddenly. 'I know a man who hid in such a uniform. When they caught him they killed him slowly, smashed every bone in his body. His terrible screams could be heard all over the house. Nobody dared to go to his aid. We heard them hitting him, until there was no more life left in him. And he was such a handsome young man. A man we all liked. It was stupid of him to come back here. They caught him in the yard. Perhaps they would not have killed him if he had not been wearing that SS uniform. They were like wild beasts when they saw it. You must get rid of those uniforms. Do you not know anyone who will give you civilian clothes?'

'I hope so,' says Menckel. 'We shall make a try when it gets dark.'

'If they had not taken my boys' clothes you could have had them, but they said they were confiscated for the use of the state.'

Menckel knocks his helmet off. It goes clattering across the floor. The cat spits and arches its back.

'In gaol?' she says, seeing his shaven poll.

They both nod. That is where they have been.

'Get out of Berlin,' she says. 'Yes, best out of Germany altogether. Here they will soon catch you!'

'She is absolutely right,' mumbles Wisling. 'We
must
get hold of some civilian clothes, even if we have to strip somebody in the street.'

Shortly after noon the air-raid warning sounds again. Now it is the Americans coming over in their Flying Fortresses. The bombs rain down close by. Explosions roar. The old house shakes and shivers. A thick cloud of mortar dust covers them.

For a moment they think the house is falling in on top of them. A few hours later it is over and the sirens sound the all-clear.

Up in the street a company of soldiers marches by singing: