Authors: Sven Hassel
After a bit the Canadians were joined by the Gordon Highlanders, but we didn't hold any particular grudge against the Scots. We even went so far as to go out and rescue three of their wounded who had got themselves entangled in our barbed-wire entrenchments. The poor devils were terrified and evidently under the impression that we were going to shoot them out of hand. God only knows where they got that piece of information from. Propaganda, I suppose. Rumours spread by evil-tongued
journalists, who
, if I had my way, would be butchered out of hand and no questions asked.
The whole day was passed under heavy fire. The British were launching an air attack on Caen and the sky was full of bombers and shrapnel and flying missiles.
'I hope to Christ they don't think of sending us over that way,' muttered Porta, jerking his head in the direction of Caen. 'You remember how it was in Kiev, with the Russians, only two paces behind all the time? Bloody hell! I can't stand being in towns.'
'What about Rome?' challenged Little John. 'You had a bloody good time in Rome, if I remember rightly. It's a wonder they didn't end up by making you into a cardinal!'
'Rome was different,' said Porta.
An enemy machine-gun tore up the ground in front of us with a spurt of bullets. Barcelona's helmet was blown off and rolled to the bottom of the trench, and he screamed in fury as he bent down to retrieve it.
'Load of Scotch bastards! You come over here and I'll show you a thing or two!'
A sudden lull in the fury of the onslaught. We spread mackintoshes over the mud at the bottom of the trench and settled down to a game of cards. Porta's little bright eyes gleamed beneath his bushy eyebrows, darting this way and that in an attempt to see other people's hands. Heide, always mistrustful, held his cards dose against his chest and squinted awkwardly down at them. Probably a wise precaution: Porta had been known to cheat before now, and his eyes were veritable X-rays. I saw from the expression on Gregor's face that he was contemplating at least a five-card trick. I turned to look at Little John, but he was far away, leaning back with his stinking feet propped on someone's gas-mask case, picking his teeth with his tongue. God, how his feet stank! It must have been weeks since they had seen water, and heaven alone knows when soap had last come in contact with them.
Barcelona took a quick glance at his hand, declared, 'Hombre! I'm packing!' in tones of disgust and slammed his cards down on the ground. Barcelona was getting more Spanish than ever, these days. He was for ever dreaming of the years he had spent in Spain, fighting in the Civil War. He even carried a dried orange in his pocket as a memento.
'Straight from Valencia,' he used to tell us, fondly.
The Legionnaire picked up his hand and surveyed it without emotion. There was never anything to be gained from studying the Legionnaire's face. Years spent in the French Foreign Legion had left their mark on him and his grey eyes were always steady and cold, his mouth always pursed in a grim line. I found it hard to recall if I had ever seen him laugh. On the whole I thought I probably hadn't, because if so I should surely have remembered the occasion.
The Old Man made a noise in the back of his throat and threw in his cards, turning for solace to his beloved pipe. Somehow, the Old Man always put me in mind of Erich Maria Remarque's 'Kat'. It was the Old Man who'd taught us all to recognize various grenades by the sound they made, just as Kat did for his section. It was the Old Man who had taught some of us almost everything we now knew, and God knows that many of us would not have been alive today had it not been for him. He had pulled the section out of many and many a sticky situation in his time. And there were many new young officers, fresh from the military training school at Potsdam and thrown only half prepared into the thick of the front line, who had cause to thank him. And never should I forget the S.S. Obersturmfuhrer who was sent to us for a spell of punishment duty. It had taken him no more than half an hour to lose an entire company, which the Russians had silently encircled right under his eyes. The Obersturmfuhrer had been one of the few to break out of the net and survive, and had it not been for Major Hinka's forbearance he would undoubtedly have been hauled up before a court-martial. As it was, he became suddenly very humble and turned out to be one of the Old Man's best pupils.
I overheard a conversation once between the Old Man and one of the M.O.s attached to General Staff, who fervently declared that we should win the war because we were better than our enemies.
'Unfortunately,' said the Old Man, rather dryly, 'it's not always the best side that wins, not by a long chalk.'
'Ah. well,' said the doctor, 'perhaps you're right. I wouldn't know about these military matters... But tell me, when do you reckon we shall be getting these splendid new weapons they've been promising us for so long?'
'New weapons?' The Old Man scratched the lobe of his ear with the stem of his pipe and laughed, to himself. 'I don't place
too
much reliance on these mythical new weapons, you know. I'm
willing
to go on fighting with the old ones...'
And he turned and gestured towards the rest of us. Towards Porta, with his long scraggy neck and his knock "knees; towards Little John, a man the size of an ox with a large heart and a small brain; Barcelona, pitifully flat-footed, me with my weak eyes that couldn't stand t
he
light; Gregor, who had lost half his nose, and Major Hinka who had lost his right arm.
'A sorry looking lot, if you like,' admitted the Old Man, when the Major was well out of earshot. 'But believe me,
I'd
rather have them by my side than any number of new weapons. It's
men
like them who keep the enemy at bay, not your rockets or your flying bombs.'
The doctor sighed.
'Ah well,' he said, again, and this time it was a positive sigh of despair, 'perhaps you're right. I wouldn't know about these military matters...'
Two days later we heard that he had put a bullet through his head. I often wondered if the Old Man's remarks had perhaps been too much for him to take. At first sight we weren't exactly a bunch to inspire much confidence. It must have shaken him pretty badly to think he was reliant upon men like us to win the war.
The alert sounded, shrill and anxious. They were coming at last. A horde of khaki-dad soldiers, leaping over the barbed wire, showering us with grenades, preceded by rolling waves of fire. Through the flames we could see their bayonets glinting. Their objective was to take position
112
. An order from General Montgomery, who was bent on capturing Caen at all costs, even if it meant losing a whole Scots division. Position 112 was soon to become a second Hill of Golgotha.
The Scotsmen came on at the head of the attack. On either flank were armoured divisions. Gregor was manning the 81-mm. mortar, which he used like a machine-gun. He had lost his helmet, and his face was black with smoke, marked here and there by channels of sweat. Major Hinka, his empty coat-sleeve stuffed into his pocket, had taken over a heavy machine-gun and was sending off salvoes of bullets into the oncoming mass of infantrymen. He was assisted by one of the medical orderlies. Neither man said a word; their mouths were set in hard lines, their uniforms caked with mud.
Little John was preparing two hand-grenades at the same moment. Both exploded the instant they reached their destination. Little John had never yet been known to fail where hand-grenades were concerned. As for me,
I
was having trouble with my machine-gun. It was a model I particularly disliked. In my experience you inevitably spent more time tinkering with the wretched thing than actually firing it. On this occasion, as on so many others, a bullet had become jammed in the loading device. With a shrill curse I yanked the bayonet out of my rifle and began jabbing it at the offending bullet. It had no effect whatsoever, except, perhaps, to push it further in. Fortunately Porta came to my rescue.
'Get out of the way, you silly sod! '
He elbowed me to one side, and seconds later waved me back to a gun that was now in perfect working order. During those few seconds the suicidal Scotsmen had made headway and were now a swirling mass of colour before us. Red, green, blue, yellow... so pretty, and so dangerous! They were all yelling like maniacs, hurling themselves forward over the barbed wire; regardless of the relentless hail of grenades and machine-gun fire. Montgomery evidently wanted Caen very badly indeed. The Scotsmen died in their hundreds on the barbed wire. The armoured divisions were crucified in their burning tanks. Yet still they came on, because Caen had to be taken.
The section holding the ground on our immediate right flank was in danger of being wiped out. There was hand-to-hand fighting in the narrow trenches. Our neighbours were putting up a desperate battle for their lives with bayonets, rifle butts and knives, and if they fell we knew that we should be next on the list. Major Hinka turned for a moment from his machine-gun. He waved his arm, imperiously, and shouted something that was lost in the general uproar. We knew what was required. He didn't have to repeat himself.. Barcelona turned his gun towards the trenches and sent a steady stream of fire into the midst of the fighting mob. Friend and foe alike were slaughtered. There was no room for sentiment on the Hill of Golgotha. From somewhere a little further up the line we saw a white flag raised: an old grey vest waving uncertainly from a rifle. We saw a small group of Canadians move in upon it. Saw them motion to the surrendering Germans to leave their shelter and to line up along the edge of a trench, drop their weapons, place their hands behind their backs. We heard the order given to fire. A sergeant raised his Sten-gun and the men in grey fell one after another to the ground.
'Bastards! ' screamed the Legionnaire, at the top of his voice.
With a quick jerk of the head to Porta and Little John he called them up to a quick and apparently decisive conference. Next moment, Porta had dragged a tattered vest off the nearest dead body, attached it to his rifle and was slowly crawling out into no-man's-land towards the group of Canadians, now victoriously sheltering in their victims' burial trench. Behind Porta crept Little John and the Legionnaire, pulling the flame-thrower with' them. Porta agitated his grey flag and called out to the Canadians. I saw the sergeant with the Sten-gun stand up, smiling, in the trench. I saw him prepare to fire. Before his finger could press the trigger, two events took place almost simultaneously; the flame-thrower went into action and Porta hurled a grenade into the trench. The Canadians were wiped out within seconds.
'That'll teach the bastards,' muttered the Legionnaire, as he arrived back at my side. 'They won't try that trick again in a hurry.'
I had no time to congratulate him: enemy tanks were bearing down upon us. A tight formation of Churchills and Cromwells, which had already broken through our front line. We did our best with the anti-tank guns, but all round us men were abandoning their positions and scattering before the oncoming tanks. Major Hinka shouted to us to use the Goliaths. These were a type of mini-tank, radio-controlled, each containing 100 kilos of explosive. Willingly we hurled these useful little weapons into the midst of the enemy. They had evidently not come across them before. The first two Goliaths, looking small and harmless pulled to a halt before an advancing company of soldiers. It must have seemed that owing to some mechanical fault they were unable to proceed any further. The enemy were plainly puzzled. At first they treated them with some caution, and then, as nothing happened, they grew bolder and began to move in upon them. Someone pulled out a camera and took a photograph; someone else, very daring, put out a hand and touched; from there it was but a short step before some foolhardy spirit put out a boot and fetched one of the Goliaths a hearty kick.
A few of the men at once dived for cover, but the company clown sat squarely on top of a second mini-tank and started vigorously on the chorus of 'Tipperary'... It was at that moment that Barcelona pressed the plunger. The Goliath exploded in a vast spout of flame, roaring its way into the air and carrying a motley assortment of humanity with it.
'Stupid buggers,' grumbled the Legionnaire. 'Like a load of kids, have to go and touch at everything... Never mess about with unidentified objects... You'd think that would be elementary, wouldn't you?'
Seventy enemy tanks went up altogether. And seventy tank crews were burnt to cinders. But Caen had to be taken, and always there were more tanks in reserve. The fighting went on for eighteen hours, with the usual hideous losses on both sides. At the end of that time we neither knew nor cared what was happening to Caen. Did it stand, or had it fallen?
'I couldn't give a tinker's cuss,' said Barcelona.
'And who the hell wants it, anyway?' complained Porta.
I
certainly don't!'
Within seconds of speaking they had both fallen to the ground and were sound asleep. The rest of us dropped down beside them like a house of cards collapsing. Who the hell wanted Caen, anyway? Porta didn't. I didn't. Only Montgomery wanted it, as far as I could see. And for all I cared at that moment, he could have it.
Many unknown Frenchmen, members of the Resistance, gave-their support to the invading forces, and the exact number of those who lost their lives was never known.
Some while before the invasion took place, London had quite coolly requested that the head of the Resistance network for Caen, an engineer called Meslin, should furnish them with detailed information regarding the German fortifications in that area. They knew full well the enormity, one might almost say the impossibility, of the task they were setting him, but still they expected him to turn up with the right answers. Meslin heard the request in silence; merely put his head in his hands and wondered how the hell he was going to work the necessary miracle. Each road, major or minor, each lane, each pathway leading to the coast was heavily guarded and under constant surveillance. Anyone fool enough to be caught wandering about without an official pass was shot out of hand.