The Bloody Road to Death (17 page)

‘Dachau, Buchenwald,’ says Porta, licking his mess-tin clean. ‘Wonder if
they
get beans, too?’

‘A kick in the arse is what
they
get,’ growls an infantryman, sourly. A Red Cross sister has reported him for trying to get an extra helping. It will cost him a year without leave and three times three days confinement.

‘Sister o’ fuckin’ mercy. She’s one all right,’ sighs a Pioneer. ‘Make you die o’ laughin’ wouldn’t it?’

At Salonica the train has to wait for hours and is checked continuously. Late in the afternoon they announce that it will not leave until the following day. The line has been blown up. Troops can go to the barracks for meals. The civilians light fires on the platform to prepare their food.

After a pleasant night in the town the three arrive at the station only to be told that it will be three days before the line can be repaired.

A sour-looking freckled MP stamps their papers.

‘Escort and prisoner,’ he reads out, and stares happily at Carl’s handcuffs. ‘What’s
this
monkey been up to?’

Porta feels that the real crime – refusal to obey orders – will not make enough of an impression on the freckled MP and launches into a gory story in his best style.

‘Monster – a
real
monster – that’s what this one is,’ he says pushing at Carl. ‘This boy shot his oberst, slashed his Company Commander’s gut open and ate his liver and lights. He’d got on to his hauptfeldwebel when they caught him with the man’s
prick and balls in his hand. A religious maniac!’ Porta turns his eyes upwards and twiddles his finger at his temple. The madman thought he could save the world by stopping the German people from reproducing.’

‘Madness,’ says the headhunter in wonder. ‘It’s not that easy to stop us Germans.’

‘No,’ Porta nods, ‘but he was an honorary member of the society “No More War” so for him perhaps it was logical to try.’

‘Where you escorting him to?’ asks the MP, who seems unable to take his eyes off Carl.

‘Germersheim,’ smiles Porta friendily. ‘They’ll blow the life out of him, there.’

‘He bloody deserves it,’ decides the MP hoarsely. ‘My father’s a hauptfeldwebel in an infantry mob.’

‘Ain’t lost
’is
prick yet, ’as ’e?’ grins Tiny, smashing his fist down on the table gleefully and making all the rubber stamps dance.

A little way into the town they are stopped by a leutnant for not saluting properly. They have to manacle Carl to a lamppost while they march past the leutnant four times saluting correctly. After this they salute everyone in uniform they meet, even postmen and park-keepers.

They have to go into the ‘Proud Eagle’ after a while to rest their arms – and to drink beer.

‘Now you won’t run away and get us into trouble with the military prison service, will you?’ remarks Porta, as he removes Carl’s handcuffs.

‘’E’d be off like a shot
if
’e got the chance,’ states Tiny, banging his tankard on the counter.

‘Stop that bloody noise,’ snarls the proprietor, a
Volks-deutscher
with the party emblem in his buttonhole.

Tiny’s giant fist catches him by the tie.

‘What gives a wizened-up prick of a
Volksdeutscher
the right to give
us
orders?’

‘Piss an’ wind!’ shouts the publican angrily, tearing himself loose. ‘I can soon ’ave the MPs here!’

‘MPs?’ cackles Porta banging his Mpi on the counter and slapping an MP arm-brassard down alongside it. ‘MPs! Who
the hell do you think you’re talking to?
Were
the bloody MP’s, man! Shut your flapping face, or
you’ll
be the one arrested
and
it’ll be for the first and last time. Want to get executed in your own shithouse, do you?’

‘Let’s get out of ’ere,’ says Tiny spitting in the host’s face, ‘’onest bleedin’ coppers can’t drink beer in this ’ole.’

‘Thanks for the drinks,’ nods Porta, as he leaves without paying.

They go into the ‘Welcoming Breast’, a little further down the street, where women do the serving.

‘We are the police,’ boasts Tiny, leaning over the counter so that everyone can see his MP-brassard.

‘What would the gentlemen like?’ asks the barmaid, lifting Tiny’s elbow to wipe the bar.

‘Three mixed,’ orders Porta, laying his Mpi on the bar.

‘Shift that grease-gun!’ snarls the barmaid.

‘Don’t you cotton to ironmongery?’ asks Tiny. ‘You can cancel debts with this kind, you know.’

Porta removes his Mpi without a word.

The girl fills three large tankards half-f of beer, mixes
Slivovitz
and tomato-juice into them and stirs with a glass rod.

They wish one another good health and empty the tankards in one long slobbering draught.

‘It tastes like hell,’ wheezes Carl, ‘but it does the job fast.’

‘Until this minute, I’ve ’ad me doubts as to whether the bleedin’ world did really spin round an’ round,’ says Tiny in wonder, ‘but now I can
feel
it bleedin’ well doin’ it. ’Old tight on to the bleedin’ bar, boys or you’ll bleedin’ fall
off
!’

Die Zeit kennt keine Wiederkehr
, they sing, as they reel along Metropolis Street towards the brothel the ‘Green Turkey’. In some unexplainable way they land in the police station on Nicodemeus Street where they shake hands all round with the amazed Greek policemen and say that they have been asked to bring regards from mutual friends.

‘When you’re goin’ to get ’ung you ’ave the
right
to spiritual solace,’ says Tiny as they sit on the edge of a fountain around midnight catching goldfish which he swallows alive.

‘The military manual covers all eventualities,’ hiccups Porta in agreement.

Tiny falls into the fountain trying to prove that he can stand on one leg on the edge with his other leg straight up his back.

‘Much ado about nothing,’ Porta explains to an invisible audience.

‘Now don’t you think you can get away from
us
,’ says Tiny threateningly, grabbing Carl by the collar and pulling him into the fountain. ‘Don’t get to thinkin’ we’re just a couple o’ peasants with our brains in our bleedin’ bollocks!’

‘We, and the army with us, do not take escort duty lightly,’ shouts Porta with lifted finger.

They wobble down the street, saluting a cat which they call ‘Herr General!’

‘Ha, there you are,’ screams Porta, falling on the neck of a passing gentleman on his way home from his mistress. ‘You’ll have to take a turn at the infantry school at Hammelsburg and learn to eat old army boots for breakfast.’

‘It is very ’elpful to everybody in later life,’ hiccups Tiny.

‘Cavalry’s the thing,’ drools Carl happily, trying to mount an iron fence and falling off repeatedly on the other side.

The civilian wrenches away and continues rapidly down the street.

‘Give my love to our mother,’ screams Porta after him, ‘only you and I know she was German.’

‘We must make an example of somebody,’ says Tiny as they find themselves at dawn in the vegetable market. All the waggons are beginning to come in from the country. He presses his P-38 against the forehead of a street-cleaner who is leaning on his broom, fast asleep. ‘What would you say if I was to shoot you? Do you think you would like it?’

‘Heil Hitler! Heil Hitler!’ shouts the sweeper. It is the only German he knows. He has discovered it to work well with most German soldiers.

Tiny drops his pistol as he embraces him, and falls into a man-hole from which it takes several people to extricate him.

‘In Brussels we caught a group disguised in Salvation Army uniforms,’ says Porta to a greengrocer.

‘Salvationists!’ cries Tiny. ‘I love ’earin’ about them. They’re that
nice
. When you ’ang ’em they go to the bleedin’ gallows without a yip.’

The train stops at Stoby. Partisans have blown up the tracks.: Croatian police units hang three civilians from telegraph poles. Somebody has to take the rap for the partisans who got away.

Machine-guns can be heard in the distance.

‘They’re knocking off another train,’ says the RTO, slapping the train commander on the shoulder. ‘You were lucky, major, getting delayed at Salonica.’

A woman runs screaming from a waggon. At her heels is a drunken soldier, coatless and with his flies gaping.

An infantryman, leaning against a lamp-post chewing at a piece of bread, sticks out his foot casually. The soldier cartwheels along the platform.

Two men from the station guard throw themselves on him like hungry wolves.

‘Would you let me have his papers, major, so that we can notify his unit when we hang him?’ asks the RTO.

‘
Will
you hang him?’ asks the train commander in surprise.

‘Yes, of course, we’re in the field here. A quiet little summary court-martial. One officer and two soldiers to judge the case. The soldiers are told what the verdict is to be. We’ve knocked up a gallows over in the quarry. Nothing much, just a log over a couple of posts. We can hang ten men at a time. Our executioner, a civilian, gets 5 marks a man, and is quite satisfied with the rate.’

‘Good Lord!’ says the train commander, and wipes the sweat from his brow.

‘Don’t you expect trouble over this, someday?’

‘Why ever should I?’ asks the RTO wonderingly. ‘Our courts-martial are all according to regulations and all judgements are recorded. The executed persons are buried in consecrated ground. All in good order.
We’re
not like the SD. The worst of the worst get proper legal treatment here,
and
, I might add, spiritual solace.’

Towards evening goods waggons mounting automatic cannon are coupled on to the train.

Two flat-cars filled with sand are coupled on in front of the engine as protection against mines. The prisoners are placed on the flats. If the track is mined they will be killed.

Well into the night the train moves off. Speed is not
increased until it enters the Struma Valley. This is considered the most dangerous part of the route.

The prisoners in the open waggons are illuminated strongly, as a warning to the partisans. Slowly the passengers are rocked to sleep.

Porta and a marine-obermaat are shooting dice. He has two years arrears of pay to get through and he succeeds.

On the final throw the train is shaken by the roar of an explosion. There is a horrible sound of bucking metal and splintering wood. The synchronized quad-guns start up a raging return fire. Cascades of flares illuminate the mountain slopes. The heavy flicker of explosions lights up the terrain right over to the cliffs on the far side of the Struma. Machine-guns bark irritably, sending strings of phosphorescent tracer towards a wave of dark figures which pours down the slopes and out into the foaming river.

‘See you in the community grave!’ shouts Porta, jumping through the smashed window followed by Tiny and Carl.

A scimitar-like shard of glass has nearly removed the head of the marine-obermaat.

The whole compartment is dripping with blood.

Porta and Tiny crawl in under the half-overturned waggon. Carl runs forward to a mound where a discarded LMG is lying. He loads quickly and fires short bursts at the partisans. They are now over on the near side of the river.

A couple of mortars spit out grenades. For a moment the attack is held up, but new waves come flocking from the ravines and slopes of the mountains. They seem inexhaustible. Incessantly, dark figures storm forward.

The mortar section gets the range and stops the attack. Shrill screams hang in the night, which shields the bloody business along the railway track from sight.

The attackers withdraw as suddenly as they came; tracer streams glittering after them. Hand-grenades fly through the air, and the blue glare of explosions light up cliffs and earthworks. There is a photographic glimpse of a human body suspended in the air. Then a falling death-scream.

Close to the track is an old fortification where a group of partisans have taken cover. A bundle of hand-grenades tears the
steel door from its hinges. A couple of Molotov cocktails disappear into the dark. A hollow muffled explosion follows and flame flashes from the firing slits. The survivors stagger out with clothes on fire. The machine-guns take care of them.

Porta wipes the sweat from his face and crawls from under the waggon together with Tiny. Carl’s cheek has been torn open by a piece of shrapnel. A medical orderly fixes it up with two large pieces of tape.

‘Shit!’ he cries. ‘Here we are on escort duty and according to the manual the prisoner must arrive at destination unhurt. These partisans don’t seem to have read the manual though.’

A deafening explosion shatters the silence and blue flame fountains upwards. It seems as if the whole mountain has gone up. Great rocks come tumbling down the slope carrying partisans and German soldiers with them into the depths. With a long rolling roar the avalanche rolls over the train taking several carriages with it into the river.

‘Gawd Almighty!’ gasps Tiny, ‘if we ’adn’t the luck of the bleedin’ devil ’imself we wouldn’t ’ave lived to be this old.’