The Commissar (20 page)

‘No entry for unauthorized personnel,’ howls the monster-faced Unteroffizier, tearing his machine-pistol down from his shoulder.

‘
I’m
not unauthorized,’ answers Porta, without bothering even to turn his head.

At the next road-block he meets a notorious Feldwebel who was posted away from Germersheim for cruelty to the prisoners. He works for Wolf now. Bodily injury is his field of endeavour.

‘Halt!’ he roars, standing squarely in Porta’s path. He looks the size of a tank block.

Porta pushes him fastidiously to one side, with the air of a man opening the door of a railway station toilet.

‘What d’you mean pushin’ me, rat? Can’t you see these? I’m a Feldwebel!’

‘Can’t you see
these
? The highest rank in the
Reich
! Oberge-freiter, same as your Führer was. Tell Wolf I’m here, shit-head, an’ quick about it!’

The Feldwebel runs to the telephone to sound the alarm,
but Porta is already in the next workshop shed before he can get through. He treads cautiously over a trip-wire which would have set a T-mine off under him.

Two grey-brown wolfhounds come towards him, growling savagely.

‘Hello boys!’ he smiles. ‘Find somebody else to tear a piece off!’

The dogs bare yellow fangs, and continue to advance towards him, threateningly.

‘Hi!’ he says, saluting with two fingers at the brim of his yellow topper.

‘Hi!’ growl the dogs, wagging their tails in welcome.

Around a strategically well-chosen corner Wolfs two Chinese guards stand with
Kalashnikovs
at the ready.

‘Hi!’ Porta greets them, pushing the muzzles of the
Kalashnikovs
gently to one side.

‘Hi!’ reply the Chinese guards, slapping their weapons.

‘You look like death on crutches,’ says Porta, with a short laugh.

‘We death all right,’ they say, laughing an Asiatic laugh, and lifting their
Kalashnikovs
. ‘You like try?’

‘Some other time! I haven’t a moment just now,’ he replies, sidling past another booby-trap.

‘I thought the neighboured turned you off,’ says Wolf, sarcastically. ‘I was looking forward to a good wake, but you’ve disappointed me as usual!’

There is a P-38 with a full clip lying on the desk in front of him. A
Schmeisser
hangs on the back of his chair. His desk drawer is booby-trapped. The charge is big enough to blow up a seven-storey apartment house, if anybody is foolish enough to open the drawer. On a camouflaged shelf over the door is a bottle of petrol packed in three stick-grenades, in case the unbelievable were to happen and somebody get past the first three traps. As an extra bit of security the yard-door is connected toa surprise packet for anybody who might go out that way after doing something wicked to Wolf. The uninvited guest would be turned into a lot of tiny pieces and thrown a long way up toward Heaven.

Porta makes himself at home with a bottle of whisky, which he knows is kept behind Army Service Regulations and an unread copy of
Mein Kampf
. ‘Skole!’ he laughs, and almost empties the bottle.

‘Don’t mind
me
,’ says Wolf, sourly. ‘You’ll never learn manners. What do you want anyway? I don’t recall havin’ invited you?’ He flaps a grain of dust from his hand-sewn Bronzini boots, which cost 1,400 marks. He has them sent from Rome by special despatch-rider. He regards highly-polished riding boots as the most important part of a highly-placed man’s image. Porta says it is because he had to wear clogs from the Poor Children’s Fund when he was a child.

‘Can those things keep out water?’ asks Porta, pointing to the glittering riding boots. Wolf wears spurs on them, in defiance of all regulations. They jingle every time he moves his feet. Wolf would never dream of mounting a horse though. He is. in fact, rather afraid of them.

‘How’d I know,’ asks Wolf. ‘I never go out in the rain!’

‘Let me just have a ride on your Jew machine.’ says Porta, reaching out for the calculator. He takes some currency rate of exchange lists from his breast pocket, and puts on a thoughtful expression.

Wolf looks inquisitively over his shoulder. When he sees the size of the figures Porta is working with, he begins to shiver all over. His face changes colour several times, and his piggy, yellow-green eyes begin to light up greedily.

‘
Mama mia
,’ he whispers. He crosses himself religiously three times, bends down, and kisses Porta on both cheeks.

They close the steel shutters and lock them from the inside. The whole, complicated alarm system is set ready for action. Nobody is going to get away alive from an attempt to enter Wolf’s lair.

‘I may have been mistaken about you, ‘Wolf says, in a flattering tone, clinking his glass against Porta’s. ‘Your health, you wicked old villain!’

‘Ditto, ditto,’ smiles Porta, throwing the drink down with
mouth agape, like a man emptying a bucket into a sewer.

‘To think I have always regarded you as a wicked criminal swindler, who would sell his own mother if it suited him,’ says Wolf, shaking his head sadly.

‘
Forget
it!’says Porta refilling his glass. ‘Anybody can make a mistake now and then!’

For some time Wolf sits leaning back in his generals-only swivel-chair, and enjoys the sight of the photograph of the gold ingot.

‘God save all thirteen of us,’ he whispers. ‘With lumps o’ this stuff socked away, the rest of our lives’d be without worries. We could let the rest of ’em stand in water up to their necks, and most of ’em’ll wind up poor after the war.
We’ll
be laughing, and enjoying the feel of fine clothing next to our skins!’

During the next few hours highest priority express messages fly backwards and forwards between Wolfs HQ and the War Ministry at Berlin.

Far into the night the plans for the most important and top-secret action of World War II are complete. They are given the codename RICHES.

Oberfeldwebel and departmental head Sally, of War Ministry 4th Office, is on his way to Russia two hours later in a JU-52 mailplane with highest start and landing priorities.

In a three-axled Mercedes, with a General Staff flag fluttering from the front fender, businessmen Porta and Wolf drive to the airport to receive His Excellency ‘War Minister’ Sally. Sally swaggers. like another Frederick the Great, down the steps from the aircraft standing some way out on the landing strip. He is wearing a tailor-made cavalry uniform, highly-polished boots and a big. insincere grin. Around his neck is the War Service Cross. Knight’s Class, which has been arranged for him by his many shady connections.

The Luftwaffe men salute him stiffly. He nods kindly to them. A Field-Marshal could not have done it better. He
tiptoes across the wet asphalt. He does not want his highly-polished boots to be smirched by the Russian mud.

‘What a country to live in,’ he says, shivering, as he creeps into the large Mercedes. ‘Why couldn’t you have chosen a warmer country to liberate?’

‘Nobody asked us,’ grins Wolf.

‘How’s the outside world looking these days?’ asks Porta, tucking the almighty ‘War Minister’ up in a bearskin to prevent him from the aching cold. He is unused to the Russian climate.

‘They’re dropping bombs on us all the time. The Brits by night and the Yanks by day. It’s hardly possible to lift a glass to your lips any more. Half of it gets spilled by the constant shaking everywhere. Wherever you look there’s misery. The Home Front shuffles around in old clothes, and everybody’s hungry. Don’t think you lads out here are the only ones having a rough time. We are also suffering badly at home. But we do our duty uncomplainingly, and willingly go hungry to save old Germany!’

‘Well, you don’t look as if
you’re
suffering much from the shortages,’ says Porta, with a knowing chuckle.

‘I didn’t say I was, did I now?’ the ‘War Minister’ replies. He offers American cigarettes round, and French cognac from a silver hip-flask.

‘“The Lame Gendarme’s” still where it was. for God’s sake?’ asks Porta, worriedly. ‘If those bloody British and Yanks have dared to as much as scratch the paintwork they’ll have me to reckon with! And
that
won’t suit them one bit.’

‘I’m sure they’re aware of that,’ smiles Sally. ‘The only thing left on the square
is
the “Gendarme”. I looked in there this very morning, and was asked to pass on everybody’s regards. They asked if you weren’t tired of fighting for Führer. Folk and Fatherland. I don’t understand myself how you lot can stand living here.’

At the last second Porta manages to swing the heavy Mercedes round the still-smoking wreck of a lorry. Round
about lie soldiers, their faces to the ground.

‘What’s your opinion, as “War Minister”, of this war we were forced into starting?’ asks Porta, turning his head to look at Sally, sitting there shivering. ‘No danger of us winnin’ it, I hope?’

‘Be easy,’ says Sally, knowledgeably. ‘The other lot’s got its collective finger out, so we will lose the last battle just as we usually do, and will be able to use the usual excuses of ambush and treachery as the cause of our losing!’

‘That’s the German way,’ says Wolf. ‘It’s in the tradition. We win our way straight into defeat!’

‘Thank the Lord, ‘Porta breathes more easily, dragging the Mercedes around another wrecked lorry. ‘Sometimes I get nightmares thinkin’ we might win!’

Porta treads on the accelerator. He gives the car everything it can take. The Divisional Commander’s standard on the front fender makes everything else on the road give way.

‘See that fat chap there, with the narrow shoulder-straps an’ the silver braid,’ he remarks with a laugh. ‘Don’t often see a salute that smart out here!’

‘They all get the shits, when they see the flag of General “Arse-an’-Pockets” on the front of a car,’ says Wolf, condescendingly.

‘We’re more’n “Arse-an’-Pockets” is,’ says Porta. ‘He’s only a general! We’ll soon be
rich
. We can buy and sell generals, if we want to!’

Three MPs start screaming and waving their arms to clear the way for them.

‘Going nicely, now. ain’t it?’ grins Porta, in satisfaction. He pushes down even harder on the accelerator.

‘Keep to the right, you dogs!’ roars Wolf in his well-oiled voice of command.

Two Unteroffiziers and a squad of soldiers jump for the ditch, and sink up to their necks in snow.

‘
That’s
the way.’ nods Wolf happily.

‘I’m givin’ it all it can take,’ says Porta. ‘Livens up the day for the coolies!’

A bottle of Napoléon cognac goes the rounds.

‘This just arrived from my French Connection,’ remarks Sally, taking another big swig at the bottle. Half of it comes spurting out of his mouth again as Porta bangs his foot down on the brake pedal with all his might. The heavy staff-car goes into a spin on the slippery surface of the highway. With the touch of a master he directs his vehicle between the trees, jumps a tall hedge and stops it with its nose buried in a haystack. It was at the eleventh second of the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour.

Two RATAs with red stars on their wings come roaring out of the clouds. They rush along above the road, the muzzles of their machine-cannon flashing.

‘Good Lord preserve us,’ stammers Sally, his eyes rolling nervously. ‘They dogo to it in this country. The reports say the front is steady, and all’s quiet!’

‘Those devil’s children come over like that every day,’ explains Porta. ‘You can set your watch by ’em. We call them the traffic police. They can get the traffic jams out of the way like nobody else can!’

‘I lost two ten-tonners last week, right in the middle of church service on a Sunday,’ says Wolf, looking sad. ‘That’s what you have to put up with when you’re fightin’ the godless. I only lost the crews, thank God! The waggons could be repaired!’

‘Those devils won’t be back again, will they?’ asks Sally, looking nervously up at the grey clouds. ‘Thank the Lord I’m only visiting here. I was born to wear a uniform, but not in wartime. Lord above, no!’

‘Yes,’ smiles Porta, ‘it’s impossible to imagine how the history of the human race might be changed, if you was to come out here and take an active part in the battle.’ He laughs so much he doubles up over the steering wheel, and comes close to crashing into a wrecked gun. The bodies of its six horses lie dead in the road.

‘Do they go on like this every day?’ asks Sally, staring at the dead horses, lying there stiff-legged with mouths agape.

‘As I said, you can tell the time by ’em,’ answers Porta, indifferently. ‘When they’ve done five missions they give ’em a medal. Pulls in the cunt, y’know. The flak gunners shot one down the other day, a puffed-up sod who’d only talk to officers. He had eight bars on his ribbon, so he must’ve knocked out a good few of truck-owner Adolf’s rolling-stock!’

‘What happened to him?’ asked Sally.

‘SS strung him up,’ answers Porta, carelessly. ‘He was too much of a hero for ’em to call him an
untermensch
. Alive he’d have been bad for propaganda. Fellow with a bit of a headache there,’ he goes on, pointing, as they go by, to an old supply-soldier, sitting in a pool of blood with his steel helmet upside down on his head.

‘By the way, did you ever hear any more of that chap they called “Polka Porky”?’ asks Sally, maliciously. ‘He took you to the cleaners all right. There wasn’t much of your 80 per cent left after he’d been there, was there?’