The Commissar (38 page)

His grey eyes suddenly begin to glitter cunningly. ‘I think I’ve got it,’ he says after a long pause. ‘A natural disaster! Their base could accept
that
!

‘You don’t call it a disaster being rocked into eternity with lead guitar music?’ asks Porta, with a short laugh, and patting his mpi.

‘Certainly,’ answers the Commissar, ‘but we can’t use that kind of disaster in this instance.’

‘If you want to know what I think, man, then I’m for pissin’ off out of here in one hell of a hurry,’ whines Albert,
in a hoarse voice. He pulls his snow-mask further down over his face.

‘What kind of weak sisters are you?’ roars Porta angrily. ‘Here I’m trying to make you rich, so you can wave goodbye to the stinking army for the rest of your lives, and lie on the beach playin’ with the luxury whores. When you’ve started something then you finish it.
Panjemajo
? The earth’s round, and if you ain’t smart you can risk falling off it. And it
ain’t
smart to give up now just because a party of Sweatyfoot Indians come slidin’ along on planks. Let’s get on with it. There’s daylight up ahead!’

‘Und wenn die ganze Erde bebt,
*
und die Welt sich aus den Angeln hebt,
da kann doch einen Goldsucher nicht erschüttern!
Keine Angst, keine Angst, Rose Mari . . .’

hums Tiny thoughtfully, drumming his fingers on his
Kalashnikov
.

‘Could we get along that windin’ trail there that goes up alongside the ruins?’ asks Barcelona, pointing.

‘Yes, you could if you were a mountain goat that’d lost its wits,’ answers the Commissar. ‘This time of the winter nobody gets through without going through the gulch, and after that there’s the
Paritip
†
, but we can leave that for now. I can tell you it’s not for people with weak stomachs, and in a high wind even the strongest-nerved get the shits!’

‘
Paritip
? What the hell’s a
Paritip
?’ asks Porta.

‘Wait till you see it,’ grins ‘Frostlips’. ‘It might make
even you wish you’d stayed home. That is if you ain’t one of these religious types who thinks death’s better’n life!’

Und noch bei Petrus wollen wir
*
den Würfelbecher schwingen . . .’

hums Tiny, and kisses a hand-grenade.

‘Shut bloody up, you half-witted idiots,’ rages the Old Man, banging the butt of his machine-pistol into the snow.

‘Won’t even let us sing any bleedin’ more,’ grumbles Tiny.

The Commissar goes down in the snow between the Old Man and ‘Frostlips’ and draws a sketch with the tip of a bayonet.

‘An avalanche,’ cries the Old Man, in surprise, studying the sketch with a sceptical mien. ‘Think it can be done?’

‘Our one chance,’ answers the Commissar. ‘There’s tons of snow up above ready to come down if we just help it a bit.’

‘Shut
up
, then!’ cries Porta, licking his frost-chapped lips cautiously. ‘The light begins to flicker out there. An avalanche! Fuck
me
! Those headhunters down there’ll get rolled straight into Paradise. Both St Peter an’ Jesus’ll go arse-over-tip when they arrive up there with all that snow!’

‘How much gel’ we got?’ asks the Old Man, getting to his feet.

‘Three full boxes,’ answers Barcelona. ‘Enough to put the Kremlin up on the moon!’

‘One box o’ ten’s enough,’ says the Old Man.

‘Catch!’ shouts Tiny, throwing a package of explosives into the Old Man’s lap.

‘Are you completely mad?’ shouts the Commissar, in terror, throwing himself down like lightning behind a
weathered stone block. ‘In this temperature? Anybody knows it’ll have degenerated by now and can go off at the slightest touch.’

‘Take it easy,’ smiles Porta. ‘
We
don’t have to abide by the patent laws, so we’ve changed the formula round a bit. What we’ve done’d send the inventors crawling up their own arseholes for fright, but we found out, when we were soddin’ about up there where it’d freeze the balls offa brass reindeer, that a bit of nitroglycerine in the dough and a freshener of nitre made it more stable in cold weather. If we’d used what the eggheads at Bamberg’d told us to we’d have been on the moon by now playin’ hide and seek with the Mars-men!’

Tiny fishes a whole bundle of loose primers carelessly out of his pocket, and hands them to him. Any ammunition expert would have jumped out of his boots at the sight. Primers have to be treated with great care. The least shock can send them off.

‘Shall we blow off all the soap, then?’ asks Tiny, eagerly, beginning to make preparations.

‘Hell no!’ answers the Old Man crossly. ‘Five or six ought to be more than enough!’

‘
Mon Dieu
! Where are the pincers?’ asks the Legionnaire, excitedly. ‘We must hurry! They are coming towards us quickly!’

‘Pincers?’ asks Tiny. ‘They’ve gone missin’, but who needs ’em? You can bite ’em on to the cable. I’ve done it often. Quicker, too! Don’t ’ave to bite too’ard though, else vour teeth fall out –
an
’ your old napper goes with ’em, too!’

‘
Merde
! says the Legionnaire, shaking his head. ‘Only a man who is tired of life bites on those things!’

Unworriedly Tiny pushes the wires into the primers and bites them fast.

‘He’s too stupid to realize the danger,’ grins Porta. ‘Not even the dumbest dog’d even
sniff
at a primer!’

‘He’s raying mad,’ says ‘Frostlips’. ‘
We
have to put on rubber shoes when we go into the depots where they keep
that shit. That sod
eats
’em!’

‘It’s because he’s a Sunday’s child, born on Christmas Eve,’ laughs Porta. ‘Nothing can happen to
him
!

Tiny is already chewing on the fifth primer. When he has finished he connects the explosive mass in a way that sends shivers down our spines. Then he puts the whole lot down into his deep pocket. The dangerous primers stick up on their wires and bob about like the bells on a jester’s cap.

With Dalin in the lead we make our way towards the mountain-top. When we have got some way up we have to change from skis to snowshoes.

‘You’re goin’ to have to learn to stand on those planks a hell of a lot better,’ Dalin criticizes us, with the irritability of the expert,’ or you’ll never manage this job!’

Up under the small conifer trees, we fumble our way in pitch darkness, and have to use our handlamps in short flashes. There are narrow, deep crevasses everywhere. To go down in one of these is certain death.

The storm howls, in long, miserable moans. Frost explodes in branch and trees with the sharp crack of rifle-shots.

Cursing and fuming we try to protect our faces against the short stiff branches of the trees. They whip across our faces, drawing blood when the skin breaks.

Dalin pushes us along, angrily, jeering at us for our clumsiness.

‘Even an old, worn-out Cossack grandmother could catch up with you,’ he rages, impatiently. ‘Dopes like you lot’ll never win this world war!’

‘Wait’n see, you bowlegged Jewboy,’ screams Tiny, throwing his mpi at Dalin, but not succeeding in hitting him. ‘You don’t know us Germans yet!’

After two hours of inhuman toil we reach the open slope above the tree-line. Tired out we drop down. The wind is not merely icy, it is a roaring hurricane. We can see the peak, like a great, threatening colossus, a little way in front of us.

‘
Ssatan
,’ Dalin curses. ‘Up on your feet! In half an hour
the moon’ll be out, and they’ll be able to see us 100 miles off.’

‘Jesus’n Mary,’ groans Tiny. ‘I can feel them OGPU
Kalashnikov
explosive berries borin’ their way into my good German guts already!’

Suddenly I stumble, and begin to slide down the slope. I am rolling like a snowball at constantly increasing speed when a large rock gets in my way. For a moment I think I have broken, or sprained, an ankle, but the fear of being left alone soon gets me back on my feet, even though I can feel the pain right up through my back.

‘I can’t go on!’ groans Gregor, dropping like a felled tree to the snow.

‘Up you get!’ snarls Porta, giving him a brutal kick. ‘Think of your share of the gold and you’ll
want
to go on!’

‘Shit on the gold,’ pants Gregor, worn out. ‘If it’s all the gold in the world you can keep it! Let me
sleep
! I want to die!
Now
!’ He presses his face into the snow, and his whole body shakes with hysterical sobs.

Together we get him back up on his feet, and drag him between us like a sack. He shouts, and calls us every name he can think of. Finally Porta cannot stand it any longer. He gives him such a beating that all his frost-sores break open like ripe boils. It helps for a while.

Ermolov is lying in the shelter of a projecting shelf of rock staring through his night-glasses. Silently he points down the mountain. We can see the OGPU company, like small, moving, black spots below us.

‘We’ve got to get further up,’ says Dalin. ‘But get some speed on now! There’s not much time to lose! But don’t look down,’ he warns us. ‘Look up!’

‘Good Lord deliver us, ‘Porta breaks out, in amazement, when we are all the way up, and see the enormous masses of snow which are resting on only a relatively small rock-shelf.

‘When once that starts to roll,’ says Barcelona, ‘that band of murderers down there’ll do well to move arse in one hell of a hurry!’

‘Four charges ought to be plenty to set that snowball rolling down on their nuts,’ says ‘Frostlips’, scratching his head thoughtfully under his fur cap.

‘Let’s use five. Better safe than sorry!’ suggests Porta, looking up at the huge lip of snow. ‘But now the devil are we goin’ to position the loads without settin’ the avalanche going too soon? If it starts before the neck-shooters have got into the wide bit there, they’ll get back with their balls intact and we’re in the shit up to our necks!’

‘We’ll have to get over on the other side,’ says Barcelona. He leans over the steep cliff-face and draws back, shivering. ‘That’s impossible! Take an eagle to do it!’

‘Leave it to me,’ says Tiny, pushing energetically forward. ‘I ain’t no eagle, but I’m clever’n one. You lot ain’t got no idea of’ow to blow anythin’ up! I’ll show you how to do it!’

‘Don’t do it,’ warns ‘Frostlips’. ‘You’ll break your neck!’

‘Don’t give me that piss!’ sneers Tiny, contemptuously. ‘Take a look at the way a bloke from’Amburg does it! I’ll be up on that mantelshelf and ’ave the fireworks in place quicker’n a bull up a butcher!’

‘He’s right,’ says the Old Man, convinced. ‘The shelfs bound to increase the force of the blow an’ make even more snow come down on ’em. The noise of the charges’ll get damped down by the snow, and the slits down there won’t get frightened and do the devil out of a nice fresh delivery!’

‘Why not?’ asks Porta, shrugging his shoulders, indifferently. ‘Try it! Tiny’s always gettin’ away with things other fellers’d break their necks trying!’

‘D’you think it’s
dangerous
?’ asks Tiny doubtfully, peering cautiously down into the dizzying abyss.

‘Not a bit of it,’ lies Porta impudently, pointing up to the snow-cap hanging threateningly out over the lip of the shelf. ‘If all that weight ofice an’snow can’t fall, how’llyou be able to? Just be careful not to spit on both hands at the same time!’

‘Let’s do it then,’ says Tiny, decisively, wrapping the
rope around him. ‘Gimme that ice-axe. Keep a tight hold on the string now so’s you can pull me up again if I go on me arse!’

Gregor sits down, presses his heels well into the cliff and passes the rope out slowly, as Tiny moves across the icy slope.

‘He’ll never make it,’ whispers Barcelona nervously.

‘More rope,’ shouts Tiny impatiently. ‘I got to go round a corner, for Christ’s sake! It’s black as up Albert’s arse down’ere!’

‘He’ll kill himself,’ says Gregor, darkly, paying out more rope.

Frostlips sits down beside him and helps him hold on to it. It is literally Tiny’s lifeline.

‘Jesus Christ!’ howls Tiny, in a voice which sounds as if it is coming to us through cotton-wool.

‘Anything up?’ asks Porta, looking up, but unable to catch sight of him.

‘Fell on me arse,’ comes faintly from the cliff-face. ‘It’s blowin’ like’ell over’ere. My prick’s turned into a bleedin’ icicle.’

‘This is madness,’ mumbles Barcelona. ‘He’ll never
make
it!’

‘Wait and see,’ says Porta. ‘I know Tiny. If he gets really angry there’s nothing can stop him!’

We can hear the sound of the ice-axe, which he is using to cut steps in the rock and ice. Gregor and ‘Frostlips’ pay out more and more rope.

‘How the hell’s he
doing
it?’ asks ‘Frostlips’, shaking his head. ‘He needs all his strength to even hang on to the cliff-wall, and he must already be frozen through and through!’

‘Yes, and don’t forget he’s got his pockets full of explosives,’ says Barcelona. ‘And like the dope he is it’s primed! Don’t need much of a knock for him to blow himself and half the mountain to bits.’

‘Did he ever take an ammunition course anyway?’ asks ‘Frostlips’. ‘Nobody who’s ever had anything to do with
explosives treats ’em the way he does!’