March Battalion 

by Sven Hassel 

EDITOR'S NOTE 

The character who in this book is called 'Little John' has appeared in other 
novels by Sven Hassel under the name 'Tiny'. 

'It was the Spanish Civil War,' said Barcelona Blum, spitting casually through 
the open side panel of the Russian tank in which we were travelling started off 
fighting for one side and ended up fighting for the other. To begin with I was a 
mili' dono in the Servicios Especiales. Then the Nationalists got hold of me, 
and after I'd managed to convince them I was only an innocent German who'd 
been pressganged into service by General Miaja, they shoved me into the 2nd 
Battalion, 3rd Company, and made me fight for them, instead. Though mind 
you, as far as I was concerned there wasn't any great difference between the 
two sides in any case .... In the Especiales we used to round up everyone 
suspected of being a Fascist or a fifth columnist and take them off to the Calle 
del Ave Maria, In Madrid. We used to line 'em up against the wall of the 
abattoir. The sand there was so dry the blood used to soak right up in a 
matter of seconds. No need to bother with cleaning operations ... Mostly we 
preferred to shoot them standing up, but some of the buggers just curled into 
a heap and you couldn't budge them for love or money. At the last minute they 
always used to shout, 'Long live Spain!' ...Of course, when I got nabbed by 
the Nationalists it was just the same thing in reverse. Only difference was, 
they made us shoot them sitting down, with their backs turned. But it all came 
to the same thing in the end. They still used to shout "Long live Spain!" before 
they died. 

'Funny thing, that: they all thought they were patriots. But when it came down 
to it, there was only one way of showing you were on the right side. You had 
to denounce someone. It didn't matter who, so long as you denounced them. 
They never got a chance to speak in their own defence, anyway. They were 
always told to shut up before they'd even opened their mouths... 

'Come the end of the war, we had a real problem on our hands. There was 
practically a five-year waiting list of people due to be exterminated. We had to 
take over the bull rings, herd them into the arena and mow them down with 
heavy machine-guns. We had four squadrons of Moors to give us a " hand. 
Villainous bastards THEY were.... After a bit, even the police had a go. 
Everyone wanted to be in on the act... And ' when it came to it, they all died 
the same way. It didn't make an atom of difference which side you were on.' 

There was a moment's pause for reflection, and then Little John spoke. In his 
usual forthright fashion, 

'I'm pissed off with the bleeding Civil War. Didn't they have any birds in Spain, 
for God's sake?' 


Barcelona shrugged his shoulders and wiped the back of his hand across his 
eyes, as if to suppress the memories of slaughter. He began to speak of other 
things. Of orange groves and vineyards and people dancing in the street. 

Little by little we forgot the burning cold and the icy snows of Russia, and, for 
awhile, we felt only the sun and the sand of Barcelona's far-off Spain. 

CHAPTER ONE 

ACROSS the vast open spaces of. the steppes blew the eternal wind, whipping 
the snow into eddies and whirlpools. The tanks stretched out nose to tail in a 
long line. They were stationary now, with their crews Huddled together on the 
leeward side of the vehicles, seeking what little shelter they could. 

Little John was lying beneath our Panzer 4. Porta had concocted a nest for 
himself between the caterpillar tracks, and he sat hunched up like a snow owl, 
his neck sunk deep into his shoulders. Between his legs crouched the 
Legionnaire, his teeth chattering and his face mauve. 

For the moment, our hectic advance had been called to a halt. None of us 
knew why, and frankly none of us was very much bothered. War was still war 
whether the column advanced or whether it stood still. Much we cared. 

Julius Heide, who had dug himself into a hole in the snow, suggested a game 
of pontoon, but our hands were too numb to hold the cards. The Legionnaire, 
indeed, had serious frostbite on both fingers and ears, and the ointment used 
for treatment seemed only to aggravate the condition. Porta had jettisoned his 
supply on the very first day, complaining that it stank of cat shit. 

After a bit, Alte appeared, fighting his way towards us against the wind. We 
looked up at him, questioningly, knowing that he'd come straight from the C.O. 

'Well?' said Porta. 

The Old Man didn't reply immediately. He tossed his gun to the ground and 
more cautiously lowered himself on to the snow beside it. The next step was 
the ritual lighting of the pipe, the famous old pipe with a cover over the bowl, 
which he had made himself. The Legionnaire handed over his lighter. It was 
the very best lighter in all the world and had never yet been known to fail. It, 
too, was home-made, manufactured from an old lead box, a razor blade, a 
few scraps of rag and a piece of flint. 

'Well?' insisted Porta, growing impatient. 'What'd he say?' 

Little John, beneath the tank, began beating at his thighs in an effort to restore 
circulation. 

'Christ Jesus, it's perishing!' Gingerly, he rubbed the parchment cheeks of his 
face. 'Did someone say spring was just around the corner?' 


'Like hell, it's bloody Christmas in three weeks!' came the cheerless retort 
from Porta. 'And I can tell you here and now the only present you're likely to 
get is one in the head from Ivan.' 

The Old Man, with deadened fingers, had pulled a map from his tunic pocket 
and was carefully spreading it out on the snow. 

'Here you are. This is where we're going.' 

He pointed to a spot marked on the map. Little John crawled out from his 
resting place to take a look. 

'Kotilnikovo,' said Alte, jabbing a finger on the map. 'Thirty kilometres behind 
our front line. From Kotilnikovo we take off in the direction of some place 
called Obilnoje to have a look at the Russian troops. See what they're doing, 
how many of 'em are doing it... In other words, it's a reconnaissance trip. And 
if by any chance we find ourselves cut off with no means of getting back—' 
The Old Man smiled, pleasantly – 'our orders are to try and make contact with 
the 4th Rumanian Army, which is believed to be somewhere south-west of the 
Volga ... At the moment, that is. God knows where it'll be when we want to get 
hold of it. Blown out of existence, probably.' 

A moment of silence. A reverberating fart from Porta spoke more or less 
adequately for the entire group. 

'Who's got bats in the brain box, you or the C.O.? Ivan's not bloody blind, you 
know. He'll spot these tanks a bleeding mile off.' 

The Old Man smiled again his pleasant smile. 

'There's more to it than that. The best is yet to come. Just wait till you've 
heard it.' 

He removed his pipe from his mouth and thoughtfully ' scratched his ear lobe 
with the stem. 

The idea is to dress up in Russian uniforms and move about behind the 
Russian lines in the two T.34s we captured off them.' 

The Legionnaire sat suddenly bolt upright. 

'That's the next best thing to suicide.' His tone was accusing. They've no right 
to do it. If Ivan catches us dressed up in his clothes like that, we're done for.' 

'It might be a quicker death than slowly freezing at Kolyma,' murmured Alte. 
'On the whole, I think I should probably prefer it.' 

Without giving us the chance of further comment, he brought us to our feet 
and we slouched unsoldierly through the snow towards the C.O.'s vehicle. 


Captain Lander had not been long with the battalion. He came from Lesvig 
and he was known to be a fanatical Nazi. Dubious rumours, linking his name 
with various cases of ill-treatment of children, had reached the ever-receptive 
ears of the men at the front. Porta, as always, was the one who dug out the 
truth, via his friend Feders. A story emerged of icy baths in a certain 'place of 
education' with which it appeared Captain Lander had been connected. We 
were not particularly surprised. Many of those who joined the battalion had 
past lives that hardly bore investigation. Men who clapped you on the 
shoulder and called you friend, men who freely passed round their cigarettes, 
who received parcels of bacon and ham from Denmark, who boasted of the 
way they got on with the people of the occupied countries – sooner or later, 
their past caught up with them, and then it was either Porta or the Legionnaire 
who was responsible for their future. 

Some were knifed between the shoulders blades during the course of a 
general attack; some were left to die of cold; and some were handed over to 
Ivan. What he did with them we never knew for certain. Perhaps it was just as 
well. 

Captain Lander was waiting for us, standing with legs apart, gauntleted hands 
on hips. He was a smallish, plumpish man, about fifty years of age, the former 
owner of a delicatessen. He was much given to biblical quotations and 
scriptural-sounding speeches. Whenever he court-martilled a man, it was: 
'This hurts me far more than it hurts you, but it is the will of God. His ways are 
imponderable when he leads the straying sheep back to the path of 
righteousness.' 

Captain Lander prayed a great deal. Before meals, he said a lengthy grace. 
Before signing execution orders for Russian civilians (taken by him and him 
alone to be partisans) he invariably invoked the Holy Ghost. The sight of 
mangled and bullet-ridden bodies merely brought forth the observation that 
those who lived by the sword should die by the sword. 

The day on which he himself executed a young girl produced the following 
fine turn of phrase: 'You will find a better world than this in the kingdom of the 
Lord.' He then gently stroked her hair and had to shoot twice before he 
succeeded in despatching her to the aforesaid kingdom. 

In general, there seemed to exist a confusion in his mind between God and 
Adolf Hitler. 

The, Captain kept himself always a respectable distance from the actual 
fighting. His iron cross was, quite simply, the result of a colossal red-tape faux 
pas. When the regiment made an attempt to discover what acts of heroism lay 
behind the award, Lt. Col. Hinka received orders direct from those in the 
highest authority in the Bendlerstrasse to drop all inquiries forthwith. 

Alte made bis report, and Captain Lander turned a grave face towards us. 


'War,' he explained, solemnly, 'demands its victims. It is the will of God. If a 
war does not kill, then it is no war. The mission on which I am sending you will 
for most of you no doubt end in death. But it will be the death of a soldier. An 
honourable death.' 

'Fucking hooray,' muttered Little John, very audibly. 

The Captain paused. He gave Little John a look that managed to be 
disapproving without in any way displaying annoyance. He had been well 
taught in the military school in Dresden: an officer never loses face. As a 
cadet, Lander had filled twenty-six exercise books with notes on the 
comportment of officers in all possible circumstances, including a complete 
section on 'how to behave on a bicycle'. He now, therefore, contented himself 
with a lofty stare in Little John's direction and continued with his homily. 

'Death can be beautiful,' he told us. He lifted up his voice and sang out loud to 
the falling snowflakes. 'It can even be sweet!' he cried. 'Death can even be 
sweet... It is the bounden duty of a German soldier to fight for the Fatherland. 
To give up his life if called upon to do so. What more could he ask than to die 
a hero's death?' 

'I could tell you, if you're really interested!' 

Little John again. It was obvious from the Captain's twitching lips that he was 
under a strain. His face, already blue with cold, passed rapidly from purple to 
scarlet, and then slowly paled. 'I shall be glad, Corporal, if you will kindly 
remain silent until such time as I choose to speak to you.' 

'Yes, sir!' said Little John, smartly. 'Remain silent,' he murmured, as if to lodge 
the words more securely in his memory. 'Remain silent until Captain chooses 
to speak to you.' 

Porta guffawed, and the Legionnaire drew his features into a hideous grin. 
Steiner spat lustily upon a nearby corpse half buried in the snow. 

Captain Lander gnawed at his lower lip. With his right hand he sought the 
comfort of his gun belt, fingering the Walther revolver that he carried. 

'The mission with which you are to be entrusted is one of vital importance. 
You should be proud and happy that you have been selected for it. It is 
evidently the will of God that you men should penetrate beyond the Russian 
lines.' 

'God?' said the voice of Little John, plaintive and puzzled. 'I thought it was the 
will of our Generals?' 

In one instant, twenty-six exercise books with notes on the comportment of 
officers were swept aside. Lander strode forward to Little John and stood 
quivering, his head on a level with Little John's chest. As he spoke, a spray of 
saliva came from his lips. 


'Insubordinate sot! It's three days' hard labour for you, my man. Insolence 
towards officers will not be tolerated in the German Army! One more sound 
out of you and I'll shoot you on the spot! Repeat what I have just said.' 

Little John rolled anguished eyes at the rest of us. 

'How can I?' he asked, humbly. 'One more sound and I shall be shot.' 

For a moment, it seemed only too probable. Lander's hand hovered above his 
revolver. The seconds passed. 'Down on your knees!' 

Little John stepped back a pace and bent his head for a better view of the 
Captain. 

'Who, me?' he said. 

The order came a second time, rapped out falsetto. 

'Down on your knees!' 

Obediently, Little John plummeted down into the snow, like a sack of potatoes 
falling from a great height. Lander drew a breath, spat disdainfully, turned 
back to the rest of us. 

'This man is a disgrace to the regiment. He shall be dealt with by a court 
martial.' 

Little John muttered to himself in the snow, but Lander either did not hear or 
chose to ignore it. Abandoning his more usual biblical turn of phrase, he gave 
us the details of the glorious mission we were to undertake for the Fatherland. 
Quite simply, it was intended that we should dress ourselves up in Russian 
uniforms and set off in two captured T.34s for the enemy lines. It was a clear 
violation of the Geneva Convention, but Captain Lander dismissed both us 
and the Convention with a wave of the hand. It was plain that as far as he was 
concerned we were already to be regarded as 'missing, believed dead'. 

The first difficulty that we encountered was finding a uniform large enough to 
cover the bulk of Little John's elephantine frame. He himself declared that it 
was not so much a question of violating the Geneva Convention as of 
violating the basic rights of man to make a person put on such a uniform. Only 
minutes before our departure we were still fighting to squeeze him into a pair 
of Russian trousers designed for a man of far more modest proportions. 

There were no fanfares as our section took its leave of the rest of the 
regiment. Our tanks moved off across the steppes and were soon lost to sight 
behind a curtain of snow. 'And that's the last we'll see of them,' seemed to be 
the general feeling of those who watched us go. 

The tank hauled itself, groaning, up the side of a steep incline. A burst of blue 
flames came from the exhaust pipe, and the sound of the motor rolled and 


reverberated in the mountain valleys. The adjutant, Blom – Barcelona Blom, 
who dreamt of Spanish sunshine and orange groves – opened one of the side 
panels and peered out into the night. 

'Mountains,' he said, in tones of disgust. 'Nothing but bloody great snowy 
mountains.' 

'And Ruskies,' added Alte, dispassionately. 'You can bet your' sweet life those 
hills are crawling with 'em.' 

'Do you reckon we're behind their lines yet?' 

'Hours ago.' 

Alte had his forehead pressed hard against the rubber surround of the turret 
window. For some time he had been unsuccessfully attempting to see out, but 
the snow was too thick and visibility was down to nil. 

'I just hope to heaven we don't run slap bang into a minefield,' he muttered. 

Little John gave a sour snicker and crammed his old grey bowler more firmly 
on to his head. Little John's bowler was the pride and joy of the battalion – 
though there were those who said it had been responsible for more than one 
officer throwing a fit of apoplexy – and he refused to be parted from it for so 
much as a minute. 

'Here—' He turned hopefully to the Legionnaire. 'What's the chance of me 
getting into this Garden of Allah you're always on about?' 

'Not very good,' said the Legionnaire. 'On the other hand, if you could only 
manage to stop sinning and start praying I don't doubt Allah would manage to 
find a place for you.' 

Porta made a vulgar noise with his lips. 

'Allah wouldn't want scum like him mucking up his garden!' 

'Besides,' added Heide, gravely, 'if he let Little John in there just think of all 
the trash that would follow. Before you knew where you were it wouldn't be a 
garden any more, it'd just be a bloody great rubbish dump.' 

'You shut your mouth,' warned the Legionnaire, who was touchy on the 
subject. 'Allah knows what he's up to without any help from the likes of you.' 

A stifled cry from Alte brought us all back to earth. Once again we were 
soldiers, professional killers. We had run into the rear end of a regiment of 
Russian infantry, and Porta jammed oh the brakes with only seconds to spare. 
The Russians were waving at us, shouting to us, but the sound of the motors 
drowned their voices and they were quickly lost to sight once again in the 
blinding snow. To our relief, our sister tank presently appeared, a massive 


black shadow in the white world. There had been no signs of alarm amongst 
the Russians: evidently there was nothing amiss with our T.34s adorned with 
the red star of the Soviets. Alte spoke on the radio: 'Distance between 
vehicles.' 

The other tank slowed down, the shadow faded, and we were aware of her 
presence only by the grinding of her caterpillar tracks coming over the radio. 

'Dora here, Dora here,' droned Alte. 'Direction 216, speed 30. Over and out.' 

The sounds of the other tank were abruptly cut off and again there was 
silence. 

'God, it's bloody freezing,' I said. 

As if anyone cared. 

'Get out and run along behind us shouting "Heil Hitler",' suggested Porta. 'You 
won't be freezing for long. Not if those Russians are still within earshot.' 

'It's all very well,' I said, 'but it's not much fun moving along cheek by jowl with 
enemy troops. If they get the least idea that we're not what we seem to be—' 

'Then it's curtains for us,' said Alte, shortly. 'And who could blame them? 
We're violating all the rules of the game.' 

'So why are we doing it?' demanded Little John. 

'Because it's bloody orders!' snapped Heide. 'And orders is orders, you ought 
to know that by now.' 

We continued throughout the night, quarrelsome and companionable by turns. 
We were in the midst of one of our interminable slanging matches when Alte 
suddenly let out a small, high-pitched bark of terror. The slanging stopped 
instantly. 

'What is it?' 

'Prepare for combat.' 

No one spoke. The Legionnaire picked up his gun, I groped silently for a 
grenade, Barcelona glued his eye to the observation panel. A harsh voice 
suddenly yelled something in Russian, and Alte replied in a Baltic dialect. The 
other T.34 close behind us, saw us too late to pull up in time and crashed into 
our rear. The Russian voice cursed it fluently with all the remarkable variety of 
obscenities available in that language. The owner of the voice then jumped on 
to our vehicle and bellowed out an order. 

'Follow that column of tanks away to your right!' 


It was an officer, wearing a cap with the green cross of the N.K.V.D. The sight 
of him was enough to paralyse us with sheer terror. Little John opened his 
mouth to yell, but fortunately no sound came out. Alone amongst us, Alte 
retained his presence of mind. 

'Where do you come from? The Baltic?' demanded the Russian. 

'Da.' 

'I gathered as much from the disgusting dialect you speak. Try to learn some 
good Russian after we've won the war ... and get this bloody tank moving.' 

'Dawai, dawai (quickly) you idle load of sods!' shouted Alte, in our direction, 
and he added the obligatory string of oaths. 

Meekly we took our place at the end of a long column of tanks. The police of. 
the N.K.V.D. were all over the place, shouting, stamping, gesticulating, trying 
to keep some sort of order and creating only chaos. 

'Where the hell have you lot come from?' asked the officer, offering the Old 
Man a machorka. 

Alte babbled something incoherent about a special mission, but the officer 
seemed not particularly interested and in any case his attention was diverted 
by a sudden bottleneck that brought the entire line of tanks to a halt. We 
heard him disputing vigorously with one of the policemen, demanding that a 
passage be cleared for our two tanks'- it seemed that he himself was in a 
great hurry to arrive somewhere, and after a few sharp exchanges, in which 
the word Siberia occurred with horrid fre.quency, the police moved back and 
waved us forward. 

'Step on it!' snapped the officer. 

Porta only too willingly did so, his performance with the heavy tank bringing 
forth words of grudging praise and the request that Alte should speak to the 
CO. as to the possibility of Porta being seconded to the personal service of 
the Russian. Alte gravely promised to give the matter his urgent attention. 

After some fifteen minutes the officer abandoned his exposed position on the 
outside of the vehicle and came to join the common rabble inside. Alte silently 
gestured a warning to the rest of us as two booted feet swung into view. A 
second later, the officer appeared in his entirety. He stamped his feet loudly 
on the metal floor of the tank, in an effort to restore his circulation. 

This place stinks like a brothel.' He looked round at us, studying each in turn 
and dwelling for some while on Little John and his grey bowler. 'Where's the 
vodka?' he demanded, at last. 

Alte handed over a jar, and we watched in silence as he poured the contents 
straight down his throat. 


We came at length to a check point, when an N.K.V.D. sergeant demanded 
the password. 

'Papliji tumani nad rjegoj,' replied our officer. 

'Do these tanks belong to the 67th?' the sergeant wanted to know. 

'Niet. They're on a special mission.' 

The sergeant told us to wait while he consulted his superiors. 

'Hell and damnation!' The Russian hoisted himself out of the tank and jumped 
to the ground. 'I can't hang around here all day. Time's precious, I'm in a 
hurry.' 

Muttering and cursing beneath his breath, he followed the sergeant. We 
watched as they approached a major, who was sitting on a canvas stool 
beneath a tree and was surrounded by a swarm of N.K.V.D. men. We saw the 
officer waving a handful of papers, saw the major leafing through them; saw 
him finally look across at our tank and laugh, then point towards another 
vehicle standing nearby. Our officer also looked and also laughed. Plainly he 
was being offered a more comfortable means of transport than a T.34. 

After a bit, the sergeant came across to us and handed over several sheets of 
paper. 

'Here you are. New password. You can forget the other.' 

'How come?' inquired Alte, very casual and offhand. 

'There's a rumour that a bunch of Krauts are junketing about behind our lines 
in a couple of our own tanks, but we'll soon get our hands on them. Just to be 
on the safe side, we've changed all the passwords... Where's the vodka?' 

Alte passed up Little John's own personal supply, and once again we watched 
spellbound as it disappeared rapidly down an avid Russian throat. The bottle 
was tossed into the snow and the sergeant broke wind very loudly at either 
end of himself. 

'That's better ... O.K. The new password. You'd best take careful note of it. It's 
been specially chosen so that any stray Krauts that might be in the area 
couldn't pronounce it even if they knew what it was – not that you'll be in much 
better case with your lousy Baltic accents, but still, I can't teach you good 
Russian all in five minutes... Now try to get it into your thick skulls. "Raswjetili 
jablonski i gruschi". Panjemajo? (Got it?) The reply is "Schaumjana uliza". 
And if anyone says otherwise, shoot first and ask questions afterwards. 
Schaumjana uliza. Headquarters of the N.K.V.D. in Tomsk, in case your 
ignorance is even greater than I imagined. Now, then—' He climbed up on to 
the tank and leaned forward towards Alte. 'This is your new itinerary. Take the 
road for Sadovoje, but don't go through the town, it's already crowded out with 


the whole of the 14th Division. Take the road to the south, to Krasnoje. They'll 
give you a new password there. Panjemajo, Gospodin?' 

'Da,'said Alte. 

'O.K., then,' 

The sergeant raised his hand in a farewell salute and jumped off the tank. We 
were free to go our own way once more – only this time we had the blessing 
of the Russians to go with us! 

For some hours we drove eastwards, giving a wide berth to any villages en 
route. Several times we passed groups of Russian soldiers, but only once was 
the password demanded of - 

In the late evening we reached the mountains and called a temporary halt in a 
wood, where the tanks were well hidden from any prying Russian eyes. Alte 
called up headquarters for new directions, and the order came through at 
once: proceed towards Tuapse. 

We set off again, in a south-westerly direction, and proceeded for some miles 
in comparative silence, which was ultimately broken by the voice of doom 
coming from Porta: 

'We'll be out of gas pretty soon.' 

No reaction from any of us save Little John, who wished to know how we were 
to continue without petrol, and warned the world in general that with (a) his 
corns and (b) his piles it was no earthly use expecting him to walk half way 
across Russia. No one deigned to reply. 

As we pressed on, the storm clouds gathered above us and on either side the 
mountains closed in. The country grew ever more wild, ever more bleak. It 
breathed hostility in every breath. The road we were following was shown on 
the map to be broad and straight, but it grew narrower and steeper mile by 
mile. The heavy tanks tended to skid on the glassy surface and it required 
great skill on the part of the drivers to keep them under control. The 
observation panel was a solid block of ice, totally useless. We had to keep the 
side panels open, with the result that the wind blew the snow in upon us in 
cold gusts. 

Quite suddenly, our sister tank, driven by Steiner, skidded on a patch of ice 
and slewed round in a semi-circle, and we Were forced to call a halt and go to 
her assistance. We broke two steel hawsers trying to drag her back on to the 
road facing in the right direction. They simply snapped in half as if they ' had 
been pieces of cotton. Next we tried it with the heavy, linked-chain towline. 
That got her moving all right, but she skidded once more on the same patch of 
ice and this time she came to rest on the extreme edge of the road, her front 
half overhanging the abyss. General consternation. Then Porta put his foot 
down hard on the accelerator, the towline straightened and held, the tank 


began slowly edging back on to the road. Just as we were all starting to let out 
breaths of relief, the towline parted company from the tank, which went 
crashing down into the depths, and somehow managed to take little Müller 
down with her. God knows how it happened. For a few moments we remained 
silent and stunned, and as usual it was Alte who was the first to pull himself 
together. 

'How much petrol have we?' 

Porta considered the matter. 

'Just about enough to clean Little John's trousers.' 

'That's O.K., then,' said Heide, cheerfully. That should mean there's enough to 
take us all the way to Siberia and back.' 

Alte rounded on him. 

'Do you mind? This is no laughing matter. I want to know exactly how much 
farther we can hope to get.' 

'According to the petrol gauge, no farther at all,' admitted Porta. 

'Right. In that case we'll send her over the top with the other. We'll strip her of 
arms and ammunition, anything that might come in handy – and just 
remember that the machine guns are of more use than the vodka. There's 
another 600 kilometres between us and the German lines.' 

'Nothing I like more than a nice stroll in the country,' said Porta, beaming 
round at us. 

'What about my corns?' hissed Little John. 

'I don't give a monkey's cuss for your corns!' snapped Alte, exasperated. 'If 
you don't want to walk you can stay here and rot.' 

Heide shrugged a shoulder. . 

'As far as those other bastards are concerned, we were goners from the 
moment we set out.' . 

We unloaded the tank, Porta set the motor running, turned her towards the 
edge of the road and jumped out. We watched with a certain satisfaction as 
the heavy grey mass moved slowly into space. 

'That's that,' said Steiner, hoisting one of the machine guns over his shoulder. 
'Come on, you band of bleeding heroes get walking!" 

'I don't feel at home in all this snow,' complained Little John. 'It's not a bit like 
the Reeperbahn... number 26.' 


'What's so different about that?' 

Little John's eyes clouded over and an expression of dreamy imbecility spread 
across his face. 

'It's a whorehouse,' he said, blissfully. 

We walked on throughout the night and the following morn ing, not calling a 
halt until late in the afternoon. Little John produced a packet of machorkas, of 
the kind doled out to the Soviet troops, and we sat about in the snow smoking 
them, hungrily drawing the raw smoke into our lungs, exhaling on long sighs 
of satisfaction. Our rumbling bellies, our aching feet, our frostbitten hands and 
faces and our desperate position were all temporarily forgotten in the earthly 
joys of the vodka bottle and a packet of fags. 

On the sixth day we emerged from the mountains and were once more in the 
plains. Alte, Steiner and Barcelona trekked doggedly on, while the rest of us, 
Porta and Little John, the Legionnaire, the Professor and myself, took 
momentary shelter behind a jagged line of rocks and shared out, with 
scrupulous care, our last hunks Of bread. Sheer fatigue had robbed us all of 
our former alert watchfulness. When the harsh cry of 'Stoj ktol' (halt) came 
ringing across the plain towards us we were scarcely able to believe our ears. 
Or, seconds later, our eyes, when we turned in the direction of the sound and 
found a dog sledge moving towards us across the snow. It had come up 
unexpectedly, previously hidden by a fold in the ground, and it was on us 
before we had the wit to prepare ourselves. 

The sledge drew to a flying halt a few feet away from Alte and the other two. 
Its only occupants were a couple of soldiers, short and stocky, wearing the 
green cross of the N.K.V.D. They both had skis on their feet and they both 
carried guns. As the sledge drew up, one of the soldiers stepped off into the 
snow and went towards Alte, holding out his hand imperatively while the other 
stood covering him. It was plain to the rest of us, now crouched down behind 
the rocks and furtively watching every move, that they were asking for papers. 
The imperious gesture was unmistakable, even on the wind-swept wastes of 
the Caucasus. 

There seemed little we could do to help the situation; Our own comrades 
stood between us and the two Russians, directly in the line of fire. Impossible 
to shoot without hitting them. The Legionnaire, hardened by long years of 
fighting in the mountains and the deserts of Africa, was the only one of us 
capable of dealing with such a situation. Inch by painful inch, he left the cover 
of the rocks and dragged himself on his belly through the snow. Alte and the 
others were fortunately standing in a close group, the snow blanketed all 
sound, and the Legionnaire was able to move right up behind them before 
anyone was aware of his presence. At the last moment he rose up like an 
avenging ghost and opened fire without giving the Russians a chance to 
defend themselves. One, indeed, managed to turn tail and run, but Little 
John's knife was between his shoulders before he had gone more than a few 
yards. 


The dog team had bounced forward at the sound of the shots. Alte fortunately 
managed to head them off, and caught hold of the leader's harness. The dog 
growled, menacingly, attempted to sink its teeth into the nearest portion of 
human flesh, but the Old Man clenched a firm hand round its muzzle and 
spoke soothingly to it. 

Piled high into the sledge were spare skis and a supply of both food and 
arms, not to mention two kegs full of vodka. In five minutes flat we were 
ourselves full of vodka, and the Russian soldiers had been stripped naked, 
even down to their identity discs. We left them lying in the snow and set off 
once more on our interrupted journey, making use of both sledge and skis. 
Before we left the spot, the two naked bodies were already frozen solid. 

We called him 'the Professor'. He was Norwegian, and at theoutbreak of war 
had been a student. He had voluntarily enrolled in the SS. No one was quite 
able to make him out. Portasaid he was a traitor and would be hanged in the 
Gudbrandsdalif ever he went back to Norway. Alte attempted to defend 
him,by pointing out that we did not know precisely what had ledhim to join up, 
but Porta maintained that if he were not guiltyof treachery he was guilty of 
stupidity, and stupidity in itselfdeserved punishment. 

He was certainly naive. Having made the initial mistake of joining forces with 
Hitler, he then discovered to his amazement and dismay that he was by no 
means in agreement with certain of the methods of the S.S. — and was 
foolish enough to imagine that he could voice his opinion on the subject and 
get away unscathed. He was naturally transferred immediately to Camp KZ 
and from there to the front line, to a disciplinary regiment. Our regiment. 

CHAPTER TWO 

EVERY now and again, Little John would trip over his skis and fall flat on his 
face in the snow. And every time Little John fell flat on his face, the steppes 
rang from one corner to another with vicious oaths. The Professor stumbled 
along behind, no more skilled in the art of skiing than Little John and even 
less able to cope. His spectacles were iced over and he sobbed convulsively, 
without, I think, being aware of the fact. 

'Bloody S.S. man!' jeered Porta. 'That's what you get for volunteering!' 

The Professor caught his skis together and lurched forward. His spectacles 
fell into the snow. 

Julius Heide was running alongside the dog team, encouraging them with a 
flow of abuse. 

'Come on, you bastards! Get a flaming move on, can't you?' 

The leader of the team raced neck and neck with him, curling its lips back 
over its teeth and from time to time, when man and dog converged upon each 


other, taking quick, hopeful bites in Heide's direction. Heide would then roar 
with rage and shake a fist. 

'Lousy stinking dog! Tschorny! (Pig!) Bite me again and I'll punch you in the 
throat, you mangy yellow cur! If I hate one thing more than Jews, it's dogs... 
And if I hate one thing more than dogs, it's snow...' 

Heide made an effort and for a moment outpaced the team. Then the leader 
bounded forward and overtook him, the other dogs straining forward in its 
wake, and as the sledge passed by Heide tripped and fell headlong. 

'Hoha! Hoha!' bellowed Alte, cracking his long whip above the heads of the 
team. 

The sledge moved on, swift and silent. Heide picked himself up, shook an 
angry fist in its wake and stepped out again with his long, rangy strides. 

'I've had just about as much of this as I can take,' I confided to Porta. - 'Then 
drop out and die,' came the unfeeling response. 

I began counting every step I took. One step must be about a metre. More or 
less. Perhaps a bit more... No. One step was a metre. Therefore a thousand 
steps were a kilometre. We covered one kilometre in three minutes. For 
twelve hours -twenty-four hours – forty-eight hours – I continued counting 
steps. I fell down, I stood up, I closed my eyes, my legs moved automatically, 
I lost count, I started again, I fell into reveries in the middle of it all. But I 
calculated that in fourteen days we should reach the German lines. Always 
assuming that there were still any lines to reach. 

Frequently, Alte checked the direction with his compass. Far, far away to the 
northwest there was the Baltic; and on the far side of the Baltic were Sweden 
and Denmark. 

I was dreaming of Sweden and Denmark when the Professor – it had to be 
him – gave a pitiful wail of despair and announced that one of his skis had 
broken. The news brought us to an immediate standstill. Alte called the dog 
team to a halt, slowly stepped off the sledge into the snow and pulled out his 
pipe. Little John sank to the ground and lay sprawling with legs falling apart. 
Within seconds he was covered by a thick layer of snow. He looked quite 
ridiculous. Porta sat propped up against the runners of the sledge, Heide lay 
down full length on his stomach. The rest of us flopped about in various 
positions. We were all too weary to talk, or even to think. The dogs had also 
settled down. They huddled together, nose to tail, huge furry snowballs. We 
stared at them, unseeing, until at length Alte removed his pipe from his mouth 
and shook us out of our lethargy. 

'Can't stay here like this, not moving. Let's call it a day and get dug in.' 

Mechanically, we began scraping up the snow with our hands, crawling on all 
fours like children, fashioning solid blocks of snow for our nightly igloo. Little 


John worked with a fury that put the rest of us to shame, producing four 
blocks for every one of ours. In his haste and enthusiasm he occasionally 
dropped and broke one of his freshly-made blocks. He then expended yet 
more energy in trampling it underfoot with a volley of curses directed partly at 
the weather, partly at 'those bleeding Russians'. 

'Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man,' chanted Porta, lovingly kneading the 
crisp snow into shape. 'Has it ever occurred to you lot that the upper classes 
spent hundreds going winter sporting every season? And here are we, getting 
it all for nothing—' 

'Oh, put a sock in it!' growled Heide. 

'You don't know when you're well off, that's your trouble—' 

'Be quiet!' The Legionnaire suddenly sat up straight, his head on one side. 'I 
can hear something.' 

We all listened. 

'Balls!' said Porta, succinctly. 'As I was saying—' 

'They've heard it, too.' 

The Legionnaire nodded towards the dogs. Their ears were pricked up, their 
hackles raised. We all listened once again, but there was no sound anywhere 
on the silent steppes. 

'You're dreaming,' said Barcelona. 

'Oh? And what about the dogs?' 

'They've caught it from you. You think there's something out there, so it makes 
them think there's something out there. Snow madness, like water in the 
desert.' 

The Legionnaire merely pursed his lips, picked up his gun and held it at the 
ready, as if he were expecting someone or something suddenly to surge up 
out of the whiteness. And then, disconcertingly, the dogs began to whine. 
They sat up, stiff and straight, their heads turned towards the west. We all 
stared in the same direction. The Professor frantically wiped the snow from 
his glasses and screwed up his short-sighted eyes. 

'I can't see a thing,' he complained. 

And then Alte pointed sharply ahead. 

'Dogs! Get down, all of you ... Professor, stay with our team, and God help 
you if any of them start barking. Porta and Heide, over there with the heavy 


guns. Sven, you and Barcelona over on the left with the flame throwers. The 
rest of you, space yourselves out. Fifty metres between each man.' 

We had carried out his orders almost before he had finished.: speaking, 
digging ourselves into the ground with weapons at the ready. The snow 
quickly camouflaged us. 

We could all hear the approaching dogs now, although we could not yet see 
them. They burst suddenly into view: two long sledges, with three soldiers of 
the N.K.V.D. on each. They were passing within forty metres of us, going 
south at a spanking pace, drawn by two teams of three dogs. We heard the 
crack of a whip and the encouraging shouts, 'Ho aho! Ho aho!' and we lay 
trembling in our dugouts praying that our own dogs would not respond to the 
call.. 

A miracle: nothing happened. We held our breath to bursting point, unable to 
believe our luck. The two sledges passed us by, were soon out of sight and 
sound, and still we remained frozen in place. 

'Jeesus!' breathed Heide, at last. 'That was a close shave.' 

'We could have coped with 'em,' declared Little John, roundly. 'What's six 
Russians more or less?' 

'We should have shot them,' said Barcelona. He appealed to Alte. 'We ought 
to have shot than. One N.K.V.D. type in the , bag is worth half a dozen of any 
other sort.' 

Alte shrugged his shoulders and squinted up at the sky. The weather seemed 
to be growing worse, if that were possible. The sky was entirely hidden by the 
snow and the Russian wind was howling as if in sympathy with its six 
compatriots who had passed within so short a distance of the enemy without 
ever seeing them. The whole country seemed to be against us, screaming out 
its hatred of all invaders. 

With a sudden violent burst, the wind excelled itself. We saw our equipment 
hurled in all directions, flung wildly about by the tempest, and with shouts of 
rage and despair we hurled ourselves after it, staggering in the face of the 
gale. 

'Sodding awful country!' screamed Heide. 

The Professor came stumbling back with his arms full of equipment. Tears 
were running down his face. 

'I'm so tired. I'm so tired. I'm so—' 

'Flaming shut up!' shouted Porta. 'If you'd have had any sense you'd have 
stayed nice and safe at home in Norway. You got yourself into this mess, 
didn't you? You wanted to be a hero, didn't you? Gallant little Norwegian 


fighting the good fight against the nasty wicked Bolsheviks? My God, old 
Quisling must have been proud of you!' He turned and spat into the face of the 
wind. 'You wait till you get back home again, that's all I say.' 

The Professor wiped his nose on his sleeve. 

'I shan't ever get back home again.' 

'No?' said Porta. 'Well, in that case it's the Ruskies that'll get you. You listened 
to Moscow radio recently?' 

'Of course not. It's forbidden to tune into foreign ' stations.' 

Little John smote his fist hard against his forehead. 

'Holy cow, just listen to him! You still think the great German Army's going to 
win this war?' 

The Norwegian doubtfully shook his head. 

'You think we're going to lose? he asked. 

'Let me tell you something.' Little John took the Professor's arm, turned him 
round and pointed in a vague, northerly direction. 'Over there, they've got 
enough cannons to blow the whole of the Sixth Army sky high. And all the rest 
of the bunch, too, right down to the last soldier.' He paused. 'You know who 
that's going to be?' he demanded. 

The Professor blinked myopically. 

'None other than yours truly!' declared Little John, puffing his chest out. 'And 
when the Chancellery of the Reich is nothing but a heap of rubble, it's going to 
be me that stands amongst the ruins and spits on it all. And on all the bones 
of our glorious dead heroes.' 

'That wouldn't surprise me in the slightest,' murmured Alte. 

Little John kicked angrily at the snow, and then gave a shout of surprise and 
fell on his knees and began digging. Suddenly, a hand appeared, like a plant 
growing out of the earth. Shortly afterwards Little John uncovered a face, 
hideous to look upon, blue, shrunken, lips drawn back over the teeth, eyes 
sunk deep into their sockets. After a moment's shock, we all fell to scraping 
away the snow like a pack of terriers. There were two bodies in the shallow 
grave. Two German infantrymen. The arm of one was still held upright, finger 
crooked, frozen into position, as if beckoning us to join him. Little John 
prodded it with his toe and turned away in disgust. 

'I never accept invitations from strange men,' he said. 

'Have a look in his pockets,' urged Barcelona. 


'Have a look yourself,' retorted Little John. 'I don't care for corpses.' 

Barcelona hesitated. 

'Well, go on, if you're so interested!' 

It was the Legionnaire who stepped forward. With a swift movement he took 
out his knife, bent over one of the bodies and slashed off a flask that was 
attached to the belt of the uniform. He tossed it towards Heide, who caught it 
awkwardly and stood for a moment with his mouth open, looking at it. 
Eventually he unscrewed the lid and held the flask beneath his nose. He 
twitched his nostrils delicately. 

'Smells like vodka.' 

He held it out to Barcelona, but Barcelona shook his head. Little John also 
declined the offer. It seemed suddenly that the whole group had turned 
teetotal. 

'Bloody idiots.' 

The Legionnaire stepped forward and snatched at the flask. We watched 
apprehensively as he raised it to his lips. We watched his Adam's apple rise 
and fall. Then we waited, expecting God knows what to happen. The 
Legionnaire wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. 

'Not bad,' he said. 'It's not vodka, but it's certainly alcohol.' 

At that, we reverted instantly to type. Porta and Little John soon had 
possession of the second flask, and amongst us we finished off both of them 
within a matter of seconds. Steiner thoughtfully removed the personal papers 
and identity discs from the two corpses, and we then retired into our roughly-
built igloo, hudded together in a tight circle. Ignoring Alte's protestations, we 
were firmly bedded down for the night and had every intention of falling asleep 
on the spot. No one was anxious to stand guard duty. As Little John remarked 
shortly before I sank into unconsciousness, we had twelve able-bodied dogs 
to keep a watch-out for us. 

The Legionnaire mocked at everything, had pity for no one. There were but 
two subjects on which he felt deeply: one washis religion (he was a fanatical 
Muslim) and the other wasFrance. He himself, of course, was a German, but 
many yearsspent in the Foreign Legion had made a Frenchman of him. 

Beneath the black uniform of the tank regiment he wore the Tricolor, wrapped 
round him like a scarf. In his breast pocket, with his military papers, he carried 
a small yellowing photograph of the man he persisted in calling 'mon General'. 
Lt. Ohlsen told us one day that it was a photograph of a Frenchman, Charles 
de Gaulle, who was fighting with the Free French in Africa. 


Heide stored up this piece of information and made use of it at a later date, 
during the course of a violent disagreement with ' the Legionnaire, when he 
gratuitously referred to 'mon Général' as 'a shit of the desert. Before any of us 
could move, the Legionnaire had whipped out his knife and scored a deep 
cross on Heide's cheek. The wound had needed several stitches and even 
now, whenever Heide grew angry, the shape of a cross appeared lividly on his 
face. The rest of us found it highly amusing, but both Heide and the 
Legionnaire took the affair very much to heart. 

'Say what you like about anyone else,' said the Legionnaire, 'but if I hear 
another word against mon Général somebody's going to get this knife right 
between his ribs. I'm telling you.' 

We took note of his warning, even though we laughed. No one ever insulted 
mon General again – at least, not in the Legionnaire's presence. 

CHAPTER THREE 

'O.K., take it easy. We'll break for half an hour.' 

Alte called the team to a halt. The rest of us thankfully unstrapped our skis 
and flopped down into the snow. The dogs lay panting, their breath forming 
clouds in the frosty air. Alte lit up a pipe, Barcelona gnawed on a frozen crust 
of bread. There was silence, comparative peace. And suddenly into this 
silence, Heide began to pour out the story of his life. 

The words flowed out of him, and to begin with we none of us paid any 
attention. It was not unusual for one of us to start talking, aimlessly, about 
nothing at all, without expecting or ever wishing anyone to take note of his 
words. It was a consequence of the life we were leading, the snow, the cold, 
the constant fear and the nearness of death. We slept together and we ate 
together, we were never apart from each other and yet there was this sense 
of individual isolation, a desperate alone-ness, that led us from time to time to 
hold long conversations with ourselves as if there were no one else for miles 
around. 

And so it was that Heide began speaking. The words flowed from him in a 
compulsive stream. He spoke not to us but to the steppes, to the dogs, to the 
snow and the wind.. We, if we listened at all, were mere eavesdroppers. 

'My old man was a drunk,' he said, and he spat contemptuously into the wind, 
which threw it straight back at him. 'Drank like a fish, he did. You know that? 
He drank like a ruddy fish...And Christ almighty, the stuff that bloke could get 
through! I'm not kidding you, six bottles were nothing to my old man. Nothing 
at all. You think you can drink?' He laughed scornfully at the listening dogs. 
'He'd have had you under the table any day of the week ... Not that he 
remained sober, I'm not saying that. Matter of fact, I hardly ever remember 
seeing him sober.' Heide frowned. 'He never was sober, that's the simple truth 
of it. Never sober, always pissed... And whenever he was pissed, he used to 
beat us kids black and blue with a whacking great leather belt he wore. 


Almost every day he used to beat us. We just accepted it, in the end, but my 
old , lady, she used to pray all the time. I never knew what she was ' praying 
for, she just used to mutter to herself in a corner. Dear God, please do this, 
dear God, please do that...' 

Heide stared past us towards the west, his eyes extraordinarily clear and blue, 
presumably seeing not the everlasting carpet of snow and the tall pine trees 
but the town in Westphalia and the hovel where he was born. 

'Know what my old man used to say when he beat us? "It's not because I'm 
drunk", he used to say. "I'm not doing it because I'm drunk, you mustn't think 
that. I'm doing it for Germany. It's all for Germany. The sinful flesh must be 
mortified." That's what he used to say. The sinful flesh must be mortified ... He 
used to mortify his sinful flesh, all right. In bed, with the old woman ... 
Sometimes we used to lie there listening to them, other times they'd send us 
out to the park for half an hour. We used to sit and look at a statue of the 
Kaiser sitting on a horse. Just sit and look at it until we thought we could go 
back in again. I even had to take my kid sister with . me, I had to carry her 
everywhere, she hadn't learnt to walk yet ... I had another sister once. Bertha. 
She was the oldest, but she died. They gave me her scarf. I remember I went 
to church and said thank you for letting me have Bertha's scarf, on account of 
it was so cold that winter and I didn't have any overcoat ... I never did have an 
overcoat. Except once, I half inched one, only they found out before I had a 
chance to wear it. I had to go and talk to the priest about it. He hit me so hard 
I fell down and knocked his china cabinet over. Then he hit me again, harder 
than ever. Almost as hard as my old man used to wallop us. He was more 
mad about the china being broken than me nicking an overcoat... One of my 
brothers, he got out and joined the army. He wrote us a letter, with a 
photograph, showing what he looked like in uniform, but we never heard from 
him again. He called himself a Communist. Probably ended up in a 
concentration camp. He asked for trouble, that one. Never knew when to hold 
his tongue. Always screaming about the victory of the proletariat.' 

Heide laughed, cynically, at his brother's innocence. 

'Then there was Wilhelm. He was another of my brothers. He was the one that 
taught me to jump on trams when the conductor wasn't looking, and when he 
came up and asked for the fare we used to jump off again shouting all the 
rude words we knew. And we knew some, I can tell you ... We thought that 
was fun, shouting words at him when we could get off and run and he had to 
go on standing there and couldn't do a thing about it. Only one day he did it 
and Wilhelm fell under the tram and got crushed.' 

Heide shook his head. 

'They blamed me for that. They said I'd led him into trouble, but it wasn't true, I 
was younger than he was. It wasn't my fault he died ... I wanted to have his 
shoes, only they wouldn't fit me. I was bigger than Wilhelm. Younger but 
bigger, see? Wilhelm was always a skinny little bugger. So they gave his 
shoes to Ruth, but that was just a waste. She didn't need them for long on 


account of she was bought by some rich people in Linz – well, THEY called it 
adoption, only my old man got money for it so what I call it is selling her. She 
didn't half cry when she knew she'd got to go. The old man beat her black and 
blue until she stopped ... He got fifty marks for Ruth. It mightn't sound much to 
you, but it was a fortune to us, I can tell you. Kept the old man in booze for a 
few days, any rate ... He'd have sold the whole lot of us, if anyone'd been 
willing to buy, but no one wanted a couple of snotty-nosed brats. That's what 
he said. He went out and got plastered that night and when he came back we 
hid under the roof and didn't come down till he'd passed out, but anyway he 
beat us just the same in the morning ... It wasn't long after that when I came 
home from school one day and found the old lady sitting on the bed, weeping. 
I remember that day. I shall always remember that day.' 

Heide glanced up at the falling snow, then held out his hand to his hated 
enemy, the leader of the dog team, the mangy yellow cur he was always 
threatening to punch in the throat. To our amazement, the dog crawled up on 
its belly and began earnestly licking Heide's face, while Heide thoughtfully 
scratched behind its ear. By this time, we were all listening to his story. 

'I never knew why she was weeping,' he said. 'But I sat down on the bed with 
her and I started weeping, too, and we just wept together until I fell asleep. 
The other kids weren't there, I don't know where they'd gone. Playing in the 
streets, I expect. Anyway, it was dark when I woke up. I knew something was 
wrong – you know how you do? I could feel the old lady still lying there, but it 
was like being alone, all by myself. I couldn't hear her breathing or anything. I 
was so scared I couldn't move ... After a bit, I lit the candles and she was just 
lying there, staring up at the ceiling with her eyes wide open. I knew at once 
she was dead. I was only ten – nine and a half – but even at that age you 
know when someone's dead.' 

Heide suddenly looked directly at us, and his hard blue eyes, were full of 
tears. 

'My mother,' he said, very earnestly, 'was a good woman. She came from a 
good family. Respectable and hard working. She never used to beat us or 
swear at us. And you can believe this, or not, but I'm telling you it's the truth, 
my mother never once got drunk in all her life. The old man tried to make her, 
once. Him and one of our neighbours. They tried to force a bottle of booze 
down her. But she wasn't having any of it. You know what she did? She got 
hold of the bottle and she bashed the old man over the head with it. And when 
he got mad at her, she simply picked up the breadknife and stuck it into him,' 
Heide chuckled, reflectively. 'That put a stop to it, I can tell you! He had to 
have a couple of stitches, put in his leg ... Of course, he beat the hell out of 
her afterwards. That was only to be expected. But he couldn't force her to do 
anything she thought was wrong.' 

'What happened that time you were talking about?' demanded Little John, 
suddenly breaking in on the monologue. 'When you woke up and found her?' 


Heide scratched at his frostbitten face, removed a scab and handed it to the 
dog. The dog sniffed at it suspiciously, then ate it. Heide frowned., 

'The old man came in. Pissed as a newt, as usual. Just roaring for a fight with 
someone. He brought one of his pals with him. A fellow called Schmidt. A real 
bum.' 

Heide's frown intensified. His eyes were dry again, very hard and bright, and 
his mouth took on the thin, bitter line that we knew so well of old, lips pulled 
together as if he were sucking a lemon. 

'One of these days, I'm going to get that bastard Schmidt,' he said. 

'Why?' demanded Little John,.at once interested. 'What's he done to you?' 

'He's a shit,' said Heide, as if that in itself were sufficient reason. 'He used to 
work down the mines with my old man, then they threw him put of there and 
he went to the local loony bin and called himself a male nurse. Nurse! From 
all accounts he used to bash the patients about something terrible. He must 
be having the time of his life right now. He's in charge of the crematorium, and 
believe me there are plenty of bodies waiting to be burnt. They're being killed 
off like flies down there. It's supposed to be a government secret, but 
everyone knows about it.' 

'Why?' demanded Little John, again. 'Why's it supposed to be a secret if the 
nuts die, when it's not secret if you or me die?' 

'It's different,' said Heide, irritably. 'In the bin, they inject them with things and 
call it euthanasia.' 

' 'What for?' 

'How the hell do I know what for? Because they aren't any use to anyone, I 
suppose. It's the doctors that do it, it's all quite legal, it's just top secret.' 

There was a pause, while we considered the question of the nuts being put 
out of the way because they weren't any use to anyone. You could see the 
logic of it, but somehow it still left a bad taste in your mouth. 

'What about this Schmidt fellow?' asked Porta. 'This pal of your old man. You 
haven't told us what he was supposed to have done.' 

'What he did do,' corrected Heide. 'What he did and what he said ... When 
they came in, the pair of them, roaring and cursing and yelling at the old lady 
to get up and get their food for them ... I told them she was dead, but they 
wouldn't believe me. Schmidt just laughed and said she was putting it on. He 
said the mad old bags in the bin did that sort of thing. He knew how to deal 
with them. He said, why don't you try beating a bit of life into her? I reckon 
that'll make her drop her drawers and give us a little bit of something... Those 
were the words he used.'' 


Heide looked round at us. 

'I swore then I was going to get him one of these days.' 

'How?' asked the Legionnaire, practically. 

There followed a lurid discussion on the best way of dealing with a person like 
Schmidt. Heide listened, but did not join in. 

'I'll get the bastard,' he told us. 'I'll get him, don't you worry.' 

He gave us one of his diabolical smiles. 

'They beat the old lady practically to a pulp before they admitted she, was 
dead. Then they broke my arm and kicked me round the floor and went back 
to their drinking. I went and got the police. I said I didn't remember anything, 
and they arrested the pair of them on a charge of murder. They kept them in 
jug for six weeks before I decided to talk. When they came out the old man 
was so furious he half killed me ... So after I left hospital, I just packed my 
bags and went off on my own. And it's been that way ever since.' 

There was another silence. Many of us in the disciplinary regiments had pretty 
hard stories to tell, but I think Heide's was one of the hardest I'd heard. You 
couldn't like the man, but at least, now, you could understand him. If there'd 
been room in our hearts for sentiment, we might even have pitied him. 

'This Schmidt,' said Porta, eventually. 'You've left it a bit late, haven't you? I 
mean, you were just a kid—' 

'Seventeen years ago,' said Heide. He cuffed the dog away from him and 
stood up. 'Don't you worry, I haven't forgotten. I know where he is, and I'm 
going to get that bastard one of these fine days.' 

We believed him. It was one of those subjects, like the Legionnaire and mon 
Général, that you just didn't joke about. Most of us had our weak point, some 
obsession dear to our hearts, and men learnt not to talk lightly of these things. 

'I tell you,' repeated Heide, 'that bastard's got it coming to him.' 

'You bet!' said Porta, clapping him on the shoulder. You'll . get him all right, 
don't you worry.' 

Turkey! We could hardly believe our luck when we learntthat we were within 
easy reach of the border. It seemed toogood to be true. Within seconds of 
hearing the news we wereindulging in our usual wild flights of sexual fancy. 
We dreamt of brothels and harems, of belly-dancing and of exoticwomen. 

Within easy reach of the border! So near, and yet so very far. ... It seemed too 
good to be true: it was good to be true. Our fantasies were short-lived. There 
was no way of crossing the frontier... 


We left the village as we had entered it, Alte driving the dog team, the rest of 
us on skis, Heide cursing the mangy yellow cur. The only difference was that 
now we had a prisoner to accompany us on our long trek. 

CHAPTER FOUR 

THE dogs were exhausted. They stretched out, panting, in the snow, their 
flanks heaving, their tongues lolling. It was plain for all to see that we were an 
inexperienced crew when it came to handling dog teams. Even Alte, the all-
wise, was by no means an expert. He was a miller by profession, and 
doubtless a most excellent one. He was a soldier by necessity. A first-class 
soldier. He loved the former and he loathed the latter. As for the dog team, he 
did his best and certainly he handled them better than the rest of us could 
have done, but the fact remained, the dogs were exhausted. 

We ourselves were in no better state. The country was hostile. It breathed 
hostility in every fresh gust of wind. We felt it every minute of the day, and we 
felt that it was slowly destroying us. We fought and bickered amongst 
ourselves, we moaned ceaselessly, spirits were low and tempers generally 
were at breaking point. That very morning Little John and Heide had fought 
each other with bare fists and in bitter silence for more than twenty minutes. 
Heide's nose was battered to a raw bleeding pulp. It had been left to Alte to 
end the fight by threatening the two combatants with his revolver. There was 
never any question of his using it, and both Little John and Heide were well 
aware of the fact, but there was more authority in Alte's quiet voice than in a 
whole regiment of sergeant majors. The fighting ceased, although the abuse 
continued. They threatened each other with death, and they seemed to mean 
it. 

One of the dogs was limping badly and in obvious pain. It was decided to put 
an end to its misery, and Little John offered to do the job. He slit the creature's 
throat from ear to ear, grinning all the while like a maniac. When we protested, 
he rounded furiously upon us. 

'Why shouldn't I enjoy it? It wasn't the dog I was killing, it was Julius Heide 
and his insane prejudices!' 

We pushed on with the rest of the team. Quite suddenly, for no apparent 
reason, Alte pulled to a halt at the top of a small slope. We hurried up to him 
and stared ahead in amazement. 'Allah!' said the Legionnaire, wonderingly. 'It 
looks like the sea.' 

"That's impossible.' 

'What is it, then?' 

We checked the map, we checked the compass, and when we looked again 
the sea was still there, in all its miraculous impossibility. Alte shook his head. 
He had not mistaken the route we were taking, and the sea was hundreds of 
miles away. Or should have been. 


'Strange,' said Porta. 'I'd have sworn it was only about thirty metres ahead of 
us.' 

'It is.' 

'What the hell is it, then?' 

'A lake?' 

'Which lake?' said the Legionnaire. 

We turned back to the map. No lake was indicated. 

'I don't understand it,' confessed Alte. 

We stood in a line, silently contemplating the vast expanse of frozen water. 

'A marsh?' suggested the Professor, squinting through the one remaining lens 
of his spectacles: the other had been broken days before hi one of his 
frequent falls. 'It obviously can't be the sea. The sea doesn't freeze.' 

'Well, it's not a marsh. I never saw a marsh look like that.' 

'All right, what is it, then?' 

The moon was rising, and by its light we thought we could dimly make out a 
far shore, perhaps two or three kilometres distant. 

'That settles it,' said Steiner. 'It's a river.' 

Again we studied the map. Fervently the Legionnaire regarded the night sky, 
measured distances with the compasses, looked again at the sky – then 
shrugged his shoulders and gave up the riddle. No sea, no lake, no river were 
to be found. 

The compass can't be at fault. We've got to keep going west. There's nothing 
for it but to cross the ice.' 

'I suppose so.' Alte leaned against the sledge, looking worried. 'I just hope to 
God it is the right direction. We're running short of food as it is, we can't afford 
any mistakes.' 

The first to venture out on the ice was Porta. He wriggled across on his 
stomach, and the rest of us followed, full of apprehension. The vast sheet of 
ice turned us all into quivering cowards. God knew how deep was the frozen 
water beneath, but a ducking at that temperature would mean almost certain 
death. The Legionnaire, more practical than the rest of us, finally attempted to 
bore through the top layer with his knife. He succeeded at last, and withdrew 
the knife with a nod of satisfaction. The ice was sufficiently thick to carry us. 


This discovery threw us all into a state of childlike joy. Little John and Porta 
rushed about in ecstasy, slipping and sliding, with wild whoops of delight. 

'You never cease to amaze me,' remarked Alte. 'Have you by any chance 
forgotten that we're about 1,500 kilometres behind the Russian lines?' 

'The Russians can go and get stuffed!' yelled Little John, jubilantly. 

He spun in a circle. There was a loud ominous cracking from the ice and we 
all stiffened in our tracks and stared round with eyes that bulged with terror. 

'Let's get on,' said Alte, tersely. 

Once again, we began to treat the ice with respect, creeping slowly forward, 
trying to make ourselves as light as possible. Every creak, every groan from 
the frozen mass brought its equivalent creak and groan from us. Every minute 
brought fresh fears, and it took us several hours to cross to the far shore. 

Once there, we found ourselves amongst birch trees, and our tension 
disappeared as quickly as it had come. It was the work of a moment to hack 
off enough branches to start a fire, and we threw ourselves wholeheartedly 
into the task. 

'This is madness,' said Alte, as the flames began licking up into the frosty air. 
'I must be losing my grip. This lot can be seen for miles around.' 

'So what?' Little John defiantly threw on another branch. 'If any Russian dares 
to show his face here he'll be clubbed on the head and dumped straight into 
the nearest stew pot – who knows? Even a lousy Russian might taste good if 
you're starving. What about the cats of the Dibuvilla barracks? A nice fat 
Rusky would be more tasty than a mangy cat.' 

'So we're cannibals, now?' sneered Heide. 'I wouldn't put it past you. I 
wouldn't put anything past you.' 

Little John leaned forward. 

'I'll tell you what I'll do, Julius: I'll reserve the rump specially for you, even 
though it is the best cut.' 

'Douse this fire!' snapped Alte. 

We did our best with handfuls of snow, but in some strange way it seemed 
almost to add encouragement to the flames. The embers were still glowing 
red in the night when we finally turned in. 

A piercing cry awoke us. Instantly we were on our feet, snatching up our 
firearms, straining our eyes in an effort to see through the darkness. The cry 
came again, long and plaintive and blood-curdling. 


'God in heaven, what is it?' demanded Barcelona. 

By now the fire was almost out. A few cinders gleamed fitfully here and there, 
but it gave very little light. But as our eyes grew accustomed to the dark, we 
made out the vast shape of a monster lurking in the trees. Porta gave a 
scream of terror and flung himself behind Little John. The Professor sank 
whimpering to the ground. Another wailing cry split the night in two. And then 
the Legionnaire began to laugh. A laugh of pure joy. I thought personally that 
his mind had suddenly gone. 

'By Allah!' He controlled himself at last and turned to the rest of us, trembling 
in our boots. 'It's a camel, you fools! A wild camel. His mates are probably 
somewhere round about as well.' 

Cautiously, still very much inclined to doubt his sanity, I stole forward with the 
others, gun at the ready. And there it was, before us. Unmistakably, and very 
disdainfully, a camel. As we watched, it was joined by two others and they 
stood shoulder to shoulder in the icy wind, regarding us with expressions of 
dislike. 

'My God!' exclaimed Steiner, taking a few brave steps forward. 'There are 
hundreds of the brutes out there.' 

'A herd of bleeding camels,' muttered Porta. 

'Dromedaries,' said Heide, in his usual self-opinionated way. 'They've got two 
humps.' 

That's what camels have,' said Porta. 

'Dromedaries.' 

'Camels.' 

'Dromedaries, I tell you.' 

'Oh, shut up!' yelled Porta, exasperated. 'Who the hell cares what the things 
are, anyway? What I want to know is, can you ride them?' 

'Of course,' said the Legionnaire, casually stroking the muzzle of the nearest 
creature. 'Didn't you ever ride on camels at the zoo?' 

'Dromedaries,' murmured Heide. 

'Camels,' said the Legionnaire. 'They come in both varieties. One-humped 
and two.' 

'And they live in Africa,' added Little John, wisely. Take a good look fellers – 
that out there, all froze over, is the Mediterranean!' 


The Legionnaire shook his head. 

'No such luck! You can find camels in other places besides Africa. You get 
them as far afield as China. This must be one area of the Caucasus where 
they breed. You know the Russians have whole divisions mounted on 
camels—' 

He broke off as a new and more alarming sight caught our eyes: three men, 
curiously dressed in a shabby assortment of kaftans and animal skins, were 
coming through the trees towards us. They stopped and smiled, then pointed 
to the west and began speaking in a language that appeared to have little in 
common with Russian. Heide reached automatically for his revolver, but the 
Legionnaire jerked it away from him. 

'Don't be a damned idiot! They're probably friendly; They might be able to help 
us.' 

Alte turned to the oldest of the three men. 

'Nzementz?' he asked, 

The reply was totally incomprehensible. Alte shook his shoulders and pulled a 
face. 

'Nix panjemajo.' 

'Germanski?' 

We hesitated, unnerved by the realization that they had somehow recognized 
us for what we were. Was it in their minds to hand us over to the Russians? 
Dressed as we were, we faced certain death if captured. The strangers 
laughed amongst themselves. They seemed quite disposed to be pleasant, 
although it was plain that Little John, twice as tall as any of them, with his 
battered face and broken nose, put the fear of God into them. 

They offered us some bread and goat's milk, and we in exchange handed 
over a packet of machorkas. They continued laughing happily. We laughed, 
too, for no reason at all save that such continuing merriment was catching. 
After a bit their leader made the discreet sign-language suggestion that we 
might have some spare vodka, and Alte obligingly handed over his own flask. 
The contents disappeared with the usual rapidity, and, obviously warming to 
us, the three men took Alte to one side and began gesturing energetically and 
speaking what seemed to be a pidgin version of their own language. They 
drew something indecipherable in the snow, pointing all the while to the west. 
Alte stared dubiously. Then one of them began running in circles, shouting 
'Boum boum!' as he did so, and suddenly dropped down as if dead. Alte 
watched this performance two or three times, then obligingly nodded his head. 
The three men began laughing again. They certainly seemed to have a ready 
sense of humour, though what it was they found so perpetually amusing was 
and always remained a mystery to me. 


Two days later we entered a village in company with the three of them. None 
of us was too happy about it. A village meant people, and where there were 
people there were also, in our experience, N.K.V.D. men. Our three 
companions seemed to guess how we were feeling, but it merely increased 
their general hilarity. 

'Njet politruk!' cried one of them, gaily. 

Our arrival in the village aroused no particular interest in any quarter. Fjodor, 
the leader of the camel drivers, pointed out a row of huts and beckoned to 
Alte to follow him. Not unreasonably, Alte hesitated. 

'Njet politruk!' insisted Fjodor, laughing merrily. 

The Legionnaire shouldered his rifle and offered to accompany the Old Man. 

'O.K.' Alte turned to the rest of us. 'If we're not back in half an hour, you'd 
better come looking for us.' 

We were not left kicking our heels for very long. We installed ourselves in the 
hut that passed for the local bar, and before we had time to grow really 
anxious Alte and the Legionnaire returned, pushing before them a young boy, 
not more than eighteen years old, in the uniform of a German artilleryman. . 

'Look what Fjodor's given us!' 

We looked, and were astonished. 

'He's been here three months. He was shot by a Russian firing squad and 
they've been hiding him in the village ever since.' 

The boy regarded us with enormous, frightened eyes, as if we, toe, were likely 
to put him before a firing squad. Doubtless he found it difficult to believe that 
we were, in spite of our uniforms, fellow countrymen. 

'Paul Thomas,' he said, suddenly, 'Gunner, 209th Artillery Regiment.' 

Alte picked up a bottle and held it out to him. 

'Have a drink. You're amongst friends here.' 

'I can't drink.' 

'Can't drink?' Porta leaned forward, very much interested. 'Why not?' 

'It makes me feel bad.' 

The boy turned his head, and we saw a vivid red gash running from the crown 
to the nape of the neck. 


'I'm not in the least surprised,' muttered Barcelona. The wound was still raw 
and suppurating. 'It makes me feel bad just looking at it What happened?' 

'They took us one evening. The whole section. It was the first time we'd seen 
any action, most of us.' 

He shrugged his shoulders, as if that were all he had the energy to say. 
Fjodor, who had Seen hovering amicably on edge of the group, held out a 
bowl of milk. The boy snatched at it avidly and drank it in quick gulps. He 
smiled at Fjodor. 

'Spassibo tovaritch,' he said, fervently. 

Fjodor patted him on the cheek, murmuring things in his own language. 

'So what happened?' repeated Porta, after a while. The boy licked his lips, 
nervously. 

'Well... Well, Tauber – he was the sergeant in charge of us – he wanted to 
surrender. Some of the others wanted to go on fighting. Tauber said it was 
suicide. They outnumbered us by about a hundred to one. Tauber said if we 
gave ourselves up we'd be treated as prisoners of war. Some of the boys said 
they'd heard how the Russians treated their prisoners, and anyway we could 
hold out for another half hour and anything could happen in that time. Well, 
the Russians kept yelling at us to give ourselves up. They promised we'd be 
treated O.K. And then Tauber, he said he wasn't going to die just yet and he 
was a sergeant and we were just privates and we'd got to do what he said. So 
we gave ourselves up,' concluded the boy, simply. 

We stared at him in renewed astonishment. 

'Where was the rest of the regiment?' demanded Barcelona, at last. 

'They'd already retreated. We were left to guard the rear.' 

'And what happened when you threw in the sponge?' 

'Well, it was O.K. at first. They gave us schnapps, and some of their fags, see, 
and one of their N.C.O.s swapped a loaf of bread for Tauber's iron cross Then 
they started interrogating us, just like we do with our prisoners. They asked us 
if we was members of the Hitler Youth. Like we always ask them if they're 
Komsomols.' 

'You denied it, of course?' 

'Yeah, but they found out we was lying. Well, one idiot, he was carrying round 
papers that proved it wasn't true, so they started yelling at us then and got 
really mad. They accused us of torturing people and God knows what... They 
took us to some village called Daskjove. Something like that. I'm not sure 
even where it was. They didn't treat us rough or anything. 


They just stripped us of all we had – watches, rings, money, the lot.' 

The boy hesitated, looking round fearfully at us as if we might still be hostile 
towards him. 

'Go on,'said Alte, gently. 'What then?' 

'Well, they shot us, didn't they? One after another. We had to get in a line and 
step forward one at a time. I was the last one, 'cos I was the youngest and 
they said as how I had the right to live longer'n the others. When my turn 
come they pulled me out front and made me kneel down, and the one that 
was doing all the shooting, he said I was holding my head on one side, and he 
made me keep it straight. I could feel the muzzle of his gun in the back of my 
neck. All cold it was ... And then there was this explosion, see, and it felt like 
the whole of my head was bursting open.' He looked round at us and directed 
a hopeful smile at Alte. 'I didn't know nothing more till I woke up and found all 
the Russians had gone and I was the only one left alive. The others were lying 
on the ground nearby. Tauber and Willy and all the others. They was dead. 
And I wanted to be dead, too,' he told us, earnestly. 'I was that scared, just 
lying there all alone.' 

'What did you do?' 

'I got out as fast as I could, mate! I couldn't stand upright, I was too dizzy. I 
had to crawl, and I couldn't hardly do that I felt so weak. And then Fjodor 
found me, only I don't think he knew what I was at first. I was covered in 
blood, I don't suppose I looked much like a human being. He brought me back 
here and they've looked after me ever since.' 

'What about your head?' demanded Porta. 'What have they done about that?' 

'They sent their doctor to me. I suppose he was a doctor, I dunno. He tied me 
down to a table and fished about inside my head with a pair of scissors until 
he found the bullet.' 

'Scissors?' said the Professor, horrified. 'Do you mean forceps?' 

'No, scissors. Ordinary scissors like you use for cutting things.' 

'And no anaesthetic?' 

'No.' The boy shook his head, as if apologizing for the doctor's primitive 
methods of surgery. 'I don't think they have things like that here. Anyway, I 
passed out long before he'd finished the job.' 

We granted him a few moments' respectful silence, broken eventually by 
Heide. 

'What's this crazy language they all talk here?' he demanded. 


'It's Turkish,' said Paul. 'I've picked up quite a bit of it.' 

'Turkish?' We all stared at him. 'Where are we, then?' 

'Not far from the Turkish border.' 

'Would you believe that?' said Little John, in amazement. 'How we do get 
about! One minute, we're in the Caucasus, the nest we're on the shores of the 
Mediterranean, then we come across herds of wild camels in China and now 
we're only a stone's throw from Turkey!' He turned eagerly on the boy. 'Tell 
me, sonny, what time's the next train due to leave? Once I'm shot of all this 
lot, old Uncle Adolf can go and get knotted for all I care!' 

'There aren't no trains from here,' said Paul, seriously. 'We're stuck for the 
duration. There's no means of getting away.' 

His words had no effect whatsoever upon our suddenly jubilant spirits. In 
mind, if not yet in body, we were already safe in Turkey. Porta at once gave 
himself up to his favourite dream: the brothel de luxe and a mad riot of sexual 
perversities. He enlarged upon the theme from every titillating angle and 
carried us along with him. Barcelona drew a map on the dusty floor to show 
Little John exactly where Turkey lay in relation to our present probable 
whereabouts, and Little John, in his eagerness to set off straight away, 
promptly jumped all over the map and trampled it back into obscurity. The 
Legionnaire remembered that he had a friend in Ankara, and together we 
speculated on ways and means of crossing the frontier. 

'Just how far away is it?' Alte wanted to know. 

'About fifty kilometres,' said Paul. 'But then there's a sort of no man's land 
that's heavily mined and swarming with the N.K.V.D. No one's ever yet 
managed to get through and live to tell the tale. Leastways, that's what Fjodor 
told me.' 

His words fell on deaf ears. The thought of a neutral country so very nearly 
within our grasp had temporarily unbalanced even the most placid amongst 
us. 

It was some days before the undoubted truth of Paul's words really sank in; it 
simply was not possible to cross the Russian frontier into Turkey. Fortunately, 
it was at the peak of our disillusionment that Little John discovered the hidden 
store of alcohol. Several crates of it, all marked with the red star of the Soviet 
Army. The fact that it was enemy property merely served to whet our 
appetites. We drank long and gloriously, and one, by one the villagers crept 
from their huts and hovels and joined in the fun. Someone discovered an old 
barrel organ and we danced ecstatically in the snowy streets. Very soon there 
was not a man or a woman, or probably even a child, who remained sober. 
The entire village was en fete. Nevertheless, when Alte suddenly held up a 
warning hand the whole crowd became hushed and silent, instinctively 
apprehensive and on the alert for danger. 


From the far end of the street 'came the sound of a man singing. The sound 
came nearer, and then the man himself came into view. He was a stranger, 
not one of the villagers. He carried a light machine gun slung over his 
shoulder, and the song he was singing, in a deep, bass voice, was sad and 
sombre. 

We stood transfixed as he approached us. He paused a few yards away from 
the edge of the crowd. His gaze swept over us and finally came to rest on one 
of the barrels of alcohol. He picked it up, suspiciously sniffed at it, then gave a 
satisfied grin, tipped back his head and drank deeply. He belched, spat, and 
drank again. 

'Tovaritch,' he said to Porta, who happened to be the nearest to him, 'you are 
a drunken pig. I salute you.' 

With these words he flung the empty barrel over his shoulder, pulled off his fur 
cap and tossed it into the air with a raucous cry. For the first time, we saw the 
green cross of the N.K.V.D. You could almost feel the individual hearts of the 
crowd falter and miss a beat. Suddenly, to everyone's stupefaction, the man 
dropped his gun into a heap of snow, folded his arms across his chest, 
squatted down on his heels and began to dance, flinging his legs out in all 
directions and exultantly banging his heels together. 

Quick as a flash, Little John had his revolver in his hand. He levelled it, took 
aim – and then burst into drunken peals of laughter. His finger inadvertently 
pressed the trigger and bullets began to spray the air. Those within range fell 
flat on their faces in the snow, but the Russian continued imperturbably with 
his mad cavorting. Fortunately for us, he had evidently drunk his fill long 
before his arrival in the village. Little John stopped laughing. He reloaded the 
revolver and began to fire into the ground on either side of the man. 

At last the dance came to an end. The Russian leapt up, grinning. He seized 
another barrel of drink and laughed in Little John's face. 

'You think that's clever? Well, it doesn't impress me! Here, have a swig.' 

While Little John was thus engaged, being congenitally incapable of ever 
refusing the offer of alcohol, the Russian picked up his machine gun and 
deliberately sent a stream of bullets thudding round his feet. Little John roared 
and jumped backwards. 

'What the hell are you playing at? You know who I am, Russki? Germanski 
soldier, that's me! Tankist! Boum boum! And I don't give a shit for you or for 
Stalin or for any other of your damned countrymen!' 

'And now you know that,' said Porta, going up to the Russian and gripping him 
firmly by the lapels, 'you might as well know the rest... You Russki, me 
Germanski, us enemies... Savvy? Me, corporal, backbone of the German 
Army. Him—' He waved a hand towards the Legionnaire – 'him not Russki, 
him not Germanski. Him Franzouski.' 


The Russian smiled amiably at Porta, nodded towards the Legionnaire, shook 
his fist at Little John. Evidently he had not quite grasped the essentials of 
what had been said to him. 

'Look,' said Porta, exasperated. He pulled out his knife and held it to the 
man's throat. 'I'm warning you, Russki, this blade is sharp. Any trouble, and 
you're for the chopping block, mate!' 

At this moment, in a sudden burst of drunken zeal, Heide sprang into action. 
He came running from the opposite end of the street, bursting through the 
crowd with a hand grenade clutched in either fist. I saw Alte try to bar his way, 
but Heide merely brushed him to one side and continued on his charge. And 
now the Russian was no longer a drunk and genial soldier but a member of 
perhaps the most dreaded police force in the whole world. He stiffened, his 
eyes narrowed, he raised his machine gun. Bullets splattered into the snow on 
either side of Heide. The warning was ignored. 

By now. the situation was not even faintly amusing but deadly serious. The 
Russian levelled his gun and took aim. Alte raised his revolver and also took 
aim. At the Russian. The Russian saw it out of the corner of his eye.' For a 
second he wavered, and in that second Heide tripped and fell, his bead 
butting hard into the Russian's abdomen. The hand grenades rolled away into 
the snow and were rescued by the Professor. The machine gun jerked 
upwards and the Legionnaire lost no time in grabbing at it. Meanwhile, Heide 
and the Russian had merged into a whirling mass of arms and legs, and Alte 
lowered his revolver with a shake of the head. With a supreme effort, the 
Russian managed to free himself from Heide's frenzied grasp. He stepped 
back a pace, grunting, shook his fist at the whole lot of us, and then informed 
us in loud and arrogant tones that he, Piotr Yanow, would personally see to it 
that Heide received the ultimate penalty for daring to lift a finger against a 
member of the N.K.V.D. He, Piotr Yanow, did not take insults of that nature 
lying down. At this, Heide gave a maniacal screech of laughter and informed 
the Russian that he, Julius Heide, had a mind to slit his throat for him. 

A stunned silence on the part of the crowd. And on the part of the Russian, 
who finally fell back on the usual irascible demand for papers. 

'Get stuffed!' shouted Heide. 'You can keep that sort of rubbish for p.o.w.'s. It 
won't wash with us. The German Army doesn't take shit from anyone!' 

Slowly, the Russian surveyed each one of us, taking in the details of our 
uniforms. When he spoke, there was a note almost of supplication in his 
voice. 'Njet Russki?' he whispered. 

Alte took a step forward, his revolver at the ready. The crowd closed in all 
round us, suddenly given new courage by the sight of their dreaded enemy 
humbled and at a loss for words. Somewhere a woman cackled with malicious 
mirth. Little John picked up one of the barrels of alcohol and held it out to the 
Russian. 


'Drink a toast,' he commanded. 'Here's to us and the downfall of our enemies! 
Confusion to the Russians! Heil Hitler!' 

The man drank. He seemed dazed to the point of total non-comprehension. 
We could understand how he was feeling. The presence of German soldiers 
so far behind the Russian lines – German soldiers,' moreover, wearing the 
uniforms of a Russian tank regiment – must have seemed a nightmare 
impossibility. And yet there we were, standing foursquare and insolent before 
him. 

At that moment we felt no particular animosity towards the man. Somewhere 
in the village they had found and roasted a whole side of pork, and we now 
invited our tame Russian to join us in a victory meal. He protested faintly that 
the pork was Soviet property and we had no right to be eating it, but I think 
even he realized the futility of his words. 

We sat him down amongst us in the village street and tore at strips of the 
roast meat with our bare hands. The barrels of liquor were passed round 
freely. All differences were soon forgotten. Barcelona fetched the Russian an 
affectionate blow on the shoulder with the butt of his revolver and shouted 
'Vive Moscow!' The Russian belched and shouted encouragement to Little 
John, who was doing his drunken best to violate a fat, trousered lady of the 
village. 

'Vive Stalin!' cried Barcelona. 

'Vive Stalin!' echoed the Russian. 'Long life to Lenin, protector of the 
proletariat!' 

He lost his balance and fell on his side in the snow, and the Legionnaire 
pulled him upright again. The Russian pointed a finger at him. 

'You're under arrest,' he told him. 'All of you, under arrest. I've had my eye on 
you for some time... filthy Trotskyists!' 

He cleared his throat, spat over his shoulder, informed the Legionnaire that 
Karl Marx was a habitual drunkard, fell over again and clutched amorously at 
Porta. Then he looked all round him, as if to ensure himself of a degree of 
privacy, leaned forward and whispered hoarsely. 

'Tovaritch, tell me one thing: where did you learn to speak Russian?' 

'Why, at home,' hissed Porta, with an equal air of secrecy. There was a 
pause, then the Russian rocked with loud laughter. 

'You must teach me some day!' 

'Gladly,' said Porta. 'Or perhaps you'd rather learn German?' 


The Russian became suddenly sullen once again. 'Where are your papers?' 
he demanded. 'I haven't seen your papers... Do you have any papers?' 

'Naturally,' said Porta. 'But it's not worth the bother of showing them to you. 
They're all forgeries.' 

In the midst of the general mirth, the joke seeming to be much appreciated by 
our friend Piotr, Fjodor shuffled up to Alte and muttered urgently in his ear. By 
a mixture of sign language and pidgin Russian the old man was able, in a 
limited way, to converse with us, and I knew at once from the expression on 
Alte's face as he turned towards me that the time had come to cease 
merrymaking and return once again to the sordid business of war. 

'Sven! On your feet, and make it snappy! According to Fjodor there's an 
N.K.V.D. patrol on its way here.' 

'Right! I'll get the sledge ready straight away.' 

Already the news had communicated itself to the villagers. They were as 
anxious to be rid of us as we were to be gone, eager to eliminate all traces of 
our presence. Alte dragged Little John away from his lady friend, shook the 
Professor out of a drunken trance, picked Heide bodily off the ground and 
prepared ourselves for a hasty departure. The Russian sat watching us, 
cradling an empty barrel of alcohol on his lap, obviously at a loss to 
understand the sudden breaking up of the party. 

'What about him?' demanded Porta, jerking his thumb towards him. 

Heide would have disposed of him there and then, but Fjodor showed signs of 
such agitation at the thought of a dead Russian left behind in the village that 
we had no alternative but to take him with us. 

'You shoot later,' begged Fjodor. 'Much later. But you shoot all right. You cut 
throat, maybe. Bury in snow.' 

'With the greatest of pleasure,' said Heide. 'I'll take care of him.' He seized the 
Russian by the shoulder. 'Come on, you! Time to be off.' 

Apathetically, the Russian strapped on his skis and reached out for his 
abandoned machine gun. Heide promptly took it from him. 

'Voina plenny (prisoner-of-war)', he told him. 'No need for guns any more. You 
do what you're told from now on.' 

The dog team was harnessed, Paul was made comfortable on the sledge, the 
whole village assembled to wave us farewell. With a crack of the whip and a 
cry of 'Ohaï!' from Alte, we were off. The leader of the team bounded forward, 
the sledge moved away. The village was left behind and the usual 
combination of snow and wind quickly dissipated the remaining effects of the 
drink and the roast pork that had warmed our bellies and raised our spirits. 


Once more we were alone in a hostile country, trekking along a familiar road 
in hell. 

For three days our prisoner-of-war maintained a continuous and sullen 
silence. The first words he spoke were to Alte. 

'There's going to be a storm,' he told him. 'You'd better get the tent up 
immediately, unless you want us all to die of exposure.' 

Alte stuck his pipe between his teeth and looked up at the low, racing clouds 
on the horizon. 

'All right,' he said, at last. 'If that's your advice we'd be wise to take it. You 
know your own country better than we do.' 

The Old Man's calm seemed to agitate the Russian. 

'When I say immediately, I mean immediately! The storm's going to be right 
overhead in less than an hour's time, and if that tent's not up we'll be dead 
within minutes. The temperature's going to drop right down. At least 48. 
degrees below freezing.' 

'He's right,' declared the Legionnaire. I've seen plenty of sandstorms in the 
Sahara and I don't fancy a snowstorm in the middle of Russia, I can tell you.' 

Porta looked aghast. 

'You're not going to go by what this slob says?' he demanded. 

'Why not? He knows the country, doesn't he?' 'You're bloody mad,' began 
Porta, heatedly, but Alte intervened. 

'Shut up and get cracking with that tent.' Slowly, and with rather bad grace, we 
began to unload the sledge, Porta muttering mutinously to himself and Heide 
mouthing the usual obscenities towards the dog team, as if they personally 
were responsible for the weather. Quite suddenly, as if from nowhere, a 
tremendous blast of wind with an icy cutting edge like the blade of a knife 
hurled itself furiously upon us, overturning the sledge and us with it. 

'Now perhaps you'll get a move on!' screamed the Legionnaire. 

Working as fast as our numbed fingers and the continuing wind would allow 
us, we set up the frozen canvas of the tent, stiff as a board already and 
almost impossible to handle, and at the Russian's suggestion began hacking 
out blocks of ice and snow to form a protective rampart against the coming 
storm. 

By the time the work was done we were all exhausted. We fell asleep huddled 
shoulder to shoulder, leaving the Professor to keep watch over us and our 


prisoner. Somehow it always seemed to be the Professor's turn to keep 
watch. 

We were woken by the storm. It was a storm such as none of us had ever 
seen before, and it could surely only have happened in Russia or the North 
Pole. For four or five hours it required our combined efforts to keep the tent 
upright. At last the wind dropped to a more normal pitch, and the Russian 
relaxed and nodded to the rest of us. 

'O.K. We can sleep now.' 

'Sleep?' said Alte. 'It must be nearly daybreak. We've got to push on.' 

The Russian smiled, pityingly. 

'Why don't you try? Take a step outside and see how far you get.' 

Little John, of course, had to make the attempt Uttering words of scorn and 
bravado, he stepped outside the tent, fell into a snowdrift several feet high, 
staggered upright again, was promptly knocked over by the wind and rolled 
head over heels back into the tent, completely covered in snow. 

'Fancy a big strong chap like you being bowled over by a little gentle breeze!' 
jeered Porta. 'How long is this lot likely to last?' demanded Alte. 

The Russian shrugged uncaring shoulders. 

'Three days, if you're lucky. A week if you're not.' 

His estimate was correct. For three days the storm buffeted the snow across 
the plains. Conversation was almost impossible and our voices became 
hoarse through constant shouting. From time to time we staggered outside 
into the freezing white world and saw the dogs curled up nose to tail in the lee 
of the tent, almost invisible beneath a thick covering of snow. Inside, we 
fought and quarrelled and slept and woke and fought and quarrelled as the 
monotonous hours dragged on. Little John and Steiner battered each other 
almost raw; Steiner then picked oh the Professor and half killed him; Heide 
came to the Professor's rescue and was straightway accused by Porta of 
supporting the S.S.; in a fury, he then knocked the Professor stone cold and 
turned to vent the rest of his spleen on his old enemy Little John. Finally, we 
all banded together against the Russian, sitting silent and morose in a corner, 
and found ourselves for once in accord in our general decision that he was to 
blame for the entire war. 

On the fourth morning we awoke to an uncannily silent world. The snow was 
falling heavily from the leaden sky, but the wind had dropped. Drifts were piled 
as high as mountains, and we played in the snow like children, rolling in it, 
jumping in it, scooping up great handfuls and hurling it at each other. 


Two weeks later we were at last approaching the German front lines. We had 
exhausted our stocks of food and were all half dead with fatigue. For three 
days we had been without the dogs. They had been in no condition to 
continue, and we had simply let them loose to fend for themselves. The 
sledge had been disposed of and lay at the bottom of a ravine. Our prisoner-
of-war was growing increasingly ill at ease. His former arrogance had 
vanished, and it was plain that all his thoughts were turned to the possibility of 
escape. Which of us would not have been the same, in his position? 

During alt this time, we had encountered no one on our march across the 
steppes, but there came a day when the luck had to break. We were 
approaching a wood and were about half a kilometre away when suddenly, 
echoing across the plain, the dreaded cry resounded. 

'Stoï!' 

Porta and the Legionnaire turned in an instant and sent a volley of shots in the 
direction from which it came. 

'Under cover!' shouted Alte. 'Make for the trees!' 

Heide and the Professor threw themselves face downwards behind a ridge of 
snow to cover our hasty retreat. It was the occasion for which the Russian had 
been waiting. He began running across the open country towards his 
compatriots, waving his hands in the air and shouting 'Uhrae Stalino!' at the 
top of his voice. It was the moment, also, for which Heide had been waiting. 
He had promised Fjodor, back at the village, that he would personally 
eliminate the Russian, and at last he could legitimately do so. There was a 
burst of machine gun fire. From the shelter of the trees we saw the Russian 
suddenly jerk backwards, as if pulled by an invisible string. He turned a full 
circle, then slowly crumpled up in the snow and lay still. Heide's gun rattled off 
another hail of bullets. By now, we had the heavy artillery bombarding the 
enemy from the shelter of the woods. Heide stood up, defiantly hurled three 
hand grenades one after another before running for cover in the wake of the 
Professor. The grenades exploded in a welter of snow and human debris. 
Heide sang triumphantly as he joined the rest of us. 

He was a born killer, was Julius Heide. In peacetime he would doubtless have 
been locked away as a dangerous psychopath, but this was wartime and 
Heide passed as an excellent soldier, fearless, unimaginative, always in the 
thick of every fight and ready at a moment's notice to shoot anything that 
moved. They decorated him for his courage and rewarded him for his 
aggression. If he survived the war – and of course he was the type who would 
– he would become an instructor in a military school. Society can always turn 
the instincts of a Julius Heide to its advantage if it only recognizes them in 
time. Nevertheless, he was not a man you really enjoyed having around. . 

Panting and exuberant, he dropped down behind the heavy machine gun 
manned by Porta and the Legionnaire. 


'I got at least twenty of 'em!' 'That.must have given them something to think 
about... being fired on by their own troops.' 

' They probably think we're Brandenbergers.' 

'Then God help us, if they ever get their hands on us.' 

They strangle them with barbed wire,' said Steiner. 'I once saw a couple of 
Brandenbergers they'd captured. They'd strangled one with barbed wire and 
they'd roasted the other alive over a spit' 

'Charming,' said Porta. 'And here's me who can't stand the heat.' 

'In any case,' gloated Heide, 'I shouldn't imagine there are any of that little 
bunch left alive to recognize us again.' 

We pushed on through the trees but had scarcely covered more than a few 
metres when we heard the unmistakable sound of tanks not far ahead. With 
one accord we bounded off the road and dived into the undergrowth as the 
first T.34 came into view. A grenade whistled past us and we flung ourselves 
flat on the ground. Porta went racing off down a narrow pathway and crashed 
headlong into a Russian sergeant, who naturally took him to be friend rather 
than enemy. He did not live long enough to discover his mistake: Porta 
emptied his revolver into him at point blank range and seized upon the flame 
thrower that the man had been carrying. 

'Now we'll show the bastards!' he yelled. 

He positioned himself straight in the path of the oncoming tanks and knelt on 
one knee, calmly waiting, as if it were no more than a routine exercise. The 
rest of us crouched in the undergrowth, biting our nails with anticipation. 

'Fire, for God's sake,' muttered Alte. 

Little John was unable to contain himself. 

'For Christ's sake FIRE!' he shouted to Porta. 

All hell was promptly let loose about our ears, but in that instant Porta fired 
and a long flame snaked out towards the nearest T.34. The tank seemed to 
rear up in an effort to avoid it. It moved forward a short way, then stopped. An 
answering flame shot skywards from the turret. A man appeared in the 
opening. He pulled himself half out into the open air and then fell back again, 
with blue flames licking greedily at his body. His long cry of agony was 
enough to curdle anyone's blood. Except, perhaps, Heide's. He probably 
enjoyed it. The revolting smell of burning flesh filled our nostrils. The two 
remaining tanks made a half turn and crashed away through the undergrowth 
in a panic. They had obviously taken the flamethrower, for an anti-tank gun 
and had no intention of remaining behind to be slaughtered. 


As for us, we also took to our heels. We ran until we were free of the woods, 
emerging breathless and exhausted into the open, where we fell to licking the 
snow like so many animals to soothe our parched throats. All round us it was 
still and silent, but far away, in the distance, we could hear the whine of shells 
and the heavy groaning of artillery. 

'There it is,' said Steiner, pointing to the north west. The front.' 

'God, how I hate it all.' 

The Professor suddenly flung himself down in the snow, and after a moment's 
hesitation the rest of us followed suit. We needed a short period of relaxation 
before facing the next load of problems. 

'What do you hate especially?' asked Porta, lying on his back and staring up 
at the trees. 

The Professor made an impatient movement with his hand. 

'Everything. All the lies and the cheating and the senseless slaughter. They 
made it sound so different when we first joined up, back in Oslo.' 

'Naturally,' said Porta, dryly. 'I suppose they promised you glorious victory and 
little flags to wave and tin trumpets to blow? And the enemy was just a bunch 
of toy soldiers waiting to be knocked down like a load of skittles? Jesus Christ 
Almighty, the things some people believe!' 

'We died like flies,' said the Professor. 'They sent us into battle totally 
unprepared. Before we'd even had a chance to discover the danger we were 
in most of us were already dead.' 

'Heard it all before,' muttered Barcelona. 

'Yeah. They made you think the war was some sort Sunday school outing,' 
said Porta.' 'What sort of training they bother to give you?' 

'Six weeks,' said the Professor. 

We all turned to look at him. 'Six weeks?' 

'That's all.' 

'My God, we had three years of it,' said Alte slowly. 'For us the war began 
easily enough with Poland. Just like manoeuvres, only real bullets instead of 
blanks ... six weeks! God in heaven! How many of you survived the first 
onslaught?' 

'There were two hundred and thirty-five of us at the beginning. All volunteers. 
All in the Viking Division in the Ukraine. The first day, one hundred and 
twenty-one of us were killed. More were lost when the road was strafed by 


Russian, fighters and some of the ambulances went up in flames... The C.O. 
went mad and put a bullet through his brain. Two days later, eight of us were 
shot for "desertion in the face of the enemy". Nine more of us were sent to 
disciplinary regiments for having said that our officers were more to blame 
than we were. They were professional soldiers and they knew what to expect. 
We were volunteers and we'd been misled ... I was beaten for six hours non-
stop in the prison at Lemberg. At first I thought I was lucky to be left alive. I'm 
not so sure now.' 

'So long as there are whores in the world, it's worth being alive,' said Little 
John, bracingly. 

The Professor smiled, and we all, automatically, perked up at the sound of the 
word 'whore'. Sex was a subject of which we never tired. We all knew each 
other's preferences by heart, we lived intimately with each other's day 
dreams, yet somehow they never ceased to be an enthralling topic of 
conversation. 

It was not long before we heard a volley of shots away to our right, and 
instantly we were on the alert. 

'Probably a search party out looking for us,' whispered Alte. 'Take cover and 
stay hidden.' 

Silently we crept on our stomachs back into the shelter of the undergrowth. It 
was dusk now, and our nerves were on edge at the prospect of being hunted. 
The search party were obviously also nervous. They fired a few shots into the 
bushes, retreated, came on again, fired at random at nothing at all. Doubtless 
they would willingly have given us up for lost had not their officers urged them 
on with the usual mixture of threats and curses. We caught a quick glimpse of 
them as they came through the trees. They were gauche young recruits, it 
was probably their 'first action. We heard one, more confident than the others, 
boastfully declare his intention to shoot on sight. The officer in charge turned 
on him wrathfully. 

'You wait until then, you'll be dead! In cases like this you shoot by instinct not 
by sight. Now shut up talking and keep your ears pinned back.' 

The Legionnaire silently rose up from the bushes and sent a volley of shots in 
the direction of the voices. We heard a cry, then someone cursing. The 
undergrowth crackled, then there was silence. We could sense the presence 
of someone not far away. The Legionnaire frowned intently through the 
darkness. Heide began to slide stealthily forward along a narrow path, 
followed closely by Porta and Little John, Barcelona covering them with his 
machine gun. A twig snapped in two and we saw a dark figure step out from 
the bushes. Barcelona at once opened fire. The man screamed and clasped 
his hands to his eyes. It was a Russian officer, a lieutenant He came 
blundering up the path towards us, blood streaming down his face. Barcelona 
fired again and put the man out of his misery, and at the same moment the 
rest of us opened fire on several figures that loomed up in the darkness. They 


were an easy prey. Those that did not fall turned and ran, and from some 
distance away we heard a Russian voice raised in anger. Doubtless the C.O. 
at tempting to restore order. Alte jerked his head. 'All right Let's go.' 

For the rest of the night and the following day we remained hidden and 
undisturbed in the wood. Towards evening, we prepared ourselves for our 
journey to the German front line. We had evolved a plan that was simple 
enough in theory, though whether it would work in practice seemed, to me at 
least, highly problematical, 

We approached the line of Russian trenches. Naturally we were stopped and 
questioned. To each question Alte gave the same reply; we had been sent out 
in capacity of a mine-clearing unit. No one batted an eyelid. We were provided 
with equipment and even wished good luck. . 

'Rather you than me,' said the sergeant who guided us on the last stage of our 
journey through the front line of Russian trenches. 'I just hope the saints are 
looking out for you!' 

'Spassibo pan,' replied Porta, unctuously. 

Then we were in no-man's land, crawling rapidly across it; towards the 
German lines. A hail of machine gun bullets ploughed up the ground all about 
us and we fell in a huddle into a shell hole. We leapfrogged from shell hole to 
shell hole, until at length Alte insisted on leaving us behind and going it alone. 
We hardly dared to watch his progress. We just lay chewing our finger nails 
and waiting for the fun to start. And then, after what seemed an eternity, an 
unknown voice yelled at us in German. 

'O.K., you can start moving across, but don't try any funny business. I'll have 
one man at a time, a minute between each man.' 

They were evidently fearful of a trap, for as each one of us jumped down into 
the trench we were met by the sharp end of a bayonet pricking our chests. A 
young infantry lieutenant questioned us and remained highly sceptical – as 
who could blame him? German soldiers dressed in Russian uniforms? 
German soldiers appearing in no-man's land from behind the Russian lines? 
Now that we were back, we could hardly believe it ourselves. 

'You'd be amazed at the things that go on in the German Army,' said 
Barcelona, cheerfully. 

The Lieutenant turned on him. 

'Hold your tongue, Feldwebel! You may have been racketing round the 
country enjoying yourselves for the past few weeks, but you're back in the 
army now and you'll do well to remember it.' 


'We're back all right,' muttered Steiner. 'Who else would give us such a nice 
warm welcome? Red carpets and all! I tell you, Lieutenant, it's a real treat to 
get back home again.' 

Captain Lander was, if anything, even less welcoming. We had the odd 
feeling that he was not really pleased to see us. However, three days later his 
body was found riddled with bullets in a thicket, and it hardly seemed 
respectful to the dead to go on doubting him. 

As usual, it was the partisans who were held responsible for the murder, 
although some people did, indeed, raise their eyebrows in the direction of 
Porta and Little John. In the end they had to take the extreme measure of 
attending the Captain's funeral in order to prove their innocence. 

He came to us from the military prison at Glatz. The court martial had 
sentenced him to serve ten years in a disciplinary regiment for having dared 
to say that war was the means by which a second-class housepainter had 
come to be called a genius. 

From lieutenant-general, he was demoted to major. In Africa he lost his left 
eye, in Finland he left behind a part of his stomach. He was an excellent tank 
commander, capable of leading a whole division, but he had never learnt to 
guard his tongue against what he believed to be the truth. 

Major Mercedes was the best officer we had ever had. Standing upright 
before us on an old packing case, bareheaded and in his shirt sleeves, he 
introduced himself. 

'O.K. I'm your new officer. Karl Ulrich Mercedes. Like you, I'm in the shit right 
up to my neck. I'm thirty-five years old and I weigh 15½ stone. Any questions? 
No. I've nothing else to say to you, except this: you pull your weight and I'll 
pull mine and we'll all get along fine.' 

At Lugansk he was wounded in the belly and had half his jaw shot away. He 
was one of the very few officers we ever respected. 

CHAPTER FIVE 

LUGANSK was a sea of flames when we drove through in the tanks. Bodies 
spilled across the streets and lay in the gutters like so much rubbish tipped 
out of the dustbins. Columns of soldiers, torn and bleeding, dived for the 
illusory safety of turning houses and crumbling piles of masonry. 

A shot. And then another, and then more. Shells, hand grenades, anti-tank 
guns, incendiary bombs. A whole barrage aimed at destruction and death. 

The interior of our tank, a 52-ton Tiger, resounded with the harsh noise of 
metal on metal: mess tins, water containers, tin mugs, spanners, wrenches, 
empty boxes that had once held hand grenades. Porta stepped on the gas, 


the Tiger ground forward and the whole range of ironmongery rattled and 
clanked at our feet. 

Mechanics, covered in mud and blood and oil, sought desperately through the 
devastated streets for their units. An Infantry captain, shouting orders in the 
middle of the road, was caught by one of the Tigers and thrown to the ground. 
The following tank was unable to avoid him. All that remained visible were his 
legs and his leather boots with their shining spurs. 

No one said anything. No one cared. What was the death of one more man 
when set against the wholesale slaughter at Lugansk on the night of 14th 
March? We were past the stage of emotion, our feelings were dead. 

Somewhere a roof collapsed with a thunderous roar and a shower of sparks 
rained down upon us. We pressed on, in line, until a sharp cry from Little John 
brought us to a halt. In one bound he was out of the tank and running back 
hell for leather up the burning street. 

'What's got into him?' demanded Heide. 'What's he think this is, a joy ride?' 

The radio crackled angrily into life. It was Lt. Ohlsen asking roughly the same 
question as Heide and adding the curt command that we should get started 
again and stop holding up the column. Porta shrugged his shoulders and put 
his foot down. The tank moved forward, at the same moment as Little John 
reappeared. He threw something down the hatch and himself after it. We sat 
gaping at a grubby urchin, not more than four or five years old, who gaped 
back at us uncertainly. 

'What's the meaning of this?' snapped Alte. 

Little John pulled the child on to his lap. 

'He was sitting in the gutter all by himself. I couldn't just leave the kid out there 
to get killed. A second later and he'd've been buried under half a ton of 
burning timber.' He glared round at us. 'He's mine, see? And from now on you 
can contribute part of your rations ... You and me,' he told the boy, 'we're 
together now. O.K.?' 

'Yes, I can just imagine the Major's expression of when he hears about it,' said 
Alte, sarcastically. 'He'll be overjoyed.' 

'I don't give a monkey's cuss,' said Little John, 'for him or for anyone else. This 
kid is mine and we're sticking together. ... Imagine that, I'm a father! Poor little 
sod, he's scared to death. Turn your ugly mug the other way, Julius, it's 
enough to put the shits up anyone.' He turned the boy to face him and pointed 
a finger at himself. 'Hey, tovaritch! Toi pljemjanjik! Me, Little John 
Otschoenasch!' 

Porta gave a derisory laugh. 


'You cretinous great oaf ... That means you're God the Father.' 

'All right, you explain to him,' said Little John, heatedly. 'Tell him I'm his father. 
Go on! ' 

Porta obligingly let loose a stream of fluent Russian. The boy bit his finger, 
evidently soothed by the sound of his own language but generally uncertain 
what to make of the situation. He was in rags, filthy dirty, with burns on his 
bare feet an a nasty gash running down his cheek. The Legionnaire cleaned 
him up a bit and dressed his various wounds, and Heide gave him an apple, 
which he ate ravenously, core and all. We had nothing else to offer him, but in 
any case there were more pressing matters requiring our attention. Shells and 
incendiary bombs were exploding all about us, houses were toppling down 
like packs of cards, burning roof beams lay in our path and debris littered the 
hose of the tank. We pushed on our way out of town, moving slowly and 
cautiousy. A bunch of soldiers rushed at us from some ruins, and it was not 
until we had mown down the last of them that we realized our mistake: we had 
shot at our own soldiers. They had obviously taken refuge in the burnt-out 
houses and must have thought themselves saved on seeing their own tanks 
approaching. Unfortunately, in the heat of the moment it was difficult to 
distinguish between the camouflaged tunics worn by the Germans and the 
khaki uniforms of the Russians. The tanks hurled themselves out through the 
suburbs at full speed. We took a left turn through what had once been a 
beautifully laid-out garden. An ornamental pond was cracked in two beneath 
the weight of the tank. The surrounding fields were a mass of khaki. 
Everyone, on foot, by tank, by lorry, by motorcycle, had but one idea: to put as 
much distance as possible between himself and the burning hell of Lugansk. 
'Advance!' screamed the Major's voice over the radio. We advanced, 
mercilessly; a line of fifty tanks ploughing through the sea of khaki. All round 
us was the staccato rattle of machine guns, the bursting of shells. Flame 
throwers set the very air alight, soaked as it was in the escaping petrol of 
various wrecked and abandoned vehicles. Russian infantry troops surged 
about us in a state of panic, milling first this way, then that, hurling themselves 
to the ground and clawing with their fingernails in a despairing attempt to dig 
themselves into the earth. But our artillery was always one step ahead, 
ploughing the ground into deep furrows and the men with it. The tanks 
churned onwards, crushing whatever and whoever stood in their path. 

And then, suddenly, silence. The shooting stopped. There was no more need 
for it. The Russians were fleeing before us and we rounded them up like so 
many sheep, pushing them on towards the German lines. A sense of 
madness, of sheer exhilaration, almost a blood lust, overcame even the least 
aggressive amongst us. It was inevitable, and, indeed, necessary to survival 
in this kind of warfare. 

And then, with a harsh metallic cry, our exultation shattered. The tank was hit 
by a shell from an anti-tank gun with such force that for a moment the vehicle 
was out of control. By some curious miracle, the grenade did not penetrate 
the outer rim of steel. 


'Get the hell out of here!' shouted Alte, his eye still glued to the observation 
panel. 

The anti-tank gun was obviously in the immediate vicinity and we lived the 
next few seconds in agonized expectation of another grenade. None came. 
Perhaps some kind soul had put the gun out of action for us. At any rate, we 
forged ahead with the tank still intact and made for our own lines. 

We were sent off to a new position on the outskirts of Novoajdar, but had 
barely arrived there when Lt. Ohlsen's voice crackled across the radio 
ordering us to turn about and take a different direction. 

'Jesus Christ,' muttered Porta. 'This war gets bloody boring at times.' 

We moved off again, Little John doing his best to comfort his newly-adopted 
son, who was crying fit to break your heart. Our Tigers joined up with a group 
of armoured cars that had been sent on ahead in support of an infantry 
regiment. We were to remain stationary, in wait for the enemy troops. The 
cold was intense. Little John had given his jacket to the boy and was now 
running m circles outside trying to keep warm. 

Suddenly, from nowhere it seemed, a hail of grenades rained down on the 
assembled tanks. The cries of the wounded mingled with the sound of 
explosions. Little John gave a blood-curdling shriek and hurled himself back 
into the tank. His right ear had completely disappeared. His face was awash 
with blood. 

'My ear!' he was bellowing. 'The buggers have nicked my sodding ear off!' 

'Does it hurt?' I unwisely inquired. 

Little John turned on me in a fury. 

'What do you think, you stupid flaming bastard?' 

It was a foolish question, of course. I realize that. Once again, we were in the 
thick of the action. The tanks moved forward through a barrage of shells and 
grenades. Houses burnt, men screamed, the noise of cannons and machine 
guns filled what for a short while had been a beautiful silence. 

'Something big brewing this time,' mused Alte. 'I don't like look of it.' 

When Alte said he didn't like the look of anything, then you knew it must be 
pretty bad. Veteran of the front line that he was, he could sense the danger in 
a situation long before the rest of us had even realized that a situation existed. 
Lt. Ohlsen came through again. 

'What do you make of it, Beier? What do you think?' Alte shook his head. 


'Not too good, if you ask me. Ivan's preparing for some piece of tomfoolery ... 
it's just a question of what and how. The damned smoke's so thick it's like a 
fog out there. You can't see more than a few yards ahead.' 

'Well, keep your eyes skinned.' 

'Will do.' 

The company of tanks advanced cautiously. One by one we crossed a small 
wooden bridge that creaked and groaned under our weight. Radios crackled 
incessantly and men spoke nervously of attack. There was an uncertainty 
abroad that night, and it set all our nerves on edge. 

An attack in the dark is a terrifying ordeal for a tank regiment. Here we were at 
a most particular disadvantage in that the road we were on was narrow and 
winding, and on either side of it lay treacherous marshland. It was obvious 
that the Russians had us in their sights for their bombardments followed us 
with nasty precision. 

One of the tanks left the track and became stuck in the boggy ground at the 
side of the road. We tried hoisting her out with cables, but she was too deep 
in the mud and the cables snapped under the pressure. Major Mercedes 
came running up to us, using language unbefitting to an officer; demanding, in 
effect, what the hell we were playing at. He set to work himself, fixing a new 
cable. He was wearing thick gauntlets, like a docker. 

Before we had a chance to try out the new cable, the Russians brought their 
heavy artillery into action. The Major was up and inside our tank with a turn of 
speed I should frankly not have thought possible for a man of his bulk. We 
closed up the side panels and the tank reverberated unpleasantly under the 
bombardment. The Russians were hurling all they had against us. Not 
surprisingly, Little John's adopted son began to scream with fear, and it was 
all we could do not to join him in a demented chorus. Barcelona's voice came 
over the radio: 

'Old Man! Can you see anything?' 

'Damn fool question,' grunted Porta. 

'Not a flaming thing,' replied Alte, cheerfully. 

'Where the hell are they attacking from? The whole of the Fourth Company 
have already been wiped out.' 

There was a sudden and unnerving silence. In our panic we began firing 
blindly into the darkness. Our own infantry remained quiet, doubtless waiting 
to see what would happen next. The initiative was with the Russians now. 

It started up again, with renewed fury. It was as if a volcano had erupted, 
belching out not rocks and fire but shells and bullets and grenades. The air 


was full of the sound of death. It came at us from all sides, and we sat silent 
and horrified in the midst of it, trapped in a steel box that could explode and 
send us sky high at any moment. No one attempted to speak. Probably no 
one was capable of it. We just held on tight as the tank shuddered and 
heaved beneath the onslaught. Our eyes were wide open, our throats were 
dry and painful. We felt ourselves to be alone in the inferno, cut off from the 
rest of the world. It seemed only a question of time, of minutes or even 
seconds, before a missile found its mark and 1,500 litres of petrol went up in a 
solid sheet of flame. We knew how it would be. We had seen it happen to our 
friends and comrades, and we had no illusions as to the manner of our death. 
It was usual for tank crews to end up as charred skeletons: only ten per cent 
of us survived the war. 

All about us, shells were thudding down and great gouts of earth were 
catapulting into the air. Death seemed to cling at the nape of our necks, to 
plant clammy cold feet up the length of our spines. We could have retreated, 
but the thought did not occur to us. We were not heroes, we had no desire for 
heroism. An iron discipline had been drilled into us, it had become an integral 
part of us over the years, and it was that alone which kept us at our posts in 
the middle of hell. That, and fear for our own skins. We fought not for Hitler, 
not for the Fatherland, but simply to stay alive. It was a case of probable 
death at the hands of the Russians as against certain death before the firing 
squad if we dared to withdraw. Again, we were familiar with the story. We had 
known other crews in other tanks who had broken under the pressure of 
extreme fear. We had not blamed them, but they had met their death fast 
enough at dawn the next day. 'Desertion in the face of the enemy'. We were 
always given the full details. It was the best method of discouraging others 
from following their example. 

A fresh blast hit the tank. The boy suddenly screamed. He hurled himself to 
the ground, kicking, gnashing his teeth, foam specking bis lips. Before we 
could restrain him he had dashed his head against the breech of the machine 
gun. Little John snatched the child into his arms while the rest of us stared, 
aghast, at this new horror in our midst. Heide groped nervously for his 
revolver. The child arched his body, threw back his head, jerked himself out of 
Little John's arms and went crashing to the floor. 

'Do something!' ordered Little John, frantically. 'Don't just bloody stand there! 
Do something!' 

Alte bent over the child, then slowly shook his head. 

' There's nothing we can do. He's dead.' 

Bruised and torn and bleeding, the little body lay still on the oily floor of the 
tank. It looked like nothing so, much as a bundle of empty rags, Little John 
stared, as one unable to believe the evidence of his eyes. He suddenly hit 
himself hard on the forehead with a clenched fist and let out a roar of 
desperation. 


Before any of us could move he had gathered the child's body to him and was 
up and out of the tank, brandishing his revolver and shooting wildly in all 
directions. 

'Come and get it, you lousy stinking load of swine! ' 

We stared out at him, mesmerized. He never was a pretty figure to look upon, 
but now, with a bloodstained bandage flapping over his forehead and a dead 
child clutched to his chest, he was quite horrifying. 

'He's gone barmy,' muttered Porta. 'He won't last two seconds out there.' 

'I'll get him.' 

The Legionnaire, swift, silent and surefooted, followed Little John out of the 
tank. With one well-placed blow he had knocked him senseless, and Heide 
and Porta between them managed to drag his body back to safety. The child 
fell from his grip and remained lying in the road. The Legionnaire left it there 
without a backward glance. 

Once more we entered upon a period of watching, listening, waiting ... From 
somewhere ahead of us, a mass of tattered and bleeding humanity emerged 
from the, trenches. It was our infantry. 

Slowly a grey dawn began to break. A damp and stifling mist hung in the air, 
but at least we could see what was going on. Flares were being sent up from 
behind the Russian lines; green and white. We knew what that indicated: it 
was the signal for attack. Little John had regained his senses and was 
vaingloriously threatening to kill all and sundry. It looked as if his hour had not 
come. 

The attack began. Wave upon wave of Russian infantry swarmed across to 
our trenches. We heard their exultant cries of 'Uhrae!' as they rushed in for 
the kill. They stretched as far as the eye could see, and our own infantry were 
no more than tiny islands in the enemy ocean. Abandoning their positions, 
jettisoning cannons and machine guns, they fed for their lives. There was 
nothing else they could do against such an onslaught. 

It was a day of mist and grey, overhung skies. A day like many others. And 
yet, for thousand upon thousand of men in that section of the front it was to be 
their last day on earth. No one ever dared calculate the exact number of 
losses that were incurred. Both sides suffered, and both sides destroyed the 
casualty lists rather than face the truth. The battle of Lugansk had been too 
dear. The official communique stated, simply: 'Local attack in the Lugansk 
sector repelled by our artillery. Position held.' 

The voice of Mercedes came over the radio: 'All Tigers to go into the attack 
with everything available. Make for the railway embankment 400 metres 
ahead... Good luck.' 


The railway line and the embankment were a chaos of over-turned trucks and 
locomotives. Long sections of the track were buckled or had been viciously 
ripped up, so that now they pointed heavenwards like accusing iron fingers. 
Signals flapped aimlessly, burning oil drums added to the chaos. The body of 
a German soldier, propelled no doubt by the force of an explosion, was 
impaled on an upturned rail and now swung back and forth like a human 
weathercock. 

From the top of the embankment we had a balcony view of the entire scene. 
The Russian infantry stretched out to the horizon, the massed khaki 
interspersed here and there by anti-aircraft batteries and anti-tank guns drawn 
by horses. 

'God in heaven,' murmured Alte. 'It doesn't seem possible there could be so 
many of them.' 

The Tigers moved in to attack. From afar they must have resembled some 
strange and hideous pack of prehistoric monsters. There was no time, now, to 
reflect and be scared. Mechanically we set about our task of destruction. The 
earth trembled beneath us, the heavy guns roared and blasted. Stream upon 
stream of bullets tore their way into the mass of enemy soldiers. For a 
moment, the great sea hesitated. A ripple ran through it and then a tidal wave 
as those nearest the tanks turned to flee. Many were crushed in the general 
panic. Many more were shattered by the heavy shells that landed in their 
midst, throwing up great geysers of earth and humanity. 

Inside the tanks we were half suffocated. The air was hot and acrid, burning 
our eyes and our throats. Heide worked like a maniac, loading and reloading 
the gun. His heavy gauntlets were singed, and a cloud of smoke rose up from 
them. Several times our clothes caught alight and we had to beat out the 
flames with our bare hands. Our faces were black, we were bathed in sweat. 
In normal circumstances we should have found the conditions unbearable, but 
now we scarcely noticed. The tank rocked and vibrated, and the fury of the 
chase was upon us. We knew it of old, but always it burst upon us as a new 
experience. Danger was forgotten, death was forgotten, the very war itself 
was forgotten. We knew only that we had to kill. The figures in khaki were no 
longer men, no longer soldiers like ourselves, but wild beasts to be hunted 
and crushed. We were the hunters, hunting and killing for the sheer, primitive 
joy of it. We laughed aloud as we crushed our prey beneath us. We shouted 
in triumph as we saw them cowering in their holes, and we turned towards 
them and we blasted them out of existence. 

We worked bareheaded and barechested, caps and tunics abandoned. Teeth 
shone white in oily, grimed faces. Eyes gleamed dementedly. Little John was 
howling like a wolf. We killed and killed again, with every weapon at our 
disposal, with cannon, machine gun and flame thrower. And the Russians 
turned on us, wounded animals at bay, and fought back with desperate 
fervour. Mortally wounded, they still hurled everything they had into the battle. 
But their revolvers and their rifles had no more effect than pea shooters. Even 
the anti-tank guns were useless at any range less than a hundred metres. 


Some of them, indeed, hurled themselves upon us in suicidal attacks with 
Molotov cocktails and magnetic bombs, but it's difficult to make a magnetic 
bomb stick to a tank, and the Molotovs generally did more harm to their own 
side than to ours. 

'Tigers, pull your bloody fingers out!' roared the Major over the radio. 'We 
haven't got all day to waste mopping this lot up!' 

Incensed, we pressed on with an even greater fury. Now the Russians were 
fleeing before us, our shells exploding in their midst, broken bodies hanging 
puppetlike in the air and thudding down upon the tanks. The hum of the 
ventilator showed that the fan was still functioning, but nevertheless the 
stench of blood and sweat and burning humanity was enough to turn your 
stomach. At one point Alte turned his head aside and vomited. Some of it 
caught me in the face. I wiped it off with the back of my hand and never 
realized until much later. 

'Last shell going in,' announced Heide, suddenly. 

'And only thirty litres of petrol left,' added Porta. 

Following in the rear, in the wake of the carnage, were the refueling tanks. We 
turned back and in record time were stocked up once more with ammunition. 
New orders came over the radio: Russian tanks to our right. Distance 1,200 
metres. Deal with them. 

It was a whole formation of T.34s. We could see them massed on the far side 
of the railway line, and as we brought our guns to bear I felt fear returning to 
me. At moments like that it is sheer hell to be trapped in a tank. 

'Fire!' commanded Alte. 

The heavy guns roared. Almost at once, the leading T.34s were in flames – 
but on our side, also, vast torches had been set alight. Within minutes we 
were surrounded by burning masses of steel. Few men managed to escape 
from the inferno before the ammunition exploded and blew both tank and 
occupants into a million unrecognizable pieces. It was the light tanks that 
suffered: the Tigers withstood the onslaught, while the others were wiped out 
almost completely. After an hour's hard fighting, the Russians were defeated. 
The cost to both sides had been devastating. 

The enemy had discovered that a breakthrough at that section of the front 
was not possible: we had discovered that we could hold out against a 
concerted attack. We opened up the hatches and gulped in the cold air; lords, 
for the moment, of all we surveyed, which was nothing but a tangled mass of 
burnt-out tanks, charred bodies, and the maimed and bloody wrecks of 
humanity that were still left alive. 

We had but a moment to savour our victory. It was Alte who first noticed the 
T.34s once again massing on the far side of the railway line. There must 


have, been more than a hundred of them. Their aim was immediately obvious 
: to cut off our means of retreat. The Russians were past-masters at such 
tactics, as we knew from previous bitter experience. 

There was no time to reflect upon our situation. Alte passed the message 
straight on to Major Mercedes, and he at once gave the order to withdraw. It 
was a race to beat death. We turned and fled, each tank heading on its own 
course for the safety of the German lines. There was a T.34 ahead of us. We 
had it in our sights ... 

Fire! The tank shuddered. Flame roared out of the mouth of the cannon. A 
second later, an answering flame shot heavenwards from the T.34 and a 
black cloud of smoke mushroomed after it. Then the explosion, which 
destroyed both tank and men. 

Two more we disposed of in similar fashion, but the luck could not hold out 
indefinitely. We pushed on at full speed, passing the blackened remains of 
several of our own tanks. At one point we came upon a band of German 
soldiers, blood-smeared and limping, the lame and the blind supporting each 
other. We slowed down to take them on board and within seconds the turret 
and the bonnet were swarming with men. Inevitably some lost their grip and 
fell back into the road, but we had no alternative but to abandon them. This 
was no time for sentiment. If we stopped to pick up everyone, we should all 
end our days as a heap of charred bones. Nevertheless, it required a strong 
man to move on and leave his companions to the mercy of the enemy. Hands 
clawed piteously at the sides of the tank, voices were raised in despairing 
cries. Porta instinctively put his foot on the brake and Alte turned furiously on 
him. 

'Keep going, you bloody fool.' 

For a moment, Porta looked mutinous. 

'I said, keep going!' repeated Alte. 'And that, my friend, is an order.' 

Porta opened his mouth to speak but his words were drowned by the impact 
of some heavy metallic object on the outside of the tank. The whole thing 
shuddered and shook. Inside, we fell about in a mass of unco-ordinated arms 
and legs. Outside, the wounded soldiers shrieked in agony. 

'Dive bombers,' hissed Alte. 'Now perhaps you'll bloody get a move on.' 

Porta hunched a shoulder indifferently, but none the less the tank started up 
again. I think we all let out sighs of relief. Porta was the best driver in the 
whole regiment, and if anyone could get us safely back, he could. A blood-
chilling scream ripped the air as we moved on our way. There was a 
moment's stillness. Then the Legionnaire hunched a shoulder. 

'Someone caught underneath,' he said, laconically. 


We rolled on across the steppes, now crunching our way through a sea of 
ruins, fallen masonry, broken glass, now ploughing across abandoned 
trenches, through shellholes and craters. Far ahead of us were the other 
Tigers. Only Barcelona was at our side, his own tank submerged beneath a 
horde of wounded infantrymen. 

Alte kept muttering beneath his breath. We caught the word 'bridge', and we 
knew what was running through his mind. There was a certain bridge we had 
to cross, to reach the other side of the river. Much depended on whether we 
or the Russians reached it first. 

A fresh obstacle came our way: Barcelona's tank ran into a patch of marshy 
ground and was soon completely bogged down. We passed him a cable, but 
as we were only able to pull crossways, and not straight ahead, it was of very 
little use. Even as we watched, the heavy tank sank lower in the mud, and 
Mercedes, when called up on the radio and informed of the situ ation, gave 
orders that it should be abandoned and destroyed. Barcelona and his crew 
were installed with us and we set off again, once more with a mass of bodies 
clinging to every foothold on the exterior of the tank. 

We ran into a Russian battery and were upon it before they had time to 
scatter themselves. We caught only a glimpse of horrified faces, contorted 
with fear, as we plunged our way through the centre of them. 

Shortly afterwards, it was our turn to start trembling: the tank began losing 
speed. Porta and Little John worked feverishly, to no avail. The distance 
between us and the rest of the Tigers widened still further. 

'What the hell's happening?' we demanded, made irritable and unreasoning 
through sheer terror at our likely predicament. 

'Get it moving, for Chrissake!' 'I'm not a bleeding magician! ' snarled Porta. 

Alte called up Lt. Ohlsen on the radio: no reply. We saw the last of our fellow 
tanks disappear over the brow of a hill, far ahead of us. It seemed unlikely, 
now, that we should ever reach the bridge... And then, suddenly, the motor 
started up again. It coughed and spluttered, cut out altogether, came back to 
life. The tank jerked forward. For the umpteenth time, Porta had worked a 
miracle. We showered him with extravagant praise and he merely spat 
contemptuously and changed gear. 

'We are heroes,' announced Little John. 'It is our duty to die a hero's death... 
Heil Adolf! What luck for you that we were born at this hour . What luck for us 
that we're still alive to fight another bleeding day.' 

'What the flaming hell are we fighting for, anyway?' grumbled Barcelona, who 
was crouching in a corner to be out of our way. 

'Don't ask damn fool questions,' advised Alte. 


In a cloud of dust, we reached the bridge. It was still intact, guarded by a 
section of Russian infantry. We didn't wait to exchange pleasantries, we 
literally drove through and over them. Two daring spirits hurled themselves on 
to the front of the tank: one had an arm torn off, and our passengers dealt with 
the other. 

Across the bridge, we had to pass through a village that was heavily 
defended. Somehow we managed to survive constant barrage from the 
enemy anti-tank guns, but judging from the shrieks and yells, many of those 
on the outside must have suffered appallingly. There was nothing we could do 
for them. 

Outside the village we came face to face with a T.34. The first we knew was 
when a shell exploded on the armour-plating on the forefront of the tank. 
Fortunately it was not of sufficient strength to harm us, but the remainder of 
our passengers were swept off like straws in a high wind. I fixed the Russian 
tank in our sights. Before I could fire, Porta had pressed his foot down and 
was moving head-on towards them. The two tanks met with a hideous crash 
and rebounded off each other. Inside the Tiger we fell about all over the place. 
I nearly knocked myself senseless hitting my head on the sharp corner of an 
ammunition box. The lighter Russian tank was in worse case than our 52-
tonner. She had slewed right round, and two members of her crew, who had 
been half in and half out of the hatch at the time of the collision, were sliced in 
two as the impact closed the heavy cover of the hatch on their legs. 

After a bit we overtook a section of German infantry which had obviously seen 
some heavy fighting at some time during the day. All were half dead with 
fatigue, their eyes sunk deep into their sockets, their faces grey and haggard; 
most of them wore filthy bloodstained bandages, some had lost an arm, a leg, 
an eye. They knew the whereabouts of neither the Russian nor the German 
lines. They called out to us as we passed, appealing to us to take them up. 
We waved and shouted words of helpless encouragement, and as they saw 
we had no intention of stopping, their appeals turned to threats and 
vituperation. A captain of artillery drew his revolver and fired several shots at 
us, and an Oberwachtmeister planted himself four-square in the middle of the 
road with a machine gun and bawled at us to stop. We moved on inexorably. 
The Oberwachtmeister refused to give ground, and the result was inevitable, 
A howl of fury rose up behind us from his companions. 

Some time later we met up with the rest of the Tigers in a wood a few 
kilometres to the south of Lichnovskoj. Under cover of darkness the 
mechanics set to work on the battered tanks. Ours was given a new engine 
and fresh plating, and one of the tracks was changed. Barcelona took over a 
Tiger that had been abandoned by the S.S. The gun had been put out of 
action but was swiftly replaced by a more modern weapon taken from a tank 
that had been too damaged to be worth repairing. 

Lt. Ohlsen joined our group and handed round cigarettes. 'How about giving 
us a tune?' he demanded of Porta. 


'Such as what?' asked Porta, pulling out his flute. 

'Something gay. Whatever you like.' 

'Horst Wessel,' suggested the Professor. General hoots and jeers. 

'The Lieutenant said something gay,' Porta reminded him. 

A bottle of vodka was passed round in the wake of the cigarettes. Slowly, we 
began to relax after the rigours of the day. 

'Let's sing, "I was born and brought up in a brothel",' proposed Porta. 

We roared it out at the tops of our voices, savouring the mounting crudity as 
verse succeeded verse. The vodka bottle circulated. A sense of peace and 
well-being gradually stole over us. 

'If only they'd provide us with a tanktoad of whores,' sighed Little John. 

For a while, we discussed the possibility with all the enthusiasm we generally 
brought to affairs sexual. As usual, the discussion deteriorated and finally 
broke up in a riot of fighting and disorder. Lt. Ohlsen grew bored with us. He 
told us to shut up and then wandered away to a more peaceable group while 
we continued with our skirmishes. Someone hit Porta over the head with the 
handle of a grenade. Little John quietly finished off the vodka while the rest of 
us were otherwise engaged. Someone else then bashed Heide with a spade, 
and the Professor, as usual, ended up with a bloody nose. In the middle of it 
al1, the order came through: prepare for departure. We heard the first tanks 
set off through the trees and saw the long tongues of flame licking out of their 
exhausts. 

Once again we moved into action. We left the shelter of the wood and took 
our place on the road, part of a long column of vehicles – tanks, lorries, 
armoured cars, amphibious VWs, jeeps – all heading east for an unspecified 
destination. 

We pulled up again some miles further on. Porta leaned out of the tank and 
yelled at an infantry division that had joined us. 

'Hey, be a pal and tell us if we're on the right road for the war! We'd like to 
have a bash if we're not too late.' 

'You'll bleeding find out where it is soon enough,' came the disgruntled reply. 

In the distance were the familiar rumblings of heavy artillery. The sky was 
criss-crossed with searchlights, and away beyond the treetops coloured flares 
lit up the night. 

The Tigers mustered together and stood patiently awaiting orders, a long line 
of tanks stretching far back down the road. Porta and Little John left the 


comparative comfort of the interior and ventured outside, where they installed 
themselves in a ditch and played dice for vast sums of money that neither 
possessed. They were joined after a while by Heide and the Legionnaire, and 
the game swiftly became the opportunity for a fresh bout of brawling. 

Somewhere too close for comfort a cannon gave a short, dry bark. 

'T.34,' said Alte, calmly. 

The order came through to move forward. The four gamblers forgot their 
differences and leapt back into the tank, Barcelona gave us the thumbs-up 
sign. Ahead of us, a stream of white and green tracer bullets rose into the 
blackness. It was the signal for attack. 

Slowly we edged forward into the thick undergrowth, crushing bushes and 
young trees beneath us. Our guns fired in short bursts. Somewhere a T.34 
exploded and rained down a red-hot shower of steel upon us. All around us 
the anti-tank guns were hard at work. Each time we heard one we instinctively 
sunk our heads into our shoulders. 

Suddenly the booming and roaring of the heavy artillery stopped, and there 
came instead the cracking of automatics and rattle of machine guns. From the 
raucous shouts of encouragement we heard, we gathered that the infantry 
had gone into the attack. 

'Tigers, forward!' 

We increased speed. Thick gouts of mud were thrown up, trees were knocked 
down like so many skittles. We halted momentarily to let a column of infantry 
pass through, then advanced in formation on the Russians ahead of us. The 
fever of the chase was on us again, but with this difference: no one was sure 
whether we were the hunters or the hunted. Everything was in a state of 
confusion. 

We came to a small village, a railway crossroads, where there was fierce 
fighting. The steady chattering of machine gunfire; hand grenades, rockets, 
flame throwers; harsh cries in Russian and German; screams and yells and 
thick columns of smoke. An ammunition dump went up in a sheet of flame. 
Gigantic torches that were burning houses lit our path. We were given a warm 
welcome by a couple of anti-tank guns, both of which had to be wiped out 
before we could continue. The usual carnage littered the streets. Dead 
soldiers, dead horses, dead civilians. Pieces of equipment that had been 
abandoned. A Russian captain trapped beneath an overturned vehicle, 
screaming with his mouth wide open and his eyes staring, unseeing. Many of 
the wounded, unable to crawl away fast enough, were crushed beneath our 
tracks. A constant fine shower of burning cinders fell over everything, even 
penetrating to the interior of the tank. We drove through hell with our arms 
held protectively across our faces, but for those outside it was far worse. We 
saw many soldiers yelling with pain and staggering across the street with both 
hands clapped to their eyes. 


Half-way through the village there was hand to hand fighting; we had to turn 
aside and plough across a row of houses. The walls slowly crumbled beneath 
the impact of fifty-two tons. In one house, a bed, with two dead bodies; 
between them, still alive, a small girl. Porta was unable to brake in time to 
avoid her. No one said a word. We lied to each other by our very silence. No 
one spoke for the simple reason that no one had the courage to admit what 
he had seen. This was not war, it was murder. It was one of those things you 
would never talk about. The villagers had lost everything; including, in many 
cases their lives. An old woman sat amongst the ruins of her home, amongst 
a few broken sticks of wood that had once been her furniture. Her long grey 
hair was charred, her arms and legs covered in burns. She followed the 
passage of the tanks with eyes that opened wide in terror, but she made no 
attempt to hide from us. There was nowhere left to hide, in any case. Three 
civilians lay dead in the middle of the road. Further on, the bodies of a dead 
child and a dead soldier lay together, their blood mingling, still warm and red. 

Without knowing why, we were ordered to a halt in the centre of a street. 
Nearby was a square, a cobbled courtyard with a well in the middle. At this 
well a German soldier was relieving himself. He must have been holding it in 
for a long time, because the operation continued indefinitely. We sat watching 
him in silence, as if he were performing some curious ceremony. Why did he 
have to pollute the supply of drinking water? There was no malice in his 
action. He urinated into the well because the well was there, because the well 
was convenient, because he didn't think; and for no other reason. When he 
had finished he tied up his flies and stepped back with a deep sigh of 
satisfaction, as if the world were now a better place. 

On the other side of the well a small boy was, playing in the sand, seemingly 
unmoved by the war that was taking place all round him. The soldier walked 
over to him, said a few words, patted him on the head. He turned and saw the 
tanks, waved cheerfully towards us; lit a cigarette, leaned back against the 
well, smoking. Then he glanced over his shoulder again at the child, pulled 
something from his pocket and tossed it into the sand. The child clawed it up 
and instantly crammed it into his mouth. The soldier grinned and nodded. 
Next moment, with an expression of sheer amazement on his face, he slowly 
folded in upon himself and sank to the ground. His legs twitched, a spout of 
blood came from his open mouth. The child stood up and took a few 
uncertain, steps forward, then he, also, collapsed. None of us had heard the 
shell that killed them both until it actually reached the spot and exploded. It 
threw up a surprisingly small quantity of sand, and the dust soon settled 
again. 

The scene was almost as before. A couple of chickens wandered out into the 
open and began pecking hopefully for food near the two bodies. 

Under cover of the tanks, our infantry pressed forward in another attack. From 
innumerable holes, men in brown uniforms suddenly made their appearance. 
Porta leaned out of the side of the tank and waved them on. 'See you in 
Moscow, lads!' 


A hail of bullets rained about his head and he withdrew it quickly amidst jeers 
from the troops. 

The attack advanced, retreated, advanced again and then hesitated in the 
face of fierce Russian opposition. The Russian artillery now began to join in 
the fun. Our troops threw themselves to the ground, flat on their bellies, but 
still the shock of the explosions hurled them up into the air and tossed them 
back again like broken puppets. With my forehead pressed against the rubber 
surround of the observation panel. I watched the whole macabre scene as if it 
were a cinema show. 

'Enemy anti-tank to our right,' announced Alte, suddenly. 

There was a battery of them concealed behind the walls of a farm. In 
company with the other Tigers we advanced upon them, subjecting them to a 
concerted bombardment. They held out for a while, inflicting serious damage 
on us, but soon we were on top of them, crushing the guns beneath our heavy 
tracks. The crews had, fled, and we picked them off with machine gun fire. Lt. 
Ohlsen's tank received four direct hits simultaneously and the explosion 
reverberated through our own Tiger. We saw one of the crew flung up into the 
air in a mass of flames. Whether anyone survived, we were not then certain. 
Four other tanks were left as burning wrecks. Of the entire First Company, 
only six tanks now remained. The whole of the Fourth Company had been 
wiped out some time back. 

Once again, we had become the hunted. We moved away from the area of 
immediate danger and reformed, in positions of attack, several kilometres 
further on, The divisional commander, General Keller, turned up in an open 
car and quickly restored order from a state of chaos. Reinforcements arrived 
from other armoured sections and we were sent off once more. The 
atmosphere inside the tank was suffocating. The ventilating system had 
ceased to function and we were all choking and red-eyed from the constant 
discharge each time the guns were fired. Heide was overcome by the fumes 
after a while and collapsed on the floor at our feet. We kicked him out of the 
way and left him there. We had neither the time nor the opportunity to do 
more for him. 

Coming up on the left, along a strip of road bordered by poplars, I sighted a 
long column of familiar black shapes, and in spite of the heat I felt the goose 
pimples break out like a rash on my arms. 

'T.34s!' 

'That's all we wanted,,' said Alte, bitterly. 

'Some party,' commented Porta. 'Anyone feel it's time to go home yet?' 

'Twelve hundred metres,' murmured Alte. 'Have you got them, Sven? If you 
shit this one up, we've had it.' 


I was too well aware of the fact for comfort. I had the leading T.34 in my 
sights. The image was clear. I fired, without even realizing that I had done so. 

The sound of an explosion. The welcome sight of smoke and. flames. I fell 
backwards with the recoil of the gun, hardly able to believe my luck. 

'You did it!' yelled Porta, fetching me a thump on the back. 'You bloody did it!' 

The long column of T.34s had come to a confused halt. They turned their 
guns to the right, obviously not sure what had hit them nor where the enemy 
was situated. They probably took us for a battery of anti-tank guns concealed 
behind the poplars. 

Once again I had them in my sights; once again I fired; and once again the 
missile found its mark. The other Tigers were joining in, we had the enemy at 
a disadvantage, and the air was soon thick with clouds of dense black smoke, 
shot through with red and yellow flames. 

'That's it!' yelled Little John, suddenly. 'Firework display over!' 

Alte looked at him in astonishment. 

'What the hell are you talking about?' 

'No more ammo,' said Little John, cheerfully. He sank on to the floor beside 
the unconscious Heide and gave him a contemptuous kick. 'You can wake up 
now, you've missed all the fun.' 

We withdrew from the battle and Alte called up the refuelling wagons. By the 
time they had arrived and we were provided with a further stock of 
ammunition the T.34s had been effectively wiped out and the rest of our 
section were moving forward to a new destination. 

We emerged from a thicket of trees and found ourselves on the edge of a 
plain that was black with a dense mass of assembled tanks. It was a 
breathtaking vision, a display of sheer force. There must have been at least 
two hundred Tigers gathered there, obviously called up from a number of 
regiments. 

An S.S. man, an Obersturmführer, watched us go by and spat disdainfully on 
the death's head painted on our tower. The death's head was the emblem of 
the disciplinary regiments. The Obersturmführer belonged to the Second 
Division, of S.S. tanks, 'Das Reich', probably one of the most arrogant in the 
entire Germany army. By way of showing him that we were every bit as 
coarse as we looked, we gave him the two fingers as we passed. 

The orders were to proceed towards the south-west, in the direction of 
Sinegorsky, where an entire division was encircled by the enemy. We were 
able to pick up their desperate appeals for help over the radio. 


We reached them within the hour. In the absence of enemy tanks we were 
soon able to deal with the opposition and were given a heroes' welcome by 
our own troops. The only trouble was, they turned out to be members of the 
S.S. And as Porta said, had we known that we should never have bothered to 
rescue them. It was a fine point which we detested more: the S.S. or the 
Russians. 

The order came through to reassemble and retreat from the area while the 
going was good. Within minutes we were on our way, but we were not long 
left in peace. A squadron of JL2s appeared and began dive bombing us. We 
promptly dispersed into the wooded areas bordering the road, but when the 
bombers finally departed, disappearing towards the east, they left behind 
them a scene of appalling carnage. To add to the misery, several divisions of 
Russians troops had been sighted in the distance. 

Major Mercedes consulted the map, then conferred with Lt. Gaun, his 
ordnance officer. 

'I think we'd better get the hell out of here while there's still a chance. If we 
hang about too long, they'll cut us off.' 

'What about the wounded?' 

The Major picked up his field glasses, surveyed the advancing Russians, 
glanced back at the map, then shook his head and climbed back into his tank. 

'All those not capable of marching under their own steam will have to be 
abandoned.' 

Lt. Gaun took a protesting step forward. 

'Sir, we can't leave them here like that. You know the Russians won't take 
prisoners. It's certain death. We might just as well have left them in the first 
place.' 

The Major gave him a brief look. 

'It'll be certain death for a lot more of us if we don't pull out of here.' 

He disappeared into the tank and it moved slowly forward. For a moment the 
Lieutenant stood watching it, then he turned and let his gaze travel over the 
various groups of wounded men sitting or lying on the ground. Admittedly they 
were the S.S., admittedly we loathed them, but still it was a pitiful sight. Many 
were in a bad way and would obviously not last long without expert attention. 
There had not been time to apply proper dressings to the wounds. Several 
men nursed shattered limbs that were nothing but raw pulpy masses of flesh 
covered with makeshift bandages, already soaked with blood. Here and there 
the sharp edge of a bone protruded, gleaming white and jagged. But on the 
whole, the troops were cheerful. It obviously never occurred to them that they 
would be left to the mercies of the oncoming Russians. They spoke longingly 


of the peace and quiet of a hospital room; they were already seeing visions of 
beautiful nurses, cool hands upon their brow, clean sheets, soft blankets; no 
more stinking trenches, no more fighting, no more terror. On the whole, those 
who had lost arms or legs were inclined to rejoice. For them, it meant 
permanent retirement from the nightmare of the front line trenches, a return to 
Germany, to their wives and their children. Those of us who had overheard 
the Major looked sympathetically upon Lt. Gaun and did not envy him his task. 
The orders for departure were given. Ponderously the big tanks moved off, 
each covered in as many soldiers as could find a foothold. It took a moment 
for those left behind to accept the truth. When they did so, the reaction was 
worse than any battle I had yet known. Screams of rage and terror mingled 
with desperate cries of appeal. Supplicating hands clawed unbelievingly at 
those who had been lucky enough to find a position on the outside of a tank. 
Men with blood pouring from open wounds came tottering towards us, 
shrieking with pain and with sheer incredulity at this thing we were doing to 
them. Some crawled, some used each other as crutches. Others just lay and 
stared, with eyes that were vacant and glassy. Three officers hurled 
themselves into the path of an oncoming tank and were instantly crushed. It 
was our final farewell to thousands of our own wounded. That was all the 
thanks you could expect in wartime. Heil Hitler and try to die like a hero. 

For us, it was a race against time. On both sides the Russian tanks were 
closing in on us in an attempt to cut off our means of retreat. Their shells 
rained down upon us. The sky was full of flak and tracer, and over and above 
everything else we slowly became aware of the droning of enemy aircraft. 

They came screaming at us from out of the clouds. We barely had time to 
take note of them before the entire tank was lifted off the ground, as if by 
some unseen excavator, thoroughly pounded and then flung back again with 
a jolt that jarred every bone in our bodies. 

One of the enemy bombers had found its mark: a bomb had exploded just 
under our tower. It was a miracle that the tank itself did not explode. We were 
thrown up to the ceiling, back to the floor, one on top of another. Wires and 
pipes were ripped away, the gun was torn bodily from its mountings, pieces of 
glass embedded themselves in our flesh. The world became a whirling mass 
of bombs, earth, rocks, steel, all performing some crazy flying dance through 
the air. 

The Jabos came screaming back from another direction. For the men outside, 
it must have been wholesale slaughter. It was hellish enough inside. Trapped 
in a pitch black hole, unable to see, unable to breathe, our eyes and throats 
burning with the acrid vapours that swirled round us. There was an almost 
overwhelming urge to burst out into the sea of bombs and meet death head 
on rather than sit waiting for it in the dark, expecting at any moment to be 
blown into a million pieces. 

But when, at last, it was all over, we none of us moved or spoke. The sudden 
silence was strange and unnerving. It seemed impossible that we should be 


still living. For a long time we were scared to move, scared to see what 
horrors lay in wait outside. 

We emerged slowly, almost reluctantly, into the fresh air. Of those who had 
clung to the outside of the tanks, scarcely a man remained alive. Many of the 
tanks themselves were mere smouldering heaps of wreckage. From those 
that remained, grimy, unrecognizable figures were painfully pulling 
themselves into the open. We saw a man come crawling out of a tangled pile 
of steel with blood pouring from a wound in his throat. We saw another with 
half his face burnt away, the charred flesh hanging in ribbons. Little John's 
right hand had been split open, Porta had a hole the size of a fist in his 
forehead. The Russian bombers had done their work well. It was a wholesale 
massacre. 

Barcelona staggered towards us, followed by the rest of his crew. He looked 
at our tank, then looked at us, as if unable to believe that we had come out of 
it alive. We turned and followed his gaze, seeing the Tiger for the first time 
and sharing his incredulity. The gun had been torn completely away; the 
tracks were buckled like switchbacks; the bonnet was staved in; most of the 
wheels were missing, the petrol tanks were flattened, and the vehicle as a 
whole simply no longer existed. 

We stood staring for several minutes, until at last Porta shook his head and 
wiped the blood from his eyes. 'God, that was a tank and a half,' he said, 
sadly. 

Torgau. Called a prison; in fact a hell. A cold grey hell, staffed by sadistic 
maniacs with whips and jackboots, with the unfortunate inmates reduced to 
the level of a herd of cattle and treated a great deal worse. 

There were but two exits from Torgau: one led to the firing squad and one to a 
disciplinary battalion and the Russian front. Ninety per cent of the prisoners 
took the former way out. Perhaps, in the long run, they were the lucky ones. 

CHAPTER SIX 

THOSE of the regiment who survived were sent back to Germany. It was felt, 
perhaps, that we had earned a rest. 

Our company were put on guard duties at the military prison at Torgau. It was 
a forbidding place, where everything was grey: the stark stone walls were 
grey, the main gates were grey, the uniforms were grey, the bars across the 
windows were grey. The very sky itself, when you were lucky enough to get a 
glimpse of it, was grey. 

The great double doors were swung open to admit another prisoner, marched 
in in handcuffs between two guards. He jumped nervously as the doors 
clanged shut behind him. For a moment his mouth twisted, his face contorted, 
we thought he was going to shout aloud. But he just muttered to himself, and 
we caught the words 'a living death'. 


'Hold your tongue!' screamed the feldwebel. 'In this place, you speak when 
you're spoken to and not before ... And as a general rule the only time they 
bother to speak to you is to ask whether you want a bandage tied round your 
eyes.' 

Feldwebel Schmidt sniggered with self-satisfied laughter. He was always 
laughing. His fellow warders called him 'the Joker'. He might have been taken 
for a jolly, jesting fellow, except that his sense of humour unfortunately 
operated only at other people's expense. He was not, in that respect, 
altogether normal. His desire to be constantly laughing at other people's 
expense amounted to a definite obsession. But there again, he was not so 
very unusual: none of the warders employed in Hitler's prisons could ever, by 
any stretch of the imagination, have been described as 'normal'. 

Feldwebel Schmidt pressed the bell that rang far away in the depths of the 
prison, in the room marked 'Reception', which was the domain of 
Hauptfeldwebel Dorn. The prisoner was marched off. 

The Hauptfeldwebel lived his life in a carefully contrived; muddle of papers 
and documents. Filing cabinets stood in all four corners of his office. Wire 
trays filled with papers stood, before him on the desk. Files marked 'For 
Signature', 'Urgent', 'Pending', 'Top Priority' and so on lay scattered about for 
all to see, proclaiming to the world that Hauptfeldwebel Dorn was a man much 
occupied by prison affairs. There was an impressive array of pens, pencils, 
rubber stamps, bottles of ink, rulers, and other office paraphernalia. And 
behind it all sat Hauptfeldwebel Dorn, conscientiously doing as little work as 
possible. In the third drawer of his desk, hidden beneath the pile of the 
'Völkischer Beobachter', which no one would ever think of reading, was a dark 
green bottle marked 'Glue'. In fact it was cognac, which always proved a good 
restorative if ever Dorn found himself with his back to the wall and having to 
pick up a pen and sign a few letters. 

The office door opened to admit Schmidt and his fellow warder and the 
handcuffed prisoner. 

'Heil Hitler!' barked Schmidt. 

As a matter of principle, Dorn ignored him. He sat hunched behind his desk, 
apparently fully absorbed in the contents of a file that he was studying. Inside 
the file, typed on several sheets of official paper stamped 'Gekados' (Secret) 
was a pornographic story. 

Feldwebel Schmidt scraped his throat, deferentially, to call attention to his 
presence. 

'Silence!' snapped Dorn. 'You can see that I'm busy.' 

For the next few moments there came only the sound of heavy breathing and 
the important rustling of the secret papers. At length Dorn closed the file, 
placed it in the drawer with the bottle of Glue beneath the 'Völkischer 


Beobachter', and turned majestically to survey the prisoner. Without a word he 
held out a hand to Schmidt. Schmidt silently passed over the prisoner's 
papers. Dorn glanced at them and said 'Hm!' in tones of contempt and 
importance. He tossed them nonchalantly into one of his wire baskets, stood 
up, paused a moment for effect, then strolled slowly round the desk and 
placed himself before the prisoner. 

'Well?' he demanded. 

The prisoner stiffened. 'Lt. Heinz Berner, 76th Artillery,' he said. 

'Well?' asked Dorn, once again. 'May one inquire what it is that brings you to 
Torgau? Or is it, perhaps, sehr gekados?' 

Lt. Berner looked down at the floor. 

'Sentenced to death for murder... sir.' 

'An officer turned murderer?' Dorn raised his thin eyebrows. 'An officer of the 
German Army? It scarcely seems credible... Who, if it's not too much trouble, 
was the unfortunate victim?' 

'My fiancée.' 

'Your fiancée?' Dorn threw back his head and whinnied like a horse 
confronted with a bag of oats. 'That's good! I like it! It's the best thing I've 
heard in a long time! Well, never mind, Lt. Heinz Berner: you'll soon be 
reunited with her. We have no place for men like you in the German Army.' 

Lt. Berner was taken to the third floor and shut up in a cell measuring 3 by 1½ 
metres. He felt as if he were in a sardine tin. Any minute now someone would 
turn the key and peel back the lid, and that moment would mean death to Lt. 
Berner. 

He sank heavily on to a wooden stool, put his head in his hands and sat 
without moving for almost half an hour. It seemed to him that his life was over, 
almost before it had even begun. Most of his friends had turned against him; 
for them, he was already dead. At any minute he could expect to hear the 
man with the key and he would know that they had come for him, that the 
firing squad was waiting somewhere in the yard outside. 

It seemed impossible that it was such a short time ago that he had left the 
military school in Potsdam covered in glory, promoted to lieutenant, sent 
home on leave, met at the station by his proud parents and devoted Else. 
Even now, looking back, it was difficult to see exactly how it had all happened, 
where it had really started to go wrong. He thought, perhaps, the first inkling 
of trouble had appeared that day he had taken Else out to dinner. He had 
kissed her in the vestibule of the restaurant. A lingering kiss with the tip of his 
tongue exploring inside her mouth. Such a kiss as he had read about in that 
book by – who was it? Some American name. Müller? Miller? Yes, that was,, 


it. Henry Miller. The book had been confiscated and ostentatiously burnt after 
half the camp had read it. Else had reacted to the kiss like an outraged virgin. 
Upon reflection, she probably was a virgin, and she had most certainly been 
outraged. For two days she had refused to speak to him, and had then only 
resumed the relationship on the strict understanding he should not lay so 
much as a finger on her, never mind a tongue. Else was a member of the 
B.D.M.(*) And according to their doctrine, no officer should ever demand 'that 
sort of thing' from, one of their girls. Chastity until marriage. Desire should not 
exist. And if by some misfortune, by some freak of nature, it did rear its 
horrible head, then it should be firmly extinguished until a couple were safely 
wed. Did the Führer, they asked, go about subjecting young girls to gross 
behaviour? Obviously not. It was unthinkable. 

(*) Bund Deutscher Mädel – League of German Girls 

Heinz had done his best to extinguish his freakish desire to possess Else. 
After all, he owed it to the Führer. Unfortunately his desires refused to be 
extinguished. 

'An officer of the German Army should simply not behave that way,' Else told 
him. 

'What way?' 

'You know quite well, Heinz.' 

'Then how should he behave?' 

'He should wait until he's married.' 

Heinz accepted it, since he had no choice, although as far as he could recall 
they had never laid down any specific rules on the subject at the military 
school at Potsdam. 

'Let's get married, then,' he suggested. 'From the moment we belong to each 
other physically, you can count yourself as my wife. Surely that would be all 
right?' 

Else flung herself upon him and for several moments they kissed each other 
with all the forbidden fervour described in the Henry Miller book. And then, 
suddenly, she had thrust him away from her and was staring with revulsion in 
her eyes, as if he were some hideous monster. 

'So? Is that the only reason you want to marry me? Because you want to go to 
bed with me? How disgusting! I find that sort of thing utterly contemptible. I've 
just reported one of my best friends for having sexual relations with a man.' 

It took him the next few hours to convince her that she was misjudging him. 
By the time he had succeeded, it was almost true: desire had, at least for the 
moment, been repressed. 


And then, the next day – how had it happened? How had it possibly 
happened? They had been so happy together. The brutes of the Kripo, they 
refused to believe that he really couldn't remember. They'd beaten him up and 
threatened him with 'a little outing', which, they assured him, would quickly 
restore his memory. He hadn't understood what they meant, but he had 
gathered it was something unpleasant. The Chief Inspector had punched him 
several times in the face and accused him of murdering other people besides 
Else. 

'Tell us about it,' he said. 'Take us into your confidence and we'll do all we can 
for you. We'll have your case heard here at Hamburg instead of Berlin. You'll 
do better in Hamburg. We treat people fairly here.' 

They had thrown him about the room and kicked him in the guts, until at last 
he had vomited up blood. He thought they must be mad. They made him lick 
up his own vomit, and several other things he preferred to forget. Finally, he 
was put in preventive detention and a new set of warders occupied 
themselves with him. They broke two of his fingers, one on each hand, 
choosing the middle- finger because that was the one that gave most pain, 
and because it could successfully be broken in three places. The doctor who 
examined him afterwards thought it quite amusing. 

'Slipped on the floor, eh? Amazing the number of people who've done that just 
recently. I keep telling them they shouldn't put such a high polish on it. They'll 
have a really serious accident one of these days.' 

And so, now here he was, in Torgau ... Torgau! My God, was it really true? 
Was he really in Torgau, of all places? Torgau, a name that was synonymous 
with hell, with torture, with death ... 

Once again, the Lieutenant buried his face in his hands; and this time he 
sobbed like a child. He didn't want to die, not even the death of an officer, and 
please God they would at least grant him that – but he wasn't ready for death, 
he was too young. Only twenty, and full of patriotic fervour. Why did they have 
to kill him? He wanted to fight, for the Fatherland, for the Führer, for the sheer 
honour and glory of it. It would be idiocy to waste so valiant an officer. What 
could he do? Write to Generaloberst Haider? Yes. Haider would help him. 
Sure to. It was his duty to write to him. He owed it not only to himself but to 
Germany. 

The Lieutenant jumped up and ran to the door of his cell. He clutched at the 
bars and shouted at the top of his voice. 

'I want to write a letter! I want to write a letter!' 

Outside in the passage, someone beat on his door. 

'Stop that flaming row in there!' 


The Lieutenant fell back. He sank in a kind of daze on to his wooden stool. 
For a long time there was silence. Now and again he heard footsteps in the 
corridor, the jingle of keys. It was a sound that drove him to the very edge of 
panic. Each time, he imagined they were coming for him. 

The brutes of the Kripo had treated him as some kind of sex maniac. The 
court martial had expressed the regret that he could die only one death and 
not be killed ten times over. And yet even now he could not remember clearly 
how it had all happened. He had loved Else. He had had no wish to harm her. 

He had been drunk, he knew that. Too drunk to have full control of himself; 
not so drunk he did not know what he was doing. And he had torn off his 
clothes, he knew that, also. Else had screamed and fought, but no one had 
heard her. Or if they had, they had taken no notice. It was the fault of the war. 
You became accustomed to violence and accepted it as a normal part of life. 
In the end it made no impact on you and you failed even to notice it. 

Else had kicked him hard on the shins. It had hurt, but he had only laughed 
and tightened his grip on her wrists. 

'Let me go! Let me go!' 

And he hadn't. No, he definitely hadn't. He could remember holding on to her. 
She had fought like a creature demented. She had called him a swine, a brute 
and a Jew, which were the three worst insults she knew. She had punched 
him in the face, and a Sèvres vase had fallen from the mantelshelf and 
shattered, he remembered all that. He seemed also to recall the untimely end 
of a piece of Dresden china, an ornate looking-glass and several other 
valuable knick-knacks. 

He remembered all that, but what he did not remember were the things that 
followed. He did not, for instance, remember pulling out Else's hair by the 
roots, or tearing at her flesh until she bled; or hurling her to the ground, or 
firing twice at point-blank range upon a portrait of the Kaiser. He did not 
remember sinking his teeth into Else's throat, nor licking Up the blood, hers 
mingled with his; nor the warm salty taste of the blood, nor the strange rattling 
in Else's torn throat, nor the sudden softness of her previously unyielding 
body. All this he did not remember. 

When he had come to his senses he had snatched the girl into his arms and 
sat rocking to and fro, crying over her, as her head lolled back and forth like 
that of a puppet. There seemed to be broken glass and congealing blood all 
about him, and he was frightened and wondered what had happened. He had 
called to Else to help him, but she had not replied. Slowly it had come upon 
him that she was dead. 

'You're playing games with me!' he shouted, and he shook her broken body to 
and fro. 'You're pretending! You can't be dead! You're not dead!' 


But she was. And he had run from the room, half naked and covered in blood, 
and rushed blindly about the streets until they picked him up. 

Heavy boots along the corridor. The Lieutenant sat rigid and strained, the 
sweat pouring off his forehead. Was this it? Were they coming for him? 

Someone swearing. More footsteps. Silence. 

The Lieutenant ran across to the door and tried to see out. He put his finger 
on the bell. Would they object if he rang it? Just to see what was going on? 
Surely a man condemned to death had a right to know what was going on? 
But did he really want to know? He hesitated, his finger trembling. If he rang, 
who would come? One of the guards. A corporal, or some other lowly person. 
Was not he a lieutenant in an artillery regiment, and therefore above 
associating with such people? 

He heard the sound of something heavy being dragged past his door, A 
body? Perhaps they had come to fetch some other poor devil for his last 
journey and he had fainted through sheer terror? Would he himself faint when 
they came to fetch him? He imagined them with their rifles and their steel 
helmets and he knew for a certainty that he would not be able to face them 
with any show of courage. They would have to drag him, as they were 
dragging this one... 

More footsteps. Lt. Heinz Berner huddled shivering against the wall and called 
for his mother, His heart almost stopped beating as the footsteps stopped. A 
key turned in the door. This was it, at last. This was how it felt. They had 
come for him... 

An immense Obergefreiter stood in the doorway. He was wearing the black 
uniform of the tank regiments, with the death's head insignia. He surveyed the 
Lieutenant pityingly for a moment or two, then shrugged his shoulders and 
closed the door behind him. 

'Things not going so well, eh? Not so hot being an officer at a time like this? 
Personally I'd sooner be an ordinary soldier and have my freedom than a 
lieutenant and locked up in a prison cell.' 

The young Heinz Berner watched in amazement as the Obergefreiter sat 
casually on the wooden bench that served as a bed and gestured to the 
prisoner to do likewise. A conversation between an officer and an ordinary 
soldier? Unimaginable. Where was the respect due to his uniform? The 
respect he had been taught about in the military school at Potsdam? He 
stared down at himself, as if to check that he was, indeed, wearing the 
uniform of a lieutenant of artillery. And this great oaf of an Obergefreiter lolling 
nonchalantly before him ... For the first time in his life, Heinz Berner began to 
doubt the truth of all he had been taught. 

'Listen to me, laddie,' said the Obergefreiter, turning his head and spitting on 
the cell floor. 


Laddie! And him a lieutenant! He was about to remonstrate with the man, but 
just in time he recalled his unhappy situation and kept his mouth closed. He 
collapsed on to the bench, all strength gone. The Obergefreiter was still 
talking. Berner had no idea what he was on about. He stared numbly ahead, 
and slowly, very slowly, the realization came to him that barely a foot away 
and within easy reach was the Obergefreiter's revolver. Just hanging there, in 
its holster. Hanging there un-noticed. Waiting to be snatched up and used. 
Not to mention the bunch of keys attached to his belt... Visions of freedom 
rose up before Heinz Berner and almost blinded him in their intensity. The 
Obergefreiter was a large man. A giant of a man. Such people, it was 
commonly acknowledged, were always slow in their reactions. Slow 
physically, probably slow mentally as well. One well-placed blow on the head 
from the butt of the revolver and that would be the end of the Obergefreiter. 
And no great loss to anyone. Heinz Berner's breath came and went in quick 
gasps of excitement. The Obergefreiter went on talking- 

'The thing is, laddie, you just got to find courage somewhere. You get in a 
panic, you make it worse for yourself. I mean, once they got you out there, it's 
all over before you know where you are. Nothing messy, no hanging about, no 
pain, nothing like that... Mind you, you get on good terms with the medico, he 
might be persuaded to give you a little jab of something beforehand. Put you 
out, like. That's what he did yesterday for the major who was going. You can 
nearly always get these little extra perks if you set about it the right way. Like 
if you need anything particular, you just ask me and I'll see what I can do for 
you – only not a word to anyone, mind.' 

He turned and spat on the floor once again. In that moment, Heinz Berner had 
seized the revolver and sprang to his feet, covering the guard. 

'Hands up!' 

Little John very slowly pulled his immense body off the bench. He stared at 
the Lieutenant, his mouth gaping open. With one hand, he groped for his 
revolver and found the case empty. The Lieutenant snapped his fingers 
nervously. 

'Keys,' he demanded. 

Little John shook his head, rather sadly. He unhooked the bunch of keys and 
held them out. At the same time, with a swift and agile movement that directly 
contradicted all the Lieutenant's surmises, be brought down his right hand in a 
vicious chopping motion. Little John never needed to hit people twice. The 
inexperienced artillery officer fell heavily to the floor and Little John stepped 
over the inanimate body and picked up his revolver. 

'Stupid bugger,' he said, without rancour. He slammed the door of the cell 
behind him and crashed his way back along the corridor. Meeting up with 
Porta, he stood for some time watching a group of prisoners in ragged grey 
uniforms rinsing out their mess tins under a cold water tap. 


'839 just had ago at me,' remarked Little John, idly. 'Didn't get him anywhere.' 

'Ah-huh.' Porta grunted, then jerked his thumb over his shoulder. 'Fancy a 
game of pontoon?' 

They made their way to the lavatories, the only place where they could 
reasonably be assured of privacy, thanks to a mirror set at an angle opposite 
the door, which allowed them to see in good time who might be approaching. 
Porta pulled out a pack of dogeared cards and a couple of cigarettes cut down 
to a size that could conveniently be held inside the mouth should a superior 
officer come upon them. Oberstleutnant Vogel, the Prison Governor, had long 
ago decided that smoking should be one of a long list of 'strictly forbidden' 
activities. Any soldier caught indulging was subject to severe punishment. 
Vogel not only enjoyed meting out severe punishment, he had a positive 
psychological need to do so, and this was one method by which he could 
assure himself of a constant supply of offenders. 

The pontoon session continued uninterrupted for perhaps twenty minutes and 
was brought to a hasty finish only by the arrival of the prison Chaplain, von 
Gerdesheim. 

'Peace be with you.' 

He nodded amiably at Porta and Little John. There was no trace, now, of 
either cards or cigarettes. Little John bent his head, unctuously. In fact he 
hated priests. 

'And with you, Father. I hope the world's treating you well.' 

The Chaplain frowned, evidently suspicious of Little 

John's sudden and new-found piety. Little John smiled and folded his hands in 
a priestly way. The Chaplain cleared his throat. 

'Tell me, my son. Do you – ah – believe in God?' 

Little John opened wide his eyes and did his best to register shocked 
indignation that such a question should be thought necessary. 

'I should just hope I do, Father!' 

'I confess I find it a pleasant surprise to come across a believer in the ranks – 
particularly in a regiment such as yours. It is, to say the least, unusual.' 

Little John stared heavenwards with a saintly smile on his lips. 

'I – ah – I don't seem to recall seeing you at communion, however?' 


The Chaplain's tone was hesitant, almost apologetic; as if Little John had 
surely been there and it was simply that he had missed him. Little John 
withdrew his gaze from heaven and directed a bland stare at the priest. 

'I assure you, Father, I attend church regularly every 15th August' 

'Indeed? May I ask what special significance is attached to 15th August?' 

'It's the Holy Virgin,' exclaimed Little John, earnestly. 'Every 15th August, 
regular as clockwork, I go to church in her honour, don't I?' 

The Chaplain shook his head. 

'My dear fellow, I'm sorry, but I simply don't see the connection!' 

'Well, put it this way,' said Little John, in reasonable tones. 'Do you or do you 
not believe in the Holy Virgin? Because frankly that's what it all boils down to.' 

The Chaplain grew slowly crimson. 

'I beg your pardon?' he said. 

'Herod was a shit,' affirmed Little John, with stout irrelevance. 'And St. 
Bernard used to get pissed as a newt drinking holy schnaps in the snow.' 

It was, perhaps, the sum total of Little John's religious knowledge, and he 
displayed it proudly. 

'Have you gone mad?' demanded the Chaplain. 

He controlled himself with a very obvious effort, and his voice once again took 
on its smooth, benevolent, coaxing tone. 

'Why do you say such things, my son? What pleasure does it give you?' 

Little John was all smiles. 'Look, Father, it's like this, isn't it? Let me tell you. 
When I was a little kid about so high I had this crazy urge to go into the 
Ursuline Convent at Eger. You know why? Because I'd once heard someone 
say they'd got several litres of the Holy Virgin's milk stashed away there. Well, 
the way I reckoned it, what with Jesus having kicked the bucket a few 
centuries back, this milk should be in a pretty high old state by now. Know 
what I mean? Well—' 

That's quite enough.' The Chaplain stepped away from Little John as if he 
might be contaminated. 'What is your name, Obergefreiter?' 

Little John came to attention. 


'Wolfgang Creutzfeld, 27th Tank Regiment. 1st Battalion, Fifth Company. At 
present doing guard duties at the Military Prison at Torgau, Section C ... And if 
you find it any easier, Padre, all my pals call me Little John.' 

Little John leaned forward, interested to see what it was the Chaplain was 
writing in his notebook. 

'You shall hear more of this.' 

The Chaplain closed the notebook with an irritable bang. It turned out to be a 
book of psalms, which he had used for writing down Little John's particulars. 
Little John looked suitably impressed. 

As a result of the Chaplain's confusion following upon this incident a certain 
Stabswachtmeister Kraus, of the Schutzpolizei, was executed without 
receiving the blessing of the church – not that he had asked for it, nor would 
have accepted had it been offered. His last words were a defiant, 'Death to 
Hitler!' 

As a further result, Little John was sentenced to eight days' solitary 
confinement. Three days after his release, he and Porta became ingloriously 
and incapably drunk and beat up the Chaplain. Shortly afterwards, suffering 
from almost total amnesia, the Chaplain was transferred to the Military Prison 
at Glatz. It was there that the Russians arrested him, in May 1945, and there 
that he subsequently hanged himself. 

Gustav Dürer had been in the army for thirty-one years and Head Warder at 
the military prison of Torgau for twenty-eight years. According to 
Hauptfeldwebel Dorn, who thought highly of him, he and men like him were 
the very backbone of invincible German Army. 

But, alas for the German Army, there came a day when Gustav Dürer was 
assassinated. And as if this in itself were not disgrace enough, the assassin 
was one of the very prisoners he was guarding. The name of Gustav Dürer 
became, overnight, anathema to Hauptfeldwebel Dorn. He had his name 
removed from the Roll of Honour of the Prison, he had a bonfire made of all 
the deceased's belongings, and he did his best to forget that the cretin had 
ever existed. The backbone of the German Army would do better without such 
men as Gustav Dürer. 

The only mementoes he kept of his ex-Head Warder were two bottles of 
vodka and four of cognac. He confiscated these as being property of the state 
and he locked them away in his drawer beneath the copies of the "Völkischer 
Beobachter" which no one ever read. They were, so to speak, a proof of 
Gustav Dürer's unworthiness: it was quite obvious the man could never have 
come by them honestly. 

CHAPTER SEVEN 


IT was a cold, grey morning. The air was heavy with mist and the stones of 
the courtyard were damp and icy. Alte stood huddled in a doorway, the 
prisoners shuffled about in groups, their lips blue with cold. Those who still 
had the energy, or the will power, ran up and down in an effort to keep fit and 
warm. One or two had cigarettes carefully hidden in the palms of their hands. 
Alte always allowed the men to smoke during their short periods of exercise, 
'strictly forbidden' though it was. 

Standing apart from the others, his shoulders hunched up, his eyes fixed in a 
blank stare, was Feldwebel Lindenberg. A wavering trail of smoke from his 
right hand betrayed the presence of a cigarette, given to him by Porta. It was 
a present which would earn the donor sixty days' solitary if anyone 
discovered. 

The rest of the prisoners respectfully left Lindenberg alone with his thoughts. 
Word had already spread that his execution had been fixed for the following 
morning. It was known throughout the prison that the Chaplain had visited him 
the previous day, and the roster of guard duties included a command that the 
first section, second group, should present themselves at the armoury at 4.15 
on Friday morning. They knew what that meant: they would be issued with 
two bullets each; two bullets of the old, round-headed type. No one ever knew 
why it was that round-headed bullets should be used for executions. That was 
just the way it was. 

Lieutenant Heinz Berner looked across at Lindenberg and wondered how it 
felt to know that your hour was fixed. He shivered, with cold and with fear. He 
had been at Torgau for four weeks now, and still he lived in the daily 
expectation that today would be THE day, the day when he received his visit 
from the angel of death and knew that within thirty-six hours he would be no 
more. Time did not dull the sharp edge of fear. Each day brought him nearer 
to his ultimate fate, and each day was predictably worse than the one before. 
The young lieutenant had learnt much in four weeks. He knew what it meant 
when the Chaplain came to see you in your cell. He knew all about the pink 
files, with their signed and countersigned execution orders, that arrived from 
headquarters and found their way to the desk in Hauptfeldwebel Dorn's office. 
He knew where the executions took place, and he knew that they were carried 
out by the tank regiment who were on guard duty at the prison. He knew more 
about executions in general, and executions at Torgau in particular, than ever 
they had taught him at the military school. 

Lieutenant Berner was sitting on the damp flagstones, his back against the 
stone wall of the latrines. Next to him was a young peasant fanner, Kurt 
Schwartz. They sat together, but neither of them spoke. It was generally 
believed that Schwartz was simple, not to say downright retarded. He had 
been at Torgau for more than six months. Two appeals against sentence of 
death had already been rejected: a third one was in the process of being 
rejected. It was doubtful if Schwartz was even aware of them. The first 
eighteen years of his life had been passed more in the company of cattle than 
of human beings, and on being drafted into the Services he had totally failed 
to grasp the fact that he was now army property and no longer free to come 


and go as he pleased. He stayed as long as it suited him, but with the arrival 
of spring he knew that his first duty was to the farm, and one Friday evening 
he quite simply packed up his bags, shouldered his rifle and walked out. Once 
back at the farm he hid the rifle and the rest of his army equipment beneath a 
stack of potatoes in the barn and went about his daily business much as he 
had done before the war interrupted him. The military police had no trouble in 
tracing him: he had done nothing to cover his tracks. He greeted them 
happily, as if they were old friends come on a visit. 

'Grüss Gott!' 

'Heil Hitler,' replied the Feldwebel who was leading the party. 'We're looking 
for a Kurt Schwartz. Would that be you, by any chance?' 

'Yes, that's me,' said Kurt, readily. 'What can I do for you? Whatever it is, I'm 
afraid I can't hang about too long, it's coming on to rain and there's a lot to be 
done out here.' 

'Rain be damned!' retorted the Feldwebel. 'You're coming with us, and you're 
coming right now. There's a court martial waiting for you.' 

'For me?' Kurt looked at him, puzzled. 'Why should they be waiting for me? No 
one's told me anything about it.' It was not until the Feldwebel lost all patience 
and began hitting him about and demanding to know where he had hidden his 
rifle that Kurt, in his turn, began vaguely to suspect that all was not well. 
These four men in their steel helmets filled him with a sense of unease. He 
wondered what he could have done to displease them. Perhaps he should not 
have left the barracks without first saying goodbye? 

The Feldwebel became quite threatening on the subject of the lost rifle. With 
primitive cunning and mulish obstinacy, Kurt at once closed his mouth and 
kept its hiding place a secret. The Feldwebel hectored and cajoled, but Kurt 
remained dumb. There was talk of desertion and its dire consequences, but 
Kurt merely stared with blank eyes, being unable to grasp the fine degree of 
difference between 'absence without leave' and 'desertion', or the fact that 
one merely involved prison and transfer to a disciplinary regiment while the 
other meant death. 

Now he was at Torgau waiting to be executed. Each day when Little John 
opened the door of his cell for the exercise period, the same conversation 
took place: 

'Is this it?' Kurt would say. 

And Little John would shake his head and reply: 'Not this time.' 

And Kurt would hunch his shoulders philosophically and say: 

'Ah, well. Tomorrow, perhaps?' 


And Little John would agree: 'Tomorrow, perhaps.' 

But they remained at cross purposes. Little John was thinking of the execution 
order: Kurt was thinking of his return to the farm. 

Round and round the courtyard ran a blond and much decorated Oberleutnant 
He had been at Torgau for two months. He had lost his family, his wife and 
three children, during a raid on Berlin. They had been burnt alive in a cellar. 
Compassionate leave had been refused, so the Oberleutnant had taken 
matters into his own hands, forged the necessary documents and returned to 
Berlin. He had been picked up almost at once and it had taken a court martial 
barely ten minutes to reach a verdict: desertion, falsification of papers, 
sentenced to death. 

Sitting at the top of a flight of stone steps was an elderly lieutenant-colonel, 
his faded blue eyes staring into the far distance. In direct defiance of orders 
from above, he had evacuated his regiment from an impossible situation 
hemmed in by Russian troops. The court martial had had no doubts on the 
matter: sabotage, cowardice in the face of the enemy, sentenced to death. 

Rape, mutiny, murder, theft, so-called cowardice, so-called desertion - all 
these crimes, and many more, had been committed by the miserable inmates 
of Torgau, 

'Do you not find it an unpleasant task,' a cavalry officer once politely asked 
Julius Heide, 'having to shoot people that you have come to know personally?' 

'What kind of a question's that supposed to be?' grumbled Heide. 

'It interests me to know. It seems to me that there's a considerable difference 
between fighting for your life when you're at the front – killing men you've 
never met, because if you don't kill them they'll almost certainly kill you – and 
shooting down in cold blood people you've lived with day by day over a period 
of months. I know you're carrying out orders, you can't do anything else but 
obey them, but how do you feel when the moment actually comes?' 

'What a bloody fool thing to ask!' Heide was visibly disconcerted. 'What's it to 
you, how I feel? I don't go around asking you how you feel, do I?' 

'No, but you could if you wished. I shouldn't object,' said the officer, gently. 'In 
fact, I don't in the least mind telling you: I'm scared stiff. Sometimes when I'm 
alone in my cell, just lying there wondering if it's going to be today that they 
come for me, I get so shit scared I can hardly stop myself from screaming... 
Funny thing is, I never felt that sort of fear at the front. You know you stand a 
good chance of dying, but—' 

'Will you shut up?' demanded Heide, fiercely. 'I've got plenty enough worries 
of my own without hearing all yours as we11. Stop beefing, and just get this 
into your head: I don't know you, I never did know you, I don't want to know 
you.. You're nothing to me except another bloody number!' 


The officer shook his head and smiled. 

'You know me all right. And all the other poor devils they've got locked up 
here. You know us all, and you'll never forget us.' 

Outside, in the courtyard, Alte blew his whistle. The precious hour was over 
and it was back to their cells for another day of waiting. The prisoners mutely 
formed up in twos, long since accustomed to the routine, but today something 
occurred to break the monotony: Gustav Dürer, Feldwebel of the section, 
appeared in the doorway and brought the long column of men to a standstill. 
Slowly his eyes roved over them, and each prisoner shivered and did his best 
to hide behind his neighbour. It was generally accepted that Gustav Dürer 
was not human. Guards and prisoners alike went in terror of him. It was said 
that he had a direct link with the Gestapo, and certainly it seemed as if even 
the Prison Governor was sometimes uneasy in his company. 

'You!' Dürer shot out an arm and pointed to Lindenberg. 'You over there! 
Come with me.' 

Lindenberg's face was abruptly drained of all colour. He swayed and would 
have fallen but for the willing hands of his comrades. Every man there, 
including Alte, believed that Lindenberg was being led away to his death in 
the middle of the afternoon. It was the sort of trick that would delight Gustav 
Dürer: accustom the prisoners to a routine – a visit from the Chaplain equals 
thirty-six hours to live – then suddenly shatter it all and create panic and 
uncertainty. 

As Lindenberg was led off, it seemed certain to all who watched that it was 
the last they would see of him. It seemed no less certain to Lindenberg 
himself. He was unable, at first, to grasp the fact that the Stabsfeldwebel had 
brought him not to the firing squad but to one of the administration offices of 
the prison. It took him several minutes to adjust. A woman was standing in the 
room. A typical Party woman, tall and masculine, with an ivory complexion 
and hair the colour of sun bleached corn. She wore a brown uniform and 
carried a document case, and Lindenberg was too numb with panic to 
understand that she was speaking to him. With an impatient gesture, she 
repeated her question. 

'Are you or are you not Feldwebel Hermann Lindenberg?' 

'I am.' He bowed his head before her. 'Yes.' 

'I have some papers for you to sign. Here, take them.' She thrust them into his 
unwilling hands. 'There's no necessity for me to explain them to you, you'll 
sign them in any case, but just for the record it's a document authorizing the 
State to take full control of your son and of his education.' 

'What?' 


Lindenberg jerked up his head and stared at the woman.. She curled back her 
upper lip and uncovered a row of large white teeth. 

'I think you heard me ... Your wife has been found incapable of bringing up the 
child. No German woman who shelters a deserter and saboteur such as 
yourself is worthy of the honour ... I shall be glad if you'll sign at once, it will 
save us both a great deal of trouble.' 

Lindenberg wiped the back of his hand across his forehead, mainly for 
something to do, something that would prevent him from striking the creature. 

'If I don't sign?' he hazarded. 

'You will sign. It's an order. As far as society is concerned, you and your wife 
have ceased to exist. The boy belongs to the State. The State will clothe him 
and feed him and see that he grows up to be a worthy citizen.' 

Lindenberg took a step nearer the woman. Coldly, contemptuously, he spat in 
her face. 'That's all you'll get out of me,' he said. 

Predictably, Gustav Dürer's rubber truncheon came crashing down upon him, 
raining blows on head and shoulders. The woman wiped her face and stood 
smiling at the sound of Lindenberg's gasps of pain. 

'Are you ready to sign now?' 

'I shan't sign anything,' panted Lindenberg. 

More blows. More pain. 'I shan't sign anything!' 

This is ridiculous,' said the woman, abruptly. 'I should have thought you had 
more control over your prisoners. In any event, I can't waste any more of my 
time. Get him to sign these before tomorrow.' 

Dürer smiled significantly. 'He'll sign.' 

'Well, make sure of it.' 

'I'll make sure. No need to worry ... We have our own methods here. Sehr 
gekados...' 

'I'll leave it to you, then.' 

'Please do. It will be a pleasure.' The woman went out and Dürer closed the 
door; softly, menacingly, behind her. He turned to Lindenberg. 'Now... shall 
you and I get down to business together?' 

'Do what you like,' said Lindenberg, through clenched teeth, 'I shall be dead 
anyway within a few hours. You have no more power over me.' 


'You think not?' 

'I know not.' 

'We shall see, my friend ... At least, we can do our best to make your few 
remaining hours as uncomfortable as possible ... and that, I think you'll find, 
will be very uncomfortable indeed.' 

He looked at Lindenberg and laughed, exultantly, as if savouring the delights 
to come. 

'We shall begin, I think, by breaking every bone in your body ... by every bone, 
I mean every bone ... There are over two hundred bones in the human body – 
and that, mark you, will be only the beginning. By the time I've finished with 
you, you'll be crying out for death.' 

Quite suddenly, Lindenberg went mad. With a wild cry he hurled himself upon 
Dürer and seized him by the throat. Dürer, bowled over by surprise rather 
than by the ferocity of the attack, lost his footing and fell backwards, with 
Lindenberg still clinging to him. Both men were snarling with rage, more like 
wild animals than human beings. Lindenberg's fingers hooked themselves into 
the flesh of Dürer's neck tearing and kneading. The guard's eyes were red 
with broken blood vessels, his breath coming in a series of rattles and gasps. 

Little John, up on the third floor in a room directly above heard the thuds and 
bangs, the stifled shouts and the clicking of Dürer's bunch of keys, and went 
running down the stairs to investigate. He opened the door, took one look, 
silently closed it behind him and rushed off again to the latrines, where Heide 
and Porta were playing an illicit game of dice. He came upon them in such a 
hurry that he caught them guiltily in the act, and they cursed him roundly for 
his idiocy. 

'Never mind that!' Little John rushed into one of the cabinets, flushed the 
water, backed out and ran into the next. 'Start making a row – any sort of row 
– Lindenberg's in the middle of murdering Dürer!' 

'You're joking!' 

'Go and look for yourself if you don't believe me.' 

'I don't,' said Heide, but in any case the appeal of making a loud noise was too 
strong to be denied. 'I'll throttle you if you're having us on.' 

He picked up a scrubbing brush and hurled it through a window, kicked a 
bucket round the floor, banged the door two or three times. Porta turned on 
the taps in all the washbasins and began running the water at full burst, 
splashing and singing as he did so. Little John crashed up and down in his 
army boots and flushed the water in all the cabinets. 

'Surely to God,' said Porta, 'he must have done it by now?' 


'If he's doing it at all,' said Heide, with a look at Little John. 'Personally I doubt 
it' 

Little John held up a hand for silence and they all stood listening. 

'Surely he must have done it by now?' repeated Porta. 

'Let's hope so. We've given him enough time.' Little John opened the door and 
beckoned to the others. 'Come on. Let's take a look.' 

There was fortunately no one else about. They crept up the passage, paused 
for a moment outside the room, and then, hearing no sound, opened the door 
and looked in. 

Lindenberg was sitting on Dürer's chest, his fingers still locked round his 
victim's throat The guard was plainly dead. His face was mottle blue, his 
bloodshot eyes burst alarmingly from their sockets, his tongue protruded 
between his teeth. The three men stood in silence. Slowly Lindenberg pulled 
himself to his feet. He detached the dead man's bunch of keys, turned, smiled 
almost apologetically and held them out to Porta. 

'I strangled him.' 

'So we see,' murmured Porta. 'There's not much to say except thanks very 
much, is there?' 

'What are you going to do about it?' They looked at each other. Heide cleared 
his throat. 

'We'll have to report it You realize that. We'll have to tell Dorn.' 

'Of course.' 

'You'll go down into history for this,' said Little John, earnestly. 'It's the only 
decent thing anyone's ever done in this place.' 

Lindenburg smiled, rather wearily. 

'You'd better take me back to my cell, hadn't you? And if I were you, I'd report 
the incident at once. It looks better that way. I don't want you to get yourselves 
into any sort of trouble.' 

'You're probably right' Porta turned to Heide. 'Will you go and make the report 
while we take him back?' 

'Like hell I will! I'm on duty, I can't leave my post' 

'Little John-' 


'Nothing to do with me,' said Little John, firmly. 'He's not in my wing. This is 
your pigeon, you deal with it.' 

'He may not be in your wing, but you were the one who was supposed to be 
on guard duty in this corridor. And you were the one who saw him do it and 
made no attempt to stop him.' 

'And you were one of the ones that helped drown the sound of the crime !' 
retorted Little John. 

Heide suddenly snapped his heels together and puffed out his chest. 

'I'm the senior man round here, and I'm ordering you to go and report the 
incident to Hauptfeldwebel Dorn.' He looked at Little John. 'Immediately, 
Creutzfeld!' 

'Oh, get stuffed!' came the indifferent retort. 

In the circumstances, there was little that Heide could do in the face of such 
flagrant disobedience. He could not physically force Little John into making a 
report to Dorn, and he knew from past experience that threats left him cold. 

'Oh, for Christ's sake!' he exclaimed, irritably. 'What's your suggestion. Leave 
the corpse lying here to rot and say nothing to anyone?' 

Little John shrugged his shoulders. 

'Why not? What's it to us?' 

'What about him?' Heide jerked his head towards Lindenberg, who was 
slumped in a chair and seemed quite uninterested in the whole affair. 'What 
do we do about him?' 

'What do YOU do about him,' corrected Porta. 'You're the senior man round 
here, remember? It's up to you.' He slowly took out a cigarette and lit it, at the 
same time studying with interest a large printed card that said 'NO SMOKING' 
in bright red letters. 'Sorry, mate, but it looks like you're in the shit right up to 
your neck.' 

'Put out that cigarette!' yelled Heide, pointing to the notice. 

Porta ignored him. He turned earnestly to Little John. 

'Glad I'm not a sergeant,' he said. 'Only gets you into hot water all the time. 
Take you and me, for instance. No responsibility. Treated like idiots. Never 
understand anything without it's repeated three times... Oh, it's a grand life, I 
tell you! But him—' He gestured towards Heide – 'him with his stripes and all! 
He's the one who carries the can, poor idiot.' 


'Tell you what,' suggested Little John. 'Let's take Lindenberg back to his cell 
and then knock off for a game of pontoon. How about it?' 

It seemed the best idea anyone had yet had. And yet somehow the corpse of 
Gustav Dürer prayed on their minds. 

'We're storing up trouble,' said Heide. 'I'm warning you.' 

'You're the senior man... Give us another card.' 

'We'll all be in this together when they find out.' 

'Twist,' said Little John, imperturbably. 

'They go mad when things like this happen—' 

'And another,' 

'It's all very well for you—' 

'Now I'll stick.' 

'I've got a good idea,' said Porta. 'Why don't we tell the Old Man what's 
happened and leave him to deal with it? Little John, you go and tell him right 
now.' 

'Why me?' said Little John, suspiciously. 

'Why not you? I'm not asking you to go and see Dorn, am I?' 

'Just as well, because I shouldn't go ... Well, O.K., I'll tell him, but that's my lot. 
After that, you do your own dirty work.' 

Little John disappeared. He was back a few moments later with both Alte and 
Barcelona Blum. 

'This is bad,' said Alte. 'What the hell do you expect me to do? Where's 
Lindenberg now?' 

'Back in his cell.' 

'Back in his cell. O.K. None of you lot saw anything. None of you heard 
anything. O.K. Didn't know a thing about it until the prisoner came to find you. 
O.K. But what about the man who was supposed to be on guard duty in this 
section? How do we explain him away? Why wasn't he doing his job 
properly?' 

Heide and Porta both turned to look at Little John. Little John spat briefly on 
the floor. 


'No good asking me. I got the runs. Spent half the morning in the bog. That's 
where I was when Gustav got clobbered. Shitting in the bog.' 

'I see.' Alte breathed deeply. 'That's very helpful. You've been to the M.O. 
about it, of course?' 

'No. Completely slipped my mind.' 

'That's a pity,' said Alte, drily. 'I rather thought that at – say – eight o'clock this 
morning, during the exercise period, you'd gone to see Obergefreiter 
Holzermann and that he'd given you some tablets to take for a stomach 
upset?' 

'Eh?' 

For a moment Little John looked puzzled; then, slowly, his face cleared. 

'Yeah. You're right. He gave me some tablets and I swallowed the lot. I been 
in and out of the bog ever since.' 

'They'll believe it,' said Alte. 'They'd believe anything of you... As for Porta, 
you I take it were up in Lindenberg's cell making a search during his absence 
... Is that right? I like to get all the facts straight.' : 

'Absolutely,' agreed Porta. 'Quite right. Making a search. That's exactly what I 
was doing.' 

'And what about me?' asked Heide, anxiously. 

'You... Yes. You were taking an inventory of the cutlery. Get hold of the old 
one and start copying it out again. Little John, get up to Lindenberg's cell and 
make it look as though a hurricane hit it. Tell him what's happening.' 

'O.K.' 

Little John hurried off, but turned back at the door. 

'Here, just a minute – who's going to tell Dorn?' 

'I am,' said Barcelona. 'No, no, don't thank me, I couldn't bear it! I already 
know I'm a saint.' 

'You're a bloody fool,' said Little John, disappearing. 

Hauptfeldwebel Dorn was sitting at his desk with his feet up and one of Major 
Divalordy's cigars clamped between his teeth. The Hauptfeldwebel liked 
cigars. Especially Major Divalordy's cigars. He liked the expensive aroma of 
the smoke and he liked the sense of social superiority that accompanied 
them. His desk was as usual piled high with letters and files. A book of 
pornographic studies lay open on his lap. 


He ignored Barcelona's first tap at the door. It was obvious from the manner of 
the knock that it was not an officer out there, so according to his custom Dorn 
let him wait. Not until Barcelona's third attempt did he drawl a languid, 'Come 
in.' 

Barcelona had barely entered the room when there came a further three rapid 
knocks on the door. Before Dorn had time enough to raise an inquiring brow, 
Porta was also in the room. He clicked his heels together and gave an abrupt 
salute. 

'Stabsgefreiter Porta, sir, Fifth Tank Company, reporting on the Governor's 
orders.' 

'What the hell for?' demanded Dorn. 

'Orders to check all typewriters and other office equipment, sir.' 

Dorn's mouth sagged slightly. 

'Whose orders, if you please?' 

'Colonel Vogel,' said Porta, with untruthful aplomb. 

It seemed doubtful if the lie would ever be brought home to him. A variety of 
curious and unlikely orders were frequently issued by Colonel Vogel. No one 
was likely to check up on this particular one. 

'Oh, very well, get on with it!' snapped Dorn. 'And don't take all day about it.' 

Humming busily to himself, Porta dumped his bag of tools on the ground and 
began taking the typewriter to pieces. He unscrewed everything that was 
unscrewable, removed rollers and platens, pulled out yards of ribbon, poked 
here and pulled there and generally oiled everything in sight Dorn watched 
him with a sense of growing horror. 

'I hope to God you can gut that thing back together 

'So do I, sir,' agreed Porta, fervently. Dorn clicked his tongue against his teeth 
and turned to Barcelona. 

'Well, Feldwebel? What do you want?' 

'Sir,' began Barcelona, earnestly. 'Feldwebel Blom, sir. Following the orders 
given to me by my Section Chief – that is to say, Feldwebel Beier, sir - 
Feldwebel Beier being my Section Chief, sir—' 

'For God's sake!' snapped Dorn. 

Barcelona looked puzzled. 


'Sir?' 

'Speak normally, man! Get to the point, can't you?' 

'Sir! Stabsfeldwebel Gustav Dürer has been killed. He's in one of the rooms 
leading off the main corridor of Block 6... sir.' 

Dorn's cigar quivered between his lips. He snatched it out and glared up at 
Barcelona. 

'What's that you said?' 

'Stabsfeldwebel Dürer, sir. Strangled.' 

'You're mad! Where did you get this absurd story from? Dürer would never 
allow a thing like that to happen ... Who did it? Explain it to me!' 

With a certain amount of barely concealed relish, Barcelona did so. Porta, 
meanwhile, examined each separate part of the dismantled typewriter in turn 
and kept one ear cocked for a suitable point of entry into the conversation. He 
waited until Dorn's questions became a little too probing for safety. 

'Sir!' 

Dorn swung round on him. 

'Well? What do you want?' 

'I've done the typewriter, sir. May I have a look at your desk, now?' 

'What the devil for?' 

'Colonel's orders, sir. He said to examine every—' 

'Oh, very well, very well, if you must! Get on with it and stop interrupting me!' 
Dorn turned back irritably to Barcelona. 'Who was on guard at the time of 
Dürer's – ah – murder?' 

Barcelona shook his head. 

'I don't know, sir.' 

'Christ Almighty, if we go on like this the war's as good as lost!' Dorn thumped 
a fist on his desk and Porta gave an exaggerated start. 'Nothing but a bunch 
of saboteurs and traitors! In league with the prisoners, every single one of 
you! Going behind my back, neglecting your duties ... God knows I've been 
reasonable enough up until now, but this is the turning point. Mark me well, 
Feldwebel, this is the turning point!' 


His cigar had gone out. He tossed it away and looked for another one in Major 
Divalordy's desk. An almost imperceptible chalk mark allowed him to check 
whether anyone else had had the temerity to open the drawer. 

'Who promoted you to the rank of Feldwebel?' he suddenly demanded of 
Barcelona. 

'When I was with the 36th at Bamberg, sir. The C.O. there, he-' 

'Hm,' said Dorn, plainly not very interested. 'It's curious, Feldwebel, but you 
bear a strong resemblance to a badly cooked steak. Such things are fit only 
for swine and curs.' 

'Yes, sir,' agreed Barcelona, placidly. 

'Sir!' Porta reentered the conversation, his face abeam with happiness and 
goodwill. 'I've dusted all the drawers in your desk with talcum powder, sir. You 
can pull them in and out as easy as anything... Shall I do the Major's desk as 
well, sir?' 

'Be quiet!' hissed Dorn. 'I'm sick of your everlasting prattle. Do the job you 
came for and then get out. I have more important matters to deal with.' 

Dorn abruptly left the room and went off to find Alte and view the corpse. 

'This is going to cost someone his life!' he declared dramatically. 'I shall not 
rest until I have uncovered the culprit. Not a moment's peace will there be in 
this establishment—' 

'Actually,' said Alte, 'we already have the criminal. He's upstairs locked in his 
cell.' 

Dorn glared at him and left the room. 

In a way, he found that he was almost glad that Dürer had been murdered: it 
was Dorn's chance to prove himself, to show his mettle, as it were. He took 
long involved statements from everyone who had been directly; indirectly, and 
even just very remotely connected with the affair. He checked and he double-
checked. He adopted an attitude of lofty and judicial calm... until, that is, he 
came to interview Little John, and Little John defeated him. He totally lost his 
way in the rambling maze of Little John's discourse - what he had done, why 
he had done it; where he had done it, how he had done it; where he had 
been, where he had come from; who had said what and what he had said 
back and what he WOULD have said back if— 

'Obergefreiter Creutzfeld!' screamed Dora. 'I am strongly beginning to doubt 
your sanity! Your proper place is in a lunatic asylum, not in the German Army!' 
He turned to Alte. 'Feldwebel Beier, get rid of this man. Give him some simple 
task to do and see that he sticks to it. But kindly ensure that I do not have to 
set eyes on him again! ' 


Ultimately, he interviewed Lindenberg in his cell. He threatened him with 
death and told him in no uncertain terms what happened to people who dared 
to lay hands on members of the Gestapo. Lindenberg sat silent throughout the 
tirade, then calmly told Dorn he might go to hell, adding by way of an 
afterthought that he had thoroughly enjoyed strangling Gustav Dürer and 
wished only that he might do it all over again. 

Very much shaken, Dorn left the cell. Quite obviously the man Lindenberg 
was a raving maniac. The authorities had had no right to confine him in a 
military prison. The personnel of Torgau could hardly be held responsible for 
the actions of a madman. 

There now only remained the signing of certain documents, the filling in of 
certain forms in triplicate and quadruplicate, and Gustav Dürer could be finally 
eliminated from the records. Dorn returned to his office in a thoroughly bad 
temper and slammed the door behind him. 

'I say, anything wrong?' inquired a mildly reproachful voice. 

Dorn bit back the oaths that automatically rose to his lips. He clicked his heels 
together. 

'Heil Hitler! Did you pass a good night, sir?' 

'Fair to middling, thank you, Dorn.' 

Major Divalordy was an ex-insurance man from Innsbruck. He tended to 
confuse the army with his insurance company, and he treated Dorn with the 
same bone-headed amiability that he showed towards his colleagues there. It 
never crossed his mind that the Prussian professional soldier felt for him a 
profound scorn. 

The Major smiled affably and stroked at the corners of his silky blond 
moustache. 

'Well, how goes it? What's on the menu for today? Anything juicy to report?' 

'More than you know,' thought Dorn, furiously. 

He straightened up and began to bark out the events of the day in the best 
military manner. 

'Stabsfeldwebel Gustav Dürer has been strangled by one of the prisoners. 
Feldwebel Lindenberg. Obviously a lunatic. Death occurred only a short while 
ago, I have already completed an examination of the facts. The body has 
been left undisturbed in a room on Block 6-1 thought you might care to take a 
look at it. The typewriter in this office has been cleaned and overhauled on the 
orders of the Colonel. The drawers of the desks have been dusted with 
powder and may now be opened and closed without difficulty. In your in-tray, 
sir, you'll find two files that require your attention - rejected appeals. There is 


also an execution order that needs your signature, and a cutlery inventory you 
might care to look at... I think that's the lot, sir.' 

Dorn stood stiffly to attention, watching the Major's reaction. He noted the 
sudden beads of sweat on his brow, and he was satisfied. 

'I find this news most distressing. Really most distressing... Gustav Dürer 
murdered! It seems scarcely credible ... That such a thing could happen in a 
civilized establishment ... Really, a most shocking business! Are you quite 
sure of your facts, my dear fellow?' 

'Absolutely positive. The prisoner Lindenberg has confessed to the murder.' 

'But why should he do such a thing in the first place? What could he possibly 
hope to gain by it?' 

'I really don't know,' said Dorn, who in fact had not thought of inquiring into 
Lindenberg's motives. 'I think it very likely, sir, that he just couldn't stand the 
sight of the Stabsfeldwebel.' 

'Really?' The Major twisted the ends of his moustache in rapid agitation. 'What 
an extraordinary state of affairs! I cannot myself say that I cared overmuch for 
Gustav Dürer, but it hardly seems an adequate reason for murdering a 
person.' 

'As I said sir, the prisoner is obviously a lunatic' 

'Obviously. Obviously. But even so—' 

Dorn enjoyed seeing the Major so obviously suffering. He leaned across bis 
desk and began efficiently laying out various letters and documents awaiting 
signature. The Major picked up his pen and wrote his name where Dorn 
indicated. He had, for the most part, no idea what he was signing. Without his 
adjutant to show him the way round, he would have been totally lost in this 
jungle. It was the greatest fear of his life that he should one day be alone in 
the office when the telephone rang. He would then be forced to answer it, and 
sooner or later it was bound to be one of Colonel Vogel's staff officers at the 
other end of the line. They never used the telephone except to complain, but 
worse than that, Major Divalordy could never understand a word that any of 
them were saying. They spoke in weird military jargon, of which the Major had 
as yet mastered only the most common of everyday phrases. 

Dorn smiled and held out a pink file. He opened it with a servile flourish. The 
Major nodded his thanks, leant forward scrawled his signature at the foot of a 
page. It was a warrant that he signed so blithely, as he had signed many 
others before. He closed the file and handed it back, without ever seeing the 
thick Gothic print on the outside of the pale pink folder: 

Feldwebel Hermann Lindenberg 43rd Infantry Regiment 


Date of Decease....... 

Delivered to Crematorium....... 

Dorn collected up the signed papers and shuffled them together. 

'There'll be forms to be filled in, sir, for Dürer's death. Do you want to see to 
them or shall I?' 

'No, no, I leave it all to you. You'll know what to do about it.' 

The Major opened his drawer and took out a couple of cigars, one of which he 
handed to Dorn. They each had a glass of cognac from the bottle that was 
kept in the corner cupboard. The contents of this bottle had visibly diminished 
since the previous night. Both men noticed the fact; neither mentioned it. 

'Poor chap,' thought the Major. 'He'll have needed something to buck him up 
after all that's happened.' 

'They're all the bloody same,' thought Dorn. 'Tell you in public they don't touch 
either alcohol or women, while in private they do bugger all except whore and 
drink. Bloody typical.' 

Dorn settled himself comfortably behind his desk. The day's post was brought 
in and he flipped through it and extracted one particular letter, tossing the rest 
into one of his many in-trays. The contents of the letter kept him happily 
occupied for some little while. Ultimately, and with obvious reluctance, he hid 
the envelope in his cache beneath the 'Völkischer Beobachter' and turned his 
attention to the forms that had to be filled in. At the, top of the page he wrote, 
'Inquiry carried out by Hauptfeldvebel Dorn into the Death of Strabsfeldwebel 
Gustav Dürer'. Under that, against the heading 'Cause of Death', he wrote the 
one word, 'Murder'. He sat and stared at it for several minutes, pleased with 
the effect, then gloatingly continued with the rest of the report. Who knew but 
it might not end up before S.S. Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler himself? Dorn 
already saw himself transferred to the Gestapo. 

He was interrupted by the shrill ring of the telephone at his elbow. Somewhat 
abruptly, Major Divalordy left the room. Dorn sneered at his passing back, 
snatched up the telephone and snarled down it. 

'Yes? Who is it? What do you want?' 

'I want to know what the hell is going on in your section.' 

It was the voice of Colonel Vogel. Dorn dropped the receiver in a panic and it 
clattered to the floor. 

'Hallo? Is that you, Dorn? What the devil's going on? Are you still there?' 

'Yes, sir.' 


Nervously Dorn gave his version of Dürer's death and his own handling of the 
affair. 

'The whole thing sounds like a bloody botch up to me,' said the Colonel. 

Dorn hastened to add that Major Divalordy was now in full possession of the 
facts and was dealing with the matter himself. The Colonel merely grunted 
and put the receiver down. 

For a few moments Dorn sat stunned and immobile in his chair, but it was not 
long before he rallied and began doing a little telephoning on his own account. 
Having vented his wrath on subordinates all over the building he began to 
regain some of his lost confidence, and he walked out abroad to vent a little 
more wrath on anyone of a lower rank who might conceivably cross his path. 
To give himself the air of being on official business, he snatched up the 
contents of one of his trays and stuffed them haphazard into a brief case. 
Thus armed, he roamed the building in search of someone to terrorise. 

At the end of the first corridor he was lucky enough to come upon a group of 
prisoners lethargically scrubbing the floor. He gave them a good five minutes 
of his time, rounded off his lecture by picking up their bucket of water and 
throwing it over them, and went on his way feeling a great deal happier with 
life. 

As he rounded the corner he bumped into Major Divalordy, whose face, even 
in the dim prison light, was of a ghostly pallor. Dorn saluted stiffly. The Major 
shook his head. 'These are terrible times to be living. Terrible times, my dear 
fellow ... I've been called to the Colonel's office. Eleven o-seven I have to be 
there ... I fear this matter of Dürer can scarcely have pleased him.' 

Dorn made a vague noise indicative of sympathy and continued along the 
corridor to the arms depot, which was in the charge of Oberfeldwebel 
Thomas. Thomas was assisted by the Legionnaire, who in his turn, three days 
a week, was assisted by Little John. It was a good place to work in, the arms 
depot. Orders were to keep the doors locked and bolted from the inside. 
Almost any activity, therefore, could safely be indulged in on the right side of 
the doors. When Dorn arrived there was a game of cards in process. By the 
time Thomas had opened the door to him the cards had disappeared and both 
Little John and the Legionnaire were industriously cleaning equipment. 

'You call this place an arms depot?' 

Dorn let his gaze wander magnificently round it. He had no authority here, but 
it was always worth a try. 

'It looks more like a rubbish dump than an arms depot.' 

He kicked an empty cartridge box across the room and turned on Thomas. 


'How would you like it if I were to make a report of all this – this mess, this – 
this chaos? Eh? I could, you know. If I felt so inclined I could make things very 
awkward for you with Colonel Vogel. I shouldn't like to, of course, but really, 
Thomas, I would advise you to pull your finger out and get things smartened 
up in here.' 

'Suits me the way it is,' said Thomas, laconically. 

There was a silence. Dorn nodded, warningly, and turned to go. As he did so, 
the Legionnaire's voice arrested him. 'Bit awkward, this bother about Gustav 
isn't it?' 

'Don't talk to me about that!' snapped Dorn, his composure suddenly cracking. 
'What a thing to happen! Bloody swine!' 

'Who? Feldwebel Lindenberg, you mean?' 

'Not at all. I was referring to Gustav Dürer. What a damn fool thing for an 
experienced warder to do! Over twenty years in the service and then he gets 
himself strangled by some madman...' 

'Very careless,' commented the Legionnaire. 'Of course, it could only happen 
in a place like this.' 

Dorn's eyes glinted dangerously. 

'Just what are you trying to infer? Are you attempting to insult me?' 

The Legionnaire looked shocked. 'Good grief, no! I shouldn't dream of such a 
thing.' 

'After all,' put in Little John, helpfully, 'it wasn't your fault it happened, was it? 
No one could blame you. It's just unfortunate it happened to happen in your 
section, if you see what I mean? Still,' he added, with comfortable philosophy, 
'there always has to be a first time, doesn't there? That's what I say. There 
always has to be a first time. It could happen to the best of us. I shouldn't 
worry about it too much if I were you.' 

Dorn suddenly realized that Little John was the same prattling nincompoop 
who had confused him earlier on. 'I thought I told you to keep out of my way?' 

'That's right,' agreed Little John, with a ready smile. 'You said I was to be 
given simple tasks, being as I'm not up to tackling anything complicated... I'm 
cleaning the guns, sir.' 

'Then get on and clean them!' roared Dorn. He marched out and slammed the 
door behind him. His sense of well-being, his personal satisfaction, had been 
shattered by that great cretinous oaf. Now he would have to start all over 
again. 


He stormed off down the corridor, and it seemed to his suspicious mind that 
he heard loud bursts of uncouth laughter coming from behind the locked 
doors of the arms depot. 

Katz and Schröder arrived at Torgau early in the morningdirect from Berlin. 
They walked side by side with purposeful steps, heads down, hands in 
pockets. 

They left again some hours later. They were on their way back to Berlin, but 
something in their step was different. The stride was shorter, less buoyant, 
less assured; their feet seemed to drag, as if unwilling to move. Their heads 
were hanging dejectedly, their shoulders humped up round their ears. 

'What a shit,' muttered Katz. 'A lousy stinking shit of a Colonel.' 

'Artillery, at that.' 

'And Army, not even S.S.' 

There was a silence. 

'You don't suppose.' 

'What?' 

'You don't suppose there's anything in it?' 

'The Russian front?' 

'Mm.' 

Another silence. 

'How could a lousy stinking shit of a Colonel have any influence? I ask you? 
It's not even as if he's S.S.' 

Katz pinched his lips together. 

'Lousy stinking shits of Colonels sometimes have more influence than you 
might think.' 

'You reckon?' 

'Could well be.' 

They slouched on in silence towards the station. 

What a shit!' said Schröder, bitterly. 

CHAPTER EIGHT 


EARLY next morning, Feldwebel Lindenberg was led out to be shot. Little John 
and Porta accompanied him, one at each elbow. 

Lindenberg was dressed in his own green uniform, but his head was bare, as 
laid down in the regulations. Little John and Porta wore steel helmets, which 
glistened malevolently in the cold grey dawn. Their rifles were slung over their 
shoulders and their heavy boots crashed uncompromisingly on the 
cobblestones. 

The first platoon, under the command of Lt. Ohlsen, was already in place. 
Standing near the wall were a captain of the garrison with the Prison Chaplain 
and Medical Officer. On the far side of the courtyard, near a small doorway, 
two medical auxiliaries were waiting, seated on a stretcher. 

Lindenberg glanced nervously about him. Until now, he had preserved his 
dignity. Was his courage going to fail him at the last moment? Out of the side 
of his mouth, Little John sent messages of encouragement. 

'Keep your pecker up, mate. Don't give the buggers anything to gloat about. 
We're all on your side.' 

Lindenberg managed a smile. He held his head high and stepped out defiantly 
on his way to the firing squad. When they arrived at the appointed place he 
calmly positioned himself, raising his arms for Little John to attach the strap 
that would hold him upright until the moment of firing. The captain approached 
him with a scarf to bind round his eyes, and Lindenberg shook his head. 

'Take it away, I don't need that. I prefer to see what's going on.' 

'As you wish.' 

The captain hunched an indifferent shoulder and returned to his position by 
the wall. Lindenberg spat contemptuously at his retreating back. A moment of 
silence, then Lt. Ohlsen held up a hand. Lindenberg found himself staring into 
the barrels of what suddenly seemed to be thousands of rifles, all pointing 
directly at the small piece of white rag that had been pinned on his chest and 
marked his heart. It was a heart that beat so furiously, so erratically, that for a 
moment Lindenberg thought he might die of a seizure before their bullets 
could reach him. A burst of blind panic came upon him. He began to lose 
consciousness, felt his head swimming, felt the blood pounding in his ears, 
thought for a moment that the ground was coming up to meet him, only he 
was strapped upright and he knew it was impossible. 

He must master this weakness. There must be no going under at the last 
moment. He owed it to Little John, to Porta, to all the others out there - all 
those men who were so firmly on his side, who identified themselves with him 
and yet whose job it was to fire upon him. The sailors in blue, the boys of the 
tank regiment in black, and the condemned man in green. A pretty picture. 


Lindenberg raised his head and his eyes met those of Little John, standing at 
the end of the platoon, towering above the rest of his companions. Lindenberg 
signalled him a last, forgiving smile. Almost imperceptibly, Little John raised 
his rifle until it was no longer pointing at the small piece of white rag, but at a 
point over and above Lindenberg's left shoulder. There was nothing that Little 
John could personally do to stop the execution, but at least he would not fire 
on a friend. Seconds later, Porta's rifle took the same direction as Little 
John's. A profound sense of gratitude filled Lindenberg. He was moved by 
their simple act of friendship, and the tears that trickled so warmly down his 
cheeks were not the tears of weakness and he felt no shame. 

One of the soldiers suddenly fainted. A young boy, scarcely more than 
eighteen years old. He crumpled and fell forward on to his face. His 
spectacles tinkled on the flagstones, his rifle clattered from his hand. No one 
paid the least attention. 

'Poor little devil, he's far too young for this sort of thing.' 

It was Lindenberg's last conscious thought. The next moment, the rifles 
cracked. There was one anguished cry, then silence. 

Lt. Ohlsen stepped forward, revolver in hand, but the coup de grâce was not 
necessary: Lindenberg was dead. Ohlsen stood for a moment looking down at 
the body, his face set and expressionless, then quietly stepped back into line. 
At a sign from the Medical Officer the two orderlies picked up their stretcher, 
heaved the body upon it and disappeared through the small door that led to 
the crematorium. The first platoon was marched off towards the barracks. The 
Professor was hauled to .his feet. Nearby, very quietly and with no fuss or 
bother, someone was vomiting. 

Little John and Porta walked back side by side. 'You just wait,' muttered Little 
John. 'You just wait until it's our turn to have a go at them. The bastards.' 

There was no need to explain who 'they' were: Porta knew automatically. 

'That'll be the day,' he said. 'And we'll bloody well make sure we know what 
we're aiming at, too. I should hate to miss!' 

Five o'clock was striking. Exactly twenty minutes had passed since 
Lindenberg had been marched from his cell. By eleven o'clock that morning 
Hauptfeldwebel Dorn had tied up the whole affair and was able to dismiss it 
from his mind. The relevant papers had been filled in, all the necessary forms 
completed. The total cost of the operation he had calculated at 1,290.05 
marks. Major Divalordy's rubber stamp had been used wherever a signature 
was required, and the whole lot had been sealed in an official envelope and 
put out for posting. That was that. The matter was over and done with, and a 
good morning's work. The Hauptfeldwebel was able to relax. 

Dorn lolled back in his chair, his feet on the table, one of the Major's cigars 
between his fingers. He opened one of his desk drawers and fumbled furtively 


beneath the 'Völkischer Beobachter' for pornography, then settled down with a 
contented sigh to study the more lewd of the pictures through a magnifying 
glass. 

The middle of the day was Dorn's best time. Everyone else was fully 
occupied, going about his work, and no one came to disturb him. Those who 
dared intrude too often upon his privacy were soon made aware of Dorn's 
displeasure, and none but the most stupid or the most zealous ever came to 
him with prison business during the middle hours of the day. The telephone 
was an exception: it did, occasionally, trouble him by ringing, and annoying 
though it was it could hardly be ignored. It rang now, barely ten minutes after 
Dorn had lit his cigar and settled down to enjoy his well-earned rest. He 
answered irritably. 

'Dorn here. Who's speaking?' 

It was a feldwebel, wanting to know what he should do with Lindenberg's 
belongings. 

'What sort of belongings? Anything interesting?' 

'Not really, sir. Only a load of sloppy letters and other bits of tat.' 

'Send it all to the court martial,' said Dorn, studying one of his pornographic 
photographs through the magnifying glass and feeling a pleasant sensation 
run through his body. 'They might find it useful for wiping their arses on ... Oh, 
and feldwebel—' His voice took on a more stringent note – 'while I've got you 
on the phone, perhaps you'd like to be reminded of the fact that I am an 
extremely busy man and do not care to be disturbed on account of trivialities. 
Use your initiative, feldwebel. I shan't tell you again.' 

'Very well, sir.' 

Dorn replaced the receiver and returned to his cigar and his photographs. 
Five minutes later, there was a second interruption. A sharp rap at the door 
and two men entered, without waiting for an invitation. They were dressed like 
twins. Each wore a soft felt hat, with the brim turned well down, brown shoes 
that squeaked as they walked,.and long leather coats buttoned to the neck. 
Their faces were different, but their eyes were the same: light grey in colour, 
cold and menacing in expression. Dorn looked across at them, insolently, 
without removing his feet from the table. At the same time he felt regiments of 
cold wet feet marching up and down his spine, and involuntarily he shivered. 

'To what do I owe this interruption?' he demanded. 

'Difficult to say, really.' The taller of the two men turned to his companion. 'To 
what do you suppose he owes this interruption?' 

'It could be we want to have a few words with him, perhaps?' 'What is this?' 
said Dorn. 'Who are you?' 


'Katz and Schröder.' It sounded like a music hall comedy team. 'Katz and 
Schröder, come to pay you a visit. That's who we are.' 

The taller man, who appeared to be Katz, smiled smoothly at Dorn. 

'Aren't you going to offer us a drink, Hauptfeldwebel?' 

Dorn regarded the two men with astonishment. There was something about 
them that made him feel definitely uneasy, but he was determined not to 
capitulate. His conscience, after all, was clear. Whoever they were, whoever 
had sent them, he had nothing to fear. Nevertheless, they did make him feel 
uneasy. He slowly removed his feet from the desk and slid the pornography 
back into its hiding place. 

'I'm sorry, gentlemen. I have only water to offer you. You can always get beer 
from the canteen, of course.' 

'Of course,' agreed Schröder, with a smile. 'That is as it should be. You're 
doing quite well so far ... But while I think of it, Hauptfeldwebel: no more feet 
on the table, eh? It is, after all, the property of the Führer.' 

'What do you want here?' asked Dorn, cautiously. This is a military 
establishment. Nothing to do with civilians.' 

The two civilians exchanged delighted smiles and said nothing. Dorn stood up 
and leaned towards them, hands on the desk. 

'If you don't intend explaining yourselves I shall be forced to call the guard and 
have you removed. This is my office and I am a busy man. I strongly resent 
your manner, and your behaviour. You have absolutely no right to come 
bursting in here without permission. Either state your case or get out.' 

Dorn had delivered his threat. There was nothing else he could do. He stood 
back to await results. 

'Bravo,' murmured Schröder, vaguely. 

He sniffed the air and turned to Katz. 

'He may not be able to offer us a drink,' he said, 'but by the smell of things the 
man smokes a good cigar. And by the laws of hospitality,' he told Dorn, 'I think 
you should at least hand round the box.' 

It was almost as if Dorn had never spoken. It was a direct insult and he was 
left with no alternative. Tight-lipped, he reached out a hand and pressed the 
bell for the guard. Katz laughed in his face. 

'One guard won't be nearly enough ... we'll need at least three! Three strong 
and stupid men. The stronger and stupider they are, the better ... And we shall 
also require a table, a typewriter, three chairs and two lamps with 500 watt 


bulbs. Do you have all that? Because it's your job, Hauptfeldwebel, to supply 
it.' 

Dorn gaped at the man. 

'What on earth are you talking about? What have you come here for?' 

'Really,' said Schröder, smothering a yawn, 'if he only had the strength to 
match his stupidity—' 

He was interrupted by the arrival of the guard, marched up to the office by a 
sergeant. 

'Here's your guard,' said Schröder, without turning round. 'What do you want 
him for?' 

Dorn swallowed a few times, then shot out a finger. 

'Get out, you idiots! Can't you see I have company?' 

The guard opened his eyes wide and the sergeant was heard to mutter the 
word 'alarm'. The sight of the two cretinous, staring faces was too much for 
Dorn. 

'Get out!' he screamed. 'How many times do I have to repeat an order before 
you decide to obey it?' 

The guard and the sergeant hastily saluted and left the room. Dorn mopped 
his brow with the back of his hand and wondered whether he would have 
more authority standing up or sitting down. He decided, for the moment, to 
remain standing, but his arms presented a problem. They dangled at his side 
and were a nuisance. He put them behind his back and felt like a schoolboy; 
then he clasped them in front and felt like a priest; then he let them fall limply 
of their own accord and they hung down to his knees, with his hands like ton 
weights at the end of each wrist and embarrassed him. He was aware, all the 
time, of Katz and Schröder watching him and smiling at his dis comfiture. 

'Are you ready?' asked Schröder, softly. 

'Ready for what?' Dorn turned on his questioner with a last attempt at keeping 
control of the situation. 'I don't know where you two gentlemen have come 
from, but I suggest you go back there immediately. You can have no possible 
business with me. In fact, you annoy me.' 

'Did you hear that?' said Schröder. 'Can he really be so stupid as not to know 
where we come from?' 

'It is possible,' said Katz. 'A lot of these people are extremely slow-witted.' 


'I am at the end of my patience!' snapped Dorn. 'Either you leave my office 
immediately or I shall call Colonel Vogel – and that, I can promise you, will 
have most unpleasant consequences.' 

'For Colonel Vogel.' Schröder nodded. 'Not for us. However, if he knew we 
were here I'm sure he would have enough sense to keep out of our way.' 

Katz walked round the desk and sat himself down in Dorn's chair. He put his 
feet up on Dorn's desk. He opened a drawer and rummaged idly inside it. 
Then he undid the top button of his coat and leaned back, very much at ease. 
Dorn felt powerless to protest. Watching Katz, he had noticed a menacing 
bulge beneath his left arm, which could mean only one thing: the man was 
carrying a revolver. He glanced at Schröder and saw the same tell-tale signs. 
The sweat poured in great torrents down his back as he realized the truth. 

'Are you from the Gestapo?' 

The two men promptly fell about with laughter, as if Dorn had made the 
biggest joke of all time. 

'He's quick,' spluttered Schröder. 'By Dachau, he's quick! You live on those 
sharp wits of yours, friend, and they should keep you going a good long time.' 

'That is,' amended Katz, 'if he dies a natural death.' 

'Of course.' 

'And now—' Katz looked across at Dorn, trembling on the other side of the 
desk – 'let's get down to business. Katz and I are from the R.S.H.A. 4-2A and 
we should like to have a few words with you about the things that are going on 
inside this prison.' 

'Things? What – things?' 

'The assassination.' 

Schröder spat vehemently on the floor and ground it in with his foot. 

'He is not a gentleman,' thought Dorn, helplessly. 'He is not a gentleman or he 
wouldn't spit on my floor.' 

'Where is he?' demanded Katz, suddenly. 

Dorn forced himself to look away from the appalling spectacle of Schröder 
grinding his spittle into the carpet. 

'Where is who?' 

Katz snapped his fingers. 


'The Madman of Torgau ... the lunatic ... the assassin. Where is he?' 

Dorn stared dumbly from one man to another. 

'All right,' said Katz, patiently. 'If the question's too complicated for you, don't 
bother to answer. Just get the man sent up here.' 

'You want to speak to him?' 

'That was the general idea.' Katz gave Dorn a kind smile that had no humour, 
no understanding behind it. 'Not that we don't find your company intensely 
stimulating, but unfortunately we can't spend all day in pursuit of pleasure. I 
know that you, as an avowedly very busy man, will appreciate our point of 
view. So just get the prisoner sent up here and let us be done with it.' 

Dorn swallowed, hard. His intestines suddenly underwent a violent spasm and 
he felt sick. 

'It's not – not possible—' 

'What is not possible?' asked Katz, pleasantly. 

'The criminal – he was sent before the firing squad this morning.' Dorn lifted a 
helpless hand. 'Dead and buried. The whole affair's closed.' 

Schröder walked softly across the floor towards Dorn. 

'Is this your idea of a joke?' 

'Certainly not,' said Dorn. 'The man has been executed.' 

Schröder exchanged glances with Katz and breathed heavily through his 
nose. 

'In that case, my very busy friend, I have to tell you that you have personally 
sabotaged an inquiry into a crime committed against the State and at the 
same time infringed paragraph 619 of the Criminal Code. I take it you know 
what that means?' 

Dorn's sweat glands redoubled their efforts. He felt cold and wet and sick. 'I 
can't possibly be held responsible. I don't give the orders around here, I 
simply prepared the papers.' 

'Precisely. You prepared the papers.' Schröder whipped out a hand and 
seized Dorn by the collar of his tunic. 'I'm warning you, unless you can 
produce the murderer you're liable to find yourself facing a firing squad before 
very long. You prepared the papers, you took down the statements, you sifted 
the evidence, you did all the work – so you produce the murderer. Any 
murderer will do, but we've got to have one. Is that clear?' 


Dorn's lips opened and closed silently, like the fronds of a sea anemone. His 
brain was in a state of terror and confusion. Visions of the firing squad, of the 
Russian front, danced like spots before the eyes. And it was all the fault of 
that wretched Gustav Dürer. Nothing but trouble when he was alive, nothing 
but trouble now that he was dead. What irony to reflect that he himself had 
requested that the man be posted to his section! 

Dorn suddenly drew himself up straight If this was the end, then very well, it 
was the end. But they should see how a good Hauptfeldwebel conducted 
himself. Enough of this lenience towards his inferiors. And towards his 
superiors, come to that. For too long he had shouldered more than his fair 
share of the burden. From now on he would be hard, hard as the steel from 
the Krupp works. 

Schröder released his hold on Dorn's tunic and waved a none too clean finger 
in his face. 

'I'm telling you for the last time: either produce a murderer, or you can count 
yourself as a dead man.' 

Silence. Dorn stood stiffly, his arms rigid at his side, hard as the steel from the 
Krupp works. Katz suddenly came to life. 

'Sit down.' He nodded curtly towards a stool in the centre of the room. 
'Consider yourself under arrest.' 

Even steel from the Krupp works might have wavered beneath the blow. 
Dorn's heart missed a beat then went wildly on its way, sending the blood 
pounding in his ears. No more peaceful days idled away with the Major's 
cigars and a book of titillating photographs. Instead he saw himself scrubbing 
floors, slopping about in the filth of prison latrines, shut up in a cell at Glatz 
like a common criminal. Or even – and this was the worst horror of all – even 
committed to Torgau itself, where all the prisoners knew him as a 
Hauptfeldwebel and where the humiliation would be unbearable. 

Katz seated himself at the typewriter and inserted a sheet of paper. 

'Name? Age? Religion?' 

He made out a lengthy report under four main headings: sabotage, illegal 
conduct, neglect of duties, falsification of documents. When it was finished to 
his satisfaction he handed Dorn a pen and told him to sign it. Through force of 
habit, Dorn added the word 'Hauptfeldwebel' after his signature. Katz at once 
snatched the pen from him and scored through it. 

'You can forget that. You're no longer a Hauptfeldwebel. You're under arrest, 
you're a person of no importance whatsoever.' 

At this humiliating moment the door opened and an officer entered. In stature 
he was insignificant; in presence he was the largest man in the room. A 


colonel, wearing the pale grey uniform of the assault corps, decorated with 
two silver death's heads. Round his waist was a broad leather belt and a 
holster containing a black P.38 revolver. On such a small man, the revolver 
seemed to take on the proportions of a machine-gun. The colonel's left sleeve 
was empty; round his neck hung the Croix de Chevalier. He advanced 
magnificently into the room, sure of himself and of his authority. Dorn jumped 
at once to attention. 

'Hauptfeldwebel Joa—' He stopped, abruptly, and corrected himself. 'Joachim 
Dorn, under arrest, sir.' 

Not a flicker passed across the Colonel's face. He stood rigid, his eyes coldly 
regarding the two Gestapo men. Katz and Schröder had instinctively come to 
their feet. Already they seemed less certain of their superiority. Dorn was 
hardly able to keep his kneecaps from leaping up and down. He braced his 
legs and found himself shivering. He was always ill at ease in the Colonel's 
presence. The silence continued, prolonged itself unbearably. It was the 
Colonel himself who broke it. 

'These men—' He glanced distastefully at Katz and Schröder – 'they belong to 
the Secret Police, I presume?' 

'Yes, sir,' confirmed Katz, with an uneasy frown. He disliked the expression 
'Secret police'. 'S.S. Stabscharführer Katz, accompanied by S.S. 
Oberscharführer Schröder as assistant. We have been sent here to make a 
report on the incident that took place yesterday in the 2nd section of this 
prison, when a certain Gustav Dürer was murdered by one of your prisoners.' 

'I take it you have now gathered sufficient information to allow you to make 
your report?' 

The Colonel's question was in fact more in the nature of a statement. His tone 
was polite, but menacing. 

'With regard to Haupfeldwebel Dorn – may I ask if you consider him to be in 
any way implicated in the murder?' 

'No, sir. Not in the murder itself.' 

'Oh?' The Colonel arched an eyebrow. His nostrils quivered slightly, like those 
of a dog who suddenly finds itself on the right scent. 'May I therefore further 
inquire what business you two gentlemen have to conduct in this particular 
office?' 

He pulled a gold watch from his pocket, checked the time with that shown by 
the clock on the wall. 

'If my information is correct – which I have no reason to doubt – you passed 
the guardhouse at 9.37. It is now 17.14. You have been inside the prison for 7 
hours and 37 minutes, yet not until this moment do I have the pleasure of 


meeting you – and even now it is I who have had to come to you, which hardly 
seems to me to be a very satisfactory state of affairs.' 

Katz opened his mouth to speak, and then changed his mind. The Colonel 
gently arched a second eyebrow. 

'Possibly you were not informed that it was I, and not the 2nd Section, who 
caused you to be sent here?' 

'Oh, yes, sir,' said Schröder, with unwise enthusiasm. 'We were told that you 
wanted an outside inquiry to be conducted into the affair.' 

'Indeed?' The Colonel permitted himself a frostbitten smile. 'In that case, I 
really am at a loss to understand how it is that you failed to present 
yourselves to me on your arrival here?' 

Katz was spared the embarrassing task of finding a suitable reply to this 
question. The door opened and Major Divalordy thrust his beaming person 
upon the scene. 

'Good morning, good morning!' he began, in his usual cheersome fashion. 
'And how are we this fine—' 

His speech stopped short. His smile faded. He looked at Dorn, at the Colonel, 
at the two Gestapo agents. A series of nervous tics twitched his eyebrows and 
mouth convulsively. He had suddenly become the focal point of attention. 
From the silence that fell, it was obvious that he had burst in in the middle of 
something important, and feeling the need to express himself the Major began 
babbling a stream of inanities. Everyone stood gravely listening, until at length 
his voice faded awkwardly away in the middle of a sentence. Again, there was 
that nasty silence. 

'Nothing special to report, sir,' concluded the Major, timidly. 

'Really?' The Colonel's eyebrows went up again, both together this time. 'In 
the midst of all this excitement, you have nothing special to report? I see.' 

The Major shuffled his feet uncomfortably. He murmured something about the 
'unfortunate incident that had occurred yesterday'. 

'More than unfortunate,' interrupted the Colonel. 'I should say catastrophic, 
rather. The consequences of that "unfortunate incident", Major Divalordy, are 
likely to be extremely disagreeable.' 

'Indeed yes, sir.' The Major nodded, heartily. 'Just what I was thinking myself, 
sir. Extremely disagreeable.' 

'Not so much for me—' said the Colonel. 

'No, sir?' 


'No, Major. Not so much for me, as for you.' 

Major Divalordy gulped down a mouthful of air. He felt bubbles of hot sweat 
bursting out all over him. The Colonel calmly screwed a monocle into his eye 
and held out his hand for the papers that Katz was still clutching. Katz silently 
passed them to him and joined the rest of the room in standing stiffly to 
attention. 

The Colonel ran his eye swiftly down the first page, then tossed the bundle of 
papers contemptuously on to the desk. He removed his monocle and studied 
first Katz, then Schröder. 

'You have deliberately disobeyed my orders. You were told to report to the 
Kommandantur – to me, personally. Instead of so doing, you seem to have 
taken it upon yourselves to play at private detectives in the 2nd Section and to 
sit in judgment upon one of my hauptfeldwebels.' 

Katz and Schröder said nothing. They stared fixedly ahead at a photograph of 
Adolf Hitler, as if seeking courage and inspiration. 

'Very well,' said the Colonel. 'I take your silence to mean that you accept the 
charge. In a few moments you will be called in to see my adjutant. He has 
himself conducted an inquiry into the matter and has certain documents for 
which he requires your signature. You are expected back at Berlin this 
evening. From there, you will be transferred to another section – some- where 
on the eastern front. I wish you well of it, gentlemen.' 

The heroes of the Gestapo were dismissed. The Colonel turned his back on 
them and they left the room without a word. It was for Dorn, now, to take his 
turn on the rack. 

'You've been a hauptfeldwebel for some considerable time now,' began the 
Colonel, deceptively gentle. 'I've been keeping my eye on you, Dorn, and it 
has seemed to me that of recent months you've been finding your duties 
rather - taxing, shall we say? Rather irksome? You're a good soldier, I know 
that. I sense in you an eagerness to be done with office work, to come 
personally to grips with the enemies of the Führer ... Am I right?' 

Dorn nodded his agreement What else, after all, could he do? 

'Your talents are wasted in paper work,' continued the Colonel, lyrically. 'A 
man with your gifts, a man with your zeal, your burning loyalty and devotion to 
the Fatherland, should sooner be engaged on active duties. Out with the men, 
fighting at the front ... You've been very patient all these years, Dorn, It has 
not gone unnoticed. Now it is to be rewarded: you chance has come ...' The 
Colonel's voice on a brisker tone. 'Your papers have already been transferred 
Be ready to leave within the hour. Bon voyage, and good luck.' 

Stunned and horrified, Dorn saluted and crept from the room. Nothing had 
ever been further from his thoughts or his desires than a personal 


confrontation with the enemies of the Führer – unless they should be safely 
behind bars, as at Torgau. His blood boiled in helpless anger against the 
Colonel. All those years of devoted service, and this was his reward! Sent to 
the front line, to die like a common soldier! If the Führer only knew how his 
most loyal of servants were treated... 

The door closed behind Dorn, and Major Divalordy was left, still sweating, 
alone with the Colonel. He gave an ingratiating smile, but the Colonel did not 
return it. 

'Well, Major, this is a most unsatisfactory turn of events... Who, I wonder, had 
the absurd notion of placing you in charge of this section? You are evidently 
quite unfitted to the task. You have allowed yourself to be led by the nose by a 
mere feldwebel, and I will not tolerate such a state of affairs. One is either an 
officer or a plain soldier. Which do you consider yourself to be?' 

Major Divalordy swallowed convulsively. 

'An officer, sir.' 

He had attempted a gallant cry: it left his lips as a faint bleat. 

'An officer? I wonder?' 

The Colonel considered the matter a moment. 

'I'm interested in you, Major. I should like to give you a chance to prove 
yourself, and for this reason I have personally gone to no small amount of 
trouble on your behalf. You will be glad to hear that I have found a post for 
you in an engineering regiment. You should see plenty of action and have 
plenty of scope to show the stuff you're made of. I myself have grave doubts 
that you are officer material: I shall be only too happy if you prove me wrong.' 

To the Major's horror, Colonel Vogel pulled out a Request for Transfer form 
and threw it on to the desk. 'I knew you would be anxious not to waste time, 
so I've already made all the necessary arrangements. You have only to sign 
this form and give it to my adjutant and I think you'll find there should be no 
delay in effecting the transfer ... To you also, Major Divalordy, I say bon 
voyage and good luck.' 

The Colonel left the room, and Major Divalordy remained standing in position 
for many minutes, wildly contemplating, suicide. 

He died of dysentery in 1948, in a prisoner of war camp at Tobolsk. 

All the sentences passed by courts martial were sent for verification to the 
Judicial Department of the Army. Each case had to receive the official 
signature of the Head of the Department, General von Grabach, before 
sentence could be carried out. 


Von Grabach was known for his expensive tastes rather than for his legal 
wisdom. He was known for his whoring and for his addiction to the cognac 
bottle. He affected a gracious way of life, was more concerned with the set of 
his jacket, the gloss on his creaking leather boots, the glitter of his silver 
spurs, than with the more mundane aspects of army life. 

It was many years, now, since he had troubled to read any of the documents 
to which he so lightly appended his name. Death sentences or deliveries of 
sausages, they were all one to him. 

CHAPTER NINE 

GENERAL VON GRABACH paced eagerly up and down the thick pile carpet of his 
office, staring out upon, but not seeing, the magnificent view over the 
Landwehr Kanal. Instead of the water, instead of the trees, he was gazing 
upon a vision of Frau von Zirlitz wearing her pink silk panties. General von 
Grabach had a passion for pink: he even went so far as to wear pink 
underclothes himself. He also had a passion for Ebba von Zirlitz: she was his 
mistress of the moment. 

As he paced, he glanced impatiently at his watch and subtracted another five 
minutes from the long hours he must wait before the delights of the evening 
which lay ahead. The watch was gold, with a heavy gold strap. It was a 
present from the town council of Bucharest, where he had been stationed for 
four glorious months. Bucharest! There was a cushy number, if you like. 
Endless days of dances, parties, free drink, free tobacco. Endless nights of 
frolic and debauchery. It seemed to von Grabach, looking back upon those 
halcyon days, that every other woman you met in Bucharest was a beautiful 
nymphomaniac. 

It was different here in Berlin. You had to fight for your women here, and a 
damned hard fight it was, too. But the worst thing of all was the way you 
simply couldn't move for the S.S. men that swarmed all over the city. Ghastly 
types. An uncouth rabble that in his opinion had no place in the German 
Army. 

Von Grabach pulled a sour face at the thought of them. He turned to the 
window and gazed out, watching an asthmatic tug boat slowly pulling a string 
of barges through the sluggish waters of the canal. His thoughts returned 
pleasurably to Frau von Zirlitz. He really must remember to send a note to his 
friend, the General commanding the division to which Captain von Zirlitz 
belonged. There must be no chance of the gallant Captain arriving home 
unexpectedly. Scenes could lead only to unpleasantness, and it would be 
disastrous if the echoes reached as far as Prinz Albrecht Strasse. Certainly no 
sane man would consider it a crime to be found sleeping with the wife of an 
officer who was fighting at the front – indeed it was perfectly natural and only 
to be expected – but unfortunately some of the men who held the reins of the 
Third Reich could not, in the General's opinion, be considered as sane. 


He turned back from the window and began pacing again, up and down on 
the thick pile carpet. The General's office, as befitted his rank and station, 
more resembled an elegant drawing-room than an office. It was here, at his 
delicately carved writing desk, that he signed the death warrants of the 
prisoners in Torgau. But for the moment his mind was not on death warrants it 
was on Ebba von Zirlitz in her pink silk panties. 

His dream was terminated by the arrival of his staff officer, who pointedly 
placed two rose-coloured folders on the writing desk. 

'Sorry to bother you, sir. These have just come in. A couple of appeals from 
Torgau. One we've seen before – an infantry feldwebel, charged with 
desertion. The other's new – an artillery lieutenant, found guilty of murder.' 

'Thank you, Walther, just leave them there. I'll take a look at them later, if I 
have the time. I wish they wouldn't keep pestering us with these constant 
appeals, they know full well we never let them go through.' Complacently the 
General pulled out his gold cigarette case. 'Others might, but we're made of 
sterner stuff, Walther. Sterner stuff. These miserable creatures don't deserve 
pity. They've committed their crimes, they must pay for them. An iron 
discipline, Walther: I practise what I preach ... Here, have a cigarette. I think 
you'll find them to your liking, they came from America via the Red Cross.' He 
laughed, merrily. 'What wouldn't I give to see their faces in Washington if they 
knew where their precious cigarettes had ended up!' 

'Thank you,' said Walther, with a faint smile. 

The two men stood side by side at the windows and watched a company of 
new cavalry recruits swinging past, singing lustily as they went. 

'Good lads,' murmured the General. 'Damned good lads. The youth of 
Germany, Walther. The youth of Germany ... God bless 'em!' 

'Yes, indeed,' said Walther, echoing the general's fervour. 'I was watching 
them training only yesterday. It does your heart good to see such enthusiasm 
– every single one of them ready to die for the Führer.' 

'The Hitler Jugend.' Von Grabach inhaled deeply and with an air of personal 
satisfaction. 'Tell me, Walther... to change the subject: have you been along to 
the gypsy quarter recently?' 

'I was there only yesterday evening, sir.' 

The General made a strange whinnying noise of anticipation. 

'Anything – interesting? Anyone you could – ah – particularly recommend?' 

'I would say not, sir.' 


Walther shook his head, regretfully, and the General let out his breath on a 
long sigh. 'There's no shortage of women, of course, so long as you're not too 
choosy. But no one I should care to recommend to you personally, sir. Not 
quite up to your class, if you know what I mean?' 

'A pity. I trust your judgment in these matters, Walther ... By the way, have 
you ever met an Ebba von Zirlitz in your travels?' 

There was that in the General's tone which indicated to the alert Walther that 
the question was not altogether as casual as it sounded. He hesitated. 

'Ebba von Zirlitz?' Carefully, he considered her. 'I can't say I recall the name. 
Am I likely to have come across her anywhere?' 

'Possibly not. In any case, no matter.' The General waved his cigarette 
through the air. 'It's not important. I merely inquired on behalf of a friend of 
mine. He has a penchant for the lady.' 

Walther joined in the General's laugh, while metaphorically thumbing his nose. 
What an old fool! Almost everyone knew Ebba von Zirlitz. He himself had 
been to a party with her only a couple of months before, and he knew for a 
fact that at least a dozen men had already been through her. 

'All right, Walther. That'll be all for now. I'll send for you if I need you.' 

The General dismissed him and turned back to the window, to his silent 
contemplation of the inner vision of Ebba in her panties. Slowly and 
luxuriously, his mind began to strip her naked but the General fortunately 
managed to put a stop to it before things had gone too far. Breathing lustily 
through his heavy nostrils, he turned back to his writing desk, picked up one 
of the rose-coloured files, flung it down without even looking at it and reached 
out for the telephone. 

'Ebba? Is that you, my little love? It's Claude here... just counting the hours, 
my sweet, until tonight.' 

He sent a loud slopping kiss down the line to her. Ebba laughed gaily. 

'Don't forget that fur you so rashly promised me!' 

'You shall have it, my pet. Never fear.' 

For the next three days the rose-coloured folders lay untouched and forgotten 
on General von Grabach's writing desk. They were joined by others, from 
other prisons, until at last there was a little pile of them. Each file represented 
a condemned man and his friends or family, all anxiously waiting for news. 
Each file represented days, weeks, perhaps months of endeavour and 
sacrifice – constant visits to those in authority, endless train journeys from far 
distant places, letters, telephone calls, tears and humiliation. A man's sister 
had sold her body; a man's father had sold his soul. Wives and mothers and 


sweethearts had left their homes and taken up work in Berlin factories, to be 
near at hand and able to pursue their endeavours with more vigour. Families 
had parted with precious possessions in the hope that bribery might work 
where personal supplication had failed. It was a long, heartbreaking battle 
before the right to appeal could be won, but when at last the appeal was 
approved and had gone through for consideration by those at the top – what 
then? Only waiting. Day after day, waiting for news that never came, knowing 
that you had done all that was possible and that the matter was now out of 
your hands. 

Out of your hands and into those of General von Grabach. But the General 
was a busy man, he had no time to spare for minor matters. A large notice 
had been pinned to his door: 'ENGAGED. ON NO ACCOUNT TO BE 
DISTURBED.' Even Walther saw him for no more than a few minutes each 
day. Sometimes he had time only to say 'good morning' or 'good evening' as 
the General hurried in and out of his office. The fact was, as Walther well 
knew, that the affair von Zirlitz was prospering. It had been helped along by 
the arrival of the promised fur – a sable, supplied by the Head of the 
Commissariat from a stock that had been confiscated during the course of an 
S.S. inquiry. The confiscated furs were designated for the troops fighting on 
the eastern front, but none ever reached them. In Berlin the higher-ranking 
officers had the pick of the bunch for their wives, their girl-friends and their 
mistresses. The rest went on as far as Poland, where the occupying army 
shared them out amongst themselves. The troops in the trenches went cold, 
but who should worry? 

The Head of the Commissariat took one fur for himself and one for his friend 
the General,. He had no special love for the General, but he did believe in 
keeping up a good relationship with those who might one day prove useful to 
know. 

'You must find your work very absorbing?' he hazarded. 

'Oh, it's well enough in its way,' agreed the General, more interested in picking 
his teeth with a silver toothpick than in discussing the intricacies of his work. 
'Something new always turning up. Keeps you on your toes all right.' 

He leaned back in his comfortable chair and sipped his cognac contentedly. 
The Head of the Commissariat had one of the most elegant offices in all 
Berlin; more elegant, even, than the General's own. 

'Fine cognac,' he commented. 

'Not too bad, is it?' agreed the Commissar, complacently. 'It was requisitioned 
in France for hospital use ... I sent one of my feldwebels off to Spandau 
yesterday. Caught the fellow stealing.' He gazed across at the General. 'I 
hope the court martial takes as serious a view of the matter as I do. Such men 
must be made an example of. In my opinion, a death sentence would not be 
out of place.' 


'Rest assured. It shall be seen to. I personally shall keep an eye on the man's 
case.' 

'I wish you would. I find there is an unwholesome disregard to discipline 
creeping into the Service these days.' 'Not from my quarter, I can promise you 
that. Iron discipline is my creed. I practise what I preach... Only the other day 
a member of my own staff came back from leave three days late. He 
attempted some garbled excuse, but I'm not a man for half measures. All or 
nothing, it's the only way. The country has no use for layabouts and 
parasites.' 

'So what did you do about it?' 

'Why, I called in the Military Police and told them to arrest him. Suspected 
desertion. I've asked for the death penalty. Paragraph 1133, clause 9.' 

The General rubbed his hands together and hopefully edged his empty glass 
towards the bottle of cognac. 

'Where would the country be if we let people come and go as they pleased? 
Before you knew where you were whole regiments would be bowling off home 
whenever they felt like it.' 

'Quite so, To my way of thinking, the Military Code is far too indulgent. How 
many times does one hear of the death penalty being commuted and some 
useless wastrel sent off to idle away the rest of the war in a so-called 
"disciplinary" battalion?' 

'Speaking for myself,' said von Grabach, 'I can tell you that I very rarely 
uphold appeals for clemency. I might almost say never.' He picked up his 
second glass of cognac. 'At this very moment, for instance, we have a case of 
persistent refusal to obey orders on our hands. A young captain from an 
infantry, regiment. The chap's got some pretty powerful relatives, and frankly 
it's causing us no end of a headache, one way or another. The matter's due 
for hearing in three weeks' time. However, I shall not allow myself to be 
swayed by any outside pressures. I firmly believe in imposing the death 
penalty whenever and wherever the law makes provision for it. I mean to say, 
it makes a mockery of the whole idea of discipline if you let these people get 
away with things all the time ... Matter of fact, in this particular case I've 
already prepared the necessary documents.' 

'Before the hearing?' The Commissar looked, for a moment, almost shocked. 
'You mean, the verdict's known in advance?' 

General von Grabach laughed, airily. 

'I wouldn't put it quite like that,' he said, with a certain amount of 
condescension in his voice. 'But the court martial (almost always passes the 
sentences we ask for. Those who sin against the state must pay the penalty 
no matter who their relatives are. I am swayed by no one. I do my duty as I 


see it, and none shall deflect me from my course – except, perhaps, the 
Führer himself and Heinrich Himmler,' he added. 'But I can assure you that 
they are iron disciplinarians both. We are cast in the same mould. I am proud 
to be as I am... You see this cross?' He fingered the decoration round his 
neck. 'You know why they gave me this, General Schroll? Because I run my 
service efficiently. Because in 99 cases out of a hundred I demand the death 
penalty. The Feldmarschall himself said to me, "War needs men who are 
hard, and such men must be rewarded". I think you'll agree with me that any 
moron is capable of fighting on the front line. But when it comes to doing my 
job—' He shook his head, wearily, as if at times the responsibility weighed 
heavy on his shoulders – 'ah, then it's a different matter. Not just a question of 
signing papers, you know. You need a definite cultural background. A good 
grip of psychology. Understanding of human nature. A lifetime's experience of 
dealing with people—' 

'How right you are, my dear General. There is none of the sinecure about your 
job – or, indeed, about mine. To be honest with you, I myself have been sadly 
out of sorts just lately. Overwork, you know. And the strain ... The doctor 
advises at least six weeks in Baden-Baden if I'm to avoid a complete 
breakdown ... I suppose you know of no addresses down there?' 

Von Grabach screwed up his eyes and followed the smoke of his cigar as it 
coiled up to the ceiling. 

'Baden-Baden?' He took a sip of cognac and rolled it thoughtfully round his 
mouth. 'I must say you have an excellent taste in cigars! If you ever lay your 
hands on any more of them—' 

'You like them? I'll send you round five boxes first thing tomorrow.' 

'Really? How perfectly delightfull. How very generous of you.' The empty 
cognac glass was once again pushed hopefully towards the bottle. 'Baden-
Baden. Now let me see... I do have one or two addresses I could let you 
Have. I'll send someone round with a list for you tomorrow.' 

'I should be most grateful. By the way—' General Schroll picked up tile bottle 
of cognac and leaned forward confidentially – 'have you heard the rumours 
that are going round Berlin? That our troops in the Caucasus have been 
routed? If it's true, then it certainly makes one wonder if the final victory is to 
be achieved quite as—' 

He was interrupted by General von Grabach sitting bolt upright in, his chair 
and banging down his glass. 

'I beg your pardon, sir? One hesitates to believe the evidence of one's own 
ears! May I inquire if you are in any doubt as to the final outcome of the war?' 

'Not at all!' cried the Commissar, his neck already growing red above the 
collar of his uniform. 'My dear General, I wonder at you for even suggesting 
such a thing ... It is simply,' he continued, with desperate improvisation, 'that 


here, in the Commissariat, we have an oberfeldwebel who is rather too much 
given to pessimism. I myself have overheard him speaking defeatist claptrap 
on more than one occasion. I abhor that kind of thing, as you well know. This 
rumour about the Caucasus was the last straw: I decided then and there that 
he must be got rid of.' 

'But surely,' murmured von Grabach, intently studying the glowing butt of his 
cigar, 'he is in good hands here? I feel certain that you, of all people, would 
know how to put a hasty end to such treachery.' 

Schroll's neck became red all over, up to his double chin and the lobes of his 
ears. He muttered a few incoherent words, then seized desperately on the 
first exit that presented itself: the telephone. 

'Excuse me, my dear General! A most important matter that had completely 
slipped my memory.' 

He spoke feverishly for some moments to Oberstintendant Schmidt, head of 
the Special Supplies Depot 

'Incidentally,' he ended up, 'be so good as to send eight cases of cigars and 
six bottles of champagne over to my office as soon as possible. The same 
cigars as I had the other day. Will you give it your urgent attention? Thank you 
... And by the way, Schmidt – that leave request you put in. I don't think you 
need have any worries about it. I'll see that it's passed.' He replaced the 
receiver and smiled confidently at von Grabach. 

'The cigars are on their way. Be with you tomorrow. And I take it you won't 
find a case of champagne amiss? I suddenly remembered a consignment 
we've just had from France.' 

They shook hands amiably. At the door, von Grabach turned. 

'Let me have a full report on your traitor.' 

'My traitor?' 

'Have you forgotten so soon? Your Oberfeldwebel who talks of defeat... As 
soon as I receive your, report I'll deal with the matter personally. We've had 
instructions to come down very heavily on that sort of thing.' 

The one general left the room; the other stayed behind, hot under his high 
collar. Von Grabach was well aware that in fact there was no traitor. The 
Commissar was equally well aware that he had fooled no one with his 
improvisation. Simply, he had made a tactical error. He had opened his mouth 
too wide, and von Grabach had found a new game to play. Cigars and 
champagne were not enough, he wanted to turn the screw and see what 
happened. Someone would plainly have to be sacrificed. Schroll called for his 
adjutant and settled back into his chair to think of a suitable lamb. 


Stabsintendant Brandt, the General's adjutant, had been a bank clerk before 
the war. He was the soul of obedience and discretion, without an original 
thought in his head. 

'Ah, Brandt,' said the General. 'We have a certain ober feldwebel attached to 
the Commissariat – he talks constantly of strategic withdrawals and the like. 
You know the one I mean?' 

Brandt folded his smooth forehead into concertina creases. 'I believe so, sir.' 

'Good. In that case, I want him put under immediate arrest.' 

Brandt's eyes bulged in amazement from their sockets. 'Arrest him, sir? What 
for?' 

'Defeatist talk. Undermining the morale of the troops. Such men are a threat to 
the entire German Army.' 

'But sir, I dont believe he's ever spoken to any of the troops. About defeat, I 
mean. I've never heard him speak about defeat to anyone.' 'Strategic 
withdrawals?' 

'It's hardly the same thing,' protested Brandt. 

'It may not seem so to you, Brandt. To me they are synonymous. For all 
practical purposes, that is. It's all of a piece with the propaganda they put out 
from London and Moscow.' 

Brandt frowned. He was not bent on arguing with the General on any matter 
of principle; he simply had a neat and well documented mind, a place for 
everything and everything in its place, and here were a few facts that were 
definitely not in their place. 

'Excuse me, sir,' he said, in the firm but respectful tones of a clerk who had 
discovered an error in his superior's arithmetical calculations, 'but if you 
remember, there was an occasion when you yourself were in favour of the 
strategic withdrawal. That was at the time of—' 

'That was quite different' Schroll frowned. 'The situation was different, the time 
was different It was at a different phase of the war altogether.' 

'I see, sir.' 

Brandt fell silent He was very far from seeing, but then it was not up to him to 
see. It was up to him to point out errors and inconsistencies, not to interpret 
them. 

'About this oberfeldwebel,' continued Schroll. 'A certain person has taken a 
rather unhealthy interest in him. Unhealthy for him, unhealthy for us. Upon 


reflection, I think it might be best if he were to disappear rather suddenly. And 
his papers as well, of course.' 

Brandt stiffened. 

'Sir! Excuse me, sir, but that is quite impossible. It's against all the regulations. 
You can't just get rid of papers like that. Papers are necessary to the running 
of the entire Army. Where should we be without them? In a fine muddle! 
Maybe you don't realize it, sir, but—' 

God damn it!' burst out Schroll, losing patience. 'Who do you think you are, 
Brandt, lecturing me like that? Do what I tell you, and you'd better make it 
snappy if you don't want to find yourself out in the trenches !' 

General and adjutant stood facing each other mutinously. Btrandt's smooth, 
shiny face was full of reproach. 'Get and do it!' cried Schroll, turning away. 'I 
want that damned oberfeldwebel out of Berlin and on his way somewhere else 
within the hour!' 

'Very good, sir. I think I could arrange a quick transfer to an infantry section in 
Greece.' 

'Greece?' screamed Schroll, contemptuously. 'That's no good, you bloody 
idiot! There's only one place to send him, and that's the Russian front. When I 
say get rid of him, I mean get rid of him... Finland would do, I suppose. 
Anywhere, so long as it gets him out of our hair. As for the papers – do what 
you like with 'em. Burn 'em, stuff 'em up the chimney, stuff 'em anywhere you 
wish. I leave it entirely to you, but those papers have got to go.' 

'Yes, sir,' said Brandt, weakly. 

His safe, regulated world of filing cabinets and carbon copies had been 
toppled by a sudden earthquake. Make out false documents! Burn papers! He 
had never done such a thing in his life before. Papers were records, and 
records were the lifeblood of civilization. Brandt felt as if he was going mad. 

He tottered from the room, and in his place the General sent for his ordnance 
officer, a young infantry lieutenant who had greatly distinguished himself on 
the battlefield and lost a leg in doing so. Schroll waved him into a chair. 'Sit 
down, Brücker. Make yourself comfortable. Cigar?' Brücker settled himself 
into the depths of an armchair and watched as Schroll paced back and forth, 
back and forth, tapping the palm of his left hand with a ruler. 

'It's very difficult to steer a straight course through the troubled waters of this 
world ... Don't you find it so, lieutenant?' Brücker laughed, easily. 

'I don't altogether care for your choice of metaphor, sir, but – yes, on the 
whole I would agree with you.' 


The General paced a bit more, Brücker narrowed his eyes. What was the old 
devil planning now, in that mean little brain of his? Whatever it was, he could 
do nothing to harm Brücker. The Lieutenant had a brother in the S.S., and the 
brother had influence. If anything, it was rather Brücker who could harm the 
General. 

'My adjutant,' said Schroll, abruptly. 'I find him to be quite astoundingly idle.' 

'The man's a moron,' said Brücker. 

'A moron! Yes, you've hit on the exact word.' Schroll turned eagerly on 
Brücker. 'I wonder – could you manage to get rid of him for me? Without any 
fuss or bother, you know. Without implicating me in any way. I should have to 
give every appearance of wishing to keep him here ... You understand me?' 

Brücker looked at him coldly. Schroll gave a nervous neigh and began 
washing his hands in the air. 

'The man gets on my nerves. I can't work properly with him around. I—' 

'Say no more, General. I know what to do. There's an S.S. unit out in the 
Ukraine—' 

'Excellent! The very thing! If you can bring this off, my dear boy, you'll be 
doing us both a favour. You'll find yourself promoted before the end of the 
month, I can promise you that.' 

'Thank you, sir.' 

Brücker trod thoughtfully from the room. Promotion interested hin not at all: he 
had his own means of obtaining it virtually whenever he wished. The fate of 
the adjutant left him unmoved: the man was a fool and deserved whatever 
was coming to him. But it would be interesting to find out what it was that he 
knew about the General. It was obviously something dangerous. Obviously 
something worth knowing. 

Four hours later, a message came over the teleprinter to the effect that 
Stabsintendant Brandt had been transferred to a special unit in the Ukraine. 
General Schroll, with a fine show of indignation, spent twenty minutes raising 
heaven and earth to keep his adjutant with him in Berlin. When the reply came 
through that the order was 'from above', and when he discovered just how far 
above – right up towards the cloud-covered summit, higher than he had ever 
dreamed of climbing he ceased his efforts and sat back instead to mop his 
brow and wonder uncomfortably upon the influence wielded by the young 
Lieutenant Brücker. 

Some time afterwards, von Grabach made inquiries about the oberfeldwebel 
who (so it now seemed to General Schroll) had started all the trouble. 


'Transferred?' he murmured, on hearing the news. 'Your adjutnant also, I 
believe? How. very sudden!' 

'They mess you about,' said the Commissar, vaguely. 'Of course, I daresay 
we could always get hold of him again if you think the matter really worth 
pursuing?' 

General von Grabach only smiled and mentally raised his hat to his colleague. 
The man was quick off the mark, you had to give him that. 

Later that same day von Grabach received two cases of cognac sent round 
from the Commissariat. General Schroll left for a well-earned rest in Baden-
Baden. 

The cognac had arrived shortly before lunch. At four o'clock in the afternoon 
von Grabach, in a state of complete euphoria, received a visit from a certain 
Councillor Berner. Had it not been for the cognac-coloured clouds surrounding 
him, he would never have consented to see the man in the first place. He 
gathered, through the haze, that Councillor Berner's son was at present 
lodged in Torgau Military Prison awaiting death by the firing squad. Councillor 
Berner, not unnaturally, was anxious that his son's life should be spared. He 
had come in person to bring the names of several influential relatives in 
support of his son's appeal for mercy. 

The General listened to Councillor Berner's supplication and was unmoved. 
Then he listened to the names of the influential relatives and grudgingly 
agreed that something might perhaps be done. He nodded his head gravely 
from the Olympian heights of his power. 

'I shall do my best for you, but understand that the matter is not entirely in my 
hands. Like anyone else, I receive my orders from above... If it were left to 
me, of course, I should have no hesitation whatsoever in upholding the 
appeal. Personally I am against all forms of violence and brutality. If I had my 
way I should abolish the death penalty altogether. However—' He shrugged a 
shoulder – 'discipline is discipline, as I think you will agree. One can but obey 
one's orders.' 

The Councillor distractedly played the piano in the air as he talked. 

'My son's crime was not committed against the State, you know, General. It 
was a crime of passion. The girl led him on. He was not altogether sane when 
he did it ... He's a good soldier. We can't afford to throw away men like that. 
Only save his life and give him a chance to prove his loyalty. Even if it means 
sending him to the Russian front, at least let him have a chance—' 

'Yes, yes. I shall do my best, I do assure you.' 

'May I rely on you, General?' 


'I give you my word,' said von Grabach, his vision blurred by cognac. 'Your 
son's life shall be spared.' 

There were celebrations in the Berner household that night. Champagne 
flowed, the telephone rang unceasingly. The Councillor told everyone who 
would listen that Germany should be proud of her generals: they were wise 
and humane and none could say otherwise. He wrote that same night to his 
son, telling him the news, and his heart overflowed with gratitude. 

The particular wise and humane General in question lit up a cigar, poured 
himself a generous glass of cognac and sat back comfortably in the remote 
depths of an arm chair. All was well in von Grabach's limited but expensive 
world. He had passed a night of fantasy and excitement with Ebba von Zirlitz, 
and only the same morning he had heard that he had been granted a long 
rest period at Berchtesgaden. Life was treating him well. Perhaps he ought to 
make a small token effort and look at the rose-coloured folders that still lay on 
his desk. Between two puffs on his cigar he reached out a hand and clawed 
up the first of them. 

'Lieutenant Heinz Berner, demoted to private. Prisoner, 2nd Section Cell 476, 
Torgau, Saxony. Condemned to death.' 

The General thumbed listlessly through the pages. His eye skimmed over the 
words, but his brain did not absorb them. One rose-coloured folder was much 
like another, and he had seen a great many in his time. He flung down Heinz 
Berner and picked up Paul-Nicolas Grün. Identical. Von Grabach neither knew 
nor cared what crimes had taken them to Torgau. They were prisoners, they 
were condemned to death, and as far as he was concerned that was an end 
to the matter. 

He threw the last of his cognac down his throat. He glanced at his watch. 
Time to go and supervise his packing if he were to leave for Berchtesgaden 
that same day. He picked up his pen and carelessly scrawled his signature 
across the two folders. Heinz Berner and Paul-Nicolas Grün had been finally 
condemned and nothing short of an act of God could save them. The 
Russians themselves could be knocking at the gates of Torgau, but Berner 
and Grün would still have to face the firing squad. Iron discipline. An order 
was an order. General von Grabach laid one file neatly on top of the other, 
with the air of one who has completed a good day's work. For a moment he 
was filled with a vague feeling of disturbance, which he traced, much later at 
Berchtesgaden, to Councillor Berner and a couple of reckless hours spent 
over a cognac bottle. Once traced to its source, the feeling of disturbance 
instantly disappeared and was replaced by one of annoyance. What right had 
the man Berner to come meddling in military affairs? He had extorted a false 
promise from General von Grabach, taking advantage of the General's 
temporary inebriation. Everyone knew the General's principles. Everyone 
knew that he was an iron disciplinarian, who never went against the findings 
of a court martial. The very idea of upholding an appeal was abhorrent to him. 
In any case, no matter what he may have said to the Councillor under the 
influence of cognac, it was too late now to stop the natural sequence of 


events that followed from his signing of the death warrant. War was war and 
others beside the Councillor had had to suffer the inconvenience of it. 

Von Grabach decided to make one magnanimous concession; he would 
arrange for the parents to pay a last visit to their son before he faced the firing 
squad. It was more than they deserved, but he was not inhumane, he was not 
unjust. He would grant them this one last favour, though God knows he would 
probably get little enough thanks for it. He thus dispatched a message to 
Berlin and put the matter from his mind, never to think of it again. His sleep 
was disturbed only by dreams, never by nightmares, and his conscience was 
at peace. 

It was Frau Berner who opened the official communication from Berlin: 

'If you wish to pay a final visit to the prisoner Heinz Berner, whose execution 
is fixed for 5 a.m. May 24, you should present yourself to the Kommandantur 
of Torgau Prison at 18.00 hours on May 23. This authorization is valid for four 
persons. The length of the visit is limited to ten minutes.' 

Frau Berner, with no one to support her in this moment of crisis, gave a 
heartrending cry and crumpled to the floor. Frau Grün, on the other hand, 
mother of the other condemned prisoner, was in the middle of her twelve-hour 
day as a chambermaid at the Graf Moltke Hotel and could not therefore, 
afford the luxury of losing consciousness. She bore the news bravely, but the 
beds were ill-made that day and the floors ill-swept. They threatened to report 
her to the Inspector of Works Department, which would have meant 
immediate transfer to a munitions factory. Frau Grün shrugged her shoulders 
and seemed not to care where she was sent. Three months later, she killed 
herself, beneath an underground train at St. Paul's Station. 

At Torgau we had all read the letter or heard the news and were convinced 
that Heinz Berner, by some miracle, had been granted a reprieve. 

'Well, strike me rigid!' said Heide. 'I never thought I'd live to see the day. 
You're a lucky bugger, Heinz.' 

Heinz Berner was beside himself with joy. He capered about the cell like a 
young carthorse, while the rest of us sat on his bed and discussed the 
wonders of the situation. 

'Well, at least you're one of us now,' said Little John, smugly. 'And better for it, 
if you ask me. Who wants to be a bleeding officer, anyhow?' 

Alte alone remained sceptical. 

'It's too good to be true,' he said, when we had left the cell and were safely out 
of earshot. 'I don't see how his father could know about it when we haven't 
heard anything here. We should have had it over the teleprinter by now.' 


'Anything's possible,' said the Legionnaire. 'Allah works in strange ways. I've 
seen this sort of thing happen before. When I was in the Legion, it was. One 
of the lads was saved right at the last moment. The reprieve came through 
literally seconds before he was due to be shot.' 

Alte shook his head. 

'I don't like it. I just don't like it. I only hope to God no one's being sadistic 
enough to pull the boy's leg.' 

'It'll be O.K.,' said Porta. 'Take a bet?' 

'I wouldn't care to bet on a man's life,' said Alte, gravely. 

It was Barcelona who brought us the bad news. He came running from the 
Secretariat white as a ghost, scarcely able to speak. It took us some seconds 
to drag any sense out of him.' 

'Tomorrow – at five o'clock – they're going to shoot him—' 

A stunned silence fell upon us. 

'Who?' I said, at last, although we all knew he meant Heinz. 

'It's impossible!' cried Porta. 'They couldn't play a trick like that on him!' 

'I've seen the papers,' said Barcelona. 'They're signed by a general. It's all 
fixed up for tomorrow morning.' 

Again, that dreadful silence. We looked at each other, and there was horror 
on our faces. 

'Poor sod,' murmured Alte. 'I just wish to God his old man had never written to 
him in the first place.' 

'But he must have had the news from someone high up. He wouldn't be such 
a fool—' 

'He thought he was going to be released tomorrow—' 

'You wouldn't tell a person a thing like that unless you were sure—' 

'Well, we're sure now all right Who's going to break the news to him?' 

'I will,' offered Little John, unexpectedly. 'I feel sort of responsible for him. In 
an odd sort of way. I've never been able to stand that sort of officer, I've 
always loathed their ruddy guts. He's the first one I've ever come to terms 
with. I never thought the day would arrive when I actually felt sorry for one of 
he bastards.' 


'He's only a kid,' said Porta. 

I turned to look at Barcelona. 

'Who's got to shoot him?' I asked, bluntly. 

The reply was equally blunt; and brutal. 

'Us,' said Barcelona. 

'Christ!' Porta stared at him disbelievingly. 'They really pile on the agony, don't 
they?' 

The Legionnaire held out a couple of cigarettes and handed them to Little 
John. 

'Here. Give him these. A bit of opium won't do him any harm when the time 
comes. And I'll see what I can do about getting him a jab, as well.' 

'I'll tell you something!' shouted Porta, suddenly, at the top of his voice. 'When 
the bloody revolution comes and it's our turn to shoot that lot I'm going to 
reprieve every last one of 'em and then change my mind again the day before 
they're due to be released. I'm going to make the sods suffer. I'm going to get 
them so screwed up—' 

'All right, we heard you,' said Alte, wearily. 'No need to go on about it.' 

Little John marched bravely off to see Heinz. The boy was reading a book, 
settled and happy for the first time since he had come to Torgau. He looked 
up and smiled as Little John opened the door of his cell. 

'Hi, there! Come to let me out already?' 

Silently, Little John shook his head. He held out a cigarette and Heinz laughed 
up at him. 

'What's the matter with you? You look like a condemned man!' 

He inhaled deeply on his cigarette and watched the smoke curling out of his 
nostrils. 

'How soon do you reckon it'll be before I'm transferred to a disciplinary 
regiment? Straight away tomorrow, do you suppose?' 

'No,' said Little John. 'I shouldn't think so.' 

He turned his head and stared out of the small slit window high up in the wall. 
It was no use indulging in preliminary conversational skirmishing. He had a 
job to do, and the longer he left it the harder it would be, both for him and for 


Heinz. He turned back again, determined to break the news without any more 
ado. Heinz suddenly stood up and punched him amiably in the chest. 

'You're a funny chap, you know, Little John! When I first came here I could 
hardly stand the sight of you. And now, believe it or not – though I'm anxious 
enough to go! – I think I'm actually going to miss you. God knows why, but 
there it is.' 

'You won't miss me,' said Little John, roughly. 'I'm not worth missing. You'll be 
well out of it all, kid. Make no mistake about that.' 

Berner's smile faded,. 

'What is it?' he demanded. 'What's eating you all of a sudden?' 

'Sit down and I'll tell you.' 

Little John's voice was harsh and grating, but his sympathy was obvious. 
Berner sank obediendy on to his bed, his whole body tense with sudden 
alarm. 

'What is it?' 

'Simply this: they're not going to release you tomorrow. Or any other day.' 

'What?' 

Instinctively, Berner was back on his feet. 

'You mean – they've turned down the appeal after all?' 

'They never did anything else. It was a mix-up.' 

'No! No, I can't believe it, you're lying! You're having me on!' Berner shook his 
head wildly from side to side. 'You've made a mistake, haven't you? Haven't 
you?' 

'There's no mistake, Heinz. Someone had to break the news. I offered to do 
it.J 

'You're mad!' yelled Heinz. 'I've got it here in black and white!' He groped 
under his blankets and pulled out the letter from his father. 'See! Read what 
he says – "we've managed to get a reprieve and I'm arranging for your 
transfer to a disciplinary regiment". You don't think my father would write a 
thing like that if it weren't true, do you? He's a councillor, he knows what he's 
doing. It's you who's got it wrong! There must be someone else with the same 
name!' 


'I'm sorry,' said Little John. 'You've just got to face it, Heinz. I don't know 
where your father got his facts from, but the execution order's come through 
and it's all fixed up for tomorrow. I hate having to do this to you, but—' 

Berner heard no more than the first couple of sentences. Before Little John 
had finished speaking he had slipped unconscious to the floor. 

A priest came to the cell before the boy had fully recovered himself. He was a 
young man with the rank of Oberleutnant. He wore a grey field uniform, with 
the German eagle and the swastika on his breast and a crucifix round his 
neck. He hesitated at the entrance to the cell, and his eyes met those of Little 
John. The message of scorn and hostility was unmistakable. The priest 
glanced for a moment at the prisoner, then bowed his head and left the two 
men alone. Berner grabbed hold of Little John's hand. 

'When is it for?' 

'Tomorrow morning. Five o'clock.' 

'I see... Who's going to do it?' 

'We are.' 

Abruptly, Berner let him go. The boy crumpled up at his feet and flung his 
arms round Little John's legs. 

'Help me! Help me, for God's sake! It's worse now than it was before. I can't 
stand it, you've got to help me!' 

'Take my revolver,' said Little John, quietly. 'Bash me over the head with it 
and—' He made a gesture. 'It's quicker and simpler that way, believe me.' 

Berner sat back on his heels. 

'Shoot myself? I couldn't, I wouldn't have the courage. You do it for me, Little 
John. Put a bullet through me now. You can tell them I was trying to make a 
bolt for it.' 

Little John shook his head. 

'I'd have done it willingly when you first came here. But I can't shoot down a 
friend in cold blood. I shan't even fire on you tomorrow, and neither will Porta. 
We never do.' 

'But what happens if none of the others do, either?' 

They will. They'll shoot straight and they won't miss. It'll be over before you 
know it... There wouldn't any point the whole lot of us refusing to shoot. We'd 
just be sent before a firing squad ourselves and they'd get someone else to do 
the job ... Look, why don't you have a word with Julius? He's scared stiff of 


authority, he'd shoot you down soon enough if you tried to make a bunk for it 
when he was here, Julius is a shit. He'd do anything to keep out of trouble. 
But don't ask me to do it. I couldn't... You understand? I just couldn't.' 

Berner was crying, very quietly, his face hidden in his hands. 

'I'll send the Old Man to see you. He'll talk to you. He'll do it better than me.' 

Little John glanced round desperately, as if searching for help. His face 
suddenly cleared. 

'Know what, Heinz? You might be a damn sight better off five minutes past 
five tomorrow morning than you are now. All these stories about heaven, they 
could be true. I mean, you don't know till you've tried, do you? A priest once 
told me you shouldn't fear death because you're always better off dead than 
alive. Well, it could be true.' 

Heinz appeared not to hear these words of comfort. Little John tried a new 
approach. 

'It's not death that's the trouble so much as the way you die. Take cancer, for 
example. Anyone'd be scared of that. Or paralysis. Or gas. Or things like that. 
But a firing squad!' He made an expansive gesture. 'Just a piece of pudding, 
me old mate! You won't feel a thing, I promise you. Like I said, Julius is a shit, 
but one thing I will give him: put a gun in his hand and he never misses.' 

Again, the words had no visible effect. Little John pulled out his cigarettes and 
matches and tossed them on to the bed. It was an action that could earn him 
six months' hard labour if discovered. 

'I've got to leave you, Heinz. I'm supposed to be on duty... Smoke the fags, I 
would. There's a couple of opium sticks amongst that lot. Have a drag on 
them tomorrow morning, it'll help you get through ... Ring the bell if there's 
anything you specially want. One of us'll come... O.K.?' 

Berner said nothing, but continued silently weeping. Little John stood a 
moment regarding him, then left the cell. Out in the corridor he had an attack 
of sudden rage and aimed an almighty kick at a bucket full of water. There 
was pandemonium as the bucket clattered full speed ahead along the 
passage, crashing over the stone floor, bouncing off the walls. Then silence. 
Then Heide's voice, furious, from the floor below: 

'What the bloody hell's going on up there?' 

'Piss off and mind your own bleeding business!' roared Little John, by way of 
reply. 

Heide prudently left it at that. It was asking for trouble to cross Little John 
when he was in that sort of mood. 


After slouching about the prison in an aimless manner for some thirty minutes 
or so, Little John made his way to the guardroom and confronted Alte. 

'You'll have to go and talk to Heinz. I promised him you would. I'm no good at 
explaining things, he needs someone like you.' 

Alte looked steadily at Little John. 

'What do you want me to tell him?' 

'Oh, I don't know ... Whatever you think best. Something about Jesus and life 
after death and all that sort of crap.' 

'Is he religious?' asked Barcelona, in astonishment. 'I never heard him ask for 
the Chaplain.' 

'I don't know what he is, but he needs someone to talk to him,' persisted Little 
John. 

'And just because you don't believe in it, it doesn't mean you mightn't want to 
hear all about it before you're due to go,' added Porta. 'In case it turns out to 
be true after all.' 

Barcelona turned to the Legionnaire. 

'Why don't you go and see him? You could tell him about Allah and his magic 
garden.' 

The Legionnaire swung round on Barcelona, eyeing him with suspicion, 
evidently not sure whether he was serious or whether he was asking for a 
punch-up. Before he could reach any decision Alte was standing up and 
buckling on his belt. He reached out for his cap. 

'All right, I'll go. I couldn't make a worse job of it than the priest. But I'll want a 
couple of you boys to keep a look out and make sure no one comes barging 
in.' 

'Will do,' promised Porta. 

Alte stayed three hours in the cell with the condemned boy. No one ever knew 
what he said to him, but certainly Heinz seemed more at peace with himself 
afterwards. Maybe he was just getting more accustomed to the idea of his 
own death, or maybe it was the Old Man's famous bedside manner, but all 
went well until the evening, and the visit of his parents. 

They sat side by side, facing their son across a small table. On their right, 
standing by a pillar and doing his best to look like part of the stone work, was 
a prison warder. His presence was hardly noticeable, so well did he merge in 
with his forbidding surroundings. He listened, yet understood nothing. 


Councillor Berner found it almost impossible to look his son in the eye. Frau 
Berner: sat sobbing into her handkerchief. 

'Heinz–' She stretched out a hand across the table. 'Heinz we must all try to 
be brave about this.' 

The eyes of the stone warder flickered slightly as he followed the movement 
of the woman's hand: was she attempting to pass something to the prisoner? 

'Heinz—' She whispered his name softly. 'Heinz, my poor boy–' 

'You must speak loudly and clearly,' intoned the warder in mechanical tones. 

'Father, is it true?' Heinz leaned over towards Herr Berner, his eyes burning 
with a last-minute hope. 'Are they really turning down the appeal?' 

Slowly, his father nodded his head. 

'It's true, Heinz... As your mother says, we must all try to be brave. Remember 
one thing, my boy: some time, somewhere, we shall all be together again. 
Hang on to that. Never lose sight of it.' 

'I'm so scared,' whimpered Heinz. 

The councillor's lower lip trembled. He also was scared. 

Heinz began suddenly to pour out a jumble of disconnected sentences, to 
which his parents listened in growing horror. 

'The walk from the cell to the courtyard, that's the worst... Julius is a shit but 
give him a gun and he never misses – all be over before you know it... It's not 
like cancer. You'd be scared of cancer... or gas. It's a piece of pudding ... five 
past five tomorrow morning, I'll be better off, you'll see–' 

'My God, his brain's gone,' thought the Councillor. 

'Heinz,' said Frau Berner, gently, 'what are you talking about?' 

Heinz looked at his mother with vacant bloodshot eyes. 

'It's what they told me.' 

'They? Who are they?' 

'Friends of mine.' 

'You mean – other prisoners?' 

Heinz shook his head. 


'No. The guards. Little John and the Old Man and all the rest of them.' 

'They're your friends?' 

'Yes.' A tear ran down the boy's face. 'And at dawn tomorrow they're going to 
shoot me.' 

Frau Berner's face turned deathly pale. She swayed slightly, then quietly lost 
consciousness and slipped to the floor. Her husband, as he wrestled to get 
her back on the chair, wondered if the boy really were deranged. How could 
anyone call 'friends' those who were due to be his executioners? 

The warder suddenly peeled himself away from the pillar. 

'Time's up.' 

Heinz and his father looked at each other. They stood up. The moment was 
impossible, there was nothing to be said. Heinz flung himself into Herr 
Berner's arms. For the first time in adult life, they embraced. The full horror of 
the final separation was upon them and it took two warders to pull them apart. 
The Councillor and his wife were flung into the corridor like sacks of flour. 
Heinz was led back to his cell. We collected him as soon as the coast was 
clear and smuggled him down to the guard room, where we filled him up with 
vodka and sent him back half doped to his cell. 

Barcelona and I were on duty that night. The others went down to the town 
and returned at midnight, filled to the ears with drink. Little John, as usual, 
was obstreperous and had a tendency to throw furniture about and stick his 
fist through window panes. Lt. Ohlsen came down from his quarters to tell him 
to shut up, but it turned out that he was not in much better case himself. He 
had evidently drunk almost as much as Little John, and it was left to 
Barcelona and me to deal with the situation. 

Not far from the prison, in an inn called 'The Red Hussar', Herr Berner and his 
wife were spending the night. Neither of them slept, nor even attempted to do 
so. They sat side by side on the edge of the bed, staring ahead with vacant 
eyes, listening to the clock ticking away the last few hours of their son's life. 

In his cell, Heinz Berner paced ceaselessly up and down, stopping now and 
again to bang his fists against the door and to let out a loud, echoing wail of 
despair, the cry of a drowning man in the middle of a deserted ocean. 

They woke us at four – those of us who had slept. The Legionnaire was sent 
off to the arms depot. At four-thirty a major of the garrison came to check that 
we were all prepared for action. He paid the prisoner a last visit. 

'Try to keep a grip on yourself. Remember your training as an officer. All men 
have to face death one day. As a soldier it's your duty to face it bravely, 
without flinching. Make sure you don't fail in that duty.' 


With these words of encouragement he closed the cell door behind him, 
leaving Heinz Berner alone to await his fate. 

Lt. Ohlsen appeared in the guard room looking haggard. His steel helmet was 
gleaming, his buttons and buckles flashed like diamonds, but the man himself 
had no sparkle. Alte approached him and saluted. 'All ready, sir.' 

Lt. Ohlsen nodded, but said nothing. He turned and led the way along the 
corridor to Berner's cell. We all followed him. Heinz was waiting for us, lying 
on his bed and staring up at the ceiling. The Lieutenant laid a hand on his 
shoulder. 

'It's time, Heinz. Try to have courage. We'll get it over as quickly as possible.' 

Like a ghost, the boy sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed, 
staggered to his feet. 

'I have to tie your hands,' said Ohlsen, apologetically. 

He held out a length of new white cord, and obediently, like a child having its 
gloves put on, Heinz placed his hands together and extended them towards 
us. His eyes were those of a man already dead. The Lieutenant looped the 
rope round his wrists, but before he could pull it tight the boy fainted. He fell 
so suddenly that it took us all by surprise. We stood stupidly, staring down at 
him, and I think every one of us had the same absurd hope in his mind: 

'God, let it be a heart attack!' 

Some men die easily, but Heinz Berner was not destined to be one of them. 
Lt. Ohlsen and Alte helped him to his feet. He recovered consciousness 
almost immediately. His mouth trembled. Suddenly he began to scream and 
shout, pleading with us, cursing us, begging us to spare him. There was 
nothing we could do. His control had snapped and not even Alte was able to 
get through to him. And what was there you could say to a boy of twenty 
about to face a firing squad? Particularly when you yourselves happened to 
be that firing squad. 

We had to drag him bodily through the corridors and out to the courtyard. All 
the time he was crying and kicking. Porta's helmet was knocked off, Heide lost 
his rifle, I was punched in the ribs. For all of us, it was the final degradation of 
humanity. 

From all sides we were assailed by loud cries of abuse. Men rattled their cell 
doors, whistled and shouted, stamped their feet, threw furniture about. 

'Murderers!' 

'Fascist swine!' 

'Murderers!' 


'Bloody murderers!' 

Out in the courtyard it was a bright, crisp dawn. The air was sweet and fresh, 
the sky was dear. It was a day on which you were glad to be alive. I wondered 
whether it was easier to die on such a day, and I thought that for myself I 
should certainly prefer a brave show of weather for my send-off rather than 
the sad grey drizzle that had been Lindenberg's last view of the earth. 

As we dragged him across the flagstones, Berner seemed to lose his last 
vestiges of sanity. His eyes rolled, foam specked his lips. It was a madman, 
now, who screamed and shouted. He was giving us a bad time, he was 
forcing us to live through a nightmare we should none of us be able to forget. 
But did one have the right to expect him to face such a death with any dignity? 

With a desperate contortion of the body, our prisoner suddenly managed to 
slip his hands through the rope that bound them together. Before anyone 
could move, he had flung himself upon the Old Man, twining his arms and 
legs round him, clinging to him and screaming, screaming until I thought I 
should begin to join in. 

'I don't want to die! I don't want to die! Help me, please help me, oh please 
help me! ' 

Lt. Ohlsen stood shocked and ashen-faced nearby. I had never seen him so 
visibly shaken. He was trembling, tears trickled unchecked down his face, he 
seemed in almost as bad a case as the prisoner himself. Alte was struggling 
with the boy, unable to detach him, unable to calm him. It needed four of us to 
prise him away, and in the middle of it all I suddenly vomited. 

'You filthy bloody swine!' shouted Porta. 'Look what you've done to my 
bleeding boots!' 

Little John, almost out of his senses, turned and clouted Porta on the side of 
the head. Porta promptly hit him back. It was a scene straight out of Bedlam. 

On the far side of the courtyard appeared another firing party. Feldwebel Grün 
was in their midst, walking peaceably along between two guards, his roped 
hands held out before him. It was he who came to our rescue. He stopped in 
front of us and gravely regarded our prisoner. 

'Don't be afraid,' he said. 'You're not the only one. We'll go out together in a 
blaze of glory, eh?' 

I think it was surprise, more than anything else, that brought Berner to his 
senses. At any rate, he quietened down and for that we were all thankful. 

We continued on our way across the courtyard. The Prison Chaplain now 
joined in the procession, walking behind us and solemnly asking the Lord to 
forgive us our trespasses. 


The sun was up, filling the dim courtyard with a curious crimson light. 
Somewhere a blackbird was calling, and all about us were seagulls swooping 
and diving. It was a beautiful day to die. 

Heide and the Legionnaire led Berner to the blood-spattered post, where so 
many other men had stood and waited for death. They attached the strap 
round his chest. Alte stepped, forward. 

'Shall I cover your eyes?' 

'Just help me,' whispered Berner. 'Please help me. I don't want to die.' 

Lt. Ohlsen bit his lip and turned away. I saw Little John put a hand up to his 
face. I stared past him and watched the seagulls, listened to their agonizing 
shrieks and wondered what they had come for, why they were not out at sea. 
When I looked back again, Alte had tied the scarf round the boy's eyes and 
stepped back into line. 

Feldwebel Grün, attached to the second blood-spattered post, refused to be 
deprived of his last glimpse of the world. He stood upright and alert, watching 
the preparations for his own death. 

'Please help me!' cried Berner. 

It was the despairing cry of a child. A child who knew it was calling in vain, 
who had long since given up all hope, but who nevertheless went on trying, in 
the belief; perhaps, that people could not ignore it indefinitely. And now it was 
Lt. Ohlsen who cracked under the strain. He suddenly covered his mouth with 
his hand, made a curious choking sound and hurried back across the 
courtyard. We none of us blamed him. It would have been up to him to give 
the signal for firing. On the whole, we thought the more of him for being 
unable to do it. 

His place was taken, after a few moments' delay, by a stranger, a lieutenant 
quite unknown to us, from one of the motorized regiments. His right sleeve 
was empty – we understood he had lost an arm at Stalingrad. He was not 
more than twenty-five at the very most, and his chest was ablaze with ribbons 
and stars. We hated him on sight. It seemed to us that he was intruding, that 
he had no right to be joining in the ritual slaughter. It was our pain, which we 
shared with the victim, and he could have no part in it. 

The Lieutenant either forgot or deliberately neglected the traditional 'last 
cigarette'. Perhaps he was wise. It would have prolonged the agony by 
another ten minutes and could serve no useful purpose. 

'First group, right turn!' 

We executed the movement with automatic military precision. Alte surveyed 
us critically but could find no fault in the final result. We stood in a perfect 
straight line. 


'Eyes front!' 

Of their own accord, my eyes fixed themselves upon the spot that marked 
Heinz Berner's heart. I was ready to do my duty. 

In a room of the 'Red Hussar' two other pairs of eyes were fixed upon the 
clock. One minute to five. One minute to go. 

The Lieutenant looked steadily across to the clock on the prison tower. He 
missed the slight upward movement of Little John and Porta's rifles. Even had 
he seen them, he would have attributed it to an attack of nerves and unsteady 
hands. In any case, it scarcely mattered. There were ten other rifles trained on 
the target. 

The clock struck five. The command rang out through the still air. 

'Fire!' 

Twelve shots merged together into one sound. A long cry gurgled into silence 
and blood. The body of Heinz Berner went limp. 

That was the end of another execution, and all the seagulls flew back to sea. 

It all ended up, of course, by our being moved from Torgau back into the front 
line. Porta and Little John were to blame; they and a condemned man who 
managed to escape. During the course of the frenzied inquiry that followed, it 
was discovered that the prisoner had made use of tools which had 
undoubtedly been sent from the outside: a pair of scissors, a knife, the blade 
of a file. He had broken the lock on his cell door and made his way up to the 
roof, From the roof he had escaped over the outside wall with the help of a 
length of stout prison cord. It was only three days before he was due to be 
hanged. 

Little John and Porta, who were on guard at the time – or supposed to be on 
guard —were immediately arrested and interrogated. They both remained 
obdurately stupid and at a complete loss to throw any light upon the incident. 
At the end of fourteen days the prisoner had still not been recaptured and the 
questioning was reluctantly abandoned. 

We were all roundly abused by Colonel Vogel. An uncomfortable experience, 
even for war-hardened veterans like ourselves. 

Before we were finally despatched from Torgau the Colonel came to bid us 
the customary farewell. He shook hands with only one person, and that was 
Little John. And Porta swore that as he turned away he was smiling. 

CHAPTER TEN 

TJESTNANOVNA. A small town near the Rumanian frontier and overlooking the 
Black Sea. Once it must have been full of people and traffic, the shops 


crowded out with goods for sale, the neat rows of whitewashed houses 
basking in the sunshine. Now it was deserted, abandoned by most of its 
former inhabitants, reduced virtually to rubble by repeated bombardments. At 
the start of the war it had been a railway junction, and the main road to Velkov 
had passed through the centre. Now it was a forgotten town; a place of no 
importance. Almost, it might never have existed. 

We had occasion one day to go inside one of the empty houses, and we saw 
for ourselves with what frantic haste the occupants must have fled the town. 
Dirty cups and plates still lay in the sink; the kitchen table was still laid out as 
for a meal. Cupboard doors swung open, beds were unmade. In one room we 
found a single shoe, lying dismally by itself in the middle of the carpet. Half-
way up the stairs we tripped over a yellow teddy bear. We stood staring at it 
for a while, each in his own way visualizing the scene of the family's 
departure. 

'What a bloody war!' burst out Alte, suddenly. 'Can't even leave the bloody 
kids in peace!' 

'Why should it?' said Little John, adopting cynicism as a way of covering his 
own emotions. 'What use was they to anyone? They can't fire a gun or drive a 
tank.' 

With a contemptuous swing of the foot he sent the teddy bear flying up and 
over the banisters. It landed with a thump in the hall below. 

'Who cares what happens to a bunch of lousy kids?' 

It was the first time I had ever seen Alte lose control of himself. He swung 
round on Little John, his hand on the butt of his revolver. 

'You shut your filthy mouth! I'm telling you now, if ever I catch you laying your 
hands on a child I'll kill you, so help : me, I'll kill you!' . 

With this threat ringing in our ears, we watched the Old Man stamp down the 
stairs and go out through the front door. Little John turned to look at us, his 
eyes wide and puzzled. 'What's chewing him up, then?' 

'I reckon you touched him on a soft spot,' muttered Porta. 

'But he.knows damn well I'd never lay a finger on a child!' roared Little John. 

Porta shrugged, indifferently. We all of us had our moments of blind rage, or 
panic; the complete breakdown of self-control. It had happened to the rest of 
us, and now it had happened to Alte. Little John knew it as well as anyone, 
but nevertheless the incident had hurt. 

'I'm the last person to hurt a kid ... YOU know that! How many times have I 
gone out of my way to save one of 'em? What about that kid at Lugansk? 
What about the transport at Majdanek? Who risked his life shooting at the 


guards, just so the little brats could make a break for it? And what,' he wound 
up, with relish, 'about that S.S. man I fed to the dogs?' 

We all winced at the memory of the S.S. man. 

'That was going too far,' objected Porta. 'I said so at the time, and I still say so 
now.' 

That night in Poland was one we should never forget. In company with nine 
Polish partisans, we had come unexpectedly upon the transport – Jewish 
children, torn apart from their parents, dragged away from their homes, being 
taken God knew where for God knew what purpose. Little John had gone 
completely berserk, and one of the partisans, horrified by his behaviour, had 
made a futile attempt to calm him down. He informed us self-importantly that 
he was a Polish officer, and he pulled out a photograph of himself in uniform 
to prove the point. We informed him, without troubling ourselves with proof, 
that we were generals in the German Army. He almost certainly didn't believe 
it, but he hunched his shoulders and loped off into the woods, followed by six 
of his fellow partisans and those of the children who had managed to escape, 
and left us in peace to deal with the S.S. officer that Little John had shot. Two 
of the partisans remained behind. I'm not sure that it wasn't their idea to cut 
out the dead man's heart, but any rate they and Little John fell to with vigour 
while the rest of us stood watching, horrified and yet undeniably fascinated. 
When they had finished, they hanged the mutilated corpse by its ankles from 
the branch of a tree. Little John always claimed that the heart had been eaten 
by the local dogs, and possibly he was right. 

In the deserted town of Tjestnanovna we found a deserted villa, and we took it 
over as our temporary barracks. It was splendid, perched high upon a hillside 
and looking out over the Black Sea. The first and second storeys were 
honeycombed with bedrooms, there must have been dozens of them, all done 
up in deep rose and pale blue, very frilly and feminine with deep looking-
glasses whichever way you turned. We installed ourselves in the downstairs 
sitting-room, sprawling over the armchairs and sofas, our heavy army boots 
tramping across the fluffy rugs and leaving black marks on the pastel shades 
of the carpet. 

'God bless Rumania!' shouted Little John, intoxicated by the faint, clinging 
odour of scents and lacy petticoats that filled the house. 'I shall spend the 
duration here!' 

Porta swaggered across the room and flung open the french windows, which 
gave on to a terrace and overlooked the extraordinarily blue waters of the so-
called Black Sea. Far beyond, in the distance, the war was still being waged; 
but for the moment it was none of our concern. 

Later that same day, Little John, prowling about along the corridors of the first 
floor, came upon an enormous fat woman in the act of bundling clothes out of 
an airing cupboard. He was, on his own admittance, scared out of his wits, but 
he pulled himself together and bellowed to the rest of us to come to his aid. 


When we arrived, he and the woman were silently wrestling with each other. It 
was hard to judge which of them had the upper hand. 

'What's going on here?' demanded Alte. 'Who is this? What does she want?' 

Panting and blowing, the woman fetched Little John a sharp kick on the shin. 
With a howl of rage, Little John closed his enormous hands round the 
woman's neck. 

'Let her go!' ordered Alte, striding forward 

Reluctantly, Little John loosed his grip. The fat woman fell back into the airing 
cupboard, her multiplicity of bosoms heaving and trembling. 

'Who are you?' repeated Alte. 'What do you want here?' 

'I came to collect some things. I don't live here, but the house belongs to me. I 
need some more bed-linen... my family has typhus.' 

At the sound of the word, we all instinctively took a step backwards. The 
woman seized her opportunity. Muttering her apologies, she swept up a pile of 
sheets and blankets and waddled from the house. The Legionnaire followed 
her departure with thoughtful eyes. 

'There's something odd about the walking lump of fat.' 

'You reckon she's a whore?' asked Little John, eagerly. 

'A whorekeeper, more like. I recognize the type... Let's go take a closer look at 
her.' 

The Legionnaire picked up his cap, armed himself with both revolver and 
knife, which he pushed down into his boot, and made for the door. 

'Anyone coming with me?' 

None of us was really very interested in the woman – only Little John, and 
wild horses wouldn't have dragged him out of the villa. During a solitary prowl 
about the town he had discovered a mass of provisions heaped up in the 
abandoned Kommandantur, and now his bedroom at the villa could have 
withstood a year's siege. Cigars were piled high on the bedside table. A whole 
regiment of bottles marched along the skirting boards, whisky, vodka, French 
cognac. He invited us inside to admire his handiwork, and, within reason, to 
help ourselves. 

'What's this?' demanded Barcelona, picking up a large porcelain jug from the 
side of the bed. 


'That's my pissing pot,' said Little John, jealously snatching it from him. 'Pink 
and blue flowers and golden cupids ... I think it's very suitable and I can empty 
it straight out of the window into the sea when it gets full.' 

'Which it soon will,' murmured Barcelona, eyeing the array of bottles. 

The Legionnaire soon arrived back, full, of news and good humour. He 
installed himself in Little John's bedroom, sitting cross-legged on the bed with 
a bottle of cognac in one hand and a cigar in the other. He and Alte were the 
only two who liked cigars, but we were all determined to smoke at least one 
as a matter of principle. Heide had already been sick twice, but that was 
probably due to the bottle of vodka he had drunk rather than the cigars. 

'Well?' we inquired, eagerly. 'What did you find out?' 

The Legionnaire gave a triumphant laugh and poured half the cognac straight 
down his throat without flinching. 

'Do you know what this place is?' 

'No,' said Little John, sounding like a music hall comic. 'What is this place?' 

'You'll be very pleased with me when you know,' said the Legionnaire, smugly. 

'Come to the point!' urged Little John. 

'Very well, then. To be brief – when business is normal, we have a red light 
burning outside our front door.' Those of us who were in the act of drinking 
nearly choked ourselves to an early death; those who were smoking turned 
blue in the face. Little John was simply too stunned to speak. 

'You mean we're living in a brothel?' whispered Porta, hardly daring to believe 
the good news. 

'Your actual brothel,' the Legionnaire assured him, with a slightly pitying smile. 

The Legionnaire himself did not care overmuch for the delights of such 
places. 

'But where are all the women?' 

'The women!' 

Little John suddenly gave a whoop of delight. Before our astonished eyes he 
did a quick striptease, retaining only his boots, his gun belt and his old bowler 
hat. 

'I'm not going to need those a long, long time,' he announced, tossing his 
uniform trousers into a cupboard. 


'What about your boots?' asked Alte, somewhat taken aback. 

'Going without knickers is one thing. Walking about bare-footed is quite a 
different kettle of fish. Be prepared is my -motto. Either way—' He waved a 
hand towards his apparel, or lack of it – 'I am now prepared for any 
eventuality.' 

Porta, too, was busily preparing himself for coming events. His clothes 
followed Little John's into the cupboard and he pranced naked before us, 
yelling like a demon and stamping up and down with his boots on. 

'Dressed up like a dog's dinner! Where are the whores? Where's the keeper of 
the brothel?' 

'You've already met the lady,' said the Legionnaire, amused. 'She lives just 
down the road in a house that makes this place look like an air raid shelter. 
She herself is a stinking old sow who pours gallons of perfume over herself 
each day to cover the stench of her own sweat and save the trouble of 
washing. But I should say the establishment she used to run here would have 
been well worth a visit for those who like that sort of thing.' 

Little John jerked his head. 

'Would have? Whatdyamean, WOULD have?' 

'That's your misfortune,' admitted the Legionnaire, with a sigh. 'According to 
the old sow, the girls all took fright when they thought Uncle Jo Stalin was 
coming... They rushed off towards the west, and now, presumably, they're 
whoring some place where there's more demand for their services than here.' 

Little John gave a loud shriek of despair and fell backwards on to the sofa. 

'There isn't any place where there's more demand for their services than 
here!' declared Barcelona, wrathfully. 'I'm so randy I could have a go at 
anything!' 

'What about the old sow?' wondered Porta. 'She'd be better than nothing—' 

The Legionnaire shook his head. 

'I don't advise it. I should say she's got one like a horse's collar ... once get 
lost inside it and you'd never find the way out.' 

'The way in is all I care about at the moment!' snapped Porta. 

'Suit yourself,' said the Legionnaire, hunching a shoulder. 

'I shouldn't think she's got anything against the idea ... She's called Olga,' he 
added, and he spoke the word with an air of the uttermost distaste. 


'Olga,' said Little John, trying it out. 'I can't say I really fancy anyone called 
Olga—' 

'I could fancy anything, from Olga to a milk bottle,' declared Barcelona. 'Why 
didn't you bring her with you, for God's sake?' 

'Hang on a minute.' Porta turned solemnly to face us. 'You don't reckon the 
old bitch is trying to pull a fast one, do you?* 

'How do you mean?' 

'Well – telling us the girls have pissed off, simply because she doesn't like the 
look of us. We're not the smartest bunch of soldiers you ever saw.' 

'I suppose it's a possibility. But where the blazes could she have hid them?' 

'Wherever they are, I'll dig 'em out!' promised Little John. 'And if the old bird's 
been lying to us she'll live to regret it.' 

'Don't do anything stupid,' begged Alte. 'A woman like that's bound to be well 
in with the police. You start bashing her about and you'll soon find yourselves 
in trouble.' 

'Arsehole,' said Porta. He snatched up his trousers and threw himself into 
them. 'Come on! Let's go and knock her up.' 

With the Legionnaire at our head, we swarmed down the road to Mme. Olga's. 
In his excitement and anxiety Little John had completely forgotten his lack of 
clothes. Nothing, now, would have prevented him from leaving the villa, 
abandoning his horde of cigars and alcohol, and marching off in pursuit of the 
elusive whores. He swung naked down the road, and we cheered him on. 

'This is it.' 

The Legionnaire turned in at the gate of a rambling snow-white villa, which 
seemed to float above the earth like a wedding cake resting on a cloud of 
flowers. Ignoring the notice on the front door, which requested one please to 
knock before entering, the Legionnaire led us boldly in. We marched six 
abreast across a vast entrance hall tiled in marble, straight through to a salon 
where Mme. Olga was seated at an elegant writing desk, her bosoms flowing 
across it like tidal waves. She turned apprehensively at the noise of our 
footsteps. We must have sounded like a whole army on the march in that 
great echoing hall. 

'What do you want?' she said, and I could see the great beads of sweat 
breaking out like spots beneath her thick make-up. 'Momma mia!' breathed 
Porta, gazing awestruck upon the mounds of flesh, which seemed more 
plentiful than ever in these luxurious surroundings. 'That lot would feed a 
whole regiment for a month!' 


Mme Olga was dressed in several layers of rouge, so you couldn't actually 
see her turn pale, but somehow you could feel it. 

'I asked you,' she said, 'what it was you wanted?' 

'The girls,' said Little John, tersely. 

'Girls? What girls? If you mean my girls, then I'm afraid they're not here.' 

She was plainly flustered. None of us believed a word she said. 

'You wait till Ivan arrives,' said Little John, threateningly. 'He won't treat you 
nice and polite like this, you know. We're demanding, but he'll just go right 
ahead and take.' 

'My dear young man, are you out of your senses? There's nothing here to BE 
taken—' 

Little John advanced just one step towards her, his fist raised. Mme. Olga 
stumbled backwards and screamed. 

'Any more lies out of you, you old shitbag—' 

'Let her alone, Little John. I think she's ready to talk.' 

The Legionnaire laid a restraining hand on Little John's arm, and Olga gave 
him a revolting smile, full of yellow teeth and ingratiating charm. 

'Thank you so much, Obergefreiter. I feel that perhaps you and I–' 

Mme. Olga broke off abruptly as there came the sound of doors slamming and 
more armies marching across the hall. She stood before us in a state of 
suspended horror. We turned to the door, ready to defend ourselves, but it 
was not necessary. The soldiers that burst into the room were Rumanians, 
and their interest lay not in us but in Olga. They made straight for her, 
shouting angrily, snatched her up and began tossing her back and forth 
amongst them. Up she went to the ceiling, her head crashing into the plaster; 
then down she fell to the floor, landing heavily on her vast behind in the 
fireplace. Her screams mingled harshly with the bellows of the Rumanians. 
Porta pulled out his flute and began dancing a jig on the edge of the scrum. 
Alte looked on, frowning, and the rest of us added to the pandemonium by 
giving a great cheer each time Olga hit the ceiling and letting out a concerted 
cry of 'Shame!' each time she hit the floor. 

'That'll teach you a lesson, you old scrubber!' roared a Rumanian corporal, as 
they finally let her come to rest, in a flood of tears and a sea of black silk 
petticoats, in the middle of the carpet. 'I warned you we'd be back again!' 

'What have you come for?' asked the Legionnaire, curiously. 


'Same as you! What do you think?' 

'I just wondered.' 

'The Russians are on their way back. It's our duty to defend the place ... but 
I'm buggered if I'll defend a brothel with no girls in it! Where are they, you 
disgusting old crab bag, you old whore, you old poxdrop?' 

Once again, they turned on her. Little John had found a bearskin rug and was 
busily wrapping himself inside it. He hurled himself into the fray and began 
biting and snapping at the woman's ankles. Heide and Porta were quickly 
caught up in the mêlée. Pretty soon, Mme. Olga was being dragged about the 
house, upstairs and down, now by the hair, now by an arm, now by a leg. 
Little John cavorted wildly after the mob with the bearskin flapping round his 
waist. Furniture was overturned, china was broken, the rumpus could have 
been heard for miles around, and probably was, by the advancing Russians. 
When at last they tired of their fun and threw the unfortunate woman out of 
sight beneath a grand piano it seemed to me that she was more than likely 
dead. Not that I felt any pity for her, she was not the sort of woman who 
deserves pity; nevertheless, it did seem a trifle barbaric. 

Little John had unearthed a huge barrel of beer from somewhere in the 
kitchen regions. He and a Rumanian private rolled it into the salon between 
them, cleared a table of its valuable collection of cut-glass vases by simply 
sweeping them to the floor, hoisted the barrel into position and turned on the 
tap. 

'Just testing,' explained Little John, as a stream of liquid spurted out and 
spread in a brown stain over the carpet. 

We drank it, out of flower vases and fruit bowls, but it was pronounced feeble 
stuff after the array of spirits in Little John's bedroom. 

'Try a touch of this!' shouted one of the Rumanians, coming in to the room 
with his arms full of bottles. 

Red and white wine, vodka, cognac and gin were poured into the beer and the 
whole mixture thoroughly shaken up. In the midst of our merrymaking, Mme. 
Olga foolishly recovered consciousness and came crawling out from the 
grand piano. Instantly, the pack turned on her again. A Rumanian sergeant 
fell down by her side on all fours and began to bark like a dog. Someone else 
gathered up a fistful of feathers from a burst cushion and tried to stuff them up 
her nose, only as fast as he pushed them up there she sneezed them out 
again. Heide emptied a vase of beer down the front of her dress and Little 
John sat on her legs in his bearskin rug and alternately growled and hiccuped. 

'Where are the girls?' demanded the Rumanian sergeant, suddenly 
abandoning his role of the barking dog. 'Where are they, you rotten old 
knockerbag?' 


Mme. Olga shook her battered bloodstained head. 

'Have pity on me,' she whimpered. 'The girls aren't here. They're on their way 
to Sabina.' 

'Sabina? What have they gone to Sabina for?' 

'Because they were scared of you.' 

The Rumanians exchanged glances amongst each other, evidently not sure 
whether to believe her. Porta had no such hesitation. He went charging 
across the room and stood menacingly astride her body, which still lay 
crumpled on the floor. 

'Enough of your lies, old woman! Where have you hidden them?' 

Mme. Olga began to weep. All her rolls of fat began rippling and heaving. 

'They've gone to Constanza—' 

'Oh? Constanza now, is it? I thought you said Sabina?' 

'No, no. Constanza. They were ordered to go there. They had no choice.' 

'Lying old bitch!' roared Porta, bringing his foot down within centimetres of her 
face. 'You'd better get them back here, and quickly!' 

Little John pulled off his bearskin and began beating Mme. Olga about the 
shoulders with it. The Rumanians muttered mutinously. Heide snatched up 
the Legionnaire's knife and held it threateningly to the woman's throat. 

'Listen, you miserable old bag, either you tell us where those girls are hidden 
or I'm going to cut your bleeding throat from ear to ear... Now WHERE ARE 
THEY?' 

If it had not been for the arrival of the two trucks, which chose that precise 
moment to draw up in one of the flower beds outside, it is likely that Heide 
would have carried out his threat. However, the sound of squeaking brakes 
and banging doors arested him, and he hurled himself after the rest of us, 
through the hall to the front door. 

'I'm going mad!' shrieked Porta. He seized me round the waist and danced me 
about the hall. 'Can you see what I see? I'm going mad!' 

'I can see it too!' I panted, trying to shake him off. 

Little John was obviously yet another who could see the vision. 

'It's the whores!' he shouted, at the very top of his voice. 'Two truckloads of 
'em!' 


The Rumanian sergeant waved his hand above his head and yelled 
something in his own language. With cries of delight, his men went charging 
after him, streaming down the path towards the trucks. Little John and Porta 
at once dashed after them, Little John having slight trouble with his bearskin. 
Alte sat down next to the Legionnaire on the window seat and began calmly to 
roll a cigarette. 

'God keep the Russians from coming tonight,' he muttered. 'We'll fight them if 
we're drunk, we'll fight them if we're sober ... But who the hell's going to fight 
'em if we're whoring?' 

The Legionnaire hunched a shoulder. 

'Who the hell cares?' he said. 'I shouldn't worry too much about it.' 

From outside in the garden came the mingled sounds of shrieking girls and 
cursing Rumanians, Little John was galloping about on the outskirts of the 
crush, trying without success to lasso someone with his bearskin. It was Porta 
who led the mob inside. We watched in astonishment as the double doors 
burst open and Porta pranced through with his flute, like the Pied Piper of 
Hamelin. Only instead of children, it was whores. Dozen upon dozen of them. 
Some of them were fully clothed; others – whether by their own choice or 
because it had been forced upon them – were clad only in bra and pants. 
Little John had abandoned his bearskin as an unnecessary encumbrance and 
Porta seemed to have shed his trousers somewhere out amongst the flower 
beds. Barcelona performed a striptease act on the spot, which, for sheer 
speed, beat anything I've ever seen. Heide sent his pants flying through the 
open window, where they were caught by the wind and draped over the top of 
a flagpole. For a few seconds they billowed bravely in the breeze, cheek by 
jowl with the German flag, then slowly fluttered earthwards. A short while later 
they were discovered by a hungry pig, roaming the grounds in search of food. 
It devoured them completely, with every sign of enjoyment, but Heide was 
long since past the stage where one was concerned over a pair of pants. 

Barcelona was sharing the sofa with two girls and a Rumanian soldier. They 
seemed to be one intermingled mass of arms and legs, not yet sorted out into 
two distinct couples. Someone yelled from upstairs that Steiner had fallen into 
a bath full of water. He was brought down to the scenes of merriment in the 
salon, soaking wet and half drowned, but he recovered quickly when half a 
bottle of vodka was placed in his hand, and seconds later he grimly set off in 
pursuit of a Greek girl. They both jumped out of the window, and that was the 
last we saw of Steiner for some time. 

Mme. Olga had crawled into a corner and was sitting trembling on the edge of 
a chair. The Legionnaire went laughing up to her, full of happiness and 
goodwill. 

'It really is so kind of you, Madame, to allow us the free run of your house in 
this manner. A perfect setting for revelry.' 


He belched, quickly put a hand to his mouth and peered at her over the top of 
it. 

'I do beg your pardon, Madame.' 

Mme. Olga gave him a gracious smile. 

'You, at least, are a gentleman, sir. A Frenchman, I don't doubt?' 

'That is so, Madame. I am a corporal of the Foreign Legion ... caporal à la 
Légion étrangère. A votre service, Mme.' 

'Get a load of that!' Little John dug Porta in the ribs and jerked his head 
towards the Legionnaire. 'This here is a very posh establishment what we're 
in—' 

Porta showed no interest. He was too busy wrestling with a recalcitrant 
Jugoslav whore. Little John shrugged his shoulders, tightened the belt round 
his naked body and set off in pursuit of a toothsome blonde dressed in salmon 
coloured pants with green lace round the edges and a bright red suspender 
belt. She crashed headlong into a Rumanian corporal entering the room with 
a tray of glasses. The glasses and their contents flew into the air. The blonde 
fell giggling to the ground and Little John fell on top of her. The Rumanian 
swore vigorously. 

One of the girls – Annie of Hanover, she said her name was – sidled up to me 
and I hooked an arm round her neck. 

'I don't know who you boys are,' she murmured, 'but it certainly makes a 
change!' 

'Think yourselves lucky the Russians didn't get here first,' I said. 

Porta spun past with his Jugoslav. They did a full turn of the room and by the 
time they swam back into my field of vision the Jugoslav seemed not quite so 
recalcitrant as before. Porta was holding on to her, none too delicately, by the 
breasts. She showed no particular signs of disliking such treatment. 

'Hi, Sven!' He dragged her to a halt in front of a group made up of Alte, 
myself, and Annie of Hanover. 'You still feel like writing your memoirs when 
the war's over? You'd never get anyone to believe this lot!' He turned to his 
girl and puffed out his chest. 'You want to hear some of the things we've 
done?' He checked them off on his fingers. 'We been across the Volga – 
we've swum in the Med. – we slid across the ice in the Bay of Bothnia. We 
been everywhere and we done everything ... Once we got so drunk it took 
weeks to get over the hangover... We can jump out of planes on the end of a 
parachute, we can blow up bridges, we can drive tanks, we can drive trains, 
we can rob and kill and spy and forge documents. You name it, we done it... I 
had a bath in champagne one time. What do you think of that?' 


'Not very much,' said Alte. 'Was I supposed to?' 

'Piss off!' said Porta. 'I wasn't talking to you.' 

He turned and yanked his girl towards the piano, where a disgraced and 
demoted Rumanian lieutenant was playing the music of his homeland. He 
played slowly and dreamily, no doubt visualizing himself back in pre-war days, 
wearing his lieutenant's uniform, in an elegant salon full of brother officers and 
their ladies. His music conjured up the sound of horses' hooves on gravel 
paths, the creak of leather and the jingle of bits; the blowing of trumpets and 
bugles; a platoon of beautiful blue Hussars galloping towards a lake ... 
Instead, the poor man sat disillusioned in a wrecked salon, surrounded by 
tough lower ranks whose thoughts were full of drink and sex. 

Sadly, the ex-lieutenant began to sing. A lilting, mournful song of love. Little 
John staggered up to the piano and emptied a vase full of God knows what 
inside it. 

'Hey, you!' He leaned forward and twisted his lips into a horrible leer, his face 
only inches from the Rumanian's. 'You're one of us, now, mate. You was a 
lieutenant, but not any more. You're just one of us – and we don't give a 
monkey's cuss for that trash you're playing. Give us something we can 
understand, can't you?' 

The Lieutenant smiled, gentle and rather mocking. 

'Something you can understand? I take it you mean breasts and buttocks and 
that sort of thing?' 

'That's more like it,' agreed Little John, eagerly. 

The Lieutenant shook his head. Barcelona lurched up to him. He was 
hideously drunk. 

'My dear Lieutenant – my dear, very dear, Lieutenant – I require you to shing 
– I require you to shing – a shong – about death.' 

He propped himself up against Little John and himself played a few uncertain 
chords on the piano, then commenced to sing his song in a wailing tenor. 

'The cannons are chanting their very last psalm, 

Come, sweet death, 

Take me in thy palm..' 

He then threw back his head and gave a long, rattling, raucous laugh. For a 
moment he rolled an eye at the silvered sea, shot through with the ray of the 
sinking sun. A frown creased his forehead. 


'Did you hear that?' 

There was a brief silence in the room. In the distance, we heard the echoing 
rumbles of heavy gun fire. 

'They're knocking at the door,' said Barcelona, solemnly. 'Boom-boom, let me 
in... And what do we care? I'll tell you: we don't give a tuppeny damn for any 
of 'em! Tomorrow we die! And in the meantime, I say fornicate and be merry!' 

Barcelona collapsed in a heap on the floor. Little John calmly stepped across 
him, dunked his head in a large flower bowl full of beer and vodka and drank 
deeply like a horse. He turned and spat in the direction of Mme. Olga, and 
when she had the effrontery to protest he grabbed a portrait of Adolf Hitler 
from the wall and brought it down over her head. It sat like a ruff round her 
shoulders. 

'That,' declared Little John, 'is the right place for obscene paintings. Didn't you 
know there's a law against keeping pornography in the house?' 

'She'll go to hell with the Führer and all the rest of the trash,' said Porta, 
dispassionately pouring half a bottle of cognac over the miserable woman's 
head. 

'Wouldn't you like to come upstairs with me?' asked Mme. Olga, in honeyed 
tones. 'We could be private up there—' 

'Who wants to be private with you, you fat old bag? You watch your tongue 
when you're talking to me.' Porta drew himself up straight. 'I, madam, am the 
backbone of this army, I'll have you know.' 

He stalked away, leaving Mme. Olga sitting on the floor with Hitler round her 
neck. 

'I can't stand the sight of you any more,' said Little John. 'There's too much 
light in this damn room.' 

He reached up easily and yanked the bulb from its socket. With a howl of 
triumph he hurled it through the windows and on to the terrace. For a moment 
there was panic. Someone shouted that the Russians had come. The girls 
began screaming and running about in circles, one of the Rumanians pulled 
out his revolver and for no very good reason fired eight rounds into the 
floorboards. Little John roared with insane laughter. The Lieutenant played the 
piano, Barcelona lay on the floor singing about death. In the middle of the 
uproar, Mme. Olga discovered that her bearskin was missing. She wrenched 
Hitler from her neck, stumbled to her feet and began beating Little John on the 
chest with both fists. 

'Where's my rug? My bearskin rug? What have you done with it, you thief? 
That rug was given to me by a Chinese soldier!' 


'AND now it's being used for wiping the arse of a German soldier!' yelled Little 
John, hitting her hard on her fat backside. 'Shut up, you old cow, before I lock 
you away in a cupboard.' 

Mme. Olga fell back, gnawing at her lips. She was indeed an old cow, but 
doubtless her predicament deserved some sympathy. She lived in fear of the 
girls becoming intoxicated and opening their mouths too wide. Mme. Olga had 
her guilty secrets, the same as any of us. And she can scarcely have failed to 
notice the black ribbon we wore on our left sleeves – the black ribbon with the 
two death's heads and the inscription 'Sonderabteilung'; the regiment of 
death. A regiment made up of ex-prisoners, thieves, assassins, 
revolutionaries, offenders against the state; desperate men, who had been 
offered the front line or the firing squad and had chosen the front line as being 
their only chance, albeit a slender one. We none of us cared overmuch for the 
conventions. Why should we, after the events we had lived through and the 
sights we had seen? We were amongst the best soldiers anywhere in the 
world, but we were an undisciplined mob: a band of ruffians who struck fear 
into the heart of the enemy and anyone else we came across. 

Olga stood trembling, staring up at Little John. Was it possible that Little John 
was only a man as other men? Could one believe that the ugly grinning 
monster had ever had a family, a mother and a father? That he felt the same 
emotions as other human beings? Four times already' this evening he had 
threatened to strangle her: if he ever found out her secret he would almost 
certainly carry out his threat. He could strangle an elephant with those vast 
hairy hands. Olga decided upon a policy of conciliation. She smiled sweetly, 
and Heide, passing by, stopped and looked again. 

'Oh, how very charming!' he said. 

Mme. Olga at once turned the smile upon him. Heide jerked at Little John's 
elbow. 

'Wonder what the old bag would look like stark bollock naked? Let's get her 
clothes off and have a gander.' 

A small, dark girl, sitting on top of a cupboard where Little John had parked 
her earlier on, overheard Heide's words. 

'Wrap her in the bearskin, I should,' she advised. 'She's a hideous sight 
without her clothes on.' 

Olga looked up at the girl and her lips twisted. Dear Nelly. Dear little Nelly 
from Belgium. She had been a fool to keep that one on. She should have 
been disposed of months ago. Olga flashed the girl a sickly smile. 

'Don't shout like that, dear. No one's very interested in what you have to say.' 

'You think not?' shrieked the girl. 'I wouldn't count on that!' 


She sprang off the cupboard, ran up to Little John and whispered in his ear. 
Little John roared with delighted laughter. 

'Is that so? Come on, old woman, get your knickers off! I've often wanted to 
see a bum like yours ... Roll up, roll up! The fattest bum in the world is about 
to be put on display!' 

The cry was taken up generally. People flocked from all four corners of the 
room to see the wonderful sight of Mme. Olga's naked bottom. Mme. Olga, 
forgetting her policy of conciliation, fought like a wild cat. You wouldn't have 
thought a fat old bag like that would have had so much spirit. She made a fair 
match for Little John. The Lieutenant played a series of excited chords on the 
piano and the crowd stood round alternately cheering and jeering. Quite 
suddenly, Mme. Olga flew into the air and came down on our heads. 
Someone gave a roar of rage, seized hold of her and threw her bodily through 
the crowd. She went across the room like a rocket, knocking over Julius 
Heide, two of the girls and three chairs as she went. She finally fetched up 
against the piano, next to Barcelona, who smiled drunkenly at her. The 
Lieutenant, without a moment's hesitation, swung into a waltz. 

The crowd gradually dispersed about its individual business. Little John and 
Annie of Hanover squatted on their haunches playing dice with a couple of the 
Rumanians. Annie was wearing a sailor's collar round her neck in place of a 
bra. For some time the Professor had been eyeing her rather nervously from 
the far side of the room. At last he plucked up courage and formally 
approached her, his pale face turning purple with the effort. 

'Excuse me, I know I'm being rather forward, but would you care – would you 
like – that is, would you – I wondered if you—' 

Little John glanced up at him. 

'If you want her, take her. If you don't, fuck off.' 

Annie swallowed half a glass of vodka and laughed in the Professor's face. 

'Well?' she said. 

The Professor turned and ran. We didn't see him again for several hours. 

I sat in an armchair, a drunken and quiescent girl on my lap, surveying the 
scene and feeling pleasantly pissed. I watched Barcelona stagger across to 
the windows and vomit on to the terrace. I watched Porta touching up his 
Jugoslav. I noticed the little Belgian girl, Nelly, install herself on the couch 
between Alte and the Legionnaire. She seemed to have gone there not for 
sex but for conversation. Both men were listening intently to what she was 
saying, and the Legionnaire in particular showed a great interest. His eyes 
had narrowed and they were glittering in a manner that always bade ill for 
someone. Alte had lit up his pipe and was puffing furiously at it. I glanced 
across the room and saw Mme. Olga watching the trio with an air of disquiet. 


Evidently Nelly was being indiscreet – with the Legionnaire, of all people. He 
was a dangerous man to cross, and if she had succeeded in gaining his 
attention she must indeed have an interesting tale to tell, for the Legionnaire 
didn't care for women and he tended, as a rule, to ignore them. 

Mme. Olga moved silently towards the door, but before she could reach it 
Porta had placed himself in front of her, blocking the way. 

'Dear Madam Olga, you're surely not leaving us?' 

He seized her by the arm and dragged her with him into the centre of the 
room. Little John gave a great cheer and a round of applause burst out from 
somewhere nearby. 

'Ladies and gentlemen, gather round and see the greatest show on earth! 
Watch the fattest old sow in the world take off all her clothes! Keep your eyes 
skinned while she shows you the colour of her knickers!' 

'Hooray!' shrieked Heide, standing very drunk behind him. 

Mme. Olga cowered away, but her hour had come. The crowd was closing in 
again, laughing and clapping. 

'Skirt!' cried Little John. 

He tore it off her and sent it flying through the window to join Heide's pants on 
the flagpost. 

'Titty holders!' 

An enormous brassière flapped after the skirt. 

'Gut squeezer!' yelled Heide, joyfully wrenching off the woman's corset and 
playing upon it as if it were a concertina. 'Genuine iron and steel gut 
squeezer!' 

'Go on, take the whole lot off her and give the old devil what for!' shouted 
Nelly, from the sofa. 

'Have patience,' murmured the Legionnaire, who was watching the scene with 
cold, unmoved eyes. 'Let them have their fun first. She'll get what's coming to 
her, don't you worry.' 

At last the quivering bulk of Mme. Olga was revealed in its entirety, naked as 
a worm, fat as a maggot. The crowd drew in its breath, whether in horror or in 
admiration it was difficult to say. For myself, I was both impressed and 
repelled at the same time. 

'Holy cow,' breathed Little John, clasping his hands together and holding his 
head at an angle. 'What a sight!' 


'Where's the bearskin?' cried Porta, from his ringside seat. 

The cry was taken up. 

'Where's the bearskin? Get the bearskin!' , 

Within seconds we were surging about the room in search of it. Tables and 
chairs were overturned. What remained of the glassware was joyfully 
smashed. Cushions were ripped open, curtains were pulled down. One of the 
Rumanians came staggering in with a dustbin, which was promptly tipped 
upside down in the middle of the carpet. 

'Where's the bearskin?' 'Find the bearskin!' 

'Find the bearskin!' echoed Barcelona, crawling on hands and knees about 
the floor. 

Suddenly, three shots rang out. Everyone jumped round in the direction from 
which they had come. It was Porta. Crouched behind an overturned armchair, 
firing his rifle at the top of a cupboard. 

'It's up there!' he told us. 

Little John dragged Barcelona across the room by the scruff of his neck, 
climbed on to his back and peered over the top of the cupboard. 

'It's that damned bear! I'll make sure of it this time!' 

He pulled out his knife and made several wild slashes in the air. Mme. Olga 
screamed. The bearskin suddenly slid over the edge of the cupboard and fell 
over Barcelona's head, blinding him completely. He began to crawl in circles, 
yelling for someone to save him from the bear. 

When at last a semblance of order had been re-established, when Mme. Olga 
was wrapped sullenly inside her ruined bearskin and Barcelona had been 
propped against the mantelpiece, the Legionnaire went into action. With his 
cap pushed to the back of his head, a cigarette stuck to his lower lip, he 
slouched arrogantly across the room to Mme. Olga. 

'Something we ought to talk about, you and me.' 

She looked up at him, her eyes wide and terrified. Behind the Legionnaire 
stood Alte and the girl Nelly. Mme. Olga would evidently have served herself a 
better turn had she fled the town with the rest of the inhabitants and left the 
girls behind to fend for themselves. Greed had kept her on. First there was the 
Rumanian Army, then the German Army; almost certainly there would very 
soon be the Russian Army. Business had promised to be good. Unfortunately 
for her, it had proved a little too good. 

'Olga,' said the Legionnaire, softly, 'how do you get on with the Gestapo?' 


'Gestapo?' babbled Olga. 'What do I know about the Gestapo? I don't know 
anything about them. I've never had anything to do with them.' 

'Really?' murmured the Legionnaire. He fingered his knife, thoughtfully. 'You 
see this, Olga? You see this knife? I had it with me all the time I was with the 
Legion.' He laughed, as if at some private remembrance. 'I've lost count of the 
number of people I've had cause to use it on.' 

Olga made one last, defiant stand. She stood up straight, lost her bearskin but 
attempted a show of dignity. 

'Why tell me?' she said. 'It's no concern of mine how many people you've 
killed.' 

'It might be, soon,' suggested the Legionnaire. 'When you're the next one on 
the list.' 

'Stop talking and get on with it!' urged Nelly. 'She deserves all that's coming to 
her.' 

'And more!' cried another girl. 

She pushed her way through the gathering crowd and turned to face us. 

'You know how she got to be the owner of this place? The Gestapo put her in 
here! And this isn't the only one, either. She's got places in Bucharest and 
Sarajevo, as well.' 

'And how do you think we got here?' demanded Nelly. 'You think we're just 
whores, born and bred? Well, we're not. We were dragged here by the 
Gestapo. We weren't give any choice in the matter.' 

'Not unless we were Jews,' added the other girl, bitterly. 'If we were Jews we 
were allowed to choose between a brothel or the gas chamber.' 

'And that fat cow standing there was put here to keep an eye on us. Make 
sure we didn't talk.' 

Accusations began to pour in from all quarters. 

'Only last month she sent five of the girls to Ravensbrück Because one of 
them complained to an officer who came here-' 

'What about Desa? She strangled Desa with her own hands—' 

'She's hand in glove with the Gestapo. She had Hauptsturmführer Nehri to 
dinner here every night for a month—' 

With a sudden howl of rage Porta flung himself at Mme. Olga's throat. The 
Rumanian lieutenant began a furious crescendo of sound on the piano. 


Somehow, Mme. Olga managed to break free from Porta's grip. She ducked 
under his arm, evaded the howling mob of girls with desperate agility, gave a 
wide berth to the Legionnaire, who was watching the scene with a sardonic 
smile, and went running naked towards Alte. He was the oldest of us; also the 
sanest and the most humane. He was probably the one person in the room 
who might have mercy on her, and Olga had immediately sensed it. She 
threw herself at his feet, babbling and pleading incoherently. So long as Alte 
was prepared to listen to her, the rest of us stayed our hand. The Old Man 
stood gravely looking down at her. He brought out his pipe, filled it, lit it, slowly 
shook his head; then turned and left the room. It looked as if Mme. Olga's fate 
was sealed. 

We closed round her in a threatening circle, men and girls together. It was a 
strange sight. Most of us were half naked, yet still clutching revolvers. The 
Legionnaire was the only one who had kept his clothes on, and perhaps for 
that reason he looked stranger than any of us. 

'Kill her!' shrieked Nelly. 'Kill her like she killed Desa!' 

'And Margaret Rose! She had her shot by the Gestapo!' 

Once again, the accusations came pouring in. Yvonne and Ilse had been sent 
to a concentration camp. They had died on the barbed wire, trying to escape. 
Mme. Olga had several times threatened the other girls with the same fate. 
Then there was Silva. Silva had told a visiting lieutenant how she had come to 
be in the brothel, and for that she had been whipped to a pulp and left in the 
cellars to rot. 

'She took all our money off us. Every penny we had.' 

'She used to strip us naked every day and examine us.' 

'She used-' 

The Legionnaire held up a hand. 

'O.K. I think we've heard enough now. But we've got to do the thing properly – 
hold a court of inquiry, weigh the evidence, decide on a fitting sentence.' 

He picked up a broken chair and set it with a bang in the centre of the circle. 

'That's for Yvonne,' he said. 'And that's for Ilse – and that's for Desa - and 
Margaret Rose and Silva. And this one—' 

'That's for Lone!' cried one of the girls. 'She was hanged at Tichilesti.' 

'Right.' The Legionnaire set up another chair. 'That's for Lone, who was 
hanged at Tichilesti.' 

Porta held out a chair. 


'Here you are. This one's Gerda. She was shot out in the garden there for 
throwing a bottle at the old hag.' 

'And don't forget Monica—' 

'And Sonia—' 

'O.K. That'll be enough.' The Legionnaire waved a hand towards the chairs. 
'The nine members of our jury. In theory there should be twelve, but—' 

Before he could finish speaking another flood of names had poured in. Alice, 
Cecilia, Gola— 

'Fair enough,' said the Legionnaire. 'That makes up the twelve. Twelve chairs, 
twelve dead girls. Now then—' He beckoned to Nelly – 'you're to be the judge. 
I'm the prosecuting counsel. No need for a defence, she hasn't got a leg to 
stand on.' 

'I want to be a judge, too,' announced Little John. 

The Legionnaire hunched a shoulder. 

'Just as you wish. Come on, Sorka, you can be the third one.' 

He beckoned to Porta's Jugoslav, who took her place beside Nelly and Little 
John with a hard smile on her lips. She had passed through nine state 
brothels in her time, and she plainly had no pity left for anyone. 

'Take this.' Little John handed her his revolver. 'You can use it as a hammer if 
people start kicking up too much of a racket. We'll need a bit of peace and 
quiet to deal with this case.' 

'O.K.' Sorka thumped on the floor with the butt of the revolver. 'Silence in 
court! Bring the prisoner in!' 

Olga was helped forward with the sharp end of Porta's bayonet in one of her 
naked buttocks. 

'You've no right to judge me. I haven't done anything. The Government makes 
the laws, not me. I just do what I'm told. I'm no more to blame than anyone 
else.' 

'Shut up!' said the Legionnaire. 'The jury will tell you whether or not you're to 
blame.' 

'Well, of course she is!' burst out Little John, who was drinking vodka in court. 

'What are you accusing her of?' asked Nelly. 

The Legionnaire turned to face the twelve empty chairs. 


'Ladies of the jury, in the name of the people I accuse Olga Geiss of the 
following: murder; slavery; torture; and treason.' 

Little John looked severely towards the prisoner. 

'Did you hear that? What have you got to say for yourself? Guilty or not 
guilty?' 

'Not guilty,' said Olga, faintly. 

Sorka banged with her revolver. 

'The accused can sit down. What is the jury's verdict?' 

Again, the Legionnaire turned towards the row of chairs. 

'Ladies of the jury, do you find the accused Olga Geiss guilty or not guilty of 
the aforesaid crimes?' 

He listened a moment, then turned back to the three judges. 

'The jury return a verdict of guilty.' 

'Of course she's guilty!' said Little John, for the second time. 'All we've got to 
do is pass sentence. For myself I think she ought to suffer death by slow 
hanging... with a lighted candle stuck up her backside.' 

Olga gave a loud scream and threw herself to the ground. At the same 
moment, a harsh voice addressed us from the far side of the room, from the 
double doors that led into the main hall. 

'What's going on in here?' 

We had been so engrossed in our court of inquiry that none of us had heard 
the sound of footsteps on the marble tiles. Three men of the local police force 
were standing in the doorway. It was an Oberfeldwebel who had spoken. As 
we turned in a body to face them, he suddenly opened fire into the crowd. 
There was a scream; then Annie of Hanover, her eyes wide with 
astonishment, slid slowly to the ground and the blood began gushing from her 
mouth. 

'Save me!' shrieked Olga, from the back of the crowd. They're going to torture 
me!' 

'Quiet,' said the Oberfeldwebel. 'Leave this to us. We know what we're doing.' 

He took a step forward. As he did so, there was a flash of steel past his right 
shoulder then the Legionnaire's knife embedded itself in one of his 
companions. The Oberfeldwebel spun round. The wounded man stared up at 
him with disbelieving eyes, the knife lodged in his chest, then very slowly he 


slithered to the ground and lay still. He ended up by the side of Barcelona, 
who had been incapably drunk for the past half hour, and his right hand fell 
across Barcelona's face. There was a thud as his revolver rolled out of his 
grasp. Barcelona, acting on nothing more than, a drunken instinct, at once 
picked it up and levelled it – more or less – at our friends across the room. He 
plainly had no idea who they were, much less what he was doing or why he 
was doing it, but in that second Heide had thrown himself upon the 
Oberfeldwebel and brought him crashing earthwards. Calmly, the Legionnaire 
retrieved his knife and wiped it clean on the front of his battledress. The 
Rumanian lieutenant wandered back to his piano and began playing what 
sounded like a death march. 

'Before continuing with the inquest,' said the Legionnaire, 'I think it might be 
better if we closed the doors. Sven, would you mind?' 

By the time I arrived back, it seemed that the inquest was already over. Mme. 
Olga, her smile of triumph wiped off her face, was weeping and wringing her 
hands together. 

'In the name of the people,' intoned Sorka, pitilessly, 'you, Olga Geiss, are to 
suffer death by hanging. One of the judges has demanded that you should 
also suffer torture and your body be thrown to the dogs.' 

'That was me,' explained Little John, as if we couldn't have guessed. 'It's the 
least she deserves.' 

'Very likely,' agreed the Legionnaire. He turned to Mme. Olga. 'Did you hear 
that, old woman? Have you anything to say before the sentence is carried 
out?' 

Whether she had or not, she was given no chance. Porta tore down some 
velvet curtains and ripped off the heavy cord which operated them. Little John 
snatched up a discarded pair ofstockings and tied a gag round the victim's 
mouth. One of the Rumanians bound her hands together with a red silk 
brassière. Mme. Olga did not give in without a fight. She wriggled and twisted, 
bit, kicked and elbowed, but the girls closed in upon her and it was a miracle 
she was not torn to death before we got her to the gallows. 

One end of the curtain cord Was attached high up on the flagstaff. The other 
was formed into a loop with a slip knot. Still heaving and kicking, the 
mountainous body was then carried by many willing hands up to a window on 
the top floor. The loop was placed round Mme. Olga's neck. 

'Jump,' ordered Little John. 

Mme. Olga balanced precariously on the edge of the window sill, all her fat 
white flesh quivering and threatening to unbalance her. 

'Jump!' roared Little John, for the second time. 


She jumped at last; or fell; or was pushed. Her body wrapped itself round the 
flagpole, hanging at the end of the cord. Her double chins seemed to swell up 
like so many balloons, and then her neck stretched out very long and thin. 

A silence fell in the upstairs room. Some of us turned away. Some of us 
leaned out of the window and stared with globulous eyes, hypnotized by the 
horror of that fat white body swaying to and fro at the end of the cord. 

'The bitch,' said Nelly. 'She got off lightly if you ask me.' 

Silently we returned downstairs, pushing the two policemen before us. The 
Rumanian lieutenant was still gently playing his death march. Barcelona had 
vomited on the floor and seemed slightly less drunk than he had been. 

'O.K.' The Legionnaire turned to the Oberfeldwebel and his companion. 
'Which of you two killed the girl?' 

We stared down at Annie of Hanover, lying on the floor in a pool of her own 
blood. The Oberfeldwebel turned crimson. 

'I – I suppose I must have done. My – finger – that is, I pulled the trigger by 
mistake. I never meant to hit anyone.' 

'I'm sure you didn't,' agreed the Legionnaire, soothingly. 'Nevertheless, you're 
a damn sight too dangerous to leave lying around. Anyone could come across 
you – and get shot by mistake.' He jerked his head at Heide. 'Take him 
outside and get rid of him.' 

'Willingly!' said Heide, his eyes gleaming. 

They disappeared. We heard their footsteps echoing across the marble hall, 
we heard the front door open and close. Then there was silence, and we all 
stood listening. The Lieutenant let his fingers rest quietly on the piano keys. 
The girls stood watching from the windows. There was a tense air of 
expectancy in the room, and even Little John and Porta were silent And then 
came the sound we were waiting for: the chatter and rattle of a machine gun, 
followed by a single shot from a P.38. 

'That's it,' said Porta. . 

The Legionnaire picked up a bottle of cognac and solemnly raised it to his 
lips. 

'Let's get on with the celebrations,' he suggested. 

No one was averse to the idea. 

CHAPTER ELEVEN 


THE merrymaking and drinking went on. We had almost forgotten the war that 
was still being fought somewhere to the north-west, and it came as an 
unpleasant shock when the first of the retreating armies began to make their 
appearance. It seemed that the Russians were breaking through everywhere, 
that the entire front line had collapsed, that our troops were in a state of panic 
and disorder. So much we learned from those who could spare the time to 
stop and enlighten us on their maddened flight away from the front and 
towards the passes of Kunduk. There were men from all regiments, rushing 
pell-mell from the scenes of battle. Gunners, engineers, members of the tank 
corps, all intent on putting as much distance as possible between themselves 
and the swiftly advancing Russians. Someone yelled that the enemy had 
broken through at every available spot and were only half a mile from the 
village. Someone else passed on the information that over the river several 
divisions of our troops had been cut off by the Russians. It appeared that 
everyone who could was running, even those who had been brought up as 
reserves, fresh and eager to fight, only days before. 

We ourselves were now attached to the Third Rumanian Army, and orders 
came through that we were to stand firm and hold our position. All of us, the 
Rumanians and ourselves, even the girls, saw the folly of the situation: a 
whole army, eight divisions of fighting men, was in flight, and we, a small 
group of mixed nationalities, were expected to hold out against the enemy. 
We looked out of the window at the retreating hordes and we had a bloody 
good laugh. There was nothing much else we could do. 

How had the mass panic begun in the first place? In a sadly familiar fashion. It 
appeared that initially a small number of T.34s, to restore the morale of the 
flagging Russian troops, had been sent ahead in the hope of breaking through 
the German front lines. These were taken by surprise and the tanks had 
crashed through with comparative ease, firing to right and to left and leaving 
behind them a state of hysteria and confusion, Some fool had lost his head 
and sent an urgent message to the effect that they were surrounded, that the 
Russians were forging ahead and retreat was the only answer. The cry was 
taken up, parrot fashion, and was soon echoing through the ranks. The panic 
had begun. One thought only was uppermost in men's minds: get the hell out 
of it before the tanks had completely encircled them and they were trapped. 
The news that filtered through grew ever more alarming. The small number of 
T.34s became, in the fevered imagination of the fleeing soldiers, a whole 
battalion, an entire regiment, several divisions. A captain solemnly assured us 
that the entire Russian Fifth Army had broken through and was on its way 
towards us – a piece of information we knew for a certainty to be false, since 
the majority of the armoured divisions were licking their wounds on the other 
side of Kertz. It was this same captain, however, who gave orders for all 
secret documents to be burnt and for all vehicles – except one, which he 
appropriated for his own use – to be destroyed to keep them from falling into 
the hands of the advancing Fifth Army. 

Some years later, this same captain wrote an account of the strategic 
withdrawal from Tabar Bunary. The account is now one of the standard 
textbooks on the subject and is in current use in military training schools. The 


captain was decorated for his brilliant handling of the withdrawal and has 
since been elevated to the rank of colonel. 

The T.34s that had caused the fiasco could hardly have believed their luck. 
They stuck nose to tail along the main road, driving scores of half-demented 
soldiers westwards before them. Those few who tried to keep their wits about 
them and hang on to their military sang-froid were soon submerged in the 
general sea of panic. One elderly major general, going under for the third 
time, gallantly fought his way back to the surface and found himself at the tail-
end of the retreat amongst the sick and the wounded. The major screamed 
and shouted and threatened, but the main body of the army swept boldly past 
him and out of sight. He remained with the stragglers, tears of shame and 
humiliation pouring down his cheeks. Unfortunately, tears alone were not 
enough to stop the advance of the Russian tanks, which slowly crept up on 
the rearguard. Salvoes of shots from the heavy guns ploughed up the road 
before, behind and on either side of them. The major could have run. Instead, 
he wrenched off his stiff collar and the shining cross at his throat, snatched up 
a handful of grenades and made a dash with them towards the nearest of the 
approaching tanks. He was only a few yards away when he tripped and fell. 
The grenades rolled harmlessly into a ditch at the side of the road. For a 
moment the major hesitated. He lay in the road where he had fallen and the 
leading T34 was almost upon him. In reaching up in search of a handhold the 
major came into contact with one of the exhaust pipes, from which the flames 
were leaping. His hand was burnt to a cinder before his brain had a chance to 
react. The edge of his cape was caught by one of the caterpillars and the 
major's body was swiftly wound up and crushed against the wheels. They 
heard his cry inside the tank A lieutenant glanced out of the slit and laughed 
as he saw an arm sticking up in a parody of a salute. The Major's body was 
swiftly sliced to ribbons. The little that remained was mashed to a pulp by the 
other oncoming tanks, and soon all that could be seen was a trail of blood and 
a hovering swarm of flies. 

It was three months later, in Germany, that the Major's widow heard of her 
husband's death: he had fallen in battle, when leading his troops in an attack 
on heavily fortified Russian positions. No one ever fell during a retreat. There 
were no such things as retreats in the German Army. 

At Kita, on the other side of the frontier, a court martial was being held in the 
town hall. No one had yet thought to inform them of the situation in the outside 
world, and meanwhile they were having the time of their lives: they had as 
many deserters on their hands as any court martial could have wished, and 
they were condemning them to death right and left without batting an eyelid. 
At the very moment when the line of T.34s was entering the eastern gate of 
Kita, the court martial were condemning out of hand a young private who had 
thrown down his arms in the face of the enemy. The presiding colonel was in 
his element. He knew his law down to the last letter; to the last comma, the 
last semi-colon. He lost himself in a sea of verbosity, the long legal sentences 
ebbing and flowing about the court. Inevitably, the outcome was death. It was 
the Colonel's dearest hope and belief that on the signing of his two-hundredth 
death sentence he would be promoted to general and recalled to Berlin, there 


to serve on the Judicial Council of the Reich. At present he was only on his 
one hundredth and thirty-seventh, but a few more days like today and he 
would soon fulfil his quota. And with any luck he would reach the two hundred 
mark without ever having witnessed an execution. The Colonel abhorred 
violence. For him, his one hundred and thirty-seven victims were not human 
beings so much as material for the judicial machine, passed to him for 
preparation, passed on afterwards for processing. If he thought about them at 
all, it was only to reflect that war demands its sacrifices if the final victory is to 
be gained. 

He drew himself up and regarded his latest victim, the young private who was 
about to be condemned to death as an example to others. A military 
policeman tapped the boy on the shoulder. 

'Come on, lad. Time we were leaving. It's all up with you now.' 

The boy had listened impassively to the Colonel's final summing up. He had 
made no move when the sentence of death had been passed. But the simple 
words, 'It's all up with you now', seemed suddenly to strike through to his 
heart. He turned to the court and flung out his arms wide, screaming and 
protesting. The M.P. dropped his paternal air and gave the boy a sharp clip 
round the ear. Next moment he was heaving him bodily out of the courtroom 
with a knee in the small of his back. 

As the doors swung open, the sudden sounds of a bombardment were heard. 
A second before there had been silence; now the air was full of noise, the 
thudding of heavy guns, the whine of bullets, the explosions of shells and the 
staccato chattering of machine guns. The courtroom stood shuddering a 
moment, then a fine plaster dust rained down from the ceiling. 

'What the devil's going on?' demanded the Colonel, brushing the sleeve of his 
immaculate pearl grey uniform. 

One of the judges, a Captain Laub of the Seventh Motorized Regiment, left 
his chair and walked across to the window. He glanced out, casually, then 
turned back with his face ashen. 

'It's the Russians!' 

'Hell's bells, the Russians are nowhere near here! Get a grip on yourself, man! 
Are you attempting to spread false rumours?' 

'No, sir.' The Captain stiffened. 'Perhaps you'd care to take a look for 
yourself?' 

Before the Colonel could reach the windows, Major Blank, the prosecutor, had 
joined Captain Laub and confirmed the news. 

'I'm afraid he's right, sir. It is the Russians.' 


'How the hell did they get this far?' 

'God knows, but they did.' 

The M.P. had automatically released his hold on the prisoner. They stood 
close together, as if for protection, covered in the fine, powder that was still 
gently raining down on them. Quite suddenly, the condemned soldier turned 
and ran. He crashed through the deserted corridors of the building and out 
into the street, straight into the arms of a leather-jacketed, fur-capped giant 
who was on his way up the steps into the town hall. The giant grabbed hold of 
the soldier and shouted out in Russian. The soldier, too petrified to speak, 
twisted out of his grasp and promptly received two bullets through his skull. At 
that short range, they blew off most of his head. 

'See,' Dr. Goebbels would have said, 'even those whom we have condemned 
to death are still willing to stand up and fight for the Reich!' 

But Dr. Goebbels himself could not have said what became of that particular 
soldier. The body lay for a short while on the steps of the town hall, until a 
Russian tank commander, taking the corpse to be a live soldier feigning death 
and probably only waiting his chance to throw a couple of hand grenades into 
the oncoming troops, hurled an explosive and blew off the arms and the legs. 
What remained was crushed to a pulp beneath enemy tanks. The pulp was no 
doubt discovered and disposed of by some starving dog or cat, of which there 
were many roaming the streets, and that was the last of Private Wulff. For a 
long time he was posted as missing, treated as a deserter. His relatives and 
friends in Germany were subjected to long hours of intensive questioning; his 
mother was arrested on a charge of harbouring her son. No one ever knew 
the truth. The fur-capped giant shouted out an order and half a dozen brown-
clad Siberians rushed up the steps and into the town hall. The Colonel looked 
up from his desk and regarded them with an air of grave surprise. Captain 
Laub pulled out his revolver, but before he could use it he had received a 
shower of machine gun bullets in his stomach. He sank slowly to the floor, his 
eyes full of puzzlement. The Colonel turned in protest to the Russian corporal 
who seemed to be in charge of the raiding party. 

'I object to this brutality! Calm yourself, for heaven's sake, and act like a 
trained soldier!' 

Corporal Balama spat on the floor and raised his machine gun. The Colonel 
stepped back a pace. 

'We offer no resistance. Fighting is obviously useless. As far as we are 
concerned, our destinies are in your hands ... Put down that gun, man!' 

The other soldiers laughed. 

'Stoi!' 


The Corporal turned round and for good measure gave the M.P., still 
crouched in a corner, a hard jab in the belly with the butt of his gun. The man 
let out a shriek, more of fear than of pain, scuttled across the floor and fell 
babbling at the Colonel's feet, seizing him round the knees. The Colonel 
kicked out, but was unable to extricate himself. A smell of unwashed humanity 
rose up, rank and rancid, and almost suffocated him. It was one of the worst 
moments of the entire war. 

'Dawaï, dawaï!' commanded the Corporal. 

Again, his soldiers fell about laughing. They began repeating it, 'Dawaï, 
dawaï!' and herding the members of the court martial together in one corner of 
the room. The artillery feldwebel who had acted as chief witness against one 
of the accused received a bayonet in the back of the neck. The clerk of the 
court left behind three children and a widow, but the widow had two lovers to 
keep her occupied and for her, at any rate, her husband's death was probably 
a happy release. 

A Russian commissar came into the hall and let loose a new string of orders. 
He sounded curt and evil-tempered. The survivors of court martial number 4/6 
306 were at once marched outside and crowded together in the back of a 
T.34, which had run out of ammunition and was returning to base with a cargo 
of prisoners. 

Little John and Barcelona Blum, who were hiding behind a ridge of trees, 
heard the approaching tank when it was still some way off. The driver was 
pushing ahead at a speed which hardly seemed warranted, in the 
circumstances, but he was an old hand at the game and his instinct no doubt 
warned him of hidden danger. The Commissar, too, seemed ill at ease. He 
cursed incessantly and for no apparent reason, and he directed a stream of 
abuse at the driver whenever the motor coughed or spluttered. 

Little John stretched out on his stomach, his chin supported on his hands, 
moodily watching the T.34 as it toiled up the road towards them. 

That cretin down there's asking for trouble,' he observed. He turned to 
Barcelona. 'You feeling like a bit of fun and games? Cover me while I go down 
and have a bash at it.' 

'Let 'em pass,' said Barcelona, carelessly. 

'What d'you mean, let 'em pass?' Little John sounded indignant. We're 
supposed to be guarding the whorehouse, ain't we? Keeping out the Ruskies? 
And you say sit up here on your great fat arse and watch a sitting duck go by 
without lifting a little finger to—' 

'Belt up, for Chrissakes, you give me a headache ... What the blazes can one 
solitary tank do? It can't leave the road on account of there's marshes on 
either side. If they make one little move in that direction they've had it, and 
you know it as well as I do.' 


'So? We're still letting 'em get off scot free, ain't we?' 

'Don't be so bleeding thick! Where d'you think they're going to get to, coming 
along here? It doesn't lead anywhere, except to the sea, so sooner or later 
they'll have to come back this way. 

And when they do, we'll have laid out a nice little bed of mines to greet 'em.' 

'I reckon the silly buggers must've lost their way or something ...' 

Little John turned back to the road and watched the tank go past. He suddenly 
sat up and pointed. 'Hey, look at that! It's full of our own chaps—' 

'Wounded heroes going back to Moscow, more like.' 

'Take a bet?' 

At that moment, the motor cut out. The tank lumbered to an ungraceful halt. 
There were several vain attempts to start her up again, then the sound of 
angry voices reached the two hidden watchers. Little John grinned. He picked 
up his M.G. and rammed it against his shoulder, pushed his hat to the back of 
his head and took aim. 

'Don't be such a bleeding idiot!' snapped Barcelona. 'We're not here for that. 
The Old Man didn't tell us to sit up here and take pot shots at people.' 

'Get stuffed,' said Little John, equably. 

The first to die was the Commissar. In his fury he had leapt out of the tank 
and was threatening the driver from the road. 

'You know what you'll get for this, don't you? This is an outrage, it's a flagrant 
breach of—' 

What? Discipline? The driver never knew, and probably never cared. There 
was a crack, and the Commissar suddenly folded up in mid-sentence and fell 
neatly to the ground. 

'What's going on?' yelled a voice from inside the tank. 

Silence. No sound but the wind rustling through the tree tops, the branches 
sighing and creaking. No indication at all where the sniper was hidden. And 
then the frogs in the marshes began an anxious croaking, as if making a 
comment on the event that had just taken place, and this was a signal for the 
prisoners cowering in the back of the tank to lift up their heads and begin 
whispering amongst themselves. 

'What was it? One of ours?' 

'Search me.' 


'Must have been one of ours.' 

'I suppose so.' 

'Who else would be firing on us?' 

'Dunno.' 

'Where'd it come from, then?' 

No one answered, because no one knew. The dead Commissar lay in the 
road where he had fallen, his arms flung out before him, his head turned 
sideways in a pool of blood. The blanketing silence returned. The gunner 
suddenly jumped out of the turret and ran round to the front of the tank, 
anxiously scanning the road on either side. He was followed, reluctantly and 
nervously, by his two companions, huddled together for greater safety. 

Up in the thicket of trees, Little John laughed silently to himself. Once more he 
took aim. Once more his finger curled itself round the trigger. 

'Look, give it a rest, will you?' Barcelona jabbed angrily at him. 'We're not here 
to play games, we've got other things to do that are more important.' 

'What's more important than killing off the enemy?' demanded Little John. 'It 
ain't every day of the week you find people damn fool enough to get out of a 
T.34 and go waltzing about in the middle of the road ... Now let me alone 
before I get really mad.' 

The shots rapped out, one after another, in quick and accurate succession. 
The frogs stopped croaking and leaped silently away into the heart of the 
marshlands. One of the German prisoners suddenly stood up and began 
waving his arms in the air. 

'Tovaritch! Tovaritch! I am your friend – do not shootl' 

Little John stared down at him in amazement. 

'Look at that turd down there—' 

'What an exhibition!' Barcelona spat disgustedly. 'Look at 'em, cuddling up 
together like a flock of bleeding sheep... It's a wonder Ivan didn't shoot 'em 
outright. I would, in his place. What'd they want with a bunch like that in 
Moscow?' 

'What'll we do with'em?' 

'Dunno... Take 'em back with us, I suppose.' 

Barcelona raised himself on one knee and waved down to the German 
prisoners. Slowly and apprehensively they began climbing down from the tank 


and making their way up towards the thicket, follow-my-leader along a narrow 
path of twigs and brushwood that had been laid across the marshes. They 
found themselves met by a couple of common soldiers, both filthy dirty and 
unpleasant to look upon. 

'What the devil—' began the Colonel, as Barcelona unceremoniously seized 
him by the arm and dragged him under cover. 

'Not so loud!' hissed Barcelona, rather irritably. 'We're at war, in case you 
didn't know it. You want your head shot off?' 

The Colonel drew himself up straight. 

'I must advise you—' 

'Put a sock in it!' snarled Little John, placing a vast grimy paw over the 
Colonel's mouth. 

At that moment a salvo of shots was fired from somewhere behind them. 

What's that?' demanded Major Blank, slipping into the marshy ground in his 
sudden haste to reach cover. 'Who's firing on us?' 

'Who do you think?' said Barcelona, watching with a sneer as the immaculate 
Major paddled on to dry land with mud right up to his crutch. 

'The Russians? Where are they?' 

Barcelona jerked his head indifferently. 

'Somewhere over there ... I suggest we get going while there's still time. Just 
follow me and keep your mouths buttoned up.' 

'May I ask' 

'No.' Little John prodded the Colonel in the behind with the butt of his M.G. 
'Get going and keep your mouth buttoned up like he said. First man who talks 
gets a round of this straight through his belly.' 

They carried on, through the thicket, across another area of marshland, into 
the shelter of a thickly wooded hillside. Barcelona called a halt and conferred 
with Little John. 

'What d'you reckon? Do we press right on or lie up here until it gets dark?' 

Little John scowled. 

'We didn't have all this trouble on the way out. Ivan left us pretty well alone 
then. It's only because we've carted this load of shit along with us—' 


'We'll lie up for a bit.' 

'Suits me.' 

Little John threw his M.G. to the ground and himself after it. Barcelona waved 
a hand towards his small band of followers, who were huddled together in the 
middle of a clearing. 

'O.K., you lot, you can take it easy. We're going to rest up here for a while.' 

The Colonel scraped his throat. He made another effort to assert his authority. 

'I consider it would be better policy to push ahead without any delay.' 

'Certainly. Why not?' 

Barcelona dropped down beside Little John, pulled out a battered tin of 
tobacco and began rolling a couple of cigarettes. 

'I'm not stopping you. Go right ahead.' 

Major Blank drew in a sharp breath. He waited for the Colonel to say 
something, to do something. The two common soldiers, seated side by side 
on the damp ground at the foot of a tree, stared insolently up, their eyes 
gleaming out of unshaven faces encrusted with the dirt of several days. A new 
salvo of shots made the ground shake beneath their feet. The Colonel flung 
himself down on to the wet earth and covered his head. 

'No need to carry on like that,' said Barcelona, kindly. 'You'll get used to it. 
They don't mean any harm, they're just letting us know that they're here.' 

'Well, I don't like it!' snapped Major Blank, helping the Colonel to his feet. 'I 
grant you,' he said, as a face saver, 'that you are more aware of local 
conditions than I am, but it seems to me pure folly to hang about here in range 
of their guns—' 

'Look,' said Barcelona, with the air of one trying to speak reasonably to a 
retarded child, 'if you want to get yourself killed, you just go walking off for 
another ten metres or so and you'll find it dead easy. Dead being the 
operative word... There's a ridge of high ground over that way. It's littered with 
the bodies of men who thought they could go over the top in daylight and get 
away with it. The only chance of getting back to the whorehouse in one piece 
is to wait a couple of hours until it's dusk.' 

The Major opened his mouth, then closed it again. It was the Colonel who 
finally asked the question. 

'Back to the – back to where, did you say?' 

'The whorehouse.' 


'You mean – your base?' 

'That's right' 

'Why do you – why is it—' 

The Colonel waved a hand, and Little John came kindly to his rescue. 

'It's your actual pukka brothel,' he informed the outraged officer. 'Tarts and all. 
We're just as anxious to get there as you are, but the way I see it there's no 
point in risking your neck. Not even for a whore. We're safe in here. Out 
there—' He jerked a thumb behind him – 'the fighting's still going on. Get your 
head blown off in a couple of shakes. Just not worth it.' 

Barcelona handed him a cigarette. The two common soldiers leaned back 
against their tree trunk in a cloud of evil-smelling smoke. The Colonel 
shuddered and withdrew some distance. 

'Filthy swine,' he muttered. 

For about half an hour there was comparative peace in the little wood. And 
then, somewhere to the south-west, the conductor raised his bâton and the 
full orchestra came crashing in with the opening bars of war. The little wood 
trembled and shook as the sounds reverberated through the hills and lifted 
high across the marshes. And this time Little John and Barcelona were the 
first to fling themselves headlong to the ground. This was no ordinary 
skirmish. It sounded as if the entire front were exploding. The immaculate 
Major grovelled in the mud, digging and shovelling with his hands as if trying 
to tunnel his way in to safety. The Colonel was lifted bodily in to the air by the 
first blast. He came to rest on top of Little John, and he lay clutching him for 
the remainder of the bombardment, not noticing the undeniable stench of 
unwashed feet and armpits that clung to Little John like a second skin. Little 
John, on the other hand, twitched his nostrils at the faint perfume that came 
from the Colonel's well-groomed head of white hair. He raised his head, about 
to remark on the smell, but his eyes met the Colonel's, and they were the 
faded blue eyes of an old man, an old man terrified half out of his wits, and for 
once in his life Little John found the strength to remain silent. 

The hills and marshes were blazing infernos for miles around. Men, horses, 
vehicles, heavy guns spouted like geysers high into air, propelled by the force 
of the explosions. An entire infantry battalion was wiped out in less than ten 
minutes. An ammunition dump went upwards in a roaring mass of flames and 
smoke. The sky was bright red with a thousand fires and filled with a whirling 
mass of shrapnel. 

They saw none of this in the wood. They lay flat on their stomachs with their 
faces pressed hard into the ground, covered in mud from head to foot. 
Barcelona was the first to rise. 


'So much for bloody Goebbels and his tales about Ivan being out of the bloody 
war,' he remarked, sourly. 

Little John pushed the Colonel away from him, sat up and spat out a mouthful 
of mud and leaves. He looked about him at the members of the court martial 
still on all fours. Two of them were dead. The other three lay trembling. 

'Good dogs!' he shouted, encouragingly. 'Seek him out, seek him out!' 

Major Blank raised a cautious head. 

'Come on, you bleeding heroes!' roared Barcelona, prodding the nearest 
body. 'The war's still on!' 

The Major rose with tattered dignity to his feet. He removed a wet leaf from 
the end of his nose, smoothed the lapels of his sodden uniform. He fixed 
Barcelona with an icy eye. 

'As soon as we reach your unit I shall speak to your C.O. about you.' 

Barcelona hunched a careless shoulder. 

'If you think he'll really be interested.' 

'I shall make sure that he's interested.' The Major shot out a quivering finger 
and pointed it dramatically at Barcelona and Little John. 'I'm having you both 
put on a charge the minute we get back! I'll have you court martialled, I'll have 
you up before the firing squad!' 

'Just as you like,' said Barcelona, smoothly. 

Major Blank turned apoplectic purple. He reached for his 

*** Two pages missing - pp216,217*** 

danger. Dusk had come and gone by the time they arrived back at base, and 
the sky was pitch black apart from one persistent rosy glow away to the south-
west. With the help of vodka and hot sausages they made their report. Alte 
listened gravely to their story. 

'There's no doubt about it,' he said, when they came to an end, 'we're 
surrounded ... Cut off. Julius and Sven report heavy troop movement behind 
us, you report Russian tanks and infantry in front of us.' He turned to Porta. 
'How about the beach? Any signs of life down there?' 

'Plenty. The place is lousy with snipers.' 

'Mm.' 


Alte drew deeply on his pipe. He placed the thumb and index finger of his left 
hand high on the bridge of his nose and gently kneaded the skin up and 
down. 

'Now how the hell are we going to get out of this mess?' 

'Get out?' screamed one of the girls, who was dressed up in bright green 
pants and bra and playing at dice with a Rumanian corporal. 'Why do you 
want to get out? Are the Russians coming?' 

The Old Man ignored her. He spread out a map and beckoned to the 
Legionnaire to join him. 

'What do you reckon?' 

The Legionnaire pored over the map for a while, and after much studying and 
much frowning he stabbed a finger on to it and traced the path of a long green 
line that wavered across the page. 

'Here. We might just be able to get through that way.' 

'Marshland,' commented Alte. 

'It's all bloody marshland round here.' 

'Marshland and dense forest... Sixty kilometres of it.' 

'It's either that or stay here and be shot. I can't see any other way out.' 

'True enough.' 

'Hey!' shouted Little John, suddenly surfacing from his bottle of vodka. 'Let's 
have a tune ... Where's the pianist gone?' 

'Yeah, fetch the pianist!' agreed Barcelona, waving a half eaten sausage in 
the air. 'Why don't we have some music?' 

'Because the pianist is bleeding dead, that's why not,' said Heide, in his usual 
pleasant way. 

'Dead? How?' 

'Shot himself through the head, didn't he?' 

Little John leaped to his feet. 

'Where's the body?' 

'Sit down and save yourself the bother,' said Porta, pushing Little John back 
again. 'I've already been there.' 


He held up one gleaming gold tooth. Little John made a jealous dive for it, but 
at that moment Alte came to a decision. 

'Get ready to leave immediately. Ivan could arrive at any second. I'd just as 
soon take my chance out in the open as be butchered indoors... Heide, have 
a scout round and see if you can pick up enough revolvers to give the girls 
one each.' 

'Right-oh.' 

The girl in the green pants turned round and screamed again. 'Revolvers? I 
couldn't! I don't know how to use them!' 

'You'll soon learn,' said Alte, dryly. 

We were out of the house within fifteen minutes and making for the marshes, 
with Little John and Porta at the head of the column. We moved at a pretty 
good speed and were under cover of the trees before we heard the first 
sounds of a bombardment. 

'That's Ivan,' said Porta. 'Looks like we just got out in time.' 

'Let's not stop to gloat,' suggested Alte. 'Just keep going.' 

We moved in single file through the trees. We must have been a curious sight. 
There was Little John at the head – well, Little John was a curiosity in himself 
– followed by two of the girls wearing an odd mixture of female civilian and 
male military garments and holding revolvers at a decidedly awkward angle, 
followed by Porta, followed by four Rumanians, whose khaki uniforms could 
easily have been taken for Russian, followed by a gaggle of girls followed by 
the rest of us. At one point we had to cross a bridge guarded by three 
Russians. We dealt with them easily: I think they were too stunned by the 
sight of us to fire immediately, and by then it was too late, we were upon 
them. Three of the girls at once appropriated the Russian greatcoats and 
peacocked over the bridge in them. 

'Bleeding women,' muttered the Legionnaire. 'If we get caught with them 
dressed up like that we'll be shot as spies before you can so much as blink.' 
'Probably be shot anyway,' I said, morosely. 

When the Russian tanks entered the little Rumanian village that we had so 
hastily vacated, the first sight to meet their eyes was the body of Olga hanging 
from the flagstaff, with the large notice containing the one word, TRAITOR, 
slung round her neck. For almost twenty minutes the Russians directed their 
shells at the deserted villa, and then came to the conclusion that perhaps 
there was no one at home. There was a long discussion on the possible 
identity of the hanged woman, and the conclusion was reached that she must 
have been a partisan, a heroine, killed by a band of fascist pigs. Her body – or 
what was left of it after the intensive shelling of the villa - was first of all 


photographed hanging from the flagstaff then cut down and buried with full 
military honours. 

Her grave may be seen today. On the headstone are the words: 

'Here lies Olga Geiss. She fell in the cause of liberty.' 

It must have been round about the same time as the funeral was taking place 
that Porta and Little John, crouching side by side on the ground to fulfil the 
requirements of nature, had a rather basic discussion on life and death and 
things in general. 

'Hitler,' remarked Little John, regarding a photograph on the page he was 
busy ripping from a newspaper. 

Porta grunted. After a bit, he also ripped out a page. 

'Hm... I've got Stalin,' he commented. 

There was a moment of silence. 

'Not bad quality, this newspaper.' Porta stood up and adjusted his trousers. 
'Quite soft and smooth. Almost as good as a real bog roll.' 

They folded up the rest of the pages and put them in their pockets for future 
use. Together they strolled back on to the road. 

'I wonder?' said Little John, thoughtfully. 'D'you reckon it could be called high 
treason to wipe your bum with a picture of Adolf?' 

Porta took his time, weighed the question in the balance, sifted the pros and 
the cons. 

'Probably,' he agreed, after much deliberation. 

Little John nodded. 

'I thought so... Pity it was only a picture.'