Guns At Cassino (27 page)

Schulze
sighed.

`It's
a sore temptation, sir. So close - all hot and steaming - and yet so far.'

Von
Dodenburg chuckled and led them cautiously past the strange house.

The
hours passed. They stumbled on slowly, hanging on to the tunic of the man in front, only kept on their feet by their desire to escape and von Dodenburg's inspired leadership. Now, he, Schulze and Schwarz, bringing up the rear, were carrying three rifles, each of soldiers too weary to bear the weight themselves. Kilometre after kilometre. The rattle of the small arms fire grew fainter. Now the only sound was the steady rumble of the heavies pounding the flaming peak of Monte Cassino. But the burning mountain, soon to be consumed by the Allied fire, served its purpose for them. For von Dodenburg in the lead it acted as a bearing. But even as he marched northwards, he realized that those flames which guided them also symbolized the end of Germany's hopes in the south of Italy. The Cassino Front was finished. Now the great race for Rome would begin. And from there? Who knew? One thing was certain, he told himself, biting back the pain of his blistered feet and his broken nose, Wotan would never be wasted again. Whenever the elite of the SS were used again, he would ensure that they would be employed only in the decisive battles. They had gone through too much to be thrown away at the whim of the men in Berlin. From now onwards, he would decide on their employment.

`If
we are to dig our own graves,' he whispered to himself, his teeth gritted with pain, 'we shall make our own decisions where they will be ...’

Just
before dawn they began to run into well-organized defensive positions: a marked minefield, barbed wire entanglements, the first hump of a well dug-in and camouflaged forward observation post. They overcame the minefield easily, crawling along in three lines with Schulze, von Dodenburg and Schwarz prodding for the flat mines with their bayonets. They turned out to be Schuh mines.

`Do
you think they are our own positions?' Schwarz asked, wiping his wooden hand across his sweat-drenched brow.

`Could
be,' von Dodenburg replied. 'Anything's possible. The front is so terribly confused. But let's assume the Tommies are waiting for us at that F.O.P. (1) We'll take it easy.'

They
pushed closer to the wire. A young corporal still had a pair of wire clippers. He crawled up to them and began to snip through the first rusty strand.

Whistles
shrilled. White alarm flares hushed into the dawn sky alarmingly. The spandaus began to hiss their deadly song. Red tracer started to cut the air low over their heads; and Schulze screamed hysterically:

`We're
home, lads! We're home! The shitting stubble-hoppers are just letting off a few fireworks to welcome us, that's all.'

They
collected themselves behind the infantry battalion's CP. Most of them were swaying dangerously now. The stubble-hoppers had sacrificed their schnapps ration for these torn, bloody survivors of Peak 555. Its effect had been disastrous on them.

Von
Dodenburg, a silly grin on his bloody face, looked at them. They were a sorry-looking lot for Germany's elite. Uniforms ripped and torn, faces covered in white dust and blood, they looked like a bunch of scarecrows. He felt his nose gingerly. It seemed twice the normal size. He looked down at his uniform. One trouser leg was gone and the sole of his right boot flapped like an extra tongue. Obviously he looked no better than his men did.

`Watch
it,' he bellowed through cracked lips. The command did not seem right somehow, but it had its effect. The battered survivors of the battle for the Peak came to a semblance of 'the pre-attention position. 'Battalion – battalion, attention!'

`But
Major,' the infantry CO cried. 'The trucks to pick you up - ' The words died on his lips.

`Battalion
– right turn!'

The
hundred men left turned right.

`Forward
– forward march!'

While
the infantry gaped at them as if they were crazy, the survivors of Wotan began to limp after their officers, their pain-wracked faces set and determined, heads down as if they could go on for ever. The infantry Major shook his head in puzzled despair.

`The
SS, gentlemen,' he murmured, turning to his officers, `the shitting courageous SS.'

And
behind them, emerging from the fog of war like some great ship, Peak 555 glowed in the sun of the new day, its summit littered with the thousand bodies of the young men from Wotan who would never rise and fight again. But the survivors limping northwards with the retreating German Army did not look back. Peak 555 was the past. However grim and uncertain, theirs was the future.

Twenty-On
e

On that June 5th, the Commander of the US Fifth Army, General Mark Clark drove proudly into Rome. The Italian capital had fallen at last and he luxuriated in the applause of the crowds and the broad smiles of the sweating triumphant dog-faces, marching through on their way north, flowers sticking out of the muzzles of their Garands. Pearson, at the wheel of the General's immaculate jeep with outsize lieutenant-general's stars, grinned to himself. Clark was really enjoying this moment: the tangible sign of his breakthrough at Cassino.

Just
short of the Colosseum, the crowds of screaming, flag-waving Italians made them stop momentarily.

`Goddam
dagoes,' Clark muttered under his breath, but he responded to their hysterical enthusiasm with an imperial wave of his hand. Next to the jeep a young soldier in a similarly stalled infantry company took his eyes off the great Roman landmark and whistled softly:

`Jesus,
General,' he said in awe, 'I didn't know that our bombers had done that much damage to Rome.'

Clark
laughed. But as the mob of screaming Romans parted to allow them through, he snapped to Pearson:

`Stupid
dumbell. But make a note of it, Pearson - I'll need it for my memoirs.'

‘Y
essir, General,' Pearson cried as he put the jeep into first. `Roger.'

Under
his breath, he muttered,
'Memoirs
- oh, my aching back!'

With
Clark directing him, Pearson picked his way through the crowded streets, trying to find the Capitoline Hill, on which was located the Town Hall. Clark was intent on getting the full mileage out of his conquest. Like an old Roman General, he intended that the city should surrender itself to him formally; and behind him the next jeep was full of photographers so that the historic moment could be recorded for posterity - General Mark Clark, conqueror of Rome.

After
half an hour of twisting and turning through the crowded streets, they were lost, Pearson sweating and angry, and the General very nervous. Finally they were forced to ask a shock-haired, shirt-sleeved youth the way. Thus the twentieth century conqueror of the old imperial city drove to accept its surrender, led by a teenager on an ancient racing bike, shouting excitedly for everyone to get out of the way because
il
Generale
Clark
was on his way to the Capitoline Hill.

Finally
Pearson spotted the big balcony from which Mussolini, the deposed Duce, had once harangued his 'new Romans', who were now cheering their new master with Latin abandon. Solemnly Clark got out of his jeep and pushed his way through the crowd. He marched up the slope of the hill towards the great door of the Town Hall. The crowd fell silent. Pearson, marching stiffly behind the tall General, felt instinctively that they were awaiting some dramatic gesture from Clark. Imperiously Clark halted in front of the oaken door. He formed his fist into a club and struck it. There was a hollow boom, but nothing else. No one came to open at the command of the captain who had come three thousand miles to conquer the 'mother of all cities'. He struck another blow on it. Still no response. Angrily he seized the iron handle and turned. The door did not open.

`For
Chrissake, Pearson,' he cursed, turning red-faced, 'the goddam stinking door's locked!'

`Ah
well, General,' Pearson consoled the crestfallen commander, as they wandered somewhat shame-faced through the disappointed crowds back to their jeep, 'at least you've beaten General Eisenhower into France.'

Clark's
craggy face brightened.

`Sure!
Of course.' He chuckled softly. 'Wouldn't I give something to see Ike's face now! He sure will be riled when he sees me in the headlines all over the front pages tomorrow.'

It
was June 5th, 1944. Eisenhower's great invading armada was already at sea. Tomorrow would be D-Day.

And on that same day of hollow triumph for their commander,
the Poles were collecting their dead from Peak 555 and Monte Cassino. Soon they would erect a cemetery for the four thousand who had fallen, with a memorial, which would dominate the shattered height, long after its scars had been hidden by the process of time. The inscription on it would be simple:

`We
Polish soldiers

For
our freedom and yours

Have
given our souls to God

Our
bodies to the soil of Italy

And
our hearts to Poland.'

And
one hundred and fifty kilometres away, the survivors of Wotan celebrated their last day in Italy, before they returned to the Reich to reform. They spent it in the same way as they had spent every day since the breakout: drunk and in the brothels of Milan's red light district, greedily trying to make up for the lost days on the mountain.

The
new Colonel von Dodenburg, commander-designate of the Wotan Battle Group, made love to the Countess Lisa for the last time. She wanted to talk. But he kissed her violently, brutally, thrusting her back on the eighteenth-century bed. He wanted to forget what must come: the blood, the stench of war, the stink of men in unwashed, battle-stained field-grey, the mass graves filled with shattered bodies.

Now
his eager hands groped beneath the tight silk skirt. The expensive white blouse burst open to reveal her generous, olive-skinned breasts. He pressed his blond head to them greedily like a hungry child. She stared down at him, her dark eyes full of tears. He left her breasts with his lips. Their half-open mouths pressed together passionately. Their tongues flickered back and forth. Desire overcame him. He tore the expensive clothes and spread-eagled her on the big bed, her black underwear strewn everywhere. Her red fingernails ripped the length of his muscular back. He thrust himself between her legs. She whimpered as passion overcame her and she answered his desire. Her slim body rose and fell wildly, her mouth open, the red lips slack. And when he had finished and fallen to one side, gasping like an old man, the tears of parting flowed down her beautiful dark-skinned face, again unheeded.

In
Madame Rosa's 'House of the Tight Little Whore', there was no time for love – just money. The new Senior Sergeant Schulze of Battle Group Wotan knew it too. He dumped the dirty bundle of Liri notes in front of the vast-bosomed Madame with her frizzed dyed hair piled up at least half a metre above her face.

`Money,'
he said thickly, swaying dangerously, 'earned honestly by flogging what's left of our rations on the black market - before those shitting kitchen-bulls. Now,' he took another swig of the
grappa
bottle, 'where's the cunt?'

To
make his meaning quite plain, he poked a dirty forefinger through a circle made with the thumb and forefinger of the other hand. If Madame Rosa did not understand the slurred drunken flow of German, she certainly understood the money and the gesture. Her forbidding look vanished.

`I
have a nice little blonde,' she said carefully. 'Only fourteen – hardly been touched. Or a dark-haired one? You Tedeschi like them dark - '

`I
want
all
of 'em,' the red-faced Schulze bellowed.
'Capisce
–
all
of
'em
!
'
He leaned forward and thrust an experimental hand up the Madame's skirt.

Pushing
him aside irritably, the Madame clapped her plump, beringed hands.

‘
Ragazzi
,
'
she called, 'customers.'

They
came in swaying and simpering on their high heels, clad in their multi-coloured transparent
crêpe
de
chine
lingerie. The Madame's vast bosom seemed about to burst out of its tight black silk cage with pride.

`My
girls,' she announced proudly, as they lined up in front of Schulze.

`Well,
I'll go and piss up my sleeve,' Schulze breathed. 'All that meat and no potatoes! Now they're really something. All right, Mother, I'll have her,' he indicated a ripe blonde in black lace cami-knickers, 'and the one with the tits under her chin. Give me that box of Parisians there.' He picked up the box of contraceptives. 'We Prussians like to keep our powder dry, you know?' He patted the blonde on her plump, black-lace bottom. `All right, you and your friend get yourselves upstairs and in between the sheets, ready for Daddy. But don't waste any of it before I come up.