Reign of Hell (16 page)

Quite suddenly, he came to a stop. The rest of us piled up
behind him. Silently, he motioned us into the shadow of the trees, and for one marvellous moment I thought we were going to turn back, but no such luck. We had stumbled upon the Russian front line, and the next step must be to go across and see what lay beyond.

‘The old boy’s losing his bleeding marbles,’ hissed Gregor, in my ear.

Beyond the parapet, we could hear the low murmur of voices, the rattle of arms, men’s footsteps. A twig cracked beneath Porta’s feet. It went off like a gunshot in the dark night, and automatically we braced ourselves for trouble. A head appeared briefly over the parapet. We heard voices speaking rapidly in Russian. The Old Man jerked his head.

‘Let’s go.’

He dropped to his hands and knees, and to our horror began to crawl straight for the Russian trenches. Even the Legionnaire seemed a trifle taken aback. He hesitated a moment, and we then saw that the Old Man was making for a break in the lines, at a point where it was just possible, given an unlikely amount of luck, that we should be able to pass unseen. The Legionnaire spread out his hands in a gesture of resignation. He set off in the wake of the Old Man and we had no option but to follow him.

Our luck, amazingly, held. Even when a hare came darting out of the undergrowth, running straight through Gregor’s legs and bringing him crashing to the ground, no one came to investigate. We crossed safely through the front line, and I was just beginning to breathe a little more easily when Tiny, walking at my side, unleashed one of the biggest, the boldest and the brassiest farts of all time. The Old Man turned on him in a cold fury.

‘You do that again and I’ll—’

Without waiting for him to finish his threat, Tiny promptly did it again. It cracked through the night like a cannon ball. Instinctively, we threw ourselves to the ground and rolled out of sight among the undergrowth. Even Tiny himself seemed somewhat appalled.

We picked ourselves up at last and cautiously moved forward, but before we had gone more than a few yards the Old Man again brought us to a halt. Somewhere in front was the sound of voices. We slid silently forward to investigate. We had come upon one solitary machine-gun, guarded by a couple of drunken Russian soldiers sharing a bottle of vodka, and we stood a while, listening as they talked. One was decidedly more drunk than the other. He was embracing the machine-gun with both arms, and in between gulps of vodka kept breaking into loud snatches of song about the Volga. His companion seemed understandably nervous. He glanced over his shoulder several times at the lurking trees and the tangled underbrush, and every now and again he said, ‘Hush, hush!’ and pushed the vodka bottle into the man’s mouth to shut him up. Finally, when the bottle was empty, he flew into a panic and threatened to knock his head off if he didn’t keep quiet. With drunken dignity, the man shouldered his rifle and staggered to his feet.

‘I shall take a turn,’ he said.

He clambered over the parapet and came singing and swaying in our direction. Angrily, his companion hurled the empty vodka bottle after him. It narrowly missed Gregor and landed with a thud at Porta’s feet. The Old Man tapped Tiny on the shoulder and nodded at him. Tiny nodded back. He slipped away in the darkness to deal with the drunken prowler. The Legionnaire pulled his knife out of his boot and disappeared in the direction of the machine-gun.

Minutes later, we were camouflaging a couple of corpses beneath a pile of damp leaves. One had been strangled with a thin strand of wire; the other had a knife in his ribs. We stripped them of their weapons and pushed them out of sight. It would be some time before their companions discovered they had gone, and their first thought, in all probability, would be that they had deserted. Our first thought, without any shadow of a doubt, was to return to our own lines post haste. Gregor even turned to go without waiting for the Old Man to give the order, and got bawled out for his pains.

‘We return when I say,’ said the Old Man, coldly, ‘and not before.’

‘Not ever, the rate you’re going,’ muttered Porta, mutinously.

The Old Man ignored him. It always was best to ignore Porta. He was a law unto himself, but an excellent soldier for all that, and the Old Man was not the first to discover that it was worth putting up with his continual insolence and lack of discipline for the sake of having him at your side in a crisis.

We moved on, deeper into the woods. It was the Old Man’s avowed intent to discover what lay on the far side, but by now we were beginning to view the whole expedition with a distinctly cynical eye. I had visions of him marching us all the way to Moscow just to take a look at the Kremlin.

At last the trees began to thin out and we knew that we must be approaching open country. We reached the edge of the wood, and there, spread before us like a patchwork quilt, was what appeared to be the entire Russian Army. A constant stream of men and vehicles were coming and going. It was not what I personally should have called a heart-warming spectacle, but it seemed to give the Old Man something of a thrill.

‘Good, good,’ he murmured, rubbing a hand reflectively over his chin. ‘That’s fine . . . We can be getting back now.’

All of us except the Legionnaire and the Old Man himself at once turned tail and ran. Tiny and Porta went galloping off into the wood with Gregor and me only a few yards behind. We caught up with them unexpectedly when they were tempted to pause in their headlong flight in order to investigate three dead bodies in a shellhole. Three dead officers, two Russian and one German. Tiny and Porta exchanged glances.

‘Can’t be bad,’ said Porta.

Together they jumped into the shellhole and began greedily to ransack the bodies in search of money and mementoes. Porta went through the pockets while Tiny yanked open the mouth to look for gold fillings. They had stripped them
almost bare by the time the Old Man and the Legionnaire appeared on the scene. The Legionnaire looked on dispassionately, but the Old Man, as usual, went almost berserk.

‘Get out of there this instant! Leave those bodies alone! I’ve told you before, I won’t stand for this sort of thing, it’s disgusting, you’re like a pair of wild animals! God damn it, you’re worse than wild animals!’

‘All right, all right,’ said Porta, amiably. ‘Keep your wig on. You’ll give yourself a rupture, carrying on like that.’

‘What’s all the fuss about?’ demanded Tiny, for all the world as if the Old Man were not there. ‘Sure as eggs is eggs, if we didn’t nick the stuff someone else would.’

With a howl of rage, the Old Man sprang into the shellhole beside them. As he did so, the night sky above us was suddenly illuminated by a flare, and instinctively we all dived for cover.

‘They’re on to us,’ said the Legionnaire, grimly. ‘Now we shall have some fun.’

Somewhere, a machine-gun started up. A shower of rockets tore up into the heavens and transformed night into day.

‘Scatter!’

We needed no second bidding. We took to our heels and raced hell for leather through the woods, crashing through the undergrowth, squelching across the boggy ground, tearing ourselves to shreds on thorns and brambles. We met up at last in an abandoned machine-gun post. Only Gregor was missing.

‘Where the hell is he?’ asked the Old Man, irritably. ‘Where the devil has he got to? Did anyone see him?’

No one had.

‘I’ll go and take a look,’ said Porta.

The Old Man at once shot out a hand.

‘I forbid you to move from here! That’s an order!’

‘Get stuffed!’ snarled Porta, shaking him off.

He disappeared into the trees, back the way we had come. We could hear him shouting as he ran.

‘Gregor? Where the bloody hell are you, you bloody fool?’

Instantly, the clamour of the Russian guns started up
again. Tracer bullets and flares flew overhead. The Old Man hesitated just a moment, then swore softly under his breath and sprang out into the open in pursuit of Porta. The rest of us immediately followed. We had been through too much together during the long course of the war to leave Gregor to the mercies of the Russians.

Menacing shapes appeared in the darkness. Porta scattered a handful of grenades and went on running. The rest of us surged after him. We discovered Gregor crouched all by himself in a foxhole, and we hauled him out indignantly.

‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing?’ demanded the Old Man. ‘Sitting down there twiddling your thumbs as snug as a bug in a blasted rug while we go chasing round in circles looking for you with nine million screaming Russians on our tail—’

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ said Gregor, sullenly. ‘I had the whole pack of them after me. I can’t be expected to take on the entire Red Army single-handed, can I?’

‘It would have served you bloody well right,’ snapped the Old Man, ‘if we’d left you there to rot!’

The rest of the journey was accomplished without incident. On the way back, Tiny informed us that according to Heide, who always knew everything there was to know and a great deal more besides, we were shortly to be sent to Warsaw.

There’s a hundred thousand British paratroops there, that’s what Heide said . . . one hundred thousand British paras, and the whole town swarming with Polish soldiers . . . we’ll be there by the New Year, that’s what Heide said.’

‘Oh yeah!’ jeered Porta. ‘I thought we was all going to be back in Germany in time for Christmas?’

It took us the better part of an hour to reach the comparative safety of our own lines. The Old Man went off to make his report, while the rest of us collapsed on to our mattresses to snatch what sleep we could. In the event, we couldn’t snatch any at all. Barely had we closed our eyes than the Old Man reappeared and shook us awake again.

‘I’m sorry, lads. They’re not through with us even yet.’ He
spread out his hands in an apologetic gesture. ‘The Pioneers are going to try to break the enemy lines and we’re being sent along to back them up.’

Porta’s camp bed almost collapsed with the shock. For a moment, we were all too flabbergasted to speak.

The Old Man smiled rather wearily.

‘I’m well aware that I’m not doing too well in the popularity stakes just at the moment, but I’m afraid it can’t be helped.’ He hunched a shoulder. ‘There is, after all, a war on—’

‘Get away!’ said Porta, with heavy sarcasm. ‘Who told you that?’

Gregor sat up and stared round piteously with sleep-crumpled eyes.

‘Why send us?’ he complained. ‘Why send anyone at all? Why can’t they clear the bloody place up with napalm?’

‘Because we’re running low on ammunition,’ said the Old Man, shortly. ‘I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s no use looking at me like that, I didn’t start the flaming war . . .’

Sullenly, we filed one by one out of the trench and fell in behind Lieutenant Löwe. We were carrying only essential assault kit. When you worked with the Pioneers, you worked fast: you didn’t clutter yourself up with any unnecessary gear. It seemed that on this occasion we were not even to be given the usual support of tanks. The war was growing grim indeed.

We found the Pioneers, five companies of them, constituting one battalion, all ready for the off and variously strung about with hand grenades, stick grenades, small arms, and a few napalm bombs of Russian origin. One company was armed with flame-throwers. They had a bad reputation, these Pioneers. We found them a strange, silent, uncommunicative bunch, and were only too willing to believe all the stories of their gratuitous cruelty both towards the enemy and one another. They ignored us completely from the moment we arrived, and when Porta asked if anyone had a cigarette to spare it was an officer who handed one over,
holding out a packet without a word, without even glancing in his direction.

‘What’s the matter with ’em?’ demanded Gregor, irritably. He turned on a dour-faced corporal who was picking at his teeth with a horny fingernail. ‘What’s the matter with you? Lost your bleeding tongues, have you?’

A fair enough question, one would have thought, but for some reason the corporal chose to take exception to it. Within seconds, he and Gregor were at each other’s throats, and from then on it was only a matter of time before everyone else was joining in. Tiny was just on the point of choking the life out of some terrified private when an angry voice called us to order, and we turned reluctantly to see who it was that was spoiling the fun.

It was our old friend the Major, who had had the contretemps with Colonel Hinka. He stood with his legs apart, his hands on his hips, looking us over with a cold, reflective eye as if we were a load of specimens for the research lab. Behind him, his face expressionless, stood Lieutenant Löwe.

‘If I were you,’ said the Major, drily, ‘I should reserve all your strength for murdering the enemy rather than one another. I can assure you that this is going to be no Sunday school outing.’ His eye roved round and suddenly lighted on Porta. ‘My friend the talkative corporal!’ he murmured. ‘Step forward and let me take a look at you. We must get better acquainted, you and I . . .’

Porta pushed his way belligerently to the front. The Major stared for a moment at the yellow top hat which Porta would insist on wearing wherever we went. He had had it since the beginning of the war, and officers who were wise learnt to live with it.

‘Take that abomination off your head!’ snapped the Major. ‘What the devil do you think this is? A fancy-dress ball?’