Reign of Hell (18 page)

‘The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us if they will. We do not ask for their love; only for their fear
. . .’

Himmler. An address to SS officers at Kharkov. 19th April
1943.

Nicolas Kaminsky was a former schoolteacher from Briansk, in the Ukraine. His mother was Polish, his father German, and he was fiercely loyal to the Nazi cause. During the winter of 1941/2 he set out with a handful of like-minded fanatics to wage war against the partisans. He was thirty-five years old, and his cruelty became a byword. He was self taught in the art of killing slowly by degrees and was reputed to have invented more tortures than the Chinese had.

Himmler heard of him through Obergruppenführer Berger, and instantly began to take an interest in him. He had him brought to Berlin, where he developed a considerable respect for the man’s ability to inflict pain upon his fellow-human beings. From that moment on, the Ukranians achieved almost equal status with Germans in the eyes of the Reichsführer.

Kaminsky’s career was meteoric. Despite the initial handicap of not belonging to one of the superior Germanic races, he nevertheless became an SS Brigadenführer and divisional general in the Waffen SS in little under three months. His powers were such that not even the highest-ranking officers in the Army dared speak out against him.

Towards the end of 1942, General Kaminsky conceived the idea of making a German republic of the province of Lokot, which was at that time overrun with partisans and guerrilla fighters. His brigade consisted of six thousand men, mostly deserters from the Russian Army. It was composed of eight infantry battalions, one tank battalion, two sections of artillery, one section of Cossacks and a company of pioneers. In less than two years, Kaminsky and his six thousand had
confounded their critics by sweeping the province of Lokot clear of all troublemakers and annexing it to Germany.

In the spring of 1943, Himmler had the Brigade transferred to the region of Lemberg, in Poland, and there Kaminsky surpassed himself, spreading death and destruction wherever he went. His name became synonymous with hatred and with terror; but ‘we do not ask for their love; only for their fear . . .’

‘Sergeant Beier! Sergeant Beier!’

We were playing a peaceable game of pontoon when we heard the call. Porta raised an eyebrow at the Old Man, and the Old Man continued calmly to smoke his stinking pipe and study his hand.

‘I’ll buy another,’ he said. Tiny gave him a card. A slow smile of satisfaction spread itself over the Old Man’s face. ‘I can’t bust,’ he said, and he laid down his hand on the ammunition box that served as our table.

Tiny scowled and threw a fifth card towards him.

‘Sergeant Beier!’ The call came again. ‘Has anyone round here seen Sergeant Beier?’

I closed up my cards and made as if to throw them away.

‘I think someone’s shouting for you,’ I said. I had a vague sort of hope that we might be able to chuck the hand in. I had been dealt an ace, and it had gone to my head. I had staked the whole of my next year’s pay on a ten or a court card turning up to go with it, and had ended up with a handful of rubbish. ‘Some chap from an anti-tank section,’ I said, twisting my head round to see.

He noticed me looking at him and came up at once.

‘Sergeant Beier?’ he said. His eyes rested a moment on each one of us in turn and settled at last on the Old Man. ‘Are you Sergeant Beier?’ he demanded. ‘I’ve been looking for you for the past thirty minutes! Where the hell have you been?’

‘Right here all the time,’ murmured the Old Man. ‘What’s the panic?’

‘You’re to get your section together and come with me. Lieutenant-Colonel Schmeltz is already on the way with an assault group, and you’re supposed to be joining them. They’re over on the far side of the river. I’ll show you the way.’

‘Go and get knotted,’ said Porta, without taking his eyes
off the cards. ‘We’ve got better things to do . . . twist me one, and make it small—’

Tiny obligingly turned up a six. The Old Man stared wistfully at his five-card trick, torn between the call of duty and the lure of a large sum of money. I was in the same position myself, but in my case the choice was somewhat easier to make. I flung down my cards, snatched up my rifle and hastily jumped to my feet, accidentally overturning the ammunition box as I did so. Tiny looked at me sourly.

‘Some of us are mighty eager to go off and get themselves killed,’ he said.

‘Not at all,’ I retorted. I crammed my cap on my head and pulled my belt a notch tighter. ‘I just don’t like the thought of keeping a lieutenant-colonel waiting.’

‘Friend of yours?’ sneered Tiny, who knew perfectly well that I had been sitting there with a handful of rubbish and praying for deliverance.

Porta’s old mate Wolf turned up to watch us go.

‘My compliments to Old Nick,’ he said. ‘Looks like you’ll be meeting up with him before I will . . .’

I had an uncomfortable feeling that we probably should. For all my expressed anxiety not to keep Lieutenant-Colonel Schmeltz waiting for us, there was something about this particular mission that I instinctively disliked.

Our guide hustled us across the bridge in a hail of shellfire. On the other side of the river the ground rose quite steeply, and before we had gone very far we found ourselves in single file struggling up a narrow slope which seemed almost vertical.

‘Talk about the bleeding Devil,’ grumbled Tiny, as we puffed and panted and slipped all over the place. ‘More likely to meet Saint bleeding Peter the way we’re going.’

Our guide turned his head to look at him.

‘You could well be right,’ he said. ‘You could very well be right.’

The Old Man paused for a moment to get his breath.

‘What exactly is this?’ he demanded.

‘What is it?’ The guide also paused. He planted his hands
on his hips and smiled derisively. ‘Well may you ask! It’s a bloody suicide mission, that’s what it is. If you take my advice you’ll cut loose and get the hell out of it just as soon as you can, and before the Reds come down and cut you off.’ He jerked his thumb back towards the bridge. ‘How much longer do you think that’s going to be there?’

The Old Man stood frowning.

‘How about you?’ he said.

‘Me?’ The man laughed. ‘I’m shoving off again the minute I’ve got you safely up there, don’t you worry! I’m not staying to see the bloodbath!’

We reached the top at last and reported to the Lieutenant-Colonel, who looked like something left over from the Flood. His veined hands trembled and his eyes were sad and baggy. Doubtless war was not what it used to be in the days of his youth.

The captain of the regiment we were relieving gratefully handed over to the Colonel.

‘This path here,’ he said, pointing to the narrow slope up which we had just toiled, ‘is the only route the Russians can use to mount an attack. There’s no other way up or down. As you can see, it can easily be held by a couple of machine-guns. We don’t usually get into any trouble at night, it’s a bit risky, but during the day—’ He paused, and shrugged. ‘Well, anyhow, you should be able to hold it a few hours longer. That’s all that’s necessary. Just a few hours, that’s what the General said . . . Just hang on until you see the signal to pull out, and then run like bloody hell. We’ll send up three flares. Three green flares. The minute you see them, give the order for retreat and get back to the bridge at the double before it’s blown up. There’s no other way across the river, so you don’t want to run the risk of getting yourselves cut off.’

We took up our positions as indicated to us by our guide. High up in the rocks where we now were, there were naturally made parapets and loopholes. The captain and his men pulled out. All round us were boxes of ammunition, baskets of mortar grenades, piles of mines and hand grenades.

Tiny jumped about in the midst of them like an excited child, liberally helping himself to a little of everything.

‘So this is where they’ve been hiding it!’ He snatched up a fistful of grenades and began juggling them. ‘I haven’t seen nothing like this since 1937!’

‘God knows what it’s all doing up here,’ said Barcelona, who had been silent and disgruntled ever since we arrived. ‘Fat lot of chance we’ll ever have to use any of it.’ He waved a hand down the hillside. ‘We’re nothing but sitting ducks, perched up here on this lump of bleeding rock. A blind man with a pea-shooter could hardly miss us.’

‘Why don’t you give your arse a chance and shut up bleeding moaning?’ said Porta. ‘At least we’re out of those piss-awful sodding trenches.’

‘I’d sooner be sitting in a trench than stuck up here for target practice,’ retorted Barcelona.

Porta ignored him. He settled himself comfortably within a circle of rocks, took out his square of green baize and spread it over the ground.

‘Anyone fancy a game?’ he said.

The Legionnaire and the Old Man joined him. I picked up a cow-bell which was lying about and experimentally shook it. The noise it made sent everyone diving for cover with their hands pressed against their ears. I have to admit, I was a bit disconcerted myself.

‘You do that once more,’ panted Barcelona, as the last clanging echoes died away in the mountains, ‘and you’ll get my boot right up your flaming arse!’

Gingerly, I laid the bell on a patch of grass.

‘How did I know it was going to make such a bloody awful racket?’ I said. ‘I’m not a perishing cow, am I?’

I sat and brooded while the rest of them resumed their interrupted game of pontoon. From time to time the Colonel came doddering round to take a look at us. Despite all the years behind him, it seemed that this was the first time he had ever been nobbled for the front line, and it was plain he was scared to death.

Tiny was still dragging round his appointed slave, the
ex-Gestapo, Adam Lutz. By now, the man was but a pale shadow of his former fat self, but by some miracle he had survived without so much as a scratch.

‘I reckon this is going to be your big chance,’ Tiny kindly informed him. ‘When they sound the retreat and the rest of us start pulling out, I’m going to leave you here to cover the pass and shoot as many Russians as you can. All right? Just stay put and fire like buggery until you run out of ammo. They’ll give you a medal for that.’

Lutz nervously licked his lips. Porta gave him an evil grin.

‘Don’t you worry, mate. You’ll go down in the annals of history, you will. You’ll make this Regiment famous. There’ll come a time when they’ll all be reading about you in their picture books . . . “ex-Gestapo Adam Lutz, who threw himself fearlessly into the midst of the oncoming horde. Although his left leg was blown off at the crutch by a Russian shell, he picked it up and waved it round his head like a club . . . He succeeded in slaying six hundred Siberian soldiers before he received his mortal blow, but tucking his head under his arm he fought on bravely for as long as his heart continued to pump . . .” Jesus God,’ said Porta, wiping the tears from his eyes, ‘ain’t that moving? To think that the Fatherland can still produce such heroes!’

‘Talking of heroes,’ said Gregor, ‘I wonder what’s happened to old man Weltheim?’

‘Weltheim?’

We looked at him, blankly. Who was Weltheim?

‘The name does ring a slight, far-off bell,’ admitted the Legionnaire.

It was not until Gregor jogged our memories that we realised who he was talking about: Walter Baron von Weltheim, our divisional commander, who had briefly inspected us in the mud and marshes of Matoryta, and had then gone on his way with his grand piano and his two lorry-loads of personal effects and never been seen or heard of since. The Legionnaire hunched a shoulder.

‘He’ll be safe and sound in some gold-plated bunker, no doubt. Sozzling gin and working out how he can give the
order for yet another strategic retreat and still manage to make it sound like a victory.’

‘He’s probably already given it,’ said Barcelona, gloomily. ‘The entire ruddy Army’s probably pissed off out of it by now. We’re the poor stupid sods left behind as a farewell gesture. Stuck up here on a lump of bleeding rock miles away from nowhere waiting to be slaughtered.’

‘Anyone as miserable as you are,’ said Tiny, ‘deserves to be bleeding slaughtered. Why don’t you stay behind with Lutz and earn yourself a medal?’

The Colonel was still restlessly pacing to and fro, waiting for the signal of the three green flares which never came, but shortly after midnight the horizon suddenly burst into flames and the rocky ground rumbled and shook beneath our feet as the Russians opened up with their heavy artillery.

‘What the devil is going on?’ cried Schmeltz, snatching up his field glasses. ‘Who the devil is firing at whom?’

‘It’s the Russians, sir.’ The Old Man, calm and sure of himself as always, took his stand at the Colonel’s side. ‘They’re moving up to attack while the troops are pulling out. They’d be mad not to. It’s the chance of a lifetime.’

He stared dispassionately across at the smoke-filled horizon. The Colonel dropped his field-glasses.

‘What should we do?’ he said. ‘They were going to give a signal. They were going to fire rockets for us. We were to stay here until we saw the flares—’ He passed a hand across his brow. ‘What do you suggest we do, Sergeant? You probably have more – ah – experience of this sort of – ah – terrain than I have. You have been in the area far longer. Tell me what you think we should do.’