The Commissar Read online

  ‘Not a lot o’ gold teeth in this lot,’ remarks Tiny disappointedly, nosing around in the blood-spattered vehicle.

  ‘Perfumed officers’ cigarettes with paper mouthpieces,’ says Porta, putting some blue packets into his specially-made poacher’s pockets.

  ‘Any seegars?’ asks Tiny, turning over a body, with an unpleasant squelching sound.

  ‘Are you out of your mind, man?’ answers Porta. ‘Stalin’s officers don’t smoke cigars. That’s capitalistic!’

  ‘Lucky for us then we’re bleedin’ capitalists, ‘Tiny laughs noisily, picking up a bottle of vodka, one of the finest kind with the old Russian czarist eagle on a royal blue label. A vodka which only the top party leaders get supplied with.

  Two grimy panzer grenadiers come along, dragging a screaming, half-naked woman with them. She tries desperately to tear herself loose, but they only tighten their grip on her.

  ‘You’re goin’ with us, you little cat, whether you want to or not,’ grins one of them, lasciviously. ‘You’re gonna get the chance to enjoy the war in our company. We’re gonna ’ave an orgy, with sighs’n everythin’ else as belongs with it.’

  But the terrified girl obviously does not want to take part in an orgy. She kicks one of the grenadiers on the knee. He lets out a chain of shocking oaths, and grips her roughly by the throat with one filthy, wet fist.

  ‘Listen to me, you little wildcat,’ he snarls, wickedly. ‘Get civilized or I’ll smash your pretty little face in. Panjemajo*, you Bolshevik bitch? It’s a longtime since me’n my mate’ve had any fresh goods. Panjemajo, Bolshy? You’re goin’ to an orgy, an’ you’re gonna be the main attraction. Panjemajo?’

  ‘Da,’ she whispers, in terror, and seems to give up all attempt at resistance.

  ‘The party’s over,’ snarls the Old Man, swinging his mpi muzzle round to cover the three. ‘Let ’er go! Now! Or would you rather we had a fast little court-martial?’

  ‘Now I’ve heard it all,’ shouts the biggest of the two panzer grenadiers, pushing his helmet to the back of his head. ‘Been chewin’ on wood, ’ave you? Belt up, you puffed-up excuse for a dragoon, you!’

  They have let go of the girl and fumble for the machine-pistols hanging across their chests. They have not seen Tiny and Porta standing behind them.

  ‘Get ’em up! Let’s see you try to tickle the angels’ footsoles, my sons,’ trumpets Porta, grinning happily.

  Both panzer grenadiers swing round with mpis at the ready. Bullets snarl angrily past Porta’s face.

  Reflexively, Tiny cuts the grenadiers almost in two with a scythe-like burst from his Kalashnikov.

  One goes down, internal organs flopping from his open gut. The other is thrown onto his back, and tries to crawl under the tracks . of the tank.

  ‘Bye-bye, then,’ grins Tiny. ‘See what ’appens to little boys as gets caught tryin’ to pinch a piece o’ cunt!’

  ‘Was that necessary?’ asks the Old Man, fretfully, pushing his helmet up from his face.

  ‘What you bleedin’ want us to do, then? Them two blue-bollocked bastards was gonna shoot us to death,’ protests Tiny, outraged.

  ‘The way of the world,’ sighs Porta. He pushes at the nearest body with the toe of his boot. ‘Him as shoots first lives longest!’

  The Old Man takes a deep breath. As he crawls back down through the turret opening he breaks into a mad burst of laughter. He knows very well that this war is eating us all up. To protest against the cruelty of death is completely useless.

  ‘Where’d the bint get to,’ asks Porta, looking searchingly around him.

  ‘There she goes, runnin’ like mad,’ laughs Tiny, pointing. ‘’Ad enough of us Germans, seems like.’

  Bullets from an MG whip along the fronts of the houses, throwing earth and mortar over the jeep. The big, soft lump of fear is back in our throats.

  ‘Come on,’ says the Old Man. ‘Let’s move!’

  ‘Can I borrow that big feller’s uniform?’ asks Tiny.

  ‘What the devil do you want with that?’ asks the Old Man, wonderingly. ‘Haven’t you got uniform enough in the one Adolfs lent you?’

  ‘You ain’t forward-lookin’ enough,’ grins Tiny, cunningly. ‘When “Grofaz”*’as lost ’is war, and we get enrolled in the other FPO’s lot, it’ll be a good thing to ’ave a uniform of your own to start off with.’

  ‘You’re lookin’ for a miracle, son,’ laughs Porta.

  ‘Are we to understand then,’ asks Julius Heide, his eyes narrowing to slits, ‘that you’re turning your back on the Führer and the Reich, and no longer believe wholeheartedly in the Final Victory? I wonder what the NSFO’ll† have to say to that when I hand in my report.’

  ‘What a shit that Julius is,’ Tiny bellows with laughter. ‘The turd o’ the world, an’ never goin’ to get no cleverer.’

  ‘He’s what he is,’ Porta takes it up. ‘A real man o’ the new times. A well-trained German soldier who shits an’ eats by numbers, an’ turns his toes in an’ feels happy as a sodding lark long as he’s in company with patriotic nuts’n close-cropped generals with a window in one eye. Heil Hitler!’

  ‘I’ve got all that written down, mark my words, Ober-gefreiter Porta,’ snarls Heide, affrontedly. ‘You’ll have to repeat every word of it at your court-martial. The day you dangle’ll be the happiest day of my life!’

  ‘Better get crackin’ then, my boy, ’fore the untermensch turn up. Or it’ll be me, Obergefreiter by the grace of God Joseph Porta, who’ll be puttin’ his weight on the other end of the rope,’ answers Porta, blowing down the barrel of his mpi.

  ‘Up, you lazy men!’ the Old Man scolds them. ‘Here comes Löwe. Get your thieving fingers off them Russian bodies! It’s a court for you, else! You know what that means?’

  ‘Bye, bye napper,’ says Tiny, patting his own cheek lovingly.

  Porta has just time to lift the Russians’ identification papers.

  ‘Also saleable,’ he grins as he sidles down through the tank turret opening.

  ‘When this German world war’s all over, there’ll be coppers in personal documents. Everybody’n his brother’ll be standing in line to get a new start in life.’ He chuckles away to himself at the idea.

  ‘Jesus, but I’m tired,’ groans Barcelona, when the section makes a halt, a couple of hours later, in an open square. They are all hoping the halt means a rest period for them.

  Suddenly the square is swarming with Russian soldiers. Some are armed to the teeth, others only half-dressed under their long khaki cloaks, which stream out in the wind. They have one thing in common. Their hands are stretched up above their heads and they are shouting: ‘Tovaritsch*’, the universal appeal for permission to remain alive. Strangely enough life seems only to begin to be really valuable to us when we have given up all hope and all ambition.

  The Old Man swings down wearily from his turret onto the slush-covered cobblestones.

  Hordes of Russian infantrymen, with grey, hopeless faces, push and shove their way past him. Only with difficulty can he keep himself from being carried along with them.

  ‘Think they were rushin’ to get in an’ see the latest porno movie wouldn’t you?’ crows Porta. ‘Mind you don’t get taken prisoner along with them, Old Un. We don’t want to lose you like that!’

  Tiny’s huge body blocks the side hatch of the tank. Mouth agape, he stares at the khaki-clad flood of humanity streaming around the vehicle. It fills the whole street from side to side. There is the burnt-out wreck of a tramcar in its path. The stream goes over, not round, it.

  ‘’Oly Russian mum o’ Kazan,’ cries Tiny, in amazement. ‘It’s the ’ole bleedin’ Red Army, it is. Never ’ave I ever laid eyes on that many Russians at one time in all me German bleedin’ life!’

  ‘Hold on to your maidenheads, my sons,’ says Porta, dropping back down into the tank. ‘If that lot o’ tired heroes gets to thinkin’ how many they are an’ how few we are, then our heroic participation in this fucked-up war’ll be over ’fo
re we know it.’

  ‘Stone the crows,’ howls Tiny fearfully. He slides rapidly back into the tank and clangs the shutters to. ‘Let’s get out of ’ere!’

  Barcelona’s eight-wheeled Puma armoured clean-up waggon slides to a crashing halt. Its long, 75 mm gun juts threateningly from the low turret. It sideswipes the burnt-out tramcar with a screech of metal. Some Russians are caught under the heavy wheels. They scream heart-renderingly. Other soldiers pull them free and help them away. We hardly notice. This is everyday fare for us. There are too many prisoners anyway. Who cares about a few more or less?

  Barcelona leans from the turret, pushes his huge dust-goggles up onto his helmet, and shouts something indistinguishable.

  Albert’s black African face bobs up out of the driver’s aperture.

  ‘Bow-wow!’ he barks, with a flash of shiny, white teeth at the Russian prisoners. They jump back in alarm at the sight of a German negro.

  ‘They think he’s goin’ to eat them,’ grins Porta in Berlin gamin style. ‘It’ll all be in Pravda in a few days’ time. Capitalist foes using cannibal troops!’

  ‘Stop that cursed motor,’ the Old Man boils up, irritably. ‘You can’t hear yourself think!’

  ‘You are in a bad mood,’ says Barcelona, with a broad smile. ‘Liven up! This war’s only the start of something much, much worse. I’ve got a little message of greetings with me from Staff HQ. Get your arses in gear, boys, an’ fast. Up front you go, and knock off some of the godless heathen, so those who’re left alive can sneak off back where they came from. This is what we’re getting paid for, you know. I’m to follow on as number three.’

  ‘Who’s two?’ shouts Porta from his driving-slit.

  ‘The “Desert Wanderer” in his P-IV,’ giggles Barcelona, happily. ‘He’s used to lookin’ out for camels, from his apprenticeship in the Sahara.’

  ‘Camels?’ asks the Old Man, blankly. ‘There’s no blasted camels in this war? Are there?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ answers Barcelona. ‘Before you know it you’ll have a camel’s nose up your jacksey, my friend. Ivan’s sent over a whole camel division from the Kalmuk steppe.’

  ‘Holy Mary, mother of Jesus,’ shouts Porta, delightedly, ‘then I can do us camel steaks. I’ve got a wonderful recipe for them that was given to me by a Bedouin, in grateful appreciation of my not running him over when we invaded France. Listen . . .’

  ‘Not a blasted word will I hear out of you about food,’ states the Old Man.

  ‘What shiny-arsed bastard’s found out it ’as to be us again?’ asks Tiny, peeping cautiously over the edge of the hatch. The pure number of Russian prisoners going past us is still making his blood run cold.

  ‘The Divisional Commander,’ answers Barcelona, with a look on his face so haughty you’d think that he himself was the Chief of Staff. ‘Herr General Arse-an’-Pockets wants some new silver to hang round his neck, an’ we’re the boys who’re goin’ to put it there. By the way, I hear Gregor got four threes in the black hole for smashin’ up Arse-an’ -Pockets Kübel. The general ended up in a tree, boots, cap an’ all, an’ frightened the black ravens half to death. Gregor’s got the boot, and‘ll soon be back with us.’

  The Legionnaire’s P-IV can be heard starting up behind the tram terminus. The Maybach motors stall again and again. Ignitions whine time after time. Then thunderous explosions crash down the narrow side street. The horsepower of the mighty engines begins to take hold. The roar of exhausts splits the air and fills the whole street.

  Our motor catches immediately. A stench of petrol and hot oil spreads on the slush-damp air. The steel giants rattle up the steep alley, the earth shaking under their treads. Barcelona waves happily from the turret of his clean-up waggon, then disappears down inside and clangs the hatch shut behind him.

  With a swing, graceful as a skater’s figure-of-eight, the heavy eight-wheeled armoured vehicle disappears down the alley, slush spurting up from under its wheels.

  We roll recklessly on, behind us the Legionnaire in his P-IV. Cobblestones and earth fly up from our tracks. They tear grey wounds in the poorly-paved road surfacing.

  ‘Jesus, Jesus!’ cries Tiny, banging his fist down on a shell. ‘What a bleedin’ bill we’ll get if we ever’as to pay for all the damage we’re doin’ in this country. Reckon it’ll be clever to keep out o’ sight for a bit, when we’ve lost the final bleedin’ victory!’

  ‘What a lot of shit you talk,’ hisses Heide. He hammers viciously on the communicator, which has gone on strike again.

  ‘Listen to it,’ Porta laughs, jeeringly. ‘The Führer’s soldier’s goin’ sane. He’s calling Grofaz’s radio programmes a lot of shit.’

  ‘It’s no fault of the Führer’s,’ Heide corrects him. He shakes the radio. ‘It’s sabotage to install a pre-war radio in a brand-new Panther tank!’

  ‘Complain to Speer, then,’ Tiny suggests, grinning broadly. ‘It’s ’im as is doin’ the sabotage! Bleedin’ barmy to give a soddin’’od-carrier the job o’ runnin’ the ’ole war-industry, any road!’

  ‘Idiot,’ snarls Heide, beginning to dismantle the radio with quick, sure fingers. It begins to splutter, suddenly, and a babble of excited voices fills the tank. The whole network is overloaded with the voices of hysterical tank-commanders. They have all sighted the enemy positions at the same time, and guns begin to go off unordered. A 75 mm siege gun is hit by a German shell and goes up. Red-hot metal rains down.

  All at once we are wide awake. Tiredness disappears from our bodies. In a tank battle the fastest crew wins.

  I pump the foot-pedal and ready the gun. Then I see Barcelona’s Puma come roaring back toward us. Heide’s MG rattles nastily, sending a rain of tracer bullets across the river, which is covered with a heavy gruel of thick broken ice.

  ‘Get your finger out,’ shouts the Old Man, impatiently, banging his fist on my shoulder.

  ‘You’ve got your target! Fire at the muzzle-flash. Get on with it, man, if you don’t mind! Or do you want to get roasted alive?’

  Nervously, I rotate the turret a few degrees, but can still see nothing. Nothing but darkness and whirling snowflakes. Snow lies on the edges of the viewing-slits like wet cottonwool.

  ‘Fire then, you blasted idiot,’ shouts the Old Man, angrily. ‘D’you want to get the lot of us killed?’

  The brutal hammering of the two MGs fills the tank. Tracer tracks fumble about, with long silvery fingers, searching for enemy flesh.

  Barcelona’s Puma zig-zags back down the wide avenue, now cleared completely of Russian prisoners.

  Its three MGs spit out a heavy, rapid rain of tracer towards the grey-white river banks. The Russian infantry over there send back a storm of fire at us.

  ‘Give ’em three HEs,’ orders the Old Man, brusquely. ‘That’ll give the gun-crazy bastards something to think about!’

  A huge spout of mud, blood and snow goes up, as the HEs land between a couple of machine-gun nests. Tracer comes back at us, ricocheting in a mad dance between the trees lining the avenue.

  Two P-IIIs and a P-IV go up in a roaring sheet of petrol-explosion flame. The crews hang from their turrets, bodies crackling and bubbling like torches dipped in fat.

  A new sound mingles with the cacophony of this devil’s concert. The hollow, whining howl of Stalin organs.

  Forty-eight rocket shells come sailing through the air towards us. Long comet-tails of flame stretch behind them. Then, like clowns in a circus, their tails tip forward, and they drop vertically to the earth. They give us no feeling of being dangerous, but seem more like some strange kind of firework device. When they strike the earth our impression changes. The holes they make are tremendous, and the blast from them presses the air from our lungs.

  Cutting through the roar of the Stalin organs comes the shrill scream of an armour-piercing shell on its way towards us. With a deafening crack it strikes, boring through the front shield of Feldwebel Weber’s P-IV. It goes through it at an angle, and up into, and through, the tur
ret, taking Weber with it. He lands, with a soggy splash, out in the road. The lower part of his body is completely crushed. Blood pours from his shattered face.

  Two blood-spattered crewmen scramble from the P-IV, which has burst into flames. The driver has his hands over his face. He runs in circles, screaming like a madman, then collapses into the slushy snow.

  A P-III comes rumbling along at top speed. It passes over the driver, leaving nothing but shreds of flesh and bloody rags of uniform.

  ‘Come death, come sweet death,’ croons the voice of the Legionnaire from the radio speaker.

  The other crewman goes down across a heap of twisted metal rods, pierced through and through by a burst of tracer which seems to last for an eternity.

  Roars and howls fill the air like mad organ notes. The long tram terminus collapses in on itself like a house of cards. Nothing remains of it but twisted girders and an enormous cloud of brickdust and pulverized mortar. In the middle of the desolation a tramcar stands comically on end. I stare fiercely through the optical sight, but can still not find the target. I feel like tearing open the turret hatch and running, running as fast and as far as my legs can carry me.

  ‘Let’s take ’em,’ rages the Old Man, impatiently. ‘Can’t you see they’re rangin’ in on us? If you’re tired of life, then for Christ’s sake die an’ get it over with!’

  ‘I only wish the devil had that rotten swine who invented smokeless powder,’ I curse, furiously, and rotate the turret a further couple of degrees. ‘You used to be able to see when they fired their shit at you.’

  ‘Stop your complaining, son,’ says Porta. ‘World wars are as world wars have to be, and not the way you want ’em to be. Now we have smokeless powder, and that is what we have to live with.’

  ‘You can’t explain any bleedin’ thing to ’im,’ rumbles Tiny. ‘’E thinks with the tip of’is old John Thomas, ’e does!’

  I stare until my inflamed eyes hurt with staring. I turn the sights slowly and catch sight of the muzzle-flash of an 85 mm. Without removing my gaze from it for a second I adjust the sights. Lines and figures dance before my eyes. The long barrel of the gun sinks, as if it were nodding a greeting to its target.