The Bloody Road To Death (Cassell Military Paperbacks) Read online

  The Legionnaire kicks him in the ribs and bangs his face down into the dusty ground.

  ‘He’s going to die,’ says Gregor.

  ‘That’s right,’ answers Skull, uninterestedly. ‘His own fault, ain’t it?’

  None of us pity him. The Old Man trusted him with the water supply and as a feldwebel he knew what it cost to steal water. The Old Man has no choice in the matter. If he lets Schmidt get away with it, the rest of us will be at one another’s throats over the water before nightfall. It’s not always fun to lead a unit, and it’s not in the Old Man’s line to watch a man run himself into the grave. But if he merely shoots Schmidt we’d hardly notice it. We’ve seen too many men shot. It’s an everyday thing to us. The first time we saw a man neck-shot we were sick to the stomach. Every man of us. Neck-shooting is probably the nastiest way of liquidating a man. The pistol muzzle is placed in the groove of the neck pointing upwards. There’s a report and the head twists almost entirely round. The brains flow down over the face. The body stiffens and falls like a log. The face often turns completely backwards.

  Now we can watch a man neck-shot without a qualm. We can even find it amusing. Not because we are particularly brutal. But because war has changed us. If it hadn’t we’d long since have become inmates of one of the Army asylums. Many have ended there.

  Schmidt collapses. The grenade-thrower cracks against the back of his neck. Both boxes of shells fall from his hands.

  ‘Bête! Up with you!’shouts the Legionnaire, in a rage. He jabs Schmidt with his bayonet, but there is no reaction.

  ‘Bastard! Shitty weak bastard!’shouts Tango, contemptuously.

  ‘Stick a cactus up his arse,’ suggests Buffalo. ‘That ought to give ’im a thrill!’

  The Legionnaire gets Schmidt on his feet again.

  ‘The Legion’s school,’ he laughs triumphantly. Soon after Schmidt is dead. He falls like a piece of paper dropped by a stilled wind.

  His body is left on an anthill. It is soon thickly covered with huge red ants.

  The Old Man gives the order to resume the march immediately.

  The next day we cross a plain of stones and shale. Not even cactus can grow here. Our tongues swell in our mouths like great pieces of dried-up leather. There is no more than a mouthful of water left for each man. Then the jerricans are empty.

  Two sod’s die without a sound. Not even the usual convulsive jerk. Death from thirst is a different kind of death.

  ‘Why couldn’t those bastards have kicked it before they’d hogged their water ration?’complains Tango.

  ‘Oh God, do you remember the time we fucked those Mongol girls under the waterfall?’shouts Porta.

  ‘T’ll shoot the next man who talks about water,’ screams Heide hoarsely.

  Skull discovers that the padre has a goatskin filled with water hidden under his gown.

  ‘Hand over that water, parson!’demands the Old Man, sharply, catching hold of him.

  ‘It is holy water,’ the padre smiles foolishly. ‘We must lave our feet in it before we enter the Temple.’

  With a comical hop he is up on a boulder. He holds the goatskin high above his head.

  ‘He ain’t washin’nobody’s feet in that goddam water,’ screams Buffalo madly.

  We make a ring about the padre. A ring which closes in on him threateningly.

  ‘It is holy water,’ he howls, ‘holy water from Dimitrovgrad!’

  ‘We don’t give a fuck if it’s the ‘igh priest o’Jerusalem’s own piss!’roars Tiny. ‘Give it ’ere you Easter bleedin’maniac’

  ‘He’s bringing us bad lucky shouts Barcelona furiously. ‘When I was with the Mountain Brigade, we had to drag a bastard like him about with us. Mahogany trees fell on us. The troop-transporter broke down. We walked straight into a minefield that cut us to ribbons. At Drutus the mountain rolled down on us. A month of it, we had! A Russki deserter – a commissar – convinced us finally it was all that pissin’parson’s fault. But you know the Mountain boys – missionaries to a blasted man. Singin’psalms over the poor dead ’uns and nobody’d do this parson in. The Russki did it for us. He was educated up to have no moral scruples about doin’a parson. He crept up behind ’im while he was gettin’round some Georgian clotted cream. Bang! And the parson’s brains’re mixed up with the cream. The very same evening, lads, our luck was back with us.

  ‘Everythin’went like a dream till we got to Elbruz where there was a new parson waiting for us. Off pisses our luck again. Eight days after he arrived the whole bloody Brigade’s sittin’up in Valhalla.’

  Fast as a cat the Old Man is up by the side of the padre, tears the goatskin from his hands and throws it to Porta.

  ‘You’re responsible to me for the contents!’

  ‘Well, well!’ Porta bows deeply. ‘You trust me that much? Even my old dad wouldn’t have. Least not since he caught me drinking from his private bottle of Slivovitz?

  We march steeply upwards and meet cactus again. Tiny’s body towers like the side of a house in front of me. His language is almost turning the air blue about him. When he stops I bang into him. He has the SMG, with tripod and all, strapped to his back. He seems tireless. He takes one step to my three. His size is abnormal. Huge muscles swell the tight-fitting uniform. His strength is abnormal. He can shoulder-charge a wall and down it goes. Breaking bricks with a single chop of the edge of his hand is child’s-play to him.

  Porta is confident that Tiny’s great-grandfather was a gorilla which had got loose from Hagenbeck and raped his great-grandmother. She was digging peat, says Porta, just outside the Zoological Gardens at the time. Tiny is quite proud of this anecdote.

  I get myself tangled in a patch of thorn. I bend to free myself and a branch whips across my face, ripping it open. Blood pours down. I stumble, and the long thorns go through my uniform and bore into the flesh like bayonets.

  Porta helps me out. The unit takes a break while the medical orderly extracts the poisonous thorns and treats the wounds. By afternoon I am swelling up and have a high fever. Luckily the orderly has a supply of serum. He bangs the needle into me straight through the uniform and camouflage jacket. It feels as if it goes straight into a lung. Raging I hit out at him with my Mpi. The needle snaps off as he jumps to safety.

  ‘You wicked monkey,’ he yells, pulling out his P-38. ‘I’ll teach you to lay your filthy hands on the Medical Corps!’

  His pistol cracks twice before the others reach him and wrest it from him. It takes him a long time to simmer down and even then he won’t touch me any more.

  A 500 who has had medical training removes the broken needle from my back.

  ‘Death by thirst is the worst death of all,’ says the Legionnaire, staring out over the stony desert. The air shimmers in the heat.

  We reach an impenetrable wall of scrub. The machetes cannot touch it.

  ‘Back!’orders the Old Man, setting his teeth.

  Despair and fear slowly take hold of us. It all seems hopeless.

  We hear violent firing – which seems to come from the other side of the hills. A Maxim stammers furiously and an MG-42 replies. The path leads us back into the bush.

  Porta recognizes a spot we have passed earlier. We halt, overcome by fatigue, and let ourselves drop to the ground.

  The Old Man studies the map carefully, wrinkling his brows and clattering the lid of his pipe. Stojko sits down and hums a peasant song.

  ‘Where the hell are you taking us?’shouts the Old Man, angrily, banging the map.

  ‘Why you mad, Herr feldwebel?’asks Stojko, wonderingly. ‘You crazy march compass 46. Needle run round and round all the time. But Bulgarian Guardsman always obey order. Only dumb soldier think self.’

  The Old Man snatches the compass and map from him.

  There’s nothing wrong with the compass!’he shouts, red in the face.

  But when Stojko comes near it the compass needle whirls crazily.

  The Old Man looks at Stojko.

  ‘What’ve you
got in your pockets, you Bulgarian assassin you?’shouts Porta.

  ‘Only thing I take use on farm when war over.’

  The Old Man searches him and turns up the better part of a dynamo.

  The magnet has, of course, affected the compass needle.

  The Old Man roars like a madman and throws the magnet far into the brush.

  ‘Feldwebel take care,’ Stojko warns him. ‘No make big noise. Bad cactus devil come. Cut with sharp machete knife! Cactus spirit no care you German, you Russki. Cut off turnip before you say “Heil Hitler”, they say “Red Front”. Spirit no like crazy man make big noise. You take much care. Sun go, bad devil come from cactus!’

  ‘Your bad devil can fuck me crossways,’ roars the Old Man, beside himself with rage.

  Stojko crosses himself three times and spins round in strange jerks. These are, apparently, protection against the cactus devil.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ whispers Tiny to me, crossing himself. He has a great respect for everything supernatural.

  ‘Why in the name of hell didn’t you take the road you knew?’shouts the Old Man in a fury.

  Stojko shakes his head despairingly and throws his hands wide. The sun glitters on his broad Royal Guards shoulder-straps.

  ‘Feldwebel order follow compass 46. Stojko think crazy but Royal Bulgarian Guards no think self, so I not care you crazy. Order is order. You order compass 46. I see needle crazy too but me not leader. You leader. You not say go short way home. You say this we home long time.’

  ‘Jesus wept!’groans the Old Man. ‘Why did I ever have to meet up with you?’

  ‘’E’s a right ’un, all-right,’ says Tiny with a belly-chuckle. ‘Few more like ’im ’an guns’d never be enough to finish the complicated bleedin’kind o’ war ’e’d set up.’

  The Old Man shakes his head several times, then sits down and pulls Stojko down beside him.

  ‘Listen Stojko! Forget all about the military. You are no longer a soldier.’

  ‘Feldwebel!’Stokjo stands up and starts to brush the dust from his uniform. ‘Stojko go farm now. Do all work not done since bad war start. You write me letter when home Germania.’

  He goes round saying goodbye to all of us. It takes the Old Man several minutes to pull himself together. Then he explodes with the intensity of an artillery barrage.

  ‘I’ll give you farm, you mad, mad man. You’ll not be maulin’those bloody cows of yours for hundreds of years yet. Sit, you sod, sit!’ The Old Man bangs his Mpi butt on the ground beside him. ‘Listen to me, and keep your bloody mouth shut until I’m finished. Anything you don’t understand, say so. Do you understand me?’

  ‘Feldwebel! No understand!’

  ‘What? What don’t you understand?’asks the Old Man, his jaw falling open.

  ‘No understand what you want me understand,’ says Stojko, with a friendly smile.

  The Old Man throws his cap up the path, kicks an ammunition box violently, then fixes his gaze for a long while on Stojko’s face. The patient face of a peasant.

  ‘You are a soldier again. I order you to think for yourself. Now! If there is anything wrong then tell me what it is!’

  ‘Feldwebel! War is wrong! All war! I not understand war!’

  ‘Jesus wept, and well He might!’shouts the Old Man despairingly. 7 know thatl But we’ve got a war. And we’re in it. Forget all that. We’re in the middle of a lot of cactus. It’s all we can manage to think about now. Don’t you think about anything else. Just think how to get us out of it. Will you do that? You are our only leader. You alone. I, and the whole unit, will follow you. You are the boss. Do you understand me?’

  ‘You give stars, I give order, Bulgarian Guard no dare give order no stars.’

  The Old Man pulls the stars from his shoulder-straps and without hesitation names Stojko acting temporary feldwebel (unpaid).

  The unit presents arms.

  ‘Now I understand. We two feldwebel.’He laughs happily. ‘You do first time, we home now, drink good cold water. You wait. I find way in cactus.’

  We have almost given him up when he bursts out of the bush several hours later. He is filthy and scratched, but with a pleased expression on his weather-beaten peasant’s face.

  ‘Me find path,’ he shouts happily. ‘Hard path but good path. We no meet cactus spirit. Spirit no like blue cactus. Blue cactus send hell quick. Many scorpion live blue cactus. No touch blue cactus. Kill scorpion. Then path easy.’

  ‘Shoulder arms! Move!’orders the Old Man, already off on Stojko’s heels.

  The entire spectrum of war noises can be heard in the distance.-

  ‘Sounds as if the whole bloody brothel’s on its way up,’ says Porta thoughtfully, listening carefully to the rumbling of the guns.:

  ‘Better get movin’, as the wench said as she was on the verge o’gettin’raped for the fourth time,’ grins Tiny.

  ‘Jesus, boys, think if we could only run across some goddam transport we could commandeer,’ says Buffalo, dreamily.

  ‘Transport? Here?’says Porta. ‘Horses is what we could use. When they die of thirst you can at least drink their blood.’

  ‘Soon as we’re back with the regiment, I’m going sick. Think if part of the cure was drinking a whole barrel of icy-cold water,’ sighs Gregor, licking his cracked lips.

  ‘I’ll be consulting the pavement artists first about the state of the little old man down below,’ shouts Porta lecherously. ‘Think if the poor little sod had got himself a permanent disability from all this shortage of water.’

  We cross an interminable sequence of hills and then come to one which looks different from all the others. It is steeper, higher and completely flat on top. We stand and gaze for a few minutes. There is a threatening look about it which disturbs us.

  Stojko finds a slope which is negotiable. Panting and blowing we crawl upwards. At the top a fantastic panorama spreads itself before us. We throw ourselves down for a short rest. We have been lying half-asleep for only about fifteen minutes when the padre begins to scream. We snatch at our weapons, partisans our first thought. In hysterics he points out over the great stony desert, which lies before us shimmering in the heat.

  ‘Water!’he screams. ‘See! see! A lake with swans!’

  The Old Man gets up and snaps out his binoculars. There is no lake. Only rock and stone. Burning hot, glittering stone.

  The padre runs lumberingly forward, holding his long staff out in front of him. He tumbles and rolls down the steep slope. At first we think he has broken his neck, but then he is up again and lolloping on in and out between the boulders. He throws himself down and rolls about, the dust rising in clouds around his threshing body.

  ‘Water! water! My God Thou hast not forsaken me!’

  But it’s not water he is rolling in. It is dry, red dust.

  ‘Up!’orders the Old Man harshly, and starts to move off himself.

  We have to use our carbine-butts to get some of them moving. One of the wounded is dead, but we haven’t the strength to bury him. We push his carbine into the ground and hang his helmet on the stock. The Old Man puts his identity discs in his pocket. His parents will be told, and spared the pain of endlessly hoping against hope that he will come home.

  The Legionnaire begins to sing. Porta takes his piccolo from his boot-top. Tiny taps his mouth-organ on his palm. Hoarse-voiced, the rest of the unit join in. It sounds like a party of maniacs on the march.

  Es waren zwei Legionäre,

  Michael und Robert,

  sie hatten das Fort verlassen

  und suchten den Weg zum Meer.

  Sie wollten nie wieder Patrouille gehen,

  und nie wieder im Leben auf Posten stehen.

  Es waren zwei Legionäre,

  Michael und Robert,

  Adieu, mon général,

  Adieu, Herr Leutnant14

  Dull-eyed we watch the padre, who is lying in the dust making swimming strokes. None of us has the strength to help him. Our whole attention is turned i
nwards into ourselves.

  ‘Water!’ he screams. He laughs insanely, throwing the red dust high above his head, as if he were splashing himself with water.

  ‘Let’s crack his skull,’ suggests Heide hoarsely, lifting the stock of the MG like a club.

  ‘Leave him be!’ thunders the Old Man, wiping his sun-blistered face with the veil hanging from his tropical helmet.

  The sun is merciless. It seems to boil the marrow of our bones. Two 500’s begin to fight. Before we can get between them one of them has ripped the other’s stomach open with his bayonet. Entrails fall out and the blue-green flies swarm to a new feast.

  The medical orderly puts the mortally wounded man out of his misery.

  It is not, of course, permitted to administer a mercy bullet, but it is necessary here. The Old Man hardly knows what to do with the murderer. He is an ex-stabsfeldwebel. We pass a verdict of temporary insanity and forget the episode.

  The padre has disappeared. We notice it only when the Old Man asks for him. Two men are sent back to pick him up. It takes threats of summary trial and the Old Man’s Mpi to make them go.

  Far into the night they return. Angrily they dump the padre’s body on the ground at the Old Man’s feet.

  ‘Safe at last in Abraham’s breast!’ hums Tango, dancing round in the sand.

  ‘Oh the poor dear man. How sad he had to die right in the middle of the testing God was giving him,’ sighs Porta, with a simulated air of condolence.

  The unit is on its way again. Stojko and the Old Man in the lead. Tiny’s broad grey-green back is still in front of me. I cannot see past him. His shouders sway in a rhythm like the gait of a camel. His back bends under the weight of the SMG. In the old days the only weapon a soldier had to carry was a rifle, but take a look at us, the soldiers of the current World War. Machine-guns, mountings, replacement barrels, double-barrels, pistol, Mpi, range-finder, a damned lot of ammunition, signalling equipment, and then personal effects. All we have dumped is the gas-mask. Not because it’s particularly heavy but because the container is handy to keep small things in: cigarettes, matches and the like. If they ever begin to use gas without warning, the war will end abruptly. Very few soldiers have a gas-mask left. Half Europe is littered with unwanted gas-masks.