Monte Cassino Page 6

  Another time our own artillery was firing short and Mike crawled out to the forward observation post, arrested the observer for dereliction of duty, and for the next two hours directed the guns' fire so that we were able to take the enemy positions almost without a casualty. On another occasion he waited ten minutes beyond the time laid down by the Staff for an attack, with the result that it was successful beyond all expectations, but only thanks to Major Mike.

  He could make us stand up to our necks in icy water at night doing rifle drill, but he always saw that we had dry straw to come back to, when we came out of the line. And, woe betide the cook who did not bring his grub right up to the line, even if a barrage was being laid down two miles behind the front. Old sweats appreciate that sort of thing.

  Mike was a swine, but a decent swine. He never did anything out of spite or malice; what he did was always necessary--and he never spared himself. Mike was the only major I have ever known who didn't have a batman. He could clean a pair of iron-hard boots and make them as soft as butter in record time. He knew how to clear a trench with a bunch of hand grenades; he knew how to fire the short bursts that gave a flame-thrower the greatest effect. When Mike headed an attack, we knew that we were half safe. Mike, like the rest of us, was a guttersnipe who had landed in the army for want of anything better, in a regiment without battle honours. His greatest pleasure was at roll call to single one of us out and ask:

  "Who are the world's best soldiers?"

  We knew the answer he wanted: "The United States Marines," but it amused us to give him a different one. The Legionnaire, of course, replied:

  "La Legion Etrangere."

  To which Mike's comment was always: "Scum from Europe's sewers," which always made the Legionnaire go white in the face with rage.

  If 'Barcelona' Blom was asked, he replied:

  "Ingeniero del ejercito espanol, the bravest of the brave."

  At which Mike laughed scornfully and said: "I've heard that you dream about a bunch of orange trees. How actually did you get into the civil war?"

  "I was one of the crew of one of those big barges, on which the rich men's tarts sprawl under an awning and try to forget their impotent keepers."

  "Did you get a go with them, Feldwebel?"

  "Now and again, Herr Major. I was in Barcelona the day the General popped up in the south. At first people laughed at him and thought it all a joke, but that time it was in earnest."

  The Major nodded understandingly.

  "But how did you get into the Spanish army, Feldwebel?"

  "I was in Barcelona with one of the big pots and before I knew what was happening, I was clinging on to a lorry with a lot of others. They sent us to Madrid, after we had learned by heart a lot about Marx and Engels, but I never found that much help in the trenches. So, one day, a chum and I raised our lids to them. That was during the fighting in the university quarter."

  "Were you at the Ebro, Feldwebel? You should have had just one battalion of our marines. They would have got things going."

  Barcelona could not be bothered to protest. You could not explain to that sort of fanatic how gruesome the civil war was.

  "What was the cost of the Spanish civil war?" Major Mike asked.

  "A million dead, Herr Major."

  Major Mike asked no more questions. A million dead is a lot, even for a big country. He stood in front of the squadron, legs wide apart.

  "None of your regiments is a match for the United States Marines," he boasted. Proudly, he banged his fist on his muscular chest. "I, your commander, am proud of having served in the US Marines."

  When we were back working on our tanks the Old Man snorted angrily: "Mike is a dangerous chap."

  We seated ourselves comfortably. Porta had a surprise for us. A butter-keg full of brown beans. We pulled our folding spoons and forks from the legs of our boots. The keg was placed in such a position that we could all reach it from where we sat. The beans were cold, but that did not matter much.

  Barcelona produced a cigarette and broke it in three. The pieces went the round.

  Porta dealt.

  "Is there anything nicer," said the Old Man with a smile, "than sitting up on a hill on a good bog with a barrel of beans in front of you and a good game of cards, knowing you're more or less safe from shells?"

  We agreed that there wasn't. If we could go on sitting there in our private bog, the war could last a hundred years as far as we were concerned. Most of us were not yet twenty-five. We had long since forgotten what civilian life was like. Our greatest luxury was a decent latrine on some mound under the open sky.

  IV

  Two squadrons of tanks were standing in readiness in Via di Porta Labicana.

  From out of the darkness came hoarse cries: "Sbrigatevi, per Bacco!" and terrified people leaped out from the covered wagons. The place swarmed with SD-men and their fascist henchmen; fierce dogs barked; children cried; a little girl dropped her doll; an old woman stumbled; hob-nailed boots dealt kicks right and left; heavy doors were pushed shut and fastened with chains; a locomotive let off steam.

  "The swine" exclaimed our minstrel, "Far too many in each truck to even sit."

  "Shouldn't we chuck a few grenades at the SD men?" Tiny suggested, hopefully.

  "It wouldn't do us or the others any good," the Old Man muttered angrily.

  "It was much worse, when they took the Warsaw Jews," Porta put in. "They don't use whips here, only their feet."

  "Why don't they break out?" Barcelona asked, surprised. More goods wagons rolled up and were filled with silent people.

  "Are they going to kill them all?" asked the Minstrel who had been with the SS.

  "You can take your oath they are," said Heide with a bully's laugh. "They'll gas them in Poland."

  "But people can't treat humans that way," the Old Man murmured naively.

  "Didn't you know," Porta said ironically, "that the crowning glory of creation is that swine, man?"

  That was the night the Jews of Rome were deported. Two squadrons of tanks from the German army safeguarded the loading of them at Rome's termini.

  The Jews had been rounded up in broad daylight just outside the windows of the Vatican. There had been a brief but violent struggle in Vicola del Campanile, when they had arrested two Jewesses and an old man. One of the women was finally dragged by the feet to the truck parked in Via della Conciliazione.

  The round-up was watched by the Gestapo chief in Rome, SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Kappler, in person. The Germans were doing their best to provoke the Pope into making a public protest, which would have been the signal for what Hitler, Himmler and Heydrich had wanted and been dreaming of ever since they came to power: the liquidation of the Holy See.

  For the Vatican to have made a protest at that moment would have been to seal its own doom. The people in the RSHA were sitting at a telephone waiting to give the code word "Dog-collar."

  PORTA'S GAMBLING DEN

  We had a few quiet days during which we did nothing but a little trenching and mine-laying at night. Of course, we lost a few people now and again, but it was a good time, for we did not consider trench-digging anything. There was only one really bad night. We were surprised by violent artillery fire, took the wrong direction and crawled along parallel to our positions. That cost us forty-three dead and twice as many wounded, but all of us old sweats got back with whole skins. What's more we were able to laugh at Heide. He had been scalped by a shell splinter and all the glossy black hair that was his pride was gone from one side of his head. We used two packets of bandages to cover the huge wound. He was so furious, you could hear him cursing and swearing half a mile away. He all but shot Tiny, when he staggered up later with a gigantic mirror that he had brought from the nearby big house, so that Heide would enjoy the sight of himself. But Heide was careful not to break the mirror. That would have meant seven years bad luck. We cursed that mirror. It became a real problem. We tried to get rid of it by giving it away, but nobody would have it, and, in the end,
we took it to Palid Ida's whorehouse and with considerable difficulty got it fixed to the ceiling in one of the bogs there. Once it was up, we felt that a curse had been lifted from us.

  Porta had found a house, standing all by itself among some pines, well hidden from the gaze of the curious. There he had opened a gambling den. Stalin, the cat, sat on a red silken cushion in a parrot cage above Porta's head. The cushion had originally been used under the bottom of one of Ida's girls, and Tiny had removed it one evening, when we had a fight with some Bersaglieri of the 7th Alpino, a regiment we heartily disliked, though nobody knew why.

  Porta had "organised" an elegant table. Tiny had taken up position on a bucket placed upside down on another table, from where he had a good view of the players, in case there should be trouble, which there always was. Naturally, the play was not fair, but it was good honest cheating. You were at liberty to examine the dice, if you liked, but people seldom did when they saw the look on Tiny's face, sitting there with a machine pistol on his lap and an American police truncheon nonchalantly swinging from his wrist.

  Oberfeldwebel Wolf had been having a run of luck and the pile of money in front of him was growing. He was humming Three Lilies out of sheer delight and self-confidence.

  "Herr Oberfeldwebebels in luck," Porta said with a crafty smile.

  "I'll break the bank," smiled Wolf. He did not hear Tiny's confidential whisper to Porta: "Shall I go after the shit when he leaves and land him one on the napper?"

  Porta shook his head. Tiny just didn't have a clue. To his mind it was the simplest thing just to let his truncheon descend on Wolf's head when he was outside and to relieve him of his winnings, but Porta had his own plan on this occasion.

  Wolf got to his feet, raked his winnings together and filled his bulging pockets. Then he pulled a pistol from the leg of his boot and spun it round his finger like a wheel.

  "You bandits will notice that this is a Colt II, and I should like you to realise that I know how to use it. Anyone who opens the door before I have been gone five minutes will find himself with a hole in his head as well as his arse, and that goes especially for you, Creutzfeldt." Then with a broad grin, he walked backwards to the door, holding the Colt, its safety catch off, in his hand. Outside, he loosed his two big wolf hounds he had tied to a tree. These ferocious brutes were to be found wherever Wolf was. Once they all but killed Tiny, when he had tried to steal a jeep Wolf was intending to flog privately. As he disappeared down the path through the pines, we heard Wolf laughing and his dogs barking.

  Tiny leaped down from his table and dashed towards the door. He flung it open and found himself gazing into Wong's yellow face. Wong was one of the two Vlassov soldiers Wolf had as a bodyguard.

  "You no out of door go. Wolf say no. Njet. Njet."

  Tiny withdrew before the muzzle of a Russian machine pistol that pointed straight at his midriff. A little further off he could see the figure of Thung, the other guard, among the trees.

  Tiny slammed the door shut and clambered back on to his pail.

  "That Wolf's not nice," he said indignantly. "Setting murderers on to peaceable people! If only he would go up to the front for a few minutes."

  "He certainly won't do that," Porta said in a tone of conviction, "not even Adolf could lure him there."

  We took our places again round the gaming table.

  "He'll come back," Porta prophesied confidently. "Make your stakes." He rang a little silver bell, and Tiny banged on a horseshoe hanging on a string from the ceiling with his truncheon. Porta rolled the dice across the table. They were rather special dice. Pressure in a certain place caused a weight inside to shift with the result that the dice did as the banker wanted.

  "Can I join in?" asked Eagle, who had been sitting despondently in a corner.

  Tiny leaped down from his bucket and felled him to the ground with a blow from his truncheon.

  "Empty his pockets," Porta ordered. "He's had his game and lost everything. That'll give him a shock."

  "The prison-rat's got a couple of gold pegs," Tiny announced, after being through the pockets of the unconscious ex-Haupt. and Stabsfeldwebel.

  "Not for long he hasn't," said Porta. "Here with them!"

  Tiny resolutely pulled them out.

  "What does such a man need spare teeth for?" Porta demanded. The two gold teeth disappeared into his canvas bag.

  "How many have you got?" Heide asked curiously.

  "What bloody business of yours is that? You're not going to have any of them." He spat at Eagle, who was beginning to move. "Look at that greasy prison-rat. Three months ago he was right up at the top. He kicked me in the arse and threatened all sorts of things."

  "Let's send him across to the Amis with a cut-off ring finger in his pocket," Mario suggested. . Eagle got to his feet with difficulty.

  "You hit me," he said plaintively to Tiny.

  "I did, and what about it?" Tiny grinned, provocatively. "What else did you expect? You tried to steal from the banker when you had lost in fair play."

  "Lost?" Eagle muttered in a stifled voice, a crazy look on his face, and began feverishly searching his empty pockets. "You've plundered me! I know I haven't been playing. Everything's gone. My watch!" His cry rose to a heartrending shriek. "And my silver ring with the eagle Gauleiter Lemcke gave me!" He opened his mouth. His fat furred tongue ran searchingly across his top teeth.

  "It's impossible," he muttered, refusing to believe what his tongue was telling him. Nervously, he poked a dirty index finger into his mouth. Slowly realisation came: his pride, his two gold eye-teeth were no longer there.

  "Where the hell are my gold teeth?" he called wildly and looked round desperately, but everywhere was met by grinning faces delighting in the situation.

  "Have you gone mad?" Porta said icily. "What teeth are these you're talking about."

  "You know perfectly well," Eagle squeaked, his voice rising. "I had two gold teeth here." He desperately turned to Marlow and Barcelona: "You two are feldwebels. You must back me up against these thieves. I'll take this to court."

  "Caramba," laughed Barcelona, delightedly. "No one will believe you, if you say they've snitched your gold teeth."

  Marlow doubled up in a gale of laughter.

  "Tiny! Show the gentleman out," Porta ordered.

  Tiny laid truncheon and automatic pistol aside, clambered down from his table and went and opened the door wide. Then he positioned Eagle in the doorway, took a run and dealt him a kick worthy of a soccer international. Eagle soared off into the trees.

  We went back to our playing.

  Quarter of an hour later, Hauptfeldwebel Hoffman appeared, a glint in his eye.

  As no one appeared to be going to order those present to spring to attention, he did so himself, but, to his boundless surprise, no one moved. He had not yet been in the squadron long enough to know to keep well out of Porta's way.

  "Didn't you hear the order?" he pointed at Porta. "And take that yellow hat off your head."

  "Can't be done, Herr Hauptfeldwebel. I've only two hands and I've got dice in one and my croupier's rake in the other. If I drop either of them, it would be the end."

  Hoffman bellowed: "Mutiny! Insubordination." He cursed us, calling us all sorts of creatures unknown to zoology and wound up: "I forbid you to play games of chance."

  Porta pulled a stout notebook from an inside pocket, licked a finger and thoughtfully turned the pages. With a comical movement he placed his chipped monocle in his eye.

  "Let me see, now. Incest," he turned a few more pages. "Theft of army property. Falsification of documents, Hauptfeld--no, Oberleutnant Hi ... Rape, abuse of minors . . ."

  Hoffman opened and shut his mouth several times. He didn't understand.

  Porta went on, thoughtfully: "Fraud, false declaration, paternity case--that's Stabsintendant Meissner. What a swine. He'll end in Torgau." Porta turned the pages eagerly. Then he gazed at Hoffman with a resigned look: "Beg to report that my intelligence service has informed
me that Herr Oberst Engel, who passes his time as IIA of the Divisional Staff, a week ago won 10,000 marks at HQ guessing the numbers on 100-mark notes. At the same time, they planned the attack that we are lying here waiting to start. This is confidential, Herr Hauptfeldwebel. The attack is Top Secret. They bandaged the eyes of the regiment's mascot, a nanny goat, which was present during the discussions, and put cotton wool in its ears, so that it wouldn't give things away, if it met a billy. Oberst Engel is a dog at guessing the numbers. He gets them right every time." Porta tugged the lobe of his ear and offered Hauptfeldwebel Hoffman a pinch of snuff from a silver snuff box.

  Hoffman declined angrily and his face became suffused with purple.

  "Incredible the things you hear," Porta went on genially. "This morning I heard that a certain Hauptfeldwebel in our honourable Special Duties Regiment had sent some parachute silk back home to his wife."

  Hoffman'

  "Ober- Ober- Obergefreiter Porta," he stuttered, "something's going to happen. By God, it is. This can't go on." He turned round and ran out in a teetering zig-zag. The last thing he heard was Porta saying to the Legionnaire: "Now we'll soon have a new Hauptfeldwebel."

  "How did you make all that up?" the Old Man asked, amazed.

  "Make up," snorted Porta. "Facts aren't things you make up. Make a note of that, Herr Feldwebel Beier. It's just that I keep my eyes open. If you are to survive in a civilised country, you'd best know something to the detriment of your fellows, then you can rely on them. There's no one who hasn't some shady thing in his past, whether he's emperor or louse. Take yourself, for example, Old Man. Do you believe that everything Adolf does is right? You think him a pretty good bugger, don't you?"