Assignment Gestapo (17 page)

‘Couldn’t your pal in the ss fiddle it for us?’

‘It’s a possibility. How much do you reckon we’d have to pay him for it?’

‘A kick up the arse,’ said Porta. ‘We’ve got a hold on him, don’t forget. One squeak out of us and he’s for the high jump.’

‘Yes, but—’ I broke off and closed a hand over Porta’s wrist as I heard footsteps approaching. ‘Watch it! Someone’s coming . . .’

We sat there a moment, our ears strained, and then Porta poked the muzzle of his rifle through the loophole.

‘If it’s a Gestapo bastard I shall shoot him,’ he decided. ‘Anyone says anything, we’ll tell ’em we thought it was a saboteur. They’re always going on about saboteurs.’

‘Don’t be sodding stupid,’ I said. ‘we’d never get away with it.’

Porta suddenly lowered his rifle, obviously disappointed.

‘It’s only Tiny and Heide.’

We peered over the top and saw them slowly approaching. They were talking earnestly and waving their arms about, and Tiny had a bottle clenched in one vast paw.

‘Thank you, God, for the Emperor,’ breathed Porta. ‘And specially for his horse . . .’

We heard Tiny’s loud laugh, and then the lower tones of Heide, grumbling and cursing.

‘He’s a shit, he’s a sod, and he’s a bastard, and he’s going to get what’s coming to him. Great finicking stupid queen . . . well, he’s pissed his kipper this time, and so I tell you.’ He paused, spat on the pavement and ground it in with the heel of his boot. ‘You wait till I get my hands on him. You just wait!’

‘I don’t like him, either,’ said Tiny.

‘Biggest load of shit I’ve ever met in the whole of my life,’ said Heide, vindictively.

Porta laughed and jabbed me in the ribs.

‘That’ll be Feldwebel Brandt . . . take a bet?’

‘Like hell!’ I said. ‘It’s practically a certainty.’

‘Well, it was time he was bumped off. Sounds like Julius might have something in mind.’

‘I’m game,’ I said. ‘I can’t stand the bastard.’

‘Suppose I jumped up and down on his stomach till he farted his guts out?’ we heard Tiny suggest, in a helpful way.

Heide looked at him, a fanatical glare in his eyes.

‘Jesus Christ, only to think of the swine makes me feel sick! I still don’t know how it happened . . .’ He stopped and held out his arms appealingly. ‘Tiny, just tell me: aren’t I the cleanest, smartest, best-groomed soldier in the whole Regiment? In the whole Division? In the whole damned Army?’

Tiny looked at him and nodded vigorously.

‘Yeah. Yeah, I reckon that’s right.’

‘Of course it’s right! Look at my chin strap – look at it, go on, look at it! I’ll give you my next five years’ pay if you can find even the slightest mark on it . . . well, you can’t, I promise you that, so don’t yank my bleeding head off!’ Heide jerked himself away from Tiny, who had taken the offer literally and was peering closely at his chin strap, clutching it with one big paw. ‘You know what,’ continued Heide, ‘when I was going through training – and this is Gospel truth, so help me God – they used to end up looking at our arses if they couldn’t find anything else to get us on. And you know what? My arse was the cleanest bloody arse in the whole company! And it still is! You could look up my arse any day of the week, any minute of the day, and you’d find it as clean as a new pin. I swear to you,’ cried Heide, growing ever more excited, ‘that I wash the damn thing out three times a day!’

‘I believe you!’ shouted Tiny, becoming infected with some of Heide’s own enthusiasm. ‘I believe you, you don’t have to show me!’

‘Look at my comb!’ Heide pulled it out of his pocket and thrust it beneath Tiny’s face. ‘Cleaner than the day I bought it! And just tell me, what’s the first thing I do when we’ve had to dig ourselves in somewhere? What’s the first thing I do?’

‘You clean your finger nails,’ said Tiny, positively. ‘I’ve seen you do it’

‘Precisely. I clean my finger nails. And what do I do it with? I do it with a nail file . . . Not with the point of my bayonet, like you and the others.’

‘That’s right,’ nodded Tiny. ‘That is quite right.’

‘And what about this!’ Almost beside himself, Heide dragged off his helmet and pointed to his head. ‘Not a hair out of place! All cut according to regulations . . . combed according to regulations . . . even the perishing fleas march single file on the right! But Leopold Brandt, the Feldwebel of the Devil, God rot the balls off him – Leopold Brandt has to haul me up on account of my parting isn’t dead straight! Me!’ screeched Heide, turning purple. ‘Me, of all people!’

‘It’s a diabolical liberty,’ said Tiny, earnestly.

‘It’s more than that, it’s a bloody outrage!’

‘It is,’ agreed Tiny. ‘It’s an outrage.’

‘The man’s a sodding nut!’ cried Heide. ‘He even had me standing at one end of the courtyard while he climbed up on to the roof of the Third Company H.Q. and looked at me through a bleeding range finder! Just so he could PROVE the bloody thing wasn’t straight!’

‘That’s madness, that is,’ said Tiny.

They walked forward, caught sight of us and slipped behind the shelter of the wall to join us.

‘What’s all this?’ demanded Porta. ‘You got it in for Brandt, have you?’

I’il tell you something,’ offered Heide, ‘only keep it under your hats . . . if we can manage to get friend Leopold as marker on number three next time we have rifle practice with real ammunition—’ He paused, significantly, nodded and winked. ‘That’ll be the end of that creep.’

‘How come?’

Tiny turned to whisper in Heide’s ear.

‘Shall we tell ’em?’

‘If they swear to keep their big mouths shut.’

Porta and I instantly swore. Tiny took a jubilant swig of Slibowitz from his bottle and handed it on to Porta.

‘It was like this,’ he said. ‘It was me what thought of it in the first place, and it’s me what’s arranged it all . . . It was when I was out on the rifle range last week. I suddenly had this idea come to me about how we could polish the bastard off. It was just a question of having the opportunity.’ He took back the bottle and had another swig. ‘Well, I had the opportunity a couple of days ago. I was sent off with another guy to change the plate on number two. While we was doing it, he had to go off to the bog to have a slash – being as Hinka does his nut if the place starts stinking of urine. He can’t stand to have blokes pissing on the Third Reich . . . Anyway, while he was gone I took the opportunity to take the plate off of number three and fix it on again a bit too low down, see?’ He demonstrated, with one hand beneath his chin. ‘Result is, anyone stands on the butt and his head’s unprotected and liable to get blown off . . . and nobody to say who’s responsible for it’

‘Very clever,’ I said, ‘but how can you ensure that it is Leo pold who’s on number three at the right time?’

Tiny tapped his head with a finger.

‘I’m not as stupid as you might think. I got it all worked out, don’t you worry . . . First, it’s the Legionnaire what draws up the lists, so he can easy arrange for Leopold to be on number three; second, we all know that Leopold likes showing off when he’s out there; and third, we always finish up by firing with telescopic sight, and it’s always at number three . . . Am I right?’

‘I guess so,’ I said. ‘But what’s supposed to happen?’

‘Well, now, someone—’ and he looked meaningly at Heide and Porta – ‘someone has to go out and finish the job by fixing a few explosives in the loophole where Leopold’s going to stick his pretty head . . . and then it won’t be your fault if you fire a bit to one side, will it?’

‘It’s a piece of piss!’ Heide rubbed his hands together. ‘Can’t fail!’

‘Only one thing,’ I said. ‘Suppose the Old Man finds out? There’ll be hell to pay . . . You realize it’s premeditated murder?’

‘What, killing a shit like that?’ said Porta, in surprise, ‘That’s not murder, it’s a bloody service to your country.’

‘Yeah? You just try telling that to the Old Man—’

‘Look,’ said Heide, coming over to me and holding up a clenched fist by way of warning, ‘you don’t have to come in with us on this, nobody’s forcing you, but one squeak and you’ve had it—’

I pushed his fist away.

‘I’m shedding no tears for Leopold,’ I said. ‘I just don’t fancy swinging for a bastard like that.’

‘Nobody ain’t going to swing,’ said Porta. He took some dice from his pocket, crouched down, blew on them, rattled them in his hand and blew on them again. ‘Fancy a game?’

Tiny squatted down to join him. He looked on with interest as Porta repeated his performance with the dice.

‘What’s all the show for? Everyone knows they’re loaded.’

Porta looked up, indignant.

‘That’s just where you’re wrong. I wouldn’t dream of using loaded dice with you . . . As a matter of fact, I’ve got two sets. This is the good one.’

‘Ha bloody ha,’ said Heide.

Slowly, Porta turned his head to look at him. Slowly he tossed the dice from hand to hand.

‘That reminds me,’ he said, ‘you owe me two litres of Slibowitz and twelve pipes of opium. Due yesterday. Should have kept your mouth shut, I might have forgotten about it . . . and from now on, the interest goes up to 80 per cent. You know, Julius, you’ll have to start taking a grip on yourself. Too many debts aren’t good for’a man.’He pocketed his dice, stood up and took out a small black notebook. He smeared a tongue liberally over his finger and began leafing through the pages. ‘Let’s have a look, see where we stand . . . here we are. Julius Marius Heide, Unteroffizier, 27th Regiment, 5th Company, 2nd Section, 3rd Group . . . that’s what I’ve wrote down.’ He fixed Heide with a stern eye. ‘I suppose you won’t deny that IS you?’

‘You know bloody well it is!’ snapped Heide. ‘Don’t be a damn fool!’

Porta raised a warning eyebrow. He held the book nearer to his face and bid Tiny shine the beam of his torch over it.

‘Fourth April – 9 bottles of vodka. Seventh April – 3 bottles of Slibowitz. Twelfth April – I’ve got that down as your birthday. That’s hard, that is. You owe more from that day than any other . . . 712 marks and 13 pfennigs, 21 bottles of Slibowitz, 9 pipes of opium, Danish eau-de-vie, a half-case of Dortmunder, free entry to the brothel for a month . . .’

Porta’s voice droned on with the long list of Heide’s debts.

‘Then we come to the 20th – that’s Adolf’s birthday, that is. Let’s have a gander what you had on that day . . . should mean something pretty special to you, Julius.’ Porta gave him a knowing leer. ‘After all, you was a member of the Party, if I mistake not?’

‘Was,’ agreed Heide. ‘You know bloody well I’m not any more.’

‘Only because they threw you out,’ said Porta, brutally. ‘Couldn’t stand the sight of you any more . . . Anyway, on Adolf’s birthday you lost 3,412 Reichsmarks and 12 pfennigs. And you can add 80 per cent on to the whole lot. The rate you’re going, doesn’t look like you’ll ever be free of debt, does it?’

‘Hey, I wish I could write!’ exclaimed Tiny, suddenly snatching the notebook from Porta and wonderingly examining the entries. ‘I bet you if I could write I’d be a millionaire by now . . . Know what I’d do? I’d nobble one of them rich types and pinch his cheque book! Then all you’d have to do is sign a few cheques and grab the lolly.’

He beamed round at us with a grin of triumph on his face. No one had the heart to disillusion him. Porta returned to his pursuit of Heide.

‘Look here,’ he said, in friendly tones, ‘we’ve been mates a long time, you and me. I don’t like to feel you’re worried about being in debt to me all the time . . . how about wiping it off?’

‘You what?’ said Heide, unable to believe his luck. ‘You mean cancel it?’

‘Something like that,’ agreed Porta, with a sly grin.

Heide turned instantly to Tiny and me.

‘You heard him! You bear witness to that!’

‘All right,’ said Porta. ‘No need to get so excited. Wait till you’ve heard my conditions.’

‘What conditions?’ asked Heide, at once suspicious, as well he might be.

‘Well, to start with, I want those three bales of cloth you’ve got hidden away in Beanstick’s room . . . and then I’ll have the two barrels of Dutch herrings what you left with that dentist in Hein Hoyer Strasse.’

Heide’s amazement was pitiful to behold. His mouth dropped open and his eyes widened, and he stammered as he spoke.

How the heck did you know about that?’

Porta’s little baggy pig’s eyes sparkled maliciously.

‘I know a lot more than you think! I know everything there is to know about you. I make it my business to know, when people owe me as much as what you do.’

‘The – the carpets in Paulinen Platz?’ asked Heide, too shaken to be circumspect.

‘Of course.’ Porta hesitated a moment, then, obviously making a shot in the dark: ‘Give me the carpets as well and I’ll overlook the rest and we’ll call it quits.’

His shot in the dark hit its target: it was obvious from Heide’s reaction that there was, indeed, something in addition to the cloth, the herrings and the carpets.

‘How do I know you won’t try blackmailing me?’

‘Give you my word.’

Porta raised his arm, with three fingers held up in salute.

‘Your word!’ scoffed Heide. ‘I wouldn’t trust you further than I could throw you . . . You can have the herrings and the cloth and I’ll go halves with the carpets.’

‘Who’s calling the tune round here, me or you?’ Porta wanted to know. He jabbed a finger into his chest. ‘It’s me you owe the money to and it’s me as says what I’ll take for it . . . I’ll have all the carpets.’

‘That’s a bit steep!’ protested Heide. ‘Eight hundred flaming carpets! That’s a hell of a lot more than I owe you—’

‘Take it or leave it,’ said Porta. ‘But you don’t play ball with me and I certainly don’t play ball with you, mate.’

‘You mean you’d shop me?’ asked Heide, indignantly.

‘You bet . . . over and over, for everything I could bloody well think of! I haven’t forgotten what you did to that peasant that time.
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I’ve had it in for you ever since. I don’t forget that easy.’

Heide shrugged his shoulders.

‘Oh, well, if you’re going to keep raking up the past . . . But I’ll tell you one thing. Both the herrings and the carpets are hot as hell, so don’t blame ME if you get picked up for them . . . Just remember that I shan’t know anything about them.’