Assignment Gestapo (18 page)

‘Don’t kid yourself,’ said Porta. They nab me and I’ll make damn sure they nab you as well.’

‘Well, now, you just listen to me,’ hissed Heide. ‘I could shop you right here and now if I wanted . . . You know why? Because I happen to know a bloke who works in one of the SS depots. And I happen to know that they’re after someone who’s nicked a hefty load of steel helmets . . . they’ve already got a cell ready and waiting at Fuhlsbüttel.’

‘So what?’

‘So it’s you that stole the bloody things!’ screamed Heide.

‘For God’s sake,’ I said, nervously. ‘You’ll bring half the flaming Gestapo down on us if you go on shouting like that.’

Heide dropped his voice to a venomous whisper.

‘You go on pushing your great beak into my affairs and you’ll find yourself breaking stones at Torgau before you’re very much older.’

It was Tiny, with one of his totally irrelevant remarks, who intervened and prevented probable bloodshed.

‘The day we bump off Leopold,’ he remarked – quite suddenly, it seemed to the rest of us, though he had doubtless been turning it over in his mind for some while – ‘I’m going to have a binge of bangers and Slibowitz.’ He licked his lips and rubbed a hand over his belly. ‘I’m going to have a real celebration, a real blow out.’

‘One thing,’ I said. ‘Leopold and his pals ought to be bloody proud of us. They’re always bawling at us about being hard as Krupp and his flaming steel . . . well, pretty soon they’re going to find out that we are . . . They’ve done a good job on us, I reckon.’

‘Krupp and his steell’ scoffed Tiny. ‘Soft as butter, that stuff . . . You watch this!’

He sent his fist crashing into the concrete wall: his fist remained unbroken, but the wall shuddered violently and a small crack appeared in the centre and branched out in two directions. We looked at it wonderingly, impressed as always by Tin’s feats of strength. He was a giant compared to the rest of us, and on many occasions we had seen him split open a brick with his bare hands. He had once broken a cow’s neck with one flat-handed blow across its throat. Porta was also able to split open a brick, but it always took him a couple of attempts. Steiner had once tried it and broken every bone in his hand. The rest of us were content to stand by and watch, and Tiny had latterly taken to practising with an iron bar, contemptuously dismissing bricks as child’s play.

We heard footsteps approaching, and we stood listening. They sounded like the measured steps of a soldier.

‘Who is it?’ whispered Porta. ‘Tiny, go and have a gander.’

Noisily, Tiny emerged from our shelter.

‘Halt or I’ll shoot!’

The footsteps stopped abruptly and we heard a well-known voice.

‘Stop buggering about, it’s only me.’

‘Who’s you?’ demanded Tiny.

‘For crying out loud!’ said Barcelona. ‘If you can’t recognize my voice after all these years you need your flaming ears tested!’

‘Can’t help that,’ said Tiny, obstinately. ‘Got to have the password before I can let anyone through.’

‘Piss off!’

We heard Barcelona’s footsteps start up again, then abruptly cease at a wild shout from Tiny.

‘Give me the password or I’ll fire!’

‘Look, you perishing great fool, it’s me, Barcelona! Put that rifle down and stop arsing about!’

Heide crept up to Tiny and hissed urgently at him through the darkness.

‘What’s got into you? Let him through before there’s a nasty accident.’

‘I got to have the password,’ chanted Tiny. ‘I’m a good soldier, I am. I know what’s expected of me, I can’t just let any Tom, Dick or Harry walk past.’

It seemed to be deadlock. Barcelona stood uncertainly a few yards off. I held my breath, wondering what new maggot had got into Tiny, but knowing from past experience that it was asking for trouble to cross him when he was in one of these moods.

‘Ah, for Christ’s sake!’ snapped Barcelona, suddenly losing patience.

He launched himself at Tiny, hurtled past him and fell headfirst into our midst. Tiny lowered his rifle and came in after him.

‘That had him worried,’ he announced, in satisfied tones. ‘Nearly shitting himself, he was.’

Barcelona turned on him.

‘What d’you think you were playing at, you brainless ape? What the devil is the flaming password, anyway?’

Tiny shrugged a shoulder.

‘How should I know? You’re the Feldwebel around here, not me. If you don’t know what it is, how can we be expected to?’

‘Are you out of your tiny bird-brained mind?’ asked Barcelona, witheringly. He saw the bottle of Slibowitz and held out a hand. ‘Let’s have a swig . . . The Old Man sent me round to tell you that with any luck we’ll be having a quiet time of it tonight. The Gestapo’s busy having a witch hunt through the ranks, and Bielert’s putting his own men through the hoop, so they’re not likely to have any time to spare for us.’

‘What’s brought this on all of a sudden?’ I asked. ‘What’s the point of it?’

‘It’s the great periodic purge,’ explained Barcelona. ‘They do it now and again, just to keep ’em on their toes . . .’

‘What are they getting them for?’

‘Just about everything you can think of. Everything from first-degree murder to pinching a handful of office paper clips . . . thuggery buggery rape and incest . . . you name it, they’ve done it . . . Bielert’s got half the bloody Gestapo lined up downstairs waiting to go into the cells. I tell you, if he carries on like this all night he’ll be the only one left there in the morning.’

‘Sodding good job, too,’ I began, when Porta suddenly interrupted with a wild cry.

‘Hang on! We ought to be able to cash in on this, if we volunteer to give ’im a hand—’

‘Who?’ said Tiny, looking startled. ‘Bielert?’

‘Of course Bielert! Who else, for God’s sake?’

‘But what for?’babbled Tiny.

Barcelona gave a wolfish grin.

‘Qui vivra, verra,’ he murmured. (Who lives will see.)

Fifteen minutes later the guard was changed and we were free to return to the guard room. Barcelona had already gone back with news of Porta’s suggestion, the Old Man had already offered our services to a surprised Bielert, and the scene was already set. We swaggered in together, and Porta at once took command of the situation.

‘I’m the one who’s going through their pockets.’

‘Fair enough.’ The Legionnaire nodded his approval. ‘You’ve certainly got a ncse for the loot’

‘Just watch your step,’ said the Old Man, grimly. ‘What you’re proposing comes under the heading of misappropriation of funds—’

‘Ah, stop whining!’ said Porta, with a contemptuous wave of the hand.

There was a knock at the guard room door. The Old Man walked slowly over and a secretary pushed three SD men into the room.

‘All candidates for the jug,’ he said, abruptly. Take good care of ’em.’

He tossed three yellow forms on to the Old Man’s desk and left the room. Barcelona opened the register and entered the details, the men’s names and ranks and the crimes for which they had been arrested. In the top left-hand corner of the yellow forms it was explained that the prisoner would be referred to an SS tribunal within forty eight hours, but that’ he was in the meanwhile being guarded by a disciplinary company. In other words, us.

Porta had taken his stand in the middle of the room. He leered a welcome at the three prisoners.

‘Take a good look,’ he offered, with false bonhomie, ‘and see what you think of me . . . We’re going to be stuck in each other’s company for the next few hours, so we might as well try to get on together. It’s entirely up to you, of course, whether we do or we don’t. Speaking for myself, I’m an easy enough bloke to get along with. But I’m like a cat, see? Rub me the wrong way and it does bad things to me. My name’s Joseph Porta of the 27th Regiment and I’m an Obergefreiter, backbone of the German Army and don’t you forget it . . . All right, let’s have those pockets emptied!’

Reluctantly, the three men laid out their possessions on the table. Unterscharführer Blank looked understandably anxious as he produced five marihuana cigarettes. Porta picked them up and sniffed at them.

‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ he said. ‘Carrying this sort of trash around with you. You know bloody well it’s against the regulations.’

‘One of the prisoners gave them me,’ muttered Blank, in an attempt to make his crime less heinous.

Porta shrugged.

‘Sounds a good enough excuse . . . a prisoner give ’em you, and now a prisoner’s given ’em me.’ He put them carefully into a pocket and turned his attentions to Scharführer Leutz. ‘How about you, then? You had any little gifts given you, eh?’ Without waiting for Leutz’ reply, he picked up five paper sachets and opened one of them. ‘This gets worse and worse,’ he said, in tones of outraged piety. ‘We only want the pipes and we’ll have your actual opium den down here, won’t we?’ He glared at Leutz. ‘How could you bear to use the filthy stuff? You, what’s supposed to be one of the protectors of the Fatherland?’

Leutz lowered his gaze to the floor. I guessed he was smarting at his own invidious position, being rebuked by this fool of an Obergefreiter and unable to do a thing about it. He looked up again, his expression defiant. He moved forward slightly and I saw his muscles flex, and at the same moment Leutz, from the corner of his eye, caught sight of Tiny and stopped short. Tiny was idly toying with a spade; a big, sturdy spade with a thick wooden handle reinforced with iron bands. Even as Leutz watched, Tiny nonchalantly broke this spade in half and tossed the pieces away. He glanced across at Porta.

‘I’m getting out of practice,’ he complained. ‘How about lending me one of that crew to have a go on?’

‘Later,’ said Porta. ‘If they don’t behave themselves.’

He put the opium away with the marihuana cigarettes and turned to examine a gold wristwatch, picking it up and listening approvingly to its tick.

‘Not bad,’ he said, absently pocketing it.

Leutz took a few deep breaths but said nothing. Porta cast an avaricious eye upon Oberscharführer Krug and was at once attracted by the enticing sight of a gold ring on one finger. Two strands of gold were twisted round each other to represent snakes, and the heads were diamonds. Porta held out his hand.

‘I’d better take that off of you or you won’t get to sleep tonight worrying about it.’ Krug protested bitterly, and Porta snapped an impatient finger. ‘Keep you’re mouth shut when you’re addressing an Obergefreiter,’ he said, grandly. ‘And get a move on with that ring. I’d like to know who you stole it from in the first place.’

Krug changed his tactics. He put his hands on his hips and swelled out his chest. The Old Man wrote studiously at his desk, never once taking his eyes off the register.

‘Can you not see,’ roared Krug, ‘that I am Oberscharführer?’

‘I’m not blind,’ said Porta, arrogantly. ‘But so long as you’re my prisoner I don’t care if you’re a flaming general, I’ll treat you like the shit you are.’

Krug grew mottled and crimson.

‘I shall make a report of this! I demand that you treat me with respect, according to the Regulations—’

‘Respect!’ jeered Porta. ‘You’re not even fit to wipe my arse on! And the sooner you realize that you’re no longer in a very healthy position, the better for you.’ He held out his hand again. ‘I’ll tell you who’d like that ring,’ he said, to the rest of us. ‘Old Hot Knickers down at “The Hurricane”. She’s given me good service, that girl. It’s only fair she gets a little something to remember me by. And if you’re a good boy,’ he informed Krug, ‘I’ll tell her it was a present you give me, and whenever we’re having it away together we’ll spare a thought for you in the Dirlewanger Brigade.’

I saw a nervous tic rippling down the side of Krug’s forehead at the mention of the Dirlewanger Brigade. It was supposed to be top secret, but we knew very well, and Krug and his compardons knew very well, that it was an SS disciplinary brigade whose unique mission in life was to hunt down and to kill, by any means available, the partisans which swarmed in the thick forests round Minsk. The Brigade was led by SS Brigadenführer Dirlewanger. He had been handpicked for the position from his prison cell, where he had been serving a sentence for crimes of violence, and he had an almost psychopathic streak of sadism in him. In fact, on one occasion he had so overstepped the mark that even Himmler and Heydrich had called for him to be court-martialled and condemned to death. There was a long list of indictments against him, starting with the least brutal, the rape of several Polish prisoners, but the murderer was under the powerful protection of SS Obergruppenführer Berger, who, after more than one hour’s talking, was able to persuade Heydrich and Himmler that for the sake of the Fatherland and for the sake of survival it was necessary to tolerate Dirlewanger and his coarse methods of warfare. Heydrich, particularly, was impressed by his argument, since it coincided very largely with his own precept of opposing terror with worse terror and violence with worse violence.

Dirlewanger ultimately met the death he deserved, though unfortunately not until 21st January, 1945. It was he himself who had originally introduced the barbaric form of torture of roasting men slowly over an open fire, and one day in Poland he had a chance to be on the receiving end. A party of German soldiers discovered him hanging by his feet from a tree, his head, dangling a few inches above some smouldering ashes, done to a turn like a piece of roast pork. According to some Polish partisans, the operation had been carried out by eight of his own men, who had circled about him singing joyously as he suffered and died.

He had screamed for four and a half hours. Today, in the War Museum at Warsaw, there is a picture recalling the event, with Dirlewanger’s hated face plainly discernible amidst the leaping flames of the fire.

Krug glared up at Porta from beneath lowered brows. He had no illusions about his probable fate, he could guess only too well what was in store for him. He had seen a great many men, old comrades, some of them, sent off to the Dirlewanger Brigade, but it was a fact that he had never seen a single one of them come back again. Rumour had it that not only the men themselves vanished for ever, but that all traces of their identity, their papers, their possessions, their very names in the records, were expunged at the same time.