Assignment Gestapo (8 page)

And then the blow fell: the Colonel called his officers back to barracks. Most of them, in fact, had gone off for the weekend on a forty-eight hour pass extending from Thursday evening to any time on Monday. It was, perhaps, stretching things a bit, but it had long since been accepted as normal procedure in the 49th.

Having recalled as many of his officers as could be found, the Colonel then demanded to be told the exact total strength of the Regiment. This should have been kept daily up to date by reports from company commanders, but through some oversight – ascribed by the officers concerned to slackness on the part of the Hauptfeldwebels – it was many weeks since anyone had taken the trouble.

The Adjutant rang languidly round the various companies to see what the position was. His interest in the result was purely academic: he had an uncle who was a high-ranking staff officer in that part of the Army which still remained on German soil, and as far as he was concerned the new Colonel was of no more real inconvenience than a wasp in a jam jar. Noisy perhaps, but easily brushed aside.

With a slight smile on his lips, he reported back to the Colonel with the results of his telephone calls.

‘I regret to say, sir, that the exact strength of the Regiment cannot at this moment be ascertained . . . The Hauptfeldwebels are all on 48-hour leave.’

The Colonel ran a thoughtful finger beneath the rim of his black eye patch.

‘Where is the Ordnance Officer?’ he asked.

The youngest lieutenant in the Regiment came up at a gallop. He saluted, breathlessly.

‘Lt. Hanns, Baron von Krupp, Ordnance Officer, sir.’

The Colonel looked at him a moment, then nodded slowly; and the way he nodded was rather sad and rather contemptuous.

‘So that exists here, too, does it?’ He grunted. ‘Well, Baron von Krupp, perhaps you wouldn’t mind checking that at least we have mounted a guard – or are all the sentries also on leave, I wonder?’

Lt. Hanns saluted again and turned to go, but as he opened the door the Colonel called him back and dropped another bombshell.

‘I want an accurate figure for the number of men at present in the barracks – and I’ll give you quarter of an hour to get it.’

The Adjutant smiled again, in his superior manner. He was pretty certain that the figure would prove to be only thirty per cent of that laid down by Regulations. It was many months since anyone had troubled about matters of such trifling importance. Breslau, after all, was not Berlin: no one ever came to Breslau.

Left with his officers, the new Colonel commented – politely enough, but not concealing his astonishment – on the fact that not one of them had a decoration from the front.

‘Oh, no, sir!’ said Captain Dose, rather shocked. ‘We’ve never been sent to the
front
, sir.’

‘Have you not, indeed?’ The Colonel slowly smiled, and it was a smile which chilled the hearts of his assembled officers. ‘Well, rest assured that that shall be remedied. You shall have your chance the same as everyone else. The war is not yet over . . . Before the night is out, I shall expect to receive from each one of you a request for transfer to active service at the front.’ He turned to the Adjutant, who was still suavely smiling. ‘I want you to send telegrams to every man on a 48-hour pass. All leave is cancelled forthwith. They are to report back to barracks immediately. And you can sign it in my name . . . I imagine you do know where these men can be found?’

The Adjutant just perceptibly hunched a shoulder. In point of fact, he had no idea where any of them were likely to be. The best he could do would be to send out men in search of them, which meant combing every bar and every brothel in the town. And that was likely to be a long and unrewarding task. He looked across at Captain Dose and decided to indulge in some buck-passing. Dose was known to be something of an idiot.

‘I think that’s your pigeon?’ he said pleasantly, and he picked up a sheaf of telegram forms and thrust them at the astonished captain. ‘Here. Send one to every man on leave. I presume you have their names and addresses?’

Too stunned to speak, Dose staggered from the room. He spent the rest of the night alternately looking up non-existent or out-of-date addresses in an address book and praying feverishly for a passing aeroplane to drop a bomb on top of the Colonel’s quarters.

Despite all his efforts, he succeeded in rounding up only nine of the I,800 men who had left the barracks.

On Monday, according to their habit, the remaining I,791 rolled up at various different times of the day, according as fancy took them, looking forward to a few hours of peace and quiet in which to recover from the debauches of the weekend. And for each man, a shock was in store: the entire barracks had been changed overnight from a free and easy and relatively luxurious hotel to a disciplined military establishment. On every officer’s desk was a terse note to the effect that the Colonel wished to see him straight away.

The youngest and least experienced dropped everything and ran. The more prudent put in a few telephone calls to see the lie of the land, and several of them at once fell gravely ill and were taken away by ambulance.

Amongst the former was Captain (Baron) von Vergil. Three hours after reporting back to barracks he found himself with orders to proceed to the Russian front. Promoted, it is true, to the rank of lieutenant colonel, but that was small comfort when he considered the probable horrors of front line warfare. Not only the danger, but more than that, the discomfort. He thought of lice and mud and stinking bodies and rotting feet, and it was almost too much for a white man to bear. He could have cried very effectively, had there been anyone likely to sympathize with him.

Eight days after the arrival of Colonel Bahnwitz, the 49th Infantry Regiment had disappeared, along with its famous wine cellar. Each officer had carried away his share of the booty. No one had left with less than two trucks full of wine, and the Baron had taken three.

And now here he was on the Eastern front, experiencing the harsh facts of warfare. In what must almost certainly have been record time he had succeeded in getting himself and his men hemmed in by the Russians. He had at once sent out furious appeals for help in all directions, and had been soothed and reassured: help was on its way. And now help had arrived, and what help it was! A tank company without a tank to its name; band of ruffians and scoundrels wearing filthy rags and stinking to high heaven. It was little better than an insult. Colonel von Vergil, after all, could not be expected to know that this band of ruffians, led by two tough and experienced officers, was a gift from the gods and probably his one chance of getting out alive. This one company, in fact, was worth an entire regiment of sweetly smelling, freshly laundered troops from a barracks at Breslau.

Colonel von Vergil sipped his wine and stared over his glass at the white ribbon fixed to Lt. Ohlsen’s left sleeve. On the ribbon were the words, ‘Disciplinary Regiment’, ringed with two mutilated death’s heads. The Colonel twitched his nostrils: the Lieutenant smelt of blood and sweat and looked as if he had not seen a bar of soap since the start of the war. The Colonel put down his wine and took out a cigarette to drown the stench of unwashed body.

‘Thank you for your report, Lieutenant.’

He paused a moment, lit the cigarette with a gold lighter and leaned back in his chair.

‘You are aware, of course, that according to Regulations each soldier—’ and here he leaned rather heavily and meaningfully on the word ‘soldier’–‘each soldier is obliged to clean his equipment and see to his uniform immediately after combat. In this way it will not deteriorate and should remain in much the same condition – allowing, naturally, for normal wear and tear – as when it was first issued. Now, Lieutenant, I think you’ll agree with me that one quick glance at your uniform is all that is required to convince anyone but a blind man that you have been almost criminally negligent in this respect. I am not at all sure that it could not even be classed as active sabotage . . . However—’ He smiled and blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘In your case, I am prepared for the moment to be lenient and to take the view that it is more a question of fear and of personal cowardice that has led to this negligence on your part, rather than any deliberate attempt at sabotage. When a man’s nerve is gone, so I am told, he may well act in curious ways.’

Lt. Ohlsen’s face grew slowly scarlet – with rage, not shame. His fists clenched at his sides and his eyes glittered with a moment of fury. But he was too experienced a soldier not to have learnt self control. One word from this clown Vergil and Lt. Ohlsen could well find himself a dead man, and while dying for your country might still have a certain tatty glory clinging to it, dying for a fool like Vergil was just plain idiocy.

‘I’m sorry about my uniform, sir.’ The Lieutenant spoke stiffly, through half-closed lips. ‘The Company was sent out on a special mission three and a half months ago. We’ve been in continuous action ever since. Only twelve men survived from the original company, so I think you’ll appreciate, sir, that in the circumstances none of us has so far had much of a chance to sit down and polish our equipment or mend our uniform.’

The Colonel took another sip of wine and patted his lips with his white starched napkin.

‘Excuses are totally irrelevant, Lieutenant. Furthermore, I should wish to remind you that when being interrogated you do not speak unless a question is put to you. I did not put a question to you . . . Should you wish to make any sort of observation, you should request permission to speak in the usual way.’

‘Very well, sir. In that case I wish to request permission to speak.’

‘Certainly not!’ snapped the Colonel. ‘Nothing you say can possibly alter the facts. Get back to your Company and never let me see either you or your men in that deplorable state again.’ He paused, looked across at Ohlsen with a triumphant gleam in his eye. ‘I shall give you until 10 a.m. tomorrow, Lieutenant, by which time I shall expect the matter to have been attended to. I shall come round personally to inspect you at that hour . . . And, incidentally, that reminds me of another matter that should have had your attention by now. Those Russian prisoners you had with you – have you got rid of them yet?’

Lt. Ohlsen swallowed, hard. He looked the Colonel straight in the eye.

‘Not yet, sir. No.’

The Colonel raised an eyebrow. He sat for a moment, tapping the ash from his cigarette and gravely staring into the ashtray.

‘Sabotage,’ he said at last, in a low, intense voice. ‘Sabotage and insubordination . . . But after all, we are human, Lieutenant. We give you once more the benefit of the doubt. Possibly we did not make ourselves sufficiently clear in the first instance . . . ten o’clock tomorrow morning. Lieutenant. That is an order. I shall expect the prisoners to have been hanged by then. I look forward to receiving your report in confirmation.’

Lt. Ohlsen licked his lips.

‘Excuse me, sir, but – I can’t just hang them – not just like that, in cold blood. They’re prisoners of war—’

‘Is that so?’ The Colonel seemed amused. ‘Whatever they are, Lieutenant, I believe that your first duty is to carry out the orders of your superior officers . . . not to question either the validity or the wisdom of those orders. I trust, for your own sake, that all is as it should be tomorrow morning.’ He waved his napkin as a sign of dismissal, turned back to the dinner table and picked up his glass. ‘Your health, gentlemen.’

The seven elegant officers raised their glasses. Lt. Ohlsen turned abruptly and left the room. As he made his way back to the Company through the dangerous darkness, he prayed aloud to the Russians to drop a few shells in a few selected places.

‘Just a few . . . just a few very little ones . . . just enough to blow that load of po-faced nincompoops sky-high off their great fat arses . . . dear Ivan, that’s all I ask!’

But the night remained dark and the silence unbroken. Ivan was evidently not listening to his prayers.

Lt. Ohlsen regained the Fifth Company and jumped down into the trenches, where he sat a moment with clenched fists, trembling with rage against the Colonel.

‘What’s up?’ asked Spät, looking sagely at his brother officer over the empty pipe he was sucking.

‘That bloody man . . . that bloody man!’

For a moment it seemed that this was all he could say. He spat it out viciously between his teeth, while we watched him sympathetically and at the same time waited hopefully for more. And at last it came, in language that we could understand and appreciate. The invective rolled out of him in a fine unbroken flow of obscenity, and the Old Man shook his head and regarded the Lieutenant with an air of grave paternal anxiety.

‘What’s he done now?’ he said, when at last he could get a word in.

Lt. Ohlsen looked at him wildly.

‘I’ll tell you what he’s done! He’s arranged an inspection for 10 o’clock tomorrow morning! Make sure we’re all neat and clean and polished in accordance with Regulations! Take time off to polish our rifles and sew on our buttons!’

‘You what?’ said Porta, startled.

The lieutenant turned on him.

‘You heard!’ he snapped irritably.

Porta gave a great cackle of delighted laughter. He turned and shouted into the darkness.

‘Hey, Tiny! You catch that? We got to change our ways, you and me. Got to wash our faces and brush our uniforms. Got to get our holes swept out by ten o’clock tomorrow morning, make sure we’re living nice and clean and tidy, like, without no crumbs on the floor!’

The answer came roaring back down the trench.

‘What holes you on about? Arseholes?’

Our laughter must have been heard for miles around.

‘For Christ’s sake,’ implored Lt. Ohlsen, who had had a trying enough time already, poor man, ‘don’t make so much bloody noise.’

‘Sh!’ hissed Porta, laying a great grimy finger on his lips. ‘We’ll wake the Ruskies up!’

‘Yes, and that won’t be as damned funny as it sounds!’ snarled Ohlsen.

We subsided into silence. The tops of the mountains were lost in swirling cloud, and the moon had disappeared behind a thick blanket. The night was black but peaceful.