Guns At Cassino (11 page)

Finally
he was naked, but still holding his precious rucksack in his hand, Schmeisser machine-pistol slung over his muscular shoulder.

`Where
can I put these?' he asked. 'I don't want anyone nicking them while I'm in the saddle.'

`Do
you want me to tell you where to put them?' she said in a bored voice, her eyes still fixed on the ceiling.

`What
about the cupboard over there?'

Suddenly
the tired whore's voice was animated. She raised her body hastily.

‘
Not there - I've got my private things in there, soldier!'

`All
right,' he said easily. 'Don't wet yer knickers, cheetah.' He dropped the pack and the machine-pistol and pushed them under the sagging bed. 'Now then, get them pearly gates open. Here I come - and it's been a long, long time!'

Schulze
was lazily guzzling Holsten beer from the bottle the whore had brought him as she bent over his body trying to rouse him once more, when the sound of heavy, steel-shod boots coming down the corridor disturbed his contentment. He took the bottle from his mouth and listened. The whore, her head close to his loins, continued with her labour of love. Suddenly the harsh stamp of feet stopped. A heavy fist hammered on the door.

`Open
up,' an official voice demanded. 'Field Gendarmerie -
open
up!
'

The
whore started with fear.

`Go
away,' Schulze shouted. 'I'm on my honeymoon - I don't want to be disturbed, do you hear - ’

His
words were drowned by the sound of the door being kicked open. Two chain-dogs stood there, machine-pistols in their big hands, suspicious eyes taking in the little dingy room.

`Police,'
the bigger of the two snapped.

`Don't
bother to introduce yourself,' Schulze said. 'Just come on in and we'll make up a foursome.'

`You
in the SS?' the question came from a cold-eyed man, in the long leather-coat and wide-brimmed felt hat uniform of the Gestapo, who had followed the MPs into the room. He indicated the blood group tattooed on the inside of Schulze's upper arm.

`That's
right, the Wotan. And what gives a poor shitty-arsed front-line swine like me the honour of such noble company as yourself and your two toy soldiers there?'

`Shut
up,' the cold-eyed Gestapo man snapped. Without permission, he picked up Schulze's stained tunic, automatically noting the breast covered in decorations, and fumbled in the pockets till he had found the soldier's pay book. He tossed it to the bigger of the chain-dogs. The latter glanced through it carefully, then handed it back to the Gestapo man with a shake of his helmeted head.

`Anybody
else in here?' he asked in a flat, harsh voice.

`What
the hell do you types think I'm giving in here – a fucking exhibition or something!' Schulze exclaimed indignantly.

But
even as he said the words, he knew that there was something wrong. The look of absolute fear in the whore's faded eyes told him that; raids like this were an everyday occurrence in the Herbertstrasse. Why should she be so scared? The Gestapo man ignored the remark.

`Have
a look in that cupboard, corporal,' he ordered the chain-dog.

`No.'
The whore flung herself from the bed with surprising speed, her breasts shivering and thrust herself, naked as she was, in front of the door to the cupboard. ‘No,' she cried, 'I've got my private things in there. You've no right to search them.'

`The
Gestapo has all the rights,' the civilian said. 'Besides what has a whore got that is private?' he added with a sneer.

The
MP Corporal grabbed hold of the woman's arm and tried to force her away. But he was too confident. He did not anticipate what happened next. The woman brought up her knee sharply and crashed it into his crotch. He staggered back gasping, his false teeth bulging from his mouth with the shock and pain of the surprise blow.

`She
kneed me,' he yelped unnecessarily. 'The bitch kneed me.

`Get
the whore out of the way,' the Gestapo man ordered angrily. 'We haven't got all day!'

The
chain-dog acted swiftly. He brought up the steel butt of his machine-pistol and crashed it into the whore's scarred stomach. She shrieked with pain and sank to her knees.

`Hey,
what the hell do you think you're doing. After all she might be a whore, but she's a woman too!' Schulze said hotly, springing from the bed.

`Hold
yer water,' the Gestapo man cried, his eyes gleaming now, confident that he was on to something, 'or it might be the worse for you! Now get that shitty door open will you - '

`You
don't need to,' a youthful voice said as the door was opened from the inside to reveal a pale-faced youth of sixteen or so in the shabby Hitler Youth uniform worn by the Anti-Aircraft Auxiliaries. (3) 'And leave my sister alone. She had nothing to do with - '

He
did not finish his words. The Gestapo man strode across the little room and slapped him brutally across the face, with a snort of rage.

`Shut
that mouth of yours, Hansen, or I'll shut it for you, before you ever reach Neuengamme.'

As
the youth slumped against the wall, the Gestapo man slammed his fist deep into his solar plexus. Schulze stared at the strange scene taking place before his eyes in bewilderment. As the two chain-dogs pulled the youth upright, the tears of pain streaming down his deathly pale face, Schulze cried:

`Won't
someone tell me what you lot are soddingly well playing at here!'

`Get
your clothes on and get out of here, soldier, while the going's good,' the Gestapo man ordered, not turning round to look at the big soldier.

It
was unfortunate for him that he did not; for by not doing so, he failed to see the sudden light of resolve beginning to dawn in Schulze's eyes. While the whore got to her feet moaning with pain and the MPs concentrated on their interrogation of the strange pale-faced youth, Schulze raced into his clothes, his mind made up.

`Excuse
me,' he tapped the leather-coated Gestapo man on the shoulder.

`What
the hell is it?'

`This!'
Schulze smashed the beer bottle across his forehead and he went down without a sound, as if he had been poleaxed.

`You
bastard,' the bigger chain-dog roared and leapt at the SS man.

Schulze
side-stepped and threw a punch at him. He missed the MP's face and howled with pain as his fist struck the silver plate of office, the MP wore round his neck. The next instant he crashed to the floor, the MP's heavy weight on top of him. Together they rolled back and forth on the floor, each trying to get the upper hand while the whore and the bleeding youth threw themselves on the remaining chain-dog. From down below there was the sound of whistles being blown and the clatter of heavy boots.

Desperately
Schulze grabbed hold of the chain-dog's thumb and twisted hard. The man's eyes bulged from his crimson face. He thrust his big hand, palm upwards, under Schulze's chin and pushed with all his strength, trying to break the SS man's hold. Schulze felt himself beginning to black out. A couple of seconds more and he knew he would be gone. Red stars were exploding in the rushing darkness before his eyes. Gasping frantically for air and exerting his last reserves of strength, he twisted. There was a dry snap like that of a twig breaking underfoot. The chain-dog screamed. His body went limp suddenly and the pressure on Schulze's chin eased. The SS man frantically wriggled free. The sound of the heavy boots was coming closer. With a grunt he brought his clubbed fist down on the base of the chain-dog's neck. His spine arched. His head flopped to one side. Schulze had knocked him out completely.

But
there was no time to be lost. Gasping painfully, Schulze scrambled to his feet to be confronted by the whore sitting astride the other MP pummelling him with her fists.

`Get
that big arse out of the way,' he yelled urgently, `and let yer father have a go! Aren't you ashamed of showing a great hairy thing like that to an innocent military policeman!'

He
shoved her to one side and slugged the remaining chain-dog with his dice-beaker.

`Up
here!' a harsh voice yelled in the corridor. 'I tell you I saw the chief come this way!' Apparently someone protested, for the harsh voice repeated. 'By the great whore of Buxtehude, I'm telling you he thought Hansen was up here!'

The
naked whore was the first to react.

`Toni,'
she cried and pushed him towards the dirty window. `Out that way. And you too, you great lump! Get that pack of yours - and your popgun - and go with him or the head-hunters!'

She
did not need to finish the warning. For once Schulze did not stay and try to be funny. He knew that even his Knight's Cross would not save him from Torgau (4) if the chain-dogs caught him now.

`What
about you, Gerda?' the pale-faced youth in the shabby black uniform asked urgently.

`Don't
bother about me. I'm just a ten-mark whore. It's you, they're after. Go on, get on with it!'

The
boy needed no further urging. Hurriedly he opened the window, while Schulze slung his gear over his shoulder. The heavy boots were coming closer. The boy swung himself deftly up and out on to the small brick ledge beyond, followed by Schulze. Below in the evening gloom he could just make out the house's overflowing rubbish dump. It must have been a drop of at least twenty metres.

`Oh,
my aching arse,' Schulze breathed. 'I get dizzy even when I stand on a tall chair!'

`Knock
it off!' the whore commanded. 'They're here!'

She
pulled the window down and drew the blackout curtains. Clinging to the wall, his fingers boring into the eaves, his big boots thrust into the worn brickwork, Schulze could hear the chain-dogs tramp into the whore's room. Questions were barked at her and Schulze heard the sound of a slap.

`Freeze!'
the boy next to him hissed urgently.

Schulze
squeezed himself even closer to the bricks. The blackout curtain had been flung back. A thin shaft of yellow light sliced into the growing darkness. The next moment the window was thrust open. Schulze caught a half glimpse of a helmeted head peering out. A torch beam cut into the evening and illuminated the overflowing trash cans in the yard below. It swung back and forth for what seemed an eternity to the sweating Schulze. Finally the chain-dog was satisfied.

`Nobody
down there,' he reported.

`All
right, you take care of the Chief, and I'll see to this sow!' the unknown speaker emphasized his point by slapping the whore again.

Next
to Schulze, the boy tensed, but no sound escaped from his tightly clenched lips. The window was shut again and the curtains drawn. The iron-shod boots clattered down the stairs a few minutes later. But still the two men balancing precariously on the narrow ledge did not move until the noisy rattle of the chain-dogs' motorbikes below told them that the danger was over.

`All
right,' Schulze said, turning slowly and with some difficulty to face the pale youth, 'now tell me what all that was in aid of, would you?’

The
boy clenched his fist dramatically and proclaimed in a conspiratorial voice:

`Red
Front, comrade ... I'm a member of the communist underground!'

Schulze
nearly fell off the ledge.

`Oh,
I'll go and piss up my sleeve - what the hell have I let myself in for now?'

Nine

It was the same question that was running through Major Kuno von Dodenburg's mind as he faced Group Leader Schellenberg that afternoon in Madame Kitty's private sitting-room. The blowsy, tough Madame, who dressed as if she were forty, but looked every day of the seventy she really was, had brought Schellenberg a bottle of his favourite Moselle
Piesporter
Goldtroepfchen
and had been inclined to stay. But the youthful head of the SS Secret Service, with his sleek black hair, impudent eyes and cynical mouth, had sent her away.

She
went, closing the big double doors behind her slowly, while von Dodenburg gazed around the room. He imagined that this was the way such establishments had looked in the days of the old Imperial Army, with the big-breasted mermaids frolicking in an impossibly blue sea in the Boecklin hanging in its pompous gilt frame on the wall and the Nippes statue, next to his elbow, depicting two gleaming white Amazons doing something anatomically impossible to each other.

`It
is Kitty's idea of what constitutes good taste,' Schellenberg said, catching his look and pouring out the white wine. The ex-lawyer's voice was soft and very polite - too polite to be genuine, von Dodenburg could not help thinking. 'But then she has spent all her life in such - er - establishments and there is nothing more respectable than an ex-whore, is there?' He passed von Dodenburg a glass.