Guns At Cassino (26 page)

`I
agree. But you must agree too that the Peak section of the enemy line is the thinnest held. If we are going to get out, it must be through that section. But how?' Von Dodenburg gave them a tired smile. 'Our sole remaining ace up the sleeve - the Goliath!'

`The
Goliath!' Schulze exploded joyously. 'Of course, the Goliath. I'd forgotten about that!'

Just
before they had flown from Tempelhof, a special messenger had arrived from the Berlin Arsenal: a bespectacled, fat Major of Artillery.

‘
The Führer’s compliments, Major,' he had announced after a sloppy exchange of salutes. 'He wishes you to have the honour of trying out first another of our nation's secret weapons.' Against the background of the old Auntie Ju's three roaring engines, he had taken the mystified SS men to the back of the Opel truck and had thrown back the flaps to reveal what looked like a Mark III tank reduced to nursery proportions.

`What
the hell's that, Major?' Schulze had blurted out.

`Does
the Führer want us to fight the rest of the war with kids' toys?'

The
middle-aged Major, his fat chest decorated solely with the War Service Cross, Third Class, had been in no way offended.

`That
toy, soldier,' he had answered, 'contains one ton of high explosive which can be steered to the enemy lines by remote control. One day our newest little toy might well save your life.'

Schulze
realized that that day had now come.

`You
mean, sir, we use it to blast a hole through the Tommies' line?'

Von
Dodenburg nodded.

`Almost
right. But there is one slight difference in my plan. It's this. We use the Goliath as a feint. It's got one weakness, you know - it's slow and noisy. The Tommies will hear it coming. They will be alerted. All right, so what do we do? We use it as a feint, while we slip through their line here.'

Schulze
peered over his, shoulder at the map.

`Bit
rough, isn't it, sir? Cliff face and all.'

`The
place most likely to be weakly held!'

`Of
course, of course, von Dodenburg,' Schwarz agreed. 'A capital plan. And when?'

`As
soon as it grows dark. We shall withdraw the men now and form a hedgehog around this bunker. (2) This will be the starting point for our breakout.'

`And
the wounded, sir?' Schulze asked.

`If
they can walk and carry a rifle, they come with us.'

`And
if they can't?'

`Then
they stay.' He turned his gaze on the big Hamburger, his light blue eyes harder than Schulze ever remembered seeing them before. 'The Wotan cannot afford itself the luxury of pity anymore.'

Twenty

It was the sledgehammer of the shell-booms coming time and time again that brought terror to the survivors' souls. All afternoon the Tommies had been pounding the tiny bloody perimeter before the last attack. Now von Dodenburg could see that the men were just about finished. Their pits were filled with the mortally wounded and the shattered ground was, littered with their dead whom the shells did not leave in peace even after death. As for the living, he could see the flesh around their blood-scummed lips quivering. Their eyes were coated with a hot sheen, as if tears were dose and the blood had drained from their pinched faces.

But
the tremendous pounding went on, while the sun defiantly refused to slide beyond the mountain and grant them the blessing of darkness. Now the young men had become old. The only human sounds they uttered were cries of pain and prayers to gods they had long forgotten. The rest was a kind of animal whimpering. A corporal with both his legs shot off crawled along on the bloody stumps begging someone to shoot him. But no one had the strength any more to do so. Major von Dodenburg knew that they had reached breaking point.

`Godda
mmit,' he cried impotently, his fist clenched, 'for God's sake, sun - go down!'

He
scrambled wildly through the tremendous bombardment to the foremost bunker, the closest to the Peak. The handful of young SS men holding it were finished. They had absorbed too many shells, seen too many torn bodies, suffered too much fear. Their faces were blank, but their twitching lips and dilated eyes revealed the extent of their breakdown. One had filled his field grey pants. The stench was overpowering, but neither he nor the others seemed to notice.

Von
Dodenburg flung himself down beside Schulze. Time and time again, their helmets were showered by dirt and rock thrown up by the exploding shells. Von Dodenburg would have liked to have screamed, buried himself at the bottom of the pit, evacuated his bowels – anything to escape the unbearable strain of the bombardment. But his rigid sense of duty made him face up to the task ahead of him. He would save these shivering broken wrecks of men despite themselves.

He
focused his glasses, a piece of paper shading the tops of the lenses to prevent their gleam in the setting sun from giving away his position. A hundred metres to his right was the start of the scrub covered cliff. In front of it he could make out what looked like a machine-gun pit, covered by half a dozen infantry foxholes. That had to be their point of his escape. But where would he launch his Goliath? It was armoured well enough. But a direct hit, say by a mortar bomb, would put it out of action and he couldn't risk that. He swept the area with his glasses. Then he gave a gasp of horror. A body loomed into view. It had been sliced lengthwise, leaving the corpse an uncanny half-man. But coming from the massive wound, there stretched an apparently endless length of intestine. The ghastly rope of flesh dappled by the sinking sun, lay like a marker tape just in front of the most heavily defended' part of the Tommies' front. He lowered his glasses. The Goliath attack would go in at 'Half-man's Point'.

Von
Dodenburg fired his last flare. The green light hushed into the darkening sky. A few metres away, Schulze pressed the power button. Slowly the secret weapon nosed its way out of the cover of the forward bunker and began to climb over the pile of rubble, silent save for the slight rattle of well-oiled tracks.

`Jesus
H - ' Schulze whispered to himself, as he started to steer it towards Half-man's Point, 'puts the wind right up you!'

Still
the Tommies had not noticed the ton of high explosive heading in their direction. Perhaps the noise of bombardment drowned the sound; perhaps they were too busy preparing for their own attack which would go in as soon as the bombardment ended. Metre by metre it crawled forward, only just visible in the ever-growing darkness, sensing its way over and around the obstacles of the shell-pitted no-man's land. It was almost as if it had a life of its own. Von Dodenburg felt the small hairs at the back of his neck rising. There was something uncanny about the Goliath as it crawled towards the enemy, bearing its deadly gift.

It
detected the half-man. It hesitated for an instant. But it did not attempt to avoid him. It simply rolled over the corpse. Von Dodenburg shuddered. He felt sure he had heard the ghastly ribbon of gut hanging from the body squash under its weight. Suddenly there was a yell of alarm.

`Hey,
lads, what do you make of that?' The Tommy line was too dark for him to see the face of the speaker, but he could imagine it: shocked and puzzled. How would they react now?

With
his free hand, von Dodenburg signalled the survivors to prepare for their dash forward to the peak. There was a single shot from the enemy lines. He heard the slug whine off the Goliath's armour.

`Good
God,' he prayed to himself fervently, 'don't let them use artillery!'

`What
do you make of the bugger?' a coarse voice floated across.

`Search
me, mate. Who do you think I am – sodding Jesus Christ?'

`Give
it a burst of bren,' a third voice suggested.

The
slow British machine-gun chattered. The morse of a tracer burst zipped across the night sky. Still the Goliath came on. Someone screamed:

`Where's
the sodding mortar platoon? You can never find the bastards when you want them. Sergeant, where's - '

His
words were drowned in the roar. A huge spurt of red flame tore the darkness apart. In its blood-red light von Dodenburg could see the bodies flying into the sky. The Goliath had hit the Tommies' line! He sprang to his feet, Schmeisser at the ready.

`Battle
Group Wotan,' he yelled at the top of his voice above the screams of pain from the Tommy side, 'Follow me!'

They
streamed after him, firing as they ran. The Tommies were in complete chaos. Von Dodenburg saw one of his men stumble over the body of one Tommy he had just shot. Before he could right himself, the wounded Tommy pulled out a grenade and blew them both sky-high. But that was their only casualty. The enemy machine-gun was knocked out before it could open fire, the gunners scattering under the rush. A couple of the covering infantry sprang out of their pits and tried to hold them. But they were bayoneted before they knew what hit them. Within a matter of seconds they had burst through the Tommies' positions and were running, leaden-lunged and gasping frantically, for the dark cliff ahead.

The
climb was easier than they had anticipated. They lost only one man, who slipped, clutching frantically at a patch of coarse scrub which held him for an instant before being torn out of the stony soil and plunging him screaming with fear into the red-splashed, confused darkness below.

The
steep slope downwards into the darkness and the safety of their own lines beyond proved different. Their chests heaving with the effort, their breath coming in broken harsh gasps, the survivors stared numbly at the void below their feet.

`Heaven,
arse and twine,' von Dodenburg rounded on them. `What's the matter with you? Do you want me to carry you down on my back? For Christ sake, get a move on, the Tommies will be up here after us at any moment!'

`Time
to go!' Schulze yelled and flung himself over the top. He disappeared into the darkness in a shower of dust and rocks. `Come on,' his voice trailed after him. 'You'll get the para's badge for this one - without a parachute.'

The
sudden burst of machine-gun fire somewhere to their rear, followed by an angry shout, did the rest. In a miniature landslide, they sprang over the side and down the steep slope. Some slid down on their rear and tore their pants to shreds. Others grabbed madly at the olive trees and thick shrubs as they raced down, nearly wrenching their arms from their sockets whenever they managed to get a hold. But down they went, following Schulze's laughter floating up from below.

One
by one they crashed to a stop at the bottom. Von Dodenburg went face first into a tree. He felt his nose smash. But he did not care. They had managed the first stage successfully. He shook his head to clear it and wiped the blood away with his sleeve.

`A
ll right,' he said, thickly, his mouth full of blood. 'No time for hanging about. By dawn we want to clear this damned mountain completely. Or we're sitting ducks. Now it's march or croak, lads.'

He
slung his machine-pistol and stepped out. The long march from the mountain to the rear had begun.

It
was a strange night, full of alarms and sudden frights. On all sides they heard the snap and crackle of the intensive fire-fight which was reaching its crescendo now, as the full weight of the enemy attack was flung in on the sacred mountain. The covering Peak 555 had gone; now all that was left was Monte Cassino. More than once they heard German spoken close by. But von Dodenburg did not allow them to stop. Wotan would fend for itself. Twice they ran into the reserve positions of the Poles who were now within rifle-shot of the shattered Monastery and they had to clear them at bayonet-point.

A
line of undefended barbed-wire entanglements barred their way - whether they had been built by the Germans or the enemy, they did not know. But they seemed to stretch for kilometres to right and left; and von Dodenburg knew there was no time to reconnoitre. They took a chance and blew them with their last bangalore torpedo. The explosion shattered the night into a thousand fiery splinters. But no angry shouts in a foreign tongue followed, and they ran unharmed through the reeking gap in the barrier.

They
followed a track of loose stones, sheltered by a rough stone wall. It led them to a ruined house. But it was occupied all right. Crouched in the darkness, hardly daring to breathe, they could see the yellow light coming from one of the battered windows and could hear the sound of a woman's laughter.

`Well,
I'll be buggered,' Schulze cursed softly. 'A shitting mobile whore-house!' He cocked his head to one side. 'And listen to them bedsprings - going like a Yiddish fiddler's elbow!' He licked his lips longingly.

Von
Dodenburg nudged, him in the ribs. 'Come on Casanova, there'll be time enough for that when and if we get out of this!'