Monte Cassino (16 page)

"Band of murderers," he said. "But you're not getting the ring. I'm not so easy to kill."

"That remains to be seen," Barcelona said and, smiling, threw the dice.

We lost three trucks and seven men on the way back along Via Appia. Marlow was badly wounded, and we put him in an ambulance on its way back to Rome. His skin was already like parchment; his lips blue and his teeth showed. He whispered a protest, when Barcelona drew his Nagan and his holster off his belt.

"That's mine. Leave it with me."

"You'll get it when you come back," the Old Man promised.

"Give me my Nagan. I can look after it. They won't steal it."

But we knew better. We knew the significance of that yellow skin. We knew when the man with the scythe had put his stamp on one and that an orderly would steal that Nagan even before Marlow was dead. Why should an orderly have it, when it would do us good service?

Tough Marlow wept. Then Tiny did a clumsy thing. Just before the ambulance drove off, he took Marlow's greatcoat, which lay rolled up beside him. It was one of the good waterproof kind paratroopers had issued to them. They were in great demand and Tiny and Marlow were roughly of a size. Marlow tried to get out of the ambulance. He shouted curses at us, as the ambulance men shoved him back and slammed the doors shut, swearing. As we stood on the roadway watching the ambulance drive off, we heard Marlow shouting:

"Let me stay with you. I don't want to die. Bring me my Nagan!"

"He'll be dead before they reach hospital," the Old Man said quietly.

We nodded, knowing that he was right. And Marlow knew it too. Twenty minutes before he had been with us laughing over Tiny and his helmet.

As Porta speeded up, he muttered almost to himself.

"A good thing, he won those last few throws."

The Legionnaire was examining the Nagan, which he had already swapped with Barcelona. Then he slammed the magazine into place and thrust the heavy pistol into its splendid yellow leather holster that had been Marlow's most cherished possession. He stood up in the cab, patted the holster and said:

"It sits well."

We could see how he revelled in the weight of it. It would give him a sense of security, as it had Marlow.

It is most important for a front line soldier to be aware of his pistol. It should feel like a friend's protecting hand, and that's how a Nagan always felt. We thought a lot of them. All the ones we possessed, we had got from the Russians at the risk of our lives. We had five in No. 2 Squadron and took good care not to lose one. We always took a dying man's pistol. Once dead, others were entitled to his possessions; but, as long as he was alive, he and all his possessions belonged to No. 2 Squadron. The unpleasant thing was that the dying man almost always knew that we had taken it. His pistol was his assurance of life and when it went, life's flame flickered frantically. But we couldn't afford to be sloppy, where a Nagan was concerned.

The next morning we left the monastery. Just before we were to go, we were all taken into the basilica. There, Archbishop Diamare appeared. He raised his hands and chanted:

Gloria deus in excelsio!

Then, for the next ten minutes, he conducted a service so gripping that even we heathens in the front rank were spellbound. Then the monks, nuns and children from the children's home sang a choral that rang out between those venerable walls most magnificently.

Silent and somewhat awed, we marched out and drove away.

Barcelona and I looked at each other. We had a secret that we could not tell to the others. They would have laughed at us. We had been on guard together. Just before daybreak, we were down at the end of the line of vehicles. The clouds were scurrying across the heavens and the moon shining through every now and again. We leaned against the wall, our machine pistols under our greatcoats to protect them from the frost, looking in silence down the slope of the mountain and enjoying the secure feeling that really good comrades give each other. I don't know which of us saw it first. It appeared down below behind some trees, a figure enveloped in an enormous cloak and looking rather like a shadow. A bent, hurrying figure.

"One of the monks?" Barcelona queried.

All at once, the figure halted in the open space, where later they buried the Polish Division. It brandished its fist at the monastery. Then, for a second or so, the moon came out through a hole in the scudding clouds, and we saw the figure distinctly. Our hearts stopped beating, as the wind took hold of the cloak and blew it out and back. That figure was Death with a scythe on his shoulder!

The blood froze in our veins. Then we heard a laugh, a long, triumphant laugh. Then the figure was swallowed up by a roll of mist.

We stumbled over each other's feet as we ran for the guard hut. The Old Man, Porta and the others were asleep inside it. Our teeth were chattering, and I had dropped my pistol.

"You must go and get it," Barcelona said. I refused. Instead, I stole one from a sleeping paratrooper. When it was light, Barcelona and I went to look for mine, but we never found it.

The others saw that something had happened, but we did not dare tell them about it. We thought for a moment of going to the Padre, but then agreed that it would be best to keep quiet about it altogether. As Barcelona rightly said: "You don't have to tell everything you see."

We ended by acting to each other, as if we had forgotten all about it. But Death had visited the holy mountain to view the scene of his approaching harvest, and by chance Barcelona and I had seen him and heard his jubilant laugh.

Joseph Grapa was a Jew. We met him one evening, when we paid a visit to a group of deserters in the attic of a house behind Termini. You got up to it through a camouflaged trapdoor. One of Ida's girls who had had to go underground, was there.

Heide got the hell of a surprise, when he found himself standing face to face with Grapa.

"Ground not getting too hot under your paws, Schmaus?" he said provocatively. "I could get a fine price for you. What would you say to a single ticket to Via Tasso?"

Porta started cleaning his nails with his close-combat dagger and Tiny rattled his steel sling. That checked Heide and from then on he and the Jew just slung accusations at each other.

"All my family, all my friends have been dragged off to Poland," Grapa said quietly.

"Don't squeal, Schmaus," Heide grinned. "Those of you Jews who survive will get your revenge. You'll be sacred cows, and preserved. I shouldn't be surprised if it was forbidden to call you Jews. Adolf's really doing you a good turn. You'll get your revenge on the Catholics, whom you hate as much as Heydrich and Himmler do. I can see that you are going to accuse the Pope of gassing the Jews."

"No honest Jew would do that," Grapa protested.

"There are no honest Jews," Heide said and laughed. He pointed an accusing finger at Grapa. "There are lots of documents that can be used against the Pope. The Vatican is a louse between two fingernails. Don't misunderstand me. I have no love for the Pope's black crows. Do them in tomorrow and I'll gladly help." He rubbed his hands at the very thought.

"Why doesn't the Vatican protest?" Grapa cried. "The deportations would stop, if it did. They wouldn't dare go on with them."

Heide guffawed.

"Not dare! You are blue-eyed! Do you think we're afraid of a few dirty saints? If only the crows would protest! Then you'd see something. Perhaps Hitler and Stalin would find each other. You know who should have protested? The president of the U.S.A., the king of England and all the others with armies at their beck and call. But they didn't so much as let out a fart, when they heard we had begun slaughtering you. The whole world knew what we were doing in '35, to say nothing of '38. But they just put plugs in their ears."

"Do you think all that would have prevented the killings?" Grapa asked.

"One protest, no," Heide said. "But an economic boycott as late as '38 would have done it, but no Pope or umbrella carrying prime minister will frighten Adolf. And, anyway, who says our opponents don't like us gassing you? They would not even ransom you with a few trucks and lorries. Stalin in Moscow certainly won't miss you. I don't know what the Pope has to say, but I should think he's the only one who would stand up for you, if he had a strong enough army behind him. But for him to protest now will do as little good as a white dove standing up in front of the Doge's palace and making a fuss. You Jews are bust and you always will be. You can be up for a short time, but then some idiot among you will throw his weight about too much, and then you'll be dropped again. You should have your own state. That would be best."

Porta spat contemptuously onto the floor.

"Man is the stupidest of all animals."

The rumours of what we had been doing at Monte Cassino reached Berlin. In fact, a stream of reports flooded in to Prins Albrecht Strasse 8, with the result that one sunny morning a Heinkel bomber landed at Aeroporto dell' Ube outside Rome. Out of the 'plane stepped General Wilhelm Burgdorf, chief of the army personnel section, a slim black document case under his arm. He brushed some imaginary specks of dust from his blood red general's tabs and smiled his usual kindly smile. The General was a man who regarded the whole world as a gigantic joke, who promoted a colonel to general with the same smile with which he handed a field marshal a cyanide pill. He nodded pleasantly to the openmouthed commander of the airport and enquired about his health, with the immediate result that the major in question went deathly pale. General Burgdorf grinned.

"Get me a car, Herr Major, with a driver who can drive. I don't care whether he's a convict or a field marshal, as long as he can drive. I am in a hurry to get to the Army Commander South."

The major was obviously agitated. Burgdorf's sudden appearances always entailed a number of suicides.

"Herr General," the major clicked his heels together twice, "we have a Special Duties Tank Unit at the barracks in Via de Castro Pretorio. We can get a first class driver from it."

They walked together to the airport commander's private office. All other officers seemed to have vanished. Some people said, and not without justice, that he was the most powerful man in the army. One word from him and a general was no longer a general. Another word and a young leutnant could exchange his silver shoulder straps for a pair with braided gold, in record time. One thing was certain: no one was promoted without General Burgdorf s approval.

The airport commander got the office-wallahs moving. It was as if a hurricane had swept through the building. Ten telephones began ringing simultaneously in the barracks in Via de Castro Pretorio. Ten men scribbled down the same order.

People whispered the name 'General Burgdorf in alarm, and an Oberleutnant and a major went and reported sick without waiting for further details. There was a general sigh of relief when it was realised that the general only wanted a car and driver.

Hauptfeldwebel Hoffmann nearly swallowed a rollmop the wrong way when, after baying some impertinence into the 'phone in his arrogant way, he discovered that he was speaking to the Depot Commander in person. His arrogant bark became a fainthearted miaow. Fearing the worst, he listened to the strange order; then carefully he replaced the receiver and for a moment gaped in silence at the black instrument. Then he suddenly came to life:

"You wet bugger," he bawled at the clerk, "haven't you yet grasped the fact that General Wilhelm Burgdorf is here and requires transport? Pull yourselves together and get a move on, else you'll be on your way to the Eastern front before you can say bloody Robinson."

At that moment Major Mike and Leutnant Frick came in. Hoffman bawled out his report.

"Burgdorf! Phew!" Mike exclaimed. "Wants a car, does he? He shall have one and a driver. We'll give him more, the arrogant shit, because he's going through a dangerous area, where the little spaghetti boys might get the bloody good idea of blowing him up." He smiled satanically to Leutnant Frick: "What do you say, Frick, shall we give him my Kubel?"

Leutnant Frick laughed maliciously: "Splendid idea, Mike. And Porta to drive it."

Major Mike nodded enthusiastic agreement: "And Tiny as escort."

Hauptfeldwebel Hoffman blenched. Twice he asked for the wrong number. Somehow his tongue would not obey him. Major Mike and Leutnant Frick sat down on his desk and watched him with obvious enjoyment. Finally, he managed to get hold of the garage. Ten minutes later he retired to bed with a violent headache and dancing specks in front of his eyes. But before he went, he drew the sergeant clerk's attention to the fact that he had no knowledge of what had been ordered. Major Mike and Leutnant Frick preferred to get drunk and go underground till the danger was over.

Fifty men were out looking for Porta and Tiny. Both should have been in the garage servicing their vehicles, but in some mysterious way they had seemed to have got themselves transferred to other duties. Porta was discovered in the armoury where he was playing housey-housey with the quartermaster and Padre Emanuel, in the act of pulling in a jackpot. Tiny was traced to a backroom behind the canteen, where he had been hobnobbing with the canteen Unteroffizier and two girls from the kitchen. He was just buttoning his trousers, when they found him. He set off at a slow trot for the garage with an ammunition pannier on his shoulder. Catching sight of Porta in the distance, he shouted:

"We're to take a general for a drive. Visit a field marshal."

You could scarcely have called them fit for the parade ground as they drove off to fetch the general, and the airport commander got a shock when they reported to him. But General Burgdorf was amused. They were a type he liked. He gave them each a handful of cigars and did not even bother to look at the major.