The Bloody Road to Death (3 page)

The Legionnaire kicks at the remnants of a bread-bag, and shouts bitterly:

‘
On les emmerde!
The battalion must be somewhere behind those mountains!’

‘Maybe,’ answers the Old Man, laconically. ‘That’s the way
we’re
going anyway. Now then. No firing at random. Fire only at proper targets. Don’t forget shooting draws the enemy and we don’t want that!’

‘Plop, plop!’ sounds from the north.

‘50mm’s,’ decides Buffalo sagely, blowing his nose with his fingers.

‘Crack, crack and crack again!’

‘50mm’s,’ says Porta, hurling an empty bread-bag away disappointedly.

‘Who
gives
’em all that shit?’ asks Gregor, worriedly.

‘Italian and German traitors sell it to them,’ answers Julius Heide coldly.

‘They ought to be strung up. There ought to be only one form of punishment. Death! We’re too soft. Womanish thinking.’

‘You’n Adolf’d soon be the only two left in Germany,’ Porta laughs noisily.

‘God will help us,’ mumbles the padre, looking over at us.

‘Listen to the prayer-wheel goin’,’ jeers Skull, throwing a stick at the padre. ‘God don’t help us coolies. Kick us in the bleedin’ arse more like!’

‘Christ helps all who pray to Him,’ answers the padre, quietly, and stares over the sun-blistered desert, where ruined buildings still smoke after the air attack.

‘You an’ your ’eavenly bleedin’ ’ost,’ shouts Tiny furiously. ‘Them as kicked it at the bleedin’ Morellenschlucht
⁹
babbled bleedin’ prayers till they got it an’ God didn’ bleedin’ ‘elp the poor bastards!’

‘I’m in touch,’ screams Heide, spinning feverishly at the dials of the pack radio.

‘Who the hell
are
you, you crazy shit?’ he howls into the set.

‘Flattery will get you nowhere! This is the People’s Army. We’ll be scraping you German shit off the road pretty soon now.’

‘Get fucked, apeman!’ rages Heide.

‘You’ve had it, sausage-eater! Fifteen minutes from now
you’ll
be ready for the grinder!’

‘Bighead!’ Heide spits furiously at the radio. ‘You’re nuts!’

‘You’ve
had
it, Nazi porker!’

What a bleedin’ barmy bastard,’ shouts Tiny, incensed. ‘Let’s get up there after ’im!’

A long howl shrills from the radio. Contact is broken.

‘Think they can see us?’ asks Skull, nervously.

‘’Course they can’t,’ says Tiny, scornfully. ‘If they could they’d ’ve done us by now.’

‘They aren’t ordinary partisans,’ says the Old Man thoughtfully.

‘Communist bastards. Red as a monkey’s arse’ole,’ shouts Tiny angrily, shaking his fist at the mountain peaks.

‘Would anyone think now might be a good time to point one’s penis in the right direction and follow it?’ says Porta, pulling his equipment together.

‘Exercise is good for you,’ laughs Tango, taking a few dance-steps across the open square.

Buffalo stretches himself in the warm sand, and unfolds a large document.

‘Me ’n’ all my family’ve got to appear before a racial purity commission,’ he said. ‘It’s because I’ve become me own grandfather!’

‘That’s impossible,’ says the Old Man in amazement, and puts down his Mpi.

‘Nothin’ ain’t impossible in the Third Goddam Reich. Before I know what’s goin’ on, I’ll be me own great-grandfather. Wait’ll those racial purity boys get goin’ with me. It’s my wife’s fault, the crazy bitch. She’s got a grown-up daughter me daddy got hot pants for an’ went an’ got hitched up with.’

‘Your wife’s daughter’s got to be
your
daughter,’ says the Old Man with a no-nonsense look on his face.

‘Sure, sure, but still not sure. She had this daughter before we tied the knot. An’ that just means my daddy he’s become my son-in-law and my daughter’s my mammy!’

‘Understandable enough,’ laughs Porta. ‘Your daughter is your father’s wife.’

‘What a
mess
,’ says Gregor despairingly, ‘just because a man marries a woman who brings a prefabricated kid with her.’

‘That, son, is only the beginning,’ sighs Buffalo. ‘I understand the Jews better now, those clever bastards. They don’t marry nothin’ but virgins. Two of the Vice Squad’ve lost their marbles over this case so far, an’ more probably to come. They jus’ couldn’t stand comin’ to the conclusion that me an’ my little or lady’d got a son who was my daddy’s brother-in-law.’

‘That’s obvious,’ says the Old Man. ‘He’s your father’s wife’s brother.’

‘Yeah, an’ he ain’t only my son, he’s my uncle too,’ groans Buffalo sadly, ‘cause he’s my mother’s brother.’

‘Yes, because your father’s wife is your wife’s daughter,’ grins Barcelona heartily.

‘Things got real complicated,’ moans Buffalo unhappily, ‘when my daughter, my father’s wife an’ my mother, had a son. He’s my brother, cause he’s my daddy’s son, but he’s the son of me daughter too, which makes me his gran’daddy.’

‘Then your wife has suddenly become your grandmother,’ roars Porta joyfully.

‘Yeah, crazy situation ain’t it?’ mumbles Buffalo with a lost look at the heavens. ‘I’m my wife’s husband, but I’m her grandson too ’cause I’m the brother of her daughter’s son, an’ since your grand’mammy’s husband’s got to be your gran’daddy,’ he throws out his arms despairingly, ‘then it’s piss-plain logical I’m my own gran’daddy and that ol racial purity commission can’t make out how that can possibly be done legitimate. An’ that’s why I’m accused of miscegenation – which is a kind of incest.’

‘They’ll put you inside, son,’ prophesies Tiny, threateningly. ‘Just ’ope Adolf never gets to ’ear about you.’

A heavy burst of shelling breaks into this strange family history. Muzzle reports and bursts roll, echoing deeply, across the mountains.

We move. A nervous unease catches at us.

‘Let’s stay where we are,’ urges feldwebel Schmidt. ‘It’s madness to go up into that cactus. Even animals keep away from it.’

‘
C’est le bordel
,’ snarls the Legionnaire, fierily. ‘It’s madness
to stay here. They’ll have cut our throats before we even know it. The cactus is our only chance!’

‘I know way. Very
bad
way,’ says Stojko from the Bulgarian Guards Regiment. He is the only man left alive from a Field Surgery taken by the partisans. He saved himself by hiding in a bin of amputated limbs until the guerillas had left.

‘March time?’ asks the Old Man hopefully.

‘T’ree maybe four day,’ answers Stojko uncertainly, ‘but we go very quick. No think ’bout water.’

‘Water’s the biggest problem,’ sighs the Old Man, lighting his silver-lidded pipe.

‘I’ve heard tell camels eat cactus cos of the juice in ’em,’ says Buffalo.

‘
Impossible, mon ami
,’ answers the Legionnaire, ‘they taste worse than boiled monkey-piss.’

‘Couldn’t you get
used
to the taste?’ asks Porta, interestedly. ‘I’d rather drink monkey-piss than die of thirst!’

The entire day dribbles away, without our being able to arrive at a decision. The corpses emit a powerful stench. The Old Man has several times told us to bury them but we pretend not to have heard him.

He gives up temporarily and sits down on a stone between Barcelona and the Legionnaire.

‘We must put our trust in Stojko,’ he says quietly, eyeing the Bulgarian in his filthy, blue-grey Guards uniform with its red piping and patches.

‘He knows the bush,’ says the Legionnaire, lighting a Cap-oral thoughtfully. ‘These mountain peasants are masters at forcing their way through a cactus forest. And where
they
can go
we
can go too. I would like to see the peasant who is better than we regular soldiers.’

‘You ever been in this kind of bush?’ asks Barcelona with a mocking smile.

‘
Non, mon ami
,’ answers the Legionnaire. ‘But I have heard quite a lot about it, and I know that it is worse than a trip barefoot across the cauldron of hell.’

‘
I’ve
been there,’ answers Barcelona sombrely, rubbing away at his Mpi. ‘It’s hell upon hell. The devil himself wouldn’t dare go in there. It’s a place God’s forgotten existed. After a few
hours you feel convinced that life is over. The whole place breathes death. The only living things are poisonous reptiles, which attack you on sight. Scratch yourself on one of those wicked thorns and you’re finished.’

‘What a look-out. What a look-out!’ shouts Porta, swallowing a sardine whole.

We’ll soon fix them bleedin’ serpents
and
the bleedin’ cactus,’ growls Tiny, with conviction in his voice. ‘We’re Germans, ain’t we? Conquerors, ain’t we?’

Late in the afternoon a mud-spattered Kübel roars into the village. A major in camouflage dress with a sub-machinegun in the crook of his arm jumps down and starts shouting.

‘It’s about time you people pulled yourselves together and got a road-block set up, isn’t it?’ He stamps on the ground. ‘Closing-time is it? Putting the shutters up, are you? Reinforcements will arrive from Division latest tomorrow morning. And you, feldwebel,’ he turns towards the Old Man, ‘will answer for it with your head if this village isn’t held!’

‘We’ve not much ammo’, sir. Can’t hold this hole more than an hour!’

‘Don’t try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs,’ screams the major, going purple in the face. ‘You’ll hold it, or you’ll swing for it!’

He spins on his heel and climbs back into the Kübel which disappears down the road at a terrific speed.

‘Moves like a mule with a cactus up his jacksey,’ grins Porta: ‘Does he really think we’re going to do battle with the neighbours for this place.’

‘He was moving
fast
,’ says Tango. ‘Wouldn’t have believed a Kübel could
make
that speed.’

‘Babby-shitters with a bad bleedin’ conscience,’ declares Tiny angrily, and kicks viciously at a torn-off foot.

‘Goddam typical! Them shined-up bastards. Don’t they just
love
orderin’ other people out where it stinks of Valhalla an’ a hero’s goddam death!’ remarks Buffalo despondently.

We sit down again. Skull snatches at flies. He eats them. Says they taste like shrimps. He’s even got us to try them. We don’t agree with him. Was he a bird in a former incarnation?

‘
Allons-y!
’ says the Legionnaire. ‘To stay here is camel-dung.’

‘What
about
holding the village?’ says the Old Man thoughtfully. ‘You heard the major’s orders!’

‘
That
bleedin’ mother-fucker,’ shouts Tiny. ‘’E’s no bleedin’ idea who we bleedin’
are
, even! That’s the only bleedin’ good thing about this bleedin’ army. We all look the bleedin’ same
in
bleedin’ uniform.’

In a welter of foam-flecks, dust and glittering sabres, a unit of Vlassov Cossacks trots into the village.

A wachtmeister reins his horse in. It rears and whinnies nervously.

‘What unit, you?’ asks the Russian in bad German.

‘The ’Oly Trinity unit,’ answers Tiny, grinning broadly.

‘You no cheeky, you obergefreiter!’ snarls the Cossack wachtmeister, slashing out wickedly with his sabre in Tiny’s direction. ‘You stand attention, you talk me!’

‘Why, you son of a bleedin’ Caucasian goat!’ shouts Tiny contemptuously.

‘Think a citizen of bleedin’ ’Amburg’s gonna click ’is ’eels for shit like you? Your own lot’ll string you up one of these days. Count on it, son!’

‘Feldwebel, you make charge-sheet that man,’ screams the wachtmeister, raging.

‘Shut it!’ hisses the Old Man, turning on his heel. ‘Find another playground!’

The wachtmeister reins his horse so that it rears up on to its hindlegs.

Tiny jumps to one side to avoid being struck by its forelegs. He draws a deep breath of astonishment.

‘What the bleedin’ ’ell? Why you son of a syphilitic sow an’ a ’or’s bleedin’ cunt-barber! I’ll bleedin’ teach
you
,’ he shouts, giving the horse a straight left to the muzzle. He catches it round the neck and attempts to throw it to the ground.

The horse goes to its knees and screams in fright.

The wachtmeister slashes out at Tiny with his sabre.

‘Murderous bleedin’ monkey,’ roars Tiny plucking the Cossack from his horse and punching away at him. ‘’Oreson bastard!’

‘Stop it,
now
!’ shouts the Old Man, lifting his Mpi.

‘D’you think I’m gonna let this shrivelled-up bit of renegade shit, do me bleedin’ in?’

An obergefreiter on a heavy BMW motorcycle brakes in the square and skids sideways to a halt.

‘God! I thought you lot was guerillas. Everything’s gone for a burton. I’m 12 Grenadier staff-DR! They cut our bloody arses orf. The guerillas is on route 286, an’ all ’ell’s broke loose round Karnobat!’

‘Where you making for, then?’ asks Porta inquisitively.

‘I’m pissin’ orf to Malko Sarkovo,’ he tells us secretively, ’and from there on to Vayasal.’

‘That’s in Turkey!’ Heide breaks in astonishedly.