The Bloody Road to Death (30 page)

‘My bicycle is punctured, sir,’ replies Igor, helping Wolf to an armchair, in which he immediately falls asleep. He just manages to order Igor to repair the puncture.

The medical orderly puts a dressing on Heide, The top of his left ear has been shot off.

Shortly after, Wolf wakes up and wants to throw us all out. He is about to set the wolf-hounds on us, when the telephone begins to ring angrily and impatiently. One of the guards takes it.

‘Herr Stabfeldwebel and Chief Mechanic not here,’ he answers brusquely. Then he suddenly seems to shrink, clicks his heels together and stands to attention. Even though he is from the Russian army, he has been a prisoner-of-war for so long that he can recognize vocal nuances and can judge if they are dangerous or not.

‘What shit’s that?’ roars Wolf from the depths of the armchair.

‘Inspector of Military Police Zufall,’ the Russian says, with doom and disaster in his voice. Anything which smells in the slightest of police is deadly dangerous to his mind, particularly when they turn up between two and four o’clock in the morning. The death hours.

‘Ask that bloody copper what he thinks he’s doin’ ringing at this time of night?’ roars Wolf, making the rafters echo. ‘The bastard can ring tomorrow between ten and eleven.’

‘
Gaspodin
, Inspector Zufall says it is important,’ reports the Russian, saluting with the telephone.

Wolf roars with laughter.

‘Make that dobermann-pinscher of a cop understand that it may be important to him but it’s not to
this
Greater German Chief Mechanic!’

The Russian gabbles Wolf’s message off at such a rate that the man at the other end cannot manage to interrupt, bangs the receiver back on the hook and rushes out of the store-room to hide himself until the whole matter has been cleared up.

A little later the telephone rings again,;

‘Let me take it,’ says Porta self-confidently. ‘We professional soldiers don’t have to take any shit from these half-assed beetles.’ He rips up the telephone with the assurance of a Rockefeller about to accept an offer for a dried-up oil well. ‘Listen bighead!’ he roars into the telephone. ‘Ring tomorrow between ten and eleven, if you’re so mad keen to talk to us. We’re having a christening party, so you can stuff your important business crossways, friend! Sure, come on over if you want to, we’ll christen you too if you like. Who you’re speaking to?
Me
, you dumb twit! Who else? I couldn’t be less interested in getting to know you, so if that’s what you’re in need of you might as well not come. I don’t give a fuck for you or your court-martial, chum. I’ve
told
you. Come if you want to. You don’t seem able to remember what you say yourself. That’s the third time you’ve told me you’re comin’. Well then for Jesus Christ’s sake get your finger out an’ get over here. If you can sing, so much the better! End of message!’ Porta bangs down the telephone decisively. He gives the rest of us a superior nod. ‘These nonentities from the police have to be given the rough side of your tongue straight off. Then you’ve soon got them licking your hand. Now he knows it’s us an’ the Army who give the orders round here.’

‘Hear, hear!’ drools Wolf from the armchair. He has a big bouquet of beer-sodden carnations in his lap. ‘We hold all power firmly in our hands and when we win the final victory out go the goddam bluebottles. They’re an unnecessary drain on the exchequer.’

‘New song,’ orders Heide, who has collected the choir in a ring around him.

With beer-soaked voices they sing:

Geht auch der Tod uns dauemd zur Seit’,
geht es auch driiber und drunter,
braust auch der Wind durch finstere Heid’,
uns geht die Sonne nicht unter
⁵
.

‘Caps off! Let us pray!’ commands Porta.

We kneel down in spilled beer and remnants of food. Solemnly we press our helmets against our chests.

Porta prays for protection, and that our souls may be allowed to enter the eternal home when the time comes . . .

‘But first we’ll finish up this war,’ thunders Wolf, ‘then we’ll have a word with God, afterwards.’

‘When I’m well be’ind the bleedin’ lines in peace an’ quiet, an’ out o’ danger, I don’t give a shit for all that God stuff,’ Tiny explains to the wolf-hounds and the bear, ‘but you understand, mates, soon as I’m out ’ere again where they throw red-’ot bleedin’ lumps o’ iron at your ’ead an’ you run the risk of fallin’ out any old time at all, I keeps meself close to God, an’ I’m that religious you wouldn’t believe. Everythin’ ’as its time an’ place.’

‘We’re gonna
do
that cop bastard,’ promises Wolf, in a thick voice.

‘We’ll show him what tough guys really are,’ says Gregor, striving to put on a villainous expression.

‘Look tough. It’s a good thing,’ drools Julius, fanning me with the sorry remnants of a bouquet of roses.

Gregor brings his fist down decisively in a large pool of schnapps.

‘Drink, that’s
something
! You know where you are. Know what’s gonna happen to you. Women’re much more dangerous. You never know what’s goin’ to happen next! Did I ever tell you ’bout when I got between the sheets with my general’s bint? That wicked bitch near got me shot, she did!’

The door crashes open. A little fat man in a greatcoat much too large for him rolls into the storeroom. His head is round as a cannonball and reminiscent of an aged pig’s head. His ears stick out like braking flaps and are all that stop his oversized cap falling down over his face. He marches straight over to Wolf and shines a large torch directly in his face, despite the fact that the room is brightly lit.

‘Chief Mechanic Wolf,’ he confirms in a piercing voice, snapping the torch off.

‘And Stabsfeldwebel,’ corrects Wolf, pouring some drops of beer over his guest’s head.

‘You deal in tea,’ states the fat little man.

Porta is suddenly in a hurry. He sees trouble coming over the horizon. Two huge gorillas in slate-grey police uniform stop him at the door.

‘Goin’ somewhere, obergefreiter?’ grins one of them, throwing Porta back so hard he falls across the table. ‘Don’t. We’re gonna see some fun soon! You ain’t ever seen nothin’ like it, I’d reckon!’

‘Who the devil
are
you?’ asks Wolf, condescendingly, slapping the little man on the shoulder.

‘Zufall, Inspector Zufall.’

‘You
look
it,’ says Wolf, breaking out into a roar of laughter.

‘You are a real comedian,’ says the Inspector. ‘You’re going to need all that wonderful sense of humour soon.’ He takes off his enormous cap, passes his hand over his completely hairless skull, and claps the cap on his head again. ‘D’you know what the punishment is for those who sabotage the work of the General Staff?’

‘They put ’em up against a wall an’ shoot ’em,’ declares Wolf without a moment’s thought.

‘We are completely in agreement,’ smiles Inspector Zufall, happily. ‘I am here to investigate a case of such a nature.’ He points a thick finger at Wolf, in the gesture of a public prosecutor. ‘And
you
are the saboteur!’

‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ mumbles Wolf, beginning to see dark clouds coming up over the horizon.

‘Of course not,’ smiles Zufall, making a heroic effort to appear friendly, and failing completely. He pulls a fat black notebook from his pocket. ‘You have sold some tea to QM officer Zümfe of the 4th Panzer Army. You guaranteed it to be Darjeeling tea with an addition of green tea.’

‘Is that forbidden?’ asks Wolf, cockily, throwing himself down in a chair.

‘No, decidedly not,’ laughs the Inspector, ominously, ‘but you forgot to tell the QM officer that there was a little surprise item added to this tea!’

Wolf throws a sharp questioning look at Porta, who is at that moment taking a swig at a bottle to liven his spirits up.

‘Surprise? I don’t know about any surprise!’

The German General Staff knows all about it, though,’ roars the Inspector, red as a turkey-cock in the face. ‘They are all in process of shitting themselves to death. There aren’t shit-houses enough to go round.’

Gregor explodes into a roar of laughter, which infects the whole room. Even the two gorillas at the door break out laughing.

The Inspector is moved to laughter, but more discreetly.

Only Wolf and Porta seem to have lost their sense of humour. Wolf is noted for always being able to see the funny side of a joke, particularly when it’s against somebody else.

‘Where did you get that tea from?’ Zufall throws the question at him, as the laughter dies away.

Wolf points silently at Porta.

‘Ah yes! Obergefreiter Joseph Porta,’ the fat Inspector murmurs. ‘I have heard of you and long wished to meet you.’

‘An honour, sir,’ says Porta, bowing in a servile manner.

‘And from where did Herr Porta obtain the tea?’

‘From a parachute,’ says Porta, truthfully.

‘Don’t joke with
me
,’ snarls Zufall viciously. ‘Tea doesn’t grow in the sky. Both of you tea dealers are under arrest. A whole lot of generals want you roasted over a slow fire. You’ll curse the day you went into the tea trade.’

‘We only know about real tea,’ Porta defends himself. ‘Maybe the QM put something in it on the way to the General Staff.’

‘Perhaps it’s affected the gentlemen’s stomachs. It might make ’em shit if they’re not
used
to proper tea, you know,’ suggests Wolf.

Inspector Zufall smiles falsely.

‘The tea has been analysed at the laboratories. It contains a strong aperient – a laxative – the working of which our doctors have not been able to stop. Before long, if it continues, these gentlemen will have shit themselves away down the toilets.’

‘Did
you
put anythin’ in it?’ Porta turns to Wolf.

‘D’you think I’m crazy? I’m a businessman, not a bloody saboteur.’

‘One thing of which we are certain,’ sighs the Inspector. ‘The tea came from you two. If the enemy were to attack now they
would have an easy task. Thanks to your tea, the entire General Staff is out of action. They have been shitting now for sixteen hours and this seems only to be the beginning. A group of specialists are flying from Berlin. If you intended sabotage, you have succeeded beyond all measure. In all my thirty years on the force I have seen nothing like it.’

‘We don’t know a thing about it,’ whispers Wolf, weakly. He feels a dreadful sucking sensation in the region of his stomach. He can almost see the entire General Staff sitting in a row in the latrines with Generalfeldmarschall Model sitting off there on the right flank. Where else would the Generalfeldmarschall be placed in such a situation?

Porta looks at the little, overfed Inspector helplessly.

‘You must realize we’d never sell laxative tea. Even a drivelling idiot from the padded cells at Giessen’d know better than to do that.’

‘So I think, myself,’ answers Zufall. ‘That is why I want to know where you got the tea from? I do not imagine you to have started a tea plantation here in Russia.’

‘I bought the tea from Obergefreiter Porta,’ declares Wolf, and obviously feels that this clears him completely.

‘And it was wafted down to
me
from the sky attached to a pair of yellow parachutes,’ affirms Porta, assisting his explanation with gestures.

‘Do you really expect me to believe that story?’ asks Zufall, who is in possession of a large degree of healthy distrust. He believes only what he can see and feel. ‘Why in the world should anybody drop tea by parachute?’

‘Obviously to get the German Army to shit itself out of its mind,’ says Porta, without realizing that he has guessed right.

‘From what I can see of you two tea traders, you will go to any lengths to ensure your leaving the Army with respectable fortunes,’ says Zufall, with a bitter smile.

‘Too true we are,’ Wolf emits a forced, noisy laugh. ‘It ain’t forbidden to try to make your fortune, now is it?’

‘Honest people rarely get rich,’ considers the Inspector, philosophically.

‘Let’s say, only the stupid stay poor,’ Porta suggests quietly, ’and most people
do
stay poor.’

‘Poor people are good people,’ says Zufall, and thinks of himself. ‘Civil servants do not often get themselves seen in wealthy circles.’

‘No, by God!’ comes spontaneously from Wolf. ‘My old man was both good, poor
and
a civil servant. There wasn’t much grey matter under his hair either, but he had a good reputation. Nobody doubted him to be trustworthy. He was at peace with both God and his neighbours. On holy days there he was in church, and at night you could hear him sleeping the quiet peaceful sleep of the just. If the entire police force had come banging on his door between two and four at night he’d have snored comfortably on. Rich he never was. We were nine kids and he had his worries gettin’ clothes to put on our backs.’

‘Did any of your brothers or sisters follow in your father’s footsteps and enter the civil service?’ asks Zufall interestedly. He feels for Herr Wolf senior.

‘Not on your life,’ grins Wolf. ‘We all took after our mother’s side where brains was concerned. She’d a bit more’n German blood in her veins.’