Wheels of Terror (35 page)

The other two could hardly believe their eyes, but the dice spoke the truth. They lay there smiling a 'possible' at the two doubters.

A whimper, breaking into a scream, made us sit up and hold on to our weapons. Frightened, we looked into the undergrowth. A jerking, weeping, whimpering came to us as from a wounded animal.

'What the hell's that?' asked Porta and cocked his machine-pistol. 'Come out, you filthy devils,' he hissed, 'or we'll lay you horizontal!'

The Old Un pushed away his machine-pistol.

'Stop it, you red-haired daft bugger. That sort of whimpering is past being dangerous.'

He crawled through the bushes. Nervously we lagged behind. Tiny had his machine-pistol ready. The Little Legionnaire and I both carried hand-grenades in our sweaty hands.

The Old Un called us. Carefully we crept forward.

On the ground lay a young woman, her body arched like a bow. From her pale face blood-shot eyes stared at us.

'Is she shot in the stomach?' Porta asked The Old Un who knelt beside the woman.

'Of course not, stupid.'

'Where's she hit?'

'Has a bullet got her?' Tiny wanted to know, and bent over Porta's shoulder.

The Little Legionnaire whistled meaningly.

'Well, well, it looks as if we are going to be midwives.'

'This is no labour-ward,' growled Tiny. 'I've heard no man ought to see this kind of thing.'

'To hell with what you've heard.' The Old Un brushed him off. 'You're in this with us, and we've got to see it through.'

Tiny stared at The Old Un in astonishment.

'Old Un, can't we just finish this game. I've got--'

The woman started to whimper again and twisted in agony as her labour-pains increased.

Rapidly The Old Un gave his orders:

'Desert-nomad, you stay with me. Porta, get hold of some soap and a bucket of water. Sven, start a fire, a big one. Tiny, a tent-sheet and some wool. Cut the wool in two lengths, 30-cm. each.'

'My God, it's never happened to me before that a real winner of a game is ruined because he's a midwife. What a bloody war this is, and it's all Adolf's fault, to hell with him!'

'Shut up, Tiny, and hurry up,' The Old Un shouted impatiently and dried the sweat off the groaning woman's brow.

Tiny turned.

'Will you--' A drawn-out cry from the woman interrupted him. 'God help us,' he shouted and tore off through the bushes to carry out his instructions.

The woman was placed on a tent-sheet. We boiled water on the fire. To Tiny's horror The Old Un ordered us to wash our hands.

The labour-pains became more frequent. Pale and excited we watched the human drama.

Tiny cursed the absent father.

'What a bastard! Fancy leaving the girl alone. What an immoral bastard.' He cried angrily and stroked the woman's hair. He promised the unborn child's father terrible punishment if they met. 'What a traitor. What a piece of rotten skin!' Tiny gesticulated wildly in the direction of the road where we heard heavy trucks rolling past.

We camouflaged the fire as much as possible.

The Old Un threw the two pieces of wool and a combat-knife into the water.

'Why the hell are you boiling the knife?' Tiny asked curiously.

'Don't you know?' The Old Un was nervous and trembling. He spoke soothingly to the woman. She groaned and twisted in pain.

'It'll be soon now,' The Old Un said as he started to wash the woman with clumsy, untrained hands.

The birth started. The head appeared and made us groan as if we ourselves were giving birth.

'Do something,' shouted Tiny and Porta to The Old Un.

The Little Legionnaire bent forward and stretched his hands entreatingly to the woman. Sobbing, he repeated what the other two had said:

'Do something. Maybe she'll die, and then what about the infant? We can't breast feed it.'

'Stupid swine, filthy, stupid swine,' The Old Un raged. 'You can whore, but you can't be bothered to help a child into the world, you lousy dogs!'

Shaking, he placed both his hands round the infant's head and helped with the birth.

The Little Legionnaire sat by the woman's head. She pressed both his hands until her nails cut deeply into his fingers, and arched her body to the climax of emission.

'Skin my fists if you like,' sobbed the Little Legionnaire, 'if it helps. Let me get hold of the swine who's responsible for this. Fancy exposing a woman to this sort of thing!'

During much shaking and swearing the child was born.

The Old Un rose pale and sweaty, put his finger into the child's mouth and removed some slime. He held the child by its feet and gave it a brisk slap on the bottom.

The next second. The Old Un flew backwards after being hit by Tiny's enormous fist.

'You pious swine,' roared Tiny to The Old Un who lay on the ground half-conscious. 'What the hell do you mean by smacking such a tiny thing? It hasn't hurt you. It's the worst thing Tiny has ever seen and I'm not over-sensitive.'

'Oh, my holy God,' groaned The Old Un. 'Don't you see it was to make the child cry?'

'Cry?' howled Tiny and was about to hit out at The Old Un again. 'Hell, I'll make you cry, you sadist!' He swung his fists in the air but the Little Legionnaire and Porta fell on him and threw him down.

The Old Un stood up, cut the umbilical cord and tied it off with the wool. He dried his brow.

'By God, this is the most evil birth yet. Not even in a spot like this can we avoid fighting.'

He started to wash the child. A shirt was torn to pieces to provide a bandage for the navel. Tiny sat on his haunches beside the mother hopefully reassuring her and murmuring threats of murder against The Old Un and the child's father. Porta and the Little Legionnaire broke a new bottle of vodka.

We all started when Tiny emitted an ear-splitting shriek:

'Another baby's coming. Help! Old Un come here and help! You're the only one who's had babies before!'

'Shut up,' cried The Old Un and ordered as before: 'Water, thread, knife, fire!'

We flew about like frightened sparrows.

'My God, a whole nursery's on the way!' said Porta.

Half-an-hour later when it was all over we sat dead-tired smoking our cigarettes. We celebrated the birth of the twins in vodka.

Tiny wanted to name them. He insisted that one should be called Oscar. When we protested we suddenly remembered we had forgotten to see if the children were boys or girls.

The Old Un was told off violently by Tiny and threatened with a beating when we found they were both girls, as The Old Un held them out to common inspection and proof.

'Hell's bells, you can't treat young women like that,' growled Tiny. He had suddenly become surprisingly prudish.

A couple of machine-guns barked in the night and reminded us of our whereabouts. Rapidly we started gathering our stuff together. Porta carried the infants to the tank and handed them to the Little Legionnaire who improvised a bed for them behind the driver's seat. Here the tank had a hatch in the side which meant we could quickly get the mother and her babies out if we were hit and set on fire.

The Old Un didn't want us to drive on. We protested violently.

'The after-birth's got to come first,' decided The Old Un shortly and started to massage the woman's abdomen.

When the after-birth came Tiny cried out in fright. He thought a third baby was on the way.

The Old Un examined the after-birth with a skilled eye and nodded satisfied. He then gave orders to leave. We carried the woman to the tank and placed her beside her babies. The hatch was shut.

With the darkness covering us we rolled westwards surrounded by hostile vehicles on all sides.

'This'll never do!' complained the Little Legionnaire. 'I wish I was in the desert! That was child's play compared with this rotten war.'

Porta laughed loudly:

'Got enough, eh, desert-nomad? You're not only a desert-nomad, but you're a fascist pimp and a stupid swine, and now you're a midwife.'

'Allah is great. Nobody's greater than Allah,' mumbled the Little Legionnaire and stroked his pockmarked face.

A column of Russian infantry appeared. The Little Legionnaire cocked his machine-gun.

'Nervous, desert-nomad?' grinned Porta and speeded up the tank.

'Not at all. I enjoy it,' the Little Legionnaire sneered.

Porta whistled:

'
Wer soll das bezahlen?
Wer hat das bestellt?
'

He smiled at the woman behind him.

'What a labour-ward this old sledge has become. The twins' friends will envy them their birth certificates at school.'

'I wish you'd shut up,' the Little Legionnaire said.

'Careful now, dear desert-nomad, or your face will have a few more decorations.'

'And who'd do that?' the Little Legionnaire drawled as he sucked in a sinister way at a hollow tooth.

'This one,' answered Porta and held his combat-knife out. 'Don't forget it, you Arab!'

The Little Legionnaire raised a blond eyebrow, slowly lit a cigarette and grinned his evil smile:

'Great man, very great man! As courageous as a big pig! But I--'

He got no further. Tiny who had been sitting half-asleep bent forward and hit him on the head with the handle of his bayonet. The Little Legionnaire promptly slid down unconscious.

'You uncouth new boy! I'll teach you to speak badly about Tiny when he's napping!'

He was just about to kick the helpless Legionnaire's head when The Old Un and I charged in and managed to calm him down.

Porta laughed loudly and heartily:

'That poor desert-nomad has a lot to learn. It must have been a sort of Sunday-school down there among the date-palms. He doesn't know any nice tricks. Fancy Tiny bashing his head in with that stupid bayonet. Allah is truly great, only he hasn't got eyes in the back of his head.'

The twins started crying. The mother was restless. The restlessness was contagious. Porta handed her a bottle of vodka. She pushed his hand away with revulsion and mumbled something.

Porta shrugged his shoulders.

'God protect me! I shan't annoy you, madame. My name is Joseph Porta, Corporal by the Grace of God, and midwife!'

The Little Legionnaire groaned and put his hands to his head. He sat up, lit a cigarette and bent his head back to glare at Tiny.

'Clever, eh? Don't forget to look behind you, big fellow. Maybe you'll get a quiet thump on the back of the neck.'

'Hey!' shouted Tiny and started to swing his gorilla-like arms. 'I'll make mincemeat of you so that even the Arab tarts won't recognize you!'

The Old Un slid down from the turret.

'Enough of that,' he ordered. 'If you must fight, jump out of the tank and do it quick. There are hundreds of our colleagues trotting along beside us and you'll soon have your fill.'

Tiny turned angrily to The Old Un.

'What the hell! That's no way to speak to us. Who do you think you are?' He bent forward, shook his enormous fist under The Old Un's nose, cursed and threatened.

The Old Un looked calmly at him.

'Don't get into a state now! Nobody's going to do anything to you.'

'Do something to me,' bellowed Tiny. 'Do something to Tiny? Let me see the bastard who'd do Tiny!' He bent sideways to the Little Legionnaire and nearly knotted himself in order to look the little fellow in the face. 'You wouldn't do anything to Tiny?'

'No,' the Little Legionnaire laughed. 'Unless of course you were tied up. Then I might cut your throat!'

Tiny was clearly relaxed at the word 'tied'. But still he questioned each one of us.

Porta cursed, and accelerated so abruptly that we beat our heads against the hull.

Machine-cannons and guns hammered at us. The bullets crashed into the steel flank of the tank. A road-block was forced and a few S-mines exploded under us without harming the tank.

One Russian infantryman tried to mount it but he misjudged his jump and was flung under the rollers.

Hand-grenades kept being lobbed at us. The Little Legionnaire fired some quick sweeping bursts with his machine-gun. Through the sighting mechanism I saw some confused Russian infantrymen running about. They took cover by the wayside. On the road in front stood a tank firing at us with its 2-cm. machine-cannon.

The turret engine purred. Figures danced in the sighting mechanism. The points met. A couple of quick orders. A thundering detonation. The 8.8-cm. shell tore the tank to pieces. Our flame-thrower cleared the road. Rapidly we disappeared into the darkness, leaving behind us for our remembrance a burning Russian panzer tank.

22

Instead of a fortnight's rest, each of us got two ounces of water-cheese from the quartermaster and orders to go back into the line. When all the cheese had been distributed we were given a coloured photo of Hitler. Then, we were marched to our fighting position without either rest or cheese.

But first Porta had a big job to do. He used five of the Fuhrer's photographs as toilet paper.

The Refugees

The grey ghostly light of day emerged over the horizon.

Porta turned the tank in on a narrow forest-road. Everyone sat half-asleep. The woman cried. The children coughed and cried with pain caused by the sharp acid fumes from our guns.

Porta braked the tank. Frightened, we peeped out through the observation-slits. In front of us some vaguely-seen figures were running about. A truck had been put across the road. It looked like a road-block.

The Little Legionnaire swore and cocked his machine-gun.

'Take it easy, easy,' The Old Un soothed. A shot rang out. Panic took hold of us when we saw a 'stove-pipe' trained on us. The figures in the sighting-mechanism swirled in front of my eyes.

'Ready, guns clear,' came Tiny's automatic report.

A click. The little red lamp inside the tank blinked evilly. The cannon and the turret machine-gun were cleared for action. The 8.8-cm. explosive shell lay poker-still in the chamber. A knot of people sat straight in front of our sights. Our fingers tightened on the triggers.

'
Tac-tac-tac!
' rattled the machine-gun. The rolling death echoed through the wood.