The Commissar

Book 0: Sven Hassel War Classics

by Sven Hassel

Genres: General Fiction

Synopsis

Heide wails, jumps up and lands on the other side of the trench, where he slides through the mud like a bulldozer. Our tank starts backing up in full speed. Porta has clearly also spotted the madness lying ahead in wait of spreading death and mutilation. Nothing travels as fast as the rumor that the front troops have hit the dreaded mines. Suddenly everything goes quiet. Even the heavy Maxim gun stops. Everyone holds their breath and waits for the mine to go off.
"THE CERTAIN SENSE OF DRAMATIC ANTI-THESIS HAS TURNED SVEN HASSEL INTO A NEW HEMINGWAY" RAMAR-GAN, ISRAEL

Sven Hassel was sent to a penal battalion as a private in the German forces. Intensely and with brutal realism, he portrays the cruelty of the war, the Nazi crimes and the crude and cynical humor of the soldiers. With more than 50 million sold copies, this is one of the world's best selling war novels.

Release date: July 22, 2010

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 368

Sample

 

A soldier’s conscience is as wide as Hell’s gate.

William Shakespeare

The Gauleiter was in a hurry. He drove recklessly, taking no heed of the refugees choking the roads. His triple-axled vehicle was heavily loaded. He was the first to have left the city. The vehicle had been loaded for several days. Then, the sound of tank-guns in the distance persuaded the Gauleiter that the time to start on his travels was now. The only member of his large staff whom he took with him was his young secretary. She believed in the Führer, the Party and the Final Victory.

She pulled her mink coat closer about her. It had once belonged to a rich woman who had died in Auschwitz.

They were stopped four times by the Field Police, but the Gauleiter’s golden-brown uniform was as good as a password. At the last stop the guards warned them against proceeding further. The next sentries they would meet would be Americans. Their road-block was where the road turned off from Hof to Munich.

A coarse-faced sergeant of snowballs* stuck a gun-barrel through the vehicle window. The Gauleiter had changed into civilian clothes.

‘You ain’t gone hungry, have you, sausage-eater?’

‘He is a Gauleiter,’ smiled the secretary, who no longer believed in the Führer, the Party and the Final Victory.

The snowball sergeant emitted a long, low whistle.

‘Hear that boys?’ He turned to his three-man MP guard. ‘This civilian sausage-eater’s a Gauleiter!’

They all laughed.

‘Come on,’ said the MP sergeant, prodding the Gauleiter with his gun-muzzle. ‘Let’s take a stroll into the woods, and see how the spring crocuses are coming along.’ His breath stank of cheap cognac.

The secretary heard three bursts of automatic fire. White helmets appeared again from the woods. She was halfway across the fields towards the farm, and never heard the next burst of fire which came from behind her. She was dead before her face hit the ground!

‘What the hell you shoot her for?’ shouted the sergeant, in an irritated voice.

‘Escapin’ wasn’t she?’ said the corporal, cheerfully. He cracked a fresh ammunition clip home with the heel of his hand.

Soon afterwards the next loaded vehicle arrived.

‘Section, halt!’ The Old Man’s voice comes hoarsely over the radio. He throws up the flap of the turret with a metallic crash, and pulls his battered old silver-lidded pipe from his pocket in one and the same movement. Hard-boiled as our Section Leader is, he is still a carpenter at heart. An aura of sawdust and wood-shavings hangs about him.

‘Blast these bloody things!’ he swears, turning round with difficulty in the narrow turret aperture. The new, heavy winter underwear makes a man twice his normal size round the waist. ‘Where’s Barcelona and his lot got to?’

I open the side hatch and peer tiredly down the long column of tanks rattling along the cobbled road. They are our heavy tanks, mounted with flamethrowers. There must be something very well-defended up in front of us, or the heavies wouldn’t be in the lead.

‘Noisy lot o’ bleeders ain’t they?’ growls Tiny, showing his sooty face cautiously at the loader’s hatch. ‘Jesus’n Mary!’ he shouts, ducking quickly inside again as the muzzle flames of a pair of degtrareva* spit from the windows of some business premises further down the street. Our machineguns begin to chatter back immediately. The clatter of running feet is heard on all sides, mixed with shouted orders and screams. It sounds as if the gates of hell had suddenly been thrown open.

A figure in an earth-coloured uniform, carrying a T-mine, comes scrambling up over our front apron. Tiny sweeps him away, with a burst from his machine-pistol, before he can place the T-mine under our turret ring.

Suddenly the street is swarming with Russians. They come flooding out from every door and window.

I catch sight of a Russian helmet on our open side. Reflexively I empty my pistol into a twisted face. It shatters like an egg.

‘Grenades,’ shouts the Old Man, ripping a stick-grenade from its clip.

I pull personnel grenades from my pockets, and throw them through the hatch. The little eggs explode, cracking sharply in our ears. Human screams split the darkness.

A 20 mm coughs angrily from an attic window. The small, dangerous shells ricochet between the house walls. It is as if devils were playing ping-pong with exploding balls of fire.

Without awaiting the Old Man’s order I swing the turret, and aim our gun at the building from which the 20 mm and the degtrareva are spitting their pearly rows of deadly light.

Our long gun roars, violently.

With a certain feeling of pleasure I see two uniformed figures whirl down from the third-floor windows. They catch for a moment on the overhead wires of the tramlines, then fall to the cobblestones, landing with a soggy thump.

I send three more rounds of HE into the building. Flames commence to roar up from the roof. Tiles fall in the street like enormous hailstones. They splinter on the cobblestones.

The fire runs quickly along the houses. In the twinkling of an eye the whole row becomes a sea of roaring flame. Terrified men spring from the windows, preferring death on the cobblestones to burning alive.

‘Who ordered you to open fire?’ rages the Old Man, hitting out at me with a stick-grenade. ‘Fire when you’re ordered to, an’ not before, you powder-mad sod, you!’

‘They’d have done us up for sure, if I hadn’t fired,’ I defend myself, hurt. ‘The gun’s to shoot with, isn’t it?’

‘That building you’ve just disposed of so thoroughly was I Battalion’s billet. Get that through your thick skull! You just shot it all to hell!’ shouts the Old Man, despairingly.

‘Sabotage, that’s what it is,’ says Heide, triumphantly, ’or I don’t know what sabotage is! Kick him in front of a court-martial so we won’t have to look at him any more!’

‘Must ’ave rotten eggs where ’is brains ought to be,’ barks Tiny, jeeringly. ‘Shit on ’is own doorstep when’e could’ve done it in the snow’n only shit icicles. Let’s blow’is’ead off!’

‘Shut up!’ snarls the Old Man. He puffs fiercely on his pipe.

‘See that sky-pilot over there,’ grins Porta. ‘Runnin’ like mad with a bible under his arm, and a crucifix banging on his navel. The speed he’s going you’d think the devil had his pitchfork up his arse!’

‘I cannot ever understand why chaplains is just as scared of gettin’ knocked off as all us ordinary shits,’ Tiny wonders. ‘Them lot’as got connections to the’igher regions!’

‘The holy and righteous are just as scared of blowin’ their last fart as we heathens are, my son,’ philosophizes Porta. ‘In reality only very good people indeed can permit themselves to become religious.’

‘Panzer, Marsch.’ orders the Old Man, pulling his headphones down over his ears, and settling his throat microphone in place. ‘2 Section follow me!’ From old habit he lifts his clenched fist over his head. The signal to move forward. Maybach engines howl up into whining upper registers. Broad tracks churn forward over the dead and wounded lying in the street.

A Panther tank stops over a foxhole, where two Russian soldiers have taken cover with an LMG. The tank waggles on its axis, like a hen settling on to her eggs. There are screams, sharply cut off. The Russians have been crushed to a bloody pulp.

The noise of the tanks is deafening. The guns and automatic weapons drown out every other noise.

‘Anna here! Here Anna,’ the Old Man says to the radio. ‘Bertha and Caesar make safe on flanks. Fire only at clear targets! I repeat: fire only at clear targets. And I’ll want an exact ammo’ count from all of you. Now, fingers out, an’ get moving, you sad sacks!’

Flames lick at the houses. Bullets rattle and clang on the sides of the tanks. Machine-gunners fire at them, in the wasteful hope that they can do the steel giants some damage. Poisonous yellow smoke penetrates the tanks, making the crewmen’s tired eyes burn and sting!

A burning roof crashes down on top of a P-III. Flames shoot up, and in a few seconds it becomes an exploding ball of fire. Reserve petrol drums lashed to its rear shield turn the tank into a travelling bomb.

The cold, damp night air stinks of explosion fumes, blood and dead bodies.

‘Here Hinka, here Hinka,’ comes from the scratchy loudspeaker. The steely voice of the regimental commander cuts through the racket in the tank. ‘5 Company will do clean-up. Prisoners will be sent back to grenadier battalion. I warn you! No looting of any kind! Breach of this order will be punished most severely!’

‘Always us,’ grumbles Porta sourly, speeding up his motor. ‘It’s bloody wonderful! They chase us poor bloody coolies, till even our soddin’ socks are sick of it. Why am I so rotten healthy, and why do all them lovely Commie bullets go round me? I’m never, ever goin’ to get away from this shitty war, and into a lovely, clean hospital with lovely clean, antiseptic nurse’s cunt all round me just longin’ to get across a wounded, bloody Ayrab like me!’

‘’Ot shit!’ growls Tiny, bitterly. ‘Risk your bleedin’ life, every day in every way, for a fucked-up mark a day.’

‘It’s the rotten German army,’ snarls Porta, angrily. ‘Why, oh why, was I ever born in a war-crazy country like Germany!’

I feel dog-tired, but a rage of energy still courses through my weary body. They’ve filled us up with benzedrine. For the last six days we have been unable to snatch more than a few minutes of sleep at a time, and we walk around in a queer sort of haze. The worst of all is that every time we have almost fallen asleep we wake up with a start, and the bitter taste of fear is in our mouths.

Tiny hangs over the guard rails. His eyes are wide open, but see nothing. From one loosely hanging hand dangles a P-38. He’s like the rest of us. He dare not fall asleep. Now we are close to the danger point. The point where we can no longer be bothered to keep a watch for approaching death. It’s waiting out there for us somewhere; perhaps in the form of an explosion; perhaps in a hysterical hail of machine-gun bullets.

Shells come whistling over the town in great arcs, despatched from invisible batteries to strike at distant targets far behind us.

Tiny jerks awake and cracks his head against the roof of the tank. He swears bitterly and long. Dark blood runs down beside his left ear. He dabs at it, irritably, with an oily cloth.

‘’Oly Mother of Kazan, what a bleedin’ dream,’ he mumbles. ‘I was walkin’ around in a wood tryin’ to find the Red bleedin’ Army. Up comes a commissar an’ shoots the shit out o’ me.’ He looks around at us, quite out of touch. ‘Stone the crows,’ he says, feebly, ‘now I know I don’t like gettin’ shot up.’

The tank stops. Mud and remnants of bodies drip from the tracks Its white camouflage paintwork is a dirty grey from powdermarks and filth.

We stretch ourselves in our steel seats, and throw open the shutters to let in some fresh air. But all we get is poison-yellow smoke and the stink of death.

Tank grenadiers sneak along the house walls. They have the dirtiest job of all. Not a bit of glory. Their reward is more often than not a bellyfull of machine-gun bullets. They start in cleaning out the cellars for fanatics, crazy fools who fight to the last man and the last bullet. Their reward is a throat slashed open. Brainwashed idiots filled with Ilya Ehrenburg propaganda. The same kind of people as ours. The ones who die whispering ‘Heil Hitler’ from between crushed lips.

From where we are lying in ambush, we can see a long way out over the steppe. It is like a whitish-grey sea, fading away into the distant horizon. Far, far behind us, towns and villages, set on fire by shell-fire during our savage attack, burn fiercely.

Wherever we look, fiery red and yellow flashes split the darkness of the night, marking clearly the deadly path of the armoured attack.

Halfway down some cellar steps hangs a US Willy’s jeep with five headless bodies in it. They sit to attention as if on parade. It seems as if a huge knife has slashed the heads from the four Russian officers and their driver in one enormous sweep. There is something strange about the headless bodies. They are not wearing battle khaki but dark green dress uniforms, with broad shoulder distinctions which glitter in the flames from a burning distillery nearby.

‘See now. Sights like that,’ says Porta, spitting accurately out of an observation slit, ‘make a man glad to be alive, even when life is monotonous and weary.’

‘Where you think that lot was off to, togged up in them uniforms an’ all the cunt magnets they c’d get their ’ands on?’ asks Tiny, interestedly. He leans out of the turret opening. ‘They must’ve lost their way to end up’ere where there’s a war goin’ on.’

‘My guess is they were on their way to a party with some field mattresses,’ says Porta. He licks his lips at the thought.

‘Let’s give ’em a goin’ over,’ suggests Tiny, jumping down from the tank. ‘They’re goin’ to a ’ores’ party, they’ll ’ave some pretties on ’em. Count on it!’

Porta inches up through the turret opening, eagerly, and bends over a headless first lieutenant with a row of ribbons on his chest.

‘A hero,’ he laughs, putting the ribbons in his pocket. Buyers for them are easy to find behind the lines. His quick fingers go through the officer’s pockets, regardless of congealed blood and crushed bones.

‘Not a lot o’ gold teeth in this lot,’ remarks Tiny disappointedly, nosing around in the blood-spattered vehicle.

‘Perfumed officers’ cigarettes with paper mouthpieces,’ says Porta, putting some blue packets into his specially-made poacher’s pockets.

‘Any seegars?’ asks Tiny, turning over a body, with an unpleasant squelching sound.

‘Are you out of your mind, man?’ answers Porta. ‘Stalin’s officers don’t smoke cigars. That’s capitalistic!’

‘Lucky for us then we’re bleedin’ capitalists, ‘Tiny laughs noisily, picking up a bottle of vodka, one of the finest kind with the old Russian czarist eagle on a royal blue label. A vodka which only the top party leaders get supplied with.

Two grimy panzer grenadiers come along, dragging a screaming, half-naked woman with them. She tries desperately to tear herself loose, but they only tighten their grip on her.

‘You’re goin’ with us, you little cat, whether you want to or not,’ grins one of them, lasciviously. ‘You’re gonna get the chance to enjoy the war in our company. We’re gonna ’ave an orgy, with sighs’n everythin’ else as belongs with it.’

But the terrified girl obviously does not want to take part in an orgy. She kicks one of the grenadiers on the knee. He lets out a chain of shocking oaths, and grips her roughly by the throat with one filthy, wet fist.

‘Listen to me, you little wildcat,’ he snarls, wickedly. ‘Get civilized or I’ll smash your pretty little face in. Panjemajo*, you Bolshevik bitch? It’s a longtime since me’n my mate’ve had any fresh goods. Panjemajo, Bolshy? You’re goin’ to an orgy, an’ you’re gonna be the main attraction. Panjemajo?’

‘Da,’ she whispers, in terror, and seems to give up all attempt at resistance.

‘The party’s over,’ snarls the Old Man, swinging his mpi muzzle round to cover the three. ‘Let ’er go! Now! Or would you rather we had a fast little court-martial?’

‘Now I’ve heard it all,’ shouts the biggest of the two panzer grenadiers, pushing his helmet to the back of his head. ‘Been chewin’ on wood, ’ave you? Belt up, you puffed-up excuse for a dragoon, you!’

They have let go of the girl and fumble for the machine-pistols hanging across their chests. They have not seen Tiny and Porta standing behind them.

‘Get ’em up! Let’s see you try to tickle the angels’ footsoles, my sons,’ trumpets Porta, grinning happily.

Both panzer grenadiers swing round with mpis at the ready. Bullets snarl angrily past Porta’s face.

Reflexively, Tiny cuts the grenadiers almost in two with a scythe-like burst from his Kalashnikov.

One goes down, internal organs flopping from his open gut. The other is thrown onto his back, and tries to crawl under the tracks . of the tank.

‘Bye-bye, then,’ grins Tiny. ‘See what ’appens to little boys as gets caught tryin’ to pinch a piece o’ cunt!’

‘Was that necessary?’ asks the Old Man, fretfully, pushing his helmet up from his face.

‘What you bleedin’ want us to do, then? Them two blue-bollocked bastards was gonna shoot us to death,’ protests Tiny, outraged.

‘The way of the world,’ sighs Porta. He pushes at the nearest body with the toe of his boot. ‘Him as shoots first lives longest!’

The Old Man takes a deep breath. As he crawls back down through the turret opening he breaks into a mad burst of laughter. He knows very well that this war is eating us all up. To protest against the cruelty of death is completely useless.

‘Where’d the bint get to,’ asks Porta, looking searchingly around him.

‘There she goes, runnin’ like mad,’ laughs Tiny, pointing. ‘’Ad enough of us Germans, seems like.’

Bullets from an MG whip along the fronts of the houses, throwing earth and mortar over the jeep. The big, soft lump of fear is back in our throats.

‘Come on,’ says the Old Man. ‘Let’s move!’

‘Can I borrow that big feller’s uniform?’ asks Tiny.

‘What the devil do you want with that?’ asks the Old Man, wonderingly. ‘Haven’t you got uniform enough in the one Adolfs lent you?’

‘You ain’t forward-lookin’ enough,’ grins Tiny, cunningly. ‘When “Grofaz”*’as lost ’is war, and we get enrolled in the other FPO’s lot, it’ll be a good thing to ’ave a uniform of your own to start off with.’

‘You’re lookin’ for a miracle, son,’ laughs Porta.

‘Are we to understand then,’ asks Julius Heide, his eyes narrowing to slits, ‘that you’re turning your back on the Führer and the Reich, and no longer believe wholeheartedly in the Final Victory? I wonder what the NSFO’ll† have to say to that when I hand in my report.’

‘What a shit that Julius is,’ Tiny bellows with laughter. ‘The turd o’ the world, an’ never goin’ to get no cleverer.’

‘He’s what he is,’ Porta takes it up. ‘A real man o’ the new times. A well-trained German soldier who shits an’ eats by numbers, an’ turns his toes in an’ feels happy as a sodding lark long as he’s in company with patriotic nuts’n close-cropped generals with a window in one eye. Heil Hitler!’

‘I’ve got all that written down, mark my words, Ober-gefreiter Porta,’ snarls Heide, affrontedly. ‘You’ll have to repeat every word of it at your court-martial. The day you dangle’ll be the happiest day of my life!’

‘Better get crackin’ then, my boy, ’fore the untermensch turn up. Or it’ll be me, Obergefreiter by the grace of God Joseph Porta, who’ll be puttin’ his weight on the other end of the rope,’ answers Porta, blowing down the barrel of his mpi.

‘Up, you lazy men!’ the Old Man scolds them. ‘Here comes Löwe. Get your thieving fingers off them Russian bodies! It’s a court for you, else! You know what that means?’

‘Bye, bye napper,’ says Tiny, patting his own cheek lovingly.

Porta has just time to lift the Russians’ identification papers.

‘Also saleable,’ he grins as he sidles down through the tank turret opening.

‘When this German world war’s all over, there’ll be coppers in personal documents. Everybody’n his brother’ll be standing in line to get a new start in life.’ He chuckles away to himself at the idea.

‘Jesus, but I’m tired,’ groans Barcelona, when the section makes a halt, a couple of hours later, in an open square. They are all hoping the halt means a rest period for them.

Suddenly the square is swarming with Russian soldiers. Some are armed to the teeth, others only half-dressed under their long khaki cloaks, which stream out in the wind. They have one thing in common. Their hands are stretched up above their heads and they are shouting: ‘Tovaritsch*’, the universal appeal for permission to remain alive. Strangely enough life seems only to begin to be really valuable to us when we have given up all hope and all ambition.

The Old Man swings down wearily from his turret onto the slush-covered cobblestones.

Hordes of Russian infantrymen, with grey, hopeless faces, push and shove their way past him. Only with difficulty can he keep himself from being carried along with them.

‘Think they were rushin’ to get in an’ see the latest porno movie wouldn’t you?’ crows Porta. ‘Mind you don’t get taken prisoner along with them, Old Un. We don’t want to lose you like that!’

Tiny’s huge body blocks the side hatch of the tank. Mouth agape, he stares at the khaki-clad flood of humanity streaming around the vehicle. It fills the whole street from side to side. There is the burnt-out wreck of a tramcar in its path. The stream goes over, not round, it.

‘’Oly Russian mum o’ Kazan,’ cries Tiny, in amazement. ‘It’s the ’ole bleedin’ Red Army, it is. Never ’ave I ever laid eyes on that many Russians at one time in all me German bleedin’ life!’

‘Hold on to your maidenheads, my sons,’ says Porta, dropping back down into the tank. ‘If that lot o’ tired heroes gets to thinkin’ how many they are an’ how few we are, then our heroic participation in this fucked-up war’ll be over ’fore we know it.’

‘Stone the crows,’ howls Tiny fearfully. He slides rapidly back into the tank and clangs the shutters to. ‘Let’s get out of ’ere!’

Barcelona’s eight-wheeled Puma armoured clean-up waggon slides to a crashing halt. Its long, 75 mm gun juts threateningly from the low turret. It sideswipes the burnt-out tramcar with a screech of metal. Some Russians are caught under the heavy wheels. They scream heart-renderingly. Other soldiers pull them free and help them away. We hardly notice. This is everyday fare for us. There are too many prisoners anyway. Who cares about a few more or less?

Barcelona leans from the turret, pushes his huge dust-goggles up onto his helmet, and shouts something indistinguishable.

Albert’s black African face bobs up out of the driver’s aperture.

‘Bow-wow!’ he barks, with a flash of shiny, white teeth at the Russian prisoners. They jump back in alarm at the sight of a German negro.

‘They think he’s goin’ to eat them,’ grins Porta in Berlin gamin style. ‘It’ll all be in Pravda in a few days’ time. Capitalist foes using cannibal troops!’

‘Stop that cursed motor,’ the Old Man boils up, irritably. ‘You can’t hear yourself think!’

‘You are in a bad mood,’ says Barcelona, with a broad smile. ‘Liven up! This war’s only the start of something much, much worse. I’ve got a little message of greetings with me from Staff HQ. Get your arses in gear, boys, an’ fast. Up front you go, and knock off some of the godless heathen, so those who’re left alive can sneak off back where they came from. This is what we’re getting paid for, you know. I’m to follow on as number three.’

‘Who’s two?’ shouts Porta from his driving-slit.

‘The “Desert Wanderer” in his P-IV,’ giggles Barcelona, happily. ‘He’s used to lookin’ out for camels, from his apprenticeship in the Sahara.’

‘Camels?’ asks the Old Man, blankly. ‘There’s no blasted camels in this war? Are there?’

‘You’ll see,’ answers Barcelona. ‘Before you know it you’ll have a camel’s nose up your jacksey, my friend. Ivan’s sent over a whole camel division from the Kalmuk steppe.’

‘Holy Mary, mother of Jesus,’ shouts Porta, delightedly, ‘then I can do us camel steaks. I’ve got a wonderful recipe for them that was given to me by a Bedouin, in grateful appreciation of my not running him over when we invaded France. Listen …’

‘Not a blasted word will I hear out of you about food,’ states the Old Man.

‘What shiny-arsed bastard’s found out it ’as to be us again?’ asks Tiny, peeping cautiously over the edge of the hatch. The pure number of Russian prisoners going past us is still making his blood run cold.

‘The Divisional Commander,’ answers Barcelona, with a look on his face so haughty you’d think that he himself was the Chief of Staff. ‘Herr General Arse-an’-Pockets wants some new silver to hang round his neck, an’ we’re the boys who’re goin’ to put it there. By the way, I hear Gregor got four threes in the black hole for smashin’ up Arse-an’ -Pockets Kübel. The general ended up in a tree, boots, cap an’ all, an’ frightened the black ravens half to death. Gregor’s got the boot, and‘ll soon be back with us.’

The Legionnaire’s P-IV can be heard starting up behind the tram terminus. The Maybach motors stall again and again. Ignitions whine time after time. Then thunderous explosions crash down the narrow side street. The horsepower of the mighty engines begins to take hold. The roar of exhausts splits the air and fills the whole street.

Our motor catches immediately. A stench of petrol and hot oil spreads on the slush-damp air. The steel giants rattle up the steep alley, the earth shaking under their treads. Barcelona waves happily from the turret of his clean-up waggon, then disappears down inside and clangs the hatch shut behind him.

With a swing, graceful as a skater’s figure-of-eight, the heavy eight-wheeled armoured vehicle disappears down the alley, slush spurting up from under its wheels.

We roll recklessly on, behind us the Legionnaire in his P-IV. Cobblestones and earth fly up from our tracks. They tear grey wounds in the poorly-paved road surfacing.

‘Jesus, Jesus!’ cries Tiny, banging his fist down on a shell. ‘What a bleedin’ bill we’ll get if we ever’as to pay for all the damage we’re doin’ in this country. Reckon it’ll be clever to keep out o’ sight for a bit, when we’ve lost the final bleedin’ victory!’

‘What a lot of shit you talk,’ hisses Heide. He hammers viciously on the communicator, which has gone on strike again.

‘Listen to it,’ Porta laughs, jeeringly. ‘The Führer’s soldier’s goin’ sane. He’s calling Grofaz’s radio programmes a lot of shit.’

‘It’s no fault of the Führer’s,’ Heide corrects him. He shakes the radio. ‘It’s sabotage to install a pre-war radio in a brand-new Panther tank!’

‘Complain to Speer, then,’ Tiny suggests, grinning broadly. ‘It’s ’im as is doin’ the sabotage! Bleedin’ barmy to give a soddin’’od-carrier the job o’ runnin’ the ’ole war-industry, any road!’

‘Idiot,’ snarls Heide, beginning to dismantle the radio with quick, sure fingers. It begins to splutter, suddenly, and a babble of excited voices fills the tank. The whole network is overloaded with the voices of hysterical tank-commanders. They have all sighted the enemy positions at the same time, and guns begin to go off unordered. A 75 mm siege gun is hit by a German shell and goes up. Red-hot metal rains down.

All at once we are wide awake. Tiredness disappears from our bodies. In a tank battle the fastest crew wins.

I pump the foot-pedal and ready the gun. Then I see Barcelona’s Puma come roaring back toward us. Heide’s MG rattles nastily, sending a rain of tracer bullets across the river, which is covered with a heavy gruel of thick broken ice.

‘Get your finger out,’ shouts the Old Man, impatiently, banging his fist on my shoulder.

‘You’ve got your target! Fire at the muzzle-flash. Get on with it, man, if you don’t mind! Or do you want to get roasted alive?’

Nervously, I rotate the turret a few degrees, but can still see nothing. Nothing but darkness and whirling snowflakes. Snow lies on the edges of the viewing-slits like wet cottonwool.

‘Fire then, you blasted idiot,’ shouts the Old Man, angrily. ‘D’you want to get the lot of us killed?’

The brutal hammering of the two MGs fills the tank. Tracer tracks fumble about, with long silvery fingers, searching for enemy flesh.

Barcelona’s Puma zig-zags back down the wide avenue, now cleared completely of Russian prisoners.

Its three MGs spit out a heavy, rapid rain of tracer towards the grey-white river banks. The Russian infantry over there send back a storm of fire at us.

‘Give ’em three HEs,’ orders the Old Man, brusquely. ‘That’ll give the gun-crazy bastards something to think about!’

A huge spout of mud, blood and snow goes up, as the HEs land between a couple of machine-gun nests. Tracer comes back at us, ricocheting in a mad dance between the trees lining the avenue.

Two P-IIIs and a P-IV go up in a roaring sheet of petrol-explosion flame. The crews hang from their turrets, bodies crackling and bubbling like torches dipped in fat.

A new sound mingles with the cacophony of this devil’s concert. The hollow, whining howl of Stalin organs.

Forty-eight rocket shells come sailing through the air towards us. Long comet-tails of flame stretch behind them. Then, like clowns in a circus, their tails tip forward, and they drop vertically to the earth. They give us no feeling of being dangerous, but seem more like some strange kind of firework device. When they strike the earth our impression changes. The holes they make are tremendous, and the blast from them presses the air from our lungs.

Cutting through the roar of the Stalin or