Blood and Ice (10 page)

But still they pressed on, followed by assault squads of picked infantry, who were armed with flame-throwers and burnt their way systematically from house to house and from street to street with their terrible weapons, leaving behind them a fearsome smoking wreckage of crashed trams, ruined houses, wrecked tanks.

Siberian infantry followed and died in the German fire by their hundreds. The fact they were simply cannonfodder to be used up before Tolbuchin sent in his élite Guards did not seem to perturb them. They died in the same manner as they raped the screaming Hungarian housewives and their daughters, impassively and without comment.

As night fell on that fifth day, the Siberians broke into the German telephone HQ, manned by a handful of middle-aged soldiers and a hundred or more ‘field mattresses’, as the German soldier called their female auxiliaries contemptuously. The drunken Siberians threw their lives away foolishly, forcing the German soldiers back and back into the telephone building until all of them were dead and the screaming terrified women were theirs. They knew no mercy.

Hidden beneath a dead body, the lesbian supervisor of the exchange, feigning death and looking no different, in her
Wehrmacht
trousers and cropped hair, than the dead soldiers all around her, took in the terrible mass rape. She watched how three of them raped little Ingrid, the virgin for whom she had lusted herself; how they ripped the clothes off a screaming ‘Fat Erna’ whose enormous breasts fell down to her bulging stomach when they cut away her bra; how they fought each other with knives and bayonets to enjoy the favours of ‘Granny’, the white-haired, eldest member of the troop, because they believed that an old woman had a special magic.

And before she fainted with revulsion, she saw how one of them, enraged beyond measure by the fiery resistance of Eva, the one-time German Maiden leader, smashed an axe against her face, causing a horrific gaping wound. When in his drunken state he could not make love to her bleeding unconscious body, he thrust the axe handle up between her thighs and raising his booted foot, gave it a vicious kick which sent it deep into her cruelly tortured body, the hot blood seeping out from between her legs in a scarlet stream.

When the middle-aged Doerner heard of these outrages, he ordered the immediate evacuation of the remaining auxiliaries to the suburbs where
SS Obergruppenführer
von Pfeffer Wildenbruch held out with his two SS cavalry divisions. He spoke on the telephone to Colonel-General von Hindy, Commander of the 1st Hungarian Corps, and asked him to counter-attack immediately with his two weak infantry divisions.

Von Hindy was obviously at the end of his tether, but he was the typical old school K-u-K
1
officer. ‘My men are hungry. They have no ammunition to speak of and nothing more than machine guns to ward off the Russian tanks –’ he began.

‘The situation is desperate, I know,’ Doerner exclaimed. ‘But I must ask you to do your best.’

Von Hindy did not seem to hear Doerner’s words. He continued, ‘But we are Hungarians and Hungarians have always been fools about such things. Colonel we shall attack as soon as it grows dark.’

‘
Brave
fools,’ Doemer said to himself as he put down the phone and began the virtually impossible task of trying to re-establish his crumbling line with the middle-aged policemen who made up his command.

Thus it was that Colonel-General von Hindy’s surprise counter-attack into Buda caught Tolbuchin unawares and forced him to withdraw the Guards battalions, which had been dug in behind the main Bickse–Budapest road, to use them against the new threat.

It was into this suddenly open gap that Chink and Sergeant-Major Schulze slipped, as that terrible Saturday finally came to an end.

The jeep rolled cautiously the first village Schulze and Chink had encountered on their reconnaissance drive.

Chink changed down to second, while Schulze, his finger round the trigger of the round-barrelled Russian machine-gun stared at the single storey, tumbledown cottages with their crooked chimneys from which no smoke rose. The place looked empty. But he knew they could not be too careful.

As they entered the little settlement, they soon learned there was nothing to be afraid of. The village was dead – wiped out.

Men – and women, their skirts thrown back obscenely, their legs thrust apart – lay everywhere in the dirty snow. From the black skeletal trees in the village square, naked men hung by their necks, their faces black, their bodies as hard as board. Just outside the church, the village priest was nailed upside down to the big wooden crucifix, his amputated penis thrust in between his gaping lips.

Schulze retched and fought back the bitter bile which threatened to flood his throat. ‘Christ almighty Chink, who did this?’ he exclaimed.

‘The Russians,’ a soft voice in German said behind them. The two of them spun round.

A little man, dressed in a brown, overlong leather coat and a fur hat with loose earflaps was standing there.

‘Who are you?’ Schulze demanded, raising the gun. The little man raised his hands but the smile remained on his cunning face. ‘Janosz is the name, sir,’ he said. ‘Janosz the Pedlar, they call me in these parts.’

Schulze lowered his weapon slowly. ‘How do you know we are German?’ he asked. The man pointed to the back of the VW jeep. ‘German number. SS too. I thought you were the Russians coming back but when I saw that number I came out of my hiding place, knowing that our allies had returned.’

‘What happened here?’ Schulze asked.

‘They were ordered back to the siege of Budapest last night. It annoyed them. The Guards thought they were going to have an easy, safe time here, sitting out the battle. They got drunk. After that their officers couldn’t control them.’ He extended one dirty hand as if revealing to them some splendid tableau, his wizened cunning face devoid of any emotion. ‘You can see the result.’

‘You’re a Yid,’ Chink burst out suddenly, a look of accusation on his yellow face.

‘That is correct,’ Janosz the Padlar replied impassively.

Schulze was caught off guard for a moment. Was the man off his head, or simply very brave in admitting he was one of the persecuted race? He decided that the Jew was neither; he was cunning. He had revealed himself like this to the two of them delivering his life into their hands, as it were, because he had some plan. ‘Now listen Ikey, don’t try pulling any Jewboy tricks on me, or I’ll dock your prick a lot shorter than the Rabbi ever did! What’s yer game?’

The little man smiled slowly. ‘Game? No game, honourable sir. Just a little proposition. A matter of business.’

‘Business?’ Schulze echoed, while Chink’s suspicious look was changed to one of guarded interest.

‘I have the impression that you gentlemen are on your way to Budapest, perhaps as a forerunner of others.’ He shrugged slightly. ‘It is no concern of mine. But if you were prepared to take me to the capital, I could ensure you did not bump into any of the enemy on their way.’ He looked at the giant NCO out of the corner of his dark smart eyes; as if he felt the German might be scared by the impact of his full gaze.

‘But what do you want to go to Budapest for?’

‘Sir, I have been wandering these roads now for forty years. I am weary of it. You Germans call the Magyars the “hungry people”. I am sick of hungry people too. I think I would like to spend my old age with the Chosen People,’ he smiled to himself at the use of the word, ‘in Palestine, and for that indulgence I need money. In Budapest in such confusing times as these, there is money to be made – much money. I will obtain some of it.’ He said the words as a simple statement of fact, not conjecture.

Schulze stared at the little man thoughtfully. Slowly a plan was beginning to form in the back of his big head – vague and incoherent as yet, but there all the same. ‘All right, Ikey, you’re on. You can lead us to Budapest.’

Five minutes later Schulze had radioed their position and the map reference of the road they were taking east, and shortly afterwards the three of them set off in the little jeep to the accompaniment of Schulze’s: ‘A Chink, a Yid and a senior NCO of the Armed SS in a jeep together!
What would the Führer say!
’

The little Jew was true to his word. All that long Sunday, he directed them down little side roads, country tracks, through empty, looted, raped villages, avoiding the Russian mobile patrols time and time again. In the afternoon it started to snow again, thick heavy soft flakes which made the going treacherous. Through the battling windscreen wipers, the silent fir forests on both sides slid past, while Schulze concentrated on driving.

Just as he changed down and prepared to negotiate a steep hill, the little Jew said urgently but without any apparent fear, ‘There are Russians up there, Sergeant-Major.’

Automatically Schulze hit the brake and the jeep slithered to a stop, a pillow of snow dropping on the hood from a tree with a plopping crunch. ‘Where?’

‘On the height.’

Schulze saw them. A long line of cavalry riding noiselessly through the streaming white wall of snow like grey ghosts, heading into the forest.

With tensed breath, they waited till they had ridden past, Schulze ready to slam into reverse. But there was no need; the cavalrymen did not spot them.

‘You’ve got good eyes for a Yid, Ikey!’ Schulze said, as he thrust home first and prepared to tackle the hill.

‘It is because I have such good eyes that I have survived, dear sir,’ the little man answered. ‘Yids, as you call us, need good eyes, and a good nose for danger. We die young if we don’t have them.’

Just before darkness fell, their luck ran out. They had left the country lanes because of the deeply packed snow and were driving cautiously down a second-class road. By now they were all exhausted; even Schulze’s giant frame was tired after a day’s driving in those terrible conditions. Perhaps it was for that reason that none of them spotted the big, six-wheeled armoured car with the dull red star on its turret until it was almost too late.

‘Russian!’ the old man yelled in alarm.

Schulze acted instinctively. As the armoured car came out of its harbour at the side of the road and fired, Schulze swung the wheel desperately to the right and went skidding and bouncing up a narrow trail which led steeply upwards through the close-packed firs. An instant later the 37mm shell exploded in a spurt of angry scarlet on the spot where they had been a moment before.

The four-wheel drive whining in first, Schulze drove the VW jeep up the incline, fighting the terrain, skidding time and time again, and threatening to roll backwards.

‘They come other road!’ Chink cried, as he caught a glimpse of the big armoured car through a gap in the forest. The armoured car was tearing up the road almost parallel to them. A moment later Schulze swung round a bend and discovered that the two vehicles were on converging paths.

Schulze put his foot to the floor. The VW bowled along, the crossroads only fifty metres away now. The armoured car saw them. Its machine guns chattered. Tracer zipped through the green gloom towards them. Schulze just made the crossroads before the armoured car which swung round and headed after the bouncing, bucking VW. The vehicle’s 37mm cracked into action once more. A sudden brown hole appeared in the surface of the snow to their right like the work of some gigantic mole.

The gun fired again. To their left the firs were sheared away and went crashing down in a flurry of snow like matchsticks. They reached another steep slope. To their right the mountainside fell steeply. Now the armoured car’s massive horse power began to tell, and it started to gain on them again, its machine guns chattering furiously. Schulze’s eyes strained through the flying snow, trying to make out the top of the ascent. If they did not make it soon and swing round the cover of some bend, they would be finished. The armoured car would overtake them. The snow cleared for a moment and Schulze saw with an overwhelming sense of defeat that there was perhaps a quarter of a kilometre of straight road ahead of them to the next bend. They could not make it!

But he had not reckoned with the old Jew. Suddenly he seemed to forget his fear. He thrust his skinny hand through the flap at his side and began undoing the strap which held the spare jerrican of petrol fixed to the side of the VW. Supporting himself in the wildly swaying VW as best he could, he managed it and ripped open the filler cap. The VW was suddenly full of the stink of petrol. He let go of the can. It fell behind them, bouncing and tumbling on the hard-packed snow of their tracks, right into the path of the armoured car. The driver had no time to manoeuvre. Next instant, there was the hollow clang of steel striking steel. What was left of the petrol – perhaps ten or so litres – washed up and covered the whole front of the armoured car’s glacis plate.

Abruptly Chink realized what the old man was up to. He did not hesitate, but, plunged his clenched fist through the thin plastic of the rear window, and pulled out a stick grenade. Schulze watched fascinated in the rear view mirror, at the armoured car, dripping petrol, looming ever larger. Then the Russians were close enough. ‘
Urrah!
’ Chink yelled and flung the grenade.

It exploded exactly where he wanted – on the link between the turret and the petrol-soaked glacis plate. The grenade itself did no harm to the hardened steel of the car, but the heat of its explosion ignited the petrol.

In a flash, the whole front of the armoured car was alive with bright red flame, completely blinding the driver. Instinctively he hit the brakes. It was a deadly thing to do on that slope and in that snow. The armoured car skidded crazily to the right. For one long moment it teetered on the edge of the cliff. But there was no holding it now.

As Schulze pressed the brakes gently and brought the VW to a stop, the flaming armoured car went over the side and then tumbled from view. He heard the outcome far below: the long jarring crunch as it hit the first rocks, followed by the brittle shattering of steel as it struck outcrop after outcrop until it came to rest in one great echoing crash at the bottom.