Comrades of War (29 page)

The District Leader glanced passingly at the minister, who had put his head to one side and folded his hands on his stomach.

‘In that case it might be a good idea if you, Herr Vicar, were to take a trip east. Then you could help our heroes chase our enemies clear out of the Greater German Reich.’ The Party man beamed with joy as he saw the minister collapse in fear.

A gray figure moved along the train in an almost stealthy manner.

Bauer neighed with enthusiasm when he saw who it was. Ewald, Aunt Dora’s pimp, in fatigues. Two days ago, as so many times before, he had again stepped through the little gray door leading up to Gestapo Headquarters on Karl Muck Platz. After a long wait, he was taken to Bielert’s office by an SS man in black uniform.

Bielert received him sitting on the edge of a table and accepted the closely written pages Ewald, as usual, delivered to him.

Bielert tapped the papers. ‘How much of all this is lies and fabrications?’

‘Nothing,
Herr Brigadenführer
, everything is true!’

‘
Herr
, you may skip. Here with us it’s only
Brigadenführer
. Remember that, you rat,’ Bielert snarled.

Bielert scolded, threatened, roared, and still Ewald didn’t understand a word.

Finally Bielert pulled out a piece of white paper. A red line had been drawn straight across it. He thrust the paper under Ewald’s nose.

‘Here I have your induction papers to a penal field regiment. You were once a soldier for six whole weeks, weren’t you?’

‘Certainly,
Brigadenführer
,’ Ewald trumpeted and clicked his heels as he’d once been taught to on the drill-ground at Grafenwöhr. Just the thought sent shivers up and down his spine. Better jail than the infantry barracks, he’d said then. How happy he’d been when it came out that he’d served jail sentences for ‘gainful crimes.’ During the Ragnarok of mobilization he’d been inducted through clerical error, an error ‘which the Wehrmacht deeply deplored.’ He was speedily dispatched from the Army and lived in a whirl of pleasures in Hamburg’s underworld. But now they weren’t so fastidious any longer.

Now, anything could be used at the front, even guys like Ewald. There was a whole army of penal regiments to receive paltry bandits like him.

Bending toward him, Bielert whispered: ‘But, my little friend, there is another possibility!’

Ewald’s face lit up with hope. He already felt safe from the most terrible thing that could happen to him. He had bought exemption from jail by becoming a stool pigeon. A respectable number of people had found themselves squirming in Gestapo’s net thanks to Ewald’s reports. Actually, Paul Bielert could thank Ewald that he’d become
Brigadenführer
, because quite unawares Ewald had gotten on the track of something really big.

‘I’ll do anything you request,
Brigadenführer
,’ Ewald stammered, giving Bielert a fawning look.

Bielert put up a gloating grin. ‘I’m not requesting anything from you. You’ve the choice between two alternatives: induction in a penal battalion or being hauled before a court-martial as an anti-social element!’

Ewald caught his breath. ‘Court-martial!’ he groaned. ‘But how can I be brought up before a court-martial? I haven’t done anything. I never got mixed up with politics.’

‘Really?’ Bielert answered, pointing at the papers lying on his writing desk. ‘Maybe all that has only to do with butter and coffee coupons? Nah, my fine friend, you’re stuck to your neck in political filth.’ He turned to the door and roared: ‘Geige, Potz!’

Two big men in the black uniform of the SS edged into the room.

‘Get that thing court-martialed,’ Bielert hissed and pointed at Ewald, who stood chattering his teeth in the middle of the floor, swaying as if about to fall.

The two big SS men went over to Ewald, caught his arm and said with chilly joviality: ‘Come along then, little one.’

‘No, no,’ Ewald cried, ‘you can’t do that to me,
Brigadenführer
. I’ve always been good and done exactly what you asked. I’ll do anything you want!’

Bielert laughed.

‘I don’t want you to do anything at all, you skunk. I just never again want to have the pleasure of seeing your bastard face.’

Ewald screamed like one possessed. He who had never had pity for others now had dropped into the fire himself. He had been foolish enough to mention Aunt Dora’s name in the previous report, and Bielert was Aunt Dora’s bodyguard.

‘Well, get a uniform for him, and off he goes with the next transport.’

That’s why Ewald was now sneaking alongside the train in a uniform without shoulder straps and collar insignia. Bielert hadn’t been content only with sending him to a penal regiment; he had sent him to Penal Field Training Battalion No. 919, Brest-Litovsk.

If Ewald had suspected what he was in for he would probably have slipped away right there and gone under cover in Hamburg as a deserter. He would have better chances of escaping unhurt as a deserter than as a member of the most notorious unit in the German Armed Forces. In this battalion the new arrivals were always welcomed by Staff Sergeant Neuring, who would say:

‘You probably think you have a chance of saving your skin here in No. 919, but you’re mistaken. At 11:55 you are all going to be shot in the nape of the neck according to regulations.’

‘The MPs were running alongside the train with their tin badges flashing on their breasts. They were shouting at and threatening the many soldiers who just couldn’t be driven into the train.

The little Legionnaire put his arms around Aunt Dora and pressed her to him. ‘
Bon
, I have to board the train now, Dora. This war will never end happily unless Corporal Alfred Kalb of the 2nd Foreign Regiment is there. What if Hitler should win! That would be no good for the two of us.’

Aunt Dora pressed up against him. Her big bosom covered his narrow chest. Her lips found his. She held him caught in her grip as if she would never let him go.

‘Alfred,’ she whispered. ‘You will come back!’ It wasn’t a question. It was a prayer. A cry, almost a command to God. The Legionnaire mustn’t die, fall for a foolish cause.

He nodded and forced a faint smile. ‘I’ll come, Dora. By Allah, I’ll come back! The lousy Ivans won’t be able to bring down a French corporal from
La Légion Etrangère
. Kabyles are wanted for that.’

‘Alfred, you must write to me! Every free minute you must write! I’ll go nuts if I don’t hear from you!’ She flung her arms about his neck and kissed him so savagely that she even got frightened herself. She felt as if an era was about to be annihilated.

She cried. Tears flowed down her cheeks and made deep furrows in the heavy layer of powder.

‘All aboard!’ the MPs roared. ‘The train is leaving. The doors will be locked. Marching orders and leave papers are to be held in readiness on boarding the train! On the double! On the double!’

The Legionnaire slowly stepped on the train. In the door he stopped.

Aunt Dora passed her hand over his scarred, haggard face. ‘Good-bye, girl,’ he said hoarsely.

She curled up her lips to a forced smile. ‘No, my Moroccan, not good-bye.
Au revoir!
’

He laughed. ‘True,
au revoir
. I’ll see you soon!’

Tiny hurled his pack through an open window. Then followed his cardboard box with three black puddings, one loaf of rye bread and a couple of bottles of schnapps.

‘Watch out, you soft macaroni sticks,’ he called. ‘Here comes strong ammunition for the crapper.’

Then he rushed again into the arms of the Battleship, who lifted him off the ground and kissed him.

‘Take care of yourself, you big bear, so I can get back the stumps of you,’ she growled in a deep basso. ‘Then we can get married and have twenty-three kids just as ugly as you.’

‘Hell,’ Tiny laughed, ‘that’s going to be the best job of my life! Christ, how I look forward to losing the war! Twenty-three snot-nosed kids, holy Jesus! We’ll make the first one in a haystack,’ he shouted cheerfully. ‘I always wanted to sprawl in a haystack. Do you like the smell of hay?’

‘Pig,’ she said in her mannish voice. ‘Can you imagine begetting our children in cow-feed? A thing like that is done in a bed with clean white sheets and not in a cow barn or out in the field.’ She gave him a ringing smack on the cheek. ‘Believe me, I’ll grind off your rough edges for you, you gutterpup!’

‘I think I’ll be getting the blind staggers pretty soon. I’m steaming hot,’ Tiny grinned happily. ‘I’m hot as hell for you. You’re just as good as the best one of those sex machines you can take a crack at in Wienert Neustadt. And that, you know, is quite an efficient machine, with her whole chassis running on self-lubricating ball bearings!’ He brightened up as if a great idea had occurred to him. ‘Emma, when the war’s over we’ll go to a whorehouse together – then you can see for yourself you’re just as good as the pigs there.’

‘You swine,’ the Battleship snarled, hitting him in the stomach to make him gasp for breath. ‘You shouldn’t even think of comparing me, your fiancée, with whores and such trash. I’m a decent woman and no whorehouse bitch, remember that! Or I’ll settle your hash for you!’

Tiny put his head to one side. He looked like a little boy. ‘You’ll have to forgive me for that one. I’m no fine gentleman, you know.’

‘All right, all right, you bear. Now, please, don’t make me blubber!’

An MP sergeant major came rushing toward them. He yelled at Tiny: ‘Get into the train, you lazy ox-gut!’

Tiny didn’t bother looking at him but kissed the Battleship with a loud smack.

The sergeant rushed on. Tiny took no notice of him and remained standing by the Battleship.

‘Listen, keep a sharp lookout when Tommy unloads his dung-cart,’ Tiny admonished. ‘Don’t get curious now and stick out your big mug!’

She smiled. Her eyes vanished completely in folds of fat.

‘The same goes for you!’ She stroked him fondly on the cheek, which was blackened with soot. ‘My lovely bear,’ she whispered, ‘you’re stupid as an ox, God knows, but how wonderful! Don’t you get any misplaced ideas of comradeship out there. I want you back. A leg blown off wouldn’t matter so much as long as you’re alive.’ She thought for a moment and went on: ‘In fact, it might not be a bad idea at all if you lost a leg. I could manage you better.’

‘Emma, are you crazy? Then I couldn’t run when Ivan gets up steam. Porta himself says that he who can run the fastest has the best chance of getting through this war alive.’

The MP came back. He stood splay-legged before Tiny, both fists on his hips.

‘Just tell me this, you Corporal Nil. Do we have to give you a written invitation before you board that train?’

Tiny didn’t turn around but answered coolly: ‘Please, do that, brother, but write slowly and slip the letter into one of those mailboxes that get emptied only once a week!’

‘Shut up, you . . . you . . .’ the sergeant screamed, ‘or I’ll take care of you! Into the train, you filthy bastard, and right this minute!’ He seized Tiny and pushed him into the train.

‘In two weeks I’ll be back with you,’ Tiny yelled out of the window to the Battleship. ‘Engagement leave, wedding leave – I’ll apply for all the leaves there are!’

When the train took off, he was on the point of falling out of the window. At the last moment his buddies in the compartment managed to pull him in.

‘Make way,’ he bellowed, rushed to the window and leaned far out. His head hit against an iron pillar as the train passed. Blood poured down his face from the big gash. ‘Hurrah! I have a skull fracture! Behave yourself now, Emma, till I’ll be home with you again! I’ll be coming soon,’ he added, pointing at his head.

‘Naturally!’ She was running alongside the train on her heavy legs, which were moving like drumsticks. With one hand she held her skirts above her massive knees. With the other she waved her red nurse’s cape. Her bosom sloshed over. Her face glowed. ‘Come back, Teddy Bear, do you hear? Come back to me!’

Aunt Dora stood by the kiosk some distance back on the platform. She was waving to the little Legionnaire who hung out through an open door.

A woman of about fifty had a three-year-old child on her arm. She fell and the tiny tot rolled screaming along the asphalt.

A soldier in the light gray uniform of the Marines let out a terrified scream.

The long train rolled faster and faster between the many ruins of Hamburg, carrying three thousand eight hundred pieces of uniformed beef cattle in the direction of Berlin.

An MP making his way through the corridors roared: ‘Shut the windows! Fire will open up on anyone who stays by an open window!’

‘Dungbeetle,’ snorted an artillery NCO lying on a luggage rack drinking.

In another compartment they started singing:

Come back, I am waiting for you.

I am waiting for you.

For you are to me

All my comfort.

Behind on the platform stood hundreds of sweethearts, parents, wives, and children. They were looking at the spot where the train had vanished from sight and where the clouds of smoke from the locomotive merged with the rain clouds.

Most of them were never to see each other again.

Aunt Dora stood alone by the kiosk, face chalk-white, eyes staring. Her lips moved.

‘Come back, Alfred. For God’s sake come back to me! It doesn’t matter in what shape, even on crutches, but do come!’

The Battleship stood all the way at the end of the platform. She was still waving mechanically with her large red shawl. Her lungs worked like a pair of bellows. She wheezily gasped for breath after the violent and unaccustomed exertion.

‘Big stupid Teddy Bear,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t you get stuck out there!’

Then the hardened woman did something you’d never have believed her capable of. She prayed. Folded her hands and prayed. Right in the middle of a dusty railroad platform, under the broken glass roofs.