March Battalion (24 page)

'What do you want?' she said, and I could see the great beads of sweat breaking out like spots beneath her thick make-up. 'Momma mia!' breathed Porta, gazing awestruck upon the mounds of flesh, which seemed more plentiful than ever in these luxurious surroundings. 'That lot would feed a whole regiment for a month!'

Mme Olga was dressed in several layers of rouge, so you couldn't actually see her turn pale, but somehow you could feel it.

'I asked you,' she said, 'what it was you wanted?'

'The girls,' said Little John, tersely.

'Girls? What girls? If you mean my girls, then I'm afraid they're not here.'

She was plainly flustered. None of us believed a word she said.

'You wait till Ivan arrives,' said Little John, threateningly. 'He won't treat you nice and polite like this, you know. We're demanding, but he'll just go right ahead and take.'

'My dear young man, are you out of your senses? There's nothing here to BE taken--'

Little John advanced just one step towards her, his fist raised.
Mme.
Olga stumbled backwards and screamed.

'Any more lies out of you, you old shitbag--'

'Let her alone, Little John. I think she's ready to talk.'

The Legionnaire laid a restraining hand on Little John's arm, and Olga gave him a revolting smile, full of yellow teeth and ingratiating charm.

'Thank you so much, Obergefreiter. I feel that perhaps you and I-'

Mme.
Olga broke off abruptly as there came the sound of doors slamming and more armies marching across the hall. She stood before us in a state of suspended horror. We turned to the door, ready to defend ourselves, but it was not necessary. The soldiers that burst into the room were Rumanians, and their interest lay not in us but in Olga. They made straight for her, shouting angrily, snatched her up and began tossing her back and forth amongst them. Up she went to the ceiling, her head crashing into the plaster; then down she fell to the floor, landing heavily on her vast behind in the fireplace. Her screams mingled harshly with the bellows of the Rumanians. Porta pulled out his flute and began dancing a jig on the edge of the scrum. Alte looked on, frowning, and the rest of us added to the pandemonium by giving a great cheer each time Olga hit the ceiling and letting out a concerted cry of 'Shame!' each time she hit the floor.

'That'll teach you a lesson, you old scrubber!' roared a Rumanian corporal, as they finally let her come to rest, in a flood of tears and a sea of black silk petticoats, in the middle of the carpet. 'I warned you we'd be back again!'

'What have you come for?' asked the Legionnaire, curiously.

'Same as you! What do you think?'

'I just wondered.'

'The Russians are on their way back. It's our duty to defend the place ... but I'm buggered if I'll defend a brothel with no girls in it! Where are they, you disgusting old crab bag, you old whore, you old poxdrop?'

Once again, they turned on her. Little John had found a bearskin rug and was busily wrapping himself inside it. He hurled himself into the fray and began biting and snapping at the woman's ankles. Heide and Porta were quickly caught up in the melee. Pretty soon,
Mme.
Olga was being dragged about the house, upstairs and down, now by the hair, now by an arm, now by a leg. Little John cavorted wildly after the mob with the bearskin flapping round his waist. Furniture was overturned, china was broken, the rumpus could have been heard for miles around, and probably was, by the advancing Russians. When at last they tired of their fun and threw the unfortunate woman out of sight beneath a grand piano it seemed to me that she was more than likely dead. Not that I felt any pity for her, she was not the sort of woman who deserves pity; nevertheless, it did seem a trifle barbaric.

Little John had unearthed a huge barrel of beer from somewhere in the kitchen regions. He and a Rumanian private rolled it into the salon between them, cleared a table of its valuable collection of cut-glass vases by simply sweeping them to the floor, hoisted the barrel into position and turned on the tap.

'Just testing,' explained Little John, as a stream of liquid spurted out and spread in a brown stain over the carpet.

We drank it, out of flower vases and fruit bowls, but it was pronounced feeble stuff after the array of spirits in Little John's bedroom.

'Try a touch of this!' shouted one of the Rumanians, coming in to the room with his arms full of bottles.

Red and white wine, vodka, cognac and gin were poured into the beer and the whole mixture thoroughly shaken up. In the midst of our merrymaking,
Mme.
Olga foolishly recovered consciousness and came crawling out from the grand piano. Instantly, the pack turned on her again. A Rumanian sergeant fell down by her side on all fours and began to bark like a dog. Someone else gathered up a fistful of feathers from a burst cushion and tried to stuff them up her nose, only as fast as he pushed them up there she sneezed them out again. Heide emptied a vase of beer down the front of her dress and Little John sat on her legs in his bearskin rug and alternately growled and hiccuped.

'Where are the girls?' demanded the Rumanian sergeant, suddenly abandoning his role of the barking dog. 'Where are they, you rotten old knockerbag?'

Mme.
Olga shook her battered bloodstained head.

'Have pity on me,' she whimpered. 'The girls aren't here. They're on their way to Sabina.'

'Sabina? What have they gone to Sabina for?'

'Because they were scared of you.'

The Rumanians exchanged glances amongst each other, evidently not sure whether to believe her. Porta had no such hesitation. He went charging across the room and stood menacingly astride her body, which still lay crumpled on the floor.

'Enough of your lies, old woman! Where have you hidden them?'

Mme.
Olga began to weep. All her rolls of fat began rippling and heaving.

'They've gone to Constanza--'

'Oh? Constanza now, is it? I thought you said Sabina?'

'No, no. Constanza. They were ordered to go there. They had no choice.'

'Lying old bitch!' roared Porta, bringing his foot down within centimetres of her face. 'You'd better get them back here, and quickly!'

Little John pulled off his bearskin and began beating
Mme.
Olga about the shoulders with it. The Rumanians muttered mutinously. Heide snatched up the Legionnaire's knife and held it threateningly to the woman's throat.

'Listen, you miserable old bag, either you tell us where those girls are hidden or I'm going to cut your bleeding throat from ear to ear... Now WHERE ARE THEY?'

If it had not been for the arrival of the two trucks, which chose that precise moment to draw up in one of the flower beds outside, it is likely that Heide would have carried out his threat. However, the sound of squeaking brakes and banging doors arested him, and he hurled himself after the rest of us, through the hall to the front door.

'I'm going mad!' shrieked Porta. He seized me round the waist and danced me about the hall. 'Can you see what I see? I'm going mad!'

'I can see it too!' I panted, trying to shake him off.

Little John was obviously yet another who could see the vision.

'It's the whores!' he shouted, at the very top of his voice. 'Two truckloads of 'em!'

The Rumanian sergeant waved his hand above his head and yelled something in his own language. With cries of delight, his men went charging after him, streaming down the path towards the trucks. Little John and Porta at once dashed after them, Little John having slight trouble with his bearskin. Alte sat down next to the Legionnaire on the window seat and began calmly to roll a cigarette.

'God keep the Russians from coming tonight,' he muttered. 'We'll fight them if we're drunk, we'll fight them if we're sober ... But who the hell's going to fight 'em if we're whoring?'

The Legionnaire hunched a shoulder.

'Who the hell cares?' he said. 'I shouldn't worry too much about it.'

From outside in the garden came the mingled sounds of shrieking girls and cursing Rumanians, Little John was galloping about on the outskirts of the crush, trying without success to lasso someone with his bearskin. It was Porta who led the mob inside. We watched in astonishment as the double doors burst open and Porta pranced through with his flute, like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Only instead of children, it was whores. Dozen upon dozen of them. Some of them were fully clothed; others - whether by their own choice or because it had been forced upon them - were clad only in bra and pants. Little John had abandoned his bearskin as an unnecessary encumbrance and Porta seemed to have shed his trousers somewhere out amongst the flower beds. Barcelona performed a striptease act on the spot, which, for sheer speed, beat anything I've ever seen. Heide sent his pants flying through the open window, where they were caught by the wind and draped over the top of a flagpole. For a few seconds they billowed bravely in the breeze, cheek by jowl with the German flag, then slowly fluttered earthwards. A short while later they were discovered by a hungry pig, roaming the grounds in search of food. It devoured them completely, with every sign of enjoyment, but Heide was long since past the stage where one was concerned over a pair of pants.

Barcelona was sharing the sofa with two girls and a Rumanian soldier. They seemed to be one intermingled mass of arms and legs, not yet sorted out into two distinct couples. Someone yelled from upstairs that Steiner had fallen into a bath full of water. He was brought down to the scenes of merriment in the salon, soaking wet and half drowned, but he recovered quickly when half a bottle of vodka was placed in his hand, and seconds later he grimly set off in pursuit of a Greek girl. They both jumped out of the window, and that was the last we saw of Steiner for some time.

Mme.
Olga had crawled into a corner and was sitting trembling on the edge of a chair. The Legionnaire went laughing up to her, full of happiness and goodwill.

'It really is so kind of you, Madame, to allow us the free run of your house in this manner. A perfect setting for revelry.'

He belched, quickly put a hand to his mouth and peered at her over the top of it.

'I do beg your pardon, Madame.'

Mme.
Olga gave him a gracious smile.

'You, at least, are a gentleman, sir. A Frenchman, I don't doubt?'

'That is so, Madame. I am a corporal of the Foreign Legion ... caporal a la Legion etrangere. A votre service, Mme.'

'Get a load of that!' Little John dug Porta in the ribs and jerked his head towards the Legionnaire. 'This here is a very posh establishment what we're in--'

Porta showed no interest. He was too busy wrestling with a recalcitrant Jugoslav whore. Little John shrugged his shoulders, tightened the belt round his naked body and set off in pursuit of a toothsome blonde dressed in salmon coloured pants with green lace round the edges and a bright red suspender belt. She crashed headlong into a Rumanian corporal entering the room with a tray of glasses. The glasses and their contents flew into the air. The blonde fell giggling to the ground and Little John fell on top of her. The Rumanian swore vigorously.

One of the girls - Annie of Hanover, she said her name was - sidled up to me and I hooked an arm round her neck.

'I don't know who you boys are,' she murmured, 'but it certainly makes a change!'

'Think yourselves lucky the Russians didn't get here first,' I said.

Porta spun past with his Jugoslav. They did a full turn of the room and by the time they swam back into my field of vision the Jugoslav seemed not quite so recalcitrant as before. Porta was holding on to her, none too delicately, by the breasts. She showed no particular signs of disliking such treatment.

'Hi, Sven!' He dragged her to a halt in front of a group made up of Alte, myself, and Annie of Hanover. 'You still feel like writing your memoirs when the war's over? You'd never get anyone to believe this lot!' He turned to his girl and puffed out his chest. 'You want to hear some of the things we've done?' He checked them off on his fingers. 'We been across the Volga - we've swum in the Med. - we slid across the ice in the Bay of Bothnia. We been everywhere and we done everything ... Once we got so drunk it took weeks to get over the hangover... We can jump out of planes on the end of a parachute, we can blow up bridges, we can drive tanks, we can drive trains, we can rob and kill and spy and forge documents. You name it, we done it... I had a bath in champagne one time. What do you think of that?'

'Not very much,' said Alte. 'Was I supposed to?'

'Piss off!' said Porta. 'I wasn't talking to you.'

He turned and yanked his girl towards the piano, where a disgraced and demoted Rumanian lieutenant was playing the music of his homeland. He played slowly and dreamily, no doubt visualizing himself back in pre-war days, wearing his lieutenant's uniform, in an elegant salon full of brother officers and their ladies. His music conjured up the sound of horses' hooves on gravel paths, the creak of leather and the jingle of bits; the blowing of trumpets and bugles; a platoon of beautiful blue Hussars galloping towards a lake ... Instead, the poor man sat disillusioned in a wrecked salon, surrounded by tough lower ranks whose thoughts were full of drink and sex.

Sadly, the ex-lieutenant began to sing. A lilting, mournful song of love. Little John staggered up to the piano and emptied a vase full of God knows what inside it.

'Hey, you!' He leaned forward and twisted his lips into a horrible leer, his face only inches from the Rumanian's. 'You're one of us, now, mate. You was a lieutenant, but not any more. You're just one of us - and we don't give a monkey's cuss for that trash you're playing. Give us something we can understand, can't you?'

The Lieutenant smiled, gentle and rather mocking.

'Something you can understand? I take it you mean breasts and buttocks and that sort of thing?'

'That's more like it,' agreed Little John, eagerly.

The Lieutenant shook his head. Barcelona lurched up to him. He was hideously drunk.

'My dear Lieutenant - my dear, very dear, Lieutenant - I require you to shing - I require you to shing - a shong - about death.'