Monte Cassino (27 page)

"You can't equal that, Julius Jew-hater."

"Why not?" Heide said smiling and gathered the dice.

"Stop that now," the Old Man said. "The truck's nearly at the bridge."

We didn't care. Heide spat on the dice. He shook them four times to the left, twice to the right. He raised the shaker above his head and hopped on bent knees round Porta's green cloth. Then with a fine sweep he banged the shaker face down onto the cloth, where the dice lay hidden under the shaker. Then he raised one side of the broken leather shaker, laid his head on the ground so that one eye could see inside.

"If you move the shaker as much as a millimetre it won't count," Tiny called warningly.

"I know," Heide hissed. "But I have the right to tap the top with a finger."

Tiny nodded.

The truck and jeep were now only fifty yards from the bridge which they were approaching very slowly, just entering a hairpin bend. We were beside ourselves with excitement.

"Lift it up, blast you," Porta exclaimed.

We began betting among ourselves what Heide's throw would amount to. Heide appeared to have plenty of time. He tapped the bottom of the shaker four times with his finger, then slowly lifted the shaker away. There they lay grinning; six ones. The least you could throw. He hit at the ground in fury and, if Porta had not snatched up the dice, he probably would have sent them flying.

Tiny rolled over and over in delight: "I've won, I've won," he yelled. "Heads down, boys, now you shall hear a proper bang." He fondled the detonator. The truck drove onto the bridge closely followed by the jeep. Grinning broadly, Tiny undid the catch, pulled the handle up, patted the wires:

"Little darling, now you're going to let a fart that'll echo all over Italy."

We others crawled away quickly and took cover behind rocks and boulders. Tiny began whistling as if he hadn't a care in the world:

Eine Strassenbahn ist immer dal!

The truck was almost across.

"The idiot! Why doesn't the bugger blow it up?" Barcelona growled. "This isn't fireworks, but a serious military task."

"He wants to get the jeep as well," Rudolph said.

"He's crazy," growled the Old Man.

"God! Have you seen that! There's a red flag on the truck. Stop Tiny!"

Heide called in a voice of fear.

We tried to attract Tiny's attention, but he was almost out of his mind. He just waved back to us, his face beaming. It was ghastly! A 15-ton truck laden with ammunition.

Tiny waved to the truck and jeep.

"Hey! Yankees. I'm going to show you where Moses bought the beer."

Two people in the jeep stood up and stared in our direction. A negro looked out through the window of the driver's cab.

"Greetings to the devil," Tiny shouted and rammed the handle down.

We squeezed flat. There was a bang that must have been audible for a hundred miles. The jeep flew up into the air like a ball. A pillar of flame shot up. The truck vanished, was pulverised.

The blast threw Tiny a hundred yards away. Splinters of red hot steel rained round us. A heavy wheel came racing up the slope from the bridge. It tore past Barcelona scarcely an inch away. It would have killed him. It drove into a large rock further up, bounced into the air like a ball, dropped and began rolling back downhill, heading straight for Tiny who was sitting up wiping blood off his face. When he caught sight of the wheel, instead of jumping aside, he began running down hill, with the wheel chasing him. His legs went like drum sticks, we could not believe he could run so fast. Then he stumbled, fell and went rolling on like a ball towards the blown-up bridge, still pursued by the wheel. A cloud of dust hid him from view, then there was a great splash as he and the wheel shot into the river. A short while later, he appeared on the muddy bank cursing and swearing profusely.

"You bloody murderers," he shouted. "You tried to make a fool of me. You fixed a boobytrap for me. That's why you let me win. You shitting swindlers." He worked his way up the slope at incredible speed, his long close-combat knife glinting in his hand. He made for Barcelona.

"You fake Spanish orange, you lost on purpose. This will end in court martial. Murder case, bugger and blast."

Barcelona ran for his life, calling in desperate tones:

"Let me explain! Let me explain!"

"You can explain as much as you like after I've slit up your arse, as I will when I catch you." In his fury he flung his knife at Barcelona.

The rest of us tried to stop Tiny before he could kill Barcelona, which he loudly proclaimed to be his intention. The poor Old Man let his pistol fall and clasped his head in his hands.

"I shall go mad. This isn't a military unit. It's a loony bin."

"Like master, like man!" laughed Porta.

It was the Legionnaire rescued Barcelona. He tumbled Tiny with a ju jitsu hold and got his steel-like fingers round his throat. But Tiny was not easy to hold. It was not until he had six of us sitting on him that he gave up struggling. Barcelona wanted to kick his face in, but the Old Man stopped that idea.

The Legionnaire tried to convince Tiny that he had got things all wrong.

"Do you mean to tell me that it was an ammunition truck," Tiny said in amazement. "The swine. It didn't have a flag."

"It did, but a little one,
mon ami,"
the Legionnaire smiled.

Tiny was profoundly shocked, when he learned that an ammunition truck had been going along with only a pennant. "That's the most impudent thing I've come across," he exclaimed, "driving about with powder and dangerous things like that without a proper flag showing. Bugger it! I might have been killed. Any decent court martial would call that attempted murder. It wasn't those idiots' fault that I wasn't bumped off by that wheel." Then he paced out the distance from the bridge that the blast had thrown him: 221 paces. "What do you say to that!" He banged an indignant fist on a mole hill. "I've a good mind to write to General Mark Clark and complain about that flag."

"One should always complain about that sort of thing," Porta said with a sly smile.

"Tiny's right," Gregor Martin agreed. "Let's write and complain. Heide knows English."

We were enchanted by the idea. Tiny wanted to do it straight away and pointed a commanding finger at Heide:

"Unteroffizier Julius Heide, you are hereby appointed Obergefreiter Wolfgang Creutzfeldts chief pen-pusher and, note this, you write what you're told. No funny stuff with high faluting upperclass phrases. The shitting American general shall bloody well know who's writing to him." He thought for a moment while Heide spread a sheet of paper on a suitable flat stone. "Let's see. We'll start with: 'Bloody General Arsehole! ..."

"You can't put that," Heide said. "They wouldn't even read a letter that began like that. That's wrong psychology. You begin: 'Dear Sir'."

"Keep your pansy phrases for your own use. In the first place this letter isn't to be written in psychology, but in English. Do you expect me to be polite after nearly getting one of their filthy trucks on my head? The man's got to have it straight from the shoulder. I would be interested to know what idiot has given him an army."

Heide shrugged.

"All right! Dictate away. But you won't get an answer."

Tiny began walking round the stone with his hands clasped behind his back. He had heard that big business men did that, when they dictated letters to their secretaries.

"Stop this fooling," the Old Man called. "We must move on."

"Go on yourself then," Tiny said. "I must get this letter off first."

"What next?" Heide said impatiently. "I've put 'General Arsehole'."

Tiny sucked a dirty finger.

"Your toy soldiers must in future see that your refuse-collectors carry the regulation red flag when they drive about with powder. I blew up a bridge today and was damned nearly killed, because one of your rubbish carts came along without a red flag showing. If this happens again, you can expect a visit from me and then things will happen to your snout. This bloody war has to be conducted in a decent fashion. Don't forget that, you ape, or you may find that your arse has been pulled up over your head. Don't think we're afraid of you, you flat-footed American. Yours sincerely, Obergefreiter Wolfgang Creutzfeldt, to his friends, Tiny, but that does not apply to you. To you I am Herr Creutzfeldt."

This letter was fixed to a balk in what remained of the bridge. Then the Old Man got angry and threatened us with his pistol.

"Pick up your things. Single column. Follow me. And put some life into it!"

We followed him cursing and swearing. We climbed up into the mountain. Every time we topped a rise, we thought it was the last, only to discover that there was another ahead of us. When finally, angry and sweating, we flung ourselves down on what may have been the tenth or twentieth rise, I no longer remember, we were oblivious to the lovely view. We squabbled over trifles, as we always seemed to, and threatened to kill each other. When a lizard ran over Gregor's boots, he became quite wild, rushed after the agile little creature, caught it, and cut it into tiny pieces and stamped furiously on the pieces.

All at once, Heide and Barcelona were rolling round together in a savage rough and tumble, all because Barcelona had insinuated that Heide had Jewish blood in him. The rest of us sided with Barcelona, finding lots of indications, if not evidence that he must be a Jew.

"By God, I believe he is," Porta exclaimed eagerly. "Nobody's more critical than a relation. That explains his hatred of Jews, the swarthy hook-nose. From now on you shan't be called Julius, but Isaac. Isaac Heide come to Daddy!"

"We'll give you the Talmud for a birthday present," Rudolph said jubilantly.

"And tattoo the Star of David on his bum," Tiny said, "and give him a fall-flap to the seat of his trousers, so that he can show his true colours, the bloody Jewish Schmaus."

Heide rushed at Tiny swinging a kriss above his head. He had found this knife when we attacked the tanks.

"Take larger strides, little Isaac," Tiny called half choking with laughter, "or you'll wear out your soles and Papa will be angry."

Heide flung a stone at Tiny, but hit Gregor who dropped to the ground, half unconscious, but savage with pain. He stumbled to his feet, seized a hand grenade, tugged the fusecord out and flung the hissing thing at Heide. It struck him on the chest and fell, hissing, among us. Fortunately, in his rage, Gregor had forgotten to wait before he threw it. We scattered in all directions like chaff in a storm and dived for cover. The grenade exploded with a hollow bump. Miraculously no one was hurt.

"Shoot him!" Tiny shouted.

The safety catches of twenty machine pistols were undone. Gregor seized his, loaded it and stood there, legs firmly planted, knees slightly bent, ready to shoot, cursing us. Heide came up behind him and the next instant they were rolling round, biting, scratching and snarling.

Gregor was rolling down the mountainside. Faster and faster. If he hit a stone, he would be killed.

"It's only what he deserves," Barcelona grinned maliciously. "Such a puffed-up louse."

"Do him good to lie at the bottom with some broken bones," Porta said. "He can think of all the mistakes he's made, when the sun gets up and roasts him alive."

But Gregor managed to halt his wild career. He began crawling up again, blood pouring from his face. He was filled with murderous intent, waited watching Heide's every movement. He wanted to get behind Heide, who stood there ready to kick him in the face. Twice he landed a kick, but Gregor stubbornly crawled up again. His face was a bloody pulp.

We lay on our bellies watching them with interest and giving good advice.

"Kill him, Julius," Tiny called.

Heide snorted. There was nothing he would have liked better.

Gregor was almost at the top for the fourth time.

"Give up," Heide jeered, sure of victory. "Chuck up your dog-badge and go down to the bottom and die."

"Wouldn't dream of it, you pistol-bog," Gregor shouted.

Then Gregor changed his tactics. He became wily. He chucked a knife at Heide, when he was almost up, and that did it. Heide's eyes followed the knife and as a result he started his kick too late, giving Gregor time to seize hold of his ankle. In a shower of stone and gravel the two of them rolled, closely entwined down the mountainside. Then they let go of each other and got to their feet, hit each other savagely, fell groaning to the ground. They drew their knives; then, with arms held out from their sides and bodies bent forward, almost at a right angle, they circled round each other, watching and waiting. Heide struck first. With a twist of his body, Gregor avoided the blow and tried to plant his knife in Heide's stomach. Groaning, they slashed and stabbed at each other. Heide landed a violent kick on Gregor's groin making him double up with pain, then raised his knife to finish him off, but he miscalculated. Gregor had learned the Legionnaire's trick: a back somersault and then one the opposite way and the soles of both his boots struck Heide right in the face. He screamed like a butchered pig. Gregor seized him by the ears and pounded the back of his head against a piece of rock. Heide lost consciousness. For a moment Gregor stood, swaying on his feet, then he too collapsed.

Tiny rubbed his hands in delight.

"Now I'll crawl down and finish them off. Couple of bloody proletariats!" He toyed with his dental forceps. "Heide has a whole jaw full of gold teeth and Gregor has two. They've been on my waiting list for ages!" He began clambering down, but when he was only half way, the two of them came to.

It was Gregor first saw Tiny with the forceps in his hand and from that moment he and Heide were allies. Tiny felt cheated.

"You're written off. Give me those pegs," he shouted and went for Heide, who was nearer to him.

A fresh fight started. Although Heide and Gregor were considerably more agile than Tiny, they could not match his strength. He picked Heide up, swung him round his head and flung him against a stone. Gregor leaped onto his back and tried to bite his ear off, but Tiny just shook him off, as a cow shakes a fly from its ear. He raised
him
high above his head and dashed him to the ground. When he had done this four times, Gregor admitted defeat, but he was not left alone until he had handed over everything he had in his pockets.