SS General (17 page)

We folded over the collars of our coats, hugged our Russian MPIs to our chests, peered out from beneath our furry helmets--and kept a good supply of hand grenades on the seat between us, just in case.

A quarter of an hour later we hit the main road again. It was still full of enemy columns on the march.

"Rumanians!" said Porta, and gave a short, cynical laugh.

We reversed back into the woods, scouted around until we came to a side road, drove a couple of miles, and found ourselves brought to a sudden halt. The engine coughed and muttered a few times, then faded into an obstinate silence.

"Shit and fucking disaster!" I screamed, diving through the door. "Let's leave the stinking thing and go on by foot!"

"Don't be a fool," said Porta calmly. "Wouldn't get nowhere if we did that."

He opened up the hood and peered in at the engine, while I stood by clutching the MPI and gnawing at the inside of my cheek. A Cossack division appeared and swung past us up the road, horses steaming, hooves clattering, bits and stirrups singing. The soldiers were chanting rhythmically. All very romantic, but I could have done without it just at that moment. I watched impatiently as Porta carefully wiped the spark plugs, examined the carburetor and the ignition. On a sudden impulse I tugged the death's head emblem from my lapels and trampled it into the snow. Porta looked at me in momentary amazement, then, catching on, followed suit. Those emblems had caused the death of many a soldier in the tank regiments; we were too often taken for the thugs and sadists who served in Eicke's hated "murder" division.

"I'm damned if I know what the point of that was," reflected Porta. "They'll shoot us anyway if they get their hands on us."

"I just feel happier without it," I muttered.

Porta shrugged. "Can't say it bothers me."

A corporal from an artillery regiment suddenly stepped toward us from a copse on the other side of the road. I clutched nervously at the MPI, while Porta continued his examination under the hood.

"Zdrastye!"
said the corporal cheerfully.

"Zdrastye!"
We answered his hello with a great show of bonhomie.

He circled slowly around the vehicle, eyeing it with interest.

"Hitler
mashina,"
he told us with a big grin, and he caught the front wheel an almighty kick and roared with laughter.

"Da,"
I affirmed weakly.

"Khorosho?"

"Da, khorosho,"
I nodded, managing to stutter that yes, it was good.

The corporal laughed again and gave Porta an amiable thump on the back. He leaned over to look at the motor.

"Yalovo,"*
he commented, straightening up and wiping oily fingers down his coat.

*"Dry."

I stared vacantly and nodded my head a few times. I hoped he would take me for an idiot and ignore me. He turned to Porta and began talking at him at great speed, waving his arms up and down and pulling faces. While I watched him closely for signs of aggression, Porta bent over his engine and threw in the odd
da
or
nyet
(no) at what I could only hope and pray were appropriate intervals. After a while Porta put a hand in his pocket and pulled out a packet of
grifas.
He offered them to the corporal, whose big pumpkin face split open in a beam of delight.

"Where did you get those?" he asked, in a Russian which I could just about grasp.

"Yeniseisk," said Porta promptly.

I wondered if Porta knew where Yeniseisk was, because I certainly didn't, but the reply seemed to satisfy the corporal. He nodded and smiled.

"Yeniseisk, eh? That where you come from?"

"Da,"
I said obediently.

"I wondered what your accent was. I'm from Chita myself. I don't mind where a man comes from so long as it's not Moscow. If there's one thing I can't stand, it's a Muscovite. Talk like squawking farmyard animals. Can't understand a word they're saying. But Yeniseisk--I never met anyone from there before. Almost like foreigners!" He grinned at us. "I'll forgive a man anything as long as he's not from Moscow. We should have killed all the bigheaded bastards in the Revolution."

Porta and I responded to this theory with a positive chorus of
das,
and at that providential moment the engine came to life again. We waved our hands at the corporal, jumped into the car and shot off in a great hurry.

"Thank the Lord we didn't . . ."

The words were only half out of my mouth, suspended as it were in midair, when the car stalled again.

Porta flung open the door and stepped out. "We're stuck in a goddamn drift!"

The corporal came running up to us, throwing his arms above his head and laughing. "Horses are better than cars in this weather!" he roared.

He seemed to think he had made a huge joke, so Porta and I nodded and grinned and nudged him in the ribs, and he nudged us back, and we all started cackling together.

The corporal was the first to recover. "Come on," he said briskly. "There's work to be done--Germans to be killed! Let me give you a hand."

We all three pushed. Straining and heaving and grunting, as the wheels spun around and the car remained still.

The corporal suddenly tapped me on the shoulder. "Wait there! I'll be back!"

He ran away up the road and disappeared into the trees.

"Where's he gone?" I said nervously.

"He's gone to get help," said Porta, with a wicked smile of delight at our predicament. "He's going to bring all his little pals back to give us a shove."

"Let's leave the stinking thing!" I urged. "We'll never get it moving before they come back."

"Don't panic," said Porta, calmly seating himself behind the wheel. "Give us another push and see what happens."

"Did you understand everything he was saying to you?" I panted as I set my shoulder to the back of the car and heaved.

"Are you kidding?" Porta grinned. "I didn't understand him any more than he understood me--so what? You don't expect to, in a country this size. Some of 'em practically speak different lingoes. Mind you, it's just as well I didn't say we came from Chita! I almost did, and then I hit on Yeniseisk instead."

"Where is Yeniseisk?"

"Haven't the faintest idea," said Porta happily.

"Is it a real place?"

"How should I know? It seemed to satisfy him all right."

From farther up the road, I heard the crunching of boots on snow and the corporal's raucous voice.
"Davai! Davai!"

"They're coming back!" I yelped. I glanced over my shoulder. "Dozens of 'em!" I added, as three men emerged from the trees.

At that moment the car shot forward and I fell headlong into the snow. I heard the corporal's merry hoot of laughter. Porta opened the door and shouted at me to get a move on if I didn't want to be left behind. As I flung myself into the moving vehicle, the corporal galloped alongside us.

"Dosvidanya!"
he screamed.
"Dosvidanya!"

"Goodbye to you too," I muttered, slamming the door.

A few miles farther on we again hit a long column of enemy troops. At one point we were waved aside to let a staff car go past. I sat and jittered while Porta drove steadily on. We were approaching a crossroads, where a lieutenant general was watching the troops march past.

"For God's sake," I said, "let's get shot of this damn thing and carry on by foot. A German vehicle sticks out like a sore thumb."

"Stick out even more if we suddenly dumped it in the ditch," said Porta reasonably. "Don't worry, they'd never think a couple of Jerries would have the nerve to drive around in a VW in the middle of a crowd of enemy troops. They'll just take us for two of their own men that have swiped a Kraut car."

Porta drove past the lieutenant general with a defiant flourish. I noticed his head whip around and stare after us, but Porta's optimism proved well founded and we were allowed to continue without interruption.

About a mile farther on we turned off into the Bolyov gorge, in an attempt to leave the main road once and for all, but we were waved back again by a couple of furious military police, and we didn't stop to argue.

As we drew near to the Volga, we found the road blocked by two overturned trucks, and we were allowed to make a diversion down a side street. We reached the end of the street, and instead of swinging us back to the main road, Porta took the opposite fork. We were pursued by the frenzied shouts and cries of a group of soldiers, and I stared at Porta in horror. "What are they saying? Are they coming after us?"

"I shouldn't imagine so." He laughed, removed his Russian helmet and tossed it into the back of the vehicle. "They were just telling us to be careful--we're heading toward the German lines!"

Our own side didn't exactly welcome us back with open arms. They viewed us with the deepest suspicion and met us with a warning barrage of artillery fire. Even when they had calmed down sufficiently to hear our explanations, they seemed not to believe us. They kept saying, "But where have you
come
from?" and, "How the hell did you get through?" until I began to wonder if it had all been worth it. Finally, and very grudgingly, they took their fingers off the trigger and hauled us along to their company commander, who held us two hours for questioning before giving us permission to rejoin our regiment.

"I should have got us a couple of seats on that plane," said Porta bitterly. "I could have, you know."

"I don't doubt it," I said.

"I could have thumbed my nose at the lot of 'em. Let 'em stew in their own stinking juice. I could have, if I was that sort of person."

"Which, of course, you're not," I said.

Porta glared at me, not sure whether I was being sarcastic.

"I could have," he said again. "I'm telling you!"

"Well, don't keep on about it!" I snarled. "I already said I believed you! Just shut up and give your ass a chance!"

We arrived back at our own lines thoroughly disgruntled with each other, and our tempers were made no sweeter by the realization that we were not even going to receive a heroes' welcome from our own buddies. The regiment was in a panic and no one could be bothered with us. They couldn't have cared less whether we were there or not. Field telephones were buzzing and messengers were dashing about every which way.

"What's going on around here?" said Porta angrily. "Everything falls to pieces the minute I turn my back. It's always the same."

"Don't see what you could have done if you had been here," the Old Man told him. "The Russians have broken through in several places and all hell's been let loose."

"See what I mean?" Porta turned to me bitterly. "I should have got a seat in that plane. Left 'em to stew in their own juice."

Let us seize power now, and let us keep that power no matter what means we must employ to do so.

Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, to Ernst Thaelmann, January 3, 1932

Two horsemen were trotting briskly down a path in the Zoological Gardens--the Tiergarten--which was deserted at six o'clock in the morning. They were Obergruppenfuhrer Heydrich and Admiral Canaris.

"It is an interesting idea," said Heydrich, turning to his companion. "Don't you think so?" He looked straight ahead, between his horse's ears, a smile on his lips. "Dress up a group of prisoners in Polish uniform and organize an attempt on the radio station at Gleiwitz--what could be more amusing?" He turned again to Canaris. "And what could give us a better excuse for launching an attack on Poland?"

"I have my doubts," Canaris frowned.

"On what grounds?" Heydrich laughed. "Not moral scruples, I trust?"

Canaris shook his head. "Moral scruples hardly enter into it, do they? Since no one is in the least likely to accept them as a valid ground for objection."

"So?"

"So--" Canaris hunched an uneasy shoulder. "I can't see it coming off, that's all. It doesn't seem to me that you'll be able to keep it a secret for very long. Using prisoners-- they're bound to talk."

"No need to worry on that score, my friend. None of them will survive the operation."

Canaris turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised. "I thought you were calling for volunteers? Promising them their freedom in exchange?"

"Purely as bait," murmured Heydrich, slightly reproachfully. "Naturally we can't be expected to keep our promise. It would be the height of folly, and sabotage the entire operation--as you yourself have just pointed out. And in any case, Admiral, I believe I am not wrong in saying that the idea actually originated in your department?"

"In my department, yes. But not altogether with my approval."

"Nevertheless, the affair is reverting to you, is it not? It will be carried out under your auspices?"

"No. There you are for once misinformed, Obergruppenfuhrer. My department will have nothing to do with the operation."

The admiral urged his horse forward into a canter, leaving Heydrich staring thoughtfully after him. For a few moments he continued to trot, rising and falling with the motion of the horse, frowning as he tapped his boot with his riding crop. Canaris slowed down again to a walk, and Heydrich caught up with him at the end of the path.

"May one know why, Admiral? I was under the impression that the Fuhrer himself had already approved the idea?"

"That is so." Canaris inclined his head. "However, as I told you just now, the plan was conceived without my knowledge and put forward without my consent. I shall have nothing to do with it."

"I hardly see that you can avoid it," said Heydrich with a slow smile. "We are all responsible for the actions of our subordinates. I was speaking on that very subject only yesterday to the Reichsfuhrer and the Reichsmarschall, and they were both of the same opinion. This idea originated in your department and it must therefore rest with you to carry it out."

Canaris slowly lit a cigarette before replying. "You can't frighten me into it, Obergruppenfuhrer. I'm as well informed as you, and very sure of my facts. I myself spoke with the Fuhrer not long ago and explained my position to him. I want nothing to do with the operation." He blew a thin stream of smoke down his nostrils and glanced sideways at the frozen figure of Heydrich. "I find the whole concept totally disagreeable. It has nothing whatsoever to do with counterespionage, and I'm warning you now that you'll have the whole Army against you."