SS General (26 page)

It was a chaotic skirmish in which I, for one, had very little idea what was happening. In the desperate, hand-to-hand crush, we swayed and fought over the bodies of the wounded, grinding them beneath our boots, drunk with blood, drunk with exhaustion, drunk with fear, strangling, clubbing and bayoneting.

We finally put them to flight and took possession of their bunker, although we were well aware that such possession could be only temporary. We hadn't the strength to hold it against a full attack, and the Siberians would surely come back in force.

Meanwhile, we made the most of our stay by raiding the larder. The Siberians had left a fair supply of rations behind them and we descended like a horde of deprived vultures. I saw Tiny tearing with his front teeth at a lump of fatty bacon, while Porta raced about like a madman, hands flying in all directions, cramming as much as he could into his mouth until it bulged in two great pouches and he was hardly able to swallow; after which he began cramming his pockets instead.

It was with the greatest reluctance, and only under severe pressure, that we consented to move out. The enemy were already closing in on us and we finally fled in a shower of shells.

From the far side of the Volga the heavy batteries opened up. The ground was trembling as if about to split open. The general bawled at us to keep moving, but we had more sense. The dreaded napalm grenades, which tore a man's very lungs from his body, were exploding all over the place, and we went to earth instantly. No use trying to run through such a storm. All you could do was find a hole and stay put, curled up at the bottom of it with your head well down. Anything on the surface was swiftly devoured by the sea of flame that swept the earth in the wake of the explosions.

I dived into a dugout and landed on top of Porta. I knocked him off balance and we fell down together as the hot blast of the furnace blew over our heads.

The barrage lasted all night long, and all night long we remained crouched in our holes with our heads buried deep in the snow. Not even the calls of nature took men into the open. Better a pair of sodden pants than a mouthful of that killing air that hung overhead.

Strange that although we all knew the war was lost, we still never spoke of defeat. We never spoke of the past, and we rarely mentioned the present. It was always the future. Even now, deep in this well of seemingly endless misery, we clung stubbornly to life. Cold and starving, stinking, filthy and terrified, hounded aimlessly from one point to another across the bloodstained steppe, scarcely any longer human, we nevertheless still believed ourselves to be men, and fought for our right to existence.

Toward morning the firing quieted down and we began slowly to relax. Once or twice we cautiously raised our heads and sniffed the air. It smelled bad, but it would clear.

With the coming of dawn, three JU-52s suddenly appeared on the horizon. We looked up at them and watched in disbelief as they came steadily nearer. They swooped down from the clouds, flying in wide circles, indifferent to the Russian antiaircraft batteries or the possibility of enemy planes in the neighborhood. They were evidently searching for us.

Whether they spotted us or whether they simply decided to jettison their load and return home, we neither knew nor cared. But the sky was suddenly full of parachutes, floating down toward us like great yellow mushrooms, and at the end of each parachute was a large container. We became almost hysterical as we watched the slow descent. We danced up and down in the trenches, singing and shouting and hugging each other.

"Food!" roared Porta at the top of his voice.

Before the general could stop us, we were over the parapet and racing toward those precious containers. We thought nothing of personal danger in that moment. Let the enemy hurl at us what they would, we were going to pick up our ration of food even if we died as we ate it! Each container should hold sufficient to feed an entire company. For the first time in weeks we were faced with the prospect of full bellies.

The anticipation was almost unbearable. It was as much as we could do to detach the containers and drag them back with us, instead of tearing them open on the spot.

"Food," blubbered Porta, falling down into the trench. His mouth was full of saliva, bubbling in tiny globules around his lips.

"Never again," vowed Gregor, "will I say a word against the Air Force! God bless 'em!"

With one voice we sent up a cheer for the brave pilots of those JU-52s. May they reach base safely, they deserved it! And three cheers for Himmler too! Maybe the bastard wasn't as bad as he was painted.

Like children tearing open their Christmas stockings, we ripped apart the containers. My head was full of visions. Bright, mouth-watering visions in the garish colors of cheap comics. There were crudely pink sausages, great bloated things oozing fat and straining to bursting point in their glistening skins. There was a plump and succulent chicken, basted brown with a crackling skin. There were potatoes and milk, and bacon and bread, and cheese and cookies and fresh fruit and lightly boiled eggs and coffee and caviar and . . .

The container fell open. The contents spilled out. There was a moment's shocked silence.

No sausages. No chicken. No bread, no milk, no bacon. Only a quantity of flea powder, a few sheets of notepaper, and a vast stack of colored photographs. Hitler and Himmler, Goering and Goebbels and all the rest of the trashy band.

The trenches rang with howls of rage and despair. Men wept and cursed and beat their heads in a frenzy against the hard-packed snow. We became violent in our disappointment, and we called upon a God we no longer believed in to strike Adolf Hitler dead for the trick he had played on us.

The colored photographs were scattered to the winds and on toward the Russian lines.

"Wipe your ass on Adolf Hitler!" bellowed Porta. "That's all the swine's fit for!"

What the SS general made of it we neither knew nor cared. He watched us in grim-faced and tight-lipped silence and made no attempt to quell our jeers and catcalls. He was perhaps aware that to have done so would merely have incited us to revolt. We were in no mood to tolerate the prating of one of Hitler's officers.

We left our positions under cover of a snowstorm. With any luck, it would be several hours before the enemy discovered we had withdrawn.

On the road to Orlovka, we began running into the occasional group of fugitives, fleeing from the tractor factory which was still somewhat precariously in German hands. The general forced us to another halt and set up a barricade. We spent the next twenty-four hours shooting deserters. Those who gave in without a struggle were co-opted into our group. Any who attempted argument or excuses were dispatched forthwith. All officers were shot on the spot and no questions asked.

We set off again at dawn the following day, our numbers swelled into quite a respectable column. A few miles farther on, in a fold in the landscape, we came across a regiment of corpses. They were buried beneath a carpet of snow, but countless bones, frozen into position, still appeared above the surface and pointed the way to the communal grave. We paused only long enough to check that they were German bones, then made our way to the great stone bunker, carved deep into the rocky face of the hillside, which had obviously served as the last refuge of the slaughtered regiment.

A carbide lamp still burned on a table, and by its light we saw that we had entered a house of the dead. The corpses were piled high around the walls, stretched out on the floor, propped up against tables and chairs, lying over and across each other. In a high-backed chair sat a lieutenant colonel with his head thrown back. Upon examination, he was found to have a bullet hole in the base of his skull. We looked significantly at one another: the NKVD had passed this way. On an operating table lay a doctor with his throat cut. Tossed into a corner were two nurses.

Porta looked at them regretfully. "Pity about that," he said.

Exhausted, we flung ourselves to the ground, wherever we could squeeze ourselves in between a couple of corpses, and fell asleep, regardless of the filth and the stench. Even the general permitted himself the human weakness of closing his eyes.

Whether we slept five minutes or five hours, I never discovered. We were woken very suddenly by the trembling of the ground and the familiar sound of tanks on the move. The Old Man reached out and extinguished the lamp, which we had left burning as we slept. For half an hour we crouched, silent and terrified among the corpses, while the tanks rolled past. They were very close to the bunker, traveling in the direction of Gumrak.

When it seemed that the last one had passed, and there had been no movement for almost fifteen minutes, the general stood up and jerked his head at us. "All right! You've had your rest. Pick up your weapons and follow me."

We took with us all the food we could lay hands on, all the mangy, moldering crusts of bread, all the rotting bits and pieces of unknown vegetable matter, all the putrefying scraps of meat, including a hunk that was strangely white and bloodless. The Old Man said it was human flesh, and looking at the hideous anemic thing, I was quite willing to believe him; but Porta, totally undaunted, tore off a mouthful and chewed it, savoring its flavor.

"What's it like?" I asked curiously.

Porta licked his lips. "Not at all bad! I guess it must be topside of general." He turned and dug the Old Man in the ribs. "If this is human flesh, pal, then all I can say is, hold onto your skins when I get hungry again!"

The general impatiently motioned us forward. We marched, unmolested by Russians, until we came to a spot northwest of the railroad line a mile or so from Pestyanka. There, for no very apparent reason--except, perhaps, a manic desire on the general's part to meet up with the enemy--we dug ourselves in again.

Inevitably, the Russians discovered us before long and moved in to dislodge us. They came swinging toward us in tight ranks, high-stepping as if they were on the parade ground. They were easy enough to pick off, but the minute one man fell, another came forward to take his place. They simply ignored the bodies, marching right over them. Sometimes they built them up into ramparts, sometimes they flung them as convenient bridges across the barbed wire, but however many we killed, they still came on in vast numbers.

I was crouched in my snowhole beneath the remains of an American bulldozer. As I peered out, I saw a Siberian soldier running toward me. He was still some distance away, not even knowing I was there, but I had him in my sight and, aiming at the spot directly beneath the red star on his helmet, I squeezed the trigger. An expression of anguished surprise appeared on the soldier's chubby face. I could almost hear the thoughts running through his poor, stupid, confused head in the seconds before he died. Had he been shot? Had he really been shot? Is that what it felt like? Why was he here, what was he fighting for? What was he doing with a bullet through his brain, dying by the side of a strange river in a land that was not his own? Where were his wife and his children, his cows and his horses? Why was he lying spread-eagled in the snow, so far from home?

In the spring, when the snows melted and released him from his frozen shroud, he would be piled into a great communal burial pit with a hundred thousand others. For the moment he remained where he had fallen, trampled underfoot by his comrades.

We retreated along the side of the railroad line. From a shell hole a weak voice called out to me. I hesitated. A face was peering over the top, a crooked finger was beckoning. The face looked like a mask of badly applied rubber solution. It bulged and it wrinkled and it sagged. It was gunmetal in color, except around the eyes, which were sunk deep inside great black holes. It was the face of a young officer. I moved cautiously over to him. He was almost up to his waist in what seemed a pool of blood. It was blood; as I stared down, I realized that both his legs had been crushed into a thick red puree. There was nothing I could do for him. I thrust a revolver into his outstretched hand and ran on.

His voice came shrieking after me. "Soldier--please-- help me! Soldier--please! For God's sake, don't leave me here to die ..."

Perhaps I should have shot him myself. But it was already too late. From behind the cover of a bush I watched, appalled, as a wandering Russian tank suddenly caught sight of the terrified man, trapped in his legless, dying body. It paused, very deliberately changed direction, and went out of its way to demolish the shell hole. It turned once on its axis, slowly, savoring the sensation, and then continued on its interrupted path. Another filthy Fascist out of the way! Another Russian hero! If only Stalin could have been there to see how valiantly his troops were fighting!

Porta and I sprang at the same moment onto a slowly lumbering T-34, which was flying a red flag from its aerial. We wrenched it off and hung it over the forward observation slit to obstruct the driver's vision, then clamped a couple of magnetic mines on the side of the tank and hurled ourselves into the snow.

Stalingrad, the communal grave--Stalingrad, where one German soldier died every minute, while back in Germany a madman strutted and pranced and screamed himself hoarse with his
"Fight to the last man, the last bullet!"
Unhappily for us, there were still enough fanatics willing to obey the insane injunction.

December 24 found us outside the town of Dnitrievka. It was Christmas Eve, and we received our present in advance: a mass infantry attack from the Russians. They came screaming across at seven o'clock in the morning and the struggle continued until three in the afternoon. We certainly couldn't be said to have repulsed them--we were barely holding our own--when for some reason they decided to withdraw. Doubtless they knew they had us in their grasp. They could afford to tease us a little, to play cat and mouse with us. We were theirs for the asking and they could move in at virtually any moment and mop us up.

The sudden silence was unnerving. We felt instinctively that the abrupt withdrawal was merely a refinement of torture and presaged some new horrors for the morrow. Our lunatic general refused to withdraw and we could do nothing better than huddle in our dugouts and wait helplessly for the next attack.