Herzog shook his head resignedly and took a bar of chocolate from his pocket. “It’ll get to the stage where wounded men won’t even be allowed to leave their posts, they’ll have to stand and fight and shout Heil Hitler while they bleed to death.” He broke off a square of chocolate and popped it into his mouth.
“Why couldn’t we have been born in England?” pondered Fritz. “At least we wouldn’t have been part of this stinking army.”
Herzog smiled. “No, we’d have been part of their army instead. No matter where we were, we’d all have ended up in somebody’s fucking army.”
“Why complain, Wolf?” asked Steikel. “You and I volunteered. We would have been soldiers anyway.”
Herzog chuckled, mirthlessly. “Volunteered. For an army where they give you the Iron Cross for murdering women and children.”
As if a switch had been thrown, silence fell, broken only by the powerful hum of the Krupp’s engine. All heads turned towards the sergeant, bewilderment smeared across their faces.
“I don’t understand, Wolf,” said Steikel, quietly.
Herzog exhaled deeply. “You don’t have to understand.”
The Austrian raised his voice. “Yes I do.”
Herzog sighed and stroked a finger across his eyebrow.
“For our part in the fight against French Partisans,” there was a note of tired resignation in his voice, “we are all to be awarded the Iron Cross.” The resignation slowly turned to anger. “The twenty men who took part in that slaughter at St Sarall are to be decorated, courtesy of Divisional H.Q. and the Führer.”
For long seconds no one spoke. Erhardt put a hand to his stomach to quieten its conspicuous rumbling.
“It’s to boost morale,” continued the sergeant. “Sturn told me that the General Staff thought it would help.”
The Krupp twisted violently as it ran over a shell-hole but this time no one complained. Erhardt cleared his throat.
“Is that why we were taken out of the front line?” he asked.
Herzog nodded slowly. “Yes, to receive the medals.”
“They can stick their medals up their arse,” snarled Steikel, angrily.
“I wondered why we were travelling south,” muttered Fritz, considering the battered compass which he always carried, stolen from a dead tank-commander. “Divisional Headquarters.”
Herzog nodded again.
“But why didn’t you tell us?” demanded Steikel. “How long have you known?”
Herzog sighed. “Sturn told me a day ago, I saw no reason to tell you.”
“No reason,” snapped Steikel, angrily. “Aren’t we entitled to know? If the fucking General Staff are pissing about with me, I like to know about it. I have the right.”
“Right?” laughed Herzog, bitterly. “Rights, in this fucking army. Steikel, don’t be a fool.”
“You should have told us,” he persisted.
“What difference would it make? Once the General staff get an idea into their heads there’s no shifting it. You have no choice.”
“And you?”
Herzog did not answer, he was staring out at the grey day which was falling rapidly away behind the Krupp.
The massive stone eagle which towered over the parade-ground glared down with malignant eyes onto the Krupp parked beneath it. On either side of the petrified bird hung two red flags, soaked by the persistant drizzle. They hung impotently by their staffs, the red material slowly suffocating the vicious black swastikas at their centres.
A group of about twenty Hitler Youth were being drilled by a tall, red-faced officer with one arm. He was carrying a riding-crop and he was whacking it, frenziedly, against his shining leather boots. His gyrations coincided with the movements of the young troops, few of whom had reached the age of sixteen and it seemed to be a monumental effort for them to perform the complex movements with the heavy Mauser rifles. The one-armed officer bellowed at them until his face turned purple. Steikel poked his head around the canvas flap of the Krupp and glanced in the direction of the hoarse shouting. The officer was jumping up and down like a lunatic, waving his riding-crop in the air. He looked like a jockey trying to win a race with a dead horse. One of the young boys dropped his rifle. On the verge of tears, he scooped it up again, trying to ignore the verbal assault which swept over him from the apoplectic officer.
Herzog unbolted the tail-board and jumped down from the truck. He muttered something derisory about the weather, adding a few words about the shouting officer. He straightened his equipment belt and ordered the other men out. Jumping down into the courtyard, they cast appraising glances over their dismal surroundings. The grey, monolithic buildings looked as though they had been hacked from lumps of solid granite rather than built brick by brick. Herzog stroked his chin thoughtfully and looked up at what he thought was the barracks. Above, the eagle and two flags dominated the skyline, the stone bird throwing a shadow over the courtyard which appeared not to need the aid of the sun. The growing wind whipped a curtain of drizzle across the parade-ground towards a building only slightly less intimidating in its architectural severity. Officer’s quarters, thought Herzog and his assumption was confirmed as he saw a young captain descending the stone steps, buttoning his full-length leather coat. He glanced at the hastily formed line of German troops and nodded as if answering an inwardly asked question.
The two men saluted one another Herzog was told to form his men up in a straight line facing the officers quarters. This done, the captain disappeared into the barracks. Herzog watched him go then made sure the order was executed.
General Wimmer clasped his hands behind his back and shuffled his fingers as if they were fleshy playing-cards. From the top-most storey of the officers’ quarters he peered out onto the parade-ground, accentuating his perpetual squint in an effort to discern the identity of the unkempt troops who were assembled below him. Annoyed at his inability to do so, he turned his back on the sodden parade-ground and walked back to the blazing log fire nestling in the grate. He reached for the glass of schnaps which he had placed on the mantlepiece. Sipping it, he brushed his lips with the knuckle of his index-finger and exhaled deeply. If General Wimmer had a weakness, it was drink. It was one of the few things in life which he could enjoy purely for what it was. To him, everything else was a competition. War, women, business. Anything to which the rules of conflict could be applied. He shuffled irritably and nodded towards the window.
“Have you seen them?” he asked, taking another sip of the liquor.
General Ernst Kernel hauled himself out of his chair and hobbled across to the window, slapping the thigh of his right leg, trying to dispel the pain which periodically crippled him. It always seemed worse in wet weather. During the last week or so it had become increasingly unbearable. The source of the pain was a wound which he had received at Verdun in 1916. He had been a boy then, eighteen years old, a private in the 4th Brandenburg regiment. Now all that had changed. After the war he had married the daughter of a field-marshal and promotion had come rapidly. Now he was forty-seven and he was an old man for all that. A steady invasion of grey had, over the years, transformed his hair into quicksilver. Conspicuous by its contrast was the black moustache which swept across his top lip, the ends curling up towards his blue eyes. Framed by thickly folded skin, they sparkled with a lustre which seemed to have deserted the rest of his body. He inhaled breathlessly and leant on the window-sill, the occasional cough racking his body. Bronchitis, another reminder of the trenches.
“I thought there were meant to be twenty,” he wheezed, hurriedly counting the figures on the parade-ground, “where are the others?”