Schiller sneered. “I’ve got guts like a bloody incinerator, never had stomach-trouble in my life.” He farted loudly and fanned the air. Vogel wrinkled his nose distastefully. Driest began to pace back and forth agitatedly, his eyes fixed on the clock which hung outside what had once been a tavern. Although no one visited it any more, the owner still kept the clock going and, through his efforts, Driest had now been able to estimate that they had been in Relstok for a little under fifty minutes.
“What the fuck are we hanging around here for anyway?” he demanded.
“Ritter ordered a house-to-house search,” answered Synovski, “he thinks that this might be a base for partisans.”
Driest stamped his foot, like a child who has had its favourite toy taken away. “What the hell does it matter if he whole fucking village is full of partisans? The longer we wait, the quicker the Russians are going to get here.” He began chewing his nails, although there was very little left to chew.
“Looks like they find something,” said Kahn, glancing up the street.
The other men turned their heads to catch a glimpse of what he meant. As they watched, six people walked slowly towards the square, flanked on either side by two German soldiers. Strutting at their head was Sergeant Althus. He gave the men a scornful look as he passed and indicated the captive Poles behind.
“You see what the men in my section can do?” he said proudly. “Flushed out a whole nest of partisans, didn’t we? Whole bloody stack of weapons they had.”
“Partisans,” snarled Synovski, moving forward menacingly, his eyes on one of the three children in the group, “how do you know?”
Althus grinned smugly. “The cellar of the house was full of bloody weapons.”
“They probably didn’t even know about them,” argued the Pole, defensively.
“Balls,” snorted the sergeant, “we’ll see what Captain Ritter has to say about this.” Brushing Synovski aside, he and his followers, captive and captor alike, marched off towards the church.
Although Herzog and Foss hadn’t been aware that a house-to-house search had been initiated, they didn’t have to wonder what Althus wanted as he strode, triumphantly, up to the captain. The sergeant saluted and snapped his heels together.
“Prisoners, sir,” he announced.
Ritter smiled. “Very good, sergeant,” he purred, considering the group of bewildered poles.
“We found a stock of weapons in a house on the edge of the village, sir.”
One of the two women in the group stepped forward and, in surprisingly good German, said, “We knew nothing of the weapons.”
Ritter’s grin dropped away as if it had never existed. “Silence,” he shouted, drawing his Luger. Herzog threw a worried glance at Foss, who gently shook his head.
“Are there any more weapons in the village?” asked the captain.
The woman shook her head resignedly. “I don’t know, we didn’t even know about these…”
The sentence trailed off as Ritter lashed out and struck her across the cheek with the pistol butt; the skin split open exposing a network of blood-vessels and muscle. The woman fell. A tall man, whom Herzog took to be her husband, suddenly lunged towards Ritter but, before he could grab the captain, he had received a sharp blow across the head from Althus. He fell at her side.
The woman gazed up at the captain and saw that he was holstering his pistol again; there was an enigmatic glint in his eye. She braced herself, but instead Ritter turned to Herzog and said, “We will find nothing of value from her or the others. Shoot them.”
The corporal swallowed hard, suddenly aware of the silence which had descended as both civilian and soldier alike turned their eyes towards the centre of the square.
“Shoot them,” repeated Ritter, calmly.
Herzog took a step back and glanced at the four men flanking the captives; they had formed a line, their sub-machine-guns pointing downwards.
“Give the order,” demanded Ritter and things began to take on a horrible familiarity. Time seemed to have stood still; Herzog felt as if he were back in St Sarall again. He drew his P-38 and pushed past Foss, his eyes glazed like a drunkard. The four men glanced at him and cocked their weapons. The loud metallic clicks echoed across the square.
“Give the order,” repeated the captain.
Herzog felt a bead of sweat pop onto his forehead; his hand tightened around the butt of the P-38.
Herzog shook his head very slowly. Althus stepped forward but Foss grabbed his arm.
“Tell them to fire,” ordered Ritter.
Herzog was transported back in time; in his mind, images of praying women danced madly. He gritted his teeth until they ached.
“Tell them to fire, I won’t tell you again, Herzog,” Ritter sneered and chuckled throatily. “You might even get another Iron Cross.”
Even if Ritter had been able to see what was happening, it is doubtful if he would have been able to prevent it.
In one practised movement, Herzog swung the P-38 up and, from point-blank range, fired. The bullet caught Ritter just below the left eye, exploding from the back of his head and tearing a hole the size of a tennis ball. He pitched backwards, a greyish slop of brain falling to the cobbles beneath his body. Thick blood bubbled through his hair like water through reeds. Herzog fired again, the impact of the bullet twisting the body round, causing the lifeless arms to twitch as if they had still been animated. It was scarcely necessary to fire the third bullet. Or the fourth.
Herzog stood staring at the corpse for long seconds, then he wheeled and walked away. Foss saw Althus’s hand drop to his holster but he reacted quickly. Herzog spun round when he heard the chatter of machine-gun fire and saw Althus lying alongside the captain, drilled through with a dozen bullet-holes, the pistol still gripped hard in his fist.
Smoke rose from the barrel of Foss’s MP 40, curling up like the smile on his lips. Herzog raised a hand.
The Poles stood rooted to the spot, as did the four guards.
The same shell-blast killed all of them.
“Russians,” shouted Herzog, “take cover.” He threw himself down as another shell exploded, bringing a house down as if it had been made of cards. Machine-guns chattered and rifles cracked, all joined with the rapid succession of shell-bursts. An artificial sun of exploding metal and gunpowder rose swiftly over the town then vanished, to be replaced immediately by another.
“The churchyard,” shouted Foss, “move.”
Without a second invitation, the men scurried across the square and took cover behind the low stone wall. Vogel set up the MG 42 on top of a tomb and checked that the belt was feeding correctly, then he squinted down the sight. Herzog pulled a number of stick grenades from his belt and lashed them together. There were probably tanks on the way.
His assumption was correct. Followed by the swarms of brown-clad infantry, a T-34 appeared round a corner, its machine-guns spitting tracer at the Germans. Whatever resistance the Russians had met from the troops positioned further out must have been slight, for they charged on, screaming oaths and hurling grenades towards the church, standing defiantly before automatic weapons brought them down in heaps. But those behind used the mounds of corpses as cover and, soon, the two sides were sniping at each other across ground covered in blood and strewn thickly with shattered hunks of humanity. Driest hurled a stick grenade and saw it explode, watching as living and dead alike were catapulted into the air by the blast.
Zorn covered his head as an explosion tore up the ground two yards from him; broken chunks of gravestone flew into the air, raining down again like concrete confetti.
“Mortars,” he announced, authoritatively, sitting down to reload his MP 40.
“You’re a useful bloke to have around,” said Schiller, sardonically, shooting down a Russian officer who was crawling towards the wall. “Not everyone can tell you what they’re being shot at with.”