Wolf Kruger - Blood and Honour

Sturn paused for a moment, his voice becoming reflective. “As you know, our position is, to say the least, unstable. We are short of troops, ammunition and weapons and, most important of all, morale is practically non-existent. Divisional H.Q. felt that morale would be strengthened if a number of men were awarded the Iron Cross.”

Herzog clenched his teeth. “So you mean that six hundred men, women and children were slaughtered for the sake of morale?”

“There had been resistance activity in that area, you know that,” said Sturn, as if defending the decision.

“But there was no evidence that it was centred in St Sarall.”

“That doesn’t matter, that wasn’t the object of the exercise.”

“Exercise,” shouted Herzog, “you call six hundred lives an exercise?”

“That’s enough,” snarled Sturn, banging hard on the desk-top. “Remember your rank.”

Herzog clenched his fists until the knuckles turned white. The anger was seething within him.

Sturn regarded him cooly. “Your personal principles are of no concern to me,” he said.

“And fighting a war which has been lost for over a year is no concern of mine,” growled the sergeant, unable to contain himself.

Sturn smiled, mirthlessly. “You just obey orders, Herzog.”

“I cannot answer for my men.”

“Your men will also do as ordered, I hold you responsible.” Sturn leant forward across the desk, a note of softness returning to his voice. “There is no room for principle in this army.” He poured more brandy into the sergeant’s glass. Herzog took the glass and stared into it, looking at the distorted image of his superior through the murky brown liquid. He swallowed its contents in one gulp.

“What about the men who were killed today?” he asked, setting the glass down.

“Their medals will be awarded posthumously of course,” Sturn told him. “Remember in this case it is the gesture which counts rather than the reasoning behind it.”

Herzog sighed. “Will there be anything else, sir?”

Sturn shook his head. “You may leave.”

Herzog got to his feet and saluted, standing there until his superior did likewise. The major studied this young man who stood before him. The dirty uniform, smelling of sweat and blood. Stick grenades jammed into his belt beside the P-38, half of his collar and one shoulder-strap torn off by an explosion. The beginnings of a beard licking across his face, interrupted across the left cheek by a vicious crescent-shaped scar.

Sturn saluted. “Let us hope that morale is restored,” he added.

Herzog nodded. “Yes sir, so do I. there can’t be many more villages like St Sarall left. Just in case we have to do the same thing again.”

He turned his back on the major and scrambled out through the narrow doorway into the trench. He stood still for a moment watching his breath forming gossamer clouds in the cold night air. The mud was rock-hard as he walked back towards his own dugout. Particles of frost sparkled like millions of tiny diamonds in the moonlight. Herzog stepped up onto the firing platform and looked out across the battlefield. The dark outline of corpses and wrecked vehicles stood out starkly, bathed in an unearthly blue light. Friend and foe were indistinguishable in the pale glow. As he watched, a fox, hungry enough to leave the safety of its lair, ventured forward from the wreck of a Churchill to gnaw at the petrified headless corpse of a German officer. Herzog watched the animal trying to wring lumps of meat from the body, already stiff with rigor-mortis. It chewed contentedly at the shattered stump of the neck. He stepped down from the platform and continued through the trench, nodding to sentries as he passed. They saluted and smiled. Herzog was a popular man. He glanced towards the north. There, the sky was not black but a vivid blood-red and the faint rumbling of cannon-fire could be heard evidence that the British were pressing forward in some sector. It looked as if sunrise had come early.

The dugout was smoky when he entered it, the smoke coming from a small portable stove that Steikel had picked up three miles back. It made the room stink but at least it gave them some warmth. The men were sitting around engaged in various pastimes, cleaning equipment or tending to wounds. The atmosphere was subdued.

“What did our illustrious major want?” said Steikel, watching as Herzog slipped off his belt and lay down on the rough bed in the corner of the dugout. Another acquisition of some miles back. Herzog reached for the bottle of wine which stood beside the bed and swallowed a large mouthful.

“Anything important?” the big Austrian persisted.

Herzog shrugged, smiled wanly and put the bottle down. “Nothing important,” he said, then, as an afterthought, “not yet.”

Day didn’t so much break, as split. The sky slowly became brighter as the moon retreated and grey storm-clouds began to take precedence over the blackness of night. Herzog watched the steady drips of moisture as they fell through the canvas flap of the lorry they were travelling in.

“Well,” said Steikel, “it beats walking, that’s all I can say.” He patted the side of the Krupp and began picking his nails with his bayonet. The lorry swerved to avoid two dead horses which were lying in the road, causing the men inside to tumble about. The big Austrian nearly cut his finger off. He leapt to his feet and banged on the cabin partition.

“Be careful, you silly sod,” he shouted, “you’ll have us out on the road.”

As if to emphasise his concern, the Krupp’s tailboard flapped open with a loud crash. The two men sitting nearest hurriedly closed it.

“I thought you said it was better than walking,” said Fritz, lighting a cigarette. He sucked heavily on it and then handed it to Lerner who was seated beside him. Beneath his tunic his shoulder was heavily bandaged, the result of a wound sustained just a day earlier. The bullet had shattered his collar-bone. The doctor had removed the offending missile but had been unable to set the broken bone, consequently Lerner’s arm hung limply at his side, the skin an unearthly white. He had been pumped full of cocaine and sent back to duty. It was the best way, a swift remedy, in the eyes of a Nazi doctor, was the best remedy. Lerner could feel fragments of jagged bone working their way out of the wound.

Erhardt bit his lip and tried to massage some life back into his leg. He struggled uncomfortably, unable to restore the circulation or to rid himself of the maddening cramp which bit at his calf and foot. The bandage around his knee and thigh had been bound so tightly that it practically cut off the circulation. The leg was held, rigid, by two splints on either side of the shattered knee-cap, wound round by lengths of bandage. The dirty trousers which he wore had been cut away just above the knee, revealing the heavily padded injury. He had been allowed to remain in hospital for barely two days.

“The doctor said that he couldn’t stand shirkers,” he informed the other men, “said that I should have been proud to be wounded for the Führer.”

“I’d have told him to fuck off,” snarled Steikel, sending a lump of gob out of the rear of the truck.

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.”