Liquidate Paris by Sven Hassel Page B

but the demented horde seemed bent on self-destruction. Suddenly, out of the gloom, a man wearing the white coat of a doctor advanced threateningly upon us.
    'Stop!' cried the Old Man, foreseeing disaster. 'Stop, for the love of God!'
    The radio was still turned on. Three battalions heard the order, and slowly the entire column of tanks came to a halt. Almost at once Major Mercedes' car came tearing along by the side of us, going full speed ahead and sending showers of nuns and lunatics scattering into the ditch. His voice came furiously over the radio.
    'What cretin gave the order to stop? Whoever he is, he can expect to be court-martialled for sheer bloody stupidity! Get started again, we stop for no one!'
    With groans of agony the heavy tanks lumbered once more into movement. One of them ploughed straight through the group of lunatics. The driver obviously panicked and lost control, and the vehicle shuddered to a halt in the middle of the road, once again bringing us to a standstill. Bodies lay crushed on either side of the offending tank. One old nun advanced furiously upon it and began beating against the metal with clenched fists.
    'Murderers! You're nothing but murderers, the lot of you!'
    No one took any notice of her. The Major's car drew up with an ill-tempered screeching of brakes, and the Major's head appeared through the window, scowling and hideous in its anger. The black patch gleamed nastily over his right eye.
    'That idiot's not fit to drive a toy car, never mind a bloody tank! Get someone else on the job, for Christ's sake! And as for you'--he glared at a luckless lieutenant nervously inching himself up through the hatch--'we'll see about you later! Of all the crassly stupid things to do----' Words happily failed him. He turned back to the rest of us and waved the column onwards. 'Get going and keep going! I don't care if you see Christ himself walking down the road, we stop for no one--and I mean no one! Is that quite clear? Anyone gets in the way, he's had it. Teach him not to be so damn careless in future.'
    At that moment, before the Major had had time to move off again, a group of vehicles marked with red crosses attempted unsuccessfully to overtake us. In spite of their demands for passage we stood firm and let them sink themselves in the ditch. The Tigers stopped for no one; the Tigers gave way to no one.
    An infantry lieutenant came storming past us on foot, followed by an officer for the Feldgendarmerie, his half-moon badge glinting evilly through the gloom. He had snatched out his revolver and seemed disinclined for any civil form of conversation. I heard him shouting as he walked.
    'This is sabotage! Someone's going to suffer for this! Who's the fool commanding this load of morons?'
    He was very sure of himself. The members of the Feldgendarmerie were, in general, scared of neither man nor the devil; nor even, for that matter, of the Fuhrer himself. An ordinary major was mincemeat to them. Happily, Major Mercedes was no ordinary major. He didn't give too much for man or the devil himself, and I don't believe the Fuhrer roused any particular feelings of reverence in him.
    'Tigers!' His voice bellowed along the length of the column, rolling and echoing from one side of the read to the other. 'I gave you an order: get started! We stop for no one! And as for you, sir'--he turned towards the two men, pushing the Feldgendarme out of the way and addressing himself to the Lieutenant--'I advise you to get your miserable little pushchairs well off the road if you don't want them crushed. I should also,' he added, as an afterthought, 'proceed back via way of the ditch. I think you'll find it safer.'
    The Tigers rolled onwards. We managed to get some way before we ran into yet another column of men, almost as bizarre to behold as the group of lunatics from Caen. For a start, although the column wore the uniform of the German Army, it was comprised of half the peoples of Europe. There were Russians, Ukrainians