March Battalion by Sven Hassel Page A

swept off like straws in a high wind. I fixed the Russian tank in our sights. Before I could fire, Porta had pressed his foot down and was moving head-on towards them. The two tanks met with a hideous crash and rebounded off each other. Inside the Tiger we fell about all over the place. I nearly knocked myself senseless hitting my head on the sharp corner of an ammunition box. The lighter Russian tank was in worse case than our 52-tonner. She had slewed right round, and two members of her crew, who had been half in and half out of the hatch at the time of the collision, were sliced in two as the impact closed the heavy cover of the hatch on their legs.
    After a bit we overtook a section of German infantry which had obviously seen some heavy fighting at some time during the day. All were half dead with fatigue, their eyes sunk deep into their sockets, their faces grey and haggard; most of them wore filthy bloodstained bandages, some had lost an arm, a leg, an eye. They knew the whereabouts of neither the Russian nor the German lines. They called out to us as we passed, appealing to us to take them up. We waved and shouted words of helpless encouragement, and as they saw we had no intention of stopping, their appeals turned to threats and vituperation. A captain of artillery drew his revolver and fired several shots at us, and an Oberwachtmeister planted himself foursquare in the middle of the road with a machine gun and bawled at us to stop. We moved on inexorably. The Oberwachtmeister refused to give ground, and the result was inevitable, A howl of fury rose up behind us from his companions.
    Some time later we met up with the rest of the Tigers in a wood a few kilometres to the south of Lichnovskoj. Under cover of darkness the mechanics set to work on the battered tanks. Ours was given a new engine and fresh plating, and one of the tracks was changed. Barcelona took over a Tiger that had been abandoned by the S.S. The gun had been put out of action but was swiftly replaced by a more modern weapon taken from a tank that had been too damaged to be worth repairing.
    Lt. Ohlsen joined our group and handed round cigarettes. 'How about giving us a tune?' he demanded of Porta.
    'Such as what?' asked Porta, pulling out his flute.
    'Something gay. Whatever you like.'
    'Horst Wessel,' suggested the Professor. General hoots and jeers.
    'The Lieutenant said something gay,' Porta reminded him.
    A bottle of vodka was passed round in the wake of the cigarettes. Slowly, we began to relax after the rigours of the day.
    'Let's sing, "I was born and brought up in a brothel",' proposed Porta.
    We roared it out at the tops of our voices, savouring the mounting crudity as verse succeeded verse. The vodka bottle circulated. A sense of peace and well-being gradually stole over us.
    'If only they'd provide us with a tanktoad of whores,' sighed Little John.
    For a while, we discussed the possibility with all the enthusiasm we generally brought to affairs sexual. As usual, the discussion deteriorated and finally broke up in a riot of fighting and disorder. Lt. Ohlsen grew bored with us. He told us to shut up and then wandered away to a more peaceable group while we continued with our skirmishes. Someone hit Porta over the head with the handle of a grenade. Little John quietly finished off the vodka while the rest of us were otherwise engaged. Someone else then bashed Heide with a spade, and the Professor, as usual, ended up with a bloody nose. In the middle of it al1, the order came through: prepare for departure. We heard the first tanks set off through the trees and saw the long tongues of flame licking out of their exhausts.
    Once again we moved into action. We left the shelter of the wood and took our place on the road, part of a long column of vehicles - tanks, lorries, armoured cars, amphibious VWs, jeeps - all heading east for an unspecified destination.
    We pulled up again some miles further on. Porta leaned out of the tank and yelled at an