Assignment Gestapo Read Online Free PDF Page A

a punishment for having sold an army wagon to an Italian in Milan. He tended to have a very literal mind.
    ‘Nobody could do it at that temperature,’ he insisted. ‘It’d be a physical impossibility.’
    ‘Speak for yourself!’ retorted Tiny, very much insulted ‘It’s the temperature inside you what counts . . . just depends how much you want it, don’t it?’
    ‘That’s just not true,’ said Steiner, obstinately. ‘I mean, for a start, you couldn’t even get the thing in . . . not in that weather you couldn’t’
    ‘Who says?’ Tiny swung round on him so violently that the contents of the cooking pot rose up and slopped over the edge. ‘You might not be able to, but I’m bloody sure I could! Why, I can still remember—’
    ‘Keep your voices down!’ snapped Lt. Ohlsen, a few paces behind us. ‘We’re not far from the enemy, we don’t want to advertise ourselves.’
    We turned off the main road and began toiling up towards the mountains. We were walking on grass, now; thick springy stuff that muffled the sounds of our footsteps. Somewhere nearby, in the shadows, a cow blew contentedly through its nostrils and we smelt the warm milky smell of the beast. All orders were given in a low voice.
    ‘Single file from this point on—’
    Oberfeldwebel Huhn lit a cigarette. Lt. Spät caught the flicker of the match and strode up in a fury.
    ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at? You ought to have more sense than that, for Christ’s sake! Put the bloody thing out and get down to the rear of the column and stay there!’
    Huhn disappeared, his tail between his legs.
    Suddenly, through the misty gloom, we were able to make out the shape of a building. It was a farmhouse, with a faint light coming from one of its windows. Lt. Ohlsen held up a warning hand, and we shuffled to a halt. ‘We had had experiences with farmhouses before. They sometimes contained innocent farmers and their families; but on the other hand, they had been known to hide a platoon of enemy troops and a nest of machine guns.
    Ohlsen turned and beckoned to us.
    ‘Heide – Sven – Barcelona – Forta . . .’ He picked us out one by one and we crept forward. ‘Go and get the place cleaned up. And watch your step: if the Ruskies are there they’ll have set up a guard for sure . . . don’t shoot unless you have to. Use your kandras.’
    We pulled them out and slipped silently forward through the shadows. As always on these occasions, my whole body was taut and trembling.
    We had covered only a few yards when I became aware that Tiny had joined us. He had a knife clenched between his teeth and his length of steel wire in one hand. He laughed delightedly at our expressions and put his mouth close to Porta’s ear.
    ‘Any gold teeth going, I claim half of ’em!’
    Porta shook his head and said nothing. He was the first of us to reach the objective. Silent and supple as a cat, he hauled himself up to the window ledge and was inside the farm before the rest of us had even arrived. We followed him in and stood shivering in the dark. Somewhere in the house, a door creaked. Heide jumped several feet in the air and pulled out a hand grenade. Barcelona closed his fingers over his wrist.
    ‘Don’t be a bloody fool!’
    Tiny, the knife still between his teeth, flexed his length of wire. Porta turned and spat over his left shoulder: he said it brought him luck.
    We waited a moment, listening, and then Tiny suddenly plunged off into the blackness. After a bit we heard a faint sound; a faint gurgle, a faint choke. Then silence again.
    Tiny returned, with a dead cat in the wire noose.
    ‘Poor pussy!’
    He dangled it before Heide’s face, and we breathed again.
    ‘It could have been the Reds,’ muttered Heide, defensively, but he put the hand grenade away again.
    Tiny laughed and tossed the dead cat into a corner.
    Having disposed of the enemy, we began to make free with the place, opening all the drawers and cupboards to see what