Assignment Gestapo Read Online Free PDF

took our fancy. Tiny found a pot of jam. He took it away to a corner, sat down cross-legged on the floor and happily dug into it with his fingers. Porta picked up a bottle, looked at the label in the dim light and came to the conclusion that it was cognac. He took a large swig, then shook his head and held out the bottle to Heide.
    ‘Funny sort of cognac,’ he remarked, plainly very puzzled.
    Heide sniffed at it, cautiously took a mouthful, swilled it round a bit, then spat it out in disgust. He kicked the bottle angrily across the room.
    ‘Some bleeding cognac! That was more like tetrachloride; you stupid sod!’
    Tiny cackled contentedly.
    ‘Ought to stick to jam . . . know where you are with jam!’
    ‘Piss off!’ said Porta, furiously.
    And now, again, we heard a door creak. Instantly we froze to the spot. A moment’s silence, then Tiny and Barcelona dived behind a cupboard. The pot of jam rolled across the room and the contents spilt out over the carpet Porta charged across to the door and kicked it open.
    ‘Whoever you are, we’ve got you covered!’
    Silence.
    I stood nervously fingering the hand grenade that I had pulled out. There certainly had been someone there. We could all feel it, and we crouched like wild beasts waiting to spring. We were in the mood where killing would be partly a necessity, as an act of self-preservation, and partly a positive animalistic pleasure, a release of tension and a source of deep satisfaction.
    We listened.
    We ought to call up the Company,’ muttered Barcelona.
    ‘Sooner set fire to the place,’ suggested Tiny. ‘Then we could pick ’em off like flies as they come out . . . Nothing like a nice bit of fire for flushing a place out.’
    ‘Oh, give your flaming arse a chance!’ snapped Porta. They’d only see the perishing flames for miles around, wouldn’t they?’
    Again there came that creaking, as of a door or floorboards. Unable to bear the tension any longer, Porta switched on his torch and went charging out through the door at the far end of the room. We saw him, with scant regard for the possible consequences, flashing the beam into the shadows. He struck lucky. Pressed against a wall, seemingly trying to merge into the darkness, was a young girl. She had a large club gripped in one hand, and she was plainly terrified.
    We stared at her, disbelievingly. Heide was the first to recover. He turned to Tiny with a suggestive smile.
    ‘There’s your bird,’ he said, simply.
    Tiny walked across to her, chucked her somewhat brutally under the chin and tickled her behind the ear with the tip of his lethal steel wire.
    ‘You speak German, do you?’
    She stared up at him out of wide open eyes.
    ‘I’m afraid I had to strangle your cat,’ said Tiny, gracelessly. ‘But I can always get you another, if you’re nice to me . . .’
    The girl licked her lips with the tip of her tongue.
    ‘I – I not partisan,’ she stammered. ‘Nix, nix! I not Communist bastard -I like very much soldiers germanski . . . panjemajo 4 ?’
    ‘Sure we understand,’ said Porta, with a leering laugh. ‘You’ not partisan, you not Commie bastard, you love German soldier . . . so what’s the idea of putting tetrableedingchloride in a cognac bottle, eh?’
    She shook her head.
    ‘Njet understand, Pan 5 soldier.’
    ‘No one ever does understand when they’re being accused of something nasty,’ sneered Heide.
    Tiny waved a hand towards the girl’s club.
    ‘What’s that great lump of wood for? Bit heavy for you to lug about, ain’t it? Here, give it me. I’ll look after it for you.’
    He snatched the club away from the terrified girl, who shrank further back into the angle of the wall.
    ‘I not beat soldier germanski,’ she said, imploringly. ‘I beat only Russki . . . Russki wicked men. Germanski good, good men!’
    ‘More than that, darling, we’re bleeding angels!’
    Heide laughed, sarcastically Barcelona moved closer to the door.
    ‘Are you alone?’he asked, in