Court Martial Read Online Free PDF Page A

death.
    My eyes are smarting, pain jabs at my heart like a bayonet. My hands are sticky with blood. I swing my spade in front of me like a flail. Above everything I've got to keep them at a distance from me.
    A flame-thrower roars. There is a stench of burning flesh and hot oil. It's Porta. Tiny carries the full container. Again and again the horrible flame roars out across the snow.
    Human bodies are burning. Trees are burning. Even the snow looks as if it is on fire. The devil himself would be stiff with fright at the sight of a flame-thrower in action. It would be a refinement even for hell.
    Fire spurts at eyes. Faces are crushed like eggshells. Bodies are thrown up towards the Arctic sky and fall back into the snow. The dead are killed over and over again.
    A Rata 8 howls out of the clouds, and rushes hire a comet straight into the ground. It explodes like a giant golden firecracker.
    The Northern Lights flash across the heavens like a wild, mad sea of flame. The earth is one huge slaughterhouse, and stinks like a bubbling latrine.
    I feel a blow on my shoulder, snatch the MG 9 to me and rush forward, panting and coughing. Heide, who is close behind me, stumbles and goes head-over-heels down a slope.
    A machine-pistol stammers a long, wicked burst, I spread the supporting legs of the MG, throw myself down behind it and press the butt to my shoulder. Heide guides the long cartridge-belt.
    I glimpse them. The MG rumbles, and tracer bullets track between the trees.
    A white shape throws up its hands. The Kalashnikov flies up above his head. A long ululating scream. A hand-grenade whirls through the air.
    A dull thud and all is silence.
    'Let's move,' snarls Heide. He is already on his way.
    I wrap the cartridge-belt round the breech, sling the MG on to my shoulder and dash after him. I don't want to get left on my own.
    'Wait for me,' I scream.
    'Piss on you,' he shouts without slackening pace.
    There is nothing worse than a retreat. You run for your life with death at your heels.
    Porta catches up with me. Passes me in a flurry of snow. Tiny comes struggling along behind with the two heavy flame-thrower containers on his back. He holds on to his light grey bowler with one hand.
    I fall, press myself down into the snow. I drop away for a moment into a dream of fear.
    'Up you get,' roars Gregor, 'or I'll kick your arse from here to kingdom come!'
    Rage gives me strength. I come to my feet and stagger on through the deep snow.
    Back in the depths of the forest we pull ourselves together and make up a battle group. A queer mixture of all kinds of regiments! Gunners without guns, tankmen without tanks, cooks, medical orderlies, drivers, even a couple of sailors. A mixed lot.
    An infantry oberst we've never seen before takes command. He has a monocle stuck fast in one eye. He knows what he wants.
    'Let's get out of this as quick as we can,' says Barcelona, pushing a fresh magazine into his Mpi. 10 'This lot stinks of heroes and Valhalla!'
    'Where the hell's Ivan got to?' asks Porta, wonderingly, peeping over a great wall of snow.
    In the course of the night we dig in and build machine-gun posts out of blocks of snow. We make a fire and heat flat stones. These are tied round the locks of the machine-guns with woollen underclothing. Life in the Arctic has taught us a lot of things they didn't think to teach us in training.
    Before we are finished building up the position we have to withdraw again. We have over three hundred wounded with us. We have nothing to help them with. All our first-aid packs are long since used up, and we use filthy rags of uniforms as bandages. A stench of rot rises from these living corpses. They stretch out skeleton arms to us and plead for help. Some ask for a weapon to end their hell of pain. Others lie quietly and look at us with eyes that beg for mercy.
    'Don't leave us, comrade,' whispers a dying Feldwebel, as I pass him with the MG on my shoulder.
    'Don't leave us to the Russians,' groans