The Commissar Read Online Free PDF

half-off. The commander appears in the hatchway just as the gun of the Legionnaire’s P-IV spits out a long muzzle-flash. The Russian is cut over as if by a circular saw.
    ‘
Panzer, Marsch
!’ orders the Old Man, and stamps impatiently on the steel plating of the floor.
    Our tank swings out and rumbles thunderously after the Panther. We leave behind us a hell of flame.
    We crunch over furniture thrown from the houses by blast. A body lying spread-eagled across the tramlines, with a Schmeisser gripped in one hand, is minced under our tracks. Two turkeys dash from a pen, and run in front of us, heads bobbing.
    ‘Jesus Christ and all the prophets,’ shouts Porta, in a strangled voice. ‘There goes, God help me, our Christmas dinner! Suspend the world war a minute. Those two
tovaritsch
turkeys are more important!’ Before anyone can stop him he has pulled the tank to a halt and has the driver’s hatch open. ‘Come on Tiny, leave them shells be! Roast turkey’s in the offin’!
    ‘What’s in what bleedin’ oven?’ asks Tiny, opening the side hatch without considering the bullets which are flying around outside. ‘Jesus’n
Mary
!’ he shouts happily springing out of the tank.
    Before the Old Man has time to react, Tiny’s huge, filthy ackboots are splashing up mud as he chases after the terrified birds.
    ‘This beats everything,’ shouts the Old Man, in a rage. ‘Leaving their post in the waggon during battle! This is the worst thing they’ve done yet!’
    ‘I’ll swear to it for you,’ offers Heide, his face lighting up. ‘Desertion in the face of the enemy. That’s the charge!’
    ‘You shut your trap, you!’ orders the Old Man, grinding his teeth together. He puts his head up cautiously over the rim of the turret to try to get a sight of the turkey hunters.
    ‘It is your duty to charge them, so that those two can go before a court-martial,’ shouts Heide, his bloodthirsty non-com mentality coming to the fore.
    ‘I told you to shut up,’ hisses the Old Man. He draws his P-38 from its holster. ‘
Do
it, or I’ll shoot your head off for refusing to comply with an order.’
    ‘You gone nuts over there?’ comes Barcelona’s voice scratchily over the communicator. ‘
Cojones
* , they’ve got ’em! Let’s get this caper over with quick so we can get our chops round some roast turkey!’
    ‘Beg to report two prisoners taken,’ cries Porta, jubilantly, as he crawls back through the driver’s hatch with the maddened Russian turkeys dangling from his hand.
    In a moment the whole interior of the tank seems to be filled with panic-stricken turkeys. Wings flap across our faces like whip-lashes. Blood is running down Tiny’s cheek from a turkey’s pecking beak.
    ‘’Elp!’ he howls. ‘The sod’s tryin’ to
eat
me.
Shoot
’im!’
    The terrified turkey flies up onto Heide’s back and begins to hammer away at the back of his head as if it were trying to peck its way through to the other side. He screams in shockand pain, and thrashes at it with his fists.
    ‘Fanatics, that’s what these two are,’ cries Porta, desperately. He aims a blow at one of the turkeys, which seems to be running completely amuck.
    ‘I can’t stand any more of it,’ sobs the Old Man, bending over the turret rim despairingly. ‘Dear God above, help me to go far, far away, far away from 2 Section! What have I done to deserve so hard a punishment?’
    The communicator scratches and howls.
    ‘What in the name of heaven have you stopped for, Beier?’ comes the company commander, Oberleutnant Löwe’s, angry voice. ‘Get on, damn it, man, or you’ll be for it. It’s always your cursed section that’s out of step. Clear that road-block away at the bridge, and clean out the nests. Take care, now. The area’s mined. But
get on
with it, gentlemen!’
    He pauses for a moment to get his breath. ‘You’re the lead, Beier. You and that shitty section of yours, that I’d like to see slowly roasting in hell. Your job