March Battalion Read Free

visibility was down to nil.
    'I just hope to heaven we don't run slap bang into a minefield,' he muttered.
    Little John gave a sour snicker and crammed his old grey bowler more firmly on to his head. Little John's bowler was the pride and joy of the battalion - though there were those who said it had been responsible for more than one officer throwing a fit of apoplexy - and he refused to be parted from it for so much as a minute.
    'Here--' He turned hopefully to the Legionnaire. 'What's the chance of me getting into this Garden of Allah you're always on about?'
    'Not very good,' said the Legionnaire. 'On the other hand, if you could only manage to stop sinning and start praying I don't doubt Allah would manage to find a place for you.'
    Porta made a vulgar noise with his lips.
    'Allah wouldn't want scum like him mucking up his garden!'
    'Besides,' added Heide, gravely, 'if he let Little John in there just think of all the trash that would follow. Before you knew where you were it wouldn't be a garden any more, it'd just be a bloody great rubbish dump.'
    'You shut your mouth,' warned the Legionnaire, who was touchy on the subject. 'Allah knows what he's up to without any help from the likes of you.'
    A stifled cry from Alte brought us all back to earth. Once again we were soldiers, professional killers. We had run into the rear end of a regiment of Russian infantry, and Porta jammed oh the brakes with only seconds to spare. The Russians were waving at us, shouting to us, but the sound of the motors drowned their voices and they were quickly lost to sight once again in the blinding snow. To our relief, our sister tank presently appeared, a massive black shadow in the white world. There had been no signs of alarm amongst the Russians: evidently there was nothing amiss with our T.34s adorned with the red star of the Soviets. Alte spoke on the radio: 'Distance between vehicles.'
    The other tank slowed down, the shadow faded, and we were aware of her presence only by the grinding of her caterpillar tracks coming over the radio.
    'Dora here, Dora here,' droned Alte. 'Direction 216, speed 30. Over and out.'
    The sounds of the other tank were abruptly cut off and again there was silence.
    'God, it's bloody freezing,' I said.
    As if anyone cared.
    'Get out and run along behind us shouting "Heil Hitler",' suggested Porta. 'You won't be freezing for long. Not if those Russians are still within earshot.'
    'It's all very well,' I said, 'but it's not much fun moving along cheek by jowl with enemy troops. If they get the least idea that we're not what we seem to be--'
    'Then it's curtains for us,' said Alte, shortly. 'And who could blame them? We're violating all the rules of the game.'
    'So why are we doing it?' demanded Little John.
    'Because it's bloody orders!' snapped Heide. 'And orders is orders, you ought to know that by now.'
    We continued throughout the night, quarrelsome and companionable by turns. We were in the midst of one of our interminable slanging matches when Alte suddenly let out a small, high-pitched bark of terror. The slanging stopped instantly.
    'What is it?'
    'Prepare for combat.'
    No one spoke. The Legionnaire picked up his gun, I groped silently for a grenade, Barcelona glued his eye to the observation panel. A harsh voice suddenly yelled something in Russian, and Alte replied in a Baltic dialect. The other T.34 close behind us, saw us too late to pull up in time and crashed into our rear. The Russian voice cursed it fluently with all the remarkable variety of obscenities available in that language. The owner of the voice then jumped on to our vehicle and bellowed out an order.
    'Follow that column of tanks away to your right!'
    It was an officer, wearing a cap with the green cross of the N.K.V.D. The sight of him was enough to paralyse us with sheer terror. Little John opened his mouth to yell, but fortunately no sound came out. Alone amongst us, Alte retained his presence of mind.
    'Where do you come from? The