March Battalion Read Free Page A

Baltic?' demanded the Russian.
    'Da.'
    'I gathered as much from the disgusting dialect you speak. Try to learn some good Russian after we've won the war ... and get this bloody tank moving.'
    'Dawai, dawai (quickly) you idle load of sods!' shouted Alte, in our direction, and he added the obligatory string of oaths .
    Meekly we took our place at the end of a long column of tanks. The police of. the N.K.V.D. were all over the place, shouting, stamping, gesticulating, trying to keep some sort of order and creating only chaos.
    'Where the hell have you lot come from?' asked the officer, offering the Old Man a machorka.
    Alte babbled something incoherent about a special mission, but the officer seemed not particularly interested and in any case his attention was diverted by a sudden bottleneck that brought the entire line of tanks to a halt. We heard him disputing vigorously with one of the policemen, demanding that a passage be cleared for our two tanks'- it seemed that he himself was in a great hurry to arrive somewhere, and after a few sharp exchanges, in which the word Siberia occurred with horrid fre.quency, the police moved back and waved us forward.
    'Step on it!' snapped the officer.
    Porta only too willingly did so, his performance with the heavy tank bringing forth words of grudging praise and the request that Alte should speak to the CO. as to the possibility of Porta being seconded to the personal service of the Russian. Alte gravely promised to give the matter his urgent attention.
    After some fifteen minutes the officer abandoned his exposed position on the outside of the vehicle and came to join the common rabble inside. Alte silently gestured a warning to the rest of us as two booted feet swung into view. A second later, the officer appeared in his entirety. He stamped his feet loudly on the metal floor of the tank, in an effort to restore his circulation.
    This place stinks like a brothel.' He looked round at us, studying each in turn and dwelling for some while on Little John and his grey bowler. 'Where's the vodka?' he demanded, at last.
    Alte handed over a jar, and we watched in silence as he poured the contents straight down his throat.
    We came at length to a check point, when an N.K.V.D. sergeant demanded the password.
    'Papliji tumani nad rjegoj,' replied our officer.
    'Do these tanks belong to the 67th?' the sergeant wanted to know.
    'Niet. They're on a special mission.'
    The sergeant told us to wait while he consulted his superiors.
    'Hell and damnation!' The Russian hoisted himself out of the tank and jumped to the ground. 'I can't hang around here all day. Time's precious, I'm in a hurry.'
    Muttering and cursing beneath his breath, he followed the sergeant. We watched as they approached a major, who was sitting on a canvas stool beneath a tree and was surrounded by a swarm of N.K.V.D. men. We saw the officer waving a handful of papers, saw the major leafing through them; saw him finally look across at our tank and laugh, then point towards another vehicle standing nearby. Our officer also looked and also laughed. Plainly he was being offered a more comfortable means of transport than a T.34.
    After a bit, the sergeant came across to us and handed over several sheets of paper.
    'Here you are. New password. You can forget the other.'
    'How come?' inquired Alte, very casual and offhand.
    'There's a rumour that a bunch of Krauts are junketing about behind our lines in a couple of our own tanks, but we'll soon get our hands on them. Just to be on the safe side, we've changed all the passwords... Where's the vodka?'
    Alte passed up Little John's own personal supply, and once again we watched spellbound as it disappeared rapidly down an avid Russian throat. The bottle was tossed into the snow and the sergeant broke wind very loudly at either end of himself.
    'That's better ... O.K. The new password. You'd best take careful note of it. It's been specially chosen so that any stray Krauts that might be in the area