Free Monte Cassino by Sven Hassel Page A

confidently. "Make your stakes." He rang a little silver bell, and Tiny banged on a horseshoe hanging on a string from the ceiling with his truncheon. Porta rolled the dice across the table. They were rather special dice. Pressure in a certain place caused a weight inside to shift with the result that the dice did as the banker wanted.
    "Can I join in?" asked Eagle, who had been sitting despondently in a corner.
    Tiny leaped down from his bucket and felled him to the ground with a blow from his truncheon.
    "Empty his pockets," Porta ordered. "He's had his game and lost everything. That'll give him a shock."
    "The prison-rat's got a couple of gold pegs," Tiny announced, after being through the pockets of the unconscious ex-Haupt. and Stabsfeldwebel.
    "Not for long he hasn't," said Porta. "Here with them!"
    Tiny resolutely pulled them out.
    "What does such a man need spare teeth for?" Porta demanded. The two gold teeth disappeared into his canvas bag.
    "How many have you got?" Heide asked curiously.
    "What bloody business of yours is that? You're not going to have any of them." He spat at Eagle, who was beginning to move. "Look at that greasy prison-rat. Three months ago he was right up at the top. He kicked me in the arse and threatened all sorts of things."
    "Let's send him across to the Amis with a cut-off ring finger in his pocket," Mario suggested. . Eagle got to his feet with difficulty.
    "You hit me," he said plaintively to Tiny.
    "I did, and what about it?" Tiny grinned, provocatively. "What else did you expect? You tried to steal from the banker when you had lost in fair play."
    "Lost?" Eagle muttered in a stifled voice, a crazy look on his face, and began feverishly searching his empty pockets. "You've plundered me! I know I haven't been playing. Everything's gone. My watch!" His cry rose to a heartrending shriek. "And my silver ring with the eagle Gauleiter Lemcke gave me!" He opened his mouth. His fat furred tongue ran searchingly across his top teeth.
    "It's impossible," he muttered, refusing to believe what his tongue was telling him. Nervously, he poked a dirty index finger into his mouth. Slowly realisation came: his pride, his two gold eye-teeth were no longer there.
    "Where the hell are my gold teeth?" he called wildly and looked round desperately, but everywhere was met by grinning faces delighting in the situation.
    "Have you gone mad?" Porta said icily. "What teeth are these you're talking about."
    "You know perfectly well," Eagle squeaked, his voice rising. "I had two gold teeth here." He desperately turned to Marlow and Barcelona: "You two are feldwebels. You must back me up against these thieves. I'll take this to court."
    "Caramba," laughed Barcelona, delightedly. "No one will believe you, if you say they've snitched your gold teeth."
    Marlow doubled up in a gale of laughter.
    "Tiny! Show the gentleman out," Porta ordered.
    Tiny laid truncheon and automatic pistol aside, clambered down from his table and went and opened the door wide. Then he positioned Eagle in the doorway, took a run and dealt him a kick worthy of a soccer international. Eagle soared off into the trees.
    We went back to our playing.
    Quarter of an hour later, Hauptfeldwebel Hoffman appeared, a glint in his eye.
    As no one appeared to be going to order those present to spring to attention, he did so himself, but, to his boundless surprise, no one moved. He had not yet been in the squadron long enough to know to keep well out of Porta's way.
    "Didn't you hear the order?" he pointed at Porta. "And take that yellow hat off your head."
    "Can't be done, Herr Hauptfeldwebel. I've only two hands and I've got dice in one and my croupier's rake in the other. If I drop either of them, it would be the end."
    Hoffman bellowed: "Mutiny! Insubordination." He cursed us, calling us all sorts of creatures unknown to zoology and wound up: "I forbid you to play games of chance."
    Porta pulled a stout notebook from an inside pocket, licked a finger and