Free Reign of Hell by Sven Hassel Page B

and buzzed like one of the plagues of Egypt. They were worse by far than the ever-present lice which we carried around. We had been issued with mosquito nets, but the brutes found their way inside and set about guzzling blood to their hearts’ content. Porta claimed to have found a remedy, but in our view it was every bit as bad as the presence of the mosquitoes. He covered himself in foul-smelling grease scooped out of a truck which had been blown up and left to bury itself in the marshes, and from that moment on he was shunned not only by the pestilential insects but by everyoneelse as well. We were waiting with interest to see if he repelled the Russians as well.
    Dotted all round us in the trenches were the prominent red badges of the WUs. Cannon fodder pure and simple. They had been promised free pardons if they distinguished themselves in battle, but we knew and they knew, that this was merely a myth for the credulous. They were lost men. They were there to swell the numbers. They were there to die. They huddled together in groups, full of resentment and misery, waiting only to be herded out into the middle of a minefield, or kicked out of the trenches to meet the first blast of the Russian guns. No one took any notice of them save to curse or kick them. Like loathsome prisoners of war, they were avoided and treated with contempt. When the fighting began, they would be of no use to themselves nor to anyone else. They had nothing left to live for and might just as well die.
    Shortly after 2000 hours the fun started. For some time we had listened to them shouting and laughing over on the far side of the marshes, bracing ourselves for an attack. But mortar grenades are no easier to live with simply because you’ve been expecting them. They were aimed with uncomfortable accuracy, and a couple of WUs were blown to shreds before Tiny (who was always one of the first to jump into action), had a chance to retaliate with his machine-gun. After that it was phosphorus bombs which caused wholesale panic when they exploded directly in front of the unfortunate WUs, who ran about screaming in all directions like sheep with a wolf in their midst.
    The firing went on spasmodically throughout the night. We had a short burst of peace during the morning, and then in the afternoon the snipers started playing havoc with us. They were Siberians, perched like great black crows in the treetops. I swear they must have been handpicked for the job, because they never wasted a shot. If you showed your head over the edge of the trench for even a hundredth of a second, you’d get a bullet straight between the eyes. They were devils in disguise, those Siberians. Even the Russiansthemselves feared them. They killed for the sheer animal joy of killing, counting their toll day by day, saving up the corpses for a medal as other people save sixpences for their grandmother’s birthday present. Still, I suppose we could scarcely complain. We had almost their exact counterpart in the Tyroleans, who showed the same zeal and accuracy in splattering people’s brains about.
    It was the little Legionnaire who scored our first definite hit in reply. I saw him shoulder his rifle, take careful aim, fire, and from one of the topmost branches of an oak tree a body came hurtling to the ground. We had barely finished congratulating him when Porta followed suit and a second Siberian came skydiving out of nowhere and plummeted down into the marshes. For a brief moment the sun appeared from behind the clouds, and a stray metal object in the bushes glinted in a shaft of light. Barcelona grabbed Porta’s arm and pointed.
    ‘There he is . . . over there in the reeds with bits of grass stuck on his head, stupid git—’
    Porta, in his excitement, snatched the field-glasses away from Barcelona and pushed him to one side to take a closer look. An explosive bullet thudded into the ground where he had been standing. Porta wasted no time. The field-glasses were abandoned. He