Free The Bloody Road to Death by Sven Hassel Page A

am all alone now.’
    The executioners look questioningly at one another. The cigarette-holder man lifts his carbine.
    ‘No!’ snarls the leader, knocking it down.
    ‘Why not?’ asks the cigarette-holder man in surprise. ‘Best thing to do with the little traitor.’
    I arm a hand-grenade. If they kill the boy I’ll throw it. I am so furious I am shaking all over.
    ‘Daddy, mummy, I’m all alone! Where am I to go?’ The boy’s voice trembles. It is easy to hear that he is close to tears. This ‘great’ war has hardened children in an unnatural way. The brutal face of death has become an everyday sight to them.
    The executioners jump lightly down from the table. The cigarette-holder man laughs and looks through the cupboards again, to see if there is anything he can use. He pokes at the bodies with the barrel of his carbine.
    Olja is still breathing. He presses the muzzle of the carbine against her neck. A shot crashes. The skull splinters. Pieces of bone and brains spatter the room.
    Porta looks at me. We say nothing but we are agreed on what is to be done.
    Noisily they leave the hut.
    A little white dog comes rushing around the corner. The cigarette-holder man kills it with a couple of blows from the butt of his carbine and kicks the body inside the hut.
    ‘It would be best to kill the child,’ he says when they have gone a little way. ‘If the Germans come he could identify us, you know.’
    ‘You are right,’ says the leader. ‘Do it then!’
    The cigarette-holder man laughs his dry, rasping rattle of a laugh. It tails off in a gasp as he almost runs up against our Mpi muzzles.
    ‘Hi, there!’ says Porta, pleasantly, tipping his yellow hat to them.
    ‘Ooh!’ comes in astonishment from the cigarette-holder man.
    ‘Booh!’ laughs Porta.
    ‘We have
Ausweis
16 says the leader, nervously. ‘We are employed by the SD 17 .’
    ‘Like fuck you have,’ answers Porta, brutally, splashing him without warning across the face with his Mpi, The sight tears his cheek open.
    I press my weapon into the pit of the cigarette-holder man’s belly, and snick the safety off.
    ‘Take it easy now, chum, or I’ll blow your guts out through your back for you.’
    Like all killers he fears death greatly.
    ‘What are you up to?’ asks the leader, wiping the blood from his face.
    ‘Guess!’ laughs Porta roughly.
    ‘Shall we tell him?’ I ask.
    Porta spits in the leader’s face.
    ‘You have
Ausweis
, you say! Employed by the SD, you say! You’re our friends, you say!’
    ‘Indeed we
are
,’ says the cigarette-holder man fervently, Panic terror is in his eyes.
    ‘Good,
good
! says Porta with a terrible grin. ‘Were you also friends of the two dear departed inside there?’
    ‘Traitors, they were,’ says the leader. ‘Communists, Soviet spies.’
    Porta whistles in surprise.
    ‘And you two fixed their waggon for them? Sorry, sonnies, it won’t work. We’ve been following you boys all night. One thing, you two certainly know how to run a good exciting, dramatic liquidation-scene. Five stars you get from this reviewer.’
    ‘We were only obeying orders,’ stammers the cigarette-holder man, nervously.
    ‘Orders?’ sneers Porta. ‘Get your kicks from obeying orders, do you? See here, kiddies,
we
get
paid
for murdering. Paid by the German state, see? They’ve given us stripes on our arms and tin on our chests for it. We’re
good
at it, you understand! Now usually we only do it for money, but you boys you’re SD and you’re our friends. So for you we do it for nothing. Won’t cost you a
penny
to get your guts shot out. And by
experts
, too!’
    We hear marching boots and the rattle of equipment coming up the path. The unit is on the move with the Old Man in the lead. I look quickly at Porta. He nods slightly.
    ‘On your way, friends,’ he says to the two executioners. ‘If you can really run you can save yourselves yet.’
    They seem not to understand us for a moment. Our expressions are friendly.