Free Cauldron of Blood by Leo Kessler Page A

do not like it one bit. But I like you. Come we will eat.’ And before Peiper could object, he found his arm seized and he was swept into the next room.
    Fireball obviously enjoyed his guest’s surprise at the delicacies served by a mess waiter clad in an immaculate white jacket and wearing, of all things, cotton gloves. For an entrée there was caviare on toasted white bread, washed down with red Crimean champagne. It was followed by a great piece of roast venison, drenched in a rich wine sauce, and served with a heavy red burgundy that tasted, to an astonished Peiper, as if it might well have come from France.
    ‘ Yes, my dear fellow,’ Fireball said expansively as they finished the venison and the mess servant handed the two officers a fat cigar each, ‘one has to enjoy this war. Peace’s going to be terrible.’ He puffed out expansively on his big cigar. ‘I went through the last one, you know. Four years in the trenches. Seen it all before. Why take it all so damned seriously, what?’
    ‘ But Colonel, we of the SS have got men cut off in that Kessel on the other side of the river.’
    ‘ So!’ Fireball said pleasantly, looking at Peiper’s serious face through his monocle, his crimson face bursting with good food, and greased with sweat from the tremendous heat thrown out by the huge Russian stove in the corner.
    ‘ There is also Gauleiter Kirn with them,’ Peiper lied glibly.
    ‘ Munich-Kirn!’ Fireball sniffed and dipped the end of his cigar in the glasses of Georgian cognac that the mess waiter was now serving. ‘I doubt if that would be such a great loss for the Reich. I’m no snob, but they do tell me the chap was once a baker’s journeyman.’ He looked at Peiper, as if he expected him to be shocked. ‘I ask you, a chap like that can’t be too bright, can he?’
    Peiper smiled. Fireball was a card. In fact, he could not recollect ever having met an officer like Fireball in all his career. The energetic infantry colonel was determined not to let the war interfere with his bodily comforts. Not even the fact that one of the Fuhrer’s oldest comrades was supposedly out there across the river in the Kessel seemed to worry him. Fireball lived for the moment; he obviously did not expect to survive the war.
    For nearly an hour over cigars and ever more cognac, a harassed Peiper tried to get Fireball’s support for his river crossing, but without success. The colonel always seemed able to parry his question and launch off into other more peaceful lanes: his hobby, stamp-collecting— ‘... and when I have a chance rather buxom blondes, my dear chap,’ and his hunting activities— ‘... the game around here is tremendous. No one has been out shooting in this neck of the woods for years.’ On and on he went, until finally in exasperation, Peiper slammed down his glass and rose to his feet, his face flushed with both cognac and anger.
    ‘ Colonel, I don’t need your help. I’ll go it alone!’
    ‘ You’ll draw fire and we live here.’
    ‘ That particular piece of military wisdom seems to be the motto of your command,’ Peiper snapped. But that’s your bad luck. There is a rough bridge, according to my tactical map, some half kilometre from here, guarded by your people on this bank. I shall take it at dawn.’
    Fireball ’s smile had vanished now. His fat face seemed redder than ever and the monocle about to pop from his eye with suppressed rage. ‘I ‘m ordering you not to. Obersturmbannfuhrer !’
    ‘ Nobody orders the SS!’
    Fireball sprang to his feet, his flushed sweating face only centimetres from Peiper’s. ‘Well, I’m damn well giving them orders as from now! Obersturmbannfuhrer Peiper, one hour ago while you were washing, I ordered my commander at the bridge to blow the shit-thing sky-high at the first sign of anyone trying to cross it from either side! You attempt to cross at dawn Peiper, and it will be German fighting German...’

 
    NINE
     
    Peiper bit his bottom lip,