Free Guns At Cassino by Leo Kessler Page B

attack an SS vehicle, was jubilant. More than once he exploded joyfully:
    `Great crap on the Christmas tree, sir, we're going home - home to mother!'

     
    Part Two: The Traitors
     
    `Of course, it's treason, Kuno ... But it must be done for the sake of our country.’ General von Dodenburg to his son Major von Dodenburg .
     
     

     
    Seven
     
    Berlin was dying. As the ancient wood-burning cab, with its steaming boiler trundling after it on a trailer, left Tempelhof Air Field, von Dodenburg and Schulze could see that the nation's capital lay in ruins.
    `Oh my aching arse,' Schulze breathed. 'It's worse than Hamburg! Those RAF Tommies have really knocked the shit out of the place.'
    Von Dodenburg nodded grimly and stared out at the sallow-faced undernourished men and women, their heads ducked in the collars of their shabby coats, who were hurrying through the ruins which still smouldered here and there from the last air raid.
    They did not look like the well-fed, exuberant Berliners, who had welcomed them back from France in 194o, screaming their hoarse, frantic Sieg Heils , as the survivors of the Wotan had goose-stepped down the Unter den Linden .
    `They don't look so good, sir,' Schulze said dolefully. 'None too good at all.'
    `No, they don't,' he agreed, watching an old woman in a rusty-black coat, wearily shovelling up the 'apple' left by a tired, lean-ribbed nag pulling a Wehrmacht transport. 'They're bearing a heavy burden. God knows how they do it, Schulze.' Happy at the thought he would be soon home in Hamburg on a surprise forty-eight hour leave, Schulze chortled:
    ‘ Well, they always say that the bombs are worse, sir. Why, at the front, everything's in butter - a rest cure.'
    `Get on with you,' von Dodenburg said with a tired smile, as the ancient wood-burning taxi started to draw up in front of the shattered Lehrter Bahnhof , where Schulze would catch his train for Hamburg.
    They shook hands under the suspicious eyes of the two chain-dogs, guarding the entrance on the look-out for the deserters swarming through the capital. It wasn't every day that they saw an SS Major shake hands with a private soldier, but then it wasn't every day that they saw a private with the precious black and white Knight's Cross hanging round his neck.
    `All right, Schulze, don't forget that you've only got forty-eight hours. I expect you back here - on this spot - at sixteen hundred hours exactly, two days from now. And don't bring back any souvenirs from those - er - ladies of yours in St Pauli. (1) Clear?'
    `Clear as thick ink, sir,' Schulze said cheekily, slinging his rucksack, laden with Italian black market goods, over his big shoulder. 'I'll probably spend my leave in the station mission, caring for fallen angels.' He winked. 'My regards to the Reichsführer.'
    Major von Dodenburg got back into the cab and snapped at the elderly driver:
    `All right, Number Ten Prinz Albercht Strasse.'
    The driver gave him a quick look, a sudden light of fear in his tired eyes. He knew the address well enough. It was the home of the Third Reich's police apparatus, the headquarters of the Gestapo itself.
    Well, man, what are you waiting for?' von Dodenburg snapped, angry at the naked look of fear on the man's worn face. What had he to be afraid of? The Gestapo was there only to protect the law-abiding folk comrades, not to hound them, as many stupid people thought.
    `Just thinking where it is, sir,' the driver said hastily and slid behind the seat.
    But he did not even have time to wait for a tip after the cab had pulled up in front of the four-storey building, which had once housed an art academy, and was now the home of the Reich Main Security Office.
    Himmler, the Reichsführer SS, saw him almost at once. As usual the ex-chicken farmer who was now the most feared man in Europe was correct and exceedingly well informed. He accepted the flag, as if he had known all along that it was on its way, gave von Dodenburg a brief lecture on the