March Battalion

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Authors: Sven Hassel
Tags: Fiction, General, Historical, War & Military
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straightway accused by Porta of supporting the S.S.; in a fury, he then knocked the Professor stone cold and turned to vent the rest of his spleen on his old enemy Little John. Finally, we all banded together against the Russian, sitting silent and morose in a corner, and found ourselves for once in accord in our general decision that he was to blame for the entire war.
    On the fourth morning we awoke to an uncannily silent world. The snow was falling heavily from the leaden sky, but the wind had dropped. Drifts were piled as high as mountains, and we played in the snow like children, rolling in it, jumping in it, scooping up great handfuls and hurling it at each other.
    Two weeks later we were at last approaching the German front lines. We had exhausted our stocks of food and were all half dead with fatigue. For three days we had been without the dogs. They had been in no condition to continue, and we had simply let them loose to fend for themselves. The sledge had been disposed of and lay at the bottom of a ravine. Our prisoner-of-war was growing increasingly ill at ease. His former arrogance had vanished, and it was plain that all his thoughts were turned to the possibility of escape. Which of us would not have been the same, in his position?
    During alt this time, we had encountered no one on our march across the steppes, but there came a day when the luck had to break. We were approaching a wood and were about half a kilometre away when suddenly, echoing across the plain, the dreaded cry resounded.
    'Stoi!'
    Porta and the Legionnaire turned in an instant and sent a volley of shots in the direction from which it came.
    'Under cover!' shouted Alte. 'Make for the trees!'
    Heide and the Professor threw themselves face downwards behind a ridge of snow to cover our hasty retreat. It was the occasion for which the Russian had been waiting. He began running across the open country towards his compatriots, waving his hands in the air and shouting 'Uhrae Stalino!' at the top of his voice. It was the moment, also, for which Heide had been waiting. He had promised Fjodor, back at the village, that he would personally eliminate the Russian, and at last he could legitimately do so. There was a burst of machine gun fire. From the shelter of the trees we saw the Russian suddenly jerk backwards, as if pulled by an invisible string. He turned a full circle, then slowly crumpled up in the snow and lay still. Heide's gun rattled off another hail of bullets. By now, we had the heavy artillery bombarding the enemy from the shelter of the woods. Heide stood up, defiantly hurled three hand grenades one after another before running for cover in the wake of the Professor. The grenades exploded in a welter of snow and human debris. Heide sang triumphantly as he joined the rest of us.
    He was a born killer, was Julius Heide. In peacetime he would doubtless have been locked away as a dangerous psychopath, but this was wartime and Heide passed as an excellent soldier, fearless, unimaginative, always in the thick of every fight and ready at a moment's notice to shoot anything that moved. They decorated him for his courage and rewarded him for his aggression. If he survived the war - and of course he was the type who would - he would become an instructor in a military school. Society can always turn the instincts of a Julius Heide to its advantage if it only recognizes them in time. Nevertheless, he was not a man you really enjoyed having around. .
    Panting and exuberant, he dropped down behind the heavy machine gun manned by Porta and the Legionnaire.
    'I got at least twenty of 'em!' 'That.must have given them something to think about... being fired on by their own troops.'
    ' They probably think we're Brandenbergers.'
    'Then God help us, if they ever get their hands on us.'
    They strangle them with barbed wire,' said Steiner. 'I once saw a couple of Brandenbergers they'd captured. They'd strangled one with barbed wire and they'd roasted the other

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