More than anything he wanted to stay in the army. What was there for him outside looking like he did, sweet fuck-all. Staying in would probably kill him; getting out, back into civilian life would slowly destroy him. Of the two he much preferred the quicker death and fuller life before it, than the living death and no life at all that would be his lot back home: but by Christ he’d risk it rather than work with these Yanks again, or a moment longer than he had to. First of all though he had to survive. He’d already proved he was good at that; he ran his hands over his facial scars, well fair. In the next twelve hours, the way things were shaping up he’d have to be ruddy brilliant.
The farmhouse stood in isolation in a small fold just below the crest of a softly sloping hill. A single, substantial, stone building devoid of any frills, the area to its front was roughly paved, and beside and behind it stood, sagged or lay the weather-beaten remains of a collection of various sheds and outhouses. The whole was surrounded by a low stone wall.
Kurt had sent his men to watch the back of the house, while he and Andrea with Libby, Hyde and Revell openly approached the front.
Libby noticed the heaps of broken bottles below each window; the piles were substantial. The Russian visitors appeared to have found a fast and presumably amusing way of disposing of their empties. There was glass in every window of the house, and all the curtains were drawn. Even in bright sunshine it was a grim-looking place. The unwanted recollection of Old Mother Knoke’s words, ‘perhaps she’s at The Farm’ made anger rise inside him. This was one of the ugliest things about the Zone. Many of the women in there were carrying on the trade they’d practised before they’d come to the camp, before the war even: but a number would have been forced into it. He watched while Kurt sorted an intact bottle from the nearest heap and then hammered on the door.
It was a good act, drawn most probably from considerable personal experience. Hyde watched as Kurt bawled and sang and slurred pathetic pleas to the unseen inmates. When he backed off a pace to see if the German’s performance had drawn anyone to an upstairs window, Hyde saw for the first time the rear end of a drab painted Mercedes saloon, just discernible in the gloom of a rotting tractor shed. As he drew Revell’s attention to it, the boot and knuckle-scarred door swung open.
Before the dressing gown clad woman had time to launch fully into her tirade, Kurt had hurled himself past her and was dashing for the stairs.
Andrea followed, unwrapping her submachine gun as she ran. As Revell and Hyde took one side of the ground floor Libby went to the other. The first two rooms he hurled himself into were empty. He crashed open the third to discover a pair of Russian officers hastily pulling on their pants. One of them already held a pistol, Libby gave him no chance to use it, his second and third shot tearing out the Russian’s throat. Blood splashed across the room as the 9mm bullets struck and the dying officer toppled back over a chair to crumple into an untidy heap.
Neither Libby nor the surviving officer paid any attention to the ugly bubblings and rattlings coming from the expiring man. There was another sound in the room, an animal-like whimpering from the heavy breasted girl with thickly caked-on make-up who crouched under the dining table, trying at once both to make herself inconspicuous and frantically gather up and conceal her pendulous breasts.
Insignia on the two crumpled jackets tossed carelessly over the arm of a small sofa indicated that both the visitors were captains. The remaining Russian slowly lowered to the ground the raised leg with which he had frozen, stork like, in the act of dressing on Libby’s precipitate entrance, and straightened up. He was well into middle age and the heavy flesh on his stocky body fell in multiple folds about his waist. A mass of dark hair covered his torso and upper legs, and overlong arms gave him an ape-like look that was accentuated by broad slab cheeks, a small nose and deep set eyes beneath thick eyebrows.
The killing had drained Libby’s anger, most of it, then the girl whimpered again and he saw her mass of livid bruises and the white mess about her mouth. He retched, and levelled the Browning again.
The Russian saw the look on his attacker’s face and clamped his hands in front of his genitals as though he could somehow protect them from what was coming. He saw the knuckle on the trigger whiten and his bowels emptied violently and noisily.
‘No… damn it… no.’ Revell’s shout blended with the roar of the weapon’s firing.
All four bullets struck their target, the last two chasing a dead body as it was spun round and thrown back, fountaining urine and dark red vomit. A limp arm smacked into and cracked one of the panes as the punctured cadaver thumped down below a window, head lolling, sightless eyes contemplating a protruding rib.
‘What the hell do you think this is, a butcher’s shop?’ Revell crossed the room avoiding the stinking puddles and picked up one of the jackets. ‘You see this, you see this.’ He waved it under Libby’s nose. ‘These are, were, technical support troops, probably from the 97th. They could have told us everything we wanted. What bloody good are they now?’
The sights and smells in the room did not bother Andrea. She stood in the doorway and looked at the bodies. ‘The only good Russian is a dead Russian. I would say that they are now very good.’ With no great gentleness she hauled the terrified girl from her hiding place and dragged her from the room. ‘I will put her with the others.’
Libby offered no explanation, no apology.
‘Oh, what the hell. It’s too late now. Get yourself to an upstairs window and watch out for any Commies that look like they’re coming to investigate your executions. Don’t open fire until I say, just let me know if you see any. Have I spelt it out clear enough for you?’
‘Killing them has become a habit, Major.’
Hyde appeared and stepped in fast to pre-empt any response from Libby. ‘It takes a lot of breaking. We haven’t taken prisoners for five months, not since we saw Commie tanks gunning down some of our blokes who ran out of ammo and tried to surrender.’ As the officer did not appear to have been placated, he changed the subject. ‘All the girls have been herded into one of the big front bedrooms. They’re a bit indignant about the whole business, but they’re keeping quiet so far.’
‘OK, let’s see if we can find anything out from them. There’s nothing to be learnt from these two, and this stink is incredible.’
They closed the door after them, passed one of the East Germans who was standing guard by the partially open front door and mounted to the upper floor.
‘Girls’ was a rather generous description for the collection of variously aged whores who sat on the double-bed and bare boards under Kurt’s submachine gun and Andrea’s contemptuous glare. Their ages ranged from what might have been about twenty, but looked older, in the case of the girl they’d discovered downstairs, to what in one case might have been getting on for sixty. Most of them appeared to have been in bed, or undressing when the break-in occurred. Only two of the fifteen were wearing more than underclothes beneath the blankets and robes they had pulled about themselves.
The girl who had witnessed Libby’s work was sobbing deeply, on the verge of hysterics. Her face had been cleaned up, and with the mess had gone most of her over-done makeup. Her unadorned face was pale and puffy, but not unattractive. Huge breasts and the partial crescent of one large pink nipple bulged over the top of the inadequate sheet with which she’d been provided.
‘I want to ask them some questions, Andrea. Tell them we won’t hurt them, and we’ll see the Russians don’t.’ That was an easy promise to make: Revell had no idea if he could keep it.