Assignment Gestapo Read Online Free Page A

triumph from the Legionnaire.
    ‘She blows! Quick, give me the connection! Get a bottle!’
    We were at once thrown into a hectic activity. I thrust the rubber tube into the Legionnaire’s outstretched hand, Porta shoved a bottle next to the cooking pot. The apparatus was connected and we watched breathlessly, like children, for the first miraculous signs of distillation. The vapour was already turning into precious drops of liquid.
    ‘She’s coming!’ yelled Porta.
    The excitement was almost unbearable. I felt the saliva collect in my mouth; I suddenly knew a thirst such as I had never known before. Heide ran his tongue round his lips. Tiny swallowed convulsively. Slowly, the bottle began to fill.
    All night long we maintained our watch. Bottle after bottle was taken away full of home-brewed schnaps. We forgot all desire for sleep. Lt Ohlsen watched us for a bit, his expression decidedly sceptical.
    ‘You must be nuts,’ he declared, at last. ‘You’re surely never going to try drinking the vile looking muck?’
    ‘Why not?’ demanded Tiny, belligerently.
    The Lieutenant just looked at him and shook his head.
    Lt. Spät also took a fatherly interest in our brewing activities.
    ‘Aren’t you going to filter it?’ he asked, anxiously.
    ‘Not worth the trouble,’ said the Legionnaire.
    ‘But my God, you drink it in that state and you’ll be bowling about the ground in hoops!’
    ‘So long as it’s alcoholic,’ said the Legionnaire, calmly. ‘That’s all that matters.’
    Lt. Ohlsen shook his head again and retired with Spät. Clearly they did not give much for our chances.
    The following day found us still at peace beneath the apple trees. For the moment, the war seemed to have passed us by. We continued our brewing, only by now we had outworn our first mad rapture and had split ourselves up into groups to spread the work load.
    All day long and well into the evening we tended our schnaps. Shortly after midnight we heard the sound of a vehicle screaming down the mountain road towards us. It came to a halt nearby and an NCO jumped out, covered in mud and in a fearful lather.
    ‘Where’s your commanding officer?’ he shouted.
    Lt. Ohlsen was woken up. He took the message and the man went chasing off again at full speed. We watched with foreboding.
    ‘Hell and damnation,’ muttered the Legionnaire. ‘That’s put the cat among the flaming pigeons.’
    He went off to see how the brewing operation was progressing.
    ‘Step it up,’ he ordered. ‘If we’re quick about it we’ll manage to get another bottle or so before we’re moved on.’
    ‘We already got thirty-one,’ announced Porta, triumphantly. ‘I been counting them!’
    Tiny seemed agitated about something.
    ‘What I want to know is, when are we going to get stuck into it?.’
    ‘When I say so, and not before.’ The Legionnaire glared at him. ‘I find anyone dipping his fingers in before I give the O.K. and there’s going to be trouble!’
    Tiny shrugged a sullen shoulder and walked off, muttering to himself. At that moment, Lt. Ohlsen’s whistle blasted shrilly through the darkness. It was a most unwelcome sound.
    ‘Fifth Company, get ready to move! And don’t take all night about it!’
    Reluctantly, we set about dismantling our still. While we were at work, Oberfeldwebel Huhn came busying up to us, shouting as usual at the top of his voice.
    ‘Come on, you lazy bastards! Get a move on! What’s the matter with you? You deaf or something?’
    ‘You’ll be deaf in a minute,’ muttered the Legionnaire, threateningly.
    Huhn swung round on him, but at that point the Old Man rather surprisingly stepped into the fray. He walked up to Huhn, standing so close to him that their steel helmets were almost touching.
    ‘Oberfeldwebel Huhn,’ he began, calmly, respectfully, but with menacing overtones, ‘there is something I have to say to you. Something I feel you ought to know . . . I am in command of this section, these are my men and