Read Wheels of Terror for Free Online

very small man with a much too big monocle screwed into his face. His uniform was a study in the fancy dress of a Prussian officer: green tunic in a half-Hungarian, half-German cut, very short like a cavalryman's; light grey breeches almost white with the hide of half a cow sewn to the seat, typical cavalry style; black, very long, patent-leather boots. It was a riddle to us how he managed to bend his legs when he wore them. because of the breeches and the boots he was nick-named 'Backside and Boots' by the soldiers. His cap was high in front, of the kind particularly favoured by the Nazi bosses and heavily embroidered with eagle and wreath, and a chinstrap fashioned from an enormously heavily knotted silver cord. Naturally his greatcoat was of the long black leather kind, with those dashing broad lapels. Around his neck dangled a 'Pour le Merite'. That was his decoration from the First World War when he had served in one of the Kaiser's horse guards regiments. He still wore the old cavalry insignia quite improperly, on the shoulder tabs of his Nazi army uniform.
    The soldiers laid bets between themselves if the mannikin had any lips. His mouth was a thin line which literally disappeared in his hard-lined face made unsightly by a duelling scar. His ice-cold blue eyes dominated the brutal face. When you were up in front of the little commandant you became cold with fright as he addressed you in velvet tones while his cold unfeeling eyes sucked your stomach out. They were a cobra's eyes, Oberstleutnant von Weisshagen's eyes, commandant of the 27th (Penal) Panzer Regiment's depot. Nobody could remember ever having seen a woman in Von Weisshagen's company and small wonder. Any woman in his presence would have become stiff as a board when his eyes pierced her. When he was thrown out of the army at the end of the war he was a certainty for a governorship of an institution for particularly difficult prisoners. The man simply did not exist it seemed, whom he could not destroy or shape at will.
    One other spectacular thing about this man. He always carried his revolver-holster unbuttoned, the more easily to reach the evil shining black-blue Mauser 7.65. His batmen (he had two) said he carried as well a Walther 7.65 with all six bullets filed down to dum-dum heads. His riding-whip, hollowed, hid a long thin swordstick. He would whip it out in a flash from its beautifully plaited leather-covering. He knew he was hated and feared and had taken precautions against any persecuted wretch who might become desperate and light-headed enough to attack him. Naturally he was never sent to the front, his connections in high places saw to that. His red-haired mongrel, 'Baron', was a complete fairy tale in himself. The dog was included in the army list of the nominal roll of the depot and several times was degraded in front of the whole battalion. The adjutant, as proper in such circumstances, read out the punishment in the orders of the day. Somehow the dog never rose above the rank of corporal. At the moment he was a lance-corporal and locked in a cell as a penalty for dropping excrement under his master's desk.
    Tough sergeant-majors sweated blood when Von Weisshagen's gentle voice whispered over the telephone about something they had overlooked. Less than five minutes after a man had dropped or lost a piece of paper in front of the company billets the commandant would know about it. Sometimes we were convinced that his gruesome eyes were able to see through walls, he was so well informed about everything that happened. He always imposed the strictest sentence among the thousands of rules the Third Reich had crammed into military law. Gentleness and mercy were to him sure signs of weakness and portents of the world's destruction. He loved giving nerve-racking orders to all his subordinates, privates as well as officers. He would sit behind his huge mahogany desk decorated with a miniature flagpole flying the armoured corps standard soldered on to