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Richard Lettis: The Hungarian Revolt |
Personal... From Budapest[35]
NOEL BARBER
This is my personal testament of what happened in the bloodstained streets
of Budapest, of how men and women, boys and girls died in the thousands,
and of how I myself fought with a group of insurgents, until a direct hit
from a Soviet tank all but wiped us out.
Two days later I was twice shot in the head by a Soviet sentry. For days
I lay desperately ill in hospital, after blood transfusions and an operation.
Finally, badly wounded though I was, I decided to escape across the fields
under the guns of the Russian tanks.
Day by day, night by night, bitter fighting was tearing the heart out of
one of the fairest cities of Eastern Europe. I can't decide which day was
the most terrible; for me, the war against the Russians started on
Thursday, October 25
It was foggy when I crossed the border at 9:30 P.M. I had flown
from London to Austria that afternoon, and [25/81]
Friday, October 26.
I felt a gentle hand touch me, and there was Ilona with a steaming
cup.
"I know," she said in the pedantic voice of one who has learned
English from books, "that British people cannot start the day without
a cup of tea."
I looked at my watch. I had slept like a dead man -for exactly forty minutes.
That morning Denes and I managed to drive into Pest. The two main bridges
-the Chain Bridge and the Margaret Bridge- were crawling with Russian troops,
but we made a detour way back to the Stalin Bridge, where the few Hungarian
soldiers on sentry-go let us through. In the cold sunlight, as I drove
round the city, I saw for myself the whole great tragedy. Beautiful Budapest
was slowly dying. Enormous flags of black crepe hung from almost every
window, flanked by Hungarian flags with holes in the center where the hated
red star had been cut out. All the streets and the beautiful squares were
littered with broken glass, burned-out cars and tanks, and rubble. From
all parts of the city came the heavy, rolling thunder of gunfire. I drove
around one corner, and al the end of the street I saw desperate hand-to-hand
fighting. I turned another and saw tanks firing point-blank into houses
and shops. At the corner of Stalin Avenue two T-34 tanks lumbered past,
dragging bodies behind them, as a warning to the Hungarians.
There had been some talk of looting and at one corner Denes saw two kids
trying to force open a shop window.
"We stop the car," said Denes, "and give the boys a good
thrash!"
But they weren't looting at all. Both were under ten. One held some dry
black crusts, the other a cigarette tin full of water. They were trying
to feed a puppy imprisoned in the shop.
In the next street, where three Russian tanks stood disabled, I counted
the bodies of fifteen teen-agers who had been killed. Just around the corner
stood a long, patient queue of old women, waiting for the chance to buy
bread.
At the Duna Hotel I found chaos. Food was running out, and from all around
the building came the crackle of machine-gun fire. In front, where the
road almost laps the river, a long column of Russian tanks was rumbling
past. Across the Danube I could see a small fire blazing.
It was on this day that I was able to piece together the enormity of the
wicked crime the Russians had perpetrated, so often against women and children.
And it was now, too, that I was able to realize the foulness of the AVH
-the dreaded Hungarian secret police.
The fighters had already demanded that Nagy get rid of the Russians, but
even more insistent were their demands that every single member of the
AVH should be shot or imprisoned. These had been the henchmen of the hated
Stalinist dictator, Matyas Rakosi, before he was kicked out. They had sent
thousands of innocent Hungarians to the slave camps.
I saw many of them killed that day. Halfway through the morning Denes and
I were walking back from the British Legation. Nothing was happening, but
we stood in a doorway as machine-gun fire opened up nearby. A man in a
small car came slowly round the corner. A knot of men stood there.
Suddenly there was a cry. "Death to the Avo!" (AVH in Hungarian
is pronounced "Avo" as in "Bravo.") The men swooped
on the car. In thirty seconds it had been overturned. In two minutes the
crowd around the car had swollen to over 100. They dragged the AVH man
out of the driving seat. Somebody fired a shot int the gas tank and the
car went up in flames. Then the crowd set on the man. He tried to run,
but as I watched they beat him to death. They left him a twisted heap,
lying in a sea of broken glass. I did not move until everyone else in the
square had vanished. Then Denes and I ran back to the safety of my hotel.
What I found so terrible was the completely merciless brutality of the
Russians and the AVH. They knew they could never win a street war with
tanks, so they slaughtered the innocent. Most of the Hungarian troops had
joined the insurgents -and this the Russians could never forgive, especially
as the soldiers were supplying the fighters with arms. Already there were
10,000 dead and 40,000 injured, and the figure was to be doubled before
the end of the blood bath. Yet the teen-age army fought on, and the Russians
couldn't stop them. That morning I saw Russian tanks lumbering up a broad
avenue, only to be trapped by the ever-present festoon of hanging electric
cables. Behind them, armed with submachine guns and gasoline bottles, hundreds
of fighters were advancing. As soon as a tank turret opened, they rushed
forward with one combined surge, laughing at death. Time after time, they
disabled a tank and killed the crew.
The only way the Russians could combat this, and the only way the terrified
AVH could strike back, was by murder. That was no doubt the reason for
the massacre in Parliament Square on the morning of the day I arrived.
Unarmed civilians, among them many women, spontaneously organized a quiet,
orderly demonstration. They marched to Parliament Square. In the square,
a dozen Soviet tanks were ranged. The crowd sang patriotic songs. There
was no demand for the crowd to disperse. The commander gave the order and
the tanks opened fire.
It was cold-blooded murder. Hundreds were mowed down. So grisly was the
massacre that they were still carting away the dead the next morning. Denes
and I saw them take away the last twelve truckloads of bodies.
There was another massacre on Friday afternoon, and this I saw with my
own eyes. Here is how it happened:
I had decided to drive for the frontier to send a news story and photographs
to the London Daily Mail, returning to Budapest the same night. I had some
difficulty leaving. The Chain Bridge was packed with troops, so Denes and
I drove to the Margaret Bridge. The Russians fired at us. Eventually we
managed to cross the Stalin Bridge, and so I came to the terrible scene
of death that struck the little country town of Magyarovar.
It was a pleasant town of pink and white houses, a bare ten miles from
the [82/83]
Sunday, October 28.
This was the day the Russians shot me. In all, by now, they had shot
at my car about a dozen times.
On Saturday and Sunday, Denes and I again raced to the frontier and back
to Budapest. By Sunday the Soviet circle of steel was slowly crushing the
dying city. It was already dark when I returned from the frontier. There
was a big Soviet tank astride the main road ten miles outside the city.
This time there was no going through. Two soldiers -they were Mongolians,
the first time I had seen these latest reinforcements- advanced with machine
guns. We were ordered back. All routes into Budapest were blocked. It took
us three hours, but we managed to reach the city by making a detour from
the town of Dorog across country to a village called Tatabanya. From here
a cart track led to the capital, and by nine o'clock I was back in the
Duna Hotel.
There I went to have a drink with one of my oldest buddies, Sefton (Tom)
Delmer, the ace correspondent of London's Daily Express. He and I had been
in [83/84]
Monday, October 29, to Friday, November 2
For five days I lay in a hospital jammed with 500 wounded. On Monday
morning heavy firing opened round the hospital. Some of the AVH had escaped
into the building and we were surrounded by freedom fighters. For three
days we lived behind a curtain of machine-gun fire.
On that first morning, Ilona managed to get inside. She was crying a little,
and she looked lovely, even with a Tommy gun.
She leaned over and kissed me, and said, "When this is all over, you
go home. I have been thinking. I want to go. Will you take me out of Hungary?"
I promised her I would.
Denes got in every day because he could easily prove that he was a freedom
fighter -now, as he described himself- "a liaison officer with the
British."
For three days the AVH and the fighters fought a pitched battle round the
hospital. On Wednesday afternoon three of the secret police who had been
hiding in the cellars managed to get up to the third floor where my room
was. In the next ward were twenty shot-up boys, many of them sleeping two
in a bed. Suddenly machine-gun fire rattled down the corridor. There was
a burst in the next ward. I heard afterward that two AVH men were shot
there.
As the guns fired, the door of our room burst open, and in came the third
AVH man. The wounded doctor and I waited in terror for his pursuers. Everything
was so confused that we thought he was being chased by Russians.
The AVH man didn't wait to be shot. As the machine-gun burst died down
in the next ward, the man dived for a tall window. He wrenched it open
as the freedom fighters swung through the door. Without a sound -not even
a cry- he hurled himself from the third floor into the street below.
By Thursday the fighters had won, and the shooting had ceased. Denes came
to see me with Ilona, and I asked him what the situation was like.
"At last," he replied slowly, "I am beginning to believe
the Russians are leaving Budapest. They have promised Nagy to leave all
Hungary soon. There is no more fighting."
"Yet I still can't believe," said Ilona, puzzled, "that
the Russkies will ever take defeat like this, so easily."
She had to leave early. "I have to go and queue for bread," she
smiled, and I never thought of the disaster into which she was walking
or that I should never see her again.
I asked Denes to find out from Nagy what the situation really was like.
Despite the cease fire, I could not rid myself of the fear that this was
not the victory for which we had all fought. Something was wrong somewhere.
We had always faced the trouble that the freedom fighters had no central
leader with whom Nagy could treat. Otherwise I am sure the revolution would
have ended with a partial victory days before, and Hungary could then have
settled with Russia more in the manner that Poland has done.
But Nagy would appeal for a cease fire. Half the fighters would obey. The
Russians would then stop. And then some irresponsible section of fighters
would open up without any orders. It was impossible to get any stabilized
position. And, of course, every time Nagy promised the students everything
they wanted, they asked for more. Brave though they were, they had no political
sense at all.
The doctors said I needed eight days in hospital, then a few days' convalescence,
before I could leave for Vienna. This seemed all right, provided I could
get out of Hungary when I was fit.
A desperate, uneasy calm hung over the twisted ruins of the city. Early
on Friday, Denes returned. I knew on the instant that he had bad news.
He took off his glasses and polished them, and for the first time he used
my Christian name.
"Noel," he began, "I saw Nagy's secretary last night. First,
the Russians are not leaving. Reinforcements are pouring in. Already there
are four great camps of Mongolian troops a few miles outside Budapest.
And secondly, Nagy himself has been asked by the Russians where you are.
Nobody can leave the country -and they tell me that specially includes
you, because of what you have written."
It was the longest speech I ever heard Denes make, and I knew what it meant.
I might spend the rest of my life behind the Iron Curtain.
"Denes," I said, "I'm going to try to get out tomorrow -and
you're coming with me."
He looked at me very sadly. "You know I cannot come. If we have won
-and perhaps we have- I must stay and help. If we have lost, I must stay
and fight." He hesitated and added shyly, "But Ilona is coming
to see you again. She wants to go. She has been brave enough. Take her
with you."
But Ilona never came. Not until late that night did I find out what had
happened. Around lunchtime there was a small outburst of fighting in Buda
near her apartment. A group of fighters climbed on a tank and killed the
crew. Another Russian tank swung round and machine-gunned them; and then,
out of spite, the gunner turned his fire on a queue of women waiting to
buy bread. Ilona was in the queue. Apparently she was only shot through
the legs, but a Russian tank lumbered back and ran over all who were still
alive.
Dear, dear Ilona! And she had looked so lovely that morning, and I thought
the fighting was over, and as she kissed me good-by, I told her that I
would take her to my farm in Switzerland and she should stay with my family.
Poor Ilona!
That night I went, wrapped in blankets, to the Duna Hotel. I was too weak
to drive, so I asked Tom Delmer to drive me to the border. We decided to
leave at 6:30 the next morning.
I said farewell to Denes. Again I begged him to come. "When it's all
over, I will come to England for a holiday," he promised me.
We shook hands, and he never looked back. I don't suppose I shall ever
see him again.
Saturday, November 3.
It was snowing when we left. Tom Delmer wrapped me in blankets and
took the wheel. The car was in bad shape -no glass, no spare wheel, very
little oil and just enough gas. Yet with luck we should reach the frontier
in three hours.
At the frontier thirty Soviet tanks barred our way. Not a soul was being
allowed through. Only 200 yards away was the frontier post. A step beyond
it -one step- was freedom, food, doctors, a clean hospital, and, above
all, the peace of mind I needed after five agonizing days.
Tom tried to argue. A big brute of an officer in a long gray overcoat and
with a cigarette in a holder didn't even bother to look at us as he waved
us back. Tom turned the car, and I looked-weak, and with tears starting-at
the frontier post, so near and yet so far, and just beyond it an Austrian
flag.
But we had to turn back. In the village of Hegyeshalom, three miles from
the frontier, we found an inn. The landlord made me some hot soup. We managed
to telephone the frontier post and speak to some Swiss members of the Red
Cross and some Catholic priests. They told Tom that a wounded neutral couldn't
be stopped.
"We will proceed in a deputation to the Russian tank forces,"
they told him. "You drive your friend there and we will force them
to let you through."
So we drove out again. As we moved forward we could see three cars set
off for the Russian tanks. One tank was slewed straight across the road.
There we stood, the Swiss on one side, Tom on my side, arguing in German.
It was no good. Again we drove back to the village.
By now I was just about all in. There was no place to sleep in the village
and the idea of returning to Budapest, where the Reds could find me, was
unthinkable.
Around four o'clock we knew the moment had come to take the last fateful
gamble. Tom and I would try to drive over the fields and get across the
frontier illegally.
Half an hour later we set off in our old wreck of a car. We found a Hungarian
guide who warned us that we must keep off the fields themselves because
of land mines; we must follow cart tracks.
Right at the start we got bogged down in mud and slush. I was too weak
to push. But the prospect of freedom had given me enough strength to take
over the wheel. For the next four hours, I steered while Tom and the guide
shoved the car out of one mudhole after another.
Thirteen miles from the frontier post where we had first tried to cross,
we came across a place where there was a chance. Two Hungarian soldiers
were guarding a strip of plowed earth across which were cart tracks. The
Hungarians were only too delighted to help us. The car lurched across,
and the next thing I knew I had knocked down a post carrying a red-and-white
Austrian flag. Tom, black with mud, followed me on foot. Now he lifted
me out of the driving seat into the back of the car. Then, with two flat
tires, he set off for civilization.
I could not help looking back through the shattered window, and as Hungary
faded away, I blew a last kiss into that gallant little country.
But the kiss wasn't for Hungary, whose glory will never fade. No, it was
for Denes -alive, I hoped- and for that kid of fifteen; but most of all
it was for the black-haired girl who had led my car to safety in smashed-up
Buda. Somewhere Ilona lay, dead and smeared with blood. I huddled back
in my filthy blankets, and for the first time in my adult life I cried
bitterly. [84]
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Richard Lettis: The Hungarian Revolt |