Gunslinger

Once E Company had managed to get past the roadblocks set up by the Germans to delay their progress, and they had finally made it to Berchtesgaden they stood in awe for a moment. It was like a fairy-tale land, with snow capped mountains, dark green woods, and icy creeks. It was a landscape painters dream.

Accommodations were the first order of business. Somerville and Lieutenant Johnson went to the Berchtesgaden Hof. As they walked in the front door of the hotel, they could see the backs of retreating service personnel and followed them into the dining room. Once inside the dining room, they saw the waiter putting together a large set of silverware in a 4 foot long velvet lined case. They didn’t even need to give orders, they simply walked toward him and he ran off. Both of the men split the silverware between them. They were in this process when Dunn walked over, eyeing the silverware.
“Don’t even think about”, Somerville said, slapping Dunn’s hand away. Dunn, a little bit miffed, shrugged and moved off.

Somerville picked the home of one of the Nazi officials, perched on the hillside climbing the valley, as his battalion HQ. Somerville walked into the house, looked at the Nazi’s wife and simply stated, “We’re moving in. Get out.”

The enlisted men took over the SS barracks, an alpine style apartment building. Officers and sergeants were allocated sumptuous homes of Nazi officials perched on the mountainsides overlooking Berchtesgaden.
“Dammit, the sergeants get the best places”, Brian whined. Dana rolled her eyes at him.
“Are you forgetting something?”, she asked him with a smirk. He glanced at her, and when she glanced down at her shoulder, he followed her gaze and saw her sergeant’s insignia. He looked up at her with a cheesy grin.
“I guess we’re moving up in the world, babe”, he said. “Now which place is ours?” Dana led him to one of the houses, which reminded her of an old fashioned gingerbread house, and led him inside.
“I’m gonna change the sheets first”, she said. “I don’t want any Nazi cooties.”

*****************

The next morning, Dana and Brian were woken by a messenger who advised her that Somerville wanted her to assign some privates to a guard outpost in town, which were mainly being used to direct traffic and gather up surrendering German troops and put them in the POW cages on the outskirts of town. Dana dispatched O’Shannessy and Sharkey, and was just getting into round two with Brian when the runner returned and yelled through the door that a German general was complaining about having to surrender to a private.
“Oh for pete’s fucking sake”, Dana snapped, getting out of bed. She got dressed and stomped down to the guard outpost.
“I wish to surrender to an appropriate rank”, the general was saying disdainfully to O’Shannessy.
“Well tough shit”, Dana snapped. “Now you get me.” The general turned to look at her, and despite being at least a foot taller, he knew a pissed off female when he saw one. He took an involuntary step back, which was noticed by O’Shannessy and Sharkey who smirked quietly in the background. Whilst Dana was arguing with the General, who eventually gave in fearing she was going to cut off part of his anatomy, O’Shannessy and Sharkey filched his briefcase, which contained a couple of iron crosses and about 500 pornographic photos. O’Shannessy blushed redder than an apple, and when Dana looked over at what they had taken she giggled.
“Don’t use them all at once, boys”, she laughed, as she turned the General and his men over to the MP’s.

***************

Everyone was grabbing loot at a frantic pace. There were German soldiers surrendering to the company everywhere, and D, E and F Companies of the 506th were the first to get to them. From these soldiers then men were obtaining, pistols, knives, watches, fur-lined coats, camouflaged jump jackets, and Nazi flags.

The Eagles Nest had been completely worked over, and the elevator was put out of action. But for the fit companies of the 506th the climb to the top was merely a stroll. Brian, Dana and Butler found the vehicle car parks around town where German army trucks, sedans and more were parked. O’Shea found a Mercedes fire engine, complete with bell, siren and flashing blue lights. Butler found one of Hitler’s staff cars, with bullet-proof doors and windows. They found Captain Dunn, who jumped in and they went for a drive around town.

As more and more of regimental HQ arrived in town, they began throwing their weight around and an order for the Mercedes staff car was given. Dunn delivered the sad message to Butler, Brian and Dana. As they were standing around it with long faces, Brian turned to look at the car.
“Do you think those windows really are bullet-proof?”, he asked.
“Only one way to find out”, Dana smirked in reply. They all moved to about 3 metres away, aimed their M1’s and fired. The window shattered into a thousand pieces.
“I guess not”, Butler said with a cheeky grin. They quickly walked away just as a captain from regiment came to pick up the car.

Butler experimented on another car and advised Somerville that the doors were bullet-proof, but armour piercing tank ammo got the job done just fine. Somerville thanked him for his research with a smirk, agreeing that one never knew when this kind of information would come in handy.

Brian, Butler and Dana conducted one more further experiment and decided to see how far one of the luxury cars would go without water in the radiator. The brass ended up getting automobiles without windows or water, and some with large suspicious holes in their doors.

*******************

The company had scrounged up some wine from some of the house cellars, however the biggest cache had been found by one of the non-drinkers in the company, Major Somerville. On 6th May he had found Goerring’s Officers Quarters. In a vaulted cellar, he had discovered there were rows and rows of liquor stretching from the floor to the ceiling. He estimated that there were about 10,000 bottles in the cellar. That afternoon, after putting double guard on the doors to prevent the company from looting the place and getting into a drunken brawl, he found McKenzie and took him down to the cellar. When he opened the door, McKenzie’s eyes had widened comically.
“Oh my God, I’ve died and gone to heaven”, McKenzie breathed. Somerville smirked.
“Take what you want, then have each company and battalion HQ bring around a truck and take a truckload. You’re in charge.”

For the company as a whole, the celebration was large and irresistible. Despite Somerville’s orders not to get drunk, and despite regular guard duty rotation, there was always a party. Not even Dunn could resist. Back in company HQ, he, Butler, Dana and Brian popped champagne bottles and proceeded to get roaring drunk.

********************

The next morning, word filtered through that the German army had officially surrendered and the drinking continued unabated. That afternoon, the company received orders to move out to Zell Am See in Austria where they would take up occupation duty.