Gunslinger

At 10pm on 8th May, the convoy of men began to roll out of Berchtesgaden. In the trucks the company continued partying, drinking, singing, gambling, smoking. When the convoy arrived at Zell am See in the morning, the men were dirty, unshaven, wearing grimy Army fatigue pants and parachute blouses. Most of them were hung-over.

German soldiers were everywhere, and the contrast in appearance was astounding. The conquering army looked sloppy, unmilitary, ill-disciplined, whereas the conquered army looked sharp, with clean crisp uniforms, tidy appearances and were obviously well disciplined. Many of the German soldiers looked amazed when they saw the first of the Americans how they could have lost to such a rag tag bunch.

Somerville set up battalion HQ in the village of Kaprun, 4 kilometres south of Zell am See. The valley was one of the most famous mountain resort areas in the world, and was especially popular with rich Germans. The accommodation, which ranges from farmhouses to luxurious hotels, was stunning.

Dana and Brian were a bit alarmed that the large German army contingent were still armed, however it soon became apparent that they were disciplined and followed orders, and respected the authority of the conquering army.

All of the men in the area, be they German or American, just wanted to go home. Before anyone could be released, however, they had to undertake screening. It was common knowledge that many Nazis had put on enlisted men’s uniforms and were trying to pass themselves off as regular army to escape detection.

Somerville ordered that Richland and Dana oversee a large group of several hundred prisoners. Amongst them was Ferdinand Porsche, designer of the Volkswagen and the Panther and Tiger tanks. In mid-May, they cleared about 150 prisoners for release. One senior German officer, a colonel, requested permission to speak with them before they were let go. Richland allowed him, and both he and Dana listened to him speak, and Dana translated for Richland that the colonel had told the soldiers that Germany had lost the war, however they had been good soldiers and he was proud of them. Now they could go home and rebuild their lives.

Other high-ranking German officials, men who had good reason to fear that they would be charged with war crimes, were hiding in the mountains. Dunn was advised about a man who had been the Nazi head of the many slave labour camps in the area and had committed many atrocities. He investigated and asked questions, and it soon became clear that he was being told the truth. Further investigation revealed that the man was living on a small farm nearby.

Dunn called in Richland. He explained the situation and advised Richland to take three others with him to find the Nazi and eliminate him. Richland gathered Brian, Murphy and Dana, explained the mission, grabbed weapons and took off up the mountain. Murphy thought about the predicament during the trip in the weapons carrier they had used to ride in. He was sure that Captain Dunn did not have the authority to order an execution based on testimony from military police, however Dunn was the company CO and he was just an enlisted man carrying out an order. He mentioned this to Dana.
“We’ll find out when we get there”, she responded. “He’s gonna need to be interrogated first.”

The small group got to the farm and without a struggle they dragged the Nazi outside. Dana took one look at the man, and recognised him as the man she had seen in the picture in the woman’s house in Landsberg. To be on the safe side, they interrogated him for 30 minutes.
“It’s definitely him”, Dana advised the group. The man tried to take a swipe at Dana and Brian shot at him twice. He took off screaming, and ran up the mountain from the group. Murphy didn’t raise his rifle.
“The war’s over. I’m not going to shoot him.” Richland stepped forward, raised his M1 at the fleeing man, and shot him dead.
“You were at Landsberg”, Dana said, turning to Murphy. “He was the commandant of that camp. Those pricks aren’t gonna get away with it. If we have to shoot a few, so be it.”

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By the third week in May, there was little for the Americans to do. The German and Austrian civilians were eagerly co-operating with kitchen duty, washing clothes and cleaning quarters as the Americans paid them well in both money, food and cigarettes. Time was hanging heavy on the heads of everyone who just wanted to go home. Somerville had many facilities constructed, including a running track, a tennis court and a baseball field. Competitions were held between companies and battalions to relieve the boredom. Despite not really playing much previously, Dana discovered that she quite liked playing tennis and she and O’Shea often played against each other. Brian wasn’t a huge fan of tennis, and Dana and O’Shea were not fond of him yelling out “fault!”, “out!”, “balls!” and “hey look boobs!” when they were half way through a rally. Dana told him he wasn’t getting sex for a week if he didn’t knock it off, and he slunk off to play baseball.

On the mountain behind Kaprun was a ski lodge. The chair lift was broken but the lodge could be reached by climbing the mountain trail. Somerville set up a program wherein one platoon every three days could go to the lodge for some R & R, which consisted of some of the men skiing, either alone or with ski instructors, or going out hunting deer with the hunting guides. Dana discovered that she was useless at skiing so she stayed at the lodge with Brian just having drinks and enjoying spending time with him away from the others.

Captain Dunn had only one standing order about drinking, and that was no drunkenness outside. This was strictly enforced by all of the sergeants, who wanted no incidents with drunken soldiers on guard duty, or just wandering the streets and mountain paths. In their quarters, however, the men were free to drink all that they could hold, and most of them drank more than that.

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It should have been the perfect summer, however after the first couple of weeks most of them hated it. They were frustrated with army bureaucracy, they were bored, they were drinking far too much and they all just wanted to go home.

Getting home depended on points, which became virtually the sole topic of conversation and led to much bad feeling. The point system set up by the Army gave a man points for each active-duty service month, points for campaigns, points for medals, points for being married. The magic number was eighty five points. Those with that many or more were eligible for immediate shipment home and discharge. Those with fewer points were doomed to stay with the division, presumably right on through to any big jumps into China or Japan to assist with the Pacific campaign.

After the continued grumblings of the men who did not have enough points, General Ripley held a draw for each company, and the winner would be allowed to go home. For E Company, the winner was Sergeant Butler.

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The excessive drinking was still an issue, however most of the men were obeying Dunn’s rule of not drinking outside. One cold night, Dana and Brian were driving two privates to a roadblock for a changing of the guard. As they arrived, they saw a commotion. A drunken GI was standing with a pistol in his hand, with two dead Germans at his feet. A British major had been driving by and he and his Sergeant had gotten out, and the drunken GI pointed his pistol at them and told them to back off. Just as Brian and Dana drove up closer, the drunk took a pot shot at them, however he missed. The major tried to disarm him, but he turned and shot both the major and his sergeant. Brian made to run forward, and the GI turned to him.
“Nooooo!”, Dana screamed as she jumped forward. She felt a burning hot fire pass through her chest, and she vaguely heard Brian scream in horror before everything went white.

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

Dana opened her eyes blearily, then quickly shut them again when an intense white light hurt her eyes. She moaned.
“Get that light out of my eyes”, she mumbled. She heard hurried rustling next to her, then a hand was placed on her arm and a female voice came to her ears.
“Dana, can you hear me? Dana?”

Once again, Dana tried to open her eyes and when her vision cleared she saw a beautiful blonde woman leaning over her.
“Are you an angel?”, she asked in confusion. “Am I dead?”
“No honey, you’re not dead”, the blonde said, tears falling from her eyes. Dana blinked a few more times before she took note of her surroundings and realized that she was in a hospital bed. She glanced back to the woman standing next to her bed.
“Emily?”