 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
Upstarts
I am sure that there were some illicit communications carried on in the shadows.
What red-blooded American soldier could resist treating a thin, wistful little boy to a
piece of chocolate? Or his somewhat bigger sister to a whole bar? And what sweet-
starved German youngster would have the strength to refuse?
At least one German citizen had mixed emotions about our arrival. He was a
young man we found in a farmhouse as we moved into it to set up our CP. When Sgt
Hallick asked about him, it turned out that he was a deserter from the German Army. We
treated him as a prisoner of war and took him over to Major Boers, S-2 of the 359th
Infantry, [Unique 2] for interrogation. While he waited to be taken, he sat with blank
brown eyes staring into space, presumably trying to guess whether what we would do to
him would be worse than being shot for desertion by the Wehrmacht.
Or maybe he was just dreaming of a decent drink of water.
The house where we found him in was a duplex: the family lived in half of it and
their cows occupied the other half. The water supply was a well under the house. We
thought this would be handy in case we wanted coffee when it wasn't available from the
kitchen truck. We had been issued halazone tablets to sterilize water from questionable
sources.
The first bucketful made us thoughtful. It was not exactly muddy, but it was a
medium brown in color and gave off a rich odor of cattle. We added twice the
recommended amount of halazone and let it sit for an hour or so, in hopes some of the
brown would settle out.
It didn't.
We boiled it for a good long time before adding the powdered coffee. Then we
tasted it and poured it out in the barnyard, where it probably percolated through the
ground and added still more flavor to the well water.
We did have one sort of cheering section as we crossed Germany: long columns
of displaced persons trudging westward along the roads. Some of them were newly
released inmates of German PW camps, some were a mixed bag of forced laborers,
Czech, Polish, Russian, Yugoslavs. Some were Jews, Gypsies, and other "undesirables"
from concentration camps. Most of them were burdened with impromptu back packs;
some had push carts, wheelbarrows, or coaster wagons to carry their possessions. An
occasional lucky or affluent one might have an ox, donkey or even a horse to pull his
cart.
They were a docile bunch: they made an honest effort to stay out of our way by
keeping to the shoulders of the roads, and those who still had energy enough would smile
and even shout encouragement. They might be bewildered and exhausted, but there was
no question about whose side they were on!
Most of the released PsW were French, but there was everyone else imaginable.
John Klas, an incorrigible extrovert, liked to lean out of his command car, shout,
"Francais)" in his huge voice, and wait for the answering chorus of “Qui "
One time, however, he got a surprise: a booming bass, "A Rus!"
212
|
 |
|