Mountain Memory

“Detained him?” A chill went up my spine. The regulations were to summarily shoot any German invading a camp to steal anything, especially food. I thought it was barbaric, but I had been assured that it was the only way to keep the starving population from trying to overrun the camps. An example ran through my mind that had been spread around the country and, I had been assured by high command, was true and was repeated as a deterrent. The story went that a young German boy earned scraps of food at a U.S. base near Heidelberg shortly after the fall of Berlin by shining the shoes of the base commander. He was seen running out of the commander’s tent with a pair of shoes in his hand and was shot by a sentry who didn’t know of the arrangement. Just beyond where he fell was a rock on which the shoe polish and brush were neatly arranged. He had just decided to shine them outside rather than inside the tent that day.

Deterrent perhaps, but it choked me up each time I thought of the cruelty of war. I knew I could have shot the young German scavenger two nights previously—and that perhaps some of the men would have expected me to do so and would think it weakness that I didn’t. That was probably why I only told who I had to about the incident. So, part of me was relieved that he had escaped.

But now he was back, and under control, if I understood Cook correctly.

“Yes, sir, I have him locked in the storage room.”

“Well, I guess we’d better attend to him, then,” I said, with a deep sigh. “Let’s not let the whole camp hear about this, though.” I had absolutely no resolve to shoot the young man. After trying to discern how he was getting into the camp, I’d send him on his way. I was still struggling in my mind whether to send him away with food or not. If I fed him again, I knew he’d be back. If I didn’t feed him, maybe he would realize this was a blind alley for him. What I was really struggling with in my mind, I knew, was whether I wanted him to come back again—and where that might lead. I hadn’t been able to get him out of my mind.