Maria, Pull the Trigger and Kill (a World War II adventure)

Womanhunt

On Friday 3rd of August, I finally got around to bring the Military Police to the Kübelwagen still sitting in Hauptkadettenanstalt. In the morning, I informed them of my finding and they started to create a police report and case file. At noon, two military police men followed me to the Engineering Corps, where I led them straight to the corner with the Kübelwagen. Uggh, the stench of rotting flesh was bad. The heat of the August sun and the fact, that the corner in which the Kübelwagen was sitting, was a shield against the wind, immersed the area into a foul and pungent stench of decay. The two police men covered their mouths and noses with a shawl. They took pictures and notes, lots of notes but otherwise made no efforts to extract the bodies. While the two were busy investigating the case, the Master Sergeant came our way. I saw it from far already, he was mad.

"I had said Monday morning, not Friday afternoon", he yelled at me, still being a couple of yards away.

I was frantically searching my brain for a good excuse, but he already came again: "Have you missed the necrophile aspects of your job and finally decided to take care of these corpses? Are you aware, that I had gotten complaints from high-ranking officers about my garage having become a morgue?"

OK, when the high-ranking officer's were on his neck already, then that was very bad.

Without waiting for an answer from my side, he turned to the two police men: "Please, take the corpses or the whole car away, but take it away quickly?"

One police man answered: "Ah, Sir, we are not removing the corpses yet. Our forensics team will investigate them in due time and then the Judge Advocate General's attorney will scrutinize the case and if he does not see relevance in keeping the bodies any longer, he will release them. Then the coroner will organize for them getting transferred to a morgue in due time."

It sounded like a difficult and lengthy bureaucratic process and the face of the Master Sergeant turned fire red. He looked my way and then he raised his right hand, which was holding a 3/4" wrench drive. Two feet of chrome steel above me and a fire red face in front of me promised doom. Within the next 50msec. my cerebellum came up with the correct response: RUN! It injected adrenalin into my bloodstream, made my heart race to 120 and my lungs pump double the amount of air. After some 300msec. I turned around and took to my heels. The Master Sergeant chased after me and my cerebellum sang to me: Don't you know you better run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run, run. After a while, my frontal cortex wanted to contribute something and it believed, if I'd exhaust the Master Sergeant, then he would come back to his senses and so I criss-crossed between the military vehicles, but he was just too furious and he did not stop hunting me. OK, he had to stop every so often to catch his breath, but he did not come back to his senses. Eventually, when he stopped to catch his breath again, I run to the BMW and made my escape.

That had not gone well. This man was very mad with me and I needed his help going forward.

That Yuri and his comrades had experienced such a hardship, bothered me and I wanted to give them a bit of civilized life back. Friday afternoon, I asked the German women in our office, that I would like to get 10 cleaning maids to clean up some real bad dirt for a packet of cigarettes each. A packet of cigarettes for cleaning, was a real nice payment and they promised to come Saturday at 13:00h with some friends. Amanda was looking suspiciously at me, but refrained from making a nasty comment.

There still was that barrel of beer hanging in the bomb shaft of the Ju88. I thought, that we, the women at OMGUS could drink it, but it was just too much for us. Even the guys at the Engineering Corps had just drunken a bit of its content. I took the Jimmy and picked the barrel up at Tempelhof. Obviously, I needed some help from the aircraft mechanics to load it up the Jimmy. This Friday night, Amanda and I took the Jimmy to get to the TGiF party. After our arrival, I yelled into the cafeteria of the enlisted men: "There is German beer sitting on the back of my truck. That beer is the donation of the US Army for our British friends. Can you help bring the barrel in please?"