Half Sick of Shadows » Band of Brothers [2]

43: All Good Things

"Don't the yanks find out who's being sent home today?" Martin questions around a sip of water.

I nod, because he's right. Due to the unfair nature of the points system, in that veterans who have been on the front line for every bit of action the company has seen since D-Day still don't have enough to go home, for the anniversary of D-Day one of them is being chosen at random to get a one way ticket back to the States. I'm praying to God that it's Gene but I won't find out until later, after they've all been dismissed.

"I hope one of the veterans gets it," I mention, taking my own sip of water. "Someone who was there at the beginning."

They all nod and we fall into a comfortable silence, taking in the quiet with the absence of the yanks.

The Americans aren't due to find out the results of the draw until mid-afternoon, which means we're probably not likely to find them out until late-afternoon. The anticipation, like many things in my life now I know we've not been discharged, fills me with nerves. So, when we all decide to filter off to do whatever to fill the time, instead of heading back up to the room with Tom I tell them all I'll see them later and head off to the hotel lobby.

When I get there I find a pretty redheaded girl behind the front desk whose name tag reads 'Carlotta' and have to suppress my grin; this is obviously the girl Tom thinks fancies him.

"Hallo," I greet upon approaching her.

She sends me a dimpled smile in return. "Hallo. How can I help?" She speaks in accented English, obviously noting the American paratrooper ODs I'm wearing, which makes me smile.

"Ich wollte wissen, ob Sie Papier haben, dass ich ausleihen kann?"

She smiles brightly at my German and nods. "Natürlich. Wie viel brauchen Sie?"

I shrug, smiling back. "So viel wie Sie übrig haben."

The girl, Carlotta, sends me another warm smile and turns to go into what I presume is an office. She reemerges about a minute later with a large stack of the paper I asked for and a pencil as well. "Nur für den Fall, dass Sie einen brauchen," she explains, handing the pencil to me first and then the paper.

"Tausend Dank!" I exclaim excitedly. Even holding the weighty stack of paper fills me with some small shred of hope and enthusiasm and when I look back up at Carlotta I think she can tell.

"Kein Problem!" she replies with equal enthusiasm.

I send her one last smile before leaving the lobby and heading off into the relative quiet of Zell am See.

When I eventually come to sit by the lake it's silent but in a peaceful way as opposed to an eerie one like what we'd been greeted with in Berchtesgaden. In the absence of the yanks and even any of the locals who sometimes come to visit during the day, the only sounds are the lapping of the water against the shore and the gentle rustling of the leaves in the trees. I take a few moments to merely breathe it all in, absorbing as much of the serenity as I can. I never in a million years thought I would get to see somewhere so beautiful again and that's something worth cherishing for a little while.

When the soft breeze lifts the first few sheets of paper to brush against my hand where it holds them in place, I look down and set my mind to concentrating again. My pencil sits poised against the first page for a few moments, motionless, before I let the words flow out of me, transcribing as much as I can remember in exactly the way I remember it. I'm hoping that injecting as much vivid detail into it as I possibly can will help me heal. That's a very fine thread of hope I'm holding onto there but I feel like if there's even a chance it might work then I have to at least try. Of course, I'm taking a gamble in that writing everything out in such detail could make me completely break down and set me back a few steps as opposed to forwards, but for some reason I have a good feeling about this. I can't explain why, I just do.