Pitschen ma en gamba - Small, but powerful [A Band of Brothers Story]

Entering Germany

Orders came down for Easy Company to move back to the line. The Allies had pushed the Germans back over the Rhine and Ike needed somebody to bolster the ring around the newly captured Ruhr area.

It was the 2nd April when they reached a town called Stürzelberg, some miles north of Cologne. They had officially entered Germany. When they first came into the town, they noted that the buildings were intact. There was no destruction, no death. It was almost as if the war had never touched these houses.

The medics set up their aid station in what had once been a bar, but had obviously been vacated months prior.

Since there was no fighting going on, they didn't have much to do apart from the usual patients that came in with wounds that had gotten inflamed because they hadn't been treated right away. They scolded the guilty party, treated the injury and sent them on their way with the stern admonishment to come back if it didn't get better.

Boredom was spreading among the men. They went on patrols, but that was more or less purely for form's sake because they never encountered any enemy soldiers. With all the time on their hands, it gave them ample opportunity to fraternise with the German women.

Ella rolled her eyes when the guys talked about their latest conquests, but she didn't comment. It was good for morale and as long as they were respectful and accepted it when the answer was "No", they weren't doing any harm.

Her friends teased her a little because she didn't engage in the same pastime and she let them. She just wasn't interested. Even if she were, there would be something in the way: there weren't any suitable candidates around because they were all off to fight for their country.

The other activity the guys picked up was looting. They took whatever looked valuable or pretty, either for souvenir purposes or to ship it home to their wives, girlfriends, mothers and sisters. The young girl never participated. To her, it just didn't feel right to take something simply because it was there and nobody around to stop them.

Sure, some of the things they saw were stunning and extremely expensive, but often enough, they looked like heirlooms or objects of sentimental value. And she knew from personal experience how much it hurt to lose something like that.

Ella frequently went on patrol, just for something to do. Since they rarely had need for a medic – apart from that one time when a replacement managed to bust his ankle by catching his foot in a rabbit hole – she often went along as an interpreter.

Apart from Liebgott and Webster, only very few men in the company spoke German and the ranking medic was fluent in it. If she wasn't on patrol, she was either with her friends, at the aid station, or wandering around the town.

***

The locals were neither hostile nor overly welcoming. The children, however, were a different story. Curious as they were, they often watched the soldiers with something akin to awe.

Some mothers tried to keep their kids away from the men, but their attitudes slowly changed when they noticed the small girl among the soldiers, a medic who had no scruples to strike up a friendly conversation in fluent German.

One day, the brunette was sitting outside the aid station, writing in her journal. A handful of kids were playing on the street, their laughter filling the warm spring air with innocent joy. She heard hesitant steps approaching and looked up to see a girl standing in front of her, holding what seemed to be her little brother's hand. The boy had tears in his eyes and his knee was bloody.