Mountain Memory

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WWII U.S. soldier encounters starving Bavarian artist.
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sr71plt
sr71plt
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We both were wearing our fatigues and bundled up against the fall night air at the edge of the woods behind the mess hall. So far there was no reason to adjust our warm clothing beyond my fly being unbuttoned. My cock was out as I leaned back against a tree trunk, but it was being kept warm by Corporal Hart's mouth enveloping it.

Corporal Hart was just one of my willing boys. We'd come a long way together to Berlin and beyond from the landing at Anzio, and many of us had become as close and comforting and interested in and willing for mutual release as men could be who were on the move on their feet for two years and subject to being shot on the spot for finding their relief in women encountered along the trek across Europe. Not that it wasn't equally dangerous to be caught engaging in the release we did.

Hart looked up into my eyes, his with a pleading expression on them, asking, I knew, if I was ready to belly him against the tree, cover his back, and give him the full length and girth of my cock.

I was, and would have done so, if it hadn't been for the commotion coming from the back door of the mess hall, by the trashcans, where Cook was speaking gruffly to someone in the shadows.

"Hey, what yer doin' there? And who are you? You're not from the camp, are you? A local. A Kraut, I think."

With a sigh, I gently pushed Ted Hart back on his haunches, folded my cock back into my pants, and buttoned up as I walked toward the mess hall. Duty called. It already was nearly pitch black here below a cliff of Kehlstein Mountain in the German Alps, in the most remote southeast corner of Bavaria. Only the light from the mess hall kitchen windows, cast across the shadows of two men, one rather small and struggling and the other tall and heavy and grasping the smaller figure close, provided any context to Cook's gruff voice and answering whimpers in German. My immediate thought as I approached this tableau was that there would be some sentry I'd have to dress down. German nationals weren't allowed in the camp without escort—and not at night at all.

In fact, we had license to shoot them on sight. There were signs, in German, explaining that plastered on the compound fences.

"I found this Kraut rummaging around in the trashcans," Cook said as I walked up. "I told you that I thought there was a wild animal at the cans for the last week. Turns out it's only this little guy."

"Well, let me see what we have here," I said, as I reached them. "He doesn't look so dangerous."

And, indeed, he didn't look dangerous at all. He looked so weak and emaciated that he might be on his last legs. Pity that, I thought. He was quite a good-looking young man. Not young, young, of course. Maybe his late twenties or early thirties, but life obviously was being cruel to him. It hadn't been all that rewarding to any of us as World War II was winding down across Europe. And some of us had to walk here from the toe of the boot that was Italy.

I had taken my guys all the way to Berlin to help cut off the head of the snake there the previous May, not losing one soldier in the process. For our reward, we were sent up here into the far reaches of Bavaria to sit in a temporary camp between the mountain town of Obersalzberg, up against the lower cliffs of the Kehlstein Mountain and in the shadow of the third highest peak in the German Alps, Watzman Mountain. I don't wish to sneer at the assignment we received as we waited to be shipped home—nearly all of us to wives and children no matter what we'd gotten into for solace and relief during the last two years marching from Italy to here. We actually had a plum assignment. Obersalzberg had been the winter retreat for Adolf Hitler himself and his sycophants, built up here on the lower slopes of the Kehlstein as a retreat for the führer during the 1936 Olympics in nearby Garmish-Partenkircher.

Hitler had spent more and more time up here in the waning years of the war, and he'd stashed a lot of the loot up here that he and his cronies had pulled out of art museums all across Europe during the German occupation. My unit's job was to guard and inventory this stash until it could be properly dispersed again. We were not far from the end of accomplishing this, which was a good thing, because the winter of 1945-46 was pressing in on us, and this place would be one snow-covered iceberg come December.

And a look at the obviously starving young man in the tattered clothing and overcoat who Cook was holding by the scruff of the neck told me that it was unlikely he could survive the winter.

His eyes showed a mixture of fear and resignation. My heart turned over. I'd seen far too much of the suffering among civilians in this war. There was nothing about him that spoke soldier. He fit the bill of starving artist more. The complete look of surrender and vulnerability in his eyes moved me—and not just my heart. Cleaned up and fed he would have been almost irresistible to me and my appetites.

"Who are you and how did you get into the camp?" I asked. He looked at me with a complete lack of comprehension. So, a German refugee no doubt. Certainly not American and most certainly not belonging in this camp. I knew all of my men—more than a few of them I knew biblically.

"Are you hungry. Were you looking in the trashcans for food?"

There was a flash of recognition in his eyes, but still he said nothing. He probably knew that rummaging for food here was inviting a death bullet. He had to have been totally desperate to even contemplate risking it. At that point the assistant cook, Private Green came to the kitchen door.

"Kyle," I said to him. "Is anything left over from the night's mess?"

"We have a bit ham left and there's bread," the private answered.

"Can you make a sandwich with that please—a big one—and give it to this man, and then escort him back to the main gate, please? I'm too tired tonight to write up an incident report. But on your way back, please make a round of the sentries, let them know a civilian got into the camp. Tell them to look at every inch of fencing for a breach and report to me tomorrow. And tell them that, despite the breach, I haven't released any orders permitting target practice."

"Yes, sir," Kyle answered. When he came back with the sandwich, wrapped in a newspaper, and handed it to the young man, Cook let loose of him and I drew both Cook's attention and that of Kyle to me to ask them just not to say anything to anyone about this. We were not supposed to offer any help at all to German civilians. In the moment it took for me to do that, though, the young German had disappeared.

I sighed. I'd have to write up some sort of report after all. "I still want you to go to the sentries, Kyle, I said. I hope to God one of them doesn't shoot the young man while he's trying to get back out of the camp. But there's a breach in the fencing someplace. The only side not covered is the cliff below the Kehlstein, and that's a sheer rock wall."

A little sad now—at what war does to us all—and slightly irritated that I'd have to write up an incident report, I returned to the edge of the forest where Corporal Hart was waiting for me in the dark. Reverting to an earlier stage of our preparation, we engaged in a bit of lip play and groping before he sucked me off again. It was with weary thoughts of all we'd been through and the toll it had taken on people like that young man at the mess hall, whose hands I'd seen—the hands of a professional or artisan, not of a farmer of soldier—that I embraced Ted Hart from behind as he leaned into a tree and spread his legs, entered him deep to his moans and groans, and worked him hard to give both of us release and something more pleasant to think of than what we'd been through in the last two years.

I was finishing with Ted, holding him close in my embrace, his head turned to me, our lips meeting, and the last short spurts of my cum ejaculating into the quick of his passage when I floated up out of our "transported elsewhere" time separated from the present and slowly became aware of our surroundings again.

As I drifted back into reality, I sensed that the two of us weren't alone—that we were being observed. I slowly rotated my head around, not wanting to spook off whoever it was. But just that slight turn was enough for me to hear the crackle of pine needles underfoot deeper into the forested area. Just the glimpse I saw was of tattered clothes in browns and grays and black, and I instantaneously thought of the young German who had been caught at the trashcans.

I released Ted, who slumped against the tree trunk, and, after an affectionate stroke of his cheek, strode out in the direction in which I sensed we had been watched. But of course when I got to the tree I had marked as the figure's hiding place, no one was there.

* * * *

Cook approached me in the mess hall two evenings later as the dinner hour was drawing down and men were leaving the hall. We were in a state of unaccustomed limbo here at the base of the German Alps. The men had been warily trudging through fields, avoiding roads, where ambushes could be set, and being ever aware of their environment for years before landing here in the small camp near Obersalzberg below the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's famous mountaintop tea house that was carved out of the rock of the Kehlstein. Here, the march was over. The war was over. Presumably the danger was over, although there continued to be whispers of "lost cause" partisan cells that kept the Americans close to their camps and bases. There was little for the men to do in the evening after dinner and before night when they could surreptitiously move about their barracks into each other's beds. They lingered in the mess hall, but it was dark and growing late.

I habitually ate late, walking around to the tables earlier in the meal, coffee in hand, checking on the well-being of the men—and frequently making assignations with one or two of them for meetings in my separate room in the night.

"Excuse me, Captain," Cook said, his voice hesitant.

"Yes? Is there a problem? I saw the supply truck come in today. We were shortchanged in some rations?"

"No, Captain, that is all good. It's the German refugee from the other night."

"The young man who somehow got into and out of the camp without alerting one of the sentries?" I was still chaffing over that happening. I had doubled the sentries. I also was chaffing a bit from having gone soft and giving him something to eat. I was somewhat surprised that I didn't have half the population of Obersalzberg at the front gate the next morning begging to receive what he had.

"Yes, the same," Cook said. "He returned. I caught him going through the trash again."

"And did he run off when you found him—like the other night? I can call out the men to search the camp for him. We need to know how he's getting in."

"No, sir. I have detained him."

"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.

When the storage door was open, I was torn between crying and laughing. The young man was sitting on the floor, in the dark, and had found and torn into a sack of raw potatoes. He was munching on one. He looked up at me in the doorway with a panicked look on his face, but he was holding onto to half a raw potato as if his life depended on it. I didn't think he was going to give up the rest of the sack without a fight to the death either. And, as he looked even more emaciated than he had two nights previously, it's possible that his life did depend on it.

There was nothing else I could do. I turned to Cook. "Is there still stew in the pot from the evening's meal?"

"Yes, sir."

"Dish up a bowl of it—and a chunk of bread and some coffee. And bring it to our guest in the mess hall. And, Private Green," I said, turning to the assistant cook, "See if you can rustle up some civilian clothes that will fit this young man. Put them in my room."

I went into the storage room and bent down, and pulled the young man up to his feet. He was as light as a feather. "Kommen mit mir, bitte," I said, hoping my tortured German was understandable. "Sie mussen essen."

He looked at me with glazed eyes, but he allowed me to guide him into the now-empty mess hall. He was still clutching the sack of potatoes under his arm and I made no move to take it away from him.

After he'd polished off the second bowl of stew and I motioned that any more would probably make him sick and he'd lose it all, I attempted to communicate with him again. "Konnen Sie sagen mir—?"

"Perhaps we should speak English," he suddenly said. "I appreciate your attempts at German, but . . ."

I was too shocked to speak in any language for a few seconds. "You speak English. And I mean English English, and your accent is impeccable."

"Thank you. I have lived in both London and Paris."

This just made it all the more tragic for me. He was educated and spoke with a refined accent. And he'd been brought this low.

"What are you doing here then? And are you English?"

"I'm German. I was painting abroad when the war started. But I had to come back . . . for my family."

Ah, I was right. An artist. He was a painter. "And did you find your family?"

"No," he said softly. "I'm Jewish. My family was gone by the time I returned."

"Oh. My name is Trent. Yours is—?"

"You can call me Jake. But I see that you are a captain. So I must call you captain."

"OK, then, Jake. You can call me Captain Carter. I've asked that some cleaner clothes be found for you and you can come back to my room. I have a bath. You can shower there. I take it where you live doesn't have washing facilities?" Of course I wanted him to tell me where he lived and how he was able to get in the camp without being seen by a sentry—and possibly shot.

"I couldn't possibly . . . but thank you for the meal. I should go now."

We both rose from the table. "Are you going to leave that sack of potatoes here?" I asked. And when he looked lovingly at it, I said, "You can have the potatoes, Jake. But you have to stop coming into the camp. We are supposed to shoot anyone who does that."

"Being shot is not the worst thing that can happen here in this time," he said simply, his eyes downcast. But he picked up the sack of potatoes.

"Winter is going to be bad here," I said. "We should only be here for another month or so, but if you promise not to come into camp to go through the trashcans again—and if you don't tell others of it—I will see to it that you can have some food left for you every evening."

He stood there stolidly, with down-cast eyes, although I discerned a slight tremble in his body that might have be caused by emotion. I was struck with how beautiful he was, even in this condition, and my body was stirring.

"The food must be left outside the camp, though. Do you know of the track up the mountain from here, and the religious shrine about a 100 yards beyond the main gate at the side of the road—the one with a closed wooden container at its base?"

He merely nodded.

"You will fine food there for as long as we're camped here."

I told myself I wasn't doing this because he moved me to desire—and certainly not because he was German—but because he was Jewish and had been in freedom and had returned despite the danger to find his family. And because he hadn't found them. The war in Europe was over now—justice and humanity needed to be brought back into the world. Even if only in small ways at the beginning.

"But I have a condition for leaving you food periodically."

"What?"

"You must get cleaned up tonight and take a new set of clothes. Those are in tatters."

When he had showered in the bathroom attached to my room—having my own facilities being the privilege of rank and command even if my unit was a small one—he padded out into my room in the nude. His body was perfectly formed and even as thin as he'd become, he retained muscle tone. He was beautifully equipped.

"Are you going to take me to your bed now?" he asked simply, in a low voice, his eyes, with the long, curly dark eyelashes fluttering.

"Excuse me?" I said. I had taken an overcoat I had replaced out of a closet, and I held it between him and me defensively, wondering wildly how he'd know that I'd developed a hard on from the knowledge that he was naked, in my shower.

"I saw you the other night, with the young man, in the forest. I saw that you made sex with men. If you want me clean, it must be because you wish to use me. You may to do. I will lie under you. I am sorry that I am too thin to be desirable now, but you are being kind to me, and—"

"No, please. That's not necessary," I said, embarrassed—embarrassed mostly because all the time he'd been in the shower I'd been fantasizing about fucking him, thoughts that only ran rampant when he came into the room naked. "I assure you that I have no designs on you. Just put on these clothes and go, please. I'll have someone escort you to the main gate. And take the food from the shrine; don't try coming in to go through the trash. You may be shot for trying."

"I am sorry if I have presumed—or if I have displeased you," he said with downcast eyes.

"Not at all," I answered. "I would not dream of taking advantage of you, though."

"It would not be taking advantage," he murmured. "I do lie under men."

This was my opening, but I was too shocked and obsessed with my responsibility to answer. And not having responded at once became the answer.

I stood, quaking, after he'd left. I wanted him even more now than I had before he'd offered himself to me and I had turned him away. It was only after he'd gone that I considered that what I'd told him meant that, under other circumstances, I would want to fuck him.

I hadn't done what I had for him to get my cock inside him. Surely I hadn't. I didn't want to believe that this might have been a motive, even subconsciously. I wasn't that much of a using predator. Thinking on that made me think beyond that. All that time walking from Italy to here. I was in command. I fucked what, five or six of my men regularly. Was that because they wanted it as much as I did? Had I been fooling myself? Taking advantage of my position. Surely the army would see it that way.

sr71plt
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