[A/N: I got the idea for this story from an article I found on the web about Cajun soldiers in WWII. Credit: Professor Robin Meche Kube (thank you, ma'am). And, yeah, it's GA universe, but look! The whole squad's in this one and it's in the ETO! Calloo! Callay!
Disclaimer: Still not mine; still not making any money (unbetaed; read at your own risk).]
"Michaud, what the hell are you doing?" Sarge roared from the left flank.
The big man had jumped up and run, drawing fire toward Nelson and Caje. Neither had adequate cover and Billy was hit. It was only chance that Caje hadn't been hit as well. The Cajun was bandaging Billy; Doc was pinned down by the machine gun and couldn't get over to help. It didn't help that he was also pinned down by Saunders' glare, a restraint even more effective than German gunfire in the medic's estimation.
The replacement didn't answer Sarge. He slid forward and lobbed the grenade in his hand at the Germans. The explosion silenced the machine gun and for a moment, the squad could relax.
Sarge bounced up from his position, sent Kirkbride to check the Germans and once again confronted the new soldier. "I asked you what the hell you thought you were doing! You could have gotten Caje and Nelson killed. You got Billy wounded!"
"Samewon hed to ged de Boche!"
"I ordered Caje to do it, not you!"
Michaud looked over his shoulder at Caje with contempt. "Heem? He's ceety Cajun. You shoulda as'ed me to do it!"
"Well, I didn't, and –"
Beyond Michaud, Saunders saw Caje's astonishment turn to anger, but the scout didn't get the chance to react. Kirby was in the replacement's face, roaring with Irish fury on his friend's behalf.
"Listen to me, you half-baked, lousy excuse for a private! Caje is twice the soldier you are and at least twice the man! You decide to showboat and go out and almost get our guys killed! You got the kid there shot! Why, you can't even speak English proper-like – what they were thinking of when they put you in this man's Army, I can't imagine –"
Sarge cut off the BAR man's vitriol. "Down, Kirby," he said wearily. "Help Caje put together a stretcher to get Billy back. We've got what we came for." He watched Doc check Caje's bandaging job. "Doc, how is Nelson?"
"If we head back now, he should be all right." Doc shot Michaud a glare of pure contempt. It's not like we don't get enough chances to get killed, now this wanna-be hero has to find new ways to help the Germans out.
#
It was an angry squad that returned to the bivouac. Lieutenant Hanley, who watched them come in, cornered his non-com after Nelson had been left at the aid tent. "What's this all about?"
Saunders answered, disgust in his voice. "Michaud. The new guy. Tried to be a hero and almost got Caje and Nelson killed."
"Well. I knew there had been issues before, although never quite enough for action. I figured that he and Caje would hit it off and that might help."
"You KNEW, Lieutenant?"
"Yes, I did, Sergeant." Hanley's voice was cool. "This isn't the first time you've had a difficult man in the unit. I expect you to deal with it. Dismissed."
"Yes, SIR!" Oh, yes. He and Caje hit it off all right. "Hit" was almost exactly what it came to.
#
One week earlier, the unit had gotten a new replacement.
"Dees ees fairst squat? Roi – eh, Keeng Compagnie?"
The squad turned as one to the door of the partially-bombed house, to see the man standing there. He was shaggy, with dark hair, a warm complexion and black eyes, and was almost as big as Littlejohn. Caje was the first to react, as he heard the man's accent. He's Cajun, I'm sure of it. "Oui! C'est nous! Ils m'appelant Caje, et ceci est Kirby, Littlejohn, Nelson, Kirkbride et Doc. Le sergent Saunders sera de retour bientôt."
"Rene Michaud." He shook Caje's hand and nodded to the others. "Vous êtes Cajun, eh?" He pronounced "Cajun" with a short 'a' and the accent on the last syllable.
"Oui. Je m'appelle Paul LeMay. Je suis de Bayou Liberté."
"Je suis de Bayou Teche."
"Ah."
Caje turned to the others. "He's Cajun from farther out in the country than I am – west of New Orleans. Some of my mother's family is from out that way." He turned back to Michaud in all friendliness, only to meet a glare from the other man.
"Parlez-vous l'anglais?"
The scout shrugged. "Naturellement. Est-ce un problème?"
"Seulement les Cajuns de la villes parlez l'anglais."
"Great. I can't get away from this even here." He shook his head and answered the replacement, "Pardon, mais toute ma famille parle anglais et nous ne vivons pas de la ville."
"What's he saying, Caje?" Littlejohn sensed that the discussion wasn't friendly.
"He's saying that only 'city Cajuns' speak English."
"He doesn't speak English?" Kirby said incredulously. "How's he getting along?"
"Ah spak anglais – anglish. Some."
"Hey, look. Peut-etre que je peux vous aider."
Michaud glared at Caje. "Don' wan' your help. Don' need it." He snorted. "Ceety Cajun."
"What's going on here?" Saunders entered and took in the situation rapidly.
Caje stepped back. His voice was taut with the effort not to show his anger. "New guy - from bayou country. Rene Michaud."
"Another Cajun? Great." Sarge nodded. "Good to have you."
"Not Cajun like heem. He's not'in' but a city boug. P'tit boug." He sneered, taking in Caje's shorter stature.
Doc saw that Caje was very close to losing his temper. His chin came up defiantly in a way that the medic had seen before. "Don't, Caje."
The scout's eyes flicked toward his squad mate. "Don't worry, Doc. I wouldn't bother with un grand beedé like him." He turned away dismissively.
The replacement recognized contempt when he saw it, in any language, and he raised one enormous fist to plaster the smaller man into the nearby wall – only to have it grasped firmly by the only soldier in the unit larger than he was.
"I wouldn't do that," Littlejohn said softly. "That's a very bad idea."
Michaud tried to pull away, but Littlejohn's grip was like a vise. He gave up. "Bien. Pas de problème."
"I hope that means 'no problem', Michaud. I don't tolerate brawling," Sarge said firmly.
The big Cajun nodded sullenly. When Littlejohn let go, Michaud turned away, shaking his hand and flexing it, to find a place to sleep as far from the others as he could.
Saunders took off his helmet and ran his hand through his hair. I'd almost rather go out shorthanded than with some of the replacements we get. Not that I want my squad exhausted, but we almost get more worn out between juggling personalities and trying to keep these green replacements from getting killed than if we just did the job ourselves.
The intervening week had been difficult. Caje, by nature easygoing, if not always very social, kept his distance from Michaud and kept busy, letting Sarge send him on any errands that needed to be done, and occasionally even volunteering, much to Kirby's astonishment. The BAR man watched the replacement askance, eyeing him like a racetrack agent presented with a possibly phony two-dollar bill. The others had tried, in their own ways, to make Michaud welcome, but had been met with reactions ranging from indifference, in Nelson and Kirkbride's cases, to outright hostility to Doc and Littlejohn's overtures. Sarge he obeyed, until the incident on patrol. The big man watched how Sarge relied on the scout, and grew more and more sullen. He hadn't done anything to try to show the other Cajun up until Saunders had given Caje the order to flank the machine gun nest and toss in his grenades.
Brockmeyer passed Sarge with a handful of letters. He leaned into First Squad's shelter and yelled, "Mail call!" and then jumped back to avoid being overrun.
"Kirby, Kirby, LeMay, Kirkbride, Kirkbride, LeMay, Michaud, Littlejohn, Nelson –"
"I'll take that one," Littlejohn said. "I'm going to go see how he's doing and I can read it to him."
"Fine. Here's one for you, Doc. And Sarge," Brockmeyer turned around, "here's a couple for you."
"Thanks."
The squad scattered around and began reading their mail. Michaud opened his letter excitedly, but then his shoulders drooped. He had a dejected look on his face as he put the letter back in the envelope and put it in his field jacket.
As the Cajun began to walk away, Saunders caught up with him. "Bad news, Michaud? Want to talk about it?"
Michaud stopped in surprise. "Bad news? Non, no." He looked back over Sarge's shoulder at Caje for a moment, then shook his head and turned to leave. "Merci for askin', Sarzh."
Saunders looked at him, puzzled, and then shrugged and went back to his own mail.
#
Later that evening, Caje was sitting outside, carving on a piece of wood and smoking. He looked up for a moment to see Michaud heading in his direction.
"'Ey, LeMay." The big man shuffled his feet, clearly uncomfortable.
"Michaud." Caje turned the nearly-finished piece over in his hand and looked at it.
"Ineedyour'elp." The words came out in a rush.
The scout looked puzzled. He mashed out his cigarette and put it in his pocket. "What?"
"J'ai besoin de votre aide." Michaud couldn't quite meet his fellow Cajun's eyes.
Caje snorted. "That's not what you said when I offered to help last week."
"Je sais." He paused, and swallowed hard. I am sorry, Caje. Mais, before, in the other units, there were other Cajuns who spoke English and French. They all laughed at me because I did not speak English much. When I heard you speak English, I thought you would be like them. I am not stupid because I speak mostly French - but they acted as if I was.
The scout was taken aback. For a moment, he heard himself saying to his father, many years ago, "We're not bad just because we're Cajuns!"
"I know, Michaud." He put his knife away and tossed the small carving into the open pack at his feet. "I had the same fight with my papa as a boy, back when the government tried to stop all of us from speaking French and being Cajun." He looked up. "What do you need my help with?"
"Ma fille. She learns the English in school and writes to me. But – mais, I can understand speakin' English un peut, but l'écrit, aucune." He held out his letter. "Please, will you help me, tell me what she write? The others, they make the jokes and say bad things, at first, when they read my letters, then they tell me right. Please just tell me right, okay, Caje?"
Caje felt all his anger toward Michaud leave him in a rush. "Je promets," he said, knowing a promise in French would mean more to the man in front of him than its English equivalent. I'm sorry the others gave you a hard time. They might not have even meant to be mean, just teasing. I won't do that. I had to fight to learn French – my father was against it. I meant what I said the first day, Rene. I'll help you if you want me to. He took the letter from the other man and began to read it so he could explain it to the other man in French.
Michaud stopped him. "Merci, Caje. Too late to be amis?"
The scout smiled. "Non. Never too late for that. C'mon. Let's see what your 'tite fille has to say."
#
Hanley watched First Squad move out. He caught up with Sarge just as the non-com was about to follow his men.
"Looks like your new man has lightened his load a little, Saunders."
"Yes, sir. Knocking a chip off your shoulder will do that."
"How did you manage it?"
"Not me, Lieutenant. Our chaplain." Saunders looked at the Lieutenant with a determinedly straight face.
Hanley looked puzzled. "Chaplain? Doc?"
"Nope," Sarge grinned. "Caje." He indicated the head of the file, where Michaud and the scout were tossing words back and forth. "Or maybe I should say, 'our schoolteacher'."
"You've lost me, Sergeant."
"Caje tells me that Michaud had gotten a lot of grief because of his English – or lack of it. When he came to us and found another Cajun who could speak English well, he figured this would be more of the same."
"I see."
"Well, Caje is helping him learn English. And he's doing it without giving Michaud any guff, like before. Makes a big difference."
"Good." He nudged Saunders with his elbow and grinned. "Knew you'd be able to fix him up, Sergeant."
"Oh, yes, sir. Miracles are my specialty." He shook his head and hurried to catch up to Kirby, who had the rear. I'll tell Caje you said so.
- 30 -