We're All Just Chalk Lines On The Pavement Of Life


We trudged through the once beautiful country side of France, searching for anyone from our company. We were gradually picking up stragglers from our squad, most from other platoons, but there were still less than 20 of us in total, 17 of us to be exact. And half of us were missing most of our equipment. This included Hero, who was one of our machine gunners. Her machine gun had been ripped off, as had almost everyone's leg bag, during the drop and so she had to make do with my .45, while I found spare ammo, and rifles from the dead.

It was heart wrenching really. To know that, while you had made it through the drop, and the first few hours, these men who you were passing, either strung up in a tree or laid out in the field, would never have another day on this earth. They wouldn't see the beauty of the world, or their family or friends. They wouldn't laugh, or love. They were gone, and they were gone for good. And no amount of grief or indeed more death, could ever rectify that.

We advanced further to our objective, a sudden and unwanted smell hit us.

It was disgusting, though luckily, most of us had a strong stomach and just about kept ourselves from throwing up, our Medic, Taffy, was one of the unfortunates. He emptied his stomach contents out on to the winding dirt path beneath our feet. Hero jumped back a foot in annoyance and disgust.

"Watch my boots Taff!" she yelped, narrowly avoiding sick on her boots.

"Sorry." He mumbled quietly, as he wiped the vomit from round his mouth.

Looking up, I saw a pillar of black smoke, which I knew was remnants of a fire. Maybe a crashed plane was causing the nauseating smell. The squad moved closer to the vile stench, the weak stomached trying hard to contain the contents of their bellies.

Behind a hedge, we discovered the plane I had surmised was causing the smell. I nodded at Hero, who made her way, slowly and carefully to the burnt out shell of the C-47.

Touching it lightly with the back of her hand, she hissed softly at me, "Still warm." On my command, she entered the plane.

"Oh shit." came a resounding sigh.

"What's wrong?" Frenchy asked, looking up as she came past him, back to me.

"Lieutenant Jones and Havisham are dead. As is Sergeant Collins, Arkwright, Connery and Barr. 1st squad has lost almost half it's NCO's and CO's." she groaned, miserably.

At that moment, all 17 of us trigger happy squaddies, realized that we were indeed, just chalk lines on the ground. We are born to be washed away. But we also realized how lucky we actually were. We were alive, blood was pumping through us, our hearts still beating and we weren't seriously injured. If we made it through today, we could make it through any day.


By the time we got to any kind of civilization, it was 0600 hours. I saw a small barn, a fire or some kind of light inside and some voices.

We cautiously approached, in case it was a kraut aid-station. Then someone spotted us.

"Flash!" the voice hissed at us.

"Thunder!" I called back, relieved it was the American's we'd found and not the Germans. I came out and signaled for the rest of the squad to do so too. The soldier who'd called out to me, roamed over to our shambolic group.

"Hey there, for a minute, I thought you guys were Krauts." He smiled at me.

"Hey! My mother's German!" Hero complained in offense.

"Oh er, sorry..."

My best friend simply grunted in acknowledgement, and wandered into the barn with a pout on her face.

"Ignore her, she doesn't mind, she's just tired, like the rest of us. I'm 1st Sergeant Sophie Drake of 1st squad, Tallahassee Company. And some of my squad...Most of them are from 2nd squad." I introduced myself and the rest of the group.

"I'm Corporal Seamus Doyle, 82nd. We're all along way off...I've been tagging along with some guys from the 502nd...They're around here somewhere...Lieutenant Colonel Cassidy is inside too, so you should go talk to him."

"502nd? Isn't there objective Carentan?" I asked, looking around the barn.

"Yeah, like I said we're all aways off."

"My squads are supposed to be heading to Carentan too..We'll just have to tag along with them." I thought aloud.

Hopefully, we'd all make it to our objective.