Violet

Soon it was dark, and we were walking through a mess of water, fire, debris, and corpses. I felt Mallory and Faye close behind me as we skirted another burned body. In front of us, I heard distant gunshots and somebody, Hoobler, mutter "We lost F Company."

Perconte, who appeared out of nowhere, scoffed. "Again?"

A few men were sent to look for F Company a few minutes before Winters and Nixon walked up. By then, the girls and I were huddled together, murmuring softly amongst ourselves.

"What do you think happened to them?" Mallory signed.

I shrugged just as Winters said, "Did you send somebody?"

"Yeah, I got Hoobler and Blithe out there now," Welsh replied shortly.

"Why are we stopped?" Nixon asked impatiently.

"This is about officers crapping out on their training, Nix," Winters replied, scratching his hand absently. He sighed after a moment. "Come on. Let's get this show on the road."

Nixon walked past us and nodded in acknowledgement, followed by Winters. They made their way in the direction that Hoobler and Blithe had gone and soon disappeared into the trees.

"I hope everyone is alright," I murmured. Faye and Mallory nodded as we settled down to await the return of our COs. Maybe ten minutes had gone by before I saw figures moving in the tree line. I crouched, pulling Mallory and Faye down with me, my hand instantly going to the holster at my hip. In the corner of my eye, I noticed Faye and Mallory getting ready to arm themselves also. We waited in complete silence for several heart-stopping seconds with bated breath before the figures were close enough to recognize.

I sighed in relief as Faye said quietly, "It's our guys."

I smiled without humor, standing up again. "And they've found F Company."

We greeted the returning men as we went on the move again.


The next day, we found ourselves approaching Carentan. We were at the back of the company as we waited, crouched in the road, for the order to move. Suddenly, first platoon broke away and headed up the road in a stooped run. I sprung up, knowing our time to move was soon, and followed the rest of the men.

Suddenly, sharp shots rang through the still air and a few men from first went down. A scream pierced the stunned silence, "GET DOWN! GET DOWN!"

I froze, crouched in a ditch. More shots rang out and I sat in disbelief. This was actually happening. There was a large chance that I was going to die (again) in this town near the coast of France. I couldn't move, couldn't make a sound, and my breath was coming in rapid, shallow gasps, sending me on my way to hyperventilation.

Suddenly, a stinging pain brought me to my senses. Mallory, with fire and worry in her bright brown eyes, held her hand poised over my cheek. She was ever silent, but I understood what she was trying to tell me. Get a grip girl. You weren't sent here just to die.

Shaking my head to clear it, I nodded fiercely and gripped her shoulder before standing back up and taking in the situation. Beside me, I heard another slap and knew that Faye had frozen too. Thank God for Mallory, or we might as well have been dead women walking.

Bullets ripped up the ground around the men in front of me, and sudden realization hit me.

It's like shooting fish in a barrel… "GET GOING!" I shouted at them. "MOVE!"

Down the line, Nixon had the same thought as me.

"You're in the open, for Pete's sake!"

Winters shot up and started urging the men on.

"GO! GO!"

He continued yelling at the men to move. While some of them did, many others stayed, frozen like I had been. I ran up to them and started pulling them out of the ditches by their pack straps, ignoring the bullets whizzing around me.

"GET YOUR SORRY ASSES UP! DO YOU WANT TO GET US ALL KILLED?" Faye screamed from behind me, pulling two men out of the ditch. Winters nodded to us gratefully as the men shook off their stupor and started hauling ass into the town.

Around us, dirt was flying with bullets and men were shouting out the positions of the snipers, but all we could hear was the pounding of our own racing hearts in our ears as we raced for the cover of the buildings. In the confusion, we were separated from Second platoon.

"Shit!" I exclaimed. "What do we do?"

Faye let out a slight scream as a soldier nearby was dropped by a sniper. Without hesitation, Mallory darted out from behind our building and grabbed the dead private's M-1. She dove back beside us just as a bullet blasted off a corner of the building.

"We'll stay here until we find someone from 2nd," she signed, "and we'll take out krauts from here while the others go in."

Faye and I stared at her in amazement. "Where the hell did that come from?" Faye asked incredulously.

Mallory shrugged.

"Halo 3?" I asked with a smirk.

She shot me a glare and promptly turned her back on us, peeking around the corner. She pulled back quickly as another shot rang out and grimly shoved in a new clip, readying the weapon for its future victims. As she looked me in the eyes, I saw the last trace of innocence fade from her own as she prepared herself to take the lives of others to see us safely through this war. It was then that I shed all previous fears of injury or death and embraced the fact that I too would do anything to get my friends out of this alive, even if it meant forfeiting my own life.

Before Mallory stepped out to take a shot at the sniper, I pulled her back and hugged her tightly. "If you get yourself killed, I will never speak to you again."

She pulled back and smiled slightly. Straining to speak, she managed to whisper hoarsely, "I wouldn't give you the satisfaction."

Taking a deep breath, she gave us one last smirk, and popped around the corner, dropping to one knee, and sighting along the rifle. Crack! The concrete by her shoulder exploded, but she gave it no nevermind. Her finger hugged the trigger, and with one sharp snap, the sniper fell to the floor of the room he was holed up in with a curse on his lips and a bullet in his brain.

Faye pulled Mallory back behind the wall just as Buck Compton, George Luz, Bill Guarnere and Don Malarkey dove around the corner.

"Oh!" Malarkey exclaimed when he noticed us. The rest of the guys stared at us in surprise. Spotting the rifle in Mallory's hand, Buck said, "You were the one who took out the sniper?"

Mallory nodded, and the guys whistled. Just then, the ground near us exploded and Buck shouted, "Mortars!"

When the dust cleared, I peeked around the corner to locate the pair of krauts who manned the mortar. Farther down the street, I saw a head appear over a low wall, and a man shouted harshly in German and pointed to me.

I hid again and caught sight of Faye pulling her head back as well. "Well, Miss Softball," she said to me, holding out a grenade, "it's your time to shine."

The corner of my mouth twitched in the ghost of a smile and I grabbed the grenade from her hand. Settling against the wall, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and steeled myself for what I was about to do.

"What is she...?"

Luz's question turned into a yell of surprise as I darted out from behind the wall. I was completely vulnerable, with no cover whatsoever. Praying to whatever God was listening that there were no more snipers in this block, I gritted my teeth, yanked the pin from the grenade and threw it with all my might at the wall the krauts were hiding behind. At the exact moment the grenade detonated, I heard the crack of a gun, and a searing pain stung my right thigh.

With a cry of pain, I fell to the ground as my leg gave way. Another bullet whizzed over my head before the ground rushed up to meet me. As my vision wavered, strong hands reached out and dragged me back under cover, causing me to groan in pain when my leg was jostled.

"Medic!" Faye screamed.

"Someone go find Doc Roe," Buck yelled as Mallory ripped open the leg of my ODs. I hissed when her fingers gently probed the wound, inspecting the bloody mess.

"It's a clean in-and-out," Faye announced for Mallory, who had grabbed a handkerchief and pressed it over the wound to stop the bleeding. A few moments later, Malarkey ran up.

"There's an aid station set up just a few streets over," he panted. "Doc Roe told us to bring her there."

Faye helped me sit up. "Can you walk?" she asked anxiously.

I grimaced as I stood up. "Of course I can walk!" I replied indignantly, but my leg gave me away when it collapsed the instant I put my weight on it. Rolling his eyes, Buck easily picked me up and slung me over his shoulder. "Hey!" I cried. "Put me down! I don't need any help!"

Luz rolled his eyes. "Yeah, you made that obvious when you almost fell on your face."

Any further complaints were ignored in a similar fashion as we made our way to the Aid Station.


Buck dropped me off in a chair near the door and went to see Winters who, as we had heard from another young soldier, had been injured by a ricochet. Exhausted, I leaned my head back against the wall. I had been unable to sleep the night before and it was starting to catch up with me. I started to doze until a deep voice brought my eyes fluttering open and my heart leaping to my throat.

"What the hell happened here?"

My eyes locked on those of Lieutenant Speirs and my breath caught in my throat. His gaze was smoldering with some suppressed intensity and I found that I had to look away to continue thinking coherently.

"How the hell did you get yourself injured?" he demanded irately. "I thought you said that you could take care of yourselves!"

Faye stepped in front of him and pointed a finger at his chest. "Now listen here buddy," she hissed, jabbing him with her finger. "Violet risked a hell of a lot more than quite a few of your little soldier-boys here to take out a group of Germans who were trying to kill us, thank you very much!"

Mallory tugged on Faye's arm, trying to silence her, but before she could continue, Guarnere spoke up.

"It's true, sir," he said. "Miss Cutler here risked getting hit by a sniper or somethin' to take out a couple o' krauts with mortars that was tryin' to blow our asses up."

He glanced at the girls and me and added, "Excuse my French."

Faye and I waved him off.

"'S alright," I mumbled. "We've heard worse."

"We've said worse," Faye muttered, looking away. Mallory jabbed her with her elbow as Speirs turned his gaze back on me.

After a few nerve-wracking moments, he finally said quietly, "I guess I should be thanking you, then, for your help."

I felt the heat creeping into my face and had to look away as I muttered, "It's not me who you should be thanking. Mallory is the one who took out the sniper."

"Thank you, then."

The speaker, however, was not Speirs. My head jerked up to see Nixon and Winters standing in the doorway. Nixon, being the one that had spoken, had his eyes trained on Mallory, whose dark skin was blushing to the roots of her even darker hair. Grinning, I nudged Faye, who looked at me blankly.

"Wha-" I pointed at Mallory and then gestured discreetly to the Lieutenant that was causing the blush. "Ooooh." An evil grin spread across her face as she thought of the many ways to put her evil matchmaking skills to use.

"Don't let it get out of hand," I warned her quietly, raising my eyebrows at the look she gave me. "I'm serious. You know what happened last time."

Faye's eyes took on a distant look as she traveled back in time to the last unfortunate ending of her matchmaking and she rubbed her abdomen absently, wincing. "Oooh. Right. Ouch."

We turned back to Mallory, who had just replied softly, "It was nothing, really."

Nixon smiled at her, causing her face to burn even more. "Well, you must be one hell of a marksman-er, woman."

Mallory hid her face behind her hair and, in a fit of helpfulness, Faye offered, "Her father was a sniper in the Marine Corps. She's been able to shoot a gun since before she could walk. Well, figuratively anyways."

Before anyone else could say anything else, Doc Roe appeared.

"What's the problem, Miss Elder?" he asked as he squatted beside me. Before I could answer, however, he had already spotted the blood on my ODs and the handkerchief. "Shot in the thigh," I muttered lamely.

Doc Roe stood and helped me up as well.

"Let's get you over to the table here," he said, helping me hobble into the next room. I sat on the table and propped my leg up, wincing as the wounded muscles pulled. For the next ten minutes or so, Doc Roe cleaned the wound, sewed the hole up, and bandaged it.

"Thanks a lot," I breathed, extremely grateful that the pain had lessened.

He smiled slightly and helped me off of the table.

"Well, hopefully, this will be the last time you'll have to get yourself patched up. I don't want to see you in an aid station again unless you're the one doin' the patchin' up, alright?"

I smiled back at him and tested my leg. Stable.

"I'll see what I can do," I replied, flashing him a smile before re-joining my friends outside.