A/N: Just a little filler, but I am pretty proud of this, so I hope you like this as the story moves along. :)
We attacked at dawn just as we had planned. Fire and manoeuvre was the name of the game. Or so Bill told me as he jumped back into our foxhole. He moved us up the line to another foxhole which was a pleasant surprise. We were moving foxholes me laughing as Toye bitched about how he was just getting comfortable in our foxhole, was when the first mortar hit.
We immediately both plopped down on the ground taking cover, hearing the yells of our officers. I noticed Welsh waving us over to his foxhole and I nudged Toye in that direction.
We belly crawled over to the foxhole. I threw in Joe first wanting him to get there safely and throwing him his weapon before rolling in myself. We were struck by more mortars and I duck to my surprise next to none other than a smoking George, I smirked as I greeted him.
"Morning gentlemen, what a pleasant surprise." I said with a smirk, being met with a small laugh from Luz as our eyes met. He could instantly cheer me up, sadly we broke eye contact as the last motar his and I immediately stood up grabbing my riffle and getting to work. I had not come this far in the army to die because I joked around.
I sat my riffle up and began looking around for things to shoot. Sadly there was rarely anything to shoot at least as I could see because of a thick fog that covered us all. I finally noticed a moving shadow and shot at it, I knew I had hit when it fell down. I kept employing this method hoping it helped.
Guarnere came over and yelled to cover the crest of the hill and I turned my firing that direction. At one point one of the men decided to stand up and I immediately grabbed him by the pant and pulled him back towards the ground. He looked at me shocked but I gave him a mean look.
"Stay low, unless you wanna get shot!" I yelled before turning back to find enemies to shoot.
Everything I did was completely reliant on instinct and it seemed to be working. Or at least it seemed like it, until the heavy artillery came in. It shot out a left flank and I looked in horror as our soldiers pulled back. I knew it was Fox and I looked over annoyed knowing it made our stand weaker as a whole. I turned back to the field and kept firing knowing I would have to kill twice as many krauts now.
We kept firing but the krauts seemed to not die, at least not fast enough for us to keep up. And that is when we heard it. First I was baffled thinking one of their own artillery must have hit wrong, but then George hit my shoulder making me look in the other direction. Our heavy artillery was a sight for sore eyes. And I turned to Luz and cheered knowing we actually had a chance now that our own tanks were here.
The germans started retreating and we were laughing and whooping as we shot down the ones running away now. The glee and joy with knowing we were not gonna get killed today after all was a pure euphoric feeling.
I looked over at George as they were completely gone and I wished I had a picture of the smile on his face. I wanted to treasure that moment forever, however horrible circumstances might have been the course of it. He lit a smoke and offered it to me and for once I took it. He lit another one and I inhaled in joy knowing the worst was over for a little while.
We sat closely and smoked for a while in silence. I leaned in a little bit letting my arm brush up against his. I felt safe and thankful to be alive. I honestly never wanted this moment to end.
After 25 days on the god damn line. We were finally being moved to a base north of Utah. I was as happy as anyone to finally get a break from this hell. 3 days and nights of hard fighting my ass. I lied around tired with the rest of the boys as the news finally broke. Hot showers and warm food, before we could go back to England. I was happier than I had been in a while. We had lead mission after mission sitting ducks while we slept, always surrounded.
The boys had managed to get me a separate bathroom to shower in and I was grateful. It felt like it took forever to wash all of the grime and blood off of me. Thankfully very little of the blood was my own. Which was a weird thing to be thankful for, but these days I took what I could get. At this point I was just happy that I had survived this far. I had even been told that I was good. Harry told me so himself before we left Omaha. Once all of that was off and I had a fresh chest bandage curtesy of doc, and a freshly pressed uniform I was off to the messhall. The smell of hot food was music to my senses.
When we had all eaten Harry walked over and told me to take a walk with him. I looked around at the guys who looked back just as confused. I looked at Luz as the last person horrified. Had the officers found out about me not being a man? I could get shot for that sort of thing, so him pulling me out to talk to me alone was kind of a big deal at this point. But Harry had known me for at least 2 years, I figured if he knew he did not mind, and if not he would not be bothered having knowing I was a good soldier despite being a woman. Hell he had himself praised me the day before. I nodded and got up from my seat and followed him out of the mess hall. I tried to keep calm as we walked around the base slowly.
"Calm down Lacy, you're not in trouble." He said after a few minutes and I let out a sigh and smirked at him.
"Could have fooled me Lieutenant." I said honestly making him chuckle. He stopped when he thought we were in a secluded enough area and smiled at me.
"Quite the opposite actually." He said and I looked at him confused, he had already praised me earlier, I was certain that I was not any better than the rest of these men. I just did what any of these good soldiers would do as well. I tried to shrug him off but he just smiled at me.
"Apparently division has heard about all of the good you have done." He said and I rolled my eyes slightly at him.
"Come on sir. I am just doing my duty. I am certain all of the other men do just as good work." I said feeling uncomfortable with all of this praise. Harry just shrugged.
"Well, Winters and myself included like what we see. From leading that group to the rendezvous point, to encouraging soldiers to get out of their foxholes in Carantan, to start the line of suppressing fire outside of Carantan. You have done some really good work, and division thinks so as well. They have deemed it fit to promote you. Congratulations, Sergent Lacy" He said I smiled as he said all of these things. It had all just been instinct, I never wanted to be a leader of anything. I had not done any of those things for glory or even that promotion, I just didn't want to see my friends die. Harry took out some new pins and chevrons that fit my new position. I smiled as he put on the pins.
"Thank you so much Harry. I mean sir." I said quickly correcting myself, he just smiled and waved it off.
We chatted lightly as we walked back into the messhall. I knew I had to sow on these chevrons later, but right now I was just proud. I was happy that the army liked me enough to promote me. They would probably remove any promotions if they ever found out I was a woman. But until then I was proud that I had served my comrades well enough to deserve this.
I had always liked Welsh and I was happy that he was the one giving this to me. I walked in and both Martin and Lip shook my hand and congratulated me, they apparently knew all along. I smiled and thanked then before I was stopped by Winters.
"Congratulations Sergent." He said and I smiled, I hoped he knew how much their praise meant to me. Of course until the war was long over I could never tell them how much it really meant. How it felt knowing none of them would ever believe I could do this, if they knew I was a woman.
"Thank you Lieutenant. I hope I can live up to this title." I said honestly scared I would fuck all of this up. He just gave me a small smile and shrugged his shoulder.
"If what I have heard from Harry, and seen myself out there. Then I have no doubt you can." He said genuinely and I just smiled hoping he truly knew how much this meant to me. I thanked him once again and he shook my hand with a knowing look before letting me go.
He was an upstanding man, and a fantastic officer. I hoped his trust in me was not misplaced. On the walk back to the table it dawned on me that I would now be responsible for my friends lives. I was scared some of them would get killed because of me. Some of them probably would. It created a big lump in my throat as I walked back to my table suddenly dreading my sudden rise in responsibility.
"Hey Chris, this is Heffron he's cool, cuz he's from South Philly. A true babe isn't he?" Guarnere said as I sat down. I shook my head and smiled as I shook the privates hand.
"Good to meet you private." I said and he just nodded nervously.
"So how bad was it?" Luz asked, still not knowing if I had gotten into trouble.
"Terrible." I said faking being bummed out. This got all of the tables attention.
"How terrible we talking? On a scale from latrine duty to court marshalled?" Lieb asked and I now sighed.
"Worse." I said pausing for dramatic effect before breaking into a smile.
"They promoted me to Sergent." I said with a smirk, and Luz hit me on the arm for making him worry about me.
Congratulations flew all around and I laughed with them until we were shushed to listen to the tale of the night of the bajonette. I laughed along with the guys as I listened to the rhyming version of what had happened out there.
It was almost just as amusing just to see Smithy squirm with embarrassment.
Sadly after finishing the story Lip walked in front of us, wearing a sad face. I knew this was bad news as soon as he looked at us.
"Listen up, a couple of announcements. Firstly, the training exercise for tonight at 22.00 has been cancelled." This earned him a round of applause, but I knew where this was headed, I could see it in Lips eyes.
"Secondly, all passes are hereby revoked. We're heading back to France, so pack up your gear. We will not be returning to England. As you were." He said walking off the middle.
There was almost a silence of dread that feel over all of us. I was tired and glad for the couple of days we got to spend in relative peace and quiet. I sighed and looked over at Luz who was just lighting a cigarette. I understood, we all had a way of coping.
I just starred at the ceiling all night dreading the long day ahead of us. So far it had already been tough to get through, I wondered if Winters and Welsh was right about me, that I could handle this extra responsibility. I wondered if I could handle the fact that I was now partly responsible for my comrades. I sighed and turned and looked at Luz who was sleeping beside me.
I wondered how on earth that man managed to do so. I wondered if either of us were even gonna make it out of this hell alive. I really hoped we did.
War was hell, and I knew we had a lot of long and hard days ahead of us before we could finally get some peace.
