Violet

Noon found us crouched in a ditch near a small farmhouse. Airplanes flew loudly overhead, causing me to duck on instinct. Not too long after, we were given the order to move out. Trudging across a wide field, we found ourselves approaching another town. My boots squelched through the mud as I ran up to the wooden fence ahead of me.

A window opened in the building ahead of us, and as the men trained their rifles on the figures in the window, a woman leaned out and tied an orange banner to the post.

Oh,I thought. Of course. This must be Eindhoven.


The streets were crowded with ecstatic people, young and old, and orange flags and banners hung from every imaginable space. Everyone was singing and dancing, women were kissing men, and men shook hands and hugged the soldiers. With my helmet on, I must have been fairly undistinguishable from a man, and found myself soundly kissed by more than a few women as well. After the sixth time, I finally ripped off my helmet with a growl, allowing my hair to cascade down my back in all of its auburn glory as I roughly wiped the lipstick and saliva off of my cheek.

The people around me gaped at me in surprise as my true gender was revealed, but shrugged it off and moved to their next victims. We received the order to keep moving, and had to help pry more than a few of the men away from the bosoms of rejoicing women. We moved, slowly but surely through the town until we came across Winters and Nixon on a street corner.

I almost laughed out loud when I caught sight of our sweet Mallory glaring at the women who were planting kisses on Nix's cheeks. She huffed and stomped ahead, glaring at all in her path. Soon, we came across a group of men hauling a screaming woman to the center of the town, where other women were having their hair forcefully shorn off, and their dresses ripped. Mallory made to help her, but I grabbed onto her sleeve, understanding what was happening.

"Don't," I murmured to her. "That woman slept with the Nazis when they were occupying Eindhoven. If you interfere, you'll only make things worse for her."

She glared at me, and then bit her lip in defeat and allowed herself to be led away from the commotion. It hurt us to do nothing, but we knew we had to. As we made our way closer to the edge of town, the crowds parted to make way for tanks occupied by rejoicing villagers waving pennants. Suddenly, Luz appeared at Faye's shoulder and shouted to us over the growing clamor of the tanks that we were staying for the night. As my gaze fell upon the raucous crowd, I sighed.

So much for getting a good night's sleep.


The next day, we were up bright and early, riding on tanks out of Eindhoven to Nuenen. I was almost asleep on my tank, when Mallory nudged me and pointed down the road. A little ways down stood a young woman with a shaved head and a small child in her arms. The baby must have been the accidental spawn of a Nazi she had bedded, and both the woman and the child were cast out of their home. Pity overwhelmed me, and I dug in my pack for a chocolate bar and some bread. Tossing it down to Alley, who was walking beside our tank, I told him to give it to the woman. Someone else also passed down a carton of cigarettes that she could use to barter with, and Alley handed the load to the poor mother.

She accepted them silently, but looked gratefully up at me with tearful eyes, and it almost broke my heart. She rested her cheek on her baby's head and in moments had passed from our sight.

Slowly, the tanks came to a halt, and the men on the ground slid into the ditches on the sides of the road. One of the lieutenants, in a fit of idiocy, strode out into the open and raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes.

Fool! He's a sitting duck!

Bull yelled out to him, "Lieutenant!" causing him to turn around in time to be shot in the neck by a sniper.

"MEDIC!"

Yelling, the men jumped off of the tanks and hurried into the ditches.

Bull ran to the Lieutenant's side, and yelled again.

"MEDIC UP FRONT! MEDIC UP FRONT!"

As one of the other medics ran to help, Bull shouted for everyone to keep moving. Suddenly, the medic went down, shot in the thigh. With a curse, I was up on my feet and running into the road. Sliding to a stop next to the lieutenant, I threw open my bag and tore out a pack of sulfa and bandages. Ripping open the sulfa, I poured it over the wound, relieved that the bullet hadn't severed an artery.

He turned just in time, the lucky son of a bitch.

I ignored the man's strangled cry of pain as I pressed the bandages against his neck and tied them securely. After I jabbed a morphine syrette into his neck, I dragged him and the other medic into the ditch, where Faye took care of the other man's leg as I ran to help the other wounded.


Somehow, Faye, Mallory, and I found ourselves cornered behind a building with half of first and second platoon. When I peered around the corner, I almost got my head taken off by a kraut's lucky shot. Yanking my head back, I looked worriedly at everyone else.

"We can't get past the tank," I reported.

"Son of a bitch!" Johnny Martin growled.

Next to me, however, Mallory was busily working on an explosive contraption. She hooked a bunch of spare grenades onto two belts tied together and threaded a string through the pins, so that if the string was pulled, all of the grenades would detonate at the same time. I got the idea just as Toye muttered, "What are we gonna do?"

I handed my gun to Faye and grabbed the finished grenade belt from Mallory's hands. Peeking around the corner again, I saw the tank moving ever closer. Taking a deep breath, I leaned back against the wall and looked over at Faye, who would be my covering fire as I pulled the stupidest stunt I could possibly ever think of.

Throwing a carefree smirk onto my face, I muttered, "Let's blow this popsicle stand." and darted out into the street as Mallory snorted, and Faye cocked the rifle. She dropped down onto one knee and started picking off krauts in my path as I hauled ass down the street.

OH SHIT! OH SHIT! OH SHIT! OH SHIT!

Bullets ricocheted around my feet and my heart pounded in my ears as I neared the tank. Behind me, I could hear the shouts of the men telling me to get back, but I paid them no heed. Soon enough, they gave up and offered their rifles as well.

I cursed as the road exploded by my left foot and one of the rock fragments flew up and cut open my cheek, leaving a trail of blood to streak down my face. By then, the krauts on the other side of the tank had spotted me as well, and were trying to blow my crazy ass to kingdom come.

Gritting my teeth, I threw my legs out in front of me in a mockery of a softball slide, and slid behind the side of the tank without krauts guarding it, yanking the pins out of the grenades and slinging the belt over the side of the tank as my momentum carried me swiftly past it.

Before I even came to a complete stop, I was on my feet and racing back to second platoon. My timing was a bit off, however, and the grenades exploded before I was at a safe distance. The force of the explosion knocked me off of my feet as chunks of twisted metal flew around me, and a particularly heavy piece pinned me down.

Within moments, I heard shouts, footsteps, and gunshots as second platoon made their way to the wreckage.

"Violet?' came Faye's frantic voice. "Violet, where are you?"

I groaned when I found that I couldn't move.

"Violet?" It was Mallory this time.

"Over here," I moaned, earning a sharp pain in my chest. Soon, capable hands lifted the piece of Panzer off of me and pulled me up. Another stab ripped through my chest, causing me to whimper. Martin, who was holding me up, gave me a disapproving look.

"Don't look at me in that tone of voice!" I wheezed painfully. "I'd like to see y'all do better. If you hadn't noticed, we were going to be massacred if somebody didn't do something!"

Martin pursed his lips and sighed. "You're right. Thank you. But you should still be more careful! We can't afford to lose one of our medics."

Faye grinned. "You mean some of your eye-candy," she muttered to Mallory, who snorted. Faye slung my arm over her shoulder, while Martin did the same, and together, we all made our way back to the rest of Easy, where we were being taken away in trucks.

They slung me onto a truck next to Buck, who was laying on his stomach on the floor.

"What happened to you?" I asked with a grin, already knowing the answer, and pressed a hand to my side as another wave of pain shot through my ribs.

"Hit in the ass," Guarnere supplied with a smirk. "One bullet, four holes."

I tried to laugh but stopped short when my ribs protested.

"Poor baby," I said with a smile. "Must be an easy company tradition, getting shot in the ass."