Sorry for going AWOL and if you're still following the story this is chapter 11 I think x And I have added more to this chapter!
Rose was pondering whether agreeing to marry Bill was right. She had known him three years true but she had only ever been with him at work and she had never met his family. Currently she was laid in the field hospital finishing off the last of her treatment, she was sure to be discharged today. Sure enough later that day Rose was discharged by Roe and was free to return to Battalion HQ. Bill had given her a ring he got sent in a letter from home but she couldn't wear it so it rested next to her dog tags. Rose loved Bill, that much had become clear but she didn't know if she wanted to marry just yet, been engaged was enough for now.
October 5th 1944
A week later the Company was at the crossroads, well Rose was sat with Richard who was cleaning and fixing something with some tape. "Replacements, new to how and what ifs, I swear one of them has never shaved" I said to Richard, who agreed with me.
"Yeah, Kids" dead panned Dick.
"This is one hell of a dog Rose" said Luz as Rose threw a stick to him.
"What have you called him Rosie?" asked Dick, she could tell his mind was racing so she humoured him
"Trigger" I said as I continued to inspect the table I was sat on
"That's good, I like that" said Luz, Luz was such a nice character to have on the front line because of his humour and ability to lift anyone's spirits just by talking to them.
"Got anything on this?" I asked Luz as I noticed the radio.
"Nope all quiet" said Luz but as soon as the words left his lips the patrol came bursting through the doors.
"It's okay Alley, okay, get him on the table" said one soldier, Rose couldn't tell who through the mass of voices but she could deduce what was going on, Alley had been hit and they needed Roe.
"Alright I got this" said Roe's clear New York accent as they laid Alley on the table.
"Where am I? Where am I?" asked Alley clearly losing his ability to think properly.
"It's okay Alley, Roe's gonna get you fixed up real nice" Rose soothed as she stroked his hair in what she hoped was a comforting manner.
"Where was it?" asked Dick to Leibgott who clearly looked shaken up and agitated.
"Crossroads" came is reply
"If it wasn't for your loud mouth they would never have known" said Joe D
"Hey you know what Joe back off" said Joe L threateningly.
"Go run for the Lieutenant now!" I said to break of any argument which wasn't helping Alley
"Lipton, assemble me a squad" ordered Dick, clearly in battle mode.
"Okay, first squad on your feet, let's move it, come on now, weapons and ammo only" barked Lipton. Rose grabbed her gun and ammo along with the rest of first squad.
First squad now extremely quiet but with adrenaline pumping through them tiptoed though a shallow ditch led by Dick. They walked only five or six paces in the ditch and then a machine gun rang out which prompted Easy to drop to the ground and wait until it was clear.
"MG42" said Rose to which Dick agreed to "What the hell are they shooting at?" Rose asked
"Probably Battalion but that is three miles away, why give away their position? Anyway it needs checking out, stay here and wait for the signal" said Dick quietly to Rose.
"Yes Sir" said Rose. On the ground all they could hear was irregular shots of machine gun fire, Rose thought that if Bill could see her now he would go ape shit. Dick gave the signal and Rose gave the signal for some to stay in the ditch and some to follow her, they all knew who she was on about. Rose and her fellows climbed up the bank and rolled down it which Rose couldn't help but smile at. They ran across the track as quickly as they could down to the next banking, Rose was enjoying the thrill of the chase.
"This the fall back point, mortars deploy here, first squad on me" ordered Dick in a shout whisper voice as Germans were shouting in the background, Dick and Rose both gave the signal to crouch. Dick ran up the hill and observed for a moment until he saw what was going on and called first squad up to him, he started telling people who to shoot. Rose had to shoot the first on the right and Talbert the second on the right, both being very good shots Dick was relying on them to hit first time. Dick shot first but then more soldiers came so it was free for all, as soon as Dick's squad had finished firing a mortar went off then the machine gun, this was true example of how Easy worked, together because together they stood alone. Dick and Rose were parted and at the fall back point she met with Leibgott and Cob who were getting ready to fire.
"There are trench based Germans in there" she said to the pair of them as they fired. She made her way back to Dick and he was calling for suppressing fire and ordered Dukeman to go fetch something but as soon as he stood he was shot, Joe Toye gave the statement that Dukeman was down. Rose hated it when someone died, she never really felt like they were gone only back home but deep down she knew she would never see them again.
The following day Rose, Talbert and Peacock got the orders "Peacock you take ten me up the left flank, Talbert you take ten men up the right flank, Marshall you stick to me, we're going down the middle so you two follow down the sides, questions? Good go" this came from Dick Winters.
"Fix bayonets" ordered Rose "Go on the red smoke" added as an order. Dick hesitated until he finally popped the can of red smoke and ran for it. The can started to fizz but no smoke came out but some of the men wanted to run, Perconte and Bull, until Peacock ordered them to wait for the smoke. Rose was glad at least someone listened to her orders. It finally went off and the thirty three men and one woman ran like hell to support Dick who had just started taking out a division by himself. They reached him and started firing at the Germans. It turned out they were an SS division, they didn't really stand a chance against easy but suddenly more men came.
"Christ on a fucking bike!" cried Rose and then Peacock saw
"It's a whole other company!" shouted Peacock. But this didn't deter easy company they just pulled out their machine guns, the grenades and kept firing. Webster, Johnny and Rose looked in a ditch where two SS officers came out speaking German.
"What is he saying?" asked Johnny, who quite amusingly for a good soldier didn't speak a single word of German.
"They are telling us they are Polish!" said Webster, highly confused. To this Rose jumped into the ditch.
"There aint no Polish in the SS, now move" Johnny shouted prodding them with his bayonet, they didn't understand what he said but they seemed to get a gist of what he was saying.
They took them as prisoners and started running with the rest of the men, until Webster was shot in the leg. Rose thought that he was making too much of a deal about it been the Queen of getting wounded.
It was later on when Joe Leibgott seemed to be shooting at nothing when Rose told him to knock it off. "Christ Joe, knock it off" but he kept shooting "That's an order!" Rose shouted as he finished off his ammo.
"Jesus Christ Princess, they're just Krauts" he said agitated, angry and impatient.
"Don't disobey me again Joe, I won't tolerate it, Captain wants you to take these prisoners to Battalion CP" Rose said calmly.
"Come on Kraut boys" shouted Joe until Rose stopped him going any further.
"Drop your ammo" Rose ordered, Joe looked bewildered, "Give me your weapon" which he did so, Rose took out his ammo and left him one round "You have one round I want all those prisoners alive, shoot one and the rest will jump you" Rose said clearly and sternly. "How many prisoners do we have Johnny?" Hollered Rose to which Johnny replied that they had eleven "Remember I want them all alive Joe, I mean it" with that he left to take them back.
"We had them on the run" said Peacock to Nixon who wasn't really paying any attention.
"What's that?" questioned Nixon, now finally interested
"These were flooding back to the ferry crossing when we came at them with artillery, it was like a turkey shoot, then they hit us with their eighty eights and zeroed in on these crossroads, we were luck though only twenty two wounded" informed Peacock.
"Lucky? Where is Captain Winters?" asked Nixon who had absorbed all the information and didn't consider them to be lucky. Dick and Rose were sat by a post on their own taking in the nights events. They suddenly looked up when the heard Nixon approaching. "22 wounded, lucky huh, you okay?" asked Nixon clearly very sceptical.
"Yeah, one killed" said Dick morbidly
"Who?" asked Nixon looking at the pair now understanding why the looked so down.
"Dukeman" Rose managed to choke out and zoned out on what Nixon and Dick were saying.
"You got a drink?" asked Dick "Of water?" he added smiling slightly knowing his good friend to be an addict. Nixon sniffed the water before clarifying that it was indeed water. Rose and Dick shred it between them.
The three of them made their way over to where Colonel Sink was he immediately started saying "three sixty third hit off earlier this morning about the same time these SS made a run for my CP down the road, third battalion got the hell beaten out of them, Horton was killed" he said this very sadly.
"Major Horton is dead? I can't believe it" said Rose, clearly disturbed by the news
"Yes Rose, they hit 2nd Battalion CP with force, he was organising the defence...Captain Nixon, Lieutenant Marshall if you will excuse us for a moment" asked Sink before heading off with Dick. Rose noticed he was been promoted to Major!
"Good Lord! Lew! Dick's been promoted to Major!" Rose squealed with delight and gave Nixon a huge hug. They both laughed and grinned until they realised that Dick wasn't going to be commanding Easy. "Oh Lew I do hope Moose gets the command of Easy, I like him" Rose said with a sudden revelation to Nixon but he smiled deviously thinking he could set them up only he didn't know about her engagement to a certain Staff Sergeant.
October 17th 1944.
"Come on Lew" called Rose as she and Dick were trying to wake him up.
"Come on Lew let's move it, they want us back up at Battalion, come on its Sink's orders we've got 10 minutes" said Dick in an agitated voice.
"Alright I'll be down" said Lew making no effort to move.
"Come on, come on let's go" Rose said equally annoyed trying to shake him awake. As she finished trying to shake him to wake him up Dick threw a glass on liquid over Lew's head.
"Ugh, alright I'm up" cried Lew until he realised "Jesus that's my own damn piss for God's sake" he said angrily throwing a pillow at Dick. He soon got ready and joined Dick and Rose in the car.
Full awakened now Lew said "We're the only group who have the Germans on this side of the Rhine, if we'd have taken Hasthorpe and I'm not saying that that would have been easy but we'd be over the river and well supplied with the Krauts on our heels..." Rose didn't pay any attention to the rest of his monologue and it seemed Dick wasn't either. "Hey, are you actually listening to me?" to which Rose replied
"Of course Lew" and batted her eyelashes as she got out of the truck.
"Hanging on every word" smiled Dick as he also climbed out.
Rose, Nixon and Dick all entered the Battalion HQ and Rose asked Heyliger, who stood at the door what was going on to which he replied "Whatever is going on Sink is not happy" he, said worriedly.
"Nixon, Heyliger, Marshall" called Sink as he beckoned them over.
"This is Colonel Dobie of the British Army" he introduced him and then said "Captain Nixon our Battalion S2 and this fellow is Captain Moose Heyliger" to which Dobie laughed at "Also this is second lieutenant Marshall, she is valuable to us so she needs to be here also she just got promoted to first lieutenant" Sink smiled at her as she shook his hand but stayed silent. "Anyway the British lost 8,000 men when Market Garden fell on its ass which is why from Boxtel to Hertogenbosch we are coordinating a rescue operation for the Red Devils who were trapped when Arnhem fell" said Sink before Colonel Dobie started speaking.
"Dutch resistance are harbouring 140 of my chaps here just outside of Gerry town across from the river, they will settle in the woods here tonight" he said in a upper class British accent which made Rose miss her home.
"For easy company, we need to get them back across the Rhine as soon as possible" said Strayer
"140 men?" I asked finally speaking up, shocking Dobie with my accent but he carried on.
"The engineers are supplying six boats, now the rendez-vous point is isolated in Schijndel I swam it myself last night, at approximately 03:00 hours there was a man there with a handheld red torch, that would be a hand held red flashlight" the Colonel finished cheekily, he probably knew that Rose knew.
"Aye, we'll call this thing Operation Pegasus, by second battalion on the spot get it done" Said sink as he went back to the map table.
"Captain Nixon, Lieutenant Rose, we're here to help Colonel Dobie in whatever way we can, you need anything? You come to me" said Strayer to Rose and Nixon harshly, we both agreed, Nixon continued to talk to Dobie as Rose waited for Dick talking to Moose.
"So finally the Princess of the 101st is a Lieutenant" Moose laughed at me
"Wow, we've spoken what two words to one another and you're already poking fun at me!" I said happily.
"If you put it like that Marshall, I'd like to get to know you more know what I mean?" he said with a waggle of his eyebrows.
Rose laughed at his before replying "I'm spoken for but I hope we get on well Captain!" she said this merrily. Dick rejoined Rose as Moose said.
"Don't go doing anything more reckless Marshall we need you here" he said heartily.
Rose and Dick walked out and went back to his office; Rose was currently off duty so Dick invited Rose to read over some stuff for him after finding out that she was a teacher. She was much obliged to do so, she couldn't exactly refuse Dick anything really or for that matter Lewis or Harry either. Rose smiled to herself; Harry wasn't going to be happy that she now outranked him, though she suspected not for long.
Rose and Dick were sat in a nice silence when someone knocked on the door who Dick admitted and it was the one and only Lewis Nixon, he simply held up his flask, it was seemingly empty. "I don't know why I am still doing this" admitted Lew
"What drinking?" asked Rose
"No hiding it in his foot locker" Rose smiled at his sarcastic manner, he was such an easy going bloke, when he was sober "I am a Captain for Christ's sake" he added.
"Well, why don't you just give it up" suggested Dick
"What drinking?"Asked Lewis.
"No hiding it in my foot locker" replied Dick he smiled when he continued "You're a Captain for Pete's sake!"
"Maybe you're right, this may be the perfect place to stop drinking right here on the business of the Allied Advance...cheers" he added as he took a swig of VAT 69. Both Rose and Dick chuckled at his commitment. "Dick you know that's not literature just keep it simple, in the first person, plural say we a lot" he said as he walked out "Oh by the way Princess Guarnere and the lads are looking for you, I think they're missing you" he winked.
"Thanks for the tip" replied Dick sarcastically.
"Excuse me Dick" Rose said as she left to find the lads she had basically lived with for the past three years, she had missed them and with a packed last fortnight and another mission on the way, to say she was stressed was an understatement.