Hello, hello, hello! I cannot even begin to express how sorry I am about seemingly disappearing from the face of the earth for the last few months. I just can't believe it's the end of November already. This fall has flown by so fast. Believe me, I've been trying to work on this, but with school starting up again and getting settled into a new place, I've spent many nights staring at a blinking curser, trying to find what little creative energy I have left after writing papers and completing endless art assignments. Plus, it was really hard to write about frostbite and snow when it's 80 degrees in October…
Thankfully, the end the semester is near and I will have an entire free month to write to my heart's content. On a random and personal note, it was a year ago right now I saw Band of Brothers for the first time. I can't believe I've come this far with this story since I first got the idea. So here it is, enjoy and a Happy Thanksgiving!
Dick wished the wind would blow.
Just a little bit of a breeze every now and then…
Yes, it would make it colder…dear god, just the thought of that sharp air slicing through the many layers of wool and 'windproof' cotton covering his already shivering body made his bones ache. It would be downright miserable, more so than it already was, but he'd take the frigid wind over the eerie, unnerving disquiet of the frozen landscape. When the Kraut's weren't shelling the hell out of the them, there was nothing besides the occasional pop-pop-pop of a distant rifle, the ground rattling boom of a random shelling, or the intermittent hacky whoop-ah of a trooper coughing up a lung, that kept his ears from hearing, or supposedly hearing, every little thing around him.
Every few seconds a twig snapped, or a dead leaf still clinging to a skeletal branch of a rare broad leaf sapling in the sea of evergreens was rattled by some invisible specter, or the sound of snow crunching beneath non-existent boots echoed off the tree trunks around his foxhole. It seemed those unnerving sounds, either real or materialized in an overactive imagination, met the soldier's hyper-sensitive ears every other minute.
Click-crack-swish
Dick stopped breathing and his heart even seemed to pause it's beating for a moment. His stiff, gloved fingers tightened around the cold, wood stock of the M1 cradled readily in his arms. Dick's green hued eyes calmly, but rapidly, searched the lifeless, dreary landscape for signs of a supposedly encroaching enemy, but nothing caught his immediate attention, even as he squinted harder into the distant fog looming lazily in and around the gray, snow-frosted trees. He swallowed the rising lump in his throat and his eyes flickered back to the right, to the left, over to that large clump of scrubby brush, and back to the right again, but still they detected nothing out of the ordinary.
Dick finally relinquished his futile search and sighed. He squeezed his eyes closed as if trying to reset his tumultuous thoughts and attempted to relax his painfully tense muscles. He pursed his colorless, chapped lips as he internally cursed his unfounded, stupid, and annoying paranoia. They'd finally seemed to have patched up the holes in their line for the time being. A Kraut would have to sneak by several OPs, a vast array of manned foxholes and Easy's CP before they made it to Dick's foxhole, so the fact that he was still jumpy infuriated him to no end. Searching for an enemy he knew wasn't there was about driving him insane. That's why he wanted the wind to blow. He needed something to account for his madness, a gust of skin burning wind, a flutter bird wings, hell, at this point, he'd even settle for another wayward, unarmed, German infantryman heeding nature's call.
Dick squeezed his eyes shut for a second and shook his head as if loosening the icicles from his cold, stiff mind. The Captain needed to ignore those ominous noises. He needed to stay sharp, stay focused on patrol orders, TO and E's, casualty reports, enemy movements-all the things that encompassed his battalion duties. Then again, it seemed when he wasn't being overly paranoid, his mind fogged over with thoughts of warm food, roaring fires and a brunette beauty named Rose…
All of a sudden, the sounds of crunching snow met his ears for real. Dick's senses went on high alert and once again his hands tightened around the familiar firearm that had become an extension of his body since his time in combat. His head whipped around to the direction of the obtruding sounds and his eyes focused on the approaching figure.
However, his body and mind relaxed as soon as he recognized that familiar gait of his best friend.
"Dick…" Lewis Nixon's raspy voice called out before being interrupted by a string of hacky coughs.
Dick shifted his rifle to the other arm as he watched his fellow officer settle down into his foxhole.
"You okay?" he asked as Lewis dug out his canteen from behind his back and took a sip to quell the minor attack.
Dick was tempted to inquire about the actual contents of that metal vessel, but he decided ignorance was bliss.
"Ah-hem!" Lewis let out an exaggerated final cough as he cleared his throat. "Yah…I'm fine...can't get rid of me that easily"
He took another sip of his canteen. That familiar, satisfied grimace crossed Lewis's face and confirmed Dick's suspicions. A tiny smile pulled at the corner of his lips and he eyed his friend for a moment before looking away, shaking his head. Dick had been wondering all week if his friend had been able to gather the essentials before pulling out of Mourmelon, he should have known better than to think otherwise. Nothing, including Hitler's surprise offensive, could keep Lewis Nixon from his beloved blended whiskey.
Dick stuffed his painfully numb hands further underneath his armpits where one would expect to find some form of warmth.
"What's up?" he asked before burrowing his chin down into the saving grace of his scarf.
Lewis's canteen scraped and rattled as his gloved fingers clumsily screwed the lid back on.
"You're not going to like it…" Lew's gravelly voice said as he reached around his back, returning his stash to its proper place. "They want some reconnaissance patrols sent out…" he continued, heading Dick's inquisitive stare. "find the German lines…see what they're up to…"
Lewis was right, Dick didn't like it. Those damned patrols, though necessary to their defense, cost more in supplies and casualties than they were worth. The men hardly had enough ammo to go around to each man, let alone be able to productively engage and fend off the enemy. Unfortunately, that was just the nature of the beast called war. Dick had every confidence in the men. They were tough and they were smart. He knew what they'd been through and how they worked together.
He only wished he could say the same thing about the people supposed to be leading those incredible men. Dog and Fox Companies seemed to be in good hands. Their commanders had their misgivings, but they were good, smart leaders for the most part. Unlike Dike, they weren't totally inexperienced and clueless. Easy's only officer with decent combat experience was Buck, however, there was something different about Lieutenant Compton.
Dick couldn't put his finger on it, but the man huddled in the foxhole a few hundred feet away wasn't the same man Dick put on an ambulance in Holland. The Captain saw it right away that night back in Mourmelon. Like Dick, Buck loved a good movie. It was a popular topic of conversation between the two officers. Buck seemed to know everything about the silver screen and loved analyzing and critiquing the, more often than not, dismal selections the Army offered. So when Buck didn't jump into an enthusiastic assessment of the plotline and the actors' portrayals of the various characters, Dick knew something was up, still, it he couldn't figure out what exactly.
With Buck being somewhat not entirely all there, Dick thanked god for First Sergeant Carwood Lipton. That man went far beyond his call of duty to lead and care for his men. As far as Dick was concerned, the sergeant was more qualified than half the officers in the battalion.
"Who do they want?" Dick asked with a croaky voice and wiped his runny nose on his sleeve.
"Everyone…whole battalion…" Lewis could see the fleeting look of discontent pass over the Captain's face. "First is still regrouping after their ass-kicking in Foy…third is going to be in your reserve, but they got the crap shelled out of them yesterday so don't count on much…"
Dick sighed, shaking his head. It wasn't like 2nd Battalion was in any better condition. Both Dog and Easy had gotten hit that morning and had a some casualties evacuated into what was left of the town. However, there was no use complaining about it, somebody had to do it. It was just the way things were.
Dick shifted and untangled his arms from his body so his could dig out his maps. His stiff fingers struggled to find and grasp the zipper of his jacket. In fact, his entire body could hardly move. Between the cold and sleeping in a cramped foxhole with his knees drawn up against his chest, he was stiffer than all get out. He felt like the Tin Man in the Wizard of Oz in need of a good oiling.
"Any word on the ammo situation…" Dick's voice suddenly became very hoarse. He tried to clear it with a cough. "Or should I have the men start making bows and arrows?" he said between coughs.
A hearty chuckle rumbled in Lewis's throat as he reached in his pocket for the sheet he'd scribbled Dick's patrol orders on. Dick had sure been firing off those wisecracks left and right, more so than normal. So many people couldn't understand how two seemingly opposite people could get along so well. What they didn't realize was that underneath the alcoholism, the stoic demeanor, the privileged lifestyle and the Mennonite background, Lewis and Dick were very much the same man. They understood one another and both shared many of the same ideals about war and leadership. Most importantly, they both had the same dry, sarcastic sense of humor. The two could sit around for hours and shoot the bull back and forth. Usually, Nix had the upper hand in clever remarks, but since his leave in Paris, Dick had been running laps around him.
"Yah, tell 'em to get their standard issue slingshots ready…" Lewis threw in as he clumsily unfolded the brittle scrap of paper.
Dick smiled, but inside he knew their situation was nothing to be joking about. Despite the fact they were gaining some ground around Bastogne, the German's hadn't backed off in even the slightest and it was only a matter of time before the boys would have to start using their rifles as clubs. Dick had given out his only full clip to Bull, telling him to disperse the measly eight rounds to his squad. They needed it more than Dick did. He kept one round in the chamber of his M-1 just so he could feel like he wasn't carrying it around for show. His pistol had a few rounds in it, but the leather of his holster was so stiff from the cold, he'd never be able to get it out quick enough if needed. However, the ability to defend themselves was the least of their problems. Dick was more concerned with the men dying of exposure. They couldn't start fires, they didn't have hardly any food, and many of the troopers had the beginnings of trench foot. If the Krauts didn't kill them, Mother Nature was going to.
"What about supplies?" Dick inquired, his voice thick and raspy with congestion.
Dick hoped he'd painted a grim enough picture for General McAuliffe the other morning, not that it took any embellishments. The truth of the matter was bleaker than anything a person could ever conjure up. The good general seemed to understand the ineloquent brief from a young, out-of-uniform, and under-ranked Battalion XO with lather icing up on his face. Dick thought he heard the roar of C-47s earlier that morning.
"Yah, in matter of fact I did hear something about supplies…" Lewis answered, pushing his helmet back to reveal the wily glimmer in his dark eyes.
Dick paused, his hand on the map he sought in the inside pocket of his jacket, and looked at Nix.
"And…" the Captain prodded.
"They made a successful drop this morning…" Lewis continued, but by the ominous and sarcastic tone in his voice, Dick knew the news wasn't going to be good. "too bad they were off by about five miles."
Dick shook his head and laid his fist full of folded papers up on the frozen edge of his hole. Of course something like that would happen. He quickly set back to work zipping his cloths back up before anymore of his hard-earned body heat escaped.
"Right now there's a whole division of Krauts learning the about the gastronomical wonders of Spam and beans…" said Lewis dryly.
Dick eyed him for a few seconds with a hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth. He could imagine the Krauts sitting around a foxhole with opened cardboard boxes of K-rations scattered about, them all wondering 'how the hell are these Americans fighting the war eating this garbage?'
When Dick was first introduced to the 'food' of a K-ration, he didn't believe such a tiny box could nourish a cat, let alone a grown man fighting a war. He, like many other ignorant souls, ate several helpings of the highly concentrated food after the first one he ingested just didn't seem to be enough. Just as the instructors had warned, Dick received the worst gut ache he had ever suffered in his entire life. After that, Dick never questioned what or how much of something the Army told him to put in his mouth, like those air sickness pills. He knew he didn't need them, but he took them anyway. So maybe dropping those supplies to the unbeknownst German's wouldn't be such a horrible logistical mistake.
Dick sighed and peered around the frosty landscape, his soldier sense checking to make sure there wasn't a company of German's flanking them, before he hauled his stiff and sore body up out of the his hole. He had to get up and get his limps moving and blood flowing before they snapped off like frozen hotdogs. Up from the protection of the frozen dirt, he got his wind he was looking for. It burned his skin like a slap in the face.
The trooper turned back to the man still hunkered down in his hole and lent him a hand. Lewis looked at up at the redheaded Captain for a second before grasping it.
"Where we goin'?" he asked as Dick hauled him up into a standing position.
"Easy's CP…you can brief Dike yourself." Dick slung his rifle over his shoulder with a hint of a sly smile and gathered his maps.
"Oh thanks…" Lewis grumbled sarcastically. "You mean if he's actually there…"
Dick couldn't help but chuckle. Lewis couldn't stand Dike, and unlike everyone else, he made no effort to hide his disdain for the man. As much as Lewis hated the hierarchy of rank, he sure loved pulling it on the Lieutenant. Dick thought it was kind of funny. Both men came from incredibly similar backgrounds and one would have thought the two would have gotten along famously, but they didn't, not by a long shot.
Dick stamped the numbness out of his feet and the two officers set out for Foxhole Norman's lair. According to Dick's watch, it was around noon, but the constant mist made the time of day hardly discernable.
"Goddamnit…" Lewis swore as the needle-like wind made his entire body jerk like it had hit a wall. "Yah know…never thought I'd miss those shot-to-hell tin cans they stuffed us in… " he blew into his frozen hands. "The damn planes were at least warm when they were on fire…"
Dick looked down at his frigid friend as he adjusted his thin scarf tighter around his neck and smirked. It seemed decades ago since their last jump in Holland. When Dick joined the paratroopers, the recruiters painted a very heroic, dramatic and unrealistic picture of what this elite unit really did. He imagined every other day they'd be flying in over the battlefields and relieve the battered and desperate infantry men in their most desperate hour of need. Dick and his men would float down and a sad soldier would lift his heavy helmet and feel his heart soar as those angle-like paratroopers landed gracefully on their feet, slung up their weapon and ran into battle. Never missing a beat, they'd save the day; just like in the movies. It didn't take long before the young, naive officer learned the truth about war. It wasn't glamorous and it sure as hell wasn't a movie.
Dick's eyes flickered up towards the cloudy sky, wondering if things would have been different if they would have parachuted in instead of tailgate jumping. Maybe they would have had more supplies with them because they would have been packed into every possible inch of their bodies. Then again, it would have made it the most comfortable and easy jump since his first training jump back in Toccoa. That one had been fun because he didn't have more equipment strapped to his body then what he weighed. He really did enjoy jumping because was exciting and absolutely terrifying all at the same time. His favorite thing about it was the airplane ride. Someday he'd like to ride in one without having to jump out of it, or it being shot up by flak.
The Pennsylvanian's ears stained as they blocked out the crunching of the snow beneath his and Lewis's feet and listened for any possible hum of a distant C-47. Thinking about jumping made him think about heights, thinking about heights made him think of high things. One tall structure in particular popped in his head. A warm smile settled onto his lips as fond memory clouded over his eyes…
Dick gazed out on the surrounding city from the top level of the Eifel Tower. He remembered the first time he saw the iconic structure in a movie. It was so majestic and foreign looking, something everyone could recognize, but only a small portion would actually see with their own eyes. Dick never imagined he'd be one of those people.
He leaned into the rail and looked down tiny people milling about in the streets below like ants at a person's feet. A tiny trickle of hate and anger pulsed inside him as he imagine Hitler walking down those very same streets. However, he quickly swallowed that anger, realizing that the fact he, an American soldier on furlough, was standing there enjoying the delights of Paris. Surely that was a testament to the Allie's progress thus far.
Dick tried to lean further out so he could see better, but the bars where doing their job and prevented him from doing so. Dick had felt comfortable being so far away from the solid ground his entire life. When he was three years old, his mother caught him climbing up his grandfather's windmill. He made it more than half way up before his father managed to catch him and bring him down. Dick couldn't recall the event, but his father said the little strawberry-blonde boy had a grin on his face the entire time. That is until his mother got a hold of him.
However, no spanking could deter the determined and precocious Richard Winters. When he got in trouble before his teenage years, it was usually because his feet weren't on the ground. It was no surprise to his family when he took a job painting radio towers in college. It didn't exactly have the best working conditions, but it paid better than mowing lawns and bagging groceries. When Dick thought about it, parachuting out of an airplane and landing behind enemy lines was probably safer than dangling off those slippery, metal towers with a bucket of paint hanging on his foot and a ratty, frayed rope loosely tied around his waist. Dick had taken a couple of missteps that turned into a few, very close calls. Still, despite his close to disastrous experiments with gravity, he felt right at home in thinner air.
The Captain turned from the edge and looked over towards his touring partner. He smiled as he witnessed an Army nurse he was very, very acquainted with cautiously peak over the edge, before she cringed and quickly turned away from the incredible view.
Rose squeezed her eyes shut and took a shaky, not-really-all-that-calming breath and tried to make herself forget the jelly-like feeling in her knees. She didn't see the man, she was pretending not to be having less than respectable relations with, walk over and stand next to her.
"Don't like heights, Lieutenant?" he teased.
Rose's eyes opened at the sound of his voice and they shot over to Dick before rolling in jealous annoyance. He was coolly leaning against the railing as if it where spit rail fence along a dirt road, and not like it was several stories up in the sky. Dick also had a small, knowing smirk on his lips and she could see the mocking glimmer in his eyes.
"No, Captain…" she said as she turned her back away from the rail and looked across the platform, though that didn't offer any more of a comforting visage than the other side. "I can't say I'm too fond of them."
Rose could feel the butterflies twist and jumble in her stomach and her heart race, however, she couldn't blame them that time on the handsome, sharp-dressed paratrooper standing a respectable distance from her. Rose didn't know why she was afraid of heights. They messed with her equilibrium and anything more than a few stories gave her vertigo.
Dick turned his head and looked back over the city.
"Oh, this is nothing…" He casually shrugged a shoulder, his sly smirk subtly growing, making his eyes sparkle merrily.
Rose looked at him, only turning her head far enough for her eyes to see him and not the edge that she was surely going to plunge to her death over, and gave him a nasty glare. Rose had two older brothers, she knew when she was being made fun of.
"Not everyone lists 'jumping deliberately and willingly out of an airplane' on their resume, sir." she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.
Dick chuckled and flashed her a toothy smile as he straightened up his body so his comfortable posture wasn't perhaps so offending towards the uneasy Lieutenant. He took a few steps closer, not only unable to resist the urge to protect, but to continue to playfully pester Rose.
"Jumping's the easy part…" he said with a mischievous tone in his husky voice as his hands settled on the iron rail. "it's the landing that'll get yah…"
Rose narrowed her eyes and her lips formed into an annoyed pout. The Captain continued to calmly gaze out on to the landscape, but she could see that sparkle in his eyes. He was still laughing at her inside. The determined, rebellious young girl Rose had not known for years started to bubble up inside of her. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew against her body making wisps of hair flutter about her face and her knee caps quiver. Despite the fear frenziedly surging around inside her body, Rose couldn't back down from the challenge those blue-green were giving her.
Rose closed her eyes and took a deep breath before forcing herself to do an about-face and join Dick at the rail. Dick turned his head when he noticed her presence, but he didn't say a word. Rose's knuckles were deathly white clutched as she tightly gripped the rail. He could hear her irregular breathing and see out of the corner of his eye her flared nostrils and set jaw as she faced her fears.
Damn, Dick thought. Every minute that he spent with this woman, she managed to amaze and impress him even more. Suddenly, a jolt of excitement and anticipation shot through his chest. They still had one more night together. He wished for a moment that the day would hurry up and get over with so he could take her back to the hotel, but he quickly scolded himself for his lustful thoughts. They didn't have much time left together, so he better treasure every single second and not hurry it along.
Dick turned around and looked about the tower platform. It wasn't as crowded anymore and the people that were around where busy gawking at the view and had their backs to the surreptitious lovers. Dick sneakily inched closer to the woman he was yearning for. Still internally fighting her demons, Rose didn't notice his covert movements until she felt a warm, calloused hand slide over her tightly clenched one. Rose snapped out of her self-imposed trance. She looked down at his hand that softly stroked the back of hers with his thumb. Her first reaction was to pull it away in fear of being seen, but one look in his eyes vanquished any of those worries. She knew he wouldn't do something so obvious unless it was safe, she trusted Dick.
A different type of butterflies, the good kind, started fluttering in her stomach as she loosed her vice-like grip on the rail and allowed him to intertwine his fingers in hers. Dick smiled as he looked into her beautiful face and watched her worrisome appearance slowly fade into that of contentment.
"Jesus, Dick!" Lewis Nixon's voice brought the Captain back to the cold, harsh reality.
Dick shook the pleasant cobwebs of Paris out of his head and looked down to see Lewis's gloved hand grasping the sleeve of his fatigue jacket. They'd walked nearly fifty yards from Dick's foxhole, but the XO didn't recall a single second of the journey.
"I just saved you life…" Lewis declared and let go of Dick's arm. "You almost ran into that tree…"
"Oh…" Dick looked at the perpetrating evergreen next to him and pursed his lips. "I uh…I guess I wasn't paying attention…" His voice trailed off and he nervously scratched the corner of his eye as he looked around the area, hoping nobody had see his near calamity.
Lewis gave the man a funny look from under his dark, thick eyebrows and nodded. That strange and unexplainable feeling he'd had in the back of his mind since Dick had returned seemed to quiver. Under different circumstances, he would have interrogated his friend further, but Lewis just chalked Dick's inattentiveness up to the stresses of the siege. Hell, it would have been strange not to be preoccupied in this hell.
He gave the still flummoxed looking Captain another glance before turning back to their surroundings and the infinite maze of foxholes and trees around them. They had a busy day ahead of them and there'd be time to mock Dick's clumsiness later.
"Where the hell is Dike's hole anyway..."