Beta's: FandomlyCroft, Laura001, and Aniset are amazing, awesome people who helped me get this out to you all.
Last Time: The reporter finally took his leave of Easy Company and Joe Toye made his way back to the company.
"Artillery is the god of war." – Joseph Stalin
"Your heaviest artillery will be your will to live. Keep that big gun going." – Norman Cousins
Now: Easy Company retakes the position over Foy.
Warning: This is a rough one. Maybe read this one tomorrow, I won't judge.
-Chapter 38-
It was early evening the day after the reporter and camera crew had blown through and Toye had come back from the aid station. Things had settled back into normalcy for Easy Company – despite the influx of gossip to keep the boys entertained – when they got the order to retake their old position overlooking Foy.
The sky was a pale purple-gray as they moved out, which many agreed felt ominous. Eve was just happy they were finally getting on with it. They'd been circling Foy like wolves for weeks now.
Winters was leaving behind Dog Company plus a small three-man machine-gunner squad to hold the main line of resistance. Eve was selected to remain behind to make sure they were settled before rejoining Easy Company on the front lines.
"Been nice knowing you," Toye said, patting her on the back in mock conciliation. She swatted at him and hopped into the foxhole already inhabited by Christenson, Perconte, and the replacement Webb. It's good to have Toye back and in good spirits, she thought, even though he was showing said spirit by teasing her.
"Wouldn't drink too much, if I were you," advised one of the passing Easy Company men, Eve didn't see who. She was busy making sure they had enough boxes of ammo for Christenson's machine gun.
"Hey! Be careful if he offers you a cigarette," said Malarkey, holding up his gun to mime shooting them. Perconte and Christenson laughed good-naturedly in reply.
Eve ignored them and started dragging some branches that had been knocked down by the artillery fire back over to cover their foxhole. Dike had told them not to bother with reinforcing the small shelter since they would soon rejoin Easy Company, but Eve hoped that the men were smart enough to take it as a friendly suggestion rather than an actual order. Cover was just a good idea.
"What are they talking about?" she heard Webb ask. "If who offers us a cigarette?"
"Speirs," said Christenson, checking the breech of the machine gun. "Lieutenant Speirs."
Eve snorted – remembering the story and the rumors it had sparked all too well – and smacked Perconte on the arm to prompt the radio man up into helping her haul one of the bigger branches back into place. He scowled, but did indeed help her.
Ronald Speirs was still a legend – his mythos had yet to fade from anyone's mind, morphing and evolving the man into a larger than life figure. Stories of his exploits on D-Day still featured heavily in Easy Company gossip. They were often used as fodder to impress (and scare the crap out of) the new guys, despite said events happening in Normandy, six months ago, with no further rumors cropping up since.
Personally, Eve didn't see what all the fuss was about. Speirs was just like any other soldier. Sure he was a little crazy – she vividly remembered the suicidal stunt he'd pulled at Brecourt, hopping out of the trench into enemy fire like he had a death wish – but it was no more risky than Bill's wild attack on the horse drawn carriage that same day, or volunteering to jump out of a perfectly functional airplane.
There were other rumors about the lieutenant shooting his own man when the soldier turned up drunk on duty, but after dealing with two drunkards from Dog Company on her own, she understood the impulse. And there'd been no incidents (and no reprimands) since which led her to believe that there had been extreme circumstances she just wasn't aware of for Speirs to go so far as to shoot a man.
Plus, Speirs had apparently taken his company in hand with regards to her. Despite the relative close quarters with Dog Company during their stay in the Ardennes, Eve hadn't had any further problems with said drunkards since Mourmelon – much to her relief.
All in all, Speirs was all right in her book.
"He shot twenty POWs?" Webb asked with notes of both awe and horror in his tone as was typical in everyone hearing the story the first time.
"Well actually, I heard it was more like thirty," said Perconte adding fuel to the fire around the toothbrush he'd stuck in his mouth. The man was constantly, obsessively brushing his teeth despite having long since run out of toothpaste.
Eve understood that to someone who'd never been there, never been in the position of making an impossible decision when the chips were down and the cards were on the table, killing people in cold blood was hard to understand. The truth of the matter was, the lives of twenty or even thirty POWs – a number that increases with each retelling, Eve noted – was a mere drop in the bucket of blood that had been spilt in this war, let alone on D-Day. Eve herself had at least that many kills on her conscious from that day alone, so she wasn't inclined to starting pointing fingers of guilt and blame at anyone for doing what had to be done.
Besides, no one could – or would – definitively say that Speirs had done it.
"Christenson!" Speirs barked, appearing like a specter from the mist, summoned by his legend; and conveniently just in time to catch the tail end of Christenson's rendition of the German POW rumor.
"Lieutenant Speirs," said Christenson, meekly.
From the corner of her eye, Eve could see Christenson swallow convulsively and bit her cheek to keep from giggling at the stunned look on his face.
Speirs was stoic as he squatted down at the edge of the foxhole. At a crouch, he was a couple of heads taller than Christenson, even though the other man was standing flat footed in the foxhole, and he used that temporary height difference to his advantage.
Eve watched – wondering what the lieutenant had in store for the men who were foolish enough to be caught gossiping about the fearsome man within his hearing.
"I got the name right, Christenson?" Speirs asked as though he didn't know.
Eve knew full well that Speirs knew most of the original Easy guys from Toccoa by voice and name. It was true of all Toccoa veterans, that they knew each other on sight after two years of hardship together.
"Yes, sir," Christenson said quietly.
"What are you men doing out here?" Speirs asked, still poker faced.
"We're watching the line, sir," Christenson answered, meek under the severity Speirs radiated.
Eve turned at the sound of raised voices – English ones, thank God.
"Then keep up the good work," Speirs said blandly, apparently deciding that was enough for now.
The men next to her looked well and truly spooked, to Eve's amusement.
She bit her lip – harder this time – to stifle the laughter bubbling in her stomach. It was obvious to her that Speirs knew perfectly well what he was doing, and was purposefully teasing the men by being as awkward as possible.
"While you're at it, you might want to reinforce your cover."
"See," said Eve, nudging Perconte, because really, she'd told him so. He swatted back at her absently.
"Oh, actually, sir, Lieutenant Dike said not even to bother. We're only going to be here one day," said Perconte around his toothbrush, apparently still inclined to ignore her. Eve rolled her eyes and meanly wondered if Perconte's toothbrush was substituting for a pacifier for the man. It made her feel better, but the thought was definitely unfair.
"It was more of a suggestion," she muttered in defiance of the stupid order and the stupidity of those who'd decided to follow it, but Speirs drowned her out.
"Lieutenant Dike said that, huh?" Speirs said, staring into Perconte's eyes for a long moment before saying, flippantly: "Then forget what I said." The man gave a negligent shrug. "Carry on."
And with that, Speirs got up and walked away.
Eve looked at her still baffled boys and grabbed her helmet and rifle, intent on following him. She owed Dog Company's CO a report on what and who Dike had left behind before she could rejoin Easy. And it wasn't like the boys were following her lead with the cover anyways.
She'd barely moved towards him, when Speirs turned back – only a few steps away himself – and said, with all the precision and timing of an actor, "Oh, anyone care for a smoke?"
He held out a pack enticingly.
He may as well have been holding a live grenade from the way the boys still in the foxhole shrank back from him.
Perconte meekly continued brushing his teeth. Christenson just stared dumbfounded. Webb was too frightened to look away.
"You?" the Lieutenant asked, specifically looking at the replacement.
The poor kid shook his head frantically, rattling the helmet on his head, probably wetting himself with fear.
Speirs gave a 'suit yourself' shrug, winked at Eve – who had to bite her lip again to keep from spoiling the joke, and turned to continue walking away.
Eve followed, catching up in a few strides after a quick wave at the boys staying behind.
She smiled. The man had slowed down – presumably to light his cigarette, or perhaps he'd been waiting for her. "Sir?" she greeted just as he put the cigarette in his mouth. "May I accompany you to your CP?"
He shrugged, mindful that they were still within eyesight of the bewildered men in the foxhole and replied flippantly, "Sure."
Composed, the pair walked away, not too quickly, but definitely with purpose.
Eve barely lasted until they were out of earshot before she started laughing. It quickly turned to coughing and she was only mildly surprised as a warm hand started rubbing circles on her back to help sooth her fit.
"You, sir," she said as she caught her breath. Speirs's met her gaze looking worried, "Are a bad man." And then she started laughing again. It didn't take as long this time to either start or stop the subsequent coughing and she spit out the green crud that climbed up her throat into the snow with vengeful spite.
She gave him a grin, letting him know that she was all right.
He smiled back and offered her his pack of cigarettes.
He looked surprised when she took one, but shrugged casually, taking a drag on his own burning cigarette and smiled ruefully when she tucked her prize away.
She needed to start replenishing her stockpile now that they had supplies. This was as good a start as any.
"Rather ingeniously done, sir," she noted as they headed once more towards Dog Company's CP.
"What's that, Sergeant?" he asked, watching her peripherally.
"Now, you never have to share your cigarettes."
They shared a grin and kept walking.
XxX
When Eve finally wandered back into Easy's position, she stared in horror.
It was like walking into a nightmare.
All winter the Germans had been shortening their artillery's fuses to make the shells detonate early, turning the treetops that should've sheltered Easy Company into a deathtrap made up of lethal arm-long pikes ready to skewer the soldiers hiding below. And from the canopy of amputated treetops, the Krauts had been taking full advantage of the terrifying tactic to maximize the damage of their artillery bursts.
Eve had a bad feeling as she walked deeper into camp, taking in damage that got worse with each step she took. This position hadn't been nearly so battered when they'd left it to First Battalion a few days ago. The Germans had clearly hammered at First long and hard until the poor bastards retreated. This was the best position over Foy, with both a high ground advantage and good sightlines. They couldn't leave it undefended, and Eve had no doubt that the Krauts had their guns honed in on this spot; right where Easy Company was sitting.
They were going to be hit with artillery fire; it was only a question of when. There was nothing for it. They had to hold the position.
Eve immediately prioritized getting her guys to work affixing cover to their foxholes. If they had a solid barrier between them and the lethal spikes, they stood a far better chance of surviving. At least there was plenty to choose from what was already knocked to the ground.
Somehow in her distraction, she'd made it to the tree line overlooking their objective.
Movement caught her eye. Just across the field, beyond the last line of trees, Eve could make out German troops, dressed in winter clothing, scurrying around in the town below.
Her hand twitched habitually towards her gun, but she wasn't foolish enough to try and pick a few off, despite a relative certainty that she could hit them even from this distance. Such a rash action would only alert the Germans that they'd reoccupied the position, and the bombardment would start all the sooner.
She turned her attention away from the soldiers themselves, and started scanning what she could see of the town for heavy weapons, but they were too well concealed. She knew without a shadow of a doubt they were there, merely biding their time.
German chatter lifted to her ears on a shifting breeze, causing her to shiver and realize that there was no time to waste.
Eve made her way back to camp, noticing how many of the boys were already hard at work hacking away at the lower limbs of the blasted trees with hatchets. Eve passed her own small, mostly ignored, hatchet on to some poor kid trying to use his entrenching tool as an ax. While he went to town, she got to work collecting the limbs that had already been felled and dragging them off to give to the guys – who were using their multi-purpose entrenching tools as hammers to drive stakes into the ground, which worked far better than trying to chop down trees with the small shovels – so they could whack the branches into place.
She spent the rest of the evening moving around the rest of Second Platoon, passing out branches and helping to wedge down logs into position.
"Hey, if it isn't Sergeant Buchanan," said Toye when he came by on his own rounds. "Need a hand?" he said and then proceeded to help her haul the log she was manhandling into place without waiting for an answer. Eve grinned and let him help her.
"Did you hear that some First Battalion son-of-a-bitch took a dump in my foxhole? Got shit all over my new boots for Christsake," he griped once the log was in place.
Eve laughed so hard she doubled over. She could just imagine the long string of cursing he would've let loose when he realized what had happened.
He glowered at her for a while to keep up the pretense but gave into the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth after only a couple seconds of watching her laugh hysterically.
At least until she started coughing, again.
"You doin' all right Ev?" he asked.
"Still here," she said around chattering teeth.
"Yeah, I heard about that pass home," he grumbled.
"You and everybody else since that goddamn reporter came out here," she said before he could start lecturing her on why she should've gone home. She'd already been chewed out by Roe, Lieb, and half of Second Platoon and she didn't want to have to deal with Toye too.
"I'm just sayin'," he said anyway, ignoring her so he could say his piece. "If you took the pass home, you could be warm and getting better by now."
"I'm fine," she insisted. "Roe even got me penicillin."
"Where'd he get that?"
"Who knows, Patton maybe?" said Eve with a shrug as she hacked her way through the last bit of the log.
"Maybe," agreed Toye. "Why don't you take this over to Malark and Ole Gonorrhea. They could use the extra branches."
"Sure," she said. "See you later, Toye. Thanks again for the help." Eve grabbed the ends of two pieces and proceeded to tow them over to where she'd last seen the two men digging out a new foxhole.
"Hey, fellas," she said when she reached the two Sergeants. "Toye said you needed some cover for your hole?"
"Thanks," said Malark, getting out to help her maneuver the things into place.
A high-pitched whistling whine distracted her. Eve's head turned to get a clearer gauge on the sound, praying it was in her imagination, that it was only the tinny ringing sound that sometimes whined in her ears for only her to hear.
It wasn't.
There was a lasting, lingering hope that she was wrong.
"TAKE COVER! INCOMING!" screamed Lip, just barely discernible over the sudden thunderous sound of shells blasting apart the earth.
The shells shook the ground out from under their feet, making it nearly impossible to walk. The flashes of light, the smoke and sharp stench of gunpowder, the screams of the men helpless in their holes, disoriented her.
After a lot of experience being slammed over and over by 88 fire, both in Holland and Normandy as well as their previous month in Belgium, Eve had learned how to gage where the wailing rounds were going to hit. There wasn't much anyone could do under such fire other than listen and watch where the rounds rained death on their friends.
"They got us zeroed!" Eve screamed to Malarkey recognizing that particular piercing sound as one that meant death; the shells she was hearing were bound to land right on top of them.
Despite her being right next to him at the start, somehow Eve had lost track of Malark. He'd vanished from her side, abandoning her and the wood in a confused scramble for self-preservation. She didn't know whether or not Malark had even heard her yelling at him as she suddenly found herself fighting to remain standing. The world shook out from under her feet, making it impossible to move.
Another, particularly close, blast sent her to the ground with a choked off scream. She tried to orient herself, find Malark, and grab him if he'd fallen as well. She couldn't find him.
She had to find him.
Each time she tried to push herself back to her feet to look for him, the world jerked itself out from under her, slamming her back onto her stomach with another involuntary scream.
A hand grabbed her jacket by the shoulder patch, nearly ripping it off as Bill hauled her across the ground into the hole she'd been covering before what felt like an eternity of bombardment. The distance he helped her cover in a few quick strides had seemed impossibly far when she kept getting knocked to the ground for all that it was only a few feet in front of her.
Her friend pulled her close and held on, the two of them an island in the storm of chaos. She screamed into his chest in terror as a whizzing shell zipped by them, shattering the tree above into a thousand deadly pieces raining down on them. He couldn't hear her, because he was screaming curses into the dirt and her hair. Her helmet was long gone, and entirely unimportant as another blast rocked them like a ship in the roughest of seas.
Someone rolled into her. She turned. It was Malarkey, safe and next to them, pounding his fists into the dirt in his own useless rage.
There was nothing like being under artillery fire. The helplessness seized everyone and paralyzed most. They were impotent, unable to do anything, their fate in the hands of God and chance. There was no rhyme or reason to who got hit and who didn't. There was nothing any of them could do. No enemy available to kill. Nothing to do at all but sit there and pray that it wasn't the day their number was up.
"FIND COVER!" Lip yelled as he raced past them up the line, shepherding the fallen men, stranded on the trembling ground in terror, to foxholes and potential safety. "FIND A FOXHOLE!"
"TAKE COVER!" bellowed Lieutenant Buck Compton from nearby.
Eve sent up a prayer for them both, and every other poor bastard not safely tucked into a hole. An extra moment for Roe, hoping no one injured called him from safety to patch them back together. And finally, she squeezed her eyes closed and prayed for herself.
Terror overwhelmed her as more shells burst through the trees to send shrapnel down on their foxhole and minimal cover. She kept her head low, protecting her neck by digging her chin into her breastbone. Squished there between Bill and the ever closer Malark, she could do nothing at all but hold on and keep praying.
Seconds stretched to their own eternity when you were so completely helpless and unable to do anything but contemplate your own mortality and wonder who was going to be gone when it was all over; whether it was going to be you, some poor bastard you didn't even know, or worst of all, one of your closest friends.
When the shells finally stopped, there was a prolonged moment where the whole unit held its breath. Eve found herself shaking and trembling, not from cold any longer but from fright as she assessed whether or not she was still all there, still alive, and waited for her ears to stop ringing. After that, she looked over the two men who'd pulled her into shelter, making sure they were both all right too as she took a few deep breaths to get her racing heart back under control.
When nothing happened, no further shells fell after several long, still minutes, she breathed a sigh of relief and grabbed her gun. It only took her a second to get into a firing position, shakes and nerves and terror all shed in light of the potential fight they'd have to slug their way through. The experience of too many battles survived kept her alert for incoming enemy infantry. The Germans might be using the shells to disorient them before attacking the position in force. They'd done it before in both Market Garden and Normandy.
"Maybe we should see if anybody's hit?" asked Malark, peering anxiously over the edge of their foxhole into the mist that still enshrouded them in this cursed forest.
Eve thought about it, thought about breaking cover. There was a sudden burning need to go check on her guys. She hoped they'd have enough sense to call out for Roe and Spina if they'd been hit and that they were smart enough to stay under cover until the officers sounded the all clear.
She stayed put. There was no telling what was coming next. She just had to trust that the boys were smart enough not to move.
"Ah Malark, that's what they want," said Bill, scanning the trees as well. "Krauts'll try and draw us out in the open."
Eve could hear Lip up and at it again, the First Sergeant's voice moving first further away and then closer again as he was continuously calling out to remind everyone: "Stay in your foxholes! Stay in your foxholes!"
Some of the more ballsy guys ignored him, already up and about, quietly getting back to setting up the camp as though random shellings were completely normal. In some ways they were. Being under artillery fire was nothing new for Easy Company, but Eve could attest that it was absolutely terrifying each and every time it happened.
There was a stillness, an awed quiet that always hovered over the soldiers in the wake of a shelling, a hesitancy to move the wrong way and incur more shelling.
Under the howling wind and the insulating snow, she heard a voice, garbled but distinctly begging for help.
A glance at Malarkey told her that he'd heard it too. "You hear that?" he asked Bill to confirm.
"Is that Joe?" asked Bill recognizing the voice.
Eve listened, and suddenly, with Joe Toye in mind, the words took shape, mangled by either distance or pain or both.
"Yeah, I think that's Joe," Malark confirmed after a moment.
"I'll go," said Eve already half way through pulling herself out of the foxhole, protocol be damned if Toye was out there screaming for help. He was not a man who cried wolf about these kinds of things. If Toye needed help, she was gonna go get him.
"Stay," Bill ordered, putting a hand on her shoulder to push her back down. "I'll get him."
Eve met his eyes. She could see determination to go get to their friend laced with the fear she felt herself.
Bill gave her a reassuring nod, and Eve let him go. There was no time to waste if Toye really was injured.
Eve accepted that and slid the rest of the way down next to Malark.
"You watch her, Malark," Bill said as he jogged off.
Eve couldn't summon up the will holler at him – she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, thank you very much – because she was feeling sick with worry. She had a bad feeling about all of this, a knot of apprehension coiled in her gut as she watched Bill disappear into the fog.
"STAY DOWN! STAY DOWN!" She heard Compton yell a few yards away.
She accepted Malark's arm around her shoulders, leaning on him to draw some of his strength and hoped that she was wrong. Toye was fine.
The silence stretched. The tension ratcheted. Every noise in the fog became an incoming Kraut.
She looked at Malark; every inch of her wanted to go see for herself if her squad – if Toye – was all right, to go count heads and confront her losses. It was killing her, not knowing.
Malark held firm, keeping her pinned to the dirt. She was glad he was keeping her pinned, because she knew that as soon as he let her up, she'd go out there to survey the damage herself, and there was no guarantee that this was over yet.
So, she was glad that he was holding her down and the choice was taken out of her hands.
Thank God for Malarkey.
"INCOMING!" bellowed Lip mere moments before the shells started coming again.
Eve plastered herself to the dirt, waves of terror returning with a vengeance as the screaming explosives came down upon their heads again.
The second barrage was just as brutal, despite being a lot shorter than the first. She could hear the screams for a medic, and prayed for Roe, who was doubtless up and running in this shit, profoundly grateful that she'd never become a medic.
After far too long under the agony, the guns slowly drifted off their position, hammering some other spot on the line, the sounds of explosions tapering gradually off into the still howling wind.
"STAY DOWN! YOU STAY DOWN!" Lip called again.
Eve looked up, assessing the damage she could see to the world around them. It was bad, but not as bad as she was expecting. Honestly, Eve was surprised the forest still existed at all.
"MEDIC!"
It was Buck.
Malark's arm tightened around her shoulders at the Lieutenant's cry.
Eve didn't want to know.
It took longer for the boys to get up and get moving this time. There was no telling if they would see a third shelling today or not, and everyone was all the more cautious at the implied threat.
It took a few long minutes of quiet before Malark and Eve cautiously made their way out of their foxhole and the protection it provided to take in the full scope of the attack.
She and Malark had been fortunate enough to have their hole mostly finished despite its minimal cover. Finding more lumber to finish the job wouldn't be a problem anymore. Half the damned forest was on the ground around them now thanks to the Germans' dastardly fuse adjustments.
Some poor bastard had gotten stuck under a full tree that had fallen atop his foxhole. There were four or five guys already helping out though, so the duo moved on.
They wandered through the felled trees carefully, taking stock of the incredible damage that the barrages had wrecked in just a few moments. Some trees had been split down the middle; others had been cleaved in half. Some looked as though the bark had been flayed off them. Branches as thick as Eve's arm littered the ground, impeding movement and making the footing treacherous.
Around one bend Malark froze. Eve, moving just behind him stopped too and her stomach dropped into her feet in horror.
No, she thought, Not them. Not both of them.
It was only when she was next to Toye – not entirely sure how she'd gotten there – that she realized the man working on his leg was Gene. He met her eyes briefly but was entirely focused on the stub of a leg before him and the many exposed arteries sluggishly leaking blood onto the white snow.
The gore turned Eve's stomach but she stubbornly quelled the urge to vomit. She'd seen injuries worse than this before, but it had never been Toye. Her eyes strayed helplessly to Bill, who was leaning against a tree and staring down at his leg, still attached to him by only a thin scrap of skin and torn apart like it had been chewed up by a hellhound and spat back out.
She looked at Gene again, lost. Her hands fluttered about, unsure what needed doing, but desperate to do something. Finally, Eve's shaking fingers fumbled around in her bag and retrieved her aid kit before passing it to the Doc.
Gene acknowledged it with a nod. "Get the bandage out," he ordered.
Malark had joined her, helping to prop Toye up on the man's other side. "Doc? What can I do?" the redhead asked.
"Here, hold this," said Roe. He put Malark's hand square on one of the bandages as he tied another one on and pulled everything tight, trying to cut off the bleeding.
Eve took the opportunity – since the men seemed to have it in hand – to go look after Bill, who couldn't keep his eyes off his leg.
"Hey, Bill," she said, touching his shoulder until he met her eyes. "You hanging in there?"
"You know me," he said, voice clipped with the pain or perhaps the shock of his injury.
"You're gonna be all right, this'll get you home for sure. Maybe if you're good, they'll even get you a nice looking nurse this time so you'll stick around."
He laughed, but it was hollow and forced, like he was laughing for her sake and not his own. That was okay. Eve needed him to laugh for her.
She wasn't sure what she was going to do with herself without Bill and Toye. They'd been at her side almost since the beginning, almost since Toccoa – albeit grudgingly there at the beginning. They'd both survived being hit before, some kind of angel of luck guarding each man or something with the way Toye'd almost been nailed by two potato mashers right outta the gate in Normandy. And Wild Bill Guarnere hadn't gotten his nickname by accident.
They were two of the best soldiers she'd ever seen, each tough as nails. Neither took crap from anybody and they both looked out for her and the other guys.
She bit her lip savagely to keep the tears at bay. Neither Toye nor Bill were crying, and they were the ones injured. She'd fought tooth and nail for their respect, and she wasn't going to let them see her fall apart now.
"You got a cigarette?" asked Toye the air. Malark, still holding him up, patted his pockets and came up empty.
"Here," said Eve. She fished the one she'd gotten from Speirs out of her pocket and reluctantly left Bill for the few seconds it took her to pass it over to the redhead. Malarkey lit it with a grateful smile and gave it to Toye. Eve couldn't even bring herself to tell him that the cigarette was from Speirs, though she thought he might get a kick out of it. If she opened her mouth, she was sure she'd embarrass herself and start sobbing.
"What's a guy gotta do to get killed around here?" Toye complained as she made her way back to Bill.
Eve laughed, but the sound that came out was a lot closer to a sob. She squashed the sound. She would never forgive herself for crying in front of these men, especially when they had so much more cause for tears than she did.
"Hey, chin up, kid," Bill said, determined to keep the mood light. "Ain't that bad. I could still kick your ass."
Eve laughed. "Yeah," she said, wobbly, unable to put into words how much it meant that he was trying to comfort her. She couldn't make her throat work, couldn't wish him well or say another word, so gave up and just wrapped her arm around his shoulders in a hug he leaned into. Who it was for was suddenly unclear as Bill sagged into her and then straightened as though rejuvenated.
"Bill, you goin' first," said Roe, spying the stretcher and First Sergeant Lipton incoming.
"Whatever you say, Doc. Whatever you say," said Bill, pulling away.
"Over here!" called Roe, deftly ignoring the other scattered cries for a medic. He had all he could handle right now, Spina would be on his way to take care of what he could, Eve knew, but the Doc could only be in one place at a time. And she was fiercely grateful that he was here with Bill and Joe. "Take this man," said Gene. He pointed at Bill and went back to bandaging Toye.
Eve backed off to give the stretcher-bearers room to work. Regretting the brevity of the embrace even as she resigned herself to it being the last time she'd see Bill for a long while.
"Hey," said Bill, addressing both Eve and Lipton who'd come into the clearing and was staring with horror at the scene. "They got ole Guarnere this time."
Bill's face was scared, but his voice was as strong as ever. And Eve was infinitely grateful.
She didn't know what she'd do if Bill broke down in front of her. She already knew that she needed to find somewhere private to sob her eyes out, but that had to wait. It had to.
Bill and Toye deserved to go out the way Bill was trying to make it: with as light-hearted a mood as possible for such a tragedy – even if it was tearing her to pieces inside.
"We got you soldier," one of the stretcher bearers said as he and his partner pulled Bill onto the green canvas.
Bill screamed when they moved his leg, but they kept at it until he was up. Eve had to bite her lip to keep from barking at the soldiers to be careful. She knew they were, but hearing Bill scream like that, killed her inside. The stretcher bearers had enough grisly experience to get the man settled quickly, getting the move over with in one fell swoop, rather than prolong the pain by taking it slow and careful.
Still, watching Bill's face contort in agony as he was manhandled onto the stretcher was one of the hardest things she'd ever seen.
"Hey, Joe, I told you I'd beat you back to the States," Bill teased as his stretcher passed the still ground bound Toye.
Eve couldn't help the laugh that bubbled free. It was laugh or cry openly at this point, and she couldn't afford to cry right now. She had to keep her emotions fiercely under control.
The look of triumph on Bill's face was fleeting, disappearing quickly under the weight of his agony. She didn't mention that she'd seen it at all.
She moved back over to Toye, helping Malark stabilize him in a seated position again, free hand fluttering again as she tried to help. Toye, arms suddenly free from holding up his own weight, snagged her hand and pinned it against his chest, tightening his grip as waves of pain crashed over him in time with the pulse of his heart.
Eve offered him a smile but it was tremulous at best. A tear escaped her as she blinked and Toye's face crumpled.
"Hey, doll," he said, soothingly, slipping into a nickname she'd never heard from him before. "Don't you go all soft and female on me now."
"Never," she promised, forcing her emotions back down fiercely.
He gritted his teeth through another wave of pain, nearly crushing her hand. "Never thought I'd beat you home, kid," he said.
Toye turned his attention to Malark on his other side. "You watch out for her all right?" he demanded.
"You got it, Joe," promised Malarkey.
Toye gave him a searching look but must have been satisfied by what he'd seen because he nodded and addressed them both. "You two are the last Toccoa Non-Coms in Second Platoon. You do me and Gonorrhea proud, you hear?"
Eve nodded, feeling a tear well up once more. "All right."
She couldn't help herself as she followed his gaze to where his limb, which had been there only minutes before, had vanished. She met Gene's somber gaze. The medic tried to smile, to reassure her too, but her stomach was in knots.
Dear God, she thought, suddenly recanting every prayer she'd ever made to get her men home alive. Alive is not enough when they can't be whole too.
What kind of life could they lead as cripples if they even made it back to the US alive? It was hard enough to find work before the war, what would happen now when they had such glaring disadvantages?
Even as she thought it, she knew she was being unfair, unreasonable even. They were both alive. They were going home alive and that was more than most guys got. There was some value in that. There was a lot of value in that.
She just wished she wasn't going to miss them so much.
Luz came over and drew Lipton away to look after Lieutenant Compton.
Eve was too busy focused on watching Gene switch out red bandages for white ones while they waited endlessly for the stretcher to come back, to spare any attention for men who weren't injured right now.
It took forever, longer than the endless quiet pause between barrages, longer than the barrages themselves. Waiting on that stretcher, knowing every minute was another bit of blood that Toye couldn't afford to lose, was sheer agony.
When they finally arrived, they wasted no time in settling Toye on board too. Eve released his hand only when Toye was safely on the stretcher.
He gave her one last tight smile as they hauled him off to an aid station and then hopefully home.
Suddenly at odds with nothing to do, she followed Gene's concerned gaze and found Lip squatting next to Lieutenant Compton, who had his face buried in his hands. It took only a few moments observing before she understood.
They were losing Compton too.
It wasn't his body that was injured, it was his mind.
The German artillery couldn't have crippled Second Platoon more effectively with a sniper. In one barrage, they'd lost more than half of their leadership, including the one decent Platoon leader left in Easy Company.
They were doomed to Dike's ineptitude.
Gene moved to squat down next to her. "I'm gonna write it off as Trench Foot," he confided, tilting his head towards Buck, his deep, calming voice soothed the ragged edges of her soul for the moment. "He'll get off the line honorably."
Eve could do nothing but nod, not when she was so broken hearted herself about all of it. If only I'd gone for Toye instead, she suddenly thought with a twinge of panic and the grim knowledge of certainty that 'what if' questions give, Bill and Buck would've stayed, and Second Platoon wouldn't be quite so crippled. She cringed away from the word even as she thought it.
Bill and Toye were not crippled. They were still the very capable, very smart men that she'd met in Toccoa all that time ago, and that hadn't changed. They weren't the kind of men to look at a disadvantage and give up. Oh no. They'd figure it out quickly and be back on their feet and causing trouble soon, she was certain. She had to be.
"Okay," she whispered, voice hoarse with all the suppression she'd been doing. Gene seemed to require an answer before he'd stop looking at her like she was glass about to shatter into pieces. Just because she felt that fragile didn't mean she had to show it to anyone.
She got up, forced her legs to move, and found a shell hole, far enough away from where the rest of Easy was going about trying to make some sense of order out of the chaos of the attack, ignorant of the enormity of what they'd lost just yet.
She couldn't be the one to tell them. She didn't want to believe it herself. Couldn't help but relive it over and over, turning the corner to see her friends, her mentors, irreparably wounded.
Eve kept to herself until she was absolutely certain she was alone before breaking down into body wracking sobs, interspersed with hacking coughs as she sank to the ground, beating on it with clenched fists to release her pent up feelings.
She tried to be quiet, private, as she grieved for the great men she'd lost, and for the future Easy now faced without them.
Either no one saw, or they'd intentionally let her alone, but she was left in peace.
Finally, after too long, she found she could cry no more, feeling hollowed out and drained she picked herself up and went to go see how her squad was fairing.
She just had to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Bill and Toye would expect nothing less. She would not disappoint them now.
-End Chapter-
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