A/N: I am so far ahead in writing, that I figured we had time for an extra chapter. We're getting so close to D-Day, so get excited. We have five more chapters to experience before we reach Normandy. Woo!
Chapter Forty-One
January 3, 1944
Between Christmas and New Year's Day, the soldiers received a brief leave from training. For Alice, it was a welcome relief. The few months they'd been in training had left her drained and unhappy. Going from training maneuvers to classroom lectures constantly meant very few hours for relaxation. What brief time she did have, Alice had spent mostly with Gene or George. Once a week Alice made sure to have drinks with Nixon, Harry, and Dick.
The four lieutenants saw each other frequently in training. The classroom lectures Alice led continued to include french lessons, while also introducing information about the French Underground and what Alice knew of the other countries' resistance organizations. In the Maquis, she'd frequently been a runner with information between cells, as women had never been suspected as traitors to the Nazis as much as men in France. Through her traveling and passing of information, she'd been exposed to code names and details of the Dutch, German, and Polish movements.
When training resumed after the break, Alice felt a bit more refreshed, having spent some time in London with Millie and Madeleine, while visiting their middle sister Maggie. The few days around the turn of the New Year had been spent with her officer friends, though. Those days combined with the break from the army in general had done wonders.
Still, the men in her lecture were driving her crazy. Alice stood at the front of the moderately sized wooden hall that had been built for large scale meetings. Huge empty windows let in the nice breeze of the chilly winter in Aldbourne, but even that wasn't enough to keep the men awake and focused. Alice had never known the 506th to be quite so inattentive in lessons.
The chalkboard behind her featured meticulously drawn sketches of Karabiner 98k guns, one without sniper modification and one with the sights improved. The French resistance in the Alps had utilized the K98k on more than one occasion, and Alice would always speak highly of the sniper variant.
But even as she continued to speak about the differences in the Nazi gun to the one the Americans trained with, Alice watched the sergeants gathered before her slipping away. To her left she could feel Nixon preparing for his lecture that would follow hers, a discussion on various munitions they would encounter in Europe. Her irritation grew.
"Knowing how to utilize these weapons could save your life," she mentioned again. Hoping to salvage the lesson, Alice tried to appeal to their senses. "You do not need to like me, or trust me, but you do need to know how to save the life of the man to your left and to your right."
Some of the men nodded along with her, dutifully taking notes. But the others chatted in veiled whispers about their recent exploits on leave or their plans for that night. Heat rose to her ears as she felt herself getting angrier. Her gaze flickered over the sergeants of the paratrooper corps before her. Finally her sights fell on Easy.
She saw Ranney, Harris, Lipton, Guarnere, Martin, Talbert, Randleman, and Grant all sitting, watching her. Lip, Johnny, and Bull seemed the most attentive, their pencils scribbling across their notebooks. Ranney and Harris had never been particularly close with her, but they were certainly paying attention. Both Tab and Grant sat watching. But her attention fell on Guarnere.
His jaw clenched in anger. Alice wondered what had him in a tizzy. Alice didn't give herself much time to think, however, turning back to her lecture. Still, she watched Guarnere with her peripheral vision.
"All of occupied Europe is filled with K98ks. When we go to Europe, you will find that the resistance cells are extremely familiar with them. So if you ask us for weapons, you will receive these."
Alice bit her cheek as her eyes fell on a group from H and I company snickering in the back. With a huff, she turned around to the board. Nixon caught her gaze. With a tiny shrug, she began writing several French, German, and Dutch words on the board in chalk.
"I want you each to find out the locations of these six towns before the next lecture you have with me. Until then, I believe First Lieutenant Nixon is your next instructor."
When she walked to the side, Nixon met her half way. He leaned in and lowered his voice. "This'll wake them up," he said.
With a small wink, he lowered his gaze to his left hand at his side. Alice raised her brow as she saw what he held. In his grip lay a stick of TNT.
Nixon smirked again. "Lighter?"
Without hesitation, Alice reached into her pants pocket and pulled out her smooth, silver lighter. He took it. With unbelievable, almost practiced nonchalance, Lewis Nixon lit the fuse on the TNT. He lobbed it between the three dozen benches, down the center aisle. The steady hiss and pop of the fuse burning echoed through the air.
Then shouts and curses drowned it out. Men scrambled up, most as far to the edges of the lecture hall as possible, but a few to the explosive itself. Alice watched as Easy Company's sergeants and a few from Able pushed through the crowd. Guarnere got to it first.
He grabbed the TNT. Guarnere flung it out the nearest gap window. Someone screamed warnings, Alice thought maybe Ranney or Lipton. The men continued to duck until seven beats later, a deeply visceral bang broke the air around them. Then absolute silence reigned.
"My lecture is postponed until the end of the day. For the next hour you will run the course around the training grounds." Nixon glared at them. "Report back here at 2130 hours and be prepared to pay attention this time. The only ones exempt from this are Sergeants Guarnere, Lipton, Ranney, DiAmato, Bishop, and Harper. Your quick actions saved the other men. So enjoy your sleep."
The men, standing in small groups, stared at him open mouthed. Nixon didn't waste a single beat before picking his way over and around the overturned benches towards the main door at the far end. Alice hurried after him. She had to suppress a smirk at the enraged and shocked men around her.
"That was an interesting new learning technique." Alice let her smirk grow as the door closed behind them. Dozens of soldiers had stopped, gathered around the sizable ditch in the ground to their left as they walked down the path towards more of the training grounds.
Nixon didn't look at her. But his own smile said everything without words. Over the almost three months since arriving in Aldbourne, they'd fallen back into an easy friendship. Being forced to work together even more in intelligence had necessitated it, even if they hadn't wanted to forgive each other, which of course they had.
"Sink might get mad about the sudden hole, though," she added.
Nixon snickered. He glanced over his shoulder back where the men began pouring out of Lecture Hall C. They and he all looked at the dirt crater. "The British are probably used to holes in the ground."
"Nix!"
Without anything but a small smirk, Nixon shrugged. They strolled together down the gravel path until they came to the village itself. Moose Heyliger and another lieutenant had been leading the men of Easy besides the non-coms in advanced bayonet training, but Harry had been given the day off. They hoped to find him near where Regimental Headquarters had been set up.
Find him they did. For the few remaining hours of daylight, they shared drinks and compared notes on the exploits, achievements, and struggles of the enlisted under Easy. At 2100 hours, Nixon left to go redo his munitions and explosives lecture, and Harry went to bed. With a yawn, Alice split from him in the main street of Aldbourne. To her surprise, she saw Guarnere exiting one of the local shops, counting his British money in one hand and gripping three more packs of cigarettes in the other.
The consistent heated anger she felt seeing him flared up in her again, but less so than before that day. Six men had gone for the TNT stick. Six men, but it had been Bill Guarnere who had actually managed to grab it and throw it clear. That meant something, it meant a lot. She knew her anger with Guarnere had ceased being justified months ago.
Somewhere in the days following the incidents on the Samaria, her heart had begun to blame Guarnere for her assault. If she hadn't been off her guard and on her own away from them, she'd never have wandered into the G, H, and I section of the boat. Perhaps if her emotions had been more in check, she'd have fought back instead of becoming overwhelmed from anxiety and terror.
Of course, she had quickly come to remind herself how unfair those judgements were. Nonetheless, her body began to tie Guarnere and the assault together, and she'd found it incredibly difficult to move past his stupid mistake because of that.
Seeing him immediately, without any moment of hesitation, not only prepared to put his life in danger to save the rest of the noncommissioned officers, but actually do just that, jolted her back to reality. Bill Guarnere, though a brash, loud, sometimes obnoxious and fairly frequently offensive young man, also had a brave, staunch heart of gold.
"Hey, Guarnere," she called. When he turned to her, she winced back at his wide eyes and brief pause. Alice strode over, hands in her pockets reaching for a cigarette and a lighter. "Hey, thanks for making sure we didn't blow up today."
"Nixon's fucking nuts," he muttered. But a tiny smirk spread across his face. "Honestly I didn't think he had it in him. Throwin' that TNT, what a ballsy move." He turned to her as he pulled out his own cigarette from his new pack. Stuffing away his British currency, he tried to find a lighter.
"Here." Alice lit his white cigarette.
"Thanks."
She strolled next to him in a somewhat awkward silence. Her mind hadn't planned out what to say past her opening compliment. Clearly he hadn't been prepared either.
"If only he'd tossed the TNT down Sobel's shorts," she decided to add.
Instantly Guarnere's expression morphed into a strange mix of fury and amusement. He scoffed around his cigarette, taking it out and blowing a smoke cloud. "Fucking right. Goddamn Sobel is a liability. He's gonna get us all wiped out on day one. Whenever day one is."
"Well, we've still got Welsh and Winters, and Heyliger's good too." Alice shrugged. "And Nixon's still around in some capacity. He's got a soft spot for Easy."
He snorted. Then he shook his head again."Yeah but Sobel's still in charge. I don't know. I ain't got a clue of how to defend my men from their own goddamn commander."
Alice agreed. "Yeah. Yeah." Her deep sigh saw a cloud of white smoke tangle around the air in front of her and into her face as she kept walking forward. Their path had veered them down the lanes that Alice took to head home to the Bratt household each night.
"Just glad I don't have to sit through one of Nixon's lectures this late at night," he muttered. "Tab's gonna be pissed."
They came to the row of houses that Millie's home sat on. With a scoff and a nod, she paused at the sidewalk. "Well, stay out of trouble, yeah?"
Guarnere shook his head and smirked. "Since when have I caused any trouble, Lieutenant?"
She turned around at the door into the house. A small smile graced her features as she looked at Guarnere smoking beneath the light of the lamppost at the street. With a quick shake of her head, she turned away. But as she unlocked the door, Alice glanced back. Guarnere had started back down the road.
"Bill. Stay out of trouble, please."
He turned around and looked at her in surprise. But he took out his cigarette. Nodding, Bill Guarnere winked before turning away. As Alice watched him recede down the street into the dark night, she shivered slightly. The cold crept in. Stamping out her cigarette beside the front door, Alice took a sharp, deep breath. New year, new beginning, perhaps.
