A/N: Alice's first taste of close combat.

Another quick update. Yesterday all of us doing the Disney College Program got sent home and told we'd had our program ended. It's been a helluva (way to die) crazy day and a half, extremely stressful and honestly downright traumatic. But, what this is means is I'll be home, social distancing for like at least a month. So the challenge I've set forth for myself is to finish at least three chapters a week, and maybe by the end of this Coronavirus protective lockdown, I'll have totally finished this one and been able to start on book two. Small mercies, I suppose. If you pray, please keep the international college students in your prayers as they're very scared of what this means, even if Disney is promising to work with them. One of my coworkers is from Madrid, so obviously going home isn't really an option.

Take care, and enjoy...


Chapter Fifty-One


On the fifth day after the invasion, they stopped at a small town not too far from Carentan. This was the edge of their line; Able, Baker, and Charlie companies had liberated it that morning. Not far ahead, the target for Easy loomed. Carentan. The current stronghold of their German counterparts.

Clouds filled the sky overhead. Even at 1500 hours, it felt darker than it should've. Sporadic artillery fire and machine gun rounds could be heard in the distance, down the road. The impending large scale attack loomed. The restrictions on noise had been lifted as soon as they reached the town; the Germans knew they were there anyways.

After an hour briefing with Easy, Dog, and Fox Company's officers, led by Nixon, she wandered out into the town. Night had started to fall. While noise discipline still wasn't enforced, they were told to keep light to a minimum. The last thing they needed was for an ill placed fire to add a big target to their lodgings for the night. So Alice picked her way around fallen bricks in the dark.

She'd picked up a sniper variant of the Karabiner 98k from battalion. Of all the soldiers on the battlefield, Alice alone had experience with the German rifle. As she sat in the dark, in a deep door frame of a house that still stood in tact, Alice ran her hands over the weapon. It felt good to have her sniper rifle back.

Wood frame, black finish, telescopic sights still in tact, it reminded her vividly of her Maquis days. As much as she'd come to appreciate the American and even British weapons, the stolen German weapons still felt more familiar, more effective. The work of a sniper was quick, efficient, subdued. As much as she appreciated the necessity of soldiers running into enemy fire and throwing grenades, she preferred the accuracy and feel of killing from a distance.

"You should get some sleep."

Alice looked up. Gene stood in front of her. He held his helmet at his side and ran his other hand through his black hair. Dark circles under his eyes betrayed his own exhaustion. Alice just shrugged. Something, some emotion, had a stranglehold on her voice. Alice didn't know if it was fear, or anticipation, or self loathing. But though she loved having the gun she'd first learned to shoot with in her lap, it also brought back more than its fair share of things she'd rather have forgotten.

When she realized Gene still stood in front of her, Alice sighed. He hadn't moved. So she just shook her head. "Gene, I don't feel like talking right now."

"Any idiot can see that," he told her. Easing himself down beside the door frame, against the brick wall, he sighed. Gene closed his eyes and let his head rest. But he kept talking. "You been mighty quiet since you got that gun."

Alice's voice caught again. She didn't have an answer. What was she supposed to say? Every time her hands moulded to the grip, she remembered pulling the trigger. Not that she doubted that the Nazi men she'd killed hadn't deserved it. But her thoughts drifted back to the question she'd been asked by Joe Toye.

What did she miss most from before the war? Herself. She'd learned fast how to survive, and much of the time surviving meant killing the enemy first. Alice wondered how her parents and sister would've felt, though, knowing how many times Alice had pulled that trigger and planted a bullet between the eyes of a German officer. Some part of her herself hated it. She could only imagine how much Bernadette would've been disgusted by her. But Alice didn't have the luxury of regret anymore.

"Guarnere would have a party with the amount 'a thinking you're doing."

"I'm sure he would."

The two fell back into silence. Gene sat with his eyes closed, head against brick. Beads of his rosary clinked together as he moved them, reciting the prayers in his mind. With a silent sigh, Alice put the rifle down. She shifted her helmet off and, using her jacket as a pillow, laid down in the small space.

She woke up to Gene nudging her, the sun just beginning to rise. Her watch read 0600. They'd planned their assault for 0700. Without more than a curt nod to Gene, she moved away. The men had started to line up in formation for their walk to Carentan. Alice joined Harry.

"Sleep at all?" he asked her.

She nodded. "Some."

They both checked weapons. Grenades, trench knife, gun, bullets. The list went on, each piece of equipment being meticulously noted. Before too long, Dick and Buck both came over.

"Ready?" Dick asked.

Both of them nodded. The men around them had gathered in formation, most of them shifting from foot to foot anxiously. Dick told them to get with their platoons.

"Alice," he said. When she stopped, he looked around before nodding. "You're back with Third Platoon, in the rear."

"What? But I'm always with First."

Dick sighed. "Listen, this isn't my choice. But Horton wants you in the rear." As she went to object, he just shrugged. "You're the best sniper we have. From the rear you can stay out of the line of fire and do some damage."

"Bullshit. Horton wants me in the back because I'm a woman," she snapped.

"Yeah, he does."

"This is France. This is my home."

"Yeah, I know." He shrugged. All around them, men began to straighten up. They saw Harry and Buck both getting their platoons in order. He turned back to her. "If I were in charge, you'd be in the thick of things. You trained for this. But I'm not. So do us all a favor and take out as many men as you can from back there, ok?"

Alice glared. But she nodded. "Fine."

With a last conciliatory smile, Dick wandered to Second Platoon. Alice watched him go. As the men of First and then Second marched off, she sighed. Alice took up her spot with Buck's men.

The march to Carentan didn't take long. The much larger city loomed up ahead, slightly on a hill. Good cover lined the road, with ditches to either side. Beyond the hedgerow, open fields surrounded the town. Alice watched as Dick and Harry took a minute to chat. She could only imagine what they said from where she crouched near Talbert in Third Platoon.

Buck moved back to them. With a tiny nod, he looked around. "Welsh is taking First in. Then Second, and then us. Stay in your squads. If worst comes to worst, find a buddy. Don't clear a house by yourself." He turned to Alice. "You know your job."

"Yeah, I do."

He only frowned a bit at her tone. Buck turned away, back to where Harry looked to be gearing up to go. Alice felt her heart clench. They moved. It didn't take long before Second and then Third followed suit. And after that, it took but a moment for the shouts and bullets to start.

In the commotion, Alice felt herself tense, freeze, and then move sideways into the ditch to the left of the roadway. Fear seized her. But when she heard what sounded like George and Harry shouting, Alice pushed it down. When Dick came by screaming at them to move, she'd already scrambled out of the ditch. Talbert scrambled out after her, followed by Smokey.

The words that Dick yelled around her didn't register. It faded into the background. As the men ran forward into the town, Alice scanned the town. Machine gun fire drew her attention first, but then she realized that was the least of their worries.

A single crack tore through the air. One bullet, one casualty. Alice grimaced. Sniper. Screams for a medic filled the area. Then another crack, another bullet, and another casualty. But Alice couldn't see where it came from.

Between the sniper and the machine gunners, the whole of Easy Company was pinned down. They took cover where available: chicken coops, walls, doorways. After catching a glimpse of movement in a window, Alice poked her head around the wall on the outskirts of the city and pulled her trigger. A crack, a bullet, and a casualty joined the battlefield, but at last the dead was German.

At the thought, Alice nearly threw up. She tried to remind herself not to think of him as German, think of him as a Nazi. It made the killing easier. A grenade exploded moments later. Alice ducked. But she realized the grenade had ended the machine gun nest, and now they could flood the city.

Flood the city they did. Alice lost track of where most of them went. She stuck close to the walls. Whenever she caught sight of movement in a window, she pulled her trigger. After awhile, the haze of battle faded and she tried to more closely follow the movements of her companions.

After watching George and Hoobler empty a building, she dashed for the open door. Leaving them to continue on their way, Alice scuttled up the creaking, half broke stairs. In the window lay the corpse of a Nazi. Alice pushed the bleeding body aside, trying to ignore the wide open but unseeing eyes, and set up in the window herself. From that third floor she could see quite a bit.

What looked like Lipton scrambled up some metal stairs. George and Hoobler continued their building clearing. Liebgott and Tipper teamed up together to do the same. Alice thought she saw Bull hurrying towards a wounded man. She nodded. Definitely Bull, based on how easily he hoisted the soldier over his back.

Alice tried to take out as many enemies as she could. They seemed to largely not realize her presence. After what felt like an eternity, she located some men firing shells into the town. Lipton had been screaming for them to take cover. But it'd left him out in the open.

Alice pulled the trigger. One of the four Nazis dropped to the ground, brains bleeding out. But they'd already done their own damage. Lipton lay in a pile of smoking debris. Ignoring some shouts from his direction, Alice took out the three other Germans, Nazis, before they could do anything worse.

In as quick a moment as the battle had started, it ended. Only their own machine gun fire could be heard as the streets cleared of the German paratroopers. Alice couldn't release the grip on the k98k gun. Her knuckles turned white as she finally dropped it, bunching her fists. Alice stayed lying on her stomach, breaths heaving.

She stayed there for awhile, just breathing, just looking at the crumbling town of Carentan around them. Smoking fires near the outside of the town and holes in the pavement and destroyed walls told the story of what had happened. She couldn't move.

Alice looked across the street at the next building. Her body tensed. Movement in the window caught her attention. She'd been watching Dick and Nixon chatting in the street below, the latter just then moving off. Now across from her in the adjacent third story window, she saw the muzzle of a rifle.

Quick as she could, Alice reloaded her gun. At nearly the same moment, two shots rang out. She stopped breathing. The gun in the other window fell flat. She'd gotten the sniper. But then she glanced below. Dick crumpled against a wall.

Alice didn't breathe again until she realized that Dick had only been shot in the ankle. The terrible realization that if she hadn't been split second quicker than the German paratrooper, he'd have caught Dick in a much worse spot. The adrenaline ripping through her system gave her the energy she needed to leave the house.

At street level, she found Dick grumbling to himself as he tried to move to the aid station. Alice would've found it funny if she hadn't known just how close to having his brains blown out he'd been. She hurried over.

"Damnit, Dick," she muttered. "What the hell are you doing, getting shot!"

He rolled his eyes, mouth in a straight line. He shook his head. "It's nothing."

"Yeah, it's nothing because I shot the goddamn sniper," she snapped. Alice watched him struggling. "You better let Gene look at it or so help me God, I will shoot you myself."

"Well, you could help me get there!"

Surprised to hear him actually snap back at her, she paused. As they stared at each other, Dick leaning against the brick wall behind himself in exhaustion and pain, and Alice with her hands folded across her chest, neither spoke. But finally she rolled her eyes. Offering him support, they moved off to the aid station. Neither spoke.

When Gene Roe met them at the entrance, he took Dick off her hands. She frowned at both of them. Saying nothing else, Alice moved off. Her head spun. Her first taste of real, up close combat had been quite an experience, and all she wanted was a nap.