A/N: Alternate title: Ron Speirs enjoys scaring Easy Company


Chapter Fifty-Two


"Hey, Alice, Lip's got a matchin' wound with you now!"

Bill strode over to Alice as she wandered in and around the various buildings, checking for any sort of Intel she could gather. It seemed like any sort of intelligence that might've, and should've, been with a garrison holding Carentan had disappeared. It made her wonder where they'd gone. But as Bill made his way up to her, she shook herself from her thoughts and just looked over in confusion.

"Your face," he clarified.

Alice frowned. "But he's ok now?"

Bill scoffed. "Yeah, 'course he is. That bastard ain't about to get knocked outta this war in the first week."

They stood next to each other, surveying the area. Some men of Dog Company had come in to help Easy clear the area. In the center, as the sun beat down on them in the early afternoon, she watched the guys lounging about.

"How's Tipper?" she asked.

Bill's smirk fell. He turned to her and sighed. "Fuckin' Krauts got him good. Doc sent him right on to the hospital."

Alice nodded. She'd guessed as much. When she'd run into Liebgott after taking Dick to the aid station, he'd been shaken up. His testy mood had only increased when she pressed him on the issue so she'd left him alone. Her heart went out to them.

"Any other casualties?"

Bill sighed. He listed off a few men of Easy who'd been injured enough to warrant a hospital stay, but over all, they'd only suffered light injuries. Alice listened closely.

"Word is Blithe got cured by Lieutenant Winters. Cured 'is sight, or some other Jesus-type shit," Bill muttered. "Crazy stuff."

Alice nodded. She'd seen Albert Blithe leaning against a wall, unable to see. Later, after Dick had limped around outside to find the commanders, she'd gone back to see Gene. From him, she heard about Blithe's 'hysterical blindness'.

Blithe now lay on the warm stones with More, Malarkey, Muck, and Penkala. The four other men lounged about, eating or otherwise talking of random things. She couldn't quite hear them from where she stood in an archway with Bill. When he walked away to go find Joe, she just stood in silence, alone.

Turning back to the five men lounging in the center, Alice wondered what they were talking about. Beyond them, Ron Speirs picked his way around various men. Alice made to walk over to him when he stopped to talk to the others. She couldn't hear what they said, but she didn't miss how they all instantly tensed, all except Blithe, who wasn't paying attention, and Alton More, who just continued smoking and looked entirely unconcerned.

Ron moved away. She lifted her hand to get his attention. Meeting her gaze, he nodded and headed her way, only to stop in his tracks. Alice watched him turn back to the others. Malarkey, Muck, and Penkala looked all but terrified, especially the first of those. Before long, Ron turned away and headed back towards her.

"What the hell was that about?" Alice asked. She kept her voice low, half watching the other men and half paying attention to Ron.

"Seems your men don't want to get moving. They like it here," he said.

Alice scoffed. With a roll of her eyes, she shook her head. Then she turned back to him. "Stop terrorizing my men, please."

Ron suppressed a laugh. He didn't respond before walking away, leaving her alone yet again. She thought about rejoining him, or perhaps going over to the men that Ron had managed to scare, but at that moment, Harry Welsh wandered over.

"First Platoon, get up! We're moving out!"

From beyond them, she heard Buck and Dick also getting their platoons together. Once Harry had made sure his men were getting up, adding a second command for Blithe specifically, he moved to her.

"Time to go?" she asked.

He nodded. When she'd spoken with Battalion earlier, and later speaking with Nixon, they'd all agreed the force left to defend Carentan had been minimal. The need to push on and find the rest of the paratroopers drove them forward. So Alice fell into step with Harry and First Platoon.

They hadn't been walking for more than a few hours when morale dipped to a new low. While they were traveling through solid ground, taking the only way possible that the German troops could attack from, the grass came to their shins and most of the area was exposed, and a steady rain had started. Alice could hear Perconte complaining from not too far back, though from what she could tell, Hoobler and George both did admiral jobs humoring him.

A slight whistling on the edge of hearing caught her attention. Gunshots, and then moments later, a mortar exploded on the ground off to her left. Everyone froze. They fell to the ground. She heard Harry start shouting orders and did her best to pull the few men near her with her into the hedgerows nearby.

From there, things only managed to get worse. For hours they exchanged off and on gunfire. Before long, Dick came around and ordered them to dig foxholes. They'd be there for the night or until the Germans came over the hedgerows themselves. Alice sighed.

Alice's foxhole buddy was Harry Welsh. The two of them made quick work of the loose ground and before long, despite the rain and the mud, they a decent foxhole to hide in. Her muscles ached as she sat inside. The rain drenched her all the way to her bones. A tree root seemed to be sticking out through the back of the hole. But as night fell and the enemy fire died down, she did feel glad to have a place to sleep.

She would've been more glad if the bottom of her foxhole hadn't started to fill up. Alice groaned. She hadn't meant to make an audible noise, but based on the smile that grew on Harry's face across from her, she had.

"Not a fan of swimming yourself to sleep?" he asked.

Alice rolled her eyes. "No. Are you?"

Harry just laughed. Digging around, he pulled his canteen off his belt. It took only a moment to unscrew it before downing a drink. His smile made her suspicious.

"Is that water?"

"If I say no, will you report me to Dick?" he teased. When she just scoffed, he passed the canteen over. "Don't drink too much. I only managed to steal one bottle of Vat 69."

The whiskey went down her throat with a welcome burn. She closed her eyes and let her helmet rest against the mushy ground behind her. Rain continued to fall around them. Alice took another drink. On the edge of hearing, she heard familiar words.

Alice's eyes flew open. German voices echoed across the field despite the rain. She could hear them clearly. They wove a melody she'd never heard before, but the subject constricted her breath.

"Es war ein Edelweiß, ein kleines Edelweiß, Holla-hidi hollala, Hollahi diho."

"What the heck are they on about?" Harry muttered. But he looked at her in concern as Alice knelt up and looked out from beyond their foxhole. "Hey! Don't get shot."

Alice didn't listen. She tried to look through the hedgerow in front of them. She couldn't see them, though. Tears filled her eyes. An angry heat filled her body. The first German she'd heard in two years came in the form of a song across a battlefield, from men who wanted to kill her, and who she felt ready to kill right back.

"Sie trägt es mir zu Ehren an ihrem Sonntagskleid. Sie weiß, dass dieses Blümlein ein Männerherz erfreut."

Alice sighed. She couldn't see them. Sinking back down, she let the rain wash over her face. She didn't have the luxury of regret anymore, but suddenly the knowledge that these were men of her own homeland, her Fatherland, across the field... Men like her, serving a leader maybe they didn't really know but fought because they believed it was right... Her heart ached.

"I'm going to go check on Blithe," Harry said a moment later. "Dick told me about what happened earlier."

Alice just nodded. As he climbed out of the foxhole, Harry took back his canteen. Into the darkness he disappeared. She waited a bit before deciding to take a walk as well. Mud caked her pants and coat as she pulled herself up and out, but she didn't care. The rain had started to die down, a win overall.

Not sure where to go, she just made sure to stay on the Allied side of the hedgerows. She found George and Frank Perconte asleep in one hole, and later stumbled on Dick making his way along the line. She moved over to him.

"You good?" he asked.

Alice nodded. "I could ask you the same. How's the leg?"

Dick sighed, pulling a face in his exasperation. "It's been better."

With a tiny scoff, she nodded. As they walked together, she noted he only limped a little. It made her feel slightly better. Turning back to Dick, she smirked. "Bill's comparing you to Jesus now."

"What?"

"Well, you can cure the blind now, which apparently Jesus could, right?" Alice laughed at his expression. "Blasphemy? Maybe. What else do you expect from Bill."

Dick didn't respond. He just shook his head. They continued down the line until they found Harry Welsh sitting in a foxhole with Blithe. Dick called him out. While they talked about the intelligence she'd gotten from Nixon earlier, Alice watched Blithe in the foxhole. His eyes opened so wide he looked like he'd seen a ghost. Or maybe a whole lot of ghosts, given the amount of dead Germans on the battlefield in Carentan.

She thought about slipping in to the foxhole to talk to him. But Johnny Martin came by moments later. They nodded to each other.

"Hey Lieutenant. Nice singin' voices they've got, eh?" he muttered, glaring out over the hedgerow. Then he slipped in next to Blithe.

Alice gave a small laugh before shrugging. She left them alone to get some rest. Alice walked a bit further down the line, deeper into Third Platoon, or, where Third Platoon was supposed to be. She knew that quite a bit of Second had teamed up with Third in their foxholes. She passed Liebgott chatting with Alley in theirs, and then came upon Smokey and Talbert. She knelt down at theirs.

"You two look happier than I'd expect," she commented.

The two of them had grins on their faces as they sat in the wet, muddy foxhole. Smokey had a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Beside him, Talbert seemed to be settling into his German poncho quite well.

"It ain't so bad doing guard duty in the rain when you've got a Kraut coat," Talbert said. His smirk only grew as Smokey laughed. "Jealous, Lieutenant?"

"So jealous," she teased.

As he scrambled out of his foxhole, Smokey gave him a shove. Alice left them to their business, Smokey looking to sleep and Tab heading to take over guard duty for an hour or so. Her trek along the lines continued. When she came to Skinny and Shifty's hole, they sat chatting quietly. Alice knelt beside them.

"Hey, Alice," Skinny said with a smile. He took an extra cigarette from his pack and passed it up. "Want one?"

She took it gratefully. "Thanks, Skinny." Plopping it in her mouth, she pulled out her lighter. Soon enough, warm smoke filled her body and the air around her, Alice sighed in relief. "How are you two doing?"

"Well, wish it was a bit drier, Lieutenant" Shifty admitted. "But not too bad, not too bad."

Skinny snorted. "It rains pretty hard in Virginia. We'll be fine."

"Good. Don't want you two floating away," she joked.

As they laughed, she stood away from the foxhole. The rain had almost stopped, though rain still dripped from trees when she walked beneath them. As she thought about going back to her hole, fatigue starting to overtake the stress her entire body felt, she heard a call for a medic. Before she knew it, Gene burst past her.

Alice went to follow, but Nixon stopped her on the way. Seeing him in the hedgerows confused her, as he was supposed to be back with Battalion. She stopped.

"What are you doing out here?"

Nixon snorted. "I'm a paratrooper as much as the rest of you. I had more intel for Ron and the rest of Dog Company. Thought I'd see how you were doing and let you know we're attacking them at dawn."

Warmth filled her chest. She forced herself to breathe and keep her emotions under control. She absolutely had enough to worry about without falling in love with a man who was married already. So she just shrugged. "I'm fine. A bit tired of being soaked through."

Nixon scoffed. "You aren't wrong there."

"You?"

"Tired of being soaked. Concerned we may run into more than just paratroopers when we launch the attack tomorrow. Intelligence didn't report any armored resistance, but I find it hard to believe they'd let Carentan go without them trying."

Alice sighed. He was right, of course. The idea that the Germans wouldn't send a whole bunch of Panzers to defend or take back Carentan seemed highly unlikely. Nixon told her he had to get back, and she turned back to find the source of the call for a medic.

She didn't find Gene, but she did find Ron talking to Blithe. She stood a bit away, listening in. Ron looked up and saw her, but Blithe didn't.

"What's your name, trooper?" He looked down at Blithe, who had crawled back into his foxhole.

"Blithe, sir. Albert Blithe."

The way his voice broke had Alice concerned. She should've paid more attention to his experiences since he rejoined the company. Standing in the shadows, she crossed her arms and listened to them.

"You know why you hid in that ditch, Blithe?"

"l was scared."

"We're all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there's still hope. But, Blithe the only hope you have is to accept that you're already dead. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able function as a soldier's supposed to function. Without mercy. Without compassion. Without remorse." He glanced up from where he knelt beside Blithe's foxhole. Making eye contact with Alice briefly, he looked back down. "All war depends on it."

Alice shook her head. She watched as Ron moved away from the foxhole towards her. The tiny smirk on his face told her he knew exactly how scared he'd just made Blithe. He just plopped a cigarette in his mouth and joined her.

"Ron, can you do me a favor?" Alice said. She turned to him, taking her own cigarette from her mouth. She blew out a cloud of smoke. "Please?"

"Depends on what it is."

"Quit terrorizing my men."

Ron smiled and turned away. He shrugged. Before he got more than a few feet away, he turned back. "Oh, you may want to check in with your Sergeant Talbert. One of your easily-terrorized privates stuck him with a bayonet." At the alarm in her expression, he raised his hand to calm her down. "He's fine. Just needs a bit of time to recover."

Alice frowned but nodded. Letting Ron walk away back towards Dog Company's Second Platoon, she released a breath she'd been holding. Lipton was at the aid station, now Talbert would be at the aid station. Their list of NCOs had started to dwindle. Even with Joe Toye's promotion to Sergeant, they were still short, and they still had to get through the paratroopers in front of them.