A/N: Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more. Here we are in the Netherlands.


Chapter Fifty-Eight


September 17, 1944

Eindhoven, North Brabant, The Netherlands


Her body hit the ground with a roll. Behind her, her silk chute crashed to the ground, waving in the wind caught like a tarp. Green shoots of grass tickled her cheek as she rolled from her back. It took a moment of wrestling with the parachute before she had time to focus on her surroundings.

Hundreds of paratroopers descended green against the clouded skies of white. For a brief moment, Alice allowed herself to watch in awe. But reality sank in. Tearing her attention from the parachute-filled sky, Alice checked her gun before following the other members of Easy, Dog, and Fox out of the wide open field and into the nearby Sonsche forest. It didn't take long for her to locate Second Platoon. She joined Buck at the front.

"That went surprisingly well," she muttered.

Buck looked back at her as he joined him. With a smile, he just glanced around and over her, taking stock of who had joined the platoon and who still was missing. Then he nodded to her. "Better than Normandy, that's for sure. You seen Bill?"

Alice shook her head. "No, but I wasn't looking."

He shrugged. Their platoon sergeant would show up eventually. Turning back from him, Alice tried to see if she could spot Bill Guarnere. As she chewed at her lip and tried to count the men behind her, she finally breathed a sigh of relief as the man in question came up from the back of the group. He stopped beside them with a grunt.

"You're late, Sergeant," Buck said, amused.

Bill rolled his eyes. "Just checkin' in on somethin'. I'm here now."

"Come on, we need to reach Son as quickly as possible," Alice said.

The faster Easy, Dog, and Fox could reach the city of Son, the less likely they'd run into serious resistance. They had a limited amount of time. Step one of Operation Market Garden for them would be to secure the bridge at Son.

Unfortunately, Step One failed.

After watching the Germans successfully bomb the bridge at Son, Major Strayer had gathered all the officers of 2nd Battalion. A radio op had already called for the engineers, but they didn't have time to wait. Alice stood between Buck and Shames at the small meeting.

"We need to get to Eindhoven," Strayer said. "The faster we move south, the better chance we have at arriving quietly."

Ron Speirs nodded from where he stood with Dog's officers. "Then we should get moving."

"Captain Winters, take Easy on ahead. Dog, Fox, follow after." Strayer looked around. "Keep Noise Discipline from here on out. Understood?" They all nodded, so he dismissed them. "Let's get moving."

The trek to Eindhoven passed without any sort of incident. They stayed quiet, taking covered routes whenever possible. The cloud cover still hadn't lifted. As the day wore on, she began to worry about air support, or, the lack thereof due to weather. So far since the jump, the supposedly easy mission had been nothing but trouble.

They'd been hunkered down in a long ditch just north of Eindhoven for nearly twenty minutes. Alice felt her anxiety getting worse and worse with each passing minute. The sky, still covered in white clouds, looked almost like a blank canvas. In any other circumstance, Alice might have been impressed, even inspired by the sight. But now it mocked her.

Movement and noise to her left jerked her out of her thoughts. Buck picked his way over to her, hunched for cover. She waited for him.

"We're moving in across the field," he told her, and Bill Guarnere to her left. "Let's go."

Guarnere turned to the other men, gesturing to Joe Toye and Don Malarkey to get their squads in order. Alice just took a deep breath through her nose. Standing crouched over, she looked across the field. A brown brick church steeple could be seen. Other building roofs and walls could barely be glimpsed through the trees. Eindhoven.

Guns ready, Second Platoon moved as one. They rushed across the open field. Ragged breathing and pounding boots filled the air. As they crossed the yards, she just prayed they could reach cover without losing anyone.

To her surprise, not a single shot rang out. Soon they had hunkered down behind the city limits. Alice couldn't see inside. Anticipation had her shaking where she crouched. What would they find inside? All she wanted to do was get in there.

"Lieutenant Klein!"

At the whisper-shout, Alice turned down the line. Everyone around her followed suit. Lieutenant Peacock shuffled down towards them, head low. He stopped where she sat with Buck and Bill Guarnere.

"Lieutenant, Captain Winters and Lieutenant Welsh want you at First Platoon."

Alice looked at him in surprise, and then glanced at the other two. They all shrugged to each other, but Alice didn't protest. She grabbed her rifle closer. Following Peacock down the line towards the city entrance where First Platoon had set up, she stayed as low as possible. When they reached First Platoon, she found Harry and Dick with Johnny Martin and Lieutenant Hudson.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Dick gestured into the city. "You're the one most familiar with the Resistance groups. We want you with us when we go in."

"We're going in now, then?"

He nodded and turned to the others. Giving them their orders, Alice tried to take deep breaths to calm her nerves. As she looked into the city she saw a large orange blanket fluttering in the wind of an open window. Without even thinking, she smiled.

"Good sign, then?" Harry asked her, crouching down. He looked into the city as well.

She nodded. "Should be."

"Could also be a trap," Harry reminded her.

Alice knew as much. Waiting for First Platoon to form up, she took the time to run over a few dutch phrases in her mind. But soon enough they were ready to go. Staying next to Harry, Alice watched Bull Randleman, Johnny Martin, and the rest of First move forward. She followed. It didn't take long before they heard shouting and guns were raised. Alice moved to see what was happening but Harry grabbed her shoulder and yanked her back behind cover.

"Nicht schießen! Nicht schießen!"

Alice turned back and glared at Harry before moving away. It didn't even take more than a second or two before Johnny Martin moved next to her, gun trained on the city entrance. She peeked around the closest city wall. As soon as she moved past it, she'd be in easy sniping range. She glanced back at Johnny. He nodded.

Alice raised her weapon and moved so she could look into the town better. She saw three men standing in worn, unkempt suits. One had a German gun in his hands. The other two had orange cloths tucked into their pockets, but no weapons visible.

"Bist du niederländisch?" Alice shouted at them. "Oder bist du ein Nazi?"

"Nein! Nein, wir sind keine Nazis. Wir kämpfen für die Niederlande!"

Alice took a deep breath. She looked at Johnny again. He watched her closely. Her heart pounded in her chest. There was only one thing to do. She had to move into view, into the town. Both she and Johnny knew there was a chance they'd set a trap. As soon as she moved out of cover, she could be killed. With another deep breath, Alice nodded. He nodded back.

Pushing herself to her feet. She leaned against the wall. Counting to her three, Alice moved into view. She kept her gun up. "Leg deine Waffen nieder. Das sind Amerikaner. Wir sind hier um zu helfen."

"Americans?" The one in the front, without a weapon, smiled. He moved forward. "We hoped you were Americans." He turned back to the man to his left with a german rifle and told him to put it down. Then he moved forward, hands up.

Alice didn't drop her gun yet. It took a few moments for her nerves to calm. But finally she lowered it, dropping the muzzle away from them. "They're Americans. I'm from the French Resistance. Alice Klein."

All three of them grinned. The one who had been speaking for the group nodded. "Ah, bienvenue à Eindhoven, Alice Klein. You're just in time to celebrate the Germans leaving!" He turned away from her. Speaking dutch to his friends, they sped away.

Moments later, a window pushed open slowly. Alice looked up and went to raise her rifle. But the face of a young girl, blonde hair in pigtails, peeked out from behind the shutters. She called down. "Papa, zijn het Amerikanen?"

The man grinned. He pointed up to her. "Ja! Ze zijn er om te helpen."

Alice turned back to the paratroopers behind her. Johnny had already moved into view, and when she turned around and nodded back, he went to signal the others. Moments later, First Platoon moved into the town, guns still ready but pointed at the ground. Harry moved in next to Lieutenants Peacock and Hudson, and it didn't take long for Dick to join her.

"He said the Germans left the city," she told him. Shifting where she stood, Alice looked around. "I hope he was telling the truth."

Dick nodded. "Let's all hope."

Within just a handful of minutes, the streets became jam packed with the citizens of Eindhoven. Flags were handed out, songs chanted. It didn't take long for her to get separated from Dick and Harry. Jostled by the crowd, Alice tried to keep away from the women. They didn't seem to notice that she wasn't a well-toned American man.

Streamers began to fall around her. Alice found herself in a side street, trying to push against the flow. Time ticked. They needed to get through Eindhoven. They had four more bridges to secure. As a woman grabbed her and landed a kiss on her cheek, Alice groaned. The crowd pushed her back further.

As she stood against a wall of a house in a side street, Alice shook her head. At least out of the street and against the wall she had less people crowding her. Taking a moment to breath, Alice folded her collar down to hide her stripes and tried to relax a moment. The door to her right, near the end of the street, opened.

Alice turned quickly. She pulled out her pistol. But the people who came out didn't look like a threat. A woman, skin sallow, blinking against the light, hugged two young boys to her body. She shied away whenever anyone came within a few feet of her.

"Are you alright?" Alice asked, moving closer.

"The Germans?"

"Gone."

The woman immediately started to weep. Falling to her knees, she seemed to alternate between laughing and sobbing. She pulled her boys into a hug. Once she let them have a moment, Alice knelt down next to her. A lump formed in her throat.

"Have you been hiding?"

"Yes. The Nazis were rounding up Jews. We hid." She wiped away her tears. But she didn't stop smiling even through her sobs. "They took my husband. We've been trying to get to Amsterdam, and then across to England or Sweden. But we've been stuck here for six months."

A million questions crossed her mind. Alice wanted to know so much. When had the Nazis begun their round ups, which cities had been first, where did they send the Jews? But before she could ask any of it, she heard someone call her name.

"Alice, let's go!" Nixon pushed his way through the crowd towards her. "Come on."

She hesitated. It took her several seconds before turning away from the woman and her sons. But eventually she did. Alice joined Nixon pushing through the crowd. Before long, they found Dick, Harry, and Buck. But shouts pulled her away.

Alice shoved her way past men and women from Eindhoven. She could hear crying, distinctly female. Finally she came to the source. Two women knelt, half dressed, on the cold stone ground in a courtyard of the city. The entire populace had surrounded them, spitting and jeering. The two kneeling had been almost completely shaved of hair, with blood dripping down their necks, the wounds likely caused by roughly handled scissors. The sobbed. As one was thrown to the ground, another woman took her place.

Collaborator, whore, bitch. The words flung around in Dutch quite easily told the tale. They'd slept with the Germans, probably the high ranking Nazi officers. Anger filled her body. Alice shook. No one could understand why a woman would bring herself to sleep with the enemy, but Alice knew from experience that sometimes you had to do bad things to survive. The women being all but tortured in Eindhoven were young, her age. They probably hadn't had much of a choice. Any choice they'd been given would've ended in death or worse if they chose wrong.

And sometimes sleeping with the Nazis was a weapon in and of itself.

Alice felt chills fall all over her body. She shook her head. Nothing she could say or do would change the situation before her, but to turn her back on them, to look away, felt equally as wrong. And beyond that, the more she looked at the barely dressed women, bleeding and broken on the ground, the more she felt afraid. That could've easily been her. That would've been her.

Suddenly she felt someone grab her arm gently. She looked over. Bill looked at her carefully before gesturing away, and soon enough Lipton had flanked her other side. So she turned away, leaving behind the women to suffer their fate, however deserved or undeserved.

They'd failed step one: capture the Son bridge. But they'd completed step two: liberate Eindhoven. Now they had four more bridges to secure.