A/N: This is an 'article'-heavy chapter. Sue me, I like history.
April, 1944
The Siren returned to France with a great deal of fanfare. She'd toured back through the major Austrian and German cities on the way (checking in on her old network in Vienna, which Hugo and Vano ran with steady hands), but she'd cemented herself as a champion of the troops, and so with the troops she belonged.
With Otto by her side, Alice looked out the train window at the war-ravaged countryside as they travelled into France. Panzer tracks and bomb craters had torn the very earth of France apart, the people were bone-thin and hard-faced, and when they arrived in Paris Alice could barely walk ten steps without seeing an armed Gestapo or army officer.
On their first evening in Paris Alice and Otto attended a social dinner with many of the top-tier German officers, and on their second day they got to work.
Alice rekindled all her old connections, beginning with the OCM. She met with Vera Izard, who she hadn't seen since that night Alice had begun the first leg of her journey across the Atlantic to New York. They'd kept in contact since then, always working, but hadn't seen each other in the flesh. They shook hands briskly and then sat down to discuss their plans.
Alice found it easier to settle in to France. She'd spent a lot of time here before, she spoke the language fluently, and she knew people. In her periodic absences, the quietly furious resistance she'd known in 1940 had grown to a scale she could have never imagined, and she threw herself back into it with fervor. That said, she found herself missing the familiar routine of Italy. Everything had changed, once again.
Something was coming. Alice wasn't entirely sure what, and Peggy was ever-careful to keep specifics from her, but she knew it must be something massive. She couldn't see the whole picture but she sensed forces moving, causing ripples from behind the darkness. Alice redirected those ripples, disguised them, obfuscating German intelligence and feeding them lies. Meanwhile, massive bombing campaigns strafed across the continent.
Resistance efforts in France were swelling and preparing, assisted by the British SOE and now, by Alice and Otto's inter-connected network. A large part of the Résistance had been pushed out of the cities and now congregated in militarized groups in the French mountainside; they called themselves the Maquis.
Alice and Otto were well-practiced in supplying and supporting resistance groups, so they quickly got to work aiding the guerilla fighters. The British SOE had a system of airdrops set up for the Maquis, so Alice and Otto aided this with truckloads of weapons, food, and money, supported by the sympathetic locals. These groups weren't just ragtag civilians, though - many of the major groups were run by senior military commanders, agents, and strategists who'd been parachuted into France in the dead of night. Alice found herself thinking that Steve would get along with them.
She also ran counterintelligence for the Résistance: monitoring her Nazi connections for hints of reprisals, intelligence, and firepower.
She went out as Al to meet with them sometimes, to pass on warnings or to hear what they'd learned while fighting and spying on the Nazi troops. She began to trace the whispers of soldiers in strange uniforms with glowing weapons. By early May she'd gained the trust of the major Maquis groups, as she had gained the trust of the quiet resistance in Paris at the start of the war, when all seemed hopeless.
This France wasn't the France she'd known in 1940, however. Alice began to see hope everywhere: in the blazing eyes of the Maquisards and Résistance, in the V's graffitied everywhere, too many to scrub away, in the lavender fields growing over bomb craters, and the way the German generals looked afraid when their men weren't watching.
One evening at the beginning of May, the Red Skull screeched to a halt outside of what had once been the main HYDRA factory in Italy. He took in the devastation: the foundations utterly shattered, debris strewn everywhere, all of it still roaring with flame.
His fists clenched on his steering wheel.
When word spread to Alice and Otto of the destruction of the Italian HYDRA factory, they actually danced together around Alice's hotel room in an impromptu jig. Months of hard, dangerous work, and it was done: HYDRA had been completely eradicated from an entire country.
When Alice fell laughing onto her couch, she set her hand on her chest and allowed herself to feel the glow of immense, inordinate pride for Steve and his men. She'd done the reconnaissance on that factory: it can't have been easy taking it down.
When they heard, days later, rumors of how Captain America had burst out the side of the exploding building on a motorcycle, her pride turned to unease and a little consternation, but there wasn't much she could do about it.
She wondered where the SSR would send them next.
Alice continued to facilitate communication and supplies for the Maquis, occasionally communicating directly (including, once, a memorably feisty telephone exchange with a female British SOE agent on the ground codenamed White Mouse).
Through Peggy and the SSR she also coordinated with the SOE, who supplied and managed a huge amount of the organised resistance in France, coordinating them in disrupting German supplies, and destroying various targets such as weapons depots, bridges, and railroad tracks. What all this was intended for, Alice could only guess. But it seemed as if the fight were only just beginning.
In amongst the endless travelling and rising violence, Alice took up knitting. She'd learned from Matthias years ago, and it was a way to quiet her mind between shows and after a harrowing night out as Al. It gave her time to think.
At the end of the month, Alice (as Al) arrived to a pre-arranged meet in a rubbish-strewn alleyway. She had a handful of things to discuss with Vera, mostly regarding upcoming reprisals planned against the resistance in Paris.
But when the meeting time came and went with no Vera, Alice's hackles instantly rose. The dark-haired, middle aged resistance leader was never late. She waited three more minutes and then scarpered.
When she returned to her hotel room, a sweaty-faced Otto was waiting for her.
"Thank goodness you're back," he breathed by way of greeting.
"What happened?" The look on his face made her blood run cold. Was this it? Was it time for them to run for their lives? They'd both known it was a possibility.
"I just got word from Pierre - Vera's been arrested. At her home, so it's possible they don't know where the OCM headquarters are, but they're all making themselves scarce just in case."
Alice bit down on the inside of her cheek. "And Vera?"
Otto spread his hands helplessly. "A boy on her street saw the arrest, said she was pushed into a dark car and driven away. You know we won't hear any more than that."
Alice sat down. She and Vera had never been friends, but they had been the strongest of allies. Without Vera, Alice might never have become the agent she was today. Alice thought of the other arrests she'd heard of - the telling silences that followed, or the publicized trials and executions. She thought again of the tales of labor camps where people wasted away - or were somehow vanished.
For a moment, suggestions rose to the tip of Alice's tongue: they could surveill the military prisons that had been set up throughout France, contact the Resistance and try to arrange a jailbreak - but she did not speak the words, because she already knew these were impossible, brave hopes. They had no way of knowing where Vera could be, or if she were even alive. And the Résistance were guerilla groups - they couldn't take on armies.
Vera had known, as Alice knew, that she could not expect rescue if she were captured. That was a spy's lot.
Alice recalled her conversation with Vera when they'd discussed first making contact with the SSR.
Even if this ends up with me in some camp in the east starving to death, Alice had said, I'll want to know, even then, that I did everything I could.
Vera had replied I'll gladly join you in that camp then, Moser.
Alice wondered if she'd still make that choice. She suspected she would.
All Alice and Otto could do now was continue on in Vera's stead, and hope that she did not mention their names.
At the end of May, Alice felt that the forces shifting and rippling out of focus were growing closer. She'd been working round the clock reporting on German intelligence and expectations, and there'd been a heavy influx of bombing all across France - near daily along the coast.
A flurry of instructions had come from the British to the Resistance, via a radio channel that also put out hundreds of masking transmissions including poetry and literature excerpts. The instructions set out a series of tasks to undertake at the beginning of June: four plans, each given a different color code, aimed at sabotage of transport lines, power, supply lines and communication. The Resistance were all too eager to begin preparations.
In amongst these obscure preparations and near-daily Siren performances for German troops, Alice was invited to a wedding. It was the wedding of a Waffen-SS commander in Hitler's inner circle, an important figure in the Nazi elite. The wedding was to be held in Salzburg at the beginning of June. Highly inconvenient for Alice, but the Siren had no real reason to turn down such a prestigious invite.
Alice and Otto talked it over, and decided that she would attend but he would stay. Things were too crucial in France for them both to leave. Besides, it would be good cover for Alice when whatever was going to happen in France went down, and an excellent source of intelligence.
And so she found herself sitting in the grand marble hall of Mirabell Palace in Salzburg, far removed from the grim reality of war in France, watching a German officer marry a young, stylish socialite. It was not a small ceremony, and the very top of German society were present: the official witnesses were Hitler himself, Himmler, and Hitler's private secretary Martin Borhmann.
Alice fought not to shift uncomfortably in her seat at her company.
The wedding itself was a celebration of German might and pride, a massive display of grandeur and joy to show their confidence in victory.
The bridge and groom were wed, and they all journeyed to the reception: held at the Berghof, Hitler's grand home in the Bavarian alps. The whole area had been converted to a series of houses for the Nazi elite, and barracks for the Reich Security Service.
When Alice arrived, the chalet was packed with wedding guests. Alice was by no means the guest of honor, finding herself rather farther down on the social food chain here than she normally was, so she felt free to stare at the grand chalet with its expansive white walls, the caged canaries in each room, the resplendent attendants, and the sweeping windows offering a marvelous view of the Austrian mountains. The Great Hall of the house boasted a glittering chandelier, fine rugs and the famous Venus and Amor painting.
Alice felt her throat close up.
This house had been host to every general and official Alice despised, and had also welcomed, in its time, the British Prime Minister and half a dozen other heads of state. This was the place where two separate assassins had attempted to end the Führer's life. This was Hitler's home.
She was not here to idly stare, however, so she spent her time in conversations, collecting every scrap of information she could. She sipped Hitler's wine and loudly admired Hitler's decorating and artworks, her skin crawling. She spoke very briefly with the man himself and his inner circle, two minutes that when she looked back at them felt like a red-hot, stomach-turning blur.
She was entreated to sing for the gathered guests, and after an insane moment of considering singing an Allied victory song, settled on Lili Marleen. Her way of spitting in their faces without them noticing.
Word got around that the partying was to go on for several days, but Alice knew that she had reached her limit. She was not invited to stay on for a second day, and was barely able to contain her relief.
She could not stand another day in this beautiful house with its greenhouse and artworks and smiling faces. She'd known that Hitler was a man like any other, but the proof of it was sickening. The man who enjoyed these home comforts was also responsible for wreaking utter devastation on a whole continent, a whole world, tearing Alice's life apart and killing Jilí and enabling HYDRA and every other despicable thing that had clawed its way into Alice's heart. She'd known all this, but seeing it laid bare before her eyes made her blood run cold.
Excerpt from article 'Nazi Weddings,' by Holly Speck (1993),
When SS-Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein married young Nazi Party photography clerk Gretl Braun, the Nazi Party saw the union as a way to celebrate the ongoing war, and to assert their confidence in the war's outcome. The wedding and following reception was lush, grand, with celebrations at Hitler's personal villa lasting three whole days. This would be the last time Hitler would live in his own house.
The wedding was planned by Gretl's sister, and included multiple notable guests including Hitler himself, Himmler... chief of staff of the Gestapo Gottlob Berger... as well as several notable socialites and performers including the Siren... Recovered pictures of the event show the young bride smiling and dancing at her reception, surrounded by high-ranking Nazi officials.
Most believe that Fegelein courted the young Gretl in order to get himself into the Führer's good graces. He would later be shot for desertion at the end of the war, leaving Gretl alone and pregnant.
That evening, Alice drove herself to Venice and prepared her intelligence brief to send back to the SSR. She included every ounce of information she'd heard: a great deal of it about expectations of Allied planning in the ongoing war. There'd been some discussion of increased Allied radio activity, which they thought might be a sign of an invasion, but since there'd been a dozen other such false warnings (Alice prided herself on being behind at least one of those) most of the generals waved it off.
In the safety of Hitler's home, no one had seemed to pay much mind to secrecy. Though she suspected as the partying went on, their minds would be less on politics and more on booze and women.
As she went down the list of importance, she jotted down a passing observation from her many conversations at the reception: It may be worth looking into a woman named Eva Braun - the bride's sister. Have never heard of her before in society, but she has a strange familiarity with key figures in Hitler's inner circle. Potentially a mistress of one of the Ministers.
Excerpt from 'The Secret Wife' by Herman Carloff (1999):
... in fact, most of the German public did not find out about Eva Braun's existence, let alone her relationship with Hitler, until the shock news came at the end of the war that Hitler had married the young woman, 23 years his junior, and that they had committed suicide together in Hitler's bunker. As far as most historians are able to tell, this news also came as a surprise to Allied intelligence services such as the SOE and the SSR, who had noted her name a few times in connection with the German upper circles, but had no idea of her real significance.
The next day, after visiting with Hugo and Vano and other members of her Vienna network, Alice returned to her house to pack her bags for her return to France and happened to turn on the radio.
"... and today, Allied forces marched into the open city of Rome. The traitorous Italians welcomed the enemy and Pope Pius XII addressed crowds outside the Vatican, praising 'goodwill on both sides'..."
Crouching in front of her open suitcase, Alice held a folded jacket in her numb fingers. She pictured the Rome she'd known: paralyzed by war, trigger-happy Gestapo officers on every corner, the people afraid to leave their homes. She thought of how it must feel to have that pallor of fear lifted, and a smile crossed her face.
But the moment was bittersweet: she'd known this was coming, since the Allied commanders in Italy had chosen to veer north and take Rome instead of trapping the German Tenth Army. The Tenth Army had managed to escape, and formed another defensive line north of Rome; the radio presenter lauded this fact, citing Rome as an acceptable loss.
Alice wondered where Steve and his men were - her mission had diverged from theirs about a month ago, so she didn't hear much about them. She doubted they were enjoying the free streets of Rome.
Excerpt from article 'On This Day: The Liberation of Rome' by Wendy Catalan (11 May 2004):
Sixty years ago to this day, Allied soldiers marched into the streets of Rome, making the Italian city the first European capital to be liberated from Nazi hands. It was captured without any fighting, as the Germans had abandoned it and labeled it a "free city" - the Allies hoped that all the same this would draw more troops into Italy and out of France, and served as a massive propaganda tool. Tactically, however, the capture of the city was a mistake in the long run: by sacrificing hunting down the German troops in the area first, the war in Italy would stretch on until Berlin itself was seized in 1945.
June 5th, 1944
On a troop carrier ship in the Atlantic, Steve, Bucky and their men sat on deck playing cards against some soldiers from the 3rd Canadian Division.
"All I'm saying," Gabe said as he played a losing hand against a chortling Saskatchewan, "is that them calling off the landing today doesn't mean the whole thing is called off."
"Shit weather is just shit weather," said one of the Canadians, earning a round of knowing nods.
"But they've been going on about tides and times of day for months," said a soldier from the 107th, watching the card game. "If the day they picked didn't work, isn't that it?"
Gabe shook his head fervently even as he lost again. "No, like I said, we're still in the prime period for a landing: full moon for visibility, high tides for beach assaults. If they send us soon - really soon - we might pull it off."
Steve laid down his hand, not really concentrating on the game. They'd arrived on this ship three days ago, united once more with the 107th regiment, some of whom had been looking a little green around the gills on the storm-tossed ship. All they had to do was sit and wait for orders. It made Steve restless. The press stuff had made him more restless - he'd been photographed "planning" with General Eisenhower the other day, and there was a photography crew on deck who kept trying to catch Steve rousing his men's spirits.
This wasn't a HYDRA mission. This was a mission direct from Army command, for the greater war. Of course Steve had agreed; even from what little they told him he could tell that this would be one of the most pivotal moments of the war.
Morita frowned. "When's the next 'prime period' for a landing then, if we can't do it this time around?"
Gabe scratched his head. "Not for weeks."
A silence fell. They all knew that the higher-ups wouldn't keep dozens of fresh troops on a ship for weeks, waiting for the right tide. And if they were redeployed, who knew when they would be back?
Steve shuffled the deck. "Then let's just hope they make the right call."
Excerpt from podcast episode 'Operation Neptune' from series Operation Overlord, 2011:
"See, I don't think people realize how much the D-Day landings in Normandy really depended on the weather: the commanders needed good visibility to see obstacles on the beach, while also minimizing the exposure of their men. And then on June 4th, the day before the planned invasion date of June 5th, which they'd been planning for for months, there was high wind and stormy weather which would have made the landings impossible. The Allied commanders were then faced with an enormous choice: did they go ahead with the mission right away, even though the plan had already come across these significant obstacles, or did they wait and bide their time until the next predicted window: from the 18th to 20th of June? This was one of the most secret operations of the war (thanks to Operation Bodyguard), and the whole plan relied on its secrecy - if they waited, they might be found out.
Finally, the commanders made their decision: they would go ahead with the landings on June 6th, a postponement of just a day.
And thus began what was then the largest amphibious assault of history. The Allies pulled out all the stops: 24,000 troops, an invasion fleet of nearly 7000 vessels from eight different navies, more than 2,200 bombers providing aerial assault, tanks and trucks and assault weapons. Even Captain America and the Howling Commandos were at one of the landings.
The choice to land on the 6th would prove to be a fortuitous one. From June 19th to 22nd, the secondary attack window they'd selected, a massive storm raged along the Normandy coast. If they had not chosen to attack on the 6th, they might never have made it at all."
June 6th, 1944
Alice took the overnight train up to Berlin, and spent the night alone in her cabin caught in fitful dreams of beautiful chalets and unseen momentous events on the horizon. Giving up on sleep just before dawn, she spent the last few hours of the trip knitting. She felt groggy and grumpy as she filed off the train in Berlin the next morning, so it took her a few moments to register the general sense of commotion.
When she finally looked up and noticed the gathered, whispered conversations and the huddles of people peering down at newspapers with hands over their mouths, her heart leaped.
It's happened.
She hastened to the station exit, but couldn't bear not knowing a moment longer, so she tapped the ticket inspector on the shoulder. "Excuse me, what's going on?"
"The Allies just attacked the coast of France," he said with round eyes. "Hundreds of ships, all along Normandy! No one knows what's going on."
Alice turned her urge to grin into a gasp. "When?"
"Midnight last night! There's thousands of troops all along Normandy now."
Alice fabricated a hurried, concerned look, then strode out of the station and called a taxi. On the way to her apartment the taxi driver complained about how Berlin had been in uproar all morning, and all the higher-ups were clogging the streets with their private cars.
Alice nodded along, outwardly concerned. I suspect my dinner with the Propaganda Department this evening is going to be canceled.
Finally they arrived. She hauled her own suitcase up the stairs to her apartment, unlocked the door and burst inside. The grin she'd been concealing burst across her face. She dropped her suitcase with a thunk and whirled around, giddy. Please, she thought. Please, please, let this be the beginning of the end.
Since 1939 she'd watched the German empire expand greedily outwards, seemingly relentless. But now the outwards momentum had stalled, and the tide was turning back.
Alice intended to sit right in the heart of it and watch the borders roll back in.
After about an hour, in which Alice did nothing but listen to unfolding reports of the massive attack on Normandy, she heard a knock at her door.
She opened it to reveal a tall blonde woman in a brown SS-Gefolge uniform. "Oh," Alice said, recognising the Propaganda Department's senior secretary. "Hello, Inge."
"Your doorman said you were back," the severe-looking woman said. "We tried to call, but the phone lines are too busy. Herr Miller conveys his regrets that he will have to cancel dinner this evening, and wishes to pass along this message." She stiffly handed over a piece of paper.
"Oh," Alice said again as she took the paper. "Well, I appreciate you coming across town to let me know."
"It's my duty," Inge responded. "Heil Hitler."
"Heil Hitler," Alice echoed softly, then returned Inge's salute. Inge flicked her eyes over Alice disdainfully, then turned and left.
Alice rolled her eyes as she closed the door, then opened the memo:
Frau Siren,
Apologies for the urgency, but we kindly request that you return to your posting in France as soon as possible. Have no fear for your safety, we have arranged all the necessary measures for your travel. Field Marshal Rundstedt assures us that the Allies have been held off from progressing too far inland, so France remains ours. The troops will need bolstering now more than ever.
Herr Klein will be waiting for you in Lyon.
Heil Hitler.
Alice eyed the transport details typed on the back of the memo, grabbed her suitcase, and marched right back out the door.
When she arrived in Lyon the next day, Otto stood at the train station waiting for her. The moment they spotted each other they embraced, excitement dancing between them.
"Come," Otto murmured, "there's work to be done."
In the back of the private car on the way to the hotel, Otto handed her a piece of crumpled paper. "They've been airdropping these all over France, one of our couriers brought me this one."
Alice glanced down. The flyer was written in French, proclaiming FREEDOM IS ON THE WAY. A little heavy handed, but Alice had to admit it was effective, especially given the photographs. The whole front of the flyer was taken up by a photograph of various soldiers looking heroic as they charged up a beach, accompanied by armored vehicles. At the bottom corner was a picture of a group of soldiers holding a captured Nazi flag.
"Turn it over," Otto suggested.
She did, and her heart nearly dropped into her stomach when she recognized none other than Steve. Well, she couldn't really see his face but Captain America was utterly distinctive: even in black and white he looked vivid with the clean white star on his chest and the striped shield on his arm. He was pictured charging up the beach, shield raised, and despite the grainy picture quality Alice could see the rest of his team charging up behind him.
"They were there," she breathed.
"They're here," Otto responded. "Breathing French air like the rest of us."
"I thought the Germans were holding them off?"
Otto grimaced. "Things didn't go exactly to plan, but the Allies have a foothold. They've landed on five separate beaches, which they meant to link up, but they haven't quite managed it yet. The Germans are scrambling, though. And the Résistance are on their sabotage warpath. We did our job well."
Alice leaned across the back seat to loop her arm around Otto and squeeze. "It's not over yet," she said softly.
"No," he agreed. "You've got a bit more singing to do."
Display at the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, 2014:
Image Gallery: Captain America and D-Day
As you walk through this gallery of photographs from the 107th Tactical Team's deployment in Normandy, consider the following: some historians have questioned whether Captain America's deployment in Operation Overlord was a purely political decision. Several photographs survive of Captain Rogers conversing with Allied command, and leading troops up the beach, which would have been an excellent propaganda tool for the Allies, who saw Operation Overlord as the beginning of the push back into Nazi territory. Or is it possible that Allied command wanted to add the extra muscle of their single super soldier to what was their boldest and riskiest move of the war? With the first weeks of the landings having an uncertain, dangerous future, there is no doubt that Captain Rogers was on the ground every day with his team, engaged in some of the hardest and most frustrating fighting of the war.
Four days after the invasion of Normandy, Alice and Otto were visiting with a Résistance group outside Bordeaux when word came through that a Waffen-SS company had massacred a whole village in Haute-Vienne: hundreds of men, women, and children shot or burned alive in a church. They'd said it was a response to Résistance action.
Alice closed her eyes as the Résistants around them flew into uproar, their anger and grief a physical force in the air. She thought of Lidice, whose occupants had been massacred two years ago, and the countless other mass acts of senseless violence. She'd thought they were close to ending it.
Otto's hand landed on her shoulder. "The world won't forget this," he said in a low tone.
Alice opened her eyes. "Remembering isn't enough. This has to end."
Display at Oradour-sur-Glane Memorial Museum:
On June 10 1994, a unit of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich descended on the small town of Ouradour-sur-Glane. They rounded up the 650 inhabitants, divided them by gender, and then proceeded to massacre them all: burned alive, suffocated, shot. Only seven survived, with life-threatening injuries.
The reason for this massacre was never clear. In the days following, the officer in charge ordered his men not to speak of the killings. But public outrage grew throughout France, and unusually, the German Army Commander-In-Chief ordered an investigation of the massacre, which was suspended in January of the next year under the explanation that "military concerns justified the retaliation". The officer in charge was killed shortly after the massacre in the fighting at Normandy. It is likely that the massacre was, at the time, a way of 'making an example' of a French community following the D-Day landings.
Following the war the French Government ordered the village left as a reminder of the violence, never to be rebuilt. To this day it remains as a memorial to the dead.
Several men have faced trial for the massacre at different points throughout time, with some of them being convicted. 20 served prison sentences for five years, one for fourteen years. Most died free of conviction.
"If I never smell a fresh sea breeze again, it'll be too soon."
The 107th Tactical Team chortled at Dugan's latest complaint, watching him scowling over his shoulder at the distantly-visible Normandy shoreline.
Two weeks had passed since they'd stormed the Normandy beaches, one part of the massive Operation Neptune action. They'd been fighting alongside the rest of the Allies, hard fighting to link up the 5 beaches and now push down through the hedgerow-crisscrossed country inland. Planes buzzed back and forth across the sky at any given moment, some of them Allied planes on the way to blast open paths for the soldiers and some of them Luftwaffe roaring in to blow them all to smithereens.
Steve and his team had also been skirmishing beyond the lines of fighting, since it turned out there were also HYDRA forces on the ground in Normandy. Everyone accepted that the 107th Tactical team were the experts in taking down HYDRA and their strange weapons, so they got deployed regularly. The fighting was yet to break out of the small pocket of Normandy they'd won so far, though, so they couldn't expand much beyond that.
They'd spent the last two nights in this camp in a small town called Caumont, which had been mostly evacuated of civilians, though the further south they pushed the more civilians they encountered. Steve and his team now sat around Gabe's radio, most of them half-stripped out of their filthy uniforms and partaking in a cigarette or a canteen of liquor. They'd been joking and trading guesses about the progress of the Normandy invasion, but as the time ticked closer to 8PM they grew less talkative, more alert.
The SSR had been getting regular updates from Alice through their various spies within France, so Steve had expected to receive intelligence through that reliable, yet slow, method. He hadn't seen her since the beach in Tuscany, though they'd been trading correspondence of a sort up until she left for France.
But last week, after the beachheads had been linked, a young girl in boots five sizes too big for her had approached Steve and his team in the middle of a bombed-out-town. Civilians were supposed to have been evacuated, but those who'd remained for whatever reason were always coming up to the Allied troops to celebrate or talk.
The young girl in question had strode right up to Steve and handed him a woolen bundle. "J'ai un cadeau pour toi!" [I've got a present for you!]
Steve took the bundle and realized it was a dark blue scarf, thick and warm under his fingers. "M-Merci," he stammered, touched and startled out of the strategic mindset he'd been in. His men laughed at his embarrassment, and the girl smiled.
"Tu peux écrire ton nom sur l'étiquette pour savoir que c'est la tienne," [You can write your name on the tag so you know it's yours] she suggested, and something about her gaze made Steve hesitate a moment. It seemed an odd thing to say, and paired with that look in her eyes...
Even as his men continued to tease him, Steve had glanced down at the bundled scarf in his hands and spotted a fabric tag in one corner. He turned it over, expecting a maker's mark, but there was only an embroidered black and electric blue butterfly.
He glanced up, eyes wide, but the girl had already left; he saw her back as she turned behind a bombed-out building and considered following her, but decided against it. He glanced back down.
"What was all that about?" asked Bucky. The teasing note in his voice had been replaced by a frown.
Steve still stared at the tag. "Buck… this is a Ulysses butterfly."
Bucky stilled. "What?"
Steve shook the scarf loose, expecting a piece of paper to fall out, but the folds were empty. He frowned. The dark blue scarf was good quality, thick and textured, but he could see that it was handmade. He recalled Alice teaching him how to knit one winter, showing him what she'd learned from Matthias.
"Alice sent you… a scarf?" Bucky had wondered. The others had stopped laughing and crowded around, watching as Steve handled the scarf. "It ain't even your birthday. And you hardly ever get cold nowadays."
"Wait." Steve had spotted something. What he'd thought was textured ribbing in the knitting had snagged his attention. He held up one end of the scarf so the fringe tassels at the other end brushed the ground, and peered closer. He ran a finger over the first row of the knitting, noting the tiny irregularities, and a sudden smile lit up his face.
"My god," he breathed. He ran the scarf through his fingers, eyes darting, then turned it over and his smile widened.
"What is it?" Bucky frowned.
"It's Morse code," Steve laughed, pointing out what he'd noticed. Each row of the knitting bore the marks of written morse code: tiny dots and dashes built into the pattern. Bucky's eyes flew wide and his men let out surprised laughs even as they leaned in. Steve shook his head. "Does anyone have a pen?"
So with the instructions from his new scarf, Steve and his men had deciphered a familiar and yet completely revised code: Alice had sent them another cheat sheet for her Siren performances.
At 8PM Gabe's radio crackled, faded in and out a little, and then began to ring out with Alice's voice.
Smiling, Steve touched the dark blue scarf around his neck (Bucky kept telling him not to wear it, it was June for chrissakes), picked up his pencil and began to make notes.
Oral History interview with Michael Holloway, former 29th Infantry Division private, recorded 1982:
The Howling Commandos - not that they called themselves that at the time - bonded better than any other team I'd seen out there. Sure, we were all mates - war does that - but those fellas were close. They got on well with most everyone, though some of them rubbed a few people the wrong way, but they also kept themselves to themselves from time to time. They sure liked listening to the radio.
When Alice heard that the HYDRA bunker east of Caen that she and Otto had discovered a week ago had been completely demolished by Captain America, she patted her traveling case of wool and knitting needles with satisfaction. She'd picked up the idea from her network in Vienna, who'd been transporting packages disguised under skeins of wool.
Since then she'd become an avid knitter: she'd posted scarves and socks and woolen hats all over Europe, handed out scarves and gloves to children in the towns she visited. The work was time consuming, so she didn't do it for urgent messages, but she'd gotten pretty good. She worked quickly, and she'd figured out how to make the dots and dashes very small.
She took to her next performance with a little more enthusiasm. She sang loud and bright to a crowd of weary German soldiers and when they rose to applaud her at the end she called "Danke fürs Zuhören! Gut gemacht!" [Thank you for listening! Well done!]
Perhaps a little nonsensical, but she felt certain that the intended audience understood.
Late June, 1944
During a week's break in the Siren's performances, Alice and Otto traveled to the south of France on the request of a Maquis group there. They took a private car down from Paris, away from the frantic fighting in the country's north, under the pretense of discussing some business with a music producer in Toulouse. The Allies chipped away a little more territory each day, but they hadn't broken out of the small pocket in Normandy yet.
The rest of the country had their eyes on the north - everywhere Alice and Otto stopped, they were asked what they had seen, what they knew. Once or twice, they had to divert their route because the roads had been destroyed by bombardment or by rebels.
They stopped - officially - in Toulouse, but as soon as it was dark they changed into disguises and took another car further south, all the way down to the Pyrénées mountains. There, on a dirt road looking out over a plunging waterfall, they met the Maquisards who'd invited them.
The collection of men dressed in a variety of clothes from old French Army uniforms to overalls, with an equally bizarre assortment of weapons strapped to their backs. The men urged Alice and Otto to hide their car, then walked with them up a winding rocky road.
"You know why we called you," said Audric, the leader of the group. He wore a metal helmet and a grim expression. "The fools have holed themselves up in a cave up here, and don't speak a lick of French. We keep trying to tell them we mean them no harm, but they won't trust anyone."
"They are scared," said a younger man whose name Alice didn't know. He shrugged at them when they all turned to look at him. "Can you blame them?"
Alice pondered this as they kept walking up the steep road. "And you're certain they said HYDRA?"
"Yes!" said Audric impatiently. "They think we are HYDRA. I don't speak much English so I couldn't understand what else they said. But then they started shooting those blue weapons at us, and I understood that well enough."
"We appreciate you reaching out to the Résistance to let us know," Otto said, wheezing a little as he put one foot in front of the other.
"They're a nuisance!" Audric continued. "We are trying to do our part, blow up Nazi trucks and such, but these fools on our home turf are making it difficult!" Alice couldn't help but smile at this, despite the gravity of the situation. Then Audric came to a sudden halt, and Alice almost ran into his back. The Maquisards paused all around them, hands on their hips and eyes on Alice and Otto.
"The cave is just up there," Audric said, waving a hand up at a rocky rise above. "We're not going up there to get shot at again."
"Thank you," Alice said in her low voice. She and Otto shared a glance, then scrambled up the last few yards. Alice had intended to pause at the top to scope out the situation, but Otto pulled himself over the rise. A moment later a blinding blue flash went off and Otto threw himself down again, skidding a few feet down the shale rock as he swore in gruff German.
"Shh," Alice hissed, even as she eyed the tree behind them which the blue projectile had just vaporized. "The last thing these men need to hear is German."
"Next time I get shot at I'll be more careful with my language then," Otto huffed, then pulled himself up a few feet. "How are we going to do this? I saw the cave, it's about a hundred yards to the left. Didn't see anyone, but they must have a lookout."
"Okay." Alice clenched her fists, then stretched up so she was just below the lip of the rise. She cleared her throat and called out in a clear, male American accent: "Hello there!"
Ears straining, she heard mutters above.
"My name is Al Johnson," she called. Otto watched her. "I'm a US Army undercover agent here in France, and I got word that there might be some countrymen in need of an assist. Is that correct?"
There was a short pause. She heard more mutters, and a scrape of gravel.
"What's your service number?" came a suspicious shout.
Otto frowned.
"54985870," Alice recited. Otto's eyes widened, and she just shook his head at him. She'd said the first service number that had come to her head: Steve's. She'd read it off his dogtags in Italy.
Another moment passed. "We… how did you know we were here?" The same voice from before. The man had a West coast accent.
"I think you've met my friends here, they're in the French Resistance. They reached out and let me know you might be in trouble. Do you mind my asking how many of you there are?"
"... There's eight of us left. What division are you with?"
"The Strategic Scientific Reserve, you might've heard of 'em. Based out of New York," she said. "Where are you fellas from?"
"Seattle, Texas, Ohio, and Queens."
"Queens, huh?" Alice put a smile in her voice. "I'm from Brooklyn."
Another long pause. "We… didn't think there'd be anyone coming for us. No one came for us for two years, so we got out on our own. Everyone thinks we're dead."
"Well I can't promise it'll be easy," Alice called, "But I can promise that I'm going to do absolutely everything I can to get you boys home safe. What d'you say you let me climb on up there and talk with you face to face? I'm not armed, and neither is my colleague here."
"Colleague?" The suspicion was back.
"He's" - Alice hesitated for a moment - "another agent with the SSR." She lowered her voice. "Otto, try not to speak until I can calm these men down. There's no getting around your accent." He nodded.
Alice lifted her head again. "So what do you say?"
The longest pause yet followed. Alice listened with her eyes closed and her fingers crossed.
Finally: "Alright, come on up - but keep your arms up, we're going to search you."
Alice and Otto shared one last grim glance, and then pulled themselves up over the lip of the rise. Alice tried not to screw her face up in wariness. But no more blasts of blue light erupted on the mountaintop: instead, Alice found herself looking down the barrels of two glowing blue HYDRA assault rifles, held by two gaunt, wiry-looking men with thick beards and desperate eyes. She allowed her gaze to flick sideways to the cave opening and spied six other figures in the shadowy darkness.
"Well hello," Alice said in a calm voice. She kept her arms raised. "You wanted to search us?"
The man on the left jerked his head. "Williams."
One of the men from the cave strode out, eyes darting over Alice and Otto. He had dark shadows under his eyes. Alice held still as he came up to them and felt their clothes for weapons. She hoped he didn't notice the bandages binding her chest.
Once Williams pulled away and nodded to the two men with the HYDRA weapons, Alice took a few tentative steps forward. When neither man threatened to shoot her, she held out her hand. "Like I said, the name's Al."
The men stared at her for a few more moments. She saw their fear and suspicion in their eyes, in their rigid grip on the HYDRA weapons and their coiled muscles. She felt the men in the cave watching her.
"Look," Alice sighed. "If you like, I'll leave here tonight and never come back. The Maquis down there won't be happy about it, but I'll tell them to leave you alone. But…" she looked over them all. "I don't know exactly what you've been through, but it's clear you've been through hell. I think you deserve to feel like you're not alone. I think you deserve a good meal, and a chance at getting home."
She kept her hand extended.
Otto remained a few paces behind her, wariness radiating from him. But her eyes were on the men ahead of her: they exchanged a glance loaded with meaning, the glance of two men who'd fought death together.
Then, as one, they lowered their weapons. The man on the left stepped forward and took her hand.
"Nice to meet you, Al. Thanks for coming."
Alice spent almost the rest of the night slowly working to get the eight men in the cave to trust her. First it was to coax the six in the cave out: two of them were injured, and all of them took in her every move with suspicion and wariness. Then it was to convince them all to come down to the Maquis camp to get some food.
As this progressed, Alice and Otto slowly learned more about the men and their stories. They were all US Navy. Their ship had been torpedoed two years ago by a HYDRA submarine. A hundred men had survived, and HYDRA fished them out of the water and took them to a factory in the Pyrénées - Alice and Otto exchanged a glance at that. They'd been near worked to death for years, until the remaining twenty staged an escape.
They didn't describe their escape in detail, but Alice knew better than to ask why only eight of twenty remained.
Talking ceased as the eight men wolfed down food in the Maquis camp. Alice and Otto saw the Maquisards looking a little disgruntled, and chose that moment to hand them a fat bag of money.
"For the meal," Otto said, with a smile.
Then the game of trust and suspicion continued - after two hours Alice convinced the men to leave their two HYDRA weapons with the Maquis, who she instructed to use the weapons to trick the Nazis into thinking HYDRA was attacking them.
Then she and Otto convinced the sailors down the mountain and into a borrowed truck. They drove back to Toulouse in tense silence, and just before dawn smuggled the men into the house of a Résistance ally. The men were a little wild-eyed at being amongst civilisation again, but seemed to have decided to throw their lot in with 'Al'. From the hollows in their cheeks and the way they wheezed climbing up the stairs to the safehouse, Alice didn't think they'd have survived much longer up in that cave.
Back at the hotel, Alice and Otto didn't get a chance to catch up on sleep. Instead, with Heidi and the backup singer/resistance agent Anna's help, they worked through the next day putting together a plan to get the eight POWs to safety.
"Okay," Alice breathed, eyes darting. "Go!"
As a unit she, Otto, and the eight POWs pelted from the back of their truck and into an open, flat grass field toward a distant beach.
Two days had passed since Alice and Otto's trip to the Pyrénées. They'd decided to hide the POWs in plain sight: four of them as bag carriers and assistants in the Siren's busy retinue, three as Otto's employees in the production company, and one of them had posed as the backup singer Anna's latest beau. They had travelled with the Siren's retinue (none of them any the wiser that 'Al' was really Alice) north from Toulouse, through Paris, and then to Rennes near the west coast. A few of them had even helped out with Alice's performance last night.
The men wore their disguises now as they ran through ankle-height grass in the dead of night: second-hand suits, a few pairs of workmen's overalls, and Anna's 'beau' wore a stylish trench coat. They'd all shaved their beards and had a few square meals so they more or less looked the part, if you ignored the desperate glint in their eyes.
Now, Alice could only hope that their courier had managed to get past the vicious front lines to pass along their message.
Clouds obscured the moon, making their surroundings nearly pitch black. Alice nearly fell half a dozen times, and hoped that meant that no one would see them. To her left she could just make out glinting lights in the ocean: they looked bizarre, but she knew them to be the lights of the Mont Saint Michel abbey. She'd never seen the tidal island before, only in pictures.
Mont Saint Michel was 60 miles south of the fighting: close enough that it would be feasible for a small troop carrier to sail here in the dead of night from Allied-occupied Créances, but not so close that they'd have gunfire rattling over their heads. In fact, it seemed most Nazi troops had deserted the area aside from a few lookouts left behind to keep watch for more invasion craft. No one would notice a small ship.
Alice felt the grass beneath her feet give way to shifting sand, and slowed her doubled-over sprint. She and the other men sank into crouches.
"I can't see anything," panted Griffiths, the defacto leader of the POWs. He sounded close to tears.
Alice bit the inside of her cheek, thinking, but then she heard it: five long, low notes, almost akin to an owl's mournful hoot. A grin spread across her face. "Follow me." She inched along the beach, unable to see much beyond the few feet of sand ahead of her and the distant lights of Mont Saint Michel. The invisible ocean crashed back and forth to her right.
She thought she heard voices over the sound of the waves, and a second later she almost bumped right into Falsworth.
He gripped her by the arms, tightly at first until he recognised her, and she could just make out the smile that lit up his face. "Al!" he exclaimed, and glanced up to squint at the nine men who'd shuffled along behind her. He looked over his shoulder and called lowly: "I found them!" He looked back. "We had a job getting here, you know, and we've just been thinking we missed our landing point again!"
"Thank you for coming," Alice said, squeezing his shoulder in return. No other team could have come so quickly.
She heard more footsteps in the sand, and then figures appeared around them. The moon peeked through the clouds for a moment so Alice could make out the 107th Tactical Team: Gabe and Dernier's grinning faces, Dugan's bowler hat, Morita in his slouch cap, and there: Bucky, his eyes almost glowing in the darkness. Steve's shield gleamed in what little light there was, and then she saw his face. His eyes roved over her, taking her in.
"Who the hell is that?" whispered Griffiths from behind Alice.
"He's Captain America, I told you that," she said, half-smiling. She turned back to Steve. "You'll have to excuse them, they haven't had the chance to pick up a comic book in a few years."
"Understandable," Steve smiled. He shuffled closer so all the POWs could see him. "Alright, here's what's going to happen. My good friends Morita and Dugan here are going to take you guys to the ship thats going to get you out of here. We've got a straight shot back to the island of Jersey, and there's an aircraft waiting there to take you fellas to London. Understand?"
There was a low murmur of assent, and then Morita and Dugan stepped forward to guide the POWs. They began to fade into the darkness, but then Alice noticed their figures pause. Griffiths had stopped walking.
"Hey, Al," came his low voice.
"Yes?"
"We meant to say it earlier, but… thank you. For everything. Both of you."
Alice couldn't see them at all, but she suspected the cover of darkness had prompted the honesty from the traumatised man. She allowed her true feelings to play across her face, safe in the knowledge that no one would see.
When she'd composed herself a moment later, she responded hoarsely: "Of course." She swallowed. "Thank me by getting home safe, and living well. Be kind to yourselves. Have a drink on me."
A low rustle of laughter. "Will do. Au revoir."
"Au revoir," Alice and Otto responded together.
Smiling, Alice listened to their footsteps fade. The moonlight was swallowed up by the thick cloud cover once more, stealing Alice's ability to see anything but the distant glow of Mont Saint Michel.
When nothing but the sound of rushing waves filled the air, Bucky spoke:
"The SSR'll have them checked out by doctors, but right after that they're going to have to go through some pretty heavy questioning. They were with HYDRA for two years, at a factory we didn't know about. Plus they'll have to be sworn to secrecy about how they got out."
Alice reached out toward his voice until she found his elbow. "Hi."
"Hi," he responded with a smile in his voice.
"Speaking of that, though," she added, "Otto and I are going to start running intel on the Pyrénées to isolate that base. The Maquis there have agreed to help us."
She sensed Otto nod beside her. "HYDRA has a knack for finding wild country with few civilians to talk about them."
Steve's hand emerged out of the darkness and landed unerringly on Alice's shoulder. "Peggy couldn't come tonight - too flat out in London - but she said to treat tonight as your monthly debrief. What do you guys have?"
"We thought the same," Alice replied, and rested her hand over his. She squeezed his fingers. "Otto brought an intel packet with everything that hasn't come through to you already. Officer profiles, general atmosphere behind the lines, expectations for the coming attacks. There's also compiled intelligence from the Maquis groups we're in touch with."
She heard a rustle of paper as Otto handed the packet to someone - Gabe, she thought.
"Other than that," Otto said, "we will follow up on the Pyrénées factory, and we also have reports of increased HYDRA activity southeast of Orléans which we are attempting to centralize. The Red Skull has been seen several times in France, but not lately - we suspect he has returned to their main headquarters. Doctor Zola continues to travel from base to base to make up for the damage caused by their recent losses - thanks to yourselves - but we're never able to uncover any advance notice of his travel."
"We'll pin them down when they have fewer hidey holes to run to," Bucky said grimly. "Anything else?"
"That about covers it," Alice said. "Any requests?"
Steve and Alice now stood so close together that she felt him shrug. "We're still trying to break out of Normandy with the rest of the Allies. We'll be back on the real hunt soon." He flipped his hand on Alice's shoulder to take her hand. "Thank you for my scarf, by the way."
She grinned up at him. She could barely make out any details of his face but she savored what she could: the light in his eyes, the shape of his nose and mouth under his cowl, the smile on his lips. The stupid white A on his forehead. She could smell the gunsmoke and sweat scent of him on the sea air.
"You're welcome."
Otto asked Dernier a question in French - something about the Résistance in Marseilles - and Alice glanced around. She could hear and sense the presence of other people, of course, but everything was pitch black. Probably only Steve could see anything.
Why waste an opportunity?
Utterly silently, Alice stretched up on her toes and tugged on Steve's hand to get the message across. He responded instantly, as if he'd been thinking the same thing: His suit creaked slightly as he leaned into her. Alice couldn't suppress her smile when their noses collided. They adjusted swiftly and then Steve's lips were on hers, his hand rising to cup the back of her head. Alice gripped one of the shield harness straps running across his chest to bring herself closer.
Alice thought, for a brief moment, that in another time this could be the height of romance: they stood on a beach near one of the most beautiful and unique abbeys in the world, the wind in their hair and their arms around one another. But then she remembered it was the middle of the night only a few miles away from the most violent battlefront of the war, and they were being utterly silent to avoid letting the soldiers surrounding them know what they were up to.
But then Steve tilted his head slightly and moved his lips against hers with more urgency, and all thoughts of romance and darkness flew out of Alice's head as she tried to convince herself not to sigh.
Another second later, they pulled apart. Alice made out the gleam of Steve's smile, and felt his hand curve down to her jaw, a silent conversation. She squeezed his other hand again.
"What do you think, Cap?" asked Falsworth.
Alice sensed Steve's befuddlement even though she couldn't quite make out his face, and stifled a laugh.
"I agree," Steve said confidently. He gently tapped his finger against the side of Alice's jaw, as if to say I heard that.
"Alright," Falsworth said. "Let's head back to the ship then."
"Damn," Steve murmured, only just loud enough for Alice to overhear, and she felt him trace the edge of her smile as he pulled away. "Good work, you two. Be safe, and I…" she sensed a moment of hesitation. "We'll see you when we see you."
Otto said his farewells, and Alice murmured under her breath: "I love you." She hoped Steve heard it.
His fingers tightened on hers for a fraction longer, and then their hands slipped apart.
"Goodbye," Alice called.
"Bye, troublemaker," came Bucky's wry farewell, and he fumbled for her elbow in parting.
Alice and Otto stood side by side on the dark beach, listening as the 107th Tactical Team trudged away up the sand.
When they couldn't hear anything other than the waves and the wind whistling through the grass, and the warmth of Steve's touch had faded from Alice's skin, Otto let out a sigh.
"Now we have to try to find the truck in the dark."
As always you guys are the best, and I hope you're all safe and healthy x
Reviews
GuestPrime: I could never be too hard on my girl Peggy! I felt they did need some "girl talk", as much as Peggy and Alice are capable of that. As for what will happen with canon, we'll have to wait and see ;) And I absolutely love writing Alice and Steve scenes, they're both so dumb and soft together.
Thanks for the Lili Marleen movie recommendation, I'll check it out! I love a good atmospheric wartime movie. Stay safe!
Guest: And I can't wait to show you what happens next!
Sprout: Aw thank you so much! This fic is giving me sanity as well haha, it's nice to use my brain from time to time.
CaptainLoki: thank you SO much lovely, that really means a lot! I really appreciate your reviews, thank you for giving me inspiration with your enthusiasm!
Guest: you sound very certain ;) We'll have to see how your prediction turns out! I'm glad you're enjoying.