Saint-Marie-Du-Mont, Normandy, France
June 6th 1944
|| Eris ||
On the fifth night, I heard the engines. A steady low hum, a swarm of bees their wings and bodies made of gears and wires, grinding and shifting overhead. My body was rising before my eyes had fully opened, reaching out to steady myself on the creaking branch. I had found safety in the trees that surrounded Sainte-Marie-Du-Mont, a hiding place however rudiment that provided a vantage point to the forest floor below. I had been expecting help to come from the ground but my eyes were now drawn to the sky, dark and cloudless.
It sounded like bees, a swarm of them.
I had been delivering information and intelligence on the German locations in Normandy for nearly two years. I had thought, surely, that any invasion would come by sea. Any invasion had seemed impossible, with the fortifications that I had detailed and photographed. Expectation was a privilege to agents. Plans fell through, and rumors always spiraled. Invasion or not, there was never a promise and nothing was ever set in stone, carved into assurance and reality. I had entertained the thought that my extraction wasn't to come, a fleeting idea.
I skittered down the tree and looked up. Between the canopy of trees, I could see patches of the black night sky filled with silver clouds. Those clouds descended like snowflakes, falling from the sky to the dark ground below. That's when the air was split by the sound of artillery fire. My heart started to pound as I realized what those clouds were. I had spent days of waiting, my body trembling at the realization. This was it. Fluttering silk, like bedsheets on a line. Hundreds of them, flitting down among the trees and rooftops.
All this for me, I thought. They shouldn't have. A laugh escaping my throat before it was silenced.
Those clouds were parachutes and that artillery fire would stain the white of their silk chutes red with blood.
I had to make the air safe or no one would make it to the ground alive.
If I wanted anyone to find me, to extract me, I had to move fast.
Disoriented in the dark and the several days of running I had done, I wasn't quite sure where I was anymore. I set my back to the sea-scented wind and my eyes on the distant lights of a town, closing my eyes I listened for the distinction of imminent fire. There was a certain sound to a garrison post, the rustle and the rumble of the men and their arrtilery. With the wind whispering to my bare neck, I could hear the growing rumble, a red-hot beast that burst to the right and behind me a little ways.
With only the sound to follow, I took a quick inventory of my supplies.
I had very little on me, the pistol I had stolen from the officer, and a pair of brass knuckles that Felix had given me, ("Your delicate hands won't do any damage on their own, little agent,"). I had only a handful of little vials that hummed eagerly to be lit with my father's lighter. I didn't know how many guns I had, how many men I would be walking into. The odds were rising and it didn't seem to be in my favor. I wasn't a good gambler, I knew that. I wasn't good at following orders either. Miriam always told me to use my head. My head told me to run towards the sound. I knew heads could be persuaded to think all sorts of things but this was the only way I could think of doing something. For weeks I had been passively helping the war. Photographs weren't the same as someone's life fluttering beneath your palms.
I jogged into the fields, towards the bright bursts of light. I was only a few kilometers away and I had run further at Camp-X but the blood rushing in my ears had felt like an eternity. If I had been faster, I wondered how many lives could have been saved. How many I could be saving now.
The soldiers manning the guns were easy to avoid, their full concentration on the sky above them. I didn't have to be quiet, the hammering of the mechanisms would conceal my footsteps but I crept forward all the same. I knew I could manage, one or two easily. It should have sickened me that these soldiers before me weren't men anymore, their hearts hammering didn't stall my plan or freeze my movements. I paused, calculating this complex equation, brows furrowing at the problem. Something in me had taken over and the sickening feeling that had gripped me the first time I had felt the life leak from under my fingers was gone. I was counting now. It wasn't for sport, right?
Crouching at the treeline, I scanned the garrison. There were 11 men per gun and 4 guns at this battery. 44 men were a lot more than I could handle but maybe one or two guns out of commission would suffice. I didn't have time to overthink. The men were still dropping above me, hundreds of them now and I knew that I had to work quickly.
With the speed of Sergeant Brown screaming in my ear, I slipped into the garrison's trench and took the nearest man's neck between my hands. I didn't watch. That was something I promised myself, no matter how mechanically I proceeded. I never watched.
I went systematically down the line, knocking out the next before turning my gun onto the nine others. It was like Camp X all over again; Sergeant Brown's favorite game: beat up Carroll.
Some of my opponents were still trying to do their jobs while others took offense to my presence. Punches were thrown and a few bullets were fired, dangerously close to ammunition boxes. They were quickly stifled, a blur of crashing bodies. That's all they were. Bodies in the way of my mission.
One bunker out of commission and a single shot left in my pistol. I wiped a trail of blood away from my eye, the gash stinging at the dirt on my hand. I knew that these guns were still operational and I couldn't allow that. Picking around in the boxed of ammunition, I withdrew a small grenade, no larger than the palm of my hand. This would do.
Never deplete your own reserves when there is perfectly serviceable munition around you. That had been another of Miriam's rules. Funny how little things like that stuck with me.
Getting it into the barrel of the AA was the tricky part. I climbed the weapon like a tree, the hot metal burning my hands as I shimmied up the barrel. Pulling the fuse of the grenade, I slipped the explosive down the barrel and fell to the ground. I ran like hell as I knew the seconds were ticking by. The force of the grenade sent me stumbling but I kept running, back into the treeline, gasping for breath. That was one less gun but there were hundreds more.
A part of me wanted to search for more, destroy more of the batteries that I knew were scattered across the fields. That was the part that whispered to me in the dark, telling me that Miriam would want more from me. The part that Adonis had called "Eris" and had challenged. I could show them what I could do but turning the countryside into flames didn't help in the end.
My head told me I needed to meet my contact. I had to get out of here and I couldn't afford to be caught by another German.
The woods were quiet except for a few whispers of a breeze and the occasional artillery fire that shook the air. I retraced my steps back to the fields outside of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, the sounds of the night sending my skin crawling. I could feel something approaching. I tried to bring myself back to the night drills we ran at Camp X. The silent movements of the trainers were miles better than what man or beast approached. I knew I'd want to be ready. I had the opportunity for surprise.
I crept out of the bushes, watching as the three figures approached, placing myself in their path. Staying very still as I heard them approach, their whispers hurried. It was as I sat there, waiting for our paths to cross that I heard something else. The sound of heavy footsteps pounding behind me, destined to ram into these three figures.
If I wanted to control the situation, I had to control who went in and out. Knowing that the owner of those running footsteps would be barrelling past me in a matter of seconds, I stuck out my foot. I had learned that move from the White siblings who had played cops and robbers with deadly seriousness. As soon as my leg and their shins made contact, I was up and in motion.
Wrenching free of my hiding place, I threw an arm out to catch the man, from the feel of his jacket he was a soldier of the German army, their wool scratchy beneath my palms. Holding him in my arms, I nestled his neck into the crook of my arm and squeezed.
The three figures stopped, muttering curses as they spotted me grappling with the German, whose loyalties were confirmed as he sputtered out a curse.
"Du Hurensohn!" He slithered out of my arms and turned ready to fight but I had slipped my brass knuckles across my fingers and gave him a solid hook to the jaw. He crumpled to the forest floor, a flush of satisfaction warming my chest.
I looked down panting and corrected him. "Nein, Tochter."
The three soldiers were reaching for their weapons, brandishing rifles at me.
"Kraut?" One asked, their hesitation would have gotten them killed, they were lucky I was on their side.
"Non," I said, wiping my hands on the pants I had been living in for five days now. I hadn't dressed for dinner that day thinking that I'd be captured and forced to live in the forest. They were filthy, a little more dirt wouldn't hurt.
"A girl," One sputtered, his accent was thick and rough, Philadelphia, if I wasn't mistaken. "What the hell is she doing out here?"
"Maybe she's lost," Another one, tall and broad, stepping forward, hands raised in a placating gesture said. "Do you speak English?"
He said it slowly and loudly, expecting me to be a French girl who had lost her way. Maybe they thought I was scared.
"Yes, I speak English," I said, letting the French weigh down my words, my voice settling deep in my throat. i didn't sound like Virginia but Irene was needed. "Are you Easy Company?"
"I'm being extracted," I said, looking them up and down. "Are you Easy Company?"
The tallest one of the group nodded, his voice was a different kind of accent, just as heavy but more of a Northern state. Rural Pennsylvania was my guess. He had dropped his hands and though I couldn't get much of his face, he seemed puzzled.
"Yeah, we are," He said. "Who the hell are you?"
Hearing English after two years of French or German was enough to make me want to cry. I couldn't do that. I stepped closer, their eyes heavy on me even in this dim light.
"I was promised an extraction team," I said, letting a little more desperation than was strictly necessary drip into my words. I wasn't sure if that was Irene or Virginia anymore. "Are you that team or not?"
"I-" The third spoke up, the Philly man slapping his arm. "Malarkey, we don't know who this is."
"What are your orders?" I asked.
"Why the fuck would we tell you that?" I admired this man's fire in the face of uncertainty. He didn't trust me or open himself up to me, not as readily as the others. "you could be a French bird in some German pocket,"
"You really think that she's-"
I repeated myself, louder. "Your orders, or am I to assume your only purpose is to blunder through the countryside?"
"Causeway #2. We need to clear the garrisons and batteries." The tall one said. I learned his name was Toye from the hiss that the Philly let out. I could understand his suspicions but there wasn't any time to soothe his anxiety. They hadn't been briefed of my presence and I would just have to work with it.
"Take the railroad tracks about two hundred meters that way, stay low and quiet. No one should hear you." I said, fiddling with my brass knuckles, passing them between my hands.
"Do you have an intelligence officer in your unit?" I asked, pulling desperately for someone who would know of my need.
"Nixon, S2," Toye said, shoving the protesting companion aside. "Fuck off, Guarnere."
"Have you seen Nixon? Any idea where he'll be headed?"
Malarkey shook his head. "We're spread all over. Maybe you should stick with us," His eyes raked over me, studying every nook and cranny of my body.
I knew I didn't look like much, I had been reminded of that at Camp X. To first glance, I was not intimidating or threatening but these men didn't know what I was capable of.
"Are those brass knuckles?" Toye asked, looking down at my hands.
I nodded and, after thinking a moment, offered them to him, saying. "I think you'll need them more than me."
They would need them, their willingness to trust a stranger, while it had worked in my favor wasn't promising. These soldiers were green, their rough edges had yet to be sanded down with experience and levelheadedness. They were new to this, I could tell.
I looked over my shoulder, at the glinting lights of Sainte-Marie-Du-Mont. I had spent so long in this forest, hiding from the world, that reappearing and tracking another human, someone who could take me back to safety and security, seemed so foreign. These men didn't know who I was or what I had done. I was a blank slate to them. How long would that last? and once I was pulled from Normandy, once British soil was under my feet, what would I do then? Had I shown Adonis enough of my skills to warrant remaining useful, or would I be cast aside and replaced by another?
Eris, he had called me. Eris, I had started to call myself. I didn't know what the OSS thought of my work. Would I be sent home, disheartened? or was I to remain useful, needed?
In forty-five seconds, I could end my work as an agent but how long would it take the OSS to pull the plug on the many names of Virginia Carroll? Thirty seconds? The barest heartbeat?
"And what if you're gonna lead us into a trap?" Guarnere asked, still wary.
If I had wanted to trap them, I would have chased that opportunity before they even saw my face.
"Guess you'll just have to trust me," I said, a ghost of a smile playing across my lips as I disappeared into the shadows.