As much as Sergeant Daniel Savage would liked to have thought himself
the most handsome man alive, this simply was not the case. Although anybody
calling him an ugly man, or perhaps thinking him unseemly, would be
entirely incorrect. He was a man whose real talents lay in a sharp mind,
quick wit and a sense of justice, but with that in mind he was also rather
handsome. He had hair that was brown, the same as his eyes, which he kept
in a simply cut style which refused to let the longer earthen brown strands
at the back touch his collar. His face was long, with a square chin and a
dimple in the middle which was hard to shave - consequently there would
usually be a long hair directly in the centre. His nose matched his thin
profile, and beneath it was a pair of full, healthy lips which looked most
becoming when they held one of his charming smiles, and that was quite
often.
He was a healthy man, was the Sergeant. He did not overeat in the mess, though his body was built just well enough for him to be considered 'stocky'. His uniform fit him well, and was pleasantly loose in all the right places, although he was able to puff out his chest and make it taut when an officer passed during inspection. Three lighter green stripes - chevrons, he would insist to those who called them stripes while he was present - were on the epaulet of each shoulder, which let everybody know to call him Sergeant. Unless of course, they held a rank higher than his, in which case the small sewn tag with last name in black on his chest let them know to call him Savage.
Most people didn't call him Sergeant, or even Savage. The majority of people he knew called him Sarge, and that was a considerable amount of people, because he was the Platoon Sergeant for his platoon, and he was a relaxed kind of person that didn't mind people who he was in charge of calling him Sarge. Those people who were in charge of him would most often call him Daniel, unless they were terribly important, in which case he puffed out his chest and they called him Savage. The people he liked most were the people who called him Sarge, because they listened to him whenever he spoke. It didn't matter that they had to listen to him for the very same reason they were supposed to be calling him Sergeant - that being that it was his rank - because they usually wanted to listen, as Daniel Savage had a reputation amongst his platoon for being an awfully bright man, and when you listened to what he said it usually meant that he was telling you the easiest way to do something, or how to win at a game you were playing, or he would be making you laugh with a joke. He joked quite a bit. He also whistled, which was just what he was doing when our story actually takes place.
The sun was high in the crystal sky, an unmistakable shade of summer blue, laced with delicate strands of fluffy white cloud scattered like somebody had sneezed into a large pot of icing sugar. The grass was dry, on account that it had been a while since the last rainfall, and the sun was even then drying out what little moisture remained to soften the earth against heavy footfalls. Not to say that by heavy it meant the men whose feet were falling there were careless, simply that they had been walking for quite some time, and their heavy packs made them heavy as well. One man whose pack didn't seem to be very heavy at all was Sergeant Savage - who we will call Savage - and that was because his attitude was as chipper as it usually was; his mouth wore a smile, and through it he was whistling a tune that none of his men knew, because he had just made it up then.
Behind him were seven other men, all in various stages of being very grumpy with the man whose fault it was that they were wasting a lovely summer's day traipsing across the French countryside when they could have been tossing around a ball, playing cards, or doing anything that didn't involve them carrying most of what they owned in a drab green pack across fields they didn't even know the names of. Quite a few of them had hair which touched their collars, and though it wasn't true, often they would complain that their uniforms were too tight. Savage knew this was not the case, as before they had left the field base he had carefully ensured all his men would be as comfortable as possible during the march ahead of them. After all, that was his responsibility as Platoon Sergeant. He looked after his men, and they listened to him. While it may not seem like an awfully good trade to someone like you or I, Savage though this was absolutely brilliant, because if at any time he had to ask (he maintained that he was not a man who told others what to do, he asked, and they did things for him) one of his men to do something unpleasant, something that didn't seem very smart, or something that seemed downright dangerous, they would do it anyway.
He stopped whistling, and stopped near a patch of dandelions in the paddock they were marching through. They were yellow, flowerish, and they came up to his knees. They may not have actually been dandelions, as while he knew quite a bit of important stuff, what flowers were which was not something he considered all that important. What was important was that he knew where they were. Knowing that his left knee was beside some bright yellow flowers which may well have been dandelions, and his right knee was about six inches to the right of that was not enough. He needed to know which field they were in, in which part of the countryside of Normandy. That was what he knew; they were in Normandy, and that was in France. He didn't know an awful lot about where they were. So he asked.
First, though, he raised his right hand in a fist to signal that everybody should stop. They stopped quickly, thinking it was a strapping idea because they'd all had quite enough of the going part. "Where are we, Henderson?"
Henderson, who had brown hair much like the Sergeant's and a beard over his squarish chin, wore two chevrons, meaning that he was a Corporal. He was one of the men who Savage told what to do, and was called Sarge by. He took a few quick steps past other men who were removing their dirty packs, moaning audibly about all and miscellany. "Headed in the right direction, Sarge. Romelle's out that way," Henderson made a chopping motion in the air with his hand as he pointed it roughly ahead of the group, towards a line of ruined buildings along a pathway that looked to Savage as if they'd simply been built that way. The amount of debris and rubble strewn over the pathway in was what let him known there had been bitterly fought battles there before.
"Good." Savage gave a quick nod, and scratched at the prickly hairs which had sprouted on his chin while he had been unable to shave. He removed his olive painted helmet, the cool air ruffling his hair in just the right way to get rid of all the sweaty, hot spots, that he had been without a really good scratch while he wore the helmet. The helmet made a pretty good seat, when you turned it upside down so it was more like a pudding bowl than a helmet, and you carefully balanced yourself on the open end. Some men were putting their helmets on the ground the other way up, and inwardly Savage snickered to himself. Very soon they'd be picking up their helmets and putting French dirt all over their heads. It didn't strike him as frightfully important that he thought of something that was so simple as the soil on which they walked as being 'French', because most of what they had anything to do with was French in some way. The only things that you could be sure wouldn't be French were what you had your eye on since you jumped off the transport to France, and it's many French things.
"Alright, guys," he said in his familiar drawl. "Get your gear together, back in formation, let's move out now."
Once upon a time, as the storybooks usually started, Romelle would have been rather a nice place to visit, Savage reflected with one boot up on a table he had turned right way up and brushed mostly free of dust and dirt. The street was almost invisible under the amount of bricks, mortar, shards of glass, wood - in fact, most things that were used to make a building stand up were now all down, and in quite a few places it shouldn't be. One especially small piece had found it's way into Savage's boot, and now was the time he had chosen to take it out. The boot not on the table lay on a partially cleaned-away patch where there wasn't quite so much filth, and Savage himself was sitting in a thin wooden chair, facing down the street of skeletal buildings that jabbed at the blue sky with their sharp fingers of wood and steel. He had a nasty blister on his right heel, and the Sergeant was quite sure he wouldn't be able to walk straight for a while.
His laces were far too long, one of the downsides to mass produced equipment. He tucked the black spaghetti into the tops of his boots and pushed down on the street experimentally. It didn't seem quite as bad as it had when he'd decided to stop and take out the stone, but it still stung - the important thing was that he could still walk. Run, if need be. The likelihood was that they would be doing a considerable amount of running. There were plenty of places in ruined Romelle that would be good to run to, and he had more than a few likely spots to take cover in stashed away in his clever mind. Henderson crossed the wooden planks which had spilled out from the Cafe behind them and into the street, stopping just behind Savage. Savage guessed that like himself, and most of the other men, his helmet would be hanging on his belt for the moment. Much more comfortable without that heavy lump of metal pressing down on your head.
"A couple of the men are asking why we're here when the Airforce could've just blown the bridge themselves." Savage looked over his shoulder as if to make sure Henderson had actually been the one to say that. While Savage was well-known for speaking his mind, one thing that Corporal Henderson was not known for being was an outspoken man, which was quite obviously concerning to the Sergeant.
"You haven't been told?"
"No, Sarge."
Savage tipped his head in a very, very tired nod. He could hardly remember the last time he had rested his head back and felt a clean pillow, soft and fluffy. When he put his head back now, he either fell over onto hard concrete, or was already lying down on it. The only difference was a large bump on his head that would rub inside his helmet. "Rommel needs the bridges along the river here to move his armor, if we're going to make a push on Cannes. What he'll do is try and shove us back along it's influence, trying to make us move on Cherbourg instead."
Henderson nodded much quicker than Savage. He made it a habit to sleep on a nice soft part on his pack. "I guess, Sarge, but the question stands. Why are we here?"
"Our job is to protect this bridge. Works both ways, you see... If Rommel can move a panzer over here, we can throw a Sherman back at him. This is one of only two bridges left on the whole river. We need it just as much as the Kraut's." Savage tapped the rifle which he had laid out on the table. "Second SS should be rolling over here soon. Make sure everybody knows where they're holding, right?"
"Right." Henderson moved away, starting to bellow orders through the ruins as soon as he was out of sight. Savage liked that best about the Corporal, that Henderson did all the shouting while he, Daniel Savage, was able to save his voice for more important things. He eyed the bayonet fixed to his rifle and smiled for the first time in an age. He didn't understand bayonets. You ran at the enemy shouting 'Arrrgh!' and during that time, they either shot you, or got so scared they ran halfway across France so that you had to chase them, shouting 'Arrrgh!' all the while. It seemed one of the great mysteries of military tradition.
He was a healthy man, was the Sergeant. He did not overeat in the mess, though his body was built just well enough for him to be considered 'stocky'. His uniform fit him well, and was pleasantly loose in all the right places, although he was able to puff out his chest and make it taut when an officer passed during inspection. Three lighter green stripes - chevrons, he would insist to those who called them stripes while he was present - were on the epaulet of each shoulder, which let everybody know to call him Sergeant. Unless of course, they held a rank higher than his, in which case the small sewn tag with last name in black on his chest let them know to call him Savage.
Most people didn't call him Sergeant, or even Savage. The majority of people he knew called him Sarge, and that was a considerable amount of people, because he was the Platoon Sergeant for his platoon, and he was a relaxed kind of person that didn't mind people who he was in charge of calling him Sarge. Those people who were in charge of him would most often call him Daniel, unless they were terribly important, in which case he puffed out his chest and they called him Savage. The people he liked most were the people who called him Sarge, because they listened to him whenever he spoke. It didn't matter that they had to listen to him for the very same reason they were supposed to be calling him Sergeant - that being that it was his rank - because they usually wanted to listen, as Daniel Savage had a reputation amongst his platoon for being an awfully bright man, and when you listened to what he said it usually meant that he was telling you the easiest way to do something, or how to win at a game you were playing, or he would be making you laugh with a joke. He joked quite a bit. He also whistled, which was just what he was doing when our story actually takes place.
The sun was high in the crystal sky, an unmistakable shade of summer blue, laced with delicate strands of fluffy white cloud scattered like somebody had sneezed into a large pot of icing sugar. The grass was dry, on account that it had been a while since the last rainfall, and the sun was even then drying out what little moisture remained to soften the earth against heavy footfalls. Not to say that by heavy it meant the men whose feet were falling there were careless, simply that they had been walking for quite some time, and their heavy packs made them heavy as well. One man whose pack didn't seem to be very heavy at all was Sergeant Savage - who we will call Savage - and that was because his attitude was as chipper as it usually was; his mouth wore a smile, and through it he was whistling a tune that none of his men knew, because he had just made it up then.
Behind him were seven other men, all in various stages of being very grumpy with the man whose fault it was that they were wasting a lovely summer's day traipsing across the French countryside when they could have been tossing around a ball, playing cards, or doing anything that didn't involve them carrying most of what they owned in a drab green pack across fields they didn't even know the names of. Quite a few of them had hair which touched their collars, and though it wasn't true, often they would complain that their uniforms were too tight. Savage knew this was not the case, as before they had left the field base he had carefully ensured all his men would be as comfortable as possible during the march ahead of them. After all, that was his responsibility as Platoon Sergeant. He looked after his men, and they listened to him. While it may not seem like an awfully good trade to someone like you or I, Savage though this was absolutely brilliant, because if at any time he had to ask (he maintained that he was not a man who told others what to do, he asked, and they did things for him) one of his men to do something unpleasant, something that didn't seem very smart, or something that seemed downright dangerous, they would do it anyway.
He stopped whistling, and stopped near a patch of dandelions in the paddock they were marching through. They were yellow, flowerish, and they came up to his knees. They may not have actually been dandelions, as while he knew quite a bit of important stuff, what flowers were which was not something he considered all that important. What was important was that he knew where they were. Knowing that his left knee was beside some bright yellow flowers which may well have been dandelions, and his right knee was about six inches to the right of that was not enough. He needed to know which field they were in, in which part of the countryside of Normandy. That was what he knew; they were in Normandy, and that was in France. He didn't know an awful lot about where they were. So he asked.
First, though, he raised his right hand in a fist to signal that everybody should stop. They stopped quickly, thinking it was a strapping idea because they'd all had quite enough of the going part. "Where are we, Henderson?"
Henderson, who had brown hair much like the Sergeant's and a beard over his squarish chin, wore two chevrons, meaning that he was a Corporal. He was one of the men who Savage told what to do, and was called Sarge by. He took a few quick steps past other men who were removing their dirty packs, moaning audibly about all and miscellany. "Headed in the right direction, Sarge. Romelle's out that way," Henderson made a chopping motion in the air with his hand as he pointed it roughly ahead of the group, towards a line of ruined buildings along a pathway that looked to Savage as if they'd simply been built that way. The amount of debris and rubble strewn over the pathway in was what let him known there had been bitterly fought battles there before.
"Good." Savage gave a quick nod, and scratched at the prickly hairs which had sprouted on his chin while he had been unable to shave. He removed his olive painted helmet, the cool air ruffling his hair in just the right way to get rid of all the sweaty, hot spots, that he had been without a really good scratch while he wore the helmet. The helmet made a pretty good seat, when you turned it upside down so it was more like a pudding bowl than a helmet, and you carefully balanced yourself on the open end. Some men were putting their helmets on the ground the other way up, and inwardly Savage snickered to himself. Very soon they'd be picking up their helmets and putting French dirt all over their heads. It didn't strike him as frightfully important that he thought of something that was so simple as the soil on which they walked as being 'French', because most of what they had anything to do with was French in some way. The only things that you could be sure wouldn't be French were what you had your eye on since you jumped off the transport to France, and it's many French things.
"Alright, guys," he said in his familiar drawl. "Get your gear together, back in formation, let's move out now."
Once upon a time, as the storybooks usually started, Romelle would have been rather a nice place to visit, Savage reflected with one boot up on a table he had turned right way up and brushed mostly free of dust and dirt. The street was almost invisible under the amount of bricks, mortar, shards of glass, wood - in fact, most things that were used to make a building stand up were now all down, and in quite a few places it shouldn't be. One especially small piece had found it's way into Savage's boot, and now was the time he had chosen to take it out. The boot not on the table lay on a partially cleaned-away patch where there wasn't quite so much filth, and Savage himself was sitting in a thin wooden chair, facing down the street of skeletal buildings that jabbed at the blue sky with their sharp fingers of wood and steel. He had a nasty blister on his right heel, and the Sergeant was quite sure he wouldn't be able to walk straight for a while.
His laces were far too long, one of the downsides to mass produced equipment. He tucked the black spaghetti into the tops of his boots and pushed down on the street experimentally. It didn't seem quite as bad as it had when he'd decided to stop and take out the stone, but it still stung - the important thing was that he could still walk. Run, if need be. The likelihood was that they would be doing a considerable amount of running. There were plenty of places in ruined Romelle that would be good to run to, and he had more than a few likely spots to take cover in stashed away in his clever mind. Henderson crossed the wooden planks which had spilled out from the Cafe behind them and into the street, stopping just behind Savage. Savage guessed that like himself, and most of the other men, his helmet would be hanging on his belt for the moment. Much more comfortable without that heavy lump of metal pressing down on your head.
"A couple of the men are asking why we're here when the Airforce could've just blown the bridge themselves." Savage looked over his shoulder as if to make sure Henderson had actually been the one to say that. While Savage was well-known for speaking his mind, one thing that Corporal Henderson was not known for being was an outspoken man, which was quite obviously concerning to the Sergeant.
"You haven't been told?"
"No, Sarge."
Savage tipped his head in a very, very tired nod. He could hardly remember the last time he had rested his head back and felt a clean pillow, soft and fluffy. When he put his head back now, he either fell over onto hard concrete, or was already lying down on it. The only difference was a large bump on his head that would rub inside his helmet. "Rommel needs the bridges along the river here to move his armor, if we're going to make a push on Cannes. What he'll do is try and shove us back along it's influence, trying to make us move on Cherbourg instead."
Henderson nodded much quicker than Savage. He made it a habit to sleep on a nice soft part on his pack. "I guess, Sarge, but the question stands. Why are we here?"
"Our job is to protect this bridge. Works both ways, you see... If Rommel can move a panzer over here, we can throw a Sherman back at him. This is one of only two bridges left on the whole river. We need it just as much as the Kraut's." Savage tapped the rifle which he had laid out on the table. "Second SS should be rolling over here soon. Make sure everybody knows where they're holding, right?"
"Right." Henderson moved away, starting to bellow orders through the ruins as soon as he was out of sight. Savage liked that best about the Corporal, that Henderson did all the shouting while he, Daniel Savage, was able to save his voice for more important things. He eyed the bayonet fixed to his rifle and smiled for the first time in an age. He didn't understand bayonets. You ran at the enemy shouting 'Arrrgh!' and during that time, they either shot you, or got so scared they ran halfway across France so that you had to chase them, shouting 'Arrrgh!' all the while. It seemed one of the great mysteries of military tradition.
