The fields were still gaping in awe at the events prior to this morning. The still empty streets of Renneville showed no signs of activity for the past few days, it lied to itself. The smouldering heaps of buildings basked in the growing sunrise and crisp morning air. It was if nothing would have dared happen to spoil the scene. The trees hummed a soft tune to themselves and stood idle for a breeze to whisk them back to life and wave to the corpse of a town overlooking the river. Light broke through the building husks splitting shadows through the streets, just like the last night but with a radiance that reflected off the roads and blinded those unwary enough to look away. Truly, the remains of this town were a spectacle to behold in the morning light. Over one of the bridges to Renneville lurked three men, they kept out of sight, yet wanted to be seen. These men were the remaining majority of several sections of the British airborne who had dropped into Normandy to serve a valuable purpose to the war effort. And now they waited…

McIntyre looked through his binoculars once more, still no sight of Williams. He put the binoculars back around his neck and turned to his remaining teammates, "If push comes to shove, then we're going to have to go into Renneville on high alert. If Williams, Annabelle, and Donahue are in fact K.I.A then we seriously need to re-think our tactics…" As his speech rambled on, Miller saw a near microscopic figure appear from around the corner of the street. He blurted out, "I think it's Williams" McIntyre swung around to see his best friend jog across the bridge toward their position. McIntyre stood up and shook his mates hand, "Long time no see, eh? Good to see you Williams, bloody good to see you" Johnson slung his Sten over his left shoulder and enquired, "Where are the others? Are they okay?" Williams had no sooner drawn breath than he had the urge to vomit forth the truth about their friends, "Annabelle's hit, but she's recovering in the church with the other folks who we were supposed to meet up with yesterday." Miller took Johnson's stance on questioning the poor lad on the nights adventures, "And Donahue? Is he still chipper?" Williams scraped away stale saliva from his parched lips and coughed his response, "Donahue's dead" Millers face curled up and contorted into a shrivelled mess of sorrow. Johnson turned back to the trees and leaned his head against it; the news had just ground his spirit into dust and ash. McIntyre saw the state the other two men were in and saw no need in staying here any longer, "Come on lads, time to de-brief with the rest of the chaps in the church" He loaded his Sten and took off.

The streets of Renneville were still respectfully eerie, even in daylight, and you could see the fear swell in Johnson's eyes. Williams slunk next to Miller and began to quell the silence that had taken the men ever since he broke the news of their fallen comrade, "Tell you what's odd" he started, "Annabelle kissed me earlier today" Miller twisted his head to Williams. "Never" he protested, Williams insisted she did, "I'm telling you, she kissed me. I was as surprised as you" Miller looked quite impressed of Williams "achievement" It was then that Johnson snapped at Williams, "Hey! Don't have romance in war! It always leads to bad things! Like that thing in Naples, you remember Miller." Miller did, "Yeah, heard this before we shipped out to invade Italy. Some German sentry fell in love with an Italian bird. He wanted to see her before he left for the beachhead to defend against the invasion, in doing so he let some lads drop in at night and raid a town. They found him trying to give her 'a good seeing to', and shot him. Stupid bugger didn't know what hit him." Williams gulped, everyone was reading too much into this, "But…but, but I didn't want to kiss her. She was probably dithering on morphine or something, I don't know" McIntyre looked back to the men and gave them his piece of mind, "Listen, lads, if Williams has himself a girl, then leave him be. So what if she's fighting alongside us? It doesn't bother me. Just remember Williams," he came close to him as he said this, almost touching pupil to pupil, "It's not a mission priority if she's a casualty. We've already suffered two, I don't want to lose another, but if we do then you can't go overboard if it happens to be your girl. Just remember that"

The soldiers in the church were still lazing around in the morning sun, not getting up to much, when the four men turned around the street to walk up to the church, only one gathered the strength to greet them. It was Captain Winslow. He moved from his chair placed just outside the church doors to the men, now only a few meters away. He greeted his remaining section members with unparalleled relief, "Thank Christ you're okay. When I heard about Finlay and Donahue I almost died in guilt." Miller looked embarrassed and responded to his long lost commander, "Well, we can't take all the credit for surviving this long, me and Johnson owe a lot to Sergeant McIntyre and Private Williams. Without their help we'd have been lost somewhere in Normandy and have never found you." Winslow looked to McIntyre and Williams, Williams looked away and slinked off inside the church, McIntyre called after him, "You rest hard Williams, you've done a lot for us". Winslow shook McIntyre's hand heartily, "Nice to finally meet you Sergeant" McIntyre returned the compliment, "The pleasure's all mine Captain" McIntyre looked to the church and took Winslow inside.

"Listen Captain," he started, "I need to talk to you about the matters at hand." Winslow acknowledged and took McIntyre to the small room behind the altar of the church. The room was dank and had aged badly. Slim strips of wood were clearly visible through the crudely plastered walls that flaked on passing. Winslow lit a candle to illuminate the room enough so that he could clearly make out McIntyre's face. "Well Captain, for starters do you really know why these men are here?" Winslow shook his head. "Well sir, despite being extremely under strength we need to defend this town against German advances through this region of Normandy. This town is one of many important bridge locations across the length of Normandy. Some Americans have another one deep in German territory, if we can keep the Gerries at bay for long enough for reinforcements to relieve both them and us, then we will safely hold major tactical standpoints throughout the northern part of France. Also it can give a squad of Americans the chance to find one of their lads gone M.I.A." Winslow looked unsure, "What type of advance are we talking about here?" McIntyre knew the odds were grim, but continued, "My guess is about a platoon of Germans with tank and halftrack support." Winslow widened his yes at the prospect of this, "A whole fucking platoon of Germans? Jesus, what do they take us for? Juggernauts?" McIntyre thought of the positive to keep their hopes up, "We can do it Captain, just tell me what you have to offer in the way of weapons and defences"

Williams stood in the archway of the church doors, leaning slightly towards the wall. Sitting on a pew showing three soldiers, including Private Earnings, the functions of a German rifle was Annabelle. Williams stopped and sighed, it had just dawned on him now that he really loved her back, but if anyone else found out it'd just fuel their suspicions of what was going on. Miller peered over Williams' shoulder, "You're a lucky man Williams. A lucky, lucky man." Williams looked back to Miller who stood there with a grinning sentimental smile on his face. "What do you mean Miller?" Williams answered. Miller laughed to himself and glanced to the floor, then back to Williams, "I've seen the way you stare at her. You love her, and I'm happy for you too mate. I didn't believe it at first, but to be honest, as long as someone benefits from this war, that I know, then good luck to you." Miller put his hand on Williams' shoulder and shook Williams' hand with his other. Williams decided to delve into Miller's life, not really knowing much about him anyway, "So, you said you dropped into Italy?" Miller looked astonished, no one ever really asked him about his life before, and was intrigued to go on. "Well, since you asked, yeah, the whole section dropped in." he sat down on one of the pews inside the church and gestured for Williams to sit with him. He continued, "We didn't really know Donahue then, he was our pathfinder if you will. We were all so new and naïve to the war experience," he began to chuckle in his speech, "I remember, Finlay lost his Bren, so Winslow told us to find a new one for him. Me and Finlay rummaged through this corpse of a soldier, when a German officer stood up and said something like 'What are you people doing? We're not supposed to rob the bodies till the invasion's over' He thought we were his soldiers" He laughed a bit more, "When he realised we weren't, Winslow had already crept up behind him and knocked him out cold. Silly bugger." His tears of laughter stopped rolling, and he reminisced some more, "It was horrendous though I'll tell you that, not as bad as this, but still fairly awful. The heat made the bodies stink before a single day was out. The army definitely picked a cracking time to go invading." Miller rocked himself back and forth at his memories, like an aging old man on his rocking chair, keeping warm at winter by the crackling fireplace.

Williams looked outside to see Johnson sitting down in the dirt and debris with his head in his hands looking utterly distraught to say the least. This started to get to Williams, so he asked, "What's the deal with Johnson? He's so bloody pessimistic" Miller gave Williams a scolding stare, "I wouldn't say those things if I were you mate, Johnson's been through a lot." Williams was fascinated, "Like what? Not that I want to pry too much" Miller felt obliged to tell him, "Johnson came into Italy with his brother, he was a nice chap, much like Johnson but thinner and with lighter hair, when we regrouped in a nearby villa Johnson's brother got shot in the back by a German scout. He blamed the section for not noticing sooner that the villa was still under surveillance by the Krauts, never really took anyone's word since then. Every now and then, he thinks back to then and loses the will to fight, knowing that his little brother won't be home waiting for him when the war's over. It's damn upsetting" Williams jaw slumped and hung loosely from his head, he was taken completely by surprise. He needed to know more, "But when we were in the village, he seemed fine. He helped me with my wound." The sore gave a twinge at its mention, and drooled some more blood down Williams' arm. "Well, he might seem a bit of an odd sort from time to time, but he is genuinely a great chap." Williams still had one final question to ask, "So then why did he just have a go at me a minute ago?" Miller stretched his back and yawned, "Don't you know? I thought it was pretty obvious" Williams looked uncompromisingly at Miller, "Well it's not. What is it?" Miller took a fleeting glance to Annabelle, then back to Williams who was still unaware, "I'll let you figure it out mate" and with that he picked up his things and went to see the rest of the soldiers.

Captain Winslow took McIntyre to a corner of the main church building; in it were several wooden crates with an arrangement of differing weapons on it. Winslow scratched the back of his neck and began to explain their assembled inventory, "Well Sergeant, we have two 42's, a 34, six antipersonnel mines, two antitank mines, a cache of twenty stick grenades, and each lad is carrying their weapon with five clips, a sidearm, and two grenades each." McIntyre looked disappointed at the assembled arsenal, "We'd be pretty buggered against those tanks. You sure you don't have any antitank grenades, or something?" Winslow suddenly sparked his memory, "We do have two German antitank grenades, pretty powerful things too. AND Jacobs got his mitts on a German rocket launcher with a few rounds in it, he keeps it with him at all times for some reason or another." McIntyre's smile slowly returned from its hiding place that it had resided in for many days, "Can you lads make some Molotov's?" Winslow ordered two of the men, "Peterson, Rush, go to the hotel and make some Molotov's for the Sergeant would you? And be quick about it" both soldiers accepted their job and scurried off to their task. "You know McIntyre," Winslow thought aloud, "Your plan could work, it just might."