By nightfall, Easy had pulled back far enough that they could see Eindhoven on the horizon. They dug in in an empty field while the vehicles stayed up on the dykes, looming shadows against the dark sky. Fitting, Louise mused bleakly as she looked for Bull's squad. She'd heard from Luz that Hoobler had been one of the guys who had last seen Mia.
Footsteps behind her made her turn.
"Just ol' Gonorrhoea", the iconic drawl of Bill Guarnere announced, the man stepping out of the light mist that reduced visibility to little more than ten feet.
The sniper sighed, quirked her lips. "No news, hm?" If there were, she'd know. After all, there were several people in their company that always knew the latest gossip and loved to share it.
"Nothing useful", Bill confirmed, shaking his head. "Lieutenant Peacock told Lip that Mia was with them when we pulled back."
Louise frowned, nostrils flaring. "And where is she now?", she questioned, eyebrow ticking up.
"Don't know."
Murder flashed across the blonde's face and she wheeled around. "He doesn't know?!", she hissed, just barely managing to temper the enraged yell. "That's just fucking brilliant! That bloody imbecile, I swear to God- Let me go, Guarnere!"
He had absolutely no intention of doing that. She might be taller than him by an inch, but using his weight and body mass, he kept her from storming off. He pushed the struggling woman back a few steps.
"You're not helping anyone like this, so calm. down!", he admonished sharply, even though he understood her anger. Hell, he felt just the same way. Angry. And frustrated. And about ten other emotions that he didn't have time to parse.
They glared at each other, Louise blazing fury and aggression, Bill unyielding stubbornness.
After a long beat, the blonde deflated with a sigh, fingers slowly uncurling from her fists to rake through her hair. Pushing all the helpless, powerless feelings far down, she said: "Well, Mia's obviously not just melted into thin air, so what the bloody hell happened?"
Bill shrugged, wishing he had an answer. "Let's go talk to Hoobler", he suggested instead, clapping her on the arm.
...
"Hoob, any news on Bull yet?", Guarnere asked, crouching down at the lip of the foxhole, Louise following suit.
They received a flat, tired look and a minute shake of the head in response. Bull's squad was sombre, quiet and tense, expressions ranging from resigned anger to miserable worry. The replacements looked lost and overwhelmed, which wasn't surprising.
Bill fixed them with a stern gaze and told them: "If there ain't no body, then there ain't nobody fucking dead, understand me?"
It was a lesson they had learned after D-Day when they had gone for days without knowing the whereabouts of a large portion of the company. Many had turned up a few days after the jump with maybe a scrape or two and an exciting tale about their quest to link up with Easy.
"What about Mia?", Hoobler asked back, eyes shifting from Bill to Louise when the former just pursed his lips and clenched his jaw.
The Brit forced some optimism. "She's smart, she's probably already on her way back."
Hoobler nodded and climbed to his feet, picking up his rifle. "I'm gonna look for them", he declared. It didn't sit right with him that they'd had to leave men behind and it bugged him that nobody seemed to know what had happened to his squad sergeant or their youngest medic.
"Not by yourself you're not", Guarnere vetoed. He couldn't in good conscience let one man go on a suicide mission. He was about to voice his intent to join Hoobler when Louise beat him to it.
"I'll come with you", she said to Hoobler before telling Bill: "You're not stopping me this time."
The platoon sergeant smirked and raised his hands. "Wouldn't dream of it." And he meant it. He wanted them back safe and sound with Easy just as much. Besides, stopping Louise Fields when she had put her mind to something? He wasn't stupid enough to try that.
"I'll go, too", one of Bull's replacements, Hashey, volunteered.
Garcia stood up as well. "Me too."
Studying them for a moment, Guarnere felt the need to point out that if they got caught going AWOL, they'd be charged with mutiny. A snort from Louise, fittingly indelicate for the temperamental woman, confirmed what he already knew. He nodded as if she'd made an eloquent statement – in a way, she had. "Alright. Go get 'em."
...
Webster joined them with a resigned "Alright, what the hell" and while Guarnere began spreading the word among the Toccoa guys, the small troupe slipped away under the cover of darkness.
Less than two minutes later, Frances caught up to them and took over covering the rear without a word, Webster moving up just as silently. A brief conversation consisting of a few glances and nods passed between the Toccoa veterans.
Only the sound of their boots against the ground and the soft rustle of their ODs whispered in the quiet of the night.
"Reese?"
Theresa raised her head, not surprised to see Maxine standing there. "Guarnere told you?", she asked rhetorically. The two sergeants were close, close enough that there was a standing joke shared among veterans about how 2nd platoon had two platoon sergeants.
The tall Washingtonian nodded anyway and plonked herself down next to her friend. "They're gonna catch all kinds of hell."
"For going AWOL? Or for not telling us beforehand?", Theresa questioned, eyebrow arching as she slanted her a knowing look.
Maxine shook her head, a tired chuckle escaping her. "That obvious?"
"Nah. It's just one of those pot and kettle situations."
...
They fell silent, Maxine plucking blades of grass and weaving them together as she pondered the woman beside her.
Sharp as a tack, Theresa was a good tactician thanks to her logical way of thinking. She was also scarily good at reading people (and their minds, or at least it seemed that way) because she analysed them like the puzzles she was so fond of, filing away all information she had and examining every detail she learned about them.
Maxine fondly remembered the earliest days of their training, when all the girls had been sent on a night orienteering exercise as punishment for something or other. Between Louise's keen eyes, Theresa's analytical skills and Helen's fantastic sense of direction, they had reached their objective, retrieved the box they had been tasked to get and returned in record time. Sobel had been fuming, dead certain that they had cheated.
...
Some time later, Ana María showed up. Somehow, she looked even smaller than she already was. She sat down with a sigh, dragged a dirty hand through her dark hair, dislodging some dust of pulverised bricks and mortar. "They're bombing Eindhoven", she announced, voice soft and defeated. "Elements of 3rd Battalion have gone to help evacuate civilians."
Neither of the two other women knew how to respond to that. The silence stretched again, thick with uncertainty and doubt.
Tucking a loose strand behind her ear, fingers restlessly fiddling with the cap of her canteen, Ana María didn't look at her friends as she wondered: "Do you...do you think they're okay?"
Theresa looped an arm around her shoulders, gave her a squeeze. "They're both smart", she said. "Bull's a strong, capable soldier." Whether she was trying to convince them or herself, she wasn't sure.
"And you know how good Mia is at passing unnoticed", Maxine added with gentle humour, though she wasn't joking.
Their efforts were rewarded with a flash of white teeth as the Puerto Rican smiled briefly. "Yeah...she is good at that. And tough, too."
Conversation petered out again as the three women lost themselves in their own thoughts. Nobody felt like eating or talking and sleeping was out of the question. Ana María eventually pulled herself to her feet and returned to the foxhole that she shared with Shifty. Hopefully, the parts she needed to fix her radio had already been delivered.
The quiet remained as stifling and taut as before.
...
Bill found them an hour later, silently leaning on each other, eyes absently scanning the horizon on the off-chance that their missing comrades would come wandering into camp.
They glanced at him.
He shook his head and hated the way their shoulders slumped a little more, bending under the weight of uncertainty and worry. Suppressing a sigh, he gave Maxine a pat on the shoulder and continued on his way.
Restless, Catherine drifted between the foxholes, exchanging a few words here and there. Her stomach was twisting itself in knots as worry gnawed at her. Guarnere had told her that Bull's squad, along with Louise and Frances, had gone AWOL to look for their missing members. She had half-heartedly begun chiding Bill for allowing it but soon given up because her disapproval was simply born from concern.
He knew it, too. "They'll bring our guys back, Cath", he assured the worn-out Hawaiian after recounting all he had found out about their friends' disappearance.
The mother of two didn't know how to respond to that, left it at a nod.
"Heard Brewer's gonna make it."
"Yeah", she nodded. The man had been unbelievably lucky. If he hadn't turned at the last second, he would have bled out before anyone could have done something. "Pepping is going to be okay, too."
A small half-smile tilted Bill's mouth. "That's good news." His expression darkened and he grumbled: "Kraut scum, shooting on a medic like that."
Catherine frowned at the grim tone, scrutinised him. "Are you alright, Bill?", she asked. Not that she wasn't unhappy about the situation either; she was just as outraged about the enemy sniper breaking the Geneva convention. But it wasn't the first time and it likely wouldn't be the last either.
He waved it off. "Yeah yeah, don't worry about me, Mom, I'm fine."
She made a faint noise of disbelief at the back of her throat. "Try to get some rest", she counselled, gesturing into the light fog with her chin.
Bill scoffed and gave her a 'That's rich' look, but didn't contradict her. "You too", he said.
They parted ways, both continuing their rounds.
...
As Catherine had expected, everyone was in a subdued mood. The usual jokesters – Luz, Malarkey, Muck and Penkala – were trying hard to fight against the glumness and others like Lipton, Guarnere and Talbert were also doing their best to keep everyone's spirits up. But the oppressive worry remained.
She found Roe and Spina sitting together, talking in hushed voices. They interrupted their quiet conversation to look at her.
"Are you alright, Catherine?", Spina asked.
Gene mustered her with his discerning gaze and offered: "We can finish the rounds if you want to get some rest", his Cajun drawl soft and melodic in contrast with Spina's Philly twang.
She shook her head. "No, it's okay. I can't sleep anyways."
Roe clicked his tongue in soft reproach. "You gonna make yourself sick with worry", he said, frown creasing his brows.
Catherine scrubbed her hands down her face. "I know", she responded with a heavy sigh. "This is almost worse than D-Day. It drives me nuts not knowing what happened."
Gene made a noise of agreement, while Spina had the air of somebody who couldn't entirely relate but still sympathised.
As the ranking medic went to finish her rounds after telling them to get some rest and ignoring the hypocrisy of that statement, she heard Spina carefully inquire about the numerous stories of D-Day that were still circulating among the companies.
Mia was on her own for three days after the drop into Normandy, Catherine tried to reason with herself. She can look after herself.
It didn't do much to ease the painful knot in her stomach.