Hey guys! Before I get to the question I wanted to ask you all, I just want to thank you for reading and reviewing this story. I'm really happy that you enjoy my writing and it's extremely interesting to read your thoughts on the story and characters.
Now, as I already mentioned a few chapters ago, there's a question I want to ask you about one of the characters dying. To give you some context: Soon, we'll be getting to the end of the episode and Easy is going to Bastogne. I already have it fixed that one of the women is going to die during the Battle of the Bulge.
But what I would like your opinion is: "Who is going to die and how is it going to happen?"
For example, you could say something like: "Esther. She's going to die of exposure and freeze to death. Her friends find her in the morning."
Or maybe: "Catherine dies shielding a patient from a mortar explosion."
You get the idea. So let me know what your ideas are and I'll see what works best with the rest of the plans I already have :) I'm looking forward to reading your suggestions and opinions.
Catherine entered First Platoon's lodgings, taking in the scene.
Roe was treating Alley with his usual efficiency and care while Ana María held the wounded man's hand and talked to him. And then, off to the side, there was Liebgott, fuming quietly as he sat on a bench, glaring at some hay strewn on the floor like he was waiting for it to spontaneously combust.
Knowing that Gene and Ana had everything well in hand, she made a beeline for Liebgott. The red-soaked bandage he was half-heartedly pressing against his neck did nothing to inspire confidence in her.
"Hey Liebgott", she greeted him, setting down her bag. "What happened?" She already knew what happened, but she wanted to see how much he'd try to downplay his injury.
He continued scowling at the hay. "Got pinged by some frag", he answered after a long beat, sounding about as mulish as her daughter sometimes did when she was sulking.
She didn't comment on that, though, just nodded and pulled out a fresh bandage. "Alright, let's take a look at your neck."
Now he aimed his scowl at her. "I'm fine", he grumbled.
If I had a dime every time somebody said that...
"Sure", Catherine agreed easily and moved his hand and the stained bandage out of the way. Wiping away some blood, she examined the wound.
.
He had been extremely lucky. The shrapnel from that potato masher could have cut his carotid or jugular and he'd never have made it back from the patrol. But as it was, the cut was shallow and while it bled quite a bit, it wasn't life-threatening.
A statement that Louise had once made about her friend, only half in jest, popped into her mind unbiddenly. "As long as Liebgott is bitching, he's alright. When he stops grouching, that's when you can start worrying."
Apparently, Louise had been right.
"You'll be okay", Catherine told him. She only got a terse huff in response. Cleaning away the rest of the blood with iodine swabs while carefully avoiding the wound itself, she asked: "Do you want to keep glaring at the hay or are you going to tell me what has you so angry?"
He didn't reply, simply went back to moodily frowning at the floor.
.
Gene was meanwhile finishing up bandaging the last of the 32 wounds that were littering the left side of Alley's face, neck and arm. Ana María was still holding a one-sided conversation with the wounded man, chatting to him about Florida, art and Puerto Rican traditions.
Alley had calmed down significantly since he had first been brought in and now, his half-lidded gaze was solely on Ana María. He seemed almost oblivious to Gene's ministrations. Not that the Cajun minded. It made his job a lot easier and Ana María's voice was quite nice to listen to.
Catherine stepped over to them to help transfer Alley onto the stretcher that would take him to the aid station and from there off to the hospital. Gene went with him and Ana María decided to update the other platoons on the situation since she soon had to head out to one of Third's OPs anyways.
Telling them to go ahead, Catherine turned back to Liebgott. Anger was still radiating off him, clouding his features.
.
Sitting down next to him, she sighed and hazarded a guess. "Is this about Theresa telling you to stay here?"
His jaw muscles worked. Then, he spat: "Who the fuck does she think she is?!"
Catherine's eyebrows jumped towards her hairline before lowering again. "Your sergeant", she reminded him pointedly. "And your friend."
"Yeah right", he snorted, but his voice had lost some of its bite. He shook his head. "I should be out there with them."
"You're injured."
"I'm fine", he exclaimed, flicking an accusing hand towards her, "You said it yourself!"
Catherine confirmed with a hum. "Yes, but she couldn't know that for sure.", she said, leaning forward. "Reese is just looking out for you."
"I don't need her looking out for me", Liebgott muttered.
Catherine got up abruptly, blowing out a breath that hissed with exasperation. She was too sleep-deprived for this. "Well, that's too bad, Liebgott", she told him, distinctly unamused as her hand swept in a terse arc, "because whether you like it or not, Theresa is doing what she can to keep you and the rest of her squad alive."
She studied him for a second before turning away to collect her supplies, deciding that she couldn't do more than say her piece. Giving him the space to think about their conversation seemed like the best course of action.
Liebgott stayed quiet, frowning as he considered Catherine's words.
.
"Now come on", the ranking medic said when she was done, her tone extending a tacit olive branch. "Let's get you to the aid station. You need stitches."
He didn't put up a fight this time, wrapped up in his emotions and thoughts as he was. "Yes Mom." The moniker had no spikes and barbs, was only wrapped in tiredness.
Mathematically and strategically speaking, they had won the battle at the crossroads. According to Lt Peacock, they had been lucky. Up against more than a company's worth of SS soldiers, Easy had lost only 11 men while a number of others had been wounded. The first casualty of the fight had been Dukeman. A piece of shrapnel had gone in one shoulder and out the other, right through the heart. He had been dead long before he'd hit the ground. Among the wounded were Webster, who had been hit in the leg and Boyle, who had suffered severe injuries in an artillery blast.
Mia watched quietly from the distance as Jessica herded their prisoners off, gripping her rifle tight as she snapped instructions. She silently approved of Winters' decision to have Jessica escort the prisoners to HQ. It got the blonde away from the battlefield and since Winters had directly ordered her to report to the aid station immediately afterwards, her injuries from the patrol would also finally be tended to.
Turning away, the medic's gaze caught on the isolated silhouette of their CO. She studied the set of his shoulders and the lines of his stance for a brief moment before moving over to where Gene was serving coffee. Spotting two more people that looked deep in thought and in dire need of coffee, she changed her order from one cup to three.
Gene handed her the full cups, nodding when he followed the explanatory tilt of her head. As she passed him, he asked "Are you alright?" in a low undertone, so nobody else would overhear it.
Mia paused in her steps to give him a tiny, pained smile and shrug before she continued on her way.
Gene held back a sigh, knowing that there really wasn't anything either of them could say. Seigneur, aie pitié d'elle, he thought, refocusing on his task.
.
Lipton frowned to himself when he saw Theresa sit by herself, head in her hands, elbows braced on her bent knees.
"Lipton?"
Mia's quiet voice pulled him out of his thoughts and he turned to the medic, accepting the proffered cup of coffee with a grateful smile. "Thanks, Doc. Is Theresa alright?", he asked, gesturing with an elbow into the other woman's direction.
Knowing eyes slid over to the solitary figure. "She only has a few scratches", Mia answered. "But it was a hard night for her. I think she's fed up." She handed him another cup of coffee and said with an honest quirk of her mouth: "You'll make her feel better."
Smiling at the genuine confidence the young woman had in him, Lipton walked over to Theresa. She heard him approach and lifted her head, revealing her expression that had previously been hidden behind her hands. Lips pinched in a thin line, eyebrows drawn together, brown eyes burning with vexation.
The fierce gaze zeroed in on the two cups in his hands and Lip extended one, settling next to her while she drank what seemed like half her cup in one gulp. He took a moment to study her further.
Splotches of Alley's blood stained her jacket. Her short braid was unravelling, one sweaty strand stuck to her forehead. Her long, thin fingers caked with dried blood under a coating of dirt. And her entire body wrapped in that same mixture of tension and weariness that they were all experiencing.
.
Theresa blew out an aggravated sigh and shook her head. "I am so done with this", she divulged without preamble, stressing the 'so'. "If I never have to see this place again, it'll be too soon."
Lipton nodded, sharing the sentiment. He gave a small non-committal hum, waiting for her to continue.
"A wonder my hair isn't grey yet after this shitty night", she muttered. Another explosive sigh followed a gulp of coffee. "No thanks to my squad. First Alley gets hit" – she dipped her head – "not that it's his fault, it's nobody's fault except the guy who threw that potato masher."
"But then Liebgott and Lesniewski are at each other's throats over my failure. Then I have to pull rank on Liebgott because he actually thinks he can go back in the field with an honest to God hole in his neck and then Jessica holds a goddamn turkey shoot!"
Rant over, Theresa's posture melted into pure exhaustion. She swiped a hand across her face and looked at him.
"I feel bad for being angry, though", she admitted despairingly. "I mean, I'm this close" – she raised her hand to show her thumb and index finger an inch apart – "to smacking somebody upside the head, but I can understand them."
"Lesniewski and Liebgott are both feeling guilty that Alley got hurt, it's no wonder things got a little heated. Now Liebgott obviously wanted to avenge his friend, but he was also bleeding badly, so I couldn't let him come. And Jess... Jess just hates the Germans and that these SS bastards claimed to be Polish doesn't help any."
"You know your men well", Lipton smiled, familiar with the Nebraskan's knack for analysing people.
She shrugged and said: "They're my responsibility." Her face fell and he would have had to be blind to miss the guilt that splayed across her dust-smudged features.
He leant forward. "It wasn't your fault that Alley was wounded."
She huffed a disbelieving laugh. Self-condemnation rang in her wavering tone clear as a bell. "It was, Lip", she said. "I was leading that patrol. I should have enforced noise discipline properly. It was my fault."
Lipton reached out and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "From what I heard, you did your best under the circumstances. Sometimes, that's all you can do, the rest is outside of your control." He squeezed her shoulder. "You're a good leader, Theresa. And a good person."
She mustered a small smile. "Thanks, Lip."
"Anytime, Reese."
Dick managed to conceal how badly Doc Arricante startled him when she suddenly appeared next to him. When it came to stealth, nobody could hold a candle to her, he mused fondly as he took the cup of coffee that she held out to him.
"It doesn't make it better", the young woman's lightly accented voice drifted softly through the morning air, "but he was in the SS."
Once more, Dick couldn't help but be both amused and impressed by the fact that she knew what had him so distracted.
Possibly the most inconspicuous members of the company, Mia was still quite a mystery to many of them. Not one to talk unless she had something to say, hard to read and reputed to be nigh-unflappable, she was easily underestimated despite the fact that she could hold her own against even the fieriest and fiercest of Easy – after all, she was particularly close with their resident sniper, who certainly fit that description.
But while she often went unnoticed due to her private and quiet nature, her perceptiveness could rival that of people like Catherine or Lipton and she was great at piecing together the truth or real version of a story from all the rumours and conversational snippets she snatched up.
Despite the wealth of gossip she was privy to, she was far too discreet to share any of it, making her an excellent secret-keeper. Dick liked that about her and so he didn't mind overmuch that she had caught him in this moment of weakness.
"He was just a kid", he responded.
Blue eyes filled with a paradoxical mix of sad compassion and hard iron hit him from the side. "A kid from the SS. The SS is filled only with those that believe all the shit Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels say." There was a raw quality to her tone that he hadn't heard before.
He acknowledged with a nod.
It wouldn't change the fact that the boy had hardly been old enough to shave, but he could feel the knot of conflicting emotions in his chest loosen. "Thanks Doc", he said, not specifying whether he was talking about the coffee or her words of consolation.
As a reply, he received a quiet smile and a soft "Sir". Then, Mia was gone, off to tend to her countless other duties.
Dick stayed where he was, replaying her words in his head and trying not to think about how much hardship and horror those deep blue eyes might have seen long before the war had started.
Returning to their staging point, Theresa wanted nothing more than collapse onto the nearest horizontal surface – who cared if it was comfortable? – and sleep for a week. Until the end of the war, preferably. But she'd settle for an hour or two, as well. Her wish, of course, soon went up in smoke because Liebgott cornered her the second she stepped foot outside the aid station after getting an update on Alley's condition.
"What the hell, Nolan?!", the man yelled, all sharp edges and stormy glares.
She frowned at him, but didn't even get to open her mouth before Liebgott ploughed on, steamrolling over her aborted attempt at asking about his neck. "What the fuck was that, huh?! Benching me like a kid at a fucking Little League game!"
"Don't take that tone with me", she said, dredging up enough energy to infuse a hint of warning into her tired voice.
Eyes still flashing, he demanded an explanation, a justification for her decision.
Incredulous, Theresa pointed out the obvious: "You were bleeding like a stuck pig, Joe." He couldn't tell her that he had missed that because then, she'd call him a liar.
"I'm fine!", he exclaimed with a wild gesture.
"Well I couldn't know that for sure!", she fired back. She shouldn't have to defend herself, god damnit.
Was it so difficult to understand that she was trying to keep her squad alive?
.
Liebgott stubbornly held her gaze, chin raised a fraction in defiance. "I told you", he bit out. "I told you I was fine."
Theresa huffed out a breath and forced herself to calm down. This was going nowhere. "Joe", she said, softening her tone around the reproach it still held. "You're not the only one who feels guilty about what happened to Alley."
He jerked, inhaling to snap at her, offence his instinctive defence mechanism.
She didn't let it deter her and continued: "We were on light and noise discipline. Did you break it with your griping? Yes. Was it your fault Alley got hit by that potato masher? No. If you want to blame somebody, blame me for not enforcing discipline properly."
Because no matter what Lipton or her rational side said, she still felt that it was her fault.
Liebgott's expression shifted, objection rising in his glower, but he didn't interrupt.
"I get that you're upset and angry; Alley's your best friend. But you're injured" – she forestalled his protest with a flat hand – "yes I know, but there's still a gash on your neck, so I wasn't going to take that risk. I'm not gonna lose another man if I can help it."
Her breath caught on the last few words. I won't cry. I won't cry.
.
The anger had left Liebgott before he knew it, leaving behind regret and the sinking realisation that every time anyone in her squad got hurt, the weight of responsibility on Theresa's shoulders grew. I'm not gonna lose another man if I can help it.
Catherine had already told him that Theresa was only doing her best to look out for them. He swallowed his pride and asked if the rest of the squad was okay.
Theresa heaved a weary sigh, scrubbed at her dirty face with a marginally less dirty palm. "Yeah. Just cuts and bruises mostly, nothing serious."
"Good", Liebgott said. His signature smirk made an appearance. "Now c'mon, you look like shit, Reese."
She snorted, shooting him a playfully scandalised look as they walked towards the barn. "Who, me? This" – she gestured at her grimy, worn-out appearance – "is nothing a shower, a change of clothes and a few years of sleep won't fix."
He laughed and Theresa was reassured that things between them were back to normal again. She had hated pulling rank on him and she was glad that it hadn't damaged the teasing camaraderie that characterised the dynamics in her squad.