Hey folks! Sorry for the wait, I haven't been able to get a lot of writing done during the last two weeks. And the next episode - Bastogne - is proving quite difficult to turn into suitable chapters. It focuses on the medics' perspective, which I love, but I'm afraid I'll end up focusing too much on the medics and not enough on the rest of the guys...
Luckily, there are still a few chapters to go before that, so I hope you enjoy this one :)
Maxine's promotion was finalised shortly after they arrived in Mourmelon. Winters proudly presented her with the papers – her official discharge as an enlisted and her battle-field commission to 2nd lieutenant, both effective immediately. He congratulated her once more, as did several of the other officers.
Lieutenant Foley, the leader of 2nd platoon, was especially pleased to have her as his assistant platoon leader since he knew as well as everybody else that the men would march straight through Hell with a smile on their face if Maxine asked them to.
Her squad was sad to lose her as their leader, but the revelation that she would stay in their platoon helped balance that feeling. Second cheered when they heard. Foley wasn't a bad platoon leader and a fairly liked guy, but in their eyes, Maxine was just one of a kind.
"About damn time we got another good lieutenant", Johnny proclaimed with a grin, clapping her on the shoulder.
A cheeky smile arching her lips, Frances moseyed up to her friend to ask: "Do we have to call you Ma'am and Lieutenant Lloyd now?"
"I expect you all to bow to me and worship the ground beneath my feet", Maxine deadpanned, causing the crowd to burst into uproarious laughter.
Giggling, she clarified that they only had to use formal address with her if the situation called for it.
"I'm still the same girl you all have seen fall off the ten-foot wall in basic", she said, earning her another round of laughter from the Toccoa veterans, "I just happen to have a bar on my collar now instead of chevrons on my sleeves."
...
Passes were distributed as liberally as others might hand out pamphlets. Word had it that the 101st wouldn't be sent back into the field until March at the earliest. The unique brand of boredom, the one that came from suddenly having too much time on their hands after a prolonged period of time under high stress, spread quickly, encouraging all sorts of hijinks and shenanigans.
Even the higher-ups had taken the rumour of several months of downtime as gospel, heading off to all sorts of places out of the country. General Taylor was stateside, attending some conference or another, leaving McAuliffe in charge of the division. Battalion commander Lt Colonel Strayer had gone to London, attending the wedding of none other than Colonel Dobie.
Captain Winters was hoodwinked into a trip to Paris by his close friends, Captain Nixon and Lieutenant Welsh. The two officers cheerfully presented him with a 48-hour pass and wouldn't hear any of Dick's attempts to refuse.
"Oh", Nixon added, eyes sparkling with amusement, "and our newly minted lieutenant is going with you."
Dick's eyebrows rose towards his hairline. "Does she know about that?", he questioned, even though he had a strong inkling as to what the answer was going to be.
The matching grins grew impossibly wider, confirming his suspicion.
"Well, look who it is!"
Maxine turned, beaming widely at the sound of the familiar Philly twang that she'd already missed. "Bill!"
Guarnere grinned at her and wrapped her in an enthusiastic hug. "Hiya, Max, how's it going?"
"The sight of you always brightens my day, Bill", she replied with an easy smile.
He nodded and his eyes briefly flickered to her insignia as he asked: "Now, what's this I hear about you being field-commissioned?"
Smiling, because this was classic Wild Bill, never one to beat around the bush and always up to date on the gossip, Maxine told her friend how it had come to pass. "Got the official papers last week", she finished.
...
After congratulating her with another hug and a smacking kiss on the forehead, he dramatically bemoaned the loss of his second in command and "best squad leader in my platoon" before commenting that they couldn't have picked a better person for that promotion.
"You earned that commission, Max", Bill told her emphatically. "Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot and a liar and is gonna have a problem with Ol' Gonorrhoea."
She chuckled. She didn't doubt the validity of his statement for a second and appreciated the sentiment. "Now now, Bill, I don't want you to get into trouble over me, alright?", she cautioned.
He gave her that smirk that told her that he wouldn't make any promises.
Maxine fondly rolled her eyes before asking innocently: "Say, shouldn't you still be in the hospital?"
He waved it off. "Eh, they couldn't keep me forever."
She fixed him with her best approximation of her mother's 'I know you did something wrong' look.
"I was ready to climb the goddamn walls, I'm tellin' ya", he added with the most pitiful and angelic expression.
She laughed. "It's your own fault", she reminded him, only a faint trace of chiding in her humour. "You were the one who decided to ride a bloody motorbike on the front line."
Bill just shrugged nonchalantly and they headed towards the barracks, catching up and trading good-natured teasing and the latest gossip.
...
Maxine was presented with her own 48-hour pass later in the evening. A gleeful glint in his eyes, Nix informed her that a jeep would be taking her and Captain Winters to the train station tomorrow morning.
"Do I get a say in this?", she asked, secretly amused by the intelligence officer's excitement.
He smirked at the rhetoric and shook his head. "Nope, you're going, end of discussion. You need a break."
That she couldn't argue with and so Maxine resigned herself – without any chagrin – to a spontaneous two-day trip to Paris.
Early the next morning, a train carried Maxine and Winters towards Paris, the scenery flying by. They agreed to explore the City of Lights together, Maxine offering that she knew a few places worth visiting.
"My grandfather and my mother both love Paris", she said, casting her mind back to the many stories Grandpapa would tell her and her siblings of the lively bustle in the streets, of impressive architecture and cosy cafés. "We even travelled there once when we were still kids."
"Really? How old were you?", Winters inquired, both out of curiosity and simple politeness.
"I must have been around five or six, sir." Her older sister Cassandra had started fourth grade a few weeks later, she remembered. "Mother had to hold my hand any time we stepped out into a street so I wouldn't run off and get lost."
He smiled, picturing the smart and confident woman across from him as a little girl, holding the hand of her mother who he imagined sharing Maxine's elegance and fair looks.
She chuckled, shaking her head at the memory. "Grandpapa found it hilarious. Mother not so much."
"I can imagine that", Winters commented, recalling his own mother's exasperation when his sister Anne had been just as fond of 'exploring' as a toddler.
...
Their conversation was interrupted by the conductor passing by to announce the next stop. He tipped his head at them in respect, offering a courteous "Madame. Monsieur. Bon voyage à vous".
"Merci Monsieur", Maxine returned with a polite smile.
"I didn't know you spoke French", Winters said after the conductor had moved on to the next carriage.
The Washingtonian shrugged. "Well, sir, my father considers it a useful and important language."
He found that quite a reasonable attitude and told her as much before reminding her: "We're not on base, so please call me Dick."
"Very well ...Dick. In that case, it's only fitting that you call me Maxine or Max."
Dick agreed. "Has that always been a nickname of yours?", he then asked. From what he knew, Maxine's family would likely have regarded it as 'too plebeian'.
"No", Maxine confirmed with a soft snort and a shake of her head. Mother and Father would be appalled. "Guarnere started calling me Max at some point during basic and it stuck." She still remembered her initial confusion at the friendly abbreviation. "But I have grown rather fond of it now. At home, I was always Maxine or, at most, Reny."
"Reny?"
She nodded, revealing: "My middle name is Berenice."
...
As the train pulled into the station and they disembarked, Dick had come to the conclusion that maybe his friends hadn't been wrong to send Maxine along with him. Intelligent, well-educated and witty, the tall brunette was a fantastic conversationalist and just as great at silent company.
He had known all this beforehand, from various accounts of others as well as his own observations, but he hadn't had an opportunity to really experience it.
They spent the day exploring the city.
After a stroll through the artists' quarter of Montmartre, which Maxine adored for its colours and life-filled cobblestoned streets, the two of them headed down to the Seine, walked along the river and crossed the Pont Neuf.
They sat down for lunch in a tidy little restaurant on the river bank, watching the people passing on the street and the occasional boat floating past on the water.
Maxine insisted that Dick choose their next destination. "I picked Montmartre, now it's your turn", she said as they perused the menu.
The waiter came to ask what they would like to drink. Maxine easily switched to French to order a carafe of water as well as a glass of red wine for herself.
"Would you like a glass as well, Dick?", she asked.
He declined and she nodded, confirming to the waiter, who had been delighted to discover the beautiful young woman in uniform was fluent in the local idiom.
Over lunch, they discussed their plans for the afternoon and eventually, Dick decided that Saint-Germain sounded like an interesting area to visit. Their waiter was only too happy to give them directions and offer some advice on other sights they should consider.
...
The rest of the day flew by in record time and before they knew it, evening was darkening the sky and they were on one of the many trains that criss-crossed the city.
Maxine didn't miss the far-away look creeping into Dick's eyes as the train rattled along the tracks, telling her that his mind was elsewhere. Comfortable with the agreeable silence that had spread between them, she drifted off into her own thoughts.
She had written home to tell her family about her promotion, expressing her joy and pride despite the bitter aftertaste of the political reasoning behind it. Maxine had joined the program mainly because she had wanted to prove herself to be more than just a pretty girl from a privileged, almost filthily rich family.
But she had also seen it as a way to annoy her family.
Constantly being treated like the black sheep, tutted at for every little thing that was considered unladylike or not befitting her standing and reminded at fairly regular intervals that reputation was everything had only furthered Maxine's determination and drive for independence.
She had kept up appearances of course, done her best to meet her family's expectations and acted like the perfect Lloyd daughter, just like her sister. And when she had seen a chance to make a name for herself, to show what she was capable of and prove her worth, Maxine had seized it without hesitation. Her decision had widened the rift between her and her family into a large chasm.
She had never had a close relationship with her father and while she loved her mother as her mother loved her, Maxine also knew that Mother was at times a bit too concerned about appearances, too. At least Mother still writes to me, she thought, a twinge of sadness lancing through her. It had hurt the most when her brother and sister's letters had suddenly stopped coming after the company had returned to the field in September.
Even when their mother hadn't been able to openly oppose their father or when she shared his views of how they should comport themselves, the three of them had always stuck together. It had been them, Cassandra, herself and Nathaniel, against the world, as they had often told one another.
Because of that, their inexplicable silence and lack of support hurt Maxine more than the combination of her father's complete refusal to write to her and her now ex-fiancé's ultimatum which she had rejected.
I thought they'd understand. I thought they'd be happy for me. Did they change their minds?
...
"Max?"
She flinched out of her thoughts, returning to reality with a start. She blinked and tried to orientate herself.
The train had stopped.
Dick was standing, looking down to her with a hint of concern on his face.
Pulling herself together, Maxine aimed for light humour as she stated: "We missed our stop." She missed the mark by a wide margin and landed somewhere closer to confused unease.
"Yeah", Dick confirmed, lips quirking into the ghost of a smile that didn't get anywhere near his eyes.
They got off the train and stepped out into the cool night. The Seine flowed below them, the city's many lights dancing on the water surface.
"Are you alright, Dick?" The words coiled into the air like one of the smoke rings Jessica was so skilled at blowing.
He didn't look at her, his bright, almost translucent gaze pensive as it watched the ripples in the silver and gold shimmers of the river. "The people go about their daily lives, the war only at the back of their minds."
Maxine let out a sympathetic hum, but quietly pointed out: "They were under Nazi occupation up until a few months ago."
"Yeah. It's still enviable."
She dipped her head in agreement.
...
Silence stretched until Maxine said: "We'll be okay."
Dick turned his head, looked at her with an expression on his face that she couldn't quite place. "Do you really believe that?", he asked, only genuine curiosity in his voice.
"Yes", she replied, finding that she did indeed. "God, Fate, Karma...whatever you like to call it, I think that somehow, eventually, we'll be okay."
He smiled at that and she was glad to see it reach his eyes, softening the lines around his mouth.
...
"Any idea where we are?", Dick suddenly wondered, drawing a snort of laughter from her.
"By the Seine. But that's about it."
They both had to laugh at the absurdity of the situation: Two decorated officers, lost in Paris because they hadn't gotten off the train at the right stop.
"I'm sure we can find our way back to the hotel", Dick said, offering his arm to Maxine.
She giggled and took his arm. "We'd be a disgrace onto the parachute infantry if we didn't", she joked.
They began heading east, the direction they had come from. The heels of Maxine's pumps clicked softly on the pavement. The river gurgled along next to them. On the road, the occasional carriage or automobile clattered and rumbled past.
"We're not gonna tell Nix or Harry that we got lost."
"Absolutely not. We'd never hear the end of it."