Happy New Year, folks! I wish you all happiness and good health.
So, I was writing this chapter and it kind of went in a slightly different direction than I had originally planned. It sort of just wrote itself and then I had this moment like 'oh no, I made myself cry.'
Anyways, I apologise in advance and hope you still like the chapter.
Louise was checking her rifle for frost damage, sitting cross-legged by the fire, when they heard it. Their heads snapped up and they shared a glance of confused, hesitant hope. To paratroopers, there was no mistaking that sound.
"Those are C-47s." Disbelief coloured her tone. Could it really be?
Mampre slowly nodded his head, staring distantly at the puddle of melted snow surrounding the drying uniforms. "I think we're dreaming", he mumbled.
.
They weren't dreaming. Just like the men and women out on the line weren't, though at first they couldn't quite believe their eyes either. The weather had finally cleared sufficiently for the planes to navigate accurately enough. In just over four hours, 241 planes dropped 144 tons of supplies to the besieged soldiers holding Bastogne.
Even many years later, Louise would be able to recall the exact moment it had properly sunk in with her that this wasn't some hypothermia-induced spectre. 11:51 a.m., 23 December, 1944. To her dying day, she would remember the huge bubble of relief swelling in her chest at the sight of hundreds and hundreds of brightly coloured parachute canopies filling the sky over Bastogne.
It was easy to get a jeep back to the line. Laden with supplies – mainly ammo and winter clothing – they arrived at Easy's stretch of the line under the cheer of the men.
"Well look who decided to show up!", Luz called.
"What took you so long?", Guarnere demanded, smirk growing as he gave her shoulder a friendly shove. "Got lost on your way home?"
She tsked and shoved back. "Oh ye of little faith." The big grin on her face negated any indignation her words might have held.
After many slaps on the back and jokes about showing up late, Louise extricated herself from the cheerful welcoming party so she could report to Captain Winters. "Make yourselves useful instead of just wasting air", she said, motioning to the supplies. "This stuff doesn't distribute itself, you know?"
.
At the battalion CP, Winters and Nixon greeted her with the same air of relief as the rest of the company.
"It's good to see you", Nixon said.
"Thank you, sir." She smothered a burst of coughing in the crook of her elbow.
"Are you alright, Fields?", Winters asked, his light eyes studying her intently.
"Yes sir."
Shifting her weight and tucking her hands under her armpits, Louise began her report. They had been sent to scout the terrain, find the enemy line and eliminate the sniper they knew the Krauts had somewhere on that stretch of the line. Preferably without being spotted and while taking out as many enemy soldiers as possible.
"The mission resulted in 9 confirmed kills, sir. Including two snipers", she finished.
Nixon's eyebrows shot up. "Two snipers?", he repeated sharply.
The Brit confirmed. "Yes sir. That's why we were delayed. I couldn't dispatch the first sniper without revealing our position to the second one."
Their intelligence officer grumbled something about unreliable intel under his breath while Winters asked how she had solved that issue.
"I gave us away", Louise said blankly. "Sergeant Gambrill could hardly hold the binoculars anymore and I was losing focus due to the–" She broke off as a coughing fit clawed up her throat.
Nixon held out a canteen, which she accepted gratefully.
Clearing her throat, she picked up the thread again: "–due to the cold. So last night, when the first sniper left his perch, I took the shot. The second sniper missed and because his muzzle flash gave him away, I was able to neutralise him, too."
Their revered former CO dipped his head in acknowledgment of the skill and bravery involved in that feat, offering a sincere: "Good work. Glad to have you back, Louise."
Stiffness drained from her spine at his use of her first name. This wasn't just Captain Winters, her superior talking to her now, it was Dick, her friend and brother-in-arms since Toccoa days. "Thanks. Glad to be back, sir."
And she was. Louise didn't really know how to describe it, but it felt easier to breathe here, surrounded by her friends. She was fine going on solo or tandem missions with Ryan, but it settled her nerves to be with her company.
.
Dike wasn't around, which came as no surprise to her, but Lt Welsh cheerfully welcomed her back and assigned her to First Platoon for the time being.
"Sergeant Martin's guys took a licking yesterday", he said, a sombre expression replacing his impish grin. "He's gonna be glad for your help."
Perconte quickly got her caught up on everything she'd missed when they walked to First's foxholes together. Artillery barrages, Skinny getting wounded, Esther getting shot, a combat patrol resulting in one fatality, one casualty and one extremely upset Babe Heffron, Liebgott biting peoples' heads off for no reason…
"I think he was in a stink 'cause he couldn't argue with you", he commented off-handedly.
Louise huffed a wheezing chuckle. It wouldn't be first time they fought for the sake of it, plus bickering and trading insults was admittedly a rather good way to blow off some steam.
They didn't fight. Or even bicker. They snarked back and forth to pretend not to notice the easing tightness around the others' mouth and eyes. They groused about Dike and speculated on just what the man did during those prolonged periods of time when he wasn't to be found.
And if they huddled a little closer under the blanket that night, nobody was any the wiser.
On Christmas Eve, the Germans ramped up the pressure. As night greyed into day, a line of tanks rumbled through the trees across the open field that was no man's land, plumes of white snow dust trailing behind them.
Ana María, reading her rifle, grumbled about them "having no respect for God and His holidays".
"Eyes sharp!", Lt Shames could be heard hollering further down the line.
Jessica glanced at Mercier beside her and rolled her eyes. "Fucking hard to miss the Krauts like this."
"Hold your fire", Lipton ordered as he rushed by, "don't let them draw you out."
The first shells came flying, hitting dirt and wood with resounding booms that knotted in their stomachs.
"Hold your fire", Theresa repeated.
Jessica wondered absently how her sergeant kept her voice so steady and firm. With all the adrenaline buzzing through her, she herself was already having trouble keeping her leg from jiggling. She felt like a rabbit in headlights, trapped and vulnerable. And she absolutely hated it.
Another tank shell zoomed in and blew up a fountain of dirt.
If they keep this up, we're gonna be sitting and waiting here all day, the blonde Marylander thought, face pulling into a grimace when someone shouted for a medic somewhere off to their right. She turned her head and opened her mouth to relay that thought to Mercier.
She never got around to it because in that moment, something punched her in the chest with the force of a sledgehammer.
.
The wind solidly driven out of her, Jessica stumbled and fell back against hard earth, dazedly questioning why the Krauts would throw sledgehammers. Then, the fuzzy numbness gave way to excruciating pain. A cacophony of screaming voices filled her ears. It took her a while to realise that the incoherent, wordless one was hers.
"MEDIC!"
Mercier was the other person screaming, Jessica noted sluggishly. Her pain-addled mind registered with disgusted confusion that something warm and sticky was seeping down her torso. Her lungs hurt and she still hadn't caught her breath.
She coughed, which only increased the searing agony pulsing through her chest. Did I catch a cold? She heard a rather panicked "Oh fuck!" from her left as she grimaced at the strange coppery tang filling her mouth.
Strong hands yanked her up and backwards, making her vision go white with pain. She screamed, although in reality, it was only a choked groan that made it past her lips. Her back met snow and she saw bare treetops and snatches of grey sky. A face swam into view and Jessica frowned. What was Doc Arricante doing here, leaning into her space like that? Something shifted in her side and holy shit that hurt!
The Doc's lips were moving and she figured that she should maybe try and listen because if the quiet medic was talking, it must be important.
"Easy, Jess, try to breathe. The pain's going to get better soon."
Jessica coughed again and caught sight of something red spraying up. Oh. Her throat seized, trapping the breath she was taking on its way down as the realisation sank in. She was bleeding. She was hurt. She was coughing up blood.
I'm gonna die.
Panic hit.
.
Mia couldn't dodge the flailing limbs as Jessica fought them, a look of sheer terror on her mud- and blood-speckled face. An erratic hand clipped her chin just before Mercier could catch it.
"Stay still", she said, "you have to stay still. It's okay."
The blonde shook her head frantically, panting turning into wheezing and another bout of choking coughs. "I'm gonna die!", she cried, struggling against Mercier's hold. "I'm gonna die!"
The ground shook as the Germans hurled more artillery their way. Machine guns spewed salve upon salve in response, mortars hitting metal with crumpling clangs. The two crouching soldiers ducked as branches and pieces of bark rained down on them.
"I don't wanna die today", Jessica babbled, her coughs now weak half-sobs. "I can't."
Mercier shot an anxious glance towards the line. "We gotta hurry, Doc", he said.
Mia nodded. A large wad of gauze in her hand, she bunched it around the pieces of metal jutting out from the riflewoman's chest and pushed down. Hard.
Jessica's hysteric cries pitched into a back-arching scream before they turned into a slew of sobbing curses and insult.
Mia didn't react to any of them, too busy trying to keep her patient's blood and insides where they belonged.
.
They heard a jeep. Mercier sprang up, running to intercept it.
Mia tied off the last bandage and they hauled Jessica up from the ground, neither sparing her whimpering groan more than an apologetic thought. They got the wounded woman settled and while Mercier rushed back to the line, Mia jumped in.
"Go!", she called to the driver over Jessica's hacking coughs and sounds of misery.
He floored the pedal.
I can't die today. The thought kept ricocheting around her head, pounding against her skull in time with the fiery pain clawing into her upper body. Every bump and hole the jeep went over drove spikes of pure agony through her.
"Careful!", she heard a familiar accented voice snap.
Jessica wrenched her eyes open. In the two years she had known the reticent woman, she had only heard that sharp tone once or twice.
The ride became smoother.
Jessica shivered and coughed again. It felt like something tore in her stomach with each cough. A splash of blood bubbled past her teeth and dribbled down her chin, leaving an icky, rapidly cooling trail.
"Mia?"
The Doc's given name slipped out before she could think about it. It sounded small and shaky, but Jessica was too scared and in too much pain to truly care.
The messy-haired brunette looked up, the startled expression only a fleeting hitch in her serious face.
Jessica understood the surprise. She mostly called her 'Doc' when they spoke, which wasn't all that often. They had never really gotten along, Jessica put off by Mia's quietness and shifty eyes while her own sharp tongue formed snarky jokes at the medic's expense far too frequently for them to be close, let alone friends.
.
"Yes?", Mia prompted carefully when she stayed silent for too long.
She blinked and tried to remember what she had wanted to tell the woman whose hands were stained bright with blood. Her blood. "I don't wanna die today", she whispered. Her eyes stung, her vision turned watery.
Mia's lips, chapped and cracked, pulled into a sympathetic, gentle smile. "You'll be okay."
"No." She needed to make her understand. She didn't know why it was important, but she needed Mia to understand. "No, I can't die today. I can't." God, why am I so out of breath? "It's Fabian's birthday."
Blue met grey and Jessica sagged a little at the understanding she saw in those deep, guarded eyes.
"You'll be alright", Mia said quietly, barely audible over the whistle of the wind.
She inhaled, grimacing at how much effort it took. There was a crushing weight on her chest now. Weirdly enough, it was taking away some of the pain. "Everything hurts", she said.
Or at least, that's what she meant to say. It came out as a slurred mess of syllables that sounded more like "Ev'ryth'n h'rts".
However, Mia seemed to understand it anyways. "I know", she replied with another one of her soft, enigmatic smiles. "It'll get better soon, the morphine just needs a little time to work."
Funny, Jess thought. I don't remember getting stuck with a syrette. But the pain was duller now, so it must be working, even if breathing was still really hard.
She closed her eyes. It was taking too much effort to keep them open.
.
"Jessica?"
She gave a vague grunt and brought up another mouthful of blood. "'m ti'ed."
"I know. Get some rest."
Jessica hummed. That sounded like a fine idea. She'd just rest her eyes a little.
Sleep is a good healer, Róża. A faint smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. That's what her mother used to say when she'd been sick as a child. Sleep. Yeah, she could sleep. And dream of home. That'll make me feel better in no time.
Gene stumbled out of the aid station, his feet propelling him forward without conscious thought. His body felt heavy and leaden, his very soul weary of the constant death and destruction. Heaving a sigh, he looked around for a jeep that would take him back to Easy.
Instead, he caught sight of a familiar mop of hair. The frown that was seemingly permanently fused into his features nowadays deepened.
Sitting on the rubble of a destroyed wall, shoulders hunched and body curled in on itself, Mia looked small and despondent. Even her hair, which was still a mess of cowlicks despite the longest strands now curling by her ears, was comparatively limp. She stared at her hands as she kept scrubbing at the dried blood caking them.
Figuring that misery shared was misery lessened, the Cajun made his way over to his friend. In the pale light of the day, the dark circles under her eyes looked like bruises, her face hollow and thin.
She didn't look up when he sat down beside her. The only sign of her registering his presence was a slight turn of her head towards him. Her eyes stayed fixed on her hands.
.
A jeep hurtled down the road to the aid station. Neither of the two Easy medics moved. It delivered the men it was carrying, turned around and drove off again. The bustle of the town filled to burst with wounded seemed oddly muffled to Gene as they sat in their small bubble of abject exhaustion.
"Smokey's paralysed." The words came out flat and monotonous. Matching the numbness clouding his mind.
Mia's shoulders moved with a breath, curving inwards a fraction more. "Jessica's dead."
It should have shocked him. It should have.
It didn't.
"Her brother has his birthday today", his friend continued.
They shared a dim-eyed look. Gene sighed and gave her knee a gentle squeeze. She sniffed and leant her head against his shoulder. Dirt-crusted strands tickled his cheek as he rested it atop her head.
There was nothing to say, so they stayed silent.
It was a silent pair of medics that returned from Bastogne. Silent and weary. They couldn't find Lt Dike, though they didn't really go to great lengths to look for the man.
Lipton met them, his quiet concern warm and compassionate as he promised to pass on their report. "I'll inform Theresa", he offered.
Mia shook her head, pulling in a breath and straightening. "It's okay. I'll do it." She paused, expression shifting briefly. "Can you tell Catherine?"
The First Sergeant nodded, a tight smile in the corners of his mouth. "No problem, Doc."
.
Theresa's eyebrows furrowed speculatively when Mia approached her, hands shoved deep into her pockets, and asked for a word. They stepped out of hearing range of the foxholes. The curious gazes of the men followed them, prickling at the backs of their necks.
"What is it, Mia?", Theresa prompted, taking in the medic's worn-out expression. "How's Jess?"
A small shake of the head. "She didn't make it."
The sergeant took a step back, swallowed hard. "What?"
"Jessica's dead, Reese", Mia said, sad compassion in the lines of her face. "I'm sorry."
No. It couldn't be. There had to be some kind of mistake. Theresa pulled in a breath and nodded, squaring her shoulder. "I'm sure you did everything you could."
Thin shoulders twitched with a silent sigh, head dipping down. "It wasn't enough."
"Still, thank you. I know you two didn't like each other."
Mia shrugged. "Yeah. But I didn't want her to die."
"No, no, that's not- God, I didn't mean-", Theresa stammered, horrified by what she'd accidentally implied. "I didn't mean it like that."
The younger woman's lips pursed into the sad caricature of a soft smile. "I know, Reese", she said gently. "I know."
.
Theresa cleared her throat against the lump lodged there. Her chest was too tight all of a sudden, her stomach in knots.
"I… I'll be right back", she managed. "I just need a moment."
Mia squeezed her forearm, her big blue eyes kind and knowing, before she pulled back.
After a short glance towards the foxhole, Theresa fled into the privacy of the forest, hands trembling and eyes stinging.
Blood roared in her ears as Theresa came to a stop. Tears were already streaming down her face, burning hot on her cold cheeks. They soaked into her upturned collar and the scarf Catherine had given her a few days ago.
She paced, turning in a circle as she tried to make sense of the situation. Why?, she kept asking herself. Why Jessica? Why today of all days?! Her jaw tightened, her fingers curling into fists. Why me?!
"How many more do I have to lose, huh?!", she screamed at the air, voice breaking halfway through. "How many?!"
The forest remained silent, the trees disinterested, passive spectators.
She sniffled. "I never should have signed up." Her legs buckled and she dropped to her knees, hardly feeling the bite of snow through her pants. "I never should have joined the Airborne. I should have stayed at home."
.
Sobs wracked her body, stealing her breath and turning her stomach. Choking on her grief, she gasped for air that wouldn't reach her lungs while tears blinded her. Each sob ached as it tore along the length of her throat.
And suddenly, she was retching. Doubled over on all fours, she heaved up the meagre rations she'd forced down that morning. Her upper body shook as her diaphragm and stomach convulsed with sobs and dry heaves.
She spat out a mouthful of bile and blinked away a teardrop that had clung to her eyelashes. It dripped down into the snow, disappearing in the cold, white powder.
"I wanna go home", she whimpered to the surrounding trees. "I wanna go home."
.
When she could finally breathe again, Theresa sat back on her haunches. Sniffling, she wiped the snow off her hands and blew her nose. She took a shuddering breath and scrubbed a sleeve across her cheeks.
"Pull yourself together, Theresa", she said to herself, her firm tone wavering and tearstained. "You're no use to anyone if you fall apart."
She stood, shook away the snow clinging to legs of her trousers. Another breath, this one already steadier. For lack of cold water, she splashed her face with a handful of snow, carefully wiping it off again so it wouldn't seep down below her collar.
She exhaled, straightened her jacket and raised her chin. She had to keep it together, for the sake of her squad.