"Well, this looks fun." I remarked dryly as we entered our sleeping quarters on the Samaria. There were two long lines of cots hung five deep and holding two cots per section. Luz grinned and slapped my back as we scrambled to claim two of the top bunks for ourselves.
The cargo ship that served as our temporary barracks was terrible. There was no way to bring fresh air into the room other then the two doors on either side and the small windows up top, which made the top bunks even more desirable. The smell of sweat, body odor and vomit was so unbearable that I found myself outside on deck more often than not. As the days grew longer and the temperature grew hotter, so did the tempers. Men started fighting about any stupid thing that came along. There was even a fight between Liebgott and Guarnere that started over a conversation about Sobel of all people. The arrival in England was such a blessed affair that more than one man kissed the ground.
We were quartered with families in and around the town of Aldbourne, England. Luz and I were lucky to be placed together in small house along with four other Easy men. The woman, Mrs. Kennedy, treated each of us as her own. Her husband was a Sergeant in the British Army and had been away from home for almost a year along with her two sons who were both Corporals. She said it was refreshing having a house full of boys again and proceeded to spoil us as much as she could with the rationing England had on their foodstuffs. She had her own vegetable garden and shared what she could with the rest of the community, but she made sure to keep enough to make one of the most wonderful soups I had ever tasted. She fussed over us when we came home late from training and celebrated with us when I was promoted to Sergeant thanks to my "natural affinity" to military tactics and leadership and Luz's promotion to Technician 5th grade radio ops thanks to the natural ability when it came to this era's technology.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly… until one training mission that set in motion a course of events that would throw the proverbial shit into the fan.
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We had been splint off into groups, first battalion under the command of Cpt. Sobel, second battalion under the command of Lt. Winters. Our objective was to take a T intersection and secure it. I had previously been transferred out of first platoon and into second which, lucky enough, was under the command of Winters.
We had arrived at our objective only to find ourselves alone and without first platoon, being led by Cpt. Sobel. Winters waited as long as he dared but eventually ordered us to go ahead and take the intersection by ourselves. We cut the road in all directions, Lipton went right with first squad, Guarnere went left with second squad and I went with Winters and third squad up the middle. Winters motioned for me to stop next to him as I hurried the men across the street. I grinned as a man on a bike raised his hands in mock surrender. We had effectively cut the poor man off from reaching his home.
"You done it now, yanks. You caught me." Winters smiled at the man and check his watch.
"Hi Ho, Silver!" A cry arose from the right. I turned and caught sight of Sobel as he and the rest of the missing First Platoon came running down the road.
"Would that be the enemy?" The man asked.
"As a matter of fact, yes," Winters tipped his helmet to the man. "Good work 2nd platoon. We took the objective."
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"And then Luz told him to cut the fence!" Perconte chuckled as we all sat around the table. The room erupted in laughter urging Luz on as he imitated Sobel.
"Where's my Goddamn wire cutters!" He patted his body in an over exaggerated way, turning around in circles trying to look at his back. Later on I pulled Luz aside.
"You know, when Sobel learns that Horton was in London, there will be repercussions." Luz waved me away.
"Nothing we can't handle." He laughed.
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"We lost Winters to battalion mess." Sgt. Lipton told us. I smacked George on the back of the head.
"Why?" Luz asked.
"Sobel's court-martialing him for disobeying orders." Lipton replied. I found that hard to believe. From my experience in the Army I had found that few officers, in this time or mine, were as capable or responsible as Lt. Winters. In fact I had studied him extensively during my time at The Point. His name came up several times during the study of WWII and his capture of the guns at Brécourt Manor was still taught as one of the single greatest maneuvers in military history. Lipton caught my eye and walked over to me.
"NCOs are having a meeting in five minutes" He whispered looking at me with a very serious expression on his face. I knew right away what it was about. "You don't have to come, we wouldn't think any less of you."
I bit my lip as my immediate thought was to stay away. Part of the Ranger Creed was courtesy to superior officers and that had been drilled into me during Ranger training and during my four years as a Cadet. I was never against ignoring a stupid order, I had done it in the past (future?). But I had never committed willful treason, however something greater was tugging at me the more I thought of it.
I was thrown into this world, but it wasn't really my world, it was theirs. I realized I had to do what was right for these men and not what was right for me. So with a deep sigh, I nodded to Lip and followed him to the barn that served as our mess.
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"So we're going through with this, right?" Grant asked. Not all the NCOs had come to the meeting and none of us held it against them.
"We gotta do something."
"Yeah. Alright." Lipton looked around the table. "Okay. But we all better be clear of the consequences."
"I don't care about the consequences." Martin said.
"J. W." Lipton turned to him. "We could be lined up against the wall and shot. Now I'm ready to face that... and every one of us better be too." He looked each of us in the eye.
"I will not," Wild Bill began, "follow that man, into combat."
"Me neither." Bull Randleman agreed.
"I won't either." Even as I spoke the words my stomach did flips. What we were doing was insurrection, a crime punishable by the highest order.
"Alright, then let's do it." We all pulled out our pencils and began writing.
"I hear by, no longer, wish to serve... as a noncommissioned officer... in Easy Company." Bill said aloud as we copied his words. I signed my name at the bottom and as I handed it to Lipton a cold chill of fear ran down my spine.
"Alright boys." Lip nodded to us as he stood up. "Good luck." We sat around for a while. No words were passed between us as the depth of what we had just done began to weave its poisonous vines around our thoughts. We knew what we were doing was the right thing to do, but at what cost?
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"I ought to have you all shot!" Colonel Sink growled. We had been called to his office shortly after our letters had been delivered. The older noncoms made sure that the youngest of us, including Bill and myself, were placed in the back and well out of the 'line of fire.' "This is nothing less than an act of mutiny while we prepare for the God damn invasion of Europe." He looked to one of the noncoms who was the mastermind behind our insurrection. "Sgt. Harris."
"Sir."
"Turn in your stripes and collect you gear. You are hereby transferred out of my regiment."
"Sir." Harris saluted.
"Get out." Sink ordered and Harris formally marched out. "Sgt. Ranney."
"Sir."
"Consider yourself lucky, I'm only busting you to Private." He addressed the rest of us. "All of you NCOs have disgraced the 101st Airborne. You can consider yourselves lucky that we are on the eve of the largest action in the history of warfare. Which leaves me no choice, but to spare your lives." He gave us all a disgusted look. "No get out of my office and get out of my sight."
We saluted simultaneously. "Get!" We executed a perfect left face and formally marched from Colonel Sink's office. We remained silent as the grave as we left the house that provided Sink his office. I walked quietly next to Bill, a cold relief making its way down my back. We came across Winters on our way off of the grounds, the man for whom we risked our lives for. He looked taken aback when we saluted him on our way back to the town, but returned our gesture.
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The next day we heard that Sink had reassigned Sobel to a parachute school to train doctors and chaplains. I had no doubt he believed me to be one of the instigators of the letters and my suspicions were confirmed as I met his transport jeep along my way to meet with George. He glared hard at me as he passed and refused to return my salute.
We were introduced to the new commander of Easy. A man named Thomas Meehan, the senior Lieutenant from Baker Company.
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"Why the hell didn't you tell me?" George yelled at me. "What the hell were you thinking?"
"I was thinking Sobel was going to get us all killed if we didn't do something." I tried to calmly forced through my gritted teeth.
"Don't you know what could have happened?" He continued to berate me. "He could have had you all shot! Then what would I have told my mom? 'Sorry mom, Jo isn't going to be coming home with me anymore, she was shot for mutiny.' Yeah, that would go over real well."
"I'm fine. Look!" I stood up and patted myself then did a little spin so he could see all of me. "See? Fine. No holes, other than where Sink ripped us a new one." Luz glared at me and lit a cigarette.
"Jesus, aren't you supposed to be keeping attention off of yourself?"
"Well, yeah. But-"
"But, but, but," he imitated me. "But nothing." He turned serious again. "You're supposed to be keeping a low profile, but now the whole company is talking about you and all the other noncoms. This is just the kind of attention you don't need." He threw his hands up in frustration. "And now that you're in 2nd, I can't be there to watch over you all hours of the day and night!"
"I'm a big girl, I can han-"
"That's just it! You're a girl!" He got in my face. "You are a girl and you have no one you can turn to when the going gets tough!"
"Fuck you. I don't fucking need you! I'm strong enough to handle this by myself!" I pushed him away and stomped out of the house.
Once I was outside I took a deep breath of the cool England air, trying to calm my frazzled nerves. But it didn't work and I found myself itching for some sort of release from the tension that was burning deep inside of me… So I ran.
Back home, when everything was going to shit, I would always go for a run. Just something about the feel of the air as it hit my face, the burn of my muscles as the strained under the pressure, the rhythmic breathing that was in time with my steps, it always helped me clear my mind. When my mother had died, I ran. When my father was MIA, I ran. And when my brother and I were in a fight, I ran. Which I supposed I was doing at that moment, I was running off the steam from a fight with my brother.
Three hours later I returned to the house dripping in sweat. My muscles started screaming at me at mile eight, but I pushed on. As I stumbled my way into an empty house I felt my legs quake and tremble as the lactic acid built up and I struggled for the oxygen I was sucking in and out of my lungs with tremendous effort. I managed to make my way into the room George and I shared before I dropped to my knees.
For the first time since I had found myself in this strange and uncertain predicament I let my fears, worries and exhaustion get the better of me. I couldn't stop the tears that ripped from my eyes as they mixed with the great beads of salty sweat that ran from my forehead and stung my already watering eyes. I wrapped my arms around my stomach in effort to quell the great shivering sobs that shook my body and made my gasps for breath even that more painful.
I cried for my family, for my dad and my brother, for Will, I cried for the life I had left behind. For the men I had left without a leader. I cried for the tremendous fight that George and I had. I cried for the men that I had come to know and love who would never make it home again. But most of all, I cried from the sheer mental exhaustion that seemed to seep into every nucleus of every cell of every inch of my body, the sheer depression and feeling of hopelessness the likes that I had never felt before. I was broken, physically and mentally, I was a heaping pile of uselessness.
That was how I was found five minutes later. I heard the door creak open, but I didn't care who it was. It could have been Sobel standing there in a skirt and high heels singing "I'm just a girl" and doing the cha-cha and I still wouldn't have cared.
I barely heard the sound of rushed footsteps coming towards me before I felt myself pulled into a warm, strong embrace.
"Shh. It's okay." George whispered into my hair and ran his fingers through my short, sweat soaked locks. "Every thing's going to be alright." I wrapped my arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder all the while he caressed my hair and whispered words of comfort.
Finally my tears subsided and I was able to take my first deep and easy breath in hours. I sat up from George's arms and used my shirt to wipe the tears and mucus from my face. I turned towards George and felt my cheeks go from deathly pale to red with embarrassment.
"Sorry." I mumbled as I ducked my head and played with the hem of my PT shirt.
"Me too." George stood up and pulled me to my still wobbly feet. We stared at each other as an unspoken truce came between us. George grinned and I returned it with my own watery smile. He slapped me on the back and then rubbed his nose. "Went for a roll in the cow shit did we?"
I managed a half-hearted glare and stomped out of the room and into the bath as George's laughter followed me down the hall.
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This was a really important chapter to get out. Not only does it prod the story along, but it also shows the strong bond that George and Jo have formed, and the depth at which their relationship goes. There will be one more filler chapter after this and then the story will really start to take off.
Thank you to everyone who has read this story and put it on her/his favorite/alert list. And a very big thank you to loveonspeedial, hansolo18 and THE DEADLY ANGEL, for their lovely reviews. Please continue with the great feedback and I hope that everyone else who reads this takes a page from their book and drops me a quick review.
Amanda
Edited 8/11/17