My shaking hand brought the cigarette to my lips. I drew deep and blew the smoke out of the side of my mouth. I wrung my hands and shook them, then rubbed them on my pants, trying to get rid of the muck. I was starting to come off the adrenalin high that had kept me alive and kicking for the past twenty-four hours. I kept a straight face, even managed a few smiles and laughs. But now that I was alone, I was able to reflect on the events of the longest day of my life.
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I can't remember much of the drop. It all went to shit so fast. I knew what was to come and I told George what to expect, but I still wasn't completely prepared.
My feet finally hit the solid ground, followed shortly by my ass. I quickly got up and released the buckle of my jump harness. The euphoria of feeling good 'ole terra firma underfoot was cut short as I found I had landed in the middle of an open field. I dropped to the ground and pulled out my knife, the only weapon that hadn't been ripped from me in decent as the plane we were in had dropped us too high and too fast. I belly crawled across the field.
"Shit. Shit. Shit." I heard someone whisper in distress. I padded my pockets for my cricket, then, realizing I must have lost it during the drop, I called out.
"Flash!"
"Thunder! God damn it! Thunder!" I crawled over to the owner of the voice, a young Private from C Company.
"Sergeant." He nodded to me.
"Private." I whispered back, bringing my fingers to my lips and signaling him to quiet his voice. He continued with his struggle to remove his jump harness. I stayed his hand and used my knife to cut him loose.
"Stay low and head for the tree line." I said before crawling away. I looked back once to see him following my lead and then made for the closest grove of trees. Once we were safely covered I stopped and listened for anything before standing and turning to the private.
"Do you have your sidearm?" While I was fairly skilled in hand to hand with only a knife, I didn't fancy meeting my enemy head-on, especially if they were in the possession of bullets and guns.
"No, Sarge." He held up his rifle. "This is it. I lost everything else in the drop." I nodded and sighed in frustration. "Where the hell are we, Sarge?"
I looked around, noting that there were no distinguishing landmarks or anything around that could aid me in determining our present location. I pulled out my compass, figuring we were way the hell off course. I picked the way opposite of the beach and pointed.
"Let's find out."
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I rolled my eyes in frustration as Pvt. Charles from Charlie Company and I stared up at the sign of the small town we had just come up to.
"Fuck, we're miles from the DZ." I turned to him. "We better go. We need to get to Sainte-Marie-du-Mont before morning."
I took my map from my coat and adjusted the light of my torch to blue before lining up our destination with the landmark we had just found. When our path was finally clear we took off towards our DZ, staying hidden as best we could.
"Sarge." We had been walking for a while when Pvt. Charles nudged me and pointed ahead of us. We came upon a paratrooper who had landed in a tree, his neck twisted at an odd angle. I stowed my knife and scaled the tree grabbing his weapon and sidearm. As an afterthought I also detached his tags and jumped back down.
"Shouldn't we at least cut him down, Sarge?" the kid asked.
"We have to be in Sainte-Marie-du-Monte before the invasion starts. We don't have time." He looked at me and I realized the dead soldier was from C Company as well. "Look, kid, after we take the beach someone will come around and collect him and everyone else, but we have a mission objective to meet or those guys on the beach are going to be walking into a massacre." I rested my hand on his shoulder. "We've got to go."
He nodded and we continued on our way. We met up with a couple of Privates from Dog Company and a Corporal from Able. It took me a minute, but I fell into the role of the leader fairly quickly, the only difference being I was no longer the officer I had trained so hard to become in world I knew little about.
It was close to dawn and by my estimation we were only 10 clicks from the Sainte-Marie-du-Monte when we came upon a small contingent of about 15 men. I help up my hand to stop our group then signaled for the four to take up flanking positions around the group and wait for my signal. I pulled out a cricket I had confiscated from one of the Dog Privates and used it to signal to the group.
My worst fears were confirmed as my signal was met in silence and I heard a faint whisper in German.
"Scheiss Grille."
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We arrived at the town of Sainte-Marie-du-Monte a little after daybreak. The town had already been occupied by U.S. troops so I sent the men off to find their companies as I looked for Easy.
"Benny!" I heard someone cry before an arm was slung around my shoulders. I turned and found myself eye to chin with "Wild Bill" Guarnere. "'Bought friggen time you decided to show your ugly mug 'round here."
"Good to see ya' too, Bill." I managed a small smile. "Have you seen Lt. Meehan?"
"No, he aint shown up yet."
"So, who's leading Easy?" Knowing the answer as soon as the question left my lips.
"That Quaker, Winters." Bill said with some contempt.
"Quaker?" I asked confused. Bill just waved me off and pointed me in the general direction of the officers.
I saw Winters' red hair first, then Buck and Sergeant Lipton.
"Sir." I nodded to Winters as I came up to the group of men.
"Hey Sergeant, it's good to see you." Winters returned with a smile relieved smile.
"It's good to see you too as well Lieutenant Winters, Contain, Sarge." Lipton nodded at me and Buck threw a quick smile in my direction.
"You didn't happen to run into any other Easy men, or Lt. Meehan, did you?" Winters asked.
"Sorry, sir."
"It's alright, Sergeant." He nodded then addressed both Lipton and myself. "We're going to need to regroup our men and get a head count. See who's made it and who's still missing. Benny, Lip you try and find as many Easy men as you can and report back to me." We nodded and went off to get the count.
"You alright, Benny?" Lip asked me. I nodded, my thoughts not really computing what he was saying to me. "Benny!" He barked in my ear. I broke myself out of my daze.
"Sorry Lip. Lot on my mind." He was looking concerned, but said nothing as we went off in search of Easy. I found myself, not for the first time, very annoyed at not having personal communicators and GPS locators to utilize in a situation like this. It would have been so much easier if we could just call and get a twenty on the men or pull out a handheld and find their location anywhere on the planet. I had to shake myself back into the moment as I almost ran head first into one of the Dog Company officers.
"Sir." I acknowledged with a nod.
"Sergeant Benally, correct?" He asked. "Of Easy?" His deep predatory eyes gave me the once over and any sarcastic answer I had in return fell silent at my lips.
"Yes, sir." I had a feeling that if I were not in fact Sergeant Benally of Easy, he would have just ignored me and walked away.
"Two of my men, Davis and Michaels, they say you're the one that got them here. Is that true?"
"Yes, sir." He looked me over once more, this time taking in more than the first glance.
"They also say you lead them in an attack against 15 Krauts with only 5 men using a tactical maneuver they hadn't seen before." I hoped that my mental cringe hadn't shown through on my face.
When I saw that we were outnumbered and had no other way past the German soldiers I had used a maneuver that I had learned during one of my training exercises with my Ranger Squad. The maneuver hadn't gained popularity until the Third World War began. It was used when our soldiers were at a disadvantage due to the troop shortages. We were forced to fight against much larger militant groups than our troops could handle, so we had to find alternative methods of engaging in combat.
"It was the only way I could see going at that point, sir." His heavy gaze sized me up once again and I suddenly felt as if he could see straight past my well built façade. I felt like I was standing in front of him completely naked and exposed. I wouldn't have been surprised if he had shouted out right then and there that I was a woman and that he was going to court martial me. But his piercing eyes found my face again and he nodded.
"Thank you for seeing to the safety of my men." And just like that and before I could say anything, he was gone. I blinked at the empty space that was now occupying the spot where the Lt. had just been.
"Jesus, Benny," someone slung their arm around my shoulders. "You know you just looked death in the face, right?" I looked up to see Joe Toye and Bill.
"What?" I was, to say the least, confused after my encounter with the Lieutenant.
"That was Speirs." I shrugged. "You haven't heard?"
"Heard what?" Bill slapped my back and grinned.
"Ya see, Benny. It all started with 10 Kraut prisoners and a pack of cigarettes."
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I had just given my dismal report of the head count to Winters. He sighed and ran his hand through his bright red hair. He looked between Lipton and I whose report wasn't any better than mine.
"Alright," he sighed. "There's a German battery of 88's that are firing on our boys at Utah beach. Our orders are to destroy it at all costs." Both Lipton and I nodded and went off to gather the men. When all was said and done we had had gathered 11 men equaling a grand total of 15 including Winters, Compton, Lip and myself and we headed north out of the city.
I'll admit it, I had to stop myself from grinning in excitement. I had learned, studied and lived this very moment hundreds of times during my four years at The Point. Outnumbered and outgunned Lt. Winters was about to lead an assault on the battery, capture the guns and retrieve valuable intel in the German defenses surrounding the beachhead. I was almost giddy that I was going to be here to witness this first-hand.
The sound of the guns firing was almost deafening and the smell of gunpowder and sulfur lingered thickly in the air as we approached the German battery. Winters position a pair of machine guns to provide covering fire while he and the rest of the men drew the Nazi fire from the position of a broken truck. He sent Compton, Malarkey, Guarnere and myself to flank and destroy one of the machinegun nests that protected the 105's, not the 88's that we had previously been lead to believe were there. We snuck up just behind some brush, hiding us from view of the nest and threw our grenades. Once they did their job, we jumped from our cover and finished off the startled Germans before they had a chance to regroup. We used our position to provide covering fire as Winters lead most of the remaining company in a flanking maneuver and overtook the first gun. Using the trenches, which were the German's greatest weakness, we were able to safely meet back up with the rest of the company at the first gun.
"I'm sorry, sir." I heard Popeye repeat over and over. "I fucked up!"
"Popeye?" I questioned Bill as we returned fire on the Germans.
"Shot in his ass." Bill said.
"No shit?" I shrugged and continued to fire. "Well fuck, there are worse place for one to be shot." I mumbled to Bill who let out a short, surprised laugh.
"Grenade!" I heard Winters yell, "Toye!" The grenade went off. I looked over to see Toye's body covering the wounded Popeye. He sat up and checked himself over.
"You are one lucky bastard, Joe." Guarnere said as he stood up and continued to return fire.
"Guarnere, Malarkey, Lorraine, secure that gun!" Winters ordered. "Buck, Benally, covering fire!" We followed orders as Winters shot two Germans along the trenches before coming back. I continued to fire on the German Soldiers while he and Buck helped Popeye over the edge.
"Grenade!" Compton yelled as we all piled out of the trenches. "Toye!" There was an explosion sending dirt and grass everywhere, we jumped back in as soon as it was safe. "Toye!"
"…Fucking twice." Toye grumbled as Buck helped him up.
"Jesus… calm the fuck down, Toye. You've got the whole fucking war to get blown up, maybe not do it on the first day, yeah." He glared at me and I shrugged. We followed Winters down through the line of trenches, coming up one of the German OPs.
"There's the second gun," he pointed out. "Grenades first, then keep going." Winters ordered us. "Go!"
We tossed our grenades and ran towards the second gun as they went off, killing several enemy soldiers and leaving only a few that we quickly disposed of once we reached them. One of them held his hands up in surrender and spoke rapidly in German, then repeated the phrase, "No make dead," over and over again. Toye punched him with his brass knuckles, knocking the man out. We started to take fire as Winters yelled for Lipton who had the TNT. I watched as one of the machine guns began to fire on the third gun thinking that it had been taken as well.
"Toye, cover the Lieutenant! Benally, on me!" Compton shouted. I moved up beside him. "Hell of a day, huh Benny." He shouted at me.
"Don't know what you're talking about, sir!" I shouted back. "Been a walk in the fucking park for me." He chanced a glance at me before looking back towards the German line.
"You're a strange one, Benny." He grinned. "If this is a walk in the park, I don't think I want to see where you grew up." I grinned back at him, glancing something out of the corner of my eye. I figured it was Winters or Lipton with the TNT, so I turned to greet them. It was a surprise when I realized that the man I thought was one of us was, in fact, a German Corporal... and he had his knife raised high, poised and ready to deliver a fatal blow to the fair-haired Lieutenant.
"BUCK!" I yelled causing him to whip around just at the right moment, avoiding the knife and throwing the man off balance. Before I could even contemplate what I was doing I dove onto the German and grabbed the hand that held his knife. We grappled on the ground as time seemed to slow down around us. He was swearing in German, I was swearing in every language I could think of and Buck watched on in confusion, still dazed from the near death experience.
I was finally able to gain enough ground over the young German to chance a grab at the knife I had stowed in my belt. I whipped it out and, in one fluid motion, stabbed it in the man's left side between the ribs twisting the blade as I did so. The German let out a gurgled moan and then his eyes went flat as he dropped like a rock, his sightless eyes staring up at me.
"Jesus Christ," Buck looked at me with wide eyes. "Thanks Benny."
"Don't mention it." I panted as I stood back up and started shooting again. We continued firing on the Germans as Winters made his way back to us.
"Running a little low on ammo, sir." Buck yelled over the pops, bangs and whizzes of the gunfire.
"What about you, Benally?" Winters asked.
"Not too bad, sir!" I yelled back. Winters asked Malarkey the same question.
"Think you got enough to take that third gun?" He asked Buck.
"We'll soon find out, Dick." Buck turned to Don and I. "Malarkey, Benny let's go! Toye, covering fire!" he ordered.
We ran along the trenches that took us right up to the third gun. Buck threw a grenade and we quickly made our way to the third gun after it went off and killed the remaining Germans.
"Malarkey, cover the front. Go to the cannon, go!" I followed Buck as we fired on the Germans in effort to defend our position. Winters made his way over to the gun with TNT and a potato masher and blew the gun. I couldn't stop myself from turning and watching as Winters stumbled across the maps containing the location of all the German guns in France.
"Winters!" a new voice called. "Hester said you needed ammo."
"Malarkey! As much as you can, everyone!" Winters ordered.
"You mind if D Company takes a shot at the next gun?" I heard as Malarkey tapped me on the shoulder.
"All yours!" I turned to accept the ammo Malarkey offered me and saw the officer from D company, Speirs. He ordered his company to take the last gun.
Once all the guns were disabled Winters ordered us to move out the machineguns first while the rest of us maintained our base of fire. Once they were safely on their way he ordered us all back to battalion.
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We all crowded into the back of a transport truck, the canvas covering up the light from the fire that Malarkey was using to cook a substance that contained whatever we were able to scrounge up.
"Jesus, Malarkey!" I coughed as said man let out a fart. The young man's flatulence was so bad that it forced Liebgott to leave.
"What the hell you know about cooking. You're Irish," Buck said as he looked into the ammo tin that was doubling as the pot that cooked our dinner.
"Sir, if you have a reservation someplace else I'd be happy to join you."
"Just serve it." Malarkey passed out each of us a portion of the slop. We ate and shot the shit as a bottle some kind of alcohol someone had found was passed around. Malarkey let out another loud fart.
"Christ!"
"Fuck."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
"Jesus, what crawled up your ass and made residence?."
"Jesus Christ, give me some air!"
We all complained and laughed like school children.
"Evening," Winters popped up underneath the canvas. He was greeted with various "hellos" and "sirs." "Did something die in here?"
"Yeah, Malarkey's ass." We laughed.
"Any word on Lt. Meehan yet, sir?" Buck asked.
"No, not yet." Buck glanced at Guarnere.
"Don't that make you our commanding officer, sir?" Guarnere asked.
"Yeah, it does." Guarnere nodded to him.
"Sir," Toye passed Winters the bottle.
"Joe, the Lt. don't drink." Winters took the offered beverage.
"It's been a day of firsts," he took a swig and swallowed hard, making a face as the burn hit him. "Don't you think, Guarnere?" He passed the bottle to Bill.
"Yes, sir."
"Carry on." Winters ducked down, but came back up a moment later. "Oh Sergeant."
"Sir?" Guarnere answered.
"I'm not a Quaker," and with that, Lt. Winters ducked out of sight. We all looked at each other and laughed.
"If he's from Lancaster County he's probably a Mennonite," Bill laughed.
"What's a Mennonite?"
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My shaking hand brought the cigarette to my lips. I drew deep and blew the smoke out the side of my mouth. I wrung my hands and shook them, then rubbed them on my pants, trying to get rid of the muck. I was starting to come off the adrenalin high that had kept me alive and kicking for the past twenty-four hours. I kept a straight face, even managed a few smiles and laughs. But now that I was alone, I was able to reflect on the events of the longest day of my life.
"Benny." I was brought out of my memories of the day's events by the arrival of Lt. Compton.
"Sir." I nodded and he returned.
"Didn't know you smoked." He sat down on the rubble beside me.
"I don't." I took a long drag from the offending item. Bick snickered.
"We're moving out soon." He uncrossed his arms and took the cigarette that I had passed him. I nodded in understanding and continued to stare off into the distance. "Everything alright, Benny?"
I sighed as he handed the cigarette back to me. I drew a deep breath of burning tobacco into my lungs, holding it in and letting the nicotine sooth my nerves.
"I lost a man today… yesterday. Whatever the hell day it is." I took another drag. Buck nudged me with his shoulder, prodding me to continue. I handed the cigarette back to him and rubbed my hands across the top of my thighs, a nervous tick I thought I had rid myself of as a child.
"He was a Privet from C Company." I gave a humorless, bitter laugh. "Pvt. Charles from Charlie." I kicked at the dirt. "Fuck, he was just a kid." I looked up at the sky, watching the flashes of the guns light up the dark skyline.
"I found him wandering in an open field. We were on our way here when we came across a small company of Krauts. We engaged them…" I paused, looking down at the filth that covered my hands. "He jumped the gun, started shooting before I gave the signal… they shot him. The bastards shot him, Buck. The rest of us cleared the area and ran to his aid. He was bleeding," I turned to Buck. "He was bleeding and crying out for his mom." I swallowed hard, pushing the lump that started to form in my throat back down. "He just kept yelling "Mamma, Mamma," over and over again. I tried to stop the bleeding, but there were just too many holes…" I trailed off. We sat in silence for a while, lost in our own thoughts.
"You did your job, Ben. That's all you can do." Buck clapped me on the shoulder. I gave him a halfhearted smile. "Thanks, by the way," He grinned. "You know, for saving my life." I smiled a genuine smile this time.
"Yeah, well I couldn't let that bastard stab you in that pretty little head of yours, now could I?" Buck laughed and passed me the cigarette.
"No. Wouldn't have wanted that to happen. That would have been a tragedy."
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Please review as it was the reviews that encouraged me to get this chapter out and will help prod me along in writing the next one.
Thank you all for reading!
Amanda.
Edited 8/13/17