I am not totally satisfied with this chapter, but here it is
"What the hell are you doing? You want die don't you?" the man who had dragged Dana out of the river was scolding her.
Dana was shaking from being in the ice cold water and she was pretty sure she was about to get hypothermia "Relax Joe, I can handle it, I just need to…"
Dana didn't get any further before she passed out. The man who had pulled Dana out of the river was Joe McMillan, he was the commander of Dog Company and he had been watching Easy execute the patrol. McMillan had heard someone struggle in the water and had wondered down to the river side and noticed Dana in the water.
McMillan picked Dana up and carried her to Dog's CP. He pushed the door open and motioned for the platoon leader, who was at the CP, to help him. When the platoon leader noticed who McMillan had in his arms, he got on his feet and opened the door to the back of the house. McMillan carried Dana to his bedroom and stripped her down, he did feel bad about taking all her clothes of, but it was however necessary.
…..
Speirs was debriefing the men, he noticed how Sergeant Martin kept looking away and tried to avoid his questions. The men were all acting funny and they were unable to give a complete evaluation of the patrol.
Speirs looked around and squinted his eyes together "what aren't you telling me?"
The room went completely silent "DAMN IT, TELL ME, WHATS GOING ON" Speirs yelled at the men.
Webster looked around the room, he knew the guys hated him already, so he might as well tell Speirs the truth
"Sir…" Webster started; he was interrupted by several coughs and mumbles about how he should just keep his trap shut.
Speirs eyes darted around the room and landed on Sergeant Martin "Sergeant Martin, what was Private Webster going to tell me, before we were interrupted?"
Martin rubbed his neck and looked at Lieutenant Jones for help. Jones knew he had hit Dana with his elbow, but he hadn't heard the splash from the water over all the commotion in the boat.
Jones realized that Captain Speirs was missing by now, but he just thought the captain had snuck back to her quarters and passed out.
Martin knew the Lieutenant wasn't going to help him "Sir… the Captain led the patrol, we switched places down by the river, but no one has seen her since.
Speirs gave Martin a stern look and walked towards the door "We are not done here" he told Martin and walked out and slammed the door.
Speirs walked towards Easy CP, expecting to find his wife there, but when he opened the door the only ones he found was Nixon and Charlie.
"Hey sparky, are you looking for someone?" Nixon asked him
"Yeah, my disobedient wife" Speirs told him
"Well, she isn't here" Charlie told him.
…..
Speirs went searching for his wife, she wasn't at the aid station and she wasn't with any of her men and second and first platoon hadn't seen her either.
Speirs was getting nervous, where the hell was she? Charlie and Camilla were both accounted for, and so she wasn't with them causing trouble.
Speirs noticed the Dog Company medic slip unnoticed into the CP, or so the medic thought. Speirs followed the medic inside. The main room was empty, so Speirs followed the voices he could hear. He walked down the hall and noticed McMillan and the medic standing outside a door mumbling to each other.
When McMillan noticed Speirs he looked at him and stepped away from the door.
"Ron, what brings you here?" McMillan stepped further away from the door.
"I can't find Dana and I am getting worried, she apparently went on the prisoner snatch and no one has seen her since" Speirs looked at his friend and waited for him to tell him, what he was hiding behind the door.
"And what makes you think, you would find her here?" McMillan asked Speirs.
"I noticed you medic slip in here at 3AM, so that made me think, that maybe she came here instead of the Easy CP, when she came back wounded from the Patrol, so I wouldn't figure out she went against a direct order" Speirs waited for McMillan's answer.
McMillan just sighed and opened the door to the room Dana was in. She was sleeping, but she was still shaking from her encounter with the ice cold water
Speirs looked at his friend "how the hell did you find her?"
"I was down by the river observing, when I heard someone struggle in the water, I pulled her out and she passed out. I figured I bring her here and get her taken care of before I told you" McMillan waited for the ass chewing he was expecting from his friend.
Instead Speirs just looked at his friend and said "Thank you" before he closed the door to the room
McMillan smiled, well that went better than he thought it would.
Speirs stripped out of his clothes and laid down beside Dana, she turned when she felt a warm body next to her and sighed "Ron, I am so cold"
Speirs pulled her closer "I know you are, just relax and get some sleep"
Dana sighed and fell asleep again.
Speirs couldn't sleep; he was wondering why Dana insisted on doing things that would eventually get her killed. The running thru Foy, and her little recon mission the day before the attack, and her sprint to distract the sniper. He wasn't sure he would survive being married to Dana, they were too much alike.
…
The next day Emma had snuck out of third Battalions HQ and into second Battalions HQ.
She arrived at the same time as Sink and Colonel Harper of the 327th glider infantry regiment.
Sink had a little too much to drink and he ordered Winters to dispatch another patrol to capture additional prisoners.
Emma and Winters exchanged a confused look, the order made absolutely no sense, Winters decided to ignore the order.
A second patrol would only result in additional casualties. The freshly fallen snow along the river banks turned into ice in no time during the day, which meant the Germans would hear the patrol a mile away.
Winters just said yes sir.
Winters looked at Nixon "Why the hell did he want another patrol?"
"Well the two prisoners you snatched talked about everything, OB, supply trouble, Hitler's favorite color, nothing that gets us across the river, I don't what to tell you Dick" Nixon shrugged.
Charlie put her arm around Nixon's waist "Well, Sinks been on the horn all day bragging and now he wants to show off, you gave him a successful patrol and now he wants another"
Winter let out a spiteful laugh "Successful"
They were so close to the ending and men were still dying.
Speirs came up to the small group "Dick the men are mustered, I am ready to brief them, same rooster as last night, well almost, well mostly"
"No, No I'll do it" Dick turned and walked toward the building
….
Winters gathered the men "Listen up, Colonel Sink wants another patrol tonight" Winters said
The men let out a collective groan, Winters went on to brief the men about the patrol
"Won't we be changing the plan at all?" Martin asked him
"We will be crossing at 02.00 instead of 01.00" Winters said.
There was a loud thud and Winters looked at his watch "The outpost we hit last night just went up in Smoke, tomorrow I will hand Sink a report stating we were unable to secure any prisoners, look alive we are moving of line"
Emma looked at the men "Get goodnights sleep" she winked and walked out after Winters.
Winters turned and looked at Lipton "A word first sergeant" Winters motioned for Lipton to follow him.
Speirs turned and looked at Lieutenant Jones "Jones, join us at the company CP"
…
"Congratulations, you are here by discharged from US Army and awarded a battle field commission" Winters handed Lipton a set of second lieutenants bars.
Camilla, who had been called to CP, came running thru the room and threw herself at Lipton "Congrats C, you so deserve it"
She then turned and looked Welsh, who had returned to the company "Harry, didn't expect to see you back so soon, I was expecting you, to nurse that scratch of yours for another month or two" she said and hugged Welsh, who picked her of the floor.
"No, I couldn't live without you anymore" Welsh said and winked at Camilla.
Winters turned to Lieutenant Jones "Regiment has seen fit to promote you to first lieutenant, congratulations they want you on their staff"
Jones shook Winters hand, Jones knew the battalion commander wanted him gone, because he couldn't use an inexperienced combat leader
….
Easy company was moving out to Mourmelon le Grand for some much needed rest and recreation.
Nixon, Charlie, Winters and Emma was standing by the Jeep ready to climb in, Charlie and Nixon looked at each other and nodded.
"Before we forget, Colonel Sink has been unhappy with the appearance of you two uniform, says it's not befitting your ranks" Charlie threw Winters and Emma a small box each
Winters looked at Emma who shrugged, she had no idea what the two S3 officers were talking about.
Winters opened his box and revealed what was in it "Oak leaves" Winters said
Emma opened hers as well and Charlie and Nixon jumped to attention. Emma smiled and jumped Winters "can you believe it Dick, Major"
"No, I can't" Winters smiled and Emma pinned the oak leaves on his collar and Winters pinned on Emma's Oak leaves.
The train ride to Mourmelon took 18 hours. Dana had caught pneumonia from her trip into the ice cold river.
She was leaning against Speirs, she was dreaming and the fever made the dreams worse, she was more or less hallucinating.
She dreamed she lost Speirs in the cold forest of Bastogne. Speirs tried to wake her up, but by the time they arrived in Mourmelon, Dana was unconscious and unresponsive.
Speirs rushed her to the hospital and handed her over to the regimental Doctor, who rushed her into an examination room.
Three hours later the doctors had stabilized Dana.
Camilla walked out to the hall and patted Speirs on the arm "She is going to be Ok, it will just take a while"
In Mourmelon Winters was officially made commander of second battalion and Emma got moved to second battalion as XO.
….
"I can't wait to get to my Barrack Bag" Lipton was excited, he had kept a necklace for Camilla in the bag, he had meant to give it to her at Christmas, but since the company had been moved out, he had left it were it would be safe or so he thought.
Lipton walked over and the rear echelon guard, who saluted him. The sight which met him, had him enraged, all of 506th bags had been rummaged thru, apparently someone had led the fuckers from 17th air borne into the bags.
Lipton walked out and straight into battalion CP, where he was met by Speirs, Winters, Emma and Charlie.
"Sir, Ma'am" Lipton saluted the Captains and Majors.
"I went to retrieve my Barrack Bag from the storage facility, apparently, someone has let the 17th airborne go thru them, just to give you a heads up" Lipton said
Charlie's head snapped up "What, no, no, no please tell me it's all still there"
"Sorry ma'am, but everything with value is gone" Lipton gave Charlie a small smile
Winters looked at Lipton "Ok thank you lieutenant, I will take care of this"
"Right, just I know there is going to be a lot of grieving about this" Lipton said
As soon as Lipton turned around and left, Charlie sat and put her head in our hands.
Nixon walked over and squatted down next to her "Charlie, what is wrong? Why are you crying?"
"That Bracelet you gave me in Aldbourne, it was in my bag, I took it off so I wouldn't lose it in the woods, seems like I lost it any way" at this point Charlie was a blubbering mess
"It's ok, we will find it" Nixon got to his feet and mumbled "If it's the last thing I do"
Speirs followed Nixon out, both men walked over to the storage room, Speirs walked in and pulled out his footlocker. He started to rummaged thru what was left of it, he became more and more frantic and he was cursing under his breath.
"Ron, what are you looking for?" Nixon asked him
"Dana's wedding ring, I picked up a ring in Holland, I wanted to give her, but it seems like the 17th got it as well" Speirs was pissed off, he picked up the foot locker and threw it across the room.
"Those fuckers" was all Nixon said.
Speirs stopped for a moment and looked at the mess in the storage room and walked away, he walked over to the hospital and opened the door to Dana's room.
Dana was sitting up in the bed, trying to put her uniform back on, Speirs stopped her "No you don't, get back into bed" he said and tucked Dana in.
Speirs sat down next to her bed and gave Dana a small smile "So how are you holding up?" He asked her
"Fine, but sparky, it's not me that's on your mind, tell me what's going on" Dana looked at Speirs, waiting for him to tell her why he was mad.
" I picked up a wedding ring for you in Holland, I went to retrieve from my footlocker and it's gone" Speirs was getting even angrier
Dana took his hand "Don't worry about it, we aren't any less married, because I don't have a ring"
A nurse walked in the room and Dana looked at her wrist and then fixed her gaze at the nurses wrist "That's not your bracelet, Ron that's not her bracelet, that's the bracelet Nix bought Charlie in Aldbourne"
Speirs turned to the Nurse "Where did you get the bracelet?" he asked the nurse
The nurse looked a little offended "I got it from one of the medics, where he got it I don't know"
"Well, I need you to hand over the bracelet and that is an order" Speirs told the nurse
The nurse looked at Speirs "What? are you mad, NO"
Speirs walked over and stood toe to toe with the nurse and gave her a death glare "You will hand over the bracelet, or you will be charged with theft"
That was enough to scare the nurse, and she handed over the bracelet and walked out of the room, Speirs turned to Dana "You stay here, I need to find Nixon"
Speirs walked out of the hospital and walked toward battalion CP, when he entered he found Charlie explaining how her bracelet was missing to the MP's
"I found your bracelet, however my wife's wedding ring is missing" Speirs walked over and handed Charlie her bracelet.
"Captain, we are aware of the problem with the missing belongings, and we are doing what we can, but evidently the rear guard can't be trusted" the MP explained to Speirs
"I don't care, just find the god damn thieves" Speirs yelled at the MP Sergeant
Nixon walked over to Speirs, he stopped when he was standing beside him "How about we go visit the fuckers over at the storage facility.
"I like that idea" Speirs said and the two men snuck out of the CP
Speirs kicked in the door to the guard room "Ok who let the 17th in our footlockers?" He snarled at the two guards
"I don't…" one of the guards stammered
The other guard looked at the two officers "Our Sergeant" he said and got the hell out of the room
Speirs walked over and kicked the door to the back office open, here he found a staff sergeant, who had never seen combat, the sergeant took one look at the pissed off officers and swallowed.
Speirs walked over and grabbed him by the collar "Now you tell me who took my wife's wedding ring, a white gold ring with at princess cut diamond"
"I don't know, I have no idea" The sergeant looked Speirs right in the eyes.
Speirs could tell he was lying, there was turning back now, Speirs was furious, so he pulled his side arm and stuck it between the privates eyes "Where is it?"
Nixon stepped up to Speirs, he looked at the sergeant "Just tell him"
The sergeant pulled a box with four rings, and lucky for the sergeant the ring was there. Speirs picked it up, and turned and walked out of the door, before he was all the way out he turned to the Sergeant "This never happened" Speirs said.