"Katie, oh god sweetheart I thought I lost you" Winters hugged Katie like he was never going to let her go.
"I love you" was all Katie said and hugged Winters back, she clung on to him, never wanting to let him go.
Winters started to ask Katie about what had happened while they been captured "Not now Dick I can't talk about it, not here, not right now"
Winters nodded, he knew that something's had to be buried if you wanted to survive the present
The men stopped and looked at the scene unfolding before them, it was nice to see two people so in love in the middle of the miserable frozen hell. The cameras turned to the couple, but Katie let go of Dick when she noticed it, she didn't want the attention or the questions that would follow.
Katie looked at the men and smiled "I guess you didn't follow Taylors order to shave"
The men laughed and one by one, they hurried over and hugged the doctor. They were all glad to have her back. Winters would be happy again and at this point most of the men realized Winters was a big part of the fact they were alive.
"I have some news for you boys….you guys are making headlines at home…they are calling you heroes…the battered bastards of Bastogne" Katie waited for the men's response. She knew most of them didn't feel like heroes.
Malarkey looked at her "Well I don't think most of us feel like heroes…just cold"
"I know Don and I have a feeling most of you are tires and running out of patience…and look more snow" Katie walked over and put her arm around Malarkey and he put his arms around her "Good to see you Doc" Malarkey mumbled.
Winters turned to Joe "What are you doing here?"
Joe looked at Winters "I want to head back to the line, sir"
Winters shook his head "You don't have to do that, get back to the aid station, get yourself healed up"
Joe Shook his head "I really want to head back to the fellows sir"
"Alright, go on then" Winters motioned toward the grub line
…..
Amy had been over by Dogs line trying to avoid the cameras, came running thru the forest and grabbed Katie. She grabbed her friend and hugged the living daylight out of her "I never thought I would see you again"
Katie looked at Amy, she noticed her friend looked pale, she had dark circle around her eyes and Amy had lost a lot of weight during their time in the forest.
"Is tall, dark and scary not looking after you" Katie asked Amy
"He is trying" Amy said and walked towards the grub line
Amy linked her arm thru Joes and walked with him to get some bean soup. Guarnere approached them
Bill greeted Joe and then he noticed Amy "Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes" Bill looked at Amy, she looked like hell.
Amy punched Bill play fully in the arm.
Bill turned to Joe "What are you doing here?"
Joe shrugged "I had to make sure you were on top of things"
Bill smirked "I am on top of things, I tied me own boots once last week, all by me self" Bill and Joe laughed.
A replacement who hadn't met Amy yet, because she was hiding from Dike and the cameras over by Dog Company's line looked at Amy, "What's with all the broads in this Company?"
Talbert immediately smacked him "Don't talk that way about the lieutenant, she is one of the best leader here"
Joe looked at the replacement "What's that" he asked
"That's Webb, a replacement," Skip told him
"Really, I thought it some guy I have known for two years and I forgot his face" Toye retorted
"Joe got hit in the arm, a New Year's Eve gift from the Luftwaffe," A Penkala told the replacement
"Have a lot of you been injured" The replacement asked
Lane who was skipping the line, smacked the poor guy upside his head "It's called wounded peanut, injured is when you fall out of a tree or something"
Katie who had gotten her grub and sat down on a log with Mia and Katie on each side of her, smiled when Skip turned and told the Kid "Don't worry there is enough grab flying around here, you are about to get dinged sometime"
Skip decided to guide the replacement through the Company's wounded list "almost every single of these guys and girls has been hit a least once"
Skip looked around "except for Alley he is a two timer, he landed on broken glass in Normandy and got peppered by a potato masher in Holland, Bull he got an piece of exploding tank in Holland, now Luz and Lane here, they never been hit, lucky bastards"
Luz looked at skip, who had never been wounded himself "Takes one to know one, Skip" he retorted
Skip just continued "consider us blessed, now Liebgott, the scrawny little guy, he got pinged in the neck in Holland"
Liebgott pulled down on his scarf so Webb could see his scar "And next to him, that other skinny little guy, that's Popeye, he got shot in his scrawny little butt in Normandy"
Skip then turned to Buck "And Buck got shot in his rather large butt in Holland" Buck pointed to where he was hit.
"It's kind of an Easy company tradition getting shot in the ass," Penkala mumbled.
Skip then looked at the Katie, Mia, Lane and Amy "And then there are the pretty edition to the company, now Captain Hendrick, she got hit by a flying piece of bridge in Holland"
Skip continued "Lieutenant Hunt…well let's just say she met the Germans upfront and in Person"
Amy gave Skip a grateful smile; she didn't really want all the new men to know about her run in with the Germans on D-day
Skip then turned to Lip "even first sergeant Lipton here he got a couple tank shell burst in Carentan, he took one to the face, the other almost took out his nuts"
Guarnere smirked, winked at Mia, and then turned to Lipton "How are those nuts?"
Before Lipton could respond, Mia smirked back at Guarnere "Very well Sergeant, thanks for asking.
That earned a blushing Lipton a slap on the back and a few laughs.
…..
On January 3rd Winters decided to pull 2nd and 3rd Platoon, out of the advanced position. He wanted them back in their old positions, perched in their woods overlooking Foy. Winters had no reserves to fill the flanks if the Germans got past them they would be fighting on three sides
Winters left 1st platoon attached to Dog Company, which like most of the company in the 101st was down to 50 percent or less strength. Dog Company needed help maintaining the MLR, Amy offered to stay with first platoon and let Buck take charge of third platoon.
This way Amy could stay with Speirs and Buck would get a small break.
Christenson. Perconte and a replacement was sharing a foxhole. First and second platoon walked by, the men teased the guys, "don't drink too much" and Malarkey walked by and pointed his riffle at them, "don't accept, if he offers you a cigarette"
The replacement looked at Christenson "What are they talking about"
"Speirs, lieutenant Speirs," Christenson told the replacement
"The stories about Speirs, is probably just bull shit anyways" Christenson was toying with his machine gun.
"What stories? What stories" the replacement asked
Perconte looked at him "Speirs shot one of his men for being drunk"
"That's unbelievable," the replacement said
"And another one about him giving cigarettes to twenty POV before shooting them" Christenson continued
"Well I heard it was more like thirty," Perconte said between brushing his teeth
None of the men had heard Amy and Speirs sneaking up on them "Christenson, I got the name right, it is Christenson right?" Speirs asked the scared soldier.
"Yes sir" Christenson answered
"What are you men doing out here" Speirs asked the men
Amy was hanging back and none of the men in the foxhole had yet noticed her, she was trying not to laugh at the frightened look on the men faces.
"Watching the line, Sir" Christenson answered
"Well, keep up the good work and while you are at it, you might want to reinforce your cover" Speirs motioned to the foxhole, which was in a poor state
"Actually, lieutenant Dike said, not to bother we are only going to be here one day" Perconte said
"Lieutenant Dike said not to bother, well then forget what I said, carry on" Ron got on his feet and started to walk away, he turned "Anyone care for a smoke"
Amy stepped out from the shadows "Don't mess with my men" She gave Speirs a stern look and Speirs just shook his head and walked of.
Amy shook her head "Everybody ok here?" the three men nodded and Amy walked of in the direction Speirs had disappeared to.
She found him in his foxhole, he was smoking and when he saw Amy a big smile appeared on his face, Amy jumped down in the foxhole "Don't mess with my boys, you scare the shit out of them" Amy scolded him.
"I didn't do anything just talking" Speirs smirked
"Yeah, whatever you say" Amy cuddled up to Speirs and she fell asleep.
…
The lead unit decide to take a short cut across the open field to get to the foxholes before dark, the other units followed and the Germans spotted them.
When the men ducked into the woods, they noticed that the German had zeroed artillery in on the position. There were shell holes and branches from tree bursts all around the foxholes. The shell were big, indicating heavy artillery.
Joe jumped into his foxhole to work on strengthening it "Argh, you gotta be fucking kidding me, someone's gonna die, someone's gonna fucking die, look at this shit, one of those first battalion fuckers took a shit in my foxhole"
Guarnere was looking around at the mass destruction "They took a shit in everybody's foxhole; I don't think they wanted to spend much time above ground"
Mia, Shames, Buck and Lipton was standing in a circle talking, Lipton was explaining to them what he had observed in Foy, "They are just waiting for us to reoccupy our position" Buck said
"It's our job to hold the line here, we got pretty good foxholes, we just need to strengthened our covers" Lipton told the other officers
Shames chimed in "If they got us zeroed in maybe we should…"
Buck interrupted him "We hold the line here, sergeant Lipton is right, we are gonna strengthen our covers and we are gonna hang in, we are not gonna fall back" Buck let out a small laugh and yelled "Right lieutenant" to Dike who was standing ten feet away from the group
"Fine, you all take care of it; I got to go talk to regiment" Dike walked of and disappeared once again.
Mia and Lipton was working on strengthening their foxhole, when a barrage began. Lipton and Mia ran thru the woods yelling to the men to take cover, before them finally jumping into a small open hole, someone had started to dig and then abandoned.
Mia heard Buck yelling, "In coming G'down take cover"
Lipton was on top of Mia, who was shaking, this was worse than anything they had experienced before.
The shells were set to explode on impact, creating tree bursts that flung shrapnel and knifelike shards of wood in all directions. Pines snapped in half and slammed to the snow with thumps, limbs flying crazily. The ground exploded, dirt shooting up like geysers, the men were running around looking for cover.
Buck kept running around yelling "Get down, find some cover"
Toye was in the open, shouting orders to his men to take cover, a shell exploded just above him. Shrapnel all but tore off his right leg and hit him in the stomach, chest and both arms.
Suddenly the shelling stopped. All through the woods men were calling out for a medic, Mia started to get on her feet, Lipton got of her "You head for the foxhole, it's gonna start again"
Mia ran toward their foxhole trying to block out the calls for a medic, she knew Lipton was right
Toye voices was heard "Gotta get up…Gotta get up"
Hearing his old friend Guarnere jumped to his rescue and just as he started to drag Joe towards his foxhole. Guarnere were playing right into the Germans hands. The shelling started again, a shell burst over Guarnere's head. Shrapnel tore into his right leg, mangling it. After a few minutes, the shelling ceased.
Mia and Lipton ran out of their foxhole, halfway too Joe and Bill they encountered Dike.
Dike shouted to Lipton "first Sergeant Lipton, you get thing organized here and I'll go for help" And with that he left.
Lipton was shocked, Mia turned and looked at Dike's retreating form "Lieutenant Dike, get back here, Dike…" Mia shook her head "Fucker" she mumbled.
Mia and Lipton ran toward the Panicked voice of Buck calling "medic…medic"
Buck came roaring past them, he was heading towards the CP, he was completely exposed to incoming fire. Liebgott, Luz, and Alley, tackled him and dragged him into a foxhole. Buck had had enough and he couldn't take it anymore.
Mia came to a skidding hold and threw herself down next to Toye" its ok Joe, It's gonna be ok"
Malarkey showed shocked to see what happened to his two friends "What can I do to help" He asked Camilla and Roe, who had showed up two minutes before.
Mia was trying to tie a tourniquet around what was left of Joe's leg.
"Take it Easy Joe, you're going to be ok" Malarkey tried to comfort his friend.
A jeep had come up from the rear and wound its way through the trees, Mia and Malarkey put Joe on a stretcher and lifted it on to the hood of the jeep
Joe asked Malarkey for a cigarette, trying to comfort his friend, who kept saying it was going to be ok, as if him saying it would make it all ok. Malarkey put a cigarette in Joes mouth and lit it, Joe took a deep drag and blew out the smoke
Joe looked at Malarkey "what's a guy gotta do to die" Joe asked
Malarkey sniffled and said, "I Dunno Joe, I Dunno"
Guarnere was sitting next to him shaking, he looked up at Lipton "eh Lip, they got old Guarnere this time"
Bill was put on a stretcher and just before they walked away with him, he said, "Hey Joe, I told I would beat you back to the states"
Joe Toye was in a lot of pain, and Camilla tried to ease his pain, best she could with her limited supply of morphine.
Katie came running to the scene and threw herself down on the ground next to Joe "Hey Joe, you don't look to hot" She nudged him; Joe just smiled, and looked away.
Katie looked over her shoulder, Luz came walking up to her, and Katie knew she would never forget his shocked expression, when he saw Joe on the ground.
Katie put a hand on his shoulder and turned him away from the scene "Luz, how is Buck?"
"Fine, but you should probably go talk to him," Luz said and walked away, it was too much for him to see his friend on the ground.
Katie walked over and sat down next to Buck "Buck, how is that trench foot of yours?" she asked him
Buck wouldn't look Katie in the eye, he knew what she was doing and he was grateful for it, she wasn't going to talk to him about what he just witnessed, but she was giving him away out.
Buck just looked at Katie with big empty eyes, Katie motioned for him to stand up and she walked Buck to a jeep "Let me handle this, you just go and don't come back until you are ready"
Katie hugged Buck and the jeep drove off, Katie found battalion CP and informed Winters, she had sent Buck off the line with a bad case of trench foot
.