Friendly Faces

3

Back in Sicily, Travers had shaken himself out of his mental funk. He wasn't going to find his friends if he kept moping, and he damn sure wouldn't survive if he held this attitude. No, he was trained better than this. He was trained to be prepared for miss-drops and he remembered the first thing they taught him was to identify where he was.

As he began to calm down and focus, his eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness around him somewhat, and he was able to make out parts of his surroundings. He knew he was on a dirt road that ran through a parallel blanket of thick woods. But aside from that, no major landmark was present for him to judge his location. He knew that his plane, like the rest of the invasion, was moving north and his objective was in the north, so by that logic, Travers was bound to run into some friendly faces; and some unfriendly ones, if he moved north. The paratrooper private took one last look at the Blackshirt on the ground, missing the back of his skull, and walked away with mixed confusion of how he shot him while he was still full of fear.

Travers had been walking for about ten minutes now and there was still no trace of any Americans around. The only thing American he could hear was the flying C-47s overhead, American rifles cracking echoes in the black distance, and of Uncle Sam in his mind telling him to kill all the Germans and Italians, win the war, and come back home to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor and to dick every blonde as a war hero. If only it was that simple. But in terms of the enemy, the only Axis soldier he met was the one he shot in the face earlier.

One shot, one kill. The image of the man's pinkish brain that illuminated the dark dirt road still replayed fresh in his mind. I really killed that man. Travers shook his head; he didn't know what he was feeling. He was glad that he survived; yet he wasn't elated that he killed his first man, he damn sure didn't feel guilty about it, nor remorse from the act. He just felt a conflicting confusion in his soul.

A roaring ripple of automatic fire crackled in the air, causing the young soldier to jump. The rounds were close. They were coming from his right into the woods. Another burst of fire ripped into the air. Travers recognized the fire as an American weapon, it was a Thompson. Travers grinned lightly at the prospect of an ally so close by; elated that he would not have to face the unknown alone.

The paratrooper entered the enclosed black woods trying to find the American who was firing off. But once he got close to the rounds, the firing ceased. It didn't matter though; Travers could see where the firing had originated. His adjusted eyes focused on three dark figures; two on the ground and one reloading his weapon. That must be the paratrooper. But even if it was, it could have been the enemy, he couldn't be sure. So Travers locked his rifle on the crouching man before challenging him with the American password for the invasion. Travers issued the challenge in a soft whisper, yet loud enough to be heard, "Cloud?" The figure snapped quickly and raised his weapon in Travers' direction, but gave him the correct password, "Rain!" Travers recognized the voice.

"Wirth? Is that you?" he said in a loud whisper.

"Yeah it is. Travers?"

Travers smirked and rose to his feet and shook hands with his good friend, Private Richard Wirth. Born and raised in Malibu, California, the 20 year old Wirth was as bright as they come. Academically successful in school to the point he could teach social studies and mathematics better than some teachers. But before he could accept scholarships to an Ivy-League of his choice, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and like so many young men in his generation, he put his future on halt and joined the Army. In George Company, Wirth was the radio operator for 1st platoon's HQ section.

"Oh it's so good to see you here, buddy!" Wirth said in a low whisper with a smile on his face as he embraced his friend.

"Likewise. Why were you firing your weapon? You ran into trouble?"

"You wouldn't believe it…Okay, I touched down in the woods and by the grace of Christ, I didn't get caught in a tree. I landed here and these two Italians over there," Wirth made a sweeping motion with his Thompson submachine gun and pointed to the dead bodies, "The Italians were on top of me and I sprayed them."

Travers chuckled lightly, "Shit, you're one luck S.O.B"

"Ain't that the truth?"

"Where's your radio?"

Wirth sighed with a tinge of regret, "Lost it in the jump. I don't even remember losing the damn thing."

"I don't even remember me jumping out of the plane. We were taking too much flak."

"I know…Jesus Christ, you could walk on it!"

"So then I guess you don't know where we are, do you?"

"Shit Travers, I just landed here. I was too busy looking down at the forests to notice any landmarks."

"Our C-47 was moving too fast to avoid the flak and we missed our DZ by a good distance. And that wind was pretty strong, so we are all scattered in the wind." Travers sighed. "I can't recognize where we are. Did you see anyone from our stick?"

Wirth grimly shook his head. "Not a soul."

"…Great."

As silence fell between the two men, they listened to the scattered and sporadic firing of American and Italian weapons being shot in the distance, echoing into the blanketing night sky. Then a loud, verbal fight in Sicilian was heard from inside the forest, and coming straight towards the two Americans.

The two young Americans shouldered their weapons at the noise approaching. "What the hell is that?" Wirth whispered.

"I heard some…over here!"

Travers listened closely; he could translate bits of the Italian. "They're Italians," Travers told Wirth.

"Shit…how many?"

"...They're two talking, but I think I hear more."

"What do we do?"

Travers softly bit down on his lip. Why was Wirth asking him? Travers didn't know. If anything, why didn't Wirth come up with a plan? They're both privates—well, Travers was a Private First Class, so maybe that did give Travers some authority over Wirth, but not much. He didn't know whether to stay quiet and hope they slipped by, or to open up and hoped they could get them all. But for better or worse, Travers didn't have a chance to make a call.

One of the Italians spotted the outlines of the two paratroopers and alerted the rest. The group of Italians opened fire, sending Travers and Wirth to the dirt for cover. The first cracks of the rifle rounds exploding on the tree branches sent harrowing chills through Travers' body. He wanted to run, to get away from the murderous lead; but Wirth was beside him, he couldn't turn tail in front of Wirth. What he would think of him? His good friend is a stone cold coward? Travers would rather die a thousand times than let him think that. Rather than run away, Travers' training that he ruthlessly went through in boot camp kicked in. He fitfully sucked in some air, and Travers raised his rifle and began squeezing off rounds at the muzzle flashes from the opposite end of the woods as Wirth squeezed off controlled 5-round bursts from his Tommy gun. Wirth grabbed a grenade from his jacket and tossed it into the darkness, and the two of them ran back through the woods before the grenade blew. Yet the Italians chased after them.

The training and teamwork took over the young Americans' minds. Travers got behind a large tree, as thick as his body and fired off shots to cover Wirth's retreat; then Wirth would get behind a tree and fire some bursts to cover Travers' retreat. They continued to do so until they left the opening of the woods and ran on a dirt road, where a dead American paratrooper—shot on his descent was lying next to a fully assembled M1919 Browning light machine gun with a bipod.

With the Italians closing in, Travers picked up the machine gun and told Wirth to pick up the ammo and follow him. Besides the road, there stood a low stone wall which descended into a downward slope to more woods. Travers got the idea to jump the wall and set up the gun on the low wall facing the woods the Italians would come out of. They only had a 150 round belt for the gun though.

The inexperienced Italians ran out the woods, completely unaware of the surroundings, with their own thought for the death of the Americans. Little did they know, they had just walked into an ambush. Travers squeezed the trigger and braced the impact of the recoil; red tracers from MG spurted out like little fireballs into the Italian ranks. The impact of the bullets sent the Blackshirts jumping in the air and falling on their backs.

Travers remembered his training; to keep the bursts short to retain accuracy and ammunition. As the Italians fell to their deaths, the rest of the group dropped their rifles and ran away. Travers ran out of ammo with the barrel of the machine gun glowing bright red. Wirth made the body count; 6 dead and about 5 who ran away. Wirth breathed easier with the enemy gone, he looked over at his buddy could see the tenseness gripping his body.

Travers could not remember what just happened, all he could remember was just gripping on the machine gun handle and the loud eruption of machine gun fire. He could not even figure out why and how he came up with the plan for the machine gun to ambush the Italians; his mind was just on autopilot the entire time. His hands were still gripped to handle, numbed to the bone from the constant vibrations of the gun firing. Wirth chuckled and patted the tense Travers over the shoulder, "Thank God, I landed close to you."

"Cloud!" came a gruff voice, but the two men couldn't find where it came from.

"Rain!" Travers said loudly, not knowing the volume of his own voice.

"Thank God you're Airborne!" came the voice from behind them, down the hill. It was Sergeant Dane, Travers' squad leader, accompanied with two men that Travers and Wirth knew were not from their company, along with fellow G Company man, Tech. Corporal Danny McClain of 2nd Platoon from Hollywood, Maryland.

"Glad to see you Dane! You as well, McClain." Travers said, elated to find another familiar face amidst this snafu.

"Ditto, but who are these guys?" Wirth asked.

McClain explained. "These guys are some fellas I've picked up from when I dropped. They're Charlie Company."

"Charlie Company? Where the hell are we?"

"Close to our DZ, thank God," Dane chuckled.

"Sarge, what happened?" Travers asked.

"Got me. All I know is that we took flak from our ships in the water. The Captain is dead along with several others."

"What about Reese? Do you know what happened to him?"

Dane shook his head and sighed, "I don't know, Travers. I don't know, buddy. I just don't know what happened with everyone else. All I know is that we are close to Adanti and we need to move now."

"Did you land with anyone?"

Dane rubbed his scraggily chin, struggling with his words, "Yeah, with Perez and Cole." Travers and Wirth noticed the absence of these two men, knowing full well what it implied. Dane continued, the pain evident in his voice, "We were walking along and got ambushed by some Eye-Ties…they…tossed a few grenades, and Perez and Cole…they got killed…"

"Killed". The word sounded so foreign to them, yet was one of the biggest ironies for them as soldiers. They were drilled constantly in how they had to kill the "Nazis" to end the war, and were taught that men would die in the field of battle. But to hear the names of training pals and drinking buddies forever labeled as "Killed in Action"; was of the sourest feeling they have felt in their short careers of soldiers. As they heard the names, they could not help but visualize their graphic deaths as the grenade exploded and ripped the flesh from their bones and severed their limbs from their bodies. Two good men, already gone in the opening stages of the battle, and Travers knew that many more would follow. Maybe even him.

"…Oh shit…" Wirth spoke up, "Both of 'em?"

"…Yeah…but we can't dwell on it now. We got a job to do; we're close to Adanti now. We need to knock out them AA guns, pronto. Last time I remembered, our plane missed our DZ by a little bit, so we have to move north for a while to reach Adanti. So let's get moving on the bastards before they knock more of our boys outta the sky!"

McClain smirked, licking his lips a little, "Finally, time to start kickin' ass and takin' names."

"Sarge," Travers meekly spoke up, "I-I-I'll take point."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," he murmured.

"Alright, be my guest, Travers."

Travers nodded his head somewhat solemnly and rose to his feet. He knew what he asked for. He volunteered being in front of the small makeshift squad, and the first to get shot if they ran into the enemy. Yet, Travers for some reason felt that he had to be the one to be up front. He couldn't tell why. Maybe it was Dane's resolve in getting to the objective, despite seeing his comrades being killed in front of him. That sort of bravery—or was it courage? Or maybe determination that came with the rank of Sergeant? Whatever it was, maybe that was what inspired Travers to be up front, to get that shred of leadership that would give him the courage to go on through his trial by fire.