We Were Soldiers

135. That Day Again

Today was not a good day. In fact, it was the worst day. It was that day again. In all the excitement of planning an elaborate trap, Danny had completely forgotten the date, and only when he woke up to the sound of general merriment did he realise what time of the year it was. 4th July. Independence Day. His birthday.

It wasn't as if he had anything against the independence of his home country, or the celebrating of it in general. But it wasn't easy or fun trying to explain to his friends at school that he hadn't done anything special for his birthday because his father considered Independence Day to be more important, or that he was made to feel selfish for expecting any sort of attention over the fact that he'd done nothing more than be born on that particular day. Being born was, after all, no great accomplishment; everybody had done it once. But the Independence of the United States of America was an event that would be remembered until the end of time, until long after Danny was in the ground pushing up daisies.

Maybe, deep down, that was why Danny felt some uncontrollable resentment towards the man everyone called 'Captain America'. Not only did they share a birthday, but the guy now represented the reason Danny had hated the day for as long as he could remember. To most Americans, America came first. It had when he was a kid, and it did still.

Plus, he had stupid hair.

He tried to put those thoughts out of his mind as he dressed and strode through the camp towards the General's tent. After all, it wasn't America's fault that it shared a birthday with Danny Wells. And it kinda did deserve to be celebrated, it being a mostly great nation and all. Sure, there were some things it could do better, and it was massively underusing a huge portion of its workforce due to reasons he considered extremely stupid, but that would probably change after the war, when everybody realised women could work and blacks could fight.

Maybe.

He shook his head and turned his thoughts to the mission. Last night, he'd set wheels in motion. An elaborate plan was useless if the pawns weren't in place. No MP in their right mind would take a lieutenant into custody on the command of a sergeant, so a massive amount of favours had been called in to find somebody crazy enough to go through with what Danny pitched as an elaborate practical joke. Corporal Bloomer was definitely crazy, but not stupid. He'd made Danny assure him a dozen times that he wouldn't get in trouble for the joke, and that if there was fallout, Danny would protect the guy's career by taking the fall for it.

It was a necessary deception. He could hardly explain his true purpose to the man, since he might be part of the syndicate, or blab to someone who was. Grant had claimed that all of this plotting and deceiving was giving him a headache, but he was a vanilla flavoured guy who just didn't have the mental power to keep elaborate lies straight inside his head. And that was what made him such a good candidate for this task. A man like Grant, as part of the Syndicate, would inherently understand the need to protect the other members in the chain. He would confess to keep the others safe, whereas a lesser man wouldn't hesitate to throw his granny under a bus full of nuns.

Outside the general's tent, Danny stopped and waited to be admitted. He'd thought about this moment over and over again, playing it out in his head, trying to iron out any kinks before they could even appear. In the end, he'd decided that simple was best. The plan was solid and would work without being forced. Lieutenant Grant knew what to do. Corporal Bloomer knew what to do. The Three Stooges knew what to do. Every piece was in place.

The MP on duty gave him permission to enter, so Danny crouched down and retied his left bootlace, the signal to whichever Stooge was watching him to give the word to Corporal Bloomer to go ahead and bring Grant in. Retying the right lace would've meant 'abort mission'. A simple but effective means of relaying a message without anybody else knowing it.

The interior of the tent was gloomy and cool, two gas-burning lamps the only source of illumination. This tent was smaller than the one where he held his staff briefings, more of a personal office than anything else. A stack of papers sat piled on the General's desk, and behind it was the man himself. He returned the salute Danny offered him, then extended the offer of a chair. Danny politely declined.

"What news do you have for me, Sergeant?" asked General Grant. Grant Junior was right; the General did look tired, and somehow smaller. As if he had some great weight pressing down on him. Not the bearing of a man who was so far behind enemy lines that even their enemies weren't patrolling the place. "By all accounts, you've been very active in tracking down the source of our supply issues."

"Yes sir," he agreed. "And I appreciate your patience in the matter. To be honest, I expected to have answers sooner than this, and I know how frustrating it's been for you to sit quietly while I've investigated on my own."

"I trust that you do have some sort of answer for me, now?"

"That's right, sir. I've found the man responsible for your problems."

If there was any doubt in his mind that he'd got the wrong man, that doubt faded immediately. A resolution to the equipment issues should've put the General at ease. If anything, he looked even more tense as Danny spoke.

"Very good. We must proceed carefully now, Sergeant. Whoever is responsible needs to be punished, but I don't want to destroy a career if it can be avoided. Let me know who it is, and I'll question him, then deal with his punishment discreetly."

"Actually, General, I've already taken the liberty of having the man responsible arrested and brought here for questioning." The General's face whitened by a couple of shades. "The MPs should have him here momentarily. I hope I haven't overstepped my authority, but I didn't want to wait in case word somehow got out. I had to move before he could cover his tracks any further than he already has."

"I… see. Well, who is it?"

Danny didn't need to reply. At that moment, Corporal Bloomer escorted Lieutenant Grant into the tent to much exasperated objectioning. Judging by how Bloomer kept poking Grant with the muzzle of his rifle, those objections may not have been entirely fake.

Lieutenant Grant suddenly seemed to realise where he was. "General, sir, may I ask what the meaning of this is?"

Danny stepped forward before Grant Senior could respond. "Thank you, Corporal, you may wait outside. We may be needing you again very shortly." As soon as Bloomer had gone, Danny turned towards the General and pulled several papers from his pocket. "Sir, I have here an army requisitions form for the unauthorised use of a jeep, signed by Lieutenant Grant. Furthermore, having reviewed the log books from the Lieutenant's store, I can confirm that the discrepancies began with him, before spreading to other units within the camp. Additionally, I've been approached by several servicemen who confessed to me that Lieutenant Grant was able to procure non-standard goods on several in occasions, including milk, tea and chocolate. This information can be verified by one of the Nurses, who was witness to this transaction. Finally, I've gone back through the requisitions forms since my arrival in camp, and discovered that several forms Lieutenant Grant asked me to reject were in fact later amended to 'accepted' in such a way as to make it appear that I myself had changed them. As you know sir, I only arrived here after the supply issues, and can't possibly have been involved. It's my belief that Lieutenant Grant, unaware that he was being secretly investigated, was trying to make it appear that I was responsible for some of the changed forms."

If the General's face had paled earlier, it was deathly white now. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, before finally stuttering, "I… I don't believe it."

"It's true, General, and I have all the evidence to prove it," Danny continued. He held up another piece of paper, one that he and Grant had worked on for almost an hour. "I have here a typed confession, outlining the crimes—at least, those I'm aware of—and offering full responsibility for the army's losses. All it needs before we can transmit this back to Washington is a signature." He turned to Grant Junior, who'd wisely clamped his jaw shut. Some of the things Danny had mentioned, he'd invented on the fly. Sure, he'd manufactured the jeep situation, but the rest of it was pure embellishment. "What do you say, Lieutenant? Do you deny you've taken these actions? Keep in mind I already have all the proof the General needs to see you serve time. Falsifying documents is a serious offence. We will of course need the names of everybody else involved in this theft of Government property."

"There was nobody else," Lieutenant Grant said defiantly. "I alone am responsible for the missing supplies. I changed the records of the other quartermasters, so they wouldn't realise equipment was missing. Give me a pen and I'll sign your confession right now." Ever the good soldier. General Grant would know that his son was the type of man to take the fall to protect others.

"You heard the man, General," said Danny. "I'm sorry it turned out like this, sir. I know this will probably be quite the blow to your family's reputation, but at least you've managed to find the one responsible for the missing supplies. I think we should do this quietly; send the information we've gathered back to HQ and keep Lieutenant Grant under armed guard until we can hand him over for court-martial. Do you have a pen?"

This was it. If the General was the one running the Syndicate from the shadows, he would never let his son take the fall for him. If Danny was wrong, and the General really was clueless… well, they'd have to confess everything, and start again from scratch.

"I…" General Grant seemed to teeter with indecision. "I can't let you do that, Joe."

"I won't throw somebody else on the pyre to save myself, Dad," Grant replied. "Give me a pen. I'll sign the confession."

Danny could feel his heart thudding inside his chest. Take the bait, take the bait… he thought silently to the older Grant.

"No." The General stood, took the confession form, and tore it in two. "You're not the one responsible for the missing supplies."

"Because you are," said the Lieutenant.

The accusation seemed to hit Grant Senior like a punch to the gut. He looked from Danny, to his son, and back to Danny again. "You knew?"

"No," Danny said. "But we suspected. I followed the trail as far as I could, and could finally get no higher. I knew a command-level officer was running the Syndicate, but we needed to find a way to make that person incriminate themselves."

General Grant sank back into his chair, the two halves of the confession gripped in his hands. "I'm sorry. This was never supposed to happen. It was never supposed to come to this."

Lieutenant Grant raced to his side, laying a hand on his father's arm. "What happened, Dad? Sergeant Wells told me you knew about the Syndicate, but how did you end up running it? How did things get so out of control?"

The General's cheeks regained a little of their colour. "During the Great War, when I was a sergeant myself, I ran The Rock's Syndicate. After, when I went through officer training, I kept control of it. Figured it would be a good way to keep an eye on things. Then war broke out, and the Regiment was sent out here without enough supplies. So, I stepped up my efforts to get the men what they needed. Brought a few officers in quietly, to oversee distribution. But it quickly started to grow out of control, an unstoppable avalanche of supply and demand. I didn't mean for it to happen, but it was hard to keep tabs on everything without letting people know I was the one running it all."

"The man behind the curtain," Danny mused. "But why the farce? You had me investigating a matter you already knew about." Unless… "You had a fall-guy, didn't you? Some poor patsy I was supposed to uncover. What did you do, manufacture evidence to incriminate a member of your own regiment?"

"Nothing so heinous," Grant Senior assured him. "There was one person who knew my identity. One man who knew what I was doing, and tried to help. We talked it over, and he suggested we find a way to pin this on him. I didn't want to, but I couldn't see another way to untangle this mess."

Danny closed his eyes for a moment. Add two and two, and you got… "Sergeant Forrest."

A frown played across General Grant's face. "Yes. How did you know?"

"You both served in The Rock during the Great War, and every command officer needs a competent sergeant to make sure stuff gets done."

"Unfortunately, your ES-1 form made it harder to manufacture the evidence we needed to point the finger of blame at Forrest," said General Grant. "Of course, I wouldn't have let the brass get their hands on him. I would've made it go away, somehow. You were supposed to find him."

In truth, there had been some signs pointing towards Forrest. His name came up a lot. But Danny had put it down to him having served in the regiment since the dawn of time. Plus, he'd been put off by the guy's mercurial lechery. And there had been the fact that Danny just knew somebody higher up was running the show. Too much rug-sweeping for a mere sergeant.

"I suspect anyone else investigating this would've fallen for your ruse," he offered at last, because while it did feel good to bring a General down a peg or two, the guy was still a General. "There were signs indicating Forrest being involved in some of the Syndicate activity. But I know how these things work, and Forrest didn't have enough authority to make most of these problems go away."

"So… you'll be turning me in, I suppose?" Grant Senior asked. Defeat was etched upon every plane of his face. "I'm sure there'd be a Commendation in it for you."

"Pfft. I don't care about my rank," Danny scoffed.

"That's right," said Lieutenant Grant. "What we need to do now is fix this mess. If the supply issues stop, the brass won't have any cause for complaint. Right?"

"I don't know how to fix it." The General wasn't lying. Danny could see it in his eyes. He was genuinely stuck. The mess he'd made had become too large for any clean-up.

"Then start over," he suggested. "Tear it all down and begin again, with new oversight. Clearly, this is too much for one General to manage. You need to hand the reins over to somebody else. Let another man shoulder that burden."

"I… suppose that could work," the General agreed. "And there is one man I think I could trust to be fair and impartial. Joe… would you be willing to help me with this? To lead the Syndicate?"

Great. Just fantastic. Danny did all the hard work, and Grant reaped the rewards.

"Of course, Dad. I mean, I don't know anything about running a syndicate…"

"Don't worry. Sergeant Forrest can advise you. He helped me start it up, the first time around."

"In that case, you can count on me."

It wasn't as if Danny had truly wanted to run the Syndicate anyway. Lot of hard work, that. Keeping tallies, arranging favours, making sure everybody paid their debts and that the whole system was in balance. Definitely the job for a pencil-pusher, not somebody who'd seen action.

"Thank you, son. And thank you, Sergeant Wells. I know this hasn't been easy for you, and I'm sorry I had to deceive you."

Danny offered a shrug. "It's fine. After all, I won the game."

"Game?"

"Don't worry about it." He offered his most official salute. "If it's okay with you, sir, I'd like to get back to my duties." There was a lot of clean-up to be done. Nurse Ramsey, the three Stooges, Corporal Bloomer, just to name a few. Plus a pile of ES-1 forms that were just itching to feel the caress of the rejected stamp.

"Of course, Sergeant. And I trust we can count on your discretion?"

"My lips are sealed, sir."

Outside, in the bright morning sunlight, the world was still the same. It felt like a different place, but at the same time, no different than it had been yesterday. We create the world with our own perception, he thought. Nothing had changed. Everything had changed. It was both the best and the worst of times. But for now, breakfast awaited him. Perhaps today, there would be eggs.

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

7th July, 1944

He didn't know the name of the town, nor any of the Resistance members who'd met them on the outskirts and guided them this far. Thanks to Dernier's teachings, he understood enough French to know that the mission involved taking back this strategically important location, but that was pretty much the extent of it.

Once upon a time, he'd needed to be the guy holding the reins. To know about every detail to make sure nothing could go wrong. These days, it was a little simpler. Steve was the one who had to worry about all the details. All Bucky needed to know was when, where and who to point his gun at. When to march and when to rest. Everything was easier when you had somebody to take orders from. Less complicated, somehow.

He glanced around at the others in his hide, which was today the bell-tower of a church half reduced to rubble by aerial bombardment. A shame what was happening to France right now. The Nazis had to be driven out, but they had strongholds everywhere. They'd turned French buildings into stores, or bunkers, or operational bases. The only way to drive them out was to tear it all down. Allied Bomber Command tried their best—he hoped—to avoid civilian buildings, but collateral damage was inevitable.

Today, he was in good company. This resistance cell had two sharp-shooters of their own, so that between them and him, they could cover multiple angles of the ground below. Their task was simple; follow the movement of the Commandos and the Resistance members, look ahead to where they were going, and take out any enemy forces that tried to stop them. Every time he pulled the trigger, he heard the voice of Tex drawling in his head. Just like shootin' prairie dogs back home. Shooting Nazis or shooting prairie dogs, it had all been the same to Tex. It was gettin' that way for Bucky, too, although he thought he might find it harder to shoot prairie dogs. They hadn't done anything to deserve being shot, after all.

Through his rifle's scope he spotted movement below. The team were on the move again. They flitted from building to building like shadows, keeping their heads low, aiming for the greatest areas of cover while Nazi defenders took shots at them. Bucky immediately trained his sight forward, looking for the tell-tale flash of gunpowder. When he found one, he didn't hesitate. Just took aim and pulled the trigger. The SSR-03 was as close to silent as a gun could possibly get, but Stark was undoubtedly already working on the SSR-04. Maybe one day he'd even invent a gun that didn't need a man to aim it, or pull the trigger. A weapon that could target enemies and fire itself with no human input. That might be nice.

Two more Nazis popped up in his scope. He squeezed his trigger and took out the first with a shot to the middle of the chest. The second fell to another man's bullet; one of the team below, though Bucky didn't see which of them made the shot. It put him in mind of the coconut shy games he'd played at the travelling carnivals back home. Nazis weren't that much harder to hit than coconuts felled with balls.

One of the Frenchmen in the tower suddenly let out a sharp hiss. "There is someone sneaking up behind our team. I just saw movement near the General Store."

"If you get a clear sight, take the shot," the other said. "We cannot allow our men to be ambushed from behind. I will keep an eye on the path ahead."

As the team below continued to flit from cover to cover, Bucky risked a look back through his rifle's scope. If the Germans were trying to flank the team, they might have men in position, ready to open fire at any moment. They could be sneaky like that, Krauts could.

A flash of movement below. The man to Bucky's right took aim and fired, his rifle letting out a quiet crack of thunder as the bullet sped towards its target. Too late did Bucky recognise the small splash of red and white as the Canadian flag sewn onto the shoulder of the soldier's jacket. As the man stepped out from the shadows, the bullet found its mark, and he went sprawling backwards behind a wall.

"Hold your fire, he's a friendly!" Bucky said, reaching out to grasp the Frenchman's rifle and lower the muzzle.

The man let out a curse. "How was I to know? Nobody else is supposed to be here! Mon ami, where are you going?" he asked, as Bucky shouldered his rifle and headed for the ladder that led down from the tower.

"To make sure he's okay. Just keep watch over the team, don't worry about me. I'll be back shortly."

"Okay? I shot him in the chest!"

Anything else the man said was lost to his ears as he made his way down the rickety ladder as fast as common sense would allow him. The thing had been precarious even before the RAF had bombed half the church below.

House of God. The thought flickered across his mind as he hurried through what would've once been a beautiful hall of polished wooden benches and stained glass windows. Now it was nothing but shattered stone, charred splinters and broken glass. If God ever lived here, he sure doesn't anymore. Wonder what He thinks of us destroying all his creations. Maybe God wasn't even watching. Perhaps he hadn't been watching for a very long time.

Conscious that this was still enemy territory, he carefully picked the path that offered the most cover as he traversed the street in a half-squat. If he came across Krauts his rifle would be useless at this close range, but he still had his trusty sidearm. He unholstered it and thumbed off the safety catch. No sense being caught with his pants down.

It was an overcast day, the grey clouds somber, threatening rain. Maybe rain wouldn't be a bad thing. The constant bombardment from above meant that dust was continually being blown into the air. Up in the bell tower, he hadn't noticed it, but down here, every inhale was a lungful of dust. His team wouldn't be having it any easier.

By the time he reached the General Store, Logan was already sitting upright with his back against the wall he'd fallen over. His hair was a dusty mess, and spatters of blood decorated his face. One of his guns lay beside him, its barrel bent out of shape. He'd probably fallen on it.

"Psst," said Bucky, grabbing the guy's attention before he could even think about mistaking him for an enemy soldier. "Are you okay?"

"Oh yeah," Logan said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "Just a bullet to the chest. Nothing to worry about. Why'd you shoot me? Have you gone blind or somethin'?"

"It wasn't me." He checked that the coast was clear and hurried over to kneel by Logan's side. "One of the Resistance sharpshooters. He thought you were a Kraut trying to sneak up on our team."

"Figures."

"What are you even doing here, Logan?"

The Canadian picked up his rifle, inspected the damaged barrel, grunted, and tossed the weapon aside. "Came to find Betsy and tell her I found Brian. Other than suffering a broken radio, he's fine. Having a whale of a time, in fact. After I found him, I went back to camp to let her know, only to be told she'd been sent with a bunch of medics to help the Resistance, with you clowns for bodyguards. Let me know where she is, I'll deliver the message, then I can get back to doing some real work."

"I don't know where she is," he admitted. "Once we met up with the Resistance, they took the medics to go deal with some of their sick and wounded members. Wherever they are, I hope it's somewhere safer than this place."

"No kidding," Logan scoffed. "Next time you see her, pass on the good news, will ya? I got places to be."

"You're leaving again?"

He nodded. "The sooner the better. I have a personal mantra. Never mix women and war. It's a deadly combination. I can't get away from the war, but I can sure as hell get away from the women, at least for now." He gave Bucky an appraising look. "You should come with me."

"What?"

"You'd be good at the work. I can tell. You've got that look in your eyes."

"What look?"

"The look that says you're not going to stop until every one of 'em's dead. That this snipin', staying in the shadows, letting other guys take the risks, isn't for you." Logan began loading up another rifle from his bandolier. "Trust me, when you're out there, just you and the enemy, that's when you're most alive. It's hunt or be hunted, kill or be killed. All this civilised bullshit about taking orders and marching here or there, that's for the guys who'll only only get themselves killed if they have to think for themselves too long. They're wasting what you can do."

Bucky shook his head. "You're wrong. That's not me. I'm just here to—"

"To what? Protect your family back home? To liberate France? To avenge the guys you lost since you shipped out? To preserve 'freedom'? Maybe that's what you tell everyone else. Maybe you even tell it to yourself, and perhaps you even believe it sometimes." Logan stood and patted his rifle. Five minutes ago he'd been shot, and now he was ready to get back to the war. The soldier who could apparently never die. "I may not look it, but I've been alive a long time, bub. Long enough to recognise that look you've got in your eyes right now. There's a beast lurking inside you, one you keep tightly leashed. But you can't keep it leashed forever. You better learn to embrace it. Use it. Figure out how to control it. Or one day, it will control you."

Anger flared inside him. "That's bullshit. You don't know anything about me."

Logan merely shrugged. "Alright then. Take care, Barnes. For what it's worth, I hope I'm wrong. I don't want you to be the next guy I have to stop."

Bucky watched him go, the small flicker of anger growing hotter. Just who did Logan think he was? He was clueless. Just some dumb Canadian who'd taken one too many bullets to the head. Projecting his own issues onto everyone else, probably. The person he described, that wasn't Bucky. He didn't want to keep killing Krauts until there were none left, he just had to keep going until he could get his hands on Zola and Schmidt. They were the only two he really needed to kill. The others were just in his way.

Well, let the guy go and do whatever he needed to do. Let him go and wrestle with his own inner beast. Dismissing him from his mind, he picked his way back to the bell tower. His team needed him. Steve needed him. And for as long as there was someone who needed his help, he would never abandon his duties. That just wasn't him.

Author's Note: Thank you guest reviewer Ro for your kind words - I'm glad to hear you've learned something whilst being entertained - I think that's the best way to learn!

AsgardainAvenger: Hmm... DID I predict Bucky being a Hobbit-reading nerd before it became canon in TFATWS... or did Marvel nick my idea? o.O I think we secretly know the answer to that question!

(they are fairly correct that a Sorcerer is Wizard without a hat (or a staff), though... I think Terry Pratchett established that fact!)