Good Soldier 1/1
Title: Good Soldier 1/1
Author: buffyaddict13
Fandom: Band of Brothers
Rating: R for swearing and violence
Words: ~9,000
Characters/Pairing: Gen, Ronald C. Speirs and glimpses of pretty much everyone in Easy Company
Disclaimer: I wrote this based on the character Ron Speirs in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, not the real man. I mean no disrespect to the real Ron Speirs or his family.
Summary: Character study of Ron Speirs before, and during Band of Brothers.
A/N 1: The first time I watched Band of Brothers I thought Speirs was creepy and kind of horrible. Then I realized he held Chuck Grant's hand in "Points" and everything changed. I might not agree with everything Speirs did, I might not accept a cigarette from him, but I respect him, and I kind of love him.
A/N 2: Thank you to my wonderful beta hiyacynth . I'd be lost without you. I'm worse at maps than Sobel.
Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.
~Curtis Lemay
He learns early on that eye contact flusters certain kinds of people. Specifically, people like his fifth grade teacher, Miss Schaefer. She’s got him after class, arms and mouth folded into a frown, telling him he ought to be expelled for punching Clancy Schmidt on the playground.
He stares at her.
He doesn’t blink.
He doesn’t say a word.
He won’t get expelled. Clancy threw the first punch anyway. Clancy just happened to hit with words, so nobody thinks it counts. Ron had to hit back, only he used his fist. No sense confusing Schmidt with big words. Besides, nobody walks away from calling his mom a whore. All his mother did was wear a red dress to church, if that makes her a whore, looks like old Mrs. Cuddy's making some extra dough on the side too.
Anyway, there are plenty of rumors Clancy’s mom wears considerably less on Saturday nights.
When Ron walks out of Miss Schaefer’s classroom he’s got extra homework. It doesn't matter. School is easy. But his mom isn’t.
Ron’s an only child. He likes it that way. His mother’s Scottish. He was born in Edinburgh, and loves to listen to her talk. She reads him Grimm’s Fairytales, the newspaper, articles out of Life Magazine, anything and everything. She has a temper, but it rarely comes out. Sometimes Ron even goads her on purpose, just to hear her brogue grow thick and red, just like her hair.
His father was in the the Great War. He was wounded, spent time recovering in a British hospital where he met a nurse named Adaira. A year later his parents were married. Two years later Ronald was born.
His mother has nightmares about the soldiers she treated. She wakes up crying sometimes. She talks about men who were gassed, men who spit bloody foam, men who's lungs turned to liquid, men riddled with bullet holes. Ron’s not supposed to listen through the wall, but he does.
Ron can never hear what his father says, but the soft murmur of his deep voice always calms his mother. He wonders why his dad never cries. After all, he's the one who had to kill people. All his mom had to do was watch them die.
Reginald Speirs has a box in his study full of medals and ribbons. Ron takes them out sometimes, spreads them on the kitchen table. Ron asks what they’re for and his father always gives the same reply: “For doing my duty.” Reggie never meets his son's gaze when he says it.
Ron's been in Portland, Maine twice as long as he was in Scotland, and he's still bitter about moving. The city is too big, too small, too boring. It’s filled with idiots and snobs. It’s dirty, too cold in winter, too hot in summer. His mother pats his arm affectionately with each complaint. She laughs. Her teeth are crooked and it gives her smile a wildness that Ron loves. It makes him think of wolves and moors and the Green Lady of Scotland. She winks and tells him as soon as he gets a job he can move himself right back there.
Ron isn’t interested in a job. He’s interested in the military. His father says they’re the same thing.
He joins the Army right out of high school. He likes military life. He likes learning about weapons, strategy, rules. He can read any map, find his way with or without a compass, but he’s bad at names. He doesn’t talk much-purposely. Just like certain people don’t like eye contact, there are those who can’t abide silence. They feel the need to fill it with anything: excuses, compliments, complaints, the goddamn weather forecast.
By the time Ron earns a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant, he’s got the beginnings of a pretty decent reputation well under way. The other officers describe him alternately as stand-offish, hard-headed, irritating, friendly, by-the-book, too demanding, too lax. No one can agree on who exactly Ron Speirs is. Ron just smiles benignly. He knows who he is.
The privates eyeball him nervously. Ron doesn’t mind a few cases of nerves, but he does not abide disrespect . That’s his one rule. His men don’t have to stand the straightest or run the fastest but they do have to obey orders. Every time.
Disobeying a direct order isn’t just disobeying Ron, it’s disobeying the Army as a whole. It’s a dereliction of duty. Ron doesn’t expect to win medals or find love in some far-off country. But he expects to be his best, and he expects no less from his men.
He likes the infantry fine, but after Pearl Harbor he volunteers for the new paratroop outfit. If he’s going to end up in Europe or the Pacific he wants to know the man next to him's got his back. Talk about being your best.
Ron ends up at Camp Toccoa as part of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. He’s with Charlie Company first, then moves over to second battalion to lead one of Dog Company’s platoons. The training is hard--the hardest Ron's gone through--but Dog Company’s a good outfit.
The problem is, Easy Company’s better.
Every company runs up Currahee. But Easy does it every day, sometimes twice. Sobel sends them on forced marches every Friday night in full gear. Sobel's a bastard, but he knows how to get men ready for war.
Ron doesn't bother with friends. He has comrades. As long as he can depend on his fellow troopers, he doesn't need to know what their favorite color is, whether they like Glenn Miller or Benny Goodman. Most of the guys only care about getting laid or drunk. Ron's done his share of both, but there's more to life than beer and big tits. More often than not, Ron stays on base on weekends.
So does Lieutenant Dick Winters.
Ron sees Winters around Toccoa plenty, leading the men in calisthenics, teaching them how to assemble weapons, hanging around with Lewis Nixon. The word on Winters is the same all across the board: he's a decent, fair, a real stand-up guy. It's obvious the Easy Company guys can't stand Sobel, but they think the world of Winters.
Ron leans against the barracks, watches Dick lead the men toward Currahee. Now there's a guy worthy of friendship.
* * *
He's got a three day furlough before reporting to Camp Shanks. He goes home to see his folks. His father brings him into his study, they sit side by side.
"I'm...going to tell you something my father told me," Reggie says slowly. He rests a hand on each knee. He looks out the window, eyes on the big oak tree while he talks to his son. "He told me I'd probably die in battle. He told me to go into battle expecting to die, that it would be easier to face the fear that way."
Ron tilts his head, studies the side of his father's face. He looks tired. During the past two years his father's turned into an old man. Seeing his father like this makes his restless, uneasy. "Did Grandfather's advice help?"
Reggie turns from the window. He looks at Ron but his gaze is still far away. He shakes his head.
Ron frowns. If his father lived, if he survived the war, if he won the war, why is he still so defeated?
They drive him to the train station. It's packed with men just like him, they push through columns of uniforms. His mother stops in front of the ticket counter, grabs the front of his olive jacket and pulls his close. He bats her hand away, annoyed.
"Mom, I just had this thing pressed."
She ignores him. "You listen to me," she says, eyes flashing. "You come home from this war. I don't care how you do it, but you come home." She stands on her tip toes, her red braid swings like a pendulum.
Chastened, Ron bends to kiss her cheek. "I will."
"I love you, Ronald Christopher," she whispers. She steps back, gives him a wolf smile.
Ron returns the look, and the affection. "You too."
"You come back," she repeats, tapping his chest.
Ron waves, starts walking, ticket in hand. He turns once, his parents stand side by side. They're holding hands.
Adaira's voice follows him: "And you'd best bring me back some fine souvenirs!"
* * *
The drop's a giant clusterfuck of course. Everyone thought the shitty run-through guaranteed smoothing sailing the night of the actual drop.
Everyone thought wrong.
There's no smooth sailing--or flying. And jumping's not much better with his equipment in the wind and bullets buzzing past. He lands okay, but he's nowhere near the drop zone. The rest of Dog Company is scattered across the peninsula like autumn leaves.
Ron sighs, rolls his neck, shrugs into the darkness. He glances around, get his bearings. He lost his rifle in the jump, but he's still got his pistol and trench knife. He crosses a field, an orchard, well away from the German machine gun set up at the south end of the road.
Within twenty minutes he's hooked up with two more D Company guys and a bunch from the 82nd. By the time they reach Sainte-Mère-Église he's got Roberts, Jansen, Hath, Billings, Wick and Kamp, almost half his platoon. Wick and Kamp haven't liberated any French citizens yet, but they managed to free a number of bottles of wine from a bombed-out cellar.
Ron's first kill isn't a German. It's Jonesy Wick.
He gives the command: cross behind the barn, go left to the ditch, provide harassing fire for 82nd's advance.
Wick wants to go along the hedgerow instead.
Ron gives the command a second time. His voice is a blade, smooth and sharp. He's giving a direct order. They're in the middle of a goddamn war and Jonas Nyland Wick is giving him shit.
Wick shakes his head. "No, sir, I think--"
That's as far as Wick gets before he drops. He lays on the ground, folded in half. The bullet makes a small neat hole between Wick's blue eyes, a substantially bigger one in the back of his head. A muscle tics in Ron's jaw. He lowers his pistol, looks at the remaining men.
"Don't make me tell you a third time."
They follow his command to the letter.
Crouched in the ditch, knee-deep in dirty water, they fire on the Krauts. Ron is an excellent shot; he's always scored high on accuracy. Within minutes the German patrol retreats and Ron advances on the fallen soldiers they leave behind. He picks up a tommy gun, Hath takes a rifle. Ron slings the weapon over his shoulder, rubs his face. Black grease paint smears across his hand.
"This isn't a game," he tells his men. "My job is to keep you alive. When I give you an order, I give it for a reason. You see Wick's hedgerow over there?"
The men look. They nod.
"That hedgerow might look safe. You might think you'll live longer if you can sneak along behind it. Let me tell you something, there aren't any safe places out here. We're at war. You want safe? Tough shit. You're a goddamn Screaming Eagle and you better act like it." He scans their dirty faces, makes eye contact with each and every man. "Do you understand?"
They answer in unison. "Yes, sir."
* * *
They're not supposed to take prisoners. There's no place to keep them, there's no regimental headquaraters set up yet. There aren't enough soldiers to watch POWs anyway. There are still guys trickling in from all over the place.
Waging war is about making choices, picking battles. As a 2nd Luitenant, Ron's choices need to reflect the kind of leader he is, wants to be. To the casual observer he might appear unpredictable. He's not. He studies each and every situation carefully. Cautiously. But he can think quickly, on his feet. Not as fast as Winters, but faster than most.
His goal is to keep his men alive. The ones who obey orders, anyway. If he chooses to wear a reputation that rattles his men, makes troopers whisper behind his back, so be it. War is all about fear. And learning to embrace it.
In the square, there's a group of Easy Company guys. He spots Winters and Compton. He asks Buck for a cigarette. He takes the whole pack.
* * *
By the time Speirs makes it to Brecourt Manor, Winters already has three of the four guns captured. Speirs shakes his head, impressed. Damn. Winters looks relieved to have reinforcements and Ron's happy to help. He doesn't like killing men. He has nothing personally against the Germans. He's simply doing his job. His father was right, after all. Being a soldier, a killer, is his job.
All the men here are soldiers. They're not all killers. He can see it in their eyes, the way they carry their guns, themselves. He knows which ones are killers like him--that loudmouth Guarnere. And which ones aren't--Malarkey. Ron accepts that. Their inibility to want to kill is precisely why Ron has to. If the Germans aren't stopped, the mission will fail. If the mission fails, the war drags on longer, more men die. By performing his duty, Ron Speirs is, in effect, doing his part to end the war. Yes, he has to kill men to do it, but who goes into war thinking men don't die?
Waging war is about making choices. Ron's made his.
Speirs races through a barrage of bullets, eyes on the big gun. The dirt jumps at his feet, there's a ping off his helmet. Hath goes down. Almost there, his finger's on the trigger, firing, firing. Jansen drops, rolls into the tench. And then he's there, one German dead, the other shouting "Nicht schiessen, nicht schiessen!"
Winters has prisoners too from the looks of it. Okay then.
Ron waves at Winters and Compton from across the trench. They've got all four guns. He tries, but can't quite keep the smile off his face.
* * *
There's a group of Easy guys outside the aid station. He recognizes a few of them. They look like kids, for God's sake. Probably because they are kids. The red-haired one with the big eyes is Malarkey, the goofy one's Muck. The kid on his back staring at his hand is Bluth. Or maybe Blithe. Whatever, the kid who went blind. Now that's some weird shit. There's a baby-face brunette next to Muck, and then: More. Speirs doesn't like More. There's something off about him, something that rubs Speirs the wrong way. Or, maybe he's just pissed because More doesn't act afraid of him like the others.
Ron approaches the small group relaxing in the sun, gives them a heads-up. "Enjoy it while it lasts. We'll be moving out soon."
Of course More bitches. "Out of town Lieutenant, already?"
He stares at them, radiates a furious kind of calm. "That's right."
Speirs moves off toward his own company, still seething. More complains behind him.
"Don't they know we're just getting settled here?"
He scowls, adjusts his helmet. Of course they know. This campaign isn't about getting settled, about being comfortable. What bullshit. It's about getting the job done. Too many of the soldiers around here are either too scared, or, like More, not scared enough.
* * *
Private Smith of Easy company is one of the scared ones. He's so scared of finding a Kraut in his foxhole he skewers Floyd Talbert with his bayonet. Tab was wearing a German poncho, but still. These kids are damned jumpy.
They're dug in for the night outside Carentan, D, E and F Companies. The men are safe--mostly--in their foxholes. Dog and Fox are quiet, the only commotion is around Easy. Talbert will live, in fact, he looks better than Smith. Winters limps past, gives Ron a nod. Winters was shot during today's battle, and he's still here, right out in the thick of it.
On his way to check on Roberts and Billings he runs into the not-blind kid again. Jesus, he looks like he's about to piss himself. Still, there's something about him Ron appreciates. The kid's scared shitless, by the war, by Speirs, by everything from the looks of it. But he's still here, just like Winters. He could have let himself be sent back to England, milked the hysterical blindness thing, but he didn't. Not giving up takes guts too.
The kid's name is Albert Blithe. He admits he's basically been sitting on his ass hiding since the jump. He looks sick about it. He looks sick, period. Ron thinks of his father's advice, decides to do Blithe a favor. He squats down beside Blithe's foxhole, studies his pale face, big eyes. The guy next to Blithe is Jimmy or Johnny somebody. He's faking sleep, listening so hard he's gonna pop vein. Ron ignores him.
He considers his father's words. "We're all scared," Speirs tells Blithe flatly. "You hid in that ditch because you think there's still hope. But Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead." That is the only way to fight a war, to win. You can't go into war expecting to die, that's not good enough. His grandfather's advice was wrong. You have to actually let yourself die. That state of mind is the only way to get through it, to come out the other side. "And the sooner you accept that," he says, "the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function. Without mercy. Without compassion. Without remorse. All war depends on it."
Speirs has nothing more to say. He nods a goodbye to Blithe. He can feel the kid's sad eyes on his back as he walks through the trees. It's up to Blithe now.
Ron's whistling softly by the time he finds Billings.
* * *
When the 506th returns to Aldbourne, Speirs brings back a Nazi flag, two Lugers, a P38, a gold ring, and a silver pocket watch. He also brings back a nickname. The guys call him Sparky behind his back. The only reason he lets the men get away with it is because Tommy Billings told a replacement Speirs "has such a fucking temper, you never know what's gonna spark it." And dammit, that's just about priceless.
There's no fall-out from the brass over his shooting Wick. Ron hadn't really expected any, but still. He sends the flag, ring, and pocket watch to his mother. He sells the guns.
Most of the men go on leave to London, Scotland, Paris. About the only other guy who stays in Aldbourne besides Speirs is Winters. Ron invites him to the local pub one night, but Winters declines. Speirs isn't particularly broken up about it, everybody knows Dick Winters doesn't drink. Ron isn't a big drinker himself, but he's restless. At loose ends now that they're back in England. Two jumps have already been canceled and all he wants is to get the war over with, not sit around on his ass.
There's a woman with a bicycle outside the pub. The back tire is flat, and she's staring at it, a little forlorn. As if she can guilt the air back into it. Ron stares at her. She looks up at him, meets his gaze. She doesn't look away. Her name is Clara Jenkins. She has black hair so dark it's blue. She has a smile that's crooked, as if one side of her mouth is heavier than the other. She's twenty-six years old and a widow. Ron walks her home, the crippled bike balanced between them.
By the time they reach her tiny cottage, Ron Speirs thinks he might be in love.
The very thought is ridiculous.
He's fighting a war. He doesn't have time for love. Clara tells him her husband died in Italy. There's no point in loving her, not when Ron's dead too.
Being around Clara is dangerous. Worse than the love, Ron feels something that might be hope around her. He considers things better left alone. Things like possibility and future.
One night in late August Ron paces her front yard and tells Clara all about duty and choice and death. He smokes the entire time, as if he's nervous. He's not. There's no reason to fear a moonlit night or a beautiful woman. He's gone crazy. Maybe the men are right about him. Maybe he's seen too many movies. Maybe he's just stupid.
Clara takes his hand, pulls the cigarette from his lips, kisses him gently. "Life is short," she tells him. "If you want to pretend you're already dead to get through the war, I don't care." She puts a hand to his chest. "But you're not. I can feel your heart beat. I can feel you breathing. You're very much alive, Ron." She takes a drag from his cigarette, exhales a thin stream of smoke. She drops the cigarette to the grass. "I feel alive with I'm with you," she says and her voice trembles. "I haven't felt alive in a very long time. A very long time," she repeats, and leans her forehead against his. He closes his eyes at her touch, opens them. He waits for her to look away.
She doesn't.
This is how Ronald Speirs ends up married three days before the jump into Holland.
* * *
Market-Garden is seventy plus days of rain, shelling, fighting, waiting, rain, shitty British food, waiting, combo tea, and more rain. The drop goes well. The Dutch are ecstatic to see them. But they lose the first bridge, Billings and Jansen are both blown to bits by mortars, and things go rapidly downhill from there.
E Company's in the thick of things in Nuenen, D's on the left flank, F's on the right. They have to pull back, which really rankles, but live soldiers are better than dead heroes.
The Market part of the operation is successful. It's the Garden that's an epic failure. Monty's using the paratroops as infantry, apparently willing to sacrifice hundreds of British and American men for the sake of his doomed plan.
Speirs follows his orders. So do his men. Most the replacements regard him with a combination of awe and fear. It'd be funny if he weren't so fucking tired.
There are rumors. Winters is getting promoted. Easy is getting a new captain. Ron sits on a bale of hay in a ramshackle barn. It rains mercilessly. He checks mechanically to make sure his grenades are still attached to his jacket, his rifle at the ready. He keeps one eye on the radio, the other on the copse of trees across the road. There's no movement.
Except for the rain.
He wants Roberts and Taylor to call in their position.
He wants to feel dry again.
He wants to be in charge of Easy Company.
* * *
The second Battalion is surrounded at Bastogne. The Ardennes are full of dead men and fog. The fog is so thick you can't tell where it ends, where the snow begins. Everything is white. The winters in Maine were cold, but nothing compared to the bitter nights here. Men have trench foot, frostbite, pneumonia. Ron's not one to question orders, but he daydreams about throwing General Taylor into a foxhole for a few nights, sans Christmas dinner and down quilt, just to see how he likes it. He smiles grimly at the thought. The other men look away.
Dog Company is muddling through. Easy's having a harder time. Dike's an empty shirt with no battle experience. Dike probably needs a map, compass, and three hands just to find his goddamn ass. From what he's heard, Lipton and Compton are really running the company. One look at Winters' pinched face and Ron knows Dick wishes he was still in charge.
In early January, Speirs checks the line only to find three Easy guys left at the rear. There's Christenson, the weird little toothbrush guy, and a replacement that looks about twelve. They parrot back the order Dike gave and Ron lets them be. They stare at him like he's the boogie man. He wonders how many POWs he's up to killing by now. Last he heard it was thirty. If it gets up to forty, Harry Welsh owes him twenty bucks.
Ron digs in his pocket with stiff fingers, pulls out a pack of Lucky Strikes. His helmet is perfectly straight. He wears it that way on purpose, it makes it hard for the men to see his eyes. "Care for a smoke?" he asks pleasantly.
Three pairs of eyes stare at him solemnly; three heads shake in unison.
Speirs returns the pack to his pocket carefully. He's just as careful to hide his smile.
* * *
E Company is decimated over the next week. Ask anybody in D Company what they're thankful for and they'll say I'm thankful I ain't in Easy. Not that Dog Company's coming out unscathed. Far from it. But Easy lost Compton, Toye, the loudmouth, most of the second platoon mortar crew, and a corporal named Hoobler. And that's after one of their machine gunners got paralyzed. It's lousy luck.
When Easy attacks Foy, Dog Company's in reserve. Third battalion's on the east side of the village. It's risky to begin with since they have to run over open field, riskier still with Dike in charge. They've got a small window to make it before the Germans catch on and start a mortar barrage. And the attack starts okay, it really does. But Dike freezes halfway there and actually tells the men to hold up in the middle of the fucking field. The men cluster nearby, angry, confused targets. Winters looks like he's about to crawl out of his skin and run out onto the field himself. He's pacing, yelling at Dike to move, move, move. He screams into the radio, at the field, as if his instructions will carry over the sound of bullets, the weight of Dike's panic.
Dike, Luz, and who knows who else are stuck behind a hay stack. Foley's men are at a loss, there's utter chaos. Dike is actually screaming at the men to fall back. Speirs stares, aghast. Jesus Christ, that useless sonofabitch is going to get them all killed. What a goddamn waste. He heads toward battalion HQ, ready to offer himself and his men to Winters. At the very least they can provide covering fire, something.
Holy shit, Winters is actually running toward Dike like he's going to drag the guy bodily away from the hay stack and throw him at the Germans. Ron's never seen him this upset. Now Sink's yelling at Winters to get off the goddamn field. Winters, half furious, half desperate turns and sees Ron.
"Speirs! Get yourself over here! Get out there and relieve Dike and take that attack on in."
And just like that, Ron Speirs is Easy Company C.O. There's no time for surprise or shock or even gratitude--that will come later. Speirs is already racing into the snow, running, because now, now these are his man and he'll be damned if they're going to die out here. Dick Winters just gave him an order.
Norman Dike looks up at him, bleary-eyed, haggard, lost. Ron grabs his collar. "I'm taking over."
Speirs shouts for Lip. "First Sergeant Lipton, what have we got?"
"Sir, most of the Company is spread out here. First platoon tried to go around but they're stretched out--pinned down by a sniper." Lipton points. "I believe he's in the building with the caved-in roof."
Ron assesses the situation. "All right," he says. He's calm because that's what the men need after Dike. Hell, it's what Ron needs. "I want mortars and grenade launchers on that building until it's gone. When it's gone, I want First to go straight in, forget going around. Everybody else, follow me."
Lip, Speirs and Luz end up behind a building parallel to the road. Lipton peers around the corner, stone chips ricochet into his face. He flinches backward. Speirs squints through the smoke. "What do you see, Lipton?"
"Armor and infantry. A lot of infantry."
"I Company's supposed to be on the other side of the town. You see any sign of them?"
"No sir." Lipton hesitates. "Sir, I think they're gonna pull back. If we don't connect with I Company they're gonna slip away."
Nobody's slipping away on his watch. Speirs gets to his feet, pats Lip. "Stay here." He's got to hook up with Item. There's no choice but to make a run for it. It's not even hard. He concentrates on moving his feet, not the explosions around him. Not the smell of gunpowder or cordite. They can't hurt a dead man, so he runs. He doesn't see the surprised German faces, the soldiers scrambling for weapons, trying to aim.
He runs.
Sparky Speirs is a machine. He's not a soldier, he's not afraid of artillery or tanks--he is a tank. Nothing can stop him. And there's the wall; he's up and over, and face to face with the guys from I Company. Lieutenant Zelman grins at him, salutes. Speirs is vibrating with adrenaline, breathing hard, but his return salute is crisp, perfect, steady.
And then he climbs back the way he came. He waits for a bullet, the feel of his body hitting the ground before he even hears the crack of gunfire. It doesn't come. Speirs keeps moving, legs pumping, numb feet propelling him forward. He doesn't slow, doesn't falter. This is his goddamn Currahee and nothing's going to keep him from the top.
Lipton's fifty yards away and by God he's gonna make it, he's gonna make it.
When the men look at Ron now, the fear in their eyes has been replaced with something new: admiration.
* * *
Ron's never felt giddy in his life, so he figures this is as close as he's going to get. The church is warm. The choir is lovely, both the music and the girls. The men (his men) are exhausted. They sit quietly, some relaxed, some in mourning. Some faces reflect peace, others a loss of hope, of faith, of friends. Some men watch the women sing, some bow their heads, close their eyes. Some men simply stare into the distance, haunted. Flickering candles paint wan features gold.
Perconte--the toothbrush guy--is wounded, but Roe's patched him up. They'll ship him to the hospital in the morning. Hospital makes Ron think of nurses, which in turn make him think of his mother. He owes her a letter. Letters. Now that they're headed someplace with actual buildings to sleep in, he'll write more often, both to Adaira and his wife.
Lip's on the other side of the church working up a list of the remaining men in the company. Winters recommended Lipton for a battlefield commission. The way Winters talks, Carwood Lipton can do no wrong. He's half saint, half mother, all soldier. After seeing him on the battlefield today, Ron is inclined to agree. And, since Speirs is Easy's Commanding Officer now, it's Ron's job to give Lip the good news.
Ron sits on a wooden bench, helmet tucked under one arm. He watches Lip write, decides to give him a few more minutes before interrupting. He watches Popeye Winn read. He watches Don Malarkey stare at a broken rosary. He repeats the men's names to himself, committing them to memory. He doesn't have to commit Dick's words to memory. They're not something he's liable to forget. Thank Christ it was you standing there, Ron. Thanks for getting it done.
Speirs doesn't know if God or fate or destiny is responsible for putting him next to Winters at the right moment. But whatever it is, Ron is plenty thankful. And despite the fact hundreds--thousands--of dead Americans are still lying in Belgian snow, despite the fact Easy Company is broken and demoralized almost beyond recognition, despite the fact Speirs hasn't seen Clara in a month, he's perilously close to happy.
While Ron reviews Lipton's list, he catches the First Sergeant glancing at him. Repeatedly. Speirs tucks the pages into his pocket, stands. The next time Lip looks in his direction, Ron catches his gaze, holds it. He knows what Lipton wants, even if he won't ask.
"You wanna know if they're true or not," Speirs says flatly. "The stories about me? Did you ever notice with stories like that, everyone says they heard it from someone who was there. Then when you ask that person, they say they heard it from someone who was there. It's nothing new really." Speirs shakes his head. "I bet if you went back two thousand years, you'd hear a couple centurions standing around yakking about how Tercius lopped off the heads of some Carthaginian prisoners." Ron waits, wondering if Lip will comment on the fact that Ron's answer really isn't an answer at all.
A smile flits over Lipton's face. Or maybe it's just the candle light. "Well, maybe they kept talking about it because they never heard Tercius deny it."
"Maybe that's because Tercius knew there was some value to the men thinking he was the meanest, toughest sonofabitch in the whole Roman Legion." Of course there's more than "some" value to Tercius' men thinking that. It's how Tercius kept his men in line, how he kept them alive. There's no shame in being a tough sonofabitch, as long as you're a fair tough sonofbitch. And sometimes, a little mean is called for. Besides, everyone knows there's a grain or two of truth found at the bottom of a rumor.
Except, of course, when it comes to his mother.
* * *
Dick's right about Lipton. He is a good man. He doesn't care about the rumors that shadow Speirs. He's easy-going and likable. And, by the time they reach Hagenau, he's sick with pneumonia.
Lipton huddles on a couch while Luz plays nursemaid, scrounging up extra blankets and pillows. Winters and Speirs organize a patrol to bring back German POWs from across the river. The patrol ends up in Johnny Martin's capable hands, which gives Ron time to do a little looting. He's got a clock for his mother, some silver candlesticks and a frame for Clara. Clara's pregnant, and the extra fifty a month is nice, but it's not enough. Soldiers have been filling their pockets with the spoils of war since the very first battle. Ron's never been a big fan of tradition, but he doesn't have a problem getting behind this particular one.
Speirs has always liked being a soldier. The rules, the discipline don't bother him. The politics and chickenshit do from time to time. But Sink's a good man and Dick's a better one. Ron doesn't have to spend much time worrying about the higher-ups. He can worry about the men.
There aren't enough replacements. And the guys they are sending over are West Point officers like Jones. Jones is so new his salute still squeaks. Jesus, it's ridiculous. He spends a fair amount of time with Winters, the rest of it getting to know the men.
He respects--even likes--Lipton. Luz is a decent guy, although he's not half as funny as he thinks he is. That said, George does an imitation of Speirs offering cigarettes to hapless newbies that makes Ron laugh every time. Not that he'll ever admit it.
Christenson's a great guy. Really knows what he's doing, and better yet, knows what everybody else is supposed to be doing. Liebgott's got an attitude. He's not as smart as Webster or Ron, but the little bastard can twist his words like a knife. Ron's not the only mean sonofabitch in Easy, and Ron likes Joe for that alone. Malarkey's a good sergeant, but he's a little empty around the eyes after Bastogne. Dick says he's been fighting more consecutive days than any other guy in the Company. When they get off the front line Speirs wants to see if he can get him a pass to Paris or Rheims.
Alton More still pisses him off. And not just because he seems to steal more stuff than Ron does. Although...that might have something to do with it. Nixon's a decent intelligence officer. Speirs likes him, but doesn't respect him. The guy spends too much time inside a bottle.
Jackson, Talbert, Powers and Randleman are great guys. Especially Jackson. The guy acts like a real happy-go-lucky type, but he's tough as nails. He's missing half an ear thanks to a shell fragment in Normandy. And he helped save Smokey Gordon's life by commondeering a jeep in Jack's Woods. But Ron's favorite member of Easy Company is Chuck Grant, hands down.
Grant exudes both competence and charisma. He's popular with the veterans and replacements alike. He's extremely capable and can fill in for pretty much any member of his platoon on a moment's notice. Ron's not the kind of guy who plays favorites, but if he did, he'd let Grant take first crack at the contents of the safe in HQ's basement.
The patrol across the river is a success: they capture two Germans. The patrol is also a failure: Eugene Jackson dies. Eugene Jackson, who's been to Normandy, to Holland, who lived through Bastogne, walked into his own fucking grenade.
Ron stands outside, fists clenched, while Jackson begs alternately to live, and for the men to just kill him, to put him out of his misery because oh God oh Jesus it hurts it hurts it hurts. Ron stands outside, teeth bared, until Jackson goes quiet and Roe comes out, white-faced and tight-lipped.
Ron stands outside until all the men are gone. Then he slips into the dim building and sits beside the still body of Eugene Jackson.
* * *
In Germany, Speirs discovers his first love is not actually Clara. Neither is stealing for her, although he's pretty fond of sweeping everything that's not nailed down in any given room into his helmet.
His first love is Easy Company. He supposes he felt affection for Dog Company as well. But the men of Easy are something apart from the rest, something better. He's not biased. He's not being an asshole. Well, not about this. He can remember the first time he saw Easy Company at Toccoa, saw the men marching through the night while the other companies--Dog included--laughed. The other men thanked God they weren't under Sobel, that they didn't have to do daily runs up a friggin' mountain. Ron never laughed. It's no secret he's always wanted to be the best.
And now he is.
The war is winding down. They can feel it, even before the German Army starts surrenduring en masse. The men are more careful now, after Jackson. Winters is adament about it. No more casualties. Some of the men roll their eyes at Winters' precautions. Ron doesn't.
The weather improves. So does morale. Germany is beautiful, all green hills and farms. The women are blond with big eyes and bigger tits. When Speirs goes to collect his latest bounty from Janovec, he finds the private fraternizing enthusiastically with one of the local frauleins. Still, Janovec knows respect is more important than dignity and stands naked beside the bed, various appendages at full salute.
Ron doesn't give a shit who the private fucks, as long as he makes Speirs' orders his primary concern. Namely, Any Nazi knick-knack, weapon or silver you find might be in your sweaty hands, but it actually belongs to Captain Ronald C. Speirs. Therefore, it is your duty to bring any and all such objects to me. And, like a good soldier, Janovec obeys.
"Where's my stuff?" Ron demands. All he sees is a naked private and a red-faced girl. Neither interest him.
Janovec points. "I thought I'd leave it over there, sir."
Sure enough, there's his loot. Ron grabs the silver tray of candle sticks and fancy goblets and promptly leaves. He walks to the PX. One the way, he narrowly misses being run down by Nixon's driver who's apparently drunk by association. He hands everything over to Vest so he can send it to Clara. Vest, sadly, is of the type who dislikes silence. He's plagued by the need to make small talk and makes the mistake of thinking Speirs gives a shit. Worse, he insinuates.
"Boy, your folks are gonna have quite the collection by the time you get--"
Speirs turns in the doorway, his expression substantially slowing Vest's words.
"--home. Sir."
Ron looks the Private in the eye, gives him a smile Adaira would be proud of. Slow, deliberate, and dangerous. "Finders keepers," he whispers. There. That ought to make the kid think twice before opening his mouth.
* * *
For the first time in his life, Ron avoids eye contact. He looks past everyone. He looks at shoulders, necks, ears, hands. He looks at feet, at the ground. He looks at the gray sky, the smoke, the miles of twisted wire. But sometimes, he accidentally looks, it's habit, and the eyes he sees are bloodshot, crying, stunned. Jesus fucking Christ, Winters is clenching his teeth so hard it looks like he's going to break his jaw.
Ron has no idea what to do. There are no orders for this situation. He can understand shooting POWs, he can understand acts of war, the gray morality--or lack thereof--in a soldier's life. But a camp full of Jewish civilians systematically starved and worked to death is--
He doesn't even know.
Speirs turns away from Liebgott's agonized face and seeks out Grant. Speirs voice is low, calm, and deadly. "I want you to find out everything you can about who's responsible for this place. I want to know what happened to the guards, the people who ran it, anything you can find."
Grant swallows, nods. He's got a rag pressed to his nose. His eyes are dry, but too big for his face.
Ron glances back at Lieb's bowed head. "And when you've got all the names and locations you can find, you come to me. Understand?"
* * *
He expects to feel something when the war ends in Europe. Maybe relief. Or elation. If nothing else, a sense of excitement at seeing Clara and his son. He feels none of these things. VE Day is just another day. The war might be over, but he's still on duty. He's neck deep in displaced persons and red tape. His men have simply exchanged patrols for guard duty. They're glorified crossing guards, directing endless traffic.
Too many of the men mix their newly minted boredom with alcohol. It creates a deadly combination. Thankfully, none of the Easy Company guys cause trouble. They know better. Even if they weren't afraid to face Speirs--a sure sign of combat fatigue--none of them, even at war's end, want to disappoint Winters.
Only there's still a war going on over in Japan. And it's only a matter of time before the 506th ends up on that side of the globe. Ron collects his souvenirs, drinks tea, and thinks. Nix and Winters are going to the Pacific Theater. Welsh is going home to Kitty. Most of the men are desperate to get home, although few will admit it. Ron watches the footage of Japanese kamikaze pilots and takes another sip of tea. The British have lousy food, but the tea's not half bad when you get used to it. He taps one finger against the rim of the cup. Well, if the 506th is going, the men will have to get ready. The replacements especially need a lot of training: close order drills, weapons training, physical training, the works.
The thought of more fighting doesn't bother him, really. It's just another fact. He accepts it without question, the same as the sky is blue, the grass is green. Does that make him a good man, or a bad one? A good soldier, but a bad husband? Ron doesn't know. He decides not to spend too much time thinking about it.
At least he'll have a chance to get some decent Jap souvenirs.
* * *
Grant's been shot.
Sergeant Chuck Grant's been shot in the head.
Not just that, he's been shot by an American. A fucking replacement, a drunk sonofabitch asshole whose already killed two Germans and an English officer.
It's bad enough Janovec died because of a fucking barrel, that Shifty Powers was hit by a goddamn truck on the way home, but this? This is fucking bullshit.
Ron holds Grant's hand while the battalion doc tells him Grant's not gonna make it. He holds Grant's hand because Grant is one of his men, Grant is a good man, Grant is responsible, he's done everything he's supposed to, he survived the war, and now, some drunk fucker is on the loose shooting up his Easy Company men.
Speirs doesn't pray. He doesn't believe in God. But right now, he wishes he did. He wishes he had someone, something to beg--or threaten--for Chuck's life.
"You can't operate on him?" Roe asks. He's holding up a jar of blood and plasma that drips into Grant's arm.
"Not me," the doc says. "You need a brain surgeon. And even if you had one, I don't think there's any hope."
Ron doesn't put much stock in hope but he believes in surgeons. Not this useless fuck of a doctor, but in general, he believes in medicine. In nurses.
A brain surgeon? He has someone to threaten after all.
* * *
The Kraut peers from behind the curtain.
Speirs looks in at him, taps on the glass with the barrel of his gun. "Open up."
Grant's in the jeep and this is taking too long, too fucking long, goddammit, fuck. If this surgeon doesn't open the door in ten seconds, Ron's gonna blow his way inside, he's gonna--he's gonna--
The door opens.
Doctor Rudolph Haff is in his pajamas. Ron reaches for his arm, almost gentle.
"Come with me." His voice is quiet. He is extremely calm. He is working very hard to stay calm because if he raises his voice he will start screaming. He will scream at the surgeon, at Roe, at Grant. He'll scream until he's hoarse, until his lungs give out, until his vocal chords bleed, until he finds a way to scream the bullet right out of Grant's skull.
Haff hesitates. "Why?"
Speirs is still calm. His words are polished, careful. "Get in the jeep."
Haff takes another look at Ron's face, reaches for his coat. He walks toward the vehicle. "Where are we going?"
"To the hospital. Get in."
The surgeon glances toward the jeep, back at Speirs. His hair is silver in the moonlight, disheveled. He stares at Ron, unafraid. "If you're going to shoot me, shoot me," he says bluntly. His accent is heavy, but his English is good. "If you're not, put the gun away."
Speirs' patience is thin, so thin now; it's a thread and he can feel it pulling tight, fraying, breaking. He raises the gun, points. "Get in the jeep now."
Incredibly, the surgeon ignores him, looks from Grant to Roe. "What happened to him?"
"Shot in the head," Roe says. He's still at Grant's side, holding the container of his goddamn blood.
"Half hour ago," Speirs adds, but it feels like days. Forever ago. Were they even in Bastogne this long? He reaches out, taps Haff on the arm with the pistol. Hurry up.
"If you want him to live, you'll help me," Haff says simply. "First, by putting that away." He looks pointedly at the gun.
Ron opens his mouth, closes it. He wants to argue. He wants to intimidate. These are things he's good at. But he can also follow orders. He doesn't want to, not now, but if this will help Grant, he'll do it. He puts the gun away.
"Let's go." He's so quiet his words are nearly a whisper.
Now it's the surgeon's turn to reach for Ron's arm. "Let me drive, we'll get there faster."
Speirs considers the offer. Haff knows the area, where the hospital is. Most important of all, he's not the one straddling the line between rage and panic. Fine. This is okay. Haff is helping. This is going to work. It's only been half an hour. Grant is strong, he's a tough bastard, he'll make it. He will. Ron turns abruptly from the driver's door. He gets in the backseat where he can hold Grant's hand.
* * *
Tab and Luz get to their feet as soon as they see him.
His gun is back out. It feels good in his hand. Welcome. "Where is he?"
Tab has his own question. "How's Grant?"
Ron ignores him. "Where is he?" he repeats.
Tab tries again. "Is he okay?"
Ron is done with patience, with waiting. He's done. This time he yells the question and his voice is a slap. Luz and Tab both stare at the closed door. That's when Ron is aware of the noise, the sound of voices.
Speirs opens the door. The men he knows best are all here. Winn, Randleman, Perconte, Martin, More, Christenson, Malarkey, Liebgott, Heffron. No, not all the men. The room goes quiet, all eyes on Ron.
"This him?"
The bastard who shot Grant sits in a chair, gagging, coughing, bleeding. He is Private James Manne which is ironic because Jimmy's not a man at all. He's nothing. A man doesn't get drunk and shoot men--noncoms--in the head because he ran out of gas for a fucking jeep. A man doesn't shoot Charles Grant in the head like he's putting down a fucking dog.
Randleman nods. "That's him."
Manne coughs some more.
"A replacement with I Company," Bull continues.
Speirs face goes rigid. I Company. He ran through a fucking German platoon to reach I Company and this is his thanks. He feels no surprise, no regret. This is simply another fact. There is nothing but rage. It burns out of him, through his uniform, his hair, his eyes, his pours. He can feel the air boil around him. He's killed countless Germans but he's never, never felt hatred like this. His hatred for the German soldiers, the Nazis, it's all been abstract. Here, now, it's focused.
It's very, very clear.
Ron asks the not-man a question. "Where's the weapon?"
Manne bleeds up at Speirs. His eyes glitter. "What weapon?" His voice is bravado. It smirks.
Speirs smashes the gun against Manne's head. He can feel the wet crack of impact, he can feel the way Manne''s head rocks back, the pain in his own hand, and he's glad, he is so glad.
Ron tells the private something he learned a long time ago. Even now, he is a good Commanding Officer. He is reasonable. "When you talk to an Officer you say sir." He looks at Manne, he looks at him, into him, and Ronald Speirs doesn't know it, but there are several Easy Company men who will have nightmares about that look for the next twenty years.
Speirs takes a step back, raises the gun, puts it right up to Manne's face. The private's bravado is gone now, the only thing coming out of him is a continuous gasping, choking noise. Now there's just blood and snot and tears and Ron wants to pull the trigger. He wants to pull the trigger and put a bullet into Manne's stupid fucking face. An eye for an eye. A bullet for a bullet.
Only when he looks into Manne's ruined face he sees Jonesy Wick. Jonesy Wick standing in Normandy, suggesting they go behind fucking a hedge. And some of the anger, just a little, but enough, leaks away. He can accept the fact his first kill during this war was an American soldier. But he's not sure he can let his last kill be one as well.
Ron's killed his fair share of men. He's not sorry. He'd do it again. He'd help Liebgott track down Nazis all day. He'd kill a hundred POWs with a smile on his face, he'd offer them a pack of cigarettes each before mowing them down.
But the thing in the chair in front of him doesn't deserve a bullet. He doesn't deserve a quick death. And regardless of what Speirs wants, there are his men to consider, and they come first. Always. He doesn't need to take his eyes off Manne to know Malarkey and Perconte are sick of death. So is Liebgott, no matter what he says. Speirs doesn't need to see Pat and Johnny and Popeye to know they want him to release the trigger as badly as they want him to pull it.
Ron holds the gun in Manne's face.
One squeeze, that's all. One bullet and it's all over.
Ron's hand begins to shake.
The room is silent except for Manne's gasps.
His arm begins to shake. Ron looks at his hand. Manne's blood is all over his weapon, his fist. Ron's had a lot of blood on his hands over the past thirteen months. He's accepted that. Made peace with it. But he's not willing to let this pathetic bastard's blood dirty his hands any more than it already has. He won't kill this soldier in front of his men. He won't put them through more death when they've already had so much. Death doesn't change anything. Manne's death isn't going to fix Grant, no matter how much Ron wants it to.
Disgusted, Ron wipes his hand clean on Manne's shoulder.
He makes his choice and clicks the safety back on. The sound of a dozen men exhaling fills the room. It's the sound of instanteous, palpable relief. He made the right call. Ron removes his hat, says "Have the MPs take care of this piece of shit." He stalks out, shoulders stiff, head high.
Tab's voice follows him. "Grant's dead?"
"Nope." Ron stops, glances back at Talbert, holsters his weapon. "Kraut doctor says he's gonna make it."
Tab's voice goes wobbly. "Thank God."
Ron returns to the jeep. God has nothing to do with it. Doctor Haff does. Eugene Roe does. But mostly, the fact that Grant's still alive is on Grant alone. His strength, his determination, his will to live.
The man's a hero. And when Grant wakes up, the first thing Ron's going to do is tell him so.
~end~
the real Ronald C. Speirs
Author: buffyaddict13
Fandom: Band of Brothers
Rating: R for swearing and violence
Words: ~9,000
Characters/Pairing: Gen, Ronald C. Speirs and glimpses of pretty much everyone in Easy Company
Disclaimer: I wrote this based on the character Ron Speirs in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers, not the real man. I mean no disrespect to the real Ron Speirs or his family.
Summary: Character study of Ron Speirs before, and during Band of Brothers.
A/N 1: The first time I watched Band of Brothers I thought Speirs was creepy and kind of horrible. Then I realized he held Chuck Grant's hand in "Points" and everything changed. I might not agree with everything Speirs did, I might not accept a cigarette from him, but I respect him, and I kind of love him.
A/N 2: Thank you to my wonderful beta hiyacynth . I'd be lost without you. I'm worse at maps than Sobel.
Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing. But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.
~Curtis Lemay
He learns early on that eye contact flusters certain kinds of people. Specifically, people like his fifth grade teacher, Miss Schaefer. She’s got him after class, arms and mouth folded into a frown, telling him he ought to be expelled for punching Clancy Schmidt on the playground.
He stares at her.
He doesn’t blink.
He doesn’t say a word.
He won’t get expelled. Clancy threw the first punch anyway. Clancy just happened to hit with words, so nobody thinks it counts. Ron had to hit back, only he used his fist. No sense confusing Schmidt with big words. Besides, nobody walks away from calling his mom a whore. All his mother did was wear a red dress to church, if that makes her a whore, looks like old Mrs. Cuddy's making some extra dough on the side too.
Anyway, there are plenty of rumors Clancy’s mom wears considerably less on Saturday nights.
When Ron walks out of Miss Schaefer’s classroom he’s got extra homework. It doesn't matter. School is easy. But his mom isn’t.
Ron’s an only child. He likes it that way. His mother’s Scottish. He was born in Edinburgh, and loves to listen to her talk. She reads him Grimm’s Fairytales, the newspaper, articles out of Life Magazine, anything and everything. She has a temper, but it rarely comes out. Sometimes Ron even goads her on purpose, just to hear her brogue grow thick and red, just like her hair.
His father was in the the Great War. He was wounded, spent time recovering in a British hospital where he met a nurse named Adaira. A year later his parents were married. Two years later Ronald was born.
His mother has nightmares about the soldiers she treated. She wakes up crying sometimes. She talks about men who were gassed, men who spit bloody foam, men who's lungs turned to liquid, men riddled with bullet holes. Ron’s not supposed to listen through the wall, but he does.
Ron can never hear what his father says, but the soft murmur of his deep voice always calms his mother. He wonders why his dad never cries. After all, he's the one who had to kill people. All his mom had to do was watch them die.
Reginald Speirs has a box in his study full of medals and ribbons. Ron takes them out sometimes, spreads them on the kitchen table. Ron asks what they’re for and his father always gives the same reply: “For doing my duty.” Reggie never meets his son's gaze when he says it.
Ron's been in Portland, Maine twice as long as he was in Scotland, and he's still bitter about moving. The city is too big, too small, too boring. It’s filled with idiots and snobs. It’s dirty, too cold in winter, too hot in summer. His mother pats his arm affectionately with each complaint. She laughs. Her teeth are crooked and it gives her smile a wildness that Ron loves. It makes him think of wolves and moors and the Green Lady of Scotland. She winks and tells him as soon as he gets a job he can move himself right back there.
Ron isn’t interested in a job. He’s interested in the military. His father says they’re the same thing.
He joins the Army right out of high school. He likes military life. He likes learning about weapons, strategy, rules. He can read any map, find his way with or without a compass, but he’s bad at names. He doesn’t talk much-purposely. Just like certain people don’t like eye contact, there are those who can’t abide silence. They feel the need to fill it with anything: excuses, compliments, complaints, the goddamn weather forecast.
By the time Ron earns a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant, he’s got the beginnings of a pretty decent reputation well under way. The other officers describe him alternately as stand-offish, hard-headed, irritating, friendly, by-the-book, too demanding, too lax. No one can agree on who exactly Ron Speirs is. Ron just smiles benignly. He knows who he is.
The privates eyeball him nervously. Ron doesn’t mind a few cases of nerves, but he does not abide disrespect . That’s his one rule. His men don’t have to stand the straightest or run the fastest but they do have to obey orders. Every time.
Disobeying a direct order isn’t just disobeying Ron, it’s disobeying the Army as a whole. It’s a dereliction of duty. Ron doesn’t expect to win medals or find love in some far-off country. But he expects to be his best, and he expects no less from his men.
He likes the infantry fine, but after Pearl Harbor he volunteers for the new paratroop outfit. If he’s going to end up in Europe or the Pacific he wants to know the man next to him's got his back. Talk about being your best.
Ron ends up at Camp Toccoa as part of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. He’s with Charlie Company first, then moves over to second battalion to lead one of Dog Company’s platoons. The training is hard--the hardest Ron's gone through--but Dog Company’s a good outfit.
The problem is, Easy Company’s better.
Every company runs up Currahee. But Easy does it every day, sometimes twice. Sobel sends them on forced marches every Friday night in full gear. Sobel's a bastard, but he knows how to get men ready for war.
Ron doesn't bother with friends. He has comrades. As long as he can depend on his fellow troopers, he doesn't need to know what their favorite color is, whether they like Glenn Miller or Benny Goodman. Most of the guys only care about getting laid or drunk. Ron's done his share of both, but there's more to life than beer and big tits. More often than not, Ron stays on base on weekends.
So does Lieutenant Dick Winters.
Ron sees Winters around Toccoa plenty, leading the men in calisthenics, teaching them how to assemble weapons, hanging around with Lewis Nixon. The word on Winters is the same all across the board: he's a decent, fair, a real stand-up guy. It's obvious the Easy Company guys can't stand Sobel, but they think the world of Winters.
Ron leans against the barracks, watches Dick lead the men toward Currahee. Now there's a guy worthy of friendship.
* * *
He's got a three day furlough before reporting to Camp Shanks. He goes home to see his folks. His father brings him into his study, they sit side by side.
"I'm...going to tell you something my father told me," Reggie says slowly. He rests a hand on each knee. He looks out the window, eyes on the big oak tree while he talks to his son. "He told me I'd probably die in battle. He told me to go into battle expecting to die, that it would be easier to face the fear that way."
Ron tilts his head, studies the side of his father's face. He looks tired. During the past two years his father's turned into an old man. Seeing his father like this makes his restless, uneasy. "Did Grandfather's advice help?"
Reggie turns from the window. He looks at Ron but his gaze is still far away. He shakes his head.
Ron frowns. If his father lived, if he survived the war, if he won the war, why is he still so defeated?
They drive him to the train station. It's packed with men just like him, they push through columns of uniforms. His mother stops in front of the ticket counter, grabs the front of his olive jacket and pulls his close. He bats her hand away, annoyed.
"Mom, I just had this thing pressed."
She ignores him. "You listen to me," she says, eyes flashing. "You come home from this war. I don't care how you do it, but you come home." She stands on her tip toes, her red braid swings like a pendulum.
Chastened, Ron bends to kiss her cheek. "I will."
"I love you, Ronald Christopher," she whispers. She steps back, gives him a wolf smile.
Ron returns the look, and the affection. "You too."
"You come back," she repeats, tapping his chest.
Ron waves, starts walking, ticket in hand. He turns once, his parents stand side by side. They're holding hands.
Adaira's voice follows him: "And you'd best bring me back some fine souvenirs!"
* * *
The drop's a giant clusterfuck of course. Everyone thought the shitty run-through guaranteed smoothing sailing the night of the actual drop.
Everyone thought wrong.
There's no smooth sailing--or flying. And jumping's not much better with his equipment in the wind and bullets buzzing past. He lands okay, but he's nowhere near the drop zone. The rest of Dog Company is scattered across the peninsula like autumn leaves.
Ron sighs, rolls his neck, shrugs into the darkness. He glances around, get his bearings. He lost his rifle in the jump, but he's still got his pistol and trench knife. He crosses a field, an orchard, well away from the German machine gun set up at the south end of the road.
Within twenty minutes he's hooked up with two more D Company guys and a bunch from the 82nd. By the time they reach Sainte-Mère-Église he's got Roberts, Jansen, Hath, Billings, Wick and Kamp, almost half his platoon. Wick and Kamp haven't liberated any French citizens yet, but they managed to free a number of bottles of wine from a bombed-out cellar.
Ron's first kill isn't a German. It's Jonesy Wick.
He gives the command: cross behind the barn, go left to the ditch, provide harassing fire for 82nd's advance.
Wick wants to go along the hedgerow instead.
Ron gives the command a second time. His voice is a blade, smooth and sharp. He's giving a direct order. They're in the middle of a goddamn war and Jonas Nyland Wick is giving him shit.
Wick shakes his head. "No, sir, I think--"
That's as far as Wick gets before he drops. He lays on the ground, folded in half. The bullet makes a small neat hole between Wick's blue eyes, a substantially bigger one in the back of his head. A muscle tics in Ron's jaw. He lowers his pistol, looks at the remaining men.
"Don't make me tell you a third time."
They follow his command to the letter.
Crouched in the ditch, knee-deep in dirty water, they fire on the Krauts. Ron is an excellent shot; he's always scored high on accuracy. Within minutes the German patrol retreats and Ron advances on the fallen soldiers they leave behind. He picks up a tommy gun, Hath takes a rifle. Ron slings the weapon over his shoulder, rubs his face. Black grease paint smears across his hand.
"This isn't a game," he tells his men. "My job is to keep you alive. When I give you an order, I give it for a reason. You see Wick's hedgerow over there?"
The men look. They nod.
"That hedgerow might look safe. You might think you'll live longer if you can sneak along behind it. Let me tell you something, there aren't any safe places out here. We're at war. You want safe? Tough shit. You're a goddamn Screaming Eagle and you better act like it." He scans their dirty faces, makes eye contact with each and every man. "Do you understand?"
They answer in unison. "Yes, sir."
* * *
They're not supposed to take prisoners. There's no place to keep them, there's no regimental headquaraters set up yet. There aren't enough soldiers to watch POWs anyway. There are still guys trickling in from all over the place.
Waging war is about making choices, picking battles. As a 2nd Luitenant, Ron's choices need to reflect the kind of leader he is, wants to be. To the casual observer he might appear unpredictable. He's not. He studies each and every situation carefully. Cautiously. But he can think quickly, on his feet. Not as fast as Winters, but faster than most.
His goal is to keep his men alive. The ones who obey orders, anyway. If he chooses to wear a reputation that rattles his men, makes troopers whisper behind his back, so be it. War is all about fear. And learning to embrace it.
In the square, there's a group of Easy Company guys. He spots Winters and Compton. He asks Buck for a cigarette. He takes the whole pack.
* * *
By the time Speirs makes it to Brecourt Manor, Winters already has three of the four guns captured. Speirs shakes his head, impressed. Damn. Winters looks relieved to have reinforcements and Ron's happy to help. He doesn't like killing men. He has nothing personally against the Germans. He's simply doing his job. His father was right, after all. Being a soldier, a killer, is his job.
All the men here are soldiers. They're not all killers. He can see it in their eyes, the way they carry their guns, themselves. He knows which ones are killers like him--that loudmouth Guarnere. And which ones aren't--Malarkey. Ron accepts that. Their inibility to want to kill is precisely why Ron has to. If the Germans aren't stopped, the mission will fail. If the mission fails, the war drags on longer, more men die. By performing his duty, Ron Speirs is, in effect, doing his part to end the war. Yes, he has to kill men to do it, but who goes into war thinking men don't die?
Waging war is about making choices. Ron's made his.
Speirs races through a barrage of bullets, eyes on the big gun. The dirt jumps at his feet, there's a ping off his helmet. Hath goes down. Almost there, his finger's on the trigger, firing, firing. Jansen drops, rolls into the tench. And then he's there, one German dead, the other shouting "Nicht schiessen, nicht schiessen!"
Winters has prisoners too from the looks of it. Okay then.
Ron waves at Winters and Compton from across the trench. They've got all four guns. He tries, but can't quite keep the smile off his face.
* * *
There's a group of Easy guys outside the aid station. He recognizes a few of them. They look like kids, for God's sake. Probably because they are kids. The red-haired one with the big eyes is Malarkey, the goofy one's Muck. The kid on his back staring at his hand is Bluth. Or maybe Blithe. Whatever, the kid who went blind. Now that's some weird shit. There's a baby-face brunette next to Muck, and then: More. Speirs doesn't like More. There's something off about him, something that rubs Speirs the wrong way. Or, maybe he's just pissed because More doesn't act afraid of him like the others.
Ron approaches the small group relaxing in the sun, gives them a heads-up. "Enjoy it while it lasts. We'll be moving out soon."
Of course More bitches. "Out of town Lieutenant, already?"
He stares at them, radiates a furious kind of calm. "That's right."
Speirs moves off toward his own company, still seething. More complains behind him.
"Don't they know we're just getting settled here?"
He scowls, adjusts his helmet. Of course they know. This campaign isn't about getting settled, about being comfortable. What bullshit. It's about getting the job done. Too many of the soldiers around here are either too scared, or, like More, not scared enough.
* * *
Private Smith of Easy company is one of the scared ones. He's so scared of finding a Kraut in his foxhole he skewers Floyd Talbert with his bayonet. Tab was wearing a German poncho, but still. These kids are damned jumpy.
They're dug in for the night outside Carentan, D, E and F Companies. The men are safe--mostly--in their foxholes. Dog and Fox are quiet, the only commotion is around Easy. Talbert will live, in fact, he looks better than Smith. Winters limps past, gives Ron a nod. Winters was shot during today's battle, and he's still here, right out in the thick of it.
On his way to check on Roberts and Billings he runs into the not-blind kid again. Jesus, he looks like he's about to piss himself. Still, there's something about him Ron appreciates. The kid's scared shitless, by the war, by Speirs, by everything from the looks of it. But he's still here, just like Winters. He could have let himself be sent back to England, milked the hysterical blindness thing, but he didn't. Not giving up takes guts too.
The kid's name is Albert Blithe. He admits he's basically been sitting on his ass hiding since the jump. He looks sick about it. He looks sick, period. Ron thinks of his father's advice, decides to do Blithe a favor. He squats down beside Blithe's foxhole, studies his pale face, big eyes. The guy next to Blithe is Jimmy or Johnny somebody. He's faking sleep, listening so hard he's gonna pop vein. Ron ignores him.
He considers his father's words. "We're all scared," Speirs tells Blithe flatly. "You hid in that ditch because you think there's still hope. But Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead." That is the only way to fight a war, to win. You can't go into war expecting to die, that's not good enough. His grandfather's advice was wrong. You have to actually let yourself die. That state of mind is the only way to get through it, to come out the other side. "And the sooner you accept that," he says, "the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier is supposed to function. Without mercy. Without compassion. Without remorse. All war depends on it."
Speirs has nothing more to say. He nods a goodbye to Blithe. He can feel the kid's sad eyes on his back as he walks through the trees. It's up to Blithe now.
Ron's whistling softly by the time he finds Billings.
* * *
When the 506th returns to Aldbourne, Speirs brings back a Nazi flag, two Lugers, a P38, a gold ring, and a silver pocket watch. He also brings back a nickname. The guys call him Sparky behind his back. The only reason he lets the men get away with it is because Tommy Billings told a replacement Speirs "has such a fucking temper, you never know what's gonna spark it." And dammit, that's just about priceless.
There's no fall-out from the brass over his shooting Wick. Ron hadn't really expected any, but still. He sends the flag, ring, and pocket watch to his mother. He sells the guns.
Most of the men go on leave to London, Scotland, Paris. About the only other guy who stays in Aldbourne besides Speirs is Winters. Ron invites him to the local pub one night, but Winters declines. Speirs isn't particularly broken up about it, everybody knows Dick Winters doesn't drink. Ron isn't a big drinker himself, but he's restless. At loose ends now that they're back in England. Two jumps have already been canceled and all he wants is to get the war over with, not sit around on his ass.
There's a woman with a bicycle outside the pub. The back tire is flat, and she's staring at it, a little forlorn. As if she can guilt the air back into it. Ron stares at her. She looks up at him, meets his gaze. She doesn't look away. Her name is Clara Jenkins. She has black hair so dark it's blue. She has a smile that's crooked, as if one side of her mouth is heavier than the other. She's twenty-six years old and a widow. Ron walks her home, the crippled bike balanced between them.
By the time they reach her tiny cottage, Ron Speirs thinks he might be in love.
The very thought is ridiculous.
He's fighting a war. He doesn't have time for love. Clara tells him her husband died in Italy. There's no point in loving her, not when Ron's dead too.
Being around Clara is dangerous. Worse than the love, Ron feels something that might be hope around her. He considers things better left alone. Things like possibility and future.
One night in late August Ron paces her front yard and tells Clara all about duty and choice and death. He smokes the entire time, as if he's nervous. He's not. There's no reason to fear a moonlit night or a beautiful woman. He's gone crazy. Maybe the men are right about him. Maybe he's seen too many movies. Maybe he's just stupid.
Clara takes his hand, pulls the cigarette from his lips, kisses him gently. "Life is short," she tells him. "If you want to pretend you're already dead to get through the war, I don't care." She puts a hand to his chest. "But you're not. I can feel your heart beat. I can feel you breathing. You're very much alive, Ron." She takes a drag from his cigarette, exhales a thin stream of smoke. She drops the cigarette to the grass. "I feel alive with I'm with you," she says and her voice trembles. "I haven't felt alive in a very long time. A very long time," she repeats, and leans her forehead against his. He closes his eyes at her touch, opens them. He waits for her to look away.
She doesn't.
This is how Ronald Speirs ends up married three days before the jump into Holland.
* * *
Market-Garden is seventy plus days of rain, shelling, fighting, waiting, rain, shitty British food, waiting, combo tea, and more rain. The drop goes well. The Dutch are ecstatic to see them. But they lose the first bridge, Billings and Jansen are both blown to bits by mortars, and things go rapidly downhill from there.
E Company's in the thick of things in Nuenen, D's on the left flank, F's on the right. They have to pull back, which really rankles, but live soldiers are better than dead heroes.
The Market part of the operation is successful. It's the Garden that's an epic failure. Monty's using the paratroops as infantry, apparently willing to sacrifice hundreds of British and American men for the sake of his doomed plan.
Speirs follows his orders. So do his men. Most the replacements regard him with a combination of awe and fear. It'd be funny if he weren't so fucking tired.
There are rumors. Winters is getting promoted. Easy is getting a new captain. Ron sits on a bale of hay in a ramshackle barn. It rains mercilessly. He checks mechanically to make sure his grenades are still attached to his jacket, his rifle at the ready. He keeps one eye on the radio, the other on the copse of trees across the road. There's no movement.
Except for the rain.
He wants Roberts and Taylor to call in their position.
He wants to feel dry again.
He wants to be in charge of Easy Company.
* * *
The second Battalion is surrounded at Bastogne. The Ardennes are full of dead men and fog. The fog is so thick you can't tell where it ends, where the snow begins. Everything is white. The winters in Maine were cold, but nothing compared to the bitter nights here. Men have trench foot, frostbite, pneumonia. Ron's not one to question orders, but he daydreams about throwing General Taylor into a foxhole for a few nights, sans Christmas dinner and down quilt, just to see how he likes it. He smiles grimly at the thought. The other men look away.
Dog Company is muddling through. Easy's having a harder time. Dike's an empty shirt with no battle experience. Dike probably needs a map, compass, and three hands just to find his goddamn ass. From what he's heard, Lipton and Compton are really running the company. One look at Winters' pinched face and Ron knows Dick wishes he was still in charge.
In early January, Speirs checks the line only to find three Easy guys left at the rear. There's Christenson, the weird little toothbrush guy, and a replacement that looks about twelve. They parrot back the order Dike gave and Ron lets them be. They stare at him like he's the boogie man. He wonders how many POWs he's up to killing by now. Last he heard it was thirty. If it gets up to forty, Harry Welsh owes him twenty bucks.
Ron digs in his pocket with stiff fingers, pulls out a pack of Lucky Strikes. His helmet is perfectly straight. He wears it that way on purpose, it makes it hard for the men to see his eyes. "Care for a smoke?" he asks pleasantly.
Three pairs of eyes stare at him solemnly; three heads shake in unison.
Speirs returns the pack to his pocket carefully. He's just as careful to hide his smile.
* * *
E Company is decimated over the next week. Ask anybody in D Company what they're thankful for and they'll say I'm thankful I ain't in Easy. Not that Dog Company's coming out unscathed. Far from it. But Easy lost Compton, Toye, the loudmouth, most of the second platoon mortar crew, and a corporal named Hoobler. And that's after one of their machine gunners got paralyzed. It's lousy luck.
When Easy attacks Foy, Dog Company's in reserve. Third battalion's on the east side of the village. It's risky to begin with since they have to run over open field, riskier still with Dike in charge. They've got a small window to make it before the Germans catch on and start a mortar barrage. And the attack starts okay, it really does. But Dike freezes halfway there and actually tells the men to hold up in the middle of the fucking field. The men cluster nearby, angry, confused targets. Winters looks like he's about to crawl out of his skin and run out onto the field himself. He's pacing, yelling at Dike to move, move, move. He screams into the radio, at the field, as if his instructions will carry over the sound of bullets, the weight of Dike's panic.
Dike, Luz, and who knows who else are stuck behind a hay stack. Foley's men are at a loss, there's utter chaos. Dike is actually screaming at the men to fall back. Speirs stares, aghast. Jesus Christ, that useless sonofabitch is going to get them all killed. What a goddamn waste. He heads toward battalion HQ, ready to offer himself and his men to Winters. At the very least they can provide covering fire, something.
Holy shit, Winters is actually running toward Dike like he's going to drag the guy bodily away from the hay stack and throw him at the Germans. Ron's never seen him this upset. Now Sink's yelling at Winters to get off the goddamn field. Winters, half furious, half desperate turns and sees Ron.
"Speirs! Get yourself over here! Get out there and relieve Dike and take that attack on in."
And just like that, Ron Speirs is Easy Company C.O. There's no time for surprise or shock or even gratitude--that will come later. Speirs is already racing into the snow, running, because now, now these are his man and he'll be damned if they're going to die out here. Dick Winters just gave him an order.
Norman Dike looks up at him, bleary-eyed, haggard, lost. Ron grabs his collar. "I'm taking over."
Speirs shouts for Lip. "First Sergeant Lipton, what have we got?"
"Sir, most of the Company is spread out here. First platoon tried to go around but they're stretched out--pinned down by a sniper." Lipton points. "I believe he's in the building with the caved-in roof."
Ron assesses the situation. "All right," he says. He's calm because that's what the men need after Dike. Hell, it's what Ron needs. "I want mortars and grenade launchers on that building until it's gone. When it's gone, I want First to go straight in, forget going around. Everybody else, follow me."
Lip, Speirs and Luz end up behind a building parallel to the road. Lipton peers around the corner, stone chips ricochet into his face. He flinches backward. Speirs squints through the smoke. "What do you see, Lipton?"
"Armor and infantry. A lot of infantry."
"I Company's supposed to be on the other side of the town. You see any sign of them?"
"No sir." Lipton hesitates. "Sir, I think they're gonna pull back. If we don't connect with I Company they're gonna slip away."
Nobody's slipping away on his watch. Speirs gets to his feet, pats Lip. "Stay here." He's got to hook up with Item. There's no choice but to make a run for it. It's not even hard. He concentrates on moving his feet, not the explosions around him. Not the smell of gunpowder or cordite. They can't hurt a dead man, so he runs. He doesn't see the surprised German faces, the soldiers scrambling for weapons, trying to aim.
He runs.
Sparky Speirs is a machine. He's not a soldier, he's not afraid of artillery or tanks--he is a tank. Nothing can stop him. And there's the wall; he's up and over, and face to face with the guys from I Company. Lieutenant Zelman grins at him, salutes. Speirs is vibrating with adrenaline, breathing hard, but his return salute is crisp, perfect, steady.
And then he climbs back the way he came. He waits for a bullet, the feel of his body hitting the ground before he even hears the crack of gunfire. It doesn't come. Speirs keeps moving, legs pumping, numb feet propelling him forward. He doesn't slow, doesn't falter. This is his goddamn Currahee and nothing's going to keep him from the top.
Lipton's fifty yards away and by God he's gonna make it, he's gonna make it.
When the men look at Ron now, the fear in their eyes has been replaced with something new: admiration.
* * *
Ron's never felt giddy in his life, so he figures this is as close as he's going to get. The church is warm. The choir is lovely, both the music and the girls. The men (his men) are exhausted. They sit quietly, some relaxed, some in mourning. Some faces reflect peace, others a loss of hope, of faith, of friends. Some men watch the women sing, some bow their heads, close their eyes. Some men simply stare into the distance, haunted. Flickering candles paint wan features gold.
Perconte--the toothbrush guy--is wounded, but Roe's patched him up. They'll ship him to the hospital in the morning. Hospital makes Ron think of nurses, which in turn make him think of his mother. He owes her a letter. Letters. Now that they're headed someplace with actual buildings to sleep in, he'll write more often, both to Adaira and his wife.
Lip's on the other side of the church working up a list of the remaining men in the company. Winters recommended Lipton for a battlefield commission. The way Winters talks, Carwood Lipton can do no wrong. He's half saint, half mother, all soldier. After seeing him on the battlefield today, Ron is inclined to agree. And, since Speirs is Easy's Commanding Officer now, it's Ron's job to give Lip the good news.
Ron sits on a wooden bench, helmet tucked under one arm. He watches Lip write, decides to give him a few more minutes before interrupting. He watches Popeye Winn read. He watches Don Malarkey stare at a broken rosary. He repeats the men's names to himself, committing them to memory. He doesn't have to commit Dick's words to memory. They're not something he's liable to forget. Thank Christ it was you standing there, Ron. Thanks for getting it done.
Speirs doesn't know if God or fate or destiny is responsible for putting him next to Winters at the right moment. But whatever it is, Ron is plenty thankful. And despite the fact hundreds--thousands--of dead Americans are still lying in Belgian snow, despite the fact Easy Company is broken and demoralized almost beyond recognition, despite the fact Speirs hasn't seen Clara in a month, he's perilously close to happy.
While Ron reviews Lipton's list, he catches the First Sergeant glancing at him. Repeatedly. Speirs tucks the pages into his pocket, stands. The next time Lip looks in his direction, Ron catches his gaze, holds it. He knows what Lipton wants, even if he won't ask.
"You wanna know if they're true or not," Speirs says flatly. "The stories about me? Did you ever notice with stories like that, everyone says they heard it from someone who was there. Then when you ask that person, they say they heard it from someone who was there. It's nothing new really." Speirs shakes his head. "I bet if you went back two thousand years, you'd hear a couple centurions standing around yakking about how Tercius lopped off the heads of some Carthaginian prisoners." Ron waits, wondering if Lip will comment on the fact that Ron's answer really isn't an answer at all.
A smile flits over Lipton's face. Or maybe it's just the candle light. "Well, maybe they kept talking about it because they never heard Tercius deny it."
"Maybe that's because Tercius knew there was some value to the men thinking he was the meanest, toughest sonofabitch in the whole Roman Legion." Of course there's more than "some" value to Tercius' men thinking that. It's how Tercius kept his men in line, how he kept them alive. There's no shame in being a tough sonofabitch, as long as you're a fair tough sonofbitch. And sometimes, a little mean is called for. Besides, everyone knows there's a grain or two of truth found at the bottom of a rumor.
Except, of course, when it comes to his mother.
* * *
Dick's right about Lipton. He is a good man. He doesn't care about the rumors that shadow Speirs. He's easy-going and likable. And, by the time they reach Hagenau, he's sick with pneumonia.
Lipton huddles on a couch while Luz plays nursemaid, scrounging up extra blankets and pillows. Winters and Speirs organize a patrol to bring back German POWs from across the river. The patrol ends up in Johnny Martin's capable hands, which gives Ron time to do a little looting. He's got a clock for his mother, some silver candlesticks and a frame for Clara. Clara's pregnant, and the extra fifty a month is nice, but it's not enough. Soldiers have been filling their pockets with the spoils of war since the very first battle. Ron's never been a big fan of tradition, but he doesn't have a problem getting behind this particular one.
Speirs has always liked being a soldier. The rules, the discipline don't bother him. The politics and chickenshit do from time to time. But Sink's a good man and Dick's a better one. Ron doesn't have to spend much time worrying about the higher-ups. He can worry about the men.
There aren't enough replacements. And the guys they are sending over are West Point officers like Jones. Jones is so new his salute still squeaks. Jesus, it's ridiculous. He spends a fair amount of time with Winters, the rest of it getting to know the men.
He respects--even likes--Lipton. Luz is a decent guy, although he's not half as funny as he thinks he is. That said, George does an imitation of Speirs offering cigarettes to hapless newbies that makes Ron laugh every time. Not that he'll ever admit it.
Christenson's a great guy. Really knows what he's doing, and better yet, knows what everybody else is supposed to be doing. Liebgott's got an attitude. He's not as smart as Webster or Ron, but the little bastard can twist his words like a knife. Ron's not the only mean sonofabitch in Easy, and Ron likes Joe for that alone. Malarkey's a good sergeant, but he's a little empty around the eyes after Bastogne. Dick says he's been fighting more consecutive days than any other guy in the Company. When they get off the front line Speirs wants to see if he can get him a pass to Paris or Rheims.
Alton More still pisses him off. And not just because he seems to steal more stuff than Ron does. Although...that might have something to do with it. Nixon's a decent intelligence officer. Speirs likes him, but doesn't respect him. The guy spends too much time inside a bottle.
Jackson, Talbert, Powers and Randleman are great guys. Especially Jackson. The guy acts like a real happy-go-lucky type, but he's tough as nails. He's missing half an ear thanks to a shell fragment in Normandy. And he helped save Smokey Gordon's life by commondeering a jeep in Jack's Woods. But Ron's favorite member of Easy Company is Chuck Grant, hands down.
Grant exudes both competence and charisma. He's popular with the veterans and replacements alike. He's extremely capable and can fill in for pretty much any member of his platoon on a moment's notice. Ron's not the kind of guy who plays favorites, but if he did, he'd let Grant take first crack at the contents of the safe in HQ's basement.
The patrol across the river is a success: they capture two Germans. The patrol is also a failure: Eugene Jackson dies. Eugene Jackson, who's been to Normandy, to Holland, who lived through Bastogne, walked into his own fucking grenade.
Ron stands outside, fists clenched, while Jackson begs alternately to live, and for the men to just kill him, to put him out of his misery because oh God oh Jesus it hurts it hurts it hurts. Ron stands outside, teeth bared, until Jackson goes quiet and Roe comes out, white-faced and tight-lipped.
Ron stands outside until all the men are gone. Then he slips into the dim building and sits beside the still body of Eugene Jackson.
* * *
In Germany, Speirs discovers his first love is not actually Clara. Neither is stealing for her, although he's pretty fond of sweeping everything that's not nailed down in any given room into his helmet.
His first love is Easy Company. He supposes he felt affection for Dog Company as well. But the men of Easy are something apart from the rest, something better. He's not biased. He's not being an asshole. Well, not about this. He can remember the first time he saw Easy Company at Toccoa, saw the men marching through the night while the other companies--Dog included--laughed. The other men thanked God they weren't under Sobel, that they didn't have to do daily runs up a friggin' mountain. Ron never laughed. It's no secret he's always wanted to be the best.
And now he is.
The war is winding down. They can feel it, even before the German Army starts surrenduring en masse. The men are more careful now, after Jackson. Winters is adament about it. No more casualties. Some of the men roll their eyes at Winters' precautions. Ron doesn't.
The weather improves. So does morale. Germany is beautiful, all green hills and farms. The women are blond with big eyes and bigger tits. When Speirs goes to collect his latest bounty from Janovec, he finds the private fraternizing enthusiastically with one of the local frauleins. Still, Janovec knows respect is more important than dignity and stands naked beside the bed, various appendages at full salute.
Ron doesn't give a shit who the private fucks, as long as he makes Speirs' orders his primary concern. Namely, Any Nazi knick-knack, weapon or silver you find might be in your sweaty hands, but it actually belongs to Captain Ronald C. Speirs. Therefore, it is your duty to bring any and all such objects to me. And, like a good soldier, Janovec obeys.
"Where's my stuff?" Ron demands. All he sees is a naked private and a red-faced girl. Neither interest him.
Janovec points. "I thought I'd leave it over there, sir."
Sure enough, there's his loot. Ron grabs the silver tray of candle sticks and fancy goblets and promptly leaves. He walks to the PX. One the way, he narrowly misses being run down by Nixon's driver who's apparently drunk by association. He hands everything over to Vest so he can send it to Clara. Vest, sadly, is of the type who dislikes silence. He's plagued by the need to make small talk and makes the mistake of thinking Speirs gives a shit. Worse, he insinuates.
"Boy, your folks are gonna have quite the collection by the time you get--"
Speirs turns in the doorway, his expression substantially slowing Vest's words.
"--home. Sir."
Ron looks the Private in the eye, gives him a smile Adaira would be proud of. Slow, deliberate, and dangerous. "Finders keepers," he whispers. There. That ought to make the kid think twice before opening his mouth.
* * *
For the first time in his life, Ron avoids eye contact. He looks past everyone. He looks at shoulders, necks, ears, hands. He looks at feet, at the ground. He looks at the gray sky, the smoke, the miles of twisted wire. But sometimes, he accidentally looks, it's habit, and the eyes he sees are bloodshot, crying, stunned. Jesus fucking Christ, Winters is clenching his teeth so hard it looks like he's going to break his jaw.
Ron has no idea what to do. There are no orders for this situation. He can understand shooting POWs, he can understand acts of war, the gray morality--or lack thereof--in a soldier's life. But a camp full of Jewish civilians systematically starved and worked to death is--
He doesn't even know.
Speirs turns away from Liebgott's agonized face and seeks out Grant. Speirs voice is low, calm, and deadly. "I want you to find out everything you can about who's responsible for this place. I want to know what happened to the guards, the people who ran it, anything you can find."
Grant swallows, nods. He's got a rag pressed to his nose. His eyes are dry, but too big for his face.
Ron glances back at Lieb's bowed head. "And when you've got all the names and locations you can find, you come to me. Understand?"
* * *
He expects to feel something when the war ends in Europe. Maybe relief. Or elation. If nothing else, a sense of excitement at seeing Clara and his son. He feels none of these things. VE Day is just another day. The war might be over, but he's still on duty. He's neck deep in displaced persons and red tape. His men have simply exchanged patrols for guard duty. They're glorified crossing guards, directing endless traffic.
Too many of the men mix their newly minted boredom with alcohol. It creates a deadly combination. Thankfully, none of the Easy Company guys cause trouble. They know better. Even if they weren't afraid to face Speirs--a sure sign of combat fatigue--none of them, even at war's end, want to disappoint Winters.
Only there's still a war going on over in Japan. And it's only a matter of time before the 506th ends up on that side of the globe. Ron collects his souvenirs, drinks tea, and thinks. Nix and Winters are going to the Pacific Theater. Welsh is going home to Kitty. Most of the men are desperate to get home, although few will admit it. Ron watches the footage of Japanese kamikaze pilots and takes another sip of tea. The British have lousy food, but the tea's not half bad when you get used to it. He taps one finger against the rim of the cup. Well, if the 506th is going, the men will have to get ready. The replacements especially need a lot of training: close order drills, weapons training, physical training, the works.
The thought of more fighting doesn't bother him, really. It's just another fact. He accepts it without question, the same as the sky is blue, the grass is green. Does that make him a good man, or a bad one? A good soldier, but a bad husband? Ron doesn't know. He decides not to spend too much time thinking about it.
At least he'll have a chance to get some decent Jap souvenirs.
* * *
Grant's been shot.
Sergeant Chuck Grant's been shot in the head.
Not just that, he's been shot by an American. A fucking replacement, a drunk sonofabitch asshole whose already killed two Germans and an English officer.
It's bad enough Janovec died because of a fucking barrel, that Shifty Powers was hit by a goddamn truck on the way home, but this? This is fucking bullshit.
Ron holds Grant's hand while the battalion doc tells him Grant's not gonna make it. He holds Grant's hand because Grant is one of his men, Grant is a good man, Grant is responsible, he's done everything he's supposed to, he survived the war, and now, some drunk fucker is on the loose shooting up his Easy Company men.
Speirs doesn't pray. He doesn't believe in God. But right now, he wishes he did. He wishes he had someone, something to beg--or threaten--for Chuck's life.
"You can't operate on him?" Roe asks. He's holding up a jar of blood and plasma that drips into Grant's arm.
"Not me," the doc says. "You need a brain surgeon. And even if you had one, I don't think there's any hope."
Ron doesn't put much stock in hope but he believes in surgeons. Not this useless fuck of a doctor, but in general, he believes in medicine. In nurses.
A brain surgeon? He has someone to threaten after all.
* * *
The Kraut peers from behind the curtain.
Speirs looks in at him, taps on the glass with the barrel of his gun. "Open up."
Grant's in the jeep and this is taking too long, too fucking long, goddammit, fuck. If this surgeon doesn't open the door in ten seconds, Ron's gonna blow his way inside, he's gonna--he's gonna--
The door opens.
Doctor Rudolph Haff is in his pajamas. Ron reaches for his arm, almost gentle.
"Come with me." His voice is quiet. He is extremely calm. He is working very hard to stay calm because if he raises his voice he will start screaming. He will scream at the surgeon, at Roe, at Grant. He'll scream until he's hoarse, until his lungs give out, until his vocal chords bleed, until he finds a way to scream the bullet right out of Grant's skull.
Haff hesitates. "Why?"
Speirs is still calm. His words are polished, careful. "Get in the jeep."
Haff takes another look at Ron's face, reaches for his coat. He walks toward the vehicle. "Where are we going?"
"To the hospital. Get in."
The surgeon glances toward the jeep, back at Speirs. His hair is silver in the moonlight, disheveled. He stares at Ron, unafraid. "If you're going to shoot me, shoot me," he says bluntly. His accent is heavy, but his English is good. "If you're not, put the gun away."
Speirs' patience is thin, so thin now; it's a thread and he can feel it pulling tight, fraying, breaking. He raises the gun, points. "Get in the jeep now."
Incredibly, the surgeon ignores him, looks from Grant to Roe. "What happened to him?"
"Shot in the head," Roe says. He's still at Grant's side, holding the container of his goddamn blood.
"Half hour ago," Speirs adds, but it feels like days. Forever ago. Were they even in Bastogne this long? He reaches out, taps Haff on the arm with the pistol. Hurry up.
"If you want him to live, you'll help me," Haff says simply. "First, by putting that away." He looks pointedly at the gun.
Ron opens his mouth, closes it. He wants to argue. He wants to intimidate. These are things he's good at. But he can also follow orders. He doesn't want to, not now, but if this will help Grant, he'll do it. He puts the gun away.
"Let's go." He's so quiet his words are nearly a whisper.
Now it's the surgeon's turn to reach for Ron's arm. "Let me drive, we'll get there faster."
Speirs considers the offer. Haff knows the area, where the hospital is. Most important of all, he's not the one straddling the line between rage and panic. Fine. This is okay. Haff is helping. This is going to work. It's only been half an hour. Grant is strong, he's a tough bastard, he'll make it. He will. Ron turns abruptly from the driver's door. He gets in the backseat where he can hold Grant's hand.
* * *
Tab and Luz get to their feet as soon as they see him.
His gun is back out. It feels good in his hand. Welcome. "Where is he?"
Tab has his own question. "How's Grant?"
Ron ignores him. "Where is he?" he repeats.
Tab tries again. "Is he okay?"
Ron is done with patience, with waiting. He's done. This time he yells the question and his voice is a slap. Luz and Tab both stare at the closed door. That's when Ron is aware of the noise, the sound of voices.
Speirs opens the door. The men he knows best are all here. Winn, Randleman, Perconte, Martin, More, Christenson, Malarkey, Liebgott, Heffron. No, not all the men. The room goes quiet, all eyes on Ron.
"This him?"
The bastard who shot Grant sits in a chair, gagging, coughing, bleeding. He is Private James Manne which is ironic because Jimmy's not a man at all. He's nothing. A man doesn't get drunk and shoot men--noncoms--in the head because he ran out of gas for a fucking jeep. A man doesn't shoot Charles Grant in the head like he's putting down a fucking dog.
Randleman nods. "That's him."
Manne coughs some more.
"A replacement with I Company," Bull continues.
Speirs face goes rigid. I Company. He ran through a fucking German platoon to reach I Company and this is his thanks. He feels no surprise, no regret. This is simply another fact. There is nothing but rage. It burns out of him, through his uniform, his hair, his eyes, his pours. He can feel the air boil around him. He's killed countless Germans but he's never, never felt hatred like this. His hatred for the German soldiers, the Nazis, it's all been abstract. Here, now, it's focused.
It's very, very clear.
Ron asks the not-man a question. "Where's the weapon?"
Manne bleeds up at Speirs. His eyes glitter. "What weapon?" His voice is bravado. It smirks.
Speirs smashes the gun against Manne's head. He can feel the wet crack of impact, he can feel the way Manne''s head rocks back, the pain in his own hand, and he's glad, he is so glad.
Ron tells the private something he learned a long time ago. Even now, he is a good Commanding Officer. He is reasonable. "When you talk to an Officer you say sir." He looks at Manne, he looks at him, into him, and Ronald Speirs doesn't know it, but there are several Easy Company men who will have nightmares about that look for the next twenty years.
Speirs takes a step back, raises the gun, puts it right up to Manne's face. The private's bravado is gone now, the only thing coming out of him is a continuous gasping, choking noise. Now there's just blood and snot and tears and Ron wants to pull the trigger. He wants to pull the trigger and put a bullet into Manne's stupid fucking face. An eye for an eye. A bullet for a bullet.
Only when he looks into Manne's ruined face he sees Jonesy Wick. Jonesy Wick standing in Normandy, suggesting they go behind fucking a hedge. And some of the anger, just a little, but enough, leaks away. He can accept the fact his first kill during this war was an American soldier. But he's not sure he can let his last kill be one as well.
Ron's killed his fair share of men. He's not sorry. He'd do it again. He'd help Liebgott track down Nazis all day. He'd kill a hundred POWs with a smile on his face, he'd offer them a pack of cigarettes each before mowing them down.
But the thing in the chair in front of him doesn't deserve a bullet. He doesn't deserve a quick death. And regardless of what Speirs wants, there are his men to consider, and they come first. Always. He doesn't need to take his eyes off Manne to know Malarkey and Perconte are sick of death. So is Liebgott, no matter what he says. Speirs doesn't need to see Pat and Johnny and Popeye to know they want him to release the trigger as badly as they want him to pull it.
Ron holds the gun in Manne's face.
One squeeze, that's all. One bullet and it's all over.
Ron's hand begins to shake.
The room is silent except for Manne's gasps.
His arm begins to shake. Ron looks at his hand. Manne's blood is all over his weapon, his fist. Ron's had a lot of blood on his hands over the past thirteen months. He's accepted that. Made peace with it. But he's not willing to let this pathetic bastard's blood dirty his hands any more than it already has. He won't kill this soldier in front of his men. He won't put them through more death when they've already had so much. Death doesn't change anything. Manne's death isn't going to fix Grant, no matter how much Ron wants it to.
Disgusted, Ron wipes his hand clean on Manne's shoulder.
He makes his choice and clicks the safety back on. The sound of a dozen men exhaling fills the room. It's the sound of instanteous, palpable relief. He made the right call. Ron removes his hat, says "Have the MPs take care of this piece of shit." He stalks out, shoulders stiff, head high.
Tab's voice follows him. "Grant's dead?"
"Nope." Ron stops, glances back at Talbert, holsters his weapon. "Kraut doctor says he's gonna make it."
Tab's voice goes wobbly. "Thank God."
Ron returns to the jeep. God has nothing to do with it. Doctor Haff does. Eugene Roe does. But mostly, the fact that Grant's still alive is on Grant alone. His strength, his determination, his will to live.
The man's a hero. And when Grant wakes up, the first thing Ron's going to do is tell him so.
~end~
the real Ronald C. Speirs