[SPN/BoB Big Bang] Free Until They Cut Me Down (1/6)
October 5, 1944
Nijmegen, Holland
When Dean was eight, his dad took him on a walkabout through Cleveland County, Arkansas. It was the first time he’d been allowed to carry a shotgun, and he lugged that sawed-off all through that misty harvest moon night. The weird flatness of the dormant cotton fields ate up the horizon; every detail was crisp and intense to his eye. The last words his father spoke before they set out in their bare feet were “Tailypo could be anywhere. Stay sharp.” Patrolling in Holland is a little bit like that.
Five men are out on Giddy Orland’s detail. Lesniewski is on point, Giddy at his shoulder. Alley is in front of Dean and Liebgott is behind. Fields stretch out far to his right, long grasses knee-high all the way up to the edge of the dike. Somewhere in front of them is the German line. Gunfire crackles in the distance, out of range but near enough to raise hairs.
“How far down is that?” whispers Liebgott.
Alley grunts. “I’d call it two mile.”
Lesniewski holds up a fist, and the patrol halts, crouching low. “Someone’s on the other side,” he says quietly. “Up at that crossroad.” Dean adjusts his hold on his rifle. The rest of the patrol sits tight while Lesniewski crawls up the side of the dike on his elbows and peers over the edge.
Dean watches his breath plume in the chill air. The other thing he remembers about Cleveland County is that he and Dad never found that tailypo. Sam was asleep on Dean’s bed when they got back, and all Pastor Jim said was “I told you, didn’t I.”
All eyes are on Lesniewski as he backs away and balances the helmet on the end of his rifle. He slowly lifts it up, the helmet wobbling like some parody of a puppet. “All quiet on the Western Front,” Dean murmurs to Alley, who snorts.
Voices burble somewhere close by. Liebgott twists at the sound. “Giddy, you say something?”
A hail of bullets pours down from the other side of the dike. Lesniewski’s helmet goes flying. “Grenade!” yells Lesniewski, scrabbling backward.
Dean looks up to see the potato masher on its long handle arcing right at him. Alley’s in its way, so he shoves him, no thought to the move, just training. The grenade keeps coming, and somehow in that moment amid all the gunfire and shouting, there’s no sound, just the tall grass brushing dry and stiff with frost at his knee.
July 24, 1944
Aldbourne, England
Dean tried one more time to fix his tie as he hurried down the lane. He eyed the hospital building up ahead. “No, really,” he said to the other private, “remind me again why we’re doing this.”
“Our duty to support our noncommissioned officers and fellow soldiers wounded in combat,” said Babe Heffron, adjusting his hat to a jaunty angle over his impressively red hair. His Philadelphia accent lent no gravity to the pronouncement. “And the dames.”
Dean scoffed. “You do know they call them ‘nurses’ around here.”
“That may be so,” said Babe, “but I got it on good authority that this one in particular definitely qualifies as a dame.”
“She have a name, this hot piece of work?”
He shrugged. “Gert, Gladys, Greta. I dunno, didn’t really hear that part.”
“Gert. Right.” Dean tucked his tie under his olive dress jacket. “Look, you want to chase skirts, fine, I totally support that. It’s me you’re talking to, all right? But that’s what the pub is for. This?” He picked at his lapel. “This is all dressed up and going nowhere. Babe, the sad truth is that nurses are only pretty in pinup shoots.”
“You’re a goddamn cynic, Winchester, you know that?” He shook his head, his pace unflagging. “I’m disappointed in you. These women give our boys their all. Don’t you think it’s our turn to thank them?”
“Okay.” He held up both hands. “Okay. This was your idea. If it works, you get all the credit. But we’re still the ones who are both going to look like brown-nosing replacements.”
Babe grinned. “I think Sergeant Grant will appreciate that we took the initiative.”
“Babe, he’s supposed to be catatonic.”
“Where’d you hear that from?” He shook his head. “Whatever the hell that means. Catatonic or not, I think this is gonna be good for morale.” He clapped Dean on the shoulder and pulled open the hospital’s front door.
Dean sighed as he slipped his hat off and tucked it under his belt. “I hate optimists.”
The visitation officer directed them to a wing in a far corner of the building. The stink of blood, bedpans and cleaning fluid wafted by as they made their way through the halls. Dean glanced into other wards as they passed. Men inhabited the rows of beds in all possible states of wholeness. He clenched his jaw and kept his eyes trained forward. “Here we go,” said Babe, his expression turning keen again, and pushed through the door.
Nurses patrolled the middle aisle of the ward, their shoes sensible and their stockings sturdy. Dean shot Babe a look of triumphant skepticism, which Babe steadfastly ignored. Sergeant Grant’s bed was at the back of the room. The men Dean and Babe passed were in poor shape, wrapped in blankets and bandages and casts, but Grant was sitting up and playing cards with another Easy soldier, the two of them smoking and trading jokes.
“Brown-nosing,” Dean hissed as they neared the bed.
“It’s just Bill,” Babe whispered back. “I got this covered.”
Chuck Grant had a face like a silent movie star, with deep-set, perennially hooded eyes and a palpable air of easygoing steadiness. He glanced up from his cards, tucking them against his chest, then blinked, surprised. “Hey boys. What’re you doing here?”
“Reasonable goddamn question,” said Bill Guarnere, slinging one arm across the foot of the bed. Guarnere was a short, ferocious Italian from the same Philadelphia neighborhood as Babe; he’d already earned the nickname “Wild Bill” back in Normandy. He narrowed his eyes at the replacements. “Looks like a show of concern for their squad sergeant to me.”
Grant smiled with half his mouth. “Is he right?”
“He’s absolutely right,” Babe said quickly. “We heard you was laid up bad over the weekend. Lieutenant Peacock ran the rifle range today and it just wasn’t the same.”
Grant chuckled. “Oh, now I’m touched. Nobody else wanted to come?”
“We thought if we told anybody there’d be too much of a crowd,” said Dean, shooting Babe a warning glance. “It might upset the nurses.”
“The nurses! Would you listen to this?” Guarnere whistled. “Those broads wouldn’t scare if you pointed a railroad gun at ‘em.”
“I like them,” said Grant, a touch dreamily. “I’m taking mine out to dinner when I get out of here.”
Guarnere ground out his cigarette in an ashtray perched on the sheets. “I don’t believe I’m saying this, but haven’t you had enough funny business for one week?”
“This is different!” Grant insisted, setting his cards face down on his blanket.
“What happened?” Dean asked, unable to entirely bite back a smile.
Guarnere snorted. “I tell you what, they never covered this in the VD reels. So Chuck here - that’s Sergeant Grant to you grunts, obviously - is out with us at the pub in Aldbourne.”
“You’re really going to tell this?” Grant interrupted.
“You were barely there,” said Guarnere. “Anyway, here we all are at the Blue Boar. This ain’t even London we’re talking about, understand? He picks up this local skirt, and we don’t see him for a while. Ain’t no one surprised, this is Chuck we’re talking about.” Grant sighed, but Guarnere plowed on. “Little while later, some busboy comes and gets us, says Chuck’s laid up out back. Man’s cold as ice and he can’t move. We thought he was dead meat. Docs can’t come up with it. He’s a medical mystery.”
“Jesus,” said Babe, looking startled.
“She was a beautiful broad, though.” Grant settled back into his pillows. “Real easy on the eyes.”
Dean knit his brow. “That doesn’t sound normal.”
Grant huffed a small laugh. “You’re telling me. One minute she’s all over me, the next I’m freezing, like I jumped naked or something.” He shuddered. “Worst damn feeling. Glad I’m better now, though.”
“You know where that sort of crap would never happen?” Guarnere said abruptly. “Philadelphia. Our broads don’t spread shit like that around.”
Grant winked. “Yeah, well, we can’t all be from South Philly.”
Guarnere turned to Dean. “It’s Winchester, right? You from Kansas?”
“What?” said Grant. “They told me California.”
“I was born in Kansas,” Dean said. “I signed up out of Long Beach, though.”
Guarnere eyed him. “You an Okie?”
Dean bit back a long-suffering sigh. “No, not actually.”
“You’d think we’d get one.” Guarnere grinned. “God knows there was enough of them. We got hayseeds, micks, polacks, guineas, a few yids, even that Harvard jackass in First Platoon, but not one goddamn Okie.”
Grant shook his head. “Ignore him, Winchester, Bill gets fixations. Took him two damn years to believe Captain Winters wasn’t a Quaker.”
Babe stepped up. “He’s got some great stories about living in a car, though-”
Dean elbowed him and forced a smile. “Yeah, no more favors, Babe.”
“What’s this?”
All four turned around: a nurse stood glaring at them, fists on her hips. Guarnere scrambled to his feet. Dean had always prided himself on his ability to function in the presence of gorgeous women, but this nurse just filled his head with radio static. Even with a scowl, she looked like art, with pale, clear skin, black hair, blue eyes and a high forehead. “You men are keeping Sergeant Grant and all these others from their recovery,” she said stiffly, her accent local.
“We’re here for morale-” began Babe, visibly shaken by the nurse’s assets.
She cut him off with a frown. “He doesn’t need morale, he needs rest. Visiting hours are over, you should all shoo and go back where you should be.”
“Aw, Gladys, don’t play hard to get,” said Grant, spreading his hands to placate her. She rounded on him, pushing past Guarnere, who tried to maneuver between her and the wall.
“Are you a nurse, Sergeant Grant?”
He lay very still on his pillows. “No ma’am.”
She reached for his wrist, leaning forward as she pressed her other hand to his forehead. “Then I am Nurse Morgan to you. Are we clear?”
“I think that’s our cue,” muttered Guarnere, shuffling into the aisle. “See you ‘round, buddy.”
“Bye, fellas,” said Grant, his eyes slipping shut.
“See?” said Guarnere as they filed out of the ward. “Railroad guns.”
“One hell of a dame, though,” Babe enthused, looking first to Guarnere and then to Dean.
“Yeah, all right, it was worth coming,” Dean allowed after a moment. Guarnere laughed.
“You scallywags. I shoulda known.” He pulled a pack of Pall Malls from his pocket and tapped out a cigarette. “Let this be a lesson to you, though. Grant may have it good with the skirts, but they don’t give no Purple Hearts for the clap.”
Dean hung back and stayed quiet, letting them badger each other as they all headed back to barracks. A pair of black birds cawed at them from a roof; Dean didn’t particularly appreciate the commentary.
December 7, 1941
Fayetteville, Tennessee
Sam elbows Dean at precisely the right moment for the coffee in Dean’s cup to slosh down his chin, and only by the grace of a quick save does Dean avoid getting it all down his front. “Hey,” says Sam, the grin on his face replaced by something a bit more sheepish. “Oh geez, sorry about that.”
“No, no,” says Dean, his smile brittle as he sets the dripping mug on the paper placemat. “It’s okay. You’re not the one who has to drive us to Memphis by morning.”
“It was an accident!”
He shakes his head and leans back in the booth. The coffee’s not good enough or warm enough to fight over. “What were you going to say?”
“There’s a Winchester close to here,” says Sam, like all is forgiven. “We’ve never been to this one. It’s only thirty miles away.” He pushes the tattered road map across the table. Empty places swallow whole towns where holes have rubbed through bent corners. Dean squints at it.
“You’re not still trying to visit every one, are you? Didn’t you grow out of that already?”
Sam looks offended. “Who says I have to? Come on, Dean, we move around enough, at least one thing about it ought to be fun.”
He reaches for his coffee again. “That’s thirty miles in the wrong direction. Memphis by morning, buddy. Can’t do it.”
Sam slouches in his seat as only a dissatisfied twelve-year-old can. The door to the washroom opens. Dad comes limping back, sliding into the seat across from Dean. “I got you a burger,” Dean says, propping his elbows on the table. Dad looks up at him, his face full of long nights and bruises, and nods.
“Dad, can we go to Winchester, Tennessee?” says Sam, picking up the edges of the map.
“No,” says Dad. “We can’t.”
“Next time,” says Dean. “That’s a promise.”
Outside the diner, tires skid to a halt. An engine cuts out, and headlights flood the windows. The bell above the entrance clatters as the door crashes against the wall. “They done it!” a man shouts, as two others hurry in behind him. “The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbor!”
“Where’s that?” says Sam, sitting up on his knees to see over the booth.
The room erupts with movement and noise. People crowd the front counter and curse the Japanese. Hitler’s name gets bandied around, and all of a sudden someone announces he’ll give rides to the recruiting station. Within minutes the diner has cleared out, leaving only the waitress, the line cook and a few old men.
“Where is Pearl Harbor?” asks Sam again, unfurling the map to study the West Coast.
“I don’t know,” says Dean, his heart thumping. He looks to Dad again. His face, if possible, is more exhausted and tense than ever.
“I don’t know either,” he says. “But I guess we’ll all find out.” The waitress comes by and tops off Dean’s coffee. Dad refuses when she offers him some. “I don’t want you thinking about it,” he says gruffly, eyeing the both of them once she leaves. “Especially you, Dean. You’re sixteen and I need you here.”
He drops his eyes, his mouth dry. “Yes sir.” Sam goes back to scouring their map.
They make it to Memphis in their Ford Model A just as the newsies are out hawking papers. Sam is curled up alone in the back seat. Dad is meant to sleep too, but he spends the whole night staring straight ahead. Even from the car, Dean can see the bold print screaming across the headline: JAPAN ATTACKS U.S. IN PACIFIC!!!
The sidewalk in front of the neighborhood recruiting station swarms with young men. Dean slows down. Most of them can’t be a year or two older than him.
“Turn here,” says Dad, his voice scratchy. “Caleb said we’d find the guy down this way.” Dean catches himself and steers down a side alley. He checks the sideview mirror one more time, but the crowd of volunteers has dipped out of sight.
July 26, 1944
Aldbourne, England
“I don’t believe it.” Babe pressed his elbows together as another replacement squeezed past him. “You really wanna go sightseeing for the broad that laid out Sergeant Grant?”
Dean held out another mug of beer. “You’re not curious?”
“To see fuckin’ Typhoid Mary? No thanks.” He took the drink and swiveled to size up the Blue Boar’s crowd. “Not when there’s other options. I swear to God!” he snapped as he was jostled again. “The rest of the division gets back and there ain’t fuckin’ room for nobody!”
“Moe, are you hearing this?” Joe Liebgott, a skinny man made of sharp angles and sardonic remarks, shook his head. He made no effort to keep his voice down. “Replacements. The things they put up with.”
“And what thanks do they get?” drawled Moe Alley, smirking. “Shit, Lieb, army life is cruel.”
“Aw fellas, you know I didn’t mean Easy guys.” Babe eased into a winning smile. “Now, those Fox and Dog boys, them I could do without.”
“Oh, listen to that!” Liebgott crowed. “That river of yours in Philly as full of shit as you and Guarnere?”
“Hey!” He laughed. “Say what you want about me, but I’ll go fist city for Philadelphia, you mark my words.”
Dean nudged him. “That mean we’re sticking around?
“I don’t know,” said Liebgott. “Weren’t we here first?”
“You mean in the goddamn way?” A soldier shorter than Liebgott, cigarette dangling off his lip, shouldered his way between the two vets. “‘Scuse me, fellas.”
A fourth Easy man squeezed in after him, tall and black-haired, his expression vaguely nervous. When Alley caught sight of him, his face lit up. “Luz, where the hell did you dig this up?”
“Who, this stranger?” Luz turned around, still planted squarely between Babe and Dean. “I had to peel the guy off the goddamn church pews. Nearly had to punch him out to get him here.”
“You’re a son of a bitch, George,” the man chuckled. The two replacements caught his attention. “Don’t think we’ve met.”
“Babe and Toto,” said Liebgott, lighting up a smoke. “Second Platoon, no reason you should have.”
“Yeah, it’s Winchester, actually.”
The man frowned at Liebgott. “Toto?”
“Born in Kansas,” said Alley.
Dean held up his mug in a toast. “Glad to know everyone’s keeping track.”
“Well, there’s no place like home.” Luz gestured with his cigarette. “Hey, you keep him there, I’m gonna go get some beers. He’s here to have a good time, all right?” He pushed through toward the bar without waiting for an answer.
Liebgott and Alley turned to the new guy. “So, you coming with us to London this weekend?” asked Liebgott.
He ignored the question, and looked past them to Babe and Dean. “Guys, it’s good to meet you. I’m Gideon Orland.”
“Jesus Christ, so fuckin’ serious!” Liebgott lowered his voice. “Giddy, come to London. I got you a pass and everything.”
Giddy glanced at Liebgott. “I dunno, guys, you don’t think I’ll get lost?”
Alley laughed. “Man has a point, Lieb.”
Babe looked between them, smiling uncertainly. “What, no sense of direction?”
“Get a load of this,” said Liebgott. His mouth twisted. “We drop on Normandy, right? It’s a night drop, everyone’s scattered, takes a while to get us all regrouped. Most people are missing two, three days tops. This guy?”
“Week and a half.” Giddy gave a small smile and shrugged. “I got stuck in a tree.”
Alley chuckled. “Yeah, you stick to that story, buddy.”
“Eight miles from the drop zone!” he insisted.
Dean’s focus latched onto something on the other side of the pub. “I’ll be back,” he announced, and broke away.
“Hey! Where you-” Babe waved him off. “Ah, forget it.”
She wasn’t tall, but she left a trail through the floor as soldiers parted like the Red Sea for her. She walked with purpose, shoulders pushed back, the nape of her neck pale beneath pinned black hair. Dean pressed a hand against his side, checking for the silver knife. The flask inside his jacket sloshed with holy water. Men didn’t make way for him so easily, but he could see a route to head her off. He inserted himself between her and the exit and offered up his most charming smile.
“What’s a pretty face like yours doing leaving so early?” The woman lifted her chin and looked him in the eye, jaw tight. Dean blinked. “Nurse Morgan?”
“Private,” she said coolly. “What did you take me for?”
He stepped back, smoothing down his jacket. “Sorry. I was looking for someone else.”
Nurse Morgan’s lips thinned. “Well, take it from a married woman - no lady would want to be greeted as you just did. Mind yourself, Private.”
He bowed his head, suitably contrite. She started toward the door. Dean straightened. “Hey, how is Sergeant Grant?”
She spared him a glance, one hand resting on the handle. “You’ll have him back tomorrow.”
He reached past her to hold the door open. “You figure out what made him sick?”
She let go of the worn knob and let him prop the door. “Some sort of ailment he picked up from a nightwalker, it seems.”
“Right, I gathered that much. But it doesn’t sound like the doctors were having any luck getting him better.”
“Doctors are not gods. He got well perfectly fine under my care.” She nodded at the exit. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must be going.”
Dean stepped aside and watched her go before turning to the room. Something nasty was here, preying on Airborne soldiers. He stood surveying the floor. Babe had migrated over to the dart board with some other replacements, George Luz was regaling a group of vets with a Colonel Sink impersonation, and Giddy seemed to have been talked into a corner by an enthusiastic middle-aged local with a cane, his tweed jacket spangled with medals. Women from town were mingling freely, but while Dean mentally congratulated a few of his fellow servicemen, none of the girls were the kind of knockout he’d expect in a lamia.
Liebgott bumped against Dean. His expression was anything but friendly. “You done with recon yet, Toto?”
Another Easy private shoved Liebgott from behind. “Come on, Joe, lay off the replacements.”
Liebgott didn’t take his eyes off Dean. “Get ‘em while you can,” he said under his breath.
“Jackass,” Dean muttered as the two men left. He made a circuit through the pub again, dodging tankards and lit ends before slipping out the back entrance.
No other amorous couples were camped out behind the pub. General light discipline was meant to keep the Luftwaffe away, but the thin moonlight didn’t lend itself to scoping the scene of an attack. All Dean turned up was a chest-high stain on the wall and a pigeon carcass, its neck limp and too long. “Where’d you go?” Dean murmured. “There’s a whole division to snack on, so why wouldn’t you stay?” He stopped in front of the door and rubbed his temple. “Unless I’m being more reasonable than a soul-sucking freak.”
Dean jumped as the back door flew open; Giddy Orland caught himself just in time. “Sorry,” he stammered, looking spooked. He pushed past Dean and sprinted down the alley before Dean could reply.
Dean stared after him. “Still more stable than him,” he told himself, and headed back inside.
* * *
“No, be honest. You’re with him in First Platoon.” Liebgott lit another cigarette. “You think he’s cracking?”
Skinny Sisk took a deep breath and let it out. “Not coming to London doesn’t mean he’s addled. Hell, a week’s leave with the likes of us? The man probably has better sense than anyone this side of Winters.”
“Christ, Skinny.” Liebgott looked away. “Guy spends all his spare time in church.”
Skinny smiled. “You got something against that?”
“I’m just saying, he was never like that!” Liebgott gestured, the red tip of his smoke leaving trails in the dark. “Come on, you and me, we’ve known the guy since he came to Toccoa. We’ve known the guy two goddamn years, and this ain’t Giddy.”
“He’ll be fine,” Skinny said firmly. “What’re you in such a hurry for?” Liebgott didn’t answer; he bent his neck and concentrated on his cigarette. They kept the quiet for a time, each for his own reasons, until Skinny tensed up, frowning. “You hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Skinny held up a hand; they both stopped in the middle of the lane. Wind rustled the hedges on either side of them. Liebgott put his cigarette to his mouth again. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Never mind, then.” He started forward. The hedges began rustling again. Skinny froze. “There, you hear that now? Wait.” He peered into the dark shoulder of the lane. Something red blinked through the shrubbery.
“Jesus,” Liebgott breathed. “Shit, what is that?”
A burst of growls punctured the quiet. Something massive threw itself against the hedges: a paw clawed at the air, blacker than the darkness around them. A dog followed after it, shaggy and snarling, its shoulder hip-high. It paced the road in front of them, its hackles high and its eyes red as embers. “Are you armed?” Skinny croaked.
“Like hell I’m armed!” Joe snapped.
“Jesus.” Skinny grabbed Joe’s sleeve and tugged. “Come on!”
The dog barked and lunged after them, tearing at the hard-packed earth. The hedges boxed them in on either side, and Skinny had the horrible notion they were being herded away from town. Every mountain legend and childhood fear flooded back, and when he tripped and the dog’s claws raked his side, he couldn’t cry out. For one long, horrible moment, the dog was all over him, stinking breath and rancid fur - until Liebgott doubled back with a right hook at the thing’s head and knocked it to its side. Wordlessly he yanked Skinny upright and pulled him away. The dog scrabbled to its feet, foam flying from its mouth, and Skinny knew he’d go home in pieces before he was sent back to war.
A shrieking of birds erupted overhead. Two huge ravens dropped onto the dog, talons and beaks savaging it. Liebgott and Skinny didn’t stick around to watch.
part two
Nijmegen, Holland
When Dean was eight, his dad took him on a walkabout through Cleveland County, Arkansas. It was the first time he’d been allowed to carry a shotgun, and he lugged that sawed-off all through that misty harvest moon night. The weird flatness of the dormant cotton fields ate up the horizon; every detail was crisp and intense to his eye. The last words his father spoke before they set out in their bare feet were “Tailypo could be anywhere. Stay sharp.” Patrolling in Holland is a little bit like that.
Five men are out on Giddy Orland’s detail. Lesniewski is on point, Giddy at his shoulder. Alley is in front of Dean and Liebgott is behind. Fields stretch out far to his right, long grasses knee-high all the way up to the edge of the dike. Somewhere in front of them is the German line. Gunfire crackles in the distance, out of range but near enough to raise hairs.
“How far down is that?” whispers Liebgott.
Alley grunts. “I’d call it two mile.”
Lesniewski holds up a fist, and the patrol halts, crouching low. “Someone’s on the other side,” he says quietly. “Up at that crossroad.” Dean adjusts his hold on his rifle. The rest of the patrol sits tight while Lesniewski crawls up the side of the dike on his elbows and peers over the edge.
Dean watches his breath plume in the chill air. The other thing he remembers about Cleveland County is that he and Dad never found that tailypo. Sam was asleep on Dean’s bed when they got back, and all Pastor Jim said was “I told you, didn’t I.”
All eyes are on Lesniewski as he backs away and balances the helmet on the end of his rifle. He slowly lifts it up, the helmet wobbling like some parody of a puppet. “All quiet on the Western Front,” Dean murmurs to Alley, who snorts.
Voices burble somewhere close by. Liebgott twists at the sound. “Giddy, you say something?”
A hail of bullets pours down from the other side of the dike. Lesniewski’s helmet goes flying. “Grenade!” yells Lesniewski, scrabbling backward.
Dean looks up to see the potato masher on its long handle arcing right at him. Alley’s in its way, so he shoves him, no thought to the move, just training. The grenade keeps coming, and somehow in that moment amid all the gunfire and shouting, there’s no sound, just the tall grass brushing dry and stiff with frost at his knee.
July 24, 1944
Aldbourne, England
Dean tried one more time to fix his tie as he hurried down the lane. He eyed the hospital building up ahead. “No, really,” he said to the other private, “remind me again why we’re doing this.”
“Our duty to support our noncommissioned officers and fellow soldiers wounded in combat,” said Babe Heffron, adjusting his hat to a jaunty angle over his impressively red hair. His Philadelphia accent lent no gravity to the pronouncement. “And the dames.”
Dean scoffed. “You do know they call them ‘nurses’ around here.”
“That may be so,” said Babe, “but I got it on good authority that this one in particular definitely qualifies as a dame.”
“She have a name, this hot piece of work?”
He shrugged. “Gert, Gladys, Greta. I dunno, didn’t really hear that part.”
“Gert. Right.” Dean tucked his tie under his olive dress jacket. “Look, you want to chase skirts, fine, I totally support that. It’s me you’re talking to, all right? But that’s what the pub is for. This?” He picked at his lapel. “This is all dressed up and going nowhere. Babe, the sad truth is that nurses are only pretty in pinup shoots.”
“You’re a goddamn cynic, Winchester, you know that?” He shook his head, his pace unflagging. “I’m disappointed in you. These women give our boys their all. Don’t you think it’s our turn to thank them?”
“Okay.” He held up both hands. “Okay. This was your idea. If it works, you get all the credit. But we’re still the ones who are both going to look like brown-nosing replacements.”
Babe grinned. “I think Sergeant Grant will appreciate that we took the initiative.”
“Babe, he’s supposed to be catatonic.”
“Where’d you hear that from?” He shook his head. “Whatever the hell that means. Catatonic or not, I think this is gonna be good for morale.” He clapped Dean on the shoulder and pulled open the hospital’s front door.
Dean sighed as he slipped his hat off and tucked it under his belt. “I hate optimists.”
The visitation officer directed them to a wing in a far corner of the building. The stink of blood, bedpans and cleaning fluid wafted by as they made their way through the halls. Dean glanced into other wards as they passed. Men inhabited the rows of beds in all possible states of wholeness. He clenched his jaw and kept his eyes trained forward. “Here we go,” said Babe, his expression turning keen again, and pushed through the door.
Nurses patrolled the middle aisle of the ward, their shoes sensible and their stockings sturdy. Dean shot Babe a look of triumphant skepticism, which Babe steadfastly ignored. Sergeant Grant’s bed was at the back of the room. The men Dean and Babe passed were in poor shape, wrapped in blankets and bandages and casts, but Grant was sitting up and playing cards with another Easy soldier, the two of them smoking and trading jokes.
“Brown-nosing,” Dean hissed as they neared the bed.
“It’s just Bill,” Babe whispered back. “I got this covered.”
Chuck Grant had a face like a silent movie star, with deep-set, perennially hooded eyes and a palpable air of easygoing steadiness. He glanced up from his cards, tucking them against his chest, then blinked, surprised. “Hey boys. What’re you doing here?”
“Reasonable goddamn question,” said Bill Guarnere, slinging one arm across the foot of the bed. Guarnere was a short, ferocious Italian from the same Philadelphia neighborhood as Babe; he’d already earned the nickname “Wild Bill” back in Normandy. He narrowed his eyes at the replacements. “Looks like a show of concern for their squad sergeant to me.”
Grant smiled with half his mouth. “Is he right?”
“He’s absolutely right,” Babe said quickly. “We heard you was laid up bad over the weekend. Lieutenant Peacock ran the rifle range today and it just wasn’t the same.”
Grant chuckled. “Oh, now I’m touched. Nobody else wanted to come?”
“We thought if we told anybody there’d be too much of a crowd,” said Dean, shooting Babe a warning glance. “It might upset the nurses.”
“The nurses! Would you listen to this?” Guarnere whistled. “Those broads wouldn’t scare if you pointed a railroad gun at ‘em.”
“I like them,” said Grant, a touch dreamily. “I’m taking mine out to dinner when I get out of here.”
Guarnere ground out his cigarette in an ashtray perched on the sheets. “I don’t believe I’m saying this, but haven’t you had enough funny business for one week?”
“This is different!” Grant insisted, setting his cards face down on his blanket.
“What happened?” Dean asked, unable to entirely bite back a smile.
Guarnere snorted. “I tell you what, they never covered this in the VD reels. So Chuck here - that’s Sergeant Grant to you grunts, obviously - is out with us at the pub in Aldbourne.”
“You’re really going to tell this?” Grant interrupted.
“You were barely there,” said Guarnere. “Anyway, here we all are at the Blue Boar. This ain’t even London we’re talking about, understand? He picks up this local skirt, and we don’t see him for a while. Ain’t no one surprised, this is Chuck we’re talking about.” Grant sighed, but Guarnere plowed on. “Little while later, some busboy comes and gets us, says Chuck’s laid up out back. Man’s cold as ice and he can’t move. We thought he was dead meat. Docs can’t come up with it. He’s a medical mystery.”
“Jesus,” said Babe, looking startled.
“She was a beautiful broad, though.” Grant settled back into his pillows. “Real easy on the eyes.”
Dean knit his brow. “That doesn’t sound normal.”
Grant huffed a small laugh. “You’re telling me. One minute she’s all over me, the next I’m freezing, like I jumped naked or something.” He shuddered. “Worst damn feeling. Glad I’m better now, though.”
“You know where that sort of crap would never happen?” Guarnere said abruptly. “Philadelphia. Our broads don’t spread shit like that around.”
Grant winked. “Yeah, well, we can’t all be from South Philly.”
Guarnere turned to Dean. “It’s Winchester, right? You from Kansas?”
“What?” said Grant. “They told me California.”
“I was born in Kansas,” Dean said. “I signed up out of Long Beach, though.”
Guarnere eyed him. “You an Okie?”
Dean bit back a long-suffering sigh. “No, not actually.”
“You’d think we’d get one.” Guarnere grinned. “God knows there was enough of them. We got hayseeds, micks, polacks, guineas, a few yids, even that Harvard jackass in First Platoon, but not one goddamn Okie.”
Grant shook his head. “Ignore him, Winchester, Bill gets fixations. Took him two damn years to believe Captain Winters wasn’t a Quaker.”
Babe stepped up. “He’s got some great stories about living in a car, though-”
Dean elbowed him and forced a smile. “Yeah, no more favors, Babe.”
“What’s this?”
All four turned around: a nurse stood glaring at them, fists on her hips. Guarnere scrambled to his feet. Dean had always prided himself on his ability to function in the presence of gorgeous women, but this nurse just filled his head with radio static. Even with a scowl, she looked like art, with pale, clear skin, black hair, blue eyes and a high forehead. “You men are keeping Sergeant Grant and all these others from their recovery,” she said stiffly, her accent local.
“We’re here for morale-” began Babe, visibly shaken by the nurse’s assets.
She cut him off with a frown. “He doesn’t need morale, he needs rest. Visiting hours are over, you should all shoo and go back where you should be.”
“Aw, Gladys, don’t play hard to get,” said Grant, spreading his hands to placate her. She rounded on him, pushing past Guarnere, who tried to maneuver between her and the wall.
“Are you a nurse, Sergeant Grant?”
He lay very still on his pillows. “No ma’am.”
She reached for his wrist, leaning forward as she pressed her other hand to his forehead. “Then I am Nurse Morgan to you. Are we clear?”
“I think that’s our cue,” muttered Guarnere, shuffling into the aisle. “See you ‘round, buddy.”
“Bye, fellas,” said Grant, his eyes slipping shut.
“See?” said Guarnere as they filed out of the ward. “Railroad guns.”
“One hell of a dame, though,” Babe enthused, looking first to Guarnere and then to Dean.
“Yeah, all right, it was worth coming,” Dean allowed after a moment. Guarnere laughed.
“You scallywags. I shoulda known.” He pulled a pack of Pall Malls from his pocket and tapped out a cigarette. “Let this be a lesson to you, though. Grant may have it good with the skirts, but they don’t give no Purple Hearts for the clap.”
Dean hung back and stayed quiet, letting them badger each other as they all headed back to barracks. A pair of black birds cawed at them from a roof; Dean didn’t particularly appreciate the commentary.
December 7, 1941
Fayetteville, Tennessee
Sam elbows Dean at precisely the right moment for the coffee in Dean’s cup to slosh down his chin, and only by the grace of a quick save does Dean avoid getting it all down his front. “Hey,” says Sam, the grin on his face replaced by something a bit more sheepish. “Oh geez, sorry about that.”
“No, no,” says Dean, his smile brittle as he sets the dripping mug on the paper placemat. “It’s okay. You’re not the one who has to drive us to Memphis by morning.”
“It was an accident!”
He shakes his head and leans back in the booth. The coffee’s not good enough or warm enough to fight over. “What were you going to say?”
“There’s a Winchester close to here,” says Sam, like all is forgiven. “We’ve never been to this one. It’s only thirty miles away.” He pushes the tattered road map across the table. Empty places swallow whole towns where holes have rubbed through bent corners. Dean squints at it.
“You’re not still trying to visit every one, are you? Didn’t you grow out of that already?”
Sam looks offended. “Who says I have to? Come on, Dean, we move around enough, at least one thing about it ought to be fun.”
He reaches for his coffee again. “That’s thirty miles in the wrong direction. Memphis by morning, buddy. Can’t do it.”
Sam slouches in his seat as only a dissatisfied twelve-year-old can. The door to the washroom opens. Dad comes limping back, sliding into the seat across from Dean. “I got you a burger,” Dean says, propping his elbows on the table. Dad looks up at him, his face full of long nights and bruises, and nods.
“Dad, can we go to Winchester, Tennessee?” says Sam, picking up the edges of the map.
“No,” says Dad. “We can’t.”
“Next time,” says Dean. “That’s a promise.”
Outside the diner, tires skid to a halt. An engine cuts out, and headlights flood the windows. The bell above the entrance clatters as the door crashes against the wall. “They done it!” a man shouts, as two others hurry in behind him. “The Japs have bombed Pearl Harbor!”
“Where’s that?” says Sam, sitting up on his knees to see over the booth.
The room erupts with movement and noise. People crowd the front counter and curse the Japanese. Hitler’s name gets bandied around, and all of a sudden someone announces he’ll give rides to the recruiting station. Within minutes the diner has cleared out, leaving only the waitress, the line cook and a few old men.
“Where is Pearl Harbor?” asks Sam again, unfurling the map to study the West Coast.
“I don’t know,” says Dean, his heart thumping. He looks to Dad again. His face, if possible, is more exhausted and tense than ever.
“I don’t know either,” he says. “But I guess we’ll all find out.” The waitress comes by and tops off Dean’s coffee. Dad refuses when she offers him some. “I don’t want you thinking about it,” he says gruffly, eyeing the both of them once she leaves. “Especially you, Dean. You’re sixteen and I need you here.”
He drops his eyes, his mouth dry. “Yes sir.” Sam goes back to scouring their map.
They make it to Memphis in their Ford Model A just as the newsies are out hawking papers. Sam is curled up alone in the back seat. Dad is meant to sleep too, but he spends the whole night staring straight ahead. Even from the car, Dean can see the bold print screaming across the headline: JAPAN ATTACKS U.S. IN PACIFIC!!!
The sidewalk in front of the neighborhood recruiting station swarms with young men. Dean slows down. Most of them can’t be a year or two older than him.
“Turn here,” says Dad, his voice scratchy. “Caleb said we’d find the guy down this way.” Dean catches himself and steers down a side alley. He checks the sideview mirror one more time, but the crowd of volunteers has dipped out of sight.
July 26, 1944
Aldbourne, England
“I don’t believe it.” Babe pressed his elbows together as another replacement squeezed past him. “You really wanna go sightseeing for the broad that laid out Sergeant Grant?”
Dean held out another mug of beer. “You’re not curious?”
“To see fuckin’ Typhoid Mary? No thanks.” He took the drink and swiveled to size up the Blue Boar’s crowd. “Not when there’s other options. I swear to God!” he snapped as he was jostled again. “The rest of the division gets back and there ain’t fuckin’ room for nobody!”
“Moe, are you hearing this?” Joe Liebgott, a skinny man made of sharp angles and sardonic remarks, shook his head. He made no effort to keep his voice down. “Replacements. The things they put up with.”
“And what thanks do they get?” drawled Moe Alley, smirking. “Shit, Lieb, army life is cruel.”
“Aw fellas, you know I didn’t mean Easy guys.” Babe eased into a winning smile. “Now, those Fox and Dog boys, them I could do without.”
“Oh, listen to that!” Liebgott crowed. “That river of yours in Philly as full of shit as you and Guarnere?”
“Hey!” He laughed. “Say what you want about me, but I’ll go fist city for Philadelphia, you mark my words.”
Dean nudged him. “That mean we’re sticking around?
“I don’t know,” said Liebgott. “Weren’t we here first?”
“You mean in the goddamn way?” A soldier shorter than Liebgott, cigarette dangling off his lip, shouldered his way between the two vets. “‘Scuse me, fellas.”
A fourth Easy man squeezed in after him, tall and black-haired, his expression vaguely nervous. When Alley caught sight of him, his face lit up. “Luz, where the hell did you dig this up?”
“Who, this stranger?” Luz turned around, still planted squarely between Babe and Dean. “I had to peel the guy off the goddamn church pews. Nearly had to punch him out to get him here.”
“You’re a son of a bitch, George,” the man chuckled. The two replacements caught his attention. “Don’t think we’ve met.”
“Babe and Toto,” said Liebgott, lighting up a smoke. “Second Platoon, no reason you should have.”
“Yeah, it’s Winchester, actually.”
The man frowned at Liebgott. “Toto?”
“Born in Kansas,” said Alley.
Dean held up his mug in a toast. “Glad to know everyone’s keeping track.”
“Well, there’s no place like home.” Luz gestured with his cigarette. “Hey, you keep him there, I’m gonna go get some beers. He’s here to have a good time, all right?” He pushed through toward the bar without waiting for an answer.
Liebgott and Alley turned to the new guy. “So, you coming with us to London this weekend?” asked Liebgott.
He ignored the question, and looked past them to Babe and Dean. “Guys, it’s good to meet you. I’m Gideon Orland.”
“Jesus Christ, so fuckin’ serious!” Liebgott lowered his voice. “Giddy, come to London. I got you a pass and everything.”
Giddy glanced at Liebgott. “I dunno, guys, you don’t think I’ll get lost?”
Alley laughed. “Man has a point, Lieb.”
Babe looked between them, smiling uncertainly. “What, no sense of direction?”
“Get a load of this,” said Liebgott. His mouth twisted. “We drop on Normandy, right? It’s a night drop, everyone’s scattered, takes a while to get us all regrouped. Most people are missing two, three days tops. This guy?”
“Week and a half.” Giddy gave a small smile and shrugged. “I got stuck in a tree.”
Alley chuckled. “Yeah, you stick to that story, buddy.”
“Eight miles from the drop zone!” he insisted.
Dean’s focus latched onto something on the other side of the pub. “I’ll be back,” he announced, and broke away.
“Hey! Where you-” Babe waved him off. “Ah, forget it.”
She wasn’t tall, but she left a trail through the floor as soldiers parted like the Red Sea for her. She walked with purpose, shoulders pushed back, the nape of her neck pale beneath pinned black hair. Dean pressed a hand against his side, checking for the silver knife. The flask inside his jacket sloshed with holy water. Men didn’t make way for him so easily, but he could see a route to head her off. He inserted himself between her and the exit and offered up his most charming smile.
“What’s a pretty face like yours doing leaving so early?” The woman lifted her chin and looked him in the eye, jaw tight. Dean blinked. “Nurse Morgan?”
“Private,” she said coolly. “What did you take me for?”
He stepped back, smoothing down his jacket. “Sorry. I was looking for someone else.”
Nurse Morgan’s lips thinned. “Well, take it from a married woman - no lady would want to be greeted as you just did. Mind yourself, Private.”
He bowed his head, suitably contrite. She started toward the door. Dean straightened. “Hey, how is Sergeant Grant?”
She spared him a glance, one hand resting on the handle. “You’ll have him back tomorrow.”
He reached past her to hold the door open. “You figure out what made him sick?”
She let go of the worn knob and let him prop the door. “Some sort of ailment he picked up from a nightwalker, it seems.”
“Right, I gathered that much. But it doesn’t sound like the doctors were having any luck getting him better.”
“Doctors are not gods. He got well perfectly fine under my care.” She nodded at the exit. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must be going.”
Dean stepped aside and watched her go before turning to the room. Something nasty was here, preying on Airborne soldiers. He stood surveying the floor. Babe had migrated over to the dart board with some other replacements, George Luz was regaling a group of vets with a Colonel Sink impersonation, and Giddy seemed to have been talked into a corner by an enthusiastic middle-aged local with a cane, his tweed jacket spangled with medals. Women from town were mingling freely, but while Dean mentally congratulated a few of his fellow servicemen, none of the girls were the kind of knockout he’d expect in a lamia.
Liebgott bumped against Dean. His expression was anything but friendly. “You done with recon yet, Toto?”
Another Easy private shoved Liebgott from behind. “Come on, Joe, lay off the replacements.”
Liebgott didn’t take his eyes off Dean. “Get ‘em while you can,” he said under his breath.
“Jackass,” Dean muttered as the two men left. He made a circuit through the pub again, dodging tankards and lit ends before slipping out the back entrance.
No other amorous couples were camped out behind the pub. General light discipline was meant to keep the Luftwaffe away, but the thin moonlight didn’t lend itself to scoping the scene of an attack. All Dean turned up was a chest-high stain on the wall and a pigeon carcass, its neck limp and too long. “Where’d you go?” Dean murmured. “There’s a whole division to snack on, so why wouldn’t you stay?” He stopped in front of the door and rubbed his temple. “Unless I’m being more reasonable than a soul-sucking freak.”
Dean jumped as the back door flew open; Giddy Orland caught himself just in time. “Sorry,” he stammered, looking spooked. He pushed past Dean and sprinted down the alley before Dean could reply.
Dean stared after him. “Still more stable than him,” he told himself, and headed back inside.
* * *
“No, be honest. You’re with him in First Platoon.” Liebgott lit another cigarette. “You think he’s cracking?”
Skinny Sisk took a deep breath and let it out. “Not coming to London doesn’t mean he’s addled. Hell, a week’s leave with the likes of us? The man probably has better sense than anyone this side of Winters.”
“Christ, Skinny.” Liebgott looked away. “Guy spends all his spare time in church.”
Skinny smiled. “You got something against that?”
“I’m just saying, he was never like that!” Liebgott gestured, the red tip of his smoke leaving trails in the dark. “Come on, you and me, we’ve known the guy since he came to Toccoa. We’ve known the guy two goddamn years, and this ain’t Giddy.”
“He’ll be fine,” Skinny said firmly. “What’re you in such a hurry for?” Liebgott didn’t answer; he bent his neck and concentrated on his cigarette. They kept the quiet for a time, each for his own reasons, until Skinny tensed up, frowning. “You hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Skinny held up a hand; they both stopped in the middle of the lane. Wind rustled the hedges on either side of them. Liebgott put his cigarette to his mouth again. “I don’t hear anything.”
“Never mind, then.” He started forward. The hedges began rustling again. Skinny froze. “There, you hear that now? Wait.” He peered into the dark shoulder of the lane. Something red blinked through the shrubbery.
“Jesus,” Liebgott breathed. “Shit, what is that?”
A burst of growls punctured the quiet. Something massive threw itself against the hedges: a paw clawed at the air, blacker than the darkness around them. A dog followed after it, shaggy and snarling, its shoulder hip-high. It paced the road in front of them, its hackles high and its eyes red as embers. “Are you armed?” Skinny croaked.
“Like hell I’m armed!” Joe snapped.
“Jesus.” Skinny grabbed Joe’s sleeve and tugged. “Come on!”
The dog barked and lunged after them, tearing at the hard-packed earth. The hedges boxed them in on either side, and Skinny had the horrible notion they were being herded away from town. Every mountain legend and childhood fear flooded back, and when he tripped and the dog’s claws raked his side, he couldn’t cry out. For one long, horrible moment, the dog was all over him, stinking breath and rancid fur - until Liebgott doubled back with a right hook at the thing’s head and knocked it to its side. Wordlessly he yanked Skinny upright and pulled him away. The dog scrabbled to its feet, foam flying from its mouth, and Skinny knew he’d go home in pieces before he was sent back to war.
A shrieking of birds erupted overhead. Two huge ravens dropped onto the dog, talons and beaks savaging it. Liebgott and Skinny didn’t stick around to watch.
part two