Toy Soldier » Band of Brothers

𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙿𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝟿

𝙼𝙰𝚁𝙲𝙷, 𝟷𝟿𝟺𝟹

Unlike she had expected, Tommy quickly managed to get over the overwhelming fear of getting discovered. At first, after her encounter with Linda, she feared that everyone knew. Every time one of the men tried to strike up conversation with her, she rebuffed them, closing in on herself.

However, quickly she realized that the others didn't have a clue. Their manner didn't change around her at all, and it became apparent that her sudden closed off manner was more suspicious than her usual boisterous, albeit slightly volatile, disposition.

And soon, in March, the boys left Fort Bennings, transferring instead to Camp Mackall.

Camp Mackall, North Carolina, was a marvel of wartime construction. By the time Easy Company arrived, only four months after the initial construction had begun on the 62,00 acres of land, it had 65 miles of paved roads, a 1,200-bed hospital, five movie theaters, six huge beer gardens, a complete all-weather airfield with three 5,000- foot runways, and 1,750 buildings. The barracks were heated; the cots had mattresses— a luxury the men had grown completely unaccustomed too.

Training intensified and became more sophisticated. The jumps now included not only rifles, but other small arms. The bazooka had to be jumped in one piece, the light machine-guns also, although the tripod could be separated and carried by a second man. Two men split the 60 mm mortar and its base plate. Food, ammunition, maps, hand grenades, high explosives, and more were attached to the paratroopers. Some men were jumping with 100 extra pounds. Luckily, Tommy was not one of them. 

After the jumps, there were two- and three-day exercises in the woods, with the main focus on quick troop movements and operating behind enemy lines as large forces. At dusk, platoon leaders were shown their location on maps, then told to be at such-and-so by morning.

Those were some of Tommy's favorite exercises, as she seemed to have a knack for catching out landmarks, even in the dark. It was this that made Sobel chose her as his runner.

He sent Tommy out to locate his platoons. Tommy managed to get "lost," and spent the night catching up on her sleep. In the morning, Sobel demanded to know why she got lost.

"Because I can't see in the dark," Tommy replied, tacking on a begrudging "Sir." when Sobel took a threatening step towards her.

"You had better learn to see in the dark," Sobel snapped, and sent Tommy back to her squad, replacing her with Ed Tipper as runner, instead.

Tommy had harboured a strong dislike for the man, but it wasn't until they had returned from the field, a few days after Sobel had hurt his feet on a jump to find the entirety of their footlockers upturned and strewn about their cots, with a sheet posted outside with the alleged contraband listed next to each culprits name, that Tommy really started hating the man.

They had returned from the field exercise, exhausted and filthy, to find that everything they thought of as personal property was in disarray, underwear, socks, toothpaste and toothbrushes, all piled up on top of the bunks. Many items were missing.

Nearly every soldier had something confiscated. Generally it was unauthorized ammunition, non-regulation clothing, or pornography. Cans of fruit cocktail and sliced peaches, stolen from the kitchen, were gone, along with expensive shirts, none of it ever returned. Gordon had been collecting prophylactic kits. A few condoms were evidently acceptable, but 200 constituted contraband; they were posted on Sobel's list of confiscated items.

In a flurry of anger, Tommy sorted through the small pile of things that had been thrown on top of her bed. It wasn't that she had anything particularly private or incriminating in her footlocker. Smartly she had concealed her tampons in two boxes of cigarettes, keeping them firmly nestled in the back of her footlocker as a backup reserve.