Charade (Band of Brothers)

"DAY OF DEATH"

"Flash!" Kate hissed. "Flash, dammit, I lost the fucking cricket!" Heart beating in her throat, Kate pressed herself against the trunk of a tree, staying as low as possible. If I get shot because this stupid clicker went missing, I'll be damned. 

"Thunder." In that moment, that soft voice was the sweetest sound Kate had ever heard. "James Nicolli, is that you?" The figure rose slightly from his defensive position. A sliver of light shone across his face as he inched forward.

"Jesus, Shifty, is it good to see you!" Kate breathed a sigh of relief as she approached her friend. "The darn clicker must have flown off when I made the jump." She reached out and clasped his extended hand in greeting.

"Oh, I'd know all about that. Half of my things were blown away too." While he was speaking, he indicated to someone behind him with a slight wave to come forward.

"Kinda jumpy, huh, Nicolli?" Floyd Talbert emerged from the shadows with his classic toothy smile. 

"Jumpy? I'm just alert, is all, Tab." Kate shrugged off the hysteria she had felt just moments before. Now that she was in the company of two of the Easy men, her conviction that she was bulletproof had returned. 

"Uh-huh. Very tactical of you." Talbert greeted Kate with a handshake, just as Shifty had.

"So, where did you two land?" She asked.

"Not far north of here, both of us. Luckily it didn't take long for us to meet up. Lucky for you, too!" Shifty smiled as he began to resume walking. "We're heading to a crossroads we saw from our jump."

"Great, I'd better stick with you, then." Kate looked back briefly in the direction she came from. "Hey... You two didn't happen to come across that barn of Krauts, did you?" 

The two men glanced at each other, sharing a blank look. "Barn? No, we swept a few of those buildings in the hamlet back there, but we didn't come across anyone." Floyd furrowed his brow as he spoke.

"There must have been another American around there then... It was like walking into a slaughterhouse, four Germans mowed down, looking like they never saw it coming. The fifth was alive though, scavenging his buddies' ammo." 

"Did you get him?" Shifty asked. 

"Yep. He didn't even notice I was there til' he heard my safety go off. Then... bam." Kate uttered that last word at less than a whisper, afraid of alerting any enemies in the area to their presence.

"Less of them for us to worry about. Nice going, Nicolli." Talbert chuckled without looking back. "Don't worry, we'll become real men like you soon. Plenty of these bastards crawling around here."

Kate blushed at the irony of his words. Thinking back on her encounter in the barn, she couldn't help but feel a pang of empathy for the soldier she had killed. The emotionless practicality she had felt at the scene had ebbed away, leaving her scared of what she would end up like after killing many, perhaps dozens more people in this way. Would she feel remorse for them? Or would she treat them with a cold indifference, like trophies of her service in this war? The trio made their way through the woods, engaging in light conversation about the jump, life back in England, and speculating about how long they'd stay in France.

"Three days. That's what General Taylor said to us before the jump." Shifty argued.

"Yeah, if we're optimistic." Tab snorted. "I say we see how well tomorrow goes, and then decide if it'll be three days or three weeks."

"Don't tell me you hate it here already, we just got here!" Kate mocked. Suddenly, Shifty froze, eyes wide open, and sunk into a kneeling position with one hand raised to silence them. He brought his rifle up to his shoulder and stared ahead. Kate couldn't yet see what he was looking for, but she wasn't surprised. He was always the first to spot something amiss during training; Shifty had eyes like a hawk, the smarts to match, and the aim to nullify whatever caught his attention. Slowly, he pointed dead ahead of them through the dark, bare tree trunks. Holding her breath, Kate tried to follow his indication. If she squinted, she could just make out the ghostly silhouette of a human. But - what the hell? The figure seemed to be floating several feet off the ground, limp, like an apparition. She had never seen anything like it. Chilled to the bone, the hair on the back of her neck stood up as she tried to make out what she was seeing. Kate struggled to tear her gaze away from the wraith, but when she did, she noticed both of her friends intently surveying the sight. Talbert's perplexed face looked more irritated at his inability to decide what he was seeing rather than scared, while Shifty looked gravely ahead, with more clarity than either of the others. Gingerly, he stood up, nodding to confirm it was safe to carry on ahead. Kate frowned at Talbert, but he didn't look back at her as they continued to traipse towards the shape. Within a couple of paces, his grimace of confusion lifted and he averted his eyes. Soon after him, the image became clear to Kate as well. Nausea gripped her stomach. The body of a paratrooper swung mournfully in the gentle wind, tethered to the branches of a tree by his risers. At first, she thought he had been strangled by the ropes after getting caught up in the jump, but Kate quickly noticed the bullet holes that riddled his torso. The enemy had found him like this and shot him. Anger welled up in her chest at the thought of this life, wasted without even touching the ground and getting a chance to fight back, or defend himself against his killers. Any empathy Kate had harbored for the German she'd shot dissipated, leaving her with the satisfaction that she'd delivered a small amount of justice. That kraut's life for this soldier's. In her peripheral vision, she saw Talbert shoot a questioning glance at Shifty, who shook his head side to side in return.