Women of War - A Band of Brothers Story

A Tense and Worry-Filled Night

By nightfall, Easy had pulled back far enough that they could see Eindhoven on the horizon. They dug in in an empty field while the vehicles stayed up on the dykes, looming shadows against the dark sky.

Fitting, Louise mused bleakly as she looked for Bull's squad. She'd heard from Luz that Hoobler had been one of the guys who had last seen Mia.

Footsteps behind her made her turn.

"Just ol' Gonorrhoea", the iconic drawl of Bill Guarnere announced, the man stepping out of the light mist that reduced visibility to little more than ten feet.

The sniper sighed, quirked her lips. "No news, hm?" If there were, she'd know. After all, there were several people in their company that always knew the latest gossip and loved to share it.

"Nothing useful", Bill confirmed, shaking his head. "Lieutenant Peacock told Lip that Mia was with them when we pulled back."

Louise frowned, nostrils flaring. "And where is she now?", she questioned, eyebrow ticking up.

"Don't know."

Murder flashed across the blonde's face and she wheeled around. "He doesn't know?!", she hissed, just barely managing to temper the enraged yell. "That's just fucking brilliant! That bloody imbecile, I swear to God- Let me go, Guarnere!"

He had absolutely no intention of doing that. She might be taller than him by an inch, but using his weight and body mass, he kept her from storming off.

He pushed the struggling woman back a few steps. "You're not helping anyone like this, so calm. down!", he admonished sharply, even though he understood her anger. Hell, he felt just the same way. Angry. And frustrated. And about ten other emotions that he didn't have time to parse.

They glared at each other, Louise blazing fury and aggression, Bill unyielding stubbornness.

After a long beat, the blonde deflated with a sigh, fingers slowly uncurling from her fists to rake through her hair. Pushing all the helpless, powerless feelings far down, she said: "Well, Mia's obviously not just melted into thin air, so what the bloody hell happened?"

Bill shrugged, wishing he had an answer. "Let's go talk to Hoobler", he suggested instead, clapping her on the arm.

***

"Hoob, any news on Bull yet?", Guarnere asked, crouching down at the lip of the foxhole, Louise following suit.

They received a flat, tired look and a minute shake of the head in response. Bull's squad was sombre, quiet and tense, expressions ranging from resigned anger to miserable worry. The replacements looked lost and overwhelmed, which wasn't surprising.

Bill fixed them with a stern gaze and told them: "If there ain't no body, then there ain't nobody fucking dead, understand me?"

It was a lesson they had learned after D-Day when they had gone for days without knowing the whereabouts of a large portion of the company. Many had turned up a few days after the jump with maybe a scrape or two and an exciting tale about their quest to link up with Easy.

"What about Mia?", Hoobler asked back, eyes shifting from Bill to Louise when the former just pursed his lips and clenched his jaw.

The Brit forced some optimism. "She's smart, she's probably already on her way back."

Hoobler nodded and climbed to his feet, picking up his rifle. "I'm gonna look for them", he declared. It didn't sit right with him that they'd had to leave men behind and it bugged him that nobody seemed to know what had happened to his squad sergeant or their youngest medic.