A Soldier of No Importance [ Band of Brothers ] 1

SEVEN

Their second Friday started much the same as any other day, with roll call and Currahee. In two weeks, the men of Easy had already improved their time. Alice stayed as calm as she could under the jeers of Sobel, not eager for a repeat of that first Monday.

At breakfast, she ate with her company. After word got around about the injuries she'd sustained by the men of a different company, they'd slowly let her back into their ranks. She'd quickly come to like George, Joe Toye, and Bill the most. They talked to her more than the others. But at breakfast that morning, they had been given latrine duty instead.

The mess worker dropped two cold pancakes, some eggs, and a single strip of bacon onto her tray. With a small smile, she also grabbed a mug of coffee. Part of her considered sitting with the Officers'. She'd seen Nix, Dick, and Speirs all at a table already. But with a deep breath, she walked towards the table part of Easy Company typically sat at.

"May I sit?" She recognized a couple of the men as being from her Second Platoon. But the others must've been First or Third.

Malarkey nodded, his face full of food. He scooted to the left to give her an empty seat on the end. The man now across from her watched her carefully. He had dark eyes and equally dark hair, with an extremely fair complexion.

"Hey, Roe, she's French," added Malarkey. "Y'know, like you."

Alice grinned. "Vous êtes français? Je m'appelle Alice. Et vous?"

"Eugene Roe." When he noticed the whole table had turned to listen to them speaking French, he blushed and switched to English. "I'm Cajun, from Louisiana. Not from France."

Her enthusiasm died slightly, but she nodded with a smile. "Ah, well. We cannot all be from France." She winked at him.

"This is Carwood Lipton," Malarkey added, pointing to the man across from himself.

"Nice to formally meet you." Lipton extended a hand and she shook it.

"Then Spina, Christenson, O'Hara, Powers, and Popeye are the ones chatting away down there with Liebgott," finished Malarkey. He took another bite. "I heard we're doing close combat training today."

And they did. When breakfast ended, Alice walked back near Malarkey and Liebgott to their barracks. At this point she didn't even notice the occasional cat call from Fox Company. Suddenly Private Vest walked up to them.

"Liebgott, J." He handed a letter over to the man. "Malarkey, D. Klein, A."

They each took their mail. None of them waited for the barracks to open them. Alice felt a tingle of fear down her spine as she read the address. The letter came from one of the fake addresses her Maquis cell had used for passing messages. She tore it open quickly and pulled out a single paged letter. It had been written in French, scrawled in a choppy cursive.

"Klein,

"We regret to inform you that your brother Robert was captured by the Gestapo not long ago. He was executed almost immediately. We attempted to get your family into hiding, but we failed. Two days later they took your parents and sister away. We have lost contact with them. They were arrested for being Jewish, Hopefully we can still locate them before the Nazis do whatever it is they've been doing.

"Robert died honorably. He was a point of contact on a rescue mission for a Jewish family. The family made it safely to their checkpoint but he did not. He knew the risks when you two signed up. I'm sorry for your loss.

Vive la résistance,

Blanche"

She could feel her tears forming. She couldn't afford this. No matter how much she wanted to grieve, she had a job. As she tried to walk forward, she stumbled briefly. Her world spun.