Half Sick of Shadows » Band of Brothers [2]

09: A Fall that Seems Like Flying

"Cyrano: The leaves -
Roxanne: What color - Perfect Venetian red! Look at them fall.
Cyrano: Yes - they know how to die. A little way
From the branch to the earth, a little fear
Of mingling with the common dust - and yet
They go down gracefully - a fall that seems
Like flying!"
- Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac

-

It was sunset by the time Juliette and the others made it to where the Americans had set themselves up. Considering the fact that there were multiple companies from Second Battalion supposed to be sharing the space, there were a lot less people around than she had expected, which did not bode well.

Casualties in the air as well as on the ground must have been much severer than she had initially assumed. She hoped that for the most part there were paratroopers still wandering around Normandy trying to find their units, and that the incredibly low numbers she was seeing now weren't all that had survived.

Walking through an American army-occupied space, which contained companies of men who weren't aware of her existence, whilst also wearing a German army uniform was not a good idea. At that point, the team of spies had been walking for so long, blowing up this bridge and that transport vehicle all day, that they hadn't even considered as much before they walked into the area. As soon as Thomas noticed the stares he startled, looked to Jules, and laughed a little bit.

"Right, lets find Easy."

After asking three different soldiers they eventually located Dick Winters, who was currently standing in as the company commanding officer as Lieutenant Meehan hadn't yet arrived. Winters took one look at Juliette, shook his head, and smiled to himself.

"You need Nixon?" he asked.

Jules nodded. "Please. I've got pockets full of German intelligence."

Winters led Juliette to Nixon in relative silence whilst Tom and the others stayed behind to search for food. He didn't ask her about what she'd done throughout the day and nor did she ask him. There was a mutual understanding between them that it had been a long and difficult day for all, though from looking at him Jules thought he had drawn the short straw over her. He looked utterly exhausted. Defeated, even.

When the pair of them reached Nixon, the intelligence officer laughed. "What are you doing dressed like a kraut?" he asked. His eyes were filled with mirth as he scanned her up and down, still very much covered in mud but the German uniform was unmistakable.

"Playing dress up," she told him with a sarcastic smile. "I thought the colour would look better on me."

Nixon only laughed. "I'm guessing you've got something for me?"

Juliette began pulling out every scrap of paper, booklet, and notepad she had on her, thrusting them at him each time she found another until both his and Winters' hands were full of German intel. "Straight from the German intelligence outpost at Utah Beach. They send their regards."

Winters laughed a little bit, and Nixon smirked. "I'm sure they do. Next time you're there send them our thanks for all the intel. Looks like you've been carrying around a library's worth."

Jules grinned. "I'll be sure to do so." Then she gestured to the papers him and Winters were glancing down at. "That was everything I could find. We tried to scour for intel when we were doing various other things but came up dry. I hope there's something useful in there. At the very least, there's a map that has all of their troop deployments between here and Utah Beach - that intel's definitely correct because we gathered it ourselves."