angel 🛰️ jaesnovak

she/her, 20, AuDHD, space and ww2 enthusiast who doesn’t know how this app works just yet linktr.ee/jaesnovak

[jaesnovak]

MY FICS MASTERLIST

PROJECT HAIL MARY

Till Tomorrow (strattland ww2 AU)

Ao3

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Chapter 1 ; Chapter 2 ; Chapter 3 ; Chapter 4 ; Chapter 5 ; Chapter 6 ; Chapter 7 ; Chapter 8 ; Chapter 9 ; Chapter 10 ; Chapter 11 ; Chapter 12 ; Chapter 13 ; Chapter 14

DRIVE

If You Want a Driver (Driver x Reader)

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Ao3

SQUID GAME

Mourn The Living (The Frontman's Games)

Ao3

[echointhewindwind]

Being an Eridian scientist has to be so funny. You train your entire life as a biologist, becoming specialized in your field, probably giving lectures or educational speeches to other Eridians, and then the star savior Rocky comes home with his weird pet dog. Your job is now to cultivate food so the weird dog who is the age of average baby doesn’t die. The dog also saved the stars. Your job is making dog food out of the dog. You also learn that you and the dog have the same job. You are the happiest scientist on Erid.

[twiggy-boy]

You know, every time I draw something stupid, I think to myself "surely I can't top this!" And then somehow I draw something even dumber

Edit: NOOO NOO WHY IS THIS GETTING NOTES??? STOP IT!! ONLY LIKE 10 PEOPLE WERE SUPPOSED TO SEE THIS AND THEN ID BURY IT UNDER MY REPOSTS NOOO

[gubrillaz]

hey bud......

[jaesnovak]

Till Tomorrow - Chapter 2: September 18th

☾ World War II AU

☾ Ryland Grace x Eva Stratt

☾ 13.2k words

☾ ao3 link

☾ summary:

First Lieutenant Ryland Grace never was the man of the situation. So, when he was handpicked by his commanding officer to lead a squad of soldiers and escort three important members of the Dutch Resistance through the enemy line, he would have never thought that, instead of the expected disaster, he would find love and comfort in the face of a stern spy who greatly outranked him.

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

“Mr. Grace?” 

I look up from my book to see Edward raising his hand. I raise my eyebrows slightly, surprised to hear his voice so early. “Yes, Edward? You’ve got the answer to the problem already?” I know it’s a vain hope, but I’m quite the dreamer. Edward is in my science and mathematics classes. He’s not the best at both, but his difficulties lie more in mathematics, where, most of the time, lessons come with no practical explanation, as opposed to science class, which I could have some things to say about.

“No,” he answers, and I figured it was the case. “I was…” he hesitates, and I can feel my eyebrows go down. “Could I come over to your desk?” 

“You can, yes,” I say without thinking much. The other kids are deep in their exercise, it should be fine. And besides, the poor boy looks spooked. It’s nine in the morning, so the first thing I think about is that something is happening at home. “Is everything alright?” Or, maybe he’s ill. It’s still pretty chilly in the morning. Maybe he caught a cold. 

Edward makes his way towards my desk, and rests his hands on the edge of the worn wood. “Are we gonna die?” 

Oh. Wow, that was out of the blue. I almost laugh, but I understand where this is going, and nothing is funny about it. “No,” I say. Maybe there’s a way out of it. “I assure you geometry has never killed anybody before.” There’s a small, silly smile on my lips, the same one I always keep, but I lose it pretty quickly as Edward speaks.

“Is it true that your brother is in the Army?” 

I frown in confusion, and then I remember that I did talk about Colt once in the beginning of the school year when a kid asked about Poland in the middle of a lesson about electricity. “He’s in the Marines, yes, and he’s not going to die either.” 

“Is he going to war?” 

“No, he’s in Iceland right now. You know where Iceland is, right?” 

Edward nodded. 

“Yeah, he’s not going to war.” 

“My Daddy told me we were gonna go to war and die ‘cause of the Germans.” 

“That’s…” not something your father should tell you. I tilt my head over, trying to come up with the best words for a junior high schooler to hear. “The Germans can’t get over here, you don’t have to worry about it. You know what you should worry about, Mr. Jones? Your geometry exercise. This is gonna be in the quiz later.” I reach over and tap the tip of his fingers with the end of my pen. “If you’re still scared after class, come and talk to me, alright? I’ll tell you what my brother said in his last letter so you’ll know for sure we’re safe from the war.” 

Ryland couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t even close his eyes. Heck, he couldn’t lay down without feeling like he was about to be sick. Ever since he’d left his newly formed squad to rest before they’d have to go, he just couldn’t stop thinking about every way it could go wrong. 

Instead of sleeping, he sat near some of the resting Fox boys, with his back to a tree (he was starting to get really close with Dutch trees) and his musette bag pressed against his stomach, legs bent up against it. He liked the uneven pressure of it. It helped him get his mind off the nausea, and everything that was about to happen in– he tried to squint down at his watch, but the waxing crescent moon provided no light through the leafage, and he couldn’t see jack. 

Anyway, it should be somewhere between twenty three hours and midnight, which meant he had more or less an hour and a half of thinking about the worst scenarios and being hyperaware of every movement inside of his body before they had to leave. And, best thing, he didn’t even have to stress and try to look at his watch every two minutes, as Private Goodman would wake him up (or simply warn him, in the very likely case in which he were awake) at fifteen to two, once his squad would be done with their watch. 

When he wasn’t thinking about the impending mission, his mind kept looping back to Edward Jones and his overly anxious father who was somehow convinced that the Germans would manage to invade America, back when nobody even believed it would join the fight against the Axis. Edward was seventeen, now, old enough to enlist, and, in 1945, if they hadn’t won the war by then, he could get drafted. Ryland wondered if he was alright. He hoped he was. He hoped he’d graduate school and go to college and not worry about whether or not he might be put in a uniform and sent to Europe or the Pacific soon. 

Gradually, he heard the familiar crackle of a flare in the far distance, and, for a second, his whole body tensed. He was ready to jump up and shoulder his rifle, his brain already repeating orders before he’d have to shout them. Mostly get down, and get in cover. But he couldn’t even see a light, and he knew that, were they to be attacked, his orders were to gather his squad and leave as fast as possible. Flee the battlefield. For ten days, his responsibility wouldn’t lie on his platoon anymore, and he hated it. He just hoped that the Germans didn’t care about gliders enough to compromise their landing, so Ryland could pretend for a little while longer. 

He forced himself to blink through the night and shifted his legs, trying to press his thighs tighter against his bag, which sent shards of throbbing pain through his whole right leg. He sucked in a breath, throwing his head back and accidentally banging it against the tree. Okay, no sudden movement. If he gave himself another concussion on top of that stupid sprain, he wasn’t sure he was going to survive the two hundred miles at all. 

When a pair of footsteps grew louder behind him, Ryland thought it already was oh-two hundred hours, and that Private Goodman was about to tell him that it was time to leave, but instead, it was Hatch’s voice he heard through the darkness. “Lieutenant Grace?” he whispered. “That you, sir?” 

“No.” 

Shockingly, that wasn’t enough to make him wander off, and Hatch still came and sat against the tree, perpendicularly to Ryland. Their heads were practically touching. The medic took a moment to settle down, knees brought up and forearms resting on them. He was wearing his full gear, webbing and musette bag and helmet and all, just like Ryland. 

“Couldn’t sleep either,” Hatch whispered, bringing a hand up to play with the chin cup of his helmet. “And Shap’s snoring like a banshee, so it sure as hell ain’t helping.” 

Ryland let him talk. He didn’t know what to say, anyway. That he was scared? Anxious of that unplanned adventure? That he didn’t know if he’d made the right choice of soldiers? That all he could see when thinking about what might happen was death, and failure? He was an officer. He was paid to pretend to be optimistic about this kind of operation. “You couldn’t switch foxholes with someone who didn’t want to sleep?” he asked instead. 

Hatch shook his head. “Nah. I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone.” 

“Even…” 

As he thought of someone to say, Hatch cocked his head to the side and shrugged. “Meh, maybe not Hitler.” 

“That’s not who I was about to say, but fair enough.” 

“I wouldn’t let the bastard sleep beside Shap, though. Oh, maybe I would. He wouldn’t let him live too long.” 

Ryland smiled, waiting for him to continue speaking, but it took him a while to start again, so long that Ryland had begun to slowly (finally!) drift off, thoughts lost in San Francisco. 

“What are you thinking about, sir?” he asked. 

He opened his eyes. “My kids,” he said without thinking about it (ironic), because he was. Thinking about them. 

Hatch shifted his whole body to turn and look at Ryland. “You have children? I thought you weren’t married.” 

He held his left hand to Hatch’s face, letting him ‘see’ (that was a big word, given how dark it was) his bare ring finger. “I’m a teacher,” he clarified. “I’m thinking about the children I used to teach.” 

“Woah.” 

Ryland frowned, and finally turned fully towards the medic. 

“No, I mean, woah, I didn’t know you were a teacher. I just– kinda thought you were a career officer.” 

He pulled his lips in an awkward line and shook his head. “I got drafted in ‘41.” 

Hatch’s eyes went wide, and the sudden apparition of white around his irises spooked Ryland a bit. “No way. Drafted?” 

“Yeah.” 

The medic chuckled, though it was consciously toned down. Yes, they were going away in an hour or less, but noise discipline still was in effect. “No way,” he repeated, “Lieutenant Grace is a draftee?” 

“Doesn’t make me less of your superior.” He was a bit confused on why it was such a surprise. Ryland really didn’t look like anyone who would willingly be in the Army. “You were drafted, too?” 

“Me? No. I was in university before Pearl Harbor. First year engineering. I dropped out and enlisted in January. Came back from Christmas break and I couldn’t go through one lecture before I knew I had to enlist. The classrooms were emptier, too. I guess I wasn’t the only one who figured out there were more important things in the world than getting my degree in time.” 

Ryland hummed, and instead of telling him he should’ve stayed in school, he asked; “What college?” 

“Penn State. They’ll take me back after the war… probably.” There was another silence. “Permission to ask a personal question, sir?” 

“I think we’re long past asking tonight.” And, when he didn’t say anything; “Granted.” 

“What’d you study?” 

“Chemistry. At the University of California.” 

“Ooh, woah. That’s smart.” 

Ryland had to stifle a chuckle. He purposely didn’t say that he got expelled while he was working towards his PhD, and that was the only reason why he was a teacher at all. Hatch wasn’t supposed to be his friend. He didn’t need to know the ugly details. The fact that neither of them knew what the other had been doing before joining the Army was proof in itself that they weren’t friends. 

Afterwards, the conversation died down, and they sat in silence, staring at their own portion of the forest. Ryland mostly was lost in the same thoughts Hatch had found him in, but the presence of someone beside him, someone who really didn’t look that stressed out, seemed to calm down his fears a bit. If a man serving under him wasn’t scared, then Ryland shouldn’t be. Right? 

They barely moved until Private Goodman found them and let them know that it was oh-one hundred and forty-five hours. Hatch gladly went to wake Shapiro up while Ryland went over to Rivera’s foxhole, only to find him covered in two jackets, concealing the brightness of his flashlight while his buddy (whom Ryland couldn’t identify) slept with his head on his shoulder. 

“Rivera,” Ryland whispered, feeling a bit bad for the sleeping soldier who’d have to spend the rest of the night on the ground. Though, if he was in third squad like Rivera, he would have to get up in just a few hours for watch duty. “It’s time to go.”

He could see the soldier turn his flashlight off before freeing himself from the jackets. He carefully turned his buddy so that he could lay against the wall of their foxhole, and covered hil with his jacket. He put his own on and climbed out. Ryland should’ve offered him a hand, but he was so unstable on his feet given the lack of light and his bad ankle that they probably would’ve tumbled into the hole and crushed that poor soldier. 

“You can call me Rocky, y’know,” Rivera told him as they walked towards the edge of their small bivouac area, where they should meet Hatch and Shapiro, and quietly leave towards Liempde. “Everyone calls me that.” 

“So I’ve heard,” he whispered back. “Why do they call you that, anyway?” 

“‘Cause I’m tough as a rock.”

Ryland looked at him, squinting through his glasses to try and see him better. ‘Rocky’ was a bit taller than him, but he was awkward in his movements and quite skinny. Not really tough looking. But maybe it had nothing to do with his physical appearance and everything to do with the shooting skills Ryland was very aware he had. “Really?” 

“No. I had a pet rock when I was a kid and I ran around telling people I used to be a mountain in a previous life. I don’t remember any of it, but my papa thought it was the funniest shit a kid could’ve said, and it’s been my nickname ever since.” 

Alright, that was funny. He’d tried to guess the reason behind this nickname for a bit while they were training in England and waiting for something to happen, but he never would’ve guessed it. When they reached the rest of the squad, they didn’t even stop to discuss, and simply fell into a silent line. Ryland slotted in between Hatch and Rocky, Shapiro leading the way. 

The main road was straight and bracketed by bushes and trees, which would make ambushes terribly easy, so they quickly decided to walk in the fields, skimming the treeline. They didn’t speak, keeping all of their senses sharp in case anyone was lurking in the shadows. Thanks to that, the only sounds filling the night were the insects, and the slight –yet very obnoxious– rattle of their equipment moving as they walked. It was minimal, as they all made sure almost nothing had room to move, but well, you couldn’t fully conceal everything. That worried Ryland quite a lot, since, the more they walked away from their drop zones, the more likely they were to come across a patrol before they even reached the rendezvous point. 

If he had calculated right (which he had), they had three and a half miles to walk facing northwest, so they should arrive in an hour or less, so by three hundred hours. Then, they’d leave at around four, or maybe at dawn, if the escortees preferred it that way, because Ryland already knew that he would need time to sit down for a bit (they’d only left half an hour ago and his whole right leg was already throbbing), and then they would walk all day, stopping somewhere behind the Belgian border, preferably not inside the enemy line. 

Oh, the only thought of having to walk through enemy lines with no backup and no more than four rifles made him want to turn around and run and beg Major Redell to choose someone else for the mission. 

He pressed the butt of his rifle harder against his armpit and tried to reason with himself. Enemy lines were constantly moving. The armies of several countries were currently retaking town after town, and maybe, if they were lucky, every town would be liberated by the time they passed through the border, and they wouldn’t have to worry about crossing paths with Germans. Right? Because that was totally how things happened. Armies could retake whole regions of a country in one night. Of course, Ryland! Anyway, his job wasn’t to dream. He could reassure himself all he wanted, he’d still have to deal with it at some point, and he wouldn’t bet on a lucky strike. 

After an hour of walking and hurting, Hatch started softly humming some song Ryland couldn’t recognize, and Rocky had moved to their sides instead of behind them. Ryland, who’d given up and tucked his rifle away, had one hand clutching the ammunition pouches of his webbing, a finger working one of the buttons, the hard shell of the full clip inside of the pouch soothing him just a little. The idea that he might have to use it sooner or later before even getting back to his company distracted him from the pain a bit, but every step still felt like walking on giant spikes that all were riddled with smaller, pointier spikes. 

When they finally reached the barn, Ryland understood why they’d chosen it as their rendezvous point. It was practically invisible in the night, as if the barn had been made just to be a hideout, hidden behind a thick line of trees and built into a small clearing away from the house, which was itself built by the road and had been apparently abandoned since 1940. If its inhabitants had fled the country, or been deported to Germany, or had simply died, Ryland didn’t want to think about it. 

Rocky went around and secured the perimeter while Ryland and the others waited, squatting between a couple of bushes and trees by the road (that position was pure agony, by the way. Turned out walking wasn’t the worst). 

“All clear,” Rocky whisper-shouted as he trotted back to them, and now it was time to get inside. Making sure to stay spread out as they walked, they carefully approached the big double doors, and Ryland pushed them, expecting them to be locked, but they croaked open and revealed a whole lot of nothing covered in hay. Either they were well-camouflaged, or Ryland had completely miscalculated their itinerary, and they were in the wrong barn. 

He nodded at Shapiro, giving him the go ahead to click his flashlight on to sweep the inside. He flooded it with a light so bright Ryland had to squint for a few seconds to let his eyes adapt. The dirt floor was covered in a thin layer of hay, the wood beams supporting the roof were thin and worn, and, except for a big pile of hay at the very back of the barn, nothing was there. No second floor, the back wall was so thin he could see through it, so no hidden room or faux wall, and his heart seemed to sink all the way to his stomach, knocking it down to his feet. 

They were in the wrong place. 

Shapiro turned around to look at him, his rather large eyes fully open in confusion. Ryland beckoned him over as he carefully went down to his knees, pulling the map of the area from his breast pocket where it was tucked in between K-rations. Breathe. They still had time. 

He flattened his map on the ground and stared at it for a moment. Then he looked at his watch. Oh-four hundred ten. They got here about fifteen minutes earlier, so oh-three hundred fifty-five. It took them almost two hours to walk three and a half miles. Jesus Christmas, they walked slowly. Or maybe they hadn’t, and they’d passed Liempde. Which would mean– “Turn that off,” he whispered, picking his map up and quickly folding it in his pocket. 

Shapiro practically shoved his flashlight against himself before turning it off, and Ryland could see Rocky raise his rifle from the corner of his vision. Hatch, who was still by the door (and, for the record, not carrying a weapon), started to slowly retract towards the middle of the barn, skimming the walls, his footfalls barely audible. 

–which would mean that they weren’t standing on the edge of the line, but rather deep in German-occupied territory. Somehow. 

For a moment, like deers who’d just realized they had a shotgun pointed to their head, they didn’t move. Slowly, Ryland unshouldered his rifle and waited. For light, for movement, for foreign voices that proved that the reckless use of light in what should have been a safe area had given out their position. But nothing happened. And, after a few minutes of complete silence that proved they were alone, he was about to order his men to move out when; “Flash!”

Taken aback, he turned to the others. Who in his right mind had thought that this was the appropriate time to try and see if Americans were learning outside? But, as he opened his mouth to lecture the unknown culprit, he realized that they were as confused as he was. “Flash!” Now that he was looking at them, he realized that none of them had spoken. And that the voice wasn’t coming from the door, but rather towards the back of the barn. 

Was it– “Thunder?” he tried, making his whisper as loud as possible without alerting every neighboring town. Then, he honestly wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it, but the darn pile of hay moved. “Shapiro, flashlight,” he whispered, and when Shapiro turned it on and pointed it towards the back of the barn, a small, wooden hatch had opened on top of the pile. “Well, I’ll be darned,” he muttered. He blinked several times like it would disappear, but a man hoisted himself up and sat atop the hay. He then held his hand down, but the woman he was trying to help got out on her own. They climbed down the (seemingly hard) pile of hay onto the ground. 

An old (Oriental?) man, and a younger woman. They missed a woman, but were they in the right place, then? They were! Oh, he breathed a sigh of relief, and stepped forward towards them. “First Lieutenant Ryland Grace, of the 101st American Airborne Division,” he introduced himself, saluting the man. He was definitely from somewhere in Asia, with very short, practically shaved gray hair. He wore a long coat and slacks with boots, and a belt holster holding a pistol. “We’ve been sent to escort you to Ostend.” Even though he saluted back (with a salute that resembled the American one!), the man didn’t answer. Right. He was the ‘old man who doesn’t speak a lick of English’. He hadn’t understood Ryland. 

The woman looked over at the man and said something in Dutch. She was wearing an ample chemise (and a shoulder holster) tucked into men’s pants that were obviously too big for her, and a pair of military-grade boots, puttees wrapped around her ankles. Her long, copper-colored hair was up in what looked like a knot at the nape of her neck. When she looked over at Ryland, there was something in the way her eyes moved, of the intensity of her gaze, that, even if she didn’t seem that older than him, made him think she’d seen things even worse than he had. 

“He doesn’t speak English,” she said in a surprising British-sounding accent. She was clearly Dutch, but there was no way she’d never been in contact with British people, or even lived in England. “You’ll speak through me. For now, let’s get inside.”

Ryland didn’t discuss it. He was too tired, anyway, and they’d all been prepared for it, so no one fussed. They climbed the pile of hay from the side, where small blocks arranged as a staircase were dissimulated, and hopped one by one through the hatch. He fought very hard with himself not to laugh at the thought of hopping through Sergeant Hatch and, woah, he really needed sleep. 

Their hideout wasn’t some kind of bunker, or hole in the ground. It was an old workshop that really didn’t look like much. It was lit by a single oil lamp resting on a wooden table in its middle, while workbenches were huddled against the walls (which seemed to be reinforced with plates of wood, given the fact that light didn’t go through like it did most of the barn’s walls), dusty tools piled on each of them. Chairs were scattered basically everywhere, while the floor itself seemed to be wooden pallets simply put together directly over the dirt, and everything smelled so old and stale Ryland feared he wouldn’t be able to breathe correctly for too long in there. But there was the second woman there, standing from the table, where she was sitting behind an open book. She wore her short, curled brown hair with equally curled bangs down, with a jacket over a sweater, a skirt with a belt but no gun, and stockings and oxfords instead of puttees and boots.

They all kind of stood there until the copper-haired woman held herself in front of Ryland. Without thinking about it, he brought his hand to his brow to salute her right as she extended her hand for him to shake. He looked down at it, then back up at her face, now hyperaware of his fingertips grazing his temple. She pursed her lips, and it was obvious that she was trying to conceal a smile. “Kolonel Eva Stratt,” she introduced herself as Ryland hastily shook her hand, and she added a performative, visibly amused frown to her weird pout. “Head of intelligence of the Eindhoven Region.” 

Kolonel? He straightened up a tiny bit better. That was one high rank. “You’re the highest ranking woman I’ve ever met,” he blurted out, his mouth speaking with his thoughts because apparently he’d lost all of his professionalism in that three-mile walk, and she looked at him with the same amused eyes she had ten seconds before. But it was true! He’d met a captain before, she was the chief nurse of an Evacuation Hospital that trained in the next town when they were in England, but that was nothing compared to a colonel!

“Right,” she said, turning to extend a hand towards the man, who’d pulled a chair towards the wall door and sat against it. “This is Majoor Li-Jie Yáo, you can call him Majoor Jan if you cannot pronounce his name, he answers to both. His parents were from China, not Japan. I know the difference might be important to you Americans.” 

Shapiro quietly whispered a “Thank God” to whoever was beside him as Ryland saluted again like a moron, and Majoor Yáo nodded at him without standing back up. 

“It’s an honor, major, sir,” he said. 

“Nice to meet you,” the majoor answered with a heavy Dutch accent, and Ryland had to smile at that. 

The woman, who’d been standing by her chair since they arrived, finally spoke. “I’m Olesya Ilyukhina, is very nice to meet you.” She then went around shaking everyone’s hand with a big smile on her face. “I’m not in the Army,” she added as she went through the three enlisted men. “So please do not salute me.” She looked younger than Miss Stratt (Kolonel Stratt? Yes, that sounded more right), and her name led to believe that she wasn’t Dutch. Soviet, maybe? Ilyukhina sounded like Russian. Ryland didn’t ask, it was none of his business. 

“You’re not Dutch, are you?” asked Hatch, and Miss Ilyukhina chuckled. Alright. 

“I was born in Leningrad, if that is what you are asking. But I have lived in the Netherlands more than I have lived in the Soviet Union, so I like to believe I am a bit of both, now. I hope it is of no bother, though we are all fighting on the same side.” She added something in Dutch, which seemed to confuse Shapiro, and Miss Stratt (Kolonel Stratt? Yeah, that felt more right) answered with something else that made Miss Ilyukhina chuckle again. 

“I’m Sergeant Stephen Hatch, by the way,” he said, quickly saluting the soldiers. “Medic… if you hadn’t already guessed by the big red crosses everywhere and absence of weapons.” 

“Corporal Anne Shapiro.” That apparently kickstarted introductions for the enlisted men. He’d pronounced his name ‘ann-uh’, but Ryland now could tell why he’d rather be called by his last name. “Call me Shap.” 

“And Private Rocky Rivera. Craftsman, rifleman, handyman. My name’s James, right? Not really Rocky, but no one calls me James.” Then, immediately, he turned to Shapiro. “Your name’s Ann?”

“Ann-uh. It means eagle. I’m named after my grandfather who was born in The Hague and came to New York on a sailing ship, dipshit.” 

Language! “Let’s behave, corporal,” Ryland said instead. Goodness him, sometimes he felt like these trained soldiers had the maturity of his kids. Who were in junior high school, by the way. 

“Sorry, sir,” Shapiro said, “but he’s the one who started it.” 

“I was just making an innocent remark,” Rocky defended himself. 

“Right,” Ryland sighed. “Well, no more of that.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Miss Ilyukhina had moved towards Majoor Yáo as they spoke, translating everything to him. “The majoor is hoping that your skills as a rifleman will stay hidden from him,” she translated once the boys were done bickering, and Shapiro had started to whisper whatever to Hatch in their corner. “But he would appreciate to see how talented a craftsman you are.” 

“Well, I do hope so the same, sir,” Rocky answered, having found his smile back, “and I can do pretty much everything I set my mind to, so ask away and you shall be provided.” 

Ryland took a deep breath and looked back at Kolonel Stratt, who’d sat down at the table and spread a few maps in front of her. “Our orders specify that we have to be in Ostend by the twenty-eighth,” he said, and she turned her head just so she could barely see him in the corner of her vision. “And since we have more than enough time, I thought we might start at sunup, and cover the patch of Nazi-occupied land during the night tomorrow– well, tonight.” His lack of sleep had rendered his notion of time half-useless. In his head, they were still on the seventeenth, maybe early in the night, not more than four hours into the eighteenth. 

“Oh,” Kolonel Stratt said, going back to her maps. “We weren’t intending on leaving before dawn. We have food and coffee, if you’d like we can spare some for you.”

That sounded good. Really, really good. Ryland stifled an immediate yawn as he nodded. “Yes, sir–” Uh… not a sir. Ryland’s brain fumbled for a second. He was addressing the rank, not her, but still. “Ma’am?” Nope. The rank wasn’t a woman. “Sir.” Hatch snorted. Sir, I swear I’m not usually this gauche, he almost said, I haven’t slept since before we took off yesterday, and I have to say, my ankle’s killing me and I can’t think straight, and I think I might pass out from exhaustion soon.

“Settle down, then,” she said. Thank goodness she didn’t give him time to speak. 

Rocky took his helmet off and put it down on the side of the table. Miss Ilyukhina tilted her head to the side, squinting at the side of his helmet. “Is that a heart?” she asked, while Hatch and Shapiro went to sit in a corner, the medic ready to sleep already. 

Rocky snorted, and grabbed his helmet. “I’m a lover, but that’s a division thing.” He took the net off for a better view and handed it to Miss Ilyukhina. “Don’t put your hand inside, it’s quite sweaty– that’s the marking to show in which unit we belong. The heart is for the 502nd regiment, and the tick mark under it says that we’re in the second battalion. It’s pretty easy, and a good way to tell if you’re lost when you just landed.” 

“Why is it a heart? Are you all lovers, in the 502nd?” 

That made Ryland smile. “Actually,” he said before Rocky could answer, “it’s like the symbols in a deck of cards. The 327th Gliders have the clubs, the 501st the diamonds, we have the hearts, and the 506th have the spades.”

“Oh,” Miss Ilyukhina answered, the tip of her finger tracing the outline of Rocky’s helmet’s heart, then she softly laughed. “I have no idea what that means.” Rocky then went on a quest trying to make her understand which symbol was which, and Ryland learned that, in Dutch, they were named schoppen, harten, ruiten, and klaveren. Useful. Yeah, maybe not. 

So he turned to Kolonel Stratt, looking over her shoulder at the map she was studying. It was a map of Belgium, with an itinerary drawn with ruler and pencil, from the north of the country, right where Eindhoven should be, to Ostend. It looked a whole lot like the route Major Redell had given him. Good. “Will you prefer stopping in cities or villages?” he asked. “I don’t mind getting water from civilians or rivers, but we’ve been advised to seek military help in case we’re in need for provisions. I wouldn’t want us to get food from people who don’t have it for free.”

“Get some sleep, lieutenant,” Stratt said without even looking away from her map. “We’ll discuss the itinerary once everyone isn’t sleep deprived anymore.” 

Ryland nodded. “Yes, sir.” He wasn’t going to argue about that. 

He found himself a nice little nook in the corner opposite of where the enlisted men had set up camp, took his musette bag, helmet, and jacket off, wrapped the jacket around his helmet so that the net wouldn’t dig into his head and wedged it against the wall. He took his musette bag, tested which side of it felt the softest and shoved it against his jacket-helmet, finally allowing himself to lay down, and the stress probably wouldn’t let him fall asleep, but he still should try to–

“Sir, I might actually try out Rocky’s idea if you don’t– ah, there it is. Welcome back to the world of the living, sir.” 

Ryland opened his eyes and repeatedly blinked at Hatch crouching beside him. “Wha–” He cleared his throat. His voice was even rougher than before. “Did I fall asleep?” He sat up, frowning. Shapiro and Kolonel Stratt weren’t there anymore, and the others were gathered at the table with food and coffee, two flashlights lit up towards the ceiling in addition to the oil lamp. His ankle started hurting, and his glasses had fallen off one of his ears, now resting by his mouth, and yeah, he definitely fell asleep as soon as his head hit that makeshift pillow. 

“You went out like a light, sir,” Rocky said around a cigarette. He looked very, very amused, sitting at the end of the table with his feet up on the chair, boots left on the ground. On the other end, Majoor Yáo scrutinized him, but didn’t seem to be about to say anything against Rocky’s poor discipline. “I was lookin’ at you when you laid down, and you were asleep and snoring before you even hit your bag.”

“We’ve been trying to wake you up for at least ten minutes, I swear,” added Hatch. 

Ryland yawned, putting his glasses back in place. That was new. “You should’ve slapped me awake, sergeant.”

“I’m taking notes for next time. Don’t pull rank on me when I do, though.”

“I probably will at the time.” He didn’t feel well-rested at all, but his thoughts seemed clearer. He looked down at his watch, and it was oh-six hundred hours. He slept barely two hours. Basically a full night’s sleep, at that point. 

“Not me?” asked Rocky. 

“No, thank you.” He pushed himself on his feet. “I would rather not have Private Rock punch me awake.” 

“I’m sweet as a pebble when it comes to hand-to-hand fighting.” He took his cigarette out of his mouth just to take a sip from his cup. “Coffee? It’s real good. Better than that powdered, watered-down shit they’ve been giving us, anyway.”

“Sure,” he said, and went to separate his cup from his canteen and filled half of it with coffee from the bigger cup Miss Ilyukhina handed him. She was still reading the same book as before, and on the top of each page was written; Orlando: een biografie. “Oh, I know that one. Virginia Woolf. Nice.”

Miss Ilyukhina smiled at him, and he realized he’d talked out loud. “You read this book?” she asked. 

“Oh, not that one. But I’ve heard of it. Is it good?” He hardly sat down beside the majoor, immediately taking his bad foot off the ground. 

She shrugged. “It’s a book. I like it.” 

He nodded, maybe that made more sense in Dutch. Or not. He took a sip of his coffee. It was very cold, very bitter, but quite good when he compared it to the coffee they had in their ration packs. That would do for the morning, anyway, as he still felt quite sick, and he wouldn’t want to risk sending a whole ration to waste. “Where are Shapiro and Kolonel Stratt?” he asked, drumming his fingers on the steel of his cup. 

“They’ve gone to establish a perimeter,” Hatch answered, walking over to sit beside Rocky, already opening a K-ration breakfast module. “They wanted to make sure the krauts haven’t advanced too much and we can leave without a skirmish we’re inevitably gonna lose.” 

He raised a brow. “Kolonel Stratt did?” Scouting wasn’t usually something that high-ranked officers liked to do themselves, but to each their own, Ryland guessed. 

“She likes the fresh air,” Miss Ilyukhina said, waving a dismissive hand without looking up from her book. “Don’t worry. She doesn’t eat young men. At least, she did not last time I asked her.” 

“D’you want sugar with your coffee, lieutenant?” asked Hatch, and when Ryland nodded, he threw two of the four little sugar tablets from his K-ration at the table in front of him. 

He promptly thanked him, and immediately seasoned his coffee. Then, as everyone settled to their own thing, his focus started to expand beyond his direct line of sight, and now he could hear it. He could hear the distant sound of fire, artillery, of everything that was happening outside, just a town over. He knew where the noise came from. Best, Veghel, maybe even Eindhoven already. Where they were fighting for the bridges. But still, the more he focused on it, the more it was as if fire was spreading towards them. He could almost feel the rumble of shells, hear their whistle seconds before they shook the ground around him, upheaving the earth and sending boys to their early graves, thousands of miles away from home. 

“What’ll happen to the other members of the resistance out there?” he asked, because he needed to think about something else, anything that wasn’t what was currently happening to his platoon, because he knew that the gliders had landed by then, and that they’d been sent off to fight with the rest of the 101st already. 

“Oh, yes, do not worry about them,” Miss Ilyukhina answered. “They are well hidden, and safe now that you guys are here…” She frowned, and asked something to Majoor Yáo, who just nodded. “Well, hum… the majoor and Kolonel Stratt, they are really important for the resistance, and their work will be better done in London with the others, now. And me– well, I have a… uh– khuy…” She took a few seconds, visibly looking for a word. “I do not know the right word, but the Nazis are looking for me. They want to get me, and the majoor offered to take me with them, for safety. He owes me one.”

“A warrant?” offered Ryland. “For your arrest?” 

She nodded. “Warrant, yes. Fun, isn’t it?” 

“Why are they lookin’ for you?” asked Hatch, mouth full with the cereal he’d just poured in his cup (which he’d previously filled with water. Ew). 

She gave him a small smile, tilting her head over. “My job was to be friendly with drunk officers and get information from them. They found out what I was doing.” She nodded to herself. “Majoor Jan made sure I would live. I am lucky.” 

“Jeez,” Rocky mumbled, grabbing a few pieces of cereal from Hatch’s cup. “And you don’t wanna carry a gun with you?” 

“No. I was taking intelligence for peace and freedom. I do not want to bring more war to my country by doing what the Nazis do to us.” 

“That’s great,” Ryland said without really thinking about it as he finished his coffee. “You don’t need to carry a gun now, anyway. We’re here to do the ugly work for you.” He wished he could do the same as her. He wished he’d had the courage to declare himself a conscientious objector when he first got drafted. Instead, he stood and went to gather his things, putting his jacket, helmet, and musette bag on, and shouldering his rifle while trying his best not to limp too much. 

But apparently, he wasn’t doing that great of a job, because as he passed Hatch, the medic held a hand in front of him. “Sorry, sir, but are you okay?” he asked, voice low as if they weren’t in a tiny enclosure and everyone could hear him. 

Ryland nodded. “Yeah. I’ll be good.” 

“Can I at least take a look?” 

He was about to say no and tell him that he needed to be out to wait for Kolonel Stratt so they could discuss their itinerary for the day, but Hatch really did look worried, and in just a minute Ryland was sitting on the floor with his right boot and sock off, pants ridden up to his knee. Hatch squatted in front of him, testing the range of motion of his ankle. 

And, he had to say, he was glad paratroopers were issued higher boots, because he didn’t think he would’ve been able to walk with less supportive shoes. His ankle and foot were swollen, small speckles of bruises running up alongside the sides. 

“Pannenkoek, that looks really ugly,” said Miss Ilyukhina as she stood up and looked down towards Ryland. “What happened?”

“I landed into a tree,” he answered, the back of his neck flaring up in shame. 

“Oh,” she said, then turned to Majoor Yáo and probably repeated what Ryland had just said in Dutch, which he answered with a frown and a pitied look down at the lieutenant. Great, now he lost all of his credibility in the eyes of the scary weathered officer. 

Thankfully, Hatch didn’t make too much of a fuss about it, he just tightly wrapped the sprain to reduce swelling and motion, and strongly advised Ryland to tell him if the pain became too much so he could improvise him a splint. Then Shapiro and Kolonel Stratt came back, confirming that the coast was clear and that they could leave in a few minutes. 

“Liempde is basically empty by now,” said Shapiro. “I guess they’re all in Boxtel or defending the bridges, by now.”

“We will leave in three waves,” Stratt said without looking at anyone. “At least one trained gunman –or American– per team in case things get messy. Corporal Shapiro and Majoor Yáo will leave first and act as armed scouts who can easily run back to the next group in case they spot enemy patrols. Then Private Rivera, Sergeant Hatch and Olesya will follow. I hope your skills as a rifleman are as good as you praise them to be, private.” 

“Don’t worry, sir,” Rocky said with a very serious voice and the hint of a smile on his face. “I’m a very modest man.” 

“Good. Then Lieutenant Grace and myself will  close the march. We will stay within a kilometer of each other at all times,” (so 0.62 miles, Ryland did his homework!) “gather twice or thrice a day to rest, and will rotate groups every day until we don’t need to anymore.” 

“Wait, hold on,” Ryland said, standing up while Kolonel Stratt looked at him with a gaze that made him want to shut up very quickly. “You wanna separate us? I can’t leave my men!” 

She straightened, and even if she was maybe four or five inches shorter than Ryland, she really seemed to be taller than him right now. Gosh, she was a terrifying woman. Partly because she knew military strategy well, mostly because she was very good at it, probably. He wanted to back down from his statement, but thankfully, she spoke first again. “Would you rather have seven people, including four in full American military uniform, march along the enemy lines together? Maybe we should shoot in the air and yell in German that we are here as well, so that they can come to us first.” 

He held a hand up in defeat. “Okay, sorry, sir. I didn’t think.” 

“Clearly. Besides, it will only be in effect until we cross the front line in Belgium. Then, once we are back in allied territory, there will be no reason to separate.”

He almost expected her to order him to walk the first stint with Hatch and Miss Ilyukhina so she could have Rocky as company, but she didn’t change her teams, and immediately went on to explain their itinerary for the morning. They laid three maps of the Eindhoven region on the table and decided that fifteen miles would be a nice morning walk, and that they would rendezvous at thirteen hours in the middle of a forest nine miles west of the edge of Eindhoven. And, just like that, two minutes later, Shapiro left with Majoor Yáo. It felt wrong, but Ryland wasn’t the one who called the shots. 

“D’you know how to shoot?” Rocky asked Miss Ilyukhina as they had all been sitting in silence, waiting fifteen minutes in between teams. “I don’t want you to actually shoot, just– if things happen, you could aim in their general direction to scare ‘em, and I’d be more comfortable giving out my Colt to someone who knows how a gun works.” 

“Fuck you,” Hatch said, and Ryland’s eyes darted up from his M1 (which he was cleaning, he wasn’t no psycho who lovingly stared at his weapons) for a second, but he decided against saying anything. “I know how to shoot.” 

“Barely.” 

“I know how a gun works,” Miss Ilyukhina said. “I have been taught to shoot. Can I see your… your Colt?” 

The way she pronounced it seemed to pierce Ryland’s heart just a bit. His mouth twitched, and he pursed his lips, trying not to think about it. He didn’t have time to get overly sentimental about the name of a flipping gun. He had other things to do. So he looked up at Rocky handing his sidearm to the woman, who carefully held it to every angle, looking at it like it was some sort of ancient artifact. She asked questions about it (some of which even Rocky didn’t have an answer to) until it was time for them to go. 

And then Ryland was alone with Kolonel Stratt, and she didn’t say a word. She stayed where she was, sitting at the table with her back to him doing whatever with papers and maps. Her hair was different from the night before (a few hours before?). She’d untied the knot, letting old –now mostly straight– curls down to the middle of her back. She had beautiful hair, but maybe it was because Ryland hadn’t looked at a woman’s hair for so long he’d forgotten human beings could produce more than overgrown military-grade cuts and neglected beards. 

Besides, he didn’t have much to look at, as the workshop wasn’t the most entertaining place, and Kolonel Stratt didn’t even throw a glance at him, who was still on the ground with his rifle on his lap. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do in only fifteen minutes, so he tried to do what the Army taught him best: waiting. 

He rummaged through his pockets trying to find a half-empty packet of ration crackers, and when he finally got hold of it, he spent five minutes forcing himself to eat a few of them. Then he looked down at his watch and there was ten minutes left and apparently he forgot how to wait as well because he started talking. “Kolonel, sir?” 

She didn’t pause what she was doing, nor did she turn to look at him. “Yes, lieutenant?” 

“Permission to ask a question?” 

“You can ask as many questions as you want and be as direct as you want, I’m not your superior officer.” 

“I’d care to argue.” 

“Don’t. I’m not. I’m one of the heads of intelligence in the Dutch Resistance, and you’re a platoon leader of the American Army. I’m not your superior officer. What was your question?” 

“Why are you going to England? I mean– wouldn’t you be better off staying here for the cause? And why need us to escort you, if you’re so good at hiding? Miss Ilyukhina gave a reason for herself, but I’m curious to know yours.” 

“The cause?” she repeated, turning around to face him, a slight crease in between her light eyebrows. Each time she looked at him, it was like her eyes had a physical presence pushing him back, so instead of maintaining eye-contact, he stared at a vague point behind her. 

“That was badly said,” he rectified himself, then cleared his throat. “I just meant to ask why you were going to England now, and not back when the others left.” 

“The others, like you call them, lieutenant, are the leaders of our country, who have been exiled, they did not leave because they were cowards. Do you know how quickly we have been overthrown by the Nazis? Do you know how fast we had to surrender to keep our people safe?” Her voice was calm, but Ryland felt like a child being lectured by his elementary school teacher after he’d asked a stupid question. That was mostly the case. “Hours. Just hours after they’d taken Rotterdam. We were a neutral nation, and they had no right to attack us. Now, they did, and when it happened, fate was left in our hands. Majoor Yáo and I weren’t important enough to flee back then, but now we are, and we’ve been called back to England, to oversee the late stages of the resistance and prepare the future government. We are not fleeing the fight.” She took a breath. “As for you, it is a precaution. I may hold a military rank, but I have never been in the Army, and Majoor Yáo was in the reserve before the war. We need competence, and apparently, you’re the most competent people they found.”

Oh, gosh. That wasn’t the right moment to say that. Ryland licked his lips, trying very hard not to burst out laughing. 

“What is it?” she asked. He apparently didn’t have the best resting face. 

“No, sir, it’s just– uh… how can I put it? They– they kind of passed the order down several divisions until it landed on mine, and they asked my commanding officer to send a squad, and he asked me ‘cause I was… and I quote him, the least likely to be mad at being ordered around by a woman and an old man who doesn’t speak a lick of English.” He didn’t know why he was repeating it to her, she didn’t need to know. He could’ve let her believe that he was the most competent moron of the US Army, but he figured she was going to figure it out sooner or later, anyway. “So… not the most competent, I guess,” he added, just to bury himself even deeper. 

Stratt just kind of stared at him for a moment, her eyes going up and down from his face to his rifle on his lap to probably his right boot that kept his bandages as pressed against his skin as possible. Then, she turned back around and rested an elbow on the table, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Who chose the other men?” she asked in a sigh. 

“I did. I– uh… called on the best of my platoon. I think I did a great job. They’re jokesters, but they’re good at their job.” 

“Okay.” She brought her head up, but didn’t look back at him. “So I didn’t just send my people to die outside?” 

“I don’t think Shapiro could kill someone in cold blood, and Rocky’s probably too busy talking about his guns to actually use ‘em on Miss Ilyukhina. And, well, Hatch is our medic, his job is to help people. One night actually, when we were in Normandy, we came across a farmhouse, and inside of it there was a German soldier who’d been shot, and he was dying. Hatch, he tried to help him with his wound and he kept talking to him like the kid understood English, and even when his platoon sergeant tried to make him stop so someone could shoot the poor bastard in the head, he kept trying to help and ended up cradling the German until he died. So, uh–” He’d forgotten why he started telling this. Good job, Ryland. “Yeah,” he said in an exhale instead of coming up with the morale of the story. 

She didn’t answer. Instead she went back to work, and didn’t speak until the time was up. Then she cleared the table from her maps and papers, neatly arranging them into a small, duffel looking bag and turned the oil lamp off. And, once Ryland had climbed the small ladder up to the ceiling hatch, she followed him out. She concealed the opening with a layer of hay, and, just like that, they started walking. 

Ryland held his rifle at the ready, tucked under his armpit as they walked a hundred feet off the road, right behind the treeline. There, they would be able to easily hear anything on the road, as well as quickly conceal themselves in the surrounding foliage. Besides, they didn’t even speak. If no one looked directly at them, they were practically invisible from the road. 

The sun was slowly rising, and the soft smell of dew started to remind him of early mornings walking to school with Colt, racing each other down the road by the lake, waving at the few cars passing them, sometimes catching a ride at the back of Mr. Deffner’s Chevrolet Superior. And now he could almost smell the leather of the seats, and feel the wind on his face, and see Colt, standing beside him with his arms open, assuring him that, if Mr. Deffner drove just a bit faster, he’d be able to take off flying. 

For a moment, just a moment, Ryland was eleven years old and riding in the back of his neighbor’s car, and the worst thing in the world was the fact that Colt was better at baseball than him, but even that was alright, because Ryland had always been better in science class, anyway. And then he took a wrong step, and there was a bump in the grass that made his ankle twist in a way that could’ve torn a cry from his throat, and he was back in the Netherlands again. And Colt wasn’t there. 

The first words Kolonel Stratt uttered were about an hour into the walk, and Ryland probably hadn’t spoken yet because of how badly his foot was hurting, and he was just focusing on each step, trying to remind himself that he was just one step closer to stopping. “Will you be okay?” she asked, and for a moment he was confused. 

“Only time will tell,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t know what the krauts have in store for me once I’ll get back with my company.” 

She was walking beside him, and at some point she’d put her hair back up, because the knot was back. And when he looked at her, she had that stern look on her face that never seemed to leave her. “I meant your foot.” 

“Oh, yeah.” He chuckled. “I’ll be fine as a lime. It’s not like I could do anything for it, anyway.” 

Another hour of silence. 

It was pretty relaxing, listening to the sounds of nature, and the distant noise of battle growing farther and quieter as time passed and they walked towards their rendezvous point. The terrain was uneven but rather flat, so no big hills and torture, and he wasn’t even carrying that much gear, anyway. He’d walked longer distances with much more on his back. He really wished he hadn’t landed that stupidly, or that two hundred mile walk would’ve felt exactly like the free leave Major Redell had promised him. 

“It’s pretty nice, actually,” he said out of nowhere, and his voice sounded weird. He immediately remembered how bad he hated being the first one to speak after a while. “I was expecting rougher terrain… and more Nazis.” He tapped the wood of his rifle. One never knew, and he wasn’t one to willingly want to jinx himself. 

By then they’d entered a patch of rather dense woods, which uncomfortably reminded him of Normandy. And the fact that they used to send patrols through similar patches of boisery, with the sole objective of looking for scattered enemies. 

“We’ll be fine, here,” Kolonel Stratt answered very matter-of-factly, and Ryland was quickly reminded that he was walking with a literal spy. “I wouldn’t worry until we cross the border.” 

“I bet you know this region better than the bottom of your own pockets, do you?” He asked, his sentence ending in a chuckle that just sounded like he’d decided to bark a loud; “Ah!”

“I do, yes,” she said, and then she sounded like she was about to add something, when she stopped dead in her tracks and stuck her head to her right like a hound dog pointing. 

She didn’t need to say a word more for Ryland to raise his rifle. He looked into every direction, his eyes scanning over every inch of land he could see. He looked for movement. For those grayish green uniforms and distinctive helmets. He listened for footsteps and voices, but he couldn’t hear anything other than his own breathing and the wind whistling through leaves, and he couldn’t see anything but Kolonel Stratt and trees. 

No, scrap that. There was something exactly where she was looking towards, but it wasn’t a squad of Germans with the muzzle of their K98ks pointed at them. It was just a trail of broken off branches on the far right. The sun was high up in the sky now, so things were clearer, but still, it was odd that Stratt had even noticed it. But if she knew those woods like the back of her hand, it kind of made sense that she would notice something like that. 

“Should we check it out, sir?” he asked her. 

“Yes,” she said, already walking towards the broken trees. “I don’t know what could make that kind of damage.”

As they approached it, Ryland recognized it immediately. The trees seemed to be broken in a path that went downward. Like a plane crashing. But it was too small to be a C-47. “It’s a Waco.” 

She looked over at him with a confused face. “A what?” 

“A Waco CG-4. A glider.” She probably already knew what a glider was, and what it was for, but she didn’t interrupt him, and he kept talking. “The Brits call ‘em Hadrians, after the Roman emperor, but we call ‘em Waco, or just CG-4A. They carry troops and cargo or supplies and– oh, Christopher Columbus, we have to make sure nothing important was left in there.”

And, of course, he was right. A thousand feet further laid the carcass of an American Waco, red, white, and blue star painted on its side near the tail. He knew that it had been shot down by an 88 and lost all control to land safely, thanks to it missing half of its wings, and the gaping hole torn into its side. 

He’d never really liked gliders. They were too small, too frail. Their wooden frame didn’t look sturdy enough to fly, and he knew it was, but he couldn’t wrap his head around it. He was glad to be in parachute infantry. At least he had somewhat a bit more control on his landing.

He made his way to it, hand instinctively reaching up for what was left of the wing as he walked underneath. Its nose was still closed, and a mouth with sharp teeth had been painted on it, big round eyes behind the cockpit glass staring ahead like a dead dog. Even though most of it had been blown off, he remembered that, on this particular glider, the words Hitler’s Undertakers had been painted under the wings, right by the door. 

Stratt hadn’t followed him, and stood by the glider’s tail. Thank God for that, because Ryland’s eyes were already burning, just by the anticipation of what he would find once he entered that glider. He knew that it was a 101st aircraft, and, even though he didn’t know any of the infantry who’d been tethered to that glider, he knew they were Screaming Eagles, and that was enough for him to feel upset. Hey, he had the right to! 

He prepared himself mentally and carefully went back to the wing to look inside. This one had been carrying a Jeep, which had gotten free from its restraints and tumbled to the very front of the glider, breaking its support beams. Immediately he saw blood on the floor surrounding three infantrymen on the ground right behind the Jeep. Only one was laying on his back, eyes blown open, mouth hanging and weeping blood. He was missing his helmet. His skull was broken. The other two… Ryland didn’t want to look at them. He grunted a swallow, then took his glasses off and tucked them into the collar of his jacket. He squinted at the supply boxes, trying his best not to start crying, and, repeating to himself that the others probably made it out alive, he knew that he needed to work.

He was looking for anything that could potentially hinder their plan if found by a German patrol. Thankfully, none of these boxes had been opened, but Jesus, the smell was already terrible. Even without getting inside, he could smell the metal of the blood, and the rotten stench of bodily fluids mixed with that familiar scent he didn’t think he would ever be able to forget. 

He turned his head away from it to take a deep breath and got inside. He quickly walked around the poor men (did they have time to bury them? Maybe, he should ask Kolonel Stratt) and went to open the closest box. It contained ammo. The next one too. Then he found rations and took a few for himself, shoving them in his musette bag. He found maps and documents that probably belonged to the platoon leader, and kept those too. 

Then, something caught his eye. A soft glimmer on his right, near the Jeep. He looked over, doing his best to avoid looking at the ground, but he couldn’t see clearly. Maybe it was loose ammo he could pocket, or a few dropped pennies he wouldn’t touch (yes, he was broke, but he wasn’t broke enough yet to steal a dead man’s money). But, when he put his glasses on and the similar colors of the broken command seats and a human hand focused back into two different things. Ryland realized he’d been looking at the wedding band of a man, probably the pilot or co-pilot, who’d died in such a position he could only see his hand at the Jeep’s side. Balled into a fist, and to remain this way until the flesh would fall off his bones. He wasn’t going to go take a look just yet. Now he needed to open those crates. 

“Are you finished?” Stratt asked from outside. 

“Yeah, I’m almost done, just checking all the boxes inside.” He took a deep breath. It didn’t hurt to ask. “Uh– d’you think we have time to spare for three or four… burials?”

“No.” Darn it, she didn’t even hesitate. Ryland pursed his lips and nodded, sniffling back a tear as he pushed a box of ammo off from another one before he opened the latter. 

“With all due respect, kolonel,” he retorted without even thinking about it first, “we can’t just leave ‘em here!” 

“We can. We are doing it.” Her voice sounded closer, and when he turned around, she was standing right outside the opening, staring down at the corpses at Ryland’s side. The calmness of her voice didn’t match her face, as she clenched her jaw and forced her eyes off the dead. Then, she stepped inside and joined him by the crates. “What are we looking for?”

“Papers, anything that could compromise our plan if found by the krauts. Also, you can help yourself with anything that tickles your fancy. These poor guys won’t need it anymore.” 

She immediately went to work, inhaling small breaths, and Ryland wondered if being in the resistance brought her as close to death as the Army had taken him. “Not used to it?” he asked, because apparently he couldn’t shut up anymore. 

She shook her head as an answer. 

“Yeah.” He sniffled, opening another box of ammo. Talking and taking breaths made him feel like the corpses were being physically shoved down his throat. “You can’t ever get used to it.” In Normandy, he used to think he was used to it. But he wasn’t. He just wasn’t himself back there. Like he’d plucked his own soul from his body and kept it at arm’s reach until he was safe. 

He forced himself to repress a gag and go on, but he significantly picked up the pace, and went as quickly as possible until he couldn’t do it anymore and hopped outside to vomit the few crackers he’d had for breakfast. Peachy. just peachy. 

There wasn’t anything else in the crates, anyway, and they had to move on not to be too behind schedule. Ryland didn’t look back– well, he tried not to, but ended up turning around at least five times before forcing himself to walk forward and move on. 

It was harder to go on, now. Not only was the pain pushed in the foreground of his thoughts, they were now accompanied by the recurring images of these dead soldiers. Of that man’s head, of his eyes and his mouth and the fact that they would just decay there. And now he remembered flashes of Normandy, of limbs blown off by shells, of boys crying as they died, of helmets flying off, leaving their soldiers standing there with a hole in their skull. He’d spent the summer in England, training and trying not to remember what had happened in June, to shove it in a corner of his mind like it was a bad dream. But now, there was no denying the obvious. He really needed to get somewhat used to it again. 

He took a deep breath and exhaled every last bit of CO2 through his mouth, puffing his cheeks until he felt dizzy. It was barely noon, they still had around two and a half miles to walk until the rendezvous point. He knew he would have to eat, then, because he needed food to not drop dead two minutes into the afternoon stint, but right now, even thinking about food made him feel like he was going to be sick.

And the feeling didn’t go away. When they joined the others, who had already gathered by a fallen tree in the middle of a little patch of forest, Ryland still felt sick. “Look who’s here!” Rocky said with a smile, and Ryland could tell that they’d been fraternizing. They were passing around some stale-looking bread and canned ration meat. 

It was pork, Ryland could tell by the smell, too close to the scent of human flesh. He was never going to be able to eat. 

“How was the walk, sir?” Hatch asked him as Stratt went to quietly sit with Majoor Yáo and Ryland stood there like a moron. “Everything okay?” 

He swallowed. “Yeah, we– uh… we came across a crashed glider. We retrieved possible intelligence and moved on. That’s it.” 

“Any casualties?” 

“At least four. There was nothing we could’ve done.”

Hatch nodded, then looked down at the can of pork he was eating. “Want some, sir?” 

“Not right now, sergeant, please don’t put that thing in my face.” 

“Sorry, sir.” He swapped his can to his other hand and held it away from him. “Try to eat at least some crackers, then. Or a D-ration. The road’s still long.” 

He would argue that he did more on less food, back in June, but he remembered how Hatch ran around trying to make everyone eat their fill, and Ryland grabbed his package of crackers from that morning. 

And he did eat! A bit. Enough to stand up and plan where they would stop that evening. In the woods between Arendonk, which was still under German occupation, and Lommel, which had been liberated while the 101st was still in England. And that was only a ten-mile walk, which would probably be done by nineteen-thirty hours if the first group left by fourteen hundred fifteen. 

“D’you think they choose the names on purpose?” Rocky said out of nowhere, walking to Ryland just minutes before he was scheduled to leave. Ryland had isolated himself for a bit, trying to fill his head with views of grass and trees instead of that glider. “Arendonk. Donk. It sounds funny, doesn’t it, sir?” 

“It does,” Ryland’s brain answered. Then he actually realized that someone was talking to him, and he turned to face Rocky. “Only when you say it, though, private.”

“What? Arendonk?”

Ryland smiled. He had that distinctive southern accent, adjacent to the Floridian one (which Ryland had lost on purpose as soon as he moved to California). “Arendonk,” he repeated. It didn’t sound as funny when he said it. “It’s still occupied, though. I’m not sure we’ll be laughing at it once we get close.” 

“Ever the optimist, sir.” He chuckled to himself, and pulled a cigarette from its tin case. “Cigarette, sir?” 

“No, I’m fine.” 

He pinched it between his lips and shielded it with his palms to light it. “You the boss, sir.” 

The first answer that came to his lips was an apology, so Ryland kept quiet and tried to breathe deeper as Rocky exhaled smoke beside him. 

Walking became even harder, in the afternoon. It wasn’t particularly hot, and, to be fair, Ryland was used to both southern and Californian heat, so the soft end of a Dutch summer wasn’t too bad. But it wasn’t the heat that bothered him, it was his ankle. At around sixteen hundred hours, he’d started to notice that it was starting to hurt really, really bad. So bad he couldn’t think about anything else other than the pain, and whether he should use his only syrette of morphine or keep it for later, when it would inevitably become worse. 

Because now, he knew he was just being dramatic. It wasn’t even that bad. He could walk all right, and the bandages were doing somewhat of a difference. He could feel that the lack of freedom of movement he had in his ankle was helping with the pain (another proof that he was being dramatic), and it was nice. While they were on flat ground. Once they started to climb those little hills towards the end of the afternoon and the inclination of the ground worked directly against his ankle, Ryland really wanted to use that syrette. 

But then, when he said it to himself out loud, Kolonel Stratt told him to “Waste it, if you think we won’t need it later.” he decided to grit his teeth and ‘walk it off”. 

And he did. He felt like his bone had detached from his body when they arrived at the rendezvous point, but he didn’t use his morphine, good job, Ryland! Though he would’ve done it for sure, if they had walked just a mile more.

But he was feeling less nauseous than in the morning, and the glider had already slipped through his mind like a bad dream. Just like everything in Normandy. Days were so long that what happened in the morning seemed to be long past by the evening. He still couldn’t be near pork, though, and opened himself a can of beef and beans he shared with Majoor Yáo. Hatch, who sat on the ground sharing his supper with Shapiro, kept throwing glances at Ryland like a mother trying to make sure her toddler wasn’t running in the lake to drown himself, probably making sure he wasn’t out there developing gangrene from a sprain. 

Then, as the enlisted men dug their foxholes for the night with the very eager help of Miss Ilyukhina (who was only twenty years old, according to Rocky who’d spent the day with her), Ryland walked the perimeter with Kolonel Stratt. She’d asked (ordered?) him to, because otherwise he only would’ve stood up to walk the few feet between where he’d eaten and where he would sleep. 

It felt weird, to walk beside an armed woman. She’d traded her handgun for a rifle he couldn’t identify, probably some kind of Dutch military-issued weapon, and he could tell she knew exactly how to use it just by the way she held it. So, she was a spy, head of intelligence, and she knew how to walk a round of watch. He wondered what else she could do. 

He didn’t ask, of course, because, even though she wasn’t her superior officer, she was still a colonel, and he hadn’t lost all of his discipline just yet. So they walked the perimeter three times in complete silence before she stopped and lit herself a cigarette. Ryland stuck to the side of a tree to lean on it while still appearing to stand straight only after she beckoned him to stay. He held his rifle with only one hand, letting it point to the ground. 

“Are you gonna assume the first guard?” he asked her with a small smile. “I was about to put Shapiro up to it, and he doesn’t usually fall asleep, if that’s what you’re worried about.” 

“No, he is going to do it. I just need the fresh air before going in the hole.” She offered him her cigarette. “Do you smoke?” 

“We’re outside anyway,” he said with a nod, taking a small hit of it before passing it back to her. 

“It’s not the same.” 

“Yeah, I know.” He exhaled in a sigh, staring ahead at the trees. They were thin and spaced out, which didn’t give much cover, but no one was there. Majoor Yáo and Shapiro established a good perimeter when they first arrived, and they should be relatively safe. As long as they didn’t start yelling songs or lighting a fire to cook a second supper. 

 But it was nice, for now. He quickly tapped the wood of his rifle. He was expecting to not get any sleep because of the never ending fire (which was there, but he could tell it was several miles away and none of their immediate concern), or to cross paths with a German patrol and have to find a way past them. But no. The woods were empty except for them and a few animals, and maybe, they would be safe. He touched the wood of his rifle again for good measure.

“You do understand why I didn’t let you bury those men earlier, right?” Kolonel Stratt asked after a moment, and her voice was like the sound of an alarm clock to Ryland’s brain. A rather soft, rather pleasant alarm, but one nonetheless. 

“Yes, sir,” he said, nodding to make her understand that he really did. “No need to explain it. I know. I was being… unprofessional and I acted with too much emotion. Please forgive me. I’ve spent a lot of time in the rear, and I– I don’t know… I wasn’t expecting it to be this way here. It won’t happen again.” 

She huffed, and he wasn’t sure if it was the sound of her exhaling smoke or chuckling. “When hasn’t it been this way?” 

“I don’t know, to be honest I– uh…” He looked down at her hand as she passed him the cigarette again, and he rolled it between his fingers for a while. “I’d never seen the front lines before Normandy. We heard stories from the 82nd before the landings, they– uh… they landed in Sicily last year and they told us how easy it had been, just like training. We believed them. And then we got…” Mouth slightly open, he brushed his tongue against the tip of his top teeth and took a deep hit. He didn’t like smoking, but it did feel good. “… dropped in France, and… yeah…” he cleared his throat, way too loudly for the circumstances, and took another hit. 

“This will not be anything like Normandy. I don’t know how it was, but I’ve heard of it. The circumstances are different, and you aren’t with your division. Do not try to compare.” 

“Yes, sir.” Another hit. It felt really good. Maybe he should start actually smoking instead of only doing so sometimes when someone offered him to share.

“Can you please– not finish my cigarette?” 

Oh. “Sorry, sir.” He handed it back to her and clasped his hands behind his back as she licked her bottom lip and took the cigarette in her mouth. Her hair was down again, flowing down like water down rocks and cliffs, but the rock was her shoulder, and the cliff her back, and– what in the world was he thinking? He turned to look at the trees and the very very obvious lack of cover. 

That was a better thought. If a sniper got bored and decided to look into the forest, they’d be down in two shots. And then Ryland’s squad would be under the command of Majoor Yáo, who didn’t speak English and would have to communicate through Shapiro or Miss Ilyukhina while Ryland would be dead in the ground… Yeah, not better. He breathed. He needed to sleep. “I’ll–uh,” he told Kolonel Stratt. “I’ll go get some shuteye.” 

She looked over at him and nodded. “Alright. Good night, Lieutenant Grace.”

He pushed himself off the tree and turned his whole body towards her. Good night, sir, he thought but didn’t say out loud, or maybe he did. He couldn’t tell, and she didn’t react at all. He saluted her anyway, then spun on his good heel and slowly walked to the –now completely dug– foxholes. 

He ordered Shapiro to go on guard until twenty-three hours, where he would be replaced by Rocky, then Hatch and Yáo, and then back to Ryland, who would have the last watch. Good plan. He got down in his foxhole, which he was sharing with Rocky, and found him playing around with some twigs and leaves. He often did that, and Ryland had yet to see what it was for. 

“Do you want my jacket?” he asked him, and Rocky’s face illuminated. 

“Yes, sir, please. Thank you, sir.” 

Jacketless, Ryland settled down and crossed his arms over his chest. “Don’t stay up too late, private.” 

“Yes, sir. Good night, sir.” 

“‘Night, Rocky.”

[jaesnovak]

Till Tomorrow - Chapter 1: September 17th

☾ World War II AU

☾ Ryland Grace x Eva Stratt

☾ 9.5k words

☾ ao3 link

☾ summary:

First Lieutenant Ryland Grace never was the man of the situation. So, when he was handpicked by his commanding officer to lead a squad of soldiers and escort three important members of the Dutch Resistance through the enemy line, he would have never thought that, instead of the expected disaster, he would find love and comfort in the face of a stern spy who greatly outranked him.

Next Chapter

Tucked in the corner of the plane, stiffly sitting right between the fuselage and the cockpit wall, Ryland yawned. He was sitting stiffly, knees dangerously close to the open door, his fastened chinstrap keeping him from properly opening his mouth and almost dislocating his jaw the way he liked. 

The wind and engines of the plane were so loud even a simple thought overwhelmed his mind. Yet he couldn’t stop. He’d almost fallen asleep, last time they’d jumped behind enemy lines. It had been easier somehow, to doze off knowing that you were certainly about to die. He’d been sitting exactly there, on another C-47 that was probably shot down soon after they’d jumped. The pills they’d been given before takeoff had rendered him dizzy, sleepy, and nauseous at the same time, and, paired with watching the night sea from above, he was rendered half-useless, dozing to the roaring engines until he started hearing the 88s on the ground, and everything suddenly started to feel more real than anything ever had.

Today, though, he was somewhat awake. The stakes were lower. Way lower. And daylight shone through the clouds (it was the first time he jumped during the day since jump training!), though the sea was as pale and agitated as it had been in early June. He could still see England on the distant horizon, the last bit of land he was ever going to see before entering enemy territory again. The plane was shaking, jostled around as it pierced through the air at a relatively small speed, but it was alright. 

Well, no. Nothing was alright about this. Not the war. Not the fact that he was currently sitting on the floor of an airplane, mere inches from an open door. Not the knowledge that they were back in it, after spending the summer in England. Not remembering that he wasn’t even here of his own accord. He probably would’ve been pacing around talking himself up, if he wasn’t weighed down 120 pounds and about to jump into the Netherlands. 

And it didn’t even feel crazy. He knew he should be in his classroom right now –well, not right now, it was Sunday, probably around eleven, he would’ve been home– but after what happened these last few months, the Netherlands didn’t even seem that bad. 

“Everything okay, sir?” asked Sergeant Hatch, the medic of Ryland’s platoon. They’d known each other since Fort Benning, and Ryland probably trusted Hatch with his life more than Hatch trusted him with his.

Ryland gave him a thumbs up. “Yep!” he said, talking loud enough so that Hatch could hear him over the engines. “All good!” 

“Permission to speak to you then, sir?”

Ryland pondered it for at least one second. Calm was good, but he would be a liar if he said he didn’t need a distraction from that awful noise. “Granted.” 

He stood and approached Ryland, crouching a few feet from him, and as far to the door as he physically could. “It doesn’t feel the same as last time,” he said, light eyes squinting into the light, but he was still staring at the opening. “It’s so peaceful.” 

“Be patient, we haven’t even crossed the Channel yet.” 

“I know, sir. But even if you look into the sea, there aren’t ships shadowing us, and it’s daytime. And I don’t know about you, but Market Garden doesn’t feel as much like a death sentence as Overlord did. I dunno. I might be moving to a nice farm and keep flowerpots by the window in the Netherlands instead of dying screaming on a beach.” 

Ryland chuckled, his eyes lost somewhere in the middle of the plane. Hatch wasn’t wrong. Operation Market Garden wasn’t the most threatening name. Besides, given how the plan had been briefed, it seemed like a given victory. 

“Right now,” Hatch continued, “my body’s trying to force me into thinking we’re just traveling.”

He looked over at the medic. “You often tra–” His helmet wasn’t fastened. “– chinstrap, sergeant. You’ll thank me when you don’t get decapitated. Do you often travel by plane?”

He quickly fastened his helmet, pushing up the leather chin cup of the strap practically into his mouth. “No, sir, that’s the thing! I only ever traveled by train before I got in the Airborne. I mean, I was used to boats too when I was younger, see? I got an aunt who lived in Block Island for a while, and we used to visit her every few weekends when my father didn’t work. But my first time on an actual plane was during jump training. You too, sir?” 

Ryland swallowed, slightly shifting his position to move away from the door. His legs had fallen asleep and he could barely lift the weight of his gear this way, so he extended his feet in front of him and tried to ignore the near-unbearable pain (only slightly exaggerating!) coursing through his whole lower half every time the plane jostled. He hated this very normal, very useful bodily reaction almost as much as he hated being here.

“Yeah,” he answered Hatch, crossing his arms over his reserves. “I’m more of a train guy myself. I actually really like it. I used to– well, I usually take the Sunset Limited when I want to come home. I love riding through the desert and looking at the mountains in the distance…” As he spoke, his eyes trailed back outside, and he stared down at the sea. The waves were only small, motionless ridges from that height, a vast, grayish dark blue of absolutely nothing. It was almost overwhelming on its own. It was so big, and it looked so empty. Like a night’s sky speckled with stars that only made it look emptier. “It’s surely better than this.” 

His heart was in his throat. He needed to stop talking. If he didn’t, he’d speak and speak and he wouldn’t stop, and he knew he’d miss the light. But now that he’d closed his mouth, he started feeling sick, and, oh, gosh, he was going to have to jump soon. 

Hatch started to speak again, talking about how he usually took smaller, local trains to ride around New York and Pennsylvania and describing the landscape or something. Ryland, despite occasionally nodding at him, couldn’t listen anymore. He could only think about his own voice. What if he couldn’t yell loud enough? What if his hands shook too much and no one understood his gestures? What if he forgot what he had to do? 

No. He couldn’t forget. Order to stand, order to hook up, check own equipment, verbally confirm equipment check, stand in the door. Jump, jump, jump, jump. Don’t forget to tap everyone on the back and push them if they hesitate. Wait for everyone to be out. And now it’s your turn, Ryland, man up and jump! He’d done it enough before to know he was capable of it. Heck, he’d done it while the sky was on fire and their plane was about to be taken out. And he hadn’t lost anyone in his platoon. 

Well, he hadn’t lost anyone during the jump. Ryland clenched his jaw, frowning at the shaking floor, and suddenly, the light outside shifted. When he looked outside, they were flying over land. They’d reached Belgium. 

He took a deep breath. The plan. He needed to remember the plan. Their part of the plan. Operation Market, in preparation of the land Operation Garden, would allow, by capturing bridges and keeping open Highway 69, the British XXX Corps to travel north to Arnhem. It would only take two days for them to cross the Netherlands, and then it would be over. And then supplies would flow easier, and the Allies would be able to make one final thrust into Germany, and ‘win the war before Christmas’, like everyone –Ryland included– liked to believe. 

The plan! Don’t get carried away! Operation Market! The 101st, Ryland’s men and division, was about to land closest to the XXX, north of Eindhoven. They would take three bridges at Eindhoven, Son, and Veghel, and keep the highway open for the XXX to join them on D+1, maybe even earlier. Easy. The 82nd was to take Nijmegen, and the 1st British Airborne would land north by Arnhem, and would be followed by the Polish Parachute Brigade and the 52nd British Infantry Division would be landed on Deelen D+5. Good. He remembered it. He could even see the maps, see the route the English would take to join the 101st. He breathed through his nose, trying to ignore that feeling in his throat which made his brain so convinced that he was going to throw up. 

Fox Company and the rest of second battalion was tasked to guard drop zones B and C (so, where the 502nd and the 506th were supposed to land!) in order to secure them for the subsequent glider landings. Easy as a sweet apple pie. 

Ryland looked over at his first squad sitting on each side of the plane. Most of them were staring ahead, motionless. Someone was eating some kind of bread with a D-ration bar while his neighbor looked at him with a disgusted face. Private Myers had his hands joined over his reserves, eyes closed and mouth softly moving as he whispered a prayer. Sergeant Hatch had moved on from Ryland a while ago, and was now talking to Corporal Shapiro, who seemed to be more responsive to the medic’s chats. He was pretty sure one of the boys at the very back of the plane was sleeping. Was it Private Goodman? Good for him. As long as he woke up on his own once the door light turned on. All good, man. He snorted at his own thoughts. Goodness gracious, he should stop. 

So! The plan! Ryland had to make sure everyone would jump where they should. Then, he should jump himself. If, when his static line would unhook, his parachute didn’t deploy, he’d pull the rip cord of his reserves and hopefully not die on his way down. Then, maybe after a skirmish to rid the assembly area or drop zones of any Germans, the company would gather in DZ B and set up a guard. And, hopefully, they wouldn’t have more to do before the gliders arrived, and would be able to dig in as well. 

Then– what after? They’d join the rest of the division and capture villages and towns while waiting for the XXX. He looked down at the land, watching as fields upon fields upon fields glided by under him, farmhouses and villages looking like dollhouses manufactured for ants. He tried to imagine what it must be like to live in Belgium, but all he could muster was death-riddled battlefields, just like he did when he was lying down on his stomach by the window of a townhouse in Normandy, wondering how the people who used to live here were. At least, right now, from that height, whatever region they were passing through looked peaceful. Green, late summer tipping into fall, maybe emptied of all population, he tried not to think about it too much. 

But that was all he did. Thinking about it. As painful and overwhelming as it was. He couldn’t stop thinking about the people living there, the people whose homes they destroyed fighting for their freedom. Ryland often thought they Americans had no right to be there, fighting for land that had never been theirs. But who was he to think that? A schoolteacher living in California who had the misfortune to be drafted during relative peacetime? A paratrooper? A United States Army lieutenant? Still, it wasn’t like he could do anything about any of this. All he could do was make sure that his boys would be able to come back home to their mothers, sweethearts, and whoever they left behind in America. 

Ryland had been kept awake by the sound of his own thoughts (and occasional anti-aircraft guns missing them by an embarrassing range) for way too long when the lights finally came on. Sharp red on the opposite side of the door that filled his vision and pushed his body to act before he even thought about it. As he stood, he glanced outside. He could see land, probably still Belgium, but he knew they were already well in enemy territory. He swallowed, trying to ignore how sick and dizzy he felt. 

Two steps got him in the middle aisle of the plane, and everyone who wasn’t too sleepy was already looking at him. Ryland held his hands in front of him, palms facing the soldiers, and yelled; “Get ready!” His voice was barely audible over the engines, as now the planes were flying in a tighter formation than when they were crossing the Channel. 

When everyone was looking at him with the hook of their static line held up high at their head’s height, he flipped his palms to face the sky and brought his hands up. “Stand up!” he bellowed, his voice cracking at the strain. Jesus. Great start. He cleared his throat and everyone was already up and in a tight line in the middle of the plane. Sergeant Hatch would be the first to jump, standing right in front of Ryland. All the softness in his eyes had disappeared. He had a thick crease in his forehead, mouth tucked down in a frown that melted into his chin cup. 

Now, Ryland held his right index finger up and bent it at the middle knuckle. “Hook up!” He waited a moment for everyone to be hooked. He imagined what it would be if someone jumped without hooking up first. A quick hurtle into the ground that would be certainly more painful for the ones who stayed alive. He swallowed. Everyone was hooked. He didn’t need to think of that. 

Instead he exaggeratedly tapped the brim of his own helmet with his hands. “Equipment check!” While everyone checked their own equipment, Ryland made sure his was secure as well. That his chinstrap was well fastened. That his harness and parachute were still secured the way he’d done it on the ground. That his Griswold bag wouldn’t fall off as soon as he jumped like it did in Normandy, stranding him without his rifle. 

After a few seconds of frantically patting himself and pulling on everything that could’ve potentially gotten loose, he was fairly certain that his equipment was fine to jump. So, he gave the third to last command, holding his hands behind his ears. “Sound off for equipment check!” 

“Twelve okay!” yelled the soldier at the very back of the line. Then, a steady flow of voices came to him as they counted each other down until Hatch yelled; “Two okay!” 

“One okay!” Ryland echoed them, and looked over outside. The light was still red, and the flak was still so sparse he wasn’t sure they were even aiming at them. Were the Germans blind? Or were they waiting for them to be directly over their drop zones to start actually killing them? 

No, there was no way they knew where they wanted to land, even though it was pretty easy to guess. But the Netherlands was the rear for the krauts. They had no reasons to leave heavy artillery to defend themselves against a potential air assault. Ryland knew that. He knew there would be little defence upon landing. So why was he second questioning it again? 

“Stand in the door!” He positioned himself behind the door, watching as Hatch and everyone behind him grabbed their line and slid it towards him. The wind and engines rendered both his hearing and sight useless, and he had to stick his helmet against the fuselage to be able to see the light clearly. 

And then, for a moment, just maybe a minute or two, nothing happened. It felt like years, and Ryland was aware of his whole body, of every atom of his being tensing, bracing, anticipating the inevitable. 

“Godspeed, sir!” Hatch shouted at him, and almost as if he’d predicted it, the light turned green. Oh. Oh, gosh, they had to go. 

“Go, go!” Ryland yelled, and tapped Hatch’s back right as he jumped without hesitation. Private Weaver behind him held himself at the door, and Ryland had to gently nudge him towards the right direction, but he still jumped. Corporal Shapiro was out before he could even touch him. And one by one, they jumped, jumped, jumped. Until Ryland was alone in the plane. 

He breathed and hooked himself up and– he was really hooked, right? He was on the right line? Jesus Christ, there was only one line, he couldn’t be hooked on the wrong one! It was too late to think, anyway. He held his hands on either side of the door, closed his eyes, and jumped. He felt a harsh tug on his back as his static line was pulled back against the airplane and his parachute ripped open. All of his organs gathered up, and everything was hurting for the second it took the canopy to yank him off his free falling. 

Ryland gasped, his brain forcing his eyes open. All he could see was light and land quickly approaching and his feet dangling down under him. He looked up and the ridged sheet of nylon almost seemed to merge with the clouds. His hands had wrapped around the risers so tightly he couldn’t feel them at all, and his harness was digging into his skin, and did he still have his musette bag? He looked down again and everything was in place around his side and thighs, but the ground was closer and closer and did he remember how to land? Feet first, then on your butt. Don’t try to roll forward or you’ll kill yourself. Yeah, he could do that. What the heck else could he do, anyway? It wasn’t like the canopy was going to keep him floating. And he needed to gather his platoon as quickly as possible. 

He looked into the horizon for a while, allowing himself to take in the sight of hundreds of men scattered across the sky. Small, peaceful people hanging beneath their canopies, letting themselves descend while the planes roared away. The last bit of calm and (relative) safety they’d know in weeks, maybe even months. 

Calm wasn’t much of a word, though. He was out of breath, his heart beating so fast it rendered him even dizzier. Though, beside the wind in his ears, he couldn’t hear anything. No gunfire, no people crying out as they were shot midair, nothing. He breathed, though it was hard with the wind, and he stuck his elbows out to flip his hands and grab the risers with his thumbs pointing to the ground. 

Speaking of the ground, it was dangerously close now. He would land very close to the treeline, maybe even on a tree (gosh darn it), and he knew they missed the drop zone again. There wasn’t supposed to be any forest nearby. But it was alright, he was just a few thousand feet west of it, and, consequently, quite close to the assembly area as well, which was better than the whooping six miles of Normandy. 

He couldn’t steer himself, so he did his best when he realized he was going to land in the trees. At least it wouldn’t be on a tree, like he was already seeing some men do, but now he was closer and closer to the ground and the trees grew larger and larger in his vision. He stuck his feet together, lifting his legs and pointing his heels towards the ground. His whole body tensed even though he knew he needed to be as relaxed as possible not to hurt himself. He’d never quite mastered that one. 

So he frowned at the growing trees, trying to angle himself to land in between them, and he was closer and closer to the ground, and he was about to land and– 

He grunted, his breath harshly knocked out of his throat as his foot slammed right into a trunk, and he spun and rolled on his side in the dirt. 

He gasped, trying to catch his breath and a root was digging into his arm, and he couldn’t breathe and everything hurt, and his canopy had caught somewhere behind him. He could feel that it wasn’t on the ground, but it didn’t matter and he managed to oxygenate his brain enough to sit up and– “Hoooly heck, it’s Easter again!” his right foot started hurting right away. 

He tilted his whole body to the left to get his musette bag out of the way and brought his knee up to feel his foot through his boot. He wanted to make sure it wasn’t broken. Pressing onto his tendons through the leather of his Corcorans, he couldn’t feel any crunching or unbearable pain, it was his ankle that hurt. “Shirt,” he mumbled, tried to get up on his right foot, hurt himself, and tried again with his other leg. The first thing he did when he was up was hold himself against the nearest tree –he was pretty sure it wasn’t the one who’d just sucker-punched him, if it’d been the case he probably would’ve moved away– and free himself from his jump gear.

He grabbed his pocket knife and cut his risers, then took his parachute backpack off, unclipped his harness, shrugged it off, and let his musette and Griswold bags fall to his feet. His right arm was pressed against the tree while he bent down and opened his musette bag and rummaged inside of it. “Please be intact, please be intact,” he repeated as he looked for his glasses, whispering a celebration when he found them safe and sound, still wrapped in the handkerchief he’d put them in before taking off. 

The forest wasn’t crawling with Germans, and it wasn’t crawling with men of the 101st either. Ryland could see into the field where some of them landed that they were already walking towards the assembly area, while the occasional unlucky boys who’d landed in the trees were starting to drop their lines of rope and lower themselves back onto the ground. 

He made sure no one he could see was struggling or unconscious, and, when he was certain that everyone was alive and well, he freed and reassembled his M1. Then he walked just a few steps, limping more than anything, before noticing a soldier in a tree who seemed to be struggling more than the others. “Are you okay up there?” he asked him. His voice was raw from the jump, and he could tell he shouldn’t be screaming too much or else he would lose his voice before they even got to fight. The soldier was still hanging from his risers twenty feet off the ground, face stuck up towards his canopy while his hands flailed around with a bayonet. Ryland couldn’t see his face, and he couldn’t tell if he was from Fox. “D’you need help?” 

“Nah, man, I’m fine!” he called back without looking down, and Ryland chuckled at the inappropriate language, glad to hear an enlisted man talk to him with the formality he was really worth. “I just don’t wanna drop myself from that height, it’s– I can do it on my own. Thanks, though!”

“Well, holler if you need help! I’m not going to be very quick to the DZ, anyway…” He started limping again and away to the east, and it took him just another few painful steps to know that it was going to be a very, very, very long day. Week, possibly. A very long campaign. And he didn’t even need to run yet. He really wanted to go home. 

A snap and loud shuffling behind him told him that the soldier stuck in a tree was making some progress. “You hurt?” he shouted at Ryland. He clearly didn’t realize he was speaking to an officer.

“Yeah, no, I’m fine.” He threw a hand back in case he was looking at him, to show him that he was, in fact, fine. And then he almost fell flat on his face. Thank goodness for all those trees being good flora and letting themselves be held onto. “It’s just– just a sprain. I’ll walk it off. Doing it right now, see?” His voice had significantly dropped in volume, so much so that the soldier probably didn’t even hear half of what he said. 

He very slowly made his way towards the field, and was gradually able to push the pain into the corner of his brain and appear as composed as he physically could in front of the other men. He held his back straighter even if it hurt worse, squared his shoulders, and tried to adopt the step that had been ingrained in his brain ever since he was put in the Army. He was apparently good at this, since a medic passed him, turned around, nodded at him, and ran off without even asking if he was alright. 

Soon enough, Ryland started to recognize faces. He flagged down two replacements from first platoon, one from second, and they found Second Lieutenant Kenfield (the leader of second platoon, and, incidentally, one of his old classmates from college) who didn’t ask him if he was alright, which meant that Ryland was definitely doing a swell job in hiding the fact that his ankle was actively trying to break out of his body. 

“This is one fine landscape,” Lieutenant Kenfield said while they were trekking through the field towards the assembly area. His first name was Matthew, by the way, not Lieutenant, but Ryland had been so used to calling everyone by their last name that the habit stuck, even when talking to old friends. “If the women are pretty enough, I might move in here after Christmas.” 

Ryland snorted, trying to control every little muscle in his face not to grimace in pain. “Did you already choose where you wanna build the farm?” 

Kenfield nodded beside him, and spun around as he kept walking, opening his arms to the field. “Here, of course. Beautiful place. The woods are nearby so we can hunt on the weekends and town’s not too far. I say it’s a win in every category.”

“No minefield for the children to play in, though,” said the soldier from second platoon. He’d already unfastened his helmet, and his rifle hung from his shoulder like a handbag. 

One of the boys from first platoon snickered, and joined the conversation, which Kenfield absolutely loved, and Ryland didn’t try to cling to it. He was already too tired and in pain to make any effort and humor the weird fantasies of his peer. Besides, he wasn’t a fan of making plans beyond the war. For all he knew, he’d be dead in a ditch before supper. Trying to think beyond it felt like asking to be killed. 

Thankfully for Ryland’s sanity (and superstitious stupidities), they reached the assembly area just half an hour later, and he immediately started playing the game of ‘where on Earth is my platoon?’ which consisted of him yelling; “Fox Company, third platoon, over here!” over and over again while his fellow platoon leaders did the same a few feet from him until most of their men were there. Thankfully again, despite being a thousand men deep in an open field with no cover whatsoever, they weren’t being shot at just yet. 

Once the whole company was gathered, the entirety of the 502nd kind of fell into place, and the chain of events easily followed. First battalion left for the southwest towards some small village Ryland wouldn’t even dare try to pronounce, third battalion headed southeast for Best, and one half of second battalion joined the 506th’s drop zone in order to secure it for the gliders. Ryland’s half of the battalion started slowly making its way towards their original drop zone, which was just a few thousand feet north. Thank goodness. 

They fell into a pretty easy line, and Ryland soon found himself walking in the middle of his platoon, which itself was in the middle of the Fox Company crowd. He tried his best not to appear in any pain, even though, if anything, it was even worse now than when he landed. And, cherry on top of the cake, Sergeant Hatch was right behind him. He could feel his gaze on his back and of course he had to step on a root and absolutely destroy his foot, staggering forwards and limping two steps before managing to put himself together (and not fall face first into the soldier in front of him). 

“Sir?” Hatch said, and jogged up to Ryland, immediately falling into step beside him. 

“No comment, Doc.” 

“What happened?” 

“Same thing that happened to you. I jumped and I landed.” 

“Where’d you land, sir?”

Ryland tilted his head over. He could dismiss him with ease. Or he could talk. He should dismiss him. “On a– no… In a tree.” Heck. He wasn’t supposed to tell the medic, but whatever. He looked at the distant treeline, and it almost looked like Normandy. With less marshes and Germans ambushing them. He frowned at his own thought, and moved his hand up to gently touch the wood of his rifle. 

“You fell in a tree?” Hatch repeated, a very confused look on his face. “Like– it was hollow?” 

“No, I rammed into it,” he answered, speaking low enough so that no one else around would hear it. “I landed into a tree, if you’d like. Couldn’t avoid it, I guess. It all happened real fast, please don’t–” he switched to a whisper, “talk about this to anyone… it’s an order.” 

His mouth twitched up, but he pursed his lips not to laugh at the face of his direct superior. “Yes, sir. Will you let me take a look at it… sir?”

Ryland shook his head. “I’m fine.” 

“Alright, just– if it starts swelling too much, if you hear crunches when you walk or if your foot starts turning black, please, tell me.”

“Yeah, I’ll let you know if I ever develop gangrene from a sprain.”

“I’m not joking, sir. It can be very serious. You’re only walking– well, limping away from this ‘cause you’re an officer and I’m scared you might bring me to a firing squad for this.” 

He adjusted his gait so that he would be walking as naturally as possible. “Ah, yes. ‘Cause I’m so tyrannical.” 

“The worst.” 

“Do you want to bring this up to Major Redell, sergeant?”

“I’ll see myself out.” He gave one nod in a proper salute’s stead, and went back to walking behind Ryland. 

When they reached the drop zone, the defence they encountered couldn’t even be described as a skirmish. No more than a platoon of Germans was there, and only the leading squads of Easy Company had to fire. When Fox arrived, the area was already secured, and only two men were injured. Injured was an unfair word for one of them, though, as he was shot in the gut and wouldn’t last the night if he didn’t receive surgery in the next few hours, but Ryland tried very hard not to think about it. 

He pushed the thoughts of replacing a strange face with the face of one of his kids, or Colt’s face, or anyone from Fox, and joined the other platoon leaders once the two COs had discussed placement between the companies, as now all they needed to do was set up a guard and wait for the gliders to land. Then Ryland guessed they would be joining either one of the other battalions of the 502nd, or the 506th at Son, or south to Eindhoven directly. Wherever they would be needed, wherever the taking of the bridges was the hardest. 

Fox was given the second round of guard, which meant they had virtually nothing to do until night if no one attacked them, so they found a sheltered place and dug in. It was barely fifteen-hundred hours, but the lack of action had rendered some of the men sluggish, while the rookie troopers who’d just performed their first real jump were tired and on edge, so everyone could do with a nap. 

When he had a minute to himself, Ryland limped to the edge of their new bivouac area, and sat –collapsed– against a tree. He rested his musette bag and rifle beside him, legs stretched in front of him. His glasses rested low on his nose, but he didn’t really care. It wasn’t like he had anything to read. 

Throbbing pain was spreading from his foot to his knee, and maybe he should actually show it to Hatch. But the only memory of having to be escorted to an aid station after he’d very embarrassingly managed to fall and hit his head –while he wasn’t wearing his helmet, sue him– on the way to a causeway they’d been ordered to secure for the troops coming from Utah Beach was enough to dissuade him. He didn’t need to make himself more of a bother. 

Besides, they’d secured that causeway, and he led his platoon with one stupid ‘light concussion’ that just made him nauseous and sensitive to light. He could deal with a… sprain? Yeah, he certainly didn’t break anything. One of the men of fourth platoon broke his ankle falling into a foxhole at night while they were around Carentan, and it sure hadn’t looked like that. His foot was so swollen the medic had to cut his boot and pants open, and he couldn’t walk at all. Ryland could walk all right, if he clenched his teeth and didn’t think about it too much. He had the nagging feeling he wouldn’t care that much anymore, once the gliders would land and they’d be ordered somewhere else with actual combat. 

“Lieutenant Grace, sir?” 

A high-pitched voice tore Ryland out of his thoughts. He opened his eyes (he hadn’t even realized he’d closed them…) and looked up at the private, a young replacement who hadn’t been to Normandy, now standing stiff as a rod a foot away from him. “Don’t salute,” he reminded him before he could put his hand to his brow, his voice rough. “We’re not in the ZI anymore.” 

The private’s eyes went wide, and he straightened even more, hands balled in fists to his sides. “Sir, sorry, sir, I didn’t think of that!” He was covered in dirt, and his dark hair was soaking wet, his face bare of any muck. Ryland almost asked him whose canteen he’d emptied to wash his face. “It’s just that– sir, Major Redell’s askin’ for you.” 

Ryland’s heart leaped in his chest. “What?” 

“I dunno why, sir, he ain’t gonna tell me– I mean… I don’t know. He’s askin’ for you to come and join him at the command post.” 

He pointed a hand to his chest. “Just me?” The only thought of walking made his foot feel like it was on fire. And also maybe that, the last time Major Redell had asked for him and him alone, it wasn’t to thank him for his spotless leadership, but more to threaten him to send him back to America aboard a punctured canoe. 

“I dunno. He didn’t ask me to get anyone else.” 

“Alright…” He got up onto his knees, then very painfully used the tree to pull himself up. 

“D’you need–” the private started, already taking a step forward to help him up. 

“I’m fine,” he interrupted him, holding a hand as he was finally on his feet. “Thank you… Dismissed.” 

“Yes, sir.” The private clicked his heels and ran away, hands still stiff by his sides. 

He made his way to the command post (which was just a desk hidden behind a bush), his heart beating almost as fast as before. During the very short trip, his mind raced through every little mistake he’d ever made since he was put under the command of Major Redell. He could immediately start with the miserable landing that cost him a foot, or when he overslept the one morning he was supposed to lead the day’s training in Redell’s stead, or the fact that he still kept talking too casually to enlisted men when he should be treating them like they were nothing more than boots wielding rifles. Last year he’d misunderstood a direct order and sent his whole platoon to an early grave during one of the wargames in South Carolina, and, when they were on their trip over to England and the showers had malfunctioned for a whole week, he may or may not have vomited into one of the officers’ common washbasins instead of a bucket. 

Yeah, that was it. Of course. He was totally going to forcefully discharge him for something like that. He reasoned himself before he actually got to Major Redell and started begging him not to send him away as if he didn’t want to get out of Europe as soon as humanely (politically) possible. No, he got to his CO, who was sitting behind his desk, nodded at him and stood at ease (to be fair, he could’ve saluted, because what didn’t scream more ‘I’m the CO!’ than sitting at a desk right out of sight?) until he was done with his map and actually looked up at him. 

“Lieutenant Grace,” he said, without standing. 

“Major Redell, you asked to see me?” 

“Indeed, I did. How was the landing?” 

Ryland tried to control his face as best as he could  not to show how badly his eyes had wanted to widen. “Good, sir,” he lied through his teeth, then bit his tongue not to start actually telling him about the tree and his ankle. He would if he’d ask, of course, he didn’t want to actually continue to lie to his direct superior’s face. He was a coward when it came to admitting failure, but he wasn’t insubordinate. 

“Great.” He cleared his throat. “I have great news for you, lieutenant.” 

Again, he fought with his own face not to show his confusion, and remained as neutral as possible. 

“You’ll be back on the other side of enemy lines in just a day or two,” he continued, and it surely didn’t help the confusion. 

“Sir?” 

“I’ve chosen you to carry out quite an important mission given to us– well, it’s more of a request that came from the Resistance to Montgomery, who passed it down to the 1st Airborne, who passed it down to the 101st, who asked the 502nd, who asked–” he pressed a hand over his chest, “me, Fox Company, and I am asking you.”

“Me? For– for what, sir?” 

“Listen, I’d have done it myself if I didn’t have a company to lead, and, don’t worry, First Sergeant Wyle will take care of third platoon just fine in your absence.”  

Would you stop beating around the bush and say it already? he wanted to ask. “My absence?” he echoed instead, moving his hands from behind his back to his sides. 

“Yes, hum… I was asked to provide an escort for three important members of the Verzet. They need to be evacuated to England in order to join other important figures of the Netherlands in London… I’ll spare you the sob story and details, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time to discuss it on the way to Ostend. Now– don’t make that face, Grace, listen to me before looking so frightened.” 

“I’m not frightened, sir.” He swallowed. He wasn’t frightened! He was… surprised, was all. “But… Ostend?” As in Ostend, Belgium? As in 200 miles away? 

Redell nodded. “A boat will be waiting for them in ten days time, and for you, the regiment from the Canadian II Corps who’s occupying the town will arrange transport back to the Netherlands, or Germany, or wherever we will be when time will abide. Take it as… free leave, if you will.” 

Ryland had lost all of his composure. He lifted his right heel off the ground, moving his ankle at an angle that didn’t hurt too much, and started stammering nonsense. “Now, wait– you want me to walk three very important, very capable people over the enemy line, through the border and to Ostend, in Belgium?” 

“That’s right. Though, you’ll take three men with you. In case you encounter a patrol or two, you’ll have to defend yourself, won’t you? Three enlisted men, including one medic. We can spare one.”

“A medic?!” Oh, that was bad. Very bad. Very, very bad. 

“You’re going through enemy lines, are you not? Though I will advise you to stay stealthy, one never knows what might happen.” 

Ryland swallowed. “Right… sir.”

The major studied him for a moment, looking at him from head to toe, and suddenly he felt way too aware of his posture, of the way he held himself, of the fact that his helmet was crooked on his head, that his glasses were almost falling off his nose, that his uniform was covered in dirt from his inelegant landing, and that he was very obviously in pain. “Now, I wasn’t told much about those resistants,” he said instead of judging him. “I can only tell you that there are two spies, female spies, and one highly ranked officer of the reserve. One of the spies is apparently very important to the resistance, and holds a lot of power. More than the officer, from what I’ve heard. You will meet them a mile southwest of Liempde in a barn right here…” He shuffled his papers and produced a map of the area. It was pretty detailed, only ranging from the very north of Eindhoven to Veghel. Liempde was just about five miles north of Best, so maybe three miles out from their current position. Ouch. 

No, bigger ouch in the thought that he would have to walk near 200 miles on a bad foot. Jesus. “Is it an offer, or an order, sir?” The question escaped his lips as he was thinking of the pain, and Redell, who was explaining how they would find the resistants, frowned up at him. 

“You plannin’ to say no?”

Ryland did a very non-professional shrug. “Depends on if it’s an offer or an order.” Yes. He was planning to say no. He was planning to beg Redell to rethink his decision, to send Kenfield instead, to let Ryland do his job with third platoon. 

“It’s an order. Will you do it, or will you refuse a direct order from your commanding officer?”

He swallowed. “Yes, sir,” he said, voice small. 

“Yes sir you will what? I can’t read your mind, lieutenant.” 

He swallowed again. Oh, gosh, he was going to be sick. “Yes, sir,” he croaked out. “I’ll do it.” 

“Good.” 

“Permission to ask a question, sir?” 

“Granted.” 

“Why’d you choose me?” 

Redell snorted. “I didn’t choose you. You were my last choice, actually. Lieutenant Kenfield would be the most appropriate for the mission, and even Lieutenants Zegerman and Thompson would be better fit to do it, but you’re the most likely to not get offended when being ordered around by a woman and an old man who doesn’t speak a lick of English.” 

Ryland really didn’t know whether to be offended or glad his CO didn’t think he would be the perfect person to do it (because he clearly wasn’t). But he wasn’t wrong. He was so used to being ordered around by old people who thought they were better than everyone because of the pins on their collar, that following the orders of a spy and a weathered Dutch officer couldn’t be that bad. 

“So,” Redell continued. “Who are you gonna go with?” 

Oh. He had to choose now? “Can I have some time to think about it?” 

He looked down at the wristwatch laid on his desk. “You have two minutes.”

Oh, darn it. Okay. Because if he was gonna do it, at least he should choose good soldiers. 

He was going to choose three people from his platoon, of course. But who? Starting with the medic, of course Sergeant Hatch was the one, he wasn’t going to snatch another platoon’s medic, and Hatch would be a great addition to the lot. Okay, that was easy. Though not much of a choice. Now he had a pool of twenty-nine men to choose from. Corporal Stephens? He was a good soldier, but that was about it. Ryland often wondered if he had any part of his brain that wasn’t hard-wired for war. Not good for stealth. First Sergeant Wyle was out of the picture, and he didn’t want to spend too much time with Myers or Weaver or Goodman or–

Corporal Shapiro was half Dutch! Ryland only knew it because of an argument Shapiro had had with some of the other men back in Fort Bragg that he had to break out. He had a Dutch first name, which was a feminine name in English. Ryland wasn’t sure of what his name was, but he knew that was the case, and that he spoke a bit of Dutch from his mother. And he was fun. Honest, a good man, and he was smart. He’d be fine with traveling with him. 

And now… for the third man… Ryland took a deep breath and let the faces of his men flash one by one in his mind. And then he thought of Private Rivera. Funny fellow. Good with his hands. Excellent rifleman. He was an odd guy, but Ryland had always been called odd as well, and he talked to him like he was more than just an officer. Which should’ve made Ryland mad at him, but he actually appreciated it. 

Another good point, Hatch and Rivera were both married, and he was pretty sure that Shapiro had a sweetheart back home (given the sheer amount of letters he wrote, despite claiming that he wasn’t very close to his parents since he enlisted). So, hopefully, no funny business. He cleared his throat, and Redell looked up at him again. “With your permission, I’ll take Sergeant Hatch, Corporal Shapiro, and Private Rivera.”

“Private Rivera?” he echoed, visibly confused. 

Ryland nodded. “He’s a strong soldier. Excellent rifleman, and he’s great company. Plus, I’m sure you’ll be happy to have him off your own company for a little while, sir.” 

His eyebrows went up, and the hint of a smile shadowed his lips. “Alright, Grace, permission granted. Find someone to get them and inform them of the mission.”

“I’ll get them myself, thank you, sir.” 

“Great.” He briefed him again over the mission, provided him with a map, a route that passed through Brussels, Ghent, and Bruges before getting to Ostend, and let him write down information on everything important in the little notebook he carried everywhere, then, finally, let him go with a stern; “Dismissed.” Not even a good luck!

Ryland gave a nod, saluted his CO and spun on his heel to make his way to the enlisted men. As soon as Redell disappeared from his field of view, he felt like someone had shot him in the head. Well, he’d never been shot in the head before, but he was pretty sure it would feel like something like that in the fraction of a second where he would still be alive. 

He didn’t want to go to Ostend! Everything was so well planned out, he wasn’t supposed to leave his whole division for some people he didn’t even know! He had friends here, he had people to lead, he had things to do! He shouldn’t just be cast away, especially when he clearly wasn’t the man for it! And he was going to do the same to Hatch, Shapiro, and Rivera. 

He was going to be sick. He swallowed air multiple times in a row, his mouth drier than a desert and he almost stumbled right onto the stomach of a sleeping soldier. He managed to dodge him by jumping over him and landing on his left foot only. No one seemed to have seen him, but it didn’t even matter anymore, because he was being freaking sent away! For ten days at least, and God knew when they would be able to come back. If they would be able to come back. 

Oh, he hated this. It was pathetic, because he’d been part of the first troops who landed in France, because he’d wielded his rifle and shot at the Nazis more than once. He was pretty sure he’d killed some, too, but he never really wanted to think about it. He’d never been the leader who actually led his men by walking in front of them. Mostly he did it from the middle, or even the rear when he could. He usually balanced his blatant cowardice by good strategy and closeness, but where would he hide, now? Behind four soldiers and two women? 

He could run away. But desertion would be even more dangerous than following orders, because then he would have the Allies looking for him as well as the Germans killing or capturing him on sight. He wanted to cry and he didn’t even know why. He wasn’t being asked the moon! Just to carry out an order he wasn’t prepared for. Which had… well, never happened before. 

His eyes finally focused when he was able to discern Hatch and Shapiro. They were squatting in a circle with two men from first platoon and sharing one single K-ration dinner module. “Hatch, Shapiro,” he said, and all the men stood to attention. Jesus, he hated when they did that. He swallowed again, and this time it wasn’t just air. Was he really about to throw up? “I need to speak to you alone.”

The men from first platoon got the hint and left with the food, which seemed to really upset Hatch. “Sorry ‘bout that,” Ryland said. “I should’ve waited until you were done.” 

“We were, sir,” quickly said Shapiro. 

“You okay, sir?” Hatch asked, his eyes down towards Ryland’s feet, but then up at his face. You look real pale, he was probably wanting to say. 

“Let’s walk,” he said instead of answering the obvious. “Do you know where Private Rivera is?” 

“Rocky?” Shapiro seemed surprised. “Yeah, he’s…” He spun around and stopped when he was facing Ryland’s right. “He’s over there, I’m pretty sure. I saw him help one of the rookies out with his rifle. They don’t teach ‘em to do it on their own anymore, apparently.” 

“What’s happening, sir?” Hatch said, falling into step behind Ryland as he made his way to the treeline where Rivera was. He could see them now, sitting a bit apart from everyone, focused on parts of a rifle on the grass. 

“I don’t wanna repeat it,” Ryland answered, and now he was second-guessing everything even more. “I’ll say it when Rivera’s with us.” What if they didn’t want to go? Would he have to force them to? He didn’t want to force anyone to go. He didn’t even want to go! Oh, maybe he should’ve chosen Stephens instead of Rivera. At least he knew they all got along well, and Stephens would’ve been happy to come. Oh, snap. He already messed it up. 

“We’re first on guard duty tonight, aren’t we?” Shapiro said in a sigh. 

“Quite the opposite, actually,” Ryland couldn’t help but answer. They reached Rivera and the replacement soldier, Private Hall. He’d joined the 502nd while they were resting in England, back in July. And, yeah, Ryland didn’t like to think ill of people, but he was really surprised that the kid even managed to pass basic training. “Private Rivera?” 

“You know you can call me–” he started with a smile, then, as soon as he laid eyes on Ryland, he jumped to his feet. “Sorry, sir, I didn’t recognize your voice, I thought you were– nevermind.” He combed his hair back and cleared his throat. His jacket was already opened all the way down. “What do you need?” 

Was his voice that rough? “Private Hall, would you give us some privacy, please?” Ryland said, and he felt bad for the kid as he picked up the scattered pieces of his rifle and scurried away. And now they were alone, and the three soldiers stared expectantly at him. Suddenly he felt like a child standing in front of the class ready to recite a poem he’d only read three times before, and all he did was wanting to disappear. 

He leaned back against the nearest three and rubbed his hands together. Everything was fine, if he was going to die, it wasn’t in the hands of three boys from third platoon, anyway. And if they didn’t want to go, he’d just ask Stephens or whoever was okay for it. “Okay,” he started, and then remembered that he wasn’t their friend, and straightened back up. “We’ve been given orders. They come all the way up. Directly from Field Marshal Montgomery, actually.” 

Three, very, very surprised faces looked back at him. Rivera’s mouth was open, and Ryland could tell he wanted to speak, but he didn’t say anything, while Shapiro’s lips twitched up into a small smile. 

“We’ve been ordered to escort three important members of the Dutch Resistance to Ostend,” he continued, breathing every time he could so that his voice wouldn’t turn too shaky, “where they will be evacuated to England in ten days time. Two female spies and one Army officer. We’re supposed to keep it stealthy, ‘cause we’ll have to go through the line in Belgium, and we won’t be able to call for reinforcements in case things go south. Though, the route we’ve been given is mostly safe, and we have enough time to cover the distance, so I wouldn’t be too worried. We– uh… we’re leaving tonight at oh-one hundred, so that means you’re sleeping in the meantime, no guard duty. Any questions?” 

“Yes, sir,” Hatch immediately said. “Uh… why are we doing this? I mean, I’m happy to get it done, but… they really didn’t have anyone to do it, besides us?”

I wish. He pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. “Those resistants are hiding out in Liempde, and we’re the closest to ‘em. I’m sure Field Marshall Montgomery would’ve preferred to see it done by his own troops, but the yanks will see it done better. We probably won’t be back before most of the operation has been completed, so higher ranked soldiers probably weren’t their first choice either.” 

“Oh,” Shapiro muttered. “Are we that bad at our job?”

Ryland chuckled. “No.” He was. “I actually chose you myself, and now that I really think about it, I may regret it a little. I’ve taken all the good soldiers out of the line.”

That made Rivera laugh, but then, his face slightly crumpled, and he started frowning. “Wait, so that means we’re going to be alone, partially in enemy territory with no reinforcements. Will we be able to change clothes? At least, so we don’t stick out like sore thumbs in our fatigues?”

Ryland actually didn’t know. “They won’t give us civilian clothes, so we’ll go with the clothes on our backs, but there’s no order to keep our uniforms if we need to blend in.” 

“Right, but that’ll still be a death sentence if we meet a patrol we can’t avoid… or beat. How are we even supposed to justify it? I don’t know about you, but I don’t speak Dutch. Or German. I can speak to ‘em in Spanish, but I’m not sure how it’s gonna make us less suspicious.” 

“I can speak Dutch,” Shapiro said, confirming Ryland’s speculation. “But my Ma always said I have a terrible accent.” 

Rivera wiped his nose, then started tapping his fingers on the top of his helmet, which he had tucked under his arm. Ryland should’ve chosen Stephens. “So that’s not helping at all.” 

“I’m not ordering you to come,” Ryland immediately said, because if he had to lose all of his authority as an officer it was better to do it before leaving. “I’m asking you. If you think you’d rather stay here and fight like it was planned, I’ll ask someone else. But if you’re not coming, say it now.”

Silence. Oh. Even Rivera simply swallowed and shifted his weight, fingers still tapping the steel of his helmet. 

“Sir,” Shapiro said. “I’m happy to do it. More than I’m happy to keep guard for the gliders tonight.” 

“Ditto,” Hatch added. “And if you need a medic–” he looked down at Ryland’s feet again. “I’ll prefer it to be me rather than replacements we never saw in action.” 

Ryland looked towards Rivera. “You?” 

“Yeah, me too,” Rivera assured, finally stopping with the tapping. “I’m happy you thought I’d be fit for this operation. I’ll do my best to live up to it.” 

Ryland didn’t want to do it. But if Hatch, Shapiro, and Rivera were okay with it, who was he to refuse? Not qualified to, that was sure! 

[jaesnovak]

Hi fellow autistic people what is your comfort piece of clothing that keeps you sane but is highly inappropriate to wear in public?

Mine is this replica of a ww2 era US female officer service cap!! I wear it when I’m actively trying to not make my problems everyone else’s and it works like a charm

[idk-im-just-here-now]

I see everyone's "Simon attacks Grace upon first contact" scenarios and present you an alternative of "Simon cowers in a corner with a knife instead of outright attempting murder because he's terrified that this might be real and if it is he could hurt his first human contact and drive them away from him"

[tedisfishing]

and perhaps another one

[puncertainty]

continuing traditions

[jaesnovak]

Y’all have no idea what it means to me (I’m hyperfixated on Neil Armstrong)

[aroace-ryland-grace]

I love the little smiley face he drew on the helmet of the eva suit diagram his party hat is made out of

[jaesnovak]

Every time I learn something new about this movie I fall in love with it (and Ryland Grace) more

[jaesnovak]

I need more moots please moot me :p

I like (and will talk about):

* Project Hail Mary (strattland & bloodymary)

* Ryan Gosling

* Band of Brothers (I love Babe very much)

* Markiplier

* WWII

* Formula 1 (Antonelli & Senna fan)

[aroace-ryland-grace]

thinking about the parallels between these three shots and how grace is fighting to keep his eyes open in the first two and in the third his fight is finally over and he can close them by his own volition out of pure relief & love for his best friend

[jaesnovak]

Need to try to draw Stratt Ilyukhina and Yáo in their outfits from my ww2 au (because I feel like they’d be the cuntiest)

Also, instead of drawing the Americans and their full uniforms three times and another time with the medic gear, I’ll probably do portraits like I did Ryland…

[lukeishope]

You know, you can’t really be brave without being scared at first. It’s just a matter of finding someone to be brave for.

[habken]

old man

[tallowandport]

Humans are pretty prone to mimicking noises. like even subconsciously. sometimes we even unintentionally pick up entirely different accents. and you literally can't tell me you've never meowed or woofed or chirped back at a cat/dog/bird at least once in your life (unless you are physically/audibly unable to do so).

So Grace 1000% starts picking up and mimicking Eridian noises.

One day, Rocky will be working on something, only to freeze as he hears Grace behind him suddenly exclaim in fluent Eridian "SHIT!"

Turns out Eridian swear words are usually expressed in the same decibel that humans can whistle in. (obviously Grace has no idea what he's said, and if Rocky ever tells him, he'll be horrified).