Summary: Joe thought she was pretty. Had he just said that, things might have been different for them. Maybe they wouldn't have gone head-to-head at each other for three years like it was a contest.
A/N: a bit shorter than the last one but I might have some little treat ready to post in a few days. Let me know if you wanna be added to the taglist through the askbox or the comments. Enjoy<3
Head-to-head masterlist
Band of Brothers masterlist
Rogue-durin-16 masterlist
The squelch of my boots stepping on the mud alerted the three soldiers huddled in the hedgerow, trying with nearly no fruition to get some rest. Whether it was due to the constant drizzle or the German division waiting for dawn on the higher side of the french field, I didn't know.
"Flash!"
"Thunder." My voice was flat as I slid down by Luz's side, careful to keep my rifle away from the damp hole turned trench. "McGrath," I motioned vaguely behind me, gaze fixed on the man who sat in front of me. "you're up."
"Already?" I nodded, already making myself as comfortable as possible. McGrath mumbled a complaint and climbed out, shoving his helmet back on.
Luz, who I had most likely been shaken out of a light sleep with my irruption, gave me a wary up-and-down. "What the hell are you doing here?"
That made my brows draw. "What?"
"She probably got stitched up and busted out the aid station." Joe replied, as if I was not sitting right across from him.
"I didn't bust out." My tone, although low, denoted irritation, which was what Joe was aiming for by the satisfied smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. "I just left. Doc gave me the green light."
George's eyes squinted in the dark, searching my profile. "I was half-expecting them to pull you back after that stunt in Carentan."
"Why would they?" sigh. "I can shoot, I can fight, I can run. They're not gonna pull me back for a little shrapnel on my face." I tugged off my own helmet and let it drop with a dull thud before running a hand through my wet hair, slicking it back. "This damn rain."
Joe turned his head to watch me, his tone sarcastic when he quipped, "Thought you liked the rain."
I huffed, locating my rifle strategically for it not to get soaked. "I also like sleeping in a bed, but here we are."
The soil had turned to slush, the rain making sure we felt every inch of our fatigues sticking to our bodies like a second skin. By how unbothered the two men seemed despite the droplets plastering their hair to their skulls, I figured they had given up on caring.
"Ah, fuck." Luz grimaced, staring at his wristwatch.
"What now?" Joe's annoyance was a telltale sign that George had done his fair share of complaining already.
"My watch starts in three hours." The Portuguese clicked his tongue. "Can't a guy get some sleep without a pretty girl dropping beside him?"
"Oh, God." Joe groaned, tilting his head back against the compacted dirt.
George's cheeky grin earned him a light smack on the back of his neck from me. "Go to sleep then."
"Yes, ma'am."
Joe shook his head at our friend's demeanor but refrained himself from speaking up.
George, to his credit, did as he was told and soon enough, he was out cold, his head slumped over my shoulder as his breathing evened out.
Joe and I sat in the quiet, only filled by the soft ricocheting of the water. It was almost eery —the lack of gunfire, mortars and tracers.
"Anything happen while I was on watch?" I whispered in an attempt to break through the unusual silence.
Joe exhaled. "Talbert got stabbed."
"What?"
"Smith got spooked. Talbert was wearing that Kraut poncho—" he rubbed a hand over his face. That damn poncho. "guess it looked wrong in the dark. Smith panicked and stuck him with his bayonet."
My fingers tapped on my thigh in a quick, anxious rhythm. "Is he—?"
"Doc got to him." He waved his hand as a dismissal. "He'll be alright."
I let out a slow breath. We sat with that for a second before I glanced at him again. "You hear anything about Tipper?"
Joe shrugged, jaw tight. "Nothing."
I swallowed. My throat felt dry despite the humidity. "He'll be okay." The words left my mouth without permission.
Joe nodded, his attention fixed on his restless hands. I didn't mention I hadn't seen Tipper at the aid station. Joe didn't ask, either.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
A deafening whistle, a white-hot flash, a crack of thunder that didn't come from the sky breaking through the roof. The blast swallowed the world whole.
Look away. An instinct-driven thought.
The pressure slammed into me nonetheless, flinging me back, out the door I had barely set a foot across, dragging something sharp across my skin.
I made a sound—something strangled that didn't reach anyone's ears over the constant gunfire. Not mine, not Tipper's. My hands were on my face before I even thought to move them, warm and slick.
Blood.
My blood.
My fingertips trembled against my cheek, my jaw, my throat.
Not fatal. It couldn't be. Yet the word medic teared harshly at my throat.
I barely had time to register the pain; the sensation of hot shrapnel gnawing through my profile, digging deeper into the flesh with every move of my jaw, before the ringing in my ears cleared just enough to hear it.
"TIP?!"
Joe's voice, sharp and loud. They must have seen the shell diving into the building Tipper had cleared. They must have heard me yelling for medical aid.
"Tipper!! Answer me, Tip!"
I caught a glimpse of Joe and Strohl rounding the corner, feet scraping the gravel in the streets. They both stood frozen in front of the doorway, too shocked pay any attention to me.
I saw why.
Tipper dragged himself out the dim ruin of the building, silhouetted against dust and rubble. His leg —or what was left of it— was soaked through with red, his foot unrecognizable despite him still planting it. One side of his face was a nasty mix of blood and debris, his eye —Jesus Christ, his eye—
I stopped breathing, the crimson dripping down my face momentarily forgotten.
Joe was the first to move. He dropped his rifle against better judgement and stepped forward. Slow. Careful. Bullets were still cutting through the air all around us, but at Tipper's broken mumble calling Joe's name, his voice slipped into something soft. Too soft for a battlefield.
"Lookin' real good, Tip," he murmured. "Alright, you gotta sit down, c'mon."
Tipper barely reacted, too dazed, too wrecked. Too scared. Joe caught him anyway, guiding him down like he was handling fine porcelain. He forced his hands to be steady, to be gentle, trying not to hurt the battered man further.
"Y/l/n— Jesus..." It took Strohl's panicked grip on my shoulders for me to snap out of it. "Where—" His digits, hasty, pressed on my cheek first, then my forehead; they stayed on neck, drawing a pained breath out of me. They were cold compared to the liquid soaking my face.
Soaking Tipper's uniform.
God.
"We gotta move 'em, Lieb!"
For a brief second, Joe looked at me. Just a flicker of movement darting to my face, now smeared in hot blood.
I wouldn't have known the sight he met with, but he looked away just as quickly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
More silence.
A part of me wondered if it was just the battlefield's call for sound discipline, or if our dynamic had somehow shifted irreversibly after landing in Normandy.
An exhausted puff of air. My palm rubbing the water off my eyes. Joe's knife tracing pattern into the dirt.
I glanced over my shoulder at the treeline. Just dark shapes against darker shadows; nothing moving, nothing out of place.
When I turned back, Joe was staring. His eyes dragged over my face, lingering too long at my cheek, my jaw, my neck. My skin prickled.
I didn't have the chance to call him out on it. "It's not that bad."
He got a huff as a response. My mind fished for a smart remark, but I wasn't able to find anything that matched his comment.
Joe tilted his chin up. "Does it hurt?"
"The stitches pull when I laugh."
He snorted, just barely audible over the steady drum of rain. "Then it's a good thing I ain't funny."
My lips parted, but no quips came out, just a careful half smile. Joe didn't mirror the gesture, his narrowed stare tracing the small ridges of stitches. My fingers twitched around my rifle.
"Not that bad." He muttered again, more to himself.
"Not that bad." I echoed even quieter. There wasn't much more to say on my part, yet the silence was begging to be broken.
"I thought you got your face blown off."
I blinked, thrown off by his frankness.
Say something.
"Disappointed?"
Wrong something.
"It's not fucking funny." Joe hissed, shoulders squared up. "You didn't see it. It looked..."
His face subconsciously pulled into a grimace at the mere memory of it, bringing back to my mind the way he had averted his eyes.
I didn't even try to stop myself, the words spilling bitter, pointed and accusatory. "Is that why you wouldn't look at me?"
"What?"
"'Cause you were disgusted?"
Joe's expression twitched, caught between irritation and offense. "Jesus, give me a fuckin' break, alright?"
"No, you give me a break."
"I was busy." The phrase cut its way out like it was meant to be shouted instead of hushed. "Kinda had a guy missing half his goddamn leg in front of me." He leaned forward, forearms draped on his knees. "So excuse me if I didn't have time to worry about your" His wrist flicked, vaguely gesturing at me. "little scratches."
"Don't make it sound like—"
"Like what?"
I narrowed my eyes, mentally taking a step back. We can't do this here. "Tell you what, you're so full of shit."
His mouth twitched like he wanted to argue; instead, he just turned his head away with a moue. The conversation had hit a dead end, but I didn't miss the way his fingers tapped rapidly against his knee.
Maybe that was his way of restraining the verbal retaliation which had become second nature between us at that point in time.
I shifted against the damp earth ever so slightly.
Luz mumbled something in his sleep, head heavy against my shoulder.
Except for the loss of D and F companies, Winters was oblivious to his precarious situation. All he knew was that he had been ordered to hold. Moving in a crouch along his line, he scurried to the far left. There he found Welsh and 1st Platoon trying to defend the gap vacated by Fox Company.
“Thank God, I’m glad to see you,” Welsh sighed with relief. “The Krauts are trying to push through. I didn’t know if I should pull back or what the hell to do.”
“We’re staying and holding, Harry,” Winters said. “Keep pouring it on ’em. Don’t let them flank us.”
Shortly after that encounter, a German tank lumbered toward the gap where Fox Company had been.
“When a tank is coming at you, you can do one of two things,” Forrest told me. “First, you try to get out of the way. If you can’t, you try to get up close because they can’t shoot down on you if you’re close.”
Welsh chose the latter method. He grabbed Private John McGrath and the two ran into the open. McGrath carried a bazooka while Welsh held a satchel containing several rockets. McGrath knelt as Welsh jammed a rocket into the rear of the bazooka. Once loaded, Welsh tapped McGrath on the head and the private fired. The rocket streaked at the tank, only to carom harmlessly off. Welsh hastily began reloading and Winters could hear McGrath shouting, “You’re gonna get me killed, Lieutenant.” The tank fired its main gun at the two men, but being on higher ground, the gunner couldn’t depress the barrel enough and the shell passed overhead, slicing off some young saplings.
“Hold your fire until I tell you,” Welsh said.
He waited as the tank climbed a small rise, then said, “Fire.”
The rocket hit the tank’s soft underbelly, pierced the thin armor and detonated. The tank exploded, belching smoke and flame. Carrying its dead crew, the tank rolled a few feet forward from its own momentum, then came to a smoldering stop. By that time, Welsh and McGrath were back in the cover of the hedgerow. The destruction of the tank had a sobering effect on the other armored crews, who halted their vehicles in place.
"In the evening, Cummings unexpectedly dropped in to show me a meerschaum pipe he had won in a raffle in the city and told me to handle it carefully, as it would spoil the colouring if the hand was moist. He said he would not stay, as he did not care much for the smell of paint, and fell over the scraper as he went out. Must get the scraper removed - or else I shall get into a scrape. I don't often make jokes."
¡Oi! Spoilers, stavfel och alternativa fakta kan förekomma rakt föröver!
I KORTHET: Robert Hode är ädlingen som sätter sig upp mot fel personer, skyddar tjuvjägare och vägrar böja sig för andras girighet. Han förklaras laglös och tillsammans med vapendragaren Will Scarlett tar han sin tillflykt i Sherwood-skogen. I Sherwood blir han Robin Hood, en ständig tagg i maktens häl och när hösta hönset i regionen, Baron Daguerre, höjer belöningen för Robin alltmer börjar han dela med sig av sitt byte…
DET BRA: Ingen Sheriff av Nottingham, ingen Guy of Gisbourne utan i stället en fräsch liten politisk intrig om normander (som väl var ättlingar till vikingar vill jag minnas?) och saxare.
DET DÅLIGA: Den här filmen har inga riktigt stora namn, med dagens mått mätt är det Uma Thurman som har den största stjärnglansen. Vilket antagligen är anledningen till att den här föll mot Prince of Thives (med Morgan Freeman och Alan Rickman i rollistan utöver Kevin Coster själv).
SOM HELHET: Det är synd på en bra film att den hamnade i skuggan av annat, för den här är riktigt bra. Den här filmen koncentrerar sig inte på Robin 💘 Marian eller hela grejen med att ta från de rika och ge till de fattiga. Utan har lägger man mer en tyngdpunkt på det politiska planet och maktkampen mellan normander och saxare. Den här filmen avhåller sig från många av de vanliga Robin Hood-momenten. Två kända överlevde dock: pilbågstävligen kokas ned till ett prov för Robin och Will att stanna i de laglösas läger¹, och till och med den obligatoriska envigen på stocken över floden ser man till att riva av så fort som möjligt. Och detaljen att Robin Hood tar från de rika, vilket ju är skattepengar egentligen, och ger till de fattiga handlar helt enkelt om att vinna de fattiga över på sin sida. Skattepengarna har ju i grunden betalats av de fattiga och som Robin själv säger: ”pengarna tillhör dem [de fattiga]”. Det här är också en väldigt bra produktion, bra rekvisita och scenografi tillsammans med miljöer som är dimmiga och råkalla. Patrick Bergins ”Robin Hood” känns också väldigt gedigen som karaktär. Och man har lyckats med att låta Marian vara lite mer än bara ett kärleksintresse: utöver att hon kommer med starka åsikter så rymmer hon dessutom från Daguerre och gömmer sig i Robins gäng som pojken ”Martin”. Uma Thurman (i sin 8e roll) kan inte sägas annat än att hon gör en bra roll, som en stramare och mindre socker söt Marion. Jag skulle avslutningsvis vilja tillägga att det här är en äventyrsfilm som tar Robin Hood-mytoset ett steg längre och att det är synd att många kanske missat den.
PS: Musiken är f.ö. komponerad av Geoffrey Burgon som även komponerade den ikoniska musiken till BBCs barn-/ungdomsserier baserad på Narnia-böckerna.
~~~
Många av de kända momenten stammar ända från Douglas Fairbanks stumfilmsklassiker från 1922, och jag blir nästan nyfiken att kolla upp hur pilbågstävligen används där. Jag har vaga minnen av att den användes ungefär lika där som här.
It’a rare that I end up enjoying a university-set book in a non-academic way, but this play was so good!
It’s like a grown-up Horrible Histories focusing on 3 issues: The Cheviot Sheep, The Scottish Stag and the discovery of oil off the Scottish coast, and how this affected Scottish culture and life.
I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t good.
After having just finished my first year at a Scottish University, it’s interesting to read about Scottish history focusing on everyday people and linking it to things my newfound friends have talked about (I was one of 2 English people in a flat with 4 Scottish people, so the elephant in the room was discussed in detail).
The introduction is written by the author with an emphasis on the process of writing and performing the play, which completely deconstructs the pretentious reputation that the theatre has and instead brings it to the people who share the culture being explored in the play.
All in all, a unique blend of a ceilidh, a history lesson and a stand-up comedy show.
