Chapter Text
One hour bled seamlessly into the next. There was no distinction between them anymore. There was only muted, enduring misery.
It was not the cold which caused Ellie the most discomfort: packed shoulder to shoulder in the back of a truck, there was enough body heat to go around. Still, the cold air nipping at the exposed skin on her nose and cheeks was an ill portent for the future. It was a problem, she thought, for the future. No need to borrow in advance against tomorrow's complications.
Neither was it the mad-cap pace the trucks set on the road. While the truck she had pressed into was covered, the open back allowed her to see the shocking flood of light from the truck behind them. Headlights, bright and undaunted, illuminated the road for dozens of miles. One truck's headlights turned to another, morphed into more. There was no light discipline, no regard for secrecy. All of it had been sacrificed in the pursuit of speed. The trucks jumped and jostled down the road as they galloped along, leaving her bones to rattle. Every pothole, every rut and divot in the road was amplified as the Americans, each truck's precious cargo, were left to the merciless rock and sway of each vehicle.
Not even Eleanor's aching bones posed the most pressing grievance. It was neither the lack of winter wear (the cotton uniform she wore, along with the majority of the men around her) nor the visible omission of weaponry that was chief among her concerns.
The men around her didn't know where they were being sent off to: in the great haste of their departure, no one had given them such superfluous information. They knew to collect weapons, if they were able to find them. Ammunition, supplies, winter gear. Ellie had seen Dike wander listlessly from one group to another, before slapping Buck Compton on the shoulder with patronizing joviality. A task reassigned, she had thought at the time as she had seen it: Lieutenant Dike had passed the message onto Compton to relay.
At least Buck, to his credit, would be committed to informing the men.
Absent a need for weapons (although more than capable of finding them for her friends), Eleanor had turned her attention to additional pursuits.
While she wasn't quite certain what (or, more importantly, who) she was looking for, Ellie knew in an instant that Harry Welsh was it.
He hadn't disappointed her. The name of a town played on the tip of her tongue, was rolled restlessly over her lips, teased tirelessly in her mind. What did she know about Bastogne? It was not a region she was familiar with. French would be useful. It was in the forested part of the country that the Germans had blazed through so swiftly all those years ago.
The knowledge she had was not enough.
But it was still more than the men around her were in possession of. It was still a start. And it was something she would not give voice to, not on this reckless plunge down the road. Headlights blazed in defiance against the darkness of the witching hours, but the speed of the deployment, the urgency, the lack of materiale, all of it left a weight settling down around her. This was not the usual order of things. It was not the carefully planned jumps, the drop zone maps so meticulously researched and marked with sand tables creating the region's topography. There were no briefings on the locals (friendly or otherwise), no knowledge, no information.
The Germans were pushing once more down the track that had served them so well in the summer of 1940. The 101st were the available forces in the area to be sent to reinforce the region.
That was all they knew.
By the time the convoy juddered to a halt the conversation among those in the back of the trucks had slowed to a trickle. An occasional comment here or there. A replacement, thrown in alongside the veterans of his platoon, uncomfortable and uncertain. A seasoned Normandy man, alert and reserved. All of these men were disgorged from the vehicles, grateful for the steadiness of the ground beneath their feet, grateful for the opportunity to step off the road and relieve themselves, grateful to be anywhere but crammed like sardines in a tin.
Their relief was, in part, something Eleanor could share. And even what she could not share, she could still appreciate: Johnny Martin paused, a hand outstretched as she made to make the leap down from the truck bed. Securing her hand in his, the man's wirey strength was support against her stumble as her feet thudded against the cold ground and her joints, stiff from being locked in the standing room only of the truck, sought to give way beneath the impact.
"Easy does," Martin muttered with his characteristic gruffness.
Ellie squeezed his hand for a moment before dropping the contact. "Away with you," she replied quietly, fog puffing into the cold night air.
He snorted, but obeyed.
Bastogne. Absent maps to review, Eleanor had been left with nothing but her memory and it was turning out to be a formidable thing indeed: no, she did not know this place, she thought as she studied the looming darkness through which the shadows of trees seemed to reach out graspingly. It was not an inviting sight. She did not know this place, but still somehow, she knew.
It was only when the retreating elements of the Americans who had held the front line against the onslaught of German troops became mingled with the 101st that Ellie was forced to emerge from the relative security of her thoughts, only to be confronted with chaos. The paratroopers were taking weaponry, ammunition, medical supplies from the men that staggered back in the direction from which Easy had come from.
"You're going in the wrong direction."
The words stuck with her, even as she threaded her way through the chaos.
"Deveaux!"
Eleanor's foray was drawn to a halt by the sharp bark of her name, discernible even over the engines, even over the voices of the men, the clank of supplies, over it all. He was used to making himself be heard, Ellie thought with dismay. She did not quite wince. No, made of stronger stuff than that, she carefully turned, looking for the figure that went with that voice.
It was not hard to find him: the driver of the jeep just looked confused. Colonel Sink, however, appeared livid.
Not even the pretext of obedience, as she made her way over, seemed to alleviate his fury. It was overt on his features.
"What in the goddamn hell are you doin' here, Deveaux?"
There was a tic in his cheek, Ellie noticed absently. It fluttered erratically. The jumping muscle didn't seem to be tied to a pulse, not with the frequency and irregularity of its movement. She could see it over the collar of his woolen overcoat. The observation gave her pause: at least there was winter wear somewhere for the men to draw upon. But clearly, not enough - or at least, it hadn't been able to be dispensed so quickly before their departure from Mourmelon.
Her quiet only served to goad the Colonel's temper.
"No one ordered you here, girl. What the hell're you doin' here?"
She offered him an expression that was part mute recrimination and part irreverence. The corners of her lips twitched up as she met his eyes. She could see it, the way his shoulders braced. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
"I oughtta send you right back," Sink snapped.
Eleanor schooled her features to careful politeness. "So there isn't a concern about the Germans overrunning the position?" She asked with studied blankness.
Sink glared at her.
Ellie only offered back that politely blank expression.
"An' how do you know that?"
Eleanor's exhalation puffed out through her nose. Again the condensation rose like fog in the cold air, swirling around her face. "It seemed like a good idea at the time," she repeated.
There wasn't much to claim as victory: it wasn't as if she wanted to be in the midst of an active front line. Not again, not so soon after Holland. But the alternative, being left behind, watching the men with whom she had come so far leave without her? That was never an option. Not for reasons that converged on sentimental, nor for those that were coldly utilitarian. They were not worth expanding on, not here, not now.
All that mattered is that Colonel Sink couldn't send her back. The convoys were already on borrowed time. How much more they had before the net closed around them was unknown, and the man wouldn't risk it.
There was no turning back from this point.