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Moving at a dead sprint, in eighteen inches of snow, through a bombed-out Belgian town, PFC Carmilla Karnstein really didn't have breath to spare. That was not stopping her from gasping out the word “shit” over and over again. It helped distract from the bullets flying past.
There was another crack of rifle-fire behind her, and Carmilla ducked instinctively as a bullet thudded into the snow ahead of her. She was sure she had already used up six months worth of luck living this long. Where the hell was a damn foxhole when you needed one?
She skidded around the corner of a fallen pile of wood and stone that had once been a house, and spied her salvation. There was another house a few yards away, one in much better shape than the one she was currently crouched behind. An artillery shell had blown away most of the roof, but the sturdy stone walls remained. And, wonder of wonders, at the base of one wall were two old, faded, but apparently quite sturdy cellar doors.
Underground! Underground where it was dark and safe and there were no possible angles a kraut sniper could use to but a bullet through her. Carmilla took a moment to catch her breath, tightening her grip on her rifle. She had to do this fast. Whatever god protected paratroopers had to be getting bored with her by now.
A quick dash across the snowy street. A frantic tug on the door's handle. The damn thing was locked! Carmilla cursed as she brought her rifle to bear. Three quick shots into the wood around the lock and a certain amount of kicking later, and she was down, half-falling down the rough steps. Behind her, a bullet struck shivers from the house's wall, and they rained down on her helmet with an inappropriately cheerful pinging.
The basement was brighter than she expected, and smelled like dust and onions. There were a couple of holes in the ceiling above, and a larger one in the foundation off to her left. Carmilla leaned her rifle against the wall. She was safe, for the moment. Of course, she still had to get back to the rest of her unit. But that could wait until after she caught her breath.
Her breathing had almost evened out when she caught it. It was a tiny little sound, cloth sliding against cloth. But it chilled her to the bone, and set her groping for her gun. There was someone else in her fucking basement! A German lying in wait? Or an unlucky civilian sheltering from the war going on just above their heads?
Mouth dry, desperately hoping not to get a bullet in the face for her trouble, she said
“Who's there?”
A moment of silence. Carmilla's finger was trembling on the trigger. Then, from out of the darkness, a voice said:
“Willow.”
Carmilla sighed with relief. It was the first half of the countersign the entire division had been given.
“Run,” she said, lowering her gun.
“Christ, it's good to hear you say that.” The voice floated out of the gloom at the far corner of the cellar.
“Likewise.” Carmilla stepped carefully through the half-light, until she found the figure propped up in the corner.
Her helmet was off, revealing red hair a little longer than regulation. Her rifle was leaning against the wall next to her, and her left hand was pressed against the side of her neck.
“Shit, you're wounded.”
“Not as bad as it looks.” The other soldier shrugged. “Same sniper that chased you down here winged me.”
Carmilla gave her a doubtful look. Neck wounds were bad. But she didn't seem to be choking on blood, so that was good.
“You're sure?”
“It's fine as long as I keep the pressure on.” Another shrug. “Forget it. Doesn't matter right now. There's something a whole hell of a lot more important I need your help with.”
“Yeah? Does it involve getting out of here and back to the rest of the army?”
“Sort of.” The red-haired soldier pursed her lips. “Eventually.”
“Alright,” Carmilla shrugged. “Shoot.”
“Okay. Great.” The other soldier closed her eyes for a moment, breathing deep. “Breast pocket on my left side. The zipper's stuck. If we don't get it open, the war's as good as lost for the Allies.”
“Is that a fact?” Carmilla arched an eyebrow. “Must be important, then.”
“Oh, it is.” The soldier on the floor nodded vigorously. “Vital, even. But I can't get it open myself. The angle doesn't work, especially with only one hand.”
“Better get it open, then. I guess you want to me to just pull?”
“If that's the best idea we have, I'll take it.”
Carmilla nodded, setting her rifle down. Kneeling in front of her wounded counterpart, she wrapped gloved fingers around the metal zipper, pulling as hard as she could. It didn't budge.
“Damn,” she said.
“Still stuck?”
“Yeah. Need more leverage.”
Carmilla stood, planting one foot on the wall beside the red-haired woman's head. The position gave her a better angle at which to pull, but it also placed her groin indecently close to the seated soldier's face. Her nose wrinkled, and she glared at Carmilla.
“Christ, you could use a shower. And a change of uniform.”
“You don't exactly smell like roses yourself, you know,” Carmilla grunted as she took the zipper in her fist again.
“Aw, you wound me. I thought the blood, old sweat, and cordite combination was really working for me.”
Carmilla chuckled, then heaved on the stuck zipper. There was the sound of tearing cloth as the jam gave way, sending the black-haired woman sprawling on her back on the dusty basement floor.
“Fuck yes!”
The other soldier's free hand was diving into her pocket as Carmilla rose to her feet. As she watched, it emerged holding a battered pack of cigarettes and a lighter. The red-haired woman grinned up at her.
“Smoke?”
A minute later, both soldiers had lit cigarettes pinched loosely between gloved fingers, and a small cloud of grey smoke was drifting towards the ceiling.
“Thanks. Christ, you have no idea how much I need this.”
The wounded soldier exhaled another nicotine-scented breath. She glanced over at Carmilla.
“You 82nd?”
“Yeah, 505th regiment.”
Carmilla was seated now as well, leaning against the wall catty-corner from her counterpart.
“Really? Shit, me too.” The red-haired soldier grinned. “Guess it's a small war after all.”
Carmilla barked a laugh and extended her right hand.
“Karnstein, Able Company.”
“Lawrence, Fox.” Lawrence shook the proffered hand. “Don't suppose the rest of Able's up there waiting for us?”
“No.” Carmilla removed her helmet and ran a hand through her hair. “I was sent out to reconnoiter. Didn't expect Germans here.”
“Yeah, join the club.” Lawrence grunted. “I was supposed to link up with the rest of the regiment and figure out what was what after that last attack.”
“How long have you been down here?”
“Few hours, I think? I got clipped in the neck and managed to crawl down there,” Lawrence pointed to hole in the foundation, “before the kraut noticed I wasn't quite dead.” She slapped her free hand against her thigh. “So, bad news: sniper. Good news: she isn't a very good sniper. Bad news again: it's at least 500 yards to the tree-line from here, so she doesn't need to be that good to kill us before we can get away. Good news again: I have a plan.”
“Do you now?”
Carmilla did her best to suppress a smirk. It shouldn't have been difficult. There was very little amusing about their situation. But, well... Lawrence seemed so damn chipper for someone who had spent the past few hours holding her own blood inside in a freezing basement. She had guts. Or possibly a death wish. It was weirdly charming.
“Yeah, Karnstein, I do indeed.” Lawrence flicked the stub of her cigarette away, then actually relinquished her grip on her neck to rub her hands together. “Alright, so I think I know which building she's shooting from. That makes it easy. All you have to do is get there and kill her.”
“And what exactly is stopping her from blowing me away the moment I stick my head up out of this basement, exactly?”
“Simple. I'll be your covering fire.” Lawrence replaced the hand on her neck, and jerked a thumb towards the hole in the foundation. “I'll crawl up there and start taking potshots at her. You go out the way you came in, circle around until you can get an angle, and get her.”
Carmilla looked doubtfully between her wounded comrade and the dirt trench the artillery shell had dug on its way to blowing a hole into the cellar.
“Will you be able to work your rifle and not bleed out?”
“I can rest it on the lip of the hole. Reloading will be a pain in the ass, but if you run fast enough, that shouldn't be too much of a problem.”
“Won't that put your head right in her sights, though?” Carmilla frowned, grinding out her own cigarette on the cellar floor.
“Well, nobody said war was easy.” Lawrence cocked her head to the side. “Actually, probably someone did, but they were an asshole.”
“I don't know...” Carmilla chewed her lip. “Which building is she shooting from?”
“Well, it's not like I have the address.” Lawrence shrugged. “But it's the one with the left-side that's mostly been blown away. I think she's upstairs.”
“Alright,” Carmilla nodded. “And how sure are you?”
“I dunno.” Lawrence blinked. “Say sixty-five percent?”
“Sixty-five percent.” Carmilla repeated, flatly. “So this plan of yours has a thirty-five percent chance that I get my stupid trusting face blown off for listening to you.”
“Well, sure, if you want to be all negative about it.” Lawrence huffed. “Look, if you want to stay here while I--”
“Oh, can it,” Carmilla grunted as she got to her feet and walked to the gap in the cellar's wall. “It's not like I have a better idea. But we need to be sure.”
The shell that had blown open the basement had also blasted out a short, steep trench in the dirt out side. Carmilla inched up it on her stomach, sans helmet: it wouldn't do shit to stop a rifle bullet dead-on, and it increased the silhouette of her head just enough to be dangerous. Not that the lack of it did anything to make her less twitchy as she finally raised her eyes above the lip of her nice safe hole.
She could see the house Lawrence had described, a bit more than a hundred yards away. The left third had been blown apart, blackened beams dark against the grey winter sky, but the rest looked sturdy enough. The roof had lost quite a few shingles, but not enough for Carmilla to make out any detail in the shadows. It was, she supposed, a fairly good spot for sniper. But she couldn't be sure.
Damn it, just one flash of a grey uniform would be enough. The glint of sunlight off a sight. As Carmilla craned for a better view, three things happened at once: there was a yellow flash of muzzle-fire, the crack of a rifle shot, and a spray of snow as a bullet struck mere inches in front of Carmilla's nose.
“Shit!”
Carmilla flung herself backwards, back down into the cellar.
“Fuck, are you alright?”
Lawrence scrambled to her feet.
“I'm fine.” Carmilla paused, resting her hands on her knees and breathing deep. “Fine. We know where she is. But the second you stick your head up there to start taking shots, she's going to blow it off. I think all the practice we've been giving her is paying off.”
“Well...” Lawrence looked doubtful. “I guess I can keep low and stick my sidearm up over the edge. Not going to be as convincing, though.”
“Well, what about...” Carmilla paused, rubbing at her eyes. “Wait, I have an idea. Give me your rifle and one of your bootlaces.”
“What? Why in the hell do you--”
“Just do it, Lawrence.”
Lawrence did so, looking slightly confused. Carmilla quickly made a small loop in the proffered shoelace and secured it around the trigger of the rifle. Then, she scrambled back up the slope, making damn sure to keep her head down, and wedged the weapon's stock into the dirt, the muzzle just protruding above the snow.
“There. Just sit at the bottom of the slope and pull the string every ten seconds or so. Loud noises, muzzle flash, all you need to put on a convincing firefight.”
“I won't hit anywhere near her.”
Lawrence frowned.
“You won't need to.” Carmilla shouldered her own rifle. “Just keep her distracted, yeah?”
“Yeah.” Lawrence nodded. “Thanks, Karnstein.”
“Well,” Carmilla shifted uncomfortably. “You already got hit once. That's enough for one day.”
“No argument here.”
Lawrence got into position, bootlace held loosely in her free hand as Carmilla walked back to the cellar steps. Her foot was on the first one when Lawrence called out.
“Hey, Karnstein.”
“Yeah?” Carmilla paused.
“Be careful up there, will ya? I'd hate for something to happen to that stupid trusting face of yours.”
Carmilla blinked. She wasn't sure how to respond to that. So instead, she just nodded, waited until Lawrence's first shot was echoing around the cellar, and then ran up the steps as fast as her legs could carry her.
As soon as she was in the sunlight again, Carmilla darted around the corner of the house. She needed a better angle if she was going to pick off the sniper. She paused at the corner until she heard Lawrence fire again, echoed that time by a shot from the sniper. Thank Christ, she had taken the bait. Well, no reason to delay. Carmilla darted out from her cover, running hell-for-leather to a ramshackle shed that was the next available shelter.
As she slid to stop in the snow, Carmilla heard another pair of shots. Shit. She needed to get this done, and quickly. Every second was more time for the damn sniper to realize what they were up to, or for a lucky shot to hit Lawrence.
She shouldered her rifle and leaned out, searching for a glimpse of grey in her sights.
Nothing. She had no angle, damn it.
Carmilla paused for an instant. She could circle around the other way, she supposed, and hope that she wasn't seen. She could take off and return with reinforcements to get Lawrence out. Or, she could do something really incredibly stupid.
Her feet were moving before the rest of her quite knew what was going. She pounded through the snow, straight for the house were the sniper lurked. She was half-sure that at any second, there was going to be another thundering shot and she was going to be dead in the snow.
An instant or a century later, when she reached the house, she slammed her back against it, breathing hard. One breath. Two. Three. No grenades landed at her feet. No pissed-off Germans rounded the corner, guns at the ready. Shit, had she actually gotten away with it?
The door was around the back, on the opposite side from where the sniper was firing. Carmilla pushed it open with the muzzle of her rifle, waited a half-second for someone to start shooting at her, then ducked inside. Directly ahead of her was a flight of stairs, in remarkably good condition considering the state of the house they belonged to. She had taken her first step towards them when the sound of the sniper's cracked from above. It echoed around Carmilla's head, setting her teeth on edge.
“That was your last one, fucker.”
She snarled the words under her breath as she took the stairs two at a time, no longer worrying about stealth. As she crashed through the door at the top, she finally caught sight of her quarry: the sniper lay on the floor, a figure in a bulky grey trenchcoat, rolling to face her as it brought the gun in its hands to bear.
Carmilla's own weapon jumped in her hands as she fired. Five quick pulls, until her enemy's body stopped twitching and the her rifle's empty clip fell at her feet. Shit, she had actually gotten away with it.
She walked to the window the sniper had been firing from. Lawrence's rifle was just visible above the snow, but of the soldier herself, there was no sign. Well, that was the point. Carmilla was about to call out to the other soldier when her eyes fell on the rifle leaning against the window sill. For a moment, she just stared, unable to understand why it looked so wrong. She looked down, at the body sprawled on the floor. The dead sniper's weapon lay where it had fallen from her nerveless hands.
Oh. Oh, shit.
Carmilla didn't even have time to swear aloud before the second German cannoned into her. He had come through a door near the top of the stairs that she hadn't even noticed. Must have been taking a piss when she killed his partner, she realized as she crashed to the floor, her empty rifle spinning away. Her attacker had a damn great trench knife in one hand, and Carmilla only barely managed to deflect it away from her chest. She brought her knee up into the man's groin, but he didn't even flinch, just grunted slightly. Fucking Germans and their warm fucking padded fucking uniforms.
She caught his wrist as he brought the knife down again, the point halting frighteningly close to her throat. The German brought his other hand to the knife's grip, throwing his entire weight behind the blade. Carmilla pushed back with all her strength, but it wasn't enough. The knife descended one inch, then two. Carmilla's mouth was dry, her eyes wide. The German's fleshy face was red with strain and cold. All in all, there were a lot better things to see in one's final moments.
She flinched absurdly when she heard the first shot. Her would-be killer stiffened, and Carmilla fancied she heard, over the next two reports, the wet thump of bullets striking flesh. The German half fell, half rolled off of her, eyes wide and blank, blood foaming on his lips. Carmilla raised her head.
Lawrence stood at the head of the stairs. A smoking pistol was in her right hand, while her left was still clamped to her neck.
“So I just had a thought,” the other paratrooper said conversationally, “that snipers usually work in pairs.”
Carmilla stared at her. There was snow on the front of uniform, like she had fallen face-first into it. Some was even stuck in her hair. She only had one boot on, and as Carmilla watched, a large clump of snow dropped from her olive-drab sock with a wet little thump. At Carmilla's continued silence, Lawrence's smirk was replaced by a look of concern.
“Shit, Karnstein, are you okay? Did you get hit?”
She shoved her sidearm back into its holster and knelt beside her fellow paratrooper, searching her uniform for tears and bloodstains.
“You look alright. C'mon, Karnstein, talk to me.”
“I...” Carmilla blinked up at her, slowly. “What the hell happened to your other boot?”
Lawrence breathed out and sat back on her haunches.
“My boot. Well, Karnstein, as I sat in that basement and heard your shots, and as it occurred to me that there might well be more than one kraut lying in wait for you, and as I took it upon myself to dash nobly from my place of safety to fling myself headfirst into danger for the sake of you, my comrade in arms... As all that happened, Karnstein, it turned out some complete asshole had stolen the lace from my boot to tie around my rifle. So I ran out of my shoe on the way here. And now, if you are actually okay, I'd like to go and get it back because I am not going to fight my way through the entire Wehrmacht to lose a toe to fucking frostbite.”
Carmilla pushed herself into a sitting position, and accepted Lawrence's hand to drag her to her feet. She retrieved her rifle from where it had fallen, then turned to the other woman.
“Combat really makes you rattle on, doesn't it?”
Danny grinned at her.
“It's an adrenaline thing.”
-x-
Later, after Lawrence's wayward rifle and boot were both retrieved, and Carmilla had tied a makeshift bandage around the red-haired soldier's neck, the two paratroopers were slogging through the snow in the direction of the American lines.
“So, how bad is it?”
“Huh?” Carmilla said, glancing up from picking her way through the knee-deep snow. “How bad is what?”
Lawrence gestured to her neck.
“You got a good look at it. Think I'll get sent to the rear?”
Carmilla snorted.
“What rear? If the Germans are here, they're fucking everywhere, Lawrence. I don't think anyone's getting off the line for a long damn time.”
“Fuck,” Lawrence sighed. “I guess you're right.”
She kicked at the snow.
“I thought we had the krauts on the back foot, too. So much for a happy Christmas, huh?”
“Yeah.” Carmilla sighed. “I was supposed to have a five-day pass to Paris coming up.”
“Oh yeah? Looking for a nice little vacation in the middle of the war?”
“Damn straight.” Carmilla grinned. “Showers, sheets, food cooked on an actual stove. An adoring French girl to lay my head in her lap as she feeds me grapes besides the Seine. You know, just the basic home comforts you miss in a foxhole.”
Lawrence laughed.
“Now that's shit I can fight for.” She clapped the shorter soldier on the shoulder. “Well, tell you what. We'll kick this kraut suprise attack in the teeth and open up the roads to Paris again. And we'll do it with so much damn style our CO's give us a month of leave each and medals too. And then...”
She paused, and Carmilla gave her a sidelong look.
“'And then' what?”
"Well..." Lawrence drew the word out. "And then, if your adoring french girl doesn't take up too much of your time, we could get to know each other a bit better."
"Hmm."
The two paratroopers walked on in silence for a little while before Camilla spoke again.
"How good are you at peeling grapes?"
Lawrence shot her a grin.
"Hopeless. But I know this great bar in Montparnasse. Artists used to go there to drink absinthe and laudanum and lose their minds."
"Oh, really? Well, Lawrence..." Camilla paused. "Actually, what's your first name?"
"Danny."
"Well then, Danny: I think I could stand to lose my mind a little."
Danny barked a laugh.
"That's the spirit, Karnstein. So, it's a date?"
"Assuming neither of us get our heads blown off between now and then... yeah, it's a date."
Danny grinned at her.
"See, that's what I like about you, Karnstein. Your naturally sunny disposition." She shook her head. "But we'll be fine. Especially now that I have something to fight for."
Camilla shot her a sideways look.
"Been that long since you've had a date, huh?"
"Who's talking about the date?" Danny threw an arm around Carmilla's shoulders. "I'm gonna live through this just so I get to say 'I told you so.'"
"Oh, go to hell, Lawrence."
But Carmilla laughed in spite of herself as the two soldiers trudged through the Ardennes, back to the war.