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'Don't think about it,' Speirs said, right into George's ear.
George flinched, nearly breaking in two the aerial of the radio handset he was holding. He still wasn't used to the Captain's creepy habit of appearing out of nowhere, looming up behind him like some kind of picture book monster. As subtly as he could – which, given that he was George Luz, was probably not as subtle as some, but far, far more than others – he had questioned some of the other guys to see if their CO did the same to them as to him. Well, questioned with omissions, of course. There were things that Captain Speirs had done to George that George wasn't intending on talking about with anyone. Ever. Not in a million years, not even if someone held a knife to his throat. He would take it to the grave.
But anyway, when he'd asked the other guys about the looming out of nowhere thing, Malarkey had just shrugged (not that he knew of, and believe him he'd know), Liebgott had looked at him blankly ('No way. What would he do that for, George? Are you fucking crazy? You're going fucking crazy, aren't you?'), Johnny Martin had suggested that maybe it was all in George's head (which was plausible – George's imagination, after all – right up to the point where it actually happened), and Vest – his most likely suspect for similar things happening, given his position and role, because it never once occurred to George that it might just be him – had just given him a long look and said, 'Yeah, George, I'd heard he'd taken a bit of a shine to you. Beyond... y'know. That's – that's interesting.'
'Interesting? Why is it interesting?' George had demanded. 'And who'd you hear that from?'
Vest had given him a smug little smirk, and was that a knowing glint in his eye?
The smirk was gone half a second later as George shoved him up against the wall by his shirt front. It hadn't taken George much longer than that – hands fisted white-knuckle tight in Vest's blouse, breathing heavily through his nose, white fire filling his head – to freak out completely. This wasn't him. He didn't do this kind of thing. He'd dropped Vest and stepped back in a quick retreat, but even with the apology on his lips the damage had been done. Vest had shot him an angry, wounded look, straightening his blouse and inching away from George. 'It was Sergeant Lipton,' he snapped. 'First Sergeant Lipton said it, so if you've got a problem with that you go and take it up with him!'
'I'm – look, Vest, I'm sorry, okay? I just...' George waved his hands and bit his lip. 'I'm sorry.' He wasn't that kind of man. He never wanted to be that kind of man.
'It's nothing,' Vest said shortly. He wouldn't even look at George.
But George had carried it with him. What kind of a man was this war making him into? He'd joined the army to fight for his country; volunteered for the Airborne because he knew he could be the best and wanted to prove to the bullies back home that George Luz had what it took. He was gonna be somebody some day. He wasn't gonna be some kid they could beat up on; he was gonna be someone who stood up for himself.
Except instead he became someone who beat up on others the way he'd been beaten up on himself, and in a million years that wasn't who George ever wanted to be. He was fucking ashamed of it.
'I'm sorry, sir?' George said a little stiffly, looking down at the guts of the dismantled radio in front of him. It really was a goddamn mess. The piece of shit had packed it in again; just shy of Haguenau a bullet had clipped the aerial (George chose not to think about how close that bullet was to his head), and although it had been working fitfully, that morning it had crapped out for good. Captain Speirs had ordered him off the latest patrol to fix it.
He got the feeling it was a case of him getting the radio fixed or he got fixed.
Sitting on the Battalion like they were, radio downtime wasn't as critical as it could have been had Easy been on an active, moving front. But it was best not to tempt fate and get it fixed as soon as possible, because Captain Winters wasn't always going to be around to happily shuttle messages back and forth between Battalion and his old company.
And George Luz was a versatile scrounger. He had managed to rummage up enough bits and pieces from nearby French houses to cobble together a neat patch job for the antenna, but on dismantling the radio to make the repairs he'd discovered that since last time he'd had a chance to service it, the thing had developed more goddamn problems than Hitler. He took it down into the cellar of the CP, away from the fuss and noise, and a small kerosene heater in the corner provided him with enough heat to be able to peel out of his jacket and blouse. Stripped down to business in his undershirt, he'd spread a blanket out and then the component parts of the stripped E Company radio for a thorough cleaning.
'Whatever it is that you're thinking about, don't,' Speirs said. 'Don't think about it.' His warm hand settled on the back of George's neck, light but possessive. 'Think about me instead.'
Exhaling softly, George closed his eyes. That was something he did all too easily. Think of his infuriating, exasperating, confusing Captain who had taken such a sometime shine to his battalion runner slash radio man that even Lip had noticed and Vest thought was interesting.
Speirs' fingers slid up George's neck to curl through his hair and George leant into the touch. He wished he understood things, even for just a moment. He wished he understood what it was that the Captain really wanted from him, and why him of all people. It couldn't just be because of Lipton, could it? If it was Lipton and those things Speirs had implied but not said, then why did Speirs come to him like this? George wished he understood why whatever it was that Speirs did to him warmed that cold stone of dread and inevitability sitting heavily in George's gut the way nothing had since D-Day less one. It wasn't normal, he knew that, but because it did warm him like that he wouldn't say no, or tell his Captain he didn't want it.
...If, of course, Captain Speirs was even someone you could say "no" to. That was one thing George was glad he'd never had a chance to find out.
Speirs' hands settled on his shoulders, kneading gently. 'You're tense,' he said, not even pretending not to sound accusatory. His hands were as gentle as his tone was not.
'Yessir,' George agreed. 'My CO ordered me to get this damned radio fixed, no excuses, and I'm doing my best.'
'Your CO sounds like goddamn bastard.'
George sighed and then bit his lip on the ghost of a groan as the Captain's thumb pressed hard into a tight knot of muscle. It was best to roll with it when Speirs did things like this and George really, really wasn't going to complain. 'He has his moments, sir,' he said without thinking.
Speirs' hands stilled instantly and any sense of relaxation that George was feeling fled. He swallowed, his mouth dry.
'I'm sure he does,' Speirs finally said slyly, resuming his deft massage. George could hear the smile in the Captain's voice and relaxed.
The Captain was always incredibly careful with this – this thing it was they were doing – that he was doing to George – and how he was crouched concealed what his hands were doing from the door. Speirs worked his thumbs up George's neck and George let out a low rumble of pleasure that made the Captain chuckle low in his throat. 'You are very good at this, sir,' George murmured, leaning into Speirs' hands.
'I'll have you know I'm very good at a lot of things.'
There was a noise from the doorway, the scrape of the sole of a well-worn jump boot against stressed, creaking floorboards. A soft, familiar voice said, 'Captain Speirs, sir?'
The Captain's hands stilled again, this time at Lipton's voice. He stood smoothly from his crouch, his fingers trailing lightly across George's skin in a way that made him shiver.
'Yes?'
It was strange, George thought. Speirs normally sounded warm and friendly when he spoke with Lipton, so it was startling to hear that frosty edge to his tone. George twisted around curiously.
Clearly it was odd to Lip too, because he shot George a confused look past Speirs' shoulder. George just shrugged. How the hell was he meant to know what was going on in Speirs' head? He didn't know what was going on in his own at the best of times. He just did what he was told and tried to shut the fuck up the rest of the time.
There was a stiffness to Speirs' stride as he stalked over to where Lipton lingered in the doorway. Their conversation was too low for George to hear, but when Lipton tried to peer around the Captain again, Speirs inched across to block his view. 'I told you to rest,' George heard Speirs snap peevishly as Lipton muffled a painful-sounding jag of coughing in his sleeve. 'C'mon, you're gonna sit down, anyway. Jesus, Sergeant Lipton, think about what kind of example you're setting the men.' He grabbed Lipton by the arm and hustled him back to the stairs. 'Luz?' he said, pausing and turning. His mouth was a thin, annoyed line.
'Sir?'
'Battalion's sent orders to move Easy further into the town. Get that damned radio back together and then go find Lieutenants Foley and Shames, and Sergeant Malarkey. Bring 'em back here.'
'Yessir.'
The floor was wooden, so it wasn't uncomfortable like a foxhole in the frozen ground, and George felt damn near cosy in his nest of blankets, curled up near the foot of Lipton's bed. He'd promised the other guys he wouldn't let Lip die during the night from his pneumonia, and if George Luz was anything, it was a man who kept his promises. He didn't think it really likely that Lip would die or anything, but good officers were hard to come by at the pointy end of the stick, and Lip was one of the best. The best.
He wasn't the only one who thought it, of course. He'd asked Chuck Grant if he knew anyone who had an extra blanket they could spare for Lip, and in four hours he ended up with thirty two blankets, eight jackets, four caps and eleven scarves, plus fourteen threats that if he let anything to happen to Lip his life wouldn't be worth living. At least five of them weren't idle, either.
So George bunked down to keep an eye on Lipton, warm and comfortable on the floor. There were three beds in the room, narrow cots that looked like heaven after their frozen stay in the Hotel Ardennes (George had bounced a little on one before he'd put Lip in it, just to remember what a mattress felt like), but George was pretty sure it was a room for officers, and everyone knew that Lipton was a Lieutenant in all but name.
He belonged there. George didn't.
In fact, when he was shaken roughly awake he was sure it was to be kicked out. He squinted up against the square of light falling in the open doorway. Shit. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. He recognised that silhouette.
'What are you doing, trooper?' Captain Speirs said, quiet so as not to disturb the sleeping Lipton but at the same time not even bothering to try and moderate his irritation. He'd been doing that more and more lately since they'd hit this stationary point in the campaign. Speirs was a man for movement, not digging in, and inactivity clearly frustrated him. Unless something happened, he was going to have looted the town clean by the time they left Haguenau. Well, something apart from moving the company CP from house to house every time Battalion changed their mind.
'I – uh – sir, Sergeant Lipton—' George was still far too sleep-muddled to think clearly, fumbling with both his words and his blanket. The sudden eyeball-jabbing light didn't help. It was only a lamp, but George's eyes were used to the comfort of inside his eyelids. He squinted up at Speirs.
With his fingers still twisted in George's shirt, Captain Speirs reached down and snatched up George's blankets. 'I'm aware why you're here,' he snapped. Lipton snuffled loudly at the Captain's raised voice; Speirs' mouth thinned but his next words were significantly quieter and twice as irritated. 'You wanna tell me why you're sacked out on the floor,' and he pitched George's blankets onto the empty bed next to Lip's, 'when there is a perfectly good bed right there?'
George swallowed. 'Well, uh... I thought it was for c-commissioned officers, sir, and being that I'm just a—' His explanation was cut short when Speirs tugged him to his feet, grabbing him with one hand at the back of his neck and hauling him close. His Captain's kiss was everything George had tried desperately not to remember, hard and demanding and hot. It knocked all thought clean out of George's head.
He was gasping for breath when Speirs pulled back, his head spinning. 'Get in the bed,' Speirs said. Again the cold mask had slipped.
George's eyes bugged. Was he asking what George thought he was asking...? He couldn't be, could he? Not with – not with Lip right there, he wouldn't dare...
Speirs wiped the back of his hand over his mouth. 'To sleep, Luz. Get in.'
'Yessir!' George yelped. He was mostly relieved that it was only going to be to sleep – mostly relieved, yeah, but maybe he was just the tiniest bit disappointed, too, because... Jesus Christ, what was he thinking? Just as he'd tried his best not to remember Speirs' kiss he'd tried even harder to forget his touch, the feel of Speirs' hand smooth and deliberate over his skin. Except George had found his gaze being helplessly drawn to those deft hands over and over, whether Speirs was gesturing or smoking or at ease, most usually holding some loot he'd found that hadn't been destroyed by German artillery. One time the Captain had trotted into the CP cradling a thick silver candlestick; George had taken one look at it in Speirs' hand and blushed harder than a virgin with a man's hand up her skirt. He'd had to excuse himself for a moment and when he'd returned the Captain had given him a sharp-eyed look.
George had been sure Speirs knew the levels his mind had sunk to, particularly when Speirs had held the candlestick out to George with a raised brow. 'Put this with the rest,' he'd said. Their hands had touched. George had bitten down on his lip until he tasted blood.
When Speirs gave him a gentle shove towards the bed, George toed his unlaced boots off and crawled into it. The sheets were crisp and cold and fresh. While there were far better ways to enjoy unsullied linen than sleep, he was clean and had a clean uniform too, and that was something after all the hell they'd gone through. When he shuffled further down under the blankets, Speirs absently tugged them straight. George glanced from Speirs' hand to his face and grinned recklessly. 'You gonna tuck me in, sir?' he asked. 'Read me a bedtime story? Oh sir, maybe you got a goodnight kiss forrr—ahh ha haa. I didn't, uh... I didn't mean that, sir.'
Speirs gave him a steady look – life and hands, George thought for the millionth time since Speirs had become his CO, life and hands – before his mouth quirked into a smile, almost imperceptible in the half-light. He swept his hand over the blanket again, slowly like he was deep in thought, before bending over George to crease down the blanket on the other side of him. He leant in close. 'Tell anyone about this and I promise I will kill you.' The threat rolled easily off Speirs' tongue.
George didn't doubt it. He swallowed. 'Would I do that?' he said in his most harmless tone and Speirs gave him another look. 'I won't do it, I wouldn't do it,' George said hastily. 'I promise. Paratrooper's honour—no, Easy Company honour, sir. That's the honour that counts.' He wasn't scared of Speirs. Not really. Except for when he was. Like right now.
Besides, Speirs' reputation for ruthlessness was legendary, and George was sure Speirs would make good on his threat if George blabbed. Not that he would. George was firmly committed to remaining on the Captain's good side, thank you very much. It was just like why he didn't dare impersonate the Captain. He was one hundred percent certain that if he did, it would get back to Speirs within about three breaths and then he'd end up with a bullet through his forehead or something. Radios weren't that hard to operate and there were other men in the company small enough to make up the jump weight. Speirs wouldn't miss him. Lipton might, but he'd just buddy up with whoever it was that replaced George because good ol' Lip got along with everyone.
God, it was depressing being so replaceable.
'I can see you thinking again, Luz.'
'Yeah, that'll happen sometimes, sir, I promise.' George managed a weak smile. 'Me thinking, I mean. It's outrageous. Who woulda thunk it, eh?' He wasn't going to tell Speirs what he'd been thinking, of course. It wasn't something to share with his commanding officer; it wasn't something to share with anyone. Except maybe Lip, because he could tell anything to Lip and he wouldn't take him too seriously. Not really. Okay, actually, Lipton probably would take him seriously, because Lip was a stand up kind of guy who cared about each and every one of the guys. So of course George wouldn't tell Lip because the last thing he would ever want to make Lip do is worry. After all, no one ever lost sleep over George Luz.
Speirs wasn't swayed by George's smile and feeble joke, however. He was about to tell Speirs not to worry (not that he honest-to-god thought Speirs would) but when he opened his mouth, something else came out. 'Sir, about Foy,' George said, looking down at his hands, fiddling with the edge of the blanket. 'I thought we were already dead out there. I mean... I think we all did.'
And he had. Dike was going to get them all killed. After all they'd managed to make it through, Dike was going to get them fucking killed and there wasn't a lick of shit anyone could do to save them. Their numbers were up the moment they were ordered into an attack at the hands of an imbecile, and all that was left for them was the bullet, the mortar or the shell. Fear had flooded Easy like poison, hushed conversations in frozen foxholes over the collective leave of their senses that Battalion had taken, but it had meant nothing in the end.
It wasn't fair. He and Lip had survived a direct shell hit on their foxhole by the virtue of God or Lady Luck or some other spirit who'd cared just enough for their godforsaken little souls to shelter them within the palm of its hand. Shit, it wasn't like George didn't already know how lucky he'd been. D-Day, Operation Market Garden and now the Ardennes Campaign, with not a single ping or Purple Heart to show for his efforts. Surely, surely whatever had saved them in that foxhole hadn't saved them just so they could go on to be carved up on the fields of Foy, just another statistic on paper for an inept CO?
Thrown away as cannon fodder.
Or at least, that was what George had thought. But somehow Dike freezing up had gone from the worst thing that could possibly happen to the best. With the handset gripped tight to his ear, George had thrown an agonised glance back at Battalion and had seen someone – it was Captain Winters, fuck, he was a Toccoa man, he wouldn't just let Easy Company die – waving his arms and then someone else running towards them.
The shell the Tiger tank dropped had George instinctively flinching as it obliterated their last hope of not getting slaughtered. There was no way anyone could have survived that.
Except.
Except the shell had dropped short and George had gaped dumbly, handset loose and forgotten in his hand, as Lieutenant Speirs had leapt through the smoke and steam and frozen dirt and trotted over to them like he was on nothing more than a morning run. Not even the clamour of the battle could wipe the stupid fucking grin off George's face.
For the first time since they'd been inserted into the Ardennes, for the first time since lights up in Mourmelon-le-Grand even, interrupting that goddamn movie he'd now seen thirteen and a half times (Got a penny?), George had finally felt that maybe things were starting to go their way.
In that half-lit bedroom, Speirs looked at George. 'That's not always a bad way to think,' he said and shrugged. 'You have nothing to lose if you're already dead.'
'Yeah. Yeah, I s'pose you're right. Except, well...' George glanced away. He wasn't the touchy-feely kind of guy to talk about this sort of thing; anything serious was usually covered by a silly voice or a joke or a sing-a-long song, but... 'It was you who – you were the one who gave us all hope that we mighta been able to make it through, sir. Dike – Lieutenant Dike wasn't ever gonna see us through Foy and we all knew it. You gave us hope.'
There was a long moment of awkward silence and George chewed on the inside of his cheek.
Speirs looked at him. Really look at him, his head cocked a little as he frowned; not angry, just confused. A half second later the frown cleared and Speirs' eyes widened in a stunned expression that would have been comical had it been anyone else. 'I – I gave you hope?' he said, sounding almost dismayed.
George flushed. 'Well, yeah. I mean – I know you did me. I guess you did for the other guys, too. I've never felt like you're gonna get me killed.' As embarrassing as it was to admit, it was also the truth. 'I've never felt like you're gonna, y'know, stop in the middle of a field 'cause you don't know what you're doing and get me killed. Not like Dike. Not like... not like at Foy.'
To George, Foy had been different to every other campaign of the war. It was there George that had moments where he knew with sharp clarity that he was going to die. After surviving the siege of Bastogne, and Skip and Muck, and the dud shell, he was going to die and it was all 'cause his godforsaken CO was a fucking moron. He could still remember the creak of snow under his knee as he'd dropped where he stood when Dike folded. It was strange what the mind retained. He couldn't remember the zip of bullets around them, but he could remember the sound of the snow and the way Dike had panted with absolute gut-churning fear as he stopped them in the middle of no man's land.
It had been instinctive for George to sidle to his right so Dike was planted firmly between him and the worst of the German fire, but he'd known it was a futile gesture. If he was gonna die he was gonna die and that was a fact. Anything else was just delaying the inevitable. His soft urging to Dike (so hard to speak around the frozen air and lump of fear in his throat, so goddamn hard) to get to cover had been a last ditch effort to shift Dike from where he was painting a giant fucking target all over them.
And hey, with the Easy Company main radio set on his back, George knew was always going to be a target. Take the man out, take the set out, cripple the enemy any way you can. If he can't contact his platoons or his HQ, you're doing your job.
But Foy was fucking ridiculous. Even when they'd huddled against the haystacks George hadn't been able to feel safe. Or safer, at least, than before. Dike was two-point-fuck seconds from freezing up completely and he had Captain Winters screaming at him on the radio (what Winters thought George could do about Dike not taking the handset he didn't fucking know; screaming at him? Not helpful!), but cowering there, all George could think about were the horror stories he'd heard from the Able yokels in 1st Battalion. The 1st had been tasked to support the 10th Armoured at Noville, and then fought their way through Foy back to Bastogne after Foy had been lost by the 3rd. George had been horrified by stories about how the tanks had lit 'em up and burned 'em out hiding behind haystacks just like this. 'You get a choice, you get outta there ASAP!' he'd been told. So it was either be burned to death or run out into shelling and concentrated small arms fire and since he was gonna die anyway, George had felt spoiled for choice.
He shuddered under his blanket, his mind full of fire.
'Luz... Luz.' Captain Speirs shook him gently.
George squeezed his eyes shut tightly. 'I'm sorry. I can't – I can't help it, sir. I'm sorry, it just – I start thinking and I can't turn it off.' It was the same frustration that had him shoving Vest up against a wall in anger. His hands were clenched so tightly in the blankets that they ached from the force of it.
'How long?'
'Huh?'
'How long you been feeling like this?'
'Ever since... ever since Rachamps.' George couldn't meet Speirs' gaze. Turning his face away, he could just see a tuft of Lipton's hair over the mountain of blankets and pillows in the next bed; Lip's breathing was a steady, stupidly comforting snuffle to George's ears. 'I'm alright if I'm doing something, but if I get a moment, or sometimes if – if someone says something, I just... it's all there, like it's happening all over again. It's doing my head in.' He finally glanced back up at his Captain.
Speirs' mouth thinned and he nodded slowly. George didn't expect help from him. There wasn't a hell of a lot anyone could do about it, George was sure. 'Dreams? Nightmares?'
Shaking his head, George said, 'Not – not really. That's just... that's the usual. Jumping without a 'chute, or my gun jamming in a charge, or being all surrounded by Panzers and having nowhere to hide. Y'know, sir? The usual. This is... different. It's just... this is when I'm awake. When I'm awake it's all of it. Everything we've been through over and over again.' It was small consolation that it was only when he was awake. If George had suffered through nightmares as well of all this, he probably would have bitten a bullet by now, instead of being stuck in this halfway state of confusion and irrational violence. 'Like... there's what happened to Wild Bill and Joe Toye. I – I'm the clown, y'know? Jolly ol' St Luz in the Ardennes at Christmas keeping everyone's cheer up by impersonating goddamn Foxhole Norman, and then Bill and Joe... What can you even say? Hey guys, Germans've blown your legs off as a Christmas present, how d'you like that? I looked at Joe lying there in the snow, with Doc Roe and Malark with him, and there was my buddy with his leg off and I just turned away. I didn't even – I couldn't—' He twisted his arm free of the blankets and pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead, just above his eye. His head throbbed horribly. 'And then poor damn Muck and Penkala... they just wanted me to be safe in their foxhole,' when he laughed it sounded thin and high and hysterical, 'which was the deepest, safest goddamned foxhole in the whole of the Bois Jacques and they still died. And I didn't. I didn't! Even when the shell dropped right on top of me, I didn't die. I didn't die,' George repeated, 'and I should've! And – and sometimes I kinda even wish I did!'
George had no idea where the hell that last bit came from, but when Lipton coughed, a restless response to his raised voice, George clapped his hand guilty over his mouth; he wasn't sure if Lip was awake, if his words had woken the sick man – oh god, please don't let him have heard me, he prayed – and the ache in his head intensified. He shouldn't have spoken about those feelings at all, he knew that. Not to Captain Speirs, not when there was even a chance Lip could have heard him, not to anyone at all, ever.
The Captain's face was still as he looked down at George, but there was an unusual compassion in his eyes, reflected in the light of the lamp.
He sat down on the edge of the cot, the hard mattress barely flexing under his additional weight, brushing aside George's hand from where he still had it pressed to his face as if the pressure could relieve the ache thundering through his brain. His Captain's hands were gentle as he curled his fingers around George's fingers, the other hand stroking over George's face, fingertips ghosting over his eyelids, lingering at his temple and on the soft, tired skin under his eyes and at the corner of his mouth.
'I don't... understand why you'd wish that,' Speirs said in a low, measured tone, gentle and soothing. 'But I don't think you really wish it at all. Luz—' He stopped a moment, his mouth thinning again and a tiny crease appearing between his brows. 'George,' he continued with gentle emphasis, 'the things we've been through have cracked even the hardest men, but you're still here. This is – this is what war is. There are no guarantees. Everyone has a number and yours hasn't been up. And it won't be until it's meant to be.'
He was terrible at finding words for comfort, George thought, but his touch, his tone and the fact that he was trying more than made up for it. George could feel his tension and unhappiness ease a little as Speirs spoke, still touching his face with that careful tenderness that reminded George of the way Lip touched him. George wasn't going to feel well again easily (and he wasn't sure he ever would), but he felt a damned sight better now than he had five minutes ago.
Captain Speirs glanced over at Lipton before cupping George's cheeks lightly for a moment, leaning down and pressing his lips to George's fleetingly. 'And there's your damn goodnight kiss,' he murmured. 'Now sleep, Luz. You will not have any dreams, good, bad or otherwise. And that's an order, trooper.'