Evelyn's Tale

-Thirteen-

D-Day plus five

It was night time and they were finally nearing Carentan. Nearing, as in they were still a whole night's walking distance away. It had taken almost four days to get this far, and they had had to clear out a few other towns along the way. It had been a real eye opener for Evelyn. Sure, she had been at Brecourt, but she hadn't actually seen the battle. But when they had cleared out the other towns, she had been right in the middle of all the fighting, running to the countless calls for a medic. At first she had thought she would have been too terrified to function properly, to do her job, but it had been the total opposite. Strangely, her nerves and the adrenaline pumping through her body had helped put her nerves at ease. When that first call for a medic came, she ran without even thinking about the danger she was putting herself in. All she cared about was doing her job and getting to whoever needed help. It was only afterwards that she had thought about some of the situations she had put herself in. It was also on the way to Carentan that she had lost her first man. A Private Gregory from first platoon had caught a piece of shrapnel in the neck and it had hit the artery. She knew from the moment she saw him that he was a lost cause, but that didn't prevent her from trying to do everything in her power to save him. When his shaking body had finally become still and his face had taken on a lifeless yet strangely peaceful stare, she had wanted to cry right there and then on the dusty ground with bullets flying around her. But then the next call for a medic came and she was gone before she even realised it; Private Gregory put to the back of her mind. It was callous and cruel in a way. A man had died, and he deserved to be mourned over but war didn't allow for that.

There was a golden ember to the sky that was beautifully eerie as it cast an almost ethereal glow on the bodies of dead Germans scattered around the ground as they walked. Evelyn still couldn't get used to the sight of them. She felt a shiver run down her spine every time she had to walk past one. She had this awful, illogical fear that all of a sudden one of them was going to grab her ankle as she passed by them or jump up in front of her face. It was a ridiculous thought but one she couldn't get out of her head. The bodies of Americans, her comrades, didn't unnerve her but the Germans did. Perhaps it was because she knew they were the enemy and that if they were alive, they would be trying to kill her. Despite the Geneva convention, it seemed that the Germans weren't opposed to killing medics. Spina had told her and Eugene that he had heard from a guy in one of the other companies that they had seen Germans aiming for medics. She guessed the red cross they wore made them an easy target.

Walking a little way up from her, Frank Perconte didn't seem to feel any such apprehension. In fact, every German he came across, Frank would check their wrists for watches and would turn around and wave the watch excitedly at Evelyn when he found one that was still ticking. Peculiar little man. She groaned when the order to stop came and she found herself at a standstill beside yet another body. She shivered and when George put a hand on her shoulder, she yelped.

"Fuck sakes George," she glared at him. "Do you have to scare me like that?"

"Sorry," George exclaimed, looking anything but sorry. "It's not my fault you're so jumpy. Dead Krauts giving you the creeps huh?"

The grin fell from his face when he realised that she really was unnerved by them. He pulled her into a bear hug and rested his chin on the top of her head, spinning her around so that his back was towards the dead German. She waited for him to make some kind of smart comment but he didn't, and she was more than a little grateful to him.

"Hey you guys, guess what?" Perconte turned around. "We lost F company."

"Again?" They all exclaimed.

"Looks like we could be here for some time," George muttered. "Don't worry though Ev, I'll protect you from any dead Krauts. Just close your eyes and pretend I'm Liebgott."