Shadows of the World » Band of Brothers

42: We are Half Awake

"Compared to what we ought to be, we are half awake." - William James, Memories and Studies

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It was via a telegram hidden in their front garden that they discovered Thomas had been promoted to the position of commanding officer. Juliette was incredibly pleased for him, and indeed he seemed very pleased with himself, and they all congratulated him warmly. Martin did seem a tad bit miffed that it hadn't been him, but it was common practise for one of the undercover specialists to be promoted to CO; the job required you to also take on the role of tactician, and the undercover specialists worked most frequently in the field and thus were most liable to be the more natural tacticians.

Jules did worry, though, upon reflection afterwards; with Alex gone that was now two of their COs who had been killed in action. She hoped that that was a coincidence and not a pattern. She tried to convince herself not to think about it too much.

True to Tom's prediction, they did get sent out again a few weeks after their initial conversation about the matter, though they were mostly stealth operations to begin with after their potential compromise in Paris. Eventually, though, they did start getting sent back out on normal jobs again - less blowing things up and more swapping intel or making sure Nazis 'misplaced' important documents.

Tensions amongst the team and the amount of missions they were sent on were directly proportional. There were gaps they were only gradually learning to fill, and with Tom now acting as their tactician and Juliette being the sole undercover agent, mistakes were made in the process of adjustment. It was in the heat of these arguments that Jules missed Alex more than ever. Alex, who had not always taken her side but who always made sure she was okay afterwards. Alex, who had made sure that whoever made the mistake didn't beat themselves up about it too much. Alex, who had been so good at his job that there were rarely any mistakes to argue about anyway.

She missed him terribly.

In early May, they found out through another subtly concealed telegram that the invasion of Normandy had had to be postponed; it was no longer due to take place on the thirty-first of May, but instead sometime in early June. Juliette wondered what the cause for concern had been amongst the key leaders of the operation, as they had known it was set for the end of May for months now. She hoped it wasn't anything to be too concerned about - specifically, that it hadn't been due to an information leak. The soldiers who were due to be doing the invading hadn't even been told about it yet, and if their tactic had already been compromised to the enemy there was little hope that postponing it for a few days would make much difference.

As a result of the postponement they were sent out even more frequently, continually trying to gull the Nazis into believing that Calais had been determined the place through which to invade - and, on occasion, they had been told to suggest that it would be Norway, though they hadn't actually been sent there, thank God.

It was upon their return from one just such mission - in which Jules had had to replace intercepted Allied intelligence with forged intel declaring their European target as Norway - that Martin had taken it upon himself to blame Thomas entirely for their near-miss. Indeed, Juliette had almost been compromised whilst swapping the intel because the timings Tom had predicted for when the Brigadeführer would be out of his office had been just slightly off.

"Next time why don't you check your recon better so that Jules isn't left hiding in a cupboard for forty-five minutes, yeah?" Martin accused, his voice getting louder with each word.

"It isn't his fault, Martin," Jules tried to defend. "People are liable to deviate from routines sometimes -"

"Stay out of this, Jules," Martin snapped at her.