Easy Company completed the challenge, capturing F Company's flag and protecting their own. Casualty rates for Easy were high, though, and according to what the men told her, they'd only succeeded thanks to Winters and Welsh. Soon they returned to base for the weekend, taking buses back to Camp Mackall.

Alice spent the majority of Saturday with the enlisted. One of the movie theaters on base showed Gone with the Wind. Alice and several men of all the platoons attended an afternoon showing. She enjoyed herself. The movie exhausted her, though, so she excused herself to grab a nap.

Unfortunately, it ended in screaming yet again. The massacre of Jews had played like a movie in her mind. Bernadette had been there. She had never seen Warsaw, but Paris took the place easily. Flames licked and enveloped rows of crying children, flaying them alive. Each victim had the yellow star of David sewn to their shirts, just as Paris' Jews had been forced to do. Of course, all that remained of them in her dreams were smoking carcasses of ash.

The stench of burning human flesh filled her nose as though if took place in reality. Alice couldn't stop herself from crying as she hid her face in her sheets. The empty barracks echoed with her sobs. Her body heaved until she couldn't cry anymore. All she could do was choke on her desperate attempts at breathing.

The rain that pounded the barracks slowed. Alice still couldn't control her breathing. As she clambered down from the top bunk to the floor, she slipped on her boots. A bottle of red wine she'd picked up on her last weekend in town lay stashed at the bottom of ber foot locker. Alice dragged it out. She opened it with a pop.

As she downed a large drink straight from the bottle, she heard the men outside. Alice panicked. She still cried. As they opened the front entrance, Alice slipped out the back door of the platoon barracks. Only a light misting of rain hit her face as she sat on the wooden steps down. Alice leaned her face up towards the sky. The misting coated her skin. It calmed her down.

What did thirteen thousand people even look like? Alice downed another chug of the wine. The warmth in her body spread to her extremities. Her heartbeat calmed. She tried to push the nightmarish visual of children burning alive from her mind. Finally, she was tired of getting wet. With her breathing mostly under control, Alice ducked back into the barracks as quietly as she could.

A chorus of laughter echoed through the room as she snuck inside. Quite a few men of Easy lounged around: Talbert, Skinny, Lipton, George, Bill, Joe Toye, Bull, Johnny, Frank, Malarkey, Muck, Penkala, and Chuck Grant. Alice took another long drink of the wine. She ran a hand through her wet hair, watching the men playing poker or writing letters. They had their own stash of alcohol.

Putting down the wine bottle, she took some clothes out of her footlocker and slipped to change from her wet fatigues. With the loose shirt and shorts on instead, she slipped off both her socks and shoes. She set them and her other clothes out to dry.

They still hadn't noticed her presence. Alice scooted up the ladder into her bunk and lay on her stomach. With her face propped up over her arms, she looked down at the men playing poker on the floor in the middle of the room.

"So, Welsh did good during the defense?" George asked the boys of First.

Johnny nodded. "He's smart. Got a good sense of tactics." Shuffling the deck of cards, he waited for Bull, the previous winner, to collect his money. "I like him."

"Not quite Winters," Bull added. "But ain't many people like Winters anyway."

They all seconded him. Johnny Martin dealt the cards. They decided on standard five card draw, nothing wild. After adding the antes, they looked at their starting hands. Malarkey sat to Johnny's left. He opened the betting.

By this point, the half bottle of wine Alice had drunk made her tired. She closed her eyes. Tears threatened to spill again as she thought about her family and Europe's Jews. So when George finally realized she was back, she decided to pretend to be asleep when he called up to her.

"Guess she's knocked out," George joked. He turned back to the poker game, letting out a deep breath of smoke from his cigarette. He handed over some of his cards. "I'll take two."

Johnny handed two new ones over. Next to George, Skip took three. Bull ended up taking three as well, and last went Talbert who took only one.

"Hey anyone know what set her off the other night?" Talbert studied his hand. He huffed. Looking up at the other men, he continued, "She looked about ready to murder someone."

"She almost killed ol Gonorrhea," Malarkey added.

"Ain't possible. She could try, but there's no way she'd take me down," Bill protested. "Come on, Malark, it's your bet."

"I heard she almost took out Lieutenant Speirs on the big maneuver," Skinny asked. He wasn't playing poker, but he sat reading just outside their circle, back against the body of a bunk and splayed out on the ground.

Johnny Martin nodded. "I saw the end of that. Welsh ended up taking Speirs out when he was distracted by her."

"Why does she provoke him?" Toye muttered. "She's asking for trouble."

"Joe, c'mon. You know they're friends. God only knows why, though. No accountin' for taste." Bill folded when the bets came to him. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it while they continued on. "I'm with Tab, though. I wanna know what set her off."

"Doc's been mighty tight lipped about it," Skip added.

Bill nodded. "George, she ain't said anything to you?"

As George added another three bucks to the pot, he shook his head. "Not a peep." He turned to his left. "Your bet, Skip."

"I'll match your three. But I call."

"She ain't said anything to anybody?" Bill looked around at the group playing poker and the men scattered around. "Lip, you've heard nothing?"

"Nothing."

"I bet it had something to do with her work with Intelligence," said Talbert. "After all, she worked with Regimental all day."

"Wouldn't the officers know, then? Lieutenant Nixon at least." Malarkey looked around at them. "Maybe we could ask? Nixon talks."

"Right, genius, and what happens if they don't know?" Bill snapped. "What happens if Sobel gets wind of it? Stupid Mick."

"Has anyone bothered to ask her since then?" Lipton suggested. He walked over from where he and Grant had been chatting.

They all sat quiet for a moment. Only the puffs of cigarettes and swig of occasional drinks of the beer made any noise. Most eyes turned to George. He just shrugged.

Finally Johnny sighed. "Right. Call. What've you got?"

The men still in the game showed their hands. George won the round with a straight, king high. As he gathered up the bills, they returned to thinking.

"Do you think it had to do with her family?" Alex Penkala ventured. "Last time she got close to that upset it was her family."

"Her family's dead," Johnny objected.

"Yeah, not much more can happen," said Malarkey. "So it's gotta be something else."

Johnny nodded. He gathered up the cards again. Once they were in a deck, he passed them left to Malarkey. "Nobody's gotten war news?"

As Malarkey shuffled, they went back to quiet thinking. George grimaced and looked up at where Alice seemed to be sleeping. Then he turned back to the game as Malarkey dealt them all in again.

"In other news, I heard we're doing another jump maneuver on Monday," Penkala said. He scooted in between Toye and George, taking a hand of cards. "So, that's fun."

"If Sobel could go with First Platoon, that'd be nice," Joe Toye muttered. "I'm fucking sick of him breathing down Winters' neck."

Everyone in Second Platoon agreed, loudly. It made Alice open her eyes. She'd been drifting in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware they'd been talking about her but not sure who had said what. She pushed herself up off her stomach and rubbed her eyes. With another big gulp of wine, she tried to wake herself up.

"Hey look! She lives," George joked.

Alice didn't respond. Instead she crawled off her bunk and landed on the floor. She wobbled ever so slightly. The gazes of the men around her followed her. She leaned against the front of her bunk and watched them.

"How much have you had to drink?" Bill asked with a laugh. He folded again, standing from his place in the circle and picking his way over to her.

Alice cringed. "Half a bottle of wine, I think?"

"Jesus Christ, Alice, you're gonna hurt tomorrow," George joked. "What prompted the drinking? Tired of Sobel?"

She swayed for a moment. Glancing from George to the wall in front of her, she opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it. Finally she furrowed her brow. "What does thirteen thousand people look like?" She hesitated.

"I don't know? Like, the crowd at a baseball game maybe?" Malarkey shrugged. "I don't know."

"I can't even picture thirteen thousand people." Alice pushed off from the bunk bed pillar and moved back to find the wine bottle. She took another drink. Tossing the sealed bottle back onto her bunk bed, she moved back to them, only stumbling a little.

"Why thirteen thousand?" Lipton asked after a moment. The boys had started the next round, but played more quietly.

"Thirteen thousand Jews. Thirteen thousand, Lip." She muttered to herself in German, ending with a few choice curse words.

"What happened to them?" He prompted.

Alice fumbled for a cigarette. Plopping it into her mouth, she pulled out her silver lighter. She flicked it open. The flame danced in front of her, six inches from her face. It was a yellow orange, calm, controlled.

"The Nazis burned alive thirteen thousand Jews and razed their homes to the ground in Warsaw. A complete massacre." She continued to look at the flame. "Thirteen thousand. Thirteen thousand!" Alice flicked it closed. She turned to Lipton, swaying slightly, and steadied herself. "How is that even possible? Thirteen thousand!" She threw her still unlit cigarette back onto the bed behind her. Her chest began to ache. "And what does your fucking president do about it? Or Churchill? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The Jews and the Poles and whoever else the Nazis don't like are being slaughtered, and they can't open their borders to refugees. The Bermuda Conference was a complete joke."

Alice sat herself down on Gene's bunk and shook her head. Blood pounded in her ears. The alcohol made her feel sick, and she grabbed her forehead. Thirteen thousand Jews. She vaguely noticed Lipton grabbing the wine bottle off her top bunk, but she didn't care. She knew if she had more wine, that Gene would hear about it. And the last thing she needed was to be lectured by her medic friend.

Lipton crouched down in front of her as she held her head in her hands. "Get your shower stuff. I'll watch the area while you relax. And no more wine. Or cigarettes."

"Don't tell Gene," she whined, still not raising her head. Alice frowned into her hands.

Lipton cracked a smile. "Unless we run into Doc, I won't tell him if you don't. Come on." He plopped her boots down in front of her. Standing back, he eyed her carefully. "Can you do them yourself?"

"I'm drunk, Lip, but I'm not that drunk," she muttered. Alice reached down and started fumbling with the laces. It took longer than usual, but eventually she had her boots on and shower kit and towel in hand.

Lipton guided her out the nearby back door so she didn't have to pick her way through the poker game. He didn't comment when she sunk to her knees and started throwing up. She didn't have much on her stomach other than the wine, so it mostly came in dry heaves. He just placed a hand on her back.

"I think." A cough cut her off, and she spit out more biles. "Ugh. I think I drank too much, Lip."

He shook his head, trying not to smile. "Yeah, you did."

"Stupid," she muttered. With trembling hands, she undid the top of her canteen. She rinsed out her mouth and spit the water back out.

"Come on, Alice. Showers."

Lipton helped hoist her off the ground. They made their way to the showers again, and all Alice could think of was how horrible she felt. Her body ached, her eyes drooped, her stomach roiled. She would never, ever, drink that much again.