Sink's battalion had set up their maps and communications with all the hustle and bustle from Sainte-Marie-Du-Mont in an old farmhouse at the edge of town, the back windows looking out onto American conquered land. From the open front door, there were miles of land that only aerial surveillance and French resistance knew hid within its fields.

Colonel Sink was likely tired of seeing me. I had made myself a thorn in Command's side since my arrival, the very presence causing overturned coffee mugs and distrustful looks from couriers and aids. An unknown woman was suspicious in most places but inside of an Army CP, it was positively dangerous.

"Couldn't stay away?" Nixon asked from his spot perched on the commandeered breakfast table that now housed leaflets and papers that looked like they could easily fall into the wrong hands.

"Sir, there are still telephone lines, railways, and batteries in our path that could prove dangerous to our advancement."

"Where?" Sink asked, his back turned to me. He was a busy man and I was but a bored little agent. I knew that he wouldn't want to humor me for long.

"My sources tell me there is a battery outside of Carentan, near the railroad embankment," I said. I'd like to borrow a few men and clear the way for you. If that is alright, sir?"

"A few men?" Lieutenant Colonel Strayer was a face I had grown used to seeing. Not exactly in the same fond way I had begun to think of my French informants. These Americans were starting to fray at my nerves.

"Not many. A private or two." I said, smoothly. "I know that good men are hard to replace."

"You want expendable men?" Strayer coughed as if he had misheard me.

"We might not come back, you see," I said, slowly, in case there was some continued confusion. "I want someone you can work without."

"Are you suggesting that you'll get our men killed?"

"I'm suggesting that you give me two soldiers," I said. "How expendable you deem them is up to you."

"I'm not sending my men out into the field with a-"

Just what Strayer thought I was would remain a mystery. Sink raised a hand to

"Strayer, just give her a damn NCO if you think she'll run off,"

It seemed Strayer's faith in me was fewer than Sink had thought. One NCO wasn't enough to ensure my safe return but two. How I had managed before joining the ranks of Easy Company, I had no idea. What was an agent to do without two men to flank her on a mission that was her idea?

I had been introduced to the NCOs and officers as an intelligence contact that needed safe passage to England. My value had been lost in the inflation of invasion and void in the mix of soldiers and civilians. I was somewhere in between and that allowed me to fall between the cracks. Those NCOs and officers that cared enough to remember my name weren't ready to treat me like a soldier and there were only a few who lived long enough in ignorance to call me a civilian. I couldn't really be upset, I barely remembered their names. Grant, Lipton, Martin. They all blurred together into bodies that I had traded lives for.

While Strayer, in all his disbelief, had given me everything he could spare and I could need (ammunition, a rifle, and a satchel charge), he also saddled me with the promised NCOs.

Martin, the scowling sergeant that had been gruffly indifferent to my introduction and my association with the Airborne, was one of them and my old friend Guarnere from the woods of Normandy. I would have made a quip about meeting again, something about Germans and the forest but his glower told me that I didn't want to push that button, lest I don't return from this patrol. Two NCOs wouldn't matter if they murdered me during the invasion of France.

We met at dusk at the edge of the town, the fields untouched by American boots. The moment was almost sacred, the soles of my jump boots crushing the heather as I stepped through the gate that offered entrance to the patchwork quilt of farmland and roadways. I paved the way through the field, the pair of paratroopers following behind me. The purple twilight was lit with the continuing fire from the beaches, the orange fire of smoldering buildings, and the scent of heather and blood slid through the air. This was farther than I had ventured, using the spider's web of informants and contacts to draw further information into my nest. It was a step towards letting Irene rest, burying her beside the other facets of my identity that had been tucked into coffin and grave for the sake of thousands who didn't know me. That step was ruined by my company.

"Where the hell are we going?" Guanere grumbled.

"The fuck if I know," Martin shot back.

There was no formal power given to me. No rank or title gave me the right to give orders to these non-commissioned officers but the experience was in my favor. This was their first experience in combat, their boots touching European soil for the first time with their webbing taut and parachutes flapping. I had been in Europe since the fall of '42. I had the information, as well. The mental map that Achille had passed on with a rough idea of what I was looking for.

I stomped along, trying to ignore the grumbling among the ranks. I didn't have the respect of these men. The orders of another were the only thing tying them to me and I to them. We were both victims to the rank and brass that called the shots.

"My informant said that there was a communication post on the main causeway," I said. I didn't have to offer them an explanation. I didn't owe them anything but I knew what it was like to face the unknown. Maybe I was just trying to play nice, to placate so they would be a little more inclined to be helpful. "The Germans left it a few days ago."

"Then why are we going?" Martin asked.

"I want to make sure the Germans really left," I said, smiling over my shoulder. "Unless you'd like to leave it as a surprise for later?"

"Why would Strayer send us with some French broad to check on a German outpost?" Guarnere asked Martin as if I wasn't there.

"Because this French broad has been in Normandy a few years longer than you," I said. "And I'm not French."

I increased my speed, leaving them to follow in my pooling, muddy footsteps, a scowl that could rival Martin's furrowing my brow.

The sun set on the anger of Guarnere and laying to rest with it my attempts at peace. If they didn't like me, was there really anything I could have done about it? I knew deep down that the only thing tying me to the Airborne and stopping me from wandering the fields of Normandy on my own was my use to Sink and his men. I wouldn't have minded spending the next several weeks stomping among the flooded farmland of France if it wasn't for the Gestapo hunting me down. That would put a damper on my plans.

I knew that destroying this outpost, getting the lay of the land, and returning with both of my assigned NCOs would be the most effective means to ease myself into Easy's good graces.

Getting on Easy's good side proved to be more complicated than I had anticipated. I tried not to give in to my mother's pessimistic nurturing but sometimes, her voice still wormed its way into my mind and I hated it when the voice was right.

Germans, their helmets glistening in the dying sun, a hundred yards from the outpost, beyond a set of intact train tracks. I would have sworn if Guarnere's words hadn't pushed me over the edge into silent fury.

"Some informant," Guarnere huffed. He wasn't trying to hide his frustration. His shoulders held confidence that showed he was rarely challenged. His eyes might as well have dared me to be the first to speak against him.

"Civilians died for this information," I said. "Information for your men."

"Yeah, well our people might die because it wasn't right," Guarnere grumbled.

"You are right, Sergeant. I should have been tailing the Germans as they pulled back," I snapped. "Should I have done this before or after I saved your ass?"

"So what the hell do we do now?" Martin asked.

"The Germans are destroying the bridges," I said.

"How do you know?"

Peering through the gloom, I muttered, half to myself. "It's what I would do."

"So what are we going to do now?" Martin sounded ready to give up the hunt now, turn tail, and return to their comfortable assignment of Sainte-Come-Du-Mont. Where was their sense of adventure?

"Push them back,"

"Just the three of us?" Guarnere swore. "I knew you were fucking crazy,"

"I'm sure I can manage on my own," I said, sweetly.

Martin shouldered past Guarnere, silencing him with a well-placed glower. "Just what did you have in mind?"

"How do you scare off a bear?" I asked.

"I joined the Airborne not the fucking Boy Scouts," Guarnere swore.

I continued, as if "Loud noises, intimidation. We have to push them back by being bigger and louder than them."

I had been in and out of the Appalachian mountain range with my father visiting the hot spot towns for moonshine production in the 20s and 30s. A g-man and a seven-year-old girl were a comical pair but I knew my way around a bear, literally and figuratively.

"Are we talking about the Krauts or the bears?"

"Both."

I could see the outpost, a block of brick that was designed to be unshakable, and just beyond that a line of rails that connected to the town of Carentan. I could hit that too. First, the outpost, to shock them, and then I'd need covering fire to push them beyond the railway. In my mind's eye, it was perfectly choreographed, a falling of dominoes, one after the other. Perfectly executed. But we would have to wait and see how it played out with the factors beyond my control.

"Which one of you is a better shot?" I asked

I could have handled this myself but why not let them feel useful?

Guarnere looked at Martin who nodded, admitting inferiority in the rifle range.

"Great," I twisted my head to get a better look at the dog tag that swung like a pendulum from his neck. "William, you'll stay here."

"No one calls me William," Guarnere spluttered.

Flicking my gaze over to Martin, I asked. "You know how to lay C4?"

"Yeah," Martin said. "Do you?"

"Do I know how to lay c4?" I shook my head. "John, I have the gift."

Guarnere's eyes narrowed, flitting between me and the satchel of explosives strapped to my side.

"Where the hell did you get that?"

"Strayer gave it to me," I said. "Now, William, I need covering fire only if they see me. Don't shoot unless they shoot first."

"Only if they see you?"

"They won't," I assured him, sliding down the embankment into the field below.

The ground was slick and sticky. The Germans had been flooding the fields of Normandy before the invasion, taking the lives of an unlucky few whose parachutes and boots were sucked down in the quagmire, tangled in their lines. This was one such site, the water warm and thick with tangled weeds. The paratroopers drowned in a foot of water and I found myself wading through a graveyard of waterlogged silk and slumped forms, trying not to gag at the smell.

I had c4 on my back and a molotov cocktail bubbling against my chest. Either would do but I knew c4 was the best choice for a task such as this. I knew that I could go unnoticed if I kept low, slipping through the water. I kept the satchel balanced on my back, clear of the water, crawling through the brackish water with Martin's muttered curses behind me. I wasn't sure what the Germans would be expecting of the Serpent of Normandy but I was sure it wasn't how I looked in that moment: damp, sweaty, and muddy.

"Shh," I hissed, raising a hand for Martin to pause. We were at the lip of the ditch bank, at our most vulnerable point.

I knew how quickly things could go wrong. I knew how quickly I could lose control of what I had thought was a perfectly controlled situation. I trusted myself, didn't I? Or had my faith in my abilities been shaken by the veritable failure that was my last few weeks in Normandy?

Stop it, I scolded myself. I couldn't afford to shake myself with the thought of failure. Felix hadn't believed in failure and maybe I had forgotten its sting but I didn't want to reacquaint myself with the feeling.

Slithering up the ditch bank, I slid the blocks of C4 into Martin's waiting hands. Pointing to a few weak points in the structure where the bricks were a few years away from dust, I squelched into the gravel road.

Since the tracks proved to be a gathering point for the Germans, a nest of mice just begging to be scattered, I couldn't get as close as I would have liked. Martin would have to light the C4 with my sprawled body lying in the roadway, so I could push the gathered men back with my few remaining bottles of flames.

I was exposed, lying in the dying sunlight, with Germans only a few hundred feet away. I could smell the smoke of their cigars and the reek of their boot polish. Their hobnail boots had marched outside my window so often, I was well accustomed to the scent.

My mother had taught me many things but fear was not one of them. Fear. Breathless gasps. Heart-racing. The symptoms weren't strangers but old friends. My mother didn't teach me to be afraid but she did teach me to control it. The words fell from my lips like a river, the inflection on the Yiddish was all Miriam's.

"Shield and shelter us beneath the shadow of Your wings..."

The prayer had been a light against the darkest night and a whispered lullaby in Camp X. I had muttered every line a thousand times as I marched the streets of Madrid and later Normandy. Maybe it had protected me or maybe it had given me the strength to keep pushing, a crutch on my journey.

"Come on, Martin," I muttered, under my breath. I could see the lights of the Germans cigarettes, pinpricks of flames.

"...Defend us against enemies, illness, war, famine, and sorrow..."

I looked over my shoulder and saw Martin's hands fumbling with his lighter. Behind him, the moon glistened off of the metal on Guarnere's rifle. Maybe I should have done this on my own.

"...Distance us from wrongdoing..."

I heard the snap of the lighter and the distant crackle of flame. Canvas rustled as Martin slid back down the embankment, leaving me on the Germans' side of the flooded fields. Failure wasn't an option and I wouldn't have another opportunity to defy the Airborne again without risking my only ride home. This was my last solo run and I couldn't afford to mess it up.

"...For You, God, watch over us and deliver us."

The words tumbled out of my mouth with the impact of the rubble, bricks, and dust flying across the roadway. I was littered with debris, coughing as my prayer was snatched from my lungs, and there was no time to repeat it. I could only hope whatever heard the whispered poetry of scared little girls was still listening.

The first domino fell, sending shouts and unease to spread among the surrounding Germans. I shuffled forward through the dust and the twilight. My hand went to my pack, pulling out the lighter and the chosen brew of chemicals as Guarnere opened fire from his position.

Bullets pelted the roadway, shoving the Germans back still further, proving to be more than an adequate motivator. More effective than the explosion, to my surprise. Lighting the first cocktail, I rose to my knees, body fully exposed, and threw it into the confusion. My arm, though strengthened through years of playing baseball with the White family on Fourth of July, didn't prove to have the distance I needed. It fell a few feet short, blowing grass and dirt into the mix.

I'd have to try again.

Shuffling as close as I dared, I tried to stop my fingers from shaking. With the rifle fire now being returned by the Germans, bullets slipped past my ears, clipping the straps on my pack. For you, God, watch over us and deliver us. For you, God...

For you, God...

My fingers fumbled with my father's lighter.

"Come on, Ginny,"

For you, God, watch over us...

The flame sparked into life, catching on the soaked rag that fed into the neck of the bottle.

I stood a lone figure in the smoke and bullets, the bullets smarting against my skin. I threw the bottle like it was a Fourth of July in Lincoln Park, my belly full of Aunt Mollie's lemonade and skin warm with the hot sun, not the burning bullets. I could hear Lawson and my father shouting at me to run like I had thrown a home run to prove I was a worthy choice on their team. The bottle arched but I didn't wait for it to land.

I leaped off the roadway, back into the flooded field, any swiftness sunk deep into the mud pooling around my ankles. I tried to take a step but the fields of Normandy had taken a firm grip on my booted feet.

"FUCK!" I tried to wrench my foot free of the quagmire but it wouldn't budge. I tried to wave Guarnere off, as he tossed aside his rifle, sliding down the ditch.

"GO!" I urged him. The wick to the Molotov would burn away in a matter of breathless seconds. He didn't have to risk his life for my poorly timed escape. Agents were always on borrowed time, weren't we? Maybe my forty-five seconds had come in the form of blazing heat? I always did go into situations guns blazing. If only Felix could see me now, with a half-assed plan and the skin on my neck burning in the searing heat.

I turned back to the outpost, the smell of smoke tickling my nose. Would it burn? Would I feel the heat or would I just feel the blinding light?

A sickening slurp of the mud around my ankles and pressure under my arms of being lifted up, up, up. As my feet were freed and my legs put back under me, I didn't risk a look back, the water slick under my now bootless feet. Yanking on my savior's jacket in an attempt to stay in stride with them, I shouted a curse as the heat seared behind us, sending smoke, rubble, and the screams of frightened Germans following us in the wind.

Our return proved unceremonious, I hobbled, one boot coated in mud, my barefoot skimming the ground, as we slipped back into the town. No fanfare, no praise on the return journey at my stunning execution of the plan. Hell, even the creation of the plan didn't get a single congratulatory remark. I didn't see Guarnere or Martin until the sun had risen and the other men had emerged from their nests.

I had spent the night on a doorstep, wrapped in the starched wool blanket that was standard Army issue. Someone above me cleared their throat and I pried my eyes open, sitting up and the layer of dried mud-shedding under my movements. I didn't want to see Guarnere again so soon, especially at my first sight upon opening my eyes.

"I owe you a new pair of boots," Guarnere said, throwing said boots at my doorstep.

I picked them up, inspecting them. "They aren't my size."

"They are everyone's size," Guarnere said.

"Thanks," I said, not wanting to sound ungrateful. I knew that supplies were limited.

Guarnere leaned against the window beside my doorstep, as if he was chatting to an old friend.

"Can I help you-' I started to say.

"When we landed, we were told not to save anyone or take prisoners," Guarnere said. He watched the sky as if he expected reinforcements to fall from the sky.

Was this his idea of reconciliation?

I tilted my head, looking him up and down. I could tell the intensity of my gaze made him uncomfortable. "Do you think of me as your prisoner, Sergeant?"

"No," Guarnere shook his head. "You couldn't be a prisoner."

Was that a praise of my determination or speculation? I liked to think the former, as it was a sorry truth. OSS agents weren't prisoners. Good ones, anyway.

"And I'm not in the business of taking them," I said. If he thought I would jeopardize or take control of Easy he was sadly mistaken. They were but a stepping stone. I had intended to stay only a heartbeat, use one foot to push off onto the next thing. I would still do that, surely?

Guarnere nodded, taking every meaning that I had intended for those words.

"They told us not to take prisoners and not to help anyone. But no one said anything about you," Guarnere said. "And you were helping us."

Had I baffled him? Was his hostility towards me been more than just my sex? I was doing what the Army had told them not to. Self-preservation had its place in war but agents toed the line. If I had been ordered to save myself....well, I wasn't good at following orders.

"Thank you for the boots," I said, not sure how to proceed.

He waved away my gratitude. "Figured no one told you but we are moving out,"

I hadn't been told.

"We are heading for Carentan in the morning," his voice trailed off, the place for a rank falling empty off his lips. I didn't have one. I didn't have a rank.

"Agent will do fine," I supplied. Agent. Not Clara or Irene or even Ginny. Something neutral. Something honest.

"Well, we are heading out in the morning, Agent," Guarnere said, tossing me a pack of cigarettes which I caught clumsily. "See ya,"

I didn't smoke but I knew the paratroopers used cigarettes in the same way I used secrets, a currency. He might as well have thrown me a fifty-dollar bill in this company. I tried to hide my smile behind pursed lips but it broke through.

"This doesn't mean I like you," Guarnere called over his shoulder.

"I wouldn't dream of it."