After her previous experiences with a tank, Zhanna wasn't pleased to be transported by one. The joint mission of Brits and Americans had been less than enthusiastically received, on both sides, and they wore their identifying armbands with great pride. Zhanna didn't care which flag she had on her arm, American or British. She could still feel the ground shaking beneath her as the German tanks approached in Carentan. She didn't really want to sit amongst the other paratroopers, reclining against the metal that reeked of oil and gunpowder. But she had accepted Buck's hand and allowed herself to be hoisted up, balancing her rifle across her knees.

Brushing shoulders with fellow paratroopers was reassuring after their time in Eindhoven, shoved and jostled by the locals. She had removed the helmet that marked her as American, becoming inconspicuous in the crowd. The officers hadn't considered snipers until Zhanna had breathed a word to Winters. She knew exactly where she would have hidden, if this had been her mission, one of the tall buildings that overshadowed the citizens and the soldiers. It would have been all too easy to pick off officers one by one.

Chaos made a sniper's work easy and the streets of Eindhoven were a breeding ground for that perfect element. The men had played into it, enjoying the attention from the adoring citizens, particularly the female portion. Buck wandered up with a girl on each arm, something he was wont to do even in England. Zhanna had shot him a look, warning him of the dangers without saying a word.

The men were less than enthused to leave the adoration behind but Zhanna was a little more relaxed now, out in the open of the fields and countryside. Only the path of the tank treads in front of them and the mission of Operation Market Garden heavy on their minds.

Even then, the awareness of her surroundings wasn't dull. She was focused, her eyes flitting left and right without an afterthought, no conscious effort. Just instinct. As they neared the smudge of a town in the distance, Zhanna squinted in the bright sun, ignoring the words of the men around her. Randleman complained about his preference for K rations. Buck rested his head against the metal of the tank, his eyes closed, snoring slightly. Skip and Malarkey chattered loudly above the drone of the tank. But Zhanna couldn't focus on any of that. She couldn't.

Before the first shot had even landed its mark, Zhanna was already ducking. Something in the air shifted and she just knew. A sixth sense that was the residual ache in her shoulder told her that a pair of eyes were watching her, a scope pointed at their procession of paratroopers and British tanks.

"Take a look at Eisenhower," someone called, pointing at the lead scout, several meters from the safety of the group. He shouldn't have been that far. Brewer, his name was.

Someone shouted to get his attention, to pull him back to where there was strength in numbers. But it was too late.

Zhanna was already sliding off the tank, ignoring Muck's confused looks, and shrugging off Buck's hand. He thought that she had fallen but it was in fact, intentional. She didn't want to see the white walls of the hospital back in England again. She didn't want to press flowers, stare at the ceiling, and retreat to the darkest reaches of her mind to avoid the shadows that danced on the walls at night. She slipped off the tank before the shot was fired and chaos broke loose.

Her knees had hit the ground and her rifle was raised before the men were called into action, before they readied their guns and leapt for cover. While the men stepped forward, Zhanna did what she did best. She stepped back.

Back from the bright spotlight. Back from the main push toward the town, where shots were firing and men were already falling. Zhanna stepped back.

"Lieutenant Casmirovna," Winters nodded in greeting, incredibly polite for a battlefield. He stood with Nixon at the stalling tanks, waiting for orders and the radiomen to get into position. Zhanna hadn't spent much time at the back of the fight. Usually, she was above it, or several thousand meters away in a well-disguised hide. She wasn't the one to watch from the rear with the officers.

"You going to flank, Lieutenant Casmirovna?" Nixon asked.

"Are you going to fight, Captain Nixon?" Zhanna responded with the same tone, innocent question but a waspish intention behind it. Nixon hadn't fired a gun since training. He preferred to stalk the shadows and collect secrets than the trophies the enlisted returned with.

"Lieutenant," Winters said. "What do you see?"

He offered her his set of binoculars, which she peered through with interest, watching as Buck got the mortar men into position and the enlisted made their push up the streets of the seemingly empty town.

"Looks empty," Zhanna said.

"Well it isn't," Nixon scoffed.

"It looks empty but there are surely fortifications in those buildings. Snipers, machine guns. Perhaps a tank or two." Zhanna lowered the binoculars, forgetting for a moment that they were in a battle, and shooting the man a withering look. "Don't worry though. I'm sure it's just kids and old men."

Watching the battle play out before her, through the scope of her rifle was like watching puppets prance across a stage. They moved, almost as if they were controlled by one mind. One single soul controlling their every whim and order. That soul was Winters, who called for a radioman and was communicating to his men on the field, orchestrating the song and dance with precision. Zhanna watched in wonder. He was nothing like the commanders she had followed into battle, nothing like Sobel, who she had prepared herself to disobey.

Winters was a figurehead of this battle, standing out in the open, with only the slightest furrow to his brow to show his concern. Zhanna would have followed Winters into hell, gladly, without the slightest thought of insubordination. Winters understood survival and he understood her. They weren't allies, like Buck and Zhanna. But he was the closest thing she had at the moment.

Buck ran through the town, followed by a trail of soldiers. Zhanna's scope didn't provide the clearest image but she knew that Buck would be taking good care of the men. Sveta ran among the men, somewhere with a rifle in her hand and the anger she always had ready to explode like dynamite. She wasn't worried about Sveta's ability to handle herself in a battle but she could still see Sveta in that field, all self-control drowned in the bottle. If she lost herself in this fight, all caution to the wind, Zhanna would be too far away to help her. Too far to pull her back from the brink.

"What are they doing?" Nixon asked.

"Martin sees something," Zhanna guessed. "Look!"

The tiny figure of Martin darted between the buildings, leaping onto the British tank, lowering his head to speak to the driver. From the gestures of his arm and the smudged anger on his face, Zhanna didn't think it was good news.

Glancing around, Zhanna couldn't get a good view of the battle. She needed to be taller to help. Taller to do anything. Higher, get higher, she thought. Her eyes rested on the transports that were stalling on the road, the truck bed was slightly higher than her usual height, giving her an advantage.

Propping her arm up on the wood of the side, she balanced her rifle's barrel on her forearm, peering through the scope toward the battle once again. There was little she could see around the buildings but the height had aided her. She could at least see over the shrubs now. Chaos was the breeding ground for snipers and Zhanna was in her element now, perfectly at home in the ever-shifting and flowing tide of the battle. She could watch it all from her position at the rear.

The chattering over the radio told her that there were machine gunners in the upper stories of the town. Pivoting her rifle, she scanned the windows of the upper floors visible from her position. A few were empty, just fluttering white curtains in the wind. But there were two, to her one o'clock that were open and the barrel of a machine gun was visible. She fired two shots in the span of one breath, letting it exhale as the rattle, if not ceasing, lessened in intensity.

There was only so much she could do before the shouts for the retreat were made through the radio. It was frustrating, to know that if she was closer, if that damn building wasn't in the way, and if they had known, they could have been winning this fight. While survival was a bigger weight in Zhanna's mind, she couldn't help but feel a pang of disappointment. Like the falling of the tide, the men pulled back, revealing the shore of their defeat. Broken walls, lost soldiers, and those who had fallen behind. Zhanna tore herself away from the scope to scan the faces of the men who ran around her, searching for safety in the transports as the remaining British tanks provided covering fire.

"Sveta?" Zhanna asked, as Winters passed the transport she was still crouched in. He shook his head. She shuffled forward and he swung her down to the ground, their feet matching pace as they sped among the retreating men. Winters shouted out encouragement and urgency, as Zhanna's eyes darted around her. Surely Sveta would be passing her. Surely, she was alright. Luck had been her only thought, as she had shared the pack of Lucky Strikes with Sveta. Surely that had rubbed off on her. Surely, Sveta would have made her own luck with the little bit of help Zhanna had tried to give her.

The dark head, braided as always, moved past accompanied by Malarkey, Guarnere, and Skip, pulling a long plank of wood that looked like a door. On the back, clinging on for life, was Buck. He looked pale and Zhanna almost forgot about Sveta in the sudden fear that gripped her heart. Buck was her only key to safety here in the American army. Her ally, her friend. Zhanna watched as they hoisted him onto the transport, where he lay, his face twisted in pain. Blood stained his trousers.

"Shot in the ass," Skip said, clapping his platoon leader and friend on the shoulder, "Poor bastard."

"Doc Roe says he'll be okay," Sveta said, in Russian. She sounded a little more sympathetic to his plight than the fellow paratroopers who managed to crack smiles as they loaded up the transports, readying themselves for departure.

The ditches were still flooding with men and while Winters encouraged them to keep moving, to hurry, the engines were starting and a few transports had moved out. A sudden retreat wasn't what they had planned. It certainly wasn't what ZHanna wanted. But survival trumped pride.

"Keep low!" Zhanna encouraged Sisk and Powers as they ran past her. The transport they had picked was already pulling away, their comrades had to pull them onto the bed before it was too late and they were left in the dust. Like Sveta and Zhanna would be. And like, Winters and Nixon would be as well. They still stood, watching the line retreat. They would be the last to load up, a surely intentional move on Winters's part.

Zhanna slid into place beside them, Sveta close behind. Her shoulder ached and Zhanna ducked before the bullet pinged against the metal, dragging Sveta down with her. Beside them, Nixon fell to the ground. While Winters dove to his friend's aid, Zhanna couldn't help but regret that it hadn't been her bullet. He was still alive, she saw out of the corner of her eye, that he had sat up. Only a dent in his helmet. Pity.

Scrambling to the safety of the tank's treads, Sveta and Zhanna shuffled over so the American captains could shelter, joined by Lipton.

"Captain, we've got four dead. Eleven wounded." Came the sergeant's report. It wasn't bad, for an all-out retreat.

"All right," Winters said, admitting the numbers. "Let's move them out."

Their transport, the last to leave the stretch of road that had seen Brewer's blood and the loss of several familiar faces, didn't let off speed until the echoes of the German artillery were deafened and the rooftops on the horizon were nothing but a gray haze. Zhanna pushed herself upright, thrown unceremoniously into the back of the truck in a combined effort by Winters and Nixon to get the snipers to safety. They were branded by the American flag on their shoulders but Zhanna knew that Winters didn't want to be responsible for the death of Samsonov. Though it wasn't their only concern, it might have been part of the reason that they stopped for the night in a quiet stretch of road, with soft tilled fields on either side, and were ordered to dig in for the night.

Buck and the other injured were taken to a field hospital, where they would no doubt be patched up as best they could, and then ferried back to England. Now devoid of an ally and a familiar face, Zhanna decided to rekindle the partnership that had gotten her to the wrong side of the Atlantic to begin with. Sveta welcomed her back without a word, and they dug in their foxhole for the night. The men around them whispered of their lost comrade, Bull Randleman, who hadn't been seen dead or alive since arriving in the town some hours previously. Some were optimistic, others were not. Zhanna didn't think she was invested, one way or another. The warm wind was almost intoxicating and the thought of her being a step closer to her family was almost too much. She almost didn't mind the crushing defeat. Almost.

Zhanna settled into the deep coffin of earth, her skin crawling in discomfort but the feeling couldn't be helped. She considered trying to sneak into one of the transports and curling up there but the soft dirt was more forgiving than the wooden planks and her shoulder still ached. Comfort for her aching body seemed more important than removing herself from the coffin of damp earth.

"Captain, Lieutenant," It was Winters and Nixon, standing above their foxhole, disguised in semi-darkness. It called back to their first meeting, at Fort Benning, where Zhanna had watched in suspicion, abandoned by Sveta. The American military had tried to divide them, to conquer them when they were at their weakest. It was a mistake that many made, assuming that Zhanna and Sveta were weaker alone.

"Come to wish us sweet dreams?" Sveta asked. "Or ask for tactical advice?"

"We'll accept both," Zhanna reassured them. Winters's eyes brightened though his face didn't shift to show any trace of emotion. He was good at hiding them. Zhanna almost forgot he could show them.

Nixon rolled his eyes. "I think I liked it better when you two didn't talk."

"We just came to check up on you two," Winters said. How the tides had changed since their arrival in Easy. The men at least tolerated them now. Nixon was still trying to.

"We're both fine," Sveta said.

It was a well-meant lie. Fine, no matter how she tried, could ever describe how Zhanna felt. It was impossible to be chained to someone and be fine. It was impossible to have her shoulder aching with the changing in the winds and still be fine. Buck wasn't here and her family's home was growing closer and it wasn't fine.

Sveta stood, Zhanna following suit, and they joined the men on the solid ground. She straightened to her fullest height, which was considerably shorter than Nixon and Winters. Their shadows, not comforting or protective like Buck and Sveta's, were heavy, weighing her down.

"Is Operation Market Garden the dazzling success we hoped it would be?" Welsh approached the group, shouldering his way into the circle.

"Not quite," Nixon grimaced.

"The Germans bombed Eindhoven," Winters said.

"Damn," Welsh breathed, reaching for his flask.

They didn't speak. Sveta and Zhanna had both seen what the Germans would do to a city. Smolensk had been their only battle, a deadly game of divide and conquer. Like the American had tried in Benning. What the Germans were doing now. If they could stop the American advance, they could stall Market Garden, delaying the inevitable push to Germany that every soldier knew was coming.

Nixon's eyes studied their reaction, watching curiously for any glimmer of emotion. As if the small Dutch town would mean something to them. Why should it? There were lives that Zhanna valued more than the bodies that had crushed her the previous day, lives that Zhanna hadn't seen in reality since 1938. Should she had felt sorry for the lives that were being crushed as hers had been? Buried beneath rubble? She supposed but not enough to admit it in front of Nixon. Not enough to elicit a reaction that would then be used as ammunition to volley against her, like her name.

"What's the plan now?" Welsh asked.

"I don't know," Winters said. He looked nothing like the figurehead of the battle earlier that day. Not the mastermind of movements, deploying troops to his orders. He looked tired, his hair flattened beneath the helmet, the color duller in this silver light.

"Guarnere says they can't find Bull," Welsh pressed further. "They're about to send a platoon out to look for him."

Zhanna shook her head. "That would be foolish."

She wasn't one to blatantly declare her stance on an idea but the thought of returning to find one man was too ridiculous to remain passive. They could wish for their safety, hope for their return but there was little to be done. One man, seen neither dead nor alive, wasn't enough to endanger the lives of countless more. She liked Randleman well enough and he was a good soldier but he had fallen behind.

"You don't think he is worth going back for?" Nixon latched onto her display of opinion quickly.

"It isn't the value of his life," Sveta said, leaping to her defense. "But the value of the others. How many men are we going to risk for one?"

"We can hope for his safety," Zhanna suggested. That was all they could do, an art she was skilled at. She had hoped for her family's safe return, their hands in her own, so often it felt like a memory, not a dream. Hope was the enemy of the river, so she spent as much time wallowing in it as she could, keeping at bay the impending payment of both her dues to life and her shackles to the Samsonovs.

"You sound familiar with the tactic," Nixon said.

"It's a common practice," Zhanna said, softly. "So is keeping thoughts to yourself. Are you familiar with that tactic, Captain?"

Sveta laughed, sharp and low, but Nixon didn't mind the jab. He didn't even blink, pressing on with such force that Winters looked aghast. "You surely have people in Stalingrad you hope are safe, after the bombings in '42 and '43,"

"Jesus, Nixon," Welsh cursed. "Just ask them outright, why don't you?"

"I am, of course, keeping the Premier and his family in my thoughts," Sveta said, dutifully. Her voice was tight though, and her eyes burned into Nixon, into his curiosity and outright audacity. They weren't intelligence reports to be opened and perused at his leisure. It wasn't evidence of espionage he was looking for now. He just wanted to piece together the puzzles, like this was a game. That their lives were his game, pushing pawns and knights around the board.

"And you, Zhanna?"

He used her name as a weapon, seeing through her with a clarity that Zhanna despised. He wouldn't call her Casmirovna, clearly catching on that this wasn't her true name. But he still didn't know her family name and he didn't know the true origin of Polyakov. He would never know if Zhanna could help it.

The only answer he received was a piercing stare, one that cast Winters's gaze to his jump boots and sent a low whistle from Welsh's lips. Zhanna's family wasn't a topic of conversation, her hopes and wishes weren't public disclosure. Nixon could ask anything he wanted, try and pry open her mind to pick it apart in his little game but she wouldn't give him anything. Not when his eyes sparkled like he had told a joke.

Her family wasn't a joke.

"Perhaps we should dedicate ourselves to the task at hand, Captains," Sveta continued, steering the conversation from irrelevant details. "If Market Garden fails we will lose more men than just Randleman."

"Yeah, those old men put up a helluva fight," Welsh said, offering Zhanna a swig of his canteen. She accepted, shuddering as the liquid touched her lips. It was never water and the contents burned down her throat.

"I could get in contact with my resistance pal," Nixon offered. "While we wait for our next orders."

Zhanna wasn't sure how Nixon managed to make allies but there must have been something in his ability to gather information. Was it blackmail or actual alliances he struck? Zhanna didn't want to find out. Winters nodded in agreement to his suggestion, before bidding them all rest.

There wasn't much sleep to be had in that hole in the ground so Zhanna wandered the field, to sit with Skip and Malarkey, whose concern for Bull was more than her own. She didn't tell them about the conversation with Nixon but they told her of Webster and Cobb's group of soldiers who had slipped away. She promised that their departure would be safe with her, knowing that leaving could have meant court-martial. They were trying to chase hope instead of letting it find them. Just as the sky was beginning to lighten and the smoke of Eindhoven started to hang in the air, Zhanna crawled back to Sveta. Welsh was there too, sitting on the lip of the foxhole, smoking a cigarette. He didn't say anything, just nodding as Zhanna approached. Sveta wasn't sleeping, her eyes were struggling to stay open but she focused when Zhanna nudged into place beside her.

"Nixon will get more than a dent in his helmet if he keeps asking questions," Zhanna murmured, in Russian, this time. She would have preferred saving their shared language for private moments, not furthering the divide between Russian and American in front of the officers and enlisted. Welsh was there but his own attention seemed to be on other things, an ocean away.

"I'll be happy to see that," Sveta said, smiling softly.

Zhanna hadn't realized how little they expressed emotion. They didn't laugh together often. They didn't smile between each other, broadly or brightly. Soft displays of emotion that were carefully coordinated. Sveta would smile, dutifully and diplomatically. Zhanna would step back and hide her smile. Skip had taken it upon himself to try and make her laugh, out loud. A feat he had yet to accomplish.

"Of course I want them safe," Zhanna muttered darkly.

"Of course you do," Sveta agreed, though it wasn't clear who she was referring to. Zhanna could have been talking about Bull, the enlisted, or her parents. Even Zhanna didn't know which were occupying her thoughts at the moment. It was all muddled up, the necklace's weight had been distributed to other areas. The journal that was still rippling with the ink and pressed pen marks. The rifle that was cleaner than Zhanna's own conscience.

"I could kill Nixon," Zhanna spat, in English.

Welsh looked up, finally turning back into the conversation taking place in the foxhole below him. She shouldn't have said it, not out loud and not in English. Her position was insecure and they had just laid to rest the rumors of espionage. But Welsh didn't say anything against her sudden outburst, just dipping his head and conceded. "Fair enough."

The sky lightened before Zhanna had closed her eyes, and without a wink of sleep, she hauled herself out of the foxhole and dusted the damp earth from her knees. Sveta by her side, they climbed the steep incline that led to the assembling tanks and transports. The truck beds were already filled with soldiers, the rest of the platoons being called together by their leaders. Zhanna scanned the pockmarked field, watching as Bull, having wandered back sometime in the night or the rescue mission had been successful, gathered his men into a huddle, urging them onto the road and into transports. Hope had won this time, it seemed, no matter how Nixon wanted to paint Zhanna's stance.

"Do you think the medics have any coffee?" Welsh asked. He had emerged from the crowd and looked around for any source of the powdered stuff that every soldier had in their kit. How Welsh had gone through his supply was beyond Zhanna but she offered him the packet of hers, untouched due to her personal preference of pick-me-up. He gave her a smile, the gap in his front teeth plain to see in the morning light. "Thanks Lieutenant."

"My pleasure," Zhanna said.

"Don't suppose we know where we're going?" Sveta asked, looking around at the transports that were now pulling away, their destination still a mystery. Zhanna didn't particularly care for the unknown, staring at a blank map was enough to send her palms sweating.

"Good morning, Dick," Welsh said, as they began to follow the trucks, joined by Winters on their left flank, followed by Nixon, his ever-present shadow. Welsh dumped the contents of the Nescafe packet into his canteen of booze, waving a hand at the smoke heavy sky. "Lovely day,"

"How was your meeting with the Dutch resistance contact?" Zhanna asked of Nixon. "I'm sure you charmed him."

"Van Kooijk says the Germans are concentrating their armor up near Veghel," Nixon said, either ignoring her last words or genuinely not hearing them above the roar of the engines. "We may be heading into some more tanks."

"Well, as long as it's just old men and kids," Winters said.

Zhanna surprised herself by laughing. A sudden bark of mirth that couldn't be hidden by her hand or behind pursed lips.

"Yeah," Nixon said, bitterly. Whether it was Winters's frustration or Zhanna's amusement, his brow was furrowed and his face grim. The moment for joking had passed, and Zhanna recovered herself, the solemn reminder of an unknown road stretching out before her.