"In times of war, you do what you must, become what you must. Some embrace it, some try to resist it, and others abuse it. I am guilty of all three."
Virginia Carroll has been fighting her whole life, against herself and against what she is drawn to...
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D-Day plus 1
I returned the conquering hero in a borrowed uniform that reeked of someone else's fear. Saint-Marie-Du-Monte was in shambles, a victim to the relentless fire and the German's attempts to make landing impossible. Beaten back by the fresh fighting spirit of Allied forces, the occupying forces were headed south. They were sure to have only a day's head start, the American Airborne that had been flung from the sky were righting themselves before heading back into the fight.
Nixon was alright, I decided. I hadn't much experience in the military type but they weren't too different from the agents that my mother had brushed elbows with my whole life. He had the same bunch to his eyebrows and the reliance on the hip flask. They were all the same and it was almost comforting to know that the soldiers weren't too different. He wasn't half-bad, his muttered curses and jabs at the men around us were entertaining enough but it was plain to see that I was not what he had expected.
I kept the French accent that had concealed my true identity from the other soldiers and donned a dead paratrooper's jacket and webbing, tucking my hair into the helmet stained with his blood. It smelled like sweat and death and I tried not to gag with every step. I would be Irene blending into the other men, looking the part with the patch on my shoulder and the acquired gun on my shoulder.
Nixon rose in my good graces as the sun lifted in the sky, casting a warm glow over the wrecked landscape of Normandy, reaching an understanding of many things.
One, I was tired. Nixon had hailed a Sherman tank as if it was a taxi, persuading a ride all the way to Sainte-Marie-Du-Mont. My feet were tired, carrying me all across Normandy for the past seven days, and I was grateful.
Two I was to keep a low profile. I was smaller than the rest of the men who milled about Normandy at the moment, so I tried to shrink into the metal of the tank.
Three, he didn't ask about my work though I could tell he was itching to ask. He stalled his curious tongue with a swig from his flask, grimacing as the liquor touched his lips.
The sun and the now incessant patter of machine-gun fire had sent my head rattling in the borrowed helmet. I lay back against the tank, looking up at the sky. A weight had been lifted off my shoulders I hadn't known I was carrying. Just the sight of a farm with dozens of men in the US army drab was enough to let me know that my time as Irene, hidden in plain sight was over. I was ready to fight now, not hide; to be a little less of a spy and more of a soldier. I had followed my mother's dreams but maybe now my father could be proud of me?
I watched the soldiers buzz around like bees on a hive. They all seemed to be moving but no one seemed to know what they were doing or where to go, moving for the sake of moving. Some had grown tired of this and were resting against trees and sitting in the ankle-deep muck that was the barnyard. Nixon looked down as a tall thin man approached our tank, and said. "Going my way?"
