The Undaunted

Confessions and Confidences

She felt it before it happened, the sting of tears behind her eyes, all the goddamn tears she had refused to allow herself to shed for the past five days because a woman was not allowed to fall to pieces if she ever wanted to be allowed back into France. She didn't say anything, simply stared at him, willing her eyes to dry out but they refused to listen.

"I think there's a good chance I'm going to cry," she finally said, her voice wobbling.

"Come here," Jack said, holding his arms out and she walked into them, helmet pressed awkwardly into his shoulder, crying now, but only for a few minutes because if he could stomach everything he had seen which was so much worse than what she had witnessed, then so could she.

"I'm sorry," she said, drawing back. She wiped the back of her hand awkwardly across her damp cheeks. And she laughed softly. "Thank you. I haven't had a shower for five days, I have no idea what I must smell like. It's an act of bravery in itself coming close to me right now."

Jack looked at her seriously, his golden eyes as intense as always. "Jenny, holding you while you cry isn't an act of bravery. It's being a friend." His voice was soft, a lovely caress amidst the ravages of war.

She shook her head and looked away from him, self-conscious of the tears still swimming in her eyes. "Oh God, don't say that. I'll start crying again." She looked back at him once she thought she had her emotions under control and smiled. "It's good to see you alive."

"It's good to see you too, Jenny."

"Do you have to get back soon?" she asked hopefully.

He checked his watch. "Not for another hour," he answered.

"Then will you walk with me?" she invited.

They walked to a small ridge, a place she had sat a few times over the past couple of days, watching the activity on the beach. They sat there now, backs against the rock, flattened blackberry brambles twisting forlornly around them, and she told him about Martha's escapade and the parachute jumps they had been denied due to having "delicate female apparatus" and what she had said to Warren in reply.

Jack's eyes lit up with laughter and it was wonderful for Jenny to see his face relax for a moment, the line furrowed on his forehead suddenly falling away, only to return a moment later.

Jenny touched his arm, a worried frown creasing her own brow. "Oh no," she said with a sudden flash of horror. "Not Owens?" She gestured to the graves behind them.

Jack shook his head, staring straight ahead. "Not Owens," he replied softly. "But a hell of a lot of others just like him. Some didn't even make it to the ground alive. Their time in the US Army consisted of a training camp in England, a plane ride across the channel, then death in the air." He rubbed his face but it didn't erase the troubled expression. "I was ordered to take this afternoon off to sleep; I haven't slept properly for a week. But now that we've secured the causeway and the beachheads have been joined up, I had to come out here."

Jenny jumped to her feet. "Christ, I'm keeping you from sleep. You should go."

Jack reached up and took her by the hand, pulling her back down beside him. "No, this is what I need. To laugh. To talk. Please don't go..." He stopped.

Jenny felt as if her heart might cleave in two right then and there. "Tell me about it," she said softly, sitting back down next to him, hip to hip, her right knee barely grazing his left, settling close to him so that he could speak softly and she would still hear him.

"Have you ever seen an airborne division in the sky?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"It's kind of beautiful. There are so many parachutes. It's like, I don't know...like watching a thousand pure white handkerchiefs flutter to the ground. That is if you can shut out the noise of the C-47s and the fact that you're carrying eighty kilograms of equipment, which is more than what some of the younger GIs weigh. We had to jump before we had reached the landing zone; Jerry was throwing too much at us. It was like an inferno, the sky was filled with fire and smoke so thick you couldn't see your hands, pieces of damaged airplanes Jerry managed to hit flying at us through the sky; I saw so many men hit by their own plane before they even reached the ground."