Half Sick of Shadows » Band of Brothers [2]

44: A House on Fire

"What's -"

"Shh!" Tom hisses, and the room falls into dead silence. As the morse code begins to come through I can feel the eyes of the room upon us.

Will whispers the letters to me, though his attempt at secrecy is redundant in the sudden silence of the room, and as soon as I have them all down I translate them from their coded format. Out of convenience I force myself to read the finished message myself and when I look up at the others, suddenly gathered before me, I have to force myself not to cry.

"Tonight," I whisper, and hand the paper to Tom. I watch him scan over it and see his face fall as he realises that this isn't a false alarm. Then I watch as the same happens when Martin and Will read it, too.

"Okay, everyone in mine and Jules' room," Tom orders. "We need to get organised."

My heart is in my shoes by this point, and I feel like the room is spinning.

"Okay, Jules?" Tom asks. He takes ahold of my hand and ducks to meet my eyes.

I force myself to look back at him and send him a nod.

Martin leads us out with Will following him, and as Tom tows me quickly behind him I spare one final glance behind me and catch Gene's eye. He's frowning and in my attempt to try to smile I only manage to muster tears, so I give him a nod and follow Tom out of the door, trying desperately not to cry.

As soon as I've closed the door to mine and Tom's room behind us, Tom is relaying the ideas he's formulated for a plan. I try my hardest to pay attention but the words 'Gestapo', 'prisoners', and 'burn' are making me feel dizzy. I stumble my way over to Tom's bed, the closest to the door, and sit down, shutting my eyes tight and breathing deeply. I trust Tom and I'll trust whatever plan he's formulated, because I have to. I keep going and I do my job, because I have to. I'm allowed to be brave and I will be brave, because I have to.

This isn't, and has never been, a matter of choice.

I open my eyes when Tom finishes speaking and he turns to look at all of us in turn. He looks about as grave as we all feel but he tries his best to muster a smile when he looks at me, so I try my best to offer him one in return.

"It'll be clean," he vows, speaking slowly so we all understand the gravitas of his words. "No casualties, no mistakes, no captures." He looks at me pointedly when he says this final part.

When we all nod our understanding he lets his shoulders drop and he's once more just Tom, my best friend, as opposed to Tom, my CO. He comes to sit beside me on his bed and stares at me with sorrow in his eyes. "I hate this and I know you do too, but -"

"Tom," I cut him off, forcing all of the courage and strength in my body into these words, "I'm okay. I want to burn that place to the ground. I want to see it gone."

I'm not sure he believes me - I'm not sure I believe myself - but neither of us have any choice but to accept these words and move on. We have a job to do, after all.

I don't see Gene before we go due to the last minute nature of our orders. Just in case he comes to knock at some point, in the midst of all of the chaos I spare one of my sheets of hotel paper to write him a note:

Nous sautons ce soir. Devrait être de retour demain. Souhaite moi bonne chance. Je t'aime. - J

I tuck it under the door just as we're leaving, leaving a corner peaking out underneath it. It would only be visible to someone looking for it, and I think he'd be looking. I hope so, at least, otherwise I've just wasted some of my fancy paper.

The plane we have to use, in the absence of airfields around here, is waiting for us in a nearby field. We don't speak to the pilot, though we never do, and instead get ourselves situated in the back with little fuss. The entire time my heart is pounding with nerves because the whole thing feels familiar in a strange way; it's not familiar because I've done it so many times before but it feels more like something I experienced in a dream. A dream, I hope, and not a nightmare.