With every sharp movement the plane made, Beth's body would jostle with it, sometimes smacking into the man beside her and sometimes forcing her to catch herself before she fell out of her seat altogether.
It had been a little over an hour since the pathfinders had departed Upottery, which meant they should be coming up on their destination soon. With the darkness of the night and the element of surprise in their favour, they hoped their drop would play out smoothly. Beth and her team were flying by the seat of their pants, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.
From beside Beth, Joel Conrad gave a weary smile and a thumbs up. Beth returned the gesture, hoping her nerves didn't show through the tough facade she was so desperately trying to maintain.
Aside from a few silent gestures here and there, no communication had been had between the pathfinders. Everyone was too busy focusing on what was coming up and worrying about what they had left behind. Beth knew Lieutenant Copeland had a wife and kids back home, the same as many of the other men. She was one of the few who had no significant other or children to worry about never seeing again, but that didn't mean she didn't have family to think about at all
In the minutes leading up to the jump, Beth thought about Ben and her parents. She thought about their family dog, Finn, and she thought about her friends—the men from her company that she had spent the better part of over a year with.
When Lieutenant Copeland called for the team to stand up and hook up, Beth didn't falter for a second. She knew that the only way she would be able to see the ones she cared about most again was to keep her wits about her and do her job exactly the way she had been told to do it.
As the plane door opened and the quiet countryside of Normandy appeared below, everyone stared down at it in awe. In a few hours, the area would be littered with soldiers, American and German, and the sky would be lit up with tracer rounds and explosions; but right then it was quiet and peaceful, a welcoming sight for a team of terrified pathfinders.
Then Lieutenant Copeland turned to look at his troopers. He didn't open his mouth to speak—everything he had needed to say had been said on the tarmac in England—but the look in his eyes spoke loud and clear. When the red light beside the door switched to green, he gave a single nod, wishing everyone the best of luck.
It was time.
Having been the last one to board the plane, Beth was at the front of the line, meaning she would make the first jump. Her heart was pounding against her chest like a drum as she stepped up to the open door, the harsh wind whipping her face. Still, she didn't falter.
When Beth felt the tap on her shoulder, she let her training take over and jumped from the relative safety of the plane. The initial shock was jarring, as it always was, but as soon as her chute deployed and she slowed to a controlled fall, there was no more fear; all that was left was the mission.
Just like during her training jumps, Beth felt as though the descent went by in the blink of an eye while also dragging on for ages. Time felt warped when in between two destinations, especially when the in-between stage was spent in the air, leaving you unable to grasp onto reality fully.
As Beth's body hit the ground and she disappeared into the tall grass, she wasted no time in detaching herself from her chute and finding her bearings. Looking up into the night sky at the other planes of pathfinders flying overhead, Beth watched as her team drifted to the ground after her, most of them managing to land in fairly close proximity.
Corporal Brian Cook was the last to regroup with the team, and when he did, a blanket of relief fell over the group. Every single one of them had made it to the ground safely.
"Okay, security, I want a tight perimeter around us," Copeland instructed as he pulled out his map. "Radio operators, I want those Eurika devices out and ready to start talking to the incoming planes as soon as we secure the landing zone. We've only got about thirty minutes before the rest of the troops start making their jumps. Let's hustle."
While Casey, Dudley, Sears, and Preston formed a wide-ranging but tight perimeter around the main group, their eyes peeled for movement in the foliage, the team followed Lieutenant Copeland's lead and started making their way to the designated landing zone.
Even though the surrounding area was dead silent, save the chirping of crickets in the distance, everyone was on high alert. No one was willing to risk getting taken out so early in the game.
With her head on a swivel, Beth double-checked to make sure her transceiver device was intact and hadn't been damaged in the jump. Thankfully, it was still in perfect working order, the flashing light telling her it was powered up and ready to start sending a signal.
Holding his hand up, Preston stopped in his tracks and crouched down, signalling for everyone to do the same. At first, Beth didn't know why they were stopping, but then she heard rustling from somewhere on her left side. The noise got louder and louder and it was obvious that whoever or whatever was making it was coming closer.
With his finger on the trigger, ready to fire if need be, Preston took a single step in the direction of the sound. "Flash!" he called into the darkness.
A few seconds passed, but then, "Thunder!" Emerging from the shadows, another team of 2nd Battalion pathfinders moved into sight. The man at the front of the team gave Preston a reaffirming nod before both teams continued on their way.
After another five or so minutes of walking, the two teams came upon a clearing—the landing zone. Pulling out his coloured smoke grenade from his bag, Lieutenant Copeland lifted his arm and stared at his watch. As soon as the little hand reached the hour mark, the designated time of meet-up for the pathfinders, Copeland pulled the pin on the grenade and tossed it into the clearing. Seconds later, the entire perimeter of the clearing was filling with bright red smoke, meaning that most of the pathfinder teams had made it to the landing zone.
"Alright, guys, get those devices out." Copeland peered up at the dark sky. "It's showtime."
Grabbing her device, Beth flipped the switch and the blinking light turned solid. The transmission was being sent. "Good job, everyone." Beth smiled. "And to think, they told us this was going to be hard."
"The best of the best," said Adkins.
"Don't get too cocky yet," Copeland warned. "This is far from over. We're not even in the thick of it yet. When those planes start dropping hundreds of men, the Germans will come out of hiding, if they haven't already. This is just the beginning."
Ten minutes later, the first group of planes came into view, their combined noise enough to wake everyone within a hundred-mile radius. The pathfinders had come in with much fewer numbers, thus much less noise, but now the cavalry was here and there was no more hiding in the shadows.
The Americans were invading Europe and they weren't keeping it a secret anymore.
"Okay everyone, our job here is done," Copeland announced as the first of the Paratroopers started jumping from the planes. "You know the drill. Meet up with your respected companies and hopefully, if the American Army does this thing right, we will never have to see each other again."
As the team bid each other farewell and good luck, they broke off in separate directions. Of course, a few of the men had the same assembly area as Beth, so with Adkins, Sears, and Preston by her side, Beth headed in the direction the landmarks she had memorized led her in.
Now just a regular, everyday rifleman, Beth had her weapon at the ready as she crept back through the woods, every snap or rustle in the distance causing her to tense a little.
Thankfully, because she and the others had spent so many hours studying the map of the area, they were able to navigate without having to pull their travel maps out once. It was a little harder to tell what things were in the dark, but when the four came across an undeniable road sign, they knew they were heading in the right direction.
"Hold up." Adkins slowed his pace. "Do you guys hear that?"
"Hear what?" Sears quirked an eyebrow. "I hear the wind if that's what you're talking about."
"Of course, that's not what I'm talking about," Adkins snapped. "Just shh. Listen."
Crouching down behind a fallen tree while they listened, the four American Paratroopers remained as silent as possible. Beth didn't hear anything at first, but then she heard the distant voices. Then, all at once, a series of loud explosions, which was impossible to miss.
"Oh, yeah, heard it that time," Sears deadpanned. Adkins just glared at him.
"It's a German gun." Beth pointed through the trees where a group of four or five soldiers were reloading the large gun that was firing up at the descending Paratroopers. "Should we keep moving?"
Preston shrugged. "We've got to go right by them one way or another. If we sneak up while the gun is firing we could take them by surprise."
Adkins took a moment to observe the Germans. "There doesn't seem to be that many. I think we could take 'em."
"Yeah, okay." Beth tightened her grip on her rifle. "Okay, wait for my signal."
As soon as the gun started firing again, drowning out any and all other sounds in the general vicinity, Beth gave the signal and the four troopers rushed through the brush, coming up right behind the Germans. Still hidden by the shadows, they waited some more, and when the gun went off again they attacked.
The screams were masked by the sound of the large rounds going off right beside them, but Beth didn't need to hear the screams to know they were happening. When the German man's mouth dropped open and his eyes screwed shut in response to her firing right into his abdomen, she knew he was in pain.
While the other men took out the rest of the small group, Beth fired another shot, this time into the German's chest. There was no time for the man to have any sort of reaction to the agony; he was dead in seconds.
Wiping the sweat from her forehead, Beth turned back around just as the gun stopped going off. Her ears were ringing, so she could barely hear Sears calling her over, but just like the screaming, she didn't need to hear it to know it was happening.
Sears' face was void of expression as he and Adkins stood side by side, looking down at something. When Beth joined them, she felt as if the world stopped spinning for a moment. Lying in the dirt, a gunshot wound in his stomach, Preston was motionless. His eyes were rolled back and he had dark red blood dripping from his chapped lips.
The gunshots had been too loud. They hadn't heard him get hit. They hadn't heard him scream.
"What ... what do we do?" Sears bent down and felt for a pulse but there was none.
"There's nothing we can do." Adkins reloaded his weapon. "We have to keep moving."
Beth swallowed hard. She knew eventually she was going to have to watch someone she cared about die, but it wasn't supposed to happen this soon; it wasn't supposed to happen to Private Joe Preston.
"Remember what Lieutenant Copeland said." Beth sighed. "This is far from over. This is just the beginning."
Reaching out, Sears pulled Preston's dog tags from around his neck. As he moved to stand, Adkins put a hand on his shoulder and stopped him. "Wait. Check his pocket," he instructed, and sure enough, Sears pulled a folded photo from Preston's breast pocket. "He always kept a photo of his family with him at all times. He said it reminded him of what he had to live for."
"Well, shit." Sears tucked Preston's belongings away safely so they could be sent back home to his family. "He barely even got a chance to fight for them in the first place."
"Come on." Beth wished they didn't have to leave the poor man's body in the middle of nowhere. "We have to keep moving."
Together, the three remaining soldiers found their way back to the marked road and continued down it. "We shoulda just kept going," Adkins said.
"It was Preston's idea to attack," Sears reminded him. "All things considered, it was a good plan."
"We just have to tell ourselves that had we not done what we did, that German gun would have taken out a whole lot more Americans," Beth rationalized as a flaming plane passed by over their heads and crashed into one of the fields, exploding on impact. "Preston sacrificed his life to save many more. We just have to tell ourselves that."
The rest of the walk to the assembly area was done in silence. When Beth, Adkins, and Sears finally arrived at the farm that had been designated the assembly area, the sun was just barely starting to peek over the horizon.
"We sure this is the right place?" Sears asked. "Looks like we're the only ones here."
Pulling out her map for the first time, Beth double-checked just in case. "Yup, this is it."
"So ..." Adkins paused to listen to the gunshots in the distance. "What now?"
Climbing up onto the top of a wooden fence, Beth sat, her mind finally having a chance to process everything that had happened in the last few hours. As the urgency of the task at hand left her brain, Beth was overrun with new thoughts—worrying thoughts about Ben and the rest of Easy Company.
Were they on their way? Had they been held up? Did they even make it out of their planes in the first place?
"Now," Beth turned and kept her eyes glued to the dirt road that led to the farm, "we wait."