Rhyming Slang

It was now May 1944.

It had been a good few months for Easy. They had been working hard and preparing for the mission they knew was coming up

As they were on the truck moving to Uppottery Flo looked round at all her boys and suddenly felt emotional. She had only known them for 2 years? How was that possible, she knew everything about all of them. She knew she had to tell them,

"I would like you all to know that no matter what happens in this war, all of you, even you Skinny are my band of brothers and I love all of you," she said quietly and she sounded choked up to the men.

They all looked at each other and realise they felt the same about all the men serving with them.

"Your each of ours little sister Fizz and we all love you as well," Chucky said and with that, they all sat there chatting happily, in ignorant bliss about what was about to occur.

When they arrived in Uppottery Buck told them to set up tents.

Flo helped set up her med tent with Gene before she made her way over to the others where Hoobler and a brit were having an interesting conversation.

Hoobler was going on about a luger and the brit was going "He's a bit Sheffield united innhe" he said shaking Hooblers hand and laughing.

"What the fuck does that mean?" Tab asked

"He means excited lads, no need to get so worked up" Flo stated laughing as all of them. They looked ready to beat up the tommys.

"Here you from England love?" the brit asked

"Yeah, I'm from East Sussex" she said smiling

"Eh, I thought you sounded a bit country, what brings you here to ding dong bell" he asked

"Ahh well couldn't leave all the fighting to you rob roys could i?" she laughed at all of easy's confused faces.

"I'll keep an ear to the ground and have a butchers over there for ya, keep these yanks in line for us love" he said laughing as he walked away.

"I will mate, have a good jump lads" she called out to his group

She turned back and they were all looking at her like she had grown 2 heads, even Nix looked confused and he was intelligence.

"It's just a bit of rhyming slang boys" she said laughing

"Go on then whats slang for please?" asked Bill

"Hairy knees" she laughed

"What about cigar?" asked Bull

"Lah-di-dah" and with Bill's face she bent over double

"So those brits are saying i'm smoking a lah-di bloody dah" Bull said with an affronted look.

"No they are saying you're having a laugh and a joke" and with that she skipped off to practice last minute medic manovers with Gene.

The next day they were all sat in a briefing with Nix going over every detail

"Ste. Marie du Mont. Causeway #1, Causeway #2. The ultimate field problem. The estuary of the Douve River divides two beacheads - codenamed Utah, here, and Omaha, here. Seabourne infantry will hit these beaches in force at a date and time to be specified. H-Hour, D-Day. Airborne's objective, gentlemen, is to take the town of  Caretan (Nix said in a poor french accent), or Carentan, thus linking Utah and Omaha into a single continuous beachhead."

She looked at Gene with an unreadable expression on her face, he gently took her hand in his as their new CO continued the briefing. "Thus linking Omaha and Utah into one continuous beachhead. Each trooper will learn this operation by heart and know his and every other outfit's mission to the detail."

Dukeman then asked if they were dropping tonight. They got no answer basically. Flo hated not knowing, this meant she couldn't mentally prepare herself. She gripped Gene's hand tighter. "Are you alright Flo?" he whispered.

"I'll be fine when I know when we're dropping" with that he just squeezed her hand. There was nothing left to say.

They were packing their stuff, to prepare for the jump.

From next to her Joe was complaining "3 day supply of K rations, chocolate bars, charms candy, powdered coffee, sugar, matches, compass, bayonet, entrenching tool, ammunition, gas mask, musette bag with ammo, my webbing, my .45, canteen, two cartons of smokes, Hawkins mine, two grenades, smoke grenade, gamma grenade, TNT, the bullshit, and a pair of nasty skivvies."

She started laughing when Perco asked "What's your point?"

Joe looked at him and said "you know, this stuff weighs as much as I do. I've still got my chute, my reserve chute, my Mae West, and my M-1. Heaven knows how Fizz here is gonna cope lugging all this around"

"Ahh don't worry about me boys, let me worry about you as your medic, please drink as much water as you can, we don't know what conditions will be like over there" she pleaded with them.

There were mutters of "Sure thing Fizz" as she stood up and walked to the map in the massive air shaft.

While stood there studying the maps, a presence she knew stood next to her.

"How're you feeling?" Flo asked him quietly

"Okay, once I've spoken to you, I'm going to go into my intimidating persona and then I don't feel fear much" he replied

He was holding something, when she noticed it she felt tears choke her throat. He was holding her lucky charm that she had given him from home. It was a small stuffed horse, it was perfect as it fit well in the pocket but did not cause any issues. "I'm glad you liked you christmas present" she whispered.

"How could I not, I'm glad you like yours as well" he smiled

He had given her a ring, a slim silver band with a horseshoe in the middle, "for luck" he had said at the time.

She couldn't help but smile "Ron, promise me something"

"Anything"

"No heroics" she said as she looked at his chestnut orbs, they were soft and filled with love.

"No heroics," he said back and she knew that that may be the last time she saw him. But they couldn't show their close friendship or it might raise eyebrows and cause trouble, so Speirs gave her a pat on the arm with a slight squeeze and touched her hand and let it linger slightly as he walked off. He was gone.

She could hear Lip shouting somewhere "Alright, listen up! Listen up! If you did not sign your life GI insurance policy, you go on over and see Sergeant Evans at the Headquarters Company tent. You boys don't let your families miss out on $10,000."

She had filled out her will, and written a letter to her family. Hopefully, it would bring them some peace.

Outside she then heard Lt Meehan asking for the company's attention, she turned from the map, walked outside and stood next to Gene, who put a comforting arm around the young girl. Meehan was saying "Easy Company! Listen up! Channel coast is socked in with rain and fog. No jump tonight. The invasion has been postponed, we're on a 24-hour stand down."

"And just like that our great British weather has ruined history" she laughed. The men around her gave smiles as well.

***

June 5th 1944 ;

Malark came over to Flo as she was chatting with Gene, she was worried about Gene as he had withdrawn into himself around her, to the lads this was normal but to her no, she knew he was terrified.

"Hey Malark, how are you" she asked

"I'm alright Fizz, I was wondering if you had heard about Bill's brother?" he said sadly

"What no, did he die?" she asked quietly

"Yeah Monte Cassino, he says he's okay and he just wants to fight krauts but, I'm concerned he'll do something stupid" Malark said looking at her pleadingly

Flo patted his hand "I'll have a word with him" she gave a soft smile and walked off.

"Thank god we have Fizz, we might just make it through this doc" Malark expressed

Gene nodded and said "She is a blessing and a curse, she's our sunshine but if anything happens to her, I don't know, it might just break us"

They watched as Flo chatted with Bill for 2 hours, from the men's places it looked as though she were helping him and making sure he wasn't going to commit anything stupid.

Floz could see Meehan on his way over, she knew it was time. She got up and started hugging her brothers, they all hugged her tightly and whispered good luck.

"Hey Flo, your jumping with me, I got to choose one of my medics and I choose you, so you'll be coming in Winters plane, not Meehan's" Gene gave a small smile to the girl

"Thanks Gene" she said smiling and gave him a tight hug, she looked over his shoulder at Speirs talking to his men and met his eyes, they looked at each other and gave a small nod.

Meehan ordered all the men to line up and lie down while she and Gene gave out the air sickness pills

"Gentleman, Docs Hilton and Roe are handing these out for air sickness. Orders are that every man takes one now, another 30 minutes in the air. Lieutenant."

Meehan then walked away as Flo and Gene lied down, Winters then spoke "2nd platoon, listen up. Good luck. God bless you. I'll see you in the assembly area."

Winters then started helping each of them up, as she lay there Flo suddenly felt panic. Panic was rising up in her, she thought to herself 'what the hell are you doing, you are a 20 year old girl who is introverted most of the time and you are about to go off and think you can help the men' no she thought, I'm going to die the minute I jump out of that plane. Her stomach felt light and she thought when Winters took her hand she was about to be sick. He looked at her put his hand on her shoulder and squezeed.

Then she walked towards the plane and let Gene and Chuck pull her up as she strapped herself to the piece of metal that was leading men to their deaths.

She could hear Lieb complaining about the air sickness pill, she started doing and undoing the button on her medic satchel. When Winters was in the plane started up and she grabbed Genes hand so tightly he thought she would cut off his circulation.

The message from general Eisenhower played in her mind- "Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force:

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months.

The eyes of the world are upon you.

Good Luck!

And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower