Bull's eye

Surprisingly they did get pulled back to England.

Flo knew she wouldn't get the time off to visit her family so she enjoyed spending time with her billited family instead who had 3 daughters around her age.

One morning the girls gave flo a dress which was a lovely lemon yellow and went well with her chestnut hair.

The 4 of them set off for the field full of daisies, this made Flo smile and hold her necklace.

They spread out the picnic and started talking and laughing. Suddenly Susie asked "Flo what was it like?"

"What was what like?" Flo said sounding dubious.

"The war" Amy said with enthusiasm

"Erm" she was thinking how to answer when she saw flashbacks of the German squeezing the life out of her, of seeing dead men laying in mud, the exhaustion and never being able to relax.

"It was hell" she said quietly

The girls looked shocked but didn't say anything more about it. They saw the cloud that had passed over Flo's face.

They spent the rest of the afternoon lazing in the sun and playing cricket.

As they were walking back, looking sun-kissed, a bunch of her boys came out the pub and took a double take at the girl in front of them. She was a far cry from the blood and mud covered exhausted girl from a week ago.

"Wow Fizzy, I never knew you cleaned up so well"

"Very funny Skippy" she said as she rolled her eyes.

The boys sensed she was in a mood and needed to release her frustrations.

"Hey Fizz, come with me for a minute" Chuck asked

Flo nodded her head and they walked to a bench looking out over a valley.

"What's wrong Floss?"

"Why on earth should anything be wrong?" she gave a sharp smile.

"Well let's see, you still look tired, your snappy and we all know you well enough to know that your not yourself"

Flo sighed "I'm sorry I've been horrible" she whispered.

"Now again what's wrong Floss?"

"I just... I can't sleep without nightmares. But the problem isn't the nightmares, it's that their real. I can feel the germans hands on my throat, I can see the faces of the dead men, I can see my friends injured and I can't get there, I can feel the bullet hitting my cheek and ankle, I can hear the shells and gunfire. And throughout all of it, I just can't make any sense of why it is happening"

Chuck then pulled her into a warm hug for a few minutes before he said "Floss none of us believed you would last 2 weeks, none of us believed you belonged here. But for more than 2 years you have been proving us wrong. Your much stronger than you realise, but your so intent on helping us, that you forget to let people help you as well. You need to talk about your issues, then people can help and you can not lose yourself in this war and become a hard hearted, cynacal women"

She smiled at that "Thanks chucky, but even if you think I'm strong, I don't see it"

"You won't" he smiled, "You don't see it because you don't think about it, you should see yourself in battle, you just go for it, but you don't see yourself as doing anything amazing because you just think it's your job. Well fizzy you go above and beyond the call of duty".

With that he got up and left her to think, but he turned around and said "Floss, there are going to be casualties in this war, you can't save everyone".

And with someone mentioning her biggest problem, she suddenly felt a weight lifted on her shoulders. She can't save everyone. 'I can't save everyone' she thought. And for the first time in 3 months she slept without a single nightmare.

***

Flo was doing better, apart from the odd snappy word, she was back to her normal self.

They were spending time at the pub together relaxing. Heaven knows when they're gonna get pulled back to Europe.

"Come on Fizz, show us your aim" laughed Bill

She took a dart and got 180,

"Come on Shift, bet u can get a bullseye" she laughed

And he did indeed get a bullseye

Suddenly some new replacements entered the bar. She recognized Garcia and Hershey but not Miller. They all seemed a bit up themselves, as did Cobb who was the only member of Easy she literally hated. She sighed as they walked in and seeing her and her amid some of the girls she had met before d-day there they started winking at them. Miller didn't realize she was the one all the men loved, so he came over to her and said "Have you ever been with a Soldier?".

She thought for a minute and said "What battles have you fought in, if it's more than me I might give you a chance", she said loudly and this made the easy men look over and start laughing.

Of course, Miller thought it was a flirty joke so he started saying " Oh I was in Normandy and was in Italy"

"Oh really, cause when I jumped into Normandy I didn't notice you there," she said and winked as she walked over to her boys.

"Private Miller, allow me to introduce the one and only Florence Hilton, First female combat medic and veteran of D-Day and Carentan," said Luz

"Treat her with respect, or ill accidentally shoot you with my MG" shouted Wild Bill

She blanked out of the conversation when Bill started telling the story about Babe and Doris, rolling her eyes she ordered another Sherry flip. She tuned in again a minute later

"You new boys, you pay attention to Sergeant Randleman. Got that? That's the smartest man in the company" Bill was telling them

"Hear hear" Flo called out

Cobb suddenly asked Miller "Where'd you get that?"

"It's a Presidential Distinguished Unit Citation. " he responded

"For... "

"For what the Regiment did in Normandy. "

"That's right, for what the Regiment did. You weren't there. "

"Hey, hey, ease up, Cobb? " Smokey was saying

"It's a unit citation. "

"Shit, Cobb. You didn't fight in Normandy either. " Skinny butted in

"I got hit in the plane before I got a chance to jump. " Cobb replied

Lip came in then and everyone focused

"Hey, you all, listen up. I got an announcement to make."

"This here is Carwood Lipton: The new Easy Company 1st Sergeant. As befitting his position...he says he has to make an announcement" Smokey said Introducing Lip to all of the newbies.

"Well, hate to break the mood here, boys and Floss, but. We're moving out again." Lip said.

***

The next morning everyone gathered in the briefing building to see what we would be up against next. Nix was explaining what they were doing

"As you can see this is called Operation Market-Garden. In terms of airborne divisions involved this one's even bigger than Normandy. We're dropping deep into occupied Holland. The Allied objective is to take this road here between Eindhoven and Arnhem so the two British armored divisions can move up it toward Arnhem. Our job is gonna be to liberate Eindhoven. Stay there, wait for the tanks.

The entire European advance has been put on hold to allocate resources for this operation. It's Montgomery's personal plan and we'll be under British command. Yippee. " At this point Flo shouted out an "OI" to Nix while the men laughed and Nix chucked and said "Sorry Fizzy".

"The good news is if this works these tanks will be over the Rhine and into Germany. It could end the war and get us home by Christmas. It'll be a daytime jump. Intelligence doesn't expect much opposition. They think the Krauts in Holland are mostly kids and old men. And we should take them by surprise. In any case, say goodbye to England. I don't think they're gonna call this one off."

Flo, Gene and Spina were recording and packing up medical supplies when they saw him.

Gene nudged Flo who was carrying a box that she almost dropped. "Gene what the hell?"

"Look who it is Floss, our favourite Captain" Gene said sarcastically.

"What on earth is he doing here?" she muttered before spotting Popeye getting out the truck.

"Hey Pop" she shouted running over and hugging him. "Sorry I wasn't there to patch you up". "No matter Fizz, from what I hear you were too busy saving more people", she rolled her eyes and walked with him over to a group of Skinny, Penk, Webster and Tab.

"What is he doing here. If he tries to talk to me, I am gonna hand in my jump wings" Tab said seriously

"I'm nervous enough without him hovering over me," Web said looking nervous. Flo gave him a tight hug and kept her arm around his waist.

"Well, he's the newly appointed regimental S4." Pop replied

"Supply officer?" Tab asked

"Yeah, he passed me trying to find you guys"

"Does he know you went AWOL?" Web asked

"He knows. He just said I was lucky I could sit out this jump if I wanted. I said I didn't want to. So he says, Hop in."

"Hop in?" Penk said in disbelief

"Yeah, I know, I couldn't believe it either."

"MALARKY" They heard Sobel shout, they saw him say a few words then he pranced off.

"Guess he didn't get to bust one of our asses today then" Penk said laughing

"Lets get this jump over and done with" Skinny said with a hint of melancholy.