“You boys be safe. Kick Hitler’s arse for us.” She pulled back from him and raised a fist before stepping back into the car.

Tom’s eyes widened at the uncharacteristic phrase coming from Mrs. Brown’s mouth, but then smiled when he saw her waving to him from behind the window.

“We will, Mrs. B. We will.”

*  *  *

France! Though it had been rumored that this would be their destination, the fickleness of battle had not guaranteed it. But the orders had come through and Tom was at last going to see the land of his mother’s family.

The flights were a go, and the troops were assigned to a C47 for what was being called Operation Neptune, part of the larger Operation Overlord. The mission of the Screaming Eagles and Easy Company particularly was to capture the town of Carentan, thereby connecting Omaha and Utah Beaches and preparing them for the Allied assault to come.

Carentan’s train tracks led to both Paris and Cherbourg, making it strategically vital to Axis forces.

And therefore, vital to the Allied ones.

Tom’s stomach churned as they strapped into the plane that would take them across the English Channel and drop them into France. When he’d taken the requisite literature courses as an undergrad, he imagined that when he made it to this country, he’d be reading a book, maybe Fitzgerald, while drinking coffee in Les Deux Magots. Isn’t that what one was supposed to do? But this would be a harried, dangerous entrance into a land now occupied by those who wanted a world order that would eliminate anyone who didn’t fit the Aryan recipe of perfection.

Tom thought of Hank, the grandson of a former slave, who picked peaches side by side with Tom in the late summer and had saved enough to buy a couple of acres of the Powell’s land and build a house for his family. He thought of Dr. Weinstein in the town of Lanexa, who had treated his mother when she contracted pneumonia and traveled to and from their farm to check on her, long after his bill had been paid. He thought of the McClintock family a few farms over. Catholics with a bevy of children who were always so welcoming to Tom when he walked by and had invited him in for blueberry pancakes if he was nearby on a Saturday morning.

And William. Perhaps that was the most poignant of all. Men like William, who already lived in the shadows of what was acceptable in society, would have no place in a world dominated by Nazis.

Adolf Hitler would wipe all of them and the millions like them from the face of the earth if they didn’t succeed in their mission.