Page 1 of The Christmas Ring
Chapter 1
June 6, 1944, 12:45 a.m.
In the dark of night and against the sound of enemy fire, the moment he jumped, rushing wind hit Bill Bailey square in the face. He pulled his parachute cord but even as it opened, he could already tell. Something was wrong. The C-47 transport plane ahead of them—the one labeled “Stick 66”—was turning around trying to get back to base.
Bill winced. Anyone could see the plane wasn’t going to make it. Long before his feet hit the ground, he watched through the clouds and fog as the plane plummeted into a French hillside. The explosion took Bill’s breath. His platoon had known the details wouldn’t play out perfectly like they’d rehearsed. But this?
One name after another raced through his mind. Guys he had laughed with and tossed a ball with and shared letters from home with. Some of them from his hometown of Columbus, Georgia. Fort Benning.
The loss happening right before him was more than Bill could comprehend. All that training in England had led tothis. And now nearly twenty of Easy Company’s best and bravest were gone.
Don’t think about them,Bill told himself.Don’t look.
He set his face forward, the flames behind him. Bill’s parachute sailed through the dark sky over Normandy.Focus.Don’t get distracted. In the dim light the sky was peppered with other paratroopers, others from the elite army group. “Screaming Eagles,” they called themselves. Bill tried to steer his parachute to an open field.
That’s when it happened. Gunfire ripped through the air all around him, bullets grazing his arms and legs and the top of his helmet. So close he figured he must’ve been hit. His heart pounded and for a single moment all he could see were the faces of his mother and father. His two sisters. He could smell the roast his mom had made the night before he left.
“You’d better come home!” his oldest sister had told him. “Don’t fall in love with a French girl.”
He was never going to see them again, and he was only eighteen.
The barrage of bullets continued and it still felt like a million miles till touchdown. Another problem became clear. Bill was drifting. He wasn’t so much making his way to the ground as he was flying sideways. Sideways far from the coastline and straight through enemy fire.
Time slowed and he wasn’t parachuting into France in the middle of the night ahead of the Normandy invasion. It was yesterday again. He and the other Screaming Eagles were pouring out of a war movie and the lieutenant was directing them to tables with documents.
“Sign them,” he had shouted. “All of you. Sign them.”
Bill found a spot at one of the tables and saw what they were about to sign. Life insurance policies.
“Half of you won’t make it home.” The lieutenant’s voice had grown stern. “But never mind that. The mission ahead is the one you were born for. Do not worry about tomorrow.”
Do not worry about tomorrow.The same words Jesus had told His disciples. Words written often in the Bible.Do not be anxious. Don’t be afraid. Do not worry. Be strong and courageous.
The ground was finally rising up to meet him.Do not be afraid,he told himself.God will see you through.
But as the heels of his boots dug deep into the ground, Bill knew two things. First, he was nowhere near Utah Beach. And second, God had not seen many of them through after all. Because next to him two of his closest buddies lay in a heap beneath their ripped-up parachutes, dead before they’d hit the ground.
Nausea hit Bill like a kick to the gut. He reached out to help his friends. As if he could bring them back. But as he did, another spray of bullets flew over his head.
He had to get out of here.
He struggled to break free from the nylon and ropes.
Gunfire and German voices cried out all around. From deep inside his backpack, Bill found his knife. He hacked at the parachute cords until he was free. Then he shoved the nylon into a bush and ran. Ran as fast and as hard as he could until the next round of gunfire ripped across the night.
The bullets were not aimed at him this time. But the sound was deafening all the same.
Bill scrambled into a bush—and found five of the Screaming Eagles.
“Shh.” One of them grabbed his shoulder. His voice was little more than a whisper. “Don’t speak.”
Bill shook his head. Not a word.
His eyes adjusted a little more. He knew these guys. He’d shared a bunk room with three of them. More gunfire and then Bill realized what else he was hearing.
The sound of men being hit. Men dying.
Finnie sat across from him. Finnie Eastman. Bill looked at him and shrugged. With barely a sound he uttered, “Where are we?”
