we're on each other's team [band of brothers / hbo war]

9: ambush

"Real smart," Skip continued. "Taking your life in your own hands. Ain't that right?" He directed his last sentence to Malarkey. Madison looked over to him, wondering what Skip had meant.

"I told you, I didn't actually see it," Malarkey old his best friend.

"Seen what?" Madison asked.

"Are you talking about Speirs shooting the prisoners or the sergeant in his own platoon?"

This time everybody was wondering what was going on.

"Sergeant?" More couldn't believe what he had just heard.

"What? I didn't hear about that one," Skip added.

"He shot one of his own guys?" Malarkey repeated the idea in his own words.

"Seriously, what the hell are you guys talking about?" Madison asked, beginning to get frustrated.

"Well, with the sergeant, he was apparently drunk and refused to go on patrol. Who knows if that's true," Alex shrugged off, before looking at Madison. "You seriously haven't heard about the prisoners?"

"If I had, I wouldn't be asking," Madison pointed out, feeling both perplexed and vexed at once.

"Well, I know a guy," Skip drawled out, throwing a piece of stale bread at Malarkey, who flinched and yelled out "hey!" when it had hit him, "who said that an eye witness told him that Speirs hosed those prisoners."

"Why?" someone asked. Madison had forgotten that Blithe was on the other side of More, so for a moment she thought that a ghost was over there or something. "What for?"

"On D-Day," Skip began, pausing for possibly his dramatic storytelling. "Speirs comes across this group of Kraut prisoners. Digging a hole, or some such. Under guard and all, he breaks out a pack of smokes, passes them out; even gives them a light. Then all of a sudden, he swings up his Thompson, and," Skip begins to imitate a Thompson going off, shot after shot. "He hoses them."

The group became silent for a moment. Madison looked down at the ground, suddenly feeling guilty. She had a feeling that that German POW she talked to was a part of that group. Skip continued on before anyone could say anything.

"I mean, goddamn. He gives them smokes first?" Madison was about to snap at him, but he spoke up again before she could. "You see, that's why I don't believe it."

"Oh, you don't believe it?" Malarkey challenged.

"I heard that he didn't do it," Penkala chimed in.

"Then who would have done it?" Madison asked him. She'll admit, she didn't know much about Speirs or how much truth the rumors held but if she had to voice an opinion: Speirs is a likely culprit based on the little information that she had.

"Oh, no, it was him alright," More agreed that it was Speirs who had done it. "But it wasn't eight guys. More like twenty."

"There's no way that he could have murdered twenty people," Madison denied More's tale.

"Hell of one shot," Skip commented, before putting his cigarette back in his mouth.

More laid back, closing his eyes and taking in the sun. "All except one guy, who he left alone."

"Well all I know, from what I've heard, he took that last one-oh-five on D-Day, practically by himself," Penkala said. "Running through MG fire like a maniac."

"Now that I did see," Malarkey confirmed.

"On his own?" More asked.

"Yep."