hansbekhart:

So @samtalksfunny and I are thick in the weeds, writing our Stucky Big Bang, the Ghost Army AU that some of y’all have heard me talk about.  I don’t wanna give away too much of the plot, but we’re too goddamn pleased with ourselves NOT to share a little preview.

In the course of researching our first big combat section, which is the battle for Monte Cassino, we discovered that there was an actual real life soldier bear present.  Obviously we had to write about it.

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The battle for Monte Cassino lasts nine days. Clark’s swift return from the road to Rome drives a wedge between the Germans’ line of resupply and the soldiers who had swarmed over the ruined abbey. Turns out they were out of shells.

They don’t see most of it – Phillips orders them swiftly out of combat and back to the job they’re supposed to be doing. They listen at a distance to the sound of guns and other men dying, heads bent over their own particular tasks. A whole world of soldiers had been ordered for when the Americans abandoned Monte Cassino to fill in the gaps left behind: Gurkha Rifles from Nepal, Maoris from New Zealand, engineers from South Africa, two whole divisions of Poles, and the road must be cleared for them to arrive safely.

Rogers and Dugan steal away each night to take down road signs and put up false ones, and spy on the Germans as they shuffle troops across the Gustav line. To keep their feathers from ruffling around Cassino, Jim and Gabe take to the radios, casting dummy signal traffic for the Nazis that a seaborne landing is being planned, north of Rome. From Carter’s double agent, they receive word that the 26th and 90th Panzer divisions have been quietly ordered to the coast.

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