The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

18: Quite A Girl

Charlie was wasted. She didn't know how it had happened or who was responsible - in her current state, she also didn't particularly care - but she knew she'd passed the point of no return when she went to the bathroom and almost missed the toilet when she tried to sit down.

The problem was, really, that she was just having so much fun. And it was so hot in there with all those bodies packed into one space and all that dancing they'd been doing. How was she supposed to refuse when Chuck kept offering to buy her drinks, reassuring her he was getting them for himself, too?

But Chuck could clearly hold his alcohol better than she could. It had been stupid to try to drink alcohol for rehydration instead of water.

When she made her way back into the dance hall, Charlie paused for a moment on the edge of the room and searched for someone she knew. Chairs and tables were scattered around a patch of floor reserved for dancing, and paratroopers and local boys in uniform milled around with a mixture of local girls and girls working for the war effort.

While some people chatted and drank together, others danced to the fast-paced swing song the band was playing. The blur of motion on the dancefloor and the low lighting of the hall made it impossible for her to recognise anyone.

Charlie huffed and began to make her way to the door by herself. She'd seen some benches out front when they'd first arrived and she felt she could do with the fresh air.

There were two doors on the way out; one led from the dance hall to a little hallway, and the other outside. Charlie was glad for this, now, for she knew she'd let out way too much light if there was only one, and during her time in England she'd become extra cautious about never letting out light. The lingering threat of the Blitz loomed over her head every time it got dark, and she was constantly badgering the other girls about not shutting their blackout blinds properly. Her inebriation didn't get rid of this wariness, but unfortunately meant she couldn't adhere to it as well as she would have liked.

But at least the hallway was dark.

When Charlie opened the second of the doors a gust of cool night air hit her in the face and immediately cooled her skin. It was so refreshing she closed her eyes and leaned against the door frame, letting her head rest against it. She started swaying gently from one foot to the other.

Eventually, she got tired of hanging tightly to the doorframe to keep herself from falling over and stepped out into the quiet of the night.

And forgot about the concrete step leading up to the door.

"Ow," she said. She'd landed on her hands and knees in the gravel. Instead of pushing herself to her feet she let herself fall sideways onto her hip.

"Freckles!"

"Hm?"

"You okay?"

Floyd had rushed over the instant he saw her fall and slowed to a stop beside her, crouching down to look her over. "Aw, damn it, Charlie, look at your knees."

When she did she found them scraped, her stockings ripped right over her kneecaps. The right one, which had evidently taken the brunt of the fall, leaked a scarlet trail of blood down her shin.

"Oh no," she said quietly, staring at the blood and her ripped stockings as though in a daze. Stockings weren't easy to come by in England and now she was down a pair. If she kept going the way she was with all this falling over, eventually she'd have to resort to what the British women were doing: drawing lines up the backs of their legs with eyeliner to make it appear like they were wearing stockings when they weren't.

Floyd looked at her so hard she could feel his eyes on her profile. "Are you drunk?"

Charlie briefly considered giving him some sort of snarky reply, but when she looked up into his face the rebuttal died on her lips. She sighed, nodding. "Yeah."