The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

23: Blood Buddies

Charlie had no way of knowing how close they were to the inevitable invasion of Europe. All she had to go by were the increase in intensity of her training and the increase in administrative work she was constantly being given to do at the hospital. By the looks of both of these things, the invasion was imminent.

As such, at the end of her working day, Charlie was only a little surprised when Lieutenant Maddox - who had been a lot nicer to her ever since she'd punched Don Malarkey not only in the nose but the groin as well - pressed two cardboard document wallets full of papers into her hands.

"These are to be distributed amongst the officers and NCOs of the company," Maddox told her, patting the brown folder on top once Charlie held them both in her hands. "The top one is for the officers, bottom is for the enlisted. Each of the men has a designated blood donor in case we need to do a transfusion in combat with low supplies, and they need to know who it is."

Charlie nodded. "So do I give these to First Lieutenant Meehan or -"

"You give the top folder to Meehan, you give the bottom to First Sergeant Evans. Tell them we have copies in case they need extras but they should try to make sure they don't go missing."

Charlie nodded. "Okay. What do they do with the information?"

"Every man needs to memorise his blood donor before they head out into combat."

"And if someone's donor dies before they need the transfusion?"

Maddox sighed. "Look, it's not my idea. But all of them will have their blood type on their dog tags, so if someone's donor dies we'll just have to manually search for a match."

Charlie frowned but assured Maddox she understood. She supposed the buddy system had only been implemented to speed up the process of finding a matching donor, but it didn't sit well with her that they could potentially have to waste valuable time getting boys to read their dog tags.

After a moment of hesitation, Charlie called out to Maddox just as she was about to head out of the door. "Ma'am, do we have enough spare copies that I could take one?"

Maddox wore a quizzical expression when she glanced back at Charlie over her shoulder.

Charlie shrugged, suddenly feeling sheepish. Maybe she was worrying too much. Still, she explained, "I just think it would be useful if I was familiar with the blood types beforehand, ma'am."

Maddox studied her for a moment and, eventually, nodded. "Alright," she said, still nodding, and crossed the room. She opened the top left drawer of the desk in the corner and rifled through it for a moment, then withdrew a big file which she opened on the desktop. A few moments later, she pulled out a thin pile of papers and held it out to Charlie, who hurried over to take it.

"Thank you, ma'am," she said, smiling. Relieved.

Maddox offered her a simple nod and closed the file back up again, storing it safely back in its drawer.

Charlie watched Lieutenant Maddox leave for a few moments and then looked down at the three sheets of paper resting on top of the two document wallets. Placing the documents on the desk, she scanned the papers and then folded them neatly, stowing them away in one of her inside pockets. She'd need them later on.

As Charlie made her way to the bus stop to join the other nurses - each of whom had left the ward a few minutes before her after she'd insisted on staying behind to clean up a stack of bandages she'd dropped - she chewed on her bottom lip. She didn't have the faintest of clues as to how she'd track down Easy Company's commanding officer. First Sergeant Evans would be much easier to find - he bunked with the other enlisted in the farmhouse on the other side of the village, so even if she couldn't find him immediately, she'd surely run into someone who could. But First Lieutenant Meehan? Charlie wasn't sure she'd ever seen him when she wasn't being trained by him, whether it be in hand to hand combat or physical drills.