The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

40: All the Trouble

As they joined the crowd making its way from the barracks to the mess hall, Charlie stuck as close to Floyd as she could. Chuck saw them and joined them just outside of the barracks, taking up Charlie's other side, and that made her feel better, but the entire affair was overwhelming.

Once they'd made it inside the mess hall, Floyd told Charlie to go and find a table and they'd join her in a minute. He took one look at her face to wait for her reply and then squashed that idea without a second thought. "You just stay here with me, alright, Freckles," he said, and she nodded, resisting the urge to take hold of his sleeve just to make sure he didn't go far.

Charlie remained squashed between Floyd and Chuck as they lined up for food and then threw themselves down at a table in the middle of the room. It was only once she was safely seated beside Floyd and across from Chuck that she let herself take a look around. She'd never been in the mess hall before and hadn't imagined it being this small. How all the men in the company fit in here, she had no idea. The entire building was made of wood, clearly having only been erected for the company to use as a mess hall and likely due to be taken down once they left for good, and it was warmer inside than outside with the lack of windows. Charlie could only imagine how hot it got when they had lunch during the day, but for now it was just humid, not too hot but just a little bit uncomfortable.

Joe Liebgott slid into the seat on Charlie's other side and she offered him a quick smile when she recognised him, relieved it wasn't someone unfamiliar.

"Hey, Charlie," he greeted, immediately digging into his food. "What you doing here?" he wondered around a mouthful.

"Waiting for Lipton and Captain Winters," she said, trying to conceal a grimace at seeing the entire contents of his mouth but not doing a very good job of it.

Joe nodded his understanding and turned back to shovelling food into his mouth as if he thought someone was going to steal it.

"Hey, Charlie, you want me to get you anything?" Chuck asked around a sip of water.

"Oh, no, that's okay, thank you," she declined.

"I already asked her when we were in line," Floyd added. To Charlie, he said, "He thinks he's more of a gentleman than me."

Charlie laughed. "He is."

Floyd scoffed while Chuck smirked. Charlie grinned her way through Floyd's objections.

"Just because you're a charmer doesn't mean you're a gentleman," she said once he was finished with a shrug. "It's the same with a lot of you paratroopers - just because you know how to say the right thing doesn't make you a gentleman."

"She's got a point, Tab," Joe pointed out from Charlie's other side.

Charlie rolled her eyes jovially. "You're another one who thinks he's a gentleman when he's really only a flirt, so I don't know why you've decided to contribute, Joe."

"Hey!"

Before Joe could make any further complaint about her description of him, the men all around them started to clap and shush any conversation. When Floyd turned to see why, so did Charlie, and they found Smokey Gordon, newly back from the hospital and still on crutches, standing in the doorway at the front of the room. He had three purple heart medals pinned to his chest which Charlie furrowed her eyebrows at; she hadn't heard of anyone getting a medal per wound before, but then again, she didn't deal with the purple heart distributions. That was a job for the general hospitals' nurses.

"Hey, Hoobler. Be quiet for the man!" Skip exclaimed from the other side of the mess hall.

Charlie snickered but otherwise stayed quiet as she waited for Smokey to say whatever it was he was standing up to announce.