The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

47: As Soon As We Stop

The jump into Holland was cancelled, but the one after that wasn't.

The turnaround was so quick Charlie didn't have time to be relieved about the cancellation of the first, for the following day, while everyone was in the pub, First Sergeant Lipton announced to the men once more that they'd be leaving for the airfield the following day.

They'd been locked in that airfield for three days now, which meant they'd be jumping sometime soon. Henry said there was very little chance it would be called off.

She also said they wouldn't be returning to England.

So just like that, with one short announcement during a night of smiles and laughter, the life Charlie had come to love had been turned upside down, the rug she'd grown rather comfortable standing upon ripped right out from beneath her feet. It wasn't Lipton's fault, of course, and she didn't blame him. But in one fell swoop all the plans she'd had with James, with Mabs, with Skip and Alex and Malarkey and Alton, had been cancelled. She'd had five minutes to say goodbye to all of them and hadn't seen them since.

Henry had no information on when the nurses would be following after the company. The jump was part of a much bigger operation - bigger, even, than D-Day, in terms of paratrooper units involved - which made it top secret. She didn't know the specifics of the destination or what they were setting out to achieve or how long they'd be there or where they'd be going after. And she didn't know when the nurses would be sent after them.

Just like before, Charlie gathered everything she would need and got herself as ready as she could for a last minute deployment. There was no fear about it now, just impatience to follow after her friends. Staying in Aldbourne and doing idle chores at the hospital all day would be no help to the men she loved when they got hurt in combat. She wanted to be right behind them when they landed in Holland.

In a strange turn of events, the nurses ended up being sent overseas ahead of the paratroopers. Just like before, they were picked up in the middle of the night by a military truck full of nurses and driven to the port. Just like before, faceless people hurried around through the pitch dark, a mess of organised chaos. Just like before, they were given fresh medical armbands and loaded onto a ship, told to wait there quietly until given further orders.

The ship took them to France, though there were no LCVPs this time. It simply docked by a long pier and unloaded them and, when they got to the end of the pier, they were directed onto trucks.

They travelled for days on end, from France and into Belgium. There, they were taken to meet up with a division of the British Army, ground troops apparently headed for a similar destination to Easy Company. They were with them for all of a day before the invasion of Holland began, from land as well as from the air.

The nurses of the 23rd Field Hospital waited in the countryside of north east Belgium for two days before transports came to take them to Eindhoven in the early hours of the morning. On the way, the driver, Private First Class Loraine - who was apparently Colonel Sink's personal driver - told them all about how little resistance the company had received upon arrival. Initially, he said, they'd come under fire when they'd pressed in on a bridge they were set to protect and the Germans had blown it up instead, but they'd gone on to liberate Eindhoven with no trouble at all.

In fact, Loraine told them with almost childlike wonder, they'd been welcomed. He told them all about the huge street party the citizens of Eindhoven had thrown for the arriving Americans, about the food and music and cheering, about how the men had been kissed and hugged and begged to dance by so many women they hadn't known where to turn.

"You shoulda seen Talbert," Loraine was saying, giving yet another anecdote of a specific man he'd seen soaking up the fun. "He had this Dutch broad sitting on his lap like he was goddamn Santa Claus, making out like they were about to -"