The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

54: Who Cares About His Dad

Twenty-two wounded men were brought to the field hospital after the battle at the crossroads, and one dead one. Dukeman. 

No matter how many times she was confronted with it, the sudden finality of death always sent Charlie reeling for a few seconds. Only a few hours earlier she'd been talking with him and Floyd in the CP and he'd offered her his bunk, which probably still had his stuff in it even now. And now he was gone. There one moment and gone the next, like the fog of warm breath in the cold.

The twenty-two wounded were in various states of distress. Some of them had been caught by the artillery and were in surgery for hours, others had been hit by shrapnel and only needed to be cleaned up. Autumn sat with Joe Liebgott for the better part of an hour, digging some shrapnel out of his neck and cleaning the wound. Charlie was tasked with bandaging David Webster and had to endure his seemingly endless monologue about how stupid what he'd said when he'd gotten hit was.

"They got me," he repeated his earlier words, over and over again like a broken record. He shook his head at himself. "Stupid."

Charlie just let him talk, only glancing up and humming every now and again to give the impression that she was listening. In reality, her mind was far away, wondering how many times for the rest of the war she'd have to look into a dead pair of eyes she'd seen alive not hours before.

Weeks passed leisurely slowly out on the line. As time wore on, all any of the men seemed to want to talk about was the upcoming evacuation of a company of British paratroopers and how much they hated the trenches they were spending their days in. Gradually, the daylight hours became shorter, the nights colder, and somehow everything seemed even more bleak. It started to rain a whole lot more and Charlie's ODs started to itch as they became caked with more and more mud. The once soft fabric was now hard and tight with blood and dirt and sweat and rainwater. Her hair was tangled and clumped with it, too.

At least, Charlie reminded herself, the longer they stayed on the line the longer she got to spend with Trigger. Floyd had pulled her aside in the days after they'd found him to remind her that he wouldn't be able to travel with them to wherever they went next and her heart had fallen to her stomach, because that was something she hadn't thought about. Now she counted every day that she got to spend with him as something to add to the ever reducing list of things to smile about; whenever she had the time she was in the CP with him, playing fetch or feeding him or else simply sitting with him and running her fingers through his fur. He was one of her favourite companions at the moment, offering all of the warmth and comfort of Floyd but none of the confusion, and none of the prying into her innermost thoughts, either.

But the mortar squad were good company these days, too. None of them ever wanted to discuss their upcoming military engagements any more than they had to, which Charlie appreciated, if not because she generally couldn't contribute anything to such conversations then because a heavy feeling of dread always settled low in her stomach when she thought about the next wave of casualties she'd have to see to and whether any of them would be someone she loved. But Malarkey, Skip, and Alex were not at all interested in talking about all that. No, they were much more inclined to discuss more intelligent matters.

"Anyone else feel like they're runnin' out of places to shit?"

"Alex," Charlie groaned, burying her face in Trigger's neck. While she appreciated that none of them censored their words around her, sometimes spending time with men was just a bit too gross to handle.

"What?"

"Nah, he's right," Malarkey said, chewing on a K-ration. "Can't walk for five seconds when you go into the trees without stepping in someone else's shit."

"That's disgusting," Charlie said, her voice muffled by Trigger's fur.

"Aw, come on, Lancaster, don't pretend you ain't shitting outside too."