The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

72: Eyes Unseeing Ears Unhearing

On the third of January, Easy Company was moved back to their original positions near Bastogne, where they'd begun their time in the Ardennes. One of the only upsides to returning to the place they'd experienced such terror was the lack of a need to dig foxholes: their old ones were still there. Well, most of them were - some of them had since become buried under the damage of the artillery barrages. 

The other upside was that they'd been given coats before they left. 

Upon returning to Bastogne, however, it was clear that in their absence the Germans had had time to properly zero their artillery in on their position. Trees had been knocked down and lay strewn across the ground, their branches detached and scattered all across the snow. They would have no cover now. There were holes in the ground not big enough for foxholes, clearly made by the impact of shells, and patches of dark snow where the heat of explosions had burnt clean through it and the ground beneath.

If it was possible for things to get worse, Charlie knew they were about to, and that put the worst sick feeling in her stomach she'd felt yet.

Their numbers had decreased significantly since they'd arrived in Belgium, and even then they hadn't been at full strength. They still only had two medics, Gene and Spina, and no surgeons. Duckie had been killed just yesterday by a sniper. And, to add unto the steadily increasing list of wounded, two men had been hit on the way over to their old foxholes. Brown and Stevenson hadn't been hit badly but they'd been hit all the same, and now they were in the aid station, where they'd be staying for the foreseeable future to recover before they could be sent back to the line.

While the men whose foxholes had been buried worked to dig new ones, Hoobler went around showing off his new toy. On the way over he'd run into a German officer on horseback, likely doing some reconnaissance, and shot him right off of the horse. Hoobs had found the luger he'd been coveting since Normandy on the officer, and he couldn't have been more smug as she flashed it around and retold the story.

By the time he got to Charlie and Mabs they'd both heard the story a few times already, passed onto them by the men Hoobs had told first, but they both listened avidly as he set the scene for them regardless and gasped in all the right places.

Hoobs let Charlie hold the gun, though she was too scared to do anything more than cradle it in her palms, but Mabs didn't want to touch it.

"Ain't nothin' good about sidearms," she claimed, turning her nose up at it and shaking her head. "I don't want nothin' to do with 'em."

"Aw, come on, Mabs," Hoobs complained with a grin. "You gotta admit she's a beauty."

"I ain't gotta admit nothin'," Mabs replied. "A gun's a gun, and I don't like 'em."

Charlie handed the gun back to Hoobs with a small, apologetic smile. "I think it's cool," she offered.

He grinned. "Thank you. Someone who has taste."

Mabs scoffed. "Why don't you go show Malarkey? I'm sure he'll appreciate it. Weren't he tryin' to get a luger for his kid brother in Normandy?"

Hoobs laughed. "I forgot all about that! Heard he ran out into enemy fire tryna find one. You guys seen him?"

"He told me he was going to find Lipton," Charlie supplied. "And Lipton's helping Shifty dig his foxhole, so I'd start there."

"Thanks, Charlie," Hoobs said. With a grin and a wink at both of them, Hoobs turned and began to pick his way around foxholes and fallen trees, on his way to show off his luger some more.

Fifteen minutes later, a gunshot rang out.

Charlie and Mabs threw themselves to the ground.

"Sniper?" Mabs asked in a whisper.