The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

80: Proof of Aliveness

Charlie, Henry, Boo, and Autumn were just about to finish putting together their puzzle when chaos exploded into the basement of OP-1.

"We got wounded, come on!" shouted Earl McClung as he led the rest of the men from the patrol inside. They trampled over the rubble and discarded piles of wood, banged against the walls and sent dust pluming into the air.

Autumn swiped the puzzle pieces onto the floor to clear a space on the table. Charlie rushed over to help Chuck and Ramirez lower a severely wounded Eugene Jackson onto it.

"Popeye, get the Krauts back there, and shake 'em down!" Johnny ordered. "Move!" he shouted as man after man poured into the room, blocking the doorway. "Move!"

Charlie tuned out the rest of his orders as she tore open Jackson's ODs.

"He's spitting blood, Charlie," Boo said, her hands quickly turning scarlet as she tried to wipe it away to find the damage.

"What happened?" Charlie demanded the men around them.

"He threw a grenade and ran into the building too soon," Chuck told her stiffly while Johnny continued shouting his orders.

All around the basement was noise; men were screaming at each other, at the Germans they'd captured, at the nurses to help Jackson, at everyone to shut up. People were pushing and shoving each other, jostling themselves this way and that, pushing further into the room and then retreating when they were told what to do, or else leaning over the table to get a better look at Jackson. Outside was the clamour of gunfire, of artillery exploding, of shells crashing.

Charlie switched places with Boo and took a gentle hold of Jackson's face. "Keep him steady!" she ordered Autumn and Boo, standing down by his legs. "Sulfa on the chest," she added to Boo. "Someone give me light!"

With the flame of a lighter flickering above Jackson's forehead, Charlie checked the dilation of his pupils. She found them dilated wide in spite of the light right above him and clicked her tongue in frustration. She pressed two fingers to the pulse point in his neck and ducked her head to listen at his mouth for his breathing.

Blood was gurgling up his throat with every breath. Internal bleeding.

"Someone get one of the surgeons!" Charlie shouted.

Henry elbowed her way out of the basement without needing to be asked twice.

"He's gonna fucking die!" someone shouted.

"Hold his shoulders," Charlie ordered Webster and Ramirez, who were standing at the head of the table.

As they both took hold of him, Webster took it upon himself to try to calm Jackson down. "Jackson, listen to me. Calm down, or we can't help you. Settle down."

"He's gonna fucking die!" that same person shouted again.

"Jackson, look at me, don't listen to him. Look at me. You're gonna be fine," Webster went on assuring him. As Charlie tried to work, Jackson only seemed to move more with every word coming out of his mouth. "Everything's gonna be okay. Keep still. Be calm, buddy, everything's fine. Everything's fine."

Jackson tried to look at Webster with the eye which hadn't been sealed shut and that was when he started to cry.

"Webster, you're making it worse!" Charlie snapped. Jackson was thrashing more now in the wake of the reassurances than he had been before.

"God damn it!" cried someone behind her. There was movement in her periphery as multiple men rushed over to the corner of the room where the German prisoners were being held at gunpoint.