The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

89: Worse Than Any Worse

A/N:

Content warning: this chapter contains explicit depictions of a concentration camp.

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Landsberg am Lech was beautiful, but there was a strange smell in the air. Charlie couldn't be sure what it was but it wasn't pleasant.

"Jesus," Mabs said as she hopped down from the truck they'd been sitting in. "Did someone's pipes kick up?"

"More like everyone's," Autumn said with a grimace, looking around as if she expected to find the source of the stench in the town centre.

The buildings were all painted bright, pretty colours, injecting cheer into the air, but the clock tower to Charlie's right had a distinctly gothic feel to it. Charlie felt this suited the town better. "There's something off about this place," she said to no one in particular, and was answered with murmurs of agreement.

"We're only supposed to be here for a little while," Henry said, coming up beside her and looking around. "Maybe not even for the night."

Mabs gave a short laugh. "We travelled for four days to get to somewhere we might not even be stayin' for a night?"

Henry sighed and nodded. "Yeah."

Major Winters distributed orders and sent out patrols, and everyone else was free to mill around and wait for further instruction. Since their stay was predicted to be short term, Henry didn't have the nurses set up the field hospital. Instead, she let them join the men as they waited to find out what they would be doing.

Over by one of the trucks, some of the men were starting to toss a baseball around between them. Floyd, Lieb, Babe, Skinny, and Moe Alley allowed Charlie and Autumn to join their game, while Boo went to stand with George and Mabs slipped away in what she thought was a discreet manner (and wasn't) to go and find Speirs. As she did, Charlie exchanged a look with Floyd and had to look away at the expression he pulled in case she laughed and blew her cover.

Charlie wasn't very good at the throwing and catching game they were playing, which constituted, funnily enough, throwing the ball to each other and then catching it. The men made a joke of getting irritated with her about it until she decided to back out and leave them to their fun.

"No, Freckles, don't go," Floyd complained when she announced her departure. He pulled a pouty face which pulled at her heartstrings but she rolled her eyes nonetheless.

"Nope, you hurt my feelings," she joked, recalling the time he'd actually hurt her feelings with the fondness that accompanied looking back on memories of a self so different to your current one they felt like a different person. She smiled at Floyd. "I'll be your cheerleader."

He smirked. "Hear that, fellas? I've got a cheerleader."

They all made jokes about this, because of course they did, and Alley demanded that Charlie be his cheerleader instead, before Frank came running straight through the centre of their circle, demanding of anyone who would listen, "Anyone seen any of the officers?"

He carried on running before any of them could reply, asking the same question of anyone else he came across, and the group who'd been throwing the ball looked between each other in confusion.

Charlie watched as Major Winters emerged from a building across the street and spoke briefly with Frank, then as Winters sought out Speirs and spoke briefly with him, too. A second later Speirs said something to Mabs, who came running over, and Speirs was ordering all of the men who had remained in town to load up into the trucks again.

"What's happening?" Charlie asked Mabs as she slowed to a stop beside her.

"The patrol through the woods found something," Mabs said, breathless. "We're all goin' to check it out. Perco said we gotta come too."