The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

105: The Dead of Night

Charlie was fast asleep on Floyd's bare chest when an insistent knocking startled her awake. She heard words, muffled through the locked door, but couldn't make out what they were. She didn't recognise the voice.

The room was pitch dark. There was no light peeking through the gaps above and below the curtains as there usually was when she woke. It was still night time and Charlie certainly felt groggy enough that she hadn't slept for very long. By her reckoning it had only been a couple of hours since she and Floyd had finally settled down to sleep, speaking in quiet murmurs, completely wrapped up in each other, until they had drifted off mid-conversation.

"First Sergeant Talbert!" called the voice through the door. Male but still unfamiliar, even as the foggy haze of sleep began to clear from Charlie's mind. A replacement, maybe? An officer she didn't know very well?

The knocking came again, louder, harsher, more insistent. A second pair of hands must have joined in, for the knocks came so fast consecutively that one pair of hands couldn't have moved so fast or created so many beats. And then a second voice, slightly lower than the first, shouted, "First Sergeant Talbert!"

"Floyd," Charlie whispered, sitting up.

Floyd groaned, still asleep, and reached for her, likely feeling the loss of her warmth.

Charlie took a gentle hold of his shoulders and shook him lightly. "Floyd, there's someone at the door," she said quietly.

"Freckles," he mumbled, starting to awaken.

"Floyd, someone's at the door," Charlie told him louder. She couldn't open it in case it was a pair of unfamiliar officers; she wasn't allowed to be in here, and fraternisation between officers and enlisted was forbidden. But, even if both of those things weren't true, there was the issue of her still being naked. There was no way she'd be able to get dressed fast enough to open the door and not rouse suspicion.

"First Sergeant Talbert!" the two voices shouted as one.

Distantly, Charlie wondered whether they'd planned that or whether they were simply both so desperate that it had happened that way naturally.

Floyd finally sat up. "What's going on?"

"Someone's at the door," Charlie explained redundantly.

"Who?"

"I don't know." Charlie gestured down at herself where she was holding the comforter up over her chest, as though worried whoever was behind the door could see through it. "But I can't answer it."

With a low, sleepy groan, Floyd dug the heels of his palms into his eyes and pushed himself up. He pulled on his boxers and his OD pants but left his chest bare as he went to open the door.

"Hello?" he asked as he pulled it open, lifting a hand to shield his eyes from the bright light of the hallway.

Charlie pushed herself against the headboard, holding the comforter up to her neck, and hoped whoever was at the door wouldn't try to peer into the room any further than the corner where the bathroom wall ended.

"First Sergeant Talbert," said one of the voices in a hurry, breathless and relieved and worried all at once. "It's Sergeant Grant. He's - well, it was this drunk guy, I don't know who, and we were driving across town and -"

"What happened?" Floyd demanded. All traces of grogginess had disappeared from his voice as he cut across the replacement - and Charlie was now certain it was a replacement and not an officer; the officers always had an air of indifference about them, as she knew all too well, and would never speak to a member of the enlisted in such a vulnerable state.