The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

109: All We've Got

When Henry called an impromptu meeting in the field hospital, Charlie wasn't sure what to think. Henry had given nothing away when she'd informed them all of the meeting at 0800 one morning, before any of them were due to go on shift. And, when Charlie had asked whether everything was alright, all Henry had given her in reply was a tight-lipped smile. So, nothing awful, but surely nothing good, either, if she wasn't immediately rushing to reassure her.

In the field hospital, Charlie, Mabs, Autumn, and Boo sat together on one of the beds, facing Henry where she stood behind the bed in front of them. The scene was so familiar that, for a moment, Charlie was wrenched out of Austria and thrown back into Aldbourne, into that hospital ward they'd worked in before becoming an active unit. They'd all been such different people back then it shocked Charlie to recall the time in more detail than she often tended to. How had she ever been that innocent, that naïve? It baffled her now.

Once Henry was sure she had the group's attention, she crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. Her face was unreadable; she had some sort of wall up, blocking any real emotion from making its way onto her face. She looked at each of them in turn, hard, and then turned her gaze to the group at large. "We're being reassigned," she said.

For one blissful moment, Charlie's heart leapt. They were going home. Easy Company had finally been deemed to have done enough and they were all going back to America. Or, even better, the war in the Pacific was over. There was global peace and all was settling down in the world once more.

It was Autumn who replied first. "What do you mean?"

Charlie's brief moment of happiness cracked when Henry answered Autumn. "There are enough nurses in the Pacific already," Her tone betrayed she didn't believe this for a second. "But there's a high demand for nurses in the camps, to help look after the people who were in them before they can go home."

"Camps like in Landsberg?" Mabs asked quietly.

"Yeah," Henry confirmed with a nod. "There are camps like Landsberg all over Europe, some of them with almost ten thousand people inside at the time of liberation. They need as many hands as they can get to help with nursing them back to health."

It made sense, and Charlie was more than willing to help, but a thought nagged at her louder than any others. "We're leaving the company behind?"

Henry paused. Charlie felt Boo looking at her from the other end of the bed but refused to move her eyes from Henry's face as she awaited her answer.

"Yes," Henry said at length, the word released upon a low exhale.

Charlie's eyes fell closed.

"When?" Boo asked. Her voice was small, dull, like all the life had been sucked out of her. She hadn't been away from George for more than two days ever since they first met, Charlie realised, and the two of them had decided not to get married so that they could stay together. Now, that had been for nothing. They were being separated anyway.

"Friday morning."

That was two days from now. They had two days to pack up the lives they'd known for the last year and a half, say goodbye to the people who were closer to them than their own families, and leave everything known behind. For a good cause, yes, but Charlie's heart ached all the same.

"Do the men know?" Autumn inquired.

"No." Henry sighed quietly. "I can pass the message onto Speirs to tell them or we can do it ourselves, which would you prefer?"

Charlie looked to Boo first, instinctively, though she found Boo already looking at her. Next her eyes sought out Mabs and then Autumn. None of them seemed to have any better idea of what to do than the next.