The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

112: Good to One Another

"You look so young," Betty gushed, sitting on the floor at the end of Charlie's bed. "I wish I was old enough to be a nurse in the war. I bet you had all kinds of adventures."

Charlie let out a quiet laugh, half amused and half regretful, but didn't look up from where she was attempting to fold one of her finer dresses in such a way as it wouldn't crease. It was pale pink silk and she'd never worn it, but she hoped that one day she would. It was one she'd picked out herself, a rare occurrence, and her mother had relented and bought it only because Charlie had let her buy whatever dresses she'd wanted for the rest of the day. Though she'd used the fact as leverage, Charlie didn't actually care what she wore these days. Nothing felt right anyway. It was all too fussy, too tight, too frilly - so different from the uniform she'd once been used to wearing everyday. But the pink dress... there had just been something about it. It was too beautiful to leave behind.

"Oh, that didn't come out right," Betty went on, flicking through the pages of the photo album slowly, almost reverently. "I didn't mean to make it sound, you know, fun or anything. I just mean that I bet it was such a fascinating time."

Still not looking up - the dress just didn't want to lie straight; the silky material scrunched itself up however she tried to fold it - Charlie laughed once more, but the sound was hollow. "I'm not sure I'd say 'fascinating'," she replied. She was aware of Betty turning to look back at her. "Traumatising, more like. But it seems like a lifetime ago now."

"Was it completely awful?" Betty wondered. For the moment the photo album lay forgotten in her lap, but Charlie knew it wouldn't be long before it captivated all of her attention again. She'd been utterly enamoured by it since she'd first discovered its existence ten minutes ago.

Frustrated to her wit's end with trying to fold the dress nicely, Charlie placed it into her trunk and smoothed the topmost layer of fabric, hoping that Helen would be able to salvage it once she got back home. She had managed to salvage all of the dresses Charlie had destroyed throughout her childhood, after all, so if anyone was up to the challenge it was her.

"Not always," Charlie replied to Betty at length. She turned to her, crossing her hands demurely in front of her, a habit she had finally seemed to pick back up again after much berating from her mother about her loss of etiquette. "The times when we were off the line were the best of my entire life. We went to Paris," she said, smiling slightly as Betty's eyes lit up. "There are pictures from the trip in there," Charlie went on, gesturing to the photo album. "And those photographs you're looking at right now are from Aldbourne, in England, where we stayed before D-Day and then again before Operation Market Garden, if you've heard of that."

It was clear that Betty hadn't heard of Market Garden but she smiled all the same. "Did you go to dances? I bet you went on a whole lot of dates."

"We had one dance," Charlie recalled. She came to sit on the edge of her bed, facing Betty. She had enough time on her side to resume her packing in a little while. "It was back in Aldbourne, before D-Day, and I got very drunk. Just don't tell my mother that."

Betty giggled, pleased to be let in on a secret. "What else?"

"We spent a lot of nights in the local pub - they didn't have any bars in Aldbourne, so when the men weren't off on weekend passes in Swindon or London everyone would be at the pub." Charlie laughed at her next memory. "One day, the other nurses and I had a party in the backyard of our house, and it rained but we stayed outside anyway. That's my favourite memory from Aldbourne."

Betty threw her head back and groaned wistfully. "I wish I was there."

"It wasn't always good," Charlie reminded her gently. "The highs were high but the lows, when we were on the line, were lower than anything I ever could have imagined."