The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

07: How to Treat A Lady

Charlie made sure to get to the hospital - in regulation uniform, hair, and makeup - fifteen minutes before her shift began the next day. She made her way into the ward at 0445, feeling half-dead from being out so late last night, and found Lieutenant Maddox already waiting for her.

Charlie offered as warm a smile as she could manage this early in the morning and running on as little sleep as she was. "Good morning, Lieutenant," she greeted.

"Lancaster, is it?" Maddox asked. She wasn't scowling but she wasn't smiling, either. Charlie wondered if she'd already gotten onto her CO's bad side after her stupid question the day before.

"Yes, ma'am," Charlie replied. "Charlotte Lancaster, but everyone calls me Charlie."

The lieutenant was holding a file of some sort in her hands, and when she began to flip through it, shooting analytical glances up at Charlie every now and again, Charlie guessed it was her training record.

"Highest grades in every year of your training, graduated high school as valedictorian. Some might say you're too smart to be a nurse."

There was a challenge in Maddox's voice that Charlie didn't quite know how to answer, so she just replied with the truth. "I wanted to do something to help, and if the boys I grew up with are going overseas then why shouldn't I?"

"So you do think you're too smart to be a nurse."

Charlie's cheeks lit up like a bonfire. "No, I didn't mean -"

"Lieutenant Lancaster," Maddox cut her off, closing the folder and holding it to her chest, "this is one of the hardest jobs a woman can be doing right now. Now, you're smart and you're rich, you come from a family with enough money to send you back to university to get a second degree if you wanted to, so I'm gonna tell you this right now to make sure we're clear: being a nurse isn't something you get to play at. Right now you might be putting on your lipstick and rolling up your hair, but once you get overseas you're gonna be up to your elbows in young men's guts and praying the next bomb that falls doesn't land right where you're standing. If you think you can't handle it, or that you're too good for it, I suggest you head back home right now."

Maddox's eyes glinted in challenge, but this was one Charlie knew how to rise to.

"Ma'am, if there was anything else I could be doing with my life, I'd be doing it. But there isn't. I have a good head on my shoulders, that much is true, but I also have a beating heart between them, and that heart keeps me alive everyday to make sure I can do the same for someone else. I can't begin to imagine what it's like overseas, or how I'll react to it, but I can tell you that if there is one thing in the world I know I'm going to do with my life it's save as many of the young men fighting this war as I can." She let out a sigh, searching Maddox's impassive face for any sign she was convincing her. But her words couldn't have been any more sincere, so what Maddox did with them was up to her. "If you'd let me do it in your unit, under your command, I'd be very proud," she finished.

There was a long moment of silence wherein the two nurses simply eyed each other, one in determination and hope, the other in challenge and something Charlie couldn't even begin to identify.

"The ward isn't opening to patients until day four, when all four of you will be working. That's when inoculations start. In the days leading up to then, I'll be assessing each of you individually to measure your experience and expertise against each other so I'll know what to do with you when we get overseas. Lucky for you, you get yours out of the way first."

Charlie spent the rest of her first shift working to prove to Lieutenant Maddox that she was capable of everything required of her, all the while secretly wondering what she'd meant by knowing 'what to do with' them once they got overseas. She was conscious of everything she did and whether she might be deemed the best at it, and whether that would mean she'd be stuck doing it for the rest of the war.