The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

15: Don't Go Saying Yes

The days passed leisurely in Aldbourne. Whether she was on shift or off, Charlie found life as a military nurse awaiting deployment really quite pleasant. When she was working she would often be working with her friends, and since there wasn't an awful lot to do besides continue training under Lieutenant Maddox and organise and reorganise cupboards of supplies, such days turned out to be fun instead of laborious. When she was off of work she'd spend her days reading in the sunshine - when the sun decided to make an appearance, that was, for even though summer was approaching the British weather couldn't seem to decide whether it wanted to acknowledge that fact or not.

Today was one of the sunnier days they'd experienced thus far in England. Charlie was sitting in the backyard of their house, enjoying the Wednesday afternoon sunshine on the one day a week when she was off work by herself. There was another H.G. Wells book in her hands - this time The Time Machine - which she was so far enjoying even more than she had The War of the Worlds. Her legs were extended before her, cushioned by half-soft, half-itchy grass, and her back was resting against the brick wall of the house. A pale pink sundress she'd picked up at a local store spread like a puddle around her.

She was turning to the next page of her book when her three housemates raced out of the house and into the yard, launching themselves into the serenity and thoroughly destroying it.

"Charlie!" Violet exclaimed, throwing herself into the grass before her. "You'll never guess what!"

Charlie believed this to be true, for she was sure she'd never known Violet to be so boisterous - or, indeed, so loud.

"What?" she asked. She turned her book upside down to keep her page and set it down in her lap, pushing herself up higher where she sat against the wall.

Violet turned to Mabel and Autumn, who had followed her out, and practically shook with excitement.

Charlie couldn't help but smile. "What is it?" she asked again.

There was a short pause in which Violet, Mabel, and Autumn seemed to silently decide among them who would break the news, and eventually it was Violet, in all of her enthusiasm, who won out.

"There's gonna be a dance!"

"A dance?" Charlie asked.

"A dance!" Violet confirmed.

"A dance," Mabel added, smirking.

"Is there an echo out here?" Autumn asked.

Charlie laughed but didn't turn away from Violet. "When is it?"

"Next Saturday!"

Charlie sighed, her mood entirely deflated by that revelation. "I'm working next Saturday," she confessed. Looking back down to the book still facedown in her lap, she ran her fingers over the lettering on the cover in an attempt to hide her disappointment.

Mabel laughed as she looked down on her youngest friend. "Charlie, darlin'," she said, coming to crouch before her, "you've got special permission to finish work early that day to get ready, and all of us are off the day after. For whatever reason, Lieutenant Maddox is goin', too, so out of the goodness in her heart she's decided to let us all go."

"Lieutenant Maddox is going?" This really was a big surprise. Whilst it was true that some part of the image Charlie had of Lieutenant Maddox in her head had changed after finding out she'd once dated Don Malarkey, it hadn't yet changed enough to be able to imagine her at a dance. Dancing. With boys.

Try as she might, Charlie couldn't muster that mental image for the life of her, and she was currently reading a book about a man who travelled to a future where human beings as they currently knew them no longer existed.