The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

30: More and More Familiar

When the order came to move out, the nurses had to remain behind. As the soldiers of Second Battalion pushed further into France, the risk of German retaliation was too high to have a field hospital following right behind them. Their orders were to remain in Carentan even as the next lot of occupying soldiers moved in until word came through the radio that it was safe to set up the field hospital wherever they men had dug in for the night.

It didn't take long to pack everything up and load it into the trucks they'd be leaving in. As Charlie sat with Mabs waiting for the order to leave, she couldn't say she was sorry to leave Carentan behind. She was sure that it had been a very pretty place once upon a time, but now its destruction was a permanent reminder of the faces she'd patched up and sent away to the evac hospital. Ghosts haunted her around every ruined street corner.

It was early evening by now, and the men had set off during the early morning. Charlie could only hope the lack of an update over the radio just meant they were walking somewhere far and not that they'd run into trouble. She didn't want to arrive into yet more chaos.

As the darkness of night pushed all colour out of the sky, Charlie watched idly from the open back of a truck as the new battalion of soldiers milled about, getting acquainted with the town. Every now and again some of them would throw out a comment or two to her and Mabs, and some came over for a short conversation, but no one was much in the mood to flirt. They had their own nurses, in any case, who were all setting up their own field hospital in the grocery store Charlie's group had vacated.

While Mabs smoked beside her, Charlie swung her legs off the back of the truck, her eyes on the sky. Stars were beginning to appear, distant eyes blinking down on them and wondering what a couple of American girls were doing in the middle of a war in France. For her part, Charlie wasn't sure she knew the answer to that anymore. But then again, sitting surrounded by the stench of death and gunpowder, every visible bit of her skin and hair caked in dirt and mud, she'd never felt less like she belonged in the home she'd come from. Her ODs were rolled up at the elbows in an attempt to limit the itching and chafing the now-hardened fabric wrought against her skin and her helmet was sitting beside her to dry some of the sweat out of her hair. She was no more the polished girl who'd lived her life in high society.

"Alright," began Lieutenant Maddox as she emerged from their old field hospital, now someone else's. "Load up, it's time to go."

Everything had already been piled onto the trucks, so all they had to do was get onto the troop transport vehicles themselves. Charlie sat with the rest of Easy's nurses and half of Dog's, while the other half of Dog Company sat with Fox's in the other transport. All of their equipment was packed into a medical truck which went ahead of them.

"Where are we heading?" Autumn asked Maddox as the trucks pulled out of the town.

Charlie reclined low in her seat, letting her head rest against the backrest so that she was staring up into the sky. She propped her feet up on the bench between Boo and Autumn opposite her. Neither of them minded.

"Deep into the countryside, a couple hours' drive from here."

Charlie's eyebrows hopped up at this. A couple hours' drive was a lot of walking. The men must have been at it all day, trekking across France with all their heavy equipment tied to them like mules in the imposing heat. She felt sorry for them, but she certainly didn't envy them.

"Did they meet any resistance?" Boo asked quietly.

Maddox made a sound that was neither here nor there, which didn't tend to bode well. "A little. Nothing too severe. Some bullet wounds but nothing that the medics couldn't handle."

Charlie nodded along with the explanation. At least they wouldn't be wandering into another bloodbath.

She tried her best to sleep as the truck made its way steadily through the French countryside. The breeze on her face was calming and the feeling of it in her hair was wonderful. While Carentan had been mostly safe whilst Easy and the other companies had been there, everyone was still advised to wear their helmets at all times. In her first few days there Charlie hadn't bothered to heed that warning, but when the parting of her hair got sunburnt she finally decided to take notice. It was nice to have the helmet off again now that the sun had gone to bed, and to let the gentle breeze blow the strands of her tangled hair back from her face. There came respite to the unbearable humidity at night. Total darkness was now Charlie's favourite time of the day.