The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

10: Good Looks and Easy Confidence

The boys passed by in a blur after that until finally, finally, Mabel appeared out of nowhere.

"Aw, damn," Mabel began the moment she saw the dwindling queue, "you started pokin' 'em without me?"

"Mabel!" Charlie exclaimed, almost dropping the needle she was preparing in her surprise. "Where's Lieutenant Maddox?"

Mabel laughed. "Who knows? She all but foamed at the mouth when she realised her little exam overran and the inoculations had already started. If she found out that you guys are almost done then she's probably passed out somewhere."

Charlie laughed and made quick work of finishing what she was doing. She injected the paratrooper currently sitting on the bed and wrapped his arm up before sending him off.

"Aw, Charlie," Mabel complained as he went, eyeing the remaining soldiers in line, "you already did all the good ones! I'd offer to help but I don't see much point."

Charlie rolled her eyes with good humour. "I would have so loved if you'd come in earlier. Sergeant Talbert is such a nuisance. I honestly don't know what you see in him." After she'd spoken she immediately recalled how her side of her bargain with the boy in question was to help him attract Mabel, not repel her, and rushed to add, "I'm sure he's a charmer with you, though."

Mabel grinned. "Oh, he's a real charmer. Handsome, too, don't ya think?"

Mabel was heedless of the boy currently being injected by Charlie and the fact he was overhearing everything they were saying, but Charlie couldn't have been more aware of the fact he was eavesdropping - if it could even be called that, since they were having the conversation right in front of him. Reluctant to give a reply in the affirmative or negative in case either answer be reported back to Sergeant Talbert (as much as she wasn't his biggest fan, she didn't want to hurt his feelings), Charlie shrugged one shoulder and hurried to finish wrapping up her patient.

"Aw, come on, Charlie, there's gotta be one of 'em you find attractive!"

Charlie wanted the ground to swallow her whole just then.

"See, this is what I've been saying," chimed in a new voice, a familiar voice.

Charlie stiffened. "Not you again."

"Hi, Freckles. Miss me?"

Charlie shot him an exasperated look as she gestured for her next patient to sit on the bed. "Like diarrhoea."

"Charming."

"You two," Mabel said, shaking her head fondly as she looked between them. "Like siblings!"

Charlie didn't know what it was like to have siblings, but if it was anything like this then she was glad she'd never had any.

"Which is your dominant arm?" she asked the soldier sitting down, effectively cutting herself out of the conversation. After he replied she set about completing the routine she must have done two hundred times already that day.

"So," Sergeant Talbert began, addressing Mabel in a noticeably different - and lower - voice to the one he used with Charlie, "are you guys going out tonight?"

"We might," Mabel answered as Charlie injected her patient. "I'm workin' tomorrow, so we also might not."

Charlie wasn't working tomorrow - in fact, tomorrow would be her first day off since arriving in Aldbourne - but she couldn't say she'd have minded skipping a night in the pub with the paratroopers in favour of staying in. The only ones of them she'd spoken to beyond asking them which their dominant arm was were Sergeant Talbert, Shifty, and Gene, and she wasn't having much success with any of them; her and Sergeant Talbert only occasionally got on, and that was when they were doing business, she was was increasingly awkward around Shifty, and she'd only met Gene once and made an utter idiot of herself. She'd probably vaccinate him at some point, sure, but she couldn't see that going much better than their first interaction. Yes, a night at home with a good book avoiding all of these unfamiliar boys seemed like a much better idea than the alternative, and Charlie could only pray that Mabel would agree with her.