The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

31: Just Like the Rest of Us

It was Autumn who replied. "An arm, if you're lucky." She shrugged. "Maybe a leg if you're not."

George whistled around the cigarette. "Damn. Rent prices around here are through the roof."

From beside him, Joe Toye rolled his eyes. "Shut up, Luz."

George snorted, unfazed. "Tough crowd."

A moment later, Bill Guarnere pushed into the tent as well. "Thought I heard we was gatherin' here," he said.

Mabs laughed. "From who?"

Everyone looked at George. Who else would it have been?

"Guilty," he said, and at least had the decency to look a little bit sheepish.

Bill took note of the other men standing around and scoffed when his eyes fell on Floyd. "Tab, ain't ya even gonna give the raincoat over to one of the ladies?"

As all of the men began to heckle Floyd all over again about the German raincoat, Floyd merely shook them off with a laugh. "They don't need it. They're sleeping in fancy beds in a tent, remember?"

Charlie rolled her eyes. "As a matter of fact, we sleep in foxholes just like you do."

"What?"

It wasn't only Floyd who looked shocked at this, but all of them.

Mabs huffed out a laugh. "What, you thought we got special treatment just 'cause we're female? We should be so damn lucky."

"Why are you sleeping in foxholes when you've got beds?" Toye asked in his low rumble of a voice.

Mabs stared back at him as though he was insane. "The beds ain't for us, honey. So we ain't allowed to sleep in 'em."

"You can't even sleep on the floor in here?" George asked around his cigarette.

"Not unless you're a surgeon," Charlie said with a shrug and a bitter smile. Her and Doctor Whitlock were still not on good terms, though she wasn't sure whether Whitlock himself knew as much.

"What a load of fuckin' bullshit," grumbled Bill. Toye nodded his agreement.

"What about Henry? Where's she sleep?" asked Malarkey. He meant Maddox, who Charlie was reasonably sure was at one of the other field hospitals conversing with either Dog or Fox's commanding officer.

"In a hole in the ground, just like the rest of us," said Autumn airily. For her part, she didn't seem to mind sleeping in foxholes, even in the rain. In fact, she seemed to rather enjoy it.

After a short pause, Floyd spoke up again all of a sudden. "Maybe you do need it, then," he said, and started to take off his raincoat.

Charlie laughed. "The rain's easing up now. You'd be better off keeping it."

As all of the other nurses agreed, he shrugged and tugged it back on. "Suit yourselves."

The group split up after that, some of the men having to head back to the line for patrol or to lead squads, others deciding they'd better join them instead of risk a reprimand from their platoon leader.

The field hospital was quiet in their absence, and Charlie found herself missing their presence. It was easier to ignore what was going on in the world outside when the men seemed so willing to joke around. Charlie supposed they'd been through their fair share of dire experiences together in training and just had a better idea of how to handle all of this. Heaven knew she herself didn't have the faintest of ideas.

Doctors Whitlock and Remington re-entered the field hospital from where they'd been away with Lieutenant Maddox and began to get themselves ready for bed - in two actual real life beds behind privacy curtains the nurses had had to set up for them in their absence. Charlie thought it was almost laughable that the army was going to such trouble to look after the contract surgeons when they weren't even military, but she had no say in the matter and thus pushed it aside as something else not to think about. The list of such things was becoming increasingly long but at least she wasn't complaining - aloud, at the very least.