The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

33: So Little Fanfare

Mabs knocked on her door a few hours later. Pulling the door open before Charlie even had time to respond, Mabs came in and sat on the edge of the bed.

"Tired?" she asked, looking like she'd just woken up herself. There were dark, heavy bags under her eyes and her hair was a mess, gold strands knotted together and voluminous on her head. She wore the underclothes they tended to wear under their fatigues - a white t-shirt and tight-fitting black shorts - and those looked rumpled, too.

Charlie smiled tiredly as she nodded, pushing herself up to sitting in her bed.

"Boo wants to go out," she said, her words punctuated by a yawn. "Autumn's goin' with 'er. I was wonderin' whether you were still gonna go."

Charlie shrugged and rubbed her eyes, trying to rid herself of her lethargy. "I think I'll go," she said at length. Trying to read hadn't been as successful as she'd hoped earlier and she supposed it would be good to socialise; she hadn't properly seen or spoken to any of the men since sometime just after the Battle of Bloody Gulch (which, incidentally, she thought was a fitting name for the battle which had taken place in the hedgerows in wherever they'd been in Normandy. Some of those casualties had been the worst of any she'd seen).

"You will?" Mabs asked, clearly surprised.

Charlie wasn't fazed by her surprise, having expected as much. Before they'd gone over to France she hadn't ever been the most willing to go out to the pub. Then again, before they'd gone over to France she hadn't really realised how much of a miracle it was to be able to do such things. To drink out of cups, to sit on real chairs, to laugh and joke and talk as loudly as you wanted to: all of those things had been a granted back then, something she'd never even thought twice about. Now, they were nothing short of miraculous. She could hardly believe she'd ever been able to do them, after having not been able to for so long.

So Charlie just nodded her confirmation at Mabs and with that they set about getting ready. Little more than an hour later they were making their way down the cobbled streets of Aldbourne, clad in their summer dress uniforms and wonderstruck by the simultaneous familiarity and strangeness of it all.

Charlie had never felt so out of place in a skirt and a beret. She didn't miss her fatigues and helmet so much as felt bare without them. She felt that any minute guns could start firing and she'd have to drop and plaster herself to the ground, and crawl through thick mud to get to the field hospital. Having a small, delicate little beret nestled in amongst her dark curls instead of a big, bulky helmet covering the majority of her head made her feel exposed and vulnerable.

Being back in England would certainly take some getting used to.

The pub was lively when they pushed through the doors. Servicemen and -women were scattered everywhere in amongst civilians, chatting happily as though the war was over and they were only still wearing their uniforms for fun.

Autumn, at the front of their little group, clasped Boo's hand, who clasped Mabs', who clasped Charlie's, and they pushed through the dense crowd in a line, making sure no one could intercept them and draw them apart.

At the bar, Autumn ordered for them, and paid the bartender without a second glance at the nurses on either side of her. Four beers were pushed in front of them and they lifted them as one.

"To being back in England," Autumn declared, raising her glass before she sipped from it.

"To being back in England," they chorused back to her, before clinking their pint glasses together and taking big gulping sips.

Before they all inevitably got separated and Mabs found herself surrounded by eager-to-please men, Charlie turned to her with a half-smile. "It feels weird being back here, doesn't it?"