The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

34: The Right to the Title

At last, Henry said, "I'm sorry about the triage."

At the word, at the memory of what the word had entailed, Charlie stiffened. Her mouth went dry, her throat began to ache, and her palms began to sweat. Faces covered in blood, torsos burnt black, hands grasping at her all swam in front of Charlie's eyes.

It was all she could do to reply, "I accept your apology." Not 'that's okay', and not 'I forgive you'. Neither of those things were true - not just yet, at least. But she could accept the apology. She understood that it had had to be done. Sometimes, she even felt grateful that Henry had chosen her for the responsibility, if only to save the others all of the ghosts she was now carrying around with her like an extension of herself. If she'd had to watch Autumn lose her steadiness, Boo lose her smile, Mabs lose her fire she thought that would almost be harder a burden to bear. Charlie wasn't sure what she'd lost on that day, through having to do that. Her innocence, maybe? Her naivety? She was bound to lose those things anyway. Yes, sometimes she thought it really was lucky that the responsibility had fallen to her. She could bear the burden. She could shoulder it herself.

Henry nodded back at her and it felt to the two of them like they'd reached an understanding. Both of them knew it had been essential, and both of them knew it had had to be her. Charlie wasn't sure of Henry's reasons for knowing that, just the same as Henry wasn't sure of Charlie's, but both of them knew it all the same. And they knew they would move past it. Such things simply had to be gotten over in wartime.

After the debriefing, Henry stood up abruptly. When she turned her back the other nurses looked between each other in confusion, wondering if they were being dismissed; there certainly didn't seem to be much else to do now that they'd experienced combat and properly understood everything that came with it. They'd continue to train, probably, to make sure they were sharp and ready for their next deployment, but what else was there to do?

But Henry returned to them after retrieving something from the desk on the other side of the ward. She held in her hands two pieces of paper and sat them in her lap as she took a seat on the bed opposite the nurses once more.

"A casualty list," she said, holding up one of the pieces of paper. "This is every man in the company, officers and enlisted, who won't be joining us when we re-deploy. They're all either killed in action, missing in action, severely wounded, or prisoners of war. At the bottom is a list of wounded who may or may not return in time to be redeployed." She passed the piece of paper to Mabs before holding up the next. "A list of the replacements who'll be joining us. They're on a troopship headed for England right now and should be with us in the next few days. We'll have to inoculate them before they go overseas like we did with the veterans."

The veterans. The word seemed strange. 'Veterans' was a word used to describe the men who had fought in the last war, not the likes of Floyd and Don and Skip and Alex. These men were much too young to be veterans. And yet, Charlie supposed they were. In the eyes of the new boys who would be coming to join them, the original men would seem like they knew everything, had seen and experienced everything they needed to to make them real, proper soldiers.

The thought was insane but true. And maybe they really weren't so young anymore for the word to seem so alien. Maybe they'd all been aged enough by what they'd seen and done to earn the right to the title.

When Henry handed the replacements list to Charlie, she voiced her first thought aloud. "This means new blood buddies."

Henry furrowed her eyebrows and then seemed to realise what she meant. "Yes," she agreed with a small, amused smile, "this means new blood donors. The list is being written up right now."

Another list. More names and platoons and blood types to remember. Charlie wondered just how many names would be buried in her head by the time this war was over, and whether or not they'd ever leave her.