The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

76: Be So Lucky

"Oh, fuck, Charlie," Mabs groaned as Charlie gave her morphine.

"Stop moving," Charlie demanded, stress making her short. "Let me see."

As the morphine started to work Mabs started to relax, her writhing easing and allowing Charlie to rip a hole in her ODs where the blood was staining them sodden.

"Checking for an exit wound," Charlie informed her, then lifted her up enough that she could check the back of her shoulder. Charlie hissed. "Bullet's still in there, Mabs, I've got to get it out."

"Yeah," Mabs said with a lazy sigh.

"Stay awake," Charlie demanded.

"Damn," Mabs mumbled.

Shots continued to ring out around her as she worked to remove the bullet from the hole it had made in Mabs' shoulder. In the shadow of the tank there was limited light and the sulfa only worked to slow the blood flow somewhat.

Cheers erupted and Charlie guessed someone had shot the sniper. Probably Shifty. He was the best shot in the company. But Charlie didn't look up. She kept on digging into the bullet wound, prying the bullet out bit by bit.

"Fuckin' God damn, Charlie," Mabs hissed.

"I know," Charlie attempted to console her. "It's almost out."

"Hurry up." Mabs groaned.

Charlie rolled her eyes and kept at it.

When she finally managed to get the bullet out she held it up for Mabs to see.

Mabs held out a hand for it and looked down at it with a wry grin when Charlie handed it over. "The first bullet I ever got hit with," she said with an almost dreamy sigh.

"And the last," Charlie pointed out.

Mabs breathed a laugh. "Yeah, yeah."

"Come on, we need to get you with the other wounded so you can go to the aid station."

Mabs scoffed. "I ain't goin' to no aid station -"

Henry approached, then, with Autumn and Boo behind her. As soon as she'd taken in the scene Henry sighed. "How bad?"

"Bullet wound to the shoulder. No exit wound, so I had to dig it out."

Henry shook her head. "You'll be out for weeks, Mabs."

"I ain't goin' to no -" she began to repeat herself.

Henry cut her off. "You're going to the aid station whether you want to or not, and that's an order, Lieutenant. We can't afford for the wound to get infected and out here the chances of that are too high." She sighed once more. "We can do without you for a few weeks so long as we get you back when you've recovered. We couldn't withstand you getting taken off the line permanently with an amputated arm because you stayed away from the aid station too long."

Mabs huffed and leaned against the panzer with her good shoulder. "Fine."

Charlie went with Mabs to the aid station and stayed until Mabs fell asleep with her second dose of morphine. She didn't want to leave her. It was awful in here, nothing more than a green tent over-filled with bloodied bodies groaning and screaming in pain. But the nurses from Dog Company were working in here, now, since their field hospital had been hit back in the Bois Jacques, too, so at least she knew she was leaving Mabs in good hands. Otherwise she was sure she never would have left her at all.

"We'll take good care of her, Charlie, don't you worry," reassured Viv, one of Dog's nurses. "We'll have her back with you in no time."

Charlie nodded. "I'll come and visit when I can. Looks like you guys could use the help."

From the next bed over, Ellie, another of Dog's nurses, gave a small laugh. "Ain't that the case everywhere?"

"Yeah," Charlie agreed. "Great time to be a nurse."

"Ain't that the truth," Ellie agreed.

Eventually, Charlie was forced to leave the tent when more wounded from the battle at Foy started to pour in. She made the walk back feeling so much more alone than she ever had. She'd shared a foxhole with Mabs every time they'd seen combat, had always spoken to her first thing in the morning and last thing at night. In Aldbourne their rooms had been beside each other, in Normandy they'd slept on the floor side by side, in Holland they'd shared a tent, in Paris they'd shared a room, and in Belgium they'd shared the same hellish hole in the ground. How was she supposed to get by without Mabs?

Skip and Alex were gone, so were Bill and Joe, so were Frank and Hoobs and James. What was she supposed to do with Mabs gone, now, too? She had Boo and Autumn, sure, but it wasn't the same; they'd always had each other, and Charlie had always had Mabs.

But now?

Really, she only had Floyd.

And Don. Who she hadn't spoken to since she'd found out about Skip and Alex. She hadn't been able to bear looking at him, much less talking to him. She'd always spoken to him with Skip and Alex around, always known him as one third of a trio. Speaking to him alone... well, she'd just been certain it would tear her up inside even worse. It would surely only remind her even more of how much she missed Skip and Alex, of how permanent their absence was.

But he'd lost them, too. And he'd lost Lieutenant Compton. And he'd also lost Bill and Joe and the others. It wasn't fair to shut him out just because he reminded her of all she'd lost. And now she felt she was starting to miss him, too. In a different way to how she missed Skip and Alex, in a way that ached less, since she knew he was still around, and she couldn't help but wonder now just what she'd been thinking with all of this; she'd lost Skip and Alex and mourned how much time she'd lost with them, the things she'd still wanted to ask and say, and Don was still here and she was avoiding him on purpose?

So stupid. So very, very stupid.

She couldn't take things like the survival of her friends for granted anymore.

Charlie found Don sitting on an old doorstep back in Foy, watching a group of the men smoking and laughing together. She sat beside him in silence.

"So, Lieutenant Speirs is taking over Easy now?" she asked quietly, the first thing she could think to say.

"Looks like it," he replied.

"That's good."

"Yeah." He shook his head numbly. "He's already doing better than Dike."

Charlie followed Don's gaze to where Speirs was speaking with Captains Winters and Nixon. Even that was more than she'd seen Dike do for the duration of their time in Belgium.

"Mabs was shot," she said next. She looked down at her lap. "In the shoulder. She's been taken off the line."

"No shit?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry to hear that."

"Thanks," she said, though she hadn't told him for sympathy.

"I think we're moving out soon," Don said after a while of silence.

Charlie glanced up from her chapped, blood stained hands. "To Mourmelon?"

"Don't think so." Don laughed once, bitterly, and glanced at her sidelong. "We should be so lucky, right?"

"Yeah." Charlie sighed. "We should be so lucky," she agreed.