The Spirit of the Corps » Band of Brothers

69: Before You Sleep

With the field hospital gone, the only treatment the nurses could deliver was in foxholes before the wounded were taken off the line. It wasn't at all ideal, because it meant their capabilities were far reduced - really, they were acting as combat medics who weren't allowed to work until the enemy had stopped firing - but there was no alternative, so they did what they could.

Men were being wounded and pulled off of the line everyday. Their numbers were falling rapidly. The Germans seemed not to be running out of artillery or steam, because they continued to pour what must have been everything they had on them at any given moment. At any hour of the day or night the Americans could expect a barrage, and yet they kept having to go about their days as though this wasn't the case. Gone were the days of staying in foxholes unless it was absolutely necessary to go aboveground; now, the men lined up for food and ate it leaning against trees, visited each other's foxholes, and went for walks along the line. They simply couldn't live belowground anymore. It wasn't sustainable.

At least they had more supplies now, though even their fresh supply was dwindling as more and more men required medical attention. They still had to be frugal, but you couldn't be frugal with morphine or plasma or bandages in life or death situations. So day by day the supplies went down, and Charlie watched it all happen with an exterior of perfect calm. It had become too much effort to complain or frown or cry, just as much as it had become too much effort to smile or laugh. Her lips were so cracked and sore that moving them hurt, so she did as little of it as she could manage.

To add to the growing casualties from the barrages, an inevitable sickness started to creep in. Charlie had expected it, but those who had it were worse than she'd anticipated. Babe could be heard coughing through all hours of the night - great, heaving coughs which sounded like they were tearing his lungs apart - while most others couldn't breathe through their noses anymore or talk without rasping. Which wasn't even to mention the frostbite, or Joe Toye, who had trench foot, or some of the other men who had managed to contract venereal diseases, as if they needed anything else to go wrong with their bodies.

What a time it was to be a nurse.

Days blended together until Charlie had no idea how long they'd been out here in this frozen wasteland. It felt like months but could only have been days, a week at most.

"Can you believe it's Christmas Eve tomorrow?" Mabs whispered to Charlie before they tried to get some sleep one night.

Charlie really couldn't believe that. She'd forgotten all about Christmas. How she'd managed to forget about Christmas when surrounded by snow would have been a mystery if not for the hundreds of other things occupying her mind, but even still she found it difficult to believe she hadn't noticed they were drawing so close. Christmas Eve had been her favourite day of the year when she was younger. Now, the best she could hope for was that it would be just another day, no worse than the day before it but highly unlikely to be any better.

"I forgot all about Christmas," Charlie replied to Mabs, looking over at her through the darkness. "I wonder what our families are doing back home right now."

"Over at my house I'll bet my ma is showering Walter with thousands of presents, tryin' to make up for the rest of us who're still overseas."

"How is his leg doing?" Charlie asked after Walter, one of Mabs' older brothers who had had to have his foot amputated after being wounded in the Pacific.

Mabs gave Charlie a wry grin. "Well, the part of it that's still there is doin' fine, which I guess is all that matters." She shook her head. "Lucky bastard is better off back in the States, anyway. I got no idea what it's like over in the Pacific but if it's even half as fuckin' shitty as it is here then I can't imagine he's missing it much."