A Waste

That night Flo had no idea who put her to bed, but she woke up to a hot cup of tea by her bedside and a note telling her to come to the med hut.

Sighing she crawled out of the comfy bed and put her boots, helmet, and satchel around her as she took a sip in the tea and kept it in her hands as she walked over to the hut, not making eye contact with anyone as she walked.

Entering she found Gene with a list in his hands, turning around he gave a small smile "Etoile, sit here, I'm gonna give you a shot of penicillin" Flo didn't even have the heart to argue.

After he had given her the shot, he gave her a tight hug "If you need me, I'm here" she nodded and whispered "thanks".

As she walked out, she knew she had to check on Vest....he wasn't used to battle, actaully this wasn't a battle. This was a waste of a life. She spotted him walking into a side building with his post bag, the normality of the sight made Flo smile, hopefully this meant Vest had, had his fill of war and was content to stay within HQ.

Walking into the building she found him sorting through his post, he looked up to see the medic and he smiled "Fizz, you're alright" he said coming around to give her a hug.

"Me alright? That's what I came to ask you" she giggled, "I'm fine Fizz, honestly, I'm glad I had the experience so I can say to the folks at home I did something important"

"Love, you are important, you keep everyone's morale up, you give them what they need.... Sometimes illegally but that's besides the point. Everyone in this army contributes to the war, okay. You've been in this with us since Toccoa, you've been in D-day, you were at carentan, you were at Bastogne, more than the replacements you are part of our team" she said with a firm voice and look upon her face.

Vest was about to reply when Lt Jones ran into the building "Private Hilton! You're needed to help transfer the prisoners" he said and rushed out without another word, Flo sighed and put her helmet on and said goodbye to Vest.

She saw the group walking towards the pick up point, she ran over and heard Webster talking to them in German, telling them to not cause any trouble, "Er hat recht, versuche nicht, helden zu sein" (he's right, don't try and be hero's) she called out over the group, as they made their way past Winters and Speirs, no doubt discussing the patrol last night.

The men were put into a van and driven away to God knows where for questioning, while Flo hung about Martin was telling Winters how Jackson died, Winters as normal was calm and supported his men by saying it wasn't Martins fault. With that they got dismissed and Flo walked to the bunks where Lieb made room on his so she could climb up and share his warmth for a minute.

"How you coping Fizz?" he asked quietly, as she sighed and whispered "I've put Jackson in a little treasure chest in my head.....its locked up safe and tight with all my other boys who have been lost on this bloody farce... Once this war is over, I'll grieve them properly" and that was all she said of the matter.

Things were calm until Web and Jones arrived, and Perco announced they want another petrol, "Who do you think they're going to make go with them as the medic?" Malark started staring numbly ahead of him.

Flo just looked at the back of his head, as Lieb cuddled her a bit closer. To be fair to Flo she had been feeling better if that was somehow possible, she hadn't been thinking about how crap she felt, but now she was settled, she wanted to curl up and not leave the bed for at least a week.

***

Being gently shaken awake by Malarky, she groaned but got up and made sure she had her medic satchel and her helmet on before following him down to briefing.

As she sat down, she started to clasp and unclasp her satchel, which the men had noticed she only did when she was stressed or nervous, so hardly ever according to them. They didn't stop her though they all felt the same way.

The peace was disturbed by Cobb being a dickhead again,

"What ya staring at Webster!?" he called from across the room. Web just shifted his gaze to somewhere else int he room, not dignifying the drunkard with an answer, Cobb thought he was a big man though and couldn't leave it

"Yeah, that's what I thought, college boy" he sniggered as Lt Jones decided to jump in "are you drunk, trooper?", well 'no shit sherlock' Flo thought rolling her eyes and trying to go unnoticed in this little drama.

"Leave me alone", "answer the question", "Yes, sir, I am drunk, sir" he slurred doing a mock salute.

He then proceeded to tell everyone why he was upset, unlike everybody else who had done nothing since they arriveed in this god forsaken town, Flo could feel her temperature start to rise again, as her temper started to simmer beneath the surface.

"Sick and tired of fucking patrols, taking orders..." he was moaning until Johnny told him to put a sock in it,

"Hey, Cobb, shut up. It's boring, okay?", "Taking his side, Johnny?",

"Yeah...I am" Flo leaned her head back and closed her eyes still feeling the tension rise within the room, normally she would have tried to stop it but now.... Now she didn't have the will as the conversation kept getting more heated. Just as Martin was about to punch cobbs teeth out, Web came in "Sarge theyre on their way in", "Ten hut" Martin said with authority giving a look to Cobb that would make Flos skin crawl, as Grant helped haul her to her feet while she gave him a grateful look.

Winter greeted them and let them relax before he started "You men.. And woman" making Flo smile softly "Did an excellent job last night, I'm uh, I'm proud. I'm proud, I just saw Col. Sink, he's proud too" Flo rolled her eyes, making lieb chuckle from opposite her while Winters gave her a look to stop it "In fact he's so proud he wants you to do another patrol tonight" although they knew it, it made them all sigh heavily "Any moment now the outpost we hit last night will go up in flames, Martin?" Winters asked for confirmation which Martin gave and Winters continued "It means we'd have to venture farther into town this time, Captain Speirs you have the map, please?" he asked, Speirs nodded and handed the map to Grant who spread it on the table while Flo studied it assessing how far they would have to go in, it didn't look good.

Winters continued,"we have enemy movement... Here and here, which means this is our new house target here. We recovered all the boats, so we'll be setting off from the same place as we did last night".

'Whoop de doo' Flo internally cheered rolling her eyes as Winters noticed the exhaustion and basically pissed off looks in the eyes of his team, internally he made a snap desicion, knowing they needed this to get them through to the end.

Martin being the good soldier he is was concerned about the plan "We're not changing it at all sir?" he said bemused at the thought Winters would risk their lives cause he was what... Being lazy all of a sudden.

"No the plan is the same" he said looking slightly too relaxed Flo noticed, 'Has he finally lost the plot?' she thought to herself, tuning in to his next words, "It'll be 0200 hours instead of 0100, is that clear?"

"Yes sir" they all preached back glumly, as Winters continued with his speech "Good, because, uh..... I want you all to get a good nights sleep tonight", Flo had to repeat the words in her head and almost had a coronary while grabbing onto Mclungs arm "which means in the morning you will report to me that you made it across the river into German lines but we're unable to secure any live prisoners. Understand?" he finished as this time they all chirped back "Yes sir" confused but happy, as for Flo she was smiling so brightly she could have lit the room as before Winters could leave she felt the need to say "Sir did I ever tell you you're my favourite officer/captain/CO/head of battalion, whatever you are now" she smiled as the men laughed and Winters gave a small smile before continuing, not letting Flo phase him, he was pretty used to it by now "Good, look sharp for tomorrow we're moving off the line" he moved off after declaring this as Florence let out a squeak of joy before grabbing mclung and jump dancing around with him while singing "We're moving off the line, we're moving off the line" and just repeating that for a while dancing with each of her boys even Jones and Cobb.... They were all in disbelief but very very happy.

The next day, after getting her shot of penicillin from Gene, Flo was feeling more herself, especially after the 10 hour sleep she had gotten courtesy of Perconte and Lux sitting on her legs till she went to sleep.

As she was carrying a box of med supplies trying to stop her helmet from falling off her head, Shifty came running up to her, "Fizz have you heard Lip and Lt Jones have been promoted? Jones is going to be a dogsbody in command, but why didn't they promote you, you're more worthy than him", Flo shrugged "I mean... I'm not really bothered to be honest Shift, it was never my intention to rise through the ranks, just to come out in one piece" she joked as she had humour in her voice while Malarky pulled her up onto the truck.

Shifty still looked peeved but after getting a reassuring not that she wasn't annoyed he calmed down and got on the truck with her help "Lads me muscles are gonna be 3 times as large with all this heavy lifting I'm doing" she joked as Shift looked mildly offended "You saying I'm fat?", she chuckled and closed her eyes as Babe helped Webster onto the truck, "Not at all my love" she sighed as the truck started and they got out of that godforsaken town.