She never knew her legs could carry her as far as they had. They had been walking for at least 15 hours, barely stopping for a few ten minute breaks. They knew time was precious, if Ryan was still alive of course. The group had been dead silent almost the whole time. No one had the energy to even mess with Upham. It took too much energy thinking as well, which is why they had focused on two main things: looking out for Germans, and keeping one foot in front of the other. They needed sleep, food, and water but no one dared to say anything to the Captain. Before she could process what happened, Upham, who was in front of her, fell to the ground causing Desi to trip over him and then Mellish to trip over her. It was almost comical. The whole company came to a halt to see what was going on. Wade ran over and helped her up along with Upham.
"You alright?" he asked him.
Upham nodded. Mellish stood back up and brushed the dirt off of his pants.
The Captain looked carefully at Charlie Company, studying each of their faces and seeing the exhaustion and pain in their eyes. He stood in deep thought for a moment before nodding his head decisively and motioning for them to keep going. She wondered who was going to collapse of exhaustion first. They had changed direction since the pile up, going quite a bit more to the left. About another hour passed before they approached a blackened and burned German bucket car. There were three bodies inside of it, barely recognizable as human by that point.
"Well, that's a good sign, right?" Reiben asked jokingly.
As the continued, they passed about twenty more German corpses on the ground. The smell was unbearable. The rest of Desi's strength was used trying not to gag. Tents appeared as the sun began to set and they realized where they were.
"Captain, why are we here?" Mellish asked with a demanding tone.
The Captain slowed to a halt next to a tent and began to remove his backpack.
"You all are tired. You've walked a long time. I think you deserve a little rest." He said.
"And you chose the town morgue?" Reiben replied.
"Would you rather we continued walking, Reiben?" Jackson shot back. The tension from their fight was still strong.
"Our men have already been through here; I'd say about five days ago." The Captain cut in. "At this point, the Germans aren't going to back track to one of their empty outposts. We've got our men in front of us and behind us here. If you want a full night of sleep and time to rest your legs, this is the only place you're going to find until we reach Ramelle."
They silently agreed that this was their best option. At least it would give them a chance to sit down. There were about fifteen tents in the area of various sizes with a fire pit in the middle. Curious as to what an enemy tent was filled with, Desi opened the flap. The stench of rotting flesh filled her nostrils again and she was greeted with the sight of a swollen corpse laying on the ground inside, still gripping its Mauser with decayed fingers. He was covered in thousands of flies. She turned away from the scene and couldn't stop herself from hunching over and vomiting. The only thing that came out was all that she had in her, bile and water. Wade ran over to her.
"Hey, are you okay?" he asked, placing his hand on her shoulder. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve and stood back up.
"Not really, but I'll get over it," she assured him. Mellish and Horvath walked over to the tent and peered in side.
"Holy fuck," Mellish said before turning away and gagging.
"Let's hope the other tents are a bit less occupied," Horvath said in response.
She didn't want to see or smell any more than she had to, so as the others checked out the remaining tents, she took a seat next to the Captain on some empty ammo boxes. He was watching them, but obviously deep in thought. She thought it best not to interrupt him.
"Do you ever wonder what these men would be doing if this thing had never happened?" the Captain asked, breaking their silence. She looked at him. He was still watching the men.
"Yeah, actually I think about it a lot," she answered.
"Well, what do you think Upham over there would be doing?" he asked nodding in Upham's direction.
"Upham. Well, he's very worrisome but book smart too. I could see him being a college student hoping to one day become a professor of some sort."
"Upham? A teacher?" the Captain asked with a doubtful tone.
"Yeah," she answered confused by his surprise, "what do you think he'd be?" Miller took a few seconds to answer.
"Now that I really think about it, I think you might be right. I'm not sure how long he'd last though. Those kids can be a lot to handle and Upham doesn't seem to handle stress too well. He's a bit…" the Captain stopped trying to think of the word.
"High strung?" she offered.
"Yeah," he answered and gave a little laugh. "You know, every single day I wonder if I'm making the right decisions. I wonder if saving one man is worth all of this. I wonder if taking you with us and putting your life in more danger was the right thing to do. It's one of the worst things, to have your choices affect the lives of others and I can't wait until this thing is over."
"Hey Captain, we got some food over here!" Jackson yelled out.
Captain Miller stood up and headed over to the farthest tent where all of the men now gathered. She was grateful for Jackson's interruption. She didn't know how to respond to the Captain. She couldn't understand the pressure he felt every day, nor the responsibility he felt for all of their lives. She watched the men pull out boxes from the tent. Jackson grabbed his rifle and slammed the butt of it on top of one of the boxes. The side split open and several cans rolled out. As much as she should've been hungry, she couldn't get the sight or smell of the swollen German body out of her mind. She took her helmet off and let her hair fall down to its natural state on her shoulders. It was tangled and knotted beyond fixing. She stared at the spot on her arm. No blood had seeped through the bandage and she felt a morsel of relief knowing that it was healing. She also suddenly felt a strong longing for home. Perhaps it was the resemblance of the wound to one her father had suffered from after an incident with some farming equipment several years ago. She wondered again that if she got back if her family would forgive her or even allow her to see them. As the feeling of hysteria threatened to set in she reminded herself why she was fighting in the first place. Her nephew would now have his father. But she realized there were a few other reasons why she found herself in the middle of France, surrounded by death and fear. She had gained hatred for the German soldiers and their oppressive leader who sanctioned genocide. She wanted to put an end to his ruling. She was actually fighting for the uniform she wore. She fought for the six men who had become her brothers and the one who had begun to steal her heart.