Hello everyone and welcome back to another chapter! Thank you so much for your reading and reviewing of my story, I really appreciate it. It brightens my days, something I can really use right now... I won't bore you with details, but my brother has been terribly unwell these past few weeks. He's getting better now, but it's still quite stressful.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter. It delves a little more into the emotions and dynamics between the women, so I hope you like it :)
Out of the 24 women in 2nd Battalion, 19 had a sweetheart back home. Out of those, 11 were married or in a serious relationship. After going steady for 4 years, Theresa Nolan had gotten engaged to her high school sweetheart Thomas Brady right before basic training. She kept a picture of him in a locket that she wore around her neck and she religiously wrote to him every Saturday evening.
So each time they got mail, she always eagerly anticipated Vest calling "Nolan, Theresa!"
A week before Thanksgiving, mail call was in the evening. Usually, it was sometime during the day, but apparently HQ had been just as busy as the rest of the companies in their regiment.
When her name was called, Theresa replied: "Here!" and took the letter she was handed. She smiled happily as she sliced open the envelope and fished out the neatly folded piece of paper. Her eyes raced across the words as if she couldn't bear to read it slowly.
After only a few lines, her smile began to fade, a look of shock and disbelief taking over.
.
"What's going on?", Irene asked when she looked up from her own letter and saw her friend's distress.
"Tommy", Theresa said slowly, eyes still fixed on her fiancé's familiar handwriting. "He, um…he"- her voice broke and she swallowed thickly, staring at the letter with a stricken expression on her face.
Kathleen leaned over and skimmed the letter, an arm wrapped around Theresa's shoulders. "Oh", she made softly. "Oh, Theresa, I am so sorry."
Catherine stood up and came over from where she had been seated at a table behind them. She could see that Theresa was fighting hard not to burst into tears in the middle of the mess hall and judging by the expressions of those around her, she could guess the contents of the other woman's letter.
"Hey Reese", she said, smiling warmly. "How about we go somewhere quiet, hm?"
Theresa nodded, sniffling and tucking the letter into her pocket.
.
Many pairs of eyes followed them as Catherine guided the distraught Nebraskan out of the mess hall, one arm around her back.
Perconte blurted: "What's with her?"
He received a disapproving look from Lipton and an eyeroll from John Martin, who was known to have one of the best scowls in the company.
"She got a Dear John letter", Frances said, pointedly focusing on her meal.
"Oh."
If anybody later on noticed Theresa's red and swollen eyes or the salt stains on the shoulder of Catherine's uniform blouse, they were polite and considerate enough not to mention them.
After losing their weekend pass one too many times because of an infraction related to their hair – it was too long, it wasn't pulled back properly, a single hair was out of place… - the women had enough.
"That's it!", Irene declared angrily, rummaging through her footlocker. "I've had it with him!"
"Me too!", Helen exclaimed, digging around in her duffel. "I haven't had a weekend pass in weeks!"
"None of us have", Jessica complained before huffing in annoyance: "Ugh! Does anybody have any spare scissors?"
Maxine soothed: "We only need a couple. If you can't find them, it's not that bad."
.
Kathleen gathered the scissors they had already set out on her bunk, which was the most convenient one since it was in the middle of the room. "We got 5 pairs, that's more than enough."
"Who knows how to do this?", Catherine asked, gaze travelling over them.
A few hands went up.
"Alright", Ana María said, rubbing her hands together. "Let's get going."
The looks they got the next morning were priceless, the cheers and applauding whistles a definite plus. Their hairstyles ranged from short to mid-neck length and even though some of them had had a hard time coming to terms with their new haircut, their CO's dumbfounded expression was absolutely worth it.
On barracks inspections, Sobel liked to search for contraband and never bothered being respectful of anybody's property. Footlockers were emptied onto bunks, clothes tossed carelessly on the floor, personal items strewn all across the billet.
For the women, those raids were particularly uncomfortable just purely from knowing that Sobel was rummaging through their things, leaving undergarments and other feminine products lying around for the rest of the officers and basically everyone else to see. The only comfort was the knowledge that the other officers were all decent people.
.
"For crying out loud, does he have to make such a mess?", Elizabeth sighed, folding some panties.
Jessica snorted and replied: "Sure, how else would we know who's in charge?"
"He's insufferable", Kathleen said, "nothing but a bully."
Catherine shot them a warning look as she helped Irene gather up the contents of her small cosmetics pouch. "Don't let anyone hear you talk about the CO like that", she warned.
"Yeah", Louise agreed, her voice sounding muffled since she was fishing around under her bunk for her pen, "he's an ass, but he's our superior."
.
Ana María scoffed and shoved a stack of clothes into her footlocker. "You can talk, he didn't leave your panties and bras all over the place."
The British sniper crawled back out from under her bunk. "No", she retorted with a grunt, "but he upended my footlocker."
"He wrinkled and dog-eared my book", Kathleen complained.
"Do you really want to start fighting over whose things are the biggest mess?", Mia asked, looking between them in consternation.
Theresa glanced at her, nodding her silent agreement. Sure, it was annoying, but what good did bitching about the mess?
"And she speaks", Jessica cracked dryly, making Helen and Elizabeth snicker.
Frances opened her mouth to jump to her friend's defence, but she was beaten to it by Catherine, who said sharply: "Hey, enough. Let's clean up and go to dinner. We're just wasting time." Her tone and expression brooked no argument.
Not too eager to subject her fellow medic to more jokes and jibes, Catherine decidedly nudged Mia into a seat next to Joe Toye before sitting down next to her, opposite Gene.
"You didn't have to, you know", the younger woman said quietly, twirling her fork. "They were just angry."
"Who?", George, who was sitting across from Catherine, asked curiously. "What happened?" Over the past few weeks, he had come to see Mia as his friend and so he was naturally feeling a bit protective, especially since he'd recognised that she was rather sensitive to spiteful comments.
"It's not important", Mia waved off quickly, offering him a brief smile.
Catherine briskly shook her head. "We were all annoyed", she countered, cutting off a piece of the day's mystery meat. "Doesn't mean we all get a free pass to mock you."
.
Toye frowned and turned his head to look at the young woman, who dropped her gaze to her plate. He had quickly decided that so far, out of all the women in the company, he liked the two medics best. They were calm, approachable and kind to everyone.
"Why'd they mock you?", Gene spoke up, his soft Cajun drawl not completely hiding his distaste. Early on, the medics had bonded and their friendship had evolved quickly, helped by the fact that they sometimes trained separate to the rest of the company.
Mia sighed. "Our barrack was inspected" – she interrupted herself and asked: "Weren't you inspected, too?"
Upon receiving negative answers, she explained. "Well, the others were complaining and started arguing about out of whose stuff Sobel had made the biggest mess. And I asked them if they were going to fight about that."
"And somebody felt the need to tease her", Catherine continued, a frown pursing her lips, "and say: 'And she speaks'."
.
Luz rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Eh, who cares?", he said, making a dismissive gesture with his hand. "Isn't there a saying about silence being gold and talking being silver and shit?"
They chuckled, Mia smiling softly, a blush rising in her cheeks.
"There's enough bigmouths around", Toye spoke up in his gravelly voice. "'s nice to have some quiet fellas, too."
"Exactly." George nodded enthusiastically and pointed at the quieter people at their table with his knife. "And I know for a fact that you are all great listeners." The big, cheesy grin he gave them made them laugh, but it didn't detract from the sincerity and truth of his statement.