Evelyn's Tale

-Sixteen-

1st August, 1944

Head Lice. There seemed to be an epidemic. And the men weren't happy. Around a third of the company was infected. And the source of their misery? Little Lucy Jones. In the aid station turned hair salon, Evelyn, Gene and Spina were up to their eyeballs in lysine and dust combs.

"Ow Evelyn, do you have to be so fuckin' rough?" George was complaining like a baby as she combed through his hair, grimacing whenever she found one of the little bugs. "I'm gonna have no hair left if you keep yanking it like that."

"Oh for God's sake George, quit your whining," she sighed exasperatedly. "If you'd prefer, I'll just shave it all off?"

"Alright, alright," he muttered sulkily. "You know, I blame you for this."

"Me?"

"Yeah, you," he said. "And Bill. You could have kept your fucking infestations to yourselves."

"Aw but you see, Georgie, our mom always told us it was nice to share," she smirked, slapping his hand away as he reached up to scratch his itchy scalp. "And anyway, to be fair, we didn't even know Lucy had them until the other day, let alone that she had been generous enough to give them to us. I tell you, I ain't exactly jumping for joy about it either. You guys think you've got it bad? Be thankful you've all got short hair, because otherwise you really would have something to moan about. Gene, how long did it take you to go through my hair yesterday?"

"About two and a half hours," Gene answered, deep in concentration as he combed through Malarkey's hair.

"See? And you're complaining about sitting here for all of twenty minutes," Evelyn tutted.

"I still blame you," George mumbled to himself. And then yelped as Evelyn clouted him on the top of his head. "What the fuck?"

"Sorry," Evelyn apologised sweetly, trying her best not to smile. "That was a really big one."

Before George could say anything else, the door burst open and Joe Toye stomped in angrily, his eyes blazing.

"Nobody say a fucking word," he warned. "I swear to God Evelyn, you best get these fuckers out of my head before I lose my shit."

"I think you already have, Joe," George commented and Evelyn snorted.

Apparently Toye didn't find that comment very funny though, judging by the glowering expression on his face.

"Take a seat Joe," Evelyn said, pointing to the row of chairs lined up against the wall with various other men from the company sat on them waiting for their turn. "We'll get you sorted eventually."

"You best fucking had."

... ... ...

11th August, 1944

Almost two weeks later and the head lice fiasco thankfully seemed to have abated. It had taken hours and days of painstakingly thorough combing of everyone on the medics' behalf , but it appeared that the chain had at last been broken. Nobody was happier than Evelyn, seeing as Eugene had threatened to cut her hair if he had to spend hours combing through it again. And she didn't doubt his word.

It was Friday evening, and the company was gathered in the mess hall. They had just finished their dinner and were enjoying welcoming back a few friendly faces from the hospital; Smokey and Talbert being two of them. Walking into the barn turned mess hall, Evelyn was a little disappointed to see she had missed dinner. Of course, she had already eaten at the Jones' but the walk back to camp always built up her appetite. At least that's what she told herself. The truth was that she was always hungry. Always. In fact, she couldn't think of a time when she wasn't hungry.