All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

06: Mountains

Currahee. The mountain that overlooked the camp. It was towering, vast, and intimidating. Posey had never really been intimately acquainted with mountains. She felt her heart stop at the thought of running up one.

"Second Platoon, change into your PT gear," Winters reiterated, and with that they all ran back into the barracks, again.

The jog to the bottom of the path up the mountain consisted of Posey trying her best to even out her breathing and hide the dread blossoming on her face. She knew the first time would inevitably be the hardest but just how hard that would be, she trembled to find out. None of the others seemed to be half as worried, though, and if Bill Guarnere wasn't afraid then, as far as he was concerned, Posey was even less afraid than that.

Maybe beating Guarnere at everything would be better motivation for completing her training than getting home.

Sobel had them all stop at the foot of the mountain, where they came upon First Platoon and subsequently awaited Third. There was a clear divide between the platoons, just as there had been in the mess hall at dinner the previous day and breakfast that morning, both groups trying to size the other up.

"Second Platoon, nice of you to show up!" shouted one man from First, earning a round of hearty laughs from the men grouped around him.

"Why? You got somewhere better to be?" Guarnere called back. Posey bit back her laugh with all of her might.

As the platoons continued to throw remarks at each other she turned her eyes on her own platoon's officer, Lieutenant Winters, and that of First, a dark-haired man with thick eyebrows and a cheeky smirk whose ODs declared him as Nixon. They were standing close together, discussing something, though both of their eyes were set on the platoons before them. When Winters said something that made his friend laugh, Posey accidentally caught his eye and looked away immediately, feeling her cheeks flush at being caught trying to lipread. When she looked back over again, however, both men were looking elsewhere.

It took Third Platoon around fifteen minutes to show up to the bottom of Mount Currahee, during which Posey's dread about the entire affair only seemed to grow. The knot in her stomach tightened with each minute they were kept in suspense. She couldn't help her eyes from dragging themselves up the mountain as far as she could see from the bottom of the path. It was dusty, long, and above all, steep. Hopefully the view from the top would be worth it - if, that was, she ended up even making it that far; with the way it loomed over her the prospect seemed about three years' worth of training away, which was less than ideal because she didn't have that long.

"Third Platoon, at the back!" Sobel barked at the newcomers. The re-arrival of the company commanding officer meant that Third avoided the ribbing Second had been preparing for them.

"Mount Currahee," Sobel began, addressing them all as he marched up and down the left flank of them. "Three miles up, three miles down." Posey's heart was in her shoes. Three miles? "You will run, you will not walk. You will make it to the top, wherein you will tap the stone and head straight back down again. You will run in formation, four men to a row, separated into your platoons. You will be timed." With one last glowering look, Sobel turned and took off at a jog. "Easy Company on me!"

Posey ended up between Joe Liebgott and George Luz with Eugene Roe on the end of their row. They were a patchwork of personalities squashed together and, when they each realised who they were with, none of them seemed to really know how they'd ended up together. As they began their trek up Currahee, Posey set her eyes on the back of the man's head in front of her, Johnny Martin, and tried to keep rhythm with the men at her sides. She had no idea how good her stamina was and could only pray that she wouldn't end up washing out on her very first day.