All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

17: Bunks

"But -"

"Choose another one!"

No one in the entire company seemed to wield the same amount of power as an angry Johnny Martin. Posey couldn't have been more grateful to have him on her side, or more astonished.

"Thank you," she murmured to him as he flung his bag on the bunk on top of hers.

"Yeah, don't mention it," he muttered back, and climbed up to top bunk immediately.

"How long have we got till dinner?" she asked the barracks at large, hoping for an answer in the realm of 'an hour'.

"About forty-five minutes," Roe told her from the bunk beside hers.

"Lovely," she declared with a clap of her hands and a grin. "I'm gonna take a look around. Anyone coming?"

Much to her surprise, Roe nodded. "Yeah, I will." Noticing her raised eyebrows and slightly agape mouth, he gave a small laugh. "Probably a good idea to find out where the med bay is before trainin' starts," he explained with an air of bashfulness.

Posey nodded. "I see." She watched as he finished organising his stuff into his footlocker - something she might have been able to do had she not been engaged in conversation - and smiled when he finished. "Shall we go then?"

In response, Roe nodded and led the way out of the barracks.

For a while they simply followed the path, passing through an area set aside for the barracks of the various companies. Men from said other companies dwindled around across camp, scattered about like marbles on a child's bedroom floor, but none of them made any move to talk or call out to them, so they didn't do it either.

Posey took note of where the bathrooms for Easy were, and the shower block, which was conveniently located right beside them. It was a longer walk than it had been from the barracks at Toccoa to the showers but it could've been a lot worse. She had yet to take stock of how loud the door to the barracks was, however; she'd have to do that before night fell to give herself time to work out a possible way around it.

It was after they'd passed the shower block that Roe broke their comfortable silence. "Can I ask you somethin'?" he wondered. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his ODs despite how humid it was outside, perhaps only to give them something to do.

Posey grinned. "Depends," she said.

Roe laughed and then shook his head, suddenly becoming serious. "You're a girl," he said.

Posey's face must have given away her perplexment for when she moved to speak she had to close her mouth first. The only thing she could manage to choke out was, "That's not a question."

"But you are," Roe replied, watching her both curiously and carefully. "Right?" he tacked onto the end, an attempt to be polite, perhaps.

"I -" Posey began, and faltered. How the fuck had he worked it out?

Eventually, she mustered out, "What makes you think that?"

He laughed. "I don't talk much but I listen." He shrugged. "I watch."

"What do you mean?"

"Your accent," he began. He looked ahead of him again wearing a small, wry smile. "It drops sometimes. I'd guess you're British, too."

"Fuck," she whispered.

He chuckled and went on, "And the words you say. Like 'shall' or 'lovely' or so on." He shrugged almost shyly. "I guess it made me wonder. Then when I was really lookin' it all made sense."