All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

23: Footlocker

Sobel destroyed all of this hope in one fell swoop. "They're right up there somewhere," he said, referring to one of the other platoons. Posey didn't turn to see where he was gesturing to and instead kept her eyes trained on the trees lest she should accidentally give away her disdain. "Lets just get 'em!"

"Sir," Winters replied evenly, his patience clearly dwindling, "we have perfect cover here."

"Lieutenant, deploy your troops," was all Sobel said in response to that.

Posey closed her eyes and let out a silent, resigned sigh. They were going to lose this, she just knew it.

"Second Platoon," Winters began in a pitched whisper not seconds after Sobel had begun to march away, "move out. Tactical column."

"Fuck's sake," Posey murmured under her breath. She shared a final look with Johnny before jumping down from the ledge she'd been perched on. She followed after the rest of her platoon and their idiot of a commanding officer with a sour look of her own plastered onto her face, mentally plotting Sobel's death in a million different ways and wondering which option would hurt the most.

Second Platoon was walking for twenty seconds at most before a camouflaged platoon of men rose up out of the shrubbery before them, guns pointed right at them and lips smirking behind their guns. That stopped Sobel in his tracks, and the rest of them behind him.

"Fuck," Skip whispered from beside Posey. She couldn't help but agree wholeheartedly.

One of the majors coordinating and spectating on the exercise seemed to appear out of thin air. He addressed Sobel in an unimpressed monotone, saying, "Captain, you've just been killed along with 95% of your company. Your outfit?"

Sobel didn't look at the man as he replied, only continued to stare at the men who'd 'killed' them. "Easy Company, Second Battalion, 506th."

Posey could only dream of the kind of exhilaration the men before them were feeling right now. They'd just been responsible for Sobel looking bad in front of his superiors, and nothing upset Sobel more than that. Better yet, there was absolutely nothing he could do about it, for they'd done exactly as they'd been told. For the first time in her life, Posey dreamed of being in First Platoon.

The major noted this information on his clipboard briskly. "Leave three wounded men on the ground and report back to the assembly area," he said, and turned to walk away directly.

Sobel paused a few moments before turning. "You, you, you," he said, pointing his sidearm at each individual he'd picked with each word. He didn't spare a single glance backwards as he led the way back to the assembly area. Posey was glad he didn't; he would've seen the full magnitude of her resentment if he had.

"I knew that prick would get us killed," Guarnere snarled to Toye beside him. The pair of them were trudging through the mud and leaves with heads bent together, likely scowling just as much as Posey herself was.

"Yeah, well, lets just be grateful this wasn't the real thing," Toye replied, ever a voice of reason.

"What happens when it is the real thing though?" Guarnere sniped back.

"Then you've just got to hope and pray he's with some other platoon," Posey commented.

Skip nodded as he hopped over a fallen branch. "Got that right."

"I hope the bastard gets demoted," Johnny put in from Posey's other side.

No one replied, but they all nodded.

Back at the assembly area, Second Platoon found Third. The latter looked elated at finally having some company.

"First get you out too?" Blithe asked in his soft Southern drawl, grinning.