Posey sat on the edge of Carentan, watching the sunset begin to paint the sky orange. Orange wasn't a colour she was fond of - it reminded her of fire, which reminded her of bombs, which reminded her of the Blitz - but this particular hue softened everything. As the dying light settled over the soldiers still reeling from battle, for many of them their very first, the orange served as a reminder that they were the lucky ones who had made it to sunset. There were many men lying back in the town who would have attested to that if they could, Posey was sure.
"Hey. Wells," Johnny called out, behind her all of a sudden. Posey glanced back and offered him a small smile, so he came to sit beside her. "You alright?"
Posey hummed her affirmative. "Yeah," she said, watching the sky again. "Just thinking, I suppose."
"Heard you got hurt," Johnny commented.
She could feel him watching her but didn't turn to look. "Not badly," she replied with a shrug. "Roe sorted me out. I'm staying on the line."
She was expecting an argument she didn't get. In her surprise, Posey turned to look at Johnny and found him watching the sky, too. After a beat, he said, "Let me know if you're struggling, alright? I know you can't go to a hospital but that don't mean you can get yourself killed 'cause you ain't lookin' after yourself."
Posey suppressed a smile and nodded. "Yeah, I will." She paused a while, taking in the sounds of early evening. The chatter of the men gathered nearby floated over to them on the breeze, and every now and again a burst of laughter would fill the air. Posey missed the sound of birds chirping; probably the birds had all been scared away by the battle, but she longed for their singing now. She wasn't quite sure why.
To cover the quiet that didn't feel complete, she asked, "Did you get hurt at all?"
Johnny laughed to himself. He drew out a pack of cigarettes and offered her one silently - which she declined, naturally - before taking one for himself and lighting it. "I'm fine," he replied once the cigarette was in his mouth and he'd taken a puff. "Why do you always refuse the smokes?"
Posey rolled her eyes and turned away from him but a smile tugged at her lips. It wasn't necessarily a happy smile, or at least she wasn't necessarily happy in the present; more, it was a smile of nostalgia, of a happiness she'd felt in the past. Quietly, she explained, "My mum always told me that the only time a lady is allowed to smoke is when she's widowed. And even then, only when she's sitting down. I'm not quite sure why the latter rule exists but I was raised a proper lady, and if my mother wishes me not to smoke unless I'm widowed, then I won't smoke unless I should ever find myself widowed. Also I don't think sitting on the floor counts."
"A proper lady, huh?" Johnny teased, chuckling under his breath. "A proper lady who disguised herself as a boy to join the paratroopers."
In spite of herself, Posey laughed. "Out of necessity. I didn't want to end up in a warzone, remember?" She shook her head. "Guarnere knows now, by the way. About me."
"You told him?"
"I didn't have much of a choice." She fiddled mindlessly at the patch on the arm of her ODs. "He was there when I told Roe I couldn't go to a hospital and he wanted to know why." She paused, awaiting a response that didn't come. Eventually, she added, "I think he'll keep the secret. You trust him, don't you?"
Johnny breathed out a laugh. "Yeah, I trust him. He's just -" His words faltered a moment before he pushed on. "He's a bit of a live wire right now. Just before we jumped he found out that his brother -"
Footsteps behind them cut the interaction short and Posey turned to find Guarnere approaching. She didn't think she'd ever interacted with him more than she had in the previous twelve hours and hoped this would be the last of it; he may have promised he'd keep her secret but that didn't change all that much about their mutual animosity. Not really, anyway. But she had to admit that she was curious about his brother.
"We're headin' east," Guarnere said once he was close enough to be heard. Posey breathed a sigh of relief when she realised he was addressing Johnny, NCO to NCO. "Goin' for higher ground to avoid a counterattack."
Johnny nodded. "Right."
Guarnere nodded back before turning to Posey. "Listen, you gonna be alright walkin' with that wound?"
Posey made a show of rolling her eyes and shot him a scowl. "Do. Not. Coddle. Me." Johnny laughed but Guarnere narrowed his eyes. "I'm not a child," she went on. "And I faired just fine in Carentan, woman and all. Just because you know now doesn't change anything about the fact that I've been capable all along."
Guarnere scoffed. "Fuckin' Christ, give me time to breathe. I'm just makin' sure you ain't gonna collapse on the trip over."
"I'm not."
"Good."
"Wonderful." She shot him a saccharine sweet smile. "Bye, now."
Guarnere huffed and walked away, likely in search of the other NCOs in Second Platoon to inform them of their new orders. Posey watched him leave for a few moments before turning back around and slumping back where she sat, leaning on her hands. To Johnny, she said, "I hate that he knows."
She watched Johnny shrug in her periphery. "They're all gonna find out eventually."
"No they aren't," Posey protested. "They can't. I'll be in so much trouble. Dear God, I will actually be in so much trouble." She'd known this before but only after seeing combat for herself could she truly understand the gravitas of her actions. She was trespassing in a warzone. She had gotten herself into occupied territory under false pretences, was being paid by the army to do a job she wasn't allowed to do, and, on top of all of this, she wasn't even American. The others could definitely not find out.
"I don't see how you'll be able to hide it forever."
"Imagine if Luz finds out!" Posey exclaimed, unable to keep the thought inside once it had hit her. "No one has a bigger mouth than that man!" She shook her head adamantly. "The war has to end before they all find out, or at least before Luz finds out. Either that or I die first."
"You ain't gonna die, Wells. I told ya that."
"I'm just saying," Posey said, brushing him aside.
The entirety of Second Battalion moved out of Carentan a small while later and, much like Guarnere had predicted, walking was a bigger problem than Posey had hoped it would be. The terrain was uneven, making rolled ankles and tripping a frequent occurrence, and even with evening falling upon them the humidity was still stifling. Posey could feel her bandages getting damp with sweat and her second round of morphine wearing off. She didn't know whether she'd be allowed a third.
Then it started to rain.
"Fuck's sake," she grumbled, not realising she'd said it aloud until Bull shot her a curious glance.
"You alright?"
She nodded through a tight smile. "Wet bandages," she explained, and left it at that. After all, the bandages were visible through the huge tear in her ODs. She shifted her rifle to her shoulder to free up her hands and pulled the mangled fabric of her ODs together in the hopes of protecting her wound a little bit more.
"Need me to call the doc?" Bull asked.
Posey shook her head. "It's not gonna stop raining anytime soon. Even if he changed the bandage now it'd still get wet."
"Get it changed as soon as it stops," he told her, offering a nod and a kind smile.
Posey nodded and smiled back before ducking her head. Maybe the rim of her helmet would help to keep her dry. It was worth a try.
She trudged on with her head bowed lower and lower over her chest, desperately trying to keep the rainwater off of her wound, before gunfire tore her attention away.
"Incoming!"
Posey fumbled with her rifle. Once she had it in her hands she struggled with finding a grip. Her hands were soaked, her rifle even more so.
"Contact right!"
She lifted her gun to aim and was yanked back by the neck of her ODs.
"Cover!" Bull shouted.
"Get in the hedgerow!" ordered Winters.
Bull let go of her and she scrambled after him, ducking her head again but keeping her rifle close. Bull jumped into the trenchlike hedgerow first and held out a hand to help her down. She grabbed it tightly and jumped, stumbling once her feet had hit the mud.
"Ow!" she exclaimed. She grasped at her side with wet hands before realising the mistake.
"Down, Wells!" Bull yelled. "Get down!"
She ducked immediately and fell to her knees, hugging her rifle to her chest. Her eyes were squeezed tight shut and her teeth gritted, listening to the sounds of chaos around her. Her wound burned and screamed at her, heat licking its way outwards from her side. She kept her head ducked and waited until silence fell once more.
"You alright?" Bull asked tentatively the moment the gunfire had ceased. He rested a hand on her shoulder and only then did Posey look up.
With the trees above them, far less rain was getting to her now. She nodded and chanced a glance down at her side, grimacing once she saw the sodden bandage with bright red bleeding through its white.
"Medic!" Bull shouted without needing to be asked.
Posey smiled her thanks to him and slumped back against the wall of grass and dirt behind her. She let her head tip back to feel the sparse rain on her skin, letting it cool her. Roe didn't take long in getting to her.
"How's that wound doin', Wells?" he asked upon arrival. Posey glanced down to find him crouched before her, already rifling through his med bag.
Posey smiled weakly. "Hurts," she replied. "But not too bad. Need a new bandage, though."
Roe smiled, half a grimace and half a grin. "I see that," he said, right as he pulled a bandage out.
Posey didn't watch as he tended to her. Instead, she rested her head back again and gazed up into the sky, watching as night continued to push in. The rain was easing now, a few drops falling on her only every once in a while. Roe tapped her knee to let her know he was finished.
"Keep that wound dry," he told her once she'd looked at him. His tone was serious. Posey nodded. "I'm serious, Wells. If it don't stay dry it'll get infected and that'll hurt twice as bad as it did when it first happened."
"I'll keep it dry, Roe. Promise," Posey assured him, closing her ODs back over the bandages again to prove her point. "Or I'll try my best, at least."
Roe nodded. "Good." He inclined his head cordially to Bull and then left, likely to see to someone else. Posey uncurled her legs from under her and sat back against the hedgerow. It was nice to rest.
The opportunity to rest, however, was short-lived. Within a matter of minutes the officers were making their way down the line telling everyone to begin digging foxholes. They'd be staying there for the night.
Posey huffed an almighty sigh to steel herself before pushing herself into a crouch. She patted herself down for her entrenching tool - with how dark it was now there would be no point in looking for it - and yanked it out with little patience.
"Sick and tired of this shi-" she began to rant, and was cut off by a hand pushing hers back down by her side.
"You ain't diggin' shit, Wells," Guarnere said. When she opened her mouth to protest he shot her an icy glare. "I ain't fuckin' coddlin' you. Doc told me he already had to rebandage you once and he ain't gonna fuckin' do it again. Alright?"
"It'll take you forever to dig on your own," she grumbled, sitting back down and crossing her arms petulantly. "And then you'll have to go and dig your own, too."
Guarnere scoffed. "This is my own." He punctuated his sentence by digging his entrenching tool roughly into the ground. "We're foxhole buddies. Congratulations."
Posey let her head fall back against the dirt. To the dark of the sky, she said, "God, please give me the strength not to kill this man, amen." When she heard Guarnere laugh, albeit reluctantly, she smirked. "What can I do to help?" she wondered, still gazing up into the darkness.
She heard Guarnere huff before he gouged out another mound of dirt. "You can sit still and shut up."
"Lucky me."
"Do you ever stop talkin'?"
Posey grinned but didn't reply. Instead, she gazed up into the night sky and listened to the sounds of digging all around her, trying to imagine what Mrs. Daniels was doing at that precise moment. She had no idea what time it was back in Boston but she thought it was probably during the day. She imagined the old woman, who had treated her so kindly, humming as she did the laundry, her voice carrying over to every corner of her small house. Posey smiled. The smile fell when guilt came crashing back over her with the realisation that she still hadn't written to her. Not since leaving the States.
Mrs. Daniels would understand, Posey decided with finality. Eventually. It would be best not to worry her, in any case, and wouldn't it be better for her to believe Posey was at home and safe with her family and not sat in a hole in France with a gunshot wound?
Yes, she thought, there was no need to worry the old woman who had always been so kind to her. Who had taken her in as her own and hadn't even batted an eye when she'd told her she was going off to join the army. Posey missed that woman sorely. Maybe one day, if she was really, really lucky, she'd get to see that woman again and thank her for everything. But that day was in the distant future, if in the future at all, and Posey couldn't let herself start to think on the future just now when each day was a gift and not a given.
When Guarnere finished digging their foxhole - not even that long after everyone else, he declared smugly, the arrogant bastard - Posey hopped down into it with the reluctant help of his arm. The pair of them sat side-by-side in their hole in the ground and Posey couldn't help but laugh; how ever had she come to find herself here?
Guarnere shot her a glance and quirked an eyebrow. "What are you gigglin' at?"
"I'm not giggling," Posey replied, giving him a look. "But if you must know, I was thinking about how bizarre it is that I'm here. Not where I thought I'd end up at all."
"Yeah, well me neither," he replied, his expression somewhere between a scowl and a smile. Posey couldn't see him all that well in the darkness, especially with his helmet pulled so low over his eyes, and she didn't care enough to try. He was probably scowling, she thought. He always seemed to be scowling.
They sat in silence for a while, listening to the quiet and, eventually, to the singing of a few men a little way along from them. When the singing stopped, likely because an officer had told them in no uncertain terms to pack it in, Guarnere hummed in thought. Posey turned to him with eyebrows furrowed, wondering what was about to come out of his mouth. No doubt it was a question she didn't much want to answer.
"What's your real name?" came the question after a few beats of silence. "'Cause you told us it was Joe."
Posey tutted and shook her head at him, something teasing in her smile. "How quickly you forget," she replied, the makings of a grin in her voice. "Careless talk costs lives."