Lieutenant Dike was quickly becoming one of Posey's least favourite people. The man was a showboat and there was no denying it; he filled their days with drills and parade marches, polishing them up until they could advertise his company as the picture of neatness and formality.
Parade marches were useless in the field - indeed, Easy hadn't done one since training - and yet Dike drilled them on it so rigorously one would have assumed it would serve to keep them alive in combat. Even still, they were in Mourmelon on R and R, not for training. Realistically, they didn't need to be doing anything, much less marching around a parade ground for the sake of Lieutenant Dike.
Really, Posey knew it was a way for him to show off his shiny new company to the brass who'd put him in charge. He was a stripe-chaser if ever she'd seen one, absolutely desperate for a promotion.
Posey stood beside her squad in a line of the NCOs of Second Platoon, marching forwards with her eyes set firmly on the back of Tab's head. She kept from gritting her teeth in irritation only by consciously reminding herself that dinner was after this, and Dike could never be bothered to oversee what they did after dinner. Once Bull, at the front of the line, reached the edge of the courtyard they were using, the platoon executed an about face as one before switching their guns to their other sides and marching back the way they came. It was mind-numbing. Posey had been bored by parade marches even the first time they'd ever done one, but now she knew how useless they were in combat they made her want to scream.
The moment Dike dismissed them, Posey's shoulders slumped as though a ventriloquist had dropped her strings. She took her time wandering back to the barracks and fell into step beside whoever else wasn't in such a hurry.
"He's a fucking prick," she murmured to Skip beside her once she'd caught sight of who it was.
Skip, who had always taken whatever life threw at him with a shrug and an easy grin, laughed. "Who? Foxhole Norman?"
Posey grimaced even at the sound of his name. "Who else?"
"Got that right, Duckie," Skip replied with a laugh, squinting into the wind.
Posey's ears burned and her cheeks stung with the cold, the bite in the air betraying how close they were to December. Soon, it'd be Christmas. If Market Garden had succeeded, they'd have been in Germany by now and then on their way home.
"Christmas soon," Posey said, thinking aloud. She didn't want to think about Dike and how much she despised him anymore, not now that she wouldn't be seeing him until tomorrow.
"Is it?" Skip asked sarcastically, burrowing further into his ODs in the hopes of fending off the cold. "I hadn't noticed."
Posey smirked, shaking her head. "Lucky you.
"If Market Garden didn't fall on its ass we'd be getting ready to go home, huh?" he went on, his tone cheerful in spite of the melancholic nature of his words.
Posey hummed her assent before replying, "Guess we're lucky that we get to spend Christmas altogether." It was true, in some senses, that Posey was grateful for the company she was keeping, it was just unfortunate that the price of them being together was going through hell. With every passing day it was getting harder to stay optimistic. With every passing day it was getting harder to stay, full stop. Posey knew everyone else was feeling it too when her and Skip entered Second Platoon's barracks and were greeted with the conversation of weekend passes.
It was like being back at Toccoa, though as very different people to who they'd been at the time. Back then they'd insisted they needed weekend passes when they hadn't, not really. Now, what else was there to live for? Yes, much had changed since their days at basic training. Posey's heart ached for the people they'd been back then.
"It's a damn crime that we're - what? - an hour away from Paris? Two? And we can't go," Penkala was saying, his face contorted into a deep scowl and his words sharp.
"I love Paris," Posey murmured to herself, and threw herself down onto her bunk. The mattress was as rock hard as all of the army mattresses she'd ever slept on, but it was a mattress and that was as good as a pile of the fluffiest pillows in the world to her now.
"I bet the officers are getting their goddamn passes," Toye grumbled, his eyes as stormy as ever.
"'Course they fucking are," commented Lieb, somewhere between disgruntled and outraged. He was talking with his hands, a sure sign that he was either excited or furious. Posey knew which one her bets were on. "The second we're off the line the officers head off to whatever fancy part of Europe they haven't been to yet."
"Aren't we also close to Reims?" Tab asked, inspecting his rifle. "Wouldn't mind going there."
"My dad fought in Reims," Posey said, more to herself than to anyone else. "He was wounded there."
"Really?" Luz asked. "In Reims?"
"The Second Battle of the Marne," she confirmed, nodding. "He got hit in the shoulder trying to save his friend."
"Did he save him in the end?" inquired Malarkey.
Posey's tiny smile faltered. "Uh, no." She shrugged. "He never talked about it really but my mum told me as much." She forced a smile back onto her face, an attempt to lighten the mood she'd accidentally dampened; discussing things like the First War always came with an unhealthy dose of self-reflection, and in Posey's experience, self-reflection was a soldier's worst enemy. Don't think, just do - that was her motto. "So I'd like to go to Reims, too," she declared, looking at the men scattered around the room for agreement. "If we can't get to Paris."
The group of them set out for dinner shortly afterwards, ravenous after a day of parade marching.
As she waited in the queue for food, Posey thought about Paris and how nice it would be to get to go. It had been such a long time since any of them had seen civilisation she couldn't even imagine what staying in a hotel or eating at a restaurant might be like. Still, thinking about Paris kept a smile on her face all the way up until sitting down at the table, wherein she stumbled into a conversation about the wounded who had yet to find their way back to the company.
"- back soon," Malarkey was saying when she was first able to lock onto the conversation. "He was only shot in the ass and God knows his is big enough."
"There were four holes, though," Skip reasoned. Posey realised they were talking about Lieutenant Compton. "Four bullet holes is a lot to recover from fast. Plus, Popeye got shot in the ass in Normandy and he didn't get back 'til the jump into Holland."
A pause for consideration fell upon the group. Posey shifted in her seat and offered, "I hope Bill gets back soon." She felt herself flush under the scrutiny of the table as they awaited an explanation. She wondered why she needed one. "I don't like being in charge of a squad. I'm a follower, not a leader."
"Well, Bill got hit in the ass, too," Heffron said with a tired sigh. "Fractured his leg, weren't it? And got shot in the leg, too. Word is they sent him all the way back to England. Don't think we're gonna be seein' him for a while."
Posey's face fell. Being sent all the way back to England meant it was serious. She eyed Heffron curiously, attempting to discern how long he'd had this information and why he hadn't shared it sooner. When it didn't work, she concentrated all of her attention onto her food.
"Hey, apparently Heyliger's gonna live," Johnny spoke up suddenly. "Overheard Winters and Nixon talking about it. He's been sent back to England, too, but they don't know if he'll be coming back at all."
"So we're stuck with fuckin' Foxhole Norman for good, then?" Toye all but growled, shovelling food into his mouth with a discernible fury.
"Fucking Sobel all over again," said Luz, and that was that conversation over and done. The lot of them wanted to discuss their new, inept, and apparently permanent CO about as much as they wanted to discuss their odds of dying out on the battlefield - which was to say, not at all.
The days passed laboriously slowly and without a weekend pass in sight at camp de Châlons. Posey tried to enjoy it as much as possible but one could only rest and recuperate so much before they got antsy. Indeed, whilst the novelties of having a warm bed to sleep in and a hot shower to use never wore of (Posey didn't think they ever would again), not having jobs to be doing all the time served for lots of twiddling of thumbs and card games - that was, when they weren't practicing their parade marches, of course.
After a week in Mourmelon-le-Grand without so much as a mention of a weekend pass from any of the officers, Posey decided to take matters into her own hands. She sought out Nixon.
These days, Nixon had an office she could go to and knock on the door of - he wasn't nearly as elusive as he had been in Aldbourne. Back then she wouldn't have been able to seek him out even if she'd tried, and she hadn't, too scared of pushing her luck after he'd revealed he'd worked out her secret. Now, though, she felt enough time had passed that she could fully trust him. After all, if he wanted to tell on her, he'd have done it already, and Winters had never given any hint that he knew. So, Posey found herself knocking three times on a wooden door with his name tacked onto the front of it as soon as she'd left dinner that evening, hoping he was in there. She didn't know where she'd go if he wasn't.
"Come in," came the called response to her knocking.
Posey drew in a steadying breath before pushing the door open. She faltered the moment she set foot inside, her hand still on the doorknob, wondering why she hadn't considered that Winters might be in there too. Or Welsh, for that matter.
Oh, well. There was nothing for it now.
"Sirs," she greeted, snapping a salute.
All three of them chuckled lightly at the formality but they each returned it promptly.
"Wells," Nixon began, not bothering to rise from his seat behind his desk. "What can I do for you?"
It seemed so stupid now, the reason she'd come. All of a sudden she was overwhelmed by the feeling that this had been a terrible idea and was embarrassed by it. Still, there was nothing to do but push on; Winters and Welsh would suspect something was off if she left and she didn't know that Nixon would be able to sidestep them well enough to emerge with her secret still intact.
"I was just wondering, sir," Posey began tentatively, treading lightly lest she embarrass herself further, "about weekend passes. I know this is incredibly audacious of me but the men have been talking about Paris and Reims ever since we came off the line and I'm sick of listening to it, if I'm honest." This earned her a laugh, which set her nerves a little bit at ease. "And I wouldn't mind visiting Paris myself, of course. So I was just wondering what the likelihood of getting a pass is?"
She had to take a deep breath after she'd finished rambling, finding she'd talked all the air out of her lungs. She used the beat of silence that followed to look between the faces of the three officers gathered before her, two of whom didn't even work in Easy specifically anymore. Winters and Welsh, she thought, must have been wondering why on Earth she'd come to Nixon about this. The answer to which, of course, could never be explained to those who hadn't had their life's biggest secret ripped out from underneath them by someone in a position of power. Rank had its privileges, and so did skeletons ripped out of a closet to reveal a much more vulnerable figure.
"Weekend passes, huh?" Nixon responded finally, crossing his arms behind his head and lounging back in his chair. He had an amused glint in his eye, which Posey was unsure she'd ever seen him without, and he surveyed her with a nonchalance that made her want to fidget. "I'm not sure how possible that'll be, Wells. Division HQ wants to keep you all here."
He watched her another moment before a smirk drew up his lips on one side. Posey was immediately on edge, wondering what he was about to come out with.
"Of course," he began, his entire demeanour screaming mischief, "I might be able to pull some strings. You got someone special you're hoping to meet in Paris?"
Posey had to consciously restrain herself from narrowing her eyes at him.
Fuck you, Nixon, you cheeky bastard.
"No, sir," she replied, wondering what his game was. Indeed, everything always seemed to be a game with him. He'd seemed to find a strange joy in telling Posey he knew about her back in Aldbourne, as though he'd finally put the puzzle together after a long while of placing the pieces in the wrong slots. She'd never felt particularly assured by the casual air he walked around with, as though the world and its inhabitants didn't matter to him.
He was privileged, though. Had grown up rich and been well-educated. Posey had been like that once, too. She thought she'd probably be the same if she hadn't been forced out of that lifestyle and into one the complete opposite.
Posey coughed into her hand awkwardly and added, "Just hoping to get out of the camp for a while, sir. We never saw much of France and we were all just wondering what our chances were of seeing a bit more of the country we helped to liberate."
There. That was her ace. There was little more she could do.
It was Winters who came to her aid after that. "We'll see what we can do for you, Joe," he said with a small, kind smile. He'd always been the only one to take her up on the offer to call her Joe.
Posey returned his smile and nodded. "Thank you, sir." Just as she was straightening up to snap another salute, a thought dawned on her. "Whilst I'm here, sirs, is there any news on Lieutenant Compton? Feel free to tell me to piss off because it's none of my business, but we're all curious."
Welsh laughed at her final comment, which made Posey grin, but it was Winters who answered. "Lieutenant Compton should be back with us shortly. He's recovering well."
"Wonderful!" That was one more good officer to act as a buffer zone between them and the incompetent Lieutenant Dike. "Thank you very much, sir."
"Is that everything, Wells?" Nixon asked, looking only mildly amused.
Posey nodded and straightened up once more. "Yes, that's all. Thank you, sirs. Sorry to disturb you."
"Yeah, feel free to come visit anytime," Nixon drawled, which made Posey giggle in spite of herself. Her smile lingered as she saluted and even as she exited the office.
The news about the passes she brought back to the others was less than satisfactory where they were concerned - to which Posey told them in no uncertain terms that if they didn't like it they could go ask themselves next time - but the news about Compton was received with great joy and relief. Posey, too, had to admit that she was relieved about potentially having their platoon leader back, but she knew she'd feel a lot better if she knew that Bill was coming back soon, too.