Evening wasn't coming quietly today. There was nothing calm or beautiful in the dying of the light. Something lay on the air that didn't quite sit right, something that didn't bode well.
It was Posey's turn in the OP today, watching the line, and she was accompanied by Bill. The pair of them hadn't spoken much, for it was the kind of day where everyone seemed to share a universal feeling of lethargy, of being weighed into the ground, but even just having him there made her feel better.
She shifted in place, drawing her knees up to her chest and grinding her boots further into the frozen dirt in the process. She adjusted her gun where it was leaning beside her and kept her eyes on the line, her gaze sinking into the trees that surrounded the Germans, seeking out any activity. There was something unsettling about the knowledge that, over there, there were probably two people sat in their own OP staring right back at them. Posey tried to ignore it. If they moved she'd see them, and if they fired she'd fire back. The OP, under a makeshift tarpaulin roof, was one of the safest places to be on this side of no man's land.
Still, it was cold. Colder than cold. Posey wanted to laugh thinking of how she'd complained of the cold in Mourmelon - that wasn't cold, that was chilly. This was cold.
She shifted again, getting closer to Bill to share his body heat, and watched as her breath plumed out in front of her, a white cloud that looked a little bit like smoke. As a child she'd been fascinated by her breath in the cold, had held two fingers up to her lips and pretended to drag on a cigarette as she breathed. Now she had the opportunity to do it for real, if she wanted to - Bill was smoking beside her and she knew he would gladly give her a cigarette if she wanted one - but she didn't. Instead, she sat shivering, keeping her eyes on the line and trying to ignore the chattering of her teeth, the shaking of her hands, the aching in her ears.
Bill must have felt her draw closer for he lifted his arm for her without saying a word or even sparing a glance away from the line, and Posey smiled as she tucked herself under it. He was like a furnace, somehow, even in the freezing cold. She didn't know that he benefited even half of what she did from their sharing of body heat but he didn't seem to mind. He rubbed at her shoulder when she was snuggled up beside him, an attempt to generate warmth.
"I wonder if there are any other girls on the front lines of the war right now," Posey commented idly, still staring at where she knew the Germans were dug in. "I know the Russians have some but I mean girls disguised as boys. I wonder if anyone else snuck in."
Bill cackled, giving a shake of his head. "You gotta be outta your mind if you think there's a single other broad on the planet as batshit fuckin' crazy as you."
Posey grinned. "I'll take that as a compliment," she said, knowing it hadn't been intended as one.
"Yeah, do whatever you want with it," Bill replied, his shoulders still shaking with the impact of his quiet laughter.
Another silence fell upon them as they continued to watch the line. It was like watching paint dry but the stillness was infinitely preferable to having it be interesting. So, trying to be grateful and not resentful of how boring the job was, Posey kept her eyes forwards and watched the minutes tick by. Their watch would be over soon and then they could go back to their foxhole and stay there, see the night through tucked up under their blanket, as warm as they were going to get out here.
After a while of quiet, Bill spoke up suddenly. "Posey."
Her eyebrows furrowed at his abruptness. "Yes?"
"How'd you get 'Posey' from 'Josephine'?"
Internally, she cringed at the use of her Christian name. Externally, she retorted, "How do you get 'Bill' from 'William'? You should be a 'Will', really."
Bill scoffed. "I ain't a 'Will'."
"I know you're not," she replied, smiling. "You're very much a 'Bill', even though it's a bit of an old man's name." She laughed to herself at the thought, especially when she caught the scowl he shot her in her periphery. "I can't imagine you as an old man," she mused, chewing on her bottom lip if only to get some warmth back into it.
"Well that's fuckin' brilliant, ain't it?" Bill replied without missing a beat.
Posey laughed loudly. "I didn't mean it like that!"
"Out here freezin' my ass off, gettin' bombed by the fuckin' krauts ten times a day, and you can't see me as an old man. Fuckin' fantastic, that is."
"I didn't mean it like that!" she insisted, still giggling. "I just mean that you're such a young person, you know? I can't imagine you being old. Some people are like that, I think. They just have so much life running through them you can't ever imagine it slowing down." And it was true. When she looked at Bill Posey saw, above all, life. She saw energy and colour and vibrancy, enthusiasm and passion. His veins seemed to fizz with life, as though full to bursting. Just watching him could be fascinating because of how completely alive he was. It was impossible to imagine him ever not being that way.
Bill shook his head, laughing and grumbling to himself under his breath, and Posey smiled. She felt lucky, in that moment, to have ended up tucked under his arm. She didn't know what he saw in her but she hoped it was something special, something that made him want to keep her around for a while. She hoped they'd be in love forever.
He must have felt her eyes on his face for he turned to glance down at her and grinned at whatever he saw reflected back at him. Posey smiled back, softer, now, for he looked at her like he knew her. And like he loved her. It was all she'd ever wanted to see reflected back at her in the eyes of someone she loved.
Unable to help herself, Posey leaned forwards and kissed him very softly. She'd been waiting for him to do it ever since he'd last kissed her but he hadn't, not since that first time. But she was sick of waiting for what she wanted when she could just go out and get it, and what she wanted, more than anything, was to kiss him. To show him she loved him and to feel that he loved her in return.
And he did. She knew he did. She could see it in his eyes when he looked at her sometimes, could hear it in his laugh after she said something strange, could feel it when he returned her abrupt kiss without a second of hesitation. She wondered if he knew he'd been her first kiss.
She wondered if it was always like this.
"Duckie?"
Posey pulled back in a heartbeat. Her eyes were wide, her jaw fallen open.
"Guarnere?"
"Tab," Posey said, at a complete loss for words.
"What..." Tab started, his words trailing off as he looked between the two of them. "I..."
"I'm a girl," Posey blurted out.
"You're... you - what?" Tab stuttered, no less reassured by this revelation. "You're -"
"A girl," Posey confirmed, looking to Bill helplessly. "Um... I can explain -"
"Shit," Tab said to himself. Then he began to laugh. Louder this time, he repeated, "Shit," and ducked back out from under the tarpaulin and said, "Lieb, guess the fuck what?"
"Tab, no -" Posey gasped, scrambling out of the OP after him.
But it was too late. She caught the tail end of Tab's words as he unloaded his discovery onto Lieb and saw the shock and then confusion in the latter's eyes eyes.
"Duckie's a -"
"You can't tell anyone -" Posey began, and was cut off by Lieb.
"Perco, you hearin' this? Duckie's a fuckin' girl -"
"Oh, God," Posey mumbled, her hands shaking as she tugged at her ODs. "You can't tell anyone," she was saying, hurrying the words out first to Tab, then to Lieb, then trying to reach Perco. "You can't tell anyone, Perco, because -"
"Christenson! Did you know Duckie's a broad?"
"Duckie's a broad?"
"Oh no, oh no, oh no."
From that moment on the news spread like wildfire. Men found out and passed the word on faster than she could attempt to tell them not to spread it and in what seemed like seconds a crowd had gathered above ground, all of them trying to gauge for themselves whether or not it was true.
Bill was still in the OP behind her - he had to be because someone had to keep watch on the line - and Posey found herself alone in a sea of wide eyes all watching her, the voices of their owners demanding answers.
Tears stung in Posey's eyes but she forced them back, determined not to cry in front of the men now that they all knew. This was a nightmare. She must have been asleep. Surely, surely, surely, she was asleep.
"Wells," Johnny said, pushing his way to the front of the crowd. Posey knew from the look in his eyes, from the sound of his voice, that she wasn't asleep. This was real and it was happening and she didn't know what to do.
"Is it true?" Heffron asked, his voice louder than the others who were repeating the same question over and over at her. "Duckie," he said, looking at her hard, "you're a girl?"
Posey looked to Johnny then found George's shocked eyes in the crowd. Neither of them knew what to do any better than she did, so she sucked in a breath and did the only thing she could think to do. She ran away.
She pushed through the crowd and ran all the way back to her foxhole, knowing they'd be able to follow her and find her if they wanted to but being at a loss for what else there was to do. Her worst nightmare had come true, what was there for her to say? She could tell from the looks on their faces that they knew anyway, that her verbal confirmation was a mere formality. They all knew and her world was crumbling.
She could be shot for this.
Tab and Lieb must have taken over the watch promptly after she'd run away, for Bill found his way to her quickly. He hopped into the foxhole without a word and pulled her into his lap, and she sobbed in earnest into his chest.
"I don't know what to do," she confessed, her voice muffled where she had her face pressed against him. "They could kill me for this. The army could shoot me because I lied and I don't - I don't -"
Bill hushed her and rocked her back and forth, muttering soothing words every now and again to remind her that he was there. When she calmed down a bit, her head cleared just enough that she was ready to think up a game plan, she sat back and looked up at him. Her eyes were wide, innocent, childlike, asking him how frightened she should be.
"We'll work it out," he said, sounding a lot more certain than he must have felt. "Ain't that many guys on the line anymore anyway."
Gazing into his eyes, Posey wanted to believe him. She wanted to sit curled up in his embrace forever and believe that everything really would be okay. But she wasn't delusional. Naïve, maybe, but not delusional.
After a beat she nodded and said, "I think I need to go see Nixon."
Bill's eyebrows hopped up. "Nixon? Why him?"
"He worked it out and I need to know how. I need to know how easy it would be for the brass to find out and track me down."
Bill nodded, either understanding where she was coming from or trusting her decision regardless. "Want me to come with you?"
Posey bit onto her bottom lip and considered his question a moment - because, really, the answer was yes - but eventually she sighed. "No. I think you should stay here. I think this is something I need to do alone."
He didn't look convinced but he let her go anyway, and she left him with a kiss on the cheek even though kissing him was what had gotten her into this mess in the first place.
When she got to the CP Winters was there, too, but when she asked to talk to Nixon there must have been something in her eyes or else something in her demeanour that let on that she needed this conversation to be private. So, dutifully, Winters left them to go and visit the men on the line, and Posey took his empty seat with shaking hands and eyes which refused to settle on any one place.
"Wells?" Nixon asked, visibly unsettled by how serious she was being.
"The men know," she said, her words riding one long exhale. "About me. They found out, all of them, and now they know and I don't know what to do."
The words took a moment to process and Nixon simply stared at her in the meantime. Eventually, he replied, "Alright."
"Sir, how did you find out about me? How did you really find out? I need to know."
Nixon nodded and took a sip from his flask before explaining, "I knew there was something off about you when I first saw you. You were too small, too fragile-looking. Liebgott looks a little like that, too, but I kept an eye on you because of how shifty you looked, like you were holding onto a secret.
"I searched your file and came up with nothing interesting, except that you lived in Boston with an old woman named Elizabeth Daniels. Obviously she isn't your mother, but I'd overheard you talking about living with your British mother. I got an idea and didn't think I'd be right, but when I looked up the American evacuee register I found a Mrs. Elizabeth Daniels who was receiving a government benefit for housing a British evacuee."
Posey nodded, drinking in the words. "Do you think it would be easy for the brass to find out? To track me down?" She sighed, taking off her helmet to run a hand through her hair and then replacing it again. "I don't want Mrs. Daniels to get in trouble because of me."
"Wells, if the enlisted know it's not gonna take long for the brass to find out. Dick's down there right now and I wouldn't be surprised if he came back here knowing. It's only a matter of time before -"
"Before everyone knows," she finished, feeling the urge to cry creeping up her throat again. "Sir," she began, speaking slowly to ensure she didn't, "how much trouble do you think I'll be in?"
Nixon took another sip from his flask, shaking his head as he swallowed. "Hard to say."
"They're sentencing people to death for desertion, aren't they?" Her voice was small and afraid. She couldn't stop shaking.
Nixon sighed. "I don't think they'll shoot you. But I don't know what they'll do. I've never heard of this happening before, Wells."
A silence fell over them, charged with fear and uncertainty.
After a little while Nixon set down his flask, which he'd been sipping from intermittently, and exhaled loudly. "Wells, let me offer you some advice. I'm not talking as your superior officer, here, I'm talking as your friend."
Posey nodded, too nervous to be touched that he thought of her as a friend.
"Wells, you need to leave."
All of the breath in her lungs left in one gasp. "What?"
"Everyone will know if you stay," he said.
"Everyone will know if I go, too," she protested. "Everyone already knows!"
Nixon heaved a sigh, looking at her long and hard. "It won't matter that everyone knows if you're gone. The army won't try to track you down if they think you're not coming back."