"Is he outta his goddamn mind? Makin' us run Currahee three times in one day, who the fuck does he think he is?" Liebgott ranted as he pushed back into the barracks after his shower. His hair was wet and dripping in his eyes which seemingly only served to make him angrier.
"The CO of this company?" Luz suggested in a deadpan, not even bothering to look up from his hand of cards.
Posey stifled a laugh and kept her eyes trained on her own hand. Malarkey had suggested starting a game of Crazy Eights - which the men of Second Platoon were known to play as an evening pastime - and Posey was desperately trying to win based purely off of the knowledge she had acquired from being a spectator. She didn't think she was doing very well.
"Yeah, well, I don't see him doing a full fuckin' day of PT plus running Currahee three times," Liebgott retorted bitterly.
"He does run Currahee with us, though," Toye spoke up from where he was smoking on his bed.
"Joe, who's side are you on?" Liebgott snapped, all but throwing himself down on his bunk and letting out a loud huff.
"Wells, it's your turn," Luz said casually around his cigarette.
"It is? But I just went!"
"There's only four of us playin'."
"I think you're just trying to make me lose."
"Paranoid," Malarkey commented.
Posey laughed. "Competitive," she corrected, and took another card from the pile.
"God, my arms ache like hell from holding that goddamn rifle all day," Skip complained from just outside the circle of players where he'd been watching the game. He punctuated his sentence by rubbing at his forearms, eyebrows scrunched together as he grimaced.
"You sure it's from the rifle and not somethin' else, Skip?" Talbert called out crudely.
Posey scrunched up her nose and turned back to look at Tab if only so he could catch a glimpse of her disgust.
"Got no idea how anyone's supposed to shoot that thing with how heavy it is," Skip continued, choosing to ignore the suggestive comment.
"How d'you shoot it so good, Wells?" Malarkey asked with genuine interest. "I'm surprised it doesn't weigh you down!"
Posey pouted. "I'm not that small!"
"Yeah?" Luz asked, grinning. "Go stand next to Bull."
The comment received scattered laughs from the rest of the barracks. Posey rolled her eyes. "Bite me."
"No, I'm serious!" Luz exclaimed. "Go stand next to Bull!"
Posey huffed but she got to her feet anyway, making her way over to an expectant Bull.
The reaction was instant.
"See!"
"What a height difference!"
"Standin' there makes you look even smaller!"
"But his name's Bull because he's so unusually big!" Posey insisted in a whine. "He'd make any of you look small! Perco isn't even that much taller than me."
"Fuck off am I, Wells," Perconte commented drily.
Luz was giggling like a schoolboy as he observed the height difference between Posey and Bull. "If he's a bull then you're a - a..." he trailed off, searching for the perfect comparison. Posey watched as his eyes lit up when he found it. "A duck! That's what we'll call you from now on!"
"Duck?" Posey asked, thoroughly unimpressed. "You're gonna call me Duck?"
"How 'bout Duckie?" Skip chimed in.
Luz clicked his fingers and pointed at Skip with a laugh. "Duckie! That's perfect!"
"That's so -" Posey began, tripping over her words, "so - so -"
"Perfect!" Luz finished for her. "I know!"
When she caught his eye, Malarkey was grinning. "Get your ass back over here, Duckie, we've got a game to finish."
Posey groaned whilst the other men of the platoon laughed. She headed over to re-join the game with numerous pats on her back and greetings with her new name.
The following morning Posey was up bright and early - even earlier than the rest of her platoon - with terrible stomach pains. The day she'd been dreading had finally come upon her, having been delayed likely due to the stress of everything: she had come on her period. She was woken up by the aching in her stomach and immediately felt ice cold dread wash over her. There was no mistaking what that was. Now she just had to wait for the blood.
She snuck out of the barracks and arranged the cloth she used for blood-absorption before traipsing back across camp. It wasn't even seven yet and the heat was already stifling. As she pushed back into the barracks and collapsed onto her bed she wanted to scream at the universe. Instead, she laid there pretending to be asleep and waiting for the wake-up call.
She was short in her exchanges with the others for a large portion of the day. The heat and the pain and the blood and the hormones all amalgamated in a remarkably terrible mood, and she refused to even respond to anyone as the company ran up Currahee.
At the rifle range she fired more shots than she had previously, though her balance was off so her aim was too. With each turn she took at firing she got increasingly frustrated and had to consciously remind herself to cool down - the men didn't, couldn't, know what was going on and she couldn't give them any reason to suspect anything was awry.
Her frequent trips to the toilet, however, didn't go unnoticed.
"Wells, that's gotta be the fifth time in the last hour," Johnny spoke when she'd sat back down at their table in the mess hall. She'd been coming back from one just such trip to the bathrooms. "What the fuck is going on with you?"
Posey panicked and searched frantically for an answer. "Uh - food poisoning?"
Johnny raised his eyebrows. "If you had food poisoning so would the rest of us. We eat the same damn food."
Posey huffed. "Look, I don't know what's wrong with me, Johnny, alright? I'm not a doctor. You want a diagnosis and a prescription, why don't you put yourself forward for a medic? Then you can tell me."
"Jesus. Who pissed in your cornflakes?" Guarnere muttered.
It took all of the strength she had inside of her, but Posey studiously ignored him.
"So," Luz spoke up, changing the subject, "who's still got their weekend pass?"
"Not me," said Skip.
"Nah," added Malarkey.
"Nope," Posey said.
As the others all chimed in, that seemed to be the general consensus.
"Damn," Luz huffed as soon as all of the responses had come in. "Looks like I'm gonna be spending Friday night on my own."
Malarkey laughed. "Yeah, don't hold your breath on keeping that weekend pass, Luz, we've still got two days left."
Posey felt like she was going to be sick. "Does anyone want this?" she asked the table at large, pushing her tray away from her suddenly. "I'm not hungry."
Before Perconte and Liebgott could race to see who could grab the plate fastest, Johnny's voice cut them off. "No one's having it. What's going on with you today, Wells?"
Posey shrugged, breathing through her nose in an attempt to quell the nausea. "I don't know. I told you that." Then she sighed and rested her head in her hands. "Just don't feel well," she mumbled.
"Too bad," Johnny snapped and pushed her tray back towards her. "Ain't no way you're getting through another run up Currahee without eating anything." Posey looked up and opened her mouth to respond before she was briskly cut off. "Eat it."
Without another word, she shovelled as much food into her mouth as she could and chewed. This time she did nothing to try and help the nausea; if she threw up, it would be going all over Johnny, and she didn't have the slightest problem with that.
In the end, she managed to make it through the rest of the day without vomiting at all. It wasn't all sunshine and roses, though; when she got up in middle of the night ready to head off to the showers, she caught sight of a giant blood stain on her sheets.
"Oh, no," she muttered under her breath. She knelt on the floor to get a closer look at her bunk in the darkness and could've screamed when she felt for herself how sodden her sheets were. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no."
She got to work stripping her bed immediately, trying her best to stay close to the ground in case anyone woke up.
As soon as she was out of the barracks door, she breathed a silent sigh of relief into the humid air. She set off at a brisk walk, clutching her shower equipment and bedsheets close to her chest. As she neared the bathroom block she couldn't even believe she'd managed to get away with it; bleeding through her sheets, stripping the bed, gathering her shower things, and escaping the barracks all in silence and in the middle of the night. Honestly, how hadn't anyone noticed?
"Hey! Wells!"
Oh shit.
"Get your ass back here!" Johnny called after her. She sped up and heard him muttering in his pursuit of her, "Fuckin' runnin' out the barracks in the middle of the night -"
She was so close to the bathrooms. Just a few more steps.
"Wells!"
She raced in and threw her sheets into the closest stall. Just as she was about to make it in there herself, a hand yanked her back by the collar of her ODs.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Johnny growled. He was levelling her with his signature icy scowl and let her go roughly only once he was sure she wouldn't try to run.
Posey came up blank. "Um..."
"Is that a hard one?" Johnny demanded. His glare only hardened.
"I just - um -" Posey stuttered out, hands grasping desperately at the trousers of her ODs as she searched for an answer. "I just needed to go to the bathroom."
"Yeah. Everyday in the middle of the fuckin' night. Why?"
Her jaw hung slightly open, eyes blinking rapidly as her mind went blank. "Well, I don't really know. I just -"
Johnny narrowed his eyes at her so she stopped talking. In the low lighting of the bathrooms in the middle of the night, the single electric light only partially lit everything. It made him look almost menacing.
"Something's going on here," Johnny said. He kept his voice low and didn't tear his eyes away from her once. "I don't know what it is but I'll figure it out."
Posey nodded. "Okay." She didn't know what else to say.
Johnny took a step back, still not breaking eye contact, and inclined his head in the direction of the stall Posey had reached for. "Go on, then. If you need to go so bad."
Posey nodded, turned, and froze when she heard his sputter. "What the fuck -?!"
She whirled back around immediately, hands clasped over what she assumed was a traitorous blood stain on her ODs. "I can explain."
"Why the fuck are you bleeding?"
"I -"
She watched, powerless, as he put it all together in his head. She had to give him credit for how quick on the mark he was.
"You're a fucking girl!"
"I can explain!" Posey insisted. She shook her head rapidly and held her hands out in front of her as if hoping to keep him at bay.
"What the fuck are you doing here?!"
"I just want to go home!" She shook her head again, quick gasps of panicky breath rattling through her chest. "Joining the military was the fastest way to get home and the recruitment officer convinced me to sign up for the Airborne."
Johnny went to speak but she bravely cut him off, rushing to add, "I don't have any intentions of actually fighting. I just need to get through training and get to England and then I'll be gone. I just need to go home." She didn't know when she'd let her accent slip but it rang out clearly in the wake of her words, a sharp contrast to Johnny's American twang.
"God damn it," he said eventually, laughing bitterly and shaking his head. "A girl and a Limey."
Posey's cheeks were flushed in embarrassment but she drew her back up in defiance. "An evacuee," she corrected. "The Blitz forced me out of my home whilst you Yanks were lounging in yours. No bombs, no rationing, no conscription, and, as far as you were concerned, no war. Don't call me a Limey and spit it like it's an insult. We've been in this war a hell of a lot longer than you have and it was reluctant cowardice that forced me to your country."
"That same cowardice force you into our army, too?"
Posey scoffed out a laugh. "No, not cowardice." She shook her head. "Desperation. You don't know anything about that yet. But you will."
Johnny paused and took the time spent in silence to simply watch her. Posey felt herself trying to shrink under his piercing gaze and forced herself to stand tall and level him with her own heavy glare. She tried to force herself to believe that she didn't have anything to be ashamed of.
Eventually, Johnny said, "Don't tell me your real name."
Whatever she'd been expecting him to say, that hadn't been it.
"What?"
"Don't tell me your real name," Johnny repeated, "in case I slip up."
It took a moment for her to understand, but once she did she began smiling brightly. She was equally as surprised at his reaction as she was relieved. "Really? You'll help me?" As soon as she received a nod in reply, Posey beamed and flung her arms around his middle without thinking.
"Get off me," Johnny said, the words forced out through gritted teeth. "You might be a girl but that don't make me soft on you."
"Right," Posey said, nodding as she retreated to a respectful distance. "Sorry."
Johnny nodded and they fell into a short silence again.
After a small while of fidgeting, Posey cleared her throat. "So, can I use the toilet now or..?"
"Oh. Right." Johnny spared her one final nod before turning on his heel and retreating, gone just as quickly as he'd appeared.
As soon as she was alone, Posey huffed out a sigh. "Stupid," she muttered to herself harshly. "You should know better." Still, she couldn't help but be conscious of what felt like a weight being lifted off of her shoulders; she trusted that Johnny really wouldn't tell anyone, and to trust someone was liberating, in a way.