In spite of everything, Posey had to admit that she was sad to say goodbye to Camp Toccoa, and especially to Mount Currahee. They'd been through a lot together, she thought, and she'd certainly miss running alongside Luz, Lieb, and Roe everyday. It was all quite bittersweet, in an incredibly strange way.
Posey savoured the walk to the showers in the middle of the night, filled with less anxiety and more nostalgia as she knew it'd be the last time. As she washed she worried whether it might be more difficult to do all of this at Fort Benning - would the shower block be as close, her bunk as conveniently positioned, the door to the barracks as quiet when she tried to slip out? All of that new place uncertainty bubbled up in her stomach as she stood under the water.
Yes, she thought she'd miss Camp Toccoa, where it'd all began. Part of her couldn't believe she'd made it through the first part of basic, which was a thought that made her feel emotional in and of itself. Because of the fact that she had, she knew she'd look back on Toccoa fondly, despite everything they'd had to endure there.
She lay awake most of the night, reminiscing on all that had transpired since she'd arrived at Toccoa and thinking about how different everything looked now that she'd lived there for a while. The barracks looked almost remarkably different even though they weren't much changed. They looked like home now.
She giggled silently to herself, her blanket pulled up to her nose, as she recalled the first words she'd said to any of the men. "So this is home?" or something like that, if she remembered correctly. It had been a joke at the time, because it had looked so extremely uninviting and because, for her, it was simply a stop along the way before she could actually get home. It meant more to her now. She'd miss these barracks.
When they eventually arrived at Fort Benning, Posey found that her nostalgia and sentimentality of the night before had been a bit of a waste of time. Aside from the fact that the bunks were bunkbeds, the barracks were almost identical.
She quickly threw her bag on the bottom bunk of the bed closest to the door and laughed when Luz frowned. "I wanted that one," he said.
Posey shrugged. "Better luck next time." She patted him on the shoulder once conspiratorially.
"You had the bunk closest to the door at Toccoa," he argued, clearly unwilling to back down just yet.
"You'd already chosen your bunk before I got there!" Posey protested through a disbelieving laugh. "Besides, you love being the centre of attention much too much to be hidden away in a corner."
Luz shook his head. "Why don't you take the top and I'll take the bottom and we can share it. There, a win-win situation. Call it a compromise."
And a terrible idea, where she was concerned; sneaking out of the barracks was one thing, but having to climb down a bunk bed which held a sleeping George Luz on the bottom was entirely another.
"No, I need to be on the bottom," she replied decisively. Then she amended, "You can take the top, though, if you want."
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why do you 'need' to be on the bottom?" Luz challenged.
Posey searched her mind as quickly as she was able for a feasible excuse. "I... uh... I'm afraid of heights." She wanted to punch herself in the face the moment the words were out of her mouth.
From the bunk opposite them, where he'd evidently been listening in, Toye said, "You're training to be a fucking paratrooper."
Her knight in shining armour came in the form of a sharp glare and snappy words, "I'm taking top bunk. Luz, take a hike."
"But -"
"Choose another one!"
No one in the entire company seemed to wield the same amount of power as an angry Johnny Martin. Posey couldn't have been more grateful to have him on her side, or more astonished.
"Thank you," she murmured to him as he flung his bag on the bunk on top of hers.
"Yeah, don't mention it," he muttered back, and climbed up to top bunk immediately.
"How long have we got till dinner?" she asked the barracks at large, hoping for an answer in the realm of 'an hour'.
"About forty-five minutes," Roe told her from the bunk beside hers.
"Lovely," she declared with a clap of her hands and a grin. "I'm gonna take a look around. Anyone coming?"
Much to her surprise, Roe nodded. "Yeah, I will." Noticing her raised eyebrows and slightly agape mouth, he gave a small laugh. "Probably a good idea to find out where the med bay is before trainin' starts," he explained with an air of bashfulness.
Posey nodded. "I see." She watched as he finished organising his stuff into his footlocker - something she might have been able to do had she not been engaged in conversation - and smiled when he finished. "Shall we go then?"
In response, Roe nodded and led the way out of the barracks.
For a while they simply followed the path, passing through an area set aside for the barracks of the various companies. Men from said other companies dwindled around across camp, scattered about like marbles on a child's bedroom floor, but none of them made any move to talk or call out to them, so they didn't do it either.
Posey took note of where the bathrooms for Easy were, and the shower block, which was conveniently located right beside them. It was a longer walk than it had been from the barracks at Toccoa to the showers but it could've been a lot worse. She had yet to take stock of how loud the door to the barracks was, however; she'd have to do that before night fell to give herself time to work out a possible way around it.
It was after they'd passed the shower block that Roe broke their comfortable silence. "Can I ask you somethin'?" he wondered. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his ODs despite how humid it was outside, perhaps only to give them something to do.
Posey grinned. "Depends," she said.
Roe laughed and then shook his head, suddenly becoming serious. "You're a girl," he said.
Posey's face must have given away her perplexment for when she moved to speak she had to close her mouth first. The only thing she could manage to choke out was, "That's not a question."
"But you are," Roe replied, watching her both curiously and carefully. "Right?" he tacked onto the end, an attempt to be polite, perhaps.
"I -" Posey began, and faltered. How the fuck had he worked it out?
Eventually, she mustered out, "What makes you think that?"
He laughed. "I don't talk much but I listen." He shrugged. "I watch."
"What do you mean?"
"Your accent," he began. He looked ahead of him again wearing a small, wry smile. "It drops sometimes. I'd guess you're British, too."
"Fuck," she whispered.
He chuckled and went on, "And the words you say. Like 'shall' or 'lovely' or so on." He shrugged almost shyly. "I guess it made me wonder. Then when I was really lookin' it all made sense."
Posey furrowed her brows and he must have noticed, for he explained bashfully, "You don't look much like a man."
At this, Posey laughed. "Um, thank you, I suppose."
"So I'm right then?" Roe asked, smiling at her finally. "You're definitely a girl but you're British too, aren't you?"
Posey sighed and finally dropped the accent, first making sure no one was eavesdropping even though they were out in the midst of open space by now. "Yes, you're right." She shook her head, unable to contain a grin that she didn't at all know why she was wearing. "I was an evacuee," she began to explain, fiddling with her hands in front of her as she strolled. "I was in London for a bit of the Blitz before they sent me over to America but -" Her words faltered as she worked to steel herself. "But it's been a couple of years, and my brother's in the RAF and my mum's still at risk of being bombed in London and I can't wait around for the war to end any longer because they may not be there by the time I'm allowed to go back."
In the wake of her words there was a charged silence. It had been strange, she realised, to speak in her natural accent for once. Something about her Boston accent - which she'd clearly thought had been better than it actually was - had become natural in its overuse. She wondered whether, by the end of all this, she'd have a hybrid of an accent. She laughed to think it and then realised where she'd left off speaking.
She rushed to add, "I'm not going to fight in any wars, so don't worry. I just need to get back to England and then I'll be gone. I won't be putting anyone in any danger in combat or anything."
Roe shook his head. "I wasn't worryin' about that." He scoffed and looked over at her. "I wasn't even thinkin' that. Is that what you think? That you'd put us in danger?"
Posey shrugged and looked away; for all Roe seemed to avoid eye contact, when he wanted to look his eyes could be incredibly piercing.
In a small voice, she replied, "I'm smaller than everyone else and I'm not the best at PT. I do well enough to get by without washing out but that's about as well as I do. We both know I'm awful at hand to hand."
"But you're good with a gun."
Posey smiled, flattered. "Thanks." After a beat, she added, "I think to some extent everyone probably worries about letting everyone else down once in combat. I just think that the natural reaction to finding out someone you're training with is a girl would probably be to assume that it'd be dangerous to have me in combat, both for myself and for everyone else." She laughed with a regretful sort of irony. "Whether or not I believe that's true myself, I just thought I'd reassure you. I'm really just trying to get home."
"Ain't there any other ways to do that?" Roe teased.
Posey grinned at the sudden humour. "No!" she protested immediately, then amended, "Well, yes, probably." He laughed and she shot him a teasing glare. "Troops are being prioritised, though. Fastest way across the ocean is on a troopship. There are too many hospitals on home soil for rehabilitation to have risked being a nurse and I couldn't think of anything else that would get me to England double lively."
In a single question, Roe gave voice to what was perhaps her biggest fear. "What if we get sent to the Pacific?"
"What if, indeed," she muttered to herself. Then she forced a smile and glanced left at Roe, who was already watching her. "Well," she began levelly, "then I'm fucked, aren't I?"
"Yeah," Roe agreed, laughing. "Yeah, I guess you are."
"Keep your fingers crossed for me," she said as they turned and began to make their way back to the barracks.
Roe nodded. "I will. I promise."
"Can you promise me something else?"
She came to a stop before they neared any of the buildings in camp, to avoid being overheard. Roe noticed almost immediately, observant as he apparently was, and nodded with furrowed brows.
"Please don't tell anyone," she said, the words riding a withdrawn exhale. "I don't know what the punishment would be and I'd really rather not find out."
"I won't," Roe vowed.
"Thank you."
When they continued walking, he asked, "Does anyone else know?"
"Johnny," she replied simply.
"Makes sense."
"Yeah."
"What's your real name?"
Posey bit onto her bottom lip and shrugged. "Johnny said not to tell him - plausible deniability I think, or something like that. So maybe it'd be best if I didn't tell you either. Just in case."
"Right."
"Also, just so you know, I wouldn't sell you out or anything," she added, voice low now that they were heading back into camp. She painted her fake accent over it again. "If I get caught I won't tell anyone that you know."
Roe shot her a small smile and a nod. "I know you won't."
"Thank you for being a friend," she said once the barracks came back into sight again.
Roe chuckled lightly. "What are 'buddies' for?"