All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

38: Bullet

Posey kept tight on Guarnere's heels as they dashed across the fray. She kept her head down, holding on tight to her rifle and watching Guarnere's boots slam into the ground in front of her. When they reached cover, he shouted out orders and gave the corresponding hand gestures to make men peel off from the group.

Whatever Guarnere had ordered Posey to do she didn't catch, her eyes busy looking for snipers and the cacophony of battle too loud for her to hear him at all. Instead, when he darted off towards a shop on the opposite side of the road, presumably to clear it, she followed, and watched his back as he kicked the door in.

Posey followed him quickly into the shop, whirling around and pointing her gun every which way as she scanned for Germans. Guarnere whipped around to face her, and whoever he'd been expecting to find, it evidently hadn't been her.

"Wells?!" he exclaimed.

"Hi," she replied sheepishly before aiming out of the door again, just in case.

He didn't question her further and turned back to the situation at hand.

They cleared the downstairs in less than a minute, finding the place unoccupied, before heading out the back door and up a metal staircase to access the apartment above. Guarnere kicked the door in again and they worked efficiently as a unit, Posey watching the rear and Guarnere pushing forwards. In no time at all they were slipping back down the stairs and making their way to the next building along.

Posey thought it was all going rather well until the building beside them exploded. The wall next to them crumbled and plaster rained down on them. Posey stumbled the other way and crashed into the wall. She scrambled to her feet when Guarnere barked, "Wells!"

He led the way back out onto the street and the pair of them stuck close to the wall, heading back the way they'd come. Posey aimed at the upstairs windows of the buildings opposite, hoping a glint of metal in the sunlight might betray a sniper, before a different kind of glint caught her eye. Her head shot in its direction and she yanked Guarnere back by the back of his ODs right as a telephone pole collapsed directly in their path. When he glanced back at her, just as shocked as she was, it was all she could do to shake her head. She had no idea how she'd managed that either.

They hopped over the fallen telephone pole and skidded down a sideroad, pressing their backs to the wall of the building immediately.

"They got us zeroed!" Lipton bellowed from somewhere behind them, his voice guttural and raw. "Spread it out! Spread it out!"

A building to their left exploded. Posey ducked instinctively and then found her feet again, aiming for the windows whilst she awaited Guarnere's next order.

"Get outta there!" Lipton shouted again. "Get the hell outta the street! Move!"

"Wells -" Guarnere began, just as metal caught the light just to the right of where she'd been aiming.

"Got ya," she murmured, sliding along the wall to get closer. "I need a fucking sniper rifle."

"Wells!"

She fired three shots and glanced behind her. Guarnere gestured to their left. "Go!"

She nodded and looked back at the sniper she'd been aiming at, only to watch as he fired a bullet.

"Fuck!" she exclaimed. To Guarnere, she said, "Go! I'll cover! There's a sniper!"

"Fuckin' get him then!"

Posey aimed and fired again, then adjusted her aim and tried once more. When there was no more movement she nodded to Guarnere. "Lets go!"

Guarnere pushed ahead of her and sprinted across the street. When they found cover she fired three shots at a German who'd run past and grinned when he dropped. She was a good shot, after all; she just needed a sniper rifle.