All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

57: Cromwells

After spending the night in a field on the outskirts of Eindhoven, Easy Company was woken up bright and early ready to move onto their next objective. Another day in Operation Market Garden meant another town to secure and another bridge to defend, which they'd hopefully be able to do before the Germans bombed it this time.

They were being ferried to their next destination by a section of British Armoured tanks and, upon Winters' instruction, Posey found herself sat atop the first one in the line. Winters had wanted one sharpshooter on the first tank and one on the last, just in case of a surprise attack, and Shifty had generously offered to take the back. At the front, Posey was, for the most part, in the company of Bull's squad, but Johnny and Heffron were there too. Squinting into the sunshine, Posey kept watch for Germans and let the sounds of conversation wash over her.

The day was bright already and looked like it was going to be hot. Posey was starting to sweat under her ODs and she hadn't even done any exercise yet. The new American flag armbands they'd all been forced to wear for the Operation, to distinguish between British and American forces, weren't helping. She felt as though she was constantly tugging at it as the fabric on her bicep bunched up beneath the bulky plastic. She also couldn't see how wearing a huge American flag over the top of khaki ODs, which were supposed to help one camouflage, was a good idea, but that wasn't for her to comment on, really.

She could only hope there'd be little resistance when they got to this town; the replacements still had yet to face proper combat, the heavy fire they'd come under the previous day being less a battle and more a barrage, and she wasn't sure how she felt about making her sharpshooter combat debut. She knew she'd trained hard enough and, really, it wouldn't be that much different from her old job, but there was something about being designated something specific that carried with it a weight of serious responsibility.

She kept her eyes trained on her surroundings, determined to catch the first sign of potential trouble in time enough that she could do something about it.

"Wells, you gonna aim that thing the whole way there?" Johnny asked a little ways into the journey, a smirk on the edges of his voice.

Posey huffed but didn't lower her gun as she replied. "Yes. Winters wants one sharpshooter up front and one guarding the rear to prevent a surprise attack. I'm under orders."

"You take yourself way too seriously, Wells," Cobb grumbled. He'd been, most unfortunately, transferred into Bull's squad after the casualties of Normandy.

Posey gritted her teeth to prevent herself from 'accidentally' shoving the butt of her rifle into his jaw. "Shut up, Cobb. One of the two of us is both holding a loaded gun and an exceedingly better shot than the other, and I'd hate to see what happened if he got irritated."

"I hate eggs!" Bull complained all of a sudden, holding up a K-Ration. Posey smiled to herself, knowing he'd timed that exclamation deliberately.

"Here, Sarge, you can have this one," replied one of the replacements in his squad. Posey heard the rustling of something being handed over and laughed quietly; the replacements were always so eager to please. Bull was deserving of their admiration, though, and he certainly had his hands full with how many of them he had in his squad, so perhaps this wasn't such a terrible trait of theirs.

Posey lowered her gun a moment to look at the sign they passed with her own eyes. Nuenen. They must have been very close to the town, now.

"Vincent van Gogh was born in Nuenen," Webster commented, his voice full of enthusiasm.

"Yeah?" retorted Cobb, his voice ever a sound that went straight through Posey and set her teeth on edge. "So what?"

"Sure teach you a lot of useful stuff at Harvard," Hoobler said, though contrary to Cobb, his voice was full of his usual good humour. Posey cracked a tiny smile at this.