All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

58: Alone

Bullets rained down on Posey from every direction. Wherever she turned, she found herself under fire. Zig-zagging her way through the chaos, she prayed that her time wasn't up yet, that fate would decide she still had unfinished business and spare her another day.

She pushed into the first unlocked door she came upon and raced up the stairs. There was no need for stealth with the cacophony outside, so she opted for speed. She checked each room and found a pair of machine gunners, taking them both out quickly and without a second thought.

It was clear to see why the two Germans had chosen this as their vantage point - view the window had on the street below was perfect for such an occasion. These two gunners had probably been picking Americans off like fish in a barrel.

Once upon a time, Posey thought distantly, she'd have judged the view from a window based on how pretty the buildings opposite were, or how far into the horizon you could see. That time was gone. She crouched by the window, kicking the bodies of the Germans out of the way, and began to pick off snipers in windows as she saw them and stray krauts racing across the street below.

The building shook every few seconds with the impact of explosions. Tanks on both sides were firing relentlessly at each other by now. German soldiers began to flood the streets and Posey worked tirelessly to pick them off, just as they'd been doing to her friends before. She kept her eyes peeled at both ends of the street to watch for Second Platoon. She hadn't been able to find them on the left where Webster had said they were.

Feeling as though she'd exhausted her current vantage point, Posey pushed out of the room and into one on the opposite side of the building. It offered a view over the field they'd come in through and she threw herself down before she'd checked outside of it.

She readied her gun and rested the barrel on the windowsill before wiping some sweat from her brow. When she finally looked outside, her face fell.

"Oh no."

Men in khaki were loading onto trucks, getting ready to retreat. A few of the trucks had already left and the ones remaining were waiting only for the final few stragglers to get to them. Posey stood to her full height and turned, racing her way back through the house and down the stairs; if she was left behind she knew she'd be facing a death sentence. She'd never survive in a prisoner of war camp, not after they found out she was a woman. John had told her plenty of stories about what the Nazis were rumoured to be doing to downed airmen once they found them, branding them political adversaries and sticking them in work camps. She didn't know whether they'd do the same to her if they found her but she certainly didn't want to find out.

Posey ran outside and had to run straight back in again. The Germans were out in full force. Rethinking her plan of escape, she turned and began to run in the opposite direction to where the troops were leaving, zig-zagging under the shower of bullets fired at her. There was no way she could get through the town and make it out alive. She'd either have to go around or wait it out.

Running around the back of a burning tank, she threw herself into a ditch on the outskirts of the town and crawled as fast as she could. She recalled the PT course at Toccoa and crawling for what felt like hours beneath barbed wire. She imagined that Sobel was shouting at her, that she'd be out of the Airborne if she didn't speed up. She kept her head down, crawling nonstop until she thought she'd put enough distance between herself and the Germans in the town.

When she looked up, she found she was right in front of a bombed out church. It was crumbling on one side, the glass in its windows all shattered, but it would do the job she needed it for. Posey put her head back down and crawled as close as she could, then hopped up and ran the rest of the way.