All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

06: Mountains

Their new commanding officer - Lieutenant Sobel, as had been screamed at them at the crack of dawn - had Second Platoon up bright and early. He ordered them to put their fatigues on over the top of their PT gear and line up in formation outside within two minutes. Posey had never been more grateful for choosing to wear something so skimpy to bed in a room full of men.

All she had to do was slip her fatigues on over her nightclothes and avoid looking up at the various changing men around her as she did so. She was up and lined up in what they all hoped was considered 'formation' in just shy of two minutes.

Lieutenant Sobel was not impressed.

"This," he began, shouting louder than he needed to in order to be heard and especially louder than he should have been so early in the morning, "is the lousiest goddamn formation I have ever seen. Under my command, Easy Company will not have the lousiest anything. So, Second Platoon, you are going to go back into your barracks and return within one minute and then you will show me the best goddamn formation I have ever seen. Understood?"

Posey followed everyone else's lead when the men replied in a booming, "Yes, sir," and stood waiting for a formal dismissal. She thanked God she had stood in the middle of the group because she would already have been back in the barracks by now if she'd been at the back.

Second Platoon's officer, Lieutenant Winters, turned to face his platoon and ordered, "Second Platoon, back into the barracks and out again within one minute. When you return you will stand at attention in military formation. Go!"

As she jogged back to the barracks with the rest of the men only to jog straight back out again, Posey decided she rather liked Lieutenant Winters. At least he, unlike Sobel, had told them what had been wrong with their first attempt at a formation, and he'd done so subtly, too. They needed to be stood at attention. Posey had peeped behind the settee at enough of her father's war films to know what that meant.

When Second Platoon was stood back in front of Lieutenant Sobel, sweating already even in the early morning and from such little exertion, he didn't quirk a smile even though they stood at attention this time. Instead, he boomed, "When I come to you you will tell me your name as follows: last name, first name, middle initial. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!"

He went along the rows.

As he did, Posey tuned out the shouted names of her peers and kept her eyes firmly forwards, rehearsing her answer over and over again in her head to prevent a slip up. She rehearsed it so rigorously she even knew what inflection to use with her voice to make it sound like she hadn't been rehearsing. When Lieutenant Sobel came to stand before her she barked at him in her faked deep voice, "Wells, Joseph M., sir!"

Sobel studied her critically.

Eventually, he said, "You think you've got what it takes, Private Wells?"

What the bloody hell was she supposed to say to that?

"Yes, sir!" she said.

"Someone as small as you." Sobel shook his head and gave a bark of a laugh. "You look like a little girl."

The irony.

Sobel laughed once more before looking back down his nose at her. "We'll see if you wash out, Private Wells." With one last bitter grimace the brute of a man was on to the next person in the formation. Posey let out a silent, shaky breath of relief.

As soon as he'd finished 'meeting' all of the enlisted of Second Platoon, Sobel came to stand before them all with a glower and a huff. "Change into PT gear. We're running Currahee."