All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

29: Church

The paratroopers' 'quiet night' that Sunday evening, intended for scouting out the local pub in Aldbourne, was always destined to be anything but quiet. Posey had been dragged along by an insistent Luz, much against her will. She had all but dug her heels into the cobblestoned road to avoid a fate of pretending to be cheery all evening. Alas, it had all been to no avail. Luz had been stubborn and undeterred by all of her objections.

Quietly, Posey was so adverse to the idea of going because she knew she'd have to explain to Roe and Johnny why she was back, whenever it was she saw them. She also knew this would most likely transpire when the noise was loud enough to avoid eavesdroppers - thus, a pub was the perfect setting for such a tête-à-tête. But she didn't want to cry in front of either of them, and especially not in front of the rest of the men, either. Recalling how Guarnere had found her crying still sent flames to her cheeks and made a certain sickness settle into her stomach, weighing her down as though it were lead. The indifference she'd felt towards him seeing her cry had long since vanished, replaced by a steely fire of mortification that bubbled up from her toes whenever she looked at him. So, she stopped looking. And, whether intentionally or otherwise, she had taken to avoiding him at all costs.

The evening air was cold on her face, bringing a flush to her cheeks and making her ears sting as she followed a group of the men to the pub. She shoved her hands deep in her pockets and hunched in on herself, smiling for a moment as she considered what her mother might think if she saw her like that and then missing a step when she remembered that her mother was gone.

If any of the men around her noticed her falter, they didn't acknowledge it. Posey thought perhaps these men were better at keeping their mouths shut than she'd initially given them credit for.

When Skip pushed open the door to the pub, the warmth from inside hit her in the face like a sharp slap she might've once received from a governess. She shuffled inside, propelled forwards by the current of movement around her, and broke off from the group immediately to catch her breath. She shrunk in on herself in a corner, keeping her eyes shut as she breathed in deep breaths.

She remembered sharply how she'd felt when she'd set foot in that American bar for the first time back in Toccoa, how much betrayal she'd felt punch her in the gut. She'd resented the Americans for their jollity when Britain was falling apart.

Now, she saw that she'd been foolish. She'd been protective of a country that clearly didn't need her defences. The England she had been imagining, the England she had left behind, had been mourning. It had been sobs in the street and the wailing of bombs, grey concrete scattered everywhere where it had been thrown up into the air and grey faces worn thin from the rationing.

Standing there now, watching the bustling activity of this small, countryside pub on a Sunday evening, it was difficult to believe she was in England at all. This England was unrecognisable.

She felt betrayed anew but in an entirely different way. She'd dreamed of coming back home. Longed for it. Sighed for it from the depths of her soul. She'd wanted to come home more than she'd ever wanted anything in her entire life, and she was by no means a perfect saint where asking for things was concerned. But all she'd found since she'd returned was spite. Her home was gone, her mother dead, her brother wounded and jobless and spiteful, and what did her country have to show for the tragedy it had brought her? Smiling faces and pints of beer and open fireplaces burning without apology.

There were blackout curtains still, but no one watched them with a wary eye as though waiting to hear a bomb on the other side of them any minute. Just as there was still rationing, though no one here was having to take in their clothes because of it.

"Wells?"

Posey jolted in place. Still somewhat lost in her own thoughts, she was dragged to the surface by the harsh, interrogating eyes of Johnny Martin.