All Things Nice » Band of Brothers

81: Kindred

It was a while before Posey got to be a girl again but, when she did, it was enough to make her want to weep. Her hair was still short so she had to wear a headkerchief to cover it, but she also got to wear a dress and speak with her normal voice, albeit with the Boston accent still slapped over the top. Regardless, she'd take what she could get. It was more than enough for her.

Working as a nurse wasn't so similarly lovely. Posey hadn't yet had to treat anyone because she was still too weak to move around too much, but there had also been men coming in from Easy - too many men. Things were getting worse up on the line. She'd heard of two men coming in, each with a leg blown off, the same day as another had been brought in already dead, all three of them from Easy. She prayed they weren't anyone she loved, that her boys were all as safe as they could be up on the line and that they'd make it out of the Ardennes without a scratch on them.

As the days wore on, more and more men from Easy were being brought in, and having to stay shut in a cupboard without knowing who was beyond the door was infuriating. If only she could call out to them, or catch a glimpse out of the doorway as Viv or Ellie closed it behind them.

The two nurses, however, knew better than to let that happen. They didn't disclose the names of the wounded or dead lest it tear Posey apart - as soon as she was well enough she needed to be able to function properly. There was no time for mourning. It was best to just not know.

Then Easy was moved to a different part of the line, ready for some kind of attack, apparently, and as soon as Posey was well enough she was clearing bedpans and fetching water, making beds and cleaning floors. It was dull and sometimes disgusting but she knew she was lucky to be somewhere even remotely safe; she knew she could have been wandering around in Wehrmacht- or Nazi-occupied territory with nothing but her rifle and a little bit of ammo if Viv and Ellie hadn't been so kind, so she did her duties as well as she could manage and she kept her head down. She exchanged small talk with the soldiers when they initiated it with her and she nodded and smiled at the other nurses as she passed them. Beyond that, she kept quiet.

Even as a girl, she was still having to hide. 

She missed Bill. She missed him sorely. And she missed Johnny. And George. And Gene. And Bull. And Shifty. And all of them. She missed all of them so dearly she felt her loneliness like a punch to the gut. She found she didn't really know who she was without them.

Ever since the war had started she'd had to become different things to cope with whatever was happening to her. The person she'd been when she was in London during the Blitz was different to the person who had first greeted Mrs. Daniels at the train station in Boston, who was different to the person who'd showed up to Camp Toccoa and introduced themselves as 'Joe Wells', who was infinitely different to the person she was now. Time and experience had changed her, had chipped away at her piece by piece until all that was left was a shell with a plethora names attached to it that she wasn't sure really belonged to her anymore.

Posey didn't know who she was. Was she Posey or Josephine or Wells or Duckie? She wasn't sure if she felt like any one of them, maybe a combination of them instead. She supposed that when she was alone, when she wasn't hiding or performing or whatever it was that she had to do to survive nowadays, she was an amalgamation of all of these personas at once. She wasn't sure whether this realisation made her feel more sure of who she was, or less.

"Posey, darlin'," Ellie greeted Posey where she was washing used bandages so that they could be reused; just like the front lines, the aid station was severely undersupplied. "Why don't you take a break? You've been on your feet an awful long while and I'm worried about that wound of yours."

Posey smiled softly and mulled it over. "When I finish with the last of these bandages I will," she decided, turning back to the bucket of water she was using, the water now a murky shade of burgundy.