Wearing the disguise of naivety, it's all you can do to survive. Build this bomb, develop these pictures - you do everything you can to help.
They think you're young, far too young to do what the war expects of you - but you do it anyway. You'd do it a million times over just so nobody else would ever have to do it again. Just so none of them would have to risk themselves without need.
Late at night you lay awake in your hard bunk, pretending the shadows aren't closing in on you. What you wouldn't give for a light or a joke from your friends. But you can't let them see.
None of you can let the others see.
They don't know how strong you are, how much it takes out of you some days, putting on that smile, keeping things light and easy, acting the fool just for them.
It's what you do. It helps. You've done it for years now. For a while you can even pretend you can't see how much pain they're in. Doing their jobs, it weighs on you all.
Especially now.
So you'll put on a grin, wear it into the freezing compound, reinforce it down in the earthy tunnels, hold it on until it sticks.
You'll pretend you don't notice LeBeau not sleeping, Newkirk smoking more than ever, Kinch remaining glued to the radio, the Colonel letting his food ration go to the other men.
You'll smile along with the others, joyfully agreeing the war will end soon. That you'll go home. But it doesn't change anything. Hitler is still breathing, your operations aren't ceasing, the food is vanishing.
They need you to believe enough for all of them. So you will. You'd die before you let them down.
But what can you really do?
Germany is starving, the Allies aren't winning the war fast enough, and Hitler will never surrender.
And, somewhere deep inside, you know the horrific truth. You are going to survive this war. You'll leave this camp with your freedom. But you might be the only one.
And so you'll keep your spirits up, so they don't worry about you knowing like you do. You'll hold on to letters 'just for safekeeping', to trinkets 'dropped' by your workstation, to all the mementos of your friends. And you'll keep pretending that it will all work out.
After all, if you don't, nobody will.
