Hi you all, as so many of you I didn't like the ending of pearl harbour. It's very dramatic but I don't like it at all-so here's my version. Enjoy! I tried to be realistic-well a little at least.
The look on his face reveiled pure helplessness as he looked away from his best friend in search of some way to help him. A thousand possibilities came to his mind but each of them wasn't going to work. In his arms Danny started shaking. He hadn't felt the pain as much before but now it shot through him like an arrow. All he could do was cry out in pain. Terrified Rafe looked back at him and was shocked by his pale features and the amount of blood spreading on the yellow safety jacket and his uniform. Rafe tried to sound as confident as possible:" Don't worry, Danny. I'm gonna find a way to get us both out of here. You'll be fine." Danny pressed his eyes closed and bit his lip to avoid another scream, then he pressed out:"Better find it fast!" So far shock and fear had gotten the better of Rafe but now his training started to kick in. So he carefully placed his friend on the ground and whispered:"I'm not leaving you here, not in a million years. You're gonna be fine!"
With that he stood up, holding his gun with shaking fingers. The night surrounded them. He couldn't see any more movements just the warm breeze moving a few leafes here and there.
Helplessly he muttered:"Shit!" With his gun still at the ready, he got back on his knees next to the other pilot. He was shaking from pain:"Rafe, this is unbearable. I have to throw up!" he turned his head but he didn't thow up.
Rafe shook his head in despair. How could this possibly have happend. How could they both have gotten in a situation like this. They knew it could happen but they never expected it. He let his head sink and burried his face in his hands, which were covered in Danny's blood.
"Rafe..." Danny whispered. He tried to get a glimpse of his wound to find out how bad it was. From what he felt like, he could tell it was serious but he wanted to see it, so he tried to open his jacket, which turned out to be a great mistake because as soon as he moved his left arm a wave of pain shot trhough his whole body and he almost blacked out. After a few seconds his vision came back.
Rafe had turned towards him and saw that a few tears ran down Danny's cheeks:"What are you doing. Lay still! I'm gonna go get help!"
"No!" Danny pressed out and reached for his hand: "Don't leave me!"
Rafe put his chin forward and made a decision:"I'm not leaving you here. I'll come back with help."
With that he stood up, when a voice behind him made him jump:"You're not going anywhere, Lt. McCawley." Rafe spun around and looked into Col. Doolittles face. He had blood and dirt on his face, his uniform was torn and he had lost his hat. Behind him 3 of his crew and Red, who had run away as Rafe had told him, appeared:"I saw Walker's machine go down here. Where's you crew and ...?" His gaze fell on Danny on the ground. He pushed past Rafe and got on his knees next to him:"Walker! Where are you hit?" While he asked he checked his pulse and cursed:"McCawley, damn it. Haven't you learned anything besides flying?" He quickly opened Danny's jacket and shirt just to reveil a huge amount of blood coming from two bullet wounds-one in his left shoulder, the other one in his side." The Colonell threw down a pack, he could save from his plane, pulled out a few bandages and applied them with pressure, which caused Danny to shout out in pain.
"Shut up!" he ordered:"If you want to get out of here alive, shut up. There's Japs all over this damn place." He saw the terrified and pained expression in Danny's eyes:"I have to apply pressure so you don't loose too much blood and now get up!" Rafe couldn't beleive what he had just heard:"What? Sir, I think.."
Doolittle turned around and hissed:"I don't give a damn what you think! We'll get him out! Now. Give me a hand!"
While Rafe bent down to grab Danny under his arm, a thought crossed Danny's mind. Should he tell them to leave him and save their own butt? No, he didn't want to be left behind, he wanted to get through this and have the possibility to see Evelyn again. This thought gave him so much faith and energy, that he pushed himself up when Rafe and Doollitle pulled him to his feet. The next second his vision went black and his knees gave in like pudding. Red suddenly studdered out a terrified warning, which made the other 3 soldiers spin around:"Ttthheerrree...lights....th tht aaatt aarrree jajajaps!"
"Quick! Run!" Doolittle order. While he and Rafe practically dragged Danny along, his men ran ahead with their weapons drawn. While they were running, the Col. Shouted:" Are there...any other ..survivors."
"No, sir!"
They stumbled across the field away from the plane. In a distance of about 300 meters, they paused for a second allowing themselves to catch their breath.
Breathing heavily the sat with their backs against a few trees.
In the distance they could see a few lights and the giant shadow of the crashed air plane. There they would have been an easy target.
The night wasn't as dark anymore as morning was slowly approaching.
Rafe touched Danny's hand to feel for his pulse. It was weak but there. Suddenly Evelyn came to his mind. How would this all end? How would she cope if both of them didn't make it home? Who would be a father for her unborn baby? Probably she didn't even know that they had crashed and that Danny practically had saved his life. He looked at his friend again and all his anger and hard feelings towards him were gone. He only hoped Danny would survive and everything should be like it was before.
Danny, who had become conscious again, brought him out of his thoughts:"Rafe!" he winced.
Red had watched them from nearby and now saw Dolittle tiptoeing towards them, who had assessed the situation and had decided that they would move on as quickly as possible:"Walker, try again, to stand up!" Danny nodded. This time he didn't pass out. He managed to get on his feet with two of the other mens help.
"We have to get to that forest, before sunrise to make it harder to find us."
"Maybe they're not even looking for us. Maybe they think everbody has died in the crashs."
"Maybe isn't good enough , Seargant! I'm responsible for you!"
Slowly they made their way towards a hill with quite dense forrest on it. When they reached it they gave Danny and one of the other soldiers, who had a bad injury on his arm from Doolittles touch down. After a few minutes they moved into the woods, where they mereged with the shadows.
After a few changes of direction, one of Doolittles men mumbled:"Here's a cave, look! We can hide here!"
Carefully he the Col. Stuck his head inside and then stepped in. After a few moments, he decided:"We're gonna hide in here."
Rafe was releived to stop. He wasn't sure if Danny could make it any further and if they got involved in a fight, he would have been lost.
The men carefully felt their way inside as it was pitchblack in the cave. When they had gotten far enough into the cave, they all sat down on the clumsy ground. On the contrary to the air outside, the air in here was pretty cool.
From somewhere a small ray of light shone into the cave giving them just enough light to see what was exactly next to them. Silence spread. Only a few painfully drawn breaths broke the silence.
Rafe carefully placed his best friend onto the ground and got down next to him. He placed his hand on him and could feel how he was shivering. Eager to know how he was doing, he got very closed to his head and whispered:"Danny....Danny! How are you?"
Danny opened his brown eyes to look at him. The he whispered:"Can you tell Evelyn I love her?"
These few simple words shocked Rafe so much that he could feel it in his fingertips. He slowly shoof his head and tried to clear his choked up throat:"No, you tell her that yourself."
Danny closed his eyes again and reached for his friends hand.
Red had gotten close. He didn't want to disturb them but Danny was his friend, a close friend, to be honest. He cleared his throat behind them and asked:"How is he?"
Rafe didn't turn around. He had layed down next to his friend:"Not good, Red."
"I'm cold...very." Danny moaned. Red immediately took of his jacket and gave it to Rafe to cover Danny.
Then the silence filled the room again. It was awful. But nobody dare to say anything. The men drew their uniforms closer and sat quietly.
Doolittle's voice finally broke the silence:"I think you've all done a good job. You were told that this might be a never-come-back mission and I'm afraid that it turned out to really be one. I'm sorry about that!"
After a few awkward seconds Red asked: "What..ddoo you meann? Do you wawawant to give up?"
"However!" the Col. Continued. "You wouldn't be the men I got to know if you gave up now. We will fight and we will make it....All of us!"
Another moment passed.
The he continued:"How are we gonna make it? We've got a few contact men in China. These men have been informed about our raid and I'm sure they are already on their way. We have to find them or they have to find us before the Jap's do. That's the plan."
"Yes, but how are we gonna find them, Colonel?" one man asked.
"We'll see tomorrow night. Right now we can't go outside because it's light and we'd be spotted immediately. So we'll try to sleep. McAllister, yours is the first watch. "
"But Colonell. We can't sleep right now!" Rafe protested.
"Yes, you can and you will. You'll need all your strenght for tomorrow night!"
Despite all protest Doolittle order them to got to sleep. They had trusted him so far and decided that they sould gon on trusting him knowing several wild war stories, where he had managed to save his men-mostly in the air but still.
Rafe held Danny's hand while his thoughts circled around Evelyn and the baby mostly. Danny didn't even know about it and Rafe wasn't sure whether to tell him or not. He decided not to because he was convinced his friend would make it and that Evelyn should tell him herself.
Danny caughed a bit and then let out a moan. Rafe glanced over to him. He could see that his eyes were closed. He fixed his gaze on his best friend's features thinking about their childhood together and how they had always stood up for each other-most times at least. It hadn't always been all rosy, they had had their fights but being friends for such a long time had let them become very close although the fact that Evelyn and Danny had gotten together had changed something. Still, they were friends. With these thoughts, he drifted into a light sleep.
Danny heard Rafe's steady breath. He couldn't sleep. Seemingly endless pain attacks were shaking his body, he felt terribly sick and cold like never before. He also thought about Evelyn. He wanted to be with her so much right now. Why wasn't she there. They only person he really wanted near right now. Slowly he tried to move his right hand to his side to see whether it was still bleeding. He touch his side and then looked at his hand. He couldn't see much, so that was good.
The next thing he knew was being woken up by anxious screams:"The Japs!"
Men around him jumped up or froze in their steps as they were surrounded by men carrying guns and riffles. One couldn't see their faces in the dim light but their harsh voices sounded in a starnge language. Various orders were shouted until a light was shone at them, which completely blinded them. The Doolittle men jumped about like scared chooks searching for their weapons, when suddenly a voice shouted out a command and then said with a strange accent in English:"Stop. Identify yourselfs." Danny shot a questioning look at Rafe, who looked back in the same way. Colonell Doolittle stepped in front of his men:"CoL. Doolittle, US Air Force."
The other man said:"Thought so. I need the name of your mission."
"Wild geese."
"Alright. I'm Huang Cho, I think you know who I am." He order his men to lower his weapons.
"We will get you and bring you to our base as soon as it get's dark. Until then we can just hope that the Japanese won't find us all in here."
A few hours later all of them very slowly and carefully made their way through the woods being led by their contact man. Rafe and Red has decided to carry Danny as he was now very weak. This proofed to be rather exhausting and difficult considering his height. But Rafe was determined not to leave him behind no matter how hard it would be.
A few times they had to duck down and hide behind small hills of dirt and trees. It turned out to be only falls alarms. After about two hours of creeping through the bush, they finally reached the car, the men had come with. It was well hidden under tree branches.
Carefully Danny was placed on the back of it. Most of the men exhaustedly sat back there with him. So did Rafe as the car finally started to move. He slit down and grabbed Danny hand again. He didn't return his grip. Rafe eagerly asked:"Danny! Hey, Danny."A shock went through his body. He checked Danny's pulse but couldn't find it:"Danny, damn! Danny!!!"
The other men had turned to see what was happening. Rafe held his breath and place his hand on Dannys chest to feel whether he was breathing but the car was shalking too much to notice. With tears in his eyes, he put his ear next to Danny's nose, when he heard an almost unnoticatble drawing of a breath. Rafe close his eyes, tears of relief rolling down his dirty face.
After what seemed an eternity they arrived in a small village somewhere in a valley just before the crack of dawn.
The quickly were brought inside, where a few men and women were waiting for them. The houses were made of bamboo and mud. The one they were lead into had only three rooms.
Doolittle tried to assess the situation, while his completely exhausted men sank to the ground. They hadn't slept well, hadn't eaten or drunken in almost two days and most of them were injured in one or the other way. He frowned. Then he turned towrads Rafe, who had just brought Danny in together with Red. Their contact men approached them quickly:"I've seen one of your men is seriously injured. Please bring him in here. He directed them into another house, where they found a low table. A man and two women were waiting for them:"This is Dr. Huang, he is an old friend of mine and on our side. He came up here to help you and your men."
The man motioned for Rafe and Red to put their wounded comrade on the table. They exchanged a few insecure glances but decided that they had no choice and put him down.
The doctore said something in Chinese, which Cho translated as:"He asks you to leave."
Rafe shook his head:"No way, I'm staying."
"I think you should go." Col. Doolittle suggested:"Let them do their job."
Rafe straightened up in front of his superior:" Is that an order?"
The Colonel looked him straight in the eye. In any other situation, he would have said yes but he knew Rafe's stubbornness as well as his extraordinary friendship with Danny. So he simply shook his head and turned around to go.
Rafe turned towards his friend again and saw that the women had taken off Danny's clothes, and hooked him up to what looked like an IV. Rafe didn't trust his eyes.
Cho said:"Trust them. He studdied medicine, he's gonna do his best." Rafe watched them undo the bandages and turn him onto his stomache when the doctor started to examine the wound with his hand, Rafe suddenly felt his knees get week and his stomache turn upside down and esoite the fact that he hadn't eaten in days, he had to dash outside and throw up in front of the house.
He slid down to the ground and burried his head in his hands. A few minutes later he decided not to go back in but join the others, who were just having something to eat and drink, which they swallowed hungrily.
Rafe couldn't eat for the next half an hour but then his hunger got the better of him. Lost in toughts Rafe chewed on a piece of bread when he heard a scream from the other house. It was Danny's voice. Rafe jumped up knocking over his plate and ran outside. He stormed into the other house and stopped dead in his tracks, when his saw Danny with his shoulder covered in blood but awake. Two women helped him sit up and wrapped his shoulder and side with new bandages.
Danny drousily looked at Rafe. His brown eyes didn't really focus on him and he looked very spaced out, when the laid him bacl down.
Rafe swallowed the lump in his throat and slowly walke over to his friend. Cho was already in there. He held him back and said:"Give him some time. The doctor has done his best. Let him rest."
Confused Rafe looked at Danny, who was no seemingly asleep and then to the people in the room:"Is he gonna be alright? What has he...I mean, you know. Is he alright?"
"The doctor said he took out the bullet in his shoulder from the back but he couldn't reach the other one without your friend loosing too much blood."
Rafe stood there helplessly:"And? That means?"
"We just have to wait and see. He's lost a lot of blood." Behind them the doctor asked something.
Rafe wanted to know:"What, what has he asked?"
"Do you know your blood type?"
Rafe let out a sigh:"Yes, of course! We have the same: take me blood!"
The doctor nodded as if had understood. Soon one of the women took some blood from Rafe, whih reminded him of the time at the hospital where they had give blood together. Then his blood was prepared and give to Danny. Rafe sat and watched for over and hour. Doolittle had come in and brought Rafe a bottle of water. Then everybody left because they had to help the others as well. Rafe sat next to Danny on the ground and held his hand. He leaned onto the table and rested his head there. On Danny's forehead sweat was showing because the night was extremely humid. The sounds of the dschungle came in through the non existent windows the night slowly became day. Rafe had fallen asleep. He woke with a start after only 5 hours. His first thought was Danny, who was still next to him, breathing weakily but steadily.
Rafe decided not to wake him but look for the others. He found Red on a rock near the last house. He stared into the green of the dschungle. Rafe sat down next to him:"Are you allright?"
Red nodded:"Just a few bruises and scratches? You? How's Daniel?"
Rafe was tempted to say'fine' how you usually do without thinking, he looked into the dschungle as well:"I don't know."
Red nodded:" Do you thihtink we will get out of hehehere?"
Rafe didn't reply cause he didn't know how the would ever get away from here without their planes but he also knew the needed to because Danny needed a hospital and sooner or later the Japanese would find them and shoot them all.
The Colonel had walked up behin them:"May I sit down? Can't you sleep?"
"No, sir."
"We're working on getting us out of here, back to Hawaii."
With that he stood up and went away leaving behind two rather confused pilots.
Later that day Danny woke up. Before he even opened his eyes, the terrible pain in his shoulder and side reminded him of what had happened. He slowly opened his eyes and squinted because the sunlight was shining directly into them. For a while he just lay still traing to figure out what had happened withing the last day and whether he'd be getting better or worse. After falling back to sleep and waking up again a few hours later, he made an attempt to get up but failed miserably.
Rafe had found him asleep before and left again but now nobody was here. Only the sounds of the dschungle, humidity and the sun. He was alone.
He fell asleep again. When he woke up again, the picture hadn't changed.
With a hoarse voice he said:"Hello, is anybody here....hello. can you hear me?" He looked around but saw nobody. Had they left him? He'd never see her again-Ev- if they'd left him. He tried to sit up and succeeded. Drousily he studied the room and then he saw that he wore only his uniform pants and boots and was wrapped up in bandages. Trying to suppress the pain, he attempted to get up it was too much. He hissed:"Shit!" While he laid back down knocking his head and shoulder on the hard table, he winced:"Aw!" then he heard voices in a distance.
It didn't take long until somebody stormed into the room. It was Col. Doolittle closely followed by Rafe. Danny smiled:"Rafe! I almost thought you were gone." He voice was bearly understandable because his throat was so dry. Rafe ran to him a huge smile on his face, he grabbed his hand:"Danny! You're awake! Do you think I'd go without you? No way-after I practically carried you here!"
"Here, where's here?"
"A village, where they helped us-you!"
Doolittle handed Rafe the waterbottle again:"Give him some and safe your story for later."
More and more Chinese people and Red filled the room. Excitement filled the air-excitement over Danny having woken up and something else.
"We're going home."
His gentle tone, while he was giving Danny a sip to drink, which he gratefully drank, was interrupted by Doolittles serious tone:"But if we want to get home, we have to go immediately! Are you up to that Lt. Walker." He kept his hard military tone to motivate and push his guys in situations like these."
"I don't know, sir." Danny shily replied.
"You'd better be! Try to stand up." Danny shot him an unbeleiving look from his brown eyes. He saw seriousness in the other man's, so he slowly nodded. Rafe reached under his right arm pit and supported him as good as possible. Slowly sat up and the stood up:"Wait Rafe, I'm seeing stars." He paused:"Alright. Let's do it!" Biting his lip stood up. He just stood. Then slowly he put one foot in front of the other until they reached the outside of the house where the were greated by Red, the other three soldiers and the rest of the village. Danny stood up in the doorframe looking like a true survivor. He was only wearing dirty pants and combat boots, he was bandaged up and his chest and face were covered in dirt and dried blood, his hair was ruffled but there was a huge smile on his face.
"Allright, let's get going!" Doolittle said, who couldn't hide a little smile himself.
Soon they all sat in the two only cars in the village and drove on a small winding raod through the dschungle.
Cho shouted over the engine noise:"My men have checket the roads and this one appears to be clear but better have your weapons ready." He had supplied them with rifles because most of them had lost their weapons during the crash." The bumps in the road hurt Danny badly although he had been given some Chinese medicine by the doctor. He wasn't completely aware of what was going on due to the medicine but he could still feel the pain. Moaning he leaned agains Rafe, who was next to him, who petted his back:"Hold on, boy. We're gonna be at the coast soon."
And he was right. They were at the coast soon. The road followed a cliff. In a distance the ycould already see a small harbour.
Rafe looked at the sun going down, when suddenly the glass next to his head shattered and a bullet flew past him. Seconds later the bullets were flying around them like hail. Rafe heard screams and shouting. He knocked the window out with the back of his gun and started shooting at the Japs hiding behind the rocks near the cliffs. The others were defending themselves, too sending pieces of stone off the rocks. The sound of the guns and shouts was terrible.
A minute later they were out of the reach of the Japanese.
Doolittle shouted:"Is everybody alright?" He looked at his men and tried to get a glimpse of the second car behind them. Everybody seemed fine. They still had to go down a hill and one tyre was flat. Adrenalin rushed through their bodies as they descended down the hill at hight speed with the car winding like a snake. Fortunately they made it down the hill and to the pier where a small boat was already waiting for them. The men jumped of the back of the pick up and ran towards the boat. Rafe practically dragged Danny out of the car and towards the boat, while the Col. Shouted:"Get moving, faster. They are coming, I can see them up the hill." Danny stumbled more than he walked and Rafe lost his balance sending them both to the ground, while Cho had reached the boat. The engine was running. Col. Doolittle had ordered everbody to get aboard and then ran back to help Rafe. He simply grabbed Danny's arm and pulled him up together with Rafe not caring whether he was hurting him. He didn't want to leave these two behind so close before being rescued. Behind theri cars the Japanese brought their car to a halt with squeeking tires and already started firing. Rafe pushed Danny on board, who fell to the floor and stayed where he was breathing heavily. Rafe and Doolittle dived in after him, when the engine roared up and the boat sped of.
"Lay down! Heads down!"
The bullets hit the wood of the boat while it sped away. Two soldiers fired back but they were soon out of reach.
On the bottom of the boat Rafe took a deep breath and glanced at Doolittle who let out a sigh.
Rafe the turned towards Danny, who turned onto his back with pain written plainly across his face.
When he saw Rafe's look he had to smile. Rafe returned his smile. After a while of great releive, he said:" I told you, I'd save your ass!"
Danny nooded, still abig grin on his face:"Yes, you did!"
There's more to come, so keep hanging in there. I wrote this tonight and it was a bit of work, I must say, but good fun,too, as I have't written any stories in a while. I'd love a detailed review!!!!
The look on his face reveiled pure helplessness as he looked away from his best friend in search of some way to help him. A thousand possibilities came to his mind but each of them wasn't going to work. In his arms Danny started shaking. He hadn't felt the pain as much before but now it shot through him like an arrow. All he could do was cry out in pain. Terrified Rafe looked back at him and was shocked by his pale features and the amount of blood spreading on the yellow safety jacket and his uniform. Rafe tried to sound as confident as possible:" Don't worry, Danny. I'm gonna find a way to get us both out of here. You'll be fine." Danny pressed his eyes closed and bit his lip to avoid another scream, then he pressed out:"Better find it fast!" So far shock and fear had gotten the better of Rafe but now his training started to kick in. So he carefully placed his friend on the ground and whispered:"I'm not leaving you here, not in a million years. You're gonna be fine!"
With that he stood up, holding his gun with shaking fingers. The night surrounded them. He couldn't see any more movements just the warm breeze moving a few leafes here and there.
Helplessly he muttered:"Shit!" With his gun still at the ready, he got back on his knees next to the other pilot. He was shaking from pain:"Rafe, this is unbearable. I have to throw up!" he turned his head but he didn't thow up.
Rafe shook his head in despair. How could this possibly have happend. How could they both have gotten in a situation like this. They knew it could happen but they never expected it. He let his head sink and burried his face in his hands, which were covered in Danny's blood.
"Rafe..." Danny whispered. He tried to get a glimpse of his wound to find out how bad it was. From what he felt like, he could tell it was serious but he wanted to see it, so he tried to open his jacket, which turned out to be a great mistake because as soon as he moved his left arm a wave of pain shot trhough his whole body and he almost blacked out. After a few seconds his vision came back.
Rafe had turned towards him and saw that a few tears ran down Danny's cheeks:"What are you doing. Lay still! I'm gonna go get help!"
"No!" Danny pressed out and reached for his hand: "Don't leave me!"
Rafe put his chin forward and made a decision:"I'm not leaving you here. I'll come back with help."
With that he stood up, when a voice behind him made him jump:"You're not going anywhere, Lt. McCawley." Rafe spun around and looked into Col. Doolittles face. He had blood and dirt on his face, his uniform was torn and he had lost his hat. Behind him 3 of his crew and Red, who had run away as Rafe had told him, appeared:"I saw Walker's machine go down here. Where's you crew and ...?" His gaze fell on Danny on the ground. He pushed past Rafe and got on his knees next to him:"Walker! Where are you hit?" While he asked he checked his pulse and cursed:"McCawley, damn it. Haven't you learned anything besides flying?" He quickly opened Danny's jacket and shirt just to reveil a huge amount of blood coming from two bullet wounds-one in his left shoulder, the other one in his side." The Colonell threw down a pack, he could save from his plane, pulled out a few bandages and applied them with pressure, which caused Danny to shout out in pain.
"Shut up!" he ordered:"If you want to get out of here alive, shut up. There's Japs all over this damn place." He saw the terrified and pained expression in Danny's eyes:"I have to apply pressure so you don't loose too much blood and now get up!" Rafe couldn't beleive what he had just heard:"What? Sir, I think.."
Doolittle turned around and hissed:"I don't give a damn what you think! We'll get him out! Now. Give me a hand!"
While Rafe bent down to grab Danny under his arm, a thought crossed Danny's mind. Should he tell them to leave him and save their own butt? No, he didn't want to be left behind, he wanted to get through this and have the possibility to see Evelyn again. This thought gave him so much faith and energy, that he pushed himself up when Rafe and Doollitle pulled him to his feet. The next second his vision went black and his knees gave in like pudding. Red suddenly studdered out a terrified warning, which made the other 3 soldiers spin around:"Ttthheerrree...lights....th tht aaatt aarrree jajajaps!"
"Quick! Run!" Doolittle order. While he and Rafe practically dragged Danny along, his men ran ahead with their weapons drawn. While they were running, the Col. Shouted:" Are there...any other ..survivors."
"No, sir!"
They stumbled across the field away from the plane. In a distance of about 300 meters, they paused for a second allowing themselves to catch their breath.
Breathing heavily the sat with their backs against a few trees.
In the distance they could see a few lights and the giant shadow of the crashed air plane. There they would have been an easy target.
The night wasn't as dark anymore as morning was slowly approaching.
Rafe touched Danny's hand to feel for his pulse. It was weak but there. Suddenly Evelyn came to his mind. How would this all end? How would she cope if both of them didn't make it home? Who would be a father for her unborn baby? Probably she didn't even know that they had crashed and that Danny practically had saved his life. He looked at his friend again and all his anger and hard feelings towards him were gone. He only hoped Danny would survive and everything should be like it was before.
Danny, who had become conscious again, brought him out of his thoughts:"Rafe!" he winced.
Red had watched them from nearby and now saw Dolittle tiptoeing towards them, who had assessed the situation and had decided that they would move on as quickly as possible:"Walker, try again, to stand up!" Danny nodded. This time he didn't pass out. He managed to get on his feet with two of the other mens help.
"We have to get to that forest, before sunrise to make it harder to find us."
"Maybe they're not even looking for us. Maybe they think everbody has died in the crashs."
"Maybe isn't good enough , Seargant! I'm responsible for you!"
Slowly they made their way towards a hill with quite dense forrest on it. When they reached it they gave Danny and one of the other soldiers, who had a bad injury on his arm from Doolittles touch down. After a few minutes they moved into the woods, where they mereged with the shadows.
After a few changes of direction, one of Doolittles men mumbled:"Here's a cave, look! We can hide here!"
Carefully he the Col. Stuck his head inside and then stepped in. After a few moments, he decided:"We're gonna hide in here."
Rafe was releived to stop. He wasn't sure if Danny could make it any further and if they got involved in a fight, he would have been lost.
The men carefully felt their way inside as it was pitchblack in the cave. When they had gotten far enough into the cave, they all sat down on the clumsy ground. On the contrary to the air outside, the air in here was pretty cool.
From somewhere a small ray of light shone into the cave giving them just enough light to see what was exactly next to them. Silence spread. Only a few painfully drawn breaths broke the silence.
Rafe carefully placed his best friend onto the ground and got down next to him. He placed his hand on him and could feel how he was shivering. Eager to know how he was doing, he got very closed to his head and whispered:"Danny....Danny! How are you?"
Danny opened his brown eyes to look at him. The he whispered:"Can you tell Evelyn I love her?"
These few simple words shocked Rafe so much that he could feel it in his fingertips. He slowly shoof his head and tried to clear his choked up throat:"No, you tell her that yourself."
Danny closed his eyes again and reached for his friends hand.
Red had gotten close. He didn't want to disturb them but Danny was his friend, a close friend, to be honest. He cleared his throat behind them and asked:"How is he?"
Rafe didn't turn around. He had layed down next to his friend:"Not good, Red."
"I'm cold...very." Danny moaned. Red immediately took of his jacket and gave it to Rafe to cover Danny.
Then the silence filled the room again. It was awful. But nobody dare to say anything. The men drew their uniforms closer and sat quietly.
Doolittle's voice finally broke the silence:"I think you've all done a good job. You were told that this might be a never-come-back mission and I'm afraid that it turned out to really be one. I'm sorry about that!"
After a few awkward seconds Red asked: "What..ddoo you meann? Do you wawawant to give up?"
"However!" the Col. Continued. "You wouldn't be the men I got to know if you gave up now. We will fight and we will make it....All of us!"
Another moment passed.
The he continued:"How are we gonna make it? We've got a few contact men in China. These men have been informed about our raid and I'm sure they are already on their way. We have to find them or they have to find us before the Jap's do. That's the plan."
"Yes, but how are we gonna find them, Colonel?" one man asked.
"We'll see tomorrow night. Right now we can't go outside because it's light and we'd be spotted immediately. So we'll try to sleep. McAllister, yours is the first watch. "
"But Colonell. We can't sleep right now!" Rafe protested.
"Yes, you can and you will. You'll need all your strenght for tomorrow night!"
Despite all protest Doolittle order them to got to sleep. They had trusted him so far and decided that they sould gon on trusting him knowing several wild war stories, where he had managed to save his men-mostly in the air but still.
Rafe held Danny's hand while his thoughts circled around Evelyn and the baby mostly. Danny didn't even know about it and Rafe wasn't sure whether to tell him or not. He decided not to because he was convinced his friend would make it and that Evelyn should tell him herself.
Danny caughed a bit and then let out a moan. Rafe glanced over to him. He could see that his eyes were closed. He fixed his gaze on his best friend's features thinking about their childhood together and how they had always stood up for each other-most times at least. It hadn't always been all rosy, they had had their fights but being friends for such a long time had let them become very close although the fact that Evelyn and Danny had gotten together had changed something. Still, they were friends. With these thoughts, he drifted into a light sleep.
Danny heard Rafe's steady breath. He couldn't sleep. Seemingly endless pain attacks were shaking his body, he felt terribly sick and cold like never before. He also thought about Evelyn. He wanted to be with her so much right now. Why wasn't she there. They only person he really wanted near right now. Slowly he tried to move his right hand to his side to see whether it was still bleeding. He touch his side and then looked at his hand. He couldn't see much, so that was good.
The next thing he knew was being woken up by anxious screams:"The Japs!"
Men around him jumped up or froze in their steps as they were surrounded by men carrying guns and riffles. One couldn't see their faces in the dim light but their harsh voices sounded in a starnge language. Various orders were shouted until a light was shone at them, which completely blinded them. The Doolittle men jumped about like scared chooks searching for their weapons, when suddenly a voice shouted out a command and then said with a strange accent in English:"Stop. Identify yourselfs." Danny shot a questioning look at Rafe, who looked back in the same way. Colonell Doolittle stepped in front of his men:"CoL. Doolittle, US Air Force."
The other man said:"Thought so. I need the name of your mission."
"Wild geese."
"Alright. I'm Huang Cho, I think you know who I am." He order his men to lower his weapons.
"We will get you and bring you to our base as soon as it get's dark. Until then we can just hope that the Japanese won't find us all in here."
A few hours later all of them very slowly and carefully made their way through the woods being led by their contact man. Rafe and Red has decided to carry Danny as he was now very weak. This proofed to be rather exhausting and difficult considering his height. But Rafe was determined not to leave him behind no matter how hard it would be.
A few times they had to duck down and hide behind small hills of dirt and trees. It turned out to be only falls alarms. After about two hours of creeping through the bush, they finally reached the car, the men had come with. It was well hidden under tree branches.
Carefully Danny was placed on the back of it. Most of the men exhaustedly sat back there with him. So did Rafe as the car finally started to move. He slit down and grabbed Danny hand again. He didn't return his grip. Rafe eagerly asked:"Danny! Hey, Danny."A shock went through his body. He checked Danny's pulse but couldn't find it:"Danny, damn! Danny!!!"
The other men had turned to see what was happening. Rafe held his breath and place his hand on Dannys chest to feel whether he was breathing but the car was shalking too much to notice. With tears in his eyes, he put his ear next to Danny's nose, when he heard an almost unnoticatble drawing of a breath. Rafe close his eyes, tears of relief rolling down his dirty face.
After what seemed an eternity they arrived in a small village somewhere in a valley just before the crack of dawn.
The quickly were brought inside, where a few men and women were waiting for them. The houses were made of bamboo and mud. The one they were lead into had only three rooms.
Doolittle tried to assess the situation, while his completely exhausted men sank to the ground. They hadn't slept well, hadn't eaten or drunken in almost two days and most of them were injured in one or the other way. He frowned. Then he turned towrads Rafe, who had just brought Danny in together with Red. Their contact men approached them quickly:"I've seen one of your men is seriously injured. Please bring him in here. He directed them into another house, where they found a low table. A man and two women were waiting for them:"This is Dr. Huang, he is an old friend of mine and on our side. He came up here to help you and your men."
The man motioned for Rafe and Red to put their wounded comrade on the table. They exchanged a few insecure glances but decided that they had no choice and put him down.
The doctore said something in Chinese, which Cho translated as:"He asks you to leave."
Rafe shook his head:"No way, I'm staying."
"I think you should go." Col. Doolittle suggested:"Let them do their job."
Rafe straightened up in front of his superior:" Is that an order?"
The Colonel looked him straight in the eye. In any other situation, he would have said yes but he knew Rafe's stubbornness as well as his extraordinary friendship with Danny. So he simply shook his head and turned around to go.
Rafe turned towards his friend again and saw that the women had taken off Danny's clothes, and hooked him up to what looked like an IV. Rafe didn't trust his eyes.
Cho said:"Trust them. He studdied medicine, he's gonna do his best." Rafe watched them undo the bandages and turn him onto his stomache when the doctor started to examine the wound with his hand, Rafe suddenly felt his knees get week and his stomache turn upside down and esoite the fact that he hadn't eaten in days, he had to dash outside and throw up in front of the house.
He slid down to the ground and burried his head in his hands. A few minutes later he decided not to go back in but join the others, who were just having something to eat and drink, which they swallowed hungrily.
Rafe couldn't eat for the next half an hour but then his hunger got the better of him. Lost in toughts Rafe chewed on a piece of bread when he heard a scream from the other house. It was Danny's voice. Rafe jumped up knocking over his plate and ran outside. He stormed into the other house and stopped dead in his tracks, when his saw Danny with his shoulder covered in blood but awake. Two women helped him sit up and wrapped his shoulder and side with new bandages.
Danny drousily looked at Rafe. His brown eyes didn't really focus on him and he looked very spaced out, when the laid him bacl down.
Rafe swallowed the lump in his throat and slowly walke over to his friend. Cho was already in there. He held him back and said:"Give him some time. The doctor has done his best. Let him rest."
Confused Rafe looked at Danny, who was no seemingly asleep and then to the people in the room:"Is he gonna be alright? What has he...I mean, you know. Is he alright?"
"The doctor said he took out the bullet in his shoulder from the back but he couldn't reach the other one without your friend loosing too much blood."
Rafe stood there helplessly:"And? That means?"
"We just have to wait and see. He's lost a lot of blood." Behind them the doctor asked something.
Rafe wanted to know:"What, what has he asked?"
"Do you know your blood type?"
Rafe let out a sigh:"Yes, of course! We have the same: take me blood!"
The doctor nodded as if had understood. Soon one of the women took some blood from Rafe, whih reminded him of the time at the hospital where they had give blood together. Then his blood was prepared and give to Danny. Rafe sat and watched for over and hour. Doolittle had come in and brought Rafe a bottle of water. Then everybody left because they had to help the others as well. Rafe sat next to Danny on the ground and held his hand. He leaned onto the table and rested his head there. On Danny's forehead sweat was showing because the night was extremely humid. The sounds of the dschungle came in through the non existent windows the night slowly became day. Rafe had fallen asleep. He woke with a start after only 5 hours. His first thought was Danny, who was still next to him, breathing weakily but steadily.
Rafe decided not to wake him but look for the others. He found Red on a rock near the last house. He stared into the green of the dschungle. Rafe sat down next to him:"Are you allright?"
Red nodded:"Just a few bruises and scratches? You? How's Daniel?"
Rafe was tempted to say'fine' how you usually do without thinking, he looked into the dschungle as well:"I don't know."
Red nodded:" Do you thihtink we will get out of hehehere?"
Rafe didn't reply cause he didn't know how the would ever get away from here without their planes but he also knew the needed to because Danny needed a hospital and sooner or later the Japanese would find them and shoot them all.
The Colonel had walked up behin them:"May I sit down? Can't you sleep?"
"No, sir."
"We're working on getting us out of here, back to Hawaii."
With that he stood up and went away leaving behind two rather confused pilots.
Later that day Danny woke up. Before he even opened his eyes, the terrible pain in his shoulder and side reminded him of what had happened. He slowly opened his eyes and squinted because the sunlight was shining directly into them. For a while he just lay still traing to figure out what had happened withing the last day and whether he'd be getting better or worse. After falling back to sleep and waking up again a few hours later, he made an attempt to get up but failed miserably.
Rafe had found him asleep before and left again but now nobody was here. Only the sounds of the dschungle, humidity and the sun. He was alone.
He fell asleep again. When he woke up again, the picture hadn't changed.
With a hoarse voice he said:"Hello, is anybody here....hello. can you hear me?" He looked around but saw nobody. Had they left him? He'd never see her again-Ev- if they'd left him. He tried to sit up and succeeded. Drousily he studied the room and then he saw that he wore only his uniform pants and boots and was wrapped up in bandages. Trying to suppress the pain, he attempted to get up it was too much. He hissed:"Shit!" While he laid back down knocking his head and shoulder on the hard table, he winced:"Aw!" then he heard voices in a distance.
It didn't take long until somebody stormed into the room. It was Col. Doolittle closely followed by Rafe. Danny smiled:"Rafe! I almost thought you were gone." He voice was bearly understandable because his throat was so dry. Rafe ran to him a huge smile on his face, he grabbed his hand:"Danny! You're awake! Do you think I'd go without you? No way-after I practically carried you here!"
"Here, where's here?"
"A village, where they helped us-you!"
Doolittle handed Rafe the waterbottle again:"Give him some and safe your story for later."
More and more Chinese people and Red filled the room. Excitement filled the air-excitement over Danny having woken up and something else.
"We're going home."
His gentle tone, while he was giving Danny a sip to drink, which he gratefully drank, was interrupted by Doolittles serious tone:"But if we want to get home, we have to go immediately! Are you up to that Lt. Walker." He kept his hard military tone to motivate and push his guys in situations like these."
"I don't know, sir." Danny shily replied.
"You'd better be! Try to stand up." Danny shot him an unbeleiving look from his brown eyes. He saw seriousness in the other man's, so he slowly nodded. Rafe reached under his right arm pit and supported him as good as possible. Slowly sat up and the stood up:"Wait Rafe, I'm seeing stars." He paused:"Alright. Let's do it!" Biting his lip stood up. He just stood. Then slowly he put one foot in front of the other until they reached the outside of the house where the were greated by Red, the other three soldiers and the rest of the village. Danny stood up in the doorframe looking like a true survivor. He was only wearing dirty pants and combat boots, he was bandaged up and his chest and face were covered in dirt and dried blood, his hair was ruffled but there was a huge smile on his face.
"Allright, let's get going!" Doolittle said, who couldn't hide a little smile himself.
Soon they all sat in the two only cars in the village and drove on a small winding raod through the dschungle.
Cho shouted over the engine noise:"My men have checket the roads and this one appears to be clear but better have your weapons ready." He had supplied them with rifles because most of them had lost their weapons during the crash." The bumps in the road hurt Danny badly although he had been given some Chinese medicine by the doctor. He wasn't completely aware of what was going on due to the medicine but he could still feel the pain. Moaning he leaned agains Rafe, who was next to him, who petted his back:"Hold on, boy. We're gonna be at the coast soon."
And he was right. They were at the coast soon. The road followed a cliff. In a distance the ycould already see a small harbour.
Rafe looked at the sun going down, when suddenly the glass next to his head shattered and a bullet flew past him. Seconds later the bullets were flying around them like hail. Rafe heard screams and shouting. He knocked the window out with the back of his gun and started shooting at the Japs hiding behind the rocks near the cliffs. The others were defending themselves, too sending pieces of stone off the rocks. The sound of the guns and shouts was terrible.
A minute later they were out of the reach of the Japanese.
Doolittle shouted:"Is everybody alright?" He looked at his men and tried to get a glimpse of the second car behind them. Everybody seemed fine. They still had to go down a hill and one tyre was flat. Adrenalin rushed through their bodies as they descended down the hill at hight speed with the car winding like a snake. Fortunately they made it down the hill and to the pier where a small boat was already waiting for them. The men jumped of the back of the pick up and ran towards the boat. Rafe practically dragged Danny out of the car and towards the boat, while the Col. Shouted:"Get moving, faster. They are coming, I can see them up the hill." Danny stumbled more than he walked and Rafe lost his balance sending them both to the ground, while Cho had reached the boat. The engine was running. Col. Doolittle had ordered everbody to get aboard and then ran back to help Rafe. He simply grabbed Danny's arm and pulled him up together with Rafe not caring whether he was hurting him. He didn't want to leave these two behind so close before being rescued. Behind theri cars the Japanese brought their car to a halt with squeeking tires and already started firing. Rafe pushed Danny on board, who fell to the floor and stayed where he was breathing heavily. Rafe and Doolittle dived in after him, when the engine roared up and the boat sped of.
"Lay down! Heads down!"
The bullets hit the wood of the boat while it sped away. Two soldiers fired back but they were soon out of reach.
On the bottom of the boat Rafe took a deep breath and glanced at Doolittle who let out a sigh.
Rafe the turned towards Danny, who turned onto his back with pain written plainly across his face.
When he saw Rafe's look he had to smile. Rafe returned his smile. After a while of great releive, he said:" I told you, I'd save your ass!"
Danny nooded, still abig grin on his face:"Yes, you did!"
There's more to come, so keep hanging in there. I wrote this tonight and it was a bit of work, I must say, but good fun,too, as I have't written any stories in a while. I'd love a detailed review!!!!