The room was dark and not too inviting. Drops of water fell from the roof and landed on the damped and blood stained madras Raven was laying on. Her eyes were shut tightly and her breathing was heavy as her chest heaved up and down at an irregular pace. She clutched her right shoulder with her left hand trying to stop the blood flow but as proof of her failure she felt rivers of blood seep through her dirty fingers. Her face was pale from the blood loss in both her shoulder and left leg. As she lay on the madras she pondered if this was the end for her, if she would truly die locked up in the attic at a nearly abandoned camp for the German forces. She bit her lip knowing that it was most likely her fate to die within enemy territory.
In an attempt to move to a more comfortable position pain shot through her leg and shoulder like a white blade that cut through her rough skin. She gasped for air as she held in her scream and silently let the tears freely stream from her hazel brown eyes and down her, at the moment, messed up face. She had not been in the attic for long, but at least long enough to know that the Germans in the house were long gone knowing full well that in her condition she was not going anywhere.
Raven blinked a few times before attempting to scan her prison. The door a few feet away from the bed to her left was mockingly wide open, as if telling her that she would never be able to escape in her current state.
Her vision was once again about to blur when the sound of a roaring battle outside reached her ears followed by a door slamming open downstairs and several footsteps that entered the house. Oh how she at the moment longed to scream out to whoever it was that had come, how she longed to escape from her prison since just a few hours back. But she did not dare raise her voice out of fear of it being yet another group of Germans coming to laugh at her pitiful state. She would not give them the satisfaction of hearing her scream once more, one too many times already had she given them the pleasure of hearing her cracking voice as they beat her to the bloody pulp she now was. Raven's eyes darkened slightly at the thought of the horrid things she'd been put through, but as footsteps begun reaching her end of the house she immediately turned to face the door.
Moments later the once empty doorframe was now occupied by two men in English military suits. Both men only stared at the wounded woman before them before a third one joined them.
"Get yer asses movin Joe, Malarkey, we ain't got all day." The man addressed as Joe only slightly nodded his head towards Raven and the newly arrived soldier followed his gaze.
"Holy shit." He said as he pushed past the two men and advanced towards Raven's now cowering figure. She now knew these men weren't Germans, but they still gave of a slightly intimidating aura. After all, they were soldiers. Upon reaching the bedside the man kneeled down next to Raven and quickly scanned over her wounds. Raven studied the man equally and when his eyes met hers she couldn't help but notice that the emotion reflected in his eyes weren't all that clear. He showed at that moment such a wide range of emotions at the same time that she begun to question if he really was a man and not a woman, after all, men were known to usually only have the emotional width of a teaspoon.
"Looks like they got ya pretty bad huh?" He stated after a few minutes of silently gazing into her eyes. Raven nodded slightly, silently telling the three men that she did indeed understand what they were saying. It looked as if the man was about to speak once more when a load roar from outside brought them back to a nice thing called reality.
"Bill we ought to take her with us and get to the assembling point as fast as we can." Joe said as he walked up to the bedside and just as Bill had done he looked over her wounds.
"Although I doubt she can walk by herself." Raven glanced down at her leg and then back up at her shoulder, both were pounding like crazy and she knew that even the slightest movement would cause immense pain to once again surge through her already numbing body.
"I got her" Bill announced as he brought his arms under the hollow of her knees and behind her back before hoisting her up into his arms. This times movements were to sudden and too big for Raven to be able to hold back her scream and she full on let out a heartbreaking screech and the tears begun to once again flood her eyes which she had shut tightly.
"Just…keep fighting" Bill said sounding rather...Nervous? Apparently he was not used to dealing with an injured woman. God knows if he'd done anything differently had it been a man in his arms, well first off he wouldn't be carrying a man the way he carried Raven at the moment. The three men hurried out of the house and went in the opposite direction of where the fighting had occurred, all the while Raven clutched tightly to Bill's uniform and bit her lip so hard it began bleeding in a matter of seconds. If she didn't receive medical treatment soon she'd die from blood loss, and she knew that better than anyone in their little company.
Upon reaching a specific tree another man joined their company and the four begun to move once again. The new man gave Raven some pretty strange looks, probably wondering where his fellow soldier friends had found a girl in this full on battle area. But he shrugged it off none the less and continued on with the slow run.
They'd run for about 20 minutes when Joe signalled for them all to take cover behind some bushes. Raven could at that very moment feel an unusually large wave of pain surge through her but she bravely held in the scream that threatened to give away their position to possible German troops. For several minutes everything was quiet and the only thing Raven could hear was the steady breathing of Bill who held her as close as he could, probably trying to keep her from being cold from loosing so much blood.
Then suddenly Joe called out."Flash" which was returned by several unidentified male voices that said."Thunder" and as if on cue the group in the bushed revealed themselves and went up on a train railway. On the railway there were several other soldiers in uniforms all who were mighty glad to see some friendly faces in the dark night. But as their eyes fell upon Raven they all fell silent and quietly studied her.
"Who is this?" A particularly tall and respectable looking man asked as he nodded his head in Raven's direction.
"This sir is a girl we found not too far from here. She's pretty badly wounded sir so we brought her along, although I don't think she going to last much longer." The man that had been addressed as Malarkey earlier on said as he saluted the higher ranked man. The man in question nodded his head and allowed his gaze to catch Raven's as he too for a brief moment was captured in her eyes, just like Bill unknowingly had been earlier.
"Let's move on then, Toye, take over for Guarnere. Guarnere you and Hall take the front." With that Raven was carefully handed over to the man she'd come to know as Joe, or now Toye and bill went up to the front mumbling something about not knowing who the hell Hall was.
They had not been walking for very long from what Raven could tell before they stopped once more, one of the men, the one who seemed to be in charge, signalled for the others to hide and wait for his signal before attacking the approaching enemy. For him to be able to move better Toye placed Raven gently against a tree. He made sure she wouldn't fall over or be in the line of sight of the enemy before he hurried of to his position, patiently awaiting orders. In her own solitude Raven allowed her head to rock back and forth as she tried to focus her blurry vision. Her wounds ached, but she still thought that since it was only mere flesh wounds and nothing too deep she shouldn't't be affected this much by it. But then again she had lost a lot of blood and had very little to eat let alone drink for the past few days so her health was not exactly on top before she got shot.
Speaking of being shot, the sound of several bullets snapped Raven out of her so called drunken state and she whirled her head in the direction of the sound. There were men screaming in agony as the bullets hit their limbs and their bodies fell to the ground with a dull thud. The screaming of men and horses and roars of the guns continued for minutes before it all finally stopped. Everything was suddenly quiet except for a few yells further down the road. Raven savoured the moment, peace was a rare thing in war, and quietness was as well. But all too soon a man with the English army uniform came and picked her up.
"I'm Lipton; Toye needed a break so I'll take over for him." He answered her silent question before picking her up off the ground. Once again the movement caused a wave of pain to surge through her body but this time Rave merely coughed instead of screaming, but she coughed quite violently which caught Lipton's attention.
"Hang in just a little bit longer; I think we're almost there." At this Raven couldn't help but smile a little. Great, he thinks we're almost there. She thought as she forced herself to refrain from laughing mockingly, she didn't know how much longer she could hold on, a day at most.
The rest of the walk went by rather okay, except for the fact that when they neared the camp, Raven's coughing got worse and she fell in and out of consciousness repeatedly. John Hall, who was the soldier carrying her at the moment, began running and the constant up and down movement it caused made Raven's insides turn, figuratively speaking, and so she started coughing violently and her eyes begun to flicker from one side to another. Finally the blood loss had gotten to her completely and she could feel small drops of sweat make their way down her back and forehead, the end was near and she knew it, unless she received medical attention soon.
"Medic! Medic! " Hall hollered as soon as he set foot inside the camp, turning many heads as he did so. Many men were curious as to why an Able-company man just came running in with a foreign women. But no doubt many of them agreed that despite being covered in blood she appeared to be quite the beauty, at least her long seemingly silky and jet black hair looked promising. None of these thoughts occupied Hall's mind though as he desperately turned back and forth trying to find a fellow soldier with the familiar Red Cross attached to his arm. To his great fortune though two men with those very crosses came running towards him, both bringing up bandages and small morphine shots in the process.
"What happened?" One of the medics asked as he searched Raven's now unconscious body for signs of the injuries.
"I don't know sir. Four of our men found her like this in a house far from here. She appears to be wounded but until just recently she was doing well. Then she started couching and-"
"Keep it short and simple private. Follow me." One of the medics ordered as he interrupted Hall's rant and tugged at his sleeve urging him to follow. Hall did as he was told and spoke while running.
"Sir, she's got one shot wound right shoulder, one shot wound left leg and is coughing sir." The medic nodded his head in return and threw the door to the nearest aid station open. While inside Raven's was quickly taken from Hall's arms and said soldier was pushed outside again by rushing nurses and doctors who all tried to get to Raven to save her life. Private Hall could do nothing but obediently get out of their way and leave the aid station.
But as he did he spotted Lieutenant Winters, the man who'd led the company of lost soldiers himself included to the assembling point, and eagerly followed him once more. Maybe he'd be able to follow on the Easy-company men's mission and help out some. He felt a deep need to do something to get Raven's shaking and bloody face out of his mind, if he stayed still for too long her face was all that occupied his mind and he found himself wondering how anyone could be so heartless as to leave a innocent woman to die such a horrid death. No, he needed to find Lieutenant Winters and he needed to go on their mission with them, it was not something he wanted, he just simply needed it to keep his sanity.
He could not lose his sanity this close to the start of the war, he had to help more people and do more good.
Woooah, this is the end of chapter 1, I'm new here on so I'm not too sure about lots of things. As far at the story goes if you notice any wrongs and problems with my story I'd be happy if you could tell me. I'm not too good with the whole history part but I'll do my best to make sure the story sounds good and remains intresting ^^