Emilie awoke and the battle was still raging all around her. Her ears were ringing and her whole body hurt, and she lay dazed for a few seconds, just staring up at the sky that was barely visible through the thick layer of smoke that hung in the air. But then something in the corner of her eye caught her attention and she snapped her head around, wincing as the sudden movement sent a sharp pain down her spine.
The building that had been their man point of operation while in Eindhoven had been half-destroyed; clearly, a grenade had been thrown in there while she had been unconscious. Without a second thought, she clambered to her feet, nearly toppling over and having to use the piano for support, and rushed towards the building. A bullet whizzed by her ear, scarcely missing her, but she didn't stop moving. It was reckless and stupid, but that was what she had signed up for. Well, more like what she had been dragged into. But now it was her responsibility. And her friends might be dead because she hadn't been paying attention and had allowed herself to be knocked out. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
She reached the partially collapsed building, dropping to her hands and knees as more shots were fired around her and hurrying in as fast as she could on all fours. It was awkward, but it worked, despite the fact her exposed knees were now grazed and oozing blood. But she hardly felt it. Because what she saw, lying on the steps with a large chunk of his head missing, made her stop n her tracks and pushed every other thought from her head.
Kat was draped across the stairs, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling with his hazel eyes glazed over, gun held loosely in one hand. A large pool of blood dripped down the steps, and there was a large gash in his stomach where his vital organs were spilling out like spaghetti. His face was covered in soot and blood, but that didn't stop her from seeing the fear evident on it, even in death.
"No, no, no," she whispered, gaping at the scene before her, "No!" She rushed forward and crumpled down beside his unmoving body, though she knew there was nothing she could do for him. When she touched a hand to his cheek, it was cold, and she realised he must have been dead for a while now. Flies were already beginning to gather around his corpse, and she slapped them away desperately. "No," she choked out again, reaching forward and gently closing his eyes. She had to keep her hands busy. "Good bye, my friend," she whispered in German, inaudible above the fighting outside, "You will always be remembered."
With that, she stood, almost unable to believe what she had just seen. But she had to believe it. This was war. She made her way upstairs, having to leap over the holes in the stairs, and found many more bodies scattered around the room. Her CO had his back turned to her, staring around the room with his eyes narrowed in thought. Their best sniper was splayed out on the floor, beside the only other medic in the regiment. She had to look away. It was already beginning to reek of death – a smell she knew would stick to her skin forever, no matter how many times she showered.
Emilie knew there was no point in examining their bodies; she could tell in her heart they were already long gone. The other medic had always slightly annoyed her, but he was really the only person she had been able to talk to about what she went through. He was the only one that had understood what it was like to be a medic in a war like this one.
"Sir," she began weakly, clearing her throat and trying again more strongly, straightening and raising her head, one hand clutching her medicine bag to stop her fingers from shaking, "Sir, are you alright?"
He didn't reply at first, long enough to make her think he hadn't heard her. But then he turned and nodded stiffly. "I'm fine," he replied, voice cold and emotionless, "Come." He brushed past her and hurried down the stairs. He began shouting orders in German at the soldiers in the vicinity, screaming that they were holding back and that they were not to show any mercy to the invaders, because the Americans hadn't shown any mercy to them and now their comrades were dead. "Kill them all if they don't retreat!"
The Germans let out a determined cry. That was when Emilie noticed the British tanks, ablaze and destroyed. We're winning, she realised, and felt hope flare inside of her. They might actually win this thing. She instantly Chastised herself. She would help the Germans, but she didn't want them to win. She didn't want Hitler to win. No more had to die. She almost laughed at herself. Of course more would die.
Eventually, the Americans were forced to retreat, unable to defend themselves against the Germans fuelled by the loss of their comrades which had become closer than family over the past few years. As they ran to avoid the bullets, Emilie strained to catch a glimpse of a white sash on a soldier's arm, wanting to make sure Eugene hadn't been killed. As soon as she spotted him at the rear, she let out a breath she hadn't even realised she had been holding.
Still struggling with grief over her men's deaths and a minor concussion she had received in the fall, Emilie made the rounds and administered care where it was needed, telling each soldier they were heroes so many times the word began to lose meaning. But she had to keep up morale, especially after this win that felt more like a loss. Luckily, there were no serious injuries, though she did have to set one dislocated shoulder and one man had had two teeth knocked straight out of his mouth.
By the time she was finished, the sun was setting. The sky was a brilliant orange, dotted with dark grey clouds. Anything in the distance was now a mere silhouette. "You'll be fine," she told the last soldier, helping him to his feet and offering him a smile that didn't reach her eyes, "Go get something to eat. You did very well today, Braukhoff. You should be proud."
"I may have done well," he replied, scraping some dried blood from his fingertips, "But that didn't stop my friends from being killed, did it?"
Emilie didn't reply, swallowing with some difficulty as she felt that familiar lump growing in her throat. She patted him on the back and shooed him away. As soon as everyone else had headed off the house where their CO was giving a congratulatory speech – she didn't want to hear it again – she sunk down onto a bench and stared into the distance, head resting in her hands. She remembered the chocolate bar she had been carrying in her dress pocket and fumbled for it, unwrapping it and taking a small bite. It was melted and sticky. She wasn't hungry, but knew she had to keep up her strength. Not for herself, but for the soldiers.
That was when the tears began to sting her eyes. What was she really doing for the soldiers? She hadn't managed to save a single one. She was a failure, but not only in the war. She had failed her family, failed her little brother, failed her entire country. Nothing had gone right and everything was falling apart. A sob shook her shoulders. It hurt. It hurt so much, to see a man die right in front of her eyes and not be able to do anything about it. If she could bargain with the Grim Reaper, she would, but he would probably just laugh at her. She was a joke. As a child, she had had such dreams, such expectations for herself. Now look at her: filthy, bloody, crying in a destroyed city in the middle of a strange land. It was a disgrace. She was a disgrace. That familiar self-loathing nagged at her soul.
At that moment, a yell sounded from a barn a little way away. She looked up, but could see nothing; glancing to the building where the other soldiers were gathered, she supposed they couldn't have heard the yell. Emilie frowned and used one hand to push herself to her feet, rubbing an arm across her eyes to wipe away the tears. She walked slowly forward, feeling naked without the small blade she usually kept at her side (medics were only permitted a shot gun and a knife). Now all she had to fight off an enemy was a half-eaten chocolate bar.
She paused at the entrance to the bar, the world swaying around her due to her fading concussion, but she pushed past it. She would have told anyone else to go and lie down, that they would feel better after a night's rest. But though she was exhausted every minute of every day, she couldn't imagine sleeping.
"Come out," a German soldier was calling in Deutsch from inside the barn as Emilie pressed her ear to the thin, wooden wall, "Come out now and nothing will happen. Hello? Is anyone there?" When no one replied, he seemed to give up, and Emilie heard him making his way to the barn door. But then something clattered deeper inside, and she heard him stop dead and spin around.
Then the unmistakable sound of fighting hit her ears. "Hilfe!" the man yelled, "American soldier!" Emilie's eyes widened. A few moments later, she heard the man cry out, and then silence. Please don't let him be dead, she thought to herself, touching a finger to the small cross dangling from around her wrist, I've had enough death for today. O Lord.
Just as she had mustered up the courage and was about to enter the barn, two shapes appeared. As soon as they saw her, the larger one jumped back in obvious surprise, pushing the smaller person, a woman, behind him protectively. But he seemed to relax as soon as he saw it was a woman that had spotted them.
"What are you doing here?" she asked bluntly, trying to keep the confusion out of her voice. They weren't American soldiers.
Neither of them replied, just continued to stare at her in fear. "What are you doing here?" she repeated, more irritably. She wasn't in the mood for this now, especially if their presence threatened her soldiers.
"We live here," the girl finally spoke up in German, though the man tried to silence her as soon as she said a word. But she just glanced at him as if to say 'it's okay' and took a small step forward, skirting around him. She continued, "My father and I took shelter in this barn as soon as the fighting began. Surely you won't hurt us for hiding on our own property."
Her father looked at her sharply. "Eileen, let me handle this."
Emilie looked from one to the other, silence gripping them all for a few moments until she finally shrugged. "We don't hurt civilians," she told them, voice softer than before, feeling a little guilty, "Please, if you have somewhere else to go until we have left, I'll make sure no one stops you from getting there."
"Thank you," The man stepped forward and grasped her hand in his larger ones, kissing them gently, "Thank you. We are truly blessed to have run into you and not one of the… others."
She stiffened, briefly wanting to defend the German army, but she quickly reconsidered. He was right. Anyone else would most likely have shot and asked questions later. Not that they could be blamed for that, exactly. That's how they were trained to react. Emilie dipped her head, "It's the least I could do for the trouble, sir. Good luck."
The two people smiled at her gratefully, if not a little uncertainly, before hurrying away, looking back only once to make sure it wasn't a trick of some sort. She simply waved at them.
As soon as they disappeared from sight, she ducked into the barn – it was better to be safe than sorry, and she wouldn't leave an ambush of American soldiers waiting in the barn just because she didn't check it. At first, she thought there was nothing in there. It was dark, and hard to see anything. But as she walked forwards, she nearly tripped over the body lying in front of her on the ground. She bit her tongue to stop herself from crying out in alarm, and shuffled forward to inspect the man. He was a German, Crichton, who had always been quite jumpy, and now he was dead, blood pooled around his head from where he had been stabbed right in the forehead.
She wanted to scream, but more in fury than in horror. How many more had to die? How many more wouldn't she be able to save? Emilie wanted to run after the two fleeing people and drag them back to the soldiers, but that was before she just caught a glimpse of moonlight hitting an eye. "Come out," she ordered in English, straightening from where she had been crouched beside the body. She looked around, feeling no fear, "Show yourself and stop hiding like a coward."
For a moment, no one moved, and the only sound was Emilie's breathing. But, finally, a tall man stepped out of the shadows, staring her straight in the eye. "I think 'coward' is a bit of a strong word," he protested in a thick Southern accent. Crichton had been right: there was an American soldier.
"You killed him!" she roared, charging forward until she was just inches from him, glaring up at him defiantly with one finger shoved in his face. He nudged her hand away, and she found she was quivering with anger.
"It was self-defence," he defended himself, voice calm. Then he seemed to detect her accent and perfect English, as he changed the subject, saying, "You aren't German. What are you doing here?"
Emilie curled her top lip in the beginning of a silent snarl. She was tired of explaining herself to these murdering scumbags. She was almost surprised by that. When had she begun hating the Yanks? A few hours ago she had been congratulating them on their victories. "I'm the German medic," she replied coldly, "And you just killed one of my men."
She saw him swallow uneasily, but his outer confidence didn't falter. "Look, I'm sorry," he insisted, speaking around the fat cigar that was secured between his lips, "But this is a God damn war. These things happen."
"Oh, so I suppose if I waltzed in and stabbed one of your guys, that would be fine? You would just say 'these things happen' and move on?"
The man raised his eyebrows. "You can try waltzing in," he replied calmly, "See how far you get."
She was just about to shoot back something sarcastic, most likely a threat of some sort, when she noticed he was bleeding from his left shoulder. Emilie inwardly cursed herself; her medical training wouldn't allow her to leave someone injured, even if they were the enemy – an enemy that had just murdered one of her soldiers in cold blood, no less. Sighing, she gestured to his shoulder, voice still gruff as she told him, "Let me have a look at that," When he hesitated, eyeing her suspiciously, she added irritably, voice now hushed, "Do you want to bleed to death? 'Cause I'll leave you here, mark my words, Yank."
He paused for a few more heartbeats, before finally nodding stiffly and walking backwards, facing her the entire time, to lower himself down onto a stack of hay. She followed; she had to stand in order to be able to properly see his wound, and the entire time he kept glancing over his shoulder at her, making her snap at him to sit still. "Have got a torch, a match, anything?" she asked, straining her eyes to see in the dark.
"Only this," He foraged in his pocket and drew out a tiny torch, barely a centimetre wide. She took it from him and fumbled for the switch, shining it on the wound. It looked as though someone – an amateur – had already attempted to clean and remove whatever it was that had been stuck in his flesh.
Emilie grumbled to herself, switching the poor excuse for a torch into her other hand as she searched for supplies in her bag slung around her shoulder. "Did you try to operate on yourself or something?" she asked, equipment slippery in her blood-stained hands, "Idiot."
"Hey, watch it. I can still take you, you know."
"Just answer the question."
She saw him clench his jaw as she applied disinfectant to the wound and dabbed at it with cloth, which was quickly soaked through with blood by the time she pulled it away. "Nah, it was the old guy who was in here with me," he grunted, clearly struggling to remain strong. Men. "You know, with the girl."
"Well, he did a shit job," she muttered, breaking off a piece of string with her hands and threading it through a needle. He chuckled at her comment, but it was cut short as she pierced the skin and began to stitch up the wound. He sucked in a sharp breath of pain, but made no other sound. Soldiers were trained to suffer silently – of course, that doesn't mean they always did that. In fact, the majority of them were the whiniest sons of bitches she had ever met. But she supposed they had good reason to complain. She briefly considered not giving him any morphine, thinking she needed to preserve her limited supplies, and that he deserved the agony anyway, but she couldn't even do that. As she continued to work, she thought talking might take his mind off the pain. Awkwardly, she asked, "So, what's your name? Or is that classified information?"
He snorted in amusement. "Denver Randleman, miss. But everyone calls me Bull."
Emilie clicked her fingers as something popped into her mind, "Right, right. Hey, I remember you. You were the one in that ditch, with the tiger tank right on your ass," She chuckled lightly, despite herself, "Congrats on surviving that."
Bull was about to shrug, but she applied pressure to his opposite shoulder to remind him to sit still. "We're pretty hard to kill," he replied, shifting slightly when he was getting the beginning of a dead leg, "So, what's your name, sweetheart?" He put on his worst Australian accent, "Or is that classified information?"
She rolled her eyes, pushing down a little more than necessary with the needle and making him grunt. "First off, call me sweetheart again and I'll pierce your artery," She felt him stiffen slightly and couldn't stifle a small giggle, which made her cringe at the girley sound, "Remember that Emilie Demont told you that."
"Feisty."
"You bet your ass I am."
As she was fixing him, her eyes wandered to his left arm, and she stopped working for a second, eyes wide. "You're a paratrooper!" she exclaimed, unable to conceal that excitement in her voice. She cleared her throat, collecting herself before speaking again, "I'm impressed."
He seemed to beam with pride, and he nodded. "That I am."
Emilie went back to work, but remained impressed. She had heard rumours about them a few years back, when the war first started, but hadn't been able to believe it. When she had learnt it was a fact, she had been somewhat in awe of the soldiers that jumped right into the middle of the enemy. That meant Eugene was a paratrooper. He just kept getting better. Well, apart from the fact he was the enemy.
They settled in to a silence, with the exception of Bull's occasional cusses under his breath and Emile's muttering while she worked. It only took a few minutes for Emilie to finish stitching it up, and she drizzled some alcohol over it. Patting him on the shoulder, she told him with a smirk, "Now, don't go lifting weights or boxing or whatever the hell it is you men do. At least for a few days."
"Oh, I know better than to wrestle with my C.O. Snapped a man's vertebrae once, back at training camp," Emilie's eyebrows shot up in surprise, stepping back as he turned his head as best he could to inspect her work. He stood and glanced at her, "Thanks a bunch, Emilie."
"Don't mention it," She shrugged, offered a small smile, and began to pick up the supplies she had discarded, stuffing them back in her bag. As she was crouched down, she looked over and saw Bull pulling the corpse of the German soldier over to a corner and covering the body in straw. Emilie rose, eyes hooded, and wandered slowly over to him, looking down at the dead body sorrowfully. Her voice was sad as she reprimanded him half-heartedly, "I told you not to do any heavy-lifting just a few seconds ago. Are you always this forgetful?"
Bull didn't reply, glancing sideways at her. "I'm sorry," he told her again.
She shook her head, licking her cracked lips and turning away. "Yeah," She was silent for a moment, staring out at the night through the barn doors. They would be on the move again soon. Emilie didn't look back as she spoke, pointing over to where a tank was still burning, illuminating its surroundings, "See over there? There's a place you can hide until we leave. Stay in here and a patrol will find you."
Emilie heard the small stones crunch under his boots as he walked towards her, standing beside her and following her gaze. "Why should I trust you?" He asked, not looking at her as he continued to chew on his cigar she was sure must be nothing but slop by now, "How do I know ya won't turn me into the Krauts the second I get into the open? And… Well, the question I can't get over is why the hell you would wanna help me. Are you right in the brain?"
She laughed softly, smoothing her ruined dress subconsciously. She hadn't even realised her hands had stopped shaking, though, looking back, she realised they must have calmed down a while ago if she was able to stitch him up successfully. "I'm probably not right in the brain, no. I love my birth country," she answered softly, "I really do. But that doesn't mean I want them to win this damn war. That would be disastrous for the whole world. So that, Bull, is why I'm helping you."
She left out the part about the fact he was from the same regiment as Eugene.
Bull nodded, seemingly satisfied with her answer. They were silent for a few more seconds before he turned on his heel and extended his hand, the opposite arm to the injured one, which he kept close to his body. Hesitating briefly, she took it and shook, offering a small smile. "Stay safe. I don't want to read in the papers that a Yank named Randleman was killed in Europe."
"You too, Demont." He nodded, collected his gun with the bloodied bayonet, and left, disappearing into the darkness with his head darting from side to side. She watched him until he ducked into the place she had told him about. She should feel good about helping him. She had done a good deed, and possibly made a valuable ally in the American Army. And yet she couldn't help feeling like a traitor.
There's this feeling when you're grieving, like you'll never be happy again. You just can't imagine it; the world seems to be in shades of black and white, even when the sun is shining and the flowers are blooming. You feel so heavy, as though the Earth is pulling you under, and there's a feeling in the depths of your gut, like rats are gnawing at your stomach. Your eyes ache and your brain is throbbing, yet you feel almost numb. Things that would usually be horrible dull in severity. Your chin is always threatening to quiver and the tears always prick at your skin, but you try to fight it away, try to remain strong. But you know it's a hopeless battle. You see people passing you in the street, and you can't help but imagine their lives in front of them – growing old, dying all alone, crying out for help that never comes. When you're grieving, you're cursed, empty, inside a bubble locked away from the rest of the world. You can't help but resent all the smiling faces. What do they have to be happy about?
