The goal of a battle medic is to delay the death of soldiers, something that is not always an easy thing to do.
There are times when you go to a soldier in the foxhole crying for help with their skin charred from incendiary weapons causing their skin to be blackened and peeling off. They ask if they will be okay since they can't feel anything.
Knowing that no matter what, even if you had the time and equipment, you could do nothing for that soldier. You want to stay with them in their last moments, but you can hear another soldier screams for help.
You must depart to see if that one can be saved, so you hope to find another soldier to comfort and care for the burnt man's passing. Only to see that there is no one else, leading to you promising to be back; you tell him softly to rest his eyes as you leave, only for you to see them again a week later covered in flies, maggots, and rats being used to help with defenses as you march through the same wretched hell of the Rhine front.
Those were the experience I faced on the Rhine front as an expeditionary group from the Commonwealth at the beginning of the war. Luckily for me, if you can call it that, the week before the Empire defeated the Francois Republic, I had been hit in the arm by a bullet as I was running to another man during an attack.
Even though Medics are not to be targeted in battle, things are not always able to allow one to tell the difference. The bullet did hit my humerus, the pain of which caused me to fall into the nearby trench.
It wasn't too difficult to fix the first issue was stopping the bleeding, grabbing one of the gauses I had as a medic, then breaking the iodine container provided to disinfect the gauses and pressing the wound until it stopped bleeding.
Then, once the bleeding is controlled, make a splint to keep the arm in the right shape, and finally, to have little comfort and not further injury, make s a sling. A splint isn't too difficult to make, especially in a trench with plenty of wood and sticks to tie around the arm to ensure it is straight.
The sling was challenging to do one-handed, but possible. After the battle, I was sent back to Londium since it would take anywhere from 6-10 weeks to recover.
The Arene Massacre happened the day after I was shot, then the fall of the Francois was followed by the Francois campaign. Though I had finished healing, I was stuck on the Island, only able to practice my medical training, trying to get better.
In September, I was put on the RMS Queen of Anjou to deliver medical. Supplies and help out the trip was primarily uneventful except when an Imperial mage unit attacked us, but luckily they were defeated.
After the skirmish, I tended to the wounded mages even though they were not that much different from non-mage soldiers. Their biology is slightly different enough to drive me crazy their heartbeats typically beat faster than normal, and their blood pressure can be changed on command.
The chemicals in their brain can also be changed, leading someone like me, who is not specialized in medical care for mages, to get confused because if you tell them their blood pressure is, they will increase or decrease the blood pressure, or they will cast pain dampeners on themselves.
It makes it difficult to tell if their condition is improving or not since they can fuck with it at will. Luckily cuts and bullet wounds remain simple to deal with.
When we finally arrived in the Russy Federation at Novo Kholma Base to meet with our soviet counterparts but were interrupted by an attack that led to the sinking of the Queen of Anjou. The Russy mages were able to save a good number of sailors of the Anjou. I gave relief to those that arrived.
While I was not a fan of mouth-to-mouth, it was necessary to save unconscious people. The closed chest massage was effective with those that had weak pulses. Though I could save many, I could not save them all.
It has been a few months since the sinking. In that time, I've had to train a few Russies on medical training, but it's not entirely new since I always try to ensure those injured could delay things like blood loss.
Around Christmas time, we were doing limited offensive, just small pokes at the line, not any big plans, but to remind the Imperials we existed. On December 23rd, we were making a poking attack against a stubborn Kampfgruppe.
The battle was in the forests late at night. We were doing well. The mages were distracting the enemys' so though we wouldn't have their support, the enemy would either, and I preferred that since it allowed us to maneuver easier though artillery was always a bitch to deal with.
They didn't seem to be sending their infantry which was also good since the only light we had was explosions and the color of mage spells in the sky. I remember stopping for what seemed to be a quiet moment in the battle. You'd think someone on the Rhine front wouldn't do that.
Still, I did just for a moment to look up at the battle above because of the dark sky with no moon out. The stars could be seen but paled in beauty as orbs of green.
Purple could be seen zooming around, shooting blue and orange and occasionally yellow, sometimes in curved patterns, and others in zigzag a light of purple would light the whole sky in a beam of light, only for a green swipe to pass by.
There would be a row of dotted red come flying by then there were two great big balls of light, a purple and a yellow, swirling in a double spiral clashing with all the colors of the rainbow.
Yellow was more skilled. Even one such as I, with no magic, could tell there was elegance and perfection. The patterns that were made yellow reminded me of a Fairy. Purple was loud, quick, and powerful. That much was obvious.
The brightness was so apparent that I could look at the surrounding area leading me to realize I was lost. The color above was so bright that I couldn't tell which lights were above and which were on the ground.
The trees surrounding me made the confusion all the more clear sound wise I could still hear the different guns being fired, but that only led to the issue of If I headed to the guns, I could be shot in confusion or captured depending on who was the first to encounter I had no flare.
A wizz went by, crashing a few trees over, artillery was still hitting close by, but I couldn't tell where it came from. To distract myself, I looked up to see the aerial battle again, hoping to get an idea of how to head back to base.
I knew that purple was our side since that color came from the devices that allowed flight. The display that I had been previously focusing on had gotten intense to the point I could make out the shadows of the two mages.
The yellow seemed to have fallen, and just as I was guessing where they would land based on the fact this was right above me, the was a shell that hit close to me, launching me.
I couldn't tell where, but I felt the tree.