24.

~ "If your going to stay here, you have to be useful." Ariadne said angrily to the child soldier who Arthur had appointed as her guard.

"Ma'am, I don't know anything about treating the wounded." He said with wide, scared eyes as he watched the battered nurses clean up blood and shout at still more soldiers to be moved.

"You had first aide training." Ariadne assured him as the young man followed her around like a puppy.

"Yes, but not like this." He said. "Besides, the Captain told me to stay with you. To make sure you leave. The shelling is getting closer, we can't stay here much longer."

"Privet, we don't have the man power for you to baby sit me." Ariadne said feeling suddenly stronger.

Her anger at Arthur making the steel in her cut down anything in it's path.

"Now, help that nurse change the dressing and then take those wounded men to the recovery tent." She told him in the swift, efficient voice she normally only heard the Matron use.

~ The day stretched onward as they nurses could hear shelling marching closer.
"The Nazis are fight back." Doctor Kikie said as he rested outside. Ariadne still had her child soldier staying close behind her. The mood in the Allied camp had changed. They were packing trucks and jeeps.

"Were going to have to retreat." Doctor Kikie said worriedly as he nodded to a group of nervous looking soldiers.
"Because of the mines?" Ariadne said not able to find Arthur in the sea of faces.

Another boom sounded far away. Was her Captain there? Was he being fired at?

"Not just because of the mines, their going to start shelling the camp pretty soon. We need to be prepared to leave." The older man said.

Ariadne looked at Doctor Kikie. His skin was waxen and he was sweating. His neck and face was red and he was breathing hard.

"Doctor, are you alright?" She asked.

He nodded and brushed off her attempts to check his pulse.

"Privet." Ariadne said pulling her child soldier with her. He still looked worried as even he knew what the ominous thunder like sounds in the distance meant. How eerily silent the camp was becoming with the approaching giant.
"Yes, Ma'am?" He said happy that they might leave soon.

"The Captain wants you to take Doctor Kikie back to Paris with you. Make sure he gets on that transport." Ariadne said in her calmest, most steadfast tone. The voice she used when she was trying to keep someone calm. A voice that said 'you can trust me'.

"Ma'am, the Captain said for you to get onto the transport." The child soldier said.

"The Captain didn't know the Doctor was so sick. It's more important that he gets out." Ariadne said. "I can wait. The shelling is still far away."

"Ma'am." The soldier said. His eyes wide and frightened. Afraid of the enemy or his Captain's wrath if he disobeyed orders, she wasn't sure.

"Just do it." She told him.

~ Three trucks came to pick up the wounded as the shelling marched closer and closer. Doctor Kikie was still able to stand up and walk around, but he didn't look well and his hands shook too much. Ariadne had to do most of his work for him as he instructed that the tent be abandoned and the wounded loaded.

"You have to come with me, Ma'am!" The child soldier said trying to pull her onto a truck.

"Is the Doctor on?" She shouted as she could feel the earth tremble as bombs were hitting the ground barely a mile away.
"Yes! We have to go!" The young man said as the Army was shouting for them to leave. There was still wounded in the tents. Men who there was no room for in the trucks. Who she was forced to leave behind as the giant marched towards them.
"Were retreating! What are you people still doing here!" A soldier yelled at her.

As she felt a bomb hit closer to the camp, she had to stay and help load the rest of the wounded.

The trucks were groaning and over loaded with injured men as she felt the child soldier pull her away from a wounded man, still waiting to be evacuated.

"We have to go!" The Privet shouted at her.

She heard a whistling then and both of them froze in the strange calm before the bomb hit.

Ariadne didn't react to the bomb hitting so close to her. She was looking at the young man Arthur had sent to guard her. He looked back at her as they both knew they had waited too long.

The bomb hit.

Right before her eyes, the young man was reduced to little more then blood, meat and bones. The impact of the bomb knocking Ariadne off her feet as mud and the privet's blood covered her in a warm, sticky paste.

Instinctively, she tried to wipe it off. She could feel the obliterated Privet's body heat still on his blood as it was now covering her. Her hands trying to clean the mud off her face, only to streak his blood on her even more.

She didn't cry or panic as she stumbled to her feet. The shelling struck so close to her, it rendered her world silent except for a piercing whistle. She walked a few feet in a confused daze. Covered in the child soldier's blood.

She felt, rather that heard the next bomb quiver under her feet. It threw her to the ground again, as the earth opened up and she could feel a sharp pain radiate through her leg.

'I wasn't fast enough.' She thought before her world turned to blackness.

~ "Were retreating!" Arthur shouted as he saw the last few trucks roar into life. He saw the red cross tent was all but empty now as the bombing picked up speed. The impact with earth making the ground shutter under his feet.

'At least she got out.' Arthur thought as the last of his men climbed on a crowded truck.

Shouting pulled him away from his men as he saw a familiar Doctor stumble out of another truck.

"Ariadne!" The older man shouted.

Arthur stopped cold and felt his breath become tight. He ran on unsteady legs as the shelling hit closer and closer. The Captain ignoring them as he ran.

He saw a human being in the mud. A nurse, her small body stained with dark blood and earth as she lay broken on the ground.
"Ariadne. Oh God, no." He panted at seeing her.

~ She dreamed of Arthur. Of them sitting in a field and eating chocolate. Of spring still in the air as she still held out hope that the Family was still alive. She dreamed he was kissing her and telling her he loved her. She dreamed she wore her blue dress and he looked at her as though she were beautiful.

"Hold still." Arthur said in the dream as the air turned bitterly cold. The color from their field became washed out and gray as the dream collapsed and fell away. Replaced with reality.

"Ariadne, just hold on." Arthur said as she felt his strong hands held her.

~ Shouting. There was always shouting. She realized she was in the back of a moving truck and it was lurching across an unsteady road.

"Leg's broken." Doctor Kikie's voice reached her as she could feel hands on her.

She didn't want to open her eyes. The image of their field washing away as if were never a real thing.
"Ariadne? Can you hear me?" Arthur's voice came back to her.

Finally, she opened her eyes to see her Captain. He was covered in mud. His hair messed up and she was leaning against him.

"Arthur?" She whispered and then screamed as she could feel the pain from her leg.
"We have to set it." Doctor Kikie said.

"We need to pull over!" Arthur shouted as Ariadne grasped firmly to Arthur's arms. He was her lifeline. If she let him go, she might drown in the sea of pain she was feeling.

"The bombing is gaining on us, Son." Doctor Kikie said calmly. His voice and hands were steady for one. "I can do it. Just hold her steady."

She felt Arthur's hands wrap tightly around her as she barely understood what they were saying. She chanced a look down at her body. She was sitting on a stretcher as Doctor Kikie had her dress up and her leg exposed. Through her own dark blood, she saw bone protruding out of her leg.

"Oh God!" She whimpered as she buried her head in Arthur's shoulder.

She wished she hadn't looked as she could feel Doctor Kikie's hands probe around her leg.

"No!" She screamed as the pain felt too intense. "Don't don't do it!"

"Hold her!" Doctor Kikie shouted over her cries. She felt Arthur tighten hold of her and felt Doctor Kikie snap her bone back into place.

The sound of it, and the pain, made her lose herself into a deep well of blackness. She fell back into the field again. Spring time was in the air as he kissed her, made love to her and she was far away from this nightmare.

~ It was night by the time the convoy made it back to the hospital. Ariadne had passed out again when the Doctor reset her leg. He had given her a shot for the pain and she faded in and out of sleep as Arthur cradled her in his arms.

It had been a defeat against the enemy. The Nazis had put up landmines across the area and they had lost so many men. So many bodies blown up as the enemy fled and began shelling the advancement from a safe distance.

They had no choice but to retreat as the enemy brazenly marched towards them. Protected by their landmines and their big guns hitting the wounded. Arthur and his men couldn't reach them from across the mines. Couldn't even put a dent in the enemy.

Finally, Colonel Burch had enough.

"We have to fall back. We have too many wounded." He growled and Cobb ordered the retreat.

Arthur hated to give up. So many days of victory, this felt like a failure. He hadn't felt like this since Normandy.

The trucks pulled up to the hospital where a sea of nurses in white caps and white aprons were waiting for them.

"I have her." Arthur whispered to the blond nurse who gasped at seeing Ariadne.

"Prep surgical." The doctor said. His face red and he was looking a little winded.

"Doctor Kikie, are you alright?" The blond nurse asked.

"Fine. I need to check her leg. Prepare Ex-Ray." He grumbled as Arthur carried his broken nurse in to a separate exam room that was used for women only. Far away from the men.

"Will she live?" Arthur asked carefully laying her down on a table and smoothing back her hair and dress.

He didn't know what to do. How to help. In battle, he knew what to do. Now, with her body like this. He felt very afraid.

"She will." Doctor Kikie said as if bored. The blond nurse checking her vitals.

"I'll be back." Arthur said as his sweetheart looked to be in good hands.

~ "Go back?" Colonel Burch barked at the Captain. "Son, this not the time for stupid ideas."

"Sir, we left over a dozen wounded back there. We couldn't fit them all into the trucks. We can't leave them behind."

The Colonel stood a little straighter and looked angry.

"You understand that the enemy is retaking the ground." Colonel Burch said in a softer voice. "That you could be captured or killed trying to save men who are already dead?"

"Yes, sir. I do." Arthur said softy.

"You take volunteers only. No more then five men." Burch said.

"Five?" Arthur stammered. He needed more.

"Less for you to keep track of. Your only going after wounded." Burch told him.

Arthur easily found five able bodied men who were willing to go back with him. All he had to do was walk onto the lawn and tell them what the plan was.

Cobb had a fresh truck ready for him and a radio.

"Air strike will be moving in soon." Cobb whispered. "Going to take a few hours. Make sure your out of there before dawn."

"Ariadne is hurt." Arthur told him. "Look after her?"

Cobb nodded.

~ What was he doing? He was his parents only surviving son. His father had begged him not to get killed in this place. He could feel the ghosts of his brothers wash over him as he drove a deserted road with no headlights on.

David was smiling. It was a great adventure.

'Of course you save your men, Little Brother.' He whispered into Arthur's ear. 'That's what a real soldier dose.'

'Be careful, Arthur.' Was Jacob's advice. 'If you were lost, so many people would be hurt.'

Arthur nodded and drove on.

~ The deserted camp was eerie and full of ghosts. Just a few hours ago, it had teamed with life as the shelling had now taken a merciful break.

"Spread out." Arthur hissed to his men.

In just a few minuets they found almost eight wounded soldiers.

Arthur had been rudely snapped out of that victory as a Nazi scout jumped out of the bushes and tried to shoot him.

They hid in the forest and shot at the rescue party. Arthur and the skinny privet providing cover fire against the enemy.

It would haunt Arthur that there could have been more wounded men in need of rescue, but they couldn't stay here. The enemy was taking back this former strong hold. They were sneaking through the forest like snakes in the grass. They had no choice but to retreat. Dawn was coming.

~ Arthur was so tired as he tried to stay awake and focused on the road. They had saved about a dozen men and he hadn't lost any of his rescue party.

~ When they finally pulled into the hospital, the Colonel greeted him with a rare smile.

"Almost gave up on you, Son." He said. He pulled Arthur a little closer. "I would have hated to lose you."

The Colonel was pleased so many men had been brought back. That no one from the rescue team had even been hurt.

"I know your tired, but I think you may want to see this." The Colonel said handing the Captain some binoculars.

The stood on the roof of the hospital. From there, they could see the ridge of trees become a fire storm as planes dropped bombs over it.

"Never seen bombs do that before." Arthur said.

It was as if God waved a hand over the trees and made them into fire.

"Something our boys back home have been cooking up. Warfare is changing. Soon enough, we won't need men like you and me." He explained. "All those egg heads will have to do is push a button and destroy the world."

~ Arthur was so tired that he almost collapsed in the barracks. He didn't even shower or change out of his dirty fatigues as Cobb told him Ariadne had been operated on and that she would be alright.

The Captain dreamed of being with Ariadne in a field. The two of them picnicking when suddenly the field was set on fire. Cast down on them, not by God, but by someone who wanted to destroy the world.