Chapter Eleven: A Few More Bullets

*“The woods should be right up ahead.” Hiiro told Serena, who was lagging behind him slightly.

“Okay.” She wheezed. Running as fast as she could, she still could not keep up with Hiiro. She couldn’t tell if it was because he had longer legs, or because of his training as a soldier, or because of his flat shoes and her high heels, but whatever the case may be, she was working hard, but not able to keep up.

Behind them screaming and yelling could be heard, and the skies were lit with orange and yellow flames as they licked the horizon over the tall grass. The loud explosions had now subsided, and the engines of the planes could only be heard in the faint distance as they returned to their base for fuel and more ammunition.

“Serena?” Hiiro had dropped back to make sure she didn’t stop all together.

“Hmm?” She breathed hard.

“We’ve hit the woods. We’ll keep going, but running is no longer necessary.” Hiiro told her. Immediately she halted her pace and began walking, grateful they could now cease running at top speed.

“Do you think many soldiers survived?” She asked Hiiro quietly.

“No. They were caught off guard, even their primitive sonar might have been able to have helped, if they had anyone manning it.”

“They didn’t? But they all looked so official and busy when I saw them.”

“By the time I was returning from dropping off your dishes, half the men in that main office had fallen asleep around the room. They were off guard and not prepared as a good army should have trained them to be at all times.” He growled. It was obvious to Serena that he did not think very highly of the Nazi army. Or even the Allied army, she thought. He hadn’t taken to Kerry or Jim either. Or maybe it was just him.

“Halt!” A German voice resounded in the woods. Hiiro and Serena both stopped instantly, and Hiiro moved to put himself in front of Serena on instinct.

“Hello?” He called in German.

“American spies!” The voice called. A young soldier came out of the trees, a gun aimed directly at them. “I heard you talking in your language! Don’t try to trick me!”

“Oh no!” Serena whispered worriedly. Hiiro grimaced, but stayed still.

“We’re leaving, we aren’t spies, and we aren’t American. We’re French, using English as a coded language from any Americans that we thought might have landed their planes nearby.” Hiiro paused, hoping the soldier would fall for it.

“Liar! I saw her in the office with the commander, saying she was German!” The man yelled back. Hiiro winced, and Serena drew in a sharp breath. He wasn’t stupid after all. But Hiiro could also see, from the short distance from the soldier, that his gun was shaking, and his voice had a nervous tone to it. This soldier, even if he didn’t mean to, was going to slip up and pull the trigger on accident if he didn’t loosen up.

“Please? We just want to go home.” Serena whispered, more to herself than to anyone. Hiiro heard her, and a fond flutter echoed in his heart for a moment. She wasn’t pleading for her life to the soldier, she was pleading to go home. Such an innocent act.

“Let us go, and we won’t harm you.” Hiiro tried the intimidation tactic.

“I have the gun trained on you!” The German boy shouted. Hiiro now rolled his eyes, getting tired of playing games.

“And I can just as easily have a gun trained on you.” He muttered, pulling his handgun from his waistband. He saw the tremor in the German’s hand increase, and knew he was about to loose his control.

“Serena, when I tell you to, dive down.”

“What? Why?” She asked skeptically, as if she hadn’t heard or understood him the first time.

“Do it.” This time she held her questions and simply whispered a dainty yes. Hiiro, assured she would do as he told her to, then turned his attention back to the boy. “I’m giving you till the count of three to out your gun aside.”

“No!” The boy argued. “I’m taking you hostage.”

“On two dive Serena.” He warned her then he narrowed his eyes and began. “One. Two…” Just as he finished the word, Serena dove, and the boy’s gun fired. Hiiro dove as well, and then reached up to aim quickly. One more loud shot rang out through the woods, and then the boy’s body fell lifeless and limp. Hiiro picked himself up off the ground, as did Serena, and they both stepped forward to examine the dead boy’s body.

“He was so young… only in his early twenties.” She remarked without feeling.

“You’re seventeen, I’m twenty myself. It was him or us.”

“Funny. People say humanity is defined by pain. But now he isn’t human anymore, he’s dead. Or do people only achieve humanity through the ultimate pain, which in effect would be death?”

“I often wondered the same.” Hiiro, though he did not turn his head, let his eyes wander to Serena. He wondered how it was that he had found someone who was finally able to voice what he had always thought, but never been able to say. It was as if she were an extension of his own thoughts and beliefs. He had thought he was the only one. But here he saw there were two of them. Two. Maybe he wasn’t so very different from the average person? Or maybe he and Serena were very different from the average people.

“Halt!” More voices cried out in German, and Hiiro and Serena knew there was only one way to escape: run. So they ran.

They ran as fast as they could, but still they could not delay the inevitable for much longer, Hiiro and Serena both knew. Finally Hiiro stopped behind a tree, and Serena paused with him to catch her breath.

“They’ll execute us when they catch us.” He told her grimly.

“I came to terms with death a long time ago.” Serena breathed. Pausing for a moment, she wondered if what she was about to say should remain unsaid. Then she decided to fight her instinct and speak her mind for the last time. “But I never thought I would die at the hands of a World War Two soldier. I can’t tell whether it’s a noble death, because we’ve managed the impossible and traveled time to get here, or whether it’s depressing, because we never made it to our true objective, the fifties.” Hiiro shrugged.

“Serena.” He finally said, hearing the Germans come closer. “Thank you.”

“For what?” She asked, somewhat startled that he was both touching her and thank her for reasons she didn’t know or understand.

“For the banana.” Hiiro finished lamely. He hadn’t been able to say he wanted to. He wanted to say thanks to her, for at least humoring him in his journey trying to reach the fifties. He wanted to say thanks to her for the banana, yes, but it was more. It was thanks really for her thinking of him, and thanks to her for her help in this trip. And, most importantly, thanks to her for saying things he had never thought he would hear another person utter. That had meant the most, the fact that she had made him feel accepted in such a short span of time. It had amazed him.

Serena looked hard at Hiiro for a moment, still slightly awed by the fact that he was touching her. And then she lightened her gaze and lightly leaned in, hugging him. The human contact made her warm, and a sensation of safety tingled through her, causing lightheadedness and a dizzying array of new emotions. Never had she felt so close with another person. And somehow, she knew exactly what Hiiro had meant when he thanked her.

“You’re welcome.” Were her last words. Shots rang out, and in the dimness of the night, loud screaming could be heard.

>>>)(<<<

Groggily, he managed to haul himself up off the cold, hard floor and survey his surroundings. A small cell, with an iron door and one four by four window were his new home. Grunting as he pulled himself to his feet, Hiiro let the pain shoot through his side and then exit his body as if he had never felt it.

“You’re up son.” A gruff voice echoed in his ears, splitting his head in two as he tried to focus on the person whom had spoken.

“Soldier, you’re not in any condition to be standing.” Another voice pricked his sensitive eardrums. However, unlike the first, the second was laced with an accent, and this made it ten times harder to concentrate and make out what was being said.

“I’m fine.” Hiiro grunted. Then he managed a glimpse of the two men he had been thrown into prison with.

One reminded him of Kerry, the soldier from the B-52 he and Serena had met. His blonde hair had been buzzed short, and he was tall and lanky. But that was where the similarities stopped. This man also had a blonde mustache beneath his nose, and though it had probably not been trimmed in sometime, it was still clean cut to look at. His mouth was drawn into a hard, thin line—there was no joking around with this man, he was an experienced soldier, perhaps even a Captain. His clothing had been torn to shreds, but the faint green camouflage of his faded pants was still visible to the naked eye. Dog tags hung around his neck, and a cigarette was clutched in one hand.

The other man was a complete opposite of the American. His clothing had been ripped to pieces as well, but somewhere he had found a few old rags and created a new shirt for himself. He had brown hair cropped close to his face, and the lines of age that crinkled near his eyes and mouth told he had been alive for some time longer. He held no cigarette, but all the same coughed as though he had been a chain smoker his entire life. The somber mood both men had in their body language seemed to be set by him as well.

“Look here son, this Englishman is Sergeant Nicks, and he’s been trained as a doctor. Maybe you should settle down and let him have a look at you now that you’re awake.” Hiiro glared, and drew back into the corner of the darkened cell. He felt like a wounded animal—he wanted to lick his wounds on his own; a vet would not be appreciated.

“Come on soldier, let me take a look at that wound. They got you in the stomach, did they then?” The Englishman advanced slightly. Hiiro glared again.

“It’s fine.”

“Sure it is. Just sit down and let the man take a look at it. Didn’t they teach you not to question your officers in basic?” The American frowned. “Maybe you didn’t get a good look. I’m Captain Evans, fifth infantry.” Now Hiiro was trapped. He could either let it be known he wasn’t American, French, or English and refuse to listen to their chain of command, or he could play along and take on a roll. He did not think this was a good situation to be in—it put him at a high liability rate.

“Yes sir.” He finally grunted. Stepping out of the shadows, he sat on the cement floor and allowed the English doctor to take a look at his bullet wound.

“It only grazed you in the lower ribs—missed hitting anything vital by a few inches. You’re a lucky fellow.” The doctor nodded, tying an old cloth rag around Hiiro’s midsection as a bandage.

“Did he loose a lot of blood?” The American asked.

“Yes, that was the only reason he passed out. If he’s up and standing now, I’m not worried. He’ll make a full recovery, if it doesn’t get infected.”

“Good. Soldier, you’re from what company?”

“Private Kerry, Ivy division. Sir.” Hiiro monotonously replied.

“Ivy? An air division?”

“Yes sir. B-52 crashed three days ago, eight other men killed.”

“Good lord…” The Englishman sighed. “We’re dropping like flies out there.” He took a seat on the hard floor beside Hiiro and rubbed his face with his hands out of frustration.

“Once Normandy goes off we’ll be fine.” Evans finished tiredly. Hiiro said nothing, but his thoughts crept back to his last moments before being shot. And then it clicked.

“I was traveling with another person.” He spoke low and coldly, hoping it would keep the American and Englishman short and to the point themselves.

“Sorry son, you were the only one brought in here. I thought you were the only survivor of the plane crash?” Evans asked suspiciously.

“I was. I had a German woman as a prisoner.” Hiiro narrowed his eyes and hoped they wouldn’t…

“Ah, a lady friend was it?” Nicks thought he was being sly.

“A captive. No one else was brought in with me?”

“Nope, sorry. They probably thought she was French, or even English, and shot her on site. Women aren’t of any use to a POW camp like this anyway.”

“Where are we exactly?” Hiiro asked, closing his eyes and trying to come to terms with the newly found information. So. She was dead.

“We don’t know the name of the camp, or even where it is on a map. What we do know is that it isn’t a regular camp—there are only fifty prisoners, and it’s a mixture of air and infantry. The usual prisons keep air and infantry separated, as well as officers. We only have the vague notion that the Channel is somewhere north of us, only a day or two’s walk.”

“Before I was captured I was on my way to Cherbourg—it was only a day’s walk from wherever I was according to the prisoner.”

“And you trusted her?” The two older soldiers glared at him. Hiiro glared back.

“You know son, love can make you do…”

“Not love.” Hiiro rolled his eyes as he snapped at the men. This was embarrassing. And worse, he felt guilty. It was his fault she was dead. They never should have run from those soldiers, they should have faced them and let the Americans break them out when they had the chance. And now an innocent from the future was dead. Serena was dead.

“Out! Everybody out!” Germans began yelling in crude English to the men in cells. The doors were flung open, and guards with rifles led them out of the prison and into a small yard surrounded by sloppily made fences and barbwire. There were a few more armed guards around the perimeter, but none of them seemed to be too awake.

“Why do they even bother? Look at these men, not one of them has the strength to even attempt running.” The Englishman shook his head. Hiiro looked around, and found that the doctor’s words rang true. The other men in the camp were no better off than he was. Some were wrapped in large, yellowing and ripping bandages from head to foot. Others were so obviously malnourished that their ribs showed through their skin. All of them wore the tired faces of men who had once been in their prime, and were now simply tired of fighting; tired of living.

“Only seven guards.” Hiiro counted to himself. He could handle a few more bullets before he was put out of commission for good… but what good would an escape attempt do? He could not do anything to help either side in the war. There were no mobile suits here in the forties, there were no high tech computers, or guns to use. His two hands and a small handgun would be the only weapons he could use, and with such small weapons, what was the use of one man? It would take many, and he was only one.

“I’m telling you, I saw them bring her in. It was a woman, no doubt about it. A pretty one too… long legs.”

“Legs like Betty Davis?”

“That’s right. And the longest, blondest hair I’ve ever seen.” Hiiro’s ears picked up the conversation instantly.

“A woman, here in the camp?” Captain Evans asked the men. For Hiiro’s benefit, he winked in his direction. *