The French countryside, one hour after the plane crash, 1941

"Maureen!" I screamed as I dragged myself through a field smelling of burning lavender and metal, "I'm coming, I promise! Just hold on!"
     Blood dripping down my face, I held my broken ribs with one hand and crawled towards the wreckage of another one of the planes. I had crashed almost a mile away and had been searching other downed planes for survivors for almost an hour.
I was about to die of exhaustion and blood loss, but I couldn't just stop looking. These were my friends, and I felt responsible for it all.
Maureen's agonized cries echoed through the flickering of flames in the Mustang plane's shell, and I couldn't stop the tears from falling.
      Survive now, I thought, cry later. It was useless.
My legs had been crushed by the control panel on impact, and blood continued pouring from the back of my head, where I had painfully removed a piece of shrapnel from when the plane was hit. Burns streaked across my back.
"Louisa," Maureen said weakly as I found her hand in the twisted wreckage and climbed over to see her, "you're bleeding badly."
I smiled a little and whispered, "I'm an American, sweetheart, I'll be alright."
It has been our joke for months to reference my nationality when something went wrong. The thought of it now made her smile, and that was all I needed.
"I'm stuck," she said, frustratedly trying to lift the piece of the wing on top of her.
"Don't tire yourself out," I grunted as I pulled it away and helped her crawl out from under it, "We have a long way to-"
I froze. Her legs were a bloody mess—much worse than mine were—and I could see bone piercing out from the skin. She paled at the sight.
Maureen's adrenaline seemed to fail her, and it was as though all the pain that had previously been blocked out suddenly forced itself into the forefront of her mind.
"Louisa, I can't-"
"Shh," I said weakly, wincing as my ribs ached with every breath, "you're going to be fine. I can help carry you while we look for other survivors."
She put a hand to my face and clumsily wiped blood from dripping into my eyes with a sad look on her face. "You can't even walk, Lou: you can't carry me. The Frenchman you spoke to on the radio...does he know what happened?"
Tears streamed down my face as I began dragging her away from the burning remains of the plane, and I panted, "He was American. I told him we were going down, but didn't get to tell him any coordinates. Who knows how far we are from the airstrip. I've walked almost a mile already."
"And no others?"
"I searched two other planes and found Jane and Ethel's bodies. Another plane had exploded and was just a pile of ash. My fault."
She shook her head and took my hand to comfort me. "You know that's not-"
Gunshots screamed all around us, and I covered Maureen with my body, trembling with fear as I covered my head with my hands.
"Sie sind Frauen," I heard as the bullets stopped and footsteps approached. German soldiers. My heart sank.
"What are they saying?" Maureen whispered as I discreetly pulled a shard of shattered metal into my knees as I pulled away from her.
"They're surprised that we're women."
She gave me a worried glance as a gun was pressed to my head.
"Hände hoch," one of the four Nazi soldiers barked, "Hands up."
I obeyed, covering the hidden piece of metal with my legs.
"Du sprichst Deutsch?"
I didn't answer. He backhanded me hard, sending me reeling on my knees.
     "Ja," I replied reluctantly. My mother had lived her whole childhood in Austria, and I learned the language intensively as an elective during training. I spoke German almost as well as English.
"Und sie?" one of the men added, gesturing with his gun to Maureen, "And her?"
I shook my head, and Maureen seemed to understand what we were talking about.
"I speak Spanish," she offered, but the men weren't impressed. They were going through the wreckage of her plane, looking for something of use.
If Nazi soldiers had already been able to find us, perhaps the American working with the Resistance intelligence would come quickly. That was my only hope.
Suddenly, the gun moved from my head to Maureen, and the soldier cocked the pistol without hesitation. I lunged between her and the gun, and screamed, "Nein, nein, bitte!"
My sudden outburst stopped the man in his tracks, and Maureen whispered, "Louisa! That is perhaps the most bloody American thing I've seen all day. Don't do something foolish just to save me, sweetheart. I'm half-dead anyway."
She smiled a little, but I couldn't. The realization hit me that she was right. She would probably die before they were able to register us as prisoners of war. And I would quickly follow.
"Aufstehen," one of them said.
"He's telling us to-"
"Get up," Maureen grimaced, "I figured. Help me."
She noticed the makeshift weapon hidden under my legs, and swept her hands through the debris, pulling a piece of burned plexiglass of her own close to her.
"You take the one on the left," I muttered as I helped her to her feet and let her lean heavily against me. Her legs were covered in blood, and I noticed a gruesome wound on her shoulder.
"There's three others, Lou," she grunted, "Do you plan to take all of them?"
I smirked and gripped her hand in pain with the hand not holding the shard of metal. "Not sure yet."
"Hör auf zu reden!" the man in charge yelled, "Stop talking!"
"I'm going to work on getting the guns first," I breathed, "Go for him after me."
The soldier took a hand away from his gun and reached to handcuff me, and I seized the opportunity.
Lunging for him, I drove the metal into his neck and kicked the gun out of his hand, crying out in pain with every movement.
Maureen had already taken down the unsuspecting left soldier, and was sprawled on top of his body as she tried to stand again. The bloody piece of glass in her hand trembled.
"Nice job," I panted, impressed.
I picked up the gun in the burned grass and shot at the man attacking Maureen, hitting his forearm. A soldier came up behind me and wrapped his arm around my throat to strangle me and wrestled the pistol from my hand.
The burns on my back sent pain through my spine as I fought to get away, adrenaline doing more harm than good but at least allowing me to forget the plane crash and focus on the current situation. I dreaded the shell-shocked mess I would be later, if I ever made it that far.
      Maureen shot the man attacking her, and he collapsed at her feet as she turned her gun to me and the Nazi holding me.
      It was too close. If she tried to shoot him, it would likely kill me as well. The soldier knew this and pulled me against him as a human shield, his hands still around my throat. I felt ready to pass out, but Maureen looked worse than I did.
     I didn't know what to do. British female military training didn't cover hand-to-hand combat in an attempt to save you and your dying friend from becoming prisoners of war.
     "Don't shoot yet," I mouthed, falling like dead weight in the man's arms. He stumbled forward and I reached out, grabbing his legs and pulling them out from under him.
"Hündin!" he swore at me, punching me hard in the face.
     "Let me shoot him!" Maureen cried, stumbling closer. I shook my head and let him punch me again, grabbing his arm as his fist connected to my jaw and pulling him forward into the ground.
     Using the momentum I had, I pushed myself up and elbowed him hard in the back, rolling away enough for Maureen to get a clear shot. The bullet made it's impact. We both collapsed.
     Breathing hard, I overcame my adrenaline paralysis and crawled over to Maureen, a stunned smile on my face.
     "You just did that," I managed.
     "That was all you."
     "That's what every war hero says."
     She playfully reached up and socked me in the shoulder, and I laughed shakily. We were both in shock, but it was better than hysteria.
     "We ought to look for other survivors," I said, holding my ribs in pain. Blood dripped down my neck beneath my white shirt, and I loosened my black tie to breathe a little easier.
     "I don't even see any smoke on the horizon, Lou," she panted, "They could all be miles away."
A low rumble began to grow from the south and a US-made Jeep began making it's way through the fields of lavender.
     I jumped up, stumbling through the field to reach the truck. Two men sat in the front--one older and one in his early twenties, and Ruby and Jennie sat in the cargo hold behind them. Tears streaked their faces and they both stood up at the sight of me.
    "First Officer Adams! You need-"
     "Maur—First Officer Dunlop is over there," I stammered, losing all sense of coherence in my thoughts, "You have to help her."
     The young man in the driver's seat jumped out, wearing a dark green sweater over his white collared shirt, but heavy-duty military boots on his feet.
     I collapsed in his arms, despite myself, and let him carry me into the Jeep. Maureen's name was the only word on my lips, and I gripped the man's arm as he set me in his seat and began to leave.
     "It's going to be okay, Miss Adams," he stammered in his comforting American-Irish accent, "I'm going to get Miss Dunlop."
     "I'm about to pass out," I breathed, "so you have to promise to treat her first. She's-"
     He squeezed my hand firmly and nodded. "We will. Mr. Bernard has already called in some more doctors so you'll both be treated. Just rest."
     The man jogged away after saying something in French to the older man, Mr. Bernard, and I was unconscious before I could translate it in my head.

    
     I groggily opened my eyes, pain already racing through every part of my body.
     The American in the green sweater was reading a book beside my bed, so enthralled that he didn't even hear my grunt in pain.
     "Where's Maureen?" I managed, trying to breathe gently to ease the pain in my ribs.
     He looked up, startled, and put the book away.
     "She's downstairs, First Officer. Resting just like you are."
     "Louisa."
     "I'm sorry?"
He tried to adjust the blankets on top of me but I slapped his hands away. A small, surprised grin came over his face, but I couldn't see what was funny.
     "I'm not a First Officer anymore. I just killed my entire group."
     He shook his head and pulled the chair closer to me.
     "That's not true, ma'am. You have seven other women here that survived because of your forethought to call this station before you crashed, and your clear-headed skill to give them evasive maneuvers that worked."
     A sudden flush of anger consumed me, and I grabbed his shirt collar and pulled him down until he was inches from my face, seething, "We had no guns, sir. None. They sent us on a mission with no guns. And parachutes? How could you have been so thoughtless?" 
     Every word that came from my mouth felt like fire, but I was so angry I didn't care. Thirteen successful, skilled women were slaughtered because of the lack of care our superiors had for our lives.
     "Ma'am," he stammered, backing away as though afraid I would kill him, "I promise I didn't have anything to do with that. I think it's despicable, and someone should be held responsible. I-"
     "Do you realize what their last moments were like," I screamed at him, "trying desperately to find a way out of the plane as they fell towards the ground? Hearing the screams of their friends dying over the radios? Do you realize what that's done to me, even? I don't expect you to ever care about me, but at least think about the families I'll have to write to! Have you ever had to write to the loved ones of people you were responsible for killing?"
     He looked at me with wide, awestruck eyes.  
     Breathing hard and in excruciating pain all over, I couldn't help myself from crying out as it intensified.
     Getting worked up was the last thing my condition needed, but the situation seemed to need it. In my mind, at least.
     "I'm sorry, Ma'am. I'll, ah, accept full responsibility if you'd like. In the meantime, you ought to get some rest."
     I was in too much pain to think of a witty response.
    He headed for the door and said, "I will be back in a few hours to check on you, but I doubt you'll be counting down the minutes. Please just sleep."
Trying to control my hysterical sobs as the shock of what had happened began to set in, I looked up vacantly at the whitewashed ceiling above me.
In all my fury, I had neglected to get any information. I didn't ask where we were, how Maureen was doing, the names of the other survivors, what the men back in England were saying, or even what my own injuries were.
I laid silently in the small, floral wallpaper-covered room for hours, just trying to stop my heart and mind from racing with unwanted thoughts. It seemed as though the sounds of explosions and screaming would never leave my head.
     I felt terrible for yelling at the American.
     After what seemed like an eternity, the door opened and he tentatively came in once again.
     "I'm sorry to bother you," he said sheepishly, "I know you hate me."
     "No, actually I-"
I stopped myself, wondering what I'd planned on saying. Either way, I refused to back down from the fiery personality I had presented to him.
     He looked up from the papers he was shuffling on the desk across the room, and the edges of his mouth turned up in a small smile.
     "Anyway, I just had one question."
     I tried to sit up, but he held up a hand to stop me from tiring myself out.
     "There were four German bodies where we found you and Miss Dunlop," he continued, "and I was wondering what happened. Did you kill them?"
     I bit my swollen lip and looked down at my hands. "Yes."
     He put his hands to his forehead incredulously and couldn't stop his jaw from dropping.
     "You and Miss Dunlop killed four Nazi officers in your condition? How in heaven's name...how did you do it?"
     I couldn't stop myself from smiling a little at his amazement. To be honest, I was quite amazed myself.
     "I don't know," I said with a grimace as I adjusted my position a little, "Desperation, I guess."
     He collapsed in the chair next to the bed and chuckled. His hands reached forward and he attempted to adjust the pillow I was leaning on, but I grabbed his arm and pinned it beside me, trying to hide my pain.
Looking him straight in the eyes, I said, "Why do you feel the need to keep touching me? If I need the pillow moved I'll move it myself."
I noticed a hint of confusion in his eyes as I let go of his arm. "You're strong. I'm impressed."
"Are you afraid?"
He cocked his head like a quizzical beagle. "I'd never admit it. Yale graduate, remember?"
"Who are the other survivors?" I asked weakly, changing the subject and taking a deep breath.
Grateful to avoid feeling awkward any longer, he pulled out a handwritten list from the pocket of his pants and handed it to me.
"I can't read it."
"Oh my," he quipped, "is my handwriting that bad?"
I gave him a look. "My eyes can't focus on it."
"For an American, you're not very appreciative of my jokes," he said, "but I can take it. I'll let you rest-"
"No, don't go," I exclaimed weakly, bursting into a fit of coughing that made my broken ribs ache.
He looked down at my hand holding his sweater with intrigue, and sat back down.
"You're dreadfully obnoxious," I continued, "but you're all the entertainment I have."
He laughed, leaning back in his chair and putting his feet up on the foot of my bed.
Slightly indignant at the casual display but grateful for the company, I didn't kick away his feet. Mostly because my legs were broken.
"What is your name?"
"Hmm?" The question made him raise his eyebrows.
"Do you have a name...or shall I just call you pretty-boy?"
He grinned. "You think I'm a pretty-boy?"
I rolled my eyes and kicked myself for saying anything. "Not what I meant."
"Benjamin Tallmadge, your humble servant."

German Words lol:
Sie sind Frauen- They're women
Hände hoch- Hands up
Du sprichst Deutsch?- You speak German?
Ja-Yes
Und sie?-And her?
Nein- No
Bitte- Please (or thank you but not in this context)
Aufstehen- Get up
Hör auf zu reden!-Stop Talking!
Hündin- a not-so-nice term for a woman lol