Evelyn's Tale

-Eleven-

"Six okay!" she shouted as the yells continued down the line to Buck and Lipton.

The green light flashed on. This was it. They were really going to do it. Suddenly an explosion tore through the window of the aircraft and Roy Cobb screamed in agony. Evelyn rushed over to him to find that he had been hit in the shoulder and was bleeding. Evelyn couldn't believe it. They weren't even out of the plane and already someone was injured. And what's more, it could have easily been George bleeding right now. For some reason, he had asked Cobb to swap seats with him about five minutes into the air. He was one lucky son of a gun.

"Keep still!" she shouted at Cobb, trying to get a better look at his wound. It didn't look to be too bad, but he definitely couldn't make the jump. She poured some sulfa on the wound and hastily wrapped a bandage around it tightly to stem the blood flow. There wasn't much else she could do. It was difficult enough just to stand upright as the plane jolted around.

"I want to jump, Sir," Cobb was adamant he was fine. Evelyn shook her head at Lipton.

"Don't listen to him. He's not jumping, he's staying on the plane!" Lipton agreed. "Is he ok Ev?"

"He will be once he gets back to England," she answered. "You can go, Sir. He'll be fine."

Satisfied that Roy would be alright, Lipton jumped and everyone else began to follow suit.

"Roy, I'm sorry," Ev apologised as it neared her turn. Cobb scowled, and Evelyn knew it wasn't just from the pain. "It's for your own good."

With one final glance at Cobb, she took a deep breath and jumped.

... ... ...

None of their training jumps could have prepared her for the real thing. There were shots and anti-aircraft explosions being fired left, right and centre. No matter how hard anyone tried to avoid them, it was horrifically clear that it was pure pot luck as to whether someone was spared or not. In the chaos, Evelyn didn't even think about counting down like she had been taught, but thankfully her chute opened, yanking her upwards. The sharp movement caused her leg bag to spring off her. Stupid Limey's and their stupid leg bags. She was just grateful that she had only put a few extra supplies in there, unlike Spina who had put all kinds in his. At least she had all of her main aid kit tucked safely in her satchel.

On every one of her practice jumps, Evelyn had enjoyed the leisurely feeling of gliding down to the ground. She had felt so weightless, like a bird, but this time she was itching to get to the safety of the ground. Well, perhaps safety wasn't the right word, but she was willing to believe it was safer to be on the ground where one could hide to avoid being shot at than it was to be a floating target in the sky. Finally, she was about to land and realised that if she didn't move over she was going to hit a tree. Trying her best to manoeuvre the chute, she closed her eyes as she realised she couldn't get further enough away. As she went down, her chute got caught in the tree branches that reached out for her like claws. With a growl, all she could do was reach down for the knife in her boot, the only weapon she was entitled to have being a medic, and with great difficulty cut through the strings. Of course, in doing so she fell through the rest of the tree branches and squealed as they scratched at her face and body until she hit the ground with a thud. With a curse she realised she had managed to cut her entire right sleeve and had a huge tear in the skin. It hurt like a bitch. God Ev, quit being such a baby. If a tree branch can make you hurt this bad, what's it gonna be like if you get shot? Let's just hope you never have to find out.

Suddenly she could hear voices coming from the other side of the trees to the left of her. Considering she couldn't understand a word of what was being said, she was going to take a wild guess that they were Germans. And she highly doubted that they were going to take too kindly to finding her there. Her heart thudding wildly and adrenaline surging through every inch of her body, she crawled as fast and as quietly as she could to a thicket of bushes not too far away. Luckily, she was small enough to hide inside them without being seen. Only a few seconds behind her, the Germans came through the trees and she tried to breath slowly in the hopes that they wouldn't hear her. She let out the smallest sigh of relief when they passed right past her.