perplexity
/pəˈplɛksɪti/
noun
1. inability to deal with or understand something
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The boat tipped causing everyone to fall over, Lila's face scrunched up in pain but she regained her footing with everyone else. The Dutchman let out a shout.
"We float!"
"Start the bloody engine!"
The Dutchman climbed up the ladders and started the engine. More gun shots rang through the side of the ship causing everyone to duck to the best of their ability. Lilas side screamed in pain as the sea water now came up to her chest.
The gunshots continued to fire as the Germans were adamant to stop this ship from floating causing everyone to float around in a panic, Tommy searches through the people for Lila and found her struggling to hold herself up and rushed over to her and helped her stay up but pulled her down with him when more shots rang out.
They came back up and gasped for air searching around.
"Plug the holes!" The dutchman screamed from up top.
"With what?" Someone screamed back. Everyone ran towards the holes and attempted to block them with their hands but water still poured through.
"Other side!" More holes appeared causing men to spread out over both sides of the boat and make their best attempt to cover them. The ship continued to fill up; the water now up to their chins.
"Abandon ship!" The voice shouted, Tommy grabbed Lila and pulled her towards the ladder and helped her climb it, once at the top they jumped into the sea. He saw a boat and started pulling Lila towards it but paused when a high pitched screech was released from the sky above.
A bomb hit the side of the grey ship causing Tommy and Lila to duck their heads into the water but the noise was so loud that they covered their ears.
They came back to the surface of the water and took instant notice on the oil that now covered their skin and looked around once again. Tommy grabbed Lila and started helping her swim towards the grey ship in the water. But he paused when he saw that it was slowly sinking into the water.
~~~
Meanwhile all of this was happening to Lila and Tommy Alex had already gotten onto another civilian ship and followed the orders to get down to bottom deck until a voice called out.
"Careful! Careful! Careful down there." Alex looked towards what he was talking about and felt his heart drop.
There laid George mills, the brother of his best friend, Lila mills. He crouched down and felt for his pulse but he couldn't feel anything.
"He's dead mate..."
"So be bloody careful with him then." Came peters reply. "Wait... Alex? Where's Lila? Her mums worried sick?"
"I don't know."
Tears filled his eyes, he didn't even know if Lila was alive, he was so focused on getting himself out alive that he didn't look for Lila. He gently pushed George to the side and placed his hands on his chest. He closed his eyes and said a small prayer wishing that this poor boys sister is alive.
~~~
Tommy and Lila saw the men being pulled in by the pressure of the ship sinking and heard the shouts of the men when the German aircraft was noticed to be circling back around causing them to desperately kick away from the ship towards a nice looking boat.
Red blended in with the black oil that lays on the oceans surface from the wound that laid on Lila's side and her eyes were now struggling to stay open and her legs barely moved in the water causing Tommy to have to drag her dead weight through the water once more.
Tommy reached the ship and grabbed onto the hand of a boy wearing a red jumper whilst his other hand held strongly onto Lila as their ship started moving, Tommy's head submerged into the water causing him to have the breath knocked out of him but he managed to lift his head out of the water.
Men rushed forwards to pull him in but then noticed the nurse attached to his other arm, the man in the Pilots uniform rushed forwards and lifted her up out of the water then helped Peter lift Tommy out.
Lila sat on a seat around the edge of the boat whilst Tommy collapsed onto the floor and sucked in deep breaths.
"Take me home." Came out of his mouth through the gasps. Tommy stood and went to approach Lila who was also now stood.
"Tommy?" She weakly spoke making him pause. He looked down and saw her hand clutching her side and blood soaking her fingers causing him to furrow his eyebrows.
He was broken out of his trance when she collapsed forward onto the deck in front of him and onto her back. She looked up to the sky feeling the faint feeling wash over her.
"Lila?" A boys voice called out, she turned her head and saw a boy in a red jumper coming up the stairs.
"Peter?" She whispered.
"Alex! Alex! It's Lila!" He called down the stairs, Lila looked past peter and her eyes caught sight of a boy on the floor that looked like George. She froze and used what energy she could to drag herself closer to the boys body.
"Lila, what are you do-" Tommy went to ask her until her frail voice called out.
"George?" Tommy felt his heart drop, remembering what he had told her in the early hours of the day, about how much she adored her brother.
"Lila! You're alive!" Alex called but froze when he saw her staring at the body of her brother.
Lila turned back onto her back and tears streamed down her face, not from the pain of the gunshot wound, but from the pain of loosing her brother.
People ran around her in a blur whilst someone applied pressure to her wound and Alex and Tommy comforted her and someone unwrapped a bandage.
But Lila felt empty, she couldn't feel the pain of her side anymore, she couldn't feel at all. She had given up all hope and had given up fighting.
"Lila? Can you hear me?" A voice called out but she didn't know who it belonged to, everything was blurry now, nothing could be distinguished anymore.
The next thing she knew her eyes closed and her world faded.
~~~
Tommy stared at Lila in panic and saw that her eyes laid closed.
"How did we not see? How did we not know? What is wrong with us?" Alex stressed whilst pacing on the deck but his questions were left unanswered.
"We need to hurry, she's not got long until she's lost too much blood, she's already lost a lot, and it's already getting infected." The soldier who stated his name as Collins said to the person steering the boat.
"She's going as quick as she can." The older man stressed.
People ran around the decks and George now laid on the lower deck with a blanket covering him to hide him from prying eyes. Tommy sat by Lila's head with a hand on her head to prevent her from moving too much from the force of the waves and gently stoked her hair.
Collins pushes his hands tightly on the jacket which covers the wound on Lila's side as they have ran out of bandages and gauzes as they are now littered around them soaked in Lila's crimson blood.
Everyone was distracted from aiding Lila's dying body when another German aircraft started to approach.
"Peter you take the tiller." Mr Dawson ordered and Peter complied. "Listen for my instructions!" Peter waited and stood ready. "Point her south!" Peter did so. "Full speed Peter! Keep coming around! Keep coming, before he fires he's got to drop her nose, I'll give you the signal."
"Now?"
"No, no, wait, wait for him to commit to his line." Moments that felt like hours passed until he shouted. "Now!"
Peter tipped the boat the other way causing the German to miss and fly past and continue going.
"He's gone."
"Yeah, bigger fish to fry, now, get back to helping Lila."
"How'd you know all that stuff anyway?" Collins asked from his position next to Lila.
"My sons one of you lot, I knew he'd see us through." Collins looked over to Peter.
"You're RAF?"
"No, not me, my brother, he flew hurricanes, died third week into the war. He used to go out with Lila- but they broke off their relationship when he joined." He looked down at the pale face of Lila then to the older man who tended to a soldier who clearly suffered with PTSD.
Tommy looked up out of the window with Alex following in pursuit.
"Is it Dover?" Tommy asked.
"No. That's Dorset. But it's home." Peter responded.
"We let you all down didn't we?"