As she threw herself over top of the trench, landing gracefully in the mud, it crossed Britannia's mind that she had gotten too used to doing this. A smile crossed her face at the idea; the brightest thing on that miserable battlefield.
This does a whole lot more good than housework, at the very least, she told herself.
She made her way across the dirt, as Germans in the other trench fired at her-- as usual, every bullet seemed to miraculously miss. Sprawled throughout her sight were dead bodies; she wasn't sure what she was going to do here.
Not until she saw that one body with its leg stuck in one of the many stray spools of barbed wire, was in fact, still moving, although barely; twitching with each breath he took.
She ran over to him, holding up her shield to protect them both as she crouched down. The man looked up at her with an amazed look, not noticing her until that moment.
"It's all right," she told him, "You're going to be okay."
He couldn't think of anything to say, but it didn't matter; he could barely let out more than a groan.
"I'll take you back," she said softly. "You'll be safe with me. Can you stand?"
He shook his head, trying to pull his leg free from the barbed wire, with no luck; it held him down despite his struggling. He murmured, "can't... leg's stuck."
"All right. Don't you worry, I'll get you out." She stared at the thorned wire that his leg was ensnared in; a pair of shears could easily cut him free, she imagined. If only I had some, she thought. His leg was caught between two wires, she realized, concluding that if she could get one out of the way, the second wouldn't be able to keep him pinned.
Would the barbs be able to puncture cloth? she asked herself, immediately realizing, of course they can. I couldn't kick it free, either, it's impossible to get the right foodhold in this dirt. She shook her head, telling herself not to think about it.
"I'm going to have to tear off a bit of your uniform, okay?"
The soldier responded with a groan, nodding his head. She took his cuff by the seam and tore it, ripping off an inch thick strip of the whole circumference of it. She put the strip down on his chest, took a deep breath, and gritted her teeth tightly.
Britannia grabbed his boot with one hand and the thorned wire with the other before she could give it a second thought, pulling the two apart with great force. Pain shot through her calloused hand and it took all her strength not to let go until his leg was free of the wire. She quickly grabbed the strip of fabric and wrapped it around her bleeding, wincing as she tied off the dirty makeshift bandage around her cuts. She silently said a prayer that it wouldn't get infected, knowing full well that for any other person, an infected would on the battlefield could very well kill them. The bandage quickly turned dark red.
"Can you get up now?" she asked, still wincing in pain.
"Y-yeah...," he managed to stammer, and she pulled him free. She turned her back to the Germans and lifted him up in both her arms.
"You have no idea how much that hurts...," she told him with a forced smile, carrying him back to the trench. "But you're not going to die today. You're safe in my hands."
Both Britannia and the soldier felt a whole lot better after that; at least for the time being.
Private William had not chosen to join the army of his own free will; like so many of the men fighting in his trench on that day in 1917, he had been conscripted. He had so far only been in combat for two weeks, not having gained a single bit of ground during them; all he saw around him was futility and death.
Mortar shells exploded on no-man's land ahead of him. He didn't know which side had fired them. He stayed slumped against the side of the trench wall; it was his turn to rest now, and he wasn't going to waste his chance to rest his eyes if he could help it. Fritz, however, seemed determined to make sure that he couldn't. The earth started to tremble at that moment, something which usually happened all the time for different reasons. This time, however, it was the worst possible one:
"Panzer!" an Irish man screamed from his trench, not far off. "It's a panzer!"
William felt his heart race in fright; he turned around and lifted his head slightly above the top of the sandbag on the trench rim, trying to see what the yelling was about. He saw the same thing that the Irishman had, and was instantly paralyzed with fear at the sight of it.
Approaching at a frightening pace was a massive steel machine; wider than several automobiles, and far taller than a man. It crawled forward on massive caterpillar treads, crushing barbed wire underneath its massive weight. Recessed in the front were several machine guns; to the side, giant cannon barrels pointed in their direction.
The machine gunners immediately fired at the monstrous vehicle. But it did not stop, nor did it slow down; a barrage of bullets that could've demolished a house or killed a hundred men merely bounced off its steel plating, and the war machine continued to stumble forward, unharmed.
The panzer suddenly stumbled into a trench, and for a moment, it seemed like its advance had been halting; but the treads continued to spin, and William could do nothing but watch in horror as it climbed over the trench, collapsing the dirt walls in its unstoppable rampage across the battlefield. He realized: what that panzer had done to the trench in front of him, it'd do to his, too. The giant war machine would simply plow through them all.
"Oh god," he said to himself, announcing his horrified realization, "it's going to kill us all."
It continued to advance. A mortar shell exploded metres away from the panzer, and then another, neither close enough to do anything but kick up clods of dirt. The unharmed panzer continued forward.
Suddenly, without any announcement, a woman dressed in blue landed in front of William's trench. He watched with amazement as she charged forward, running straight for the approaching panzer. The German war machine wasted no time in opening fire on her, and William winced, dropping back below the trench ledge, unable to watch her get mowed down by the panzer's machine guns. But Britannia simply raised her shield and kept running into the fire; every bullet miraculously managed to barely miss her. He resumed peering over the edge, his curiousity and amazement winning over.
She took a swing at the giant steel machine, pounding a huge dent into its armour; and then she took another, slamming her shield into it. She reached for the machine guns on the front and with a single motion, tore them right out of their sockets. She punched it again, and again, until the front end had collapsed entirely on itself; suddenly, the panzer made one last effort to run her down, charging ahead at full speed. She stuck out her arms to stop it, pushing back with all her might. Its tracks spun furiously, first managing to gain ground on her; but soon, all they did was kick up a flurry of mud, unable to outmuscle Britannia.
She stared at the thing, her arms burning with pain as she withstood the force of the many tonnes of panzer trying to charge at her. It wasn't gaining any ground, but she knew she couldn't keep it up much longer. She took a deep breath, and let go, quickly placing her arms underneath the bottom of the vehicle and lifted with all her might. She pulled it high off the ground and slammed her comparatively miniscule weight against the upturned beast, knocking it backwards and causing it to tumble into the trench that it had so easily climbed over.
She stared at the steel frame stuck in the trench, panting heavily. It did not move, its tracks did not spin, and no man emerged from inside. After a moment's watch, to be sure it was down, she turned back the way she came, satisfied that the war machine would not be fighting again.
She reached William's trench, jumping down, visibly exhausted. William stared in amazement as she wiped sweat off her muddy forehead and fell down with her back to the trench wall.
"M-my word...," he stammered. "You saved my... you saved all of us, Missus. I mean, Miss. Britannia," he said, stumbling over what to call her.
He'd heard stories about her, but he had assumed that his fellow soldier's tales of a brave woman in the image of Britannia swooping in, saving men's lives at the last moment, were simply the ramblings of men driven mad by the war; projecting a bizzare fantasy of both safety and seeing a woman's face again.
She smiled wearily, and nodded; she seemed real enough. Her smile surprised him, though, as if something about it seemed not right. It wasn't that it wasn't genuine, he realized. It was that he'd never seen a woman's face covered in blood and dirt before, and certainly never would have expected to see a kind smile on the same face.
He fell back beside her. He didn't know what to say, and yet, felt like he was being ingrateful; after all, she had just saved his life.
"How can I ever thank you?" he asked her, fumbling over his words, realizing how dumb they were not long afterwards. But she just turned her head, looking at him with exhausted, but not impatient eyes.
"You could spare me a fag," she answered his confused gratitude with the simplest of requests.
He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and handed it over. She put it in her mouth while he struck a match, and he lit it for her.
"Thanks," she said, blowing out smoke as she let out a relieved sigh.
There was a pause of silence, with neither of the two saying anything.
"You know, most'd say that smoking like that ain't ladylike," he finally said, with enough of a smile to let her know he was joking.
"Tell me about it," she replied, thinking about it. "I guess that means I'm not much of a lady. But I don't think killing fellow men in a war is very proper for a lady, either."
He looked at her. "No... it ain't proper for anyone."
"God," she said, letting out another breath of smoke, "I shan't argue with that."
Just then, a soldier rushed by, stopping in front of her. He made a salute, and she put the cigarette in her other hand, returning the sign of respect. On a battlefield, it was a rule that you never saluted a superior officer; otherwise, the enemy would know who the officers were. Britannia knew this, and realized that an exception was being made for her. She dropped her hand after a couple of seconds, and he followed. She looked at the sign of his rank on his uniform; a sergeant.
"Britannia! You saved all our lives," the sergeant told her. "You don't know how grateful we are that you showed up."
"Save lives...," she said softly, her exhaustion showing in her voice. "That's what I'm here for."
"If there's anything at all I can do for you...."
She smiled at him. He was probably the highest ranking soldier in this part of the trench, and appreciated the gesture that the man was giving her.
"Sergeant... right now, I'd just like to sit here and rest my head for a moment. I haven't had any sleep in at least three days, and I'm just about completely exhausted."
"If you say so," he said, a bit taken aback. "Thank you."
He nodded his head and turned back the way he came, needing to get back to his duties.
"Gosh," she muttered, closing her eyes. "I'm so tired."
"Then sleep," William told her. "You deserve it."
She fell asleep almost instantly. If she had any dreams, she didn't remember them. It was early in the morning when she'd fought the panzer; when she woke up in that muddy trench, the sun had just started to rise.
She looked around, and saw that not only had William gone, but the trench was empty. The only people still there were dead men; a sight that she was ashamed to admit that she'd gotten a bit used to by now. She felt sore all over when she tried to stand up, but she knew she had enough rest to keep going.
It took Britannia a while to notice that her pocket seemed fuller than it should; she looked down, and noticed a number of cigarettes stuffed in. A piece of paper was sticking out of her pocket. She pulled it out, smiling when she read the simple note:
"From all of us" it said.
Heeding the advice of a commander she'd met, Britannia arrived at Amiens just in time to see the start of what would later be known as the Twenty Days Offensive. She had seen many battles; but that one would forever be etched in her memory as the most chaotic and hellish of them all.
For as far as the eye could see, the sky was filled with fighting aeroplanes; the ground was unlike she'd seen before, with what were once trenches crushed and caved in, and barbed wire crumpled underneath massive tread marks. The noise could be heard from miles away, from machine guns, shouting, and the sound of the heavy war machines ploughing through the mud.
But along the many miles between the start of the battlefield, and to where the Allies had managed to push to in the span of that day, it was but one sight that she saw over and over again that struck her the most: dead men. As she hurried to the front line, she kept passing by countless bodies, some piled up in the demolished trenches; others simply laying flat on the ground, mowed down in their long advance. Many years later she would read a book about the Great War, and see just how many soldiers were killed in that battle; according to her book, it was nearly a hundred thousand in those three days.
After a half hour's run, a long line of British tanks appeared in sight; soon, she saw their accompanyment of countless men. She kept running, soon making her way up to the tanks, making her way through the soldiers.
She stared, uncertain of what she should do. For the first time, combat was mobile again, rather than stuck in defensive, non-moving lines; giant war machines had stopped that stalemate. But suddenly her most important role seemed to have disappeared, as she was no longer able to return soldiers dying on no-man's land to relative safety; as neither no-man's land, nor nearby trenches, existed anymore. She prayed that this was near the end of the war, filled with dread at the idea of being once again useless, despite all the death around her.
It didn't take long for her worries to be proven wrong.
All of a sudden, an aeroplane started flying downwards at the line, out of control; she couldn't tell whose it was. But she realized at the same time as the soldiers, that it was going to crash straight into a number of them. Men immediately started to panic, breaking line and scrambling to get out of way of the crashing plane.
Britannia didn't miss a beat, leaping over the panicked soldiers and straight for the doomed plane. All the men around her looked up in amazement; a few started to cheer. She grabbed the aeroplane by the propeller mid-jump, and with a twist of her body, she flung the flying vehicle in the opposite direction, back at the Germans.
She landed gently on the ground in front of the British line, and, on impulse, did a bit of a proud curtsy in front of the soldiers she'd just saved.
The soldiers responded with cheers.
"Huzzah Britannia! Hoorah!" they yelled, as the next wave of German troops appeared in sight.
Britannia quickly leapt out of the way, landing on top of a tank, as all the machine guns started to fire at the soldiers coming into sight.
"Rule, Britannia!" one soldier shouted. Another joined in, cheering with the same shout over the gunfire. Yet another added, "Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves!" One enthusiastic sergeant started to shout, tunelessly, but not unenthusiastically, the verse of the song:
"When Britain first at heav'n's command, arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter of the land, and guardian angels sang this strain!"
Britannia thought that nearly half the line had joined in on the chorus, men singing as they marched, "Rule, Britannia! Rule the waves! Britons never shall be slaves!"
The overwhelming stream of constant gunshots filled the air, but the enemy troops they approached seemed more frightened now; as the once resigned British divisions now encouraged.
Suddenly, Britannia found herself falling off from atop the tank. She hit the ground with a thud, her head starting to throb. She forced her vision to focus, and looked down at herself, wondering what the hell had just happened; it wasn't until she saw the blood pooling on her skirt that she realized that she had been shot.
She felt for her leg, it slowly occuring to her that she was, in fact, in incredible pain. She just kept staring at that bloody spot; oh my God, she thought to herself. I've been shot.
She wondered if that was going to be the end; she knew she'd been lucky up until this point, tempting fate on the battlefield constantly while thousands had died each day. Divine blessing or not... I suppose even that must have limits, she told herself. It's just in the leg. Not everyone dies from getting shot, and it's just in the leg. I've still got a chance of surviving that.
But then she saw the men looking back at her with worry-- one who had turned his head hit the ground, dead-- and she realized that she couldn't give up at this point. It'd crush their spirits, she realized. Come on, stand up, she told herself. Stand up.
She slowly forced herself back onto her feet, her bloodied leg still quivering. She tried her hardest to ignore the pain, forcing herself to support as much weight as she could on her wounded leg. She staggered back to the tank, not so gracefully this time, and pulled herself back up, resuming her proud stand on top.
"Hey Fritz!" she yelled defiantly, on impulse; she knew she had to say something in response. "I'm afraid it's going to take more than that to take down the spirit of Britain!"
The soldiers started to cheer again, inspired once more with confidence after that gesture from Britannia. And the one started to shout again:
"The nations not so blest as thee, shall in their turns to tyrants fall!
While thou shalt flourish great and free, the dread and envy of them all!"
The British line barely experienced any more resistance that day. It would take merely seventeen more days, most of which were spent marching over abandoned fields, until the armistice would be signed.
The end.
For the first time in a long while, Dora was no longer dressed as Britannia, and no longer acting as a wartime hero, or anything of the sort. She was standing in a busy London street near the Port, just as Dora Taylor, dressed up in one of Dora Taylor's ordinary dresses. It almost felt weird.
The war was over, Germany (and all the other Central powers that nobody ever thought about) had surrendered; Britannia was no longer needed. Which was why she was back home, back on ol' Blighty at last, watching the soldiers coming off the ships.
She stared distantly at the men walking through the street; some had detached expressions, others searching through the crowd for familiar faces, some just seeming happy to be home. People met up with their family, or perhaps their friends, and Dora couldn't help but smile at the sight.
She wasn't sure at all what had brought her here. Part of her said that it was her last duty to observe this informal, uncoordinated ceremony of sorts; while at the same time, she scolded herself for even think of considering the possibility that she was really just looking through the crowd, trying to see Taylor's face, to find out that there was a mistake somewhere. She hoped that wasn't the real reason.
"Excuse me...," a man said to her, interupting her thoughts. "Don't I know you?"
"I'm sorry?" she responded, startled. After a moment of looking at him, she answered, "No, I don't believe we've ever met."
"No, we did, less than a year ago, in France," he said, grinning.
"I've never been to France. Certainly not in the middle of the war," she lied.
"Oh, c'mon. I'd recognize your face anywhere, Britannia; you're pretty hard to forget."
After a moment of thinking about it, she let out a resigned sigh. "Okay, you've caught me," she said with the slightest of smiles. "But please don't call me that; I'm not Britannia anymore."
"You saved my life."
"Yes?" she said, somewhat absently, thinking about what she'd said about not being Britannia anymore. "I saved a lot of men's lives."
"I'm sure you must have, Miss. Thank you. They all appreciate it, I'd reckon; I certainly do," he told her. He looked behind him, trying to figure out what she was staring at. "Are you waiting for your husband to come home?"
She didn't answer for a while, staring off into the distance.
"He's not coming home," she said quietly.
"Oh... I'm terribly sorry, Miss," he frowned, awkwardly. He turned to leave after a moment of silence. "Well, er, I just wanted to thank you. Good-by."
He started to walk off, but Dora stopped him.
"Wait!" she called. "Don't feel so bad about it."
And then, suddenly struck by the thought, she asked him the converse of his question: "Is your family here waiting for you?"
He shook his head. "I don't wager so. I imagine I'll be catching a train out today, go and see my ma. Don't have much other place to go."
"How about we have lunch together, then? It's nearly noon, after all," she offered, starting to smile.
"Wow," he said. "I'd be honoured."
"That's wonderful." She started to turn away, to lead him off; then she remembered something. She put out her hand, telling him, "I quite nearly forgot to introduce myself. My real name's Dora."
The two had a lot to talk about over lunch.