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"George?" Mary ran down the small and fragile stairs, trying to get as fast to the crying boy as she could. He was turning from side to side, his hands pressed the cloth against the big wound in the back of his head. Mary sat down next to him, slowly shushing him while taking the piece of fabric from him and pressuring it on the wound herself.
"Look at me, George. Look at me."
"I – I can't see," he cried out, blinking fastly to push away the falling tears.
"Well, then, listen to my voice, alright? Just listen to me, I'll stay here for as long as you need me to," she quietly said to him. Mister Dawson looked from behind the wheel towards the two, his expression worried and very sad. Peter sat close to the soldier, making sure he doesn't do anything stupid or dangerous.
"I want to help, Mary, that's why I'm here."
"You can't love, you need to heal before you can do anything. "
She took one of the blankets that were folded for the soldiers they would bring back home, giving it to the boy that needed it more at that moment. She laid it over his shoulders, cautiously tucking him in.
"You need to rest, so sleep a little bit. I will wake you when we need your help, okay?"
George started nodding with his head and closed his eyes. He tried to control his breathing and heart rate, trying to fall asleep very fast. Mary didn't leave his side, she wanted to wait until she knew he was resting. She went with her hands through his hairs, massaging the top of his head with her fingers. The young lady took a sip of her warm tea, needing a bit of warmth to block out the feeling of having it cold. Her hairs weren't completely dry yet and the water pearls inside her locks were freezing cold. They made her whole body shiver and shake.
"It's bad, dad."
"He is losing a lot of blood, it isn't stopping," Mister Dawson's children whispered to him. They didn't want the boy or the man who was the reason behind the wound, to hear their worries.
"Can we turn back?," Peter questioned.
"No, we've come so far."
Mister Dawson was studying the horizon, trying to look who's plane was going to pass them by. The loud noise of the motor couldn't show the difference between enemy and friend, it was the type of plane he had to see to know.
"Heinkel," he declares
"They'll go for the minesweepers."
"Shouldn't we stand by? To pick up the survivors?" Peter gazes between the large boat filled with people and the plane that would kill them with his bombs.
"To do that, we have to survive ourselves."
The siblings rushed outside, trying to see what was happening and what was going to happen. It looked rather bad, seeing the enemy so close and no other plane able to take it down. The men on the large boat in front of them were running around, trying to figure out a plan of survival. They also knew that it was going to be bloody and that many will die if the enemy's bombs explode on deck.
"Spitfires! There, spitfires!," Peter screams, pointing at the British planes.
"Come on, take them down." Mary stood close to her brother, following every movement the aircrafts made. Her eyes were wide and big as she stared at the fight happening in the air. The sister could feel her heart beating very fast in her chest, pushing adrenaline in blue veins.
"He got him." Mister Dawson laughed in sync with his son, happy how excited the young man could get about these victories.
Mary slapped her brother on the arm, pointing at the spitfire that was fastly going down. Her father followed her finger, realizing what it meant. He throws back the wheel, spinning closer to the crashing airplane.
"Smoke from the spitfire," Peter stated.
"Watch for a parachute!"
"No 'chute!," the youngest sibling says.
Mister Dawson doesn't stop the boat to go back on course, desperate to reach the man inside the plane. He wasn't going to let him die, not when they could do something about it.
"Dad, watch the engine. He's down, no 'chute."
He still doesn't listen, hands sternly on the wheel.
"Come on, he's probably dead –"
"Damn it, I hear you, Peter!"
"You don't have to scream, dad," Mary states, still standing on deck and looking at the air fight.
"Pete is just trying to bring us in at least danger as possible."
"He's maybe alive," their dad answered with hope in his voice. He didn't notice the sad expression on Peter's face, but Mary saw how shocked he was from the sudden outburst and pulled him outside by the arm.
"Are you alright?"
"Let's safe this man." He pushed past her, completely ignoring the easy question. He wasn't alright, she knew that, but she needed him to talk.
"Pete?"
"Can you grab me the boat hook?," he asks her, not listening to whatever the young girl was saying. Mary didn't do anything about it and took whatever her brother believed he needed. She jumped with him on the front of the deck and waited for the boat to get as close to the Spitfire as it could.
"You can't swim to it, the plane could catch fire and that would be too dangerous," Peter turned to his sister, pushing her a bit away from the railing build on the edges of the boat and started crawling over them so he could reach the drowning pilot.
"He's alive, look. The man just can't get out," Mary told her brother, pointing at the moving figure smashing against the glass.
Peter starts hitting the glass with the boat hook, breaking the window so that the man could slip through and escape the water where he was drowning in. The man escapes his plane and takes a glance at his rescuers, two young children that looked very alike, both stretching out their arms to take the man in and bring him back home.
