Here's scene three as promised. I'll try to finish scene four as soon as possible.
Lee was brought to full consciousness, by the rough shaking of his shoulder. He opened his eyes and looked around. Pryce was crouched beside him, a flashlight in his hands. Lee grimaced, and covered his eyes against the glaringly bright light.
“Now who’s the one sleeping in?” Pryce laughed.
Lee groaned and rolled over, careful to keep his bare face out of the cold, wet snow. He got up onto all fours, and then leaned back on his haunches. It was still dark out, and Lee checked his watch.
“It’s four.” Pryce said, observing the motion.
“Tell me we’re moving out?”
“You got it.” Pryce slapped him heartily on the back. “Better get your rear in gear or Abney’ll get a piece of it.”
One of the new additions to the company walked past, limping heavily on his left foot. Lee frowned and hailed the man over.
“Why are you limping?”
“I don’t know, sir.” The man looked down at his leg. “My feet just hurt.”
“Sit down.” Lee indicated the rock against which he’d been laying.
The soldier complied, and extended his left leg. Lee untied the laces of his boot, and slid it off, taking the sock with it. He stared at the man’s foot for a second.
“Why are you only wearing one pair of socks?”
The soldier looked at his foot, and shrugged, “I don’t have another pair.”
Lee sighed. “Well,” He looked at the man’s name tag.” Private Sanderson, you have frostbite; which is what happens, when you only where one pair of socks in below zero weather. Why couldn’t you borrow somebody else’s extra socks?”
“I don’t think that we have any extra. It’s been a long time since we’ve been resupplied.”
Lee grabbed his pack, rummaged around in it for a moment, then pulled out a pair of balled up socks. “You can have mine.”
He turned to Pryce. “Remind me to tell the Captain the once we get to Edmonton, we’re gonna have to do some shopping.”
Pryce saluted humorously. “You got it.”
Lee handed Sanderson the socks, and stood up, stretching. He grabbed his gun. “We all ready to go?”
Pryce shrugged. “Just about; we should be ready in fifteen or twenty minutes.”
Lee stood still for a moment, absently watching Private Sanderson put his boot back on, then noticed Ras a few meters away, fighting furiously with a knot in her hair. He stretched again, and wandered over, leaning against a tree.
“Need some help?”
She stopped the battle, and looked up at him. “No, why?”
He laughed. “Because you seem to be losing.”
She held the knot up in front of her eyes and scrutinized it. Finally she looked up at him again, one corner of her mouth angled up into a suppressed grin. “You’re right.”
She shifted, to free her right leg from under her, and pulled her combat knife out of her boot. With a quick motion, she severed the knot from the rest of her hair, and dropped in to the snow. “There. No problem.”
Lee lost it, and sank into the snow, laughing. Between fits of laughter, he managed to say, “If you keep doing that, you’re gonna go bald.”
Pryce looked up from his pack on the other side of the clearing. He saw Lee laughing hysterically. “Oh shit, he’s completely lost it.” He got to his feet and hurried over, and stopped when he saw Ras sitting in the snow, her cheeks red with embarrassment. His eyes went from Lee to Ras, to the little clump of black hair in the snow, and back to Ras.
“What happened to you?”
This brought a fresh outburst from Lee, who buried his face in his hands, trying to smother his laughter.
Private Evans walked past, and stopped staring at Lee in confusion and horror. “Sir, are you ok?”
Lee nodded, his fist pressed against his mouth. After several moments, he seemed to have composed himself, and stood. He helped Ras to her feet. “Welcome to the 64th infantry division.”
With that, he walked away, wiping tears off his cheeks. Pryce grunted an amused laugh, and returned to his pack, shaking his head. Ras watched Lee go, and finally shrugged. She turned to Evans, who had starting walking again.
“Is he always like that?”
Evans turned to look at Lee and shook his head. “I’ve never seen him laugh like that before.”
“Huh.” Ras watched Lee for a moment longer, then grabbed her pack and rifle, and joined the slowly building formation.
“Is he gonna be ok?” Evans asked, concerned. “He’s the only medic. What happens if he… you know, loses it?”
Ras raised an eyebrow at Evans. “I think he’s fine, it just struck him funny.”
“Oh good.” Evans exhaled slowly, then turned and hurried to get into formation.
Ten minutes later, they were on the move. It was finally beginning to get light out, and after a little while, Lee dispatched two squads, to deploy their diversion. The selected soldiers slid noiselessly out of the group and disappeared into the forest.
After a couple of hours, the point men returned to the body of the group and Pryce and Ras took their place, walking ahead of the rest of the company.
Ras looked back and noticed Lee strolling along as if he had not a care in the world, his rifle resting across his shoulders. She leaned over, and nudged Pryce’s shoulder.
“What’s his deal?”
Pryce looked back. “Who? Sergeant Lee?”
“Yeah. It seems like he tries too hard to blend in; the lame humor, the jokes with the junior enlisted men. It’s a little odd.”
Pryce laughed softly. “Well, love, that’s because he doesn’t feel comfortable with groups. He tries to… as you put it, blend in.”
“Ok, but why?”
Well, for two reasons. First off, he’s wicked smart. Do you know what he did before the war?”
Ras shook her head and listened intently.
“He was a professor at Caltech. He was teaching biomechanics to a bunch of grad students. He’s even got a medical
degree.”
“He doesn’t look old enough for that.”
“Yeah. Thanks for the compliment, love. He’s my age, and by the time I graduated high school, he’d already gotten his bachelor’s degree.”
“Whoa, and the second reason?”
Pryce looked back at the rest of the company, and then leaned in, whispering. “He’s part Chinese. But you can’t tell anyone that. He’ll probably kill me even for saying it.”
“He doesn’t look Chinese.”
“I said part Chinese, his grand… father was Chinese.”
“Ahh, that makes sense.”
“What does?”
“His name, stupid. Lee. It’s a Chinese name.”
“Well yeah, I knew that.”
“Why doesn’t everyone else?”
“He tells them it’s short for Levitt.”
They walked in silence for a few minutes.
“So,” Ras said, shifting her rifle on her arm, “you’re English, if I’m not mistaken, right?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. I was born in South London. Moved across the pond when I was thirteen, with my parents. You, where are you from?”
“Ohio. I lived just west of Akron.”
“And they shipped you all the way out here?”
“No.” Ras’s voice trailed off. “I came out to California about six years ago.”
“What on Earth for?”
“Ah shit,” She groaned, “I wanted to be an actress.”
Pryce snickered, and she jabbed him hard in the ribs. “So you’re a star?”
She laughed as if it were the dumbest question in the world. “Oh hell no. I was an extra in a couple of movies; that was about it.”
Pryce shrugged. “I guess it could have been worse.”
“Yeah.”
They walked in silence for a while longer.
Ras stopped. “Do you hear that?”
Pryce tilted his head and listened. Far off in the distance, he could hear the sound of a jet engine. He turned and yelled back to the company. “Get down! We have incoming.”
The entire company nose dived into the snow and spread out. Lee crawled up beside Ras and Pryce.
“What is it?”
Pryce pointed up. “Listen. Some sort of jet engine. I’d guess Chinese.”
Far up above the tops of the trees, they could barely make out the shape of an aircraft. It was heading in their direction. Lee pulled out a pair of binoculars and held them to his eyes, scrutinizing the aircraft. “Yep, it is definitely Chinese. It looks like a fighter, but it could be running surveillance.”
The jet arced over their heads, the sonic boom thunderously loud. After finishing its arc, the jet turned west, and disappeared behind trees. After a few moments, Lee motioned to the rest of the platoon, and they stood up, and resumed their course towards Edmonton.
Pryce turned to Lee. “How’re we doing on time?”
“There’s a debate going on at the moment, about that. Captain Howell says to push on through night, so we’ll get to the city limits just about at dawn. Abney wants to wait until tomorrow night out here, and then go in.”
“Jesus Christ.” Pryce said, rolling his eyes, “I swear that woman has never gone through any military training whatsoever.”
“Yeah, well I think the Captain has made up his mind. Looks like it’s gonna be another late night.”
Lee walked with them a moment more, then fell back to the rest of the company.
“Oh well,” Pryce said cheerfully, “I don’t need much sleep.”
“Yeah, well some of us do.”
Pryce laughed. “Oh yeah, I forgot that there are some actresses here who need their beauty sleep.”
Ras punched him in the arm, hard. “I should have never told you about that.”
It started snowing a few minutes later.
For this bit, the storyline worked pretty well. The spacing was very clear, and the general idea is well thought out and you show rather than tell.
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