Summer in France had always been considered a happy time, where children danced in the sunlight and played

in the sea, their laughter echoing out over the lives of the less fortunate, who seemed to let go of their misery for that short amount of time and enjoyed life. Summer was always easier to bear compared to the cold winter months, where food was always short, beds were always cold and the shirt on their backs never kept out the chill. Yes, summer was one of those few better months. But this summer, everything would change. Napoleon Bonaparte was Emperor of France from 1804 to 1815, where his armies were defeated at the battle of Waterloo by English King George the Fourth. Countless lives were lost during the battle and many more were wounded. But no one seemed to care about the lives of the missing. Emilie Prouvaire was 17 years old, with nothing but the shirt on her back to call her own, and dying. Not that anyone told her, but she knew the event was unpreventable, there was no way someone of her stature could treat Leukaemia. She had no one to miss her, no one to care should she die, or go missing and to her, it seemed to be the perfect chance. When the French Army came around, looking for recruits, she stole some mens clothing, hacked off her hair with a sharp stone and joined the army. Her face was haggard and sickly enough that no one got close enough to her to recognise her gender. On the 18th of June, 1815, the French Army aggregated to Waterloo, under the command of Napoleon. Emilie knew that she wouldnt survive this she was unexperienced, weak, and to be honest ready to die. But she fought with the ferocity of any of the men who volunteered to defend their country at the forefront of battle. And she died the same way that they did. Shot in the back with a bullet from the smoking barrel of a musket, she fell, the light slowly leaving her eyes as she died, not the sickness taking her like the rest of the streets had said. It was later, when the armies of the British were walking through the bodies of the fallen, did a soldier come across her broken body, his eyes flickering with recognition of her lie. But he moved on, she was dead. She was no longer a threat. Just collateral damage.