The boy from the Black Country (my SAS RH oc)
The Worker's Song (folk song)
Seasons In The Sun (Black Box Recorder)
Universal Soldier (Donovan)
Rocky Road to Dublin (folk song)
The Collier's Rant (folk song)
I never post about my Oc's and yet here I am. Elijah practically haunts me, and he is still a work in progress, but I love him like a very traumatised son. Anyway, enjoy a brief overview of my little guy :)
Also, trigger warning for death and geral war trauma (I don't go into detail but some of it could be pretty dark to some) - ww2 was not a great time to be a soldier
Elijah is a second generation immigrant, his family being part of the wave of Irish people that moved to England in search of work - he is very proud of his navvie heratige. He grew up in a household where the main language spoken was Gaelige, although it should be noted that Irish born Gaelige speakers struggle to understand him as the language within his community had developed and was largely adopting English as their primary language. The main reason his house spoke Gaelige was due to it being the only language his mother was fluent in since she rarely left the home (the late 1800s and early 1900s sucked for working class women). Elijah is an absolute mummy's boy™ and he spent a lot of his childhood translating for his mother, usually it would be the sermons at church.
Due to a series of unfortunate events, Elijah found himself leaving school at the age of 13 and taking a job at a nearby mine so he could support his family. He is the eldest of 5 siblings (twin Sister Miriam, younger brother James, and his two youngest sisters Edith and Agnes) and very quickly had to become 'the man of the house'. Despite everything he deeply cares for his siblings. It was also around age 13 that he stumbled into gang activity, receiving their help with feeding his family in return for him competing favours for him.
Elijah was 17 when war broke out. He, along with a group of people he worked with at the mine, enlisted together and became Royal engineers. Elijah managed to convince the recruiting officer to overlook his age as he would be 18 by the time compulsory training was completed. As miners, their skills would prove useful to the advance.
Elijah quickly found himself as part of the British Expeditionary force as a sapper (private) his role largely calling for him to build bridges across rivers and certain terrain. This meant he was in a very bad position when Gernay broke through defences and trapped the BEF and French soldiers. Elijah's unit was attacked, many died and he was forced to flee. He was able to find another unit, briefly, who relayed the order to get to Dunkirk for evacuation. Over the following days Elijah traverse rural France. On his journey he came across an injured captain, named Peter, who had been left behind by his unit. Elijah refuses to leave him and insists on getting the man to Dunkirk.
The pair bonded deeply on their journey and managed to arrive at Dunkirk in time, although it was very chaotic. The captain was quickly taken to a large vessel to be evacuated. Elijah, as a royal engineer, was required to stay behind and aid in organising the evacuation. The next few days for Elijah could only be described as hell. He watched many men die in horrific ways, and he tried his best to prevent any uneccesary death. The thing that disturbed Elijah the most was the attitude of an officer who would 'put soldiers out of their misery'. That is to mean that he was mercy killing soldiers who were so badly wounded they had no hope for anything but a slow painful death. Very quickly the officer was forcing Elijah to do the same. As they were reaching the end of the evacuation the same officer told Elijah - 'if you have the chance to be picked up by a boat, take it'. Elijah wouldn't be able to get onto a boat for another day and it was completely by chance. He had waded out into the ocean to stop a soldier from attempting to drown himself, Elijah nearly drowning himself in the struggle that followed between them. A small fishing boat pulled both of them out of the water and took them home.
Back in England Elijah was able to recconect with the captain and visited him regularly in hospital, the pair becoming close friends. The captain had been assigned as part of a new commando unit and insisted on bringing Elijah with him. (Elijah would later find out that this captain was the son of a very influential General). As Elijah's initial unit was in the process of being rebuilt he chose to take the offer and was sent off for commando training in Scotland. He also received a promotion to Lance Corporal with the intention of being further promoted to a Corporal following training - (this only happened becuase the captain used his father's influence, making Elijah very unpopular with his new unit).
After arriving in scotland it doesn`t take long before Elijah gains the nickname 'Peter's Pet'. It also while training that Elijah first crossed paths with the founding members of the SAS but they only ever talk in passing as Elijah at this point was not very sociable and would only spend his free time with Peter. Shortly after completing training, Peter and Elijah's unit was deployed in France with the primary goal of destroying infrastructure. Elijah, as an ex miner and royal engineer, began to specialise in munitions and was often the person in charge when it came to blowing things up. Elijah never successfully meshed with his new unit and this is only made worse after a faulty charge directly led to the death of Peter. Filled with grief, the unit blamed Elijah. Elijah agreed. In the months that followed Elijah did not have a great time. Members of his unit refused to work with him wherever possible which led to many missions where Elijah had no look-out to protect him while setting up charges. On more than one occasion he had to fight for his life with no back up. His new commanding officer tried many times to get Elijah transferred out of his unit but when his requests kept failing he grew bitter and had become resolved on getting Elijah killed in the line of duty. Elijah was aware of this and naturally would get into fights with him. Eventually the fighting culminated in Elijah getting arrested by the military police and charge with attempted murder of a senior officer - an offence that many knew to not be true, but the father of his commanding officer (another very wealthy man) was putting pressure on the military. This resulted in Elijah being placed in Ghadzi Military Prison where he awaited death by firing squad.
It was in prison that Elijah crossed paths again with Paddy Mayne, who remembered his only as 'Peter's Pet'. Despite not liking Elijah, Paddy offers him a ticket out of prison and the death penalty leading him to join the SAS.
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