Garrison's Gorillas
Not the World We Knew
By Lucky_Ladybug
Notes: The characters are not mine and the story is! I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to write a story for this series, but as I watched more episodes a plot at last presented itself. I'm fascinated by Goniff and Casino's interaction and wanted to explore it a bit. Garrison ended up getting into the act quite a bit, too. I must confess I'm a little puzzled on how to write for Actor as yet, and he and Chief are more in the background. I hope, however, that they as well as everyone else sound in-character.
It should have been a simple mission—get in, retrieve some important information from the Germans, and get out.
Of course, when were they ever handed a mission that actually was simple?
The only man who had the classified information was stationed at an outpost near the woods. And even though they had caught him and forced him to tell what he knew, he had retaliated by setting off a series of bombs via remote. He would bring the entire building down on their heads and they would never be able to take their information to the Allies.
Every place the group ran seemed to be blocked by another explosion. Goniff grew increasingly worried that there would be no place left to run, that they all really would die here in this horrible German outpost. Lieutenant Garrison grew increasingly worried that Goniff was right.
Then, when most of the building was already in flames, Goniff managed to find one available window to the outside. He broke the glass with the butt of his rifle, yelling "Come on!" to the others over the sound of the hungry fire and the blistering heat.
Everyone should have gotten out of the building. But at the last moment their wounded nemesis staggered to them, still trying to stop their departure. Armed with a deadly machine gun, he started to fire. By then, only Goniff and Garrison were still inside. Goniff fired back, as did Garrison, but the German dived behind a fallen locker and they could not hit him.
"Get out of here, Warden!" Goniff yelled as the bullets flew around them. "I'll cover you."
"I can't leave you in here, Goniff!" Garrison yelled back. "I'm responsible for you."
"The others, Warden, they need you!" Goniff replied, desperately returning fire. "I'll be right behind you. Really, I will."
There was really no time to argue. And Goniff was right—Garrison needed to remain in charge of the mission. Garrison climbed through the window, praying that Goniff would, indeed, follow.
But deep down, somehow he knew it wasn't going to happen.
The final explosion was cacophonous as it ripped apart the building and everyone still within its walls. The small group running to get away in time was abruptly thrown, scattering in all directions.
Casino leaped to his feet in the next instant, ignoring the sudden burst of dizziness and the pain from his bleeding shoulder. "Goniff! Goniff didn't get out!"
He looked around wildly, taking in the sprawled forms as they slowly processed his announcement and tried to get to their feet. When he was satisfied that they were all relatively alright, he ran to the edge of the trees and stared through them at the flaming remains of the German outpost in the clearing.
"Goniff?! Goniff!" He gripped the tree trunk, his knuckles white as he waited tensely for an answer that he knew wouldn't really come. Goniff had to have gotten out. Maybe he had just been blasted in another direction and was lying dazed somewhere else. Or he was somewhere hurt in all the debris.
He swallowed hard. If Goniff hadn't been blown to pieces, the fire was burning him to death. And there was no way for Casino to get past it and get in there to him.
"Casino."
He turned, hearing Garrison's voice from behind him. Their Warden looked from him to the remains of the building, clearly sickened, but having accepted that Goniff was gone and there was nothing that could be done.
"Casino, we have to get out of here." His voice was taut, filled with pain and sympathy, but also urgency. It wouldn't take long for reinforcements to arrive. And if they were still here, they would all be captured.
Casino knew all of that, and he knew the futility of staying, but at the same time he could not bring himself to believe it. There was still hope. There had to be. "We're not leaving without Goniff," he snarled.
"Casino, you said yourself that he didn't make it out," Garrison said quietly. "And he couldn't have; we both know that."
"You left him in there!" Casino accused. "You knew he'd get stuck in that mess! He was so worried about all of us dying in there and then he has to be the only one who gets trapped!"
Garrison flinched at the voicing of his own self-accusations. But he pushed the sting aside. "We were attacked, one last time," he said. "Goniff was covering me as I got out. He was supposed to follow. Only he . . . he didn't have the chance."
By now Actor and Chief were joining them, equally stunned and in disbelief over what had just happened. Casino barely noticed them. He swore, hitting the tree trunk with his fist.
"Maybe he made it out," he retorted. "Maybe he's down there somewhere, hurt." He started forward. "I'm going to go look."
"Would it hurt to look for five minutes?" Actor pleaded, looking to Garrison.
Chief nodded. "Goniff is one of us. We can't just abandon him if he might be alive."
Garrison's heart twisted even as he said, "He knew the risks. All of you did." But he sighed, looking after Casino. "Five minutes," he consented. "No more. The Germans already know that something is wrong by now; they were expecting a radio call from that outpost. There's no telling how soon some of them will be here."
"We'll make it quick," Chief promised.
"Spread out in different directions," Garrison instructed. Picking one for himself, he hurried back towards the inferno.
xxxx
The five minutes passed all too soon. Desperate to find Goniff himself, Garrison allowed several more minutes to go by before at last going to round up the others.
"It's been ten minutes," he called as he approached where Casino, Chief, and Actor had gathered on the grass. "We have to leave, now."
"Warden, look at this." Casino held up a scrap of cloth, soaked red and scorched. "Goniff was wearing this shirt. I know he was! If we go a little farther, we might find him in the bushes or something."
Garrison stared at the sad, bloodstained remnant. "Or it might be all that's left of him to find," he answered. "Casino, we could look for hours and not find anything. And if we get captured and can't get this information back to London, a lot of our soldiers could die."
"To heck with London!" Casino screamed in anguished frustration. "You talk about us all getting captured by the Germans. Well, what if Goniff's alive and he gets captured?! The poor little guy wouldn't know how to deal with it. They'd tell him all kinds of stories about how he was just abandoned, and you know what? Those stories'd be true!"
"Casino!" Garrison got right up in his face. "None of us want to abandon Goniff. Even if he's dead, we'd like to know that for sure before we have to leave. But we don't have those options right now! There's a time when we have to make a choice for the greater good. And like it or not, sometimes one life has to be sacrificed for the sake of many. Goniff already made the choice for us when he stayed behind to cover me. We're leaving now. That's an order."
Casino glowered, his smoldering and pained eyes saying just how much he thought of the idea of the greater good. But, still not speaking, he stormed past Garrison and headed for the Jeep. Sobered into silence, Actor and Chief watched him and looked to Garrison before slowly following.
Garrison gazed sadly at the area, particularly at the skeletal remains of the building as the flames began to die out. "I'm sorry, Goniff," he said quietly. "Truly sorry."
Ordering Casino away was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do. And now he had to do something even harder.
Order himself away.
Clenching his teeth, he followed his still-living men.
xxxx
It was the combination of something clattering to the ruined floor near him and the sudden, nippy autumn breeze that finally startled Goniff to his senses. He leaped up before he was fully conscious and then cried out in pain as he slammed into something hard and metallic directly above him. He fell back to the floor, his hand finding the small opening under his prison.
Some kind of metal box had crashed on top of him and was lying slightly ajar, allowing the air to reach him. Why was it here? Where was he? Where were the others?
He remembered something about the Warden being there. Yes . . . Goniff had told him to get out and Goniff would cover him. Goniff was supposed to have followed. It looked like he hadn't quite made it.
Groaning, he reached up and tried to push the box away. It creaked, moving enough that he was able to slip out from under it before his energy was again spent and he collapsed back to the floor.
He looked back at where he had been, curious about what had trapped him. It was the locker, of course, the one that their enemy had hid behind in order to fire on them. Strange, that the thing had ended up blowing on top of him from the force of the explosion. Judging from the debris all around him, it had probably saved his life.
Had the others all made it out? What if they were lying somewhere nearby, hurt or worse?
He had to find out. After a moment he forced himself up on shaking arms, looking towards the open grass and woods. No one was there.
He sank back down, hissing at the pain in his left arm. He was bleeding all over. It felt like his back was bleeding, too. And his right leg was badly bruised if nothing else.
All in all, he supposed he had gotten off pretty lucky, considering the fact that the entire building had burned down around him. But he was alone. Where was everyone? Had they been captured? Or . . . more likely . . . had they believed Goniff dead and gone off without him?
He swallowed hard, suddenly afraid. What would he do if he had been left to wander around enemy territory all alone? He could barely speak a full sentence of German. He would probably get captured himself and tortured until he either broke and told who he was or croaked to escape the pain. The time he had been captured in the past, he had feared that the torture would be so severe that he would crack and betray the others. He was not trained to handle something like that. Sometimes even those who were trained ended up breaking down in the end.
The sound of an approaching Jeep made him stiffen. That . . . probably wasn't the guys coming back to look for him again. The sound of German voices in the next moment confirmed it.
Goniff struggled to his feet, desperately grabbing for a blackened but still standing beam to support himself. One time of being captured was more than enough. He had to get out of here.
He moved towards the back of the structure as quickly as he could, in spite of his back flaming and his right leg heavily protesting. Along the way he kept up a desperate, frantic prayer. Please, don't let them find me. Don't let me crash into anything. Please, please. . . .
He very nearly stumbled over a fallen rifle in his path. Gritting his teeth from the pain in his back, he nevertheless bent down to retrieve it. It didn't seem to be too badly damaged, so if there was any ammunition left in it, he might need to use it.
Or maybe he could use it as a walking stick.
With that idea in mind, he brought the butt of the gun to the ground and kept his hand along the barrel (avoiding the deadly opening, of course). It was certainly easier and faster to walk with an assist, and he managed to half-limp, half-run into the woods.
He knew where the Warden was taking the others once they had the information they had come here to get. Maybe, if he was lucky, he wasn't too far behind and he could somehow still catch up. He would find where they had left their Jeep and follow the tracks into the woods.
Fear prickled up his spine as the German voices drew closer to the remains of the outpost. He fled deeper into the trees, praying he would not be discovered. They would be spreading out to look for the culprits, so he was certainly not out of trouble yet.
"I wish the Warden was here," he whispered to himself. "Or Chiefie or Casino or Actor. Anybody!"
He hated the thought of going through this trial all alone. And when it came down to it, he didn't even know if any of them were alright. Maybe he had even been the only one to survive. What if the others had been blown to pieces and that was why he hadn't seen any sign of them?
He scowled. No, he was not going to believe that.
He limped on into the woods, at the same time praying that the Germans would not find the tracks of the Jeep too. Maybe he could brush them out with a tree branch the way Chiefie had taught him.
He would have to brush away his own tracks too, he realized, which could be more difficult. But he could not risk leading the Germans to the others. If he did that, he might as well have died for all the help he'd be.
It was an immense weight off his heart and soul when he reached the location where the Jeep had been hidden and he found it gone. They were surely alive.
Grabbing a branch off of a nearby pine tree, he set about the task of brushing the tracks away. It was harder than he had thought, particularly when he only had one good arm to use, but he kept at it. Even if he never could catch up, he could hopefully ensure that the enemy would not follow the others and that they would get safely out of the woods.
xxxx
Everyone was silent as the Jeep bounced along, Garrison driving it farther into the woods. At his side, Actor was staring at the terrain as though he could not believe what had happened yet at the same time was trying to come to grips with it.
In the rear-view mirror, Garrison caught a glimpse of Chief, silent and angry as he attacked a stick with his switchblade. He was a simmering volcano; his pain over leaving Goniff would suddenly explode sooner or later, but for now he was taking it all in, building his anger until it reached that dangerous boiling-over point.
Casino had already reached that point and was still at it. He shifted in his seat, restless, wanting for all the world to jump out of the Jeep and run back to the site they were leaving behind.
If this information weren't so critical, Garrison would stop the Jeep and join him, Germans or no Germans.
"Everything feels so empty," Actor said quietly. "Goniff should be here, laughing and happy about how we all made it out alive."
Garrison gripped the steering wheel. "I know."
Chief sharply cursed. "Then we should go back and find out if he's dead or not," he said.
"You know why we can't," Garrison said.
"Oh yeah, the mission, the mission," Casino snarled. "Always the mission. Well, what good is the mission if we lose one of our team members?!"
Garrison stared ahead, at every tree that marked getting farther away from where Goniff was most likely laying, already dead. If he was still in one piece at all. "You know how the brass feels about that," he said tightly.
"We're all expendable, sure," Casino said. "So we go home and what? You start looking for a new guy? A replacement? Well, that's just great. You go back to going through prison records until you find another blond, blue-eyed Brit who's so cheeky that sometimes you just wanna hit him but who's such an innocent kid that at the same time you wanna look out for him and make sure he doesn't go stumbling off into something stupid like . . . like getting himself blown up for the mission!" He slammed his hand on the inside of the Jeep door. "Oh, that shouldn't be hard at all. Best of luck to you!"
It was taking all of Garrison's willpower and training not to stop the Jeep right here and now and start screaming at Casino. "I'll have to find another operative," he admitted through clenched teeth. "But there will never be another Goniff."
That pronouncement sobered the team into silence once again. There had been many close calls in the past, but those had culminated with hope and joy. They had always all made it out alive—until now. Now it was cold, hard reality that they were forced to face in a way they had never wanted to have to accept. The invisible blanket of sorrow and grief felt almost tangible as they drove into the waning light of the late afternoon.
For them, it was already night.
xxxx
The time spent following and wiping out the tracks dragged into hours. Goniff was exhausted, not to mention dizzy and dazed and in pain. He had tried to tend to his arm, but it had been all but impossible to do it by himself, and it was bleeding again. If he couldn't find the others soon, he was liable to end up bleeding to death out here in the middle of a country he didn't understand.
That certainly sounded like a depressing way to go. And he hated to think what his poor mother would think, if she received a horrible telegram saying he was missing and presumed dead. She always tried to convince herself that he would be just fine and come home to her alive and well, but he knew that deep down, she worried about him.
He couldn't let himself die here, for her sake.
And what about the Warden and the others? They cared about him too; he knew that. Over the months that they had worked together they had formed close bonds of loyalty and love and friendship. They were a surrogate family, something that made sense out here in this horrible war-torn land where very little else made sense at all.
He didn't want any of them to suffer over thinking he was dead.
And . . . well, he had to admit that not all of his motives were unselfish. He didn't want to die for his own reasons too. Certainly he didn't want to die here. He didn't want to die until he was old and gray and had lived a good, full life.
He often feared that he would end up dying before he could get home. Every new and dangerous mission turned his stomach. But he pressed on anyway, wanting that pardon at the end of the war and not wanting to leave the others to do the missions without him.
If he didn't want to die here, he was certainly doing a good job of it, he thought sarcastically, not getting out of the building when he could have. But in all good conscience, he hadn't wanted to abandon the Warden. That guy had already been firing, and everything had been blowing up, and Goniff had just started firing back. He knew the Warden hadn't wanted to leave him, but knowing there was no time to waste arguing, he had taken the chance of getting out the window and hoping that Goniff would be able to follow.
Instead, Goniff had been caught in the explosion and pinned under the locker.
But he was still alive, and maybe if this all worked out right, he would be able to do more good by brushing the tracks away than he would if he had made it out with the others.
And maybe, hopefully, he would still find his way back to them.
xxxx
Of course, something would have to go wrong with the Jeep. And it would have to break down in the woods. It was a case of the radiator overheating and water and steam pouring out from under the hood. They would have to wait at least a good thirty minutes before they could go on.
And Casino had no intention of standing around twiddling his thumbs.
"Look, we're going to be here for a while anyway," he said. "I'm going to go back and look for Goniff."
Garrison looked over with a start. "Casino, you'd never get all the way back there before the engine cools down," he said. "We have to go on as soon as it's ready."
"Then go on without me!" Casino retorted. "You left Goniff behind. Why not me too?"
Garrison stiffened, pierced by the statement. The words You should know I didn't want to leave Goniff! were on his tongue, but he couldn't bring himself to speak them.
He should not have left Goniff. Even though there was no time, he should have taken up firing at that guy and ordered Goniff to go through the window.
And what if he had been caught in the explosion instead of Goniff? How would his men have handled being without him? Would they have made it back to London safely?
. . . Would they have even tried?
Yes, Garrison realized, he believed they would have tried. Even though they could take such an opportunity to escape, he felt that by now they knew the value of what they were doing and they would have returned to London to complete the mission and deliver the information.
Casino was certainly having trouble grasping the importance of the information now, but Garrison couldn't really blame him. He knew that Casino and Goniff were close; their teasing and arguing was mostly a form of their showing their affection for each other. Casino would be upset if any one of them had been lost, but he had a particular protective fondness for that little British-American thief.
"Casino," Actor was saying now, "you must be reasonable. If we do not complete the mission, Goniff perished in vain. And if we leave you behind to look for him, you will most likely be captured by the Germans."
"So? I wouldn't talk," Casino retorted.
"But it would be pointless," Actor said. "Goniff is dead." Pain flickered in his eyes. "We have to accept that and move on."
"Well, I'm not going to just accept that and move on!" Casino retorted. "And I'm not going to stand around here arguing about it, either!" He stormed into the brush. "I'm going to find him."
"Casino!" Garrison yelled after him.
Chief looked to him, his dark eyes still smoldering with fire. He fully supported Casino leaving, yet at the same time he knew why it should not be. "Should we bring him back?" he queried, his tone clipped.
Garrison sighed, running a hand into his hair. "The Jeep isn't cool enough yet," he said. "It's against my better judgment, but . . . let's go with him. I know none of us want Goniff to be gone. And we don't want Casino to go walking into trouble, either."
Actor paused. "Warden, do you think there's any chance that Goniff . . ."
"No," Garrison interrupted, shaking his head. "I don't. But I wish to high Heaven that I could be proven wrong." He started after Casino.
Actor and Chief followed him, also longing for a miracle. Goniff was special to all of them. They wanted him to be alive.
xxxx
By now the sun had set and it was growing dark. Goniff shivered, mostly from fear but also from the chill. He no longer heard the German voices; he had left them some time back. But he was not sure whether that was a good or a bad thing. What if they were stalking him through the woods?
He tried not to think about such things.
He was growing weaker and dizzier from the exertion and the blood loss. Several times now, he had been forced to stop and rest on assorted tree stumps and fallen logs at the side of the dirt trail. He knew very well he could not keep going, but he could not bring himself to stop, either. He would have to keep going until every last bit of his strength was zapped and he collapsed to the ground.
Which, he feared, could be any time now.
The sudden snap of a twig in the brush brought him to fearful attention. "Who's there?" he demanded, forcing himself to stand straight enough to brandish the rifle.
He realized as soon as the words leaped out of his mouth that it had been foolish to speak. If it was the Germans and not an animal, they now knew someone was in here. Cringing, he started to back up towards another bush.
"Goniff?!"
He froze, staring ahead at the brush. Was he really hearing what he thought he was? Instead of the Germans, had he been found by . . .
"Goniff! It is you, isn't it?!"
Now someone was crashing through the bushes. Goniff perked up, an immense relief and joy sweeping over him. "Casino?!" he cried.
And Casino ran out into the opening, overjoyed. "I knew you couldn't be dead!" he exclaimed. "It'd take a lot worse than that bomb to kill a crafty character like you!"
"Well, of course!" said Goniff, happily. "But it sure did a good job trying."
Casino took in the sight of Goniff's wild hair, torn clothes, and the blood. "Hey, how bad are you hurt?" he demanded with a concerned frown.
"Bad enough," Goniff replied. "But I should be alright, with plenty of care and rest in the mansion for a few weeks. Oh, I won't be able to go on any more missions for a while."
Casino shook his head. "You're always trying to weasel out of something."
"Well, I didn't weasel out of this experience today, did I?" Goniff shot back.
"No, and look where it got you!" Casino cried. "Almost killed!"
The bushes parted again, this time emitting a stunned Lieutenant Garrison, as well as Actor and Chief. Garrison in particular stopped and stared, unable to believe what he was seeing. "Goniff?" he said at last, quietly, reverently, not wanting the spell to be broken and to discover that this was all in his mind. He had wanted so badly to believe in this truth, yet at the same time he had tried to force himself to believe that it was too late, that Goniff was dead. It had been about the only thing that had enabled him to focus on leaving Goniff behind. If he had truly believed he was abandoning Goniff to the mercy of the Germans, he would not have been able to stand it.
Goniff looked over with a bright smile. "Warden! Chiefie, Actor! You all made it out!"
"We all thought you didn't," Garrison said, as they all joyously gathered around to reunite with their comrade and friend.
"That crazy locker saved me," Goniff said.
Casino regarded him in confusion. "What locker?"
"The one that Jerry hid behind to fire at us," Goniff said. "Somehow it must've blown at me from the force of the explosion. I don't remember it happening, but I woke up with it on top of me!"
Garrison shook his head. "Only you, Goniff," he proclaimed. But he was smiling. "Let's get these wounds taken care of and we'll get you back to the Jeep."
"Where is the Jeep, anyway?" Goniff asked, curiously.
"Back there somewhere," said Casino, waving at the bushes. "It overheated." And boy, was he glad it had! Goniff might never have caught up with them otherwise. He was in bad shape, but he was alive. Their family was back together again.
"So what are you doing wandering around out here, anyway?" Goniff asked as Garrison began to tend to his arm. Goniff jerked from the sting. "Ow!"
"I was looking for you, of course," Casino said. "I don't know what they were doing. But I had to do something to pass the time until the Jeep cooled down."
"We were all looking for you, Goniff," Garrison put in. "But Casino was the only one who actually thought we'd find you alive."
"Well, I'm glad he did!" Goniff exclaimed. "I don't think I could've walked much farther."
"And you've been erasing our tracks, too," Chief noted, seeing the blank trail.
Goniff looked pleased. "I thought I could keep the Jerries from coming after you, if nothing else."
"You did good, Goniff," Garrison said, meaning for more than obscuring the tracks. He would speak to Goniff more in private, but for now this would do.
Goniff beamed. "Thank you, Warden." He looked hopeful. "Don't you think I'm deserving of a good reward after all of this? While I'm laid up and all, I mean."
Garrison chuckled. Goniff certainly would be recovering a while, there was no doubt of that. And he had the feeling that Goniff would be antsy before long, eager to rejoin the others on missions. But for right now, Garrison was fully supportive of getting Goniff back to the London mansion to rest.
"We'll see, Goniff," he said. "We'll see."