Crossposted from AO3; I am not currently taking prompts.
Prompt: holding hands.
Tonight's mission: blowing up a bridge. It was something they had done dozens of times before, but somehow the risk—the danger—kept it from becoming routine. Sure, Carter had the bomb-making down to a science (no pun intended), and, on most nights, it was a cinch to slip in and out of camp, but there were still so many things that could go wrong. The bomb could go off prematurely and blow them all up in the middle of the forest. They could run into German patrols. They could run into the one German soldier with enough brains not to fall for Newkirk's high school German and his runaround. Schultz could find them missing from camp and sound the alarm.
Colonel Hogan pushed those thoughts out of his head as they arrived at their destination.
"Alright. Carter, Newkirk, go set the explosives. LeBeau and I will keep lookout."
"This is going to be a three-person job, Colonel," Carter said.
"A three-person job?"
"Well, yeah, if we want to time it right." It was scary how serious Carter got when talking about blowing things up. "I figure it'll take about fifteen minutes to get the charges in place, and then another ten to attach the wire, and then ten more to—"
"Alright, alright. A three-man job. LeBeau, go with them. I'll keep lookout on my own." Hogan felt his anxiety spike as it always did when things didn't go exactly according to plan.
If they timed it right tonight, not only would they get the bridge, but they'd also get a German convoy along with it. Hubris, maybe. But unlike when Icarus flew too close to the sun, the reward was too great to pass up. Each German soldier taken out of commission meant one less soldier their own men had to face on the battlefield, which in turn meant a greater chance of victory—and survival.
"Are you sure, Colonel?" Newkirk asked.
"Yeah, I'm sure. Now get cracking." The most important thing about being in command was confidence-you could never let your men know that you were anything but cool, calm, and completely in control of the situation. No matter how much you had to fake it.
LeBeau gave Hogan one last look and then gave his hand a squeeze, almost as if he could see through his facade.
"Bonne chance, Colonel," he said.
Hogan grinned. "You guys are gonna need it more than me."
LeBeau flashed a grin of his own and disappeared into the bushes after Carter and Newkirk.
Hogan crouched in the leaves, straining his ears to listen for the faintest sounds of movement. He checked his watch. No wonder Carter had insisted they needed three men to set up the charges. Hogan silently chastised himself for not keeping a closer eye on the time, and then took a moment to thank whoever it was up there watching over them for giving him a group of men who managed to catch the ball on the odd occasion that he dropped it.
The half an hour or so that it took Carter, Newkirk, and LeBeau to set the explosives was long and blessedly boring. Hogan did his best to push all of the "what ifs" out of his head and concentrate on doing what he could to keep any of them from happening. It would be easier with a second man—Hogan certainly couldn't see and hear everything around him all at the same time, and it gave him something else to focus his nervous energy on—but he had more than enough experience to be able to make do.
Once they were finished and Newkirk had attached the fuse wire to the plunger, he handed the device to Carter and they settled in to wait.
It turned out they didn't have to wait very long, for, soon enough, they began to hear the faint sound of a motor, slowly getting louder and louder.
"Alright, Carter, get ready," Hogan said.
"Oh, I'm ready," Carter said eagerly. It was almost as scary as how serious he got when making and setting the bombs.
The motor became louder as the Kraut-infested truck pulled into view. Hogan waited, the calculation of the lag between the press of the plunger and the detonation of the bombs coming to him as if it were instinct. Almost...almost…
"Now!" Hogan said, and Carter pressed the plunger. Hogan was vaguely aware of LeBeau next to him grabbing onto his arm as the explosion filled his every sense. The ground shook, the acrid smell of gunpowder filled his nose so deeply he could taste it on his tongue, the thunderous sound filled his ears and rattled his chest, and he shielded his eyes from the flash of light.
"Boom! Ka-boom!" Carter shouted, his voice thankfully covered by the explosion. Not that there was anyone around to hear it. Anymore.
"We'd better get going," Hogan said. Sometime during the explosion, LeBeau's hand had landed on his own. LeBeau had never been a huge fan of explosions, certainly not like Carter was. He hid it well, but Hogan could see that they made him nervous and sometimes even scared. Hogan was perfectly content not to pry about it, at least not unless it became a problem. So far, though, they were just fine on that front.
"That was a good explosion, wasn't it, Colonel?" Carter asked with a manic glee in his eyes that made Hogan glad he was on their side and not the other.
"Beautiful," Hogan told him, cautiously allowing a small amount of relief to flow through him as the dust began to settle. The rest would come when they returned safely back to camp. "One of the best yet."
"You really think so?"
"There's no place like home. There's no place like home," Newkirk interrupted, clicking his heels together.
"You have to say it three times for it to work," LeBeau told him, dropping his hands to his sides.
"Why, LeBeau, I didn't know you've seen The Wizard of Oz!" Newkirk exclaimed in mock surprise.
"Sure. American films are great. Now, British films, on the other hand…"
"I'll have you know that jolly old England's made some bloody fantastic films. Why, just before I was captured—"
"Keep it down. Any minute, now, this place will be crawling with Krauts."
"Which is why we'd better make like Dorothy and start heading home," Newkirk said.
"I couldn't have said it better myself," Colonel Hogan said, and they made their way back to camp.