The Run for Freedom Raid
By: AliasCWN
Chapter 1
Blackness. It threatened to pull him down into its dark abyss and hold him there. Even now it tugged on his senses, offering him cold oblivion. No pain, no hunger, no thirst or any uncertainty about a bleak future, just welcoming cold oblivion.
A tiny bit of light held a stronger hold on his mind; his friends. They were here too, they needed him, almost as much as he needed them. 'You can't help them.' a tiny voice said. 'Maybe I can.' another voice answered. Hitch listened as the voices argued in his head until another, louder voice, drew him further into the light.
Black again. Only this time the black was surrounded by light. Hitch opened his heavy eyes and squinted up at the man standing above him. Black hair, black eyes, and close to a week's worth of scraggly black beard covered the face that loomed over him.
"Go away."
"Can't. You have to wake up."
"Why?"
"I've got a message for you."
Hitch shifted positions and tried to sit up. The man standing next to him gripped his arm to help him. The sun was already up, heating the sand until it was nearly too hot to touch. Its bright glare beat down on the prisoners trapped inside the wire confines of the enclosure. The golden orb sought out every corner of the prisoner's compound, leaving the men inside nowhere to go to escape its burning intensity.
Hitch tried to swallow but his throat was too dry. He dug a small pebble out of his pocket and slipped it into his mouth. The pebble took the place of his usual mouth full of gum, a poor substitute in his opinion, but the best that he could do since a guard had confiscated his extra pieces. His mouth still felt like he had eaten cotton balls but at least he could swallow.
"What are you talking about?"
The black haired man looked around before he answered the question. "I have a message from your sergeant."
"My sergeant?" Hitch asked warily. The four of them had been separated after their capture and he hadn't seen any of the others since. They had been put in with a large group of POW's and were on their way to a POW processing center. Even here the Germans had done their best to keep them away from each other.
The black haired man shrugged. "He said he was your sergeant."
"Why should I trust you?"
"You don't have to trust me. I'm just delivering a message. Heck, I could be putting myself in danger just by delivering his message." The other soldier realized. "Maybe we should just forget it. After all, why should I trust your sergeant?"
"Because Sarge can be trusted to keep his word." Hitch yelped.
"Yeah, but how do I know he's who he says he is?" The black haired man persisted.
Hitch blinked at the question. "Where did you see him?"
"He's in the next compound over. He says he's been looking for you."
"What did he look like?"
The black haired man described Troy to a T.
"Yeah, that sounds like Sarge." Hitch nodded. ""What's the message."
"He says he has a plan to break out of here."
Hitch nodded as if that was exactly what he had expected to hear, because it was.
"Do you really think he can pull it off?" The black haired man asked.
"Knowing Sarge, I don't doubt it a bit." Hitch grinned. He flexed his injured shoulder and winced as the pain flared. "I just don't know how much help I'm going to be. I think this shoulder is infected."
"I could help, that is, if you promise to take me along."
Hitch looked at the messenger and read the desperation in his eyes.
"I don't want to end up in some POW camp." The soldier continued. "I'd rather die trying to escape."
"What's your name?" Hitch asked.
"Leon, Leon Eckkert."
"Leon, it's not a real successful escape if you die in the process." Hitch explained.
"I'll take my chances." Leon nodded toward Hitch's shoulder. "You're going to need help; I can be that help. I can be the messenger between you and your sergeant, or you whatever else need."
"I think I'm going to need it." Hitch admitted after taking a shaky breath. "But you'll have to tell Sarge that I let you in."
Leon nodded.
"Okay, what's the rest of the message?"
Leon paused. "What makes you think that there is more?"
"I know my sergeant."
"Okay. He's planning to take out the guards while the rest of the Germans are eating their evening meal. They'll be clear on the other side of the camp then."
Hitch nodded. "Too risky at night, they'd be expecting us to try something after dark."
Leon looked surprised for a moment. "That's what he said."
"Makes sense." Hitch agreed. "Go on."
"He wants to know if you can get the guards to come in here when he gives a signal."
The blond gave it some thought. "I think so, but I'll need help to take them out. Sarge will have thought of that so he'll be expecting me to get help."
Leon looked relieved.
"Do you think you could find any more volunteers to help?"
"Are you kidding?" Leon smiled. "Every guy in here would jump at the chance."
"Be careful Leon, don't mention any details. The Germans might have spies among the prisoners watching for something like this. We don't want to doom this escape before it starts."
"I know almost every guy in here by name." Leon boasted. "The only ones I don't know are you and that heavyset guy with the broken arm."
"Don't include him then." Hitch warned. "We can include him at the end if he looks all right."
"What about you?"
"Me?"
"Yeah. Can I trust you? This could be a trick to shoot us down when we try to escape."
"In that case," Hitch answered truthfully, "they wouldn't need any elaborate set-up. They could just shoot us down right now and no one would say a word."
Leon looked around at their temporary camp with a new perspective. They were alone with their captors in a vast mostly empty desert and no one really knew where they were. He could easily see Hitchcock's point.
"All right, I'll talk to the other guys. Your sergeant ask how you were. What should I tell him?"
Hitch moved his arm and winced. "Tell him I'm fine; it's the answer he will expect." Hitch tried to stand but everything around him started to spin.
"Easy." Leon reached for his arm again. 'You'd better take it easy until we need you."
"Maybe I should let Sarge see me, so he knows you really talked to me."
"I take it your sergeant is the suspicious type." Leon smiled.
"No." Hitch responded. "Just careful."
Leon considered that answer for a moment. "Okay, let me get someone else to help me hold you up. We'll take a short walk around that side of the compound. All he has to do is see you, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Because the guards don't like us talking to anyone in the other compounds. They broke us up pretty quickly when they saw me talking to your sergeant."
"Just get me where he can see me and I'll do the rest."
"You aren't going to bring the guards in here, are you?" Leon asked nervously.
"Not yet." Hitch answered. Whenever the guards entered the compound someone almost always got beaten. One of the guards had taken a particular dislike to Hitch.
When they had first been turned over to the POW detail the guard had noticed Hitch chewing his gum and blowing bubbles. The guard had relieved him of his remaining pieces and seemed to delight in chewing it in front of him. Hitch had laughed at his attempts to blow bubbles and had taken a beating for it. The guard still hadn't gotten the hang of it even after three days of trying.
"Okay, but remember what happens when they come in here."
"I remember." Hitch assured him, rubbing his bruised ribs.
Leon left and returned with another soldier. Between the two of them they got Hitch onto his feet and walked him around the perimeter of the wire. As they neared the gate the guards waved them away. Skirting the forbidden area, they continued to walk.
Hitch spotted Troy as soon as they reached the side of the enclosure near the next compound.
Troy was watching his slow progress around the wire. When his back was to the guards Hitch gave Troy a slow wink. The sergeant gave a barely noticeable nod and turned away before the guards could take notice.
"Far enough?" Leon asked as Troy turned away.
"A little further." Hitch responded. "I don't want to make the guards suspicious. Let them think I'm just out for some exercise."
The other man with Leon laughed. "Like you're in any shape to be worried about exercise"
"They believe what they see as long as you don't do anything to make them think about it." Hitch explained. "If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck…."
"Yeah...It's a duck." The other soldier finished for him.
"And I'm just out here for some exercise."
"Leave him alone Chad." Leon cautioned. "I ask around while I was looking for you."
"And?"
"Do you know who these guys are supposed to be?"
"No, who?"
"Rumor has it that they are the Rat Patrol. You know, that unit we've heard so much about ever since we got to North Africa."
"Are you?" Chad stepped in front of Hitch to face him.
"That's the rumor." Hitch repeated.
"Seriously, are you?" Chad insisted.
"Yes." Hitch sighed. "Does it matter?"
"Does it matter?" Leon asked in astonishment. "You're darn right it matters! When I heard that I knew I'd made the right decision. If even half of the stories we heard about you is true…"
"Well I wouldn't bet on much more than that." Hitch replied wearily. "You know how stories have a tendency to grow. " He took a few more steps and faltered. "I think I may need to stop and rest."
Leon and Chad lowered him to the ground and stood over him to shade him from the sun.
"Are we really getting out of here?" Chad whispered.
"That's the plan." Hitch responded, letting his eyes slide shut. He didn't hear Chad's reply, if he made any, he was already asleep.
His sleep was restless as scene after scene played out in his dream. The ambush by the German column, it had been a total surprise, and had proven to be very effective. Tully had been hit in the leg by shrapnel when a shell flipped his jeep. Hitch and Troy had tried to get to him but they had been cut off by two German patrol cars. The halftracks had continued to bombard them with shells and machine gun fire even as they fought off the patrol cars. They had been forced to divide their attention between the different forces just to stay alive.
Troy had blown up both patrol cars but two more had immediately taken their places. Hitch caught a bullet in the shoulder making it harder to dodge the craters left by the shells.
Finally one shell had come close enough to throw shrapnel into the engine and the battle was over. Hitch and Troy had been picked up by the patrol cars and reunited with Tully and Moffitt.
Tully had been sitting on the ground with a bloody bandage wrapped around his leg. Moffitt had had one wrapped around his hand. Troy was the only one who had escaped unscathed.
It hadn't come as much of a surprise to find out that Dietrich had had a hand in training the young officer who had engineered and carried out the ambush. It had been a pleasant surprise to find that he shared the Captain's view of how to treat prisoners. Their wounds had all been treated by a medic and they had been offered generous amounts of both food and water. That was, until they were turned over to the POW detail. Now a meal consisted of a slice of stale bread and three sips of water. Medical care was nonexistent and beatings occurred frequently. Unfortunately, their current captors didn't share the Captain's code of ethics.
Hitch awoke with a start to find Leon and Chad still standing over him giving him shade. "You didn't have to stand there all that time." Hitch protested.
"Protecting our ticket out of here." Chad explained with a shrug.
"You needed the shade." Leon added. "You look like you are running a fever."
"Yeah." Hitch explained weakly. "I just hope that I'm awake when it's time to put Sarge's plan into action."
"Tell us what the plan is and we'll make sure you're awake for it." Chad offered eagerly.
"Just make sure I don't miss supper." Hitch replied. He rolled onto his uninjured side with his back to the sun and fell back asleep.