Chapter 4:
Hogan gently landed on the ground floor of the forest. His parachute floated down behind him, then the colonel discarded it off of him. He rolled the parachute up as best as he could, but eventually just tossed it into a bush. His wrist could not withstand it anymore.
Hogan began feeling drained, light headed, and woozy. His surroundings were beginning to spin, and his belly was increasing in pain. He felt his eyes beginning to fall, but he fought it. He had to find his way out of the forest and find some type of vehicle or transportation system to get to an airbase and go back to London.
"How do I...how do I get out of here?" The colonel gasped. He was drifting off quickly, and it was beginning to become harder for him to focus and function.
The American officer took it one step at a time and slowly began his trek to some sort of safety, if any being in enemy territory. He made it about 20 yards from where he landed, when his belly started to ache more. He clutched his middle with his wounded hand and stopped to try and breathe. His breathing was shallow and rattling. It hurt every time he tried to take in a breath of air into his lungs. It felt like sandpaper against his respiratory system. Hogan was becoming more light headed and weak. He knew he must have lost a tremendous amount of blood at that point. To be frank, he did not know how much longer it would be before he collapsed.
Putting every amount of strength and determination left in him to get home, Hogan continued at a much slower pace than before. He stopped again after about seven steps and looked around him, his skin becoming as pale as a bed sheet, and his eyes becoming foggy.
The forest was completely blurry and spinning 100 miles a minute around him. He felt as if he had just come off of the tilt-a-whirl at a carnival. His legs were buckling and shaking, and his body was becoming heavy.
Hogan tried fighting it as hard as he could. His eyelids were becoming hefty and was trying to keep them open.
"Wha...what...what's…" He barely spoke.
The extent of his injuries and exhaustion had become too much for him. Hogan's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed to the forest floor on his right side. His world became dark and lifeless, and he began to slip into unconsciousness.
"How much longer is this walk?" A young man complained. He and his companion had been trudging in the cold weather for over an hour now. He had a black cap, a flannel shirt, and jeans on. His eyes were light green, and his hair a dark blonde. Both men had gloves, scarves, and jackets on, but the weather was still immensely cold.
The other man, an older one wearing a black Charlie Chaplin hat, had a gray mustache, balding blackish gray hair, and brown eyes, turned to the younger man and glared at him.
"Quit your complaining, will you? I'm just as cold as you are." He responded, a bit harsh.
"Aren't your legs tired yet, Otto?" The young man asked.
"Tired comes with the job, son. Working for the underground isn't as easy as it might look."
"Got that right, sir."
The young man had recently joined the resistance and was still learning the ropes from his fellow comrades. His mentor was loyal underground member Otto Heidleman. The man had been working with the resistance since Hitler's rise to power in 1933. He loved Germany dearly, but not what it was becoming known as. Otto was a devoted Ally and would stand with them till death if necessary. (1)
He and the young man kept walking through the forest while talking with one another.
"You think those RAF sergeants got out of here safely?" The young man asked.
The old man gave a friendly smile.
"We've done all we can, Heinz. I'm confident those men are on their way safely to London." He answered, keeping his eyes ahead of him.
"You think so?"
Otto was about to answer, when he spotted something odd out at a distance.
"What the…" he wondered.
"What? What is it, sir?" Heinz asked, worried.
"Look. Over there." Otto answered, pointing towards the north east.
Heinz turned his head and now noticed the same thing as his guide did.
"What is that?" The young man asked.
About 25 feet ahead of them in the direction, there lay a big lump of something. It was lying there lifeless and seemed to have the size of a big dog or a person. It had either a black or dark brown color to whatever it was.
"It looks like a big dog," Heinz said, still curious at what it really was.
"We better go check it out. Just in case it's one of our men." Otto replied.
"Right behind yah."
The two men hurried their way silently over to the object. When they got there, they knew immediately it was a man. Brown pants, dark brown shoes, a brown leather jacket, and from what they could tell, a brown hat of some sort.
Otto knelt down besides the man and rolled him over on his back.
"My God! What did they do to this man, slaughter him?!" The old man gasped.
It was Hogan. His face was expressionless, his skin was clammy, and seemed to barely be breathing. His wounds were still bleeding quite a bit and did not seem to stop. His left hand was over his abdominal wound, and the wrist had several cuts to it. Like it had been sliced open with a knife in several places. Then there was his stomach wound. There seemed to be a huge tear in his khaki shirt similar to the one a bullet would leave. The bleeding from his abdomen was horrendous. Hogan was on the brink of death.
"It's a Colonel! We've never seen one of those before!" Heinz cried quietly.
"He's in bad condition." Otto answered meekly.
"What did they do to him, sir? Is he alive?!"
The old man took his fingers and checked for a pulse on Hogan's neck. He felt one. It was extremely weak, but he had one.
"He's alive, but just barely." Otto answered, in shock.
"We've gotta get him to Richard! He'll take care of him."
"And how do you think we'll explain how we found him?"
"Say we were driving home, and we saw something odd off the road along the way. We stopped to investigate the area and found him in a ditch unconscious."
Otto nodded. The young man had made a reasonable argument. Nothing suspicious about two men going home for the night and stopping to check on something out of place.
"It's good...it just might work," he said softly. He looked back down at the man.
"Is he gonna be alright, Otto?"
"At this point, I have no idea. The man's lucky to still be alive considering the weather and his current medical condition." He turned to Heinz. "Help me lift him up. We'll have to run with him to the car at this rate."
The young man got down to Hogan's legs, and Otto had him by the shoulders. Once they slowly lifted him off the ground, Heinz helped the old man get the colonel in his arms.
Otto looked down at the unconscious man in his arms and held sympathy and hope in his eyes.
"Hang in there just a little longer, soldier. You'll be in good hands soon," he said softly.
Hogan remained unresponsive.
Otto snapped his head quickly to Heinz.
"Come on. Hurry!" He ordered.
Both underground men took off as fast and silently as they could. They had to get Hogan to a hospital and soon. His life was slipping through their fingers as each second went by. While they were running, Heinz turned to look back at Otto briefly.
"What's his name?" He asked, curious.
The old underground agent looked down at the man's jacket where his rank and name was sewn on.
"Colonel R.E. Hogan."
"How is he, nurse?" An old man asked, worried. He ran into the emergency room as quickly as he could. He had pure white hair, wrinkled hands and face, and kind light blue eyes. The man looked friendly and gentle hearted.
"His vitals are weak, but are doing fine, Dr. Klaussner," the nurse said softly.
The old man, Dr. Richard Klaussner, was another underground agent and one of the most loyal and kindest of them. He had been one of the very few doctors to remain that way and not been brainwashed by Hitler and his political movement. It did not matter of which religion, nationality, or skin color a person was. He was a doctor, and doctors saved innocent lives survive. He lived strongly by that philosophy and as long as his real loyalties remained silent and unknown, he would continue to save any life regardless American or German. (2)
Looking at his new patient, Colonel Robert Edward Hogan, Klaussner sighed softly and nodded. Not the news he wanted to hear, but it was better than nothing.
"Thank you, nurse. You're free to leave," the old man answered.
The nurse, a very young girl with soft blonde hair, nodded and silently left the room.
Once she had left, Klaussner walked back over to the man lying in his emergency room. Hogan was being prepped for surgery and waiting on the anesthesia he needed before beginning.
Klaussner gently put a hand on Hogan's shoulder and kept it there for a moment. He had no idea who the man was, but all he knew was that he liked him. He had a good vibe to him and seemed to be a man of genuineness, kindness, compassion, and bravery. A man like that deserved to live, to survive this war, and return to his family and friends back home again.
"Don't worry, Colonel. You're gonna be alright even if I have to spend nine hours in surgery to make sure of that," he softly said. There was determination and anxiety in his voice. He feared to lose the man, but was going to do everything he could to make sure he got through surgery and healed as quickly as possible.
Hogan remained lifeless. He was in a white hospital gown with tiny dark blue diamonds on it for a design. He was covered up with a white knitted blanket and sheets. His left hand was stabilized to prevent from injuring it further. Klaussner would have to treat that with surgery along with the tremendous injury to his belly. An IV was in Hogan's right hand, and had oxygen assistance in his nose.
Another doctor, a young man, hurried in with a syringe filled with clear liquid and handed it to Klaussner.
The old man looked back, took the medicine, and nodded.
"Thank you, Dr. Schnauzer," Klaussner said, sincere. The old man turned back to Hogan and injected the anesthesia into his IV stream gradually. Once the last of the sedative had been injected, Klaussner threw away the syringe in the designated disposal box, then made his way to his fellow colleague. "I want that man in surgery now! We can not put him off any further. He's on the brink of death enough as it is."
"Jawohl, Herr Doctor," Schnauzer said softly.
The young man left quickly and just as fast came back with three other doctors, all undercover underground agents. The five medics grabbed one side of Hogan's bed and zipped their ways through the halls in the hospital to the operating room.
Klaussner looked down quickly at the man in the bed, then back up at what was in front of him.
"Hold on, Colonel...just a little longer." He murmured.
"Hemostat," Klaussner said, his hand stretched out.
Schnauzer automatically handed the old man a scissors like object and watched the head surgeon execute the tedious surgical procedure.
"Suction tube."
The young man handed the underground agent the medical instrument and remained silent. His eyes went from Klaussner, to Hogan, and back to Klaussner again. Schnauzer was mesmerized with what was happening before him. A medic still in training, he could not wait for the day where he would be in Klaussner's position and be able to save someone's life.
The nurse standing next to Hogan's head glanced over at the colonel and noticed something off. He looked paler than he had going into surgery. Soon enough, an alarm was going off. The nurse snapped her head over towards the EKG machine connected to Hogan's chest. His heart rate was dropping quickly. (3)
"Dr. Klaussner, patient's crashing." She reported.
"He's losing blood, Doctor," Klaussner's assistant in surgery, Dr. Hans Mueller, said.
"Get a clamp and hurry!" The old man ordered, turning to Schnauzer.
"Yes, sir," the young man said, and hurried over to one of the cabinets.
Klaussner looked up at the doctor standing on the other side of Hogan's head.
"Start chest compressions and increase oxygen rate if necessary!" The old man spoke urgently.
"Yes, Doctor," the man, Dr. Hagen, said. He turned to face the patient and started giving forceful pushes down on Hogan's chest to help blood flow.
"Heart rate still dropping, Doctor," the nurse said, holding back her anxiety.
"Damn it!" Klaussner cursed.
"This man needs a blood transfusion, and he needs one now." Mueller reported.
"I need a pint of A- blood, Schnauzer!" The old man demanded.
"Yes, Doctor!" The young man answered. He rushed to Klaussner's side, handed him the clamp needed, then sprinted out of the operating room.
"Come on, Colonel. Stay with me, damn it," Klaussner said, trying to stop as much blood flow in Hogan's abdomen as possible.
Hagen was beginning to give faster chest compressions and now sweating a little.
"Come on, man...stay with it, sir." He mumbled, to himself.
The nurse increased the amount of oxygen Hogan was breathing in and began to tremble. She wanted the man to live. He had a comforting vibe to him and seemed to be Germany's savior from Hitler and his zombies.
Schnauzer ran in with a bag of blood and handed it to Mueller.
"Danke, Schnauzer."
"Jawohl, Herr Mueller."
"Come on, Colonel...hang in there." Klaussner pleaded softly.
Mueller began a blood transfusion, and Hogan's heart rate began to slowly increase back to normal. Once it was stable, Hagen stopped chest compressions and sighed with relief.
The nurse hung her head, tears streaming down her face, and said a silent 'thank you' to God.
"Thank you, Lord," Klaussner said quietly. He turned to his assistant surgeon. "Hans, continue giving him blood. I'll tell you when to stop."
"Jawohl, Herr Doctor," Mueller said.
The old man turned back to look at Hogan and smiled through his surgical mask. He gave a soft smirk and shook his head.
"You're a stubborn one, Colonel...keep it that way for my sake."
Klaussner turned his eyes down to what he was doing and continued with his operation.
(1) Otto Heidleman is a character I created. He is one of the most respected leaders of the underground and makes his first appearance in my story 'Coming Into the Light'. His code name is Night Owl.
(2) Dr. Richard Klaussner is a character I created and first appeared in my story 'Hogan's Heroes: Finding the Silver Lining'. His code name in the underground is Lone Wolf. I have given permission for another writer to use him in her story and willing to do so for others. Just PM me for permission first.
(3) The first EKG machine to be recorded for use was in 1872 by a man named Alexander Muirhead in London.