Carter, LeBeau, and Kinch quietly crept away from the stalag, urgently rushing in the direction of the bomb site. Carter had the lead, and LeBeau, so much shorter than the others, had a hard time keeping up.
"Carter!" he whisper-yelled.
The American didn't hear him, so Kinch sprinted ahead and grabbed his arm. "You're going too fast," he said. "We don't know the location like you do."
Carter stopped, looking back at the Frenchman who was still catching up. He sighed, shaking his head. "Sorry."
LeBeau finally reached them. "You should join the Olympics!" he said, half-sarcastically, before running right past them. If the circumstances had been different, it would have been funny.
Carter sighed and ran after the Frenchman.
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Hogan blinked, having accidentally dozed off for a few seconds. The falling snow had become hypnotic, and Hogan exhaled a deep breath, watching as it formed mist in the air. His entire body was numb from cold, though he was relieved to see that it was warmer that day.
Also, thankfully, the snow seemed to have stopped during his doze.
Hogan looked at Newkirk beside him, who he had an arm around to stop him from possibly toppling over. The Englishman hadn't moved after losing consciousness yet again. Hogan shifted in front of him and gently raised his head, checking the pulse on his neck. The beat it gave could be called nothing short of 'crazy', and sent a thrill of fear into Hogan's chest.
Sighing, Hogan rubbed his eyes with one hand before looking at Newkirk again. He suddenly decided that lying flat might help Newkirk's heart circulate whatever remained of his blood, so he carefully shifted him away from the wall and gently laid him down.
The injured man remained limp, the movement not jolting him back to consciousness.
Hogan reached for the rip in the Englishman's sleeve, pulling it open to look at the wounds. They were both still closed, to his relief. A large area of skin had turned purple with bruising, and Hogan noticed something else that he ignored...until he saw another something, and another, and another.
Frowning, he peered closer at an odd cluster of red dots on Newkirk's arm. Pulling the rip down, he found others. No, no, no! he thought. Quickly, Hogan grabbed Newkirk's good arm and pulled up the sleeve. Dots covered many areas of his forearm.
"You've gotta be kidding me!" he said aloud. Newkirk doesn't have a cold...he has measles?!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Carter and the others hid behind a cluster of trees as a German truck drove past them. He felt tempted to throw one of his bombs at it...for all he knew; Hogan and Newkirk could be lying lifeless somewhere in the snow because of them.
The others must've known what he was thinking, for Kinch suddenly patted his shoulder as he moved away from the tree. Carter quickly jogged in front of him, and they continued on.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hogan's stomach growled. How can you think of food at a time like this? he asked himself.
The Germans above had become very noisy in the past half-hour. Sounds of splitting wood filled the air, as they chopped up the pole that had housed the safe.
A groan to his left turned Hogan's attention to Newkirk, whose head moved slightly as his consciousness tried to surface. Hogan scooted away from the rocky wall and knelt beside him. "Hey," he said.
Newkirk winced, shakily raising his good arm and covering his eyes. It took visible effort.
"How do you feel?" Hogan asked.
"Bloody awful," Newkirk said. He started coughing again, and Hogan stuck the handkerchief into his hand. The Englishman ended the coughing with a sneeze.
"Gesundheit," Hogan quipped.
"Oooh," Newkirk moaned. "Ruddy Germans."
A minute or two passed with the noise above filling the air. It took that long for Newkirk's senses to realize what he was hearing, and his body startled, his eyes opening. He squinted at Hogan for a few seconds, trying to see him through the gray haze that kept invading his vision. "We're still 'ere, then?"
Hogan nodded.
Newkirk re-closed his eyes with a sigh that set him off coughing once more.
Hogan waited until he was finished before saying, "Have you ever had measles?"
Newkirk blinked at him as if he thought him mad. "Wha--?"
In answer, Hogan took his good arm and pushed up the sleeve.
Newkirk brought his arm close to his face, frowning. "Guess I 'aven't...until now." His arm plopped down again.
Hogan reached out and lowered the sleeve for him, before suddenly frowning when Newkirk's body gave an abrupt, odd shudder. He squeezed the arm, leaning forward. "What's wrong?" he urgently asked.
Newkirk tried to speak, but nothing came out. His breathing suddenly became shallow and uneven, his face impossibly pale.
Hogan quickly checked his pulse, finding it weak and rapid. "Newkirk," he said, nervously. "I think you're going into shock. Stay with me! Open your eyes!"
Newkirk tried, he really tried...but it was as if an unseen force was refusing to allow him.
"Newkirk!" Hogan exclaimed, tugging on his good arm. "Don't do this to me, Corporal! Come on, Newkirk!"
Those were the last words that the Englishman heard before his consciousness was once more ripped away.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Carter and the others had managed to go almost three miles before they ran into more coming-and-going Germans. There was a roadblock up ahead, so the three men hurried down the embankment on the side of the road.
Once there, Kinch looked back up to the street. It wasn't an extremely steep embankment, but it worried the sergeant. "Carter," he whispered. "When the three of you were trying to get back to the stalag, were you down here or up there?"
"Up there," Carter told him. "In the woods."
"Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?" LeBeau asked Kinch.
He sighed. "I wish I wasn't."
Carter stopped running and faced them. "You mean you think they could both be lying shot down here or something?!"
Shot...or dead.
Carter didn't wait for an answer. He took off running again, fervently praying. No...no...don't let them be dead...please!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hogan couldn't remember the last time he was actually this scared. His little group of POWs had overcome incredible odds each and every time they'd helped a prisoner--and several Germans--escape to England...every single time they'd impersonated a German officer, lying right to the face of a Nazi...even every time they convinced Schultz to 'know nothing'. It wasn't right--it wasn't fair!--for Newkirk to lose his life from a gunshot wound to the arm.
But yet here he was, lying unconscious beside Hogan, pulse weak and unsteady, his breathing shallow. Dying. Dying from blood loss and exposure...from an injury that was easily treatable.
If it hadn't been cold outside, Hogan knew that Newkirk wouldn't be in such bad shape. Shock was always a serious risk with gunshot victims, brought on by loss of blood. Warmth was the main treatment for it...helping to keep the victim's body temperature stable so that the blood-starved organs weren't damaged.
But instead, Newkirk had been forced to lay outside in the winter cold...and Hogan couldn't even lend any body heat, being frozen himself! What good was a human ice cube? He'd probably make Newkirk worse instead of better.
Hogan pulled up the sleeve on Newkirk's good arm, shaking his head at the sight of red dots. Measles? How on earth had that happened, and why now? There was no way that Newkirk's body could handle being that sick while so injured.
Hogan wondered if the young Englishman would survive this.
Sighing deeply, Hogan scrubbed a hand across his face. He'd seen so many men die during this insane war...so many...most of which were too young to die.
Newkirk was too young to die.
Hogan couldn't stop the groan that passed his lips, from the pain of mental torment. He was so lost in his thoughts that he almost didn't hear the snap of a twig.
Grabbing his gun, he pointed it towards human shapes that he could see behind the bushes that sat about twenty feet away.
"Colonel?" said Carter's voice.
TBC
