Having secured his new prisoner in the rear with Hogan and LeBeau, Karl climbed back into the front of the truck. The Leutnant ordered the Hauptgefreiter to raise the gate and allow the truck to pass through the checkpoint. As the sergeant walked to the gate, he leaned over to Karl and offered a few words.
"Be wary, Obergefreiter; these woods are full of men who would shoot you as soon as they saw your uniform. Keep to the main roads as much as possible," he warned Karl in an undertone.
"Ja. Vielen Dank für die Warnung, Hauptgefreiter," Karl politely thanked him, even though he was already well aware of the danger. He had no intention of straying from the road. "Ich werde vorsichtig sein."
"See that you are careful, Corporal," replied the sergeant as he raised the gate. "Many a foolhardy soldier has vanished in these woods." Karl thought he saw the Hauptgefreiter look towards the Leutnant when he spoke those last words, but he couldn't be certain in the darkness.
It was a good five minutes before Karl realized that he'd completely forgotten to inform the checkpoint of the ambushed truck on the road - they could have called Hammelburg themselves. It wasn't that much of a problem, Karl reassured himself; it just meant a few minutes more work for him once he got back to camp.
And then there was the matter of the new prisoner in the back of his truck. Karl could hear him talking with Hogan and LeBeau, though he couldn't make out the words over the noise from the truck. The airman would be processed and interrogated; if he were very lucky, he might be traded back to the Allies during a prisoner swap, or manage to escape (though not from Stalag 13), but he was most likely to spend the rest of the war in one rotten, filthy POW camp or another. Colonel Hogan couldn't save everyone.
Karl's thoughts strayed to his sister, Greta; when they last spoke, she had been hours away from being arrested by the Gestapo for suspected Underground activities. As a child, Greta had always been outspoken, a characteristic she hadn't fully managed to temper by the time she left for university.
He could still vividly recall the tremor in her voice when she spoke to him in the hotel in Hammelburg. She had begged - begged! - for his help. Even if it was just a few marks. But what she really needed was a way out of Germany. But he was only a corporal in the Luftwaffe; he had no influence, no power to save her. His own sister, and he was helpless to save her.
A sudden crashing sound yanked him back to where he should be - on the road. For the second time that night, Karl was forced to slam on the brakes to avoid an untimely end, this time from a tree suddenly falling across the road in front of him. His exclamation this time was far more colorful.
"Hey, what's going on up there?" Hogan demanded loudly from the rear of the truck. "You just about got prisoner pancake back here!"
Karl was about to reply when he heard the ominous click of a gun being cocked inches from his ear.
"You keep very still and quiet, Fritz, or your head is going to have a nice new hole in the back of it," a voice whispered harshly in English. Karl swallowed, not moving an inch, his hands clutching the steering wheel. "Good boy," the unseen man replied.
"Hey, what-" came a sudden voice from the back of the truck. "Cap, guess who we found! It's Corporal Woods! And a couple of other guys, too."
"Keep your voice down, Anderson," 'Cap' hissed. A rough hand yanked Karl out of the cab and pushed him towards the back of the vehicle.
All three of his prisoners were now out of the truck, along with two other men, dressed in flight gear and definitely looking somewhat the worse for wear from their bail-out and landing, but they clapped their fellow on the shoulder, greeting their lost comrade warmly, and completely missing Colonel Hogan's irritated expression.
"Are you in charge of these guys?" Hogan demanded, addressing the man currently holding a gun to Karl's head.
There was a pause, as if his captor suddenly realized that he was standing in front of a superior officer. "Yes, sir. And you can thank me for the rescue later. We need to get this Kraut here to drive us to Switzerland. Either of you two speak German?"
Translation Notes:
"Ja. Vielen Dank für die Warnung, Hauptgefreiter." : "Yes, thanks for the warning, Hauptgefreiter."
"Ich werde vorsichtig sein." : "I'll be careful."