Babies, pandemics, elections, oh my!

Yes, folks, it has been quite a while since we've seen the MSEs. Let's just blame 2020 and get things back on track because, seriously, 2021 has to be better, doesn't it?

Thanks to everyone who agreed to jump back aboard. Now let's get this wagon train a-movin'!

Onward, ho!

Wind-in-the-Sage

I took a deep breath and forced myself to become more alert. It had been something close to three hours, and the hyper-awareness I'd enforced on myself, along with a lack of sleep and too much walking, was really starting to take its toll. I looked back at Tuttle, who was just behind me because the undergrowth was getting too tight to walk side by side. I didn't know how she was managing. Neither of us must have looked too good.

We'd better be getting close to camp soon, and not just because we were tired and couldn't keep listening for and avoiding noises forever. If I were right about where camp was, it should be close. I crossed my fingers again. Honestly, besides patrols, I'd been most nervous that I'd had far too much confidence, had led Tuttle astray, we'd end up lost, and it would be all my fault.

I made a small, miserable noise in my throat.

"Are you okay?"

"Huh? Um. Yeah. We should be-- we should be close."

"Okay."

She really must be tired. That was probably the shortest response I'd gotten from her yet. When we had started out, and gotten a good distance from town, she'd started making conversation. I was glad for it. I wasn't very good at initiating a conversation anyway, and talking kept my mind off things. We'd exchanged stories about how we'd gotten here, and Tuttle had informed me of what camp, and of course the heroes, were like. The conversation had begun to lose steam after describing the hopelessness of getting home, how angry Hogan had been recently, and how we might be getting close enough to run into patrols if Leah (and thereby Newkirk) had been found out. After a quick exchange, we decided Newkirk could probably take care of himself and Hogan would know what to do, and we didn't talk about him the rest of the time, focusing on moving continuously and quietly.

It helped that both of us had walked this direction before, but my relief was still significant when we saw floodlit ground flickering through the trees. I stopped and turned back to Tuttle. "I think that's it," I whispered, pointing. "So, emergency tunnel or turning ourselves in? Or... is that how it works here?"

Tuttle looked around, taking time to orient herself. She edged past me to take the lead.

"I think this looks familiar. I can get us to the tunnel."

I felt further relieved when she took the helm, even though I felt guilty at the same time to be putting that on someone else. But I was much too tired to think about that. Apart from a fake nap to stall with Crittendon, I'd been awake for almost 24 hours.

Tuttle started moving through the trees, and I mimicked her movements, staying low to the ground. The sweeping searchlights put me on edge, making me feel like I was living an old computer game I had played as a kid. One I was always bad at.

Regardless, we made it successfully to what was indeed a stump for an entrance, and thankfully a much more convincing one than 1960s Hollywood could come up with. We made it down a ladder into a much more cramped and dark tunnel than the show portrayed. The oil lamps actually provided the light, and the walls were definitely not covered in (what I had always assumed was) crinkled paper.

"C'mon. This way." Tuttle started down the tunnel and I followed.

The feeling was much heavier too. It was damp, and the clay-y soil muffled a lot of sound. There was no echo, no rock. Although I felt safe here, I was ambivalent about staying down here for long periods, which I assumed I'd be doing.

With only a little bit of backtracking, and one distant voice I heard, we made it through the impressively extensive tunnels, and came out in a room containing much more light, plenty of radio equipment, and one troubled radioman. Kinch?

We saw each other at the same time. It took only the briefest glimpse to discern that I was not a cantankerous British man in contemporary civilian clothing. He ignored me entirely.

"Tuttle. Where's Newkirk?"

"Well…"

Tuttle4077

I had been holding it together pretty well, all things considered.

But let's review, shall we? I was five months pregnant; I had walked all the way into town and ate dinner in a hotel crawling with Gestapo and various German civilians; said dinner wasn't terrible, but it was giving me the worst heartburn ever; then Crittendon popped onto the scene and ruined absolutely everything; and then he had run off to protect us, possibly putting his own life in danger; and, to put the cherry on the top of this crap sundae, I had to trek through the forest for three hours before we found our way back to Stalag 13.

And I did it all without complaint. Well, not much complaint anyway. Heck, I had even found enough pluck to make some light-hearted conversation.

The fact is, I was a freakin' trooper because when something just has to be done, I can dig deep and do it. After all, what's the alternative? If something has to be done, it has to be done whether you want to do it or not.

But there's only so much a girl can take.

So when Kinch asked me where Newkirk was, well, that was it. I had already dug deep down to my toes just to get back to camp and now there was nothing left to give. I got three words in and my voice cracked, and whenever that happens I can't stop what comes next.

Not for the first time since I arrived, I started to cry. And I couldn't even blame it on hormones.

No, I was crying because I knew at that exact moment, Newkirk was probably hanging by his thumbs in a Gestapo cell, being tortured to death. And that was really the worst part of this whole fiasco.

"Goldman, get over here," I heard Kinch say with a sigh. I felt someone grab my arms, steer me away and set me down on a cot. "Wind-in-the-Sage, right?" Kinch continued. "What happened? Where's Newkirk?"

They must have stepped off to the side because I didn't hear the rest of their conversation. Or maybe they were still there and I just couldn't hear them over my hysterical crying. I was so unbelievably tired and stressed and completely terrified for Newkirk that I was shutting down.

"Hey, hey, it's going to be okay, Miss Tuttle," Goldman said. There was a pause, but then I felt him sit down beside me. He put his arm over my shoulder and pulled me close. I grabbed onto his jacket and rested my head on his chest. "Shh, shh, shh," he continued as if soothing a child. "It's okay. It's okay."

"You-you-you don't know that!" I wailed. This was real life, not a tv show- things didn't get wrapped up neatly in a bow after half an hour with everyone safe and sound. The hard truth was that Newkirk was already dead. Those Gestapo boys didn't play around.

"You're safe. That other author is safe. Whatever else happens, Newkirk did his job," Goldman said.

"But-but-but."

Goldman rubbed my arm. "Shh. It's okay."

Goldman repeated his mantra over and over again as I sobbed. Whatever energy I had left evaporated. I was exhausted and my feet and back were killing me. At that point, I couldn't care about what was going on around me. My world shrank to the sound of my own sniffles and Goldman's voice. And, in no time at all, even those faded away as I finally gave in to the exhaustion and fell asleep.