Tully had been up late working on a staff car that had been towed into the small unit when he had heard the explosion and seen Germans raiding the camp. He had jumped to help but stopped himself when he saw that the fight was already won. The men had been all but rounded up, and so he slipped behind the staff car and watched the scene before him, warily waiting for a chance to make a move.

He'd only been with this unit for a few days, assigned here to fully recover from a tumble out of one of their jeeps while the other three members of The Rat Patrol took on a mission without him-someplace that Moffitt needed to infiltrate and steal some Arab maps from, or something along those lines. They were supposed to be back the next afternoon to pick Tully and their other jeep up, and he frowned at the terrible timing of this sudden attack.

He was just far enough away that he couldn't hear what was going on other than the loud Achtung that had been issued, and he sneakily made his way past a few different vehicles as quietly as a mouse. Stopping when he reached a jeep he recognized as his own, he tried to hear anything from the group of people 20 or so yards away. He heard a shout in German and saw several German soldiers break away from the main group and start searching the camp.

He silently watched one get closer and closer to him, and he pulled out his Bowie knife, readying himself for what was coming. Hiding behind the Jeep, he jumped forward and stabbed the man before he could make a sound, but he turned to see that another German had noticed, shouting a warning to his comrades. Not missing a beat, Tully hopped into the Jeep and started spraying the Germans running at him with the large gun attached to the vehicle. He noticed the prisoners breaking loose and fighting back, and saw many of them acquiring guns and shooting at the Germans around them.

But things stopped looking so good when he felt a firey pain scream at him from his right thigh. He buckled and fell sideways out onto the sand where a few Germans were still coming at him, his helmet flying off to who knows where. He tried to wiggle towards the first German he had stabbed, reaching for his gun, but it was kicked away before he could grab it as he heard a command screamed from 20 yards away. He brought the hand that had been reaching for the gun down to join the other that was holding his leg that was now red, wet, and sandy, glancing up at the soldiers that were pointing their guns down at him.

He heard a few commands in German relayed towards him and gritted his teeth in pain as two German soldiers picked him up by his shoulders and dragged him over to the party.

"Sargeant. Read his dog tags." Tully didn't even bother looking for the voice and instead glared again at one of the soldiers holding him, who had handled him roughly on the way over. The shorter and stockier leader of the unit tentatively stepped up to him and their eyes met. It was the Sergeant who had given him his orders in the unit a few days back. He hadn't spoken to him after that, and the man didn't seem to recognize him as he grabbed his dog tags from out of his jacket and began reading them.

"Private-" The Sergeant froze and looked up worriedly at Tully's face, which was strange, and then he finished the title, "Tully Pettigrew."

Tully finally looked over to where the German's voice had come from, and he saw a tall and slimy-looking German Captain who was holding-no-it wasn't Troy… it was an allied officer, one that looked very much like Tully's own Sergeant. The man seemed extremely uncomfortable and was frowning over at him whilst the German Hauptmann held a gun under his chin, grinning triumphantly down at Tully.

Tully had no idea what all of the fuss was about, and he didn't have the effort to care because of the intense pain coming from his thigh that was insisting prevalence in the front of his mind. He looked back down to his leg and focused on holding it as best he could while he heard more German commands issued around him. He couldn't help exclaiming in pain as he was roughly lifted forward again, and he became aware of the wooziness that was rapidly replacing the adrenaline rush inside him.

He braced against the jostling, and tried to keep his right leg from touching the ground while he was being dragged to a new destination. They pulled him into a main tent of the small unit that was used for briefings and meetings-which wasn't more than 10 square yards-and he let out a gasp of pain as they set him on the ground and left the tent bare-save a table and a few chairs-behind them. After sitting a moment and catching his breath, he looked back down at his leg.

There was nothing he could cut his pant leg with and he didn't have the strength to rip it now, not to mention he had nothing to treat his wound with, but he knew couldn't just sit until he fainted from loss of blood, and so he first reached into his jacket's breast pocket and pulled out a matchstick, inserting it into his mouth-and relishing the small feeling of calm that entered him with the thin grainy stick. He then took hold of a wrinkle in the fabric an inch or so above the bullet hole, and pulled the pant leg tight, twisting the fistfull of tan in his hand to cut off as much circulation as he could in his leg.

He grunted in pain as he twisted the fabric in his hands, and a memory of his life in Kentucky floated into his mind. He had been carting moonshine in a little truck but had accidentally rolled it into a ditch. Not only was the moonshine destroyed, but so was his truck, and he was stuck with a piece of windshield sticking out of his calf and no way to get anywhere. Being only a young teen at the time, he had assumed that he would die there, on the side of the road, with no chance to say goodbye to his family. Of course, to his current self, that situation seemed much less perilous than it had when he'd been in it. But his younger self had not been so used to surviving impossible situations, and so had sat on the side of the road, crying to himself and praying to God that he would survive and/or be saved.

Only an hour or two later, his older brother came driving along the road looking for him, since it was getting dark. He'd been rescued, his mother had scolded him after stitching his leg up, and that had been that-after promising to let his brother give him some more driving lessons.

When he'd decided to join the army after the fighting broke out, he'd been as cocky as ever, but the first time he was shot-in the arm-Tully had come to the realization that he was no more ready to die than he had been that day when he'd rolled the truck into that ditch. So, before he was deployed again for active duty, he wrote to his family, and made sure that no grudges still existed, and let them know how much he loved them, and that he would try to survive for them, but if push came to shove, that he was willing to die for his country.

He had made the best peace with Death as he figured he could, and he wondered if this time, he would finally meet it face to face. He huffed a little air out of his nose at no one, daring Death to give it a try.

Despite the harrowing pain spiking through his thigh, Tully kept on twisting his makeshift tourniquet, paying no attention to the blood that had now not only covered most of his leg and pant leg, but stained his hands as well.

The tent flap opened, and Tully whipped his head up to see what was going on. The allied officer who looked like Tully's Sarge walked in, his hands on his head, and he was followed by two German soldiers and the slimy Hauptmann from earlier. Now that Tully could get a good look at the man, he saw a very tall and bright blonde man, and he was disturbed not only from the horrible sneer that the German wore, but the look of utter triumph that was ablaze in his eyes.

"Private Pettigrew." The Hauptmann smirked down at him, and suddenly something clicked in Tully's mind. The only reason someone on their side would know his name is because they knew The Rat Patrol. Which meant that this German probably only wanted to use him as bait to get to Troy, Moffitt, and Hitch. He bit down on the matchstick in his mouth and glared up at the Officer, making it clear from his silence that he would not in any way cooperate.

"Captain Whillhelm Strausser. SS." He nodded down at Tully, "It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Private. You are exactly as I vas told you vould be. Quiet and non-cooperative." He took his gloves off and slapped them against his hand, pacing a few steps away and turning back towards Tully and the allied officer standing stiffly next to him, "And I am excited for when I get to finally meet ze other three members of your team tomorrow morning. Zey, of course, vill not be so happy to see me-" Strausser leaned down so his face was inches from Tully's, "But such is var, isn't it, Private?"

Tully's only response was to glare unflinchingly back into those triumphant blue eyes of his and say absolutely nothing. After a moment of intense eye contact, the Hauptmann broke it when he stood straight and turned to leave, nonchalantly adding, "I shall leave you two to get acquainted."

"Aren't you going to get medical assistance for him?!" Tully glanced up to see the allied officer next to him step forward defiantly, with the force behind his question making it seem more like a demand, which only reminded Tully more of Troy.

"Ve do not need him healthy, Captain. Ve only need him… alive." Strausser gave a sadistic chuckle and left the tent, the two German soldiers still standing guard next to the exit.

As soon as he'd left, Tully heard the American Captain kneel down next to him in the dirt and take a look at his wound, asking,

"How is it?"

Tully answered around his matchstick, "Not good. They shot me up like a turkey at Christmas time." He looked up at the officer, and after a moment, the man nodded and fully sat down next to Tully in order to reach forward and gently hook a finger in the bullet hole in his pant leg. He started ripping it larger, answering Tully's unspoken question,

"Captain David Troy, RAF. You don't need to tell me your name, Pettigrew, I already heard it."

Tully stopped watching the man work despite his pain and stared back up at his face-the face that he had almost mistaken for Troy's. Of course-that certainly explained a lot. After a moment the man glanced back at him questioningly, "What is it, Private?" Tully didn't answer right away and he asked again, "Is there something on my face?"

Tully looked back down at his leg and spoke, "You're Sarge's brother."

"What?"

"Sergeant Troy. You're his brother."

Captain Troy stopped working on Tully's pant leg and leaned down closer to him, "Sam? How do you know him?"

Tully looked up at him again and answered, "I'm a member of his unit."