Although it had been a bit rocky for a moment in there, they'd managed it. Moffitt let out a small breath of relief as their jeep began putting miles between them and the German's compound.

"Everything work out okay?" He glanced up behind him to see Troy looking down at him from his perch next to the gun.

Moffitt settled a little lower into his seat and responded, "Couldn't have gone better unless I'd stopped off for tea after I emptied their safe." He noticed Hitch grinning at him from the driver's seat, and Troy answered,

"It definitely went better than it normally does, didn't it?"

"Are you kiddin' me, Sarge? Normally, we have to blast him out and make like the wind to get away!" Hitch gave a laugh and Moffitt reminisced with a smirk,

"I almost missed that, you know." He turned to see Troy raising his eyebrows as he added, "watching as my team daringly comes to my rescue, hearing the alarms go off, driving away while German soldiers pour out of the buildings to chase us…"

"Don't forget the bruises and cuts that are usually all over your face." Troy seemed serious but Moffitt could hear the smile behind his words, and he absentmindedly rubbed his cheek,

"Yes, well-I don't miss that part quite as much." That response got a laugh out of both of his friends as they made it over a large dune and Hitch carefully found a wide ditch at the base of it to park in for the night, since they couldn't very well drive in the dark-and it was getting rather dark.

"One thing's for sure-I'll be glad to have Tully back so I don't have to listen to your bad jokes while you sit in my seat." Troy gave his shoulder a friendly shove before he hopped off the back of the Jeep and started unloading some blankets. Moffitt gave his own chuckle as he and Hitch dismounted and set to work helping their Sergeant. "Hitch, you go up on that dune and keep a lookout."

Hitch casually saluted at the two Sergeants and took a machine gun, heading off to keep watch. Troy looked at Moffitt, a question in his eyes, and Moffitt answered,

"I managed to get all of the documents they had in their safe. Even passed the commander on the way out-he wished me well." Moffitt pulled out a stick of TNT to shave into small pieces for a fire, snorting, "Idiots."

"Good. If we start out first light, we should pass through the Outpost Tully's at around noon, and should get back to base by 1600."

"That is, if nothing holds us up." Moffitt nodded up towards where Hitch was laying on top of the large dune, "We've been rather lucky so far, but we are still miles behind enemy lines, and we don't have Tully or our second jeep. If we're attacked, and it's very likely we will be, Jerry would make quick work of us."

Troy looked at him and then up at Hitch, and only said, "We'll make it."

Moffitt gave a sigh, "You're right." He used a match to light the small pile he'd accumulated, and then smiled up at his friend. "A good friend once told me to not think about percentages."

Troy smiled and shook his head as he cleaned a machine gun, "Sounds like a real smart guy."

"Sometimes, he is." Moffitt smirked at Troy and they fell into a comfortable silence while he brewed some tea for himself.

After several minutes, the two had each eaten a small meal, Moffitt's complete with tea. Troy went up to relieve Hitch of lookout duty so the Private could eat some food, and Moffitt pulled out and studied a few of the maps that he had made off with by the limited firelight. Eventually, he and Hitch fell asleep, and when Moffitt awoke at around 3 in the morning to trade places with his fellow Sergeant, the moon was shining brightly above him. He made his way silently up the sandy slope and laid next to Troy, quietly speaking,

"Better go down and get some rest, Troy, I'll take it from here." Troy smiled at him and turned to slide down the dune,

"Thanks."

Then he'd left Moffitt alone with the sand and the night sky as company. Moffitt smiled at the ever-present beauty in nature-despite whatever idiotic things humankind was thinking up. The moon smiled gently back at him, and he settled in to watch the soft colored desert around him for any sign of unnatural movement.

It hadn't been more than 15 minutes when he noticed the very edge of a shape peeking around a large and rocky Hill no more than 20 meters in the direction that they would be heading in several hours when light came. Moffitt crawled along the edge of the dune to get a better view, finally standing to a crouch and stalking even closer in order to identify what seemed like a large rock. After he'd scrutinized it for a minute longer to be sure of what he saw, he slid down the large sand-dune and beat it back to the jeep and his comrades.

"Troy! Hitchcock!" Moffitt hissed at his friends as he approached them, and the two of them sat up to peer tensely at him through the darkness.

"What is it?" Troy harshly whispered the question as Moffitt watched the two of them stand.

"There's a German column camping right in our way-only just around the dune to the left of us. They'll be on the move exactly when we are, and we'll probably be heading right at each other. They're close enough that come daybreak, they'll have a great view of us from where they are, if they haven't spotted us already."

"We gotta move outta here then, Sarge!" Moffitt heard Hitch's loud whispers jump into the conversation, though Moffitt couldn't see him well enough to make out his mouth moving.

"Yeah, we do-but if we make a wrong move, we're finished. Pack up the stuff, we'll have to push the jeep out without turning it on." Troy and Hitch packed away their blankets as Moffitt gathered their few belongings and put them into the back of the jeep, burying their dead campfire in the sand to keep it from being found. They all worked together to get the jeep out of the shallow ditch it was in, and Troy spoke again,

"Hitch, you steer-we'll push you."

After they successfully got the jeep to higher ground, they carefully began to push the Private as he steered through the rocks and bumps and dips (that he could see) ahead of them. They slowly started making their way perpendicularly away from their original path, as quietly as they could. The night's silence around them was no longer peaceful, but tense, and the three of them focused solely on getting their jeep to safety.

It was their only mode of transportation. They couldn't afford to lose it-and they especially couldn't afford to get captured with all of the important information tucked neatly inside of Moffitt's shirt.

After several minutes of slowly inching away from the danger and after a few particularly nasty bumps, Hitch signaled for them to stop the jeep and looked back at Moffitt and Troy,

"The jeep's not gonna make it much farther, Sarge… we gotta stop or we won't have wheels come daylight."

Moffitt watched their leader as he silently pondered their predicament. He stood for a moment and glanced at Moffitt for any suggestions, and Moffitt offered,

"Troy, we haven't even made it a mile-we need to find somewhere to hide to wait until that column passes, or until we can make a break for it."

"Not really many hiding places." Troy gestured at the bare desert around them. There was a small silence until Hitch spoke up again, pointing farther ahead.

"Can you see that little dip right there past that little dune?" Hitch pushed himself out of the driver's seat and walked a few feet in front of the jeep, continuing to point ahead, "what if we took our tarp and blankets, and we covered the jeep with them, and then-well-what if we buried it?"

Troy gave Hitch a look, and then turned to Moffitt.

"By the time it's light, we'll already be in their view. We'll be less than half a mile away from them when they pass." Moffitt felt himself shrug at Troy, "I'd say it's our best shot."

Troy sighed, and then gave a nod. "Let's do it."

Hitch got back in the jeep and steered it as gently as he could into the small dip he had spied, the two Sergeants pushing behind him. As soon as they got it into position, Moffitt heard Hitch jump out and join them in pulling out the blankets and camouflage tarp. He studied his watch for a moment with the limited moonlight, and then whispered,

"It's nearly 4:30, we need to hurry to beat the daylight."

The three of them worked silently for several minutes, covering the jeep's edges as best they could with their blankets and then laying the tarp over the top. Troy had pulled out three shovels (and a few necessities like water and a few machine guns) before they started, and they each took one and began quietly and quickly tossing sand on the jeep. They piled it mostly on the side of the jeep that would be showing, and Moffitt took a moment to breathe as he heard Hitch comment from the darkness next to him,

"Tully's really missin' out-he'll be sad to hear that he got a cot an' a good night's sleep when he coulda been out here with us." Troy gave a grunt akin to a laugh and the three of them continued covering their jeep with sand as the moon slipped lower in the night sky.