Darkness had settled in, bright stars illuminating the clear night sky. Newkirk looked down at his friend with deep concern.
The mission had gone awry. They had been meeting with an underground agent, exchanging secret documents. Unfortunately, the place had got swarmed in with Gestapo agents. Some traitor must have been feeding them information. Things had turned out badly as Carter and the underground agent had got injured. Newkirk had no other choice but get them back to safety. Returning to Stalag XIII was not an option since the Gestapo was waiting for them with open arms. Fortunately, they had found shelter in an abandoned farmhouse. The house had a secret chamber with no windows and they had been hiding for three days now, unable to leave this place. The underground agent "Little Sunshine" hadn't been so lucky at all and had died due to his injury. He had been critically shot and died from blood loss. He hadn't had a chance.
Carter was hanging on by a thread. He'd been shot in the side but Newkirk got the bullet out and cleaned the wound as best as he could. But one question from Carter had made the Englishman's blood run cold.
"Does this look infected to you?" Carter had asked his voice no louder than a whisper, full of pain. And it did, much to Newkirk's horror.
HhHhHh
Newkirk lit another candle and put it in its socket. The candle was their only source of heat and he rubbed his hands together to get warm again. Sure, there had been a chimney in the room, but Newkirk couldn't risk being detected. He looked on the wall decorated with pictures. Newkirk reckoned these were pictures of the people who used to live here. He watched their smiling faces. They must have been quite lucky living in this once beautiful house now destroyed by the Nazis. Newkirk turned to Carter.
He had settled his friend down on an old couch and covered him with a thick blanket, which he had fetched from the bedroom. Newkirk watched as Carter weakly gripped the blanket in his sleep, his body wracked with cold chills, at the same time shuddering with fever. The Englishman felt his heart ache for his friend when he tugged the blanket away to have another look at the wound, covered in once white bandages, now brown with dried blood. Fortunately, Newkirk had found a clean stock in the bathroom.
The Corporal had filled a bowl with water and tended the wound as quickly as possible, wincing whenever Andrew whimpered in pain. He gently wrapped the wound up in clean bandages and tucked Carter back in. Newkirk walked around restlessly. He needed to punch something right now, he needed to get rid of this anger deep inside him. So he slammed his fist hard against the wall. His best friend was suffering and there wasn't a bloody thing he could do about it. If he would find that guy who shot Carter and the underground agent, he would beat the hell out of him. Newkirk looked at his scraped skin, trickles of blood now visible. He sighed. The pain felt good. It cleared his mind.
"Pe...ter.." Carter said weakly, catching Newkirk's attention. Concern replaced his anger and he quickly knelt down beside his friend.
"Shhh...it's okay. I'm here. Just hang on a little longer," the Englishman replied, brushing away Carter's hair from his feverish brow. He dipped a cloth into the water and placed it across Carter's forehead, hoping to ease his pain.
"Why don't you try to get some more rest, Andrew?"
"Okay," Carter whispered, closing his eyes. Seconds later he was fast asleep.
Newkirk took Carter's hand in his own. Three days was a long time. Newkirk was sure the others were searching for them since they found out that they wouldn't make it back after they failed to appear for roll call. He just prayed that they would find them before it was too late.