Trekking through the forest at night was never an experience to calm one's nerves. Every snapping twig was cracked under a German boot. Every breath of wind stirring the branches of the trees hid the sound of a Gestapo soldier. But trekking through the woods with the dead weight of an unconscious man in your arms was no less nerve wracking, or no less physically exhausting.

Hogan was just concentrating on putting on foot in front of the other after the first fifteen minutes of the journey. Every muscle was burning with the exertion in half an hour. After that he started to lose feeling in his arms and had to turn over his shoulder to ask, "Time for a break, Carter?" He was loathe to admit that he couldn't continue much further without resting his straining muscles.

"Yes, sir," Carter answered. His face was ashen; he was hardly picking his feet up off the ground, and Newkirk was almost carrying him. Hogan sighed and would have lifted his cap to run his fingers through his dark hair, but his arms were otherwise occupied.

Jerking his chin in the direction of the forest, Hogan tried to forge through what seemed to be the path of least resistance. Even though he knew that at this point they were trying to be caught by Klink's men, dawn hadn't yet broken and the guards wouldn't be searching yet. LeBeau probably wouldn't have even reached the camp to inform the others of what had happened. He could hear the branches breaking as Newkirk and Carter followed him into the relative security of the forest.

When he had found what passed for a clearing, or rather what was a space big enough for one man to lie and another to sit, he crouched down to deposit the man he had carried on the ground. Newkirk did the same with Carter, helping to prop him up against a tree. With his arms free, Hogan took the opportunity to make several large windmill circles to get the blood flowing in them again. Then he made the single step across the clearing to Carter.

Carter had let his head droop to his chest, not even bothering to put up an arm to support it. "Carter," Hogan started, more than a little worried about the state of his demolitions expert, "how's your head?"

"Feels like the time my friend and I drank too much of his aunt's chokecherry wine," he answered flatly.

Hogan and Newkirk exchanged worried looks. "Do you feel sick too, mate?" Newkirk asked quietly. Carter nodded, making an effort not to move his head much.

"Don't go to sleep," Hogan said firmly. "And that's an order."

"Yes, sir," Carter whispered.

"We can't let him go to sleep," Hogan whispered to Newkirk. "I'm sure he has a bad concussion and I don't know much about them except you're not supposed to let the person sleep."

Newkirk nodded. "Then we'd best keep moving. I don't know how long we can keep him awake if we're sitting here."

Hogan sighed, massaging his arms a little in preparation for taking up the body again. "Just let me take a look at him first," he said, looking over at the still form of the airman. It was worrying him that the man still hadn't woken.

Newkirk nodded, crouching down by Carter's side and shaking him a little to make sure he was still awake. Carter groaned and looked like he was going to be sick. Hogan turned away knowing that there was nothing he could do until they got back to the camp.

The airman was dressed in a flight suit over a blue dress uniform so Hogan could tell he was an officer, even without fishing around for dog tags. Not that the fact he was an officer mattered much. The uniform would probably be stained with blood and be almost unusable by the time that he was recovered enough to need one. That was, of course, assuming that he would recover.

But the man's breathing was strong and his pulse was regular. Beyond that, and the fact the man was bleeding fairly heavily from a cut to the back of his head, Hogan couldn't tell anything else. The best thing that could be done for the stranger, and for Carter, was to get them back to the camp and proper medical attention as quickly as they could. And that meant being as close as possible to the camp when dawn broke and the search began.