If you like it, please let me know, I always like to hear what you like about it. About to wrap this story up, so enjoy!
Pale light filtered through the small gap in the wooden slats of the roof above his bunk; it was long past lights out, but Newkirk found himself unable to sleep. His body felt weighed down and exhausted after spending the better part of two days awake and running around, yet when he laid down he had trouble even closing his eyes, his mind too wound up to relax.
His bunk was unnaturally still; normally he would be thankful that for once Carter wasn't moving around, shaking the frame and keeping him up. But after having learned to deal with it every night for over a year, he had gotten used to it, and now that it was gone he found he couldn't sleep without it.
Rolling over, he looked down to see the bunk below neatly made and untouched. The book and letter were still sitting on the blanket from the day before, both only half finished and waiting for an owner who would never return.
None of them had the heart to move them yet.
A brisk gust blew through the cracks, prompting Newkirk to pull his blanket around him tighter and retreat back to the middle of his bunk. Normally that would be when he would wake Carter up to complain about it or, if he was feeling particularly devious, get him to switch bunks for the night ("but you're used to the cold and wind, mate! You're always talking about those Midwest winters, consider it a challenge.") They would fight for a minute, much to Lebeau's annoyance, but Carter would always switch with him in the end, even if Newkirk did sometimes wake up the next morning to find his blanket had been stolen.
Blinking several times, Newkirk swiped a quick hand over his eyes. God, he wished Carter was still alive.
Day one faded into day two, but it wasn't much better. At least today Hogan was working with a few more hours of sleep, although he wasn't sure if he could call them restful. They had been restricted to the barracks an hour early each night as part of a camp wide punishment for the escape attempt (and "success"), which had upset several who wanted to take advantage of the last bit of warm weather while it lasted, but he had shut down their objections to keep the peace and the still on edge guards happy.
A few of the men were were playing a round of poker in the barracks, but most of them weren't fully involved in the game. Carter's bunk, which was often used as a fill in for a seat when the benches were full, was now avoided almost like it was diseased. There was none of the usual banter or Red Cross package bets and Newkirk, usually the head of the table as the dealer, was keeping to himself in his bunk.
"Have some soup, Colonel, it's still fresh." Lebeau came up to where Hogan was standing by the stove, handing him a small steaming bowl. "I don't think I've seen you eat all day, you must be hungry."
Only you would keep track of everyone's eating habits. What would I do without you? "Thanks, Lebeau," Hogan said as he took the bowl with a small smile. His stomach twisted at the thought of eating, but Lebeau did have a point. And the soup smelled delicious.
Lebeau dropped his voice, looking around to make sure no one was around to overhear. "I tried to get Newkirk to eat something, but he refused and snapped at me. I'm worried about him," he said.
From their vantage point, he could see the Brit attempting to write a letter, but the paper looked to be mostly words scribbled out. Hogan had attempted to talk to him earlier, but Newkirk had been short with him the entire time. The conversation had been painful.
"He's taking it rough, he's still pretty upset," Hogan said with a sigh. They of course were all were taking it rough, but Carter's death hit Newkirk especially hard. "I know he hasn't been sleeping well either. I'll give him some time, and I'll talk to him tomorrow morning. In-"
Upon hearing the sound of tunnel entrance opening up, Hogan looked over to see Kinch climbing up the ladder. "Message just came in from the Underground, sir," Kinch said.
"A message?" Hogan asked, furrowing his brow as he took the small piece of folded paper that was handed to him. "It's about an assignment." He looked back up at Kinch. "I thought you told the Underground and London that we weren't taking any assignments for a while?"
"I did, but they said it was urgent, priority one." Kinch shrugged helplessly when Hogan sighed. "The Underground in Hammelburg pulled out of operations for a while too after that bombing raid, so they're asking us to do it."
Seems shutting down means something different to everyone.
"Just what we need, another bleeding mission," Newkirk complained, dropping the paper he was writing on as he threw his hands up in exasperation.
"Can't we get a break for a few days? Tell the Underground to get someone else to do it," Lebeau said, crossing his arms in a firm stance.
"I tried to tell them that, but they insisted we take care of it," Kinch said.
Hogan looked back down at the paper and started to skim it over. "It's from Little Bo Peep. Says he wants to meet us at 2200 hours tonight at the usual rendezvous point by Hammelburg Road and bring him in through the tunnel." At least it was a fairly straightforward assignment in a familiar and relatively safe area. "He says he has critical information for us, but it doesn't say..." Flipping the paper back and forth, he tried to find more about it but was frustrated when he couldn't find any. "Did you get anything about what the meeting's for, Kinch?"
He shook his head. "I tried to ask, but he didn't want to say in case the information got compromised," he said.
Of course. With a weary sigh, Hogan crumpled the paper with his fist and tossed it into the stove. "Tell them message acknowledged and accepted. Lebeau, you'll go out through the tunnel after roll call. Newkirk, you'll go with him as backup. In the meantime I'll come up with a plan in case we need to dodge Klink's patrols outside the wire."
The Gestapo worked in shifts; Carter, however, had to be there twenty-four seven. The interrogations were nonstop. Felix replaced Hans who replaced Fritz (and was there another one in there he was forgetting?), but they all eventually blurred together in a haze of pain and exhaustion. How long had he been there now? It felt like an eternity since the air raid that got him into this mess.
His arm was burning up through his shoulder, a developing infection running deep. The wire binding his wrists strained and twisted at the wound, and had already started to dig into his skin with a sharp and biting pain in his struggles. Funny, he thought, how part of his arm could be numb and hurt at the same time. His bones were stiff as he tried to shift to a less stressful position; he suppressed a hiss when sharp jolts shot up his body.
Breathing was near impossible, his chest flaring in agony from his cracked ribs whenever he did so much as inhale too deep, and his broken nose was still clotted with blood. It didn't seem like his captors were too worried about keeping him fed either. His stomach was knotted in hunger, and after going so long without eating, even Lebeau's Bee-a-bass fish soup sounded good.
Carter shivered as a chill passed through the thin fabric of his clothes. Even in early fall, the stone walls leeched any heat that might have been in the air. It felt like he would never be able to get warm, the cold seeping down to his aching bones. Right now he'd do anything to be on his own lumpy mattress with his threadbare blanket back at camp.
I just want to go home.
And he was so tired, they kept him awake for what must have been several days now, and he wanted to rest, only for a few minutes. The lack of sleep was eating away at his resolve, it felt like he was slowly going insane. Pulling an all nighter for a mission or to dig a tunnel was one thing, doing those he always had a sense of control and a stopping point to look forward to. He wasn't alone, starving, terrified out of his mind and in pain. Sleep, that's all he wanted... Closing his eyes, his head dipped forward as he started to nod off, unable to keep his eyes open.
He furrowed his brow in annoyance when he heard a sharp snapping sound next to him, wishing whatever it was would leave him alone so he could just rest...
Suddenly a bucket of ice water was dumped over his head, causing him to jolt awake and sputter. "Wachen Sie auf!" Felix (or was it someone else now?) was in his face, the permeating smell of schnapps on his breath from when he got to eat making his twisting and empty stomach churn even more. When Carter gave no response, still in a daze from the shock of cold water and a feeling akin to almost drowning, Felix grabbed him by the collar and gave him a hard shake, making him let out a cry of pain when it jostled at his injuries. "The names! I want the names of who you're working with!"
Be Kinch. Keep calm no matter what. Be Kinch- Oh God- and keep calm.
Felix grabbed onto his already throbbing arm and started to violently twist. Carter's cry of pain turned into a scream as he began to fight his restraints, which pulled at his broken ribs and fueled the agony even further when white searing fire coursed through his chest. Black dots danced in his peripheral vision, and warm liquid dripped down his hands as the wire bit in.
His body was shaking, both from the cold and overwhelming stress. A few tears trickled down his face, the warmth a stark contrast from the icy water that was still dripping from his bangs and felt almost hot against his skin. He was stretched thin and almost to his limits, but every time he came close to his breaking point, he forced himself to remember what was at stake. The Colonel, his friends, the whole camp and operation, possibly hundreds of lives...
"Give me the god damn names!"
But he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold on.
Hogan paced in the radio room, his arms crossed as he waited for his two men to return. Luckily his unease was only because their loss of Carter was still so fresh, and not the actual creeping unease that had been the last mission... But it didn't make him feel any better. Glancing at his watch for the forth time, he gritted his teeth out of thinly suppressed frustration. "They should've been back fifteen minutes ago. What's taking them so long?"
"Lebeau and Newkirk will be fine, sir. They're not even half a mile outside the wire. Klink still has a few extra guards patrolling outside, they probably had to take one of the alternate routes to dodge some," Kinch reassured him. "It's nothing we haven't had to do before, they know what they're doing."
Hogan opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by a clamoring sound near the emergency exit. Finally! About time. Newkirk and Lebeau were out of breath by the time they got to the radio room, with their contact Little Bo Peep trailing shortly behind them.
"Blimey, those guards are relentless!" Newkirk said as he took the canteen Kinch offered, taking a long drink before handing it to Lebeau. "Klink must've doubled them up almost around the whole fence!"
"Oui, took us five minutes to wait for a gap so we could make it to the tunnel without being spotted. You would think we were in an actual prison!" Lebeau added.
Hogan chose to ignore the pointed look Kinch shot his way. "Well the important thing is you made it back here safe," he said, handing his men towels to wipe off the black paint. He then moved to shake hands with Little Bo Peep, aka Gerhard Richter, one of their main Hammelburg Underground contacts. "Good to see you're doing well."
"It's good to see you as well, Hogan. I can't thank you enough for making time to see me," Richter replied, his handshake firm but quick.
"It's the least we can do," Hogan said. "Now, you said you have information for us?"
"I do. I hate to be so short notice, but I'm afraid our operation could very well be in trouble," Richter said, his tight smile quickly dropping into a somber expression. "I'm sure you already know, the other night there was a bombing mission on a nearby guerrilla resistance group that the Underground was in contact with."
"I've heard," Hogan said grimly, his lips in a thin line. Great, can't we just let sleeping dogs lie and forget about this already? He didn't want the additional reminders of that night. "I lost one of my men in that air raid, Sergeant Carter. He was meeting with them when the air raid hit."
Richter looked confused at first, before his expression shifted to astonishment. Hogan only frowned in confusion. "Caught in the air raid? I thought-" Richter shook his head. "Your man Carter, he's not dead, Hogan. You see, Gestapo picked up a member of the Underground near their camp the same night of the air raid. He was meeting with the resistance group when the camp was bombed, and as a matter of fact I helped arrange that meeting."
As Richter spoke, Hogan's eyes slowly widened in shock and incredulity as he processed just exactly what he was saying.
Carter wasn't dead.
Hogan couldn't believe it. Only Carter could somehow survive something like an air raid, especially after he had seen the damage that had been done himself; Hogan wasn't sure how he managed it, but Carter seemed to have a lucky streak unlike one he'd ever seen when it came to explosions and bombs, and it seemed by some miracle he had done it again.
"That's your man, Hogan."
"Mon Colonel..." Lebeau trailed off after Hogan's uncharacteristic silence, his eyes wide as he looked about ready to dart down the tunnel and get Carter out himself. The others were catching on as well, exchanging anxious looks as they perked up.
"If this isn't a lucky break then I don't know what is," Kinch said.
Suddenly Hogan was overcome with an overwhelming sense of guilt for instantly assuming Carter had been dead when they received the news. Looking back, he should have verified, went out there himself just to confirm, even if it meant putting himself at risk.
His head was swirling when Hogan stepped up to Richter, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Are you sure?" he finally asked, his voice taut.
"Our Underground intelligence already confirmed the entire resistance group is dead," Richter said. Hogan closed his eyes; in the rush of trying to cover for the operation, he hadn't spared much of a thought to the others who had been lost. And while he may not have known them, it was always difficult to be reminded of death for their cause. "He was spotted in town getting taken in that night, he's the only one who survived. It's him."
"And you're just now telling us this?" Lebeau burst out, stepping forward next to Hogan. "Carter's with the Gestapo, you know what they have done to people! They could be doing anything to him, anything!"
"Easy, Lebeau," Hogan said, placing a hand on the Frenchman's shoulder, but the smaller man didn't back up.
"My apologies it took so long, if we could have told you earlier we would have," Richter said, his face written with regret. "The Underground pulled all activity after he was taken in and Hammelburg has soldiers everywhere, I was only about to get out of town tonight."
"I understand, and I can't thank you enough for coming out all this way and letting us know. I know it couldn't have been easy," Hogan said, before his face turned somber as they had to deal with the now immediate situation. "Is Carter okay? Do you know where he is now?"
"I don't know his current condition, but I know he's alive. Right now he's being held in a warehouse the Gestapo took over in Hammelburg, they're questioning him for any possible leads for connections to the Underground."
"Questioning, sure they are. And the German army's out there picking daisies. We've got to get Carter out of there, Guv'nor!" Newkirk exclaimed. "We can't leave him in the hands of those bloody bastards!"
"Newkirk is right, you've seen what those boche can do," Lebeau said.
Hogan silenced his protesting men with a quick cutting motion. He wanted Carter out of there as well, but it did no one any good if they rushed into it without a laid out plan. That was how they had gotten into this mess in the first place. "Don't worry fellas, we'll get Carter out of there. Right now the Gestapo is going to have a change of plans in the form of an unexpected visitor. Us."