"We're going down." The pilot yelled from the cockpit.
"We can't, we're still behind enemy lines!" The navigator shouted in reply from the back.
"Don't got any choice! Engine's been hit." The copilot called back.
"Sorry, doc, doesn't look like we're getting you to your destination. You'd better bail out. The rest of you too, parachuted on." The plane crew moved toward the tail, where the parachutes were stored, all except the pilot.
Passing the passenger, the navigator took his arm. "Come on doc."
"I shall remain where I will be needed. You had better follow your orders, corporal." Dr. Henry Morgan, captain in His British Majesty's Medical Corps, answered remaining where he stood.
"You'll do nothing of the sort. Where you're needed is alive." The pilot shouted, trying to control the fall.
"Where I am needed is with the injured and sick. That shall not be among those landing softly in that field." He could sense the man about to respond. "I do not wish to pull rank, lieutenant, but I will."
"Very well, get as far back in the tail as you can." A pause. "The rest of you, out now!" The crew jumped one by one and descended slowly under white parachutes to the edge of an open field; they wouldn't be far from friendly territory. they had a good chance. However the plane continued its now spiralling descent. In the last few moments before impact the pilot finally gave up the controls and hurried to get as far back as he could. Impact arrived with a jarring crash and the sudden confusion of basic direction as the craft shift from the top of the cockpit to the back. A great deal of debris turned to sharpnel within.
When the plane settled, voluntary movement and groans came from the occupant. Henry was the first to free himself from the rubble; having suffered only bruised ribs, a grazed arm, a probable concussion, and a number of contusions. He then began to assist the worse off pilot in extricating himself from the debris.
"She'll blow, lucky she didn't already." The lieutenant said weakly, in contrast to his earlier commands Henry helped getting him out of the wreckage and a safe distance away, supporting him. Once able to stop, he set to examining the man. The results proved a broken leg and arm and some nasty gashes in his side and leg.
"I'd wager you're glad I stayed now."
"I guess, doc, thanks. Still a dumb thing to do."
Looking around Henry saw the last of the men making for cover in the woods, in the other direction was a troop of German soldiers coming toward them, guns held at the ready. Unable to raise his busy hands, Henry shouted in their general direction in German. "We surrender. This man is wounded!"
"You speak German, doc?"
"Live long enough you pick a few things up." The doctor replied, trying to secure the wounds as best he could for the move to wherever they were likely headed. "Remember, lieutenant-"
"Name, rank and serial number. I was gonna remind you." The airman said amused, biting through the growing pain in his leg.
"This is not my first rodeo, as the Americans say." Henry added as he finished securing the splint on the other man's leg, bringing a hissing intake of breath from the patient.
They were led, one supporting the other, at gunpoint to a truck hidden in the far woods and loaded onto it. Bound for incarceration, after a long and jostling ride, they were taken to the gates of a stalag.