Greetings again. Another chapter... getting close to the end. Enjoy. Thank you to those who reviewed.

Chapter 16

It was in the wee hours of the morning when Kinch woke to sleepy complaints in French. He rolled over and out of the bunk to stagger over to LeBeau. "Wake up, you're dreaming." His eyes slid shut even as he leaned on the bed post. LeBeau mumbled loudly again as he scrunched up under the blankets. Kinch reached to shake him awake before his noise woke the whole barracks. "LeBeau, hush, you're just dreaming..." Kinch's eyes flew open as the bunk shuddered under his shoulder. He put a hand to the bunk's corner post and felt the vibrations as someone banged on it again. "Louis, get up!" Kinch dragged the half-asleep Frenchman out of the bunk and shoved him towards Hogan's office. "Wake the Colonel, someone is in the tunnel!"

LeBeau rushed to fetch the officer while Kinch shook Newkirk awake. "Someone's in the tunnel, come on." Kinch opened up the concealed entrance and stood slightly aside ready to grab whoever emerged.

"It is me, Erich!" The member of the Underground was known by sight to Hogan's men and they relaxed as he climbed up into the barracks. "There's a problem! I'm sorry to have to use your emergency tunnel!"

Hogan emerged from his office, looking alarmed when he recognized Erich. "What's happened?"

"The drop went poorly, Colonel Hogan! The plane dropped the packages late and the wind caught one of them. It blew it miles off course and I've been racing through the woods trying to catch up to it..." Erich was panting and LeBeau pulled one of the benches out for him to sit.

"Okay, so the package had to land somewhere... what can we do to help you locate it?" Hogan was already checking the time. They had four hours until roll call and he was calculating how much ground his entire team could cover if they all went out and split up.

"I know WHERE it is!" Erich gulped down water from a cup LeBeau handed him. "It's in the compound!"

"What?!" exploded Hogan. "In our compound?" He paced away and back quickly. "The guards will find it."

"That's why I used your emergency tunnel. I had to alert you. We have to retrieve that package, it has the new codebooks and if the Germans get their hands on one, it will be a disaster." Erich looked to the Colonel. "Can't you send one of your men out to get it?"

"POWs are confined to barracks at night, one prisoner walks out there and he could be shot. At the very least, it will attract every guard in the compound and then they'll be sure to find the package." Hogan moved to the door and cracked it open slightly. "Where did it land?"

Erich pointed to the center of the compound. "There... the searchlights pass right beside it."

After a few seconds, Hogan could just barely see a small indistinct lump in the dirt and snow. "Great... that's just great."

Newkirk ducked underneath one of Hogan's arms to peek out of the crack himself. Backing up again, he tilted his head. "I can go out. The guards won't shoot me, guv'ner."

Erich gave him a suspicious look. "Why would the guards hesitate to shoot you?"

"I've been sleepwalking, it's a long story." Newkirk turned back to Hogan. "They'd let me walk out without too much fuss, right?"

Hogan took a breath and thought. "They won't shoot you, but they'd immediately come over to intercept you. Just because you won't be shot doesn't mean they let you roam around on your own." He paced away and back twice. "Okay, Newkirk is going out. But don't go for the package. Instead, I want you to circle to the side, try to attract all the guards that you can. Once all the attention is on you, LeBeau can go grab the package." He nodded at LeBeau. "You're fast and you're the hardest to see out there and if someone does spot you, you were just looking for your poor sleepwalking pal, Newkirk."

Newkirk grinned slightly and reached up to muss his own hair up. Stepping to the door, he suddenly paused and looked back at them. "Wait... what do I look like when I sleepwalk now?"

"Shuffle... just look asleep. You can mumble a lot too." Kinch mimed the slack face. "You were wandering in circles sometimes too."

"Oh that's just grand..." Shaking his head, Newkirk checked through the cracked door. "Well, I'm off to be a bloody target, wish me well!" He slipped out through the door without waiting for any answers.

Newkirk slipped out and waited for the searchlights to pass before he moved. Making his way down the barracks, he easily avoided a passing guard and continued until he reached the next barracks. Then he took a deep breath and let his eyes almost close. He had to force his body to stay relaxed as he broke every rule of sneaking about the compound at night. He shuffled slowly into the open. All of his instincts said 'hide' but he wandered into the open area into full sight of two sets of guards. As expected, they shouted and the searchlights flooded him with bright light. It took all of his concentration to remain slack as he moved slowly away from Barracks 2. His arms twitched with a burning need to raise up in response to being 'found' by the guards.

His breathing seemed to quicken as his mouth went dry and he only began to relax when it was evident that the guards were merely following him. He'd been unaware of how the guards behaved when they'd found him the previous nights. Even being told by Colonel Hogan that he would be safe from the guards didn't alleviate all of the anxiety over the danger. Now, walking openly about the compound at night seemed terrifying. He reminded himself it wasn't the first time he'd pulled this exact stunt. This time the kindly Schultz was no where in sight however. If Guard Mueller found him, the gig was up immediately.

Newkirk began to lead the nearby guards away slowly. Heading out across the compound, he suddenly remembered Kinch's instructions and veered to one side. He made a slow curve, bringing his path back to the right direction. There were two sets of guards following his progress at a distance now.

"Nein... nein... come Englander." Langenscheidt's voice was a relief behind him. "Back to your barracks... come now..."

Ignoring the guard, Newkirk continued on his slow way. His neck hairs prickled as he heard the crunching footsteps of more than one German behind him. Without opening his eyes more than a mere crack, he tried to assess where he was. Whoever had joined Langenscheidt was now muttering to the guard as they tried to decide how to deal with the sleeping prisoner.

"You go around and block his path." Langenscheidt appeared in Newkirk's peripheral vision. "Come Corporal Newkirk, back to your bunk, bitte. It is cold out, ja?"

Suddenly Newkirk was cold. Somehow he'd been overlooking the fact that he was wandering about in nothing but his nightshirt and now-wet socks. Langenscheidt's coaxing distracted Newkirk so that he almost walked into the second guard.

Newkirk gave out a soft gasp and covered by mumbling softly to himself. He paused, blocked by the guard's rifle held out as a barrier. Shifting to edge around, he chose to head towards the fence. Avoiding both guards through aimless wandering was harder than he would have thought. Eventually he simply closed his eyes and shuffled along blindly, trusting the Germans to move aside.

He was beginning to shiver uncontrollably now and the fake shuffling became quite real as he stumbled a few times. Suddenly his arm was grabbed and he couldn't help leaping wildly to the side. Mueller's voice ordered him to halt, even as Langenscheidt tried to protest. Newkirk wrenched his arm out of the surly guard's hand, almost immediately tripped over the low warning wire next to the outer fence, realized on his way to the ground that the barbed wire fence was right there and then promptly landed face-first into the barbed wire itself. Evidently, he'd discovered one of the few weak points in the fence, as the wire came loose to collapse on him.

Two seconds later, he screamed. Five seconds after that, he realized his thrashing was not only not helping his situation, but had rather hopelessly tangled his limbs into the fence. At the ten second mark, he remembered exactly how sharp all those barbs were as about one hundred of them stuck him at once.

"Oowwww!" Newkirk jerked his entire body and actually saw a piece of the wire pop loose, turn into a neat loop and land over his head. At that point he stopped fighting and started howling in pain. It didn't particularly help his situation to scream but at the moment, it was the only thing he could do. "Get me out of here!"

Mueller looked disgusted. "Donnerwetter! Be still, Englander!" He began trying to untangle the wire.

Langenscheidt was trying to lift the worst of the fence off of Newkirk. "Corporal Newkirk! You pulled half of the fence down!" The alarms were blaring loudly and Langenscheidt waved frantically at the tower guards. "Nein! Do not let the dogs out! This is all your fault, Corporal Mueller! You shouldn't have woken him!" Loud barking sounded from another part of the compound as the routine reaction to the alarms and shouts began to unfold. A dozen big German shepherds came racing around the buildings and spotted the guards and Newkirk and bounded towards them at full bay. "Donnerwetter! Nein! Halt! Heel!" Poor Langenscheidt was visibly torn between trying to free Newkirk from the wire and running for safety himself.

Mueller and the other guard had none of Langenscheidt's indecision and raced away. Another dozen guards from the guard barracks came swarming out to head for the melee at the downed fence wire only to be broken up by half the dogs who turned on them.

Despite the tight wire binding him and his own pain from a thousand little cuts and Langenscheidt stepping on his leg trying to climb the fence to get away from Heidi, one of the more vigorously barking dogs... Newkirk began to laugh. He hoped that Hogan and the Underground appreciated that when you asked Newkirk to provide a distraction, you could count on it being a good one!

End chapter

I got nothing.