It took fifteen minutes to get Kinch up out of the tunnel and into Barracks 2. Wilson tried to force the Sergeant out into the compound where a triage area had been set up, but Kinch dragged his feet, using his considerable height to redirect the men helping him. He aimed for Colonel Hogan's quarters and Wilson and the man helping him didn't have a choice but to go with.
"You need medical attention, Sarge." Boquist said. The short private hadn't spent that much time in the medical corps before being assigned to a flight that landed him in the Stalag. He was mouthy for a private but Wilson liked his energy, and that he was quick learner.
"Can't go out there.." Kinch gasped, desperately holding onto what little remained in his lurching stomach as he aimed for the lower bunk. The second he lay down he shot back up again and Wilson dove in with the bucket, catching the miniscule bit of bile just in time.
"Water, Boquist." Wilson nodded and the private snatched Hogan's canteen from the bunk and brought it over. "Why can't you go out there?"
"…be questions." Kinch managed. "Can't explain…" He added, deciding that sitting up was better than lying down.
"Light, Boquist. We'll need hot water fast, and bandages." Wilson ordered next and Boquist responded immediately ducking out of the room. "I know what our standing orders are, Kinch, but a plane just crashed into the camp. Nobody's gonna have time to ask questions."
Sgt. Wilson was handed a pack of clean gauze seconds after the lamps were lit in the Colonel's quarters. Whether it was the nightly deprivation of electricity or the fault of the devastating crash, they didn't have any other source of illumination. Feeling like he'd signed up for the Civil War, Wilson held the flame as close to the staff sergeant's head as he could get it and worked at stopping the blood flow.
Kinch winced, drew in a sharp breath and fought the nausea. "LeBeau?"
"Don't know. The tunnel beyond where we found you is gone. The engineers are down there now workin' but there isn't even so much as a breeze gettin' through that cave in."
"Carter made it out, well before the…wait a minute." Kinch swept a hand over his head, knocking the medic's arms away from him and met Wilson's eyes with disbelief. "Did you say a plane crashed in camp?"
Wilson took a step back and straightened, discarding the bloody patch of gauze and grabbing another that he doused in iodine. "One of the bombers. Maybe they hit flack, maybe it had engine trouble. It exploded a few hundred feet over the camp and dropped some of its payload along with the debris."
Kinch stared at him in shock, his mouth hanging open, unable to respond in the face of the sheer randomness of the situation.
"Camp's goin' crazy out there, Kinch. Nobody's gonna question you comin' outta the barracks with a bloody skull."
"Not until LeBeau is out." Kinch said finally.
After a moment Wilson nodded, accepting the man's orders. He looked to the iodine soaked wad of bandages then said, "This is gonna hurt." seconds before he pressed the pad down on the still bleeding wound.
Carter had started singing too. He butchered the French, but he had picked up on the melody quickly and harmonized easily, swinging the joint brace in time with the beat. The corner of the crate facing away from the wall had been the easiest to notch. He'd had plenty of room to swing, and his hands had been whole then, if slicked with mud and sweat.
Now he had blood mixed in, and the irking pain from a cut across the palm of his hand, left there by the jagged sharp edges of the brace. Still he swung, singing the upper third to the simple chorus of the children's song until he had cut through the last few centimeters and he felt the crate start to sag.
One good blow in the center with his foot and the crate would crumble, some of the immovable force keeping Louie pinned would be gone and Carter could drag his friend free.
The American tossed the joint towards the exit end of the tunnel and supported the Frenchman's head and shoulders with one arm, pulling the bag out from under his head with the other and tossing it after the joint brace.
Louie had stopped singing, his face a tight ball of concentration and pain. It would only get worse from there on and they both knew it.
Carter bent at the knees, moving so that LeBeau's head and shoulders rested high on his chest, just under his chin. LeBeau stiffened, his teeth ground together and he tried to stifle the grunts that soon became shouts of pain. Andrew worked as fast as he could getting a solid grip on the man, trying to support as much of his torso and hips as possible.
He didn't give the Frenchman any warning. There was no point. It would either work, or it wouldn't. Giving a warning wouldn't make the pain any less.
Carter kicked at the box missing dead center the first time, and hitting it the second time with the wrong part of his foot. He grunted, ignored the pain shooting up his leg and kicked harder and faster, over and over again until he heard the wood splinter. It took one final kick to get the top to cave and then he pulled hard.
Louie screamed, clutching at his legs that popped free of their prison with the crate no longer blocking the way. Carter backed into the wall, desperately maintained his balance and changed his grip in one swift move, gathering LeBeau against his chest in a fireman's carry and taking off at a lope for the emergency tunnel exit.
Behind him he could hear the low rumble of a chain reaction cave in, but he ignored it. He had to get up the ladder. Up the ladder and out into the open and then back into camp somehow so that Wilson or somebody could make Louie better.
"Hang on." Carter said through a jaw clenched so tight he wasn't entirely sure he could open his mouth again. "Hang on." He pleaded, over and over. He managed to prop the Frenchman against one of the rungs of the ladder, then turned, pulled Louie's wrists around his neck and held them tightly. He lifted, turned and started up the ladder one handed.
He was a few feet off the ground before he felt Louie's arm muscles responding, tightening around his neck. The moment he was sure Louie wouldn't fall, Andrew let loose of the Frenchman's wrists and climbed the rest of the way up with both hands, scrambling out of the trunk and collapsing carefully onto his stomach in the cold grass, one arm flying back to wrap around LeBeau's waist.
For a few minutes Carter couldn't breathe. He heard the tunnel caving in on itself below, heard the floom of sound as dust under pressure burst out of the tunnel entrance. Then there was the distant sound of shouting, flames dying. A camp desperately trying to recover. He closed his eyes and listened until he heard Louie breathing, distressed to hear a rasping sound accompany every exhale.
His move must have punctured a lung, Carter thought. He knew he'd screw it up. Knew he'd do it wrong no matter how hard he tried. Louie was probably dying and all Carter could do was lie exhausted underneath his friend.
Then he realized that the rasping was in tune.
"Sur le pont…" He heard. "D'avignon."
Carter started to laugh weakly around gasps for breath, trying to stop because he knew that it had to be hurting his buddy, but at the same time very near the breaking point.
The singing stopped and Carter felt a hand patting his shoulder.
"You're…the best friend…a man…could have…" LeBeau managed between heavy breaths. "But your French…is still terrible."
Carter worked carefully to ease LeBeau to the ground, rising slowly and arranging the blanket around his wounded friend. The whole time he couldn't stop the grin on his face or the rotten French lyrics spilling out of his mouth.
From Hogan's quarters the cave in sounded and felt like an earthquake. Wilson and Kinch exchanged terrified glances before Kinchloe tried to get to his feet. Wilson tried to force him back down again but Kinch growled, "Help me get out there!"
The two men staggered into the barracks proper and watched as half the tunnel crew scrambled up the bunk ladder, followed by billows of dust. Over the crush of voices Kinch shouted, "Where's LeBeau?"
Each of the engineers shook their heads in dismay, fighting coughing spells and staggering to bunks or the benches around the table.
"What about the rest of the guys from Barrack 1?" Sgt. Wilson demanded next, guiding Kinch to his own bunk to finish the bandaging process he'd barely begun.
"Made it out the off ramp into our barracks." One of the men choked. "I hope."
With an agonized bark Kinch slammed his hand against one of the supports of his bunk, then tossed a pointed finger at the men and commanded, "Shut that entrance, now."
Seconds after the ladder and top mattress sluggishly slid into place, a concerned Sgt. Schultz burst through the door, frantically counting bodies.
The man carried a clip board with him and seemed caught between concern for the health of the prisoners, and fear that the incident in the yard might have encouraged a mass escape. The dirt covered men, the bloodied Kinchloe, and the looks of devastation on the faces of the rest of the POWs, halted the counting process halfway through.
He looked at the men around him, recognizing the faces of those that he had been missing from Barrack 1, but there were two junior officers still unaccounted for.
Hogan had been taken away by the Gestapo, a fevered Newkirk had wandered away from a work detail outside the wire not to be seen again, and now LeBeau and Carter were missing.
At least one of the guards was dead, several severely wounded, some of the prisoners had been injured when a propeller tore through their barrack and there was a gaping hole in the ground near the wire. Schultz's world was falling apart at the seams and he recognized the exhausted, vacant looks on the faces of the men in the barrack, even before he said the names of the two men that he feared might be dead.
"Carter?" He asked quietly, "LeBeau?"
Every man in the barrack looked around mutely before focusing on Kinchloe, and Schultz followed their gazes to study the wounded man. Kinch didn't look up. He stared hard at the floor and said nothing, until Schultz nodded solemnly, made two marks on his clipboard and left the barracks in silence.
A few minutes after Wilson finished with the bandage wound around his head Kinch pulled himself unsteadily to his feet and pointed at the trick bunk. "Open the tunnel."
"Kinch, there's noth-"
"I said, 'Open the tunnel'!" Kinch growled and one of the men from Barrack 1 stood and double tapped the catch.
The bunk mattress slid up, and the ladder down, the mechanism clanking hollowly. "Leave it open." Kinch said. "Everybody get back to your bunks and sack out. We start rebuildin' tomorrow."
The group was silent, the room still and uncomfortable as Sgt. Wilson helped Kinch back into the Colonel's quarters.
Outside the air raid sirens finally wound down and the first of three trucks bound for the hospital pulled out the front gates, swerving around one of many craters left outside the camp.