"That wasn't part of your plan…was it, Colonel?"
Hogan pulled himself briefly out of a haze of desperate plotting and looked to Carter. The sergeant sat at one end of the bench seat in the back of the ambulance truck, LeBeau's head cradled in his lap. The move from the hospital to the truck had done the Frenchman in, even with the painkilling aid of the marijuana Hogan had slipped him earlier. LeBeau had been unconscious for the past hour. It was just as well. The driver wasn't sparing them any of the bumps in the road.
Solemnly Hogan said, "No, Carter. It wasn't part of my plan."
"Blimey, what a relief. Here I was, afraid that Hogan had it out for me, and asked Hochstetter to shoot me on purpose."
Carter sent a weary, disappointed glance Newkirk's way. The Englander was focused on bracing himself against the jouncing of the truck. The wounded man had been laid out on a canvas stretcher on the thin wooden floor, but the jolting ride had prompted him to try to get up on the bench seat. The moment Hogan offered to help him, Newkirk had jerked his arm free of the CO's grasp and resolved to lay on the canvas, no matter the discomfort.
"What will he do with us? My father?" Caine asked, seated on the bench beside Hogan.
"The four of us, interrogation and execution." Hogan said, meeting Carter's startled glance. There were a hundred other things that could happen to them in Berlin, and most of them would be worse than a mere questioning followed by death. He didn't like to think about the possibilities.
After a moment of thought, Carter bravely said, "He won't get anything outta us, Colonel."
"I know that, Andrew." The American officer pulled his arms against his chest a little tighter. "As for what he wants out of Private Caine.." Hogan considered the young German seated next to him then shook his head. "He wanted you out of that camp, and now he's got you."
"I may see my mother and sister again…" Caine said, dreamily, sounding as if he enjoyed the idea.
"Charming, bloody charming." Newkirk groused, grunting in pain.
Hogan spared the man a glance but let him complain. He'd be just as furious if one of his men had gone too far and gotten him shot. For the moment he was grateful that Newkirk was still alive, and likely to recover.
"What about the other POWs, Colonel?" Caine asked.
Immediately Hogan thought of the men he'd left behind in Stalag 13, but he knew that Caine was referring to Gusen.
"They've got a great escape route set up. If they're smart about it they can empty the camp a few men at a time and be gone by next spring."
"And if the SS find the tunnels?"
Hogan thought about it for a few minutes, then said. "They're better off now than they were."
"Some of them anyway…"
"Alright, Newkirk, that's enough. You're welcome to hate me all you like, but do it in quiet, and that's an order. You're gonna need what little sleep you can get, you might as well try to get some now."
"In this ruddy cracker box?" Newkirk snapped, then fell silent and pale when they hit a deep bump.
The jolt gave Hogan an idea and he twisted suddenly on the bench seat, then rose to a crouch and made his way to the rear of the truck.
Hochstetter had ordered two cars to accompany the ambulance. One in front, and one in back. The guards were ordered to shoot any prisoner that tried to make a break for it, which narrowed the field of options dramatically. They'd been searched twice before they left Gusen, but if Hogan knew Newkirk, the man still had something on him.
Turning to the corporal he said, "You're mad at me, right, Newkirk?"
The look of hot fury that the Englander gave him was just what he wanted to see. "Right-o, Gov." Newkirk bit out.
"You got anything sharp on ya?" Hogan asked. Newkirk gave him a shocked look that was quickly replaced by anger and nodded.
"Stole a scalpel from that hack surgeon in the camp hospital, why?"
"Give it to me. You're gonna start a fight, and I'm gonna pop some tires. See if we can't get a decent night's rest before we get to Berlin."
Newkirk could hardly hand over the scalpel fast enough. The minute Hogan had it hidden safely away Newkirk launched a right uppercut that lifted Hogan up, and rang his bell. A second punch across the brow had the Englander shaking his fist and Hogan flying out of the back of the truck, right into the path of the oncoming car.
Hogan hit the dirt and rolled desperately for the side of the road, his head ringing from the punches. The road didn't hurt as much as the full force of Newkirk's anger, but it still did plenty of damage. The SS car veered out of the way, its horn honking loudly to get the ambulance truck to stop. Hogan struggled to regain his senses and finally managed to push to his feet. Stumbling to the back of the stopped SS car, he stabbed the two rear tires as quickly as he could before the dizziness took over and he was on his hands and knees again.
Carter was at the back of the truck screaming in German that the guards shouldn't shoot, that Hogan had fallen out of the truck on accident. The guards seemed more terrified that they might have lost the one prisoner Hochstetter insisted be kept alive.
They dragged Hogan to his feet, marching him toward the truck as the guards from the other two vehicles joined them, demanding to know what was going on. The pandemonium continued when Hogan let his knees go out, a few feet from the tailgate of the ambulance. The guards were dragged down, not expecting the sudden weight, and Hogan got at least one of the tires on the truck before the tailgate was lowered and he felt Carter and Newkirk dragging him back into the bay.
The guards snapped harsh warnings that another 'accident' wouldn't be tolerated, then eagerly jumped back into their vehicles as the first flakes of snow began to fall.
The men in the truck heard a single pop a mile later, then the other two compromised tires went and the vehicles once more ground to a halt.
Bloodied and bruised by the fall, Hogan managed a slight grin that he hid as the SS goons gathered to try to figure out their latest problem. Newkirk was calmer, and even flashed a smirk at Carter, nursing his bruised knuckles. They waited on the road about a half hour before the decision was made to try and get the truck to the nearest boarding house for the night where the tire, and bent rim, could be repaired.
The tail car would be left on the side of the road until it could be retrieved come morning. The snow continued to fall, the truck inching along until they saw the lights of the border up ahead.
In an hour the prisoners were back in Germany. Escorted to an inn along the main road they were given a double bed suite, and offered a medical kit (emptied of all sharp objects of course) and a dinner of soup, bread and tea from the hotel kitchen.
It took some doing to convince the guard that he needn't watch from inside the room, but they managed. They were warned that the guard would check on them whenever he felt the need, however, and reminded that any attempt at escape would result in death.
LeBeau was awake enough to drink some of the soup and chew on a few wedges of bread before he fell fast asleep. The men covered him with every extra blanket in the room and pushed the bed close to the heater, before they settled Newkirk on the other side of it.
The bandage-changing process involved a lot of griping on Newkirk's part, and lot of apologizing on Nurse Carter's part, but the bantering was a sign of normalcy between the two and Hogan listened to it quietly, eating his meal.
The exhaustion that Newkirk had been ignoring for hours hit him like a ton of bricks and he passed out, halfway through his bowl of soup. Carter and Hogan carefully put him to bed, burying him under the blankets.
While Carter went to eat his own meal, sitting in quiet conversation with Private Caine, Hogan pulled a chair up near the 'sick' bed and sat down with a soft groan.
He ached all over, and his face was swollen from Newkirk's punches. He'd been scraped up by his fall and sliced at least once because of his careless stabs at the tires. He felt old. Watching two of his wounded men sleep, he felt useless too.
From the start he'd made all the wrong calls. Going too far from Stalag 13 to take care of a sweet little target that turned out to be a convent. He and his men had barely scaled the stone walls before the place blew up, and in swept the Gestapo, managing to take him hostage. In the meantime Kinchloe and Carter had been stranded in the middle of Germany without a prayer, and if it hadn't been for LeBeau and Newkirk, they'd still be missing-in-action.
Hogan had been carted off to Austria and once he managed to get in contact with his men he'd ordered Carter and Newkirk out.
Now all four of his men had been injured, Stalag 13 was falling apart, he'd just abandoned another 200+ men in Gusen and the four of them were headed to Berlin…Nazi-hell home base.
He shook his head at himself. It was unbelievable the scope of trouble that he managed to drag himself and those around him into.
Klink had once told him that he was bad luck.
"You don't know how right you were, Kommandant." Hogan said softly, glancing over his shoulder to find that Caine and Carter were both sprawled across the remaining bed, unconscious. Hogan stood and pulled the blankets over them both then moved to the window to watch the snow fall.
The first snow of the winter. Like the first day of fall, this used to be a milestone that he marked with fondness every year.
One 'first snow' was also his first time with a woman. Well…girl. She'd been sixteen, and he'd been fourteen.
Then there was the 'first snow' when Uncle Rob took him out for his first drink. They'd ended up closing the pub and doing donuts in the parking lot, and if it weren't for Uncle Rob's connections with the local constabulary he'd have also had his first night in jail. He'd been seventeen, no, eighteen. That was right. The occasion had been his receipt of his private pilot's license.
His first 'first snow' overseas had been in London. The town had been alive and bright for once with the clearing chill in the air, and then a giant flaked flurry moved in that buried everything, making the city look like a post card. He'd been with Rita then…or was it Julie? They'd stood so long kissing outside her apartment that he had inches of snow peaked on his cap by the time she pulled him inside. He remembered the cold chill of melting snow going down his spine in the sudden heat of her apartment.
Then the 'first snow' at Stalag 13. A blizzard, temperature diving down to 10 below and he had his men in the tunnel digging to the rec hall where the German's were storing the coal reserve. They'd built a dozen walls of snow over the displaced dirt claiming that the snow helped to insulate the buildings. In a way it had. They'd barely survived that first blizzard with how little they had in the way of clothing and blankets.
At least one of the Luftwaffe guards had frozen to death at his post.
Hogan didn't sleep that night in the inn. Their guard got used to the fact that the colonel wasn't going to join his men in slumber, and by 0330 he'd stopped looking in on them. The snow was thick outside, and still falling, making the idea of escape laughable. Hogan was exhausted and figured the guards had to be as well. They should have been in Berlin hours ago, but the snow and the busted tires made that impossible.
They would have to figure out transport for the prisoners in the morning, which meant another long day ahead.
Tired guards…Hogan looked out the window again, then snuck to the door and cracked it open enough so that he could see the hall. Their guard was asleep, sitting on a stool against the wall opposite their door, his gun leaned against his shoulder.
The American glanced back into the room, looking over the four men asleep under piles of blankets, made his decision, then snuck out into the hall. Other than the single man stationed in front of their room the rest of the guards were nowhere in sight.
Hogan started down the hall, walking lightly on his toes and got to the end of the narrow carpeted walkway before he intentionally knocked his heel against the molding. The sound woke the guard and Hogan stole around the corner just as he looked up.
The guard jumped to his feet and started shouting and Hogan took off at a dead run down the adjoining hall and toward the stairs. His knees protested and his tired body resisted, but he forced his muscles into action and tore down the stairs into the lobby of the hotel.
The guards would know better, hopefully, than to start shooting where their bullets might accidentally hit German citizens. The hotel was smack in the middle of the city of Passau, surrounded by other hotels and boarding houses. The SS shooting up the town at three in the morning would go over badly for an already disliked secret police. Hogan really hoped the guards would think about that. He left the hotel through a side exit, plunged into the snow and went flying. Head over heels, flipping through the snow until he hit a line of bushes. He picked himself up, covered in wet white stuff, and bruised all the more.
The guards were behind him. Slow to step into their uniforms and grab their guns. Not too happy about being roused from warm beds to chase after a prisoner in the snow. But cold and wet was better than hanged to death for failing Major Hochstetter.
They were slow but they were coming and Hogan's only idea had been to keep the guards busy, keep them from sleeping, and maybe gain an edge before morning. The only problem with trying to disappear was the snow. Fresh, untouched, and a foot and a half deep, tracking him down wasn't going to be a problem.
His hands were already beet red and burning, unprotected against the snow. Hogan jerked his hat down hard on his head and headed for the road, jumping into a solid line of packed snow caused by a single vehicle braving the road at that hour.
He dug his heels in and ran, grateful for black out conditions, even on a blizzardy morning.