Three rivers meet in Passau; The Danube, The Ilz, and The Inn. Whenever cold air invades the city, the streets are blanketed in fog. That is, until the rivers freeze. Then the air is cold and clear, providing next to nothing in the way of cover for an escaping prisoner of war.
Hogan kept out of sight as best he could anyway, jogging over the road and through a corridor that ran between two residential buildings, then up another alley filled with snow. He fell frequently, and was soaked to the bone by the time he hit the Domplatz. The cobbled, snow filled square stood in front of Dom St. Stephan, a giant ancient cathedral.
Hogan's lungs burned. He'd probably breathed in a pound of falling snow while he was running. His legs and hands were numb, his pants starting to get heavy as the flying snow caked on them. The sounds of the guards had died down a little but that wouldn't last for long.
Painfully Hogan pushed forward toward the cathedral, wondering if the concept of sanctuary applied in the case of a POW on enemy ground, in an enemy chapel. Worse still, he was protestant. He reached the set of heavy oaken doors right when the first shout echoed through the courtyard.
Giving the church a reluctant look, Hogan turned and ran the length of the granite steps, launching himself into the air and tumbling into the welcoming arms of snow covered bushes once more. He was on his feet and running for the Danube a minute later.
The two guards that had remained at the inn roused the sleeping prisoners and tried to force them all to their feet. Groggy and displeased, the prisoners groused loudly with little fear of the guns being pointed at them. The small Russian, the Englander and the American managed to pull themselves upright, but they made no effort to get the Frenchman off the bed.
When the taller of the two guards took a step forward to shake the prisoner, the Englishman got in his way. When the guard shoved him to the side, the Brit shoved back.
"Keep your hands off him, mate and you'll live longer." He warned.
Bernhardt, the shorter of the two guards, saw what was coming and quickly shouted, "Kurt, nein!"
Kurt had a temper, and he liked being given the opportunity to mete out punishment. But the prisoners were to be kept alive and as well as possible until they reached Berlin. Kurt was the most likely to have forgotten that order. Bernhardt was quick to remind him.
Kurt, still poised and ready to knock the Englander over the head with his rifle butt, considered his partner's words. He wanted dominance, however, and to wipe the look of defiance off the English swine's face. He lowered his rifle, and treated the man to an open-palmed slap across the face.
Newkirk exploded, grabbing the gun and wrestling with it, and a second later Carter and Caine jumped the other guard, working together to subdue him.
Before they even realized what they were doing Carter, Caine and Newkirk stood panting over two unconscious guards with stunned looks on their faces. From the bed LeBeau stared at his fellow POWs and asked, "What are we supposed to do now?"
Caine looked at Carter, then they both looked at Newkirk who had limped closer to the wall so that he could lean against it while he panted. It took him a moment to realize that the others were looking to him for the answer.
As if it were perfectly obvious what they should do, Newkirk said, "Strip off those uniforms and tie them up in the closet."
"The uniforms!?" Carter asked.
"Tie up the guards, Carter." Newkirk said, perturbed then hopped to the door to check that the hallway was still clear. "See if either of those jokers had the keys to the car, while you're at it."
"What about the Colonel?" LeBeau asked, focusing on the only task he could do without too much pain, which was to unbury himself.
"He's scarpered. Maybe he came up with something." Newkirk said, but his tone was one of doubt and mistrust. Carter caught the underlying meaning and glanced to LeBeau before he and Caine finished stripping the first of the guards and tied him tightly, hand and foot.
"Carter and I'll jump into the uniforms and-"
"No keys." Carter announced, before roughly yanking the bigger guard out of his uniform coat.
"-and we'll steal a car from the carpark."
LeBeau had grit his teeth together hard and was working on moving his legs from the bed. They felt like cracked China, but he was able to move without passing out, which was an improvement. Standing, however, still didn't sound like a good idea. Eyeing the distance from the bed to the door LeBeau wondered if he could make it on his own.
"Caine, watch the door here." Newkirk ordered once the second SS man was tied and stored in the closet. Limping to the bed, the Englishman pulled off his jacket and started dressing in one of the SS uniforms. Carter was hurriedly dressing as well, after carefully folding the loaner overalls he'd been given in Gusen.
"And then we go looking for the Colonel, oui?"
"Right, sure, Louie." Newkirk said with little conviction, carefully pushing his wounded leg into the trousers.
"He left to create a diversion.." LeBeau said, his brow beginning to furrow.
Carter kept his mouth shut, but watched the exchange between Frenchman and Englishman. Once fully dressed he picked up one of the guns and took over for Caine at the door, stepping into the hall, and keeping the door cracked open.
Newkirk didn't respond, pulling on one boot then giving serious consideration to the other.
"It is our duty to help him if we can, Newkirk." LeBeau pushed again, insistent on a response.
Newkirk was ignoring him all together now, pushing his foot into the boot and gritting his teeth hard as he pulled. His face was growing bright red, and sweat covered his brow as he forced his injured leg into the tight sleeve. It hurt like wild fire and his hands were so wet with sweat that he couldn't keep a grip on the leather. Before he could get his foot in all the way LeBeau piped up again and Newkirk gave up with an angry shout.
His heart pounding, pain radiating up his leg, he gritted his teeth hard and glared at the Frenchman. "I wouldn't be in this ruddy mess, and neither would any of you if it hadn't been for the bleedin' precious Colonel. He's risked our lives hundreds of times. It's a bloody miracle we aren't swiss cheese, all of us. Hogan is a broken mirror and a black cat combined, and you want to bloody go after him."
"Oui!"
"Why?!"
"Because he would, and has, done the same for us, and you know it! He has given up more for the sake of our countries than any of us have done for the sake of his, and he is the one out there in the snow distracting the guards, Newkirk, not you. He threw himself out of a truck to get us a warm place to sleep, and just because you got shot a little all you can do is gripe."
"A little?"
"We must go after the Colonel, and then we have to do everything we can to help the men back at that prison camp."
"You're barmy.."
"And then we have to get back to Stalag 13!"
"Wha-"
"Because Kinchloe and all the other guys are still there, and until all of us are free, I will not be giving up!"
"Me neither." Carter said from the door.
Newkirk glanced over his shoulder at the three inches of German uniform that he could see through the crack, then looked back to the fierce brown eyes of the little Frenchman. He muttered something under his breath, then gulped and looked back to the boot still half on his foot.
"What do you say, Newkirk?" LeBeau asked.
Newkirk sighed and said, "I say we can't go anywhere until I get this stinking boot on."
It took a minute for his acceptance to register but LeBeau soon favored him with a bright smile, and Caine came over to help Newkirk finish the painful dressing process.
By the time the Englander had recovered enough to get to his feet they could hear the distant echo of shots somewhere in the town. Fearing they were too late, Newkirk leaned on Carter and they hurried out of the hotel room and into the cold.
Once the soldiers realized that the frozen Danube might actually be a means of escape they started shooting at the desperate colonel who had taken to the ice. Spouts of water bursting through the frozen surface of the river started to explode to his left and right, but Hogan kept going.
He'd already considered his options. He would either hit a soft spot, fall through and freeze to death, or one of the guards would get lucky and he'd be shot to death. Or some twisted combination of both.
Why hadn't he kept his mouth shut? Why hadn't he just let Hochstetter duke it out with his kid, and stayed in the nice, safe, warm POW camp?
A bullet hit the ice just behind his heel and he felt once solid frozen water turn to slush. He made a hasty leap forward and sprawled on his stomach on solid, unperforated floe, then scrambled forward on all fours. Another twenty feet maybe and he'd be on the opposite bank. It was steep, but he could make it.
There were half-a-dozen more shots before some officer ordered them to cease firing. Hogan spared a single glance over his shoulder than doubled his efforts, once more getting to his feet and attempting to run across the ice. He heard the skitter of a solid, light weight object crossing the solid surface but ignored it for half-a-second, focused on the bank.
Then his mind decided what the object had to be and Hogan turned in time to spot the grenade, then dive for as much distance as he could manage.
The explosion went up and out, scattering snow, debris, water and chunks of ice in a broad radius. The ever moving river immediately began to overtake the breach in the ice and despite the odd sting under his armpit, Hogan blinked blinded eyes and scrambled up the hill.
It took the guards on the other side of the river just as long to recover from the bright explosion, and when they had, their quarry was no longer in sight. The snow fall had increased, if possible, and through the flying flakes they could no longer see the darker side of the Danube.
The man who had given the order to cease fire turned on the soldiers and ordered them to go back to the inn and collect the prisoners and the vehicles. Half of them would take the remaining prisoners straight to Berlin, and the other half would continue to search for the colonel on foot.
With the increased snowfall neither order was a popular one, but compared to the gruesome deaths that would await all of them if they failed, a little snow was nothing.
The men separated and the night once more fell quiet.
They took the lead car. It was the only vehicle with four working tires, and hotwiring it wasn't that big of a problem. The insignia matched their uniforms. In the end, any inconvenience for the goons that were supposed to be escorting them to Berlin, was a plus.
They left the inn and headed south, slow and easy through the snow, discussing where the colonel would have gone.
Seated in the front passenger seat Newkirk searched the glove compartment and found a map of Germany that he consulted under the weak beam of a flashlight. "This town has got to be Passau, and that's right where three rivers meet."
"Do you think he might'a found a boat?"
Newkirk glanced over to the thin American hunched over the wheel, doing everything he could to keep the car on the road and moving.
"No Carter, the river's are frozen." Newkirk shook his head, then squinted through the smear of melted snow on the windshield, trying to ignore the uncomfortable trickle of warmth headed toward his ankle.
"This storm is getting worse, Newkirk. Do you think they will come after us?" LeBeau asked from where he lay in the back, his legs propped up on blankets on Caine's lap.
"Storm or no storm, Hochstetter threatened to hang them all if they didn't get us to Berlin."
"Yeah well he can't very well hang 'em if he can't-"
The boom was unmistakable. If Carter had been going any faster, or if they had taken any other road, Caine would have missed seeing the explosion. While the others desperately tried to pinpoint the source of the sound by staring at the sky Caine knew precisely where it had come from.
"There..the river. I saw it. About a half mile from the bridge."
"Which river?" Newkirk asked, still staring at the map.
"The Danube. It looked like a hand grenade."
"Sounded like one, too." Carter agreed then carefully took the next right turn, then another right, forcing the car north.
Two blocks later he was white-knuckle driving the car into an embankment and killing the engine and the lights in one go.
"Carter, what the-"
Carter pointed at the string of uniformed men slogging through the snow two blocks ahead of them, very aware of the bright red Nazi flags flying from the fenders of the car.
All four men sat silently, as if conversation might draw the attention of the goons who were headed for the very same bridge they would need to cross if they were going to get out of town.
After the last man had disappeared into the gloom north of the Danube Newkirk reached a hand over and squeezed Carter's shoulder. "Good eye, Mate."
"H-how much you wanna bet that if they're going that way, Colonel Hogan is that way." Carter offered, worry coloring his face under the hard curve of the Nazi helmet.
Newkirk felt something solid settling in his stomach. Something a little like fate. "I'll bet me life." He said, his voice very quiet, before he tapped Carter's shoulder. "That's our route."
Carter started the car again, expertly maneuvered the wheels back onto the road and aimed the car toward the bridge, following the footprints the soldiers had left in the snow.