I hope you all had a good Halloween, and a good Dia de los Muertos, even if you don't necessarily celebrate that. I'm not completely happy with this, but I wanted to get it out to you more or less on time. Sorry.
Special operative Morris had been a professional actor in civilian life, and he had joined the Underground about midway through the war, after certain informants realized his resemblance to the major. He'd been shipped over for an operation where they had actually intended to capture or assassinate Hochstetter and have Morris take his place, but for complicated reasons the plan had fallen through and been discarded, and for even more complicated reasons they hadn't been able to send him home. Ever since Morris had been inhabiting an abandoned bunker in the woods, basically waiting to be a secret weapon, because his appearance would make it difficult for him to live anywhere else. At least, that's what he said; Hogan had his suspicions that there were other reasons, but didn't want to waste the breath that would be required asking about them.
Morris told them all of this as his hair was being dyed, a fake mustache applied to his upper lip, and a fake Gestapo uniform hurriedly fitted to him. Newkirk wasn't sure that he actually cared about the man's backstory, but apparently the man had a tendency to babble when he was nervous.
At least Hogan had realized that they couldn't sit around with a cuppa tea while Morris told his tale of woe; they needed to get ready to go, now.
Kinch raced through the tunnels, carrying the explosives and a lighter in his arms.
When he reached the end of the one Hogan had selected, he cautiously peered out through the trapdoor, on this side camouflaged under a large cluster of moss and a fallen log.
A few Krauts were out there, still searching, but even in the dark he could tell that they were tired of being in the woods this late at night on what was looking like a wild goose chase.
Time to give them something interesting to report.
Grimly, Kinch picked up a few rocks that were nearby on the ground, and hurled one off into the shadows.
One of the soldiers jumped nervously.
"Was is los?"
Kinch threw another rock, which made a satisfying crunching noise-even better, there was a frightened squawking and flapping indicating that he'd disturbed some kind of bird in the undergrowth.
Within seconds, all three soldiers were rushing off to investigate the noise.
Kinch scrambled into the clearing, and then hurriedly set up the rockets in a cluster. Then he lit the fuses, and jumped back into the tunnel.
3...2...1…
He hadn't gone three feet back towards the barracks before the explosion.
There went the signal. Newkirk counted to five, before he, Jager and Morris-who was now the spitting image of everyone's favorite Gestapo officer-were out the door of the barracks and rushing to where the staff cars were kept. A cluster of Undergrounders were on their heels, ready to start sabotaging the road behind them (though hopefully nothing that couldn't be fixed before they got back to Stalag 13). Newkirk produced one of their spare keys, handing it over to Jager as they pulled the doors open and began climbing inside-
"Halt! Was is los?"
Newkirk closed his eyes for a moment and muttered something unprintable.
Schultz. Of all the times for you to choose to be observant...
The big German came puffing over, rifle pointed at them. As he saw their uniforms, however, his jaw dropped a little, and he began to stutter.
"F-forgive me, I did not recognize that you were-" He frowned, not yet recognizing Newkirk through his disguise. "But how did you-"
It was then that Newkirk got his first glimpse of Morris's talent.
He leaned out of the car, and snapped, in a very realistic impersonation of Hochstetter, "I do not have to explain myself to you, sergeant! Go investigate that explosion with the rest of your pitiful crew, and tell no one that we have this car, is that understood?!"
"Jawohl, Herr Major!" Schultz gasped, standing down at once and taking a step back. "I saw nothing, NOTHING!"
As the staff car rushed out of the hastily-opened gates and down the road, Morris leaned back with a sigh of relief.
"Dear me, it's been a long time since I've had to take on a roll this nasty. Ooh, my hands are still trembling, look."
Inwardly, his fellow Englishman rolled his eyes.
The ride to Hammelburg passed in a blur. Newkirk barely even noticed when they passed another staff car on the road-undoubtedly the one containing the real Hochstetter, chomping at the bit to bring Hogan in as a spy.
They better be ready for them.
But he didn't have time to worry about that, because now they were pulling up outside the address, and Morris was stalking out of the car, and he and Jager were following him inside.
A corporal waiting at the front door hurriedly saluted, and heiled, barely taking the time to shoot Newkirk and Jager a curious look.
Morris curtly saluted back, and then demanded, "Any word from the prisoner?"
The young man-he might have even been as young as Carter, probably one of those Hitler Youth who'd risen quickly in the ranks-shook his head. "We have heard nothing from him since you left, Herr Major."
A small knot of dread tightened in Newkirk's gut; that could mean that Carter was no longer alive, that he'd...succumbed to his wounds.
Morris simply said, "Well, I have come to collect him. We shall see if they can do a better job of extracting information in Berlin."
The corporal blinked. "But Herr Major-I was under the impression that you had decided to bring a fresh prisoner here, and conduct a joint interrogation-"
Suddenly the smaller man was standing right under his chin, and bellowing, "ARE YOU QUESTIONING MY ORDERS?!"
The corporal jerked back with a little squeak, and finally stammered out, "N-no, Herr Major."
Morris glared at him, and whipped out a handkerchief to dab a glob of spit away from his own chin.
"See that you don't," he sneered. And then he marched inside and towards the nearest hallway, apparently making an educated guess as to where Carter was actually being kept.
"Herr Major!"
Newkirk froze just as he and Jager started to follow; his fear grew stronger. They'd done something to make him suspicious, they were going to be caught any moment, something-
The corporal was holding out a ring of handcuff keys, looking quite nervous.
Morris snatched them, glaring contemptuously as if to suggest how annoyed he was that he hadn't offered them right away. Then he resumed his stomping.
It wasn't hard to figure out where Carter was; Newkirk doubted there'd be many other rooms with a big gorilla standing outside the door.
He stepped aside as soon as Morris approached, and started to block the other two men, until the man currently known as Hochstetter snapped, "They are here to help me remove the prisoner, dummkopf!"
The sergeant gave no indication of feeling offended by the insult, or even being curious about how orders had changed; he just nodded and allowed them to descend the stairs, waiting at the top.
The first thing Newkirk noticed was the permeating smell of blood, making him glad Lebeau wasn't here.
Then he was able to see the interior of the cellar, and now he was really glad Lebeau wasn't here, because he would have fainted dead away and the sergeant would have undoubtedly gotten suspicious.
Carter was doubled over in a chair, looking as limp as a ragdoll, with a small red river running away from him down to a drain. His hair and back looked fine, but as they got closer Newkirk could kind of see that the front part of him was stained red, and he couldn't see him breathing, and then there were his hands-
Outwardly he remained stoic, but inside his stomach was heaving.
Slowly he forced himself forward, as Morris pressed the keys into his hand, noticing that his friend's ankles were still chained to the chair. He barely took the time to wonder why the rest of him was free.
Newkirk knelt down by Carter's side, and put two fingers to his neck.
A small sigh of relief escaped him; there was still a pulse. And this close he could see a slight rise and fall, a faint intaking of breath.
As he unchained Carter, Newkirk saw a flash of metal in his left hand.
A paperclip.
A rush of pride filled his heart-the ruddy idiot had remembered some of his lessons after all.
Then Jager was helping him lift Carter onto his feet, and chaining his wrists even though he was clearly unconscious (Newkirk had to try not to gag again, looking at his poor mangled hand), and together they were making their way out of the cellar.
It was almost too easy how quickly they got Carter out; but what mattered was that he was with them now, and they were heading back to Stalag 13.
Carter hadn't really woken up during the process; just lolled his head and made slight moaning noises. Neither the corporal nor the sergeant had commented; they were probably used to such sights by now.
This time Newkirk sat in the back with Morris, with Carter propped up between them, as Jager drove.
As soon as they were out of view of that terrible house, Newkirk was unchaining Carter's wrists, and trying to remember what he knew about fixing broken fingers.
You have to splint them somehow, make sure they're kept straight.
He dug his hands into his pockets, looking for something he could use for splints. All he managed to find that would be useful in this case was some string and some matchsticks.
Well, better than nothing.
He pulled Carter's hand over to him, and went to work making splints.
He'd barely started on the third finger when Carter's eyelids began fluttering.