NOTE: This was originally going to be a response to the Guess Who challenge, but it got a little out of hand on the word count so I'm posting as a separate oneshot instead. Hope you enjoy this little snippet.
Autumn winds blow, and people come and go.
This old adage of his fathers had been a certainty in Newkirk's life since as long as he could remember. His father had drilled it into him for so long.
When the cooling winds brought a spreading sickness that claimed both his grandparents.
"Autumn winds blow, and people come and go," his father spat bitterly as they lowered his parents into the ground.
When his father's old army friends who would kick a ball with him in the streets every summer would stop coming around as the weather cooled, and every year fewer and fewer returned the following summer.
"Autumn winds blow, and people come and go," his father slurred slightly into the bottle in front of him on the kitchen table.
When Newkirk's own school friends stopped coming to their house, frightened off by the stories their parents told them of the dangers posed by Peter Newkirk Sr.
"Autumn winds blow, and people come and go," his father said quietly, dangerously, to his crying son before he headed out into the night to do god knows what.
When finally it was Newkirk Sr. himself that walked out one cool autumn day, ostensibly to attend to some road mending work he had secured, but instead had been picked up by the local constable and sent away for 6 long years.
"Autumn winds blow, and people come and go," Newkirk's mother said to herself as she turned her back on the officer who delivered the news.
And by the time he returned, it had been his son's turn to leave, though not by his own choice. England was at war, and Newkirk had been introduced to a whole new set of family. By this time though, he was well prepared for them to leave him. And leave him they did. Barely a year into service, there was hardly a single man remaining in his squadron from when he had first started.
"Autumn winds blow, and people come and go," Newkirk muttered as he fell asleep in a barracks with yet another empty bunk.
Soon enough it was once again Newkirk's turn to leave, and he found himself first falling through the chilled autumn air and praying his parachute would hold, then running through the falling leaves of a Bavarian forest praying to find a familiar face and instead finding the barrel of a German pistol.
This was how Newkirk found himself in Stalag 13, and for the first time in his life he had found a place that he desperately wished an autumn wind would free him from. From the moment he stepped foot behind those walls, not a minute had gone by that he wasn't plotting to find a way out. And yet no matter his efforts, he had always found himself back where he started. There was a spotlight he hadn't noticed because he'd been occupied watching for guards, or on the rare chance he'd made it past the walls, a patrol coming upon him when he'd finally had to put his head down to rest.
In the fall of 1942, he had nearly given it up as a bad job. He had a bad rap with the guards and the Kommandant as the prisoner with a record number of escape attempts, not to mention a record amount of time spent in the cooler. His fellow prisoners detested him - a combined result of his general standoffishness as well as the Kommandant's habit of restricting privileges for the entire camp after Newkirk's frequent escape attempts. He spent most of his time leaning against the barracks with a cigarette, watching the guards and other prisoners with little interest or thought except for a hope that one day this interminable war would, one way or the other, release him from these mind numbingly repetitive days.
Little did he know or suspect, when he leaned against the barracks door and watched as the latest group of new arrivals disembarked from the truck and took in their new surroundings, that that day was not going to be like any he had ever had before.
At first, nothing seemed to change too much. The new prisoners were mostly American, and to Newkirk's view were generally unremarkable with the exception of one. Newkirk had noticed the American Colonel straight away, mostly for his rank but secondly for the way the Colonel had immediately caught Newkirk's eye, giving him an appraising glance as soon as he stepped off the truck. Newkirk had raised an eyebrow at that and retreated to the barracks before he drew any more scrutiny. The last thing he wanted was an officer breathing down his neck.
As the first few weeks of the new Colonel's captivity drew on, Newkirk continued to feel his eyes on him, just as he continued to practice avoiding him. This proved difficult when the Colonel was assigned to his barracks, but Newkirk already had a longstanding habit of spending all his time outside anyways.
It was nearly three weeks since the Colonel had arrived when Newkirk took a turn around the side of Barracks 5 on his usual pacing route around the camp, and found himself face to face with the American officer.
"Hello there Corporal," grinned the American, " I wondered if I might have a word?"
Caught off guard, Newkirk glanced over his shoulder. There was no one in sight, and no way to Newkirk's eye to extricate himself from the situation.
"Alright then," he agreed, a clear layer of suspicion in his voice.
The Colonel smiled again and turned to lean against the back of Barracks 5, and indicated Newkirk to do the same. He did so, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket and lighting it as he went.
"I don't think I ever formally introduced myself," the Colonel began, stretching out a hand, "Colonel Robert Hogan, USAAF."
Newkirk gave a soft, disdaining grunt as he took a long drag from his cigarette.
"Peter Newkirk. RAF."
"I've been hearing you have quite the reputation in Stalag 13, Newkirk," Hogan continued, ignoring the mistrusting look Newkirk was giving him, "How many escape attempts is it now?"
"Lost track," Newkirk muttered, "Don't matter anyways. Only escape attempt to be proud of is the one that gets me out of here."
"That's as may be. You've shown quite a dedication to the attempt though. No one else has made it past the wire near as many times as you have. I'm curious though, why keep trying the same thing over and over again when it clearly was not working?"
Newkirk's head snapped around at that and his half finished cigarette fell to the ground. He put up with a lot from officers in his opinion, but he was not about to suffer any lies.
"The same thing?" he spat, "I have gone over and under the wire a dozen different times in a dozen different spots. There are a hundred different ways to get out of this camp and I have not repeated one once. I may be bloody unlucky but I am not an idiot."
Hogan raised his hands in retreat.
"Easy Newkirk. I didn't mean you hadn't tried different methods. But I've read the reports on your escape attempts, and every time I saw the same flaw tripping you up. I only wondered why you kept on with it anyways."
"And what flaw would that be exactly sir," Newkirk retorted, liking Hogan less and less by the minute.
"You didn't have anyone with you to watch your back."
Newkirk blinked at him for a moment before snorting.
"Look mate, you're new here alright. But I'm not exactly friendly with the residents of this little piece of paradise."
"And why is that?" questioned Hogan, his brow slightly furrowed.
"Not much point is there," Newkirk looked down and scuffed his boot on the ground, "Either I escape or they do. Either way, one of us will always leave before too long."
Newkirk looked up and met the Colonel's eye. The American officer was giving him a deep searching look that Newkirk did not expect. After a moment, the Colonel reached up and put his hand on Newkirk's shoulder.
"We all need someone to lean on Newkirk. In fact, I have a bit of a proposal for you. You see, I wasn't so much shot down as I was sent here with a mission. I need to form a team with particular skills, but also dedication and a certain amount of fortitude. You've shown all of that with your commitment to these escape attempts, but I also need men who can operate as a team. You've been on your own for too long."
Newkirk raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"What sort of mission could you possibly have cooked up from here in a prisoner of war camp?"
88888888
1 YEAR LATER
Newkirk took a deep breath of the air outside the barracks. It was September, and the air had started to cool again. Soon the leaves would begin to fall, and another autumn in Stalag 13 would have begun.
It had been quite the year, he thought to himself. A lot had changed since Colonel Hogan had pulled him aside behind this very barracks and invited him to join the maddest mission he had ever heard of. An espionage unit, hidden in plain sight beneath the ground of the German's own prisoner of war camp? Barking mad.
And yet… here he was. One year later, and over one year since his last escape attempt from Stalag 13. That is, his last escape that he did not fully intend on returning to the Stalag. For the past year, Newkirk had gone under the wire, over the wire, through the front gate, out of the tunnels, and every other way possible to get out and in of this camp. Now, he couldn't claim that each of these had gone off without a hitch. But he had always returned in good health and without being caught.
And, more importantly, so did the rest of the team. His team.
He looked across the yard at the prisoners playing football with an old tin can in front of the Kommandant's office. His team, Andrew Carter, Louis LeBeau, and James Kinchloe, all crowded with most of the rest of the camp's prisoners to get a turn on one of the teams. He could not count the number of times that this mad scheme of Colonel Hogan's had landed them in hot water. Just like he could not count the number of times that one or all of them had pulled the other out of it.
A cool breeze hit his face as he watched.
Autumn winds blow… He didn't finish the thought.
He was done with that. Sure, people had left him. And sure enough, people would leave him again in the future. But for now, for this moment, all that mattered was that he would not leave them.