Dear Brother,

The man who came by to take this letter today said I mustn't use your name, so I will trust him to get it into your hands without an address. I have to say, I don't think you can imagine my shock at finding a lieutenant at the door asking for me. One day you will have to tell me how you've managed to make friends in such high places. I tried to get it out of him but he said I mustn't ask questions, so I've decided for now that I won't look a gift horse in the mouth.

I am grateful to him though when he told me his purpose for coming. I have missed you dearly, especially with Will being gone so much as well. I hope the things I've sent with the lieutenant to give to you will make it through - he wasn't sure what he would be able to send. I only wish I could send more, I do wonder how you're getting on there in truth, from what I read in the papers sometimes I suspect your letters are sugar coating some things a bit.

When Will was able to visit last, Jimmy gave him one of his toy soldiers to protect him. It's hard for him to understand who you and Will are to him, but when he plays with the soldiers I tell him he has a brave father and uncle off fighting in the war, and one day soon they'll come home and tell him all about what being a real soldier is like. I hope you don't mind, but he is only 3 and I doubt he'll really remember. I think half the things I tell him are really more for myself. He does love the toy soldiers though. The one he sent you is called "Unkee" which I believe is his attempt to say "Uncle". I know you will think it's silly, but I hope it really does protect you.

I know you should be safer than most, off the front lines as you are, but I do worry. I have a confession to make now that I maybe did look into that gift horse's mouth a bit. Or at least I followed him until I knew where he came from. I'm sure it's nothing, and that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation, but if there isn't, please be careful big brother. I know I went off and got married, but I still need you to be there for me when all this is over.

Now enough of the melancholy and let me give you the news on the street here. I truly hate to tell you this, but your Rita has gone and got herself up the duff with some American. I know you always liked her but I think you'll agree you're well shot of her now…

Newkirk had rolled his sister's words over in his mind many a time in the days following the unexpected package's arrival from London. Not the parts about old girlfriends, or how the old lady down the street was making trouble again, or any of that. He thought of little Jimmy, and "Unkee", now safely stowed in his breast pocket. He thought of his brother-in-law out there fighting, and he thought of his own efforts to end the war. He thought of gift horses, and subtle implications…

But behind all that, he thought of the kind lieutenant who had more than gone out of his way to do a simple kindness for a stranger. He had certainly never expected it, and more than that he had no idea how he would repay it. After all, it wasn't as though he could slip off to the English countryside and get a package to the lieutenant's family.

Well, he thought, maybe after the war. It seemed like such a foreign concept that he could imagine himself having anything to give to an officer and his family, but the least he could do was try.

"Newkirk!"

He started as Carter whisper-shouted his name from a few trees away, and snapped himself out of his thoughts. They were on a mission after all. There would be time for wool gathering later.

"What, Carter?" he said back just as quietly. They had been hiding crouched down behind these trees for nearly half an hour with no sign yet of their contact. He wasn't yet worried - the Underground often had a harder time slipping away for clandestine meetings than they did - but he would be grateful when Little Boy Blue finally showed himself and they could head back to the warmth of Stalag 13. The tree he leaned on may be sturdy but it was certainly not giving off any heat.

"Did you hear that?" Carter said, "I think I hear footsteps."

Newkirk paused to listen. After a moment, he too heard the unmistakable sound of boots on the forest floor debris.

"'Bout time," he said, "Let's go get the message so we can head off home shall we?"

Newkirk began to stand up, then immediately froze. He heard footsteps alright. A lot of footsteps. He looked around to catch Carter's eye, and saw that Carter had had the same realization as he had. They were meeting one man and one man only, and last time they checked Little Boy Blue only had two feet.

Unable to risk even a whisper at this point, Newkirk used a practiced hand signal to indicate to Carter that they should split up. Whether someone had given them up to the Germans, or this was a random patrol that explained Little Boy Blue's delay, there would be no meeting tonight. It was time to slip away, unseen and unheard, and try again another night. Carter nodded, and turned to pick his way slowly back the way they had come. Newkirk on the other hand, headed off deeper into the thick forest. In a worst case scenario where the Germans noticed them, Newkirk would draw them after him and away from camp. The area he was heading towards was full of thick trees and rocky hills, and they had set up several hiding spots amongst the shallow caverns at the bases of those hills where he could duck in and hide until the danger had passed.

He walked slowly and deliberately, doing his best to avoid any sound that might give him away. The German patrol seemed to have spread out. Where before he could have sworn there were at least 20 sets of boots tramping through the trees, he estimated he heard less than half of those now. They must be combing the woods, looking for any sign someone had been there. He only hoped they had not left any.

He had made it about 50 feet from their original hiding place, and the sound of other footsteps had grown continuously quieter, when he heard it.

A dog barked - and the footsteps around him stopped. But only for a moment. Where once there had only been the slow quiet footsteps of the remaining German's who had been near him, and what little sound his own boots made, the forest was now a cacophony of noise. The air seemed to erupt with sound as the dog barked and what sounded like every man in the woods ran towards the dog, no longer caring about stealth.

And they were running, Newkirk noticed immediately, away from him. Towards Carter and Stalag 13.

Knowing it was his duty, regretting it as he did it but also praying it was enough, he pulled his sidearm from where he kept it tucked into his belt, raised it to the sky and fired.

The sound of the gunshot rang through the night, louder even than the bark of the dog. Newkirk paused a moment after firing, to listen and see if it had had the desired effect. For a second he heard nothing - the footsteps had stopped, and even the dog had been quietened. Then as one, the thundering of the boots and the wild barking of the dog began again. Straight towards where Newkirk was standing.

The time for stealth was over, and Newkirk leaped into action. He had accomplished his goal and drawn the Germans away, now it was time to complete the next task and get himself hidden until they had passed by or given up, and make his own way back to the Stalag as soon as it was safe. The nearest of their safe places was a hollowed out old trunk of a tree similar to the one that hid the tunnel entrance to Stalag 13, only this one was tall and wide enough to hide a grown man within it. The mechanism that unlatched the entrance was cleverly hidden, and once the Germans had passed him, he was not so far away from Stalag 13 that he would not be back before morning roll call.

He crashed through the underbrush at speed, trying not to think of whether or not the dog would be able to follow his scent to the tree trunk, and especially trying not to wonder whether or not the Germans had brought axes on this patrol. He was a fast runner however, and he knew where he was headed. Soon he would outpace the Germans, and with any luck they would not cross his trail.

And so he ran, pausing only to ensure that the sounds following him were growing softer. And so they did.

At first. Newkirk barreled towards relative safety, but as he neared it when he paused again he noticed something that made him catch his breath not from exhaustion but fear.

The dog was barking again, but it had not gotten quieter, it had gotten exponentially louder. And not only that but it was also no longer behind him. There was a second patrol, and he was heading straight for it.

Cursing German efficiency under his breath, he spun on his heel and took a hard left. This second dog and its owners were nearly on top of him, and that meant they were on top of the tree trunk. It was time for a contingency plan.

The second hiding place was further away, but now seemed his only option with his pursuers closing in from two sides. It was a small cavern that looked as though it was carved from the hillside. There was a deceptively light rock that stood next to the entrance - they had attached a lever on the inside of the cavern that allowed the rock to be pulled over the entrance such that you could not tell it had ever been moved from the outside. If he could just make it there, he could be safe. It would be a long cold night, but he could survive.

He ran flat out again, no longer stopping to check if he was being pursued. He didn't need to, he could hear the dogs from both patrols behind him. If he had not known better, he would have sworn they were snapping at his heels.

But he had barely made a dent in the distance to the cavern when he skidded to a halt once again.

Impossible, he thought, a third dog?

But he could hear it clear as day right in front of him - yet another dog and its handlers were blocking his path.

He did not have time to think, all he could do was swing to the right and take off running once more. The contingency plans were shot - Germans ahead and Germans behind, all he could do now was pray he could get out ahead of them enough to breathe and come up with some sort of plan.

He ran through the trees, over hills that were unfamiliar to him. They had come out this way before when they had set up their hidey holes, but he seemed to have forgotten this particular area. He nearly tripped up over several unseen tree roots, and knocked a knee against a rock when his chosen path got too narrow. Newkirk found himself on a steady incline, and as he ran up the hill it began to get rockier and rockier. He was well and truly at the end of his physical limits now - his breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps and it was becoming a push to put one leg in front of the other.

But still he heard the dogs, so he pushed ahead, and somehow in his mind he knew that if he could just get over this hill, if he could just take a few more steps, maybe just maybe…

The ground beneath his feet flattened, and he found himself atop a high hill with scarcely any tree cover. He felt rock beneath his boots, and by the barest light of the moon he saw nothing but more dark rock in front of him.

Where the bloody hell am I, Newkirk thought before a sharp bark behind him set his tiring feet in motion again. He ran across what appeared to be a sheer rock face, praying that his boots wouldn't slip on the rock.

They didn't - because 10 steps later, the rock beneath his boots disappeared and he was falling into thin air.