We Were Soldiers

62. Fever

"How'd you all get captured?" Bucky asked.

Sunlight streamed through the barred glass windows, illuminating the factory floor on which Bucky and his cellmates laboured. Under armed guard, they carried heavy parts from crates to assembly lines, and slotted them into place within larger components. The guards seemed not to care if their prisoners talked while they worked, but if their pace slowed for even a moment, they were there with their guns, jabbing the stocks into backs or thwacking them against thighs or shoulders. Growled curses of "Schneller!" always accompanied the strikes. It was one hell of a way to learn German.

"A group from my battalion were captured during a fight not far from Milan," said Morita. "Taylor took us too close to the city, and the Nazis got the drop on us." He spat and glared at the guards. "Most of my group are in different cells, but they took a couple of guys away and I never saw them again."

"Rumour has it there's a medical facility at the back of the compound, where they experiment with chemical and biological agents," said Falsworth. "Nobody who's taken to the back room ever comes back from it."

"How'd you get captured, Major?" Bucky prompted.

"Oh. That. Yes. I was shot out of the sky. My parachute took flak."

"I'm surprised you didn't break every bone in your body," said Dugan. He gave a loud grunt as he heaved a particularly heavy part into place on the assembly line. It had taken Bucky and Dernier together to shift one of those parts.

"I landed in a lake," said Falsworth. "Managed to cut my chute off me before it dragged me down. When I got to the shore, I found these fellows waiting for me."

"What about you, Dernier?"

"He's been here for almost a year," Jones translated. "He's a member of the French Resistance in Marseilles—or he was, before he got captured."

"What'd he do for the Resistance? Polish their boots?" asked Dugan.

Dernier gabbled a quick stream of French. Jones shot a glance at the guards, only translating quietly when he was sure their focus was on another group of workers.

"He ran a network of informants and was responsible for feeding intelligence back to British operatives, as well as providing misinformation to Nazi forces occupying France."

"And they just stuck him in a labour camp?" Dugan asked, incredulous.

"He says he has a very trusting face. He told the man who captured him he was a simple courier, that he merely carried messages for men far smarter than he." Jacques gave them a cheesy grin. "He also claimed to spend his time cooking for the Resistance. Apparently he makes crêpes Suzette that are to die for."

"How 'bout you guys?" asked Morita, as he hauled a small crate of parts to the assembly line. "They catch you digging the latrine pit or something?"

"We were battling Nazi forces in Azzano," Bucky explained. "Out of nowhere, this massive tank showed up and starting firing on us—and the Nazis."

"Bullshit."

"It's true as my eyes are blue," Dugan said. "While Snow White here was catching her beauty sleep, I saw that tank decimate the Nazis we'd been fighting. And these guys, for whatever reason, they don't take Nazi prisoners. They rounded us up like cattle, but the Nazis… they executed them. Didn't even stick 'em in a mass grave. Just left 'em lying where they'd fallen."

Falsworth's dark brows lowered into a frown. "But then, if these aren't the Wehrmacht or the SS, who are they?"

Bucky gestured his cellmates in closer, and they stepped around one of the parts he was assembling. "I think they're HYDRA," he said. It was the only reason he could think of for their captors shootin' other Germans.

"What, the sea monster?"

"HYDRA!" Dugan let out a low whistle. "You mean, those guys who ran all those bunkers you and Cinderella captured back in France?"

"Uh, 'scuse me, how 'bout cluing the rest of us in to this little powwow?" said Morita.

So as they worked, Bucky quietly explained how back in France, he and Wells had taken on HYDRA and captured several of their facilities under Phillips' command. Told the rest of them the sorts of things HYDRA got up to, and how they'd splintered away from the rest of Hitler's Nazis.

"I suppose," Falsworth mused, his grey eyes full of thoughtful introspection, "it makes sense that they don't take any German prisoners. After all, if large numbers of Germans went missing, and they weren't accounted for as POWs, the Nazis would get suspicious." The others stared at him, and he willingly elaborated. "The Geneva Convention explicitly states that individuals taken as prisoners of war must be allowed to communicate their capture to others, and that their commanding officer should be informed. Nazi POWs taken by England, or America, would be given that right. When no word of their missing men was forthcoming, the Nazis would become suspicious. And this 'HYDRA' obviously couldn't allow any captured German prisoners to communicate with the outside world, because that would reveal their intentions to separate from Hitler and pursue their own goals. Far easier to just murder them and make it look like they were killed fighting our chaps."

"Huh," said Morita. "When you put it like that, I guess it does make sense. In a really twisted way, of course."

"Hey, wieder an die arbeit!" one of the guards shouted at their group, and they scrambled for the next batch of parts.

As he worked, Bucky tried not to dwell on how tired he was, and how much his muscles ached. He'd gotten only a couple of hours' sleep before their shift, and the floor of the cell had been cold and uncomfortable even with the blanket. His neck had a crick in it, his shoulders burned from hauling crates, and his empty stomach growled so loudly that he could hear its complaints over the noise of the factory machines. He had no idea when they'd be fed, and he doubted the quality of the meals would be any better than shit-on-a-shingle. In fact, it probably wouldn't even be that good. But if there was one thing he was sure of, it was that this HYDRA stalag was not gonna be the end of him. There had to be a way out. Nowhere was impregnable.

"Jacques," he said quietly, when chance took him close to the Frenchman, "how'd you manage to survive so long in this place?"

"Very good luck," he laughed, the first English words Bucky had heard him say. Falsworth, who was working nearby, elaborated for him

"Mr. Dernier has a very specific skill set."

The Frenchman mimed an action, holding something small between his finger and thumb, and turning it from side to side.

"What, you picked flowers?" Dugan guessed. "Ugh, I hate charades."

Falsworth rolled his eyes. "He's picking a lock. He was—and still is—a thief. A very resourceful one; he's been able to procure us small items from time to time, as well as additional food."

Dernier slapped his chest and grinned with pride. "Très bon thief."

Bucky could hardly believe his luck. A guy who was used to breaking into places was exactly the sort of person they needed to help them break out of the work camp. Later, back in the cell, perhaps after they had been fed, he would talk to the others about the possibility of escape. If the HYDRA personnel were complacent enough to leave their prisoners with their tags, who knew what else they might have let slip?

He burst into a fit of coughs, and Dugan, who was hauling crates behind him, shot him a look of unfeigned concern. "You okay, princess?"

Bucky flipped Dugan the two-fingered salute, only answering when his coughing fit had passed. "I'm fine. Think I got a lungful of ash in Azzano. I just need a drink of water or something to clear my throat."

"I wouldn't get your hopes up about that," said Dugan, glancing at their guards. "These guys don't seem the accommodating type."

"Guess I'll wait till dinner time, then." He turned back to his work and Dugan resumed hauling crates. Until he could come up with a plan to get himself and everybody else out of the stalag, he'd have to be the model prisoner. Give the guards no reason to single him out. He just hoped that Gusty and the others had made it back to camp. That Colonel Phillips was plotting a rescue, just in case it really was impossible to escape from this place.

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

Danny had sipped the water offered to him by his heavenly hosts, but the smell of the soup made him feel sick. He dry-retched after the first mouthful and declined to try any more. After that, things had gone downhill. The fever hit back with a vengeance. By evening, he was drifting in and out of consciousness, plagued by hallucinations which haunted his waking moments.

His father visited again, to add further scorn and derision, whilst his mother watched on silently in the background.

"It would be better for all of us if you died in Europe," his father said. "Think of how proudly we can tell others of your sacrifice. Our son, nobly giving his life in the name of freedom. But if you come back… what then? The son who wasn't good enough to die for his country. Your brothers would have died for their country, but that sort of heroism was never for you, was it?"

"I hate you," he told the man who'd been more tormentor than father. "You never wanted me, neither of you. Tim got everything, he was always your favourite, even after he brought two bastards into the world. I'm not gonna die out here. I'm gonna live, I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna make sure everyone knows what a horrible father you are. What a small, weak, pitiful man who had to lock his own sons away just to try and make them behave."

"It wasn't to make you behave. It was so I didn't have to look at you. To see you, and live with the disappointment you brought to your mother and I every single day of our lives. And look at you now! Most men at your age are settling down, starting families. You're still so afraid of commitment and responsibility that you've even convinced yourself you're in love with your friend."

"That's not true! I do love Barnes. I think."

"Love?" his father snorted. "You're too selfish for love. You're not capable of anything so deep and selfless as that."

Carrot came next, his blue eyes accusing.

"I was in love, you know. Samantha. And now she's gonna live the rest of her life alone, because you killed me. If you hadn't been goofing around juggling knives right before that mission, I would never have gone on it. I'd be alive, and Samantha wouldn't have to spend the rest of her life heartbroken."

"I know. I'm sorry, Carrot, it's my fault. I wish I could go back. I wish I could change things."

Hawkins, Jones and Martland followed Carrot; they watched him in silence, their faces blood-stained, eyes cold like dead fish. And that was when it hit him; Hawkins was dead. Hawkins, who'd been a friend, a vulnerable kid who'd lost his older brother. Hawkins, who was a son and an uncle and now was nothing but a memory to the people he'd left back home. Jones was dead. Jones, who had a first name, but Danny didn't know what it was. Martland, whom he'd only ever spoken a half-dozen words to, was gone. And who knew how many people Martland had left behind back home?

The tears denied to him during his flight from the scene of battle finally flowed freely, tears for his friends, himself, the whole damn broken world, until it felt like he was merely crying simply because he could, because now he was shot, in pain, courting death, and he was allowed to cry.

A few times he opened his eyes into a hazy dream of a yellow ceiling and a man who loomed over him with a bottle of something that burned, a pair of medical tweezers, a wad of gauze and bandaging, a needle and thread, a sharp syringe, and each time the man loomed closer, there was pain, agonising pain. He tried to avoid the dream, to sink back to the place where he was taunted by the people he'd left behind, to escape the man and the punishment he inflicted.

Everything began to darken around the edges, like he was falling backwards into a hole, falling down, down, into the unknown centre of the earth, as Alice had fallen down the rabbit hole. Faces floated past him, voices calling out, scenes from Last Stop and France and home. When he finally stopped falling, he was in a tiny, cramped, dark space into which no light could filter; the bolted door saw to that.

"Let me out," he whispered into the darkness, because shouting it would have meant extra punishment. "Let me out." He felt tears roll down his cheeks, but didn't try to wipe them away. The tears were the only defiance he had. They could put him in here to take away the light and silence his voice, but they couldn't take his tears.

His head jerked up at the sound of the bolt sliding back. He narrowed his eyes in preparation for the blinding light, and saw the dark outline of a head blocking out the daylight. That outline made his body pull back, away from the man who'd banished him here. If he'd had room, he would have crawled even further into the cupboard, further into the rabbit hole, but there was nowhere left to retreat to. As much as he wanted to escape the darkness, he didn't want to have to face his father.

"Wells?"

Danny's spirits soared. The voice wasn't his father's voice. It was the voice of a man who had been conspicuously absent since he'd gotten shot, a voice Danny had ached to hear because he knew that just hearin' it would make everything a little more right.

"Barnes?"

"Who else would it be, dummy? What're you doing in there?"

"I…" He hesitated. How could he tell his friend that his dad had locked him in here? That what he was doing, was crying like a little kid. "I'm just looking for… my book. I lost my book."

"Well, you can worry about that later. Get your ass out here; we're gonna be late for the mission."

Barnes reached out a hand and Danny took it, letting himself be pulled out of the darkness. The world seemed to slide around him and he found himself in a forest, dressed in his olive drab uniform, kitted out for a mission. In front of him, Barnes was loading his rifle, and when he looked back he found not a cupboard, but a foxhole he'd dug the night before.

"I thought I was dead," he said.

"Me too," said Barnes, the words mumbled around a cigarette poking out from the corner of his mouth. Weird; Barnes didn't normally smoke. "But you came back, and just in time for this mission."

"What's the mission?"

Barnes shrugged, took a drag on the smoke. "Dunno. Find out when we get there, I guess."

Huh? That wasn't how missions went. You needed to know what the mission was before you carried it out. Otherwise, how could you plan for it? And how had Danny gotten back? He remembered waking up, seeing Hawkins and the others, then there had been something about Rita Hayworth's bed, followed by two angels and lots of strangeness… but the journey back to camp was blank.

The letter! What had happened to his letter? Had Barnes found it? Read it? Burned it? Or had it gotten lost, or, or… Surely if Barnes had read the letter, the first words outta his mouth wouldn't have been about the mission, would they?

Danny steeled himself. He had to ask. He had to know.

"I… um… I left you a letter," he offered lamely.

"Yeah, I got it." Barnes grinned at him. "You almost had me going there, for a minute."

Danny felt those soaring spirits plummet from the sky like lead weights. "You… thought it was a wind-up?"

"Of course it was a wind-up." Barnes finished loading his gun and slung it across his shoulder. Then he took the dog-end out of his mouth and dropped it onto the ground, stamping it out with his heel. "See, I can't be friends with a guy who's like that. So either it was a wind-up, or we're not friends. Which is it?"

His mind screamed the answer at him. Wind up. Wind up.

He opened his mouth. Hesitated. All his life he'd been alone, even when he'd been surrounded by friends, even when he'd been out having a good time with pretty dames, and it wasn't until he'd arrived at Camp Shanks that he'd realised just how alone he'd always been. Sure, he could lie. But if he lied, he'd be betraying his own feelings. For the first time in forever, he didn't want to tell tall tales, to embellish or diminish this thing to make himself feel better about it. For better or worse, he loved his friend. Love like this did not deserve to be hidden or lied about.

"For the first time in my life, I told the plain, honest truth about something that matters to me. It frightens me, but I can't change how I feel about you. And I'm not sure I want to."

Barnes looked at him for a moment, then gave a sad shake of his head. "I'm sorry you feel that way. Why couldn't you just have lied? We could'a been friends."

"We still can!" Danny said, desperately clinging on as the ship went down. "Nothing has to change. I can care about you, and we can still be friends."

"C'mon, you know it doesn't work like that. Now, I gotta go on this mission. I think it would be best if you stayed behind."

"No." His voice cracked. He tried again, more firmly, denying the feeling of his heart slowly shrivelling inside his chest, withdrawing from the pain of the world around it. "Please don't leave me behind."

"Sorry, Wells. That's what you get for tellin' the truth."

Barnes reached out to give him a shove on his shoulder, and Danny fell back. He didn't hit the ground, but kept falling, into the foxhole, through the Earth and into the darkness of the cupboard. And after a lifetime of falling, he slammed into something hard, and the blackness swallowed him.

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

Colonel Lohmer was a cruel, pinch-faced, arrogant man, and Bucky hated him the moment he laid eyes on him. He could tell right away that the man was a bully; he carried that same smug, superior air as the guys Bucky had spent his young life pulling off Steve. Only, in Lohmer, those traits were worse, because he had an army of fanatics to do his bidding, and those fanatics were heavily armed.

Lohmer himself carried no weapon when he performed the his daily rounds of the cells, not even a service pistol. The two faceless, masked guards trotting after him like well-trained Rottweilers were the only weapons he needed. The condescending sneer on his face lorded that fact over the prisoners, too. Here he was, unarmed, and the men in the cells were still powerless against him.

"I'm starting to get fed up of you hogging that blanket, Monty," said Dugan to Falsworth. He made a grab for the blanket around the major's shoulders, but Falsworth stepped nimbly back.

"Then maybe you Yanks should share what's left. And don't call me 'Monty'; it's 'Major' or 'Sir' to you."

"Oh-ho, so it's gonna be like that, is it, Limey?"

"That's right, Sergeant. And if you're looking for a ridiculous name, perhaps you should start with your own." Falsworth gave a scornful snort. "What kind of a name is 'Dum Dum' anyway. That's almost as daft as Barnes asking us to call him 'Bucky.'"

Bucky was barely paying attention to the argument in the cell behind. Sitting cross-legged at the front of the bars, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, he kept his head down and pretended to be afraid of being drawn in to the confrontation. Surreptitiously, through his dark lashes, he watched Colonel Lohmer perform his rounds. The stalag's commandant ambled through the room, pale eyes taking in the dirty faces of the prisoners, a small, amused smile on his lips. That smile widened when he heard the commotion in Bucky's cell.

"Actually," said Gabe Jones, oblivious to Lohmer's approach, "Dum Dum's real name is 'Timothy.' I saw it on his tags."

"Well well," Falsworth grinned, "Timmy it is, then!"

Dernier said something in French, and he and Jones burst out in belly-aching laughter.

"Shut it, Frenchie," Dugan scowled. He punched one of the iron bars with his fist, and Bucky winced in sympathy for the guy's knuckles. "Y'know, I'm getting damn fed up of being stuck in a cell with cowards and blacks and Nips. And the Limey's worst of all! Who've I gotta talk to around here to get moved to a better cell?"

"Is there a problem here?" Colonel Lohmer asked in strongly accented English, as he and his guards stopped in front of the cell. The gloating look on his face said that even if there was a problem, he wasn't gonna do anything about it. In fact, a problem would've made his day.

"Yeah," said Dugan, pushing his way forward, damn near trampling Bucky in the process. "I gotta problem with this Limey son of a bitch thinking he's so goddamn superior because he got a stick shoved up his ass in officer training school. Whaddya say to moving me somewhere a bit nicer? Somewhere without any Brits. Preferably somewhere without any blacks, too. If this were a proper Nazi camp, you'd make the Negroes use separate facilities."

"Yeah," Jones agreed. "It's not fair making good, honest folks like me use the same facilities as jerks like Dugan. I'm pretty sure he's infested our blankets with fleas."

Lohmer chuckled, and Bucky's hands clenched beneath his blanket. Patience, he told himself. There would be time to deal with Lohmer later. For now, he was starting to form a plan of escape, one so convoluted and crazy that even Wells would've been proud of it. For now, it was enough to sow the seeds. To show Lohmer and his goons what they wanted to see.

"Perhaps, if you work hard, I will think about moving some of you to other cells." The colonel gave them a false, indulgent smile, then moved on to inspect the next cell. The men behind Bucky started arguing again, and Bucky continued to watch until Lohmer and his guards left the room. When he was sure they weren't coming back, he stood and turned to face the others.

"Okay, he's gone."

Sighs of relief were heaved all around. Dugan offered conciliatory glances for the others.

"Sorry if I ruffled your feathers, boys. Gabe, you know I didn't mean those things I said, right? And Monty, I have nothing but respect for you tea-drinking Limeys."

"Of course," Falsworth assured him with a smile. "Although I really would appreciate it if you stopped calling me 'Monty.'"

"Right. Got it." Dugan turned to Bucky. "So, Sleeping Beauty, why'd you ask us to argue like that?"

"First, how come everyone else gets an apology for you calling them offensive nicknames, but I still get called after fairytale princesses?" Bucky asked.

"Because I haven't had to put up with three months of their hat-stealing, prank-playing bullshit. That's why."

Oh. Right. That. Bucky cleared his throat. "I was thinking about what Mont—sorry, Falsworth, told us the day we arrived. You know, how it amuses the Germans to see us fighting amongst ourselves. I thought it might be a good idea to play up to that. Make them think we really can't stand each other."

A puzzled expression danced across Dernier's face. "Pourquoi?"

God help me, Wells, Bucky thought, I'm actually learning French.

"Because if they think we're fighting all the time, they'll be less inclined to watch us like hawks." He let a sliver of an excited smile tug at his lips. "And that will make it easier for us when we attempt our escape."

"Échapper? C'est impossible. La démence! Vous êtes fou, je vous le dis!"

"Gabe? That didn't sound like the vote of confidence I was hoping for."

"Yeah, he said you're crazy."

"See?" Dugan gloated. "Frenchie's only known you for a couple of days, Barnes, and he already knows you're crazy."

Bucky was too busy coughing up a lung to reply, and it took several minutes for the coughing to subside. When he looked up, he found Dugan wasn't the only one favouring him with a worried glance.

"Look," he said, to detract away from the inevitable deluge of 'are you alright?' Of course he wasn't alright; he was in a HYDRA work-camp, his lungs felt like they were on fire, and he was no longer in the same country as the rest of the SSR. On top of that, he was stuck in an iron cell with men who seemed to have given up even before they'd tried. "I'm not crazy. But we can't just sit here until they work us to death. We have to escape."

"Il n'y a pas d'espoir d'échapper."

"There's no hope of escape," Jones translated.

"For as long as we draw breath, there's hope," Bucky told them. All his life, he'd watched his best friend get knocked down by bullies time and time again, and each time, Steve had gotten back on his feet and refused to let them keep him down. How could Bucky do any less? "I don't know about you guys, but I'm not holding out for a rescue any time soon. Our people probably don't even know where we've been taken. I'm gonna make a plan. And when the time's right, I'm gonna escape. If the rest of you want to stay, then that's fine, but I'll take with me anybody who's still willing to fight." He turned his gaze to Dernier. "Jacques. When the Nazis occupied your country, did you just give up and say it was hopeless? Falsworth, when Britain was alone, with no allies left in Europe, did you and your government roll over and surrender? Dugan, Jones—remember Como? How we fought so hard to keep that city after the bombing campaign? It would've been easier to let the Germans take it, but easy isn't always right. And if they really do have us making more of those tanks, then I'd rather go out fighting than contribute to their army."

"You 'ave spirit of French Resistance fighter!" Dernier grinned. "I 'elp plan escape. On va montrer à ces salauds pourquoi ils vont perdre la guerre."

Dugan slapped Bucky hard on the back, nearly sending him sprawling. "Hell, if I'd known the best way to stop you moping around camp was to get captured by the enemy, I would've marched you across the German line days ago! Count me in; I'd rather fight than capitulate."

"I suppose an escape attempt is the least we can do to resist our captors," Falsworth agreed. "Cousin Bernie would approve."

"If Dugan's going, I'm going," said Jones. "He still owes me ten bucks from our last poker game."

"I'd hate to miss the party, but I feel left out of the personal appeals," Morita added.

"Hey, Morita," Bucky said, "remember that time you helped us escape from a HYDRA work-camp?"

"Hmm, yeah, now that you mention it, I do recall something like that," he chuckled.

Bucky nodded. This was more like it. For the past three months he'd felt like a leaf fallen into a river, tossed this way and that, at the mercy of the eddies and the current, given no control over his direction, no say in where or when or why. He'd lived without knowing what tomorrow would bring, but now, he was a leaf no longer. Finally, he had a purpose, and he knew what tomorrow would bring; escape. It would take longer than a day, of course, but it was a direction, and he'd chosen it himself. For the first time since arriving at Last Stop, USA, he was in control.

"Alright," he smiled, as the men in his cell clustered closer together. "Let's get started."

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

Voices whispered on the edge of Bucky's hearing, voices which spoke in a conspiratorial hush. Beneath his blanket, he shivered, and remembered the last time he'd heard voices whispering from the shadows. If it hadn't been for Wells, and Carter, and Stark, those whispers would've been the death of him. Now, he felt like they were coming close again.

He forced his heavy eyelids open and squinted at the figures clustered in a huddle nearby. He couldn't make out their words, but he knew that if they were talking so quietly, they had to be discussing the escape plan. He pushed the blanket off his shoulders—two blankets!—and sat up. Immediately, he started coughing as the small act of moving irritated his lungs. The group of men looked over at him, guilt etched all over their faces.

"What… time is it?" he asked, once the dry hacking subsided enough to allow words to come out instead.

"Early," said Dugan. "Go back to sleep, you look like hell."

Bucky had to admit, he wasn't doin' too good. Over the past week, his cough had gotten worse. His aches and pains might have hurt him more, if it wasn't for his feverish state of mind. He was burning up so bad that the cold floor was a welcome comfort, but nobody else seemed to think it was a good idea for him to be sleeping on it. They buried him with extra blankets whenever he closed his eyes for more than a minute, sacrificing their own comfort for warmth that Bucky didn't even need. When he objected, they ganged up on him in a way that was really unfair.

To make matters worse, his heart ached. Not metaphorically, or figuratively, but literally. Each cough made his lungs and ribs constrict, squeezing his chest and back muscles, putting pressure on his heart, so that even the simple act of breathing became painful. Guilt added its own weight to his pain. His coughs kept everyone else awake, too. Not just the men in his cell, but the men in all the cells. One of the Americans a few cells away had finally snapped at Bucky to shut up. Later, when they'd been released for work, Dugan broke the guy's nose. Nobody else had said anything since then.

"I'm fine," he rasped, though his throat felt like he'd spend an entire day swallowing broken glass. "Tell me what's happening."

Reluctantly, Falsworth said, "Captain Sawyer got a message to us, on his way back to his cell. He says he overheard a couple of the guards complaining that the waste extraction network had backed up again, and they had to go down there after their shift ended to unblock it."

"You mean, sewers?"

Falsworth nodded, wrinkling his nose. "I know it's probably not what you had in mind, but if the guards are able to get down there, then they're large enough for men to escape through. And it's possible the sewers go under the security fence and come out some considerable distance away."

Bucky sighed, which quickly turned into another cough. Morita had introduced them to his unit's Captain, Sam Sawyer, who'd been captured near Milan along with a large chunk of the Ranger regiment. Sawyer was one of the men who worked as a loader, hoisting the parts Bucky and co. finished assembling into large HYDRA wagons in the facility's outdoor compound, and as such he was uniquely placed to gauge the level of external security the Germans had in place. So far, he gauged it high. Even if the men attempting to escape managed to overpower their guards, and take their weapons, and get to the compound, the chances were they would be shot down by the guards up in the watch towers before they could make it over the fence.

The way Bucky saw it, in order for an escape attempt to be successful, the guards outside would have to be dealt with at the same time as the guards inside. The main problem with that was that they never knew exactly when more wagons would be along to collect parts, so even if Bucky and his cellmates were on the factory floor when it happened, they'd have no way to co-ordinate the attempt with Sawyer and the rest of the loaders.

When his coughing fit didn't subside as fast as the last time, Gabe and Falsworth made their way over and crouched down beside him. They took it in turns to press the backs of their hands against his forehead, whilst Bucky swatted feebly at them and had a déjà vu of being back in the SSR's camp with Gusty and Wells doing the same thing.

"What do you think?" Falsworth asked Jones, talking over Bucky with the worst bedside manner he'd ever seen.

"I think pneumonia," said Jones.

"I have to agree."

"Thank you, Doctor Jones and Nurse Falsworth," Bucky glowered. "But I don't have pneumonia." He held back a cough just to prove it. "Just a bit of a cold. A seasonal thing. Now leave me alone, I gotta think about the sewer situation."

They reluctantly backed away, and Bucky dragged one of the blankets around his shoulders and leant back against the bars of the cell. The rest of the group began talking quietly amongst themselves, nonsense talk about the first thing they were gonna do after escaping. Bucky reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the letter that was starting to get badly worn down its folded edges. He read it again, top to bottom, front and back, looking for something, anything, that might help him find a way out of this mess.

He knew it was stupid, looking for answers in a dead man's confessions, but he couldn't help it. Wells had always been good at coming up with solutions when things went sideways, and right now, things weren't just sideways; they were upside down.

C'mon, pal, he thought to his absent friend. You've found your way out of some pretty dark places. Help me find a way out of this one. I don't wanna spend the rest my life in here. There's still a war to be won.

If the spirit of Wells was listening, he certainly wasn't answering. No divine inspiration was forthcoming. He didn't get any flashes of insight, and no whisper of how he could use something in this place his advantage. When he tried to imagine what his friend might say if he were here, all he could see was Wells naggin' at him to get some rest and making some smart-assed crack about huddling together for warmth.

When a pair of HYDRA guards appeared with a large metal container, Bucky put the letter away. The guards tossed a handful of stale, crusty bread rolls onto the floor, and the men scrambled to pick them up before they could get too dirty. Dernier tossed one to Bucky, whilst Dugan ambled over to the front of the bars to address the Germans.

"Say, I don't suppose there's any chance of a little peanut butter and jelly to go with this, is there?"

The guards stared at him in silence for a moment, then moved on to the next cell. Bucky hated the guards almost as much as he hated Lohmer. At least he knew Lohmer had a face. The masks the guards wore hid their identities completely.

"I can't imagine that tasting very pleasant," said Falsworth as he tore into his roll, an expression of disgust painting its way across his face.

"What, PB&J?" Dugan replied. "You haven't lived until you've tried PB&J. It's heaven. When we get outta here and find the nearest Allied camp, the first thing I'm gonna do is make you a PB&J sandwich."

"I can hardly wait."

"Eat up, Barnes," said Morita, when Bucky sat picking at his roll. "If it's too tough for you to chew, we can get Dernier to pre-chew it for you."

Dernier said something that did not sound particularly flattering even to Bucky's Anglophone ears.

He managed to get the stale bread down his throat, though he wished like hell he had a glass of water to make swallowing it a little easier. The stuff was almost as hard to chew as the biscuits used in shit-on-a-shingle, and just as tasteless. A few days ago, Morita had gotten something crunchy in his breakfast bread roll. When he spat out the shiny black shell of some beetle, he vomited up everything he'd swallowed, and nobody else had been able to stomach breakfast that morning.

Colonel Lohmer appeared, once breakfast was done. Flanked by his goons, he made his usual morning round of the cells, smiling to himself as he watched his prisoners suffer. Bucky couldn't figure out why he liked watching the men suffer so much, and he hoped he never would understand. All he knew was that this went beyond the usual Nazi sentiment of genetic supremacy. The Nazis might hate Jews, and consider Russians sub-human, but Colonel Lohmer seemed to enjoy inflicting misery on everybody.

"Open this one," Lohmer instructed, stopping in front of Bucky's cell.

One of the guards moved to open it, and Dugan and Dernier took steps back. The metal door clanged open, and the commandant sneered down his nose at the men on the floor. Bucky didn't need to be a mind reader to know what the guy was thinking. All of the prisoners were dirty, their hair lank, their faces pale. They all stank of sweat because there were no bathing facilities available, and their shoes reeked of urine thanks to the constantly overflowing toilets. It was as if Lohmer wasn't content to merely work the prisoners; he wanted to humiliate them, as well.

"On your feet," the man barked.

Falsworth, Morita and Jones stood right away, but Bucky had to take a moment to prepare himself. He last coughing fit had brought black flecks swarming in front of his eyes, and his limbs felt so weak it was a wonder they were still attached to his body.

"Pitiful," Lohmer gloated. "How weak and slow you are. Your American ancestors were on to a good idea, enslaving the blacks. We have found blacks to be much better menial labourers; stronger, faster. It was foolish of you to grant them their freedom. When we reach America, we will take your rich lands for ourselves and correct this terrible travesty. The black slaves will be put back in their place, and they will toil for the glory of a superior race."

"Not if I have anything to say about it," Bucky grumbled wheezily.

"I said 'on your feet,' filth!"

A swift blur of motion ended with a blossoming of pain across one side of his ribs; Lohmer's booted foot connecting sharply with his chest. Bucky couldn't help the pained cry that escaped his lips as he went toppling back against the bars. His shoulder was wrenched in the process, and the back of his head hit the iron bars so hard that, for a moment, he saw stars.

The next thing he knew, Dugan was rushing forward with his fist raised, ready to throw a punch right at Lohmer's face. The guards were swifter. One of them drew a baton and effortlessly back-handed it across Dugan's midriff, striking his solar plexus and knocking the wind right out of him with a gasp of "Oof!" But even without any air in his lungs, he wasn't going down. He took another step forward, this time raising his other hand.

Dugan, you stupid ass! Bucky mentally hissed at him. Gritting his teeth against the aches and pains of his body, he reached out for the nearest bar and used it to haul himself to his feet before Dugan could nobly get himself killed.

"See?" Lohmer said to the other guard, with a gesture for Bucky. "I told you he was not too sick to work." He gave a curt nod, and the first guard brought his baton around and struck Dugan across the back, sending the big man flying into the bars. Bucky's fingernails dug into his palms, hands trembling as he tried to hold back his fury. Dugan didn't deserve to be punished for trying to help him. It wasn't fair—and Lohmer knew it. As much as Bucky hated doing nothing, nothing was currently the best thing to do. Better that Lohmer believe them cowed into submission. Better he not see too many acts of defiance.

"Take these men to the factory," Lohmer instructed the guards. He pointed at Bucky and Dugan. "Tonight, these two get no food. If the others try to share their food, beat them all."

Bucky wobbled woozily as Lohmer left, and Falsworth rushed forward to grab his arm and hook it around his narrow shoulders. "Sorry, Dugan," Bucky said, as Dum Dum took several deep huffs to get his diaphragm working again.

"Yeah, me too. I didn't mean to get your rations cut by these pea-brained, sour-breathed goat-fu—"

Dugan had the butt of a rifle jabbed into his ribs, for that one. Both guards looked like they were prepared to start open firing then and there, so the group stepped quickly out of their cell and let themselves be herded down to the factory floor where another gruelling ten hours of manual labour waited them. Bucky, still half-carried by Falsworth, suspected he wouldn't last one hour hauling parts around, much less ten.

"You know what the sad thing is?" Jones asked, as they were marched to an assembly line and instructed, "Schnell arbeiten!"

"What's that?" Morita responded.

"I'm in the work-camp of fascist, genocidal monsters, forced to toil until I'm exhausted, and fed barely enough to keep me going… and I'm still treated better than I was by the Negro-hating drill sergeants back at boot camp."

Even Bucky, who was clinging to consciousness by the skin of his teeth, couldn't help but be sobered by that.