Into the Woods (4/7)

Chapter 4: Stiff Upper Lip

Sergeant Dickins was a nice fellow, Carter mused as the two of them walked ahead of the others to the Hammelburg bridge. It was a shame he couldn't just tell him where they were headed just yet – this was standard precaution, just in case the flyers turned out to be German plants – but Carter made up for this no-go subject by telling Dickins about life in Muncie, Indiana, and asking him about life in Liverpool.

As it turned out, Ron Dickins had been a bartender before the war, and as such was full of colourful stories, to say the least.

"… And then – I swear it's true! – the poor bloke stands up, downs his beer in one gulp, and his trousers go down like that," he finished, snapping his fingers for effect and laughing. Carter followed suit.

"Boy, that must've been embarrassing."

"Not really. He went down next. Practically crashed a table when he did, too." Dickins shook his head with a grin. "Next day he came back and asked around how he got that big old bruise on the back of his head. Never found out he'd lost his trousers in the meantime."

"Nobody told him?"

"Nah, his mates weren't that cruel." He shot a sideways glance at Carter. "You never got smashed at the pub with your mates?"

Carter searched his memory, but came up short.

"Well … no." He paused, then went on uncertainly, "I didn't have that many good friends back home, actually. Lots of family, and a few buddies, but …" His voice trailed off. This particular batch of memories wasn't bad, as such, but there were one or two he could have done without. He shrugged. "Guess they thought I was weird. Told me so, a couple of times."

Judging by the sudden silence and the odd look Dickins was giving him (a mixture of curiosity and pity) he had done it again – blurted out something he probably shouldn't have.

Ah well. It's not the first time, and it won't be the last either.

"So … You're telling me you had no real friends back home?"

"I dunno. I never got smashed at the pub with my mates, anyway. Is that a bad thing?"

Dickins seemed to ponder the question for a bit.

"Not really, no. But it's a bit sad, I reckon. Every man's entitled to at least one or two loyal mates."

Carter brightened instantly, feeling much more cheerful. "Oh, but I've got Newkirk and LeBeau, and Kinch, and I guess the Colonel does count even though he's an officer and everything, and Olsen, and Baker –"

Dickins cut him off, grinning.

"You're best friends with all of them?"

"Perhaps not really all of them, but yeah, they're pals. You know, the kind you can count on. I mean, there was that time I really thought my goose was cooked, but then –"

He was getting carried away again, and probably would have ended up spilling a secret mission or two, but Newkirk crept up behind him, tapped him on the shoulder and whispered, "Hold that thought, Andrew. We're not out of the woods yet."

"Are you sure this bridge is safe?" Dickins whispered back urgently. Newkirk gave a non-committal shrug.

"We checked it out for any shifty business last time we crossed it," he replied dryly, still in a low voice. "Since that was about an hour ago, I think we should be safe. Come on, off you go. Quickly, mind."

Perhaps some of it was sarcasm, but as usual Carter chose not to pay attention. He crossed the bridge as inconspicuously as he could, Dickins right behind him, silently thanking whoever had given orders to have a nightly black-out in Hammelburg. It made sneaking around that much easier.

Bannister and McBride were next, followed by Newkirk and LeBeau. In the half-dark, Carter saw the Frenchman shake his head.

"At this rate we won't get there before five," he heard him mutter. "Si je connaissais le con qui a fait sauter le pont …"

"Oi, you're not still going on about that, are you?" whispered Newkirk. "Forget the bloody bridge and let's get a move on. We're close enough to Hammelburg as it is."

"He's right," Bannister said curtly. "No need to broadcast our presence to the Jerries. They must already be patrolling the woods since the bridge blew up."

Just one second after he closed his mouth, something nearby went click. It wasn't a loud click, but it was enough to make Carter's brain switch to autopilot; he threw himself at Dickins and yelled "Get down!"

The explosion drowned out his voice. He didn't hear his own words even as they left his mouth.

He flattened himself half on the ground, half on the British sergeant, one arm keeping him down and the other covering his own head while the world shook and the bright, yellowish-orange glare burned through his eyelids even as he screwed them shut. Somehow he resisted the temptation to open his eyes and admire the pretty colours. They were a little too close to be able to truly enjoy the show.

It seemed to last forever, and his ears kept on ringing for several minutes after the noise died down.

When he dared to raise his head from the moss, he realised he was covered in earth and pieces of shredded leaves and twigs. Rubbing the spots out of his eyes, he caught a glimpse of Dickins beside him, short brown curls a complete mess and blue eyes wide open in shock in the middle of a white, dirt-smudged face.

"Jesus Christ," he whispered hoarsely, "what 'appened?"

Carter didn't answer right away; he sat up and looked back first. Sure enough, there was a huge hole in the bridge. It seemed to have fared a little better than the last, though: most of the supports were still standing, and the amount of pieces of timber and rubble stone strewn about the banks was smaller.

"Looks like the bridge blew up," he said shakily, struggling to his feet and leaning against a tree for support. Thankfully, he hadn't been standing so close this time and luckily had been quicker to react – while he was still dizzy, he was recovering a little faster. "Again."

Where were the others? All he could see by moonlight was the remains of the bridge; the grassy banks and the woods were still too dark for his eyes to focus properly.

"Everybody okay?" he asked, still not daring to trust his wobbly legs and let go of the tree. He heard a groan somewhere to his left and squinted in that direction, still only discerning a bunch of trees and shadows.

One of the shadows turned out to be Squadron Leader Bannister, who shook his head gingerly and muttered, "In a manner of speaking. McBride? Dickins? You all right?"

"Right as rain, sir," came Dickins' still croaky voice behind the American. "Thanks, Carter," he added in a grateful undertone.

"I'll be fine, sir," said McBride, and Carter finally spotted him about three yards from the edge of the water, hunched over something and cradling his left arm. "But you'd better come and take a look."

Bannister got up somehow – he seemed a lot steadier than Carter felt, but he still needed to pause and close his eyes for a second after he got to his feet – and slowly walked up to McBride, limping a little.

The last spots finally cleared from Carter's vision, and he could make out the two dark shapes McBride was kneeling next to in the grass. Even from where he stood, Newkirk and LeBeau both looked pale as a sheet, and frighteningly still.

Carter's breath caught in his throat, and he staggered toward his friends, the same two words going over and over in his head like a scratched record.

Oh no.

Sergeant Murray stared at Hogan, dark eyes bulging. "You're going to do what? !"

Robert Hogan would be the first – scratch that, maybe the third or fourth – to admit that he enjoyed a good dramatic one-liner from time to time, especially when he was the one who delivered it. But there was a time and place for everything, and right now the two prisoners deserved some explanation.

"Relax, we're not going to kill you for real. We'll just make it look like the ammunition stored here went off because of the heat. These things will happen."

Murray's shoulders drooped, and the young corporal – Berkowitz – gave a small smile.

"Do you do this kind of thing often?" he asked, a touch of hope in his tone.

"Well, you know, it's a hobby. Keeps us out of trouble." The quip had the desired effect; both flyers looked more relaxed, but their eyes told Hogan they were listening raptly. "The only thing you have to do is go down that tunnel when – and only when – one of my men comes up to get you. You'll have to leave your jackets and hats behind, but don't worry, I'm sure they got a stock of them where you're going."

"Which is?" Murray asked, his eyes narrowed. Hogan stared right back.

"Why, Merry Old England, of course."

Murray and Berkowitz looked at each other with mirroring expressions of mixed enthusiasm and scepticism.

"What about Squadron Leader Bannister, Flight Lieutenant McBride and Sergeant Dickins, Colonel?" asked Berkowitz tentatively. "We can't leave without them."

The voice was uncertain, but the brown eyes showed genuine determination not to leave his fellow crewmen – friends, maybe – behind. Kid's got grit somewhere, Hogan thought, studying him carefully. Wonder if he knows it.

He took a second to mull over both the question and the involuntary reminder that the three British flyers were not the only ones whose whereabouts were currently unknown.

They will make it, he told himself again, shoving the cold uncertainty in a dark corner of his mind. They got themselves out of worse situations before. Just trust them and focus on the job at hand.

"We're working on that," he finally replied, making sure his voice sounded as confident and convincing as he wanted to appear. "I got my men on the case, they should be back with your colleagues soon enough. In the meantime, sit tight, and wait for one of us to give you the signal to go. It's very important that the guard sees you here right before the cooler goes boom."

"Right, sir," said Murray calmly – but it was obviously a faked calm, a façade behind which he was seething with impatience. "So what happens after the cooler, er, 'goes boom'?"

"That, Flight Sergeant, is another story for another time." Hogan knocked a short code on the trapdoor, and it opened. "Let's just get the two of you out of Klink's – and the Gestapo's – radar. The rest will be as easy as falling off a log."

Making sure nobody gets hurt falling off that log, that's the hard part, he thought as he climbed down the tunnel, closing the trapdoor behind him.

Fire and ice burned in turns in McBride's arm, making his head – and stomach – swim slightly. His entire body felt numb in comparison. He grit his teeth against the pain as discreetly as he could and reached out to put two fingers of his good hand against Newkirk's neck. It was with a certain amount of relief that he discovered the man was indeed alive – still unconscious, and curled up on himself in a manner that made it clear something was wrong with him, but alive.

McBride shot an inquisitive glance at his squadron leader, who had turned LeBeau's body over and was checking him for signs of life as well. Bannister gave a short nod, and despite the white-hot pain in his arm McBride breathed a little more freely. At least no one was dead.

He heard a groan from Newkirk, followed by a pained gasp and a breathless "Wha' …? Ow, bloody 'ell …" as he tried to move. Carter immediately dropped down beside his friend, almost as pale as he was.

"Hey, take it easy," he said shakily. "You're not looking good at all, you know."

Newkirk's wince turned into a smirk for a second.

"Three words, mate. Pot. Kettle. Black. Ow …" The smirk was gone as another imprudent movement left him gasping for breath again; somehow, he still managed to let loose a string of very imaginative curses McBride stoically chose to ignore, ending on a comparatively mild, "What the bloody hell happened, Andrew?"

Carter gave a nervous chuckle. "Well, would ya believe someone blew up the bridge? I mean, this one, too?"

Newkirk blinked.

"You're joking," he said flatly.

The American met his deadpan stare with a sheepish look. "Wish I was. Looks like somebody really has it in for us, huh?"

"Or it could just be a series of coincidences, and you're not the target at all," McBride pointed out. "Accidents do happen."

Newkirk shot him a withering look, bordering on sheer insubordination. He had never seen a corporal look at him like that; it almost made him glad Bannister had gone to check up on Dickins and couldn't have seen that look. McBride could let it slide on account of what had just happened, but Bannister certainly wouldn't.

"With all due respect, sir," Newkirk said, undisguised sarcasm in his voice, pulling himself up to a sitting position, "you'd have to be monumentally stupid to pull off an 'accident' like that. That, or a ruddy genius –"

His gaze unfocused slightly and veered to the left, and he trailed off mid-sentence; McBride frowned, and was about to check him for head wounds, when he noticed the growing panic in his eyes.

"Louis … He – he was right behind me when –"

"I'm still behind you," said a very quiet voice behind McBride. When he turned around to look, he saw the Frenchman sitting up on his elbows, a look of dazed confusion on his face. It probably had something to do with the fact that blood was running down one side of his face from a nasty-looking wound slightly above his hairline. He frowned, and added in the same slow, faraway tone, "Don't tell me the bridge blew up."

"The bridge blew up," Newkirk immediately deadpanned with a smirk in his voice that didn't mask the relief in his eyes. "And if I ever catch the silly bastard who tried to do us in twice, I'm throttling him."

"Get in line," muttered LeBeau. "I said that first."

"We'll take it in turns, then. Okay, Carter, help me up. Mind the ribs, though, they're being a bugger at the moment."

This seemed to get LeBeau's full attention. "You're hurt?" he asked more sharply, worry flashing in his eyes. Newkirk made a dismissing gesture with the hand that was not gripping Carter's arm.

"Nothing a cup of tea and a few days' rest won't fix. Hey, you never know, maybe this time the Guv will agree to get a nurse 'round the old place. Part-time, of course." He winked, and walked over to where LeBeau was sitting with an almost completely steady step. "She'd have to be a good-looking bird, too. Wilson would appreciate the help, and we'd all appreciate the view."

"Let's not get our hopes up," mumbled the Frenchman with a small smile. McBride staggered up as he could using only his right hand, and crouched in front of him, fishing his torch out of his pocket.

"How're you feeling?" he asked, flashing the light into the dark eyes. LeBeau blinked, then shrugged.

"Er … A bit woozy. Is that the right word?"

Both eyes seemed all right. That was a good sign. "You're dizzy, disoriented, and a little bit sick to the stomach?"

"Un peu, oui."

"Then it's the right word." McBride put the torch away and stood up again. "Can you get up?"

With a bit of help from Carter – the only one of them who was completely steady on his feet – it turned out he could, and the four of them joined Bannister and Dickins under the cover of trees. Bannister helped McBride fashion a makeshift sling out of his jacket and walked off for a bit of reconnoitring; meanwhile, Dickins stared wide-eyed at the little Frenchman, who finally caught on and said, "What?", sounding mildly annoyed.

"Well …" Dickins made a face, and pointed to his head. "That's a lot of blood there. Are you okay?"

LeBeau's face went blank, and he slowly raised a hand to touch the side of his face; Newkirk and Carter, who had turned round at the word 'blood', both shouted "No, don't!" in perfect unison. Too late, though: LeBeau took one look at the red on his fingers, his eyes rolled in his head and he would have fallen face first if McBride's reflexes had been any slower. If the flight lieutenant had had full use of both his arms, he probably would have been able to catch him; since he only had one in working order, LeBeau still ended up hitting the ground, but from a lesser distance.

McBride straightened up and leaned against a nearby tree, breathing heavily and seeing spots from the pain in his arm. The little Frenchman was heavier than he looked.

"Now you've done it!" Newkirk snapped at Dickins, who looked on in confused surprise. "What'd you have to go and tell him that for? He was doing fine so far!"

"Fine?" Dickins countered when he finally found his voice, still sounding taken aback. "What d'you mean, 'fine'? He has a bloomin' great hole in his head!"

"Yeah, but he didn't need to know it!" Newkirk retorted, making perfect illogical sense. He leaned against a tree to stoop and tap a paper-white cheek. "Come on, Louis, wake up, will you? Blimey, you chose one hell of a moment to pass out on us …"

"You don't think something's really wrong with him, do you?" asked Carter, hovering near the two and looking as though he wasn't sure he ought to worry or not. Newkirk shook his head.

"Nah, I don't think so. We'll still getting Wilson to take a look at him first thing when we get there, though."

McBride opened his mouth to point out that Wilson – whom he assumed was a doctor or a medic – would certainly want to take a look at his ribs, too, but he closed it after he saw Carter shoot an unusually sharp glance at Newkirk. For all that the American appeared genial and accommodating, McBride had a funny feeling that he wouldn't let his friend go until he had dragged him in front of a doctor.

Bannister had been scouting ahead for German patrols; he retraced his steps, keeping rustling sounds to a minimum, and caught sight of Newkirk on the ground, still trying to revive LeBeau.

"What happened?"

"He happened," Newkirk muttered, jerking a thumb towards Dickins, who raised his hands defensively.

"He was covered in blood, so I asked him if he really was okay, that's all! Honestly, it's not like I bashed 'im on the head meself!"

"Come on, Newkirk, he's kinda right," said Carter reasonably, "it's not really his fault. LeBeau would have noticed eventually."

Everybody looked at him.

"Noticed what?" Bannister asked, curious.

"Well, the … blood." Carter faltered, only noticing now that Newkirk's glare had shifted from Dickins to him. "What?"

"You mean," said Bannister slowly, "he fainted just because he saw the blood?"

"Well, yeah."

Bannister's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline, and Dickins let out a small incredulous chuckle, probably more out of nervousness than from genuine mockery. McBride remained silent. He watched Carter shuffle uncomfortably, while Newkirk glared fiercely at Bannister and Dickins, as though daring them to find anything funny.

Then – to McBride's surprise – Newkirk turned back to LeBeau and said, "Come on, mate, just because everybody and their mums say the Frogs are a bunch of quitters who surrender at the first sign of trouble doesn't mean you have to prove them right, eh? Snap out of it, LeBeau, or I'll make a list of every single French defeat from the Hundred Years' War on, and it ain't gonna be pretty!"

"I think the French won that one," McBride pointed out quietly. Newkirk shot him a deadpan, You're-not-really-helping kind of look, then glanced down. LeBeau was still unconscious.

Newkirk swore under his breath and muttered, "Well. Now we know he's well out of it this time."

From the corner of his eye, McBride saw Dickins shake his head with a slight smile. "A soldier who can't stand the sight of blood. Makes you wonder if they have airmen who are afraid of flying, too."

It was at best not a very funny joke, and at worst rather poor taste, and it didn't deserve the reaction it got from Newkirk. The corporal was on his feet quicker than he should have been with a couple (or more) ribs in poor shape, and his glare made Dickins take an involuntary step back.

"If you want to insult a bloke," he hissed, practically nose-to-nose with the Liverpudlian, "you do it when he's awake so he can answer."

Dickins leaned back, wide-eyed. "But," he stammered, "you've just said a lot worse!"

Newkirk shrugged. It was a particularly expressive shrug, and McBride didn't blame Dickins for flinching slightly.

"It's not the same. He knows I don't mean a word of it, for starters."

"If you're quite finished harassing my sergeant, Corporal," came Bannister's wry voice, "maybe we can get a move on. We've been lucky so far, but soon these woods are going to be full of angry Germans who don't like what's been done to their bridges."

"It's getting kinda late, too – the others will get worried," Carter said earnestly; one look at him confirmed that he was not, in fact, being sarcastic. "I'll carry LeBeau. He'll probably wake up soon, anyway."

Dickins had been staring at Newkirk with a mixture of wariness and total incomprehension, but at Carter's words he blinked and stepped forward.

"No, I'll do it," he said, his voice gone down to a more normal pitch. "So far I'm the only one who hasn't been knocked off my feet by a bridge tonight."

To McBride's surprise, Newkirk made no biting comment. If his curt nod was anything to judge by, he even agreed with him.

Unlike Bannister (who was shorter, but built like a stevedore) and McBride (all lean muscles on thick bones), Dickins was round-faced and slightly on the chubby side; nevertheless, he picked up the Frenchman and heaved him on his shoulders in a fireman's carry rather easily. Carter fell into step with him, and they walked off, picking up an unfinished conversation in hushed whispers; Bannister fell back a few yards behind the group, as rear-guard.

McBride turned to Newkirk and offered him his good arm to help him up; the corporal gratefully grabbed it, wincing openly but silently as his ribs protested the sudden movement. He was looking a lot more drawn than he had only a minute ago, his face now ashen and wan, and McBride wondered how much of the jokes and the anger had been for Carter's benefit.

He carefully avoided asking, although he did steal a glance at Newkirk a few yards later and asked quietly, "Does it really work?"

Newkirk blinked tiredly, and frowned at him, puzzled. "Wha'?"

"Insulting your friend awake."

"Oh, that." He gave a smirk that unveiled his eye-teeth. "Would you believe it did the trick, once or twice. Well, more once than twice, actually, but yeah, I have to say it worked."

McBride looked at him sideways, sensing there was a bit more to the story. "What happened, then?"

"He socked me in the eye before he was even conscious. Didn't hear or remember a thing I said, or so he claims." He shrugged. "Anyway, like I said, he knows I don't mean that rubbish. I've seen the French fight, at Dunkirk. The commanders were ruddy idiots, but that's fairly usual for officers – saving your presence, sir," he added as an afterthought; McBride waved off the comment with a roll of his eyes "– but the soldiers, now, they fought like devils during the evacuation."

"I know."

McBride could have said that he had been there, too, during that nightmare of a summer, desperately racing for the beach with his crew after his Fairey Battle was shot down, amidst the gunfire, blood, sand, tears, sweat and grime. He could have recalled the terrible waiting on the dunes, the wild terror every time they heard the shrill whine of a nose-diving Stuka about to rain death on them from above, the guilt eating at his insides as fellow soldiers around him jerked and fell under German bullets but he didn't …

But Sean McBride had never been one to use too many words where two sufficed.

Besides, from the sharp look Newkirk shot at him, two words were more than enough.

"How did you get out of there?" he asked quietly.

McBride breathed deeply through his nose, as inconspicuously as possible. "Sheer luck and a trawler that fished me out of the drink with thirty other lads. How did you?"

"I didn't." The corporal smiled, a half-hearted, slightly twisted smile. "Long story. And the ending's probably classified anyway. Sort of."

Ah, yes. The famous 'Papa Bear' secrecy.

"I have heard a little about your organisation, you know. You're a rumour already – a few more months and you'll be shrouded in myth."

This got a sideways glance that was halfway between wry humour and textbook deadpan. "I'd prefer not to be shrouded in anything, if that's all the same to you, sir."

It was the tone that did it. Despite the pain, despite the grim situation, and despite the fact that it was not that funny, McBride couldn't help it. He grinned.

Translations/notes:

un peu, oui: "a bit, yes/yeah."

The Fairey Battle was a British light bomber.

Stuka (Sturzkampfflugzeug) means dive bomber; the Junkers Ju 87 became so famous during the Blitzkrieg and the Battles of France and Britain that the name 'Stuka' is now specifically associated with this particular plane. A Stuka was a ground-attack aircraft, meaning that its main role was precision attacks on ground forces (and the Dutch, Belgian and French civilians fleeing from the Blitzkrieg in summer 1940); when you heard its shrill, wailing siren, it usually meant it was too late to hide. Have you ever heard Stukas in a WW2 documentary? It's a nightmarish sound.