Never Shall Be Slaves part three

[dolevalan]

Title: Never Shall Be Slaves
Co-author Credit: abnormal_sea
Fandom(s): Richard Carstone is from Bleak Houseby Charles Dickens. Tom Jones is from the novel of the same name by Henry Fielding. Danny Sloane (Arthur's younger brother) also makes a brief cameo appearance.
Rating: PG-13, overall, for violence and some language.



By the time Jones woke up, Richard was paging through the small German phrasebook in his pack. Tom yawned and smiled a little. "Good morning, sir. What's for breakfast?"

Richard said, almost absently, "There should be some rations in your pack, if they survived the fall. Do you speak any German, Jones?"

Tom began digging through his pack. "A little, sir. My vocabulary could be bigger, but my accent is supposed to be quite good."

"Excellent. Now, if we're lucky, he'll still be there and my eyes didn't deceive me." Richard glanced over at Tom. "I think you're about his size."

"Wait. You...you mean...I'm supposed to..."

"Well, ideally, we'll stay well out of sight. But yes. I'm your prisoner, if it comes to that. You've got a wound, so that explains away any blood on your uniform, and it should fit reasonably well. It'll keep them talking long enough for us to overpower them if we can, or try to run if we can't."

"But...but...he's dead. I can't just..." Tom started to feel sick again.

"Yes he is. But I do not intend us to be, cadet." Richard’s voice wasn't quite angry, but it was firm. "I'm too tall, and my German is atrocious."

"I never had to use it outside of school and I don't know the first thing about what a nazi should act like." Tom was a little too upset by the situation to remember to be deferential to his superior.

"Do you have any superior suggestions, Jones? I am not going to allow you to simply give up." Trying to keep Jones calm was doing wonders for Richard, ironically enough, who now had somewhere else to focus his energy other than his own worry and guilt.

Tom sighed. "No. I don't, sir."

"Very good." Richard stood up, his body protesting at a night spent mostly sitting up on a rock. "We should get moving."

Tom gathered what few things he had and stood as well. "Do I...change uniforms now, sir?"

"Well, we left him a way back. We'll have to find him first. I'm fairly certain I can get us back to where we were. How's your shoulder feeling?"

"Well enough."

"Glad to hear it." Richard hesitated for the smallest moment, then said, "Right then. No point burning daylight." He turned to head back they way they had come. Tom followed, feeling a little overwhelmed. He had been through a lot over the past few hours and Richard didn't seem very sympathetic.

When they got to the corpse, Tom promptly turned around and vomited his meager breakfast. Richard didn't immediately notice. He was staring at the man he had killed the night before - one wound in the forehead, the other in the stomach. In the dark, it had been bad enough, but now he could see the man's face.

Tom recovered before Richard had moved to do anything. He came up next to Richard. "Sir. The blood's in the wrong place." Richard didn't reply, for a moment. "Sir?"

Richard blinked several times, then took a step back. "We... we'll just hope we don't get close enough to any Krauts for them to notice. It's still better than nothing." He put effort into keeping his voice steady.

Tom had thought he had brought up an important point, but apparently not. "Yes, sir," he said.

And Richard turned away, and was, himself, rather violently ill in the bushes, though there wasn't much in his stomach to empty. So much for respecting the superior officer, part of him thought grimly.

"Sir!" Tom sounded concerned. "Are you alright?" He lay a tentative hand on Richard's shoulder.

Richard coughed a bit, and nodded. "...fine." He took a deep breath, hands still on his knees. "We can try to find somewhere to wash the blood out, if we take the uniform with us."

"Your rations must have gone bad," Tom said. After all, there was no other excuse for it. "You can have mine, sir. If I'm to be a German, I'm sure I can get some more food somewhere."

Richard shook his head. "No, they're fine. Besides, we don't want any interaction we can avoid." He managed to straighten, still looking a bit pale. "We shouldn't linger here longer than we have to."

Tom nodded, he was getting a bit put out due to the fact that every suggestion he made was quickly being shot down, but he wasn't going to show it. All he did was glance at the body again. He really didn't like thinking about what he was going to have to do.

Quietly, Richard said, "I'll help you strip him." He silently prayed that he wouldn't vomit on either the corpse or Jones.

"Thank you, sir." Tom told himself to just think of it as a dummy in a shop window. He knelt and began to fumble with a button. Richard moved to the corpse's other side and began undoing his belt, trying his best not to think about anything remotely related to the present situation.

Eventually the job was done and Tom glanced down at the body, his arms full of clothes. "I feel bad leaving him like that."

Richard nodded. "I know. We don't have a shovel or anything...burning might draw attention." He looked torn.

Tom ran off in the direction Richard had come from last night and returned dragging his parachute. He clumsily draped it over the corpse. "That's better." And it was. He could no longer see the dead man's face which made all the difference in the world.

Richard nodded, something like relief on his face. "Good thinking, Jones."

"Thank you, sir." Tom had started taking off his uniform and replacing it with the German's.

Richard looked west, through the trees. "We can keep moving as long as we have cover. We might want to start trying to cover ground at night, though, and sleeping during part of the day."

"Yes, sir," Tom said as he finished and tucked his bundle of photographs into a pocket.

When Richard turned, he found a very passable young nazi had taken Tom's place, complete with blue eyes and reddish-blond hair. "Lord, Jones, that's a bit uncanny." Richard smiled, just a little.

"Sorry, sir." Tom glanced down at his new dog tags and saluted. "Thomas Hertz, reporting for duty."

"Don't apologize - this may actually work, if it comes to that." Once the body was covered and Tom was disguised, Richard's spirits seemed to improve a little. "Are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be, sir."

"Good man." Purposely not looking at the corpse, Richard set off west, careful to keep to as much cover as possible.