The Battle of Fall Gelb was resolving, on the better side for the Germans. The troops were starving and morale was dropping rapidly. Lucas was one of the troops in charge of 6,000 troop artillery support group. The German movements hinted quite strongly at a major army gathering near the Ardennes. Lucas read the paper about the major battle that might happen, he didn’t know how the paper got its information. Lucas was considering leaving the military, as he hated the military. He was forcefully drafted when he was 21, right after he got a comfortable desk job in Marseilles.

“Lucas, have you forgotten?” a deep voice called.
“Who is it?” Lucas replied, for a second not realizing who had said it dreading who it was. Then noticed the Algerian accent, recognizing his best friend. He sighed with some relief.

“It is me Karim, you don’t talk to me anymore, you sit here reading the papers while forgetting about me,” Karim said twirling his signature hat, a token of the Algerian military. He looked at the sky as if symbolizing something dramatic.

“I’m stressed out about the current situation, the information that we are receiving from the British doesn’t add up, some reports say that there are 70,000 troops, some say well over 150,000! This battle is so significant France and everyone around her is doomed!” Lucas said in a single breath, “This is very irregular, if this is wrong and we under-estimate them over 76,000 military men will die, not counting the civilians in the surrounding villages,”
“Everyone knows that you detest the military, the rumours have been circulating for months now,” Karim smugly replied. “You have detested it ever since you got the draft note, comfortable in your office.” Lucas scowled redding in the face from indignation and stress.

The whistle for the artillery officers sounded and Karim dismissed himself. Lucas thought to himself of all the paperwork he had to do, It was for the 38  troops that had recently died in the outbreak of Salmonella in the southern part of the camp. He had to conduct an investigation and also personally send letters to the family of the people that were killed. He personally believed that it was the soldiers fault for not cooking the meat properly and not boiling the milk.

The next day they met with the British, they exchanged information and they discussed the future probabilities of the British debates. Lucas hated the British, he was French it was normal for a Frenchmen to upturn their noses at Englishmen. They had been fighting for hundred’s of years, now that they were suddenly fighting together, it was suspicious. The main jist of the debate was that should the military attack the elusive German force or should they remain safe for the reinforcements to arrive in 17 days.

If the troops stayed and let the German forces invade the French countryside of Champagne-Ardenne, Picardie, and Nord-Pas-de-Calais many villages would be destroyed and that area of France was one of the main producers of wine in France. The area was very important to the French economy and if that area was destroyed it would be even more difficult to defend Paris. The 3 provinces were the eastern border of Paris. They could walk across small plains to get to the French Capital. The other side of the debate was that if they entered the battle and lost, the German would be able to march from the east with no resistance and the Italians from the south with small resistance. It would spell the end for France. Judging from the massive genocides that were committed in Poland it was guessed that the people of France would not be spared. It was a worrying situation for Lucas because the Italians were barely held at bay in the south, if they lost in the north Marseilles would most definitely be invaded.
“Stop” yelled the British commander drops of spit flying from his mouth, “Are we going to let the poor peasants of France be killed needlessly, or are we going to save those poor people. To Hell with waiting! Either the British will stay and fight or the French will crumble,” The commander then gave a resounding speech about the values of being in the military and at the end he had all the officers, British and French, standing and applauding. The decision was voted, by everyone, to move into the Germans movement pattern.

Lucas knew that this was a horrible idea, if the Britishman was wrong, as he most probably was France would burn for his mistake. That night during the daily meeting Lucas had to yell the announcement to the entire 6,000 troop regiment he was in charge of, “Attention! I have an announcement to make. The decision was made yesterday by all of the officials unanimously to attack the Germans.” He waited for a second waiting for the shocked crowd to explode into discourse. As expected the entire room erupted in anger.

“What!? We have had barely any food for days, how do you expect us to fight?,” several angry soldiers yelled. Many soldiers started yelling the same thing, at the same a plate of buttered bread rolls came sailing towards his head.

“We have already fought many battles and won them all, can’t we wait for reinforcements. We know already that we are most probably outnumbered. “I was drafted, I don’t want to die!”  a particularly troublesome soldier bellowed. The general outburst of anger and irritation was built up over the recent starvation, the insurgency lasted for over 10 minutes until Karim and three other men were ordered to fire and artillery gun. The bang nearly caused all the rioters to throw themselves to the ground in fear. It was dead silent and everyone’s ears rung with the sound of the blast. Lucas was fuming and was quite surprised steam wasn’t coming from his ears like a childrens’ cartoon.

“Quiet, this was a superior decision and whether you like it or not we will fight, you cowards. Think of the townspeople who will die of your cowardice. Stay here and clean up this responsible for sending the retreat message to the other supply trucks. If they’re dead, everyone is dead.mess until I think of a punishment fit for all of you!” Lucas bellowed. His nostrils flared with anger, none laughed. The remaining soldiers stayed for the next hour cleaning the mess. The punishment was to give a month’s supply of their alcohol ration to the village after the battle. None rejected it. One person did, no alcohol for the rest of his military life.

The next day after a sleepless night for everyone they headed out of their current base and marched toward the battle. “Today we fight, and will save the land of France from horrible invaders, remember God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best,” Lucas quoted Voltaire and to great effect. Morale was the highest it had been in days and the army was eager to fight against the German Menace. Unfortunately, hour after hour the speech morale was dropping slowly. There was grunting and general discourse in the ranks, but none when Lucas was near.

All until a spotter saw the Nazi flag over twelve miles in the distance. The message was quickly routed through the entire army and it was silent except for the sound of insects buzzing, soon a shot was fired from the North-Western side of their battalion, soon the shots were resounding constantly around the valley. Suddenly, a barrage of artillery fire rained down on and around Lucas, they didn’t expect artillery fire, it was an ominous sign. “Down and cover!” Lucas yelled. This was bad, the barrage had caused the morale that was remaining to flee along with the hope they had.  Everyone started fleeing without any form of array. It was slaughter.

By now the soldiers remaining fought while silently praying that the leaders would surrender and the soldiers would be allowed to keep their lives. As another barrage decimated a nearby supply truck, scattering mutilated cans everywhere, a plane flew over the edge of the valley, along with the rest of the squadron. The air was set ablaze by bullets, from the planes raining death upon the poor remaining British. The British were dead.

The British radioman yelled about tanks advancing from the back, before keeling over the radio, dead. That’s it our only chance gone Lucas thought. Lucas tried something he had never thought he would try, say goodbye to his friends. He knew where the artillery was so he could say goodbye to Karim. He reached the ridge between the artillery and the infantry crossing it with grim thoughts. He crossed the ridge seeing tanks the size of buildings trundling over the bodies of dead soldiers. Lucas quickly took out his binoculars to look at the crowd of prisoners. Before looking at the crowd of prisoners he wanted to examine the tanks.

He focused on a tank before seeing a familiar Algerian hat crushed by the treads of the insidious device. Lucas wanted to hope differently but he knew whose it was. Lucas vomited with disgust and depression for his lost comrade in arms. Lucas felt defeated and he knew that they would lose and France would be crushed. Lucas threw a grenade into the approaching crowd. Lucas threw hoping many would die with it. Lucas felt a sharp pain in his arm and a cold feeling throughout his body. His arm fell to his side like an empty sleeve of a jacket. Lucas looked down and saw blood before collapsing and seeing a tunnel closing around his eyes.

He woke up with unfamiliar surroundings made him leap up with fear wait on his arms before falling back down with searing pain in his arm remembering he had been shot Lucas rolled over and use his left arm to prop himself up and examine the surroundings. It was a makeshift wood room filled with beds. Someone slammed on the door yelling in German. Suddenly, from Lucas’s point of view, everyone got up from the beds and formed a line.

Someone said “Get up or get beaten.”

“Where am I?” Lucas inquired.

“Prisoner of War Camp, West Germany,” a stocky Frenchman said helping Lucas up. “I’m Tachinus, stand up tall for the officers.” As if on cue a tall German came in barking orders at two other soldiers dressed in German uniforms. The lines of Frenchman and British stood taller as if to impress him. The tall German was yelling constantly for whatever he said. Then he came to the line that Lucas was in.

“I see that we have a new one, I will enjoy getting to know you,” The man cackled,” I am Commander Alfons Himmler,  Cousin of Heinrich Himmler. I will see to that you are introduced properly.” Three men came in and restrained Lucas, he was dragged outside to a massive compound full of tents and buildings a tall barbed wire fence surrounded the compound. Lucas had no idea where he was, all he knew is that he was in Germany. The wide sweeping plain was magnificent for a compound this size, there is even a river for water Lucas thought.  The compound was a massive transit camp, a place where prisoners were kept, sometimes for months, before being moved to another camp in the east. This camp was 62 miles Southwest of Stuttgart. Lucas was dragged back to the cabin and thrown inside with force.

“What next?” Lucas asked Tachinus. Lucas was thinking about how he should leave this place, and leave now.
“Daily work, digging and stuff,” Tachinus said after lifting Lucas off the ground. “It is the most fun part of the day, work after breakfast, break for lunch, dinner, then bed.” A pair of soldiers yelled something incomprehensible and the prisoners shuffled outside. The day was chilly stinging their skin, smoke was coming from the chimney of the offices of the Officers. Lucas was waiting in one of the lines for food when multiple cracks could be heard from the firing range.

“Last escape attempt,” one soldier said. Lucas could understand German, he took it in Secondary School and in High School.

“Certainly, no one has ever escaped the camp, only idiots try, ” The second soldier said before bursting into laughter. Lucas was listening before being jostled into moving forward. He was asked by server, in German, if he wanted real food or the fake food that the prisoners had to eat: Lucas replied perfectly in German, “I would like real food”, the server stood in shock for a moment before throwing some slop into a bowl in front of Lucas. He was served a piece of stale bread before following the line of prisoners of war into an outdoor dining area. The area was open to the sky, which was bad because, it was raining.  The groups of people sat huddled in silence, the only sounds that could be heard were the munching and crunching of eating.

After the seventeen minute meal the group organized around a shed, Lucas followed like a sheep around its herder. around thirty soldiers congregated around the group of five hundred prisoners, a soldier was sent forward to open the shed. The shed slammed open while the prisoners surged inside. Lucas was pushed and shoved into he too was shoved into the shed, it was massive top to bottom filled with shovels and picks. Lucas grabbed a shovel and followed everyone to a large gate.

It opened to what seemed to be a large open space surrounded by walls covered by German machine guns. Lucas walked forward not realizing why everyone was turning sharply to the left, before nearly falling into a massive quarry in the ground. Someone grabbed him by the arm preventing a thirty foot fall. It was a quarry, one of the biggest Lucas had ever seen. They marched to the bottom before starting to hack away at the walls of the stone coffin. The men with the picks were hacking at the wall, men with wheelbarrows before other men transported the stone and ore to the surface. Lucas started shoveling, wondering what time the work would end.

During the work period Lucas conversed with some other prisoners and found out some of the horrors committed in the camp. The others said it was a wonder someone hadn’t been beaten yet, Lucas asked why people hadn’t escaped yet. The other man simply said “The risk was to high and if you were captured-,” the soldier shuddered, ”-bad things.” Lucas knew that the Germans thought that the new people in the camp wouldn’t try to escape the camp that early.

Lucas started formulating a plan for his escape, first he would steal a soldier’s uniform by sneaking into the laundry in the middle of the night. There was a hole in the back of the cabin that he could sneak through in the middle of the night given shovels were putting the load unto the fact that Lucas was fairly thin. In addition, he would pose as a soldier and spent  some consecutive weeks working on a hole that he could go through. After that he would go to the second walls gate and request access to the outside vehicle areas. Lucas had starting collecting cigarettes and tobacco to bribe the gate guard. Then he would steal a vehicle as the keys remained in the vehicles at all times.
Lucas stayed awake the next night, stealing the soldier’s uniform without a hitch; he started digging the hole fairly early. Lucas dug the hole under the fence behind the shovel shed, as he had studied the patterns for the guards and none of the guards went there, as there was no reason to go there. All the previous escape attempts had happened on the other side of the compound. Lucas collected seventeen packets of cigarettes. He dug the hole the entire time he was  supposed to sleep, it resulted in him being extremely tired from all the work and even more tired in the quarry. He was beaten regularly for not working enough, resulting in a lot of bruising. The next night Lucas was able to fit through the hole.

He fit through the fence, but badly cut his upper torso on the sharp fence base, he successfully talked the gate guard into opening the gate without a bribe. The guard suspiciously stared at the open and bleeding wound and the bruises along his face. Lucas could see after he limped away the officer pick up a phone, he quickened his pace. He starting walking through the tents to the vehicles but, he voices talking about an escapee so he dashed to a jeep. He went inside started the car and floored it, he rode away amidst yelling. The car tire ruptured from a bullet-shot, it veered to the left and smashed a tree. Lucas got out and looked over his shoulder as more vehicles approached. He sprinted away, dreading the near future. He slipped, fell, and was surrounded.