Akerman and I watched the camps daily routines for two days. We saw trucks come and go, delivering ammo and food to the troops in the camp, we saw that shifts rotated three times every twenty-four hours, and we were able to see where the individual supplies were being stored. We had drawn a small map in a journal Akerman had brought with him in his pack. The mess hall was farthest from us, the barracks were next. A hundred yards to the left from that was the armory, and opposite to the right was where the vehicles were stored and maintained. A guard tower was at the corner of each end of the base, totaling four towers manned by a minimum of two guards. One always had a scoped high caliber rifle and the other with a rapid-fire machine gun. Finally... the artillery cannons. They were kept far away from the rest of the camp, but had the most guards. Every once in a while, a messenger pidgin would land, and the crews would readjust the cannons before firing.

“How long do you think this camp has been here?” Akerman wondered.

“I don’t know, but it looks like a long-term camp, not the kind we built back there with the others.” I said.

“I think we found our way in though.” He stated.

“Where?”

“Tonight, during the shift change, we can steal a uniform or two and make our way to the cannons. Just one problem…”

“The wall?” I asked.

“Exactly. I don’t have anything solid for that yet.” He said and put his binoculars to his face. He scanned the base a few times an hour looking for changes, and today he found something. “Alucard… look, over by the west side tower. Do you see that?” He asked and handed me the binoculars. I looked through and aimed at the tower.

“What am I looking for?”

“That tree, the tall one.”

“What about it?”

“I bet if we jump, we can make it over the wall from its branches.” He said. The branch looked thick and sturdy, no signs of rot or decay. And best of all, it hung fairly close to the top of the wall. “We would have to be able to both climb and jump from it without being seen, all while we can barely see ourselves, but I think it’s doable.” Akerman explained.

“I know I could, but could you?” I asked him.

“I guess we will find out tonight.” Night fell and darkness hid our movements. That night was a new moon, so no way Akerman could see a thing. He had to use what small amount of light made its way to the woods from the camp as a guide, but there was no better time to try our plan than now. We crawled on our bellies the full quarter mile through the forest and off of the hill we had been perched on for days. Slowly, we made our way to the tree and waited for the guard’s shift change before even attempting to climb it.

The plan was simple: climb the tree and jump over the wall, then find a hiding place and make our way to the barracks. All of this was so that we could steal a uniform and disguise ourselves as soldiers. The only hard part was that we only had five minutes to do all of this, because that’s how long shift change lasts. Akerman scaled the tree first, then me. He wrapped his hands and feet around the trunk and inched his way up. I jumped up as soon as he was clear, making certain he didn’t see me, not that he had much of a chance of doing so without the light of the moon. The bell for shift changed sounded and we began. Akerman barely made it, and hit the ground hard, but uninjured. I landed and helped him up.

Making our way to the barracks was difficult. As we walked, I had to keep an ear out for approaching guards, as well as making sure the towers didn’t notice us. We ended up hiding in the latrine together. It was empty thankfully, but it didn’t stay that way for long. Just as we ducked inside and hid in a stall, a soldier walked in. Akerman and I held very still.

It sounded like he had gone into the stall next to us. He did his business then let out a groan. “Hast du Toilettenpapier?” He said.

“Ja.” I said and handed him some bog roll.

“Danke,” He said.

“Bitte,” I replied. He flushed his toilet and got up to wash and leave.

After he was gone, Akerman said, “You speak German?”

“I speak several languages actually. English isn’t even my first.”

“You’re a strange one, Alucard.”

“So I’ve been told.” Akerman and I snuck as best as we could manage to the barracks, stopping a few times to hide behind barrels, and to avoid a group of six soldiers walking around drunk. I couldn’t help but think to myself, I could have been home for days by now if I had been allowed to do this mission alone. Eventually, we slithered our way to the barracks and snuck inside via an open window. I crawled in and pulled Akerman by the arm to help him in too as he had gotten his shirt caught and torn a bit. We dropped a few feet to the floor; the barracks had been built under the ground to keep any sleeping soldiers safe in the event of an attack. The walls were wooden and seemed like they had been quickly slapped together. They were rough and unpainted, running a hand across it would have given a person a splinter or two. “Okay, the easy part is done, ready for the hard part?” I asked Akerman.

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“No, but let’s do it anyway.” He said. We looked around and were able to find some spare uniforms in storage trunks at the foot of some of the beds. We found bits and pieces from a few different ones: a hat in one, boots in the next and so on. “How do I look?” Akerman asked looking himself over while wearing a full German uniform. It was a dark green in color, with tall boots and rectangular pouches along the waist that were suspended by a harness. The helmet seemed similar to our normal ones, just a different color. There were no rifles for us unfortunately, so if anything happened we would only have the guns we brought, but they looked nothing like German guns. We left our rifles on the hill, but each of us had pistols, not that it would do us much good.

“Let’s get going,” I said and walked up the stair back to the campgrounds. “If anything happens, let me do the talking.” I told Akerman. He nodded that he understood, not that he had much of a choice as he didn’t speak a lick of German.

Walking to the cannons, we passed several groups of soldiers most paid us no mind, but one stopped us. “Du da, wo sind deine Gewehre?” One of them asked. *You there, where are your rifles?*

“Wir sind Mechaniker auf dem Weg, eine der Kanonen zu reparieren. Dafür brauchen wir keine Gewehre.” I replied. *We are mechanics on the way to fix one of the cannons. We don't need rifles for that.*

“Jeder muss mindestens eine Seitenwaffe haben. Wo ist deins?” He said. *Everyone is required to have a sidearm at the very least. Where is yours?* I pulled out my handgun and showed it to him. He took it from me and began examining it, turning it over in his hands and looking at the handle. “Das ist eine britische Waffe, wo hast du sie her?” He said and handed the gun to another soldier to look over it. *This is a British weapon, where did you get it?*

“Ich habe es aus der Leiche eines Menschen, den ich getötet habe.” I explained to him. *I got it off of the body of a soldier I killed.* The second man handed the gun back to me.

“Was ist mit deinem Freund? Wo ist er?“ The first soldier asked. *What about your friend? Where is his?*

“Er hat es auf die gleiche Weise bekommen.” I explained and motioned to Akerman to give them his gun. *He got his the same way.*

“Kann er nicht für sich selbst sprechen?” He questioned intensely. *Can’t he speak for himself?*

“Nein, Sir, seine Kehle ist im Moment krank. Er kann nicht sprechen.” I tried to lie. *No sir, his throat has a sickness at the moment. He can't speak.* The soldier looked at Akerman suspiciously. He walked over and stood face to face with him, inches apart. “Wenn Sie Ihre rechte Hand nicht heben, erschieße ich Sie mit Ihrer eigenen Waffe.” He said in an intense whisper. Akerman didn’t react, I however did. I pulled the knife that I had stored on the belt of this uniform and plunged it into the first guard’s throat before punching the other guard so hard I felt his neck break under my fist as his head spun around. The third guard Akerman tackled and hit with the butt of the soldier’s own gun before he had time to fight back.

“So… what exactly did he say?” Akerman wondered.

“He said, if you don’t raise your right hand, I’m going to shoot you with your own gun.” I told him.

“Oh… thanks. By the way, nice reaction speed. I almost couldn’t even see you move.” Akerman complimented. He looked at the bodies and then scanned the area searching for anyone who may have seen us. Luckily, no one was around, so we left the bodies and ran to the artillery as quickly as possible. It was heavily guarded, but no one even noticed the two of us stroll in and walk straight up to the guns. “I guess they don’t expect anyone to be this bold… or crazy.” Akerman said nervously.

“No one is paying us any mind, just look like you belong, and they will assume you do.” I assured him. Akerman pulled off his satchel he had been carrying and opened it, revealing a dozen sticks of dynamite a few blasting caps. The plan was to quickly, and without being noticed, plant the dynamite, then attach it to a blasting cap so we could detonate it from a distance. Akerman was the only one who knew how to do it, so I stood up and used my body to hide what he was doing. Anyone who looked our way would see me standing and my partner working on the artillery.

“Okay, one down… three to go.” Akerman said with a terrified sigh.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing, it’s just… dynamite is really touchy. Honestly, it’s a miracle it hasn’t gone off yet.” He chuckled nervously. Suddenly alarms blared and rang out from every direction.

“I guess they found the three soldiers that we killed.” I said. Soldiers all around us ran in every direction, some shouting orders, others manning positions and getting armed. “Work fast Akerman!” I quietly shouted. It was loud enough for him to snap out of his own head and get back to work, but most of it was drowned out by the alarms. One by one Akerman attached the dynamite, then stung the detonation caps to the wires.

“Done,” he said.

“Okay let’s go.” I said and we started putting distance between us and the cannons. “Behind that building.” I pointed at a munitions stock. He had been laying wire as we walked so that he could detonate the explosives. He pulled a small plunger out of his satchel and attached the end of the wire to it as we hid behind the wall of the building.

“Ready?” He asked.

“Ready,” I said. He mashed the plunger and a split second later the cannons were blown into a thousand pieces. *KATHOOM* My ears rang and hurt, we were safely away from the explosion, but not the deafening soundwave. Akerman laid on the ground clutching his ears, blood pouring from in-between his fingers.

“AHH!” He shouted in agony.

I jerked him up by the collar and faced him towards me, “Let’s go Akerman!”

“WHAT!?” He yelled. His eardrums were probably burst. I dragged him behind me for a few feet as he stumbled, but he got his footing quickly and ran beside me. His ears still bleeding.

“Dort drüben, nach ihnen!” A voice from behind us shouted. *Over there, after them!* We ran across the camp, behind buildings and parked vehicles, closely pursued by guards. As soon as we lost one group, another appeared in front of us and cut off our escape. Pretty soon we were cornered. “Hände hoch oder wir schießen!” A man with a rifle yelled. *Hands up or we shoot!* Another twelve men arrived, breathing heavily, and shouting at us.

Akerman kept shouting himself, “What? I don’t understand! I don’t-” A shot rang out from the crowd of soldiers and Akerman fell to the floor with a hole in his head.

“Aker-“ I shouted, but a bullet to the heart stopped me from finishing.