Backyard Adventures: The Great Escape Part 2

It was a submachine gun; light in the hand and touting an impressive 500 rounds per minute.  With black plastic cold as real steel, a blazing orange barrel that moved and made sound when you pulled the trigger, and a red light adorning the tip of the muzzle that would flash in time with the realistic recoil. Its status on the backyard battlefield was unmatched. Once, Sargent Steel took the whole of occupied Normandy with nothing but that perfect piece of childhood armament and his warrior spirit. It was Zeus’ lightning bolt, Thor’s hammer, and Mikey’s nun-chucks all combined into one piece of legendary weaponry. And the guard outside prisoner barracks #21 was holding it.

“Where are we with the plan?”  I said to a group of POWs as we huddled in a tight circle inside our prison bunkhouse.

Sargent Steel had just been hauled back to the carport confines of barracks #21, strawberry soda still fizzing on my shirt. The interrogation that I had just endured left me tattered and beaten, but it had also served its purpose.

“Doc hasn’t returned yet, but the boys on latrine duty said they saw him enter without incident.”

Corporal Doc Nowak was my stuffed Teddy bear and a core member of my GI squad. Small, with red and black patchwork fabric that I had decided was his camouflage, Doc was a perfect agent for subterfuge. He was so good at sneaking around, in fact, that he had actually crept into Sargent Steel’s POW camp to assist in the escape. Now, with my interrogation acting as the diversion, he had stealthily slipped through a window and into the Gestapo officer’s personal quarters.

“Good,” I said resolutely.  “The moment he brings us those keys we strike. Got it?”

The fictional men gathered around me clenched jaws and nodded heads. Pierre, the lone Frenchie in the group of Allied prisoners, spoke up. “So, jist tu canfierm, juoar plan is tu fight juoar whey aout, yes?”

“Our way out, but yes, that’s my plan. I need to get back to High Command as soon as possible and all of you need to get back in this war.” Another round of nodding heads and firm countenances told me that the men agreed.  What I didn’t tell the Frenchman was that pretending to dig a tunnel for six months in my backyard just wasn’t as fun as pretending to fight, so there you go. If we were busting out you’d better believe there’d be some action involved.  

“Sir,” Doc said, suddenly standing in the circle of prisoners. “I have the keys.”

A near tangible weight of apprehension pressed upon the room. After minutes of planning the moment was finally here. “Ok men, this is it. Courage. Remember, I’ll take out everyone, and you laud me with praise and heroics as soon as we’re back in friendly territory. GO!”

The now unlocked door to barracks #21 flew open as prisoners poured from the carport into the dreary backyard encampment. Steel lead their way with a sneering scowl that I had perfected during my plate appearances in T-ball.  The guard placed outside #21 had time enough to switch his weapon from safe to fire, but nothing else. In an instant I was upon him—a leading headbutt, left hook to the face, quick right cross to the diaphragm, quick left cross to the ribs, power right uppercut to the jaw.  Copying the Duke in what I thought was the coolest move in movie history, and after grabbing that beautiful piece of backyard artillery from the guard’s hands, Steel calmly shoved the dazed Nazi to the ground while growling “get outta my way.” A quick, spraying hip-shot from the weapon of weapons cleared the path before me and the surging prisoners.

Long, droning sirens began to sound and guard towers with sweeping searchlights sprang to life as Doc deftly bounded from barrack to barrack unlocking and releasing shouting prisoners. Sporadic rifle shots cracked among the growing throng of running men, but like pebbles enveloped by the rolling tide the few patrolling guards on the ground were quickly overrun. Following Steel’s orders, once Doc had liberated a row of barracks he ran directly for the armory. Rifles, grenades, and pistols began flowing from the armory stores and into the hands of eager prisoners. And that is when the machine guns started firing.

“NOOOOOOO!” Steel bellowed as the deadly weapons in the guard towers began to spit fire.  It was as dramatic a bellow as can be summoned by a young boy, but it was high in tone and screechy, more a shrill than a bellow. Nevertheless, in my mind it was a yawning baritone roar worthy of a close-up shot in any war film. With all the seething anger I could fain, I yelled in furry, “Eat lead, dirt bags!”

Mercilessly I unleashed a hailstorm of bullets into the closest guard tower. It exploded, naturally, into a writhing mass of flame and secondary detonations. A second tower got a similar treatment and as Steel squared around on a third my mother’s voice came through the kitchen window, “Time for dinner.”

The dark, wintery POW camp placed deep inside Nazi Germany puffed to mist as Sargent Steel instantly gave way to the boy playing in his backyard.  “Sargent Steel saves the day as planned,” I panted under my breath as I cleared the patio steps. “He makes it back to High Command, and takes that Gestapo officer with him.  The entire camp is destroyed by the armed prisoners and Steel temporarily takes command of a large force behind enemy lines, sabotaging and rescuing his way back to friendly forces.” 

It was dinner time, after all, which meant the remainder of the act was played out in a narrative fast-forward as I ran for the back door and the waiting enchilada casserole.