Prisoner of War

Prologue

"We have him"

Lieutenant Jasper Higgins stood in the doorway of Colonel Larkin's office. Jasper was a tall, broad man with the stubble of a man in his mid-twenties. Jasper had lost his wife and daughter to the war, only being saved himself by serving in it, later being placed under Larkin in the equivalent of hell. Now here he was, facing down the short, squat old man behind the desk. They had been tracking down a seasoned army man who had betrayed Eastern European secrets to the British and the Alliance, Tobias Cain the name was. An Austrian by heritage. Recently they had found and caught the bugger, he was currently waiting to be interrogated by Larkin himself. God help him. He had spoken to Jasper in the van on the way back to camp, and this traitor was the best man Jasper had ever met, now to be tortured and maybe even killed by the monster of a man struggling to fit behind a desk. This man who had betrayed the secrets of his corps to the enemy had done it to end the war, to make sure his and other's families were safe. To shorten the war by five years and save millions.

"Well? Get on with it, where is he?" demanded Larkin, jolting Jasper out of his reverie.

"Wha- this way, sir" replied a startled Jasper.

"Why do I always have to walk" said the Colonel to no one in particular. Larkin was about as unfit as anyone could get and was puffing as hard as he did on his cigarettes when they got to the interrogation tent, after only a light walk. Often Jasper wondered how they let a man like this stay in the army. They obviously couldn't care less for their soldiers. The Colonel paused to catch his breath and take a swig from his hip flask filled with some ultra-strength hard liquor that he said was 'not made for mortal men'. No wonder he was always drunk.

"Now" wheezed the Colonel. "Let's see what he's made of".

As Larkin entered, Jasper took his place on the inside of the doorway, to keep others out and to keep the criminal in, who was at this moment sitting passively on the floor. Jasper also had the added bonus of being able to see and hear everything, a bonus that had not been noticed by the Colonel thankfully.

"So" began Colonel Larkin in a slight slur. "Here we have the runaway . . . the runaway . . ." he racked his famously incompetent brains for the name.

"Tobias Cain, sir." Piped in Jasper.

"Tobias Cain." Finished Larkin as if nothing had happened. "You are accused of selling our secrets to the Allied Nations. And such a senior officer too. What became of you my friend?" said Larkin in a sickly sweet voice.

"My family lives in Britain, this war needs to be ended as soon as possible for their, and many others, sake." spoke the unkempt, gruff Tobias Cain, using the same words he said to Jasper barely an hour before.

"So once again, as in the stories, love wins or loses a war. By doing this, you have forced our hand in an all-out attack on London itself to avoid an attack on our front. You never were much when it came to strategies were you old friend? Oh how absolutely tragic". Mocked Larkin.

"And who is behind this attack on London may I ask? I imagine it would be you. Only a pompous pig could convince other pompous pigs that an all-out attack against the capital is a good idea."

"Why, of course. And of course I also happened to know that was where your family lived. Oh, happy coincidences" Larkin's tone had risen to a childish, high-pitched, innocent voice in mockery.

"So it is spite. Because of me, you had to do some of the work you are paid to do. You can't be stuffed, so you kill my family" Replied Cain in a deadly quiet voice.

"Why, I suppose so" snickered Larkin, no he positively giggled at this.

Only now did Tobias Cain rise to his full height. He rose to the height of what must be Goliath himself, and in a rage to rival a forest fire. He picked up the pitiful figure of the Colonel in a single hand and hurled him against the tent post, snapping it clean in half. The tent collapsed over the two of them, with Jasper only barely managing to crawl out from under the choking folds. He saw as a giant-sized lump rose from the collapsed tent, with what seemed to be the snapped tent post in his hand, positioned to stab into a squealing, piggish little man squirming on the ground. All of a sudden, the pig stopped squirming and raised a gun towards the giant. One thought ran through Jasper's mind.

Goliath was felled with merely a stone