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FYI - Death Race was made for TV movie featuring Lloyd Bridges, Roy Thinnes, Doug McClure, Eric Braeden, Brendon Boone, Christopher Cary and Denis Dugan. Bridges played a manical Nazi General who was hunting down Thinnes & McClure using the crew of a lone Panzer to trace the downed pilots. Eric Braeden was the sergeant from the Panzer who failed until the end to heed the warning of the Private Huffman (played by Brendon Boone) about the insanity of the General. When the General murdered the crew of the British Rescue unit the sergeant began to see the truth of what the private had been saying. It was, however, too late to save Huffman. This movie is shown on the Encore Action channel quite often. It's worth catching for fans of any of the above actors.
(An alternative ending to Death Race)
by Jane Woods
The last thing Private Hans Huffman remembered was a bright flash of light and the feeling of being flung backwards. The next thing he became aware of was sand. Lots of sand. It was in his face and in his hair and even in his mouth. He sat up and spat it out. As if his mouth wasn't already dry enough. He looked around. There was no sign of the panzer anywhere. The first thing you learned in the Afrika Corps was to NEVER get separated from your unit. A man alone in the desert was a dead man.
He should have panicked but somehow it was good to be rid of the sergeant, that worm Becker and that insane general. He'd rather take his chances on his own as his own man. None of them had ever done the lieutenant any good. If he was going to die let it be on his terms not some other man's. He was sick of the whole thing - the war, the army and the damn desert.
He got to his feet. His first problem was finding water. There was none anywhere in sight. There was none the way they had come. The desert sands had already erased the tank tracks. He was not completely sure which way they had come nor could he tell which way the tank had gone. Good riddance to it. That madman had left him. Wounded men were too much trouble for the general. Better to let them die as he had done with the lieutenant. See what being a loyal German soldier had earned him. Everyone knew the war was over in Afrika for the Germans. They should have surrendered to the British. They would have if it had not been for that madman. The British would never have treated an offer to surrender as Bimler had done. Shooting wounded men for the glory of the Fatherland. Where was the glory in that? In fact where was the glory in war at all?
The 6th Panzer division was retreating. They would only do that if driven, so that meant that the enemy was close by. All he had to do was wait till one of them stumbled upon him. He would surrender and he would be out of the war and out of the clutches of that mad general. That was his long-range plan. His immediate plan was to find water or at least a shady spot to await the arrival of the Allies. It looked like the best possibility of finding a nice wadi was off to the east so he strode off in that direction.
Distances were deceptive in the desert. He'd been walking for nearly an hour and the terrain he was seeking seemed just as far away as when he had begun. He put all his efforts into not thinking about water -- or better still beer. He was beginning to lose himself in a fantasy of the beer garden during Octoberfest. He was so deep in thought he very nearly did not see the other man till he almost tripped over him.
The man lying in the sand wore a British uniform. Out of force of habit he groped around for some kind of weapon. Then he remembered - he wanted to be found by the British. He needed to be so he could surrender. He was glad of his gift for languages. English was only one of seven he spoke. He squatted down and rolled the Brit over. He'd be of no use to him at all if he were dead.
The Brit groaned. "Water, Mate. Have you got some water?"
"I am so sorry but I have no water."
The Brit appeared to be trying to focus his bleary eyes. "You're a ruddy Kraut!"
"I am German."
"Well I've had a bloody nuff a Germans. Just had a half tack blown out from under me thanks!"
"I am sorry about that."
"SORRY?! You're sorry! I don't even know where the bloody thing is or me mate or the colonel or nobody."
"I, too, have become separated from my unit. I, however, am just as glad of it. I'm afraid I was under the command of a madman. It was he who destroyed your vehicle and killed your friends. His act was completely unnecessary. He even fired on unarmed American airmen who were trying to surrender and shot my sergeant when he tried to stop him."
"Cor, he was a ruddy bad 'un then, wasn't he?"
"I can not say I am sorry to be parted from his company."
"Even the ruddy desert'd be preferable to that sort."
"My thoughts exactly."
"You, ah, you have some sort of plan?"
"My immediate plan was to try and find some sort of shelter from this blistering heat."
"Good luck to you, mate. I been wandering around here for I don't know how long. I seem to keep going in circles and not getting no place."
"Well I have an excellent sense of direction. Come with me."
"You ain't some kind a ruddy officer are you?"
"No, I am not an officer." Huffman recognized the corporal's stripes on the Brit's uniform and had no wish to let him know he was only a private.
"Good, cuz I think, truth be told, officers are the real enemy in every army."
"You may be right, Corporal." Huffman extended his hand to help the man up.
"Hughes is the name. Alfred Hughes. Me friends call me Alfie." The Brit let him help him up and then shook his hand.
"I am Hans Huffman. I am pleased to meet you." Huffman decided to forego the rank and serial number until more of the British came along and he could officially surrender. Keeping this man alive would probably bode well for him in the eyes of the British.
"Lead on, MacDuff." The Brit bowed and made a grand gesture toward him.
"This way." Huffman said, sounding far more assured than he actually felt.
***
Huffman really had to strive for patience. This was the fourth time he had to help the Brit back to his feet. He's been out in the sun suffering exposure longer than he had. He couldn't help it, he told himself charitably.
"Wait a minute, mate." Hughes panted. "I think I felt something here in the sand."
Huffman sighed and let go of him. The Brit was groping around in the sand and almost looked like he was trying to swim.
"Ah ha! Thought so. Lookee here!" He pulled his hand out of the sand. It held a brown bottle.
Huffman's eyes went wide with anticipation.
Hughes shook the bottle. It sounded for all the world like something sloshed inside. Only liquid sloshed and they needed liquid. Any liquid.
"Open it!" Huffman smiled broadly.
"With our luck, mate, it'll be a ruddy genie or something."
"Genies are in lamps not bottles."
"I suppose you are right. Still ---"
"Open za damn bottle." Huffman grabbed it away.
"See here now!!!"
Huffman opened the bottle, tipped his head back and poured some of the contents into his mouth. The taste and the feel of schnapps filled his mouth and wrapped itself around his tonsils before sliding down his dry throat. A sigh of absolute pleasure escaped him.
"Gimme that. I found the ruddy thing." Hughes objected, snatching it from his hand and taking a healthy pull off the bottle himself.
"Blimey!" he said when he was able. "Scotch. Damn good scotch. Out here in the middle of the damn desert."
Huffman felt too good to argue with him. He also spotted a wadi less than 100 feet to the south.
"There." He pointed it out. "That looks like a good place to wait."
"And drink." Hughes laughed.
Soon they were in the wadi. Each had turned over enough sand to make a nice little spot to sit and have the feel of cooler sand around them.
"This ain't half bad now, is it?" Hughes asked pleasantly. He had taken another hit from the bottle and passed it to Huffman who also helped himself to the bottle's contents.
"No." Huffman agreed. "Not half."
They drank in silence for a few minutes but Hughes apparently had little use for silence. "This wouldn't be a bad way to spend the war. I mean if we gotta be in this ruddy hellhole to begin with."
"Hell could not be much hotter than this." Huffman commented. He made the comment from force of habit. He had done nothing but complain about the heat since he set foot on the continent. Actually for the first time since then he did not feel ungodly hot and sweaty. It must be the schnapps, he reasoned. He forced himself to tune back in on the Brit's seemingly endless conversation.
"That's for sure, mate. I just plain can't see the sense in so many people fighting so hard for a place none of 'um could stand to be in. Don't make no sense at all."
"It is for the oil that is said to be here."
"Said to be is right. Ever see any of it yourself? Me neither. We ship our petrol in same as you guys. I bet there ain't even no bleedin' oil here. If there was, the towelheads'd be driving big fancy cars instead a them damn smelly camels. Don't you think?"
"I don't know." The schnapps was making him feel pleasantly complacent.
"Course ya don't. You and me were just fodder for the big boys to play war with. Ever see one of them out here in all this damn sun and sand? No. I think not. We ought to all just go home and let them fight amongst themselves. That's what we ought to do. I mean look at us. Here we are actin' as civilized as you please. I ain't got nothin' against you. You ain't got nothin' against me. We ought to just go on back home and forget about the whole bleedin' war, if you ask me." He passed the bottle back to Huffman.
Huffman took a drink and nodded.
"So tell me, Fritz ---"
"Hans."
"Oh yeah right. Hans. You got a little honey waiting for you back home?"
"I have a wife. Freda."
"Oh, I have a wife too. But she ain't exactly who I'm thinkin' about on these long desert nights if ya get my meanin'."
"You have someone besides your wife?" Huffman asked innocently, trying to put thoughts of Gretchen and Liesel out of his mind.
"Well, to tell you the truth," Hughes took a drink to fortify himself. "Mine was what you'd call marriage of convenience. If I married this bloke's daughter, he would conveniently forget about my gambling debts and I'd get to live and not get me legs busted. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I've sometimes wondered since though."
"You think nothing of this girl? Nothing but the worst?"
"Well, no I didn't say that. And I ain't sayin she's the worst old bat in the world -- no sir, that distinction goes to her dear old mum! Let me tell you when the war came along I jumped at the chance to get away from that lot! Was one of the first to volunteer. They all think I'm some kind a ruddy hero. What about you and Freda -- she a real honey?"
"Well," Huffman confessed. The schnapps was loosening his tongue as well. "I'm not certain that any one would call Freda a honey, but she was the daughter of my employer and I had hopes of advancement."
"Did you - advance?"
"Oh yes, to a job with longer hours but no more money and in my new position I get nothing but grief from those beneath me and still have nearly as many above me. I, too, have to wonder if it was all worth it. The army did seem a better place to be than where I was but I never counted on this efernal desert with it's heat and it's sand and it's insects."
"Does seem a ruddy high price to pay just to get away from our wives, don't it?" Hughes laughed.
Huffman laughed too. He had never told anyone of his true feelings for Freda (except a convenient young lady or two) and now he had spoken them to a complete stranger, an enemy in fact, but a man in the same boat with his own wife. The irony was not lost on him at all.
They drank in silence for a short while but again Hughes had to speak. "Well cheer up, mate. From all accounts the Krauts -er Germans are pullin' out a Africa all together. Maybe your next assignment will be better."
"My next assignment?! There will be no next assignment. For me the war is over. I am surrendering to you."
"You're surrendering to me?! Now wait a bloody minute here. I'm surrendering to you!"
"Impossible!!"
"It bloody well ain't impossible. You blew up my bloody transport and cut me off from my lines that makes me your prisoner!"
"Nein! We are behind enemy - your lines not mine. I am your prisoner. The war is over for me and that is final!"
"Well ain't that just swell. I have to go back to war while you get to spend the next few years sittin' around a bleedin' POW camp playin' table tennis and gin rummy! You owe me better than that. I saved your life."
"You did what?! I found you crawlin in the sand and got you to the safety of this wadi."
"And who found the bleeding libation without which we'd both be belly up with out tongues swellin' our bleedin' throats shut!"
"Well, that is true." Huffman ceded.
"I'll say it's true. The least you can do in return is accept my surrender'."
"Well, I'm afraid you may not find a German POW camp quite as hospitable as the one you describe."
"More like real jail huh? Well I can't say I'm overly fond of jail."
"Exactly." Huffman smiled. "So you see, you must accept my surrender."
"Well, I hate to tell you, mate, but an Allied POW camp ain't exactly all it's cracked up to be either. Food's gotta stink for starters I mean look at what they feed us and you lot will get our leavins. That's for sure."
"I really don't like bad food." Huffman admitted. "Bad for my ulcer."
"Hmmm seems we got a big problem here. Who ever surrenders goes to jail and whoever don't goes to war. Not much of a bleedin' choice there is there?" Hughes said thoughtfully. He took another drink from the bottle. "Only thing worse for either of us is that they send us back home."
They both laughed and continued to pass the bottle.
"I got it mate! We just disappear here in the desert. Our armies both think we've been killed. They notify our families. We are both not only off the hook but big war heroes to boot!!"
They both laughed again but suddenly Huffman became serious. "You know, Corporal --"
"Call me Alfie."
"You know, Alfie. What you suggest might have some possibilities but what would we do with ourselves. We can not spend the rest of eternity in this wadi."
"Well, how 'bout we just wait here for a passing caravan and just join it. The war don't mean a bloody thing to the towelheads. They was here before we come. They'll be here when we're gone."
"I don't think with your blond hair you could pass as an Arab." Huffman pointed out.
"Who's gonna seen me bleedin' hair under the towel? Then after the war we just go where ever we want. Do whatever we want. What do you say, mate. Worth a shot, ain't it?"
"I don't see where we have very much to lose."
"That's the spirit, Fritz -- er Hans. Here, have a drink to seal the deal."
Huffman took a drink but his ears were still functioning. He heard the sound of engines.
"What's that?"
"What's what?" Hughes took the bottle back.
"Shhh. Listen." Huffman was suddenly terrified that Panzer 131 was once more rolling into his life.
"Jeeps." Hughes said, "Two of 'um. Yanks. We can't let them find us! They'll make us join the war again just when we've figured a way to quit."
"Don't move." Huffman hissed. He strained his eyes to scan the horizon. He regretted drinking so much. "There." He pointed off to the east. Two American jeeps with large caliber howitzers mounted on racks in the back bounced over the dunes.
"Hey, I know them guys. They are legendary. They call themselves --"
"I know very well what those desert rats call themselves. The cousin of my sergeant is a panzer captain. He calls them his greatest nemesis."
"Last thing we need to run into. Some bloody heroes." Hughes complained bitterly.
"Don't worry. They are not coming this way."
"Well that's a lucky damn break. First one I had since your friend the general blew up the damn half track we was in and us bein' on a rescue mission and all to pick up some helpless downed flyers."
"They were not so helpless. One of them shot me out of my tank. When I came to they were all gone. The panzer, the airplane and all the people. There was nothing for miles around but empty sand."
"Same feelin' I had when I woke up. No sign a the half track. The colonel or me mate. They'd both up and disappeared along with the half track. Suppose they made it back to HQ somehow?"
"I'm afraid not. We buried all three of them."
"Three? There was only three of us in the bleedin' thing. Couldn't take no more than that and ever have room to pick up anybody that needed rescuing."
"We buried three bodies. I am quite sure. I had to dig the holes myself."
"Well who the hell was the third bloke then because I'm right here?" Hughes declared.
Huffman had no answers. They both lapsed into silence and forgot to keep drinking. Finally Huffman said. "It is very odd that I escaped the blast that the plane hit us with unscathed. I was not inside the panzer at the time. I remember the bright light of the blast. I remember feeling it hit my chest. It felt like I was exploding and I remember being flung backwards. I awoke on the sand alone and look there isn't so much as a mark on my chest. I can not explain this."
"And I kept dreaming' that some high ranking Kraut shot me in the head with his handgun but look. It was all a dream. No holes in my head. No more than usual anyway." Hughes finished with a laugh but it was forced. "Just a bleedin' dream is all."
"What else could it be?" Huffman agreed although he did clearly remember the General shooting one of the wounded British soldiers in the head. There was not enough left of the man to recognize when they buried him."
"What else, indeed." Hughes took another drink. "The only alternative would be......"
"Would be what?" Huffman asked nervously.
Hughes took another hit off the bottle. "That we're dead, mate."
"That is preposterous!!"
"Is it? I read this story once about these two gunfighters in the old West -- you know cowboy stuff. Anyway these two guys was both dead too. One had been hanged and one had been gunned down..."
Huffman took the bottle and took a very, very long drink. The Brit's story was totally ludicrous.
".....and so they both had to surrender to a higher being, to do good to make up for the evil they'd done before."
"I only wanted to surrender to the Allies." Huffman complained with a sigh. He'd never heard of anything as ridiculous as the story the Brit told and if, on the off chance, it were true he did not relish the idea of spending eternity with Alfred Hughes. He took another very long drink from the bottle and tried to figure out exactly where he'd gone wrong.
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