A/N Last chance to post this in response to the 100th anniversary challenge, if not on the right date, at least in the right year. There are 12 chapters in all, posted at once.
Warnings: implied reference to the Holocaust/Shoah
Echoes of the Past
The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event, except the recognized surrounding historical facts. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, and buildings is intended or should be inferred.
Chapter 1
November 1, 1944
Hogan jumped down the last step and hurried to the radio. "What's up? Did Newkirk and LeBeau run into any trouble?"
Kinch shock his head while he continued to write down what he heard from the Morse telegraph. "It's an emergency from the Underground," he reported and glanced to Hogan. The way his fingers clenched the pencil it had to be a real danger.
"What kind of emergency?" Hogan circled around the table and leaned against the top of the table, opposite of Kinch. "I'm out of paper or the gestapo is standing in front of my door?" he joked without humor in his voice.
"The second," Kinch answered, still writing. "Apparently, the gestapo thinks that they have hidden one of the conspirators of the failed coup d'état."
"You mean the 20 July plot?" Hogan straightened. That was something new.
"Yes."
"There's still somebody alive?" The air in the tunnel breezed coldly and Hogan shivered. "The way they went about shooting and executing I didn't think that anybody who ever polished the shoes of one of the attackers was still free."
Grimacing, Kinch straightened. "But there's a snag in it."
"Besides our boys in black?" Drumming his finger against the wooden top of the table, Hogan had anticipated trouble, or the Underground wouldn't have raised an emergency.
"The call for help is from a new and unknown member of the Underground." He looked up to the colonel. "I can't verify the source and there's nobody willing to vouch for him."
Hogan pushed himself away, biting his lips. He shook his head. "Then tell them no."
"And if it's true?" Kinch hesitated, his finger hovering over his telegraph key, ready to message an answer.
"Everybody who participated in the plot knew what he was doing. They tried - a little too late if you ask me but at least they tried. But it failed, and we all know what happens if we fail." Hogan crossed his arms. "There was enough blood shed, we don't need to add ours."
Kinch nodded and started to type. Hogan prowled from left to right and back again like a tiger in a cage. The cage thing was partly true, but he wasn't a tiger.
"Message is out," Kinch reported.
"Good." Hogan turned away. It was never easy to refuse help but a necessary part of his job description. Behind him the telltale clicking of the Morse telegraph started its rhythm. Sighing again, he turned back and waited for Kinch to translate.
"And?" He prompted after Kinch had stopped writing.
"Snow White is willing to vouch for the integrity of the message." He stared at his scratchpad. Raising his head, Kinch met Hogan's glare. "He says one of the conspirators is sitting right now with him. He confirms his identity."
"Great." Hogan threw his hands in the air. "So now, if we don't help out, we're going to lose Snow White?"
Kinch grimaced and nodded. "Snow White knows a lot about our operation here."
Hogan growled in frustration. He pressed his lips together. "I know." Thinking fast, Hogan took the first idea that came to mind. "Fine, tell Snow White to send the man in our direction into the woods. Alone and with an identifying sign that we'll recognize. He should know us good enough to choose one."
Kinch started to type his response while Hogan took back up his pacing.
After receiving a short acknowledgment, silence descended on the radio room. Only the humming of the engine for the telegraph provided a comforting background noise. Kinch kept shooting questioning glares to Hogan, who refused to answer them. Finally, voices drifted over from the emergency entrance. Hogan threw Kinch a quick look and waited for LeBeau and Newkirk to reach the radio room.
"Mission accomplished," Newkirk said and put down a heavy sack. LeBeau followed him with a box. They wore all black and had even darkened their faces.
"Oui," LeBeau put down his heavy box. "I hope my épices survived the harsh treatment. Can't we get another form for a supply drop?" He opened the box and pulled out a little pouch and pressed it against his chest.
Hogan shook his head. "Sorry fellas, but you need to go out again." He pushed the items from their weekly supply drop with his foot in the nearest corner.
"What?" Newkirk watched his sack disappearing before he glared at the colonel.
"We expect a new guest and you are dressed for the occasion to bring him in."
"But what about my spices. I need -" LeBeau protested.
"I'll take care of your spices. You need to be careful. Either he is a gestapo agent or he has the gestapo agents on his heels." Hogan raised his hand to still the protests. "I don't like it any better, but we can't risk Snow White."
"Great." Newkirk's face darkened. "And what if he is an agent and brings the whole gestapo with him?"
Of course, Newkirk had to pick up the worst possibility. Hogan sighed and forced himself to smirk. "How fast can you run?"
Despite their protests, Newkirk and LeBeau turned around to follow Hogan's order. "Do we know him or her?"
Kinch stood up and handed them both a gun. "Snow White is supposed to give him, a man, a signal for us. We didn't want to use the radio to arrange a code word."
Acknowledging the need for the gun, Newkirk sighed while LeBeau grabbed the gun without hesitation.
"Be careful," Hogan admonished, "and only bring him in, if you think he's legitimate."
"Now we shall decide?" Newkirk groused but his smirk betrayed the pride he felt to be trusted with such an order.
"Yes," Hogan would have preferred to go out himself, but there was no time for this and no way to cover for his absence on short notice. "Don't worry, if you're wrong, I'm sure we'll see each other again in front of a firing squad."
LeBeau grumbled something in French while he climbed up the ladder.
"Great." Newkirk raised his arm to wave farewell. "Now I feel really appreciated," he grouched.
Then both went out and the trap door closed, leaving cold wet November air circling around the tunnels.
"How long have they been gone?" Hogan paced. His long stride cast shadows at the walls, dipping the tunnel in a show of flickering lights and shadows.
"Roughly two hours," Kinch reported without consulting a watch. He had already checked often enough in the last few minutes. "Carter also hasn't seen anything yet."
Carter was keeping an eye on things upstairs and ready to warn them if a guard was coming.
"They should have been back by now," Hogan stated. Slowing down, he came to a halt behind Kinch and crossed his arms.
"They are only careful," Kinch said. He hadn't paced like Hogan but his tense shoulder muscles enshrouded him with an air of frustrated strength. "LeBeau and Newkirk know these woods better than anyone else. They take the long way but it's going to be alright."
Hogan stopped in front of the supply drop. They had ordered new material from London, paper, blank passports, fabrics and pens. Funnily enough they could steal their bullets and guns from the German but needed London for normal things.
Inspecting the contents, Hogan grabbed LeBeau's pouch and opened it to smell again the sweet smell of home. He closed his eyes and used his nose, but couldn't smell anything. Irritated, he looked inside the pouch. "What's that?"
"Sir?"
Hogan went to the table and dumped the content. Red poppies and blue flowers plumped down on the surface. "Kinch, did we order flowers?"
"Flowers?" Kinch looked up from his scratchpad. As he saw what Hogan had discovered, he sighed. "It's for Remembrance Day."
"I know the red poppy and it's origin." Hogan crossed his arm. "If you want, I can even recite In Flanders Fields, but I asked if we ordered it."
Kinch tilted his head and stroke across his chin. "You didn't order it."
Hogan breathed in through his clenched teeth. Kinch's carefully chosen words told a story, Hogan would have preferred to avoid. "We are in a German POW camp. We can't start wearing Remembrance Poppies and blue flowers-"
"Bleuet de France, they're called Bleuet de France," Kinch explained while only looking at Hogan out of the corner of his eyes.
"- without raising a lot of question and risking far too much," Hogan continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "Germany lost the war and I don't think that they want to be reminded. We'll remember but quietly and without drawing too much attention, okay?" He put the flowers back into the pouch.
"Yes, sir." Kinch looked back down. Beside the message, little flowers he had drawn now decorated his scratchpad.
"We have a war to fight, we can't -" Hogan stopped himself as he felt a new gust of cold air breezing through the tunnel, signaling an arrival in the tunnel. "They're back."
Causally, he slipped to the ladder.
Newkirk jumped down, followed by a new man in dirty and disheveled civilian clothes. LeBeau brought up the rear and closed the hatch.
"Went without a hitch." Newkirk grinned and clapped his hands together. "We ought to do this more often."
LeBeau shared the grin. "We were careful. Nobody followed us."
Hogan nodded and turned to their guest. "Colonel Robert E. Hogan, United States Army Air Forces. And you are?"
The man leaned against the dirty wall and rubbed across his face with a shaking hand. He looked tired with an exhausted expression in his body language. Under his arm, he carried a Pickelhelm. Snow White had humor. "Major Claus von Hofer, former adjutant of -"
Hogan took a sharp breath. "I know. I thought the gestapo got all the conspirators."
Von Hofer huffed a dry laugh. "I assumed as much, and yet here I am. I wouldn't have thought that I could still be alive months after our failure." He straightened. "What day is it?"
"First of November," Hogan said and beckoned him with an inviting hand gesture to follow him into the main room. He offered the major a place to sit down. "Can you prove that you're a real member of Operation Valkyrie and not just a spy?"
"Colonel, I could go upstairs into your little POW camp and tell the commandant that you have tunnels down here. They wouldn't listen to a word, too busy trying to assemble a firing squad. I couldn't save my life if I gave you up. It doesn't matter whether you believe me or not."
Newkirk and LeBeau went further down the tunnel to change back into their uniforms.
"Kinch?" Hogan drew his radio operator away from noisy ears. "Get on the radio and verify this with London. And don't leave him alone down here. You can use our guys in the cooler or the infirmary." Hogan ordered in a whisper. "If you need more men just say it and I'll arrange something."
Kinch nodded. "We have Anderson and Baker and -" he paused as he saw his guest with his head rolled back against the wall and closed eyes. Kinch tilted his head and blinked in surprise. "He's sleeping."
Having seen the same thing, Hogan just shrugged. "I guess running away from the gestapo is tiring." Hogan yawned. "Speaking of being tired, I'll be upstairs getting some shut-eye before I have to entertain Colonel Klink, tomorrow again."
Kinch snorted. "I'll give London the news."
"Good." He grabbed the flowers with the pouch and went to the ladder. "If he wakes up and has the urge to tell us something interesting, tell him to write it down."
The Hauserhof brimmed with life and people. The music boomed and couples danced on the dance floor as if there was no tomorrow. As Klink tried to find one man without uniform, he realized that for some of them there really was no tomorrow.
Nervously, he wrung his hands again while he was waiting.
"Colonel Klink, what a pleasure to meet you."
Klink pivoted around almost falling over his own feet. A woman in her forties with long blond hair stood behind him. Her dark blue dress stood out in this environment. "Rosa Gold, the pleasure is most assuredly mine." He held out his hands and she took them gracefully.
"I wasn't sure if you would come."
"Of course, I can't turn down an invitation of an old friend." He looked behind her. "Where's Jacob?"
A dark shadow crossed her face and Klink noticed the deep lines in her still beautiful face. "Can we take a walk?"
"A walk? I thought we would sit down and drink a glass or two and talk about the old times."
She tried to keep smiling but desperation clouded her eyes. "Please?"
Unable to say no, Klink grabbed his coat. "Of course. A walk is fine. We just need to get back before any bombers come." He giggled nervously. Then he held out her coat and helped her to slip in.
Outside it was almost pitch-black with only the moonlight providing some light. They walked a few feet in total silence and then stopped.
"Wilhelm," she hesitated, "am I allowed to still call you Wilhelm?"
"Of course, of course! What is going on? I thought we were going to celebrate thirty years since our first battle together." Klink rubbed his hands together as he remembered the thrill from back then.
A small sob left her mouth before Rosa stilled herself with a hand pressed over her mouth. After a deep calm breath, she said, "I need your help."
"What? What is going on? I don't -"
"They came for him."
In the darkness he couldn't really see her face, but he could hear her desperation. "Who?"
"The SS. I had hoped that our marriage would protect him but," she sobbed again, "they took him and I don't know where they have brought him. I asked everybody I could think of. I went to the police station every day until they told me if I came back they would arrest me too. But you - you are his friend and you know what he did for Germany, yes? Can you ... " She trailed off.
Klink shivered in the cold night. But it wasn't the temperature that felt cold but the fear in his stomach. He swallowed hard but couldn't find the courage to say something.
"Wilhelm, please, tell me, are you still his friend? Or do you regret having fought with him in the last war?"
"No! I don't know anybody as brave as Jacob. I - He saved my life and -" Klink aborted his stumbling attempts to explain himself.
"You know that he isn't in the best health. He gets sick fast and the rumor about these camps - Wilhelm, I'm worried sick. I can't sleep or eat. I fear for his life." She grabbed the chapel of his coat. "I beg you, please, try to find him."
"I'll see what I can do." He trembled and carefully pushed her away. "But why did they come after him? He is a hero of the war - he -"
"You know why." A shiver went through her. "It's the star he has to wear."
"You're trembling," Klink said. He didn't want to think about the yellow star. "Let's go back in and eat something. I'll make some calls and I'm sure that it is all just a big misunderstanding."
"A misunderstanding, of course," she murmured but followed Klink willingly back into the warmth.
