Another "Conversations" story, though from a new point of view. This story has a few references to earlier stories in the series, though it should still be comprehensible to readers unfamiliar with them. (But it gives away a few of the plot points of "Scars" and "Unspoken.") Special thanks to Hummingbird2, whose comments and questions got me thinking and led to this particular scene.

I have loved Hogan's Heroes since the 1970s, but none of its characters are mine; they were created by Bernard Fein and Albert S. Ruddy. I acknowledge their ownership and that of Bing Crosby Productions and intend no copyright infringement. At no point will I or others profit monetarily on this story.

ooOoo

I'm watching Rob carefully. He's out in the back yard now, roaming restlessly around the sides of the garden out in the sun, rather than staying in the shade of the maple tree as anyone with any sense would do on a hot August day in the midst of a heat wave. I must admit, though, that it's something of a relief to have him out of the house for a bit. He's been unable to sit still since he arrived Saturday night, a day late for his promised weekend leave, though with the welcome news for his mother and me that he can stay till Tuesday morning to make up for missing almost all of Saturday. I've never seen him wound so tight. His mind isn't here at all; he knows something is up, some secret thing that he can't share with us.

I know not to ask about it.

Rob was open as a young boy, but as he grew older he could never resist spinning yarns to explain his multitude of pranks. Most of the time it was entertaining; a few times it was worrying when I had to try to figure out what he was hiding behind some outrageous tale that had a slim silver lining of plausibility. But to my relief he always had a strong sense of honor: if he'd done something really wrong, he'd always 'fess up to it when confronted, and a few times he even came to me and admitted something that I hadn't yet heard about. Not submissive—never that! But fundamentally honest. He had a conscience under those charming manners and all those outrageous stories and jokes of his. And he loathed bullies, wouldn't tolerate them for a minute, though he shifted between outright confrontation of them and slyly entrapping them through their own methods. I gradually learned I could trust him to have the right aims, though his methods were usually unorthodox and sometimes more than a bit questionable.

There were plenty of times he exasperated me, with that wild anarchic energy he had. When he decided to go to the Military Academy and join the Army I knew he'd either be quickly kicked out or it would be the making of him. Though I had trouble imagining Rob in uniform, I hoped that he'd finally find the discipline he needed for that deviously creative mind of his. Fortunately he did, and eventually I watched him climb the hierarchy of the military farther than I would have believed, especially in peace time when promotions were few and far between for officers.

When war broke out in Europe, his mother and I feared that it would eventually draw in the United States and Rob with it. We hadn't counted on him choosing to go over there before the U.S. was even involved, volunteering to help the British as best he could within the limits of official American neutrality. The "darkest hour" of the British during the Blitz became ours as well, as we had to learn to live with the fear and dread that grip the hearts of any serviceman's family, and nearly two years before other American families did. Rob didn't say much in his letters home about what he was doing—couldn't, of course—but I could tell it involved flying, and we knew that the skies were where the battle was at that point in the war.

And then Pearl Harbor came, and the fight in Europe became ours too—as perhaps it should have been earlier. I knew Rob believed that it should have. The U.S. Army was short on everything, including officers of higher rank and combat experience, and Rob was suddenly a lieutenant colonel and not long afterwards made a full bird colonel, far faster than I would have believed. (He could at least tell us about getting promoted, if not exactly what he'd done to get promoted for.)

A few months later we knew that American bombers were flying over Germany by daylight, and that Rob was flying them . . . and our earlier worries about him getting shot down in a battle over Britain paled in comparison to our worries about him getting shot down over Nazi Germany. With that rank, we knew he had to be leading (and probably devising) major raids. Every day that we heard no news we counted a good day, and the occasional days we got letters were great ones.

And then came the telegram.

"The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your son Colonel Robert E Hogan has been reported Missing in Action since Six July over Germany If further details or other information are received you will be promptly notified."

Missing in Action. It's a terrible phrase, so much unknown past and future packed inside it.

(But at least it was not "Killed in Action.")

Weeks passed with no more news, hope growing fainter each day. If the Germans had him, they'd inform the Red Cross. We'd hear, right?

Unless . . . he had evaded capture? His German was good. Maybe he could hide, could pass as a local, could use that ability of his to charm and tell tales to help him get to the coast, could somehow cross the Channel, get back to England . . . .

Or he could be dead. And we might never hear how.

(I couldn't imagine it, couldn't believe that brightly burning spirit of his could be snuffed out.)

More weeks of waiting, fading into months. Sometimes not knowing seemed the worst possible fate, until I thought about definitively hearing that he was dead.

Then, finally, another telegram from the Secretary of War.

"Report just received through the International Red Cross states that your son Colonel Robert E Hogan is a prisoner of war of the German government."

We sighed in relief, overjoyed he was alive. But . . .

A prisoner. Probably cells, at least for some time. Maybe restraints.

But the Germans were said to abide by the Geneva convention for captured airmen, plus Rob was a high-ranking officer. So maybe some courtesies, if he was lucky. If he didn't infuriate his captors.

(The chance of that seemed unlikely.)

I'm a lawyer; I've seen men who were prisoners. Captivity wears on them, hard. Some give up, become spiritless; others fight it.

I knew which group Rob would fit into. He had never reacted well to being cooped up, to having nothing to do, and I knew all too well that he always chafed under authority he couldn't respect. I remembered how much trouble we'd had with him in sixth grade, with an incompetent teacher he was learning nothing from, who didn't challenge him—except, apparently, to come up with prank after prank. I'd had to punish him; hated to do it, but you can't let boys treat teachers, even bad ones, with disrespect.

. . . The standing order for officers who are captured is to escape.

Escaping could get him free.

Or more likely get him shot. Or otherwise punished, and not by someone who loved him.

The first letter we got from him was such a relief. Proof he was alive. He said he wasn't hurt.

(But would he tell us if he were?)

He said he was fine, camp life was fine, not to worry about him.

(Uh huh. Right.)

But the letters kept coming. Not often enough, none very informative, but each one precious, a sign he was alive.

Each one pretending that he'd accepted his fate as a prisoner docilely.

(Rob was never docile a day in his life.)

The war dragged on. He'd been shot down so early in it. He was going to spend some of the best years of his life in a prison camp.

(Yet in ways I hoped he would spend them in the prison camp, that he'd get through the war, get through his thirties alive there.)

And then, by chance, I was reading a small article, buried deep in an inner section of The Boston Globe. It was written by a correspondent who'd been observing in a plane in a raid over Germany, which had been shot down. He'd been rescued by an underground unit. The words are still burned into my brain: ". . . The request was no names please, but somewhere in Germany an American officer is operating a sabotage and rescue unit from, of all places, a German POW camp."

Rob.

Oh dear God.

It had to be him. Sure, there were a lot of good officers who were prisoners of the Nazis, but this just had to be Rob. An underground operation right under the Nazis' noses? Thumbing his nose at the Third Reich while undermining it? The set-up had Rob's fingerprints all over it.

I was so proud of him. So scared for him. His chances of making it through the war, already slimmer than I liked, now terrified me. But he was making a difference, using that ingenious and wily mind of his to fight back. I couldn't expect him to do otherwise. And after all, I'd never bought his claim that he'd accepted a quiet life in a POW camp for the duration.

I clipped out the article and showed it to Ann. Her eyes filled with tears as she read it and looked up at me. "It's him, isn't it."

Not even a question.

I put the clipping in my desk, didn't mention it to anyone. As they say, "Loose lips sink ships."

Or secret underground operations.

(And how dare that idiot newspaper reporter endanger my boy by writing this?! I thought the papers were properly censored!)

That's how I learned that knowledge in wartime is dearly bought. We hadn't slept well before seeing that article; we slept far worse afterwards, knowing what he was up to.

The next letter from him was such a tremendous relief.

(Except it had been mailed just after the article appeared. Would the Nazis see that paper? How long would that take if they did?)

So each occasional letter of non-news from him became doubly precious.

The Allies invaded Europe. The Eastern Front moved westward as the Western Front moved east and north. Armies fought and slowly, painfully, marched across France, Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, finally into Germany itself.

No letters got through.

Stories of atrocities began leaking into the papers.

And then, fulfilling all our hopes, another telegram came.

Liberation. Rob was alive. He could send telegrams.

And soon letters. With some real news: he was promoted again. A brigadier general now.

Neighborhood, church, and family friends were surprised by the news. After all that time in a prison camp doing nothing?

(We knew why, but we never said.)

And finally, months later, a visit. A bit too skinny, especially for his mother's tastes. Changed in some indefinable ways. Even with a star on his collar, he was still a charming scamp, but underlying it I could see a kind of weariness, yet also a set of nerves I hadn't seen in him before.

Eventually I saw some of what his time as a prisoner had cost him. Accidentally, of course: I know that he'd never deliberately have let me see it. It was hard enough to get him to open up about less difficult experiences he'd had. Left to his own devices, he'd have told us only funny stories; he had a whole string of those that he kept trotting out to amuse us with.

I suppose it was difficult enough for him to live with some of his other, worse memories; he didn't want us to live with them too.

I tried not to push him on those, though at times I simply couldn't help myself when I could see the past haunted him.

We had him for nearly four precious weeks, before he had to go to Washington.

Now he's back for another visit, as promised. Since he arrived he's been nearly manic, fidgeting around every room he's in, chatting brightly with us, but as best Ann and I can tell it's to distract himself from something.

The only different moment was in church yesterday morning. He sat next to me, still but tight, uncharacteristically high strung. No one who didn't know him well would see anything off, not there in public.

But during the pastor's prayer, he was so tense, silently concentrating harder than I've seen before. He's not a praying man, not publicly. But this time, he meant it.

Something is driving him crazy. Something he can't tell us about.

I don't think it's the past this time. I think it's the present.

Something secret. Classified.

Something to do with the war. . . .

Japan?

Invasion?