While reading E.J. McFall's "Ring of Steel" a thought occurred to me: Where did Major Hochstetter get the penicillin?
The infamous disclaimer: What is "Hogan's Heroes" belongs to Bing Crosby Productions, it's heirs and successors. What is "Ring of Steel" belongs to E. J. McFall. What's mine, is mine.
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Doktor Marlena Falke dragged her bruised body to the ringing telephone.
"Hammelburg 9579. Heil…"
"Fraulein Doktor Falke? It's 'Emergency' at the Krankenhaus, Fraulein Doktor." The woman cut in, her voice agitated. 'Emergency' sounding like that! Must be a disaster of the first magnitude.
"Ja? Was is los?" She heard her voice slur over the words. The sedatives. So sleepy. She must have overdosed herself, but the pain and the memory … Don't think of what happened! Don't … "Calm yourself and speak clearly, bitte." She said it as much to herself as to the emergency room clerk.
"Enshultigung, Fraulien Doktor. Herr Doktor Kruger wants you to come immediately, Fraulein Doktor. First Priority. From the Luftstalag. We'll send a car if you cannot drive, but he says you must come at once, at least to observe."
"Ja, bitte." She roused herself. "Please send it. I'll be ready when it arrives."
She heard a few muttered words of command. Then, "It's on its way, Fraulein Doktor."
"Danke. Heil…" A timely yawn saved Doktor Falke from uttering that obligatory, hateful phrase. She set the receiver down, softly moaning, leaned her elbows on the desk and rubbed her face. The sharp pain brought her suddenly and fully awake.
The Luftstalag. She shivered, then looked down at her trembling hands and closed her eyes. Get a grip on yourself! It's a 'first priority' call, from the senior surgeon no less. He would not have me called unless it was of the utmost importance. He knows how I am. He stitched me together. Although she knew she would never feel whole again; but always torn in fragments.
She slowly rose to her feet, slowly walked into the hallway, slowly pulled on her dark overcoat, stifling a moan as she eased the sleeves – first the left one, then the right – over her arms. She examined her face in the hallway mirror. Red and purple and sore, bruised and cut and abraided. She touched a sutured cut, then mustering her clinical detachment, appraised its fine stitches. Over seventy years old, and on a colleague yet. Herr Doktor Kruger is amazing. She fixed her mind on recalling the sureness, yet the delicacy of his touch. Nurturing hands. Skilled hands. Not like…
Forcing herself to use her pain and her painful memories to keep awake and focused, Doktor Falke concentrated on plaiting and winding her hair into a bun. Her hands trembled as she picked up the pins, but, slowly, painfully, she bit the prongs open and thrust them into the coil. She looked into the mirror again. Did she see more grey than auburn? More scars than skin?
'From the Luftstalag.' 'First priority.' Has Hochstetter's 'Ring of Steel' at last been broken? She shuddered and forced out the sight of that hated man's leering, cruel face, his piggy, insane eyes, his ghastly stroking, stroking hands.
She took a deep breath. All over now. It's all over now. He got your penicillin. He got what he came for. But the eyes of a very frightened woman stared back from the mirror. She knew it was not 'all over'.
'From the Luftstalag.' 'First priority.' She repeated the words aloud, drawing her dark gloves carefully over her red-ringed wrists. Her hands did not shake so much now. Yet what she would soon deal with must be indeed ghastly, since it shook an imperturbable emergency room clerk.
Unless a riot had erupted at Stalag Thirteen, it could not be the German soldiers. Herr Doktor Kruger would not call her out to help treat them. They had no need of a civilian physician half comatose on morphine.
It could not be the Russian prisoners who had been brought into Stalag Thirteen with pneumonia just before Hochstetter enclosed it in his 'Ring of Steel'. Slavs and communists were not considered 'first priority'. Neither were any of the 'coloured' POWs. Indomitable non-Aryans were a threat to the Nazis' 'master race' ideology. Russian soldiers were both indomitable and communist. They were therefore tortured and neglected until they died.
Therefore it had to be either Fraulein Hilda or one of the 'white' prisoners among the Western Allies.
There was a knock at the door.
"Coming" Smoothing down her long, grey skirt and veiling her face with a thin, black scarf, Doktor Falke put her hand on the doorknob. The she froze, trembling. What if this is a trap? What if I'll be taken to the Gestapo for interrogation, or worse? "Who… Who is it?"
"The car to take you to the hospital, Fraulein Doktor." Doktor Falke expelled her breath in a huge sigh. She recognized the voice. Herr Schultz. Dear Sergeant Schultz from Stalag Thirteen. She opened the door, nearly flinging herself upon the heavy set guard.
The large splotches of blood staining the front and arms of his uniform coat stopped her on the threshold. That and Schultz's blanched face.
He avoided looking at her. "It's Colonel Hogan, Fraulein Doktor. The Gestapo … Major Hochstetter… ." He could bearly speak. "Doktor Kruger sent me personally to fetch you. He said to come at once."
Then he forced his eyes to meet hers. "Doktor Kruger sent me because… He told me what had happened to you. He thought you might be frightened. He…Please Fraulein Doktor. Do not cry."
Doktor Falke was hugging him. "I'm crying for joy, dear, dear mein Herr. I shouldn't…. Colonel Hogan… We must go… But that Doktor Kruger … my superior …would understand…"
Schultz held her close, awkwardly patting her back. "Ich verstehe… Ich verstehe… But we must hurry."
"Of course. But you do not know how strong I feel now, Herr Schultz."
Schultz gulped. "I hope that you do feel strong, Fraulein Doktor. What was done to Colonel Hogan was terrible."
Doktor Falke took his hand, and let him escort her to the staff car. 'Who is guarding him, Herr Schultz?"
"The Kommandant is guarding him himself, Fraulein Doktor."
She forced the words past her lips. "And the Gestapo?"
"General Burkhalter made Major Hochstetter leave the camp."
Doktor Falke stopped short at that hated name. She shuddered as again the memory of him on her body swept over her.
Schultz sadly nodded. They knew it was a matter of days before the major would return to the attack.
She took in the bloody front of Schultz's uniform as he closed the door of the staffcar, then looked down at her hands. Her gloves and coat were streaked with Colonel Hogan's blood. She closed her eyes as she trembled. She saw his laughing face, his teasing eyes. "I hope you'll never have my blood on your hands, Colonel Hogan." … "I only want your neck between them, Doktor Pacifist."
"Now your blood is on my hands, Herr Oberst, and your life is now in them. Oh Dear God, I'm half drugged and too frightened to hold it."
Opening her eyes, Doktor Falke caught the glint of noon sunlight on the front door of her small cottage/surgery. From deep within another memory emerged: that of Sergeant Kinchloe standing at that same door, as dark as the night surrounding him, clutching Corporal LeBeau's ashen body against his chest, and Sergeant Carter beside him, whey faced, shakily pointing his pistol at her. She remembered how gently the black sergeant had laid his little friend on her examination table, how crusted with blood Herr Kinchloewen's black jersey had been. She remembered the white sergeant's eagerness to assist her, his utter devotion to his friends. Nothing else had mattered to Andrew, not even his own fear of leaving his injured comrades behind and going alone to fetch his colonel. Nothing had mattered to him but ensuring that his friends LeBeau and Kinch lived and returned to their tunnel.
They had held Corporal LeBeau's life in their hands, the three of them, and he had survived the crude surgery she had performed on him. Colonel Hogan has a far better surgeon in Herr Doktor Joachim Kruger, she reminded herself , and he will be in a fully appointed hospital. He will survive his ordeal. He must survive it, and she must see that he did. So many people depend on him.
***
She stood across the operating table from Doktor Kruger, their bodies bent over the inert form of Colonel Robert Hogan. She tried not to recognize him, to think of him as another anonymous victim of another sabotaged train or factory, but she could not. She could barely look down at his bruised, cut face without crying.
Joachim Kruger glanced up. His stern blue eyes above the white mask softened slightly as they met hers.
"I know this is hard for a woman, Doktor Falke. Try to bear it stoically."
"Jawohl, Herr Doktor Kruger. I have worked upon such wounds before."
"I know you have, Fraulein Doktor. Many times."
"But not upon those that disfigure a man so handsome. One whom you know." Doktor Kruger allowed himself a second of admiration at his colleague's stamina. He had operated upon her face and body less than two days ago, and that experience had left him sweat soaked and shaking.
Usually while operating, Doktor Kruger talked cheerfully of inconsequential matters: the weather, the roses in his garden, his grandson's achievements at the gymnasium. He had performed so many types of operations so often that he literally could do them in his sleep.
He had not said a word when the motionless form beneath his scalpel had been Fraulein Doktor Falke. He had done the best he could for her, his mouth pursed tight, holding back his rage at the near loss of a colleague. Then he had sat at her bedside, holding her hand and waited for her closed eyes to flutter open. Waited for her to come to consciousness, and realize what had been done to her. He had never kept vigil over his other surgical patients, but he hated what had been done to her. Hochstetter had stolen her medications as well as her chastity. Drugs that were to be used to heal the sick, not to be sold to the wealthy on the black market. The Gestapo agent had struck at all doctors through her. Doktor Kruger thought in anger of Doktor Falke, alone, frightened, left helpless and in pain among the familiar things all doctors had in their offices. How long had she been lying there when Herr Schnitzer discovered her? Watching her breathe, Doktor Kruger had wished that she could lie asleep, at peace, until she died.
She would go through the same ordeal with this American Colonel. The same sadistic monster had torn him apart, as he had her. They would never know a peaceful sleep again.
"Retractor, bitte."
He should not have called her back; but her work for the Red Cross obliged her to be here. She was what passed for a medical officer at Stalag Thirteen and this man was the senior officer among the prisoners. She would have encountered him more frequently than she would have encountered all the others. Although she was trying her best to work unemotionally, naturally she would be upset. The American was very handsome. Perhaps one day, if he survived, he would again look more than passably good looking. But those broken ribs, and wrist, those head contusions… His jaw is not fractured, nor are there any breaks around his eye-sockets, although … I wonder what damage has been done to the man inside.
He glanced up again, and caught his colleague's lacklustre eyes. I wonder what damage has been done to her. She has been sedating herself with morphine. She could addict herself to it and be of no use to us. Damn Hochstetter. A damn waste of a fine doctor.
Doktor Kruger tsked as he worked on.
Fraulein Doktor Falke glanced up, and clutched the table to keep from swaying. Her eyes flickered around the room, to Doktor Kruger, Doktor Eckhart, the surgical nurses, the anaesthetist, then back down at the face of their patient.
She could almost hear his teasing, tormenting voice, "I never kiss my butcher, Doktor Pacifist."… As if I wanted him to kiss me. … Act impassive. Remember Colonel Hogan is an American prisoner. … We know how arrogant Americans are. "We always win every war we're in."… "Not the War of 1812, Colonel." … "Is that so?" he'd say. Then he'd chant in a sing-song voice, "We have eaten our roast pork, off silver plates at Muddy York. We have cured our English hams 'bove the mighty Falls at Beaver Dams." … Always making me angry. … "Don't worry about blowing up Schultz's toy factory. I'll have my government rebuild it after the war." … Cocksure, cheeky devil. …"We will get you home and free, Doktor Falke. Just keep faith. We will all go home free, and leave freedom and peace behind.
And then we'll make a much freer country at home: Kinch and his people, Carter and his, and you and me and ours. Two truly free countries, Doktor Pacifist – yours and mine."
Doktor Falke slid her gloved hand along the table until the tip of her forefinger touched the tip of Colonel Hogan's pinkie. Keep impassive, Fraulein Doktor. Remember you are supposed to be a German. … In a place where the police rape women instead of protecting them. … In a place where they turn toy factories into armaments factories, force hundreds or thousands of 'foreign workers' to toil in those factories, like Herr Kinchloewen's ancestors were forced away from Africa to toil in the fields. … Where a man is beaten near to death on mere suspicion of being a spy.
"Just keep faith. We will win, you and I. Fraulein Doktor Pacifist Falke and Colonel Warmonger Hogan. We will win together."
"Will we, Colonel Hogan? Or will we just die trying?"
"Fraulein Doktor? Fraulein Doktor Falke! Wake up and help me set this rib."
"Jawohl, Herr Doktor Kruger." Marlena Falke forced herself to concentrate again on the task of keeping Colonel Robert Hogan alive.
**