HH01: A Schatze in the Dark
by VStarTraveler
Summary: Christmas, 1944, was a dark time at Stalag 13 as the Battle of the Bulge raged in the west. Some of the captured Allied fliers were taken to the camp, and other shot-down pilots, who'd evaded the Germans, were taken into the tunnels awaiting a safe way home. Depressed over what had become of his favorite season, Schultz does something that gives Colonel Hogan an idea...
This story was written for and First Prize Winner of the Writers Anonymous 2018 Holiday Challenge.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction, written entirely for fun and not for profit. This interpretation of Hogan's Heroes is entirely my own, and Hogan's Heroes and all of its various components remain the property of their respective owners.
In Appreciation: Many thanks to Belphegor from the Hogan's Heroes fandom for the wonderful image of the team used for the cover for this story. Thanks again, Belphegor!
It was just five days before Christmas and Colonel Robert Hogan was worried.
Days earlier, the Nazis had launched an all-out offensive that seemed to be currently overwhelming the Allies in the west and the effects were being felt at Stalag 13. Three new Allied pilots and two new aircrew members were currently being processed into the camp. That brought to eleven the number of new prisoners in the past three days alone. In addition to the damage it was doing to the Allied war effort, it made a lot of work for Hogan and his men.
Each new prisoner had to be carefully vetted by the members of the P.O.W.s' Reception Committee to ensure that the Jerries weren't trying to sneak in a German plant or the rare American or other Allied traitor. It had happened more than once in the past, and each time, it put the work that Hogan and his men were doing at risk. That was why the colonel or one his inner circle had to do the follow-up work to make the final decision before each new prisoner was brought into the full knowledge of what went on at Stalag 13. It was also why Hogan was usually the one to explain to new prisoners why they would not be allowed to escape.
"Anything like an escape that damages the reputation of our dear commandant, Colonel Klink, means the Germans might bring in someone else to take his place. You know, someone competent, who actually knows what he's doing. That could shut down our whole operation." Therefore, while Hogan and some of his men escaped with rather startling regularity, they made it a point to be back before the next roll call or else to be 'recaptured' quickly to help preserve the self-proclaimed Iron Eagle's reputation of never allowing a successful escape from Stalag 13.
The wind felt cutting as he walked toward his barracks. He wanted to be able to give his men good news for the holiday, but such news was in short supply. In addition to all of the bad news from the front, it was snowing again and his amateur meteorologists were predicting it would continue through Christmas Eve or beyond.
Kicking the snow from his boots, Hogan entered the barracks and looked at the little cutout paper tree pinned to the wall. Someday, when the war was over, he looked forward to being able to have a real tree, with its smell of nettles and fresh sap. For now, though, that was a distant dream and pressing business called.
"Any word on our project?" he asked Kinchloe.
"Nothing yet, Colonel, but they should be back soon."
"Thanks, I'll be in my office—"
A bulb flickered for just a moment before returning to a full glow.
"Speak of the devils." Kinch nodded to the lookouts, who both peeked out without being seen to make sure the way was clear.
Moments later, the signal was given and the entrance to the tunnel opened for just long enough for LeBeau, Newkirk, and Carter to scamper up before it dropped back into place.
"Well?" asked Hogan. "How'd it go?"
"We got him, Colonel, but we brought home a problem, too," replied Newkirk.
"Oui, she was so small, Colonel! We didn't see her," protested LeBeau.
Hogan stared at the little Frenchman. "She? Small? Why am I not liking where this is going?"
"I saw her in town before we left," said LeBeau. "I don't know where she hid, but she must have jumped in the truck and then jumped off after we did. We took all of the precautions—"
"All of 'em, sir," agreed Newkirk.
"—to make sure we weren't followed, but she must have the nose of a poodle!"
"Or a bloodhound!" exclaimed Carter.
LeBeau frowned at his American friend. "When we got the escape hatch open, she slipped right up behind us, quiet as a mouse, and saw everything. We couldn't just leave her out there. She might lead the Jerries to it."
"And then the whole gig would be up," added the Englishman.
Hogan shook his head. "Guys, you do know we can't have a dog running around in the tunnels?"
The men looked at each other questioningly before turning back to Hogan. "Dog, sir? She's not a dog."
LeBeau was shaking his head. "No, Colonel. She's a girl!"
~HH~
From what they could get out of her, she was a six-year-old German orphan named Anna who was determined to avoid a return trip to the orphanage. With blonde locks, a threadbare blue dress, holes in her stockings, and a jacket quite inappropriate for the season, she was a tiny thing and thin as a rail. A sweater from the clothing stock provided some warmth and helped end her shaking, after they'd rolled up the sleeves and belted it off at her waist. Then LeBeau brought soup, bread, and some cubes of cheese.
Then he brought more cheese.
"She won't be that tiny for long if she keeps eating like that," whispered Carter a bit louder than he intended. The girl clearly heard; she looked up at Carter but only gave a smile for she spoke not a word of English. She returned to her meal and continued to devour it.
"Anna, please, slow down," said Hogan in German. "You'll make yourself sick if you eat too fast."
With her mouth practically full, she replied, "But I am sick! We haven't had any food at the orphanage in several days—except for crackers—and my tummy hurts. That's why I ran away. I wanted to find something to eat and no one would give me anything in town. The man in the truck was eating a chocolate so I followed him, hoping he might have more and would give me one."
"Sweetheart, if you'll eat a little slower, we'll see if we can find you a candy bar."
The girl smiled and took another bite, leaving Hogan to believe she might actually have slowed by a little bit.
~HH~
It was after lights out and most of the men were in their bunks, though one man was peeking out to make sure they weren't surprised by Schultz or another of the guards.
As was often the case, Hogan and his senior staff were sitting around the table whispering quietly among themselves.
"So what are we going to do with her, Colonel?" asked LeBeau. "If we take her back to Hammelburg and she mentions what she saw to anyone, they'll know that it has to be our camp and they'll come looking."
"Why can't we take her somewhere else and drop her off?" asked Carter. "Then they'd never be able to find us."
"Carter, she's not a dog," groused Newkirk. "She knows the orphanage is in Hammelburg. If she tells them that and then mentions the escape hatch, it's as good as pointing a bloody red arrow at us. We're the closest POW camp to town, so this would be the first place they come looking."
"She's not the only problem," said Kinch. "We got the others out a couple of days ago, but now Lawler's down in the tunnels waiting for a way home so he can get back into the battle, too. He's not happy about the wait."
"Unfortunately, we're not in the happy business. He'll have to wait." Hogan paused, clearly concentrating, so the others gave him a few moments before he continued. "London's got their hands full at the moment with the German offensive so we're not going to get help anytime soon from them in getting him out. The Germans have cracked down in the last twenty-four hours, too; they're stopping anything that moves at night, so the Underground may not be much help, either. And, despite our record, it would be a real shot in the dark for us to do it all on our own without a foolproof plan or any outside assistance."
"Sounds like we need a foolproof plan then, Colonel."
Hogan frowned slightly at Carter. "You think?"
"What about the girl?" asked Kinchloe.
Hogan sighed. "We can't risk the girl saying anything, so we can't send her back to the orphanage. We have to get her out, too."
"What if someone misses her, Colonel?" asked Newkirk. "They could still come looking."
"True," agreed Hogan, "but as bleak as the situation sounds, they probably won't look too hard. We just have to hope that no one spotted her getting on, or off of, that truck."
The signal flickered just as he finished. When the bunk entrance was opened, Thomas' head appeared above the rail. "Colonel Hogan, we have a problem."
~HH~
The little girl was crying. Through her sobs, Hogan learned that she was afraid in the dark and didn't want to be left alone.
"Anna, we can't stay down here with you for long because, well, the people up top won't let us."
"But, I'm scared..."
"How 'bout if you have a friend?" asked Carter.
Hogan gave Andrew a warning look, but Carter didn't catch it, continuing on. "How 'bout a doll? I'll make it for you."
"Really? A doll of my own?"
"Sure! It will be a Christmas present."
She sniffled as she nodded her head. "Okay. Promise?"
"I promise," said Carter. "It'll be the best doll ever."
Anna smiled as she dried her tears. "I'm still scared. Can somebody stay with me for a while?"
First Lieutenant Jonathon Lawler, the man who'd been brought in with her, was looking into the little space from behind the others. He didn't speak much German, but he understood enough. "Colonel, if she's scared, I'll stay with her and hold her hand until she goes to sleep. My little girl at home is almost 18 months old and I haven't seen her yet."
"Sounds good, Lieutenant." Turning to the girl, Hogan said, "Anna, this is Jon. He doesn't speak your language but he has a baby girl at home so he's offered to stay with you to keep you safe, if that's okay with you."
She looked at the young man and recognized him from earlier. She nodded slowly.
~HH~
Sergeant Schultz was sad. He loved the Christmas season, but not like this. He made his rounds listlessly, making sure everything was as it should be, but there was no joy in his heart.
"Carter, what are you doing?" asked Schultz, peering over the American sergeant's shoulder.
"Carving a doll for Anna," said Andrew before realizing what he'd said. "Uh, she's my niece. Back home. In the States. Unfortunately, it's a lot harder than it looks."
Schultz frowned and then shook his head. "Carter, I know nothing. Except toys. I do know toys, and that is not a toy."
"Sure it is, Schultz!" argued Carter. "I'm just not done yet."
More head shaking. "If you keep going like that, your niece will have grandbabies before you're done. Here, hold this. Let me show you..."
Carter took Schultz's rifle as he handed him the doll's head and the penknife he was using. Schultz sat down, looked at the work so far, and finally said, "It is salvageable...barely." Moments later, the knife started moving over the wood and a young girl's face slowly started to emerge as Schultz patiently explained what he was doing. For the next hour as he carved and talked, Schultz was smiling.
~HH~
"Colonel, it was amazing! Schultz carved the head and a hand while telling me how to do it so I could finish the rest. He even cut the grooves so I could attach it to the body."
Hogan was looking at the carving of the head as Carter went on and on. "...and that I should get 'the Englishman or the cockroach' to sew it."
"Hey!" objected LeBeau.
"But Schultz said it!"
"Knock it off, you guys," ordered Hogan. "This may have given me an idea so we'll have a shot after all. Carter, keep on carving, and don't cut off any fingers."
"Oh, I won't, Colonel. I haven't cut myself once."
Holding up Carter's pitiful attempt at the second hand, Hogan replied, "I meant the doll's."
~HH~
"Absolutely not, Hogan! Now get out!"
"But Colonel Klink, it would be for the children!" Hogan poured a bit of schnapps in the aperitif glass and downed it before the colonel looked up.
"We will not divert supplies from the German war effort to such silly ideas, children or not."
"Colonel, what if we were to replace the lumber? If my men and I cut the trees to replace any lumber we use. We could even operate the mill."
"Leave camp to cut trees and operate the mill? Absolutely not!" repeated Klink. "Now get out! Out! Out!"
"Okay, Colonel, but when you don't get that good mark on your record in Berlin for the moral boost it would provide..."
Klink's head swiveled up and he squinted at Hogan through his monocle. "Okay! You can use the warped and discarded lumber in the camp lumber shed. Schultz, assign two guards to watch as they use the saw. And the paint will have to be purchased with camp credits. Now, dis-missed!"
~HH~
Later that afternoon, the table saw in Stalag 13's carpentry shop roared to life. Long, whining cuts were interspersed with frequent short cuts; minutes later, one of the prisoners emerged from the shop carrying a bucket of wood even as the saw continued its efforts for the buckets to follow.
The bucket was placed on a table and the process began. One man rasped the edges to round them slightly, then another gave a series of quick swirls with a pumice stone to smooth the faces, followed by a third who used a stolen piece of glasspaper for a final sanding. Two men stood by with brooms and dustpans, keeping the area clean.
From the first table, each little cube was passed to another where six men with sharpened steel nails each carefully scribed their assigned letter, one to a side. Schultz, from memory, had jotted down the recommended letter combinations for each block and the number of each such block in each set to allow German children to spell out simple words in their language. When the letters were scribed, the blocks were passed to yet another table where the letters were hand painted by more prisoners with red, white, or yellow paint from the Germans' Repair Shop. After the letters were dry enough, the cubes went to the last station, where they were coated with a varnish to protect the paint and seal the wood.
At the same time, prisoners in other huts were coloring paper with Christmas scenes before the papers were collected and passed to another prisoner with a fountain pen who wrote a note on each. When the blocks were dry enough, they were stacked on a paper, 2 blocks by 2 blocks, and 5 layers high. The paper was folded around them and some glue was used to seal the wrapping.
"Very good, Hogan! This project is keeping the prisoners very busy! And everyone knows that busy hands don't have time to make trouble." Klink was beside himself as he glanced over the work. "Carry on!"
Popping his crop against his shoulder, he did a sharp turn and headed back toward his office as a happy man.
~HH~
On the evening of December 23rd, Hogan was in Klink's office. A wrapped present containing 20 blocks sat on Klink's desk, along with a sample block to illustrate the final product.
"Hogan! Why did you make so many?"
"You know busy hands, Sir. When those busy hands start working for the children, there's no telling what they can accomplish. And personally, I think they accomplished a lot. If we can just call the orphanage, I'm sure they'll send someone to come get them. If there's more than they need for their kids, they can pass along the extras to other orphanages. It's getting awful close to Christmas, Colonel, so we need to get on this or there will be a lot of disappointed children."
"Lots," wailed Klink, thinking of the small mountain of presents he'd witnessed minutes earlier. "Schultz, have Hilda call the orphanage so they can send over someone with a truck to pick them up."
When Hilda made the call a few minutes later, Hogan had to strain to hear but there was a male voice speaking German on the other end of the line. "For the children? Of course. We'll send someone over in the morning."
When he returned to his barracks a little while later, Kinch was smiling.
"All taken care of, Colonel." With an exaggerated accent he added, "For the children!"
Hogan smiled and the others present laughed.
"What about the Underground?"
"Yeah, all arranged. They've got someone. And a truck."
"Everything ready for Lawler and the girl?"
"Papers, money, clothes, and everything, Sir. All set."
"Good work, men. I'm going down to make the final arrangements with our guests."
"Oh, Colonel, we finished Anna's doll," said Carter, holding it out.
It had turned out to be a fairly nice doll. The left hand that Carter had carved was a mess compared to the right, but it was the feet that drew Hogan's attention. Instead of being barefooted, Carter had roughly carved a pair of patent leather-like shoes that had been painted a gloss black. She was wearing a little yellow dress, and her short, scribed hair was painted in the same yellow as the letters on the blocks.
Hogan smiled as he took the doll and opened the bunk access to the tunnels below. "Now we'll see if this happy business pays off for us."
~HH~
Early the next morning a truck marked "Hammelburg Orphanage" arrived outside the front entrance. There was a bit of a stir among the guards at the gate before Shultz trudged out at his fastest pace, and, huffing and puffing, gave the order for the truck to be allowed to enter.
Hogan's men loaded the truck and thirty minutes later, after the Germans checked everything to make sure there were no stowaways, the driver said, "Danke," and drove away with the prisoners cheering and some of the guards clapping for the good deed.
Schultz wasn't clapping. Instead, he stood with his mouth gaping open and his eyes opened wide as he stared at the truck turning out of the camp for the wording on the side now said "Schatze Toy Company."
Newkirk clapped Schultz on the back, "Great work, Schultz." At the same time, he slipped a paper into his pocket that Schultz would find some days later. Written on the inner face of a small piece of wrapping paper were the words, "Merry Christmas from Schatze Toy Company, Heidelburg, Hans Schultz, President." Schultz smiled for days afterward.
A little over a kilometer down the road, the driver of the truck loaded with the presents stopped to pick up a young father hiking with his little girl down the side of the road. The two men exchanged code words and for the rest of the day, they made deliveries to six orphanages between Hammelburg and the little town of Waldshut, near the Swiss border. At each location, the men unloaded the presents for the shocked but thankful orphanage managers while the little blonde-headed girl sat quietly in the cab playing with her dolly.
~HH~
New York, New York
A few days before Christmas, 1948
Robert Hogan, Colonel, United States Army Air Forces, Retired, got off the elevator and entered the hotel lobby. With his bag in hand, he was going to check out and then head to the train station for his return home. Just before he reached the desk, he heard someone calling.
"Colonel? Colonel Hogan? Is that you?"
Hogan turned to see a somewhat familiar face from several years before. "Lauder? Ahem, Lawler."
"Yes, Sir! Captain Jon Lawler, Sir. Well, I was a lieutenant when we met back in '44. I thought that was you as soon as I saw you. I just wanted to say thank you for all you did for us, Sir, and to say Merry Christmas."
"No thanks needed, Jon," said Hogan as they shook hands. "We were all in it together. And Merry Christmas to you, too."
He was about to excuse himself but movement caught Hogan's eye as a young, pregnant woman came over. "Jon, did you run into a friend?"
"Marcy, you won't believe it but this is Colonel Hogan that I've told you so much about! Colonel, this is my wife, Marcy, and our little girl, Christie. It's hard to believe but she's almost six now. Ann, our eldest, is around here somewhere and we have another one on the way, too."
Shaking hands with Marcy and the little girl, Hogan said, "Congratulations and it's nice to meet you all. I hate to run but I'm about to be late for my—."
Hogan's head turned sharply when he felt a small hand slip into his own. Looking down, he saw a little blonde-headed girl of about ten years of age looking up at him with a big smile. A tear started to form in his eye when he saw that she was holding a little doll with a little yellow dress, scribed and chipped yellow hair, and carved black shoes instead of feet.
"Hi, Colonel Hogan! Thank you for helping my daddy and me escape. And Merry Christmas, too!"
Author's Notes:
Thanks so much for reading. Despite being a Hogan's Heroes fan for almost fifty years (my parents let me watch the last season or two), this is my first completed HH story. My previous effort remains a frustrating, incomplete mess after two years of starting and stopping, so any feedback or constructive criticism on this story will be greatly appreciated to let me know if I'm on the right track.
Regarding the story setting, it's estimated that 20,000 Allies (primarily Americans due to the forces involved) were captured during the Battle of the Bulge and that more than 1,000 Allied aircraft were shot down or destroyed. Some of the captured Allied fliers might have been taken to Luftstalag 13.
Hogan and his Heroes speak German in this story. For the events of the series to be even remotely plausible, I've always assumed that parts of the discussion we witnessed on TV would have actually taken place in German, with all of Hogan's main staff members being fluent in the language. While other prisoners helped in camp, they wouldn't have been as likely to have been taken on the various missions away from camp because of their lack of fluency in the language (in addition to making the supporting cast too large!).
Regarding the title and the story, the idiom "A shot in the dark" means "a guess or estimate with very little or no assurance of its accuracy" or, as used here, "an attempt that is not expected to succeed or has very little chance of working" (idioms dot thefreedictionary dot com). In the episode "War Takes a Holiday," Schultz says before the war he was the boss at the Schatze (spelled Schatzi in some sources) Toy Company, the largest toymaker in Germany. It was later taken over for the German war effort. The story title is a play on these, similar to what was done in some of the series episode titles.
Thomas, played by William Christopher, made his only appearance in that same "War Takes a Holiday" as a fill-in for Larry Hovis' Carter. Hovis couldn't be present for filming that episode and time was short so Carter's name was supposedly changed to Thomas in the script without changing any lines or anything else about the character. Christopher played several other characters in other episodes.
Finally, I couldn't find anything about service members adopting orphan children in theater during WWII so perhaps the forged papers produced by the Heroes were really that good...