Disclaimer: No ownership of Hogan's Heroes or its characters is implied. The text is in no way intended to reflect on the work of others and is not for profit.

What We See

Chapter 1

It was a little past four in the morning, the tunnels were empty, and sitting by himself in the radio room, Colonel Robert E. Hogan of the US Army Air Force found himself once again reflecting on just how many problems continued to come up in his life that had never been covered in Command training.

However, discovering that he was as nosy as a frustrated spinster let loose in a rival's bedroom, well now, that was one he really hadn't seen coming.

It's a real danger, he insisted to himself, just as he had for most of that day. But the lie - or half truth anyway - was getting old.

So why didn't you destroy it the minute you got it? a pesky voice from the back of his brain asked.

He didn't have an answer and it annoyed him. It annoyed him even more to realize that keeping the Krauts from getting their hands on the thing was not the whole reason he'd come skulking down into the tunnels at this time of the night. He felt like an adolescent boy furtively sneaking a peek at his father's girlie magazines, only without the rewarding thrill or titillation. All he felt was a sort of sleazy embarrassment, not to mention an unwelcome twinge of shame at the thought that he might be hurting one of his men.

So WHY am I doing this? he wondered. I don't want to look at it. I really don't. There's nothing stopping me from getting rid of it right now.

But no, if it was really nothing more than simple voyeurism, he would have destroyed it the minute he had gotten it. There was something more serious to this, even if he was damned if he knew what it was. So now he was sitting here in the early hours of the morning and staring at the thing and wondering how a bundle of battered and dishevelled looking small notebooks - the kind that kids in school might use for their compositions - could have gotten him into such a quandary.

He grimaced and tapped a stray pencil with his fingers. Don't do it, he told himself. Don't read it. There's not a single, solitary reason that you need to look at it.

Without knowing it, he shifted uncomfortably on his chair. Then, standing up abruptly, he started pacing; this inexplicable hesitation was making him restless - he wasn't a man who was accustomed to being indecisive.

You told him you wouldn't. Promised him in fact, a part of him argued.

I know, he answered that inner voice, but…

Oh, for Pete's sake, just burn the thing! his conscience ordered. Burn it like you said you would. You're going to do it anyway, at least that way you'll have shown him a little respect.

Instead, after grimly pouring himself a cup of coffee and sitting down once more, Hogan opened the bundle and began to read.

----

If it had been one of the others, Hogan considered, he probably wouldn't have caught them and so wouldn't have been in this predicament right now. But Carter - who, God love him, was usually at the center of most of his stickiest problems - hadn't quite been able to wipe the guilty expression off his face in time.

He had come down to the lab to talk to Carter about a special assignment. Carter had enthusiastically started to check for any of the necessary materials he might be lacking and so, while Carter was rummaging through his shelves and humming to himself, he had strolled a few steps over to Carter's workbench to wait. Casually picking up a thick textbook and glancing at the title - Goodman and Gilman's: The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics - he'd been too busy puzzling over exactly when and where Carter had managed to get this, to do more than catch the messy bundle out of the corner of his eye. (1)

"Writing the Great American novel, Carter?" he asked, not really interested and still leafing through Carter's textbook.

"Huh?" Carter yelped, whipping around so fast that the roll of wire he'd been holding flew out of his hand.

Turning at Carter's sudden panic, Hogan didn't put it together for a second. It was the half second of worried guilt that flitted across the younger man's face however, that gave him the answer. Hogan's gaze shot to the papers and then back to his demolitions man. "Carter…" he began dangerously.

Carter shot around him and awkwardly tried to dart between him and the table. "It's nothing Colonel - honest! Just some equations and notes that I made while I was working on - "

"Carter, you wouldn't be trying to hide those papers if that's all they were."

"Sure I would! I mean, it's all about stuff that didn't work and things that nearly blew up in our faces. Like that one time - " Carter explained in a rush, patently hoping to distract his CO.

Hogan looked at his tech sergeant, who was backed up against his own table, eyes trying nervously to gauge the reaction of the man in front of him. "Carter," he'd interrupted, "Do you somehow actually believe that I can't tell when you're lying?"

"No sir! I really am telling…uh…well…" Carter protested, still trying to extricate himself, but then his voice trailed off. Hogan could see him realizing the obvious: that his CO would know the truth as soon as he looked.

Hogan felt bad remembering how Carter had stepped out of his way, not meeting his eyes any longer. Reaching out for the slim exercise book laying on top of the bundle, he turned the cover over and peered at the first page for a few moments. It was exactly what instinct had told him it was. "I'm sorry Carter," he said, "but you know that keeping a diary is against regulations."

"I guess so, Colonel."

"That's not me making the rule either, Carter. That's an actual Army regulation. It's for everybody too, not just us." (2)

"Yes sir."

Hogan sighed: Carter really did have a crestfallen face at times. Motioning to Carter for him to sit down on his stool, his mind flashed back on all of the seemingly endless lectures his father had given him over the years. It wasn't until he'd become an officer that he'd really believed what his father had said about not liking it anymore than he did. "Look Carter, you could have put us all in a lot of danger."

"Oh no sir, the Germans wouldn't have found it. I never wrote anything up top! Believe me, I may have done some dumb things, but I'd never do something as dumb as all that! I swear!"

"I do believe you Carter. But keeping the diary down here doesn't mean that it's safe to have it. As tight as we try to keep security, we've had plants in here before. Both Williams and Martin saw the tunnels. So did the man who turned us into Hegel. What if they'd seen one of your books here? They would've had all the proof the Krauts needed to bring in half the German Army. Or what if the Krauts ever caught on and Hochstetter found his way down here? Do you know how much trouble that could cause?"

"But once he's seen the tunnels he'd already have enough on us to get us into trouble! What more is my diary gonna do?"

"It'd put the entire underground in danger for a start, Carter! Any names in there and the Gestapo would have those agents in front of a firing squad within the hour. And one capture usually leads to a whole lot more. Who knows what kind of information that the Krauts might get out of our people! They could get lucky and stumble onto a string of leads that'll take them as far as France and Norway."

"But even if you haven't put any names in Carter, any descriptions of a mission could help them narrow down the suspects. Take that oil refinery we did last week. If the Gestapo learned how we got in, or even just when, they'd have to know that there's only three people who could have helped us. They'd get our agent and, on top of that, more than likely torture the two innocent people in the process!" (3)

"I…I never thought…I mean, I didn't mean to…" Carter mumbled. "Really…I never would've done anything to …"

Hogan sighed again and rubbed his face tiredly; perhaps he was being an alarmist, upsetting Carter when, really, no harm had been done. "Aw hell Carter, I know you didn't. But you have to understand, there are reasons for regulations like these. Even if you wrote about our missions in the most vague and general way possible, there'd still be some danger. If just how much we do outside ever came out, the Krauts wouldn't be able to help figuring out that we need contacts in town. Give'em a few facts and locations to start out with and it wouldn't take long for them to find witnesses. Someone who could've spotted us, or our people, coming and going. Someone who'd be willing to describe us. Not to mention that having written evidence is only going to give the Krauts that much more to work with when they do their questioning."

Carter was staring up at him now, looking positively sick. Hogan felt for him - he knew how badly Carter must be feeling at thought of having put others in danger - but he kept going. "It'd make it easier for them to question you too Carter," he said. "That's why even regular soldiers aren't supposed to write these things. Don't you know that the Germans actually have special units for just this sort of event?" (4)

"Really?" Carter asked.

"Really." Hogan grabbed the first notebook off of Carter's work table and slapped it against his palm. "What if you had written down something a new prisoner had mentioned to you - about his last location or his unit? Or even something second hand: a new man tells you that one of his friends is on a ship guarding a convoy hauling supplies to a location in France. You write it down. But your diary is found and some smart Kraut gets to wondering why supplies are going there. Then he notices other reports of supplies going there. Now he starts paying attention to troop movement - after all, somebody is going to be using all those supplies. So he sees a couple of battalions moving in that general direction and asks himself why. Next thing you know, the Allied super secret sneak attack isn't so secret."

"Jeez Colonel, that's not fair. If that Kraut is so smart, wouldn't all that other stuff tip him off anyway?" Carter protested. But it was without a lot of conviction; Hogan thought that he was only saying it because the weight of what he was telling him was getting to him.

"Maybe, but maybe not. We never know with them what's going to be the vital piece of the puzzle. The point is: keeping a diary is an unnecessary risk. We don't have to help the Germans win, now do we?"

"Yeah…I guess I get what you're saying," Carter said, shoulders slumping.

"Look Carter, you wouldn't believe how cunning the Germans can be. Did you know that they had agents pretending to be priests working the docks in New York and taking "confessions" from merchant seamen? They'd talk with them, pretend to be their pals, offer counselling just like any other priest - all to get information about where they'd been. Then there were other agents who would call up a guy's wife or mother and pretend to be an old buddy in town for the night and looking to get together. He'd throw in a few details and so the guy's Mom wouldn't think anything of it, and then she'd tell him Joe couldn't go out because he'd been shipped off to such and such a place and wouldn't be home for a month. And they're were doing all this back before we were even in the war! So can you imagine what kind of tricks they're pulling now? Any little bit of information can lead to more, Carter."

Hogan placed the notebook back on the table and then leaned back against the counter. He knew Carter had heard enough and that he wouldn't have to keep hammering the point into Carter in order to get him to hand the whole bundle over, but Hogan considered that maybe once his discouraged tech sergeant got over his guilt, and once the fact that nothing bad had actually happened sunk in, that the dangers might pale in Carter's mind. Then he might feel a bit of resentment over the entire episode. Either that, or he might start writing again. "There's another reason too Carter," Hogan continued.

"Aww, come on Colonel, I get it," Carter pleaded. "I won't do it anymore - I promise."

"I know Carter. But I want you to know that it's not just about the safety of the underground or the Krauts getting information about troop movements. I'm worried about you too."

"Me?"

"One of the big reasons the Army forbids everyone from keeping a diary is that they don't want the enemy getting any information about general morale or about that specific man's state of mind. A diary gives them all kinds of things that they can use against us psychologically. And with the situation we're in, that's a threat we need to worry about more than most."

"Gee Colonel, I mostly only wrote about simple stuff. You know, who won the volleyball game, what Lebeau cooked for dinner, stuff like that. What the heck could they use against me?"

"Did you ever write about your friend Charlie? You know, the one you joked hid under his porch for two years to avoid the draft? When Lebeau asked you if it made you angry that you were over here and he wasn't, you said didn't bother you and we believed you. But what if the Germans badgered you with it for days on end, never letting up on the subject? Would you still feel the same then?"

"Well…I don't know," Carter admitted. "I think I'd still okay with it though. Honestly Colonel, I was never mad at Charlie for not wanting to join the Army."

Hogan put a hand on his demolition man's shoulder. "Then how about Mary Jane's Dear John letter?" he asked softly, all the while feeling like a real heel. The way Carter shifted under his hand told him he'd hit a nerve. "I'm sorry for saying that Carter, really. But can you tell me for certain that the Germans couldn't twist that around long enough to upset you to the point where you'd get careless? Not even just for a second?"

"Yeah…I suppose they could," Carter conceded with a hushed voice.

"Don't feel bad Carter. It's the same for everybody. We all have our weak spots: our insecurities, our fears, all the bad things that have happened in our lives. Our worries for the people we care about. The Germans could play on any of those things."

Hogan could see his downcast sergeant turning all of this over in his mind and felt a surge of gratitude when Carter picked up the bundle of notebooks and willingly handed them to him. "Are you going to burn them?" Carter asked him.

"I have to Carter."

"I understand Colonel." Then he looked at Hogan. "You won't read it or anything first though, will you?"

"No Carter," Hogan remembered assuring him then. "Not if you don't want me to."

"No sir. If you're gonna burn it, just burn it. Please don't read it first."

"All right Carter. I won't read it, I promise."

----

Later, as he snuck down to the radio room just before four in the morning, all he could think was, So much for promises.

Author's notes: I would just like to state here, in case any one is wondering, that - other than they share the same idea of the men keeping diaries - this story is in no way connected to "Dear Diary" by wordybirds. It is also not connected to any of my other stories and should be considered a stand alone.

1) This is an actual book. There was no real reason to throw it in, but since it fit the time period - it was first published in 1941 - I thought it might be something that Carter would have liked to get his hands on.

2) According to Richard J. Aldrich in Witness to War: Diaries of the Second World War in Europe and the Middle East : "Most countries made it a punishable offence for anyone in the military to maintain a diary - an offence even more serious if they were performing some kind of special or secret work." Nearly all of the reasons for not keeping a diary that Hogan gives Carter in this chapter were subjects in the forward of this book. That being said, and while I once heard something that suggested that there was an order against it in the American military, I don't know what exactly the actual US Army regulation was, or even if they specifically had one. In any case, there were people in every country who obviously ignored this rule, otherwise how would we have books like Mr. Aldrich's?

3) Just to let you know, I've made a lot of references to things that happened in different episodes. However, I'm not going to list them all. So if you recognize something, then it's from show, and if you don't, then assume it's just something - such as this particular event - that I pulled out of the air.

4) From Witness to War: "All sides set up special units in an attempt to translate [soldiers' diaries quickly for intelligence purposes."

(Sorry for all of the footnotes. I promise that there will be fewer - or hopefully none - in future chapters.)