Her Second Chance: Liberation
Note and Disclaimer: I'll be saying this every time. I don't own the characters to Hogan's Heroes nor do I own any of the songs I have posted. I would like to thank those who have created this series and those who have written these great songs. However, the character I have created in this series, Colonel Michalovich, belongs to me, so if you want to use her in any story you wish to write, please email me with permission first.
This is, obviously, my final war chapter in story of the Stalag 13 operation. The stage of which the prisoners have anxiously waited for brought much more danger than what was anticipated and more problems occur as they wait to head to England and eventually, home.
Journal of Colonel Nikola Anna Michalovich, U.S. Army: LC8547960
April 30, 1945
Hammelburg, Germany: Luftstalag 13, The Tunnels – 0145 Hours
I should be excited about these cold, coming spring days and the drawing end to this long world war. Indeed, through the scant communications we have had with London have indicated that we Allies have won the hostilities. I have no feelings in this revelation. It has passed me over completely though; it's gone over my head. The excitement has not settled into me yet, but has created more and more thoughts about what has been before the war, what we have done during it and what we could be doing when we reach home and the ones we love.
I shudder to almost think what I can do when I step off of that boat and stride, for the first time in a little over three years, on American soil. I don't know who else in this camp could think of such. For the many times that Rob has almost ordered escape from Stalag 13, the men have been energized and even enthusiastic that we were leaving and have kept it in their hearts that one day, after each disappointment and all their hopes dashed, we'd be out of here. We are, after all, in a tricky business on a volunteer basis. And, with us in a prison camp and the Gestapo investigating everything that goes on around Stalag 13, we are truly in a sticky wicket these days especially.
And who can blame the Krauts? For three years, Rob and the others, and by the next year I came along, have wrecked every war haven the Krauts have had and then some. We blew up bridges, ammo dumps, rocket bases, rockets and even oil refineries and radio towers. We have rescued many pilots, civilians, soldiers and agents that have been shot down and/or captured, eliminated those generals and other Krauts that have threatened our operation and gotten rid of a Gestapo takeover of Stalag 13. I have nursed the men here, taken their secrets into my brain and even watched as many comrades and agents die in the name of the Allies Forces and the cause we work for.
Many more of my questions remain as well. Why should I be here and not be those who I watched die? Am I making a difference in this war? What did I do in this war? Has it been much more than I anticipated? How much did we shake the Third Reich?
I have not really thought of all of this until now. My life has been stretched for so long that it's amazing that I have survived a death camp, being shot and numerous missions here. That isn't all that has me worried, though. Sure, Hochstetter can probably catch up to me, Desertstar, and this operation with Rob, Papa Bear. He has his suspicions about the operation we have here, as he always has. Many Gestapo generals and agents have faced their deaths through our hands or their own when they try to meddle with the operation and the Major hasn't heard from them since then. Hochstetter tried to kill Rob almost a year and a half ago, but he failed just as he was going to feel the pinch of promotion with his proof that we were all agents and spies for the Allied Forces.
Things are moving at a rapid pace, besides. I know that the war here in Europe is finishing up its bloody years and even our side had suffered. It isn't just Germany, who has now become the country that is sending old men and younger boys to the fronts. Our side, not suffering as Germany has in both of the world wars, has lost enough men and women through their fights to rid the world of Nazism and the terror in Asia.
The news has been horrific and even somewhat triumphant lately. Today, for example, our radioman Sergeant Baker had just received word from Major Bonacelli, our Italian correspondent who just returned to his native country only a few months ago, that Benito Mussolini, the ruthless Italian dictator, had been executed by his own people. He, his mistress and many others had been hung by their toes and the mobs kept thrashing them over and over again until they were dead. This is about two years after he had escaped from Italy and came back to Germany, only to find much the same pomp and circumstance that he received in 1922's Italy. He went back to Italy all right and was served his just reward for his years of utter chaos and confusion.
Meanwhile, the Americans have lost our wartime president, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Everyone here, even the Russians, British and French, felt this sudden loss, a death on April twelve of this year, to be a blow to morale. Although our new president, Harry S Truman, sounds promising, our charismatic president for twelve years had been all we knew in Depression and this world war.
London radioed frantically those eighteen days ago and announced this piece of dreadful news. Rob acknowledged it, as did every American in camp, and placed his loyalties to the new president immediately. I did so as well, for the strength of our country and of what will come out if the war wouldn't end. Now we all knew it would, and on the eve of victory for the Allies, our esteemed leader vanished from this world as did the many soldiers – boys – he sent here. I am sorry that he is gone, too.
Would the next person to go be Hitler? Rob and I are anticipating this, as this month closes and the bloody streams outside the camp run, dead bodies piling up, put there by the Gestapo (so our investigations have concluded). We know that the Russians are closing in on Berlin. Any day now, they'll be here and we'll be liberated within hours, perhaps days, of this invasion.
Oh, liberated…it is such a strange word. What does it mean? Would we be free from this and return home? What are we being freed from, since we have been in and out of camp all these years? Are we being too involved with our obligations, that which has imperiled and saved so many times? Or are we being told that this is the end of the war and our services are no only needed? I don't know. I truly do not know what to call it anymore. I am ready for whatever comes, and it may be Hitler's death soon enough. I will be ready for it.
I am not prepared for this little fact, a little something that I have been carrying, in the utmost shame and secrecy, for a known four months thereabouts. I remember how it had happened, how it came to be and probably which time. I have been hiding this from Rob and everyone else here, but they have suspected something is wrong with me and have been hunting down its answer since I don't give any word as to why. I have been in frenzy as I cannot tell Rob or else it will ruin everything. It can destroy the operation he built, smash the trust he had in me and even have us shot if the Krauts, whose strength is still strong here, discover this. I cannot say which is worse: not telling Rob what it is or keeping it so that he doesn't have to worry with me.
I am pregnant.
There, I wrote it in simple black and white words. I am to have a child in August or September, I think. It is a long story, and of so many broken promises we've kept to ourselves and the thought in mind of the first child we lost so long ago. I didn't think much of it, and neither did Rob, as we remained in the more physical aspect of our relationship. You know it resumed back in October on that day in the supply room in the tunnels, when it collapsed and some feeling came back in the strangest way. Then November brought so much turmoil outside the camp. There was silence and no mission assignments from London. It was too tempting because twelve years is much too long to do anything. We were all but stuck here, with no word from Headquarters and heading down a long, winding road of which now, there is no backing out of.
I'm not going to dwell on these thoughts. I just can't. It has been thirteen years since the last child and I just cannot think of what will happen if we lost this one child to war, my death or even the same way as the last. No, I have to stop this now. Yes, our child will live and thrive, and because the war is ending, I think that Rob and I can leave Germany married, just as we promised each other, and ready for a new life in America. Whether we'll be off on our own again or living with Sally is still a question in the air. I still don't know when I can tell anybody about this, though. My little secret can be my undoing, and everyone else's for that matter.
~00~
I can truly say that I have had the time of my life here, a unique experience. I never imagined that we'd all be here and that so many people I have known are dead and that many things have been discovered here. I have learned to accept these war losses in time, no matter how panicky I can get when the unexpected happens. I have dealt with my neck, which has always indicated me the danger and lies that surround me, and listened to it more and it doesn't matter to me how ridiculous it sounds. I have even successfully kept this child a secret from everyone.
I know that people here imagine that there is something wrong with me. I was tired, very tired, in the beginning trimester and couldn't get out of my bunk most of the time. For a while, I would just sit in the Colonel's quarters and listen to the coffeepot, torturing myself with Klink's voice and those that came into his office. Physically, my joints swelled up noticeably and still are. Before, and sometimes even now, the smell and taste of food makes me sick, something I know Rob worries about (now, it is more the case that I eat more). I also hide from the prisoners more here and have limited my missions, mostly opting to mind the fort. If necessary and only if the group we are dealing with only knows me, then I'd go. Otherwise, I protect myself.
Rob still can't get anything out of me. I know that he tries to read this journal and its piled-up volumes in my footlocker. I have been unable to write for months now, in fear that if I wrote anything, then he'd know and I'd be lectured relentlessly. I have been carrying this journal around for a while too, remembering all-too-well of the night I killed General Schruss because of his threats of those I considered dear to my heart and the operation here. I reread what I have done and thought of what a monster I was. I have killed Krauts randomly on missions if it was necessary but never knew them as I did with Schruss. Rob, too, did so, on numerous missions not counting his missions in the air. But, how can I explain that to our child? For that matter, can I ever explain Auschwitz and what it meant to the people who lived, worked, cried and died there?
There is too much to think about this early morning. I have already written too much and poured out many sorrows and deep secrets that could be read at any time. I should head back to my bunk now and try to sleep off these problems, most of which cannot be fixed, but forgotten if only for a while. Schultz is doing a routine bedcheck at 0300 hours and if I'm not there, then they'll be a mad scramble to distract the Kraut guards and then a mad search in the tunnels for me. And this doesn't include getting me and the search party up and out of the tunnels.
Wait, the entranceway to the tunnels collapsed, and there are voices, not German. Who can they be and what are people doing in this profane hour? Who'd want to look out here anyway?