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1 January 1947

My darling,

You might wonder why I'm not calling you by name. Well the answer is you don't exist yet, and if you're reading this and you're not someone I would call "my darling," then bloody well put it down.

I'll tell you the truth, my love: I got drunk last night. So drunk I almost forgot where I was and started calling me best American mate here "Colonel," because I was so sure I was back at Stalag 13. For a little while I was pathetically happy, a frightening thought since my state of mind existed because I thought I was back in a German Prisoner of War camp. When I finally came back to Earth, I figured I owed it to whoever comes after me to understand what it is I got out of the camp, and how I got into it in the first place.

Colonel Robert Hogan, Louis Le Beau, Andrew Carter, and James Kinchloe—Kinch—became more like my family than anyone I'd ever known before. You'd never seen such a bunch of misfits. I mean we just didn't belong together, you know? An American flying ace—a bloody officer, no less—the man should have given up the ghost when he was shot down and captured. There's a whole story there, but it's not my place to tell, really. I had no use for officers, absolutely none, and then Colonel Hogan came around and made me sit up and take notice. Saw all the mess that was ol' Newkirk and quite happily accepted me into his circle. Not that I asked to be there, mind you, but the gov'nor just draws people in. And he organized some of the most incredible stunts you've ever heard of, and more than a handful that you haven't. But that's something I can't talk about. Yet.

Louis Le Beau… bloody Frenchman, never thought I'd be worried about the French, but this little mate just drove himself into my heart. Imagine—Peter Newkirk, caring about another person. But I did, you know; I cared about him, and about the Colonel. And about Carter—I can't tell you here the things that Carter did that scared me to death and worried me about him. Let's just say he's not your average chemist. But if I'm ever allowed to tell everything, I'll put a postscript on this letter about three pages long—all about him! Kinch amazes me, and though we're like chalk and cheese, we somehow managed to get along most of the time. A brilliant man, Kinch, if he would just let me have me own way more often and stop getting in the way with his bloody flawless logic! But then, I think that was the Colonel's plan all along, though he'll never say so.

Anyway, I'm veering off the subject here, probably a result of last night's imbibing that has done nothing to make this piece of paper sit still for me while I write. What I wanted to do was explain how I got where I was so later on I can tell you what I did there, and what I learned there.

It all started out as a bloody joke. We were watching what was happening in Europe, but I was too busy dodging the coppers and me dad's wrath to take it very seriously. After all, that was all the way across the bloody English Channel, wasn't it? What was happening to me was much closer to home, and I was ducking out as much as I could. I'm not making excuses for not being worldlier, mind you. When I look back now on the signs I missed and how people like me are the ones who let Hitler march his merry way across Europe I could cry. But my sense of self-preservation forced me to consider myself a higher priority than a bunch of Czechs and Poles and whoever living so far away from me. Men were being called up, but so far I had escaped that. Maybe it's because I was the youngest son, who knows. But I was too busy to go anyway.

But then Hitler's troops invaded France, and I knew we were for it then. England had to be bloody next in line, didn't it? I got called up, France fell, and then of a sudden there I was—in the Battle of Britain. I had been trained for a few weeks and then I was up in the air. I suppose I should be grateful: at least I wasn't on the ground being shot at, I thought. Yeah, fat bloody deal—now I was up in the air being shot at! So if my plane got hit I had a pretty long drop! We lost a lot of men over those two months. And in the meantime that bloody nut brain Hitler had ordered the Luftwaffe to bomb London! And he did, and my house was a mess. Lights out, blacked out windows, poor Nan didn't know what to do with herself. Having to be cooped up with Dad at all hours of the day and night, with me sister Louise scared to death to come out of her room most of the time. I wasn't even there to take her mind off things with a few magic tricks or amusing anecdotes. Mum didn't know how lucky she had it to already be dead so she didn't have to face Dad when he was forced sober because he couldn't get out for two or three days to find whatever poison he needed to keep him half oblivious and in a half-good temper.

But Nan was always cheering for me. She sent me letters and fruitcakes, all sorts of things that I of course had to share with me mates on the base. There were some good fellas there, too, and they shared their stuff with me. At times I was at pains to find something nice to say about the food they shared in return for Nan's gourmet feasts, but you never knew when something scrumptious was just around the corner, so you smiled and nodded and forced some of those inedible bombs down your throat in the hope that the next time there'd be something to make the stomach pains worth it in the long run. Blimey, I swear some of those wives and girlfriends started working for the Germans, because I thought I recognized some of those same lumps of coal served at mess hall before I started reaping the benefit of Le Beau's culinary expertise.

I was part of a crew of three onboard a Bristol Blenheim IF, a nice little plane if you can get hold of one, and in any case something to keep the wind off your face. It could travel at great speed—cruising at about two hundred miles per hour—and travel over eleven hundred miles before starting to flutter from lack of fuel. At first we were sent out for daytime fighting, but that was rather hazardous to my health, I must say, and after a few rounds of that the brass was smart enough to figure out that we needed to stick to heading out at night. We even had radar fitted into our plane, which was a brand new thing back then before it started becoming all the rage it is now.

Anyway, I was in charge of the ventral pack of four .303 machine guns that were fitted onto the plane, and it was a job, let me tell you. We patrolled a lot, and when we wandered into enemy territory it could be quiet as a church sometimes. But all of a sudden, the bleeding Krauts'd sneak up on us and it was non-stop action till the end. Having that radar fitted was one of the best things that ever happened to us, but I'd still come home with blisters on me hands from grabbing onto those machine guns for dear life. The vibrations near shook me out of the plane, but at least I was alive and on top of the world every time we brought down one of those Nazi bastards.

Of course it wasn't to end that way. Eventually we were shot down, and later on I learned that of me, "Jumbo" Clancy and Roger Milne, I was the only one to survive. I was also to find out that there were others of our squadron shot down that night, too, but it didn't help me then. It was night time and the sky was alight with the flames of dying planes on both sides, and flak was everywhere. I was somewhere near the coast of Germany, and I was sure I was over the water. My parachute would have been more of a blessing if I could have seen the bloody thing well enough to pull the rip cord without grappling around like a panicked idiot for what felt like a full ten minutes but which must have been only ninety seconds after I started freefall.

I landed in the water, plunging in feet first like a knife neatly slicing through butter. The impact was alarming, since the water came up out of nowhere. I felt my head go under, but the parachute stopped me from going too far down, and never a strong swimmer, at least I knew I was relatively unharmed and I could unleash my harness and keep myself afloat. When I broke the surface I started the task immediately, but the bloody parachute wouldn't have it, and I ended up swearing at it before it finally let go and I could concentrate on keeping my head above water.

I don't know if the patrols were watching me as I fell or if it was my cursing that gave me away, but it wasn't long before I was targeted by a spotlight that left me completely blinded. My wonder about whether the spotter was friend or foe was answered when someone called out "Hande hoch!" I understood only a little bit of German, and I nearly laughed at the absurdity of the order—hands up? When I'm trying not to drown? Poor blighter must have gotten his combat training from old war movies. There was no way I could put my hands up right then, unless he wanted to come and fish me out with a net. I struggled along in the water and ignored the poor sod, and after a couple more ludicrous orders, he figured out that I wasn't going to obey him and resigned himself to pulling me out of the drink.

I found myself dragged into a small boat, almost like a dinghy, really, and left lying on the floor of it. I was shivering so much I was making the boat shake, and someone threw a blanket at me, which was immediately soaked and not a whole lot of help, although it was better than nothing. I felt about three times my normal weight, thanks to the water that my clothes had absorbed, and I was more than a little unsteady from the whole experience, I don't mind telling you.

I wanted to put up a fight, any kind of fight, but I'm not an idiot, and land was nowhere in sight. Where was I supposed to go if I did manage to get away? It's times like this that I always thought it would be nice to have super powers so I could just fly away to safety.

I can't remember an awful lot about the trip back to land. Thinking back, I'm sure it's because I was in a state of shock. I wasn't hurt, I feel thankful about that, although my legs were kind of sore for some reason, and later on I was treated for a couple of minor burns that I hadn't noticed before, thanks to adrenalin. I nearly blessed myself when I saw how slight they were—I had heard horror stories back at the base about men who had suffered horrific burns and were in agony for ages trying to recover physically from experiences that they would never recover from mentally. I don't remember even thinking when we were heading back to the shore. All I can remember is the cold and guns and the voices. I didn't understand a lot of German then, and everything they said sounded rough and scratchy, like the blanket they gave me. I don't remember fear. But then that didn't really kick in until later.

We seemed to travel for an awfully long time after we got back on dry land. I was loaded onto a truck and a guard sat in the back with me, his trusty rifle ever at the ready. It struck me then, and it still amazes me, that the person sitting there with his weapon aimed at me, who was sitting huddled in the corner trying to warm myself up, looked about the age of Cousin Arthur—fifteen. He was a boy, playing soldiers, not a young man facing the reality of war. I wonder if he was as scared as he looked. I think he was.

God knows what the kid had been taught about the enemy. Maybe that we were coming to invade his homeland, that we were out to take over the world and make it safe for democracy and tea and crumpets. But I didn't have conquering in mind that night, I can promise you that. And at that moment, that fifteen year old was as frightening to me as anything else could have been, if for no other reason than I wasn't sure he knew exactly how to use that rifle he was holding, and who knew that it wouldn't accidentally go off and blow my head off or some other important part of my anatomy?

I think it was just a couple of hours before dawn when we finally reached what I later found out was the Dulag Luft. That's the processing place for all Allied flyers who are shot down, in a place called Frankfurt-on-Main. Outside the building, there was a huge red and black and white Nazi flag with that ugly swastika glaring out at me, and I was marched up the stone steps and into the building as though I was on bleeding parade, even though there was no one there to watch us, not even guards outside the building. And I wasn't appreciating the walk with my sore legs, either. I came that close to telling them to take their ruddy marching orders and… well, I didn't, and I suppose I wasn't all that close to doing it, either. To be honest, I was too tired and wet and scared to do much more than whatever they told me to do, and that wasn't much except get up the stairs, get in my cell, and wait.

I didn't realize how exhausted I was until I sat down on that piece of thin material that was supposed to pass as a mattress. About two minutes later I was dead to the world, and if World War Two had been over right then and there, I probably would have said they had to wait till morning for me to celebrate, because I was not going to move unless you stuck a cattle prod up me backside. In any case, I don't know how long it was till they came and got me, but I woke up feeling like I'd slept for a month, and my wet clothes had stuck to my body, and now even with a thin little blanket I was cold and miserable. I was shivering and my teeth were chattering, but no one offered me any dry clothes or extra blankets or anything warm to drink like Nan's great Earl Grey tea. One big ol' Bruno did offer me a prod in the kidneys with the barrel of his rifle, though, and that was enough for me at that time. I moved.

I was taken into an office with a big desk and a high-backed chair, and no one in it but me and the bloke with the rifle. I was kept that way for awhile, and I was so cold that I was actually beginning to wish I could be back in that dark bloody cell again so I could at least pull that horrible blanket around me for a bit of warmth. While I was waiting, I realized that I hadn't eaten anything since before we took off the night before and hunger was starting to scrape the lining of my stomach. I had swallowed a fair amount of seawater when I bailed out, too, and I was very thirsty. I debated asking the man with the gun if I could have some of the water sitting in the pitcher behind the desk, but in the end I think I decided it wasn't worth it, and besides, he might not have been able to understand me when I spoke through my chattering teeth.

Eventually, the door opened and a smartly dressed officer came into the room and started talking to me like an old friend. I was wise to him straight off, of course, and when he tried to make it sound like he was me Uncle Harvey, I just quoted my name, rank, and serial number. At first he seemed amused by this, but when he started asking more questions and I wouldn't wear it, he started to get cranky and mentioned a few things he could have done to me that would make a jump out of an airplane sound like a walk in Hyde Park. Still, I didn't answer him, partly because I didn't have the answers he wanted, and partly because there was no way I was going to tell a Kraut anything, after the way they treated Jolly Old England.

I think this is a good place to defend myself a bit. Almost anyone will tell you, myself included, that I was often among the first in our little group at the Stalag to knock back the idea of anything dangerous. I'm not just talking about escapes, but I can't go into details with you at the moment—hopefully I'll get to do that in a couple of years. But I mean if anything seemed risky—and almost everything did when you consider that we were a bunch of prisoners surrounded by about eighty armed guards and twelve-foot barbed wire fences—I would usually feel the need to lodge a protest. Mind you, I was always outvoted, and sometimes there was no vote involved: the Colonel would just fix me with one of those bloody stares and I was a goner. But I think it's important that you know that the protest was mostly just done out of habit. You know, to be the Devil's Advocate. If no one pointed out the other side of an issue, how would anyone know it had been taken into account? I should have known better, though, and eventually I did: Colonel Hogan had always already thought of everything. And he always had his men in mind whenever he made a decision. I guess it's why in the end, I knew that the gov'nor was a man worth respecting, unlike most officers I encountered, and when he said "Jump," all I said was "How high?" I knew I didn't have to question him. Still, it was self-preservation in the beginning, stemming from way back when at home, and that was a hard habit to break. Thank God I did, though, because otherwise I would have gone stir crazy cooling my heels in a prison camp for more than three years. Someday you'll understand.

Anyway, I was sitting in that ruddy office for about two hours, and the German officer never seemed to notice or care that I was soggy and shivering in front of him. He never touched me, though I almost wished he had because it would have brought some feeling back into my face. I was starting to go a bit numb, and I was definitely not concentrating on anything he was saying, which was probably a lot of inane threats and propaganda for the Third Reich anyway. When I was released from there, I was taken back to my cell and finally given a change of clothes. It wasn't RAF issue, but I didn't care. It was dry and warm and I couldn't get into the things fast enough. Someone had done a half decent job picking my size, but the pants were a bit too short and I felt like I was standing by the shore waiting for high tide since I could see my ankles without having to tug up me hems. And the shoes were a little big, but that was okay because it left more room for the huge socks. I remember that the left sock had a hole in the big toe, and after awhile that really irritated me because the material kept cutting into my foot between the big toe and the one beside it and I rarely had a chance to adjust it.

After that I was given some bread and cheese, and nothing ever tasted so good. I had been starving, as I said, and I had to fight the urge not to wolf all the food down at once and take it slowly, since I didn't know when my next meal was coming. I gulped down all the water, though, and when I dared to ask for more, the guard even got me some. Maybe he was having a good day. In any case I felt satisfied and a little more hopeful after that.

A short time later I was taken to another room where someone put a piece of paper and pencil in front of me, and I was told to fill out the form as best I could so they could inform my unit and my family of my safety. It all sounded well and good, but if you thought I was going to tell the Krauts my Nan's address, you're crazier than I am. Where and when I was born, my trade, my pay—all information they weren't going to get from me. When was I shot down? Well there was no point in hiding that from them, since they already knew, so I just wrote "yesterday," then filled in my name, rank, and serial number, scribbled "God Save The King!" across the bottom, and signed the form "Corporal Peter Newkirk, Esquire." Take that, Hitler!