"You really didn't much like going down that well, did you."

It wasn't a question. It wasn't phrased as a question, and it wasn't meant as one. Carter didn't lose his temper often, and a bit of their habitual 'I can't believe we actually pulled that off' teasing to relieve the habitual tension of habitually dancing on the edge of a firing squad should not have made him do so. Unless there was more to it.

Carter glared at him. Even delivered from the depths of a sodden blanket which was not doing much to stem some impressively violent shivering, the glare lost very little of its effectiveness. It was, sad to say, entirely wasted on a man who had been shrugging off dirty looks since he could crawl, but the effort was praiseworthy.

"I'll just take that as a 'no,' then," Newkirk said, and leaned against the bunk. Carefully positioning himself between Carter and the door. "Cheer up. Maybe the next jam we get ourselves into will be warm. Or dry, at least."

"It's not funny, Newkirk!" Carter snapped. "So why don't you just take a hike?"

"Would that Klink thought the same way, mate. What are you so brassed off about?"

"What the heck do you care?"

"Oh, so that's 'ow it's going to be, is it? You're going to sulk like a child because I can't read your bleeding mind? I'm a magician, lad, not a ruddy wizard."

"I'm not sulking, and I don't care what you think. So get lost!"

"I remember when Mavis was this age," Newkirk told the rafters. "Tears and shouting and stamped feet. There were days I thought she'd poison the tea. And days I thought that, if she did, I'd drink it. Ah, memories. Look, Andrew, I'm not leaving. You can tell me why you're about ready to tear me in strips, or you can take those balled up fists of yours and take your chances. One of those might get you an apology. The other's not going to get you anything but a fat lip. Take your pick."

"Get out of here! That… that's an order! You're just a corporal; I'm a sergeant, and I can give you orders if I want! Leave me alone!"

Newkirk lifted an eyebrow. "An order, is it? Good gracious, me oh my. Because I'm such an obedient little soldier? Guess you'd best 'ave me thrown in the cooler for insubordination. Or shall I be flogged at dawn?"

"Oh yeah? You just watch out, because I just might," Carter said defiantly.

Newkirk clasped a hand to his brow. In a flat, uninterested voice entirely at odds with the dramatic gesture, he droned, "Oh, please, please, sir, not that. I beg you, m'lord, 'ave mercy on a poor 'umble wretch. Anything but that." Dropping the sarcasm, he continued in a voice a shade or two warmer than usual. "Carter, you're 'urting. Tell me what the bleeding 'ell is wrong, before the Guv takes it into 'is 'ead to come in 'ere to drag it out of you 'imself. Wouldn't you rather talk to me than an officer?"

Carter thought about that for a moment, dripping cold water and grease on the floor all the while. "I don't want to talk to anyone," he said honestly.

"'Obson's choice, mate. Is it the well? You did splendidly. What 'appened?"

Carter clutched his blanket a bit tighter and surrendered. It was such a relief to break down and admit it. "I can't swim," he said. "I was scared down there. Really, really scared."

Newkirk waited a beat for the rest of it. After a moment, when it became apparent that there wasn't any more, he shook his head, nonplussed. "Can't blame you for that one," he said slowly, obviously not understanding where the difficulty lay. "It got sticky there for a few minutes. Anyone would've been a bit scared."

"Well, it wasn't anyone down there. It was me! And I thought I was going to drown! You guys dropped me! I trusted you to get me out safe, and you dropped me!"

Newkirk still didn't get it. "What else could we 'ave done? Let Klink and the goons grab you? With a packet of top-secret intelligence in your teeth, no less? We didn't want to do it, and I'm sorry, but it was either leave you in the drink for another two minutes or book ourselves all one way tickets to Gestapo 'Eadquarters."

"I was scared," Carter repeated, not mollified in the least. He understood the logic; Newkirk had not told him anything he hadn't already known.

This wasn't about logic.

"Maybe so, but you still knocked it out of the park, and I was proud of you," Newkirk said. "I can see this wasn't easy on you, but we've all 'ad our share of rotten assignments. Being scared is nothing to be ashamed of."

"What do you know about it?" Carter spat. "You're never afraid of anything."

Newkirk stared at him for a moment, then chuckled mirthlessly, deep in his throat. "Fooled you too, then, did I?" he said. "Carter, I'm afraid every day God sends. Every bloody minute we're 'ere means sixty more chances for things to go pear-shaped, and I. Am. Afraid. Every time I leave camp. Every time one of you lot leaves camp. Whenever Burkhalter or 'Ochstetter roll in the gates. Every time the radio goes on, and every time it goes suspiciously silent. Look at us, mate! We're spies and saboteurs, and we're never more than thirty seconds away from a firing squad. Being afraid is the only sane response!"

"You never act like you're afraid," Carter said, unconvinced. "I mean, sure, you always say you're a coward, five minutes before you do something brave, but everyone knows you're only joking."

"I'm usually saying it five minutes after the Colonel's ordered me to do something suicidal, but that's another story," Newkirk said. "Look, Andrew. I've never yet known a day without something in it to be afraid of. Not one. Krauts, peelers, thugs, or worse, I've spent me entire life trying to keep one jump ahead of geezers who'd gladly see me dead. As a nipper, I was afraid of me dad, especially after mum died. Maybe 'e'd come 'ome drunk and beat me bloody, or maybe 'e'd come 'ome sober and beat me unconscious. I'm not brave, Carter. I just never 'ad a choice."

Carter wrapped his arms around himself, suddenly chilled by more than the icy water and icier air.

Newkirk nodded. "Yeah. You see what I'm talking about? I've got a lifetime's experience waiting for the axe to fall. I'm good at pretending that I'm not scared. 'Ad to be. No choice to do otherwise; not ever. You, now… you 'ad a choice."

"What? No, I didn't. The Colonel said—"

"I know what 'e said. But you could've said no. You could've said, 'Colonel, I can't swim. Can't go down there. No, sir.' You could've said, 'Newkirk, you old sod, you dropped that bleeding codebook, you retrieve it.' You could've said, 'LeBeau's lighter than me. Let 'im do it, and I'll take care of the diversion.' You could've said a lot of things. But you didn't. Instead, you did what 'ad to be done in spite of being scared. What in 'ell do you think courage is?"

Carter blinked. That view of it had not occurred to him.

He had the feeling that he was going to be spending a lot of time considering it.

Newkirk pushed himself away from the bunk, obviously through with the conversation. "Right then, Andrew. Get yourself out of those wet clothes before you catch cold and expect a week's worth of coddling. Which, just so we're clear, you won't be getting from me. And the next time something's bothering you and you expect me to ruddy well read your mind about it, you daft bugger, I'll toss you right back down that well, only this time, it'll be without a rope."

Carter translated that effortlessly as 'I'm here for you,' and he smiled. "Thanks, Newkirk," he said. "And, you know, if anything's ever bothering you… you could tell me about it, too, right?"

Newkirk, already at the door, turned back at that. After a long moment, the faintest hint of a smile quirking his lip, he said, "Why, Carter… whatever gave you the impression I don't?"

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*

Author's note: The phrase 'Hobson's choice' means 'no real choice at all' and allegedly derives from a seventeenth-century livery stable owner named 'Hobson.' He would rent you any horse in his stable, so long as it was the one in the stall nearest the door. This allowed him to make sure that each horse got about the same amount of use, and that the better ones were not overworked. The customers were apparently less than delighted with the 'take it or leave it' system, hence the slightly bitter idiom, but presumably he managed to stay in business, and perhaps the horses appreciated the consideration.

Newkirk's wisecrack about Mavis and the tea is a straight steal from Winston Churchill. He was, or so the story goes, being somewhat less than delightful at some society function, and the woman he was being rude to at that particular moment snapped, "Mr. Churchill, if I was your wife, I would put poison in your coffee." Undaunted, he shot back, "Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it." This is not really relevant to anything, but it always makes me laugh, so I thought I'd share.

As for the actual story, Carter almost never shows his temper. The stinger scene from 'The Well' is, therefore, very, very unusual. And in a camp full of professional nosy parkers, there was no way that such an aberration was going to go unnoticed. So it seemed logical that Stalag 13's answer to Sigmund Freud would deliver his very own brand of therapy. After all, there had to be some reason that Hogan picked Newkirk to play the psychiatrist. (In 'The Sergeant's Analyst,' as it happens. Why the psychiatrist had to be female is another can of worms altogether, but that's a question for another time and another vignette.)