"It's never going to work Skipper, that tunnel's completely structurally unstable." Kowalski spoke. He knew even as he said it that behind his back Skipper was rolling his eyes and whispering something along the lines of that the resident scientist was always a spoil sport and he intended to attempt his latest escape plan anyway. "I mean it, Skipper, you'll never make it. You'll fail. Again. Just like the other three attempts. That makes, what, 53 attempts to escape this place? You can thank Doris for the fact you're still alive."
"Yeah, but 49 worked." Skipper countered. Kowalski looked up from his makeshift laboratory hidden in the false section of wall he'd built behind his bed. In fact, the whole eastern wall of barracks 3 had a good half a foot gap between the real wall and the fake one, filled with failed inventions, anything Rico had managed to steal from the guards, and pretty much everything else they didn't want Blowhole to spot on his surprise searches. It was, of course – in Kowalski's more pessimistic mind, not Skipper's – only a matter of time before Blowhole worked it out, but it was good enough for now. Kowalski could see that his brief taste of freedom had created a craving in Skipper to get out of that POW camp at any cost.
"I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, K'walski," Private called down from his bunk, the only one who Skipper had allowed to sleep in despite waking up the barracks at the unseemly hour of five in the morning, "but I smell burning again." Kowalski turned around to see the draught had blown the flame of his cobbled together burner against a portion of the wooden wall.
"Great Antoine Lavoisier Father of Modern Chemistry!" Kowalski shrieked at the flames, "Fire! Fire!" He panicked, "The building's on fire!"
"Aw, 'Walski." Rico groaned, glancing up from polishing the new knife he'd just stolen at the flames. He reached over to the table, grabbing a bowl of watery soup and throwing it at the relatively small fire.
"Hey, that was my dinner!" Skipper protested.
"Blame 'Walski, ee set th' fire." Rico replied. A few small flames dared to continue to continue to flicker against the charred wood. Rico gave them a solid whack with a handy piece of damp laundry, and no flames dared reappear. He returned to cleaning his knife.
"Alright, Kowalski, find some wood to replace the burnt sections then throw the burnt bits in the stove." Skipper sighed and went back to planning his escape.
"Skipper!" Maurice called from the window, "One of the lobsters is headed for the barracks!"
"Somebody cover up that wall!" Skipper ordered, making a dive for one of the bunk beds. Just as they heard footsteps outside the door, Skipper and Rico shoved Private's bed in front of the burnt out section of wall. The door opened.
"Is Smith in here?" The lobster called. Kowalski recognized the name he'd assumed at first capture, and tried to look innocent.
"Where else would I be?" He replied, "What do you want?" But the lobster had paused, sniffing the air.
"I smell burning." He spoke. Kowalski looked uncomfortably at Skipper.
"It's from outside." Skipper answered hurriedly.
"I didn't see anything burning." The lobster countered.
"It just started burning." Skipper replied, "It's, uh… Guy Fox Night bonfire!" His eyes signalled to Rico to see what he could do about a fire outside before the guard turned around.
"But Skippah, it's the middle of June and it's not night yet…" Private then seemed to realize what Skipper was doing, "Of course, Guy Fox Night. How silly of me to forget."
"Put out the bonfire before Blowhole sees it." The lobster ordered, then returned to his original assignment, "Smith, the doc wants to see you."
"Smith?" Blowhole greeted as Kowalski entered. Blowhole knew who he was, but it seemed like a good idea to keep up the façade just in case someone was listening. And he supposed it made Blowhole feel like everything was back to normal and he had in no circumstances collaborated with Skipper and a bunch of escapees and then betrayed them to a traitor (whom he subsequently was involved in betraying).
"I'm here." Kowalski replied, making it clear he had absolutely no desire to be there. He didn't mention he was working on a fascinating new discovery to do with some of the unexplained properties he'd found in his seven day rations in a test tube (green gelatine form), including sentient qualities.
"Smith," Blowhole stood up from behind his desk, "I want you to keep an eye on my sister."
"What, is she trying to escape?"
"No." Blowhole replied, clearly not finding this amusing, "It's what I would think is the happiest day of her life before she finds a decent husband who isn't a manipulative mercenary psychopathic…" He glanced at his watch and had to cut his description of Hans short, "Sorry, I'm running late. They're executing Hans and that pilot – you know the one who tried to fly that English spy across for him – and Doris isn't taking it very well." Kowalski, like Blowhole, seemed slightly puzzled by this behaviour, "…I know, it makes no sense, but I want you to keep an eye on her so she doesn't do anything crazy. My office is all yours, if you can drag her out of the living room." Blowhole winced, "I don't want her watching."
"Sure, thanks for…" Kowalski stuttered, before realizing who he was talking to. Blowhole wasn't allowing him to comfort the woman he loved out of the goodness of his heart, Kowalski was just the best candidate to do it because Blowhole had to supervise the execution. Blowhole, however, picked up on the sentiment so Kowalski didn't waste words explaining it as he left. "Wait, why didn't we know about this?"
"I can keep some secrets from you, and Maurice agreed that we'd have a riot on our hands with prisoners trying to tear him apart because, I agree with them, a firing squad's too good for him." Kowalski nodded in silent agreement and continued into his sister's quarters where she was standing at the window, watching – sure enough, they were shooting Hans. Kowalski had a good view of it, and he actually second guessed Blowhole's suggestion that Doris not watch, but she couldn't watch. He still didn't know how, but somehow she still cared about Hans, although repeatedly reassured Kowalski that she did love him. All the science in the world couldn't explain the workings of Doris' mind. Well, it probably could, but they hadn't discovered that much yet.
"They're really doing it, aren't they?" Doris spoke the moment Kowalski entered, at first seeming perfectly calm as she stood by the window. Then in barely a thousandth of a second it all broke apart, "Oh, Kowalski!" she sobbed, "The first good thing he ever did in his life…"
"He was getting paid £25,000* from Nigel to "send Private home unharmed and in the style in which he is accustomed"." Kowalski countered.
"But I think he was going to do it anyway." Sure he was. "And they're going to kill him for…" She choked off and couldn't finish the rest.
"Let's get out of here…"
"No." She countered, even grabbing the window sill firmly in case Kowalski got any ideas about dragging her out, though he didn't think that would give her much of an edge. But still she wasn't going anywhere and Kowalski resigned himself to placing an arm around her and holding her, though the whole time her eyes were locked on the scene. Kowalski tried to shut the window she was listening through, but she had put her hand between the sill and the window, so Kowalski couldn't shut it without slamming her fingers in the window or starting a fight with her.
"Parker?!" Kazoo barked. For a moment Parker just stood there staring at the blank section of wall, frozen with fear, before he was grabbed by two other guards.
"Hans!" He screamed, "You can't let them do this to me! You never told me the kid was a British agent! You…!"
"I wouldn't bother appealing to him, he's in the same boat as you." Blowhole called back coldly as Parker was dragged out up to the wall. Doris burst into another fit of sobs, burying her face in Kowalski's jacket. Kowalski tactfully shut the window while she wasn't looking, but the commands could still be faintly heard through the glass.
The shots rang out loud and clear and almost like this was the starters gun at the beginning of a race Doris broke away from him, running outside and onto the muddy ground that covered the stretch between them and the firing squad. But she didn't go more than a few meters out of the commandant's quarters before Kowalski caught up with her, and she barely put up more than symbolic resistance against him, though she dug her high heels into the ground when he suggested going back inside.
Hans watched impassively as the rifles were reloaded, standing motionless as Parker's body was dragged off. His eyes locked on Doris and they briefly acknowledged her with a faint smile that Kowalski supposed he wanted the world to believe was comforting and Doris burst into another flood of tears. Hans returned to looking calmly forward.
"Major Hans…" They had a little trouble with his last name. There was a whole list of them since he kept changing it so often. Kazoo continued scanning down the list before it was cut off when the typist got bored, leaving out the oldest pseudonyms and their closest released guesses for his real name.
"That's good enough." Hans replied. Kazoo nodded. The two guards came forward but Hans walked willingly in front of the wall.
"Deja vous." He mouthed at Kowalski. If he wasn't holding Doris he probably would have said something much harsher back. Kowalski could never stop telling himself that he should have gone through with killing him two years ago.
"Stop!" a woman's voice ordered.
"Don't wait, you didn't hear that!" Blowhole hissed to Kazoo.
"I really would." The woman replied walking briskly across the stretch of ground, holding up a piece of paper for all to see before handing it to Blowhole. "Captain Henrietta Blue. Do you know who his late father's close friend is?"
"I didn't know he had a father." Blowhole muttered. "Anyway, he's a traitor, he tried to smuggle a British agent out of the country, it doesn't matter who his father's close friend is." Blue replied that it was in his best interests to read the orders nonetheless, and Blowhole reluctantly did so, his mood worsening with every word. He handed them back to Blue, sighed disappointedly and gave the order to send Hans back to the cooler. Kowalski had known it all along, Hans standing up there like it was nothing in the world meant one of three things: he was either brave, an idiot (same thing, in Kowalski's opinion) or, more consistent with Hans' previous actions, he had a trick up his sleeve. "So essentially, he's halting all this so he can be retried," if what he had could be considered a trial, "in front of McSlade?"
"Exactly. Thank you, doctor." She seemed inclined to stay with the prisoner so disappeared.
"Dr Blowhole…" Kazoo spoke nervously.
"Don't worry, McSlade's one of us, he hates Hans. He's just stalling." But somehow Kowalski got the feeling it was more than that.
* $1,000,000 in today's money