The tin plates had been scoured with hot water and sand, and cold sandwiches had been quickly prepared by the tardy chef by way of apology for Carter's earlier misadventure. Well, it was better than nothing… and certainly better than what it had replaced. Hogan, however, wasn't completely willing to forgive and forget. "What kept you?" he asked Lebeau. "Never mind about dinner; I mean we were starting to worry about you."

"Sorry, Colonel. I stopped on the way back to…" Louis paused, unsure how to word it. "Well…"

"To what?" Hogan pressed. "Your job was to contact DuBois to make sure his group's all set for the railway tunnel job tomorrow night and then come straight back here."

"I did… more or less. DuBois and the others are ready. But I did make an… extra stop." His hesitation meant only one thing: there was more to this story than he was willing to admit without a bit of a struggle.

"English, LeBeau… whatever you're speaking, I don't understand you."

"Well… I was visiting a sick friend."

"How many friends have you got in Germany?" Kinch wanted to know.

"Seven." Before anyone could challenge him on that, LeBeau rushed to continue. "It's Heidi… she had her puppies this morning and I stopped in the kennel to look in on her. I guess it took longer than I thought."

Visiting a guard dog. Hogan couldn't believe it. No, wait… he could. LeBeau was soft on the resident German shepherd dogs who were supposed to be guarding the prisoners, and they all returned his affection. "Puppies…" he sighed, trying hard not to roll his eyes.

Carter's glum face suddenly brightened considerably. "Puppies? Oh, boy!"

"So you brought her some flowers and a box of candy?" Kinch kidded.

"You should see what the Boche are feeding her; it's worse than what they expect us to eat! I brought her a veal cutlet from the butcher in town."

Newkirk nearly fell off his chair. "We're eatin' dry cheese on stale pumpernickel and the ruddy dog's eatin' veal cutlet? Whose side are you on?"

"She needs to get her strength back!" LeBeau tugged at the unbuttoned front of Newkirk's uniform tunic. "And you don't look like you've missed any meals lately, mon vieux!"

"Now, listen here…"

The potential dust-up was interrupted when Schultz entered, as was his habit, without knocking. This time, though, he displayed none of his usual enthusiasm for the announcement he was about to make. "Everybody outside for roll call," he said flatly, seeming not to particularly care if they heard and obeyed him or not.

"Speaking of people who haven't lost any weight…" Kinch couldn't resist.

Schultz's eyes narrowed. "Who told you?"

"Told us what?"

The stocky sergeant sighed and his shoulders slipped down a good several inches. They were, after all, quite heavy. "I had a physical examination… the doctor told me I have to lose weight or I have to leave Stalag 13."

"That sounds like a good idea to me," Newkirk put in. "The leavin' part, I mean. I could go for a bit of that meself."

"But then I go to the Russian Front."

"Maybe not so good."

"What I do not understand is why they are picking on me. They only say they want all guards to meet minimum physical standards…"

"Right," Hogan picked up. "And whose physical standards are more minimal than yours? You're a regular poster-boy."

"Please, Colonel Hogan… do not joke."

"Okay, Schultz, I'm sorry. Is there anything we can do to help you out?"

"Not unless you can make me look like this." From his pocket Schultz produced a worn sepia-toned photograph mounted on a yellowed military identification card.

"Why do you want to look like Conrad Veidt?" LeBeau inquired as he inspected the photo of the angular, dark-haired, hollow-cheeked young man in the faded photo.

"That's me," Schultz informed him.

"Nah… can't be," Newkirk shook his head.

Carter peered over the sergeant's shoulder. "When was that picture taken?"

"I'd say the Battle of Austerlitz… hey, Schultzie, did you get Napoleon's autograph?"

Newkirk's jab got a laugh out of everybody except Schultz. "That was me in the last war, right after I was drafted. You think I always look like this? When I was twenty, I looked like that."

Actually, the men had to admit to themselves that they had never imagined Schultz as either a younger or a thinner man… it had simply never occurred to them. As far as they were concerned, he had always been the stocky, balding sergeant who rousted them out of their bunks far too early in the morning to line up in freezing weather to be counted, day after day after day. In spite of that, they were fond of Schultz, in their own way, but had never given much thought to what he'd been like before their paths had crossed during this current war.

There were several possibilities as far as helping Schultz, Hogan knew. They'd managed to cancel transfers with his name on them before; they could do it again. It was well worth the effort to keep the easily-manipulated sergeant in so-called charge of their barracks; it was never difficult to pull the wool over the eyes of a man whose watchwords were 'I see nothing!' and consistently did his best to live by that credo. "Maybe you should go on a diet," he suggested.

"But I have," Schultz protested. "I have been on the diet where you eat only bread, and also the one where you eat only fish, and another one where you're supposed to eat only…"

"I think you're supposed to do them one at a time," Kinch clarified. "Works better that way."

"Jolly joker…"

A sudden not-so-distant memory returned to Hogan just then. "Have you tried the sauce béarnaise diet?" he asked with a grin. "I hear that one's a real appetite-killer."

"Colonel, that's inhuman," Newkirk protested. "I wouldn't wish that on me worst enemy… and at the moment me worst enemy is Germans."

"Thanks a lot, pal," Carter said with edgy huffiness.

"All right, all right," Hogan interrupted. "Schultz, we'll talk later… maybe we can think of a way to help you out. In the meantime, do yourself a favor and lay off the apple strudel… there's only so much we can do; we're not miracle workers."

The big man's round face broke into a sincerely grateful smile. "Thank you, Colonel Hogan. You make this war so much better than the last one."

"Anything I can do to improve the war, happy to oblige. We strive for quality."

"Schultz, how come you're still in the Army?" Carter asked. "You're not exactly a spring chicken."

"I heard he tried shootin' himself in the foot once," Newkirk told him, "but it didn't work 'cause he couldn't see 'em."

"Another jolly joker…" Schultz fumed.

Hogan gestured towards the barracks door. "After you, gentlemen… Colonel Klink, the Happy Hun, awaits our smiling faces."

oo O oo

Dawn had broken two hours earlier. It was still raining in the outskirts of London. For once, General Biedenbender had elected to take the morning constitutional they offered him, in spite of the foul weather. He had a good reason to want to escape his cell for the forty minutes or so it would take to stroll across the muddy heath and past the airship sheds that had not seen their intended use since the late 1930's when obsolescence had grounded the mighty craft forever. As a younger man, he had once flown over this very area in a Zeppelin during the last war, raining bombs down on London. The sheds were a pleasant reminder of happier times.

And his escort this morning was Simon Knatchbull-Quimby, currently of both British military intelligence and the Third Reich. More intriguing company, the general could not imagine.

"May I ask where you transmit your orders from?" he inquired as they walked through the heavy gray mist. "Whitehall?"

"On occasion," the young lieutenant replied. "S.O.E. operates from many different locations. The name itself is somewhat of an inside joke… Stately 'Omes of England, we sometimes call it amongst ourselves. My usual transmission base is a country estate just outside Cobham, in Surrey. About a half hour from here by rail."

"I see."

He smiled. "All the better to avoid our bombers, you see… Whitehall becomes a bit chaotic during air raids, and the transmissions must continue to go through."

Ah, so much like the Zeppelin raids of 1917… again Biedenbender smiled fondly at the memory of his youth. "You seem very well organized, Lieutenant."

"We intend to win this war, General."

"Which brings us back to Colonel Hogan."

"Last night you mentioned that his weak point… his Achilles heel… would be his men."

"Every great leader has a fatal flaw, young man."

"Except the Führer, of course."

Biedenbender sometimes had his private doubts about that… the Führer, after all, was still hell-bent on taking over this absolute rubbish-heap of a country for some unclear reason. Had he seen it? But this wasn't the time or the place to enter into any kind of political discussion. "Naturally…" he replied agreeably. "I must be clear on one thing, Lieutenant. I despise Hogan, but I do not underestimate him. You must not either. He is a very clever man."

"It would of course be possible to send an assassin. It's been considered on several occasions. We have our double-agents over there as well as here. Some Underground agents have been turned. We could use one of them to our advantage."

"Yes," Biedenbender nodded. "That would be possible. But Hogan is a special case; he merits more finesse. Simply killing him the way one would step on an insect…" He shook his head and gave a couple of solemn tsks with his tongue. "No. There are many men who could kill him; I want to wound him first. I ask your indulgence."

"A small price to pay for your expertise, Herr General."

"When is your next transmission to Papa Bear?"

"I'll be checking in this afternoon."

"Do you speak directly to Hogan on your broadcasts?"

Knatchbull-Quimby shook his head. "Not customarily. Their radio man, Sergeant Kinchloe, is normally the one who receives incoming messages."

"Is there a way for you to bypass Kinchloe and get a message directly to Hogan?"

The young lieutenant thought for a moment. "There's an emergency code that only Hogan can decipher. The message will still pass through Kinchloe's hands as usual, but he won't even realize it's in code. When he delivers it to Hogan, Hogan will recognize it as such."

"Fine, fine."

"Won't Hogan become suspicious of a message that clearly bypasses his normal channels? He might share the contents with not only Kinchloe, but the others, as soon as he deciphers it."

"No he won't," Biedenbender replied smoothly. He had devoted most of a practically-sleepless night to this plan, examined it from all angles, and become convinced that it had an excellent chance of working. It played on Hogan's weak spot, all right. The perfect revenge. "Because this is what you're going to transmit…"