Chapter 2

Late May, 1944

Sergeant Andrew Carter was out getting some exercise, walking the required distance from the fence around the perimeter of Stalag 13. It was a common event done by most of the prisoners for the exercise, for the intelligence that might be gained, and to lull the Germans into a false sense of security by making the event so commonplace that they didn't give it a second thought.

By doing all of this, it effectively exaggerated the importance when a rare, unusual event occurred.

Such an unusual event began with Carter suddenly spinning around toward the fence and bringing both hands up to cup the bill of his cap. He appeared to be staring—quite hard, it seemed—at something in the woods some distance beyond the fence. He called to Johnson and Wells nearby. They came over, looked, and nodded in agreement as all three men walked toward the fence to get a better look.

All this drew the attention of the guard in the nearest tower who turned that way and started to bring his MP40 submachine gun to bear only to have his attention drawn back to Carter as the young man started yelling and waving.

"Get away from the fence! Get away!" shouted Carter, urging everyone to get even further back than the usual clear distance. Johnson backed away, looking quite scared, but Wells helped Carter keep a number of approaching prisoners well away from the perimeter.

The guard watched those two and the growing crowd of other prisoners for a few seconds, confirming that they weren't rushing the fence or pulling any other verboten shenanigans, before he turned back toward the woods. Bringing up his binoculars, he scanned the treeline but saw nothing of interest.

A very winded Sergeant Hans Schultz puffed up a few seconds later.

"Carter! Was that...huh huh huh...you? What's...huh huh huh...going on?"

Carter shook his head as if he'd done nothing out of the ordinary but Schultz's glance at the guard tower and the guard's nod confirmed what Schultz believed even as Carter continued to peer in the direction of the woods. "What are you doing, Carter?"

"Ah, nothing, Schultz." Carter's shrugged shoulders and upturned hands weren't quite enough to do the trick, though, leading Schultz to frown at the American under his brow. "Honest, Schultz."

Schultz gaze went back to the guard, who spoke in rapid German and then pointed to the woods. "Carter, you saw something in the woods. What did you see?"

Carter grimaced and rocked back and forth from foot to foot, as if either uncomfortable about what he was being asked to tell or being nearly desperate to visit the latrine. Either seemed to be taking too long, so Schultz exclaimed, "Carter! Out with it!"

"Well, it couldn't be, Schultz. But...Wells, did you see it?"

"Yeah, plain as day. But I didn't think they had'em here."

"Me either," agreed Carter, "but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't a Mephitis mephitis."

Schultz's eyes narrowed. "A what what? What type of Indian mumbo jumbo is that? English, Carter! Speak English!"

"But it's not Indian or Sioux or anything like that, Schultz. It's Latin. It's the binomial nomenclature—scientific name—for the common striped skunk."

LeBeau and Newkirk arrived as Carter was finishing his explanation. Newkirk rolled his eyes but LeBeau frowned. "Le pewinus? Really?"

Carter nodded, as did Wells and a couple of others who'd been watching the woods since the ruckus started.

Shultz, though, wasn't having it. "Skunk? The American creature that sprays bad perfume?" He laughed and had to grab Carter's arm to steady himself. "Carter, there are no such creatures in Germany. Not even in all of Europe."

"Oh, I know that, Schultz. That's why—" Carter's eyes widened and he suddenly stood up straight, stopping himself from saying another word.

"Why what, Carter?"

"What is going on here?" called Colonel Klink, just arriving, as he tried to get his monocle to stay in place. "Schultz! Ree-port!"

"Jawohl, Kommandant! The American said he saw one of their smelly skunks in the forest—"

"But Schultz, it wasn't one of our skunks," interrupted Carter, unable to control himself. "I think it's the new type they've been breeding. A friend from back home was part of the program—"

Klink rolled his eyes. "Carter! We don't care about your friend from home!"

"But, sir, that's just it. Dougie was one of the guys who captured skunks for the new breeding program that the Army had just before the war started. They were using 'em to breed new superskunks. He said those things could shoot the most foul-smelling stuff ever, close to 30 feet. At least that's what he said. The guys that got hit with it were so sick they were in the hospital for dayeee..." Seeing Hogan arrive and giving an angry cutoff sign, Carter realized he'd just volunteered far more information than he should so he trailed off.

"Carter! Enough!" said Colonel Hogan loudly with a frown when he was close enough. However, inside, both he and Carter were smiling.

~HH~

The broadcast transitioned to a small spinning globe that rotated three times in silence before it slowed to a stop and the camera panned in on Europe. Walther Benbrite resumed his rapid-fire delivery.

"As our viewers are probably well aware, some animals in the wild only live in certain parts of the world, while others have found their way across the globe. For example, giraffes are only found in Africa, koalas only in Australia, giant pandas only in China, penguins only in the Southern Hemisphere, and the skunk is only found in the Western Hemisphere. On the entire continent of Europe, not one of those smelly little creatures is found outside of a zoo. Professor Weathers' program involved the common striped skunk."

Weathers took the screen. "The White House kept saying that every American had to do their part in the war effort. The general initially in charge of the program said that FDR told him that skunks were American creatures and that they needed to earn their stripes fighting the Nazis, just like everyone else. Therefore, we were instructed to capture a group of them to use in a breeding program. With my nose on the fritz—"

"He did not just say that!" laughed Janie. "Dougie strikes again!"

"—I ended up doing lots of the work. We looked at selectively breeding the skunks to try to increase the potency of their spray."

"But, Professor, chemical warfare is outlawed by the Geneva Convention."

"Yes, sir, but spray delivered naturally by a skunk is considered natural, and, therefore, isn't covered under the rules of war."

"So, you're saying if you could breed a so-called 'super skunk,' there would be nothing to stop someone from using it?"

Professor Doug Weathers replied, "Exactly."

~HH~

1944...

Colonel Klink was squinting at the Americans on the other side of his desk. "So Carter thinks he saw an American creature in a German wood? Ludicrous!"

"Not just any creature, Colonel. A skunk!" Carter's eyes were wide as he nodded.

"Carter! There are no skunks in Germany!"

"Maybe some escaped, sir."

Klink's monocle fell out as he attempted to roll his eyes. He started trying to get it back in when he asked, "Where would American skunks escape from in the middle of Europe?"

"From...uh."

Hogan moved forward and "accidentally" stepped on Carter's toe.

"Uh, sorry, Colonel."

Though his face showed frustration, Hogan's sigh was actually one of relief when Klink took the offered bait.

Klink jumped up from his desk so quickly that the monocle popped out again. Hogan caught it in midair just before it hit the desk but Klink didn't seem to notice as he leaned across and grabbed the desk's edge. "From where, Carter? From where? Where did the skunks escape from?"

"Uh, ahem, uh—Andrew J. Carter! Technical Sergeant, Serial Num—"

"Car-ter! I know all that! What were you saying about the skunks?"

~HH~

Returning from the "Mmm, they're pretty darn good!" commercial for Ramble's Soups, Walther Benbrite asked, "So, Professor, what happened with your skunk program?"

Professor Weathers shook his head. "Well, it didn't work out, at least not the way it was originally intended. The superskunk breeding program was abandoned after just three generations. We weren't seeing any success, at least any we could detect. The skunk spray was bad, of course, but we were having a dickens of a time getting volunteers to compare them for us. More than once, anyway. Besides, the skunks' time to reproductive maturity was too long, even with the shortcuts we were taking and all of the vitamins and horomones we were giving them to speed up the process. The war would have long been over before we might have ever had any sustained success."

"What about the skunks themselves?"

"When Washington told us to drop the selective breeding part, they also told us to keep up the regular breeding to increase the size of our surfeit, our skunk herd, if you will. That allowed us to breed all that we had instead of just the new generations, which was good since they told us they wanted as many as we could get. Someone had come up with an idea on how they might be useful. After that, we didn't hear anything new for quite some time. We'd even begun to believe they forgotten us when, in early February, 1944, somebody from Washington arrived and gave us new instructions. We didn't have the infrastructure for what they wanted, so a group of us worked around the clock one weekend with a hot-shot engineer designing what they requested. We made it as simple as we could and built a mock-up that was ready for testing in less than three weeks. It turned out to be a fairly foolproof system."

"A foolproof system that would not see the light of day unless other factors were in place. That's where the Allied agent mentioned earlier, an individual code-named 'Papa Bear,' came into play."

The scene shifted again, this time to a dark room with a person put in silhouette by a bright light behind him.

"We're with a senior officer from the Pentagon. He's not officially allowed to answer any questions about this, so he demanded that his identity be kept secret and that we film at an undisclosed location as requirements for granting this interview. To do this, we will use his assumed identity of Officer X."

In a low, conspiratorial voice, Benbrite asked, "Officer X, what was your job during the months leading up to the D-Day invasion of Europe?"

With his voice electronically disguised, the officer replied, "I was a junior officer stationed in London as part of the control team for Papa Bear."

"Who was Papa Bear?"

Officer X laughed. "Sorry, sir, but you know I can't answer that. Of course, I wouldn't tell you if I even knew. However, what I can tell you is what Papa Bear was instructed to do."

"And what was that?"

"To feed the Germans some misinformation on a top secret American program involving, of all things, skunks."

~HH~