Chapter Two: The Final Straw

Since none of the other men in Stalag 13 knew that Carter had received a message, life went on as usual. Hogan and his four team members were able to pull off the bombing of the depot without a hitch, which all the men were grateful for—especially Newkirk and Carter. They knew that commanding officer would wait for them to speak their minds about the message, since while being an important message to them, he was still heavily preoccupied with the daily missions that he had to plan and see that they ran successfully. Still, they knew by the way that Hogan looked at his two soldiers sometimes that he was still thinking about the message, and its contents. Newkirk and Carter had their own problems to worry about too, of course. Since their real names had already been linked, what would happen to them, and to the operation, if their location was discovered? Secondly, would anybody believe the truth about the terrible secret that they had managed to hide from the others for so long? From the very beginning of their mission they hated that they had to lie to their commanding officer, as well as to Kinch and LeBeau. It wasn't so much that they were afraid of being court-martialed, and having their military careers ended. They knew from the very beginning that this was a possibility that they would have to live with, but they had decided to sign up and proceed anyway. No, it was the ostracization that they knew they would experience from their comrades, from London, from society in general—from everybody that they knew and cared about. The pain and humiliation that it would cause for everyone was the worst thing on their minds. Of course, that was if they weren't killed first, if people did believe the truth about them. Newkirk often had to stop himself from breaking out in a sweat if he even thought about his own past, and the couple of close calls that he once had.

…

Hogan knew that his men were excellent spies, and how much they had grown in the espionage business since their arrival at Stalag 13. He also remembered how quickly Carter and Newkirk had taken a liking to each other from the very beginning, even after Newkirk had forgotten to relay the message to a sleeping Carter that another new POW, Wagner, was not to be trusted. [2] Since Newkirk had arrived at the POW camp not too long before Carter, he was glad to see that his two new heroes had somebody that they could talk with, somebody that they could—and did—become friends with. Still, the whole message with Wings was beginning to bother him. He would often see his two men glance around shiftily, thought that they weren't being watched, and go off into a secluded area and talk for a couple of minutes. This might have bothered him even more, except that their professional skills were still top-notch. Hogan remarked to himself how Carter had never made better bombs than the ones used on the depot, and how Newkirk's fingers were as slick as ever when he stole the key from the German guard to open the gate to the depot without the guard feeling a thing.

All right, I'll give them a week. Hogan thought to himself. Besides, relax, these are your men and you know you can trust them. But if they're still acting suspicious after that time, then we'll need to have a talk.

…

Things quickly grew worse for Carter and Newkirk. Though they tried their best to cover up their secret rendezvous, they knew that their commanding officer grew more suspicious by the day. Still, it wasn't just Hogan. Sometimes they would catch LeBeau and Kinch looking at them funny, if even for a split second or two, while still pretending that everything was the same as it had been before. One example is when they were all gathered around the radio, hearing news for Papa Bear, Kinch would sneak them a funny look before reading the information he had just received to Hogan and the others. Also, LeBeau would sometimes serve them their breakfast last, after serving the other two men.

Finally, exactly one week after Carter had received the message, he told Newkirk that he thought they better come up with a story to allow them to return to London. They were both very afraid that sooner or later the truth would come out, and that things would never be the same again for the team.

"Newkirk, I think it'd be best for everybody. I mean nobody seems to trust us anymore," Carter said, rubbing the back of his neck. "And I may be new to this whole secret, but if the stories you tell are true then…" he let his voice trail off.

"Are you out of your ruddy mind Carter? Of course they'd be even more suspicious if we came up with a story like that to get us back to merry ole London! I say we sleep on it and work it out tomorrow." They both agreed to do that, hoping that if they slept on it they could approach the problem with fresh minds in the morning.

Unfortunately, things finally came to a head in the morning.

The entire week, even while the two men were worrying about being discovered, they had always managed to be present for morning roll call. They could see that this also pleased Hogan, who had always insisted that no matter what dangerous mission they had or were about to pull off, or that whatever was on his men's minds, that they should never arouse suspicion by missing the all-important morning and night calls. Besides, we've got enough suspicion within our own team without needing to bother the Krauts, thought Hogan. This morning, however, was to be completely different from all the others that week. Newkirk and Carter had only managed to get a couple of fitful hours of sleep before they had both decided that their problem wouldn't wait until the morning. As quiet as a dormouse, they had both slipped off their bunks and ever-so-quietly opened the wooden door that would lead outside their barracks, after making sure that Schultz and any other guards weren't around. Fortunately, Hogan, Kinch, LeBeau and the others in their barrack truly were asleep and didn't hear the men sneak outside. They were not afraid of being caught by any of the guards once they were outside—they knew that their secret would provide the means to protect themselves.

However, as much as the two men talked over their problems and tried to come up with a solution that would make even the slightest amount of sense for how they could throw suspicion off of them, nothing seemed to work. As much as they didn't want to, they even discussed the possibility of telling their Colonel the whole truth, and making them swear never to tell Kinchloe or LeBeau. They shook hands on it that this was only to be done as a measure of last resort. While they discussed the whole matter about Wings' message, they had completely lost track of time. Also, since they were concentrating so hard they couldn't hear Hogan inside the barracks asking around if anybody had seen them when it was time to line up for roll call. Before Hogan could ask if any of his men had seen them, Schultz barged inside the barracks (without knocking, as usual) and told Hogan to line his men up for the morning inspection. Since the Sergeant-of-the-Guard was familiar with the two missing men, he told Hogan that he would have to inform Klink of this immediately.

Producing a chocolate bar from inside his bomber jacket, Hogan simply told him, "No chocolate today Schultz? Too bad, we just got in a shipment."

"Oh! My favorite kind too! You better find Carter and Newkirk, Hogan." As he began to leave the barracks, he added "As for me? There are no missing prisoners; I see nothing!"

Hogan turned to his two other men. "LeBeau, Kinch, have you seen Newkirk or Carter? I would've sworn they were sleeping in the barracks with us last night."

"But non, mon Colonel. The last I saw of them was that they were sleeping like babies last night." LeBeau had been asked by Klink to bake one of his specialty French pastries for an officer's party that he was attending that night, and had been the last one to turn in for the previous night.

"Kinch?"

"Sorry sir, they were both sleeping when I let Baker take over for my duties last night."

"Where could they be? I know things have been, shall we say, odd around here between them recently, but they've always showed up for roll call."

Back outside, Carter had noticed that the sun was coming up when he had to raise a hand to shield his eyes from the light. "Gosh, Newkirk, is it that late already? We better go back inside before the Colonel gets worried about us."

Before they could get inside the barracks though, they saw that the men had already lined up for roll call and that Klink was fast approaching Schultz, who still looked nervous since the two men had still been missing. Avoiding the eyes of Hogan and the others, the two men slid into their position as Klink was talking to Schultz. Fortunately for them, Schultz turned to give one last glance and an obvious smile appeared on his face as he saw that Carter and Newkirk had finally made it into their places.

"Herr Kommandant, all prisoners are present and accounted for."

"Good good. Now Schultz, I am going to be a busy man today, what with all this paperwork and getting ready for the party tonight. Leave word that I am not to be disturbed. That means you too, Hogan!" he said as he glanced at his Senior POW officer. Hogan just gave him a look saying "Who, me? Never." "Dis-missed!" and with that, Klink quickly turned around and went back into his office. Hogan was secretly glad that Klink had his party to attend that night, and that another underground unit in the area had been assigned to spy on it, in case any important, classified information was discussed. He had a feeling that this was going to be a long day between him, Carter, and Newkirk.

All of the men turned to go back inside the barracks. All of them, that is, except Hogan and his two men. Turning to them, they could see that he was obviously annoyed that they had almost missed roll call.

"Ok you two, I thought I would try being patient and let you talk to me on your own terms. But this has gone far enough. I demand to know what is going on, and that's an order!"

[2] This is a reference to the pilot episode, "The Informer."