"That's ridiculous!" Klink bellowed, looking from the black sergeant to the white sergeant and back again, wondering just how much of their tripe he was expected to swallow. "How could a man with a bad ankle get so far away from a work detail that he got lost?"

Carter sent a panicky look toward the taller of the two and Kinch took in a breath, stuttering for a second before he happened on a response. "That was our concern too, Herr Kommandant. That's why we were gone so long."

"Right! We thought maybe something had happened to the colonel, and that was why he didn't make it back."

Carter lifted the mud stained, leaf coated crush cap with a slightly tragic look on his face and said. "Like we said, all we could find of him was his cap."

Klink glared at the piece of evidence, unable to deny that it could only have belonged to Hogan. The rambling story the prisoners had told him had included a dive into a briar bush and Carter's injuries were impossible to ignore. There were briars in the cap along with the mud and the leaves.

Klink thrust his arms behind his back and circled both men, noting the dirt on Sgt. Kinchloe's hands, the mud soaked into Sgt. Carter's trousers.

"And when you...couldn't find your colonel you returned to the road..." Klink repeated, catching the prisoners up to the point in their story where he had interrupted.

"That's right, sir." Carter said. "We were really surprised to see nobody on the road. A-and we were scared that we'd be stuck outside of camp all night so we high-tailed it here, sir."

"Uh huh..." Klink said, hovering in front of Carter for longer than was necessary before he shifted his focus to the imposing Kinchloe.

"We were hoping that you would send out a search party, Kommandant." Kinch put in helpfully, watching as Klink straightened and sidled behind his desk.

"Oh believe me, Sergeants, the search party has already been sent out. Dogs, guards with guns...they'll find your poor lost colonel and throw him back into the cooler where he can't ever get lost again!"

"Boy I sure hope that bull, Sergeant Schultz isn't out there too." Carter said.

As expected Klink's demeanor changed, the man drawing back from his attempt at playing the bully.

"Sergeant Schultz has been relieved of his duties." Klink said, the statement veiled of any discernible meaning.

Inwardly Kinch groaned, then offered a facetious, "He's not retirin' is he?"

The choice of words caused the kommandant to flinch a little, his face tightening around his lips. He seemed to consider for a moment then drew back even further into himself and said, "I suppose there is no reason to keep the information from you men. Sergeant Schultz has suffered a terrible heart attack. It's a miracle that he survived at all, and some of that may be due in part to the fast action of your fellow prisoners LeBeau and Newkirk."

The reactions Kinch and Carter showed weren't faked. The news came as a shock to them and they stood in breathless silence for a few minutes before Kinch asked, "Is he gonna make it?"

"The doctors don't know yet. He was in surgery the last I heard. Corporal Wilmutt is at the hospital with Newkirk and LeBeau now." Klink opened his mouth to say something else then changed his mind and finally sat down in his chair. "The poor man. I tried calling his wife, but their phone was confiscated years ago. She'll be informed by a soldier knocking on her door." Klink shook his head, unexpectedly sympathetic.

"He's still alive though, sir. Right?" Carter asked hopefully.


"He is still alive." The surgeon said, wearily removing the cloth cap that had been tied over his hair. "Your sergeant suffered from an aortic aneurysm. The sudden increase in blood pressure tore a hole in his aortic artery and he was bleeding into his chest cavity. When the prisoner fell on the sergeant in transit the shock of impact returned the sergeant's heart to rhythm. It caused more bleeding, but it also kept his brain alive until he arrived. Hopefully this reduced the risk of permanent damage."

The conversation was happening twenty-feet away, and half the words spoken in German were medical terminology that just hadn't come up in the spy business, but LeBeau and Newkirk were able to get the idea. Schultz was alive, barely.

"Damage?" Wilmutt asked, looking just as confused as the prisoners felt.

"There is much that we have learned recently about blood and its purpose in the body. We know that without blood circulating to the brain, the body can not survive. But if the body is revived and blood circulation is restored to the brain there is hope for recovery. However, the damage to Sgt. Schultz mind - his memory, his reflexes. They may be permanent. He may not even survive the surgery, but he has far better chances now than he had before."

The doctor stood, waiting for a response, and gradually coming to the understanding that the corporal before him was nothing more than a vague acquaintance of the man he'd spent a few hours working on. The two POWs in the corner, however, had been surreptitiously paying rapt attention to his every word from the moment he came out.

The doctor wasn't a fan of the military. Especially a military that apparently paid terrible attention to the health of its sergeants. But Hitler's regime had provided the health ministry with unexpected benefits, and he understood protocol. Pointing vaguely over the corporal's shoulder the doctor asked, "These prisoners are familiar with the guard?"

"Yah. I was assigned to the stalag only a week ago." Wilmutt admitted, still looking lost.

"May I speak to them?"

"Why would you want to?" Wilmutt asked.

Sighing the doctor considered his answer, then decided that he only wanted to have to say it once. "The sergeant is being moved to a recovery room. Once he is ready, please bring the prisoners there, Corporal..."

"Willmutt."

"Willmutt. I will contact your camp kommandant and tell him that you will be at the hospital with the prisoners overnight."

The doctor ignored the protest that followed him as he walked away, oblivious to the shocked looks that the two POWs exchanged.

Twenty minutes later he stood with the Englishman and the Frenchman just inside the room that Sergeant Hans Schultz had to himself. The big man was covered in bandages, surrounded by tubes and encased in an oxygen tent.

In quiet, accented English the doctor explained Schultz's condition again. "There is so much about the brain and how it works that we do not yet understand." The doctor interrupted himself with a smile as he said, "It is curious that we are unable to fathom the organ with which we attempt to fathom."

We know that the brain is active even when the patient is unconscious and studies have shown that familiar things...voices, music, the smells of favorite foods or perfumes, have an affect on the body, even when we are not aware that they are present. Medically there is not much more that I can do for this man. Were I to leave him alone in this room to recover, as my colleagues have suggested..." The doctor's voice took on a perturbed tone for a moment but he shrugged the argument away and said, "I am certain that this man would wither away. There is a psychological component to medicine that has too long been ignored."

The collegiate muckity-muck coming out of the doctor's mouth was beginning to annoy Peter. He didn't much like hospitals, and wasn't a fan of being in the same room with a man that might die, especially when he was partially to blame for it. He took in a breath and bit out, "Shouldn't you be havin' this conversation with the man's wife? His family?"

The doctor didn't seem surprised at all by the outburst. "We've tried contacting his family but they can not be reached by phone. His commanding officer has sent out a man to contact them in person but that will take several hours. The closest thing this man has to family...is you."

Both Newkirk and LeBeau snapped their gazes to the doctor, neither one of them looking happy about the revelation.

"What do you expect us to do?" LeBeau asked. "Sing him lullabies?"

"Yes." The doctor said with a pleased smile, despite his knowledge that the question had been facetious.

"What?"

"Sing to him. Tell him stories. Talk about the memories, pleasant ones, if there are any, that you and he might share."

"He's a kraut!" Louie shouted, unable to hold back the familiar anger that had been building inside him. He wasn't even sure who he was mad at. Schultz, himself, Hitler, Germany in general. It didn't matter. "Why should I do anything for him?"

"That's right. One less Kraut in the world and...and we've done our jobs as Allied soldiers." Newkirk put in, with almost too much conviction.

The doctor saw it in their faces. He could imagine what the men felt, but he also knew what they had done even before they could have known how much danger the "Kraut" was in.

"If that is the case, gentleman, why did you not let him die on the road?" The doctor asked, then quietly excused himself from the room. When the German corporal did not follow him he beckoned the soldier into the hall on the pretense of discussing the situation further.

As the door closed behind them Louie looked to his English brother-in-arms and jerked his beret from his head, tossing it onto one of the two wooden, straight back chairs sitting in the room. "That's a good question, Pierre." He said, his voice still heated. "Why did we save his life?"

"Do you think if I knew that I'd still be standin' here?" Newkirk asked then paced along the wall as far from the mass of modern medicine as he could get. After he had covered the wall to wall distance twice he said, "I know why I did it. To give Hogan and them time to get away."

"Oui. Of course. To preserve the operation. To keep the mission going at all costs." LeBeau agreed, his arms crossed as he settled on the chair. Even as he spoke, the words felt like a lie, settling Biblically like gravel in his mouth.

Newkirk went back to pacing, hands on his hips as he glared angrily at the floor. He'd been reliving those first few minutes over and over again. Schultz's face going inhumanly still. The look of surprise and pain in his eyes before he began to fall. Then in the back of the truck. Bulging, unblinking eyes..

"He was dead." The Brit said quietly, moving to the narrow window that looked out over a courtyard.

LeBeau, lost in his own memories, didn't say anything, but his ears were closely attuned to the Englishman.

"Like a ruddy carp. I knew he was dead layin' in the back of that truck and it scared me to d-"

Louie's eyes glazed over, the scene playing in his mind. It had been a long time since he had seen that look on Newkirk's face. The look of wild, unfettered fear that had appeared in the back of the transport truck. Fear for the life of a man that was supposed to be their enemy.

"I was scared too." Louie finally admitted, just as quietly and he met Newkirk's gaze when the Englishman turned to face him. "He's the enemy, oui, but...he is no better or worse than we are."

As much as he hated to admit it, Newkirk knew the Frenchman was right.

"Besides, if he doesn't make it, we might as well pack up and go home." LeBeau hedged, raising a brow. Without Schultz cornered into turning a blind eye to their 'monkey business' their ongoing mission in the camp was going to fall apart. They had known that for sometime.

"I suppose, then, that it's our duty to make sure he survives this." Newkirk said, contemplative.

Without a word both POWs pulled chairs as close to the bed as the oxygen tent would allow to begin their vigil.