Dear Mom and Dad,
How's everything back at home? Hope that everyone's well. I'm fine. I know Mom never believes me when I say it, but it's true. I'm F-I-N-E. The weather today wasn't nearly as XXXXXX as usual, which was a XXXXX surprise, seeing as how it had been XXXXX for most of the previous XXXXX. According to XXXXXX, anything less than a torrential XXXXX is the German equivalent of a balmy spring day, and I should, quote, enjoy it while it bloody well lasts, unquote. And then he tacked on something to the effect that tomorrow will probably be XXXXXX again, bummed a XXXXXX, and went back to his XXXX game. XXXXX says, and again, this is a direct quote, that it's perfect weather for going XXXX, if we were allowed to XXXX, which we're not, but at least we can enjoy thinking about how much fun it would be if we could. And then he started telling me about a XXXXXX trip he took with his cousin, before the war, and about the three foot long XXXXXX they caught. For fifteen minutes. Just to round out the opinion survey, after XXXX had finally finished his story, I asked XXXXX what he thought of the weather. He's a little less volatile than our pal XXXXX, in the same way that Lake XXXXXX is a little less damp than the XXXXXXX Ocean, except when food is concerned, in which case he makes XXXXX look like Shirley XXXXXX. Seems that soufflé doesn't come out too well when it's XXXXX. That was about all I got before the whole conversation devolved into the sort of XXXX we didn't learn in the Berlitz course.
That's not to say that I haven't learned that sort of XXXX, here and there—mostly here, come to think of it—but I'm not going to tell you guys about it. Mom, you would probably manage to wash my mouth out with soap from the other side of the world.
So much for the weather. What else is new? Well, not a lot. A few of the guys and I were assigned to fix a XXXXXX, a really fancy one belonging to some visiting XXXXX, that had mysteriously started making odd noises. He couldn't use it; it was completely unsafe. We did our best, but you know how it is with XXXX; sometimes they just don't want to XXXXXX. He had to borrow a XXX from the XXXXX here in order to make it to some important XXXXXX. Everything was in perfect order by the time he got back, of course; the guys here may not be the best XXXXXXX in the world, but we're pretty darned good at getting the job done when we need to.
I guess that's all the news that's fit to print. My love to all of you,
James
*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*
John reread the letter for the third time; it still sounded good. He was not fool enough to think that life in prison was nearly as carefree and pleasant as Jamie was making it sound, but some of it rang true. Things were, therefore, not as bad as they could have been. Not as bad as they might easily have been. It was cold comfort, perhaps. But better than nothing at all.
And there was the other part of it, too; Jamie, it seemed, was getting along with his fellow prisoners. He wasn't alone in there. And he wasn't, it seemed, being treated as lesser. Not by the Germans, and, perhaps more surprisingly, not by the other Allied airmen. The casual mention of 'the guys' was telling, and this wasn't the first letter that had featured them heavily.
Stalag 13 was not a segregated camp. That fact did not seem to be getting in the way of what sounded like genuine friendships. That was comforting.
He wasn't alone in there. Jamie wasn't alone.
John Kinchloe held on to that thought like a lifeline.
*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*
Author's note: Whatever Hogan was smuggling in or out of camp in that staff car, take it as read that it was vitally important. And I ask you to accept on faith that the guys didn't do anything too egregious to the important visitor's car. The officer himself would have been small loss to anyone with the possible exception of his pet dog, and even the dog probably wouldn't have grieved too strenuously, but a nice car is a piece of mobile art. A pity to destroy it if not strictly necessary.
As regards the nickname 'Jamie,' I don't think that Kinch would at all appreciate it if any of his friends used the diminutive. He's pretty much never called by his first name onscreen, aside from his high school crush, who called him 'Ivan,' which was a pretty obvious line flub that should never have made it out of the blooper reel. I thought about having his parents call him that, as some sort of childhood nickname, to try to make sense of the error, but decided that it wasn't worth the hassle.
