They dined in good cheer on chicken, potatoes and salad, and since Mansdorf had ordered dinner in private, Carter could enjoy the grilled meat dish as much as his comrades.
Dinner was winding down when the stove suddenly moved aside and Hogan hauled himself out of the tunnel. "Mm, I see you guys are doing yourselves well!" He took one of the last chicken-legs and bit into it with gusto. "Much better than the cabbage soup we had in the mess hall tonight."
"Colonel." Carter wiped his mouth with his napkin. "I forgot. Did you bring the key?"
Hogan frowned. "What key?"
"The key I'm supposed to lose."
A sigh. "Carter, you don't need a real key. The whole point is that when everyone is going to search the grounds, there will be no key to be found. You just pretend you lost it when you've finished the tour of the camp, okay?"
"Okay, I get it." Carter nodded. "So I don't really have to lose it, because I don't have one in the first place."
"Exactly."
Kruse snickered. "It's a complicated war, isn't it?"
They all froze as they heard someone clumping out on the porch.
"Quick!" Hogan grabbed another chicken-leg and dashed back into the hole. Kruse and Addison were immediately at his side to push the stove back into place.
"Mein Führer?" they all heard Klink's bootlicking voice through the door.
Carter jumped up and started to noisily pace the room to drown out any possible sounds from moving the stove. "And I will not be humiliated by such tasteless food again! I am the Führer – the great Führer, remember? – and I am the one who will govern the Thousand Year Reich from its cradle to the grave. So I need good food!" Carter's eyes practically begged Schwarz to cut into his monologue.
"Jawohl, mein Führer," was all Schwarz could come up with in the spur of the moment, but by then, Addison and Kruse had made it back to their seats.
"Mein Führer?" they heard Klink's nervous whinny.
"Herein!" Hitler barked, seriously not in the best of spirits.
The door peeped open, and Klink stuck his head in. "Did you enjoy your dinner, mein Führer?"
"Nein." Hitler's reply was as a whiplash. "It tasted like shoeleather. Have you ever tried to eat your shoes, Mink?" To be honest, he still had the pleasant greasy taste of freshly grilled chicken in his mouth. Oh well, details...
Klink's head cowered back a little. "I am truly sorry, mein Führer. You see, with the war and all, we don't..."
"I know about the war, Pink. I started it myself!" Hitler gave back.
"Jawohl, mein Führer." Klink's head shrank back a little further yet. "And it's Klink, sir. K-L-I-N-..." Another of the Führer's nasty glares made him close his mouth immediately.
"Flink, in order to digest your measly food, I will require some exercise. You may take me on a guided tour of your little camp. There is nothing like a nice prisoner-of-war camp to lift the spirits. And make sure you point out all the attractions to me – I don't want to miss a single feature!"
"Jawohl, mein Führer." Klink, relieved to be back in some kind of favour, opened the door as wide as if Adolf Hitler were twice the size of Burkhalter. With a curt gesture, Hitler ordered his men to follow them, and out they stepped on the brightly lit veranda.
"Schultz!" Klink ordered. "Run over to the guard towers and tell them not to shoot us!"
A salute and a stammered, "Jawohl, Herr Kommandant," and Schultz hurried off.
"You see, mein Führer," a nervous Klink neighed. "It is after the prisoners' curfew. We have a very strict routine here in Stalag 13 – undoubtedly the secret of our success of never having suffered a successful escape. Not one, mein Führer! You see, after lights out, no prisoner is allowed outside the barracks. And the guards have their fixed rounds to cover the entire grounds. Anyone seen moving outside that pattern will automatically be perceived as highly suspicious – and possibly be shot at."
The Führer nodded. "Very interesting, Fink."
"Um... actually, it's Klink, mein Führer. Klink – with a K."
"Yes, yes, carry on. I want to hear all the details about your little camp."
So Klink happily prattled on about his pet camp as he guided his guests around the mess hall, the recreation hall, the cooler, the delousing station, the guards' mess, the guards' quarters, the latrines, the showers, the storage huts, the motorpool, the well, the dog pound, the water tower, the main gate, the guard towers, the fences...
Hogan was watching them from between a crack in the shutters.
"How's he doing, Colonel?" Newkirk asked about every other minute.
"Fine," was the standard answer.
Carter was indeed doing fine. He let Klink do the talking, prompting him with an occasional harsh question or observation to be even more verbose than usual, and insisting on inspecting everything Klink pointed out to him to the tiniest detail. And the good thing was, that by covering pretty much the entire grounds as they did, it would make a large scale search for that non-existent key all the more fruitless.
"Now would you perhaps be interested in meeting some of the prisoners?" Klink quacked. "Especially our senior prisoner-of-war is a general favourite with the visiting German officers. He is very witty."
Hitler glowered at him, so Klink quickly amended, "But completely cowed, sir. Completely."
"Nein." Hitler snarled with utter contempt. "I will not associate with these Untermenschen any more than I absolutely have to. Ich danke Ihnen, Blink. But I think it is time for me to return to my quarters. I need my beauty sleep." He put his hands in his pockets, and suddenly he froze. His eyes narrowed, and Klink saw him frantically turning his pockets inside out, and then patting himself in all the other possible places one could keep an item in one's clothes.
"Wink! Where is my key!"
A nervous little laugh from the Kommandant. "Eh... your key?"
"Ja! The key to my little cottage in Berchtesgaden!" Once more Hitler turned all his pockets inside out.
"Ah, that key!"
Hitler stopped searching and threateningly invaded Klink's personal space. "Stink, one of your so-called cowed prisoners must have stolen it from my pocket!"
Klink hovered back. "Aber mein Führer, you have not even been near any prisoners! You have not even set eyes on any prisoners! So how can they possibly have stolen your key?"
The beady eyes narrowed even further. "But you have been close to me, Trink!" And to his aide, "Search him!"
So Klink had to suffer the humiliation of a thorough body-search. But none of the keys found on his person turned out to be Hitler's house-key.
The Führer was fuming. "I will not go to Berchtesgaden without my key! Think of what the neighbours would say if I couldn't get into my own home! I – the glorious Führer of the Thousand Year Reich – having to ring the doorbell at my own house!"
"Mein Führer," Speidel ventured. "When did you last see the key? Perhaps it just got... mislaid."
He withered under the Führer's burning glare. "I still had it when we left my quarters here to go on this tour around the camp."
Klink's face lit up with the glimmer of hope to be able to help. "I think you may simply have lost it, mein Führer! I shall..."
The next withering glare was for him. "I do not lose things, Spink. It may have fallen out of my pocket, but the Führer of the glorious Third Reich does not lose things!" he finished in a piercing shriek.
"Of course not, mein Führer," Klink trembled. "It must have fallen out of your pocket, yes. I shall order the guards to find it immediately, sir. Immediately!"
With that, Klink hurried away, and but a few minutes later, there were guards crawling on hands and knees all over the camp.
Hitler and his posse stood observing the activity for a few minutes, stifling their all too ready laughter as they watched a frantic Klink fluttering back and forth to instruct his subordinates.
"Come," Carter said at last, and they marched back to Klink's quarters.
Only Mansdorf made a little detour to inform the Kommandant that he'd better not stop searching until the Führer's key was found, or else...
And of course the 'or else' sent Klink into an even more animated frenzy.
.
Author's note: So far, things are going incredibly smoothly. But do things ever really run smoothly in Stalag 13?
As for that easter egg: although no one apparently was able to make the connection, the phrase in question did indeed attract attention! Maybe jodm, snooky and Canadian Hogan's Fan should try out the British TV show You Rang, M'Lord? one day... Their favourite line (with endless variations in the food mentioned) is as well-known a catch phrase in that series as the infamous 'I know nothing!' in Hogan's Heroes!
Anyway, I loved reading all your reviews! Please keep them coming!