Chapter 3
Night, June 1, 1944
The minutes ticked by slowly. Hogan fought to keep himself awake, wondering what London might be wanting them for this time. Some other intelligence mission—or maybe sabotage? They were running short of local targets, though, and getting further afield was always difficult. Hogan knew the intelligence work they did probably had a greater effect on the war effort, although he knew his team members—especially Carter, of course—felt a greater sense of satisfaction in blowing up munitions that could be used against the Allies.
But it sometimes seemed like they had been doing this forever. He was so tired of the war—which had started for him, LeBeau, and Newkirk so much earlier than it had for Carter or Kinchloe. Four years now—almost exactly, come to think of it. The Dunkirk evacuation had been going on four years ago today: this was probably just about the anniversary of when LeBeau and Newkirk had been taken prisoner. And he had shipped over to London at about that time too.
Four years was a big chunk of any man's life. The real problem was that there was no end to the war in sight. Sure, some progress had been made—important progress. North Africa was won for the Allies, Sicily taken, Italy invaded and Mussolini out of power. The Russians had prevented the capture of Stalingrad and were slowly pushing the Germans back eastwards—all at horrendous costs. But the Italian campaign was being hard fought, and the Nazi grasp on most of western and eastern Europe was still strong and would remain so until the Allies invaded.
Surely an invasion would come this summer. The Allies just had to do it, either from the south via Italy, which would be the long hard way, or across the Channel from England, the obvious way. Without an Allied invasion of northern Europe, a western front to divide Nazi attention and resources from the eastern and southern fronts, the war would end in a stalemate, and Hogan just couldn't believe the Allies would let that happen. They had the full industrial might of the U.S. to harness—and yeah, getting material and troops across an ocean took a lot of time, work, and resources, not to mention the danger of U-boats patrolling the waters, but what the U.S. could offer compared to any other country in the war—well, there just was no comparison. Britain had showed it could hold out against the Nazis, especially with American support, but it was stretched thin and couldn't mount a continental invasion on its own. Hogan hadn't been home in four years, but everything he'd heard from all the prisoners he'd interviewed suggested that America had retargeted its energies into war material production. They could support an invasion, he was sure of it, and would no doubt play a leading role in the fight alongside the British and the various exiled continental forces that had escaped to Britain early in the war.
But it was already nearly June of this year: if it didn't come soon the Allies would lose the best weather for fighting. Soldiers in the field would need that weather to get enough of a foothold to dig in and move forward.
The battle was going to take a long time, whenever it got started.
Which meant he was going to be here in Stalag 13, with his men, working every angle they could, for the foreseeable future.
Hogan's chin touched his chest, and he jerked it up sharply. He glanced over at Kinch, but his radioman was bending to examine one of the dials on the radio and wasn't looking his direction. Fortunately.
Hogan crossed his arms in front of himself. London should be calling any time now—he just had to keep awake a little while longer. . . .
Just then Kinch came to alert, and Hogan heard the beeps that signified the incoming message. He could usually follow Morse code in his head, but tonight he just wasn't up to it as Kinch tapped out their report from last night, then listened for the reply. And it didn't matter, since Kinch would need to decrypt the incoming message into readable English anyway. He stood up and paced over to the table where Kinch was sitting, prepared to wait.
Except that after a moment of furious writing, Kinch looked up at him, brow wrinkled. "They want to talk to you direct, sir."
Hogan frowned. Voice messages were always riskier, with an increased chance of detection. Something must be up. Kinch handed him the hand mic and bent to twist the knobs. A very English voice suddenly boomed tinnily out of the speaker.
"Mama Bear to Papa Bear. Come in, Papa Bear."
"Papa Bear here," Hogan answered. He recognized the voice as one of their senior handlers. Newkirk had nicknamed him Posh.
"Prince Charming is having a ball at the castle. A fast pony will arrive tomorrow night, 2230."
Dumbfounded, Hogan and Kinch stared at each other. That meant an overnight trip to London and back again before roll call. Highly risky in terms of possibly being spotted and shot down for both legs of the trip, not to mention all the issues involved in getting out of camp and back undetected during the short summer night. Hogan had only done it once before, and that had been the first year he was in camp, setting up the operation, in late fall when the nights were longer.
Hogan ran calculations in his head. That plane would have to leave England before the onset of dark; in fact, given Daylight Savings Time and the nearness of the solstice, it would have been dark for only a short time when it got here to pick him up, barely long enough for him to make the rendezvous under the cover of darkness. Counting the time to fly to London, meet with "Prince Charming," the British general who was the senior officer in charge of Hogan's operation, and then fly back again, it was going to be a very tight fit in the time they had available. He would have to parachute in to save time on the return, and increase the pilot's chance of returning safely to England. Nor did Hogan dare get himself tossed in the cooler to pad the available time: if whatever London had for him was so hot that they had to tell him in person, then he had to be free to act when he got back.
"Understood," he answered back, looking at Kinch and shrugging. What else was there to say?
Actually, he could think of one thing. "Mama Bear, I'll need a dress to go to the ball."
The corners of Kinch's mouth turned up slightly at that. Hogan was mildly exasperated by Kinch's amusement at his CO's apparent vanity, but Kinch wasn't the one who would have to face an oh-so-proper English general in a flight uniform that decidedly showed the last two years of wear and tear, despite Newkirk's best tailoring efforts. Hogan wanted a Class A uniform just to feel like he was as professional as the officer he would be getting some kind of big orders from. Prince Charming wasn't an enemy, but he was their senior CO: if he wanted a meeting in person then he wanted something big from their unit, and Hogan felt he needed armor for the encounter.
"Agreed. Over and out."
"Over and out," Hogan answered, then set the mic down gently on the rough wood table. The whole conversation had taken less than thirty seconds, but he felt like he had gone down a rabbit hole and emerged in a strange new land. The next thirty hours were going to be game changers: it remained to be seen of exactly what kind.
He looked over at Kinch, who was methodically shutting down the radio.
"You'd better get upstairs to bed, sir," Kinch said as he continued his task, not looking up. Nothing remained of the amusement from a minute ago, neither in his voice nor his demeanor. "You're not in the best shape for a full night out tomorrow night, not to mention a parachute drop back."
Hogan nodded, but didn't move. "This is going to be big, Kinch. Whatever it is."
"Yes, sir."
Apparently neither of them felt like speculating. Hogan sighed, tired of the tension between them. So he grabbed the bull by the horns.
"You'll have charge of the unit while I'm absent."
Kinch stopped working, staring at the radio for a moment, then lifting his head to look up at his CO. "Yes, sir." His voice was deadpan and quiet; his face was set and tight. Hogan couldn't tell if he was angry, resentful, or relieved, or some combination of them all.
"You weren't all wrong this morning, but you weren't all right either," Hogan said flatly.
Kinch straightened up and looked back at him, very level. "I knew it was a judgment call, Colonel. I couldn't send LeBeau and Newkirk out to look for you instead of me: they'd lost their adrenaline rush and were so worn out that they were likely to make mistakes. Olsen's not in camp at the moment, and there weren't any others around who know the woods outside the wire well enough. Roll call was getting closer—dangerously closer. I thought if one or both of you had gotten near to the tunnel entrance but was hurt, you might need assistance and it might make the difference in getting you back in time. I was the only logical one to give it. I kept a close eye on the time while I was out, to ensure I got back here before roll call so I could try to come up with some kind of cover story for you."
Hogan scrubbed his face with both hands. "If you'd found us, I'd have been glad of the help getting Newkirk back," he admitted. "But there's a lot of space to cover outside camp, and you missed us. That's too easy to do out there. And I need that level head of yours here in camp when I'm gone: you have charge for good reason." He patted Kinch's shoulder, feeling his radio man straighten slightly in pride from the compliment as Hogan cracked a smile. "When I get back from London, we'll work on getting a couple of guys ready for this kind of situation so that you'll have someone to send if you need to in the future. Okay?"
"That's a good idea, sir." Kinch looked genuinely relieved. "I'd appreciate that."
"Go over the personnel logs and think about who would be good candidates. Let's have at least three, in case any of them get stuck in the cooler." Hogan rubbed his forehead, then his eyes.
"Will do, sir. And Colonel, if you'll pardon the liberty—and the repetition—you should go to bed." Kinch's gaze had nothing but sympathy in it now.
"You too, Kinch—you've been up as long as I have."
"I've had an easier time of it—I wasn't running for my life through the woods last night, nor was I—well, in Klink's office all afternoon." Kinch looked down and away toward the radio.
Hogan wondered what Kinch had been going to say before shifting to the euphemism for the interrogation he'd had to overhear. His bunk beckoned, but leaving the conversation on that note felt wrong. He rested his hand on Kinch's shoulder for a moment, just long enough to say, "Maybe easier in some ways, but still a hard job to listen in on it for hours."
"You were going through worse," Kinch answered uncomfortably, still not looking up.
"It wasn't so bad. Graff and Klink kept Hochstetter leashed. There's nothing wrong a good night's sleep won't cure." Hogan kept his voice casual, shrugging off the experience.
"Then you'd better get to it, sir—and plan a nap for tomorrow too." Kinch looked up again at last, a half smile on his face. "I'll chase everyone out of the barracks tomorrow so you'll have enough quiet to actually get some sack time. You'll need it tomorrow night—and I'm willing to bet sleep will be scarce for some time to come, once London tells you what they want from us."
Hogan nodded, lightly clapping Kinch's shoulder again. "I'll bet you're right. You'll be right behind me?"
"Always, Colonel."
How to answer that? Hogan just nodded, not trusting his voice, squeezed Kinch's shoulder a final time, and turned to climb the ladder up to the barracks as Kinch blew out the oil can light. He could hear his radio man—and right hand man—following him up before he got to the top.
