Kowalski splashed a second cup of cold river water on Blowhole's face and this time got results. Blowhole groaned and muttered something about it not being an inspection day before suddenly remembering that he had a job to do and his eye snapped open.
"Did you get the clipboard?" He asked. Kowalski glanced awkwardly at the partially unwrapped book a few feet away.
"No." He replied, then added defensively, "Why didn't you tell me you'd already swapped it?"
"Because I had been knocked unconscious." Blowhole replied, "And the least you could have done was warn me about that door."
"I didn't even know Private could drive, never mind what kind of car he had and that you'd sit yourself right behind a door." Kowalski countered, "Why did you have to get yourself knocked unconscious?" Blowhole went to counter that if he could have avoided being knocked out he would have, but instead shook his head wearily.
"Look at us." He scoffed, "We're the most brilliant scientists on our respective sides, not that they know it yet, and we're wasting time arguing completely pointlessly over past events." Kowalski also seemed to see the childishness of their actions and they silently agreed to drop the argument. "Now where's my eye?" Kowalski provided him with the mechanical device he quickly reattached. Satisfied, Blowhole finally decided to take look around, for the first time realizing they were neither in the town nor still by the side of the road like he'd assumed, "Where are we?"
"About a mile outside town." Kowalski replied, then pointed at a small stone cottage through the woods. Since Blowhole had been knocked out it had gotten dark and the lights of the cottage were completely dark too, "that's Private's cottage. A few minutes ago the lights were switched off and I heard a car drive away. Now seems like the perfect time to grab the clipboard."
"It should be fairly straight forward." Blowhole concurred. It was, for once, since the cottage appeared to be an entirely normal cottage without even a deadbolt. There was only one poorly set up security system, high tech but poorly set up. Kowalski spotted the first electric eye when he was only half way across the drive and dodged it with ease.
The lock opened with a click and Blowhole and Kowalski stepped into the country cottage.
"I don't know whether to call it touching or disturbing." Blowhole grumbled, "He took it home with him! Evidence! And Nigel gave it to him to put on his mantel piece."
"Well, it's nice to know somebody mourns me." Kowalski whispered back, "And do you remember ever saying no to him?" Blowhole had to think about that one.
"No, I don't." Blowhole finally replied, "It was those big blue eyes. If he wasn't so much of a gentleman not to ask I might have been forced to let him escape."
"When I get my clipboard back I'll make a note of that." Kowalski switched on the flashlight Bada and Bing had provided them with, along with provisions and other supplies they'd need for their trip as well as German uniforms they'd somehow gotten their hands on. "Private is an instant 'get out of jail free' card."
They appeared to have entered through the back door into the kitchen of the little stone cottage. The clipboard clearly wasn't there. Fortunately, Private appeared to be just as much a compulsively tidy soul at home as well as overseas, that would likely make finding the clipboard all the easier.
Kowalski opened the door of the kitchen and stepped into a cosy living room with a rocking chair, a fishing trophy and little fire place with a few choice family pictures on the mantle and a little lunicorn figurine. It was just the kind of place Kowalski imagined Private living in. But the clipboard wasn't there.
"At least he didn't put it on his mantelpiece next to the collectable lunicorns." Blowhole commented.
"I think we should split up." Kowalski suggested, taking one last look around the sitting room, "We haven't got long before Maurice expects us at the hanger."
"Are you sure Private is out?" Blowhole asked warily.
"It's only nine o'clock and all the lights are out." Kowalski replied, "He's a teenage boy next to a zoo full of people who get up to all kinds of mischief – I used to share a barracks with some of them." Blowhole rolled his eyes remembering just how much mischief they could get up to, "You take the upstairs and the attic, I'll finish this floor and the lunicorn collections." Blowhole nodded and started up a set of creaking stairs to an upper level that was divided between a storage area and a bedroom. The cottage, whilst still retaining it's feeling of cosiness, was bigger than it looked on the outside.
Blowhole assumed that after petitioning his uncle for Kowalski's clipboard for half an hour straight Private would not automatically assign it to the storage area that had been the first door he opened, so opened the door of the bedroom. There Blowhole was met with his first surprise: Private wasn't out. Apparently, Private was a teenage boy who went to bed at eight o'clock and could resist taking part in the mischief of Kowalski's old barracks mates. From that he could deduce the car Kowalski had heard drive away had been Roger checking on Private. Blowhole was going to quietly shut the door again and go back down the stairs when saw the clipboard: Private was holding it like it was a teddy bear. The discoloured metal surface was also streaked with evidence of water droplets, whether that was from the afternoon's rain or if the boy had cried himself to sleep with it was an open question. Still, as adorable and childish as it was, there was definitely something disturbingly macabre about it.
Blowhole was caught at one of those indecisive moments in life: for obvious reasons he wasn't particularly partial to the idea of attempting to steal the object from the boy's own hands and this was a bit of an aukward situation, but on the other hand Kowalski (and by extension, and more importantly, Doris) wasn't going anywhere without it. And Private was sleeping like a baby. Blowhole made up his mind and stepped cautiously into the room, his eyes locked on his objective. Blowhole froze when the boy stirred slightly, but he'd simply turned over in his sleep. He started across the room again.
Suddenly the heap of blankets came to life, grabbing a gun from under the pillow and switching on the light.
"Keep your hands where I can see them, Blowhole." Private ordered sitting up in bed. He looked like a little copy of his uncle. Oddly enough, Lunicorn pyjamas could be intimidating in some situations. "Why are you here and what were you doing?"
"It's a little complicated…" He began. The boy's eyes narrowed.
"You have exactly ten seconds to tell me what you were doing or I swear I will…" Suddenly Private's big blue eyes widened, a grin grew on his face and he ran past Blowhole to the doorway where Kowalski was standing. Kowalski looked like he was being somewhat suffocated by the boy's joyous hug, but he bore it well. The hard boiled spy was suddenly a little boy again, "Uncle Nigel said you'd finally made your fatal miscalculation...?"
"That was him." Kowalski corrected, looking at Blowhole, "By the way, you're forgetting to cover the prisoner."
"Oh." Private apologised, fumbling with the gun a moment before aiming it once again at Blowhole.
"Easy, I was only warning you for future reference." Kowalski continued, pointing the boy's pistol away before he could hurt someone, "We have a temporary truce."
Kowalski quickly explained to Private what was going on as it really wasn't that complicated. The moment Kowalski had said he and Blowhole had a truce Private had correctly surmised there was only one thing that could bring that on, and that was Doris. Private was sympathetic for the loss of his lab, but was less approving of their goals once they got to France.
"That sounds an awful lot more like kidnapping than a rescue to me," Private frowned, "Considering the fact she doesn't want to go with you."
"Potato, potato." Blowhole shrugged, doing his best at an English accent for the second one.
"It'll be a kidnapping for the first half, then when she realizes that what we're doing is in her best interests, it'll be a rescue." Kowalski added. That seemed to be good enough for Private.
"Well, I want to go with you, then." The boy concluded. This was not the result Kowalski had wanted.
"You're staying right here." Kowalski countered, but Private looked like he was going to be as stubborn about this as Kowalski had been with his clipboard.
"It's not very polite of you to go running back across after Kowalski, Skipper and Rico went to all that trouble to bring you over here." Blowhole reasoned.
"Private, we brought you back here for your own safety…"
"But I don't want to be safe!" Private suddenly burst out, "Everyone else wants me to be safe, but I don't!" Kowalski went to counter that staying safe was really in his best interests, similar to Doris, but Private had heard enough of that one, "Do you realize how lonely it is cooped up in this cottage? How useless I feel with people like Phil and Mason and Skipper going out there and not coming back? Nigel says I'm still just getting over being overseas and that I need to rest and stay quiet until I've come to terms with what happened and all that kind of stuff, but I belong out there." Private paused for breath, "All of those traps and sensors you probably came across on the way in…"
"Pretty badly placed." Blowhole commented, trying to divert the conversation away from an opportunity for Kowalski to voice that this was all Blowhole's fault for not telling him he'd already switched the clipboards.
"That's because they're not there to keep people out, they're there to keep me in!" Private explained, "Nigel put those up after my first couple of 'escape attempts'. He also has Roger follow me everywhere too and keep checking in on me like I'm ten. I'm not a kid anymore, I can be useful out there and I'm going to get out of here." He paused again and looked awkwardly down at his feet realizing he'd been a little forward. "Please can I come with you?"
"No." They both replied n unison. This was one situation where the big blue eyes were irrefutably overshadowed by the image of Private laying dead in a ditch somewhere in enemy territory.
"Fine." Private moved towards the phone, raising the pistol threateningly when Kowalski tried to stop him, "I'm going to call Uncle Nigel and tell him everything." Blowhole and Kowalski looked at each other. They didn't exactly have a choice.