A few days went by, and Hogan was able to get up and walk around slowly, now. His appetite had come back a bit, too. He was growing restless and wanted to start his mission immediately. He needed to get back to Stalag 13 and to his men. He needed to return to them and let them know he was alive and getting better.
Hogan stood looking out his bedroom window out at the rivers and other places in the city. He was wearing his white nightgown that went down to his ankles, slippers, and a blue bathrobe similar to the one he had back at camp tied around him. He was tired of being contained inside wherever it was he was currently residing.
It was early evening, when Sal and Angelo entered into Hogan's room with dinner for him. Hogan smelled the food and turned to see what it was. It was a grilled cheese and tomato soup with a glass of water along with pills he had to take for pain, antibiotics, and medicine to settle his stomach down and stop having involuntary painful contractions. He stared at it then back up at the two Italians.
"I wanna go home." Hogan said, flat.
Sal sighed.
"I know you do, Colonel, but we can't send you out on your mission, until you've healed a little more. You were only wounded about a week ago." Sal pleaded.
"A week is all I need; I wanna leave back for Germany tomorrow morning." Hogan answered, more like ordering the doctor.
Angelo, knowing Hogan needed to rest a little longer before traveling back to Germany, could not help but smile. It touched him to see how dedicated this man was to his team and friends back at Stalag 13.
Sal finally sighed.
"Alright...on one condition." Sal stated.
"What's that?" Hogan asked, hugging himself.
"You eat this entire meal...and no fussing about taking your medicine, either."
Hogan sighed then looked defeatedly up at the doctor's eyes.
"Alright, I won't complain about taking the medicine." Hogan groaned.
Sal smiled, and Hogan walked over to the bed to sit down. Once settled, Sal put the tray on the table by Hogan's bed, and the American colonel was about to take a bite of his grilled cheese, when Sal stopped him.
"Medicine first, Colonel Hogan." Sal ordered, friendly.
Hogan moaned then sighed. There was no use to fighting with this doctor. He was as bad as the camp medic back at Stalag 13: Joe Wilson. He began to frown remembering him. It soon led him to Schultz and Klink. He wondered how they were doing without him there. And then there was his men, his friends. They might have just lost him, he thought, but he sure hoped they were at least moving on a little bit without him there. He would be devastated when returning if he found out that him 'dying' made his men incapable of performing any type of task, especially the ones such as getting out of bed and eating meals. For God's sake, he even started missing Burkhalter and Hochstetter. It was official; Hogan was homesick...very homesick. Coming out of his thoughts, he grabbed the pills in his hand and swallowed them down with a drink of water. After getting the worst out of the way, Hogan ate his dinner slowly. He did not want to risk the chance of making him sick causing him to stay there longer than he was comfortable with doing.
Sal and Angelo sat in chairs in front of Hogan and socialized with him, while their patient ate dinner.
Hogan looked up from his bowl of soup and began talking with the two who were currently caring for him.
"I would just like to say thank you both for taking care of me this past week." Hogan spoke, before taking another spoonful of soup.
"Not a problem at all, Colonel. Anything to keep Papa Bear healthy and get him back on his feet." Sal answered, with a smile.
Hogan smiled small and took a bite of his grilled cheese. After swallowing and taking a drink of water, he continued on with his questions.
"So, how exactly will this work, the mission? What's my backstory, my name, my gestapo ranking? How do I take down Peretti, before he finds me first?" Hogan asked.
"You will be a captain, Colonel. Your backstory is that you were born in Berlin, Germany, and your parents worked for Hitler as aides to the Chancellor. Your name will be Robert Holzhausen, son of Dietrich and Karlotta Holzhausen. As for how you kill Peretti, that's entirely up to you. London did not give specifics on what your assassin method be." Sal said.
Hogan sighed, but nodded understanding that those were orders, and he had to follow them.
"And what about this place? Where am I, exactly?" Hogan questioned before taking another spoonful of soup.
"You're in my residence, Colonel." Angelo answered, smiling. "You're in the guest room. My room and Dr. Bertolotti's room are down the hall, here."
"Sal lives with you?"
"Yep; both of us moved into together after the war started for work reasons. So far, we've made a successful team of doctors." Sal replied.
"Considering you saved my life doing an operation on the train ride here, I would say so." Hogan remarked, giving a lopsided grin.
Sal and Angelo smiled.
"Now I have some questions for you." Sal said, with a smile.
Hogan smirked and nodded.
"Alright, Sal; what do you wanna know?" Hogan asked, friendly.
"Who are these men you're so determined to return to? They sound awful important to you." Sal commented.
Hogan could not help but smile thinking of them. Each one of his men had a special quality they brought to his team. All four them were special in their own, unique, individual way, and he could not ask for a better group of guys to be his teammates and friends.
"My second in command and radioman, Sergeant James Kinchloe, my chemist and scientific genius is Sergeant Andrew Carter, my disguise designer is Corporal Louis LeBeau, and my lock breaker and decoding prodigy, Corporal Peter Newkirk. Kinch is usually the voice of reason, when I'm stuck on something and the one I turn to for advice. Carter can be a bit naive and a little silly minded, sometimes, but he has a heart of gold. LeBeau is our amazing state of the art chief from Paris and usually the one who causes mischief for me. As for Newkirk, he's the one to bring us all back to reality and usually the one to take action of operations. I value all four of them with my life and would do anything to ensure their safety." Hogan stopped, growing sad, again. He wished he could see them, right now. He wanted to talk to them, see them, let him know that he was safe and alright. He sighed and continued talking. "I miss them."
Sal gave a sympathetic smile.
"You'll see them again, soon, Colonel. I'm sure of it." Sal said, friendly.
Hogan smiled and then chuckled.
"Then there's Schultz and Klink." Hogan added.
"Who are Schultz and Klink?" Angelo asked.
"Oh boy; Sergeant Hans Schultz and Kommandant Wilhelm Klink. Schultz is sergeant of the guard at Stalag 13, and never really gives us much trouble. He most of the time just denies everything we're doing or planning to do saying he knows, sees, and hears nothing. LeBeau usually gets him to cooperate with food or gambling games. Klink, he's a little more work. I can usually trick Kommandant into getting my way with reverse psychology and threatening him with the Russian Front." Hogan answered.
"I'm sure every German officer's worst fear is the Russian Front." Sal said.
"And then there's General Burkhalter and Major Hochstetter, a gestapo officer, but they're not so much of as importance as the others are." Hogan said.
"Sounds like you got quite a few friends and enemies all at the same time there, Colonel." Sal smirked.
"You can say that, again."
By now, Hogan had finished his meal and was growing tired.
"I better get going to sleep; I wanna head back for Germany first thing in the morning." Hogan said.
"Well then, there's nothing else to do but that, then." Angelo answered back.
Hogan crawled underneath his sheets and blankets and gently lay his head against the pillow. Angelo and Sal said goodnight and turned off the bedroom lights to his room. After they left, the American colonel lay there looking up at the ceiling of his bedroom. He kept thinking how he was going to return to Germany and what he was going to do regarding Peretti. His thoughts soon became foggy and drifted off to sleep.