MAY 1945
As the convoy rolled along, the boisterous, energetic tank crew sang everything from the Air Force anthem to Tipperary to borrow from the previous war, and anything else that came to anybody's mind. Newkirk even found a couple of soldiers who had British grandparents and were willing to join him on God Save the King; he himself wasn't much of a hand at staying on key, but what he lacked in musical ability he more than made up for in enthusiasm. It was a pleasant ride; they were actually a bit disappointed to catch sight of the familiar guard towers around the final hill.
"We're home," Newkirk said to Bluebird. "Not exactly the way I expected, but…"
But they were there for the liberation. They were the liberation! Bluebird sat forward, holding Newkirk's uniform tunic close around her shoulders so it wouldn't slip off… he'd been right; in spite of the sunny morning, after a few miles it had gotten a bit chilly riding on the outside of a tank. The black Gestapo jacket she'd left behind at the barn at his suggestion had been dangerous, yes, but it had also been warm. "I'm surprised the colonel doesn't have anyone in the towers."
"I wonder…" he mused as Captain Avery signaled for the convoy to come to a halt.
"What's the best approach, Corporal?" Avery asked.
"For you lot, sir, the front gate is about a half-mile straight ahead. For the lady and I…"
Suddenly she knew exactly what he was thinking. "Oh, we shouldn't…"
"And why not? I can promise you right now that we'll never hear the end of it if the lads see us ridin' into camp on a tank, darlin'."
He had a point there. "So we…"
"Sir," he said to Avery, getting to his feet, "if you wouldn't mind lettin' us off right about here, we'll see you inside. We've got our own way in."
The captain looked sincerely surprised, but saw no reason to object. "You want to sneak back into the camp?"
"That's the general idea, sir." He scrambled down to the ground and then reached up to help Bluebird… this time before any other overly helpful young men could step forward. "If you wouldn't mind givin' us just a few minutes to access the emergency tunnel… I think you'll understand that we'd like to be with our unit on this important occasion."
Well… why not? "All right, Corporal… we'll see you and Agent Bluebird on the inside." Hogan and his team had their own way of doing things, he knew… everyone said so. And you couldn't argue with their results, that was for sure.
JANUARY 1943
That wasn't LeBeau. The figure inside that familiar uniform with the Croix de Lorraine on the sleeve was too small, even for LeBeau.
"You can't be serious," Hogan said. "Roll call's in two minutes, we're down a man, and this is the best you guys can do?"
"It's dark out," Carter reminded him.
"It's not that dark." He came over and took a better look. No… even with the scarf wrapped around the lower part of her face to conceal the lack of stubble, Bluebird wasn't anything close to a dead-ringer for the not-so-present, and un-accounted-for, LeBeau. "You've gotta be kidding."
Newkirk adjusted the beret to an angle that kept a little more of her face in shadow. "I don't think she looks all that bad, sir… I had to lengthen the trousers a bit, of course, but…"
"I don't think LeBeau would appreciate that," Carter informed him.
"Got any other ideas, Colonel?" Kinch asked.
"No I don't," he admitted. "Which is why I'm desperate enough to go along with this one. Our only other option is to admit LeBeau's not back yet, which means an escape, which means extra guards and dogs in the woods, which means there's no way we can count on being able to use the tunnel to get out and blow up that convoy tomorrow night." He finally turned to Bluebird. "All right, showtime… you know what to do?"
"Yes sir," she replied, her voice muffled by the scarf. "Follow Newkirk and stand to his left, keep my head down, don't stand still, keep my arms crossed…"
"And the rest of us will keep our fingers crossed."
"LeBeau really moves around a lot," Carter reminded her. "He's right in front of me so I notice it… move your feet, your arms, your hands…"
"That's right… squirm around all you possibly can, and you'll know you've got it just exactly right when you feel my elbow jabbin' you in the ribs," Newkirk added.
She looked again to Colonel Hogan. "What do you really think, Colonel?"
"I think I'm glad it's not Kinch who's missing a roll call."
The barracks door opened abruptly and Schultz entered. "Excuse me, gentlemen," he said with exaggerated patience and a forced smile on his chubby face. "But we are having a roll call outside, and it would be much more fun if you would find the time to join us... bitte."
"Be right there, Schultz," Carter told him.
"Now!" Schultz, his face starting to go even more red than the cold outside had already made it, was finished with being polite. The sooner they got this over with, the sooner he could get back to pretending he was doing something vitally important in the Kommandant's outer office where it was warm.
"All right, all right... boy, somebody sure got up on the wrong side of the war this morning."
"You too, Cockroach." Schultz gave the diminutive figure in the red beret a chummy clap on the back, and was startled when he almost knocked the wearer of the beret to the ground. "Was ist los?"
Kinch got an arm around Bluebird and hung on, keeping her face turned away from Schultz. "Oh... uh... LeBeau's not feeling too well tonight, Schultz. Let's get this roll call over with so he can get to bed, okay?"
Schultz was about to apologize sincerely to his very favorite prisoner... then he realized that something about LeBeau was different this evening. His little Cockroach was looking littler than usual. Warily, he stepped closer for a better look. "LeBeau...?"
"Okay, fellas, you heard what Schultz said!" Hogan interrupted, motioning to all of them to head for the door. "Roll call! Let's not be tardy, now... that looks bad for the whole barracks! Move it, move it!"
"Wait a minute!" Schultz ordered. He peered closer still at the face underneath the beret... what little of it he could see that wasn't swathed in the red scarf. "Why is LeBeau smaller?"
Hogan managed a laugh. "Smaller? Schultz, you'd better get your eyes checked."
"He is smaller!"
"Maybe he shrunk in the rain this afternoon... it was coming down pretty hard."
"I think there is some of your funny business going on, Colonel Hogan…"
"What're you talkin' about, Schultzie?" Newkirk asked with a big smile that he hoped would disarm the sergeant's suspicions.
"I'm talking about this!" Schultz grabbed the beret off the head of the figure purporting to be LeBeau, and immediately regretted it... what good was it being right, when he now had to figure out what to do about what he had discovered? "Ach du Lieber... eine Fraulein!"
"Now, Schultz..." Hogan began.
"Colonel Hogan, please... it is verboten to have a girl in the barracks!"
"Schultz, first of all, that's not a girl."
"It's not...?" Schultz asked hopefully.
"No... it's an Underground agent."
Schultz shook his head briskly to clear it. "And that's supposed to be better?"
"Well, she doesn't like being called a girl... I'm just tryin' to help you out. It's a very hostile war, Schultz; you don't want to lose a chance to make a friend, do you?"
Bluebird looked terrified, but she followed Hogan's lead and extended her hand. "Hi, Sergeant... Guten Abend."
"There, you see, Schultz? Very friendly. But you gotta meet her halfway... don't call her a girl."
"Colonel Hogan, please! Where is LeBeau? I mean, the real LeBeau!" His voice had lost most of its authoritative cadence and now was more of a pleading whine.
"Well, he's not exactly here right now..."
"When will he be exactly here?"
"Hopefully by morning roll call; he's just out doing a little sightseeing."
"Colonel Hogan, I must report this... it would be worth my life... you must tell me..."
"Okay, Schultz; you wanta know where LeBeau really is and what he's really doing?"
"Nein! Don't tell me." He backed slowly away, towards the door. "I want to know nothing... I see no-thing... oh, excuse me..." He stepped forward just enough to slap the beret back on Bluebird's head. "You... do not let the Kommandant see you!"
Hogan shrugged. "Well, if you'd rather report a man missing..."
"No! That one, she goes out to the formation! I mean don't let the Kommandant see... what... under the... Raus, bedeuten!"
MAY 1945
Carter came in from outside and closed the barracks door behind him. "Anything?" he asked hopefully, although the expressions on his companions' faces pretty much told him there wasn't.
"Not yet." LeBeau warmed up Hogan's coffee. He was trying too hard to sound matter-of-fact, as if he were waiting for an unimportant phone call and didn't particularly care if it never came.
"Well, I climbed up to the guard tower about twenty minutes ago and took a good look, three hundred sixty degrees with binoculars… I still don't see the Allies."
"Don't tell me they're missing too." But Hogan's heart wasn't in the banter. Newkirk and Bluebird were almost twelve hours overdue. Where were they?
"How long does it take to get here from Berlin by car?"
Too long. "Anything could have happened. Maybe it took longer to get Newkirk out. Maybe they had to take a detour. This clock-watching isn't doing anybody any good."
"Unfortunately we have nothing else to do," LeBeau reminded him.
That was true enough. With nobody to assist in escaping, no Germans to outwit, and no sabotage to carry out, Hogan realized that his team was the next best thing to obsolete. He couldn't order them to go play horseshoes or something… and he didn't feel like doing anything either. It seemed disloyal somehow, as if it would mean they didn't care.
The sound of the tunnel opening raised everyone's hopes momentarily, but they plunged again when they saw that it was Kinch, and he was alone. He was carrying his clipboard, and he wasn't smiling. "Message, Colonel."
As soon as Hogan read it he understood the full implication. "An explosion at Gestapo headquarters…" he said flatly. "The building's a total loss."
"Are they crazy?" LeBeau demanded hotly. "The Allies are supposed to be liberating, not destroying!"
"They don't know who did it… could just as easily have been the Krauts destroying evidence."
"When, Colonel…?" Carter asked with reluctance. He was afraid he already knew the answer.
"Yesterday evening… just before five o'clock."
Or put another way, just about the time Bluebird had expected to be there to free Newkirk. "No…" LeBeau said resolutely. "No, I don't believe that…"
"I don't think we should accept it without some additional reports, Colonel," Kinch added.
"Look, it is what it is!" Hogan seldom raised his voice to his command, but he was the first one to admit that he got testy when something went wrong… horribly, irreparably wrong. "This is exactly what I didn't want to happen… we lost both of them. Not wanting to accept it doesn't change it. If they were coming back, they would have been here hours ago, or found a way to get a message to us… there's been no word, and now this."
Carter's knees told him that he'd better sit down, and he dropped to the edge of his bunk. LeBeau set down the coffee pot and folded his arms pensively. Kinch leaned a shoulder against the wall. And Hogan stood motionless, still holding the message that told him Newkirk and Bluebird were buried in tons of Kraut rubble. The moment of silence in respect for their fallen comrades didn't have to be formally requested… it just happened spontaneously, like breathing.
The silence was broken when the door opened again and Klink ran inside, then turned and slammed it shut behind him. "They're here…" he gasped, terrified. "The Allies… they're here!"
"Their timing stinks," Hogan grumbled.
A brisk, sharp knock on the door, and Klink threw his full weight against it. "Go away!" he screamed.
"Herr Kommandant!" Schultz's howl of protest on the other side sounded just as panicky. "Let me in! Herr Kommandant!"
LeBeau smiled sadly. "I can imagine how Newkirk would be laughing at this…"
"Me too…" Kinch nodded.
"Colonel…?" Carter piped up. "Do you think we could ask the Allies to come back tomorrow…?" He leaned forward on his bunk and drew his legs up. "I don't... really feel much like being liberated right now…"
He didn't lack compassion, and Carter required a little special handling from time to time, but Hogan had already decided what they were going to have to do. "Okay, everybody fall out," he said quietly.
The three pairs of eyes that suddenly turned on him told him they disagreed... a rarity. "But Colonel…" Kinch began.
Schultz finally succeeded in pushing the door and Klink aside, hurried in with a speed surprising for someone of his size, and joined Klink in leaning on it as hard as he could. "Ach du Lieber…" he groaned in panic.
00o00
Having entered the system through the emergency tunnel, Newkirk and Bluebird hurried past the print shop, the wine cellar, and finally reached the radio room. Newkirk gestured to the ladder. "First floor, sportswear… second floor, ladies' lingerie…"
"You wish." She pointed upwards. "I'm wearing a skirt, you go first."
He had to use only his left hand to make it up the ladder; he was still sore on the right, but he made it smoothly and soundlessly, found that the trap door was already conveniently open, then turned to help Bluebird over the rail. He had drawn the breath to greet his chums when he realized that something was wrong, very wrong, with what he saw in the barracks, and his training instinctively prompted him not to speak and to motion to her not to either until they knew the score.
"Fall out?" LeBeau repeated. "Just like nothing happened?"
"I gotta admit, Colonel…" Kinch said in a much less emotionally-charged tone, "I always figured when this day came we'd all be going out that door together… I think I need a little time to get my head straight."
"I can't go out there…" Carter wrapped his arms around his legs and rested his chin on his knees.
Bluebird looked at Newkirk… well, they were late, there was no doubt about that, but everyone was taking it pretty hard.
"Well, I have to," Hogan said resignedly. "I have to explain how I let two members of my team get themselves killed just a few hours before the Allied tanks rolled up to the gate, and I don't think they're gonna like it."
Killed? Did he mean them? Now too stunned to say anything, Newkirk and Bluebird stood in astonished silence while Hogan continued.
"I'm putting them both in for highest commendation for bravery above and beyond the call… anybody who'd like to be there for that is going to have to walk out that door with me now." He paused. "Well?"
"I'll go…" Kinch nodded. "For Newkirk and Bluebird."
"Moi aussi…" LeBeau murmured.
"I'll go if I can get up…" Carter added, looking vaguely sick to his stomach.
Kinch and LeBeau went over to help him, and Hogan started to attempt to get Klink and Schultz out of the doorway, when Newkirk found his voice. "Dear oh dear…" he spoke up, shaking his head. Everyone spun around on a dime. "They call this a liberation party, do they?"
Bluebird picked up his lead… she just wanted to get those awful looks off their faces. "Maybe we should try Stalag 6."
"Oh, I agree…" He reached over to push his cap, which she was still wearing, forward to a more jaunty angle. "To look at this lot, you'd think somebody died."
The next sixty seconds were pretty much a blur… lots of yelling and back-slapping, hard to tell who was doing what to whom. "What happened to you?" LeBeau asked Newkirk, still hanging onto his sleeve to convince himself that his friend was really there.
"What happened to you, is more like it," Newkirk replied. "You were a little too quick writin' us off, mate… I find that shockin'."
"They blew up Gestapo headquarters," Kinch elucidated. "Ten minutes before five o'clock last night, right when Bluebird was supposed to be breaking you out!"
"I was early," she laughed. "I might have been speeding… a little."
"A little, she says," Hogan chuckled. "Airborne by Flensheim, you mean."
"So she really broke you out?" Carter asked Newkirk, awe-struck.
"That's right, mate… they handed me over to a knockout blonde Gestapo bird, I start givin' her a hard time and all of a sudden she calls me 'Peter' and flings her arms 'round me… not quite what I was expectin'."
"Well, that is your name… I mean, that's not what we call you… we call you 'Newkirk', not 'Peter'… but that's the kind of thing a girl might call you."
"Thanks for workin' that out for me, Andrew…" he sighed. "What did I ever do without you?"
Hogan stepped back from the fray a few paces and barked, "Newkirk!"
Newkirk came to attention and saluted, unable to quite erase the grin on his face. "Sir!"
Hogan snapped back a salute. "You're out of uniform!"
"Thank you, sir… I do me best."
Hogan gave him one of those famous looks of his as he donned his own cap. "All right, all right, we've got guests coming in the front gate and I want every one of you clowns present and correct… fall out."
That time nobody protested. Bluebird went too, slipping off Newkirk's tunic and returning it to him as they walked, and he plucked his hat off her head. "Looks better on you," he winked.
Avery was still in the lead tank, and he waved to the two of them when they spotted them. "Hey! Did we give you two enough time?" he called from the turret.
Hogan turned to Newkirk and Bluebird, looking suspicious. "Friends of yours…?"
"Well… you see, sir… Klink's car broke down near Düsseldorf and these chaps were good enough to give us a lift…"
"We had them drop us outside the wire," Bluebird continued.
"So we could come in through the emergency tunnel."
"And all get here together…" Her voice broke.
"Well, we're 'ere now," Newkirk reminded her, gently flicking his thumb under her chin. "All of us, together."
Schultz, taking a little break from his earlier panic, stood nearby, even closer to tears than Bluebird was. "Bee-ooo-tee-ful!"
And for once, Klink didn't dare tell him to shut up.
Hogan, Kinch, Carter, LeBeau and Newkirk lined up in formation in front of the barracks, standing tall and proud. They had done a good job, and they knew it. They all saluted the tank crews as one, and the salutes were crisply returned. "Colonel Robert E. Hogan, senior Allied officer," Hogan stated… no longer a POW. "My command… Sergeant James Kinchloe… Sergeant Andrew Carter… Corporal Louis LeBeau… and Corporal Peter Newkirk…" He knew he shouldn't grin at attention, but he couldn't help it… nor could he help that self-satisfied little rise to his toes that he often did even without realizing it when something had gone especially well. "All present and accounted for."
"Captain Howard Avery, United States Army," Avery replied. "Colonel Hogan, we're here to liberate Stalag 13. You and your men are heroes, sir, and each and every one of us want to shake your hands and thank you all personally for outstanding service to your countries. All the Allied nations owe you an enormous debt of gratitude. On behalf of the President of the United States of America, we welcome you back to the freedom you've given to so many others over the course of this long war."
"Thank you, Captain. We do have a couple of loose ends… you've met Underground agent Bluebird, I take it." The chorus of whistles from the tank crews confirmed that; she blushed and Newkirk looked vaguely put out. "These German soldiers are former Camp Kommandant Wilhelm Klink, and Sergeant of the Guard Hans Schultz. My men and I request that they both be treated with courtesy and compassion."
"I understand, sir."
"Frankly, Captain…" Hogan couldn't help laughing. "We couldn't have done it without 'em."
The tank crews called out a 'hip-hip-hooray', and then all tossed their caps in the air and burst into applause for the Heroes. Schultz, completely carried away, cheered as loud as anybody. Looking on, Bluebird felt bad for Klink… a little… standing off to one side with his head down, looking scared and angry. Schultz was so easygoing he could get used to anything; he might be running a hot dog concession at Coney Island in a year or two… but Klink was too conceited and narrow-minded to be able to happily start his life over again after losing two world wars. For the Iron Eagle of Stalag 13, it really was over.
00o00
She was really going to miss this tunnel, Bluebird realized as she climbed the ladder from the radio room up to the barracks. What were her chances of finding a first-floor apartment and digging herself one for old times' sake? It would be a great way to get the morning paper.
The barracks wasn't quite empty… Newkirk was there, sound asleep up on his bunk. Boots and all, she noticed with a sigh… the poor guy; he was really dragging. Well, there was nothing she could do about the boots without waking him up, but she took a blanket off a vacant bunk, stepped up onto Carter's footlocker and spread it over him without disturbing him.
The sound of voices outside tipped her off that the other guys were on their way back to the barracks. She hopped down to the floor and hurriedly picked up the newspaper someone had left on the table, and when the barracks door opened, she figured she had all her bases covered.
"Okay, hold it down for Sleeping Beauty," Kinch kidded, gesturing to the top bunk.
"The Gestapo kept him awake the whole time they had him," she reminded him. "He's beat."
"Sale Boche…" LeBeau grumbled. "I mean, except for Schultzie… I miss him already. The rest of them are all sale Boche."
And then some… she knew some stronger words and she knew he did too. She went to sit down at the table, paper still in hand, and glanced down at it without really focusing her eyes on it.
Next thing she knew, LeBeau was standing next to her. "I didn't know you read German," he said with a little smile.
Oh, rats… the newspaper in her hands was in German. "I, uh… don't, really… I'm learning a little here and there, and newspapers are good practice."
He nodded in that intense way he had, pursing his lips. "I see…. and it must be a special talent for languages that allows you to read it upside-down."
Kinch and Carter both started to choke back laughter, while Bluebird silently turned the color of LeBeau's sweater and wondered if Hochstetter would still be willing to kill her if she could catch a ride back to Berlin.
"Désolé, mon amie," LeBeau shook his head. "Mais nous en avons tout deviné."
"If that's French for 'the cat's outta the bag', that goes double for me," Kinch laughed.
"Heck, even I could figure that out," Carter chuckled. "You've got a thing for Newkirk, don't you?"
So she'd embarrassed herself in front of everyone except Colonel Hogan and Newkirk when he was awake… could things get any worse? "Don't say anything…" she somehow managed to say.
"We won't have to… a few more upside-down newspapers and even Newkirk is gonna figure out something's goin' on," Kinch assured her.
LeBeau gave her a kind smile. "Look…if it makes you feel any better, we've known it all along"
"So I've been making an idiot out of myself for a lot longer than I thought."
"You're not an idiot," he assured her, quite seriously now. "You're a beautiful young woman. And luckily you're as smart and brave as you are beautiful. Lucky for Peter, or he wouldn't be here right now."
"But…"
"You have no idea how much he missed you. But I hope he'll tell you."
Well, he'd tried… sort of… in the barn… and she'd stopped him because she thought it was either gratitude for the rescue or a snow job to get her under the blanket. She didn't want to hear anything from him that was either untrue or filtered through an exhausted, half-starved, just-happy-to-be-alive frame of mind. He needed to get some rest, get his feet back under him, let the wounds start to heal… after that, if he had anything to say to her, she would be happy to listen because it would really be him talking and not a set of circumstances. If he didn't… well, she'd already made her peace with that. "Can we talk about something else, please?"
"Sure," Carter piped up. "Anything good in the paper?"
Carter found out a little more about the paper when she swatted him with it. Then, mercifully, Kinch produced a deck of cards and suggested a few hands to pass the time before dinner.
It was all good-natured teasing, she realized; they cared about her, and they cared about Newkirk. Nobody had said it was a bad idea, or that he already had someone waiting for him at home. His friends would know. Guys who had girls waiting for them were only too happy to let the other guys know.
Early on, Newkirk had gotten lots of letters at mail call… whether or not they were really from fan dancers as he boasted was a subject for speculation, but magazine subscription renewal notices seldom came on scented pink stationery. As time went on, she remembered that the number and frequency had dwindled. She'd wanted to write to him herself, from Paris, but she hadn't dared. It was far too dangerous for him as well as for her, if the Gestapo had managed to connect the two operations. She'd started casual letters that she thought were harmless enough, but always tore them up and put the pieces in the fire. It wasn't fair to compromise his safety, or that of the unit. She certainly hadn't forgotten about him.
But it looked as if his flock of fan dancers might have.
00o00
Hogan was used to several different reactions when he entered the barracks, but he didn't think he'd ever been shushed before. He followed the pointing fingers of the poker players and saw Newkirk in the top bunk, dead to the world. "He all right?"
"Seems to be," Kinch nodded. "According to Bluebird the Gestapo kept him awake the whole time they had him, so he's got some catching up to do."
"We got a few hours sleep in the barn last night, sir," she told him.
"Then he's losing his touch." Hogan studied Newkirk for a few seconds. Exhaustion by itself wasn't serious, but he'd taken a real pasting on top of it. It was probably best that he'd decided to grab some sack time. They'd keep an eye on him. "Watch him," he told the card players.
"Oui, Colonel," LeBeau nodded with a little smile. He knew the best person for that job… nobody could watch Newkirk like Bluebird could. She could deny it all she liked, but just before they'd entered the barracks earlier her eyes had not been on that newspaper; they'd been on the dusty, bruised, rumpled corporal on the top bunk.
FEBRUARY 1943
Her hands cupped full of every bracelet and necklace they had in their costume stockpile, Bluebird hustled into Colonel Hogan's office. "Okay, here you go…" She broke off short when she saw how things had progressed since she'd left a few minutes before.
Newkirk didn't look half bad. He had changed into the rather shapeless paisley dress and black shawl, and was in the process of putting on the wig and attached pillbox hat, his attention on the mirror in front of him on the desk, making sure it was straight. No, he didn't look bad at all… he might actually pass for an elderly hausfrau who could approach the guard on that North River bridge without arousing suspicion.
But it was still Newkirk in a dress… and she couldn't help but burst out laughing.
He spared her a withering glance out of the corner of his eye. "Leave off…"
"You look like my Aunt Ida!" she giggled.
"I feel sorry for your uncle," Kinch said.
"She's not married."
"Imagine that."
"Okay, that's enough," Hogan interrupted. "Let's get some jewelry on her… uh, him."
Newkirk nodded and forced a thin smile. "Thanks… really… I mean that."
Carter held up a pearl necklace. "Oh, it's you…" he assured Newkirk with a grin.
He suffered through the rest of their not-so-helpful suggestions on completing his ensemble… they all decided that Carter had been spot-on about the pearls… and Bluebird picked out his handbag, a small black purse on a drawstring that was almost exactly like the one she'd seen Ida carry to church a hundred times… perfect for a lady of a certain age, hysterically funny in the hands of a young tough from East London, even though embroidered gloves now covered the large knuckles and dark hair that would have been dead giveaways as to his gender.
"Perfect," Hogan declared. "Okay, Newkirk, you're on."
Newkirk declined with a warning glare several gallant offers to help him to his feet, which sent Bluebird into brand-new giggles. But she got hers when, on the way out, Newkirk swung the black purse a few times around on its cord and then quite deliberately smacked her in the middle of the back with it. "Oh!" he exclaimed in a high-pitched, pseudo-feminine voice. "I'm terribly sorry… pardon me, young man."
"Stalag 13…" Hogan sighed. "Where men are women, women are men…"
"And all of us are perpetually confused," Kinch concluded.