Still not mine

Chapter Seven: The Haunted Camp

Hogan checked the communiqués from London. Unfortunately they were going to have to break the bad news to Newkirk. London wasn't going to get a chance to exfiltrate Rachel for a few months. By that time it might be too dangerous to send her to the sub. He called for LeBeau in his office and showed him the news. LeBeau read it and then looked over at Hogan with expectation. "What is this, Colonel?"

"Your grandmother was a midwife. By the time we get her here she'll be about eight months along, right? Would you allow her to leave then?"

"I'm not my grandmother! How would I know?" LeBeau handed him the papers back. "I'm a chef and currently a prisoner of war. What do I know about babies?"

The objections of his man made Hogan smile. It was definitely true that none of them knew all that much about pregnancy and babies, but this close to full term seemed risky to Hogan. It had taken far too long to get the arrangements made for her "disappearance" but only because she had to truly and believably disappear. Given her relationship with the general, he would hunt for her and want more than just a bloody outfit or pieces of an outfit stained with blood if she were to "die". She also couldn't be kidnapped very easily, it would just give them a greater incentive to hunt down the Underground. She had suggested leaving a note that told them the truth: she was an agent of the Allies and was on her way to the United Kingdom after completing her mission. That had been rejected.

Finally the plan had been that she would "die" in an air raid which would coincide with an actually planned attack. Agents would plant her things there and take her to Stalag 13 where she would rendezvous with an agent who'd take her to a plane bound for London. Everything had been set up so that she would stay with Newkirk's sister and when she could, she would work as an operator for the airwaves.

The only question was if they were too late. Hogan couldn't imagine that a baby would handle flying very well. Some people got sick from the turbulence and he remembered the discomfort of his ears popping with the altitude change. The flight wouldn't be too long, though. "All right, tell Kinch to radio London that we accept the plan. Then get everybody in my office."

"Oui, Colonel!" LeBeau hurried out and one by one, Carter, LeBeau, Newkirk, and finally Kinch arrived in his office. Kinch shut the door behind him and they gathered by his desk to wait for instructions.

"London's set a date for when we'll move Snow White. In a week."

Newkirk counted mentally and then said, "Sir, that's awfully close to nine months."

"Yeah, I know."

"Well, I've got lots of siblings and far as I can remember, none of them, not a one, was born according to schedule."

"They postponed tea time, huh?" LeBeau smirked.

"Matter o' fact, they did. Ain't a doctor in England that likes missing tea time," Newkirk shot back. "But at least we have tea time. You can't brew a decent cup of tea if it would end the war."

"All right, enough," Hogan broke the two's squabble. It never ceased to amaze him how the two got along in just about everything but once it turned to the discussion of one's country – thank God for the Germans to keep them united against something else! "We'll get her here, we'll get her out, any questions?"

"Yeah," Kinch spoke up. "What if she goes into labor? We don't know anything about babies."

"No, no we don't," Hogan agreed. "But we also didn't know about medical exams, being doctors, waiters, being women, tank drivers, or tunneling until we got here. So if she goes into labor, we'll handle it like we always do."

"Oh, I believe you, sir!" Carter piped up, "You always think of a way to get us out of trouble. What's a baby compared to a grumpy Gestapo general?"

"Andrew, there are times I like you better as that bloody Berlin corporal," Newkirk shook his head. "You're forgetting, Colonel, that half of those we faked our way through. I never gave nobody a medical exam – not a real one. And while I make a fantastic woman, I ain't a real one and haven't the foggiest notion of how babies are birthed."

"Do you know how they get here?" Carter asked. "My mom just told me about the stork –"

"Another thing, Colonel, what if she has the baby here – what do we tell Klink about the noise?" Kinch brought up another good point.

Hogan thought for a while and then grinned, "We'll tell Klink that the camp's haunted."

Newkirk and Kinch turned for the door, certain that their colonel would come up with a real answer at a later time. Carter, however, loved it. He grinned joyously and commented that he always knew the colonel would have the answer. "Colonel, you can't be serious!" Kinch protested. "How are we going to convince him the camp's haunted? Put a sheet over LeBeau?"

"Why me?" LeBeau demanded.

"A French ghost in Germany?" Newkirk scoffed. "We ought to ask Schultz, but we don't have a sheet big enough for him."

"It'll have to be LeBeau."

"Why?"

"Because, have you ever seen a tall ghost?" Hogan explained.

"I have, Colonel," Carter offered. Hogan closed his eyes and sighed. "But I think LeBeau would make a pretty ghost."

"it's settled," Hogan declared. "Start mentioning ghosts and hauntings around the guards just in case – but go easy on it. We'll pick up Snow White soon enough."


At the bottom of the ladder, Rachel received welcoming hugs and assistance to a seat. Questions about the trip, about if she was hungry or not, if she needed anything, how they could make her more comfortable, and of course if they could feel the baby kick.

"Wow," Peter took a hold of Rachel's hand and twirled her around. "You're stunning – though I think some tailoring needs to be done to that outfit, you can't look like a Kraut's girl when you're my girl."

LeBeau gave her a list of potential food that he'd had Schultz and a few other sympathetic guards. Once again, the list impressed her but she declined. Her stomach was rather upset. Hogan explained the rest of her journey to her once she sat down. Most of it was easy and Hogan knew that if anything happened that wasn't planned or anticipated, two experienced agents could handle it. What he hadn't thought about was that she wouldn't be very receptive to his instructions. "Colonel Hogan, thank you, but I'm tired and I don't recommend you let other pregnant women use those ladders. Perhaps you should invest in a slide…" Most of them chimed in with that was a great idea. Hogan agreed and all except for Newkirk left for the barracks. Rachel turned to Peter and smiled shyly. He returned the smile, but without the qualification of "shy". "How are you?" she asked him.

"I'm fine, same old routine. How about you? I mean…I've never…well, the baby?"

"Everything's fine," Rachel assured him. "I'm still upset with myself for making everyone go through with this. I should have been more careful."

"Well, how could you know? Things happen –"

"Do you know how common it is for women spies to sleep with the enemy? We have ways to avoid this. I'm a Jewish American woman having a Protestant British RAF POW who happens to work for the Underground – my parents are going to be so upset –"

"I can convert," Peter volunteered.

"You'd have to get circumcised," Rachel didn't really pay attention to what she said, thinking about all the ways she had messed up and how queasy she began to feel. The remark bothered Peter, he recoiled from her and rethought his opinion on Judaism, which up until then hadn't really been anything. Religion was just a box to check on forms and claim whenever asked but aside from that, it hadn't been anything. "And of course my parents would be upset because you'd have to learn everything – but then there's Chanukah, which you'd like, given the way you talk about playing cards, you'd cheat with a dreidel but eight nights of presents and time with – OH!" she gasped, cutting off her discussion about whether or not Newkirk would make a good Jew.

"What's wrong?" Peter asked.

"The baby's coming," she said after a few deep breaths.

"Are you sure?"

"Well, it's either that or the Gestapo's planted some sort of bomb on me!"

The prospect of a baby in a prisoner of war camp – not to mention his baby – frightened him. "Maybe we should check on the bomb?"

Rachel didn't say a word, she just turned to him and squeezed his hand so tight his bones felt like they were breaking. She'd offered the Gestapo as an alternative, Peter was sure that even the Gestapo couldn't do this to a man's hand. They'd break it first, they wouldn't have the patience for a slow grip of death. "All right, bombs away," he removed his hand and she began to breathe normally. "Wait, it's gone?"

"Who knows how long this will last? The pain builds up until the baby is born. Don't tell me you thought the stork brought babies."

"I'm gonna go get Colonel Hogan, we'll start prepping," he hurried to the bunk exit. Prepping? Not a chance. The most they would do would be to do whatever she told them to. If it made her feel better by having the lot of them bring her one of the guard dogs, they would bring her one. If they had to dance, they would dance. He poked his head up into the barracks and just told them flatly that they were about to have a visitor.

"Who?" Carter asked, looking up from a model train kit the Red Cross had sent.

"LeBeau, boil some water, get all the spare blankets and pillows we have around," Hogan took charge as if he helped deliver babies all the time. "Carter, get Schultz, tell him one of us has a tooth ache – get whatever's medically safe for her." Carter started to reply that he didn't know what was medically safe for her and that nothing they gave for a toothache would help with her pain. Also, they might try to ship one of them off to the dentist to appease the Geneva Convention. "Kinch – um…" Kinch looked at Hogan, waiting for instructions. "Feel free to offer any help you can think of because I'm at a loss. I think I want to join the Air Force. I need to quit medical school."

Every man got into some form of action, even though they only sent teams of three down at a time. Newkirk of course would be there all the time. Throughout the early stages of labor, Schultz offered some painkillers, but he heard Rachel's muffled cries. He came in and out the first couple of hours.

The last time he came in before the third hour, he brought Klink with him. "Hogan, what is that sound?"

"What sound?" Hogan asked, rewetting the towel that seemed to comfort Rachel. There was one with hot water and one with cold water and if she wanted one, they gave it to her. So far, she preferred having the cold one over her forehead and the warm one on her stomach.

Rachel's cry, still muffled by the depth of the tunnel and her attempts to keep quiet, was heard again. "That sound!" Klink stomped his foot. "What are you up to, Hogan? Are you tunneling?"

"Oh, Kommandant!" Hogan scoffed. "Search the barracks if you want! No one is trying to escape! We love it here! We love it so much we want to have our families here! It's just…well, the boys and I have been talking about that noise. Happens like clockwork every month –"

"It does?" Klink asked, he didn't recall the sound ever happening before.

"Of course! You remember last month when Kinch," Hogan noticed the man hanging a sheet out to dry after rinsing it of sweat, "when Kinch preformed an old African ritual that blocks spirits? We think the place is haunted, Colonel."

"Haunted?"

Kinch stepped behind the sheet, annoyed.

"Yes, haunted. I think this used to be an old farm or something, and a woman died in childbirth here. Isn't that what you said, Schultz?" Hogan looked at the sergeant. Kinch took another clothespin out and secured the sheet to the line, wondering if the Colonel needed a break. His lies were edging on offensive and not in good taste. At least Newkirk was down in the tunnel and didn't hear the suggestion of "death" for childbirth.

"Oh, nothing to worry about, Colonel. At least, not for us. She's looking for a German man after all. The father. But iron ought to do the trick, certainly you have some?"

"You're sure it's haunted?" Klink asked. He turned to another prisoner and asked if he thought it was haunted in the compound. The man nodded and assured him that he'd seen the ghost.

Klink left, looking terrified.

Another two hours passed and as LeBeau came up to fetch more towels, Olsen reported that it looked like one of the guards was being taken to the hospital. Schultz appeared and sighed. "What happened?"

"Oh it was terrible!" Schultz sighed again. "Carl went in to check on the Kommandant and the Kommandant struck him with a fire poker on accident. He claimed it was to ward away the ghost!"

Schultz seemed disappointed that there wasn't any food for him. They handed over chocolate bars to keep him from noticing the amount of sheets they were washing. He commented that he didn't understand how anyone was able to sleep with the ghost making all that noise. Kinch brought down one of the sheets and moved it closer to the stove to dry it faster. Olsen tapped him on the shoulder and shared a grin that once again, Hogan's crazy plan was working.

Four more hours passed and it was almost time for a roll call. Carter went down to tell Newkirk that they'd have to report soon but when he got down there, LeBeau held up a brand new baby.

"Colonel!" Carter yelled, "We've got a baby!"

Louisa Andrea Newkirk had arrived. They'd picked the names from Louis' and Andrew's names. Hogan was asked to be the godfather, even though he wasn't Jewish. Everyone else was asked to be honorary uncles.

They went out for roll call and then spent as much time as they could with the baby until the agent arrived. Carter had made a stuffed bunny that had originally been intended to be a bear. Each one found something to give the baby.

Right before she left, Newkirk kissed her and leaned in close, "Say hi to Mavis for me, will you? And, if you still want me and your parents don't oppose you too much, well…will you marry me?"

"Ask me after the war, if you still want."