As before, dialogue in italics is to be read as being French. Terrible accents are optional.

As regards the previous chapter, I want to make it clear that I in no way intended to downplay the difficulties faced by persons of color, either during the 40s or, I regret to say, nowadays. The show itself, apart from a couple of 'Do I look German to you?' jokes, never, to my admittedly imperfect recollection, made an issue of race; Kinch was always treated simply as the intelligent, capable man he was, and I chose to follow suit. No disrespect was intended.

OoOoOoOoOoO

Two weeks later, Kinch was down in the tunnel with the rest of them, shifting dirt and chatting with the others as though he'd been in camp for a year rather than a fortnight. He'd been accepted as one of them, and let in on their less-than-regulation activities, in fairly short order; being genuinely likable had probably helped with that. Richmond had said, with a cheerful shrug, that the American might yet turn out to be a German spy, and as such, might get all of them shot, but at least they would have had a few weeks or months of pleasant conversations beforehand, which was not to be sneezed at. In a stalag, you learned to take what you could get.

The sleeping arrangements had been hammered out with no more than the usual amount of bargaining, complaining, and insult:

'Oh, no; you're not sticking me back with MacDonald; the tosser talks in his sleep! And he doesn't even say anything interesting!'

'Is that so? Well, I didn't like to say anything, but your morning breath is eating holes in the blanket. Someone swap with me! Anyone!'

'Far as I'm concerned, Newkirk's yours if you want him.'

'…I'll stick with the morning breath, thanks anyhow.'

'All right; Browning, you snore, and Hawkins, you grind your teeth. You two deserve each other.'

…And so on, and so forth. It did all work out eventually, and nobody ended up on the floor, although the row that broke out when Foxton and O'Toole were discovered to have 'acquired' McGuire and Stewart's blanket sometime between lights out and bed check nearly had both of them sleeping outside in a snowbank. All just a part of the rich pageant that was life in Stalag 13.

OoOoOoOoOoO

For you, the war is over. The words ran through his head like snake venom in a vein; just as insidious, just as deadly. The barbed wire around the Oflag might as well have been wrapped clear around his throat, and half the time he felt as though it was. For you, the war is over. It was an officer's duty to escape and return to his own forces, and he had every intention of doing just that the moment he had half a chance, but even without that little bit of legal justification, even if the blasted rulebook had said it was an officer's duty to acquiesce, fold his hands and politely wait for the war to end on its own, he'd still have been plotting escapes. The goddamned Krauts weren't going to keep him down, no sir, they most certainly would not. For you, the war is over.

Two words. Like Hell! Colonel Robert E. Hogan, pilot, squadron commander, strategist, daredevil, ladies' man, lateral thinker, and— for the moment— POW, wasn't having any of that. He'd get himself out of this stinking pit, get back home, get back in the air, and get back to blasting Nazis out of the sky. He would. He had to. His war was not over, and any Kraut who wanted to tell him otherwise could stick it where the sun never shone. Crosswise.

He glared at the fence one last time, and turned away. There really weren't any weak places that he could see, no spots where cutting the wire could go unnoticed. The searchlights were too well spaced, the guard towers too well manned. Tunneling had run into an obstacle; namely solid rock, so that was temporarily on hold while they tried to reroute. And trying to climb the fence would be suicide. So, if you couldn't go over, and you couldn't go under, and you couldn't go through…

He'd get out. He'd get out. One way or another, he'd get out. They couldn't hold him forever. Not him.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

It was so dark. And so close. The air was thick with dust, every part of him that could possibly hurt was hurting, and so was every part that couldn't, just for good measure. What had happened? Where was he?

LeBeau groaned, sliding back into consciousness and not at all certain that he wanted to. "What the hell happened? What's going on?"

Newkirk coughed out a lungful of dirt. "I think… ooh, bloody 'ell. I think the flipping tunnel caved in," he said. "Richmond said we'd been scanting the props. Looks like 'e was right."

"Caved in…? We are trapped?" LeBeau gasped for breath. "Buried alive? Oh, my God. We're going to die. We're going to die!"

"LeBeau. Louie!" Newkirk couldn't really move; about the best he could do was to reach out and grab LeBeau's ankle. "Oi! Louie. Budge up. Look at me. Look only at me, you 'ear? Breathe, mate. Breathe."

"Trapped. We're trapped…" LeBeau was in no shape to listen to anything but his own pounding heart and the hiss of shifting dirt. He'd started to hyperventilate. "My God. Oh, dear God in heaven, help me."

"Sorry, mate, 'E's busy. Told me to tell you to relax, trust your Uncle Peter, and you'll be out of 'ere in two shakes, all right? Louie, you listening?" He switched to French… more or less. "Come closer. Over here. With me. Come here."

His own language reached him where English could not. Automatically, LeBeau obeyed, slithering closer to Newkirk. As soon as he was close enough, Newkirk grabbed his shoulders and held him steady. "That's right. That's right. Be calm, Louis. Be calm now. Everything is fine."

As LeBeau's breathing gradually steadied, he started noticing a bit more of his surroundings. "Pierre? Are you all right?"

Newkirk was lying on his stomach, buried from the waist down. "Yeah. I mean, yes, I'm fine," he said soothingly, well aware that he was lying. His head was pounding like a full ack-ack battery and his hair was sticky with blood; he'd likely been clipped by a falling rock. Worse, he couldn't feel his legs, and there was simply no way that was a good sign. "Bit of digging to do over, is all. The lads will 'ave us out as soon as they can; all we've got to do is stay calm till they get 'ere. We can be calm, no? We can wait."

"You are buried! I will get you out."

"No!" Newkirk caught himself, modulated his voice back to 'soothing'. "Not yet, Louis."

"Are you crazy? Why not?"

Because I don't know how much air we've got in here, and the harder you work the faster we'll use it up. Because I don't know how stable the roof is. Because for all I know, I'm the only thing propping it up. Because I'm afraid that my back is broken and I want to put off finding out that I'm right for as long as I can. What he said aloud was merely, "The others will be 'ere for us soon; they'll 'ave shovels and whatnot. Don't tire yourself out trying to dig with your bare 'ands."

"I am not tired. Let me help, mon pote. You cannot stay as you are. You are buried. You cannot stay buried. You… you… you cannot be buried. We are not dead. Only the dead are buried. You must not stay buried!"

"Louie. Stop it, mate. Louie!" Newkirk grabbed his friend's shoulders again, shook him. "Louie, talk to me. I need you to tell me… tell me 'ow you make those fancy French foods, all right? Say I wanted to make that potato soup of yours. 'Ow'd I go about cooking that?"

"You wouldn't," LeBeau said automatically. "You would only cook something dreadful; boiled mutton or—what did you call it, Frog in the Well?"

"That's 'Toad in the 'ole,' and, for your information, it's ruddy delicious. Say I did want to cook some of your French grub, though. That potato soup, now. What's the first step?"

"Well, you would begin by peeling the potatoes, of course," LeBeau began. His breathing steadied as he went through the entire recipe, and somehow vichyssoise led naturally to quiche Lorraine and crepes Suzette.

('Blimey, LeBeau, do you Frenchies ever eat anything that isn't named after a bird?'

'Why should we? Why should anyone?'

'… All right, mate; you've got a point there.')

By the time the diggers broke through, LeBeau was only semi-conscious. Whether that was due to the claustrophobia or the fact that the air was getting very thin was debatable; both played a part.

"LeBeau! Are you all right? Where's—oh, dear God. Newkirk? Are you hurt?"

"Nothing to speak of, Forrest," he said. "Get LeBeau out of 'ere, will you?"

Forrest gave him a troubled look, then nodded. "All right," he said. "Hang in there a bit longer. Kinch went to get more braces. We'll have you out in no time."

"Yeah. Sure. Be careful," he said, and watched in silence as Forrest all but dragged LeBeau out of the semi-cleared tunnel.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

The Red Cross representative had toured the entire Oflag, making noncommittal but vaguely positive noises all the way, and had stopped for brief private discussions with as many of the men as he could. Hogan watched him with a jaundiced expression as he made his fussy way across the camp. He had no intention of trying to talk with the man; what was there to say, really? The camp was ever so slightly on the sunny side of the Geneva Convention, so the Red Cross could cluck their tongues and shake their heads as much as they liked; the Germans were in the clear. There was nothing the Protecting Powers could do for them, and a conversation that would boil down to 'Stiff upper lip; the war can't last forever,' was a conversation he could very much do without.

And, he thought, it would have been nice if the representative had thought the same. He apparently wanted to have heart-to-heart chats with everyone—Heaven forfend he miss a single detail—and he was making a beeline for Hogan, who was standing alone, leaning up against the water tower.

"Good day, sir," he said. "My name is Gerald Stephens."

"Colonel Robert Hogan," he said shortly. "You here to deliver my dry cleaning?"

Stephens blinked, then the corner of his mouth twitched. "Well, Colonel, I'm glad you've been able to keep your sense of humor in working condition."

"You know how it is in a POW camp; just a laugh a minute," Hogan drawled.

"I can just imagine," Stephens said. His eyes flicked left, right; no one was near. "Colonel Hogan," he said quietly. "I am not here solely as a representative of the Red Cross, and I came specifically to speak with you. Allied High Command has a… somewhat unorthodox proposition for you."

Hogan frowned. "If it involves getting me out of here, I don't care how unorthodox it is."

Stephens shook his head. "Out of this Oflag, yes. Out of German custody, no. If you agree, you will be transferred to a different camp for the duration." He sounded apologetic. "An enlisted men's camp."

"Are you out of your… What's your game, Stephens? Why in hell would I want that? What good would that do me?"

"This camp is too isolated; the LuftStalag we selected is more conveniently placed for what High Command has in mind."

"The first rule of real estate; location, location, location. Look, Stephens, cut to the chase, will you? And make it interesting. Why do you want me in with the other ranks?"

Stephens cleared his throat. "Intelligence," he said. "Sabotage. Espionage. Are you interested yet?"

"…Keep talking."

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

His legs were starting to hurt very badly, which, he reminded himself sternly, was good news, at least so far as his apparently-not-broken back was concerned. This way, when the rest of the tunnel gave up the ghost and he suffocated under a ton of dirt, he could die writhing in pain rather than paralyzed and numb. Always look on the bright side, after all. The sour joke actually wrung a wry chuckle out of him as he tried to wriggle free, but the first hint of disturbance brought on an ominous shower of dust from the roof, and it was no longer funny.

Eventually, Kinch appeared in the tunnel; he had a canteen slung around his neck and an entrenching tool in his belt. "Hey, Newkirk," he said easily. "Nice day for a tunnel collapse, eh?" He passed over the canteen.

Newkirk unscrewed the top, gulped down a mouthful of tepid water. It was, he thought, the most glorious drink he'd ever had. "Cheers, Kinch," he said when he could speak again, and handed it back.

"Any time. Well, now that we've gotten the pleasantries out of the way, let's get down to business. I'll have you out of there before you know it."

"No. Give me the shovel and I'll do it meself; you get back out with the others."

"Come on, Newkirk. It'll go a lot faster if I do it."

"Too right, it will go fast. The whole bloody roof's about to go, and probably take the barracks floor with it. This pile of dirt could well be the only thing keeping it up."

Kinch squinted at the tunnel walls. "You don't know that for sure."

"Mate, if any of us knew the first bloody damned thing about 'ow to dig tunnels for sure, I wouldn't be in this mess, now would I?" Newkirk's voice had scaled up a half-step and his accent had thickened; the stress was becoming more and more noticeable. "I'm not risking you or any of the other lads on finding out exactly how rotten a job we did with this one. Give me the flipping shovel and get out!"

"Not a chance, pal," Kinch said. "Look, we've dismantled most of a bunk for the lumber, and we've put in new props wherever we could find a place to hammer them in. Even if this section does go, I'm pretty sure we can get to safer ground in time." He shrugged. "Anyway, I'm not leaving you here. So, Corporal, let's get started, okay?"

Of all the times to pull rank. He snorted. "You're 'round the bend, Sergeant, did you know that?"

"And up the creek. Here goes nothing…"

"Kinch. Please don't make me the reason you get yourself killed. Please, mate. Don't do that to me."

Kinch said nothing for a moment. Then, his lips firming, he dug the shovel into the mound of dirt and tossed the first scoopful aside. "I could say the same thing to you, Newkirk. And so would LeBeau," he said. The shovel bit into the earth again; the ceiling released another shower of dust in apparent protest. He ignored it. "Or any of the others. It works both ways, or it doesn't work at all."

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

"Anyhow, General, he seemed quite enthusiastic once I'd explained the general outline of what we had in mind. So we'd best get hold of our Teutonic friend and have him start arranging the transfer. Soonest begun, soonest done."

"You're that certain he's the right man for the job, then? You only spoke with the Colonel for, what, twenty minutes?"

"I spoke with him for twenty minutes, after spending twenty days rummaging service records, psych reports, eyewitness accounts, old girlfriends, and grammar school report cards. No, General, we've found our Goldilocks; I've no doubt about that."

"Goldilocks?"

"Sorry, sir; just my little joke. As we were going through all those endless lists of candidates, I would think to myself, 'This one is too rigid; this one is too foolhardy… And this one is juuuuust right.' Goldilocks."

The general laughed. "Fair enough… and I think we've found our code name. Well done, Nimrod."

"Thank you, sir," said Stephens, and smiled. "I really am quite anxious to see how this all turns out."

"So am I," the general said. "So am I."