N is for Nonpareil
"Better than any other; having no equal"
After running from the Gestapo and the explosion at the Chemical Quality Testing and Refining Laboratory, Kinch, Carter, and Crittendon kept moving. They eventually slowed down enough to make sure they were not leaving an obvious trail for any potential pursuers to follow, but they did not stop until they reached Stalag XIII. Baker met them in the tunnels, raising his eyebrows in surprise at the sight of Carter in the cowboy costume.
"Do I want to ask?"
"You can listen when we tell the Colonel about it. Has he come back yet?" Kinch responded.
"No, and no word from the underground either. Did you make contact with Sneezy?"
"Colonel Crittendon did."
"And it's a good thing too, if I do say so myself," Crittendon chuckled. "Imagine if Jerry were allowed to get away with establishing an ammo dump in a perfectly good field. Well, we will just have to go back out and get rid of it as soon as we locate a good replacement bomb."
The three Americans exchanged glances. Baker did not know about the laboratory fiasco, but he knew the others well enough to see how unappealing that idea was to them. "We should wait for Colonel Hogan to get back from locating the star ship. He doesn't like us creating our own plans without his approval."
"Nonsense, I'm sure he won't mind one bit. Waiting on him will just give him more to worry about, and while he is the officer in charge of your operation, I do outrank him and am perfectly qualified to lead this mission. Besides, Sergeant Carter here is the explosives expert. All Hogan would contribute at this point is unnecessary flamboyancies. He tends to be a bit on the dramatic side, if you ask me." No one there knew the irony of the statement at that exact moment.
"If nothing else, we should wait until we know if the Gestapo is doing anything about the explosion at the laboratory. It may take a while to find out."
"What laboratory?" Baker asked.
"Colonel Crittendon decided it would be most convenient to build a bomb at a lab in town. The Gestapo somehow found out someone was there, and Hochstetter made a raid on the place."
"Hochstetter! Did he see you? Do you think he might be headed here for a surprise roll call?"
"No to both. In fact, after the bomb exploded in his face, we might not see him again at all."
"I don't think it would have done that much damage," Carter spoke up. "For one thing, I was building a small bomb since the papers from the underground show a bad setup for the ammo dump. All we need to do is set off a small explosion and the explosives already there will take care of the rest. Also, I wasn't finished yet. Hochstetter must have touched something that made it go off early, but it would have been even less powerful than I was going to make it."
"So you're saying that Hochstetter could still show up and demand a prisoner count?" Kinch verified.
"He might."
"Baker, we need to call the hospital to see if Hochstetter went there after the explosion. If not, then we need to get upstairs and pray that Colonel Hogan, Newkirk, and LeBeau make it back in time. Carter, get out of that costume."
Carter hurried off to do as Kinch said, having not wanted to leave before and possibly miss an important conversation. Meanwhile, Crittendon sat down and watched Kinch as he got ready to place the call to the hospital and Baker as he started sending a message to the underground asking if they knew of any Gestapo activity.
Kinch moved over to the phone area and cleared his throat before connecting the lines. He heard the phone on the other end ring before someone finally picked it up.
"Hammelburg Regional Hospital, front desk. This is Heidi speaking. How may I direct your call?"
"This is General Kinchmeyer. I need a status update on a Gestapo officer who was brought in tonight—a Major Hochstetter."
"Ja, the Gestapo officer. I cannot give any details over the phone, but he is still in the emergency room."
"Do you know how soon he will recover?"
"I am sorry, Sir. I do not have that information. But I can tell you that the doctors want to keep him here for at least a few days."
"Danke. I will send someone for more information later," Kinch said, ending the call. It was not as much information as he would like, but hopefully the underground could find out more. Still it told him that Hochstetter was injured badly enough that they did not expect him to leave immediately, but not so bad that they thought he would die. In any case, it did not look like they would need to worry about him coming to Stalag XIII before Colonel Hogan got back.
"Did the underground know anything?" he asked Baker.
"They said they have not heard anything, but they'll contact us again in the morning with an update. Also, they have a man in the records department of the hospital, so they said they would try to keep us updated on Hochstetter's condition."
"Good. I think we can rest easy that he won't be here tonight."
"I say, this is good news," Crittendon piped up. "We can continue with the plans for the ammo dump now. Sergeant, do you have a bomb already on hand for us to use?" This last part was directed at Carter, who came in just in time to hear Baker and Kinch's reports.
"Well, yes. It's not a very specialized kind of bomb, you know, and I usually have one or two like it ready to use in case of emergencies. My Great Aunt Polly used to tell me to always be prepared for company, and there was this time when my cousin and I—"
"Carter, slow down" Kinch interrupted. As much as he wanted Crittendon to be distracted by Carter's story and not try to take them out to the ammo dump again, he was starting to feel worn out from the night's adventures. "Colonel Crittendon, with all due respect, I know you want to take out this ammo dump as soon as possible, but I think it would be best if we get a few hours of sleep first. Carter is the best demolitions man you could hope to find, but it's never a good idea for anyone to work with explosives when sleep-deprived."
"I suppose you are right, at that," Critendon admitted, looking thoughtful. Kinch's comment also reminded him of how long it had been since he had a good chance to sleep. He was on the road home for several days before finding the star ship, and even though he got some sleep in a back room of the Dinner Theater before it opened that evening, it was not restful. Hogan's camp, on the other hand, might not be the most comfortable place, but he knew he did not have to worry about Germans stumbling in on him while searching for a misplaced backdrop or something. Still, he did not like the idea of delaying too long. "Very well, we can get a few hours of sleep and be ready to leave again at 0300."
The Americans looked at him in surprise, as this barely allowed them three hours of sleep, but the British officer just walked off down the tunnel towards the guest quarters, confident that his orders would be carried out.
At the hospital, Hochstetter gradually became aware of a powerful headache. He did his best to ignore it, since headaches were one thing that he could never rid himself of by yelling, but it did no good. As much as he wanted to go back to sleep, he found himself waking up further and further, and his head hurt more each moment. Soon he realized that there was a bad pain in one shoulder and an alarming ache in his back. He wiggled his toes a little, some relief coming to him as he found that he could do so without pain. His back must not be too bad, he decided.
After a while, he realized he had no idea where he was, so he screwed up his courage and prepared to open his eyes. Somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered that light hurts at first when you open your eyes, and he could already see light through his eyelids, so he knew it would be bad. Still, it needed to be done.
It was worse than he expected, and he let himself give a loud cry of anger before he remembered his headache. It was even worse now, and he forced himself not to yell again as his eyes adjusted. When he could finally see again, there was a man standing next to him, looking at him with that expression of utter terror he had grown to know and love on the faces of his underlings.
"Major? Should I get a doctor?" the man whispered.
"Bitte," Hochstetter replied, not noticing for a moment his word choice. "That's not right," he thought, "I meant to say "schnell.' This has to be the fault of Papa Bear. Who else would be preparing a bomb?"
A few hours later, or so it seemed to Hochstetter, a bald doctor with a disinterested expression came in the room. He started asking Hochstetter questions like how old he was, what the date was, what his name was, what the Fuhrer's name was, and other imbecilic questions that anyone who claimed to be as educated as a doctor was should already know. But to his horror, every answer that came out of his mouth was phrased politely. It reminded him of how his grandmother used to force him to be polite when he was little, and he hated it but could not make it stop. The only good thing about it was the looks on his underlings' faces. Somehow he had achieved new levels of terrorizing them, and he was almost ready to take that as a consolation prize.
That attitude vanished, however, when the doctor said he needed to stay there for at least two nights. His perfect chance to catch Papa Bear was gone, and it was all because of the hospital, but all he could do was say "danke" as politely as if his grandmother had taken him to lunch.
Author's Notes: Updates may get a bit sporadic from here on. I'm going to be travelling to family for Christmas, so I will update when I can, but it won't be nearly as regularly as it has been up until now. I will try to have the entire story posted by 2020, though, even if it means posting multiple chapters per day at some point.
About Hochstetter's headache, I once had a really bad headache where I tried to say something but a completely different sentence came out of my mouth. I think it was that I wanted salt but asked for a napkin, or something like that. My friends immediately had me go take a nap and checked up on me later, but my point is that headaches can sometimes do weird things to people. In Hochstetter's case, I decided he should become ridiculously polite.