Life Bird

Written by Wind-in-the-Sage

I sat unmoving in my seat in the quaint living room of Olsen's quaint house, hoping, perhaps, that if I was quiet enough Crittendon wouldn't notice me and I wouldn't have to try to manage him. I'd seen the shows. What? No, I hadn't. Well, I had, but for all I knew this guy could be nothing like his portrayal in the show. Assuming, of course, this Was All Real. I slumped in on myself. The colonel was busy checking the perimeter, it seemed, looking under the door at the moment. While Olsen was gone, alerting Hogan of the situation and promising to come back to smuggle us in under cover of darkness, I would be grateful if Crittendon could entertain himself. I needed some time to think. It seemed, for some reason, a bunch of Hogan's Heroes authors from 2019 were being sent back to 1943. Now they were all collecting at the Stalag and I had to get there ASAP because as long as I was able to be captured-I shivered-I was a security risk. This told me that at least a good portion of the show was accurate and I resolved to do what I was told because it was certainly better than messing with a sophisticated operation. I snuck another glance at the colonel. If any of the show was true, that wouldn't be his plan.

I let those thoughts churn. They didn't get far, stumbling back into themselves after going in a circle, but suddenly, maybe because I was feeling so alone, my little sister popped into my head. I had been worried about her this morning. As she was getting ready to go out the door and join the carpool, we'd lost track of her. We thought she must have gotten out without any of us noticing, but when we called the father of the other family who was driving that day, he'd said he thought she was going separately with our dad. Mom was going to find her just as I left. She had to be somewhere close. It actually had been worrying me this morning, but, geez, I saw her two hours ago.

Alright, so, truth be told, I had tried not to react and just go on with my day because I was sure there was an explanation, but Nora really was missing. And if there were other people here, also authors... Well, she wasn't an author, exactly. I mean, she never published. My other sister was the author. But, if Nora were here... Oh, she would get herself into worlds of trouble.

Not to mention the fact that we were in Nazi Germany.

Colonel Crittendon interrupted my thoughts with a decisive "I have a plan." I looked at him to find him standing rigidly straight (this did indeed seem a similarity between the real person and the actor) with a look of cunning determination on his face. Something about it, though, I couldn't take seriously. Was it the accent? The mustache?

"A plan?"

"Of course. I assumed that's what you were doing sitting there, but if not, well," he turned his nose up a bit. "I'll share first."

Did I just disappoint someone by failing to think of escaping from-presumably-someone on my side? Our side?

"An escape plan?"

"Of course! You don't think I'm going to spend the entirety of the war in Germany, do you?"

I flinched at the mention of the war as if it were a very real and present thing, but continued, "I thought you were with allies. Olsen and- and Hogan said they'd help you escape. Won't they?"

"Oh, pish posh." He flipped his hand at my assumption dismissively, accidentally flipping his scarf as well. It was definitely 50-50 as to whether it was the mustache or the accent. "The duty of every prisoner of war is to escape. These fellows will only slow me down, you see, and, well-" He raised a conspiratorial eyebrow in my direction. "You haven't seen his operation." I shook my head in agreement. "Well, I'll just say, it's not something I want to be associated with, however the war comes to an end." I frowned in confusion, prompting elaboration. "Geneva Convention and all, what?" Oh, that's right. He made a good point. "So, my proposal is to find civilian clothes, if not here then off a clothesline, and walk right out of town. Stealing a car would be too suspicious and as long as we aren't seen, we can take as much time as we need to get to the border."

"We?"

He stopped his pacing and leaned against the desk. "Yes. It's wrong to leave a lady belonging to an Allied country with the enemy, don't you agree?"

"Well-"

"It's not a question. I will help you escape. Together, we can make it to London, then you can go back to the Colonies and I can rejoin my squadron blasting Jerries out of the sky!" He ended with a proud fist in the air. At least he was enthusiastic.

"Hold on. I can't just go."

He turned a suspicious gaze on me, as if suddenly doubting my loyalty. "Do you have something to do here?"

"No, I mean- Well, as crazy as this sounds, I think my sister might be here, and besides-" I stopped myself, trying hard to rephrase this sans time travel as Olsen had instructed. "It would take a very long time to find my family in the States. I want to look around here and find my sister." And, if the fact of several other author appearances in Stalag 13 was anything to go by... "I think she's at Stalag 13."

"Oh. Yes, I see." He held one elbow so that he could rest his chin on a fist, apparently needing to channel "The Thinker" to think. "Can't leave your sister, now can you?" he muttered. I could admit, it was quite a conundrum. Especially for me. Colonel Crittendon could be caught and returned to a prisoner of war camp (as safe as that was), but I didn't have any explanation for being here, no papers, and no German-language skills. Sounded to me like a job for the Gestapo. I gulped.

"Well. It's worth the risk," Crittendon determined.

"What's worth the risk?"

"I will take you to Stalag 13 myself. I know the way. Are you ready?"

"Ready?" I squawked.

"Yes."

"Well- Olsen's going to take us tonight-"

"Speed is of the essence, my dear! One learns that up in the air, flying through heavy flak, the enemy below you, above you, your crew at your back..."

Thanks to Crittendon's unwitting help, it occurred to me that I didn't know when Nora may have appeared. She could already be at the Stalag. She could be arriving momentarily and I'd have to be there. She could be in the cooler. Or turned over to the Gestapo, or- Calm down. She may not have arrived, but if she has, everyone else has gotten safely into the tunnels. I may want to get to her, but the risk of trying to go to the Stalag in the day... without Olsen... with Crittendon... Much too high. I was no use caught by the Gestapo.

"...and at full throttle you climb straight up and up into the sky-" *

"Okay!" I interrupted. This stopped him and he looked ready to march out the front door with all of the courage of a lion.

"Jolly good!"

"No, no, wait." I snatched his sleeve, wondering if that was out of line in military protocol. We'd leave alright, but I was not leaving now. "We have to be prepared first, though," I said.

He paused and deliberated with himself. "Ah. Come to think of it, you're right. We must plan these things! We must discover where the enemy are located and store up provisions and find a map!" He had given himself all of the tasks I was about to give him to keep him occupied. I couldn't have asked for a better distraction.

I helped him to find a map, then pretended to start pulling together food. With that, he was on his way, finding the best windows for surveillance, and running about the house, looking for clothes and a spyglass and weapons. I kept an eye on him, but only got a small amount of bread for myself, then poured over the map of the Hammelburg area, occasionally looking out the window to orient myself. No good reason not to know the area. In fact, that was about the only useful thing I could do here. I discovered that Stalag 13 was connected to the same road I'd been following all night, but in the other direction, and with some careful measuring using a scale that was unfortunately in kilometers, I got an approximation for how far it was from here and how close I was when I appeared. Pretty close.

I heard a crash upstairs, followed by a string of bouncing syllables which was probably Crittendon laughing at his clumsiness, and cringed. Hopefully the neighbors hadn't heard that. Another reason to do some surveillance myself. I got up and looked out of the window. There, right in front of me, was a European Robin. I caught my breath, afraid it would see me and fly away. How exciting was this? A life bird!** Not one that I could record, given that I hadn't been born yet and that would look awfully weird on the records, but it was a wonderful excitement for me. I had my binoculars and I was in Europe. What was I doing? While I waited, I could be seeing all sorts of new species!

Two hours passed. When Crittendon was ready to go again, I had to give him some more tasks while, I told him, I was looking for any suspicious activity. There looked to be a hubbub over yonder. And there did. When a bunch of birds flush, something is certainly wrong, maybe for humans, maybe not. I was watching a sparrow that was giving me great trouble (no luck finding a field guide around here, even if it was in German) from the kitchen window when Crittendon made me jump out of my skin.

"How do you know your sister is there? And why?"

I spun around and found Crittendon surprisingly close. How hadn't I noticed him coming up? In any case, he suprised me and I stuttered for an answer.

"Um, well- Olsen told me he might have seen her. She was, um," I hesitated to lie-twice. "traveling in Europe before the war and must have been pretending to be French all this time, but- or- or she has been, and she was sending letters from France, but the letters stopped awhile ago. I thought maybe the Germans had gotten her. Maybe that's how." Better to not know something yourself than to make up every detail of a story.

He looked sympathetic, but business-like and came to stand beside me. "How did you get here, then, my dear?"

Sympathy... I thought about it. I was a young woman, far from my home in enemy territory way back in the 1940s. I shamelessly took that and ran with it. "Please don't ask," I pleaded, as if it would be the worst thing in the world to have to recount it. It sort of would be at this point.

"Oh," he said, looking down at his scarf. "Here, why don't you sit?"

As I was escorted a mere two feet to a chair, I sniffed. I wasn't going to overdo it. I could never fake crying. But I could look sad and mopey. (My mom still tells me that I could drag my knuckles better than anyone she knew.) And... and if I was tired from my journey, we wouldn't have to go. I slumped in my chair.

While I was thinking up the next thing to say, he interrupted. "Well, if she's in trouble, we must hurry!"

Not this again. "But- but if we slip up, wouldn't the Gestapo get involved? I don't even know how to sneak around well, or... speak German... or-"

"I can teach you!" he declared. I was at a loss for words. Spying lessons from Colonel Crittendon? But this was the break I was looking for. A time-consuming distraction from personal questions.

And so began my education in the German language (I'm pretty sure his pronunciation was worse than mine, and I speak maybe five words), navigation (which consisted mostly of unreliable old sayings), the importance of caution, and an ill-fated, very long, complicated, yet possibly correct explanation of military time. All of this I remained dubious about considering who it was coming from. The biggest thing it tried was my patience, which, in much more normal circumstances, I have a healthy dose of. But Crittendon has always driven me crazy. I only managed to listen at all because I was in a dangerous situation on the whole and my annoyance could be put aside. But I was surprised by the lessons in silent movement because they were actually useful, and we spent the most time on this.

Through all of this, I came to three conclusions. 1. This Crittendon was much better at moving silently than I'd imagined (the moving, not the nattering), which is probably how he got anywhere. 2. I didn't know how he got anywhere. I had to correct his calculations, map interpretation, and sense of direction more times than I cared to admit, which led to 3. I had to lose him. I hardly cared to go anywhere with him under Olsen's direct guide. There was no way I could manage with him alone. And I still had a good chunk of time to squander before dark.

Luckily, I was able to turn the grandfather clock back between lessons, and I continued to look more and more tired, being careful to exaggerate much more than I thought I should, because I would probably underestimate, and this was Crittendon.

After learning eye-n, sfie, dry, beer, and how to step carefully in leaf litter, I found Crittendon studying the clock, his watch, and the late afternoon sun out the window. So, I tried my hand at something more drastic. "Can we please take a break?" I begged, sitting down on the upholstered chair I'd first sat in on arriving here. He looked at me quizzically. I hesitated, then dove in. "I feel so... so faint." And I collapsed in the most graceful manner I could manage. It wasn't that graceful, but it did portray the damsel-in-distress effect I was going for. It sickened me to play it, but it was all I could think of. And it had taken me all day to work up to it.

"What's the matter? Why, we should be leaving. Don't tell me you've run out of energy."

"I'm- it's just been such a hard journey. And- dodging patrols and the bombing and..." I fainted properly this time.

I heard him stutter for a moment, then say, "My dear!" He had developed an unwelcome fatherly affection for me these last hours. First, he checked my pulse, muttering, "still there," as if I could somehow have died of distress. Then he tutted and continued mumbling his concerns over how he could possibly escape leaving me here, and feminine health, and whether I might wake up in time or be strong enough for a journey. Oh, how I wanted to roll my eyes. But I stayed limp and allowed him to straighten me (with much fretting) in my chair so it looked like I had dozed off. Luckily, the rhetorical questions about my strange clothes I did not have to answer. He soon found some other part of the house to busy himself in, and I could quietly bide my time, assured he wasn't going to leave as long as I was here.

While pretending to be asleep, I pondered how I got here. That watch was a time-travel device, sure enough, but the stranger part was that Hogan's Heroes authors had been sent back to Hogan's Heroes. Either it was like that one movie The Game where someone was trying to give us the ride of our lives, or else they were trying to get us killed. But you could kill anyone by sending them back to WWII. Why Hogan's Heroes authors? The only way to know about all of us would be to have access to the internet, so it had to be someone from the future/present. And then they would have had to stalk us to find out where we lived. Oh, all of those cyber-safety lessons... But then, why would Nora be here? She wasn't an author. Not on the site anyway. Maybe, just maybe, she wouldn't show up.

My thoughts didn't go anywhere. They might have gone further if I'd known a bit more fandom history, but I'd only been around for 2-ish years and I was rubbish at sorting through old forums (or new ones, at that). I also inadvertently began fabricating conversations with Olsen and Hogan and the Gestapo to try and explain my presence in each situation. I was somewhere around the unfruitful "Was ist los?" "Uh, I'm ein Amerikaner." "Why are you here?" "Um, I was with a diplomat mission? And got lost..." when the front door opened.

A triumphant "Hah!" and the sound of something hitting the floor made my eyes snap open. I saw Crittendon looking down in surprise at Olsen, who was immobile on the ground. In a hurry, I stood up, but in doing so, saw the woman standing behind him in a formal-looking dress. "Woops. Not a Jerry," Crittendon mumbled, looking down. The woman (read: German, unknown allegiance, Olsen didn't say anything about a woman, is she Underground?, is she not?, should we have been hiding when he got back?, danger!) looked with concern at Olsen and at the RAF officer standing over him.

Crittendon chuckled in embarrassment and began to retreat past me. "Oh. Um. Apologies. I hope he'll be okay. Why don't you just..." With the pause, it was to no one's real surprise when he bolted for the kitchen door.

Well, what choice did I have? There was no time to think about it, Olsen was still down for the count, and there was a German whom not only could I not communicate with but may very well turn me in. I couldn't stay.

I caught up with Crittendon halfway down the street and blessed the fact that Olsen lived close to the edge of town (likely on purpose). I pulled Crittendon to the right to take the short street that dead-ended at the woods. Once inside the trees, I wanted to stop and listen for signs of pursuit (and catch my breath), but Crittendon did not stop, and I, instead of taking this chance, could only think to catch up with him. Well, one of us did calisthenics, and the other did not, so I eventually had to shout after him. "Wait! Stop!" He stopped in surprise and I finally got to him. "I don't think we're being followed," I gasped, catching my breath.

He paused, putting a finger to his lips as if I needed to be quieted. After a few moments of listening. "I concur." He straightened. "Now, let's see. The moss is on this side of the tree, so the camp should be," he spun on his heel. "This way!"

Now if what Olsen said was true about authors arriving near the Stalag, and I had read the map correctly, we did indeed need to be going north. But now, Crittendon was marching confidently into the trees in the exact opposite direction. I wasn't going to stake anything on his sense of direction, and this may just be my chance to lose him. But it felt so rude. He was probably going to walk right into Gestapo hands. My morals plagued me, not least because I was pretty positive he'd never leave me in a bind. I groaned internally.

"Psst!"

He jerked into parade posture, then spun around.

"Isn't the Stalag north?" I suggested.

His countenance pinched with the effort of his thinking. "Why, I believe you are right." He strode toward me and I started off toward the road. "Always good to have a trusty navigator. I always seem to come across them. One of my commandos, may he rest in peace, was brilliant in the sky or on the ground. He would keep us on the straight and narrow, you know. Ha ha!"

I cringed at his weak joke and loud laugh. "Can we talk once we're away from town?"

"Oh. I see. Yes. We must be stealthy while the enemy is nearby. We don't know what domiciles may be tucked away in this wood."

On cue, we heard someone making their way toward us through the trees.

Author's Notes:

*Pilot joke. This is a bad idea in the kind of planes Crittendon would be flying. You will likely stall and fall to earth in a spin.
**A life bird means this is the first time you've ever seen this bird and it will add onto your life list. Very exciting if you're either a great birder who's seen nearly everything, or a lazy birder who knows how to identify birds you've never seen but more often waits for the bird to come to you (that's me).