It was May 9, 1945, and The Unsung Heroes sat in a drab conference room in North London in silent irritation. They were men of action, and after nearly three years as a team, they were not accustomed to sitting idle. But here they were, done being POWs, done running an undercover operation, done with endless debriefings.
Over the next three days, they had just learned, they would be going home. Before long, most of them would be done being soldiers. But right now, they were waiting for instructions on contacting their families. A pair of intelligence officers who had grilled the men and taken meticulous notes for nine solid days had wrapped up the final round of questions and told them not to budge. They were to await further instructions, but they would be able to make phone calls soon.
The officers left the five men in stunned silence. It wasn't that the heroes weren't ready to move on from the tiresome and seemingly endless questioning, or to go home. It was simply hard to believe that their time together would end abruptly in a dull, musty conference room at Caen Wood in Highgate. The secluded estate was ostensibly the site of a Royal Air Force convalescence hospital, but in fact it housed the RAF Intelligence School and was a debriefing site for covert operations. There was an air of adventure about the place, but nothing to compare with what they'd done together.
Colonel Hogan and his men waited and fidgeted until Newkirk broke the silence.
"Blimey, I thought they'd never leave." He grinned gamely as he lit a cigarette, but he wasn't fooling anyone; a tremble in his hands gave away the anxiety he was feeling. He was going to be the first one released, since he was in shouting distance of home, and pretty soon he'd be discharged from service. A chapter was ending for all of them, and even though it was time to part ways, it was hard to take in.
LeBeau was the next to speak. "Who will you call, mon pote?" he asked Newkirk, who was sitting across from him.
"No one," Newkirk replied sourly. He paused before adding, "I don't know anyone who's got a telephone."
"At least you're already home," LeBeau said warmly. "Didn't you say you could take the tube and be home in less than an hour?"
"Forty minutes from here," Newkirk agreed. "It's a short walk to the Highgate Station, then Northern Line to Moorgate, then Hammersmith & City Line to Stepney Green, then Bob's your uncle. My mum will be shocked to see me walk through the door. If the house is still standing, that is," he added, with worry creeping into his voice.
"It's there, Newkirk. I checked." Hogan was beside Newkirk and patted his arm as he spoke.
"Thank you, Sir," Newkirk murmured. Leave it to the Colonel to make sure of that.
LeBeau continued with his train of thought. "You and I will be home soon, Pierre, but our friends have long journeys ahead of them," he said. He turned to Hogan. "Who will you call, mon Colonel?"
"Who else? My mother," the Colonel said as a smile crept across his lips. "She'd have my head if I tried calling anyone else. If my dad answers the phone, he'll hand it right to my mother. She's the boss."
Newkirk snorted. "My mum's like that too," he said. "She keeps us all in line."
"You?" Hogan said incredulously. "I have eagles on my shoulders and I can't even keep you in line."
"You haven't met Mary Newkirk," the British corporal mumbled. "She'd have you taking orders in a trice." A few beats passed before he added "Sir" in an abundance of caution.
"She sounds like my momma, Newkirk," Kinch said. "She doesn't brook any nonsense." Then a smile crinkled his face. "Still, she thinks I hung the moon."
Everyone looked at him in astonishment. Had Kinch just … bragged? Of course, LeBeau, Carter and Newkirk were all of the opinion that Kinch had in fact, at the very least, assisted Colonel Hogan in hanging the moon, but they never expected him to say it.
"You're not the only one," LeBeau said, shaking his head with something like wonder. "Ma chère maman pensait que je marchais sur l'eau. Even when I argue with my brother or forget her birthday."
"I'm sure she does think you walk on water, LeBeau," Kinch said evenly. "That's a mother's instinct."
"Yeah, that's a mom for you," Carter said. "My mom is my biggest cheerleader. Anything I do, anything I try, she thinks I'll be great. She didn't even yell when I blew up the chemistry lab that time. She just said, Andrew, you're going to march right over there and clean up that mess, and I'll be right by your side, telling you to scrub harder, but it will shine when you're done and I'll be so proud of you. And boy, she handed me that steel wool, and…"
Carter was on the verge of spinning into outer space when his thoughts were suddenly grounded by the bemused expressions on his friends' faces. "I'll bet even Newkirk is perfect in his mom's eyes," he concluded without an ounce of guile.
Newkirk attempted to give Carter a death glare, but he ended up shaking his head and chuckling. "All right, then, Andrew, I think it's safe to say you're going to ring up your mum on the telephone, and I for one would like to hear what she sounds like. What about you, then, Kinch?"
"I can't call my Momma. We don't have a phone either," Kinch replied.
"Wait a minute. You work for the telephone company," Hogan pointed out.
"That doesn't mean we get free phones, Sir. They're not common in my neighborhood."
Silence descended again as Hogan, Carter and LeBeau contemplated the alien concept of civilian life without a telephone while Kinch and Newkirk looked at each other in new solidarity. It was funny that after so much time together they were still learning about one another's home lives.
Finally, Carter piped up. "You know something?" he said. "I've always thought of you guys as my brothers. Well, we really are brothers, because we all have the same mom!"
"How do you figure that, Carter?" Hogan asked, smiling. He was going to miss Carter's unique brand of logic.
"And how do you explain me?" Kinch asked with a twinkle in his eye.
"Easy. You're the black sheep of the family," Newkirk quipped as Hogan, LeBeau, and Kinch groaned in unison.
Carter, however, pressed forth earnestly. "Listen. She's the same mom. She keeps us all in line. She thinks we walk on water. She loves us even when we mess up. I'm pretty sure she's the most beautiful woman any of us ever met. And she's the first person we're going to call. Or send a telegram to, I guess, in Kinch's case, unless maybe there's a phone next door, in which case…"
"There's no phone next door, Carter," Kinch said gently. "But you're right. Same Momma. All of us." Newkirk and Hogan blushed and murmured assent while LeBeau, suddenly overcome by what appeared to be hay fever, blew his nose noisily.
When LeBeau finally quieted down, Newkirk spoke up. "Listen, mates. Louis is right. It's a long way home for you lot, so why don't you all come round for tea before you leave? I'm sure Mum would be happy to see everyone. Even you, Andrew, but you're to stay away from any open flames, do you understand? Mum didn't go through the bleeding Blitzkrieg to have you blow up our house."
Newkirk was smiling when he said it, and he didn't say "my Mum."