Mornings

I am always the first man up in the barracks. I know Carter is always awake before me, but I usually get out of bed before he does. I get the fire started in the stove and make the coffee and tea as well as a meal of sorts. We pool our Red Cross packages, and scrounge for food, because although we must go to the chow hall, what they serve there should be buried by those unfortunates assigned to latrine duty.

It is cold this morning and I am grateful for the few extra sticks Newkirk pilfered from somewhere. I do not ask from where, as I genuinely do not want to know. I sometimes feel as if I am walking a tightrope of what I wish to know and what I do not. But is that not the case no matter where one's lot takes them? I do have a secret that the others do not know. I can't abide mornings. I miss the night life of my beloved Paris so much. I wonder what they would say if they knew I have not always been just a chef… if they had seen my act, heard me entertaining the crowd night after night? I miss my City of Lights! Ahhh, I need to stop this useless woolgathering… that life is gone forever thanks to mad Hitler. I hear the others beginning to stir, and they need me now. Oh, how I hate to get up in the morning!

~HH~

Trapped

I'm going on record here that this was not my fault. I have no idea what went wrong, but it had nothing to do with me or my explosives. At least, not with the explosives themselves. I checked them out thoroughly and I would stake my life on them. Did stake my life on them come to think of it. I just hope the mission went off as planned. Either way, the fact I am sitting here buried under a couple of tons of dirt and rocks is strictly on Germany. I'm not a topographical wizard. I know how to make things go boom. After that, I don't guarantee anything.

The really bad thing is that it's gonna take a while for any of the others to realize I'm not where I'm supposed to be. We're supposed to meet at the rendezvous point outside camp just before dawn, I'm lucky I didn't get my skull caved in by a rock. I think I'm just scraped and bruised, but I can't tell for sure. I need to try finding a way out, because the air isn't gonna last long in here, and that's a nasty way to go. I don't relish suffocating in the dark. I've talked with Taffy enough about his mining days to know I'll hit myself in the head with a rock before I'll go that way.

I figure I've got nothing to lose, so I carefully start picking through the rubble and worming my way along. It's slow and tiring, but it's better than doing nothing. Believe me, I'm doing some of the hardest praying I have done in a long time. I'm not afraid of dying… but that doesn't mean I wanna hurry the process along either. I figure I'll get there when He's ready, but I am definitely not ready.

I can only hope I'm digging the right way. There's no way of knowing. I might be tunneling to China for all I know. But I've got nothing better to do, so I dig. And I'm gonna keep digging until something happens one way or the other…

It seems like hours later when I hear voices above me. They're faint but getting louder. I can hear the scrape of rocks and dirt being moved. I try to yell but it scares me when sifting dirt begins to fall into my mouth, so I shut it quick and grab a loose rock and begin pounding it on one of the rocks to my right. I know it might be dumb to risk another cave-in, but I might be dead soon anyway, so I go for it like Colonel Hogan trying to cause an avalanche. *

The voices above me grow frenzied and so does the digging. I stop pounding and shut my eyes, relieved my friends had found me. Apparently, I wasn't all that far underground after all. Maybe. I dunno. I'm tired, and I just wanna go home, even if "home" is my bunk in Barracks 2 for now. I squint as lantern light glares into my eyes, and Newkirk grins at me. Cheekily he uses my code name for this mission when he asks how I am. "Little Parrot Are You Still Alive?"

~HH~

Confusion

"I'll do it Guv, but I don't get the big fuss over that cellar. I mean it's not like Klinky's got anything important down there, is it?"

Hogan grinned. "Now that, Newkirk is where you would be wrong. You remember that hoity-toity dinner party we had LeBeau cook for at Klink's last week?"

Newkirk rolled his eyes with an exaggerated groan. "'ow could I forget? Me and Carter was serving and nearly had our ears broke by that wretched violin playin' of his!"

Carter nodded in remembered misery as Hogan chuckled.

"One of his guests left a gift for us in Klink's cellar and we need to retrieve it."

Kinch raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't he keep his wine down there? Say what you want about the man, but he does have decent taste in wine. And he keeps that place locked up tight. Even Newkirk couldn't pick that lock. He's tried a few times."

Newkirk dramatically splayed his hand over his heart and threw a look at Kinch. "Ah, Kinch me lad, ya wound me!"

Hogan stared at the two in silence and his message was quickly received. He'd had enough and the men settled down. It was time to move on.

"Since we can't get that lock open, we're gonna have to fool Klink into giving us the key."

Carter frowned. "How do we do that?"

Newkirk chuckled. "Foolin' a fool? Not that hard."

Hogan smiled blandly as he stared at the demolitions expert. "Simple, Carter. We're just gonna ask for it."

Carter's eyes widened in amazement, then narrowed in suspicion. "Who's 'we' Colonel?"

Now Hogan outright grinned. "Who do you think, Carter?"

Carter groaned as several of the others laughed at his pained expression.

It took several attempts and several disguises, but Carter finally managed to get the key from Klink when Klink wasn't looking, and Newkirk retrieved what turned out to be a top-secret German code book from the cellar. LeBeau snuck the key back over to the Kommandantur and stashed it behind the kitchen trash can when he brought Klink a batch of apple strudel. Unsurprisingly, Schultz was the one to find the key while he was filching a piece of the treat.

Klink was confused as to the reason the key had fallen out of his pocket in the first place. There had been several requests for the key recently, all of which he had turned down. He looked at Schultz and scratched his bald pate. "I just don't understand it. Everybody Wants a Key to My Cellar!"

~The End~

A/N: * Refers to episode "Look at the Pretty Snowflakes." Note, this is not an episode-based fic.