No ownership of the Hogan's Heroes characters is implied or inferred. Copyright belongs to others and no infringement is intended.
xx-xx-xx
"Come, Colonel Hogan. You know you have nothing to lose now. The Fuhrer has ordered you to die, along with all the other Allied officers. So tell me, what is it that you have been up to while you have been in this camp?"
Hochstetter moved in closer to Hogan, until the Colonel could feel the man's breath on his cheek. Sitting tied to a hard chair in the cold cell, Hogan had already been worked over, but in small increments, designed to create pain, designed to befuddle his mind.
Designed to draw this out as long as possible before execution. Hogan simply drew in a rasping breath and remained silent. He concentrated on his breathing, trying to ignore the sharp stabbing in his side that started after a small club had struck him hard when he had been blindfolded. Now, the light nearby was almost blindingly bright to his sensitive eyes.
"Hogan," Hochstetter started again, quiet and calm, "tell me about the oil refinery. Tell me how you did it."
Hogan turned his head away and closed his eyes. Hot, it was so hot in here. Why was Hochstetter not sweating like he was? How could the man be wearing gloves?
"I grow impatient!" Hochstetter burst. Hogan flinched and squeezed his eyes shut tighter. He felt someone grab a clump of his hair and pull his head back sharply. He grunted from the shock of it and opened his eyes. Hochstetter's enraged eyes stared back at him. "Hogan, you are responsible for this, I know you are—you cannot save yourself; you are already under orders to be shot. So why don't you save yourself all this agony and tell me what we already know?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Hogan gasped.
"Bah!" Hochstetter growled and released Hogan's head with a shove.
Hogan panted and looked ahead with half-closed eyes. So this was it—Hochstetter was going to have the joy of killing him, but not until he'd had the pleasure of watching Hogan suffer first. Hogan wished he could just tell everything and get straight to the execution—why delay the inevitable with torture?—but something in him refused to do that. Even if he could convince Hochstetter that he had always worked alone—and he doubted he could do that—he could never give the man the satisfaction of knowing that his long-held suspicions about Hogan had indeed been correct.
"So we shall ask again, Colonel Hogan. And then we shall start to get upset with you. But we have other ways of loosening your tongue."
xx-xx-xx
I warned him. I warned him. I begged him! Why did that foolish man not listen to me?
Klink paced back and forth in his office, stopping occasionally only to look outside his window to see if anyone was emerging from the cooler. No one was, and the camp looked eerie with no one wandering around the compound, so he turned away again and walked the floor. He had done everything he could. He had warned Hogan that trouble was looming, had put his own career—his own life—at risk by alerting Hogan to the coming danger and offering to help him get away. But the man had not listened, and now he was locked in a battle of wills with Hochstetter that he could never win.
So why was Klink feeling guilty?
The question plagued him as well, until he realized it was because the tragedy was not yet over; it was still unfolding in the cooler. Hogan was not yet dead; he could still be fighting a futile battle to save himself.
With Hochstetter's taste for blood, Hogan, you're better off making something up and hoping for a quick death.
A loud noise startled Klink, and he jumped, only to realize the window had not been shut properly and was now banging against the frame. He quickly crossed the room and secured it, then sat at his desk, wondering who would be the next to be persecuted in this war, and whether it would be the enemy, or one of his own.
xx-xx-xx
"I am impressed with you, Colonel Hogan. I had almost believed that a prolonged visit with me would have broken you." Hochstetter ran his hand along Hogan's swollen, bloody cheek, but the American barely reacted, staring blankly ahead with dull, unfocused eyes. "On the other hand, I am fascinated by your desire to undergo such punishment, knowing that in the end the result will be the same. Some American sense of loyalty or pride, I suspect." Still no answer from Hogan. "Very well then. I will leave you alone for now. But you can depend on my returning shortly, to continue our little talk. Perhaps by then you will be more in the mood for a chat."
The door to the cell closed with a loud echo, but Hogan did not hear it. He had long ago retreated into a part of himself that Hochstetter could never reach. Almost mechanically, Hogan took note of the terrible aching in his shoulders and upper arms as they supported his full body weight, as he dangled just inches off the floor, his hands cuffed above his head in shackles that had been suspended from the ceiling. He absently detected trickles of blood running along his arms as the cuffs cut into his wrists, but equally unemotionally he realized that there was nothing he could do about it, and so he dismissed any feeling that would have raised his awareness of his situation or his pain.
Heat and thirst were the only things that penetrated Hogan's mind at present, and they were overwhelming: a fever raging from within left him dripping and occasionally oblivious to his surroundings; and breathing was becoming more difficult with his arms raised above him. He swallowed razor blades every time he dared gulp in some cool air to relieve the hotness in his mind and body. A small bucket of water and ladle sat nearby on the barren cot—a torturous prop in this charade of an interrogation.
What's this all about anyway? His mind started questioning, despite his desire for nothing but peace. The pounding in his head roared on, but he could still hear the banter. It's going to end the same way no matter what you tell him. Why put yourself through this? Tell him some cockeyed story that he'll fall for, and let it end sooner rather than later...
A muscle spasm broke his fevered reverie and made him whimper in pain. "No..." he breathed aloud. "No... It's what he wants..." Hogan laughed weakly, causing a coughing fit that wrapped him in agony. He wants me to wish for death... He wants me to beg to die. Hogan stretched his legs as much as possible and let the balls of his feet support his weight for a moment. "'Do not be afraid,'" he said in a whispered breath. "'Do not be...'" He was breathing easier, but his legs were aching from the strain and he had to pull them away from the floor again. He moaned softly as his arms and shoulders once again took on the burden of supporting him. I won't do it, he vowed to himself. I'll outlast you somehow, Hochstetter. I'm going to make you work for my hide. By the time you kill me, you'll be half dead yourself. And then, my work will be half done.
Gratefully, Hogan welcomed the darkness that started to cloud his mind, and he slipped away from the present, to await the next round with his tormentors.
xx-x-xx
"Hochstetter's car is still here," Le Beau observed bitterly from his post at the door to the barracks. "That means he is still torturing Colonel Hogan."
The next morning, the men were still confined to barracks, with no information forthcoming. None of them had slept well; all of them were angry, or frightened, or both. And all of them were still watching Hogan being dragged away, struggling as they had never seen him doing so before, facing a slow and torturous death by a madman who enjoyed his gruesome task too much.
Le Beau backed up and opened the door wide as Schultz came in. Looking dispirited and tired, he leaned his rifle against the stove and sat down at the common room table without being asked. He sighed heavily, and looked at the prisoners, some of whom were staring at him with less than friendly faces.
"I thought you boys might be better company than the Gestapo men, at the moment," he said quietly.
"Not much, Schultz," Kinch said. A German wasn't exactly the kind of company they were looking for at present.
"They are back in solitary this morning," Schultz told them. "Major Hochstetter said he is making progress, whatever that means."
"It means he's bloody dragging the Colonel to the brink of death, then laughing in his face when he brings him back to life," Newkirk said angrily.
Schultz nodded unhappily. "At least... Colonel Hogan is still alive."
"Ever see a cat play with a mouse?" Kinch asked. "It's cruel, Schultz. Real cruel."
Schultz nodded again. "And in the end, the cat still wins."
"Unless a dog comes by and scares it away," Carter added.
"And we are sadly lacking a dog at the moment," Le Beau said.
Newkirk chewed on an idea for a moment, then said into the silence, "We could always bring a big dog in."
Kinch furrowed his brow. "What?"
"A dog. We need a dog; we could always bring one in." He hopped down from his bunk, more animated than he had been since the day before. "Look, mates—Hochstetter's a cat, and we need a big dog to scare him off. Klink's here, but he's a chihuahua—Hochstetter would only laugh at that. But who would be a Great Dane to him?"
"The Fuhrer?" Carter ventured.
Newkirk shrugged. "You're right, Carter, but a little ambitious. Try a little closer to home."
"A Kraut who outranks him," Le Beau said.
Newkirk touched the side of his nose with his finger.
"Burkhalter," Kinch suggested.
"Kinch, my boy, you win the all the marks. If we get Burkhalter in here, he might be just the man to stop Hochstetter from keeping this miserable game going," Newkirk suggested.
"And then it might give us just the time we need to get the Colonel out of there!" Le Beau exclaimed, a sudden light glimmering in his eyes.
Schultz suddenly got up from the table and grabbed his rifle. "Please, Cockroach, please do not talk like that!" he said, heading toward the door. "I do not like what is going on here... but I do not want to hear what you are planning! It would be worth my life if I was caught!"
Kinch said firmly, "Schultz, the Colonel's done an awful lot for you over the last three years. If you like him, you can't like what's happening to him in there."
Schultz shook his head. Standing guard outside the cell, he heard many things coming from inside that closed room that sickened him. But take an active roll against it? Disobey the Gestapo and orders from the Fuhrer? "I do not," he said. "Colonel Hogan has always been a nice man, even for an enemy. But this I tell you: I want to know nothing. Nothing!"
And he backed up clumsily, and practically ran out the door.
Newkirk turned to the others. "Gentlemen, let's get the bones ready; it's time to call in the dogs."