"We're going to Hammelburg, dressed like bleedin' nuns to knock off some Gerry general?"

Newkirk essentially sounded off for all the men. And hearing it from him, it did sound like a ridiculous idea. At the same time, it was just farfetched enough to work.

"Beggin' the colonel's pardon, but have you lost your ruddy mind?"

Suddenly, Hogan was very tired and very glad not to be going on this mission. A long sleep would be very nice. Sounding Miri out--God when had she converted him?--had been exhausting, but this was even worse. "No, I haven't lost my mind, nor am I suffering from fever-induced delusions. And yes, Magic Flute is going to lead this mission." Achoo. Achoo.

And speaking of the devil, she entered the radio room with silent grace. Hogan looked up, pegged her for a dancer. The tension between them was palpable.

"And you don't think this is a setup by a planted Gestapo agent?"

Hogan didn't miss either LeBeau's acerbitc tone or distrustful expression.

"Mother Augustine spared 2 habits. These should fit me and LeBeau." She nailed him with a direct gaze. "You do want to keep an eye on me, don't you, Corporal?"

LeBeau muttered something nobody wanted translated, took his habit, and began to change. He pulled the main robe over his head, tucked the white wimple under it and laced the whole thing up. He dropped the heavy black wool scapular over the wimple and robe. He reached for the veil.

Magic Flute did the same--without regard for the reaction of the men around her. They beat a hasty retreat into the connecting tunnel. lt took her even less time to dress and then she pinned their veils in place. "I think we look pretty convincing."

LeBeau did not respond.

She handed him the long wooden rosary, showed him how to tie at the waist, and then handed him the pistol. "Keep it in the scapular, Sister Josepha."

"Oui, ma soeur."

"Maria Gabriela."

Carter, who'd stuck his head in, yelled, "Hey, we've got nuns in here." He ambled up to LeBeau. "Hey, Louis, you look real." The chemist lifted up the scapular to see under it, and then veil.

LeBeau slapped his hand. "Aw, cut it out already. You'll mess up my veil."

Miri approached Hogan. "Is the car where it should be?"

All he could see of her was a triangle of her face. Without having to compete with her hair, her luminous eyes stood out. She was even more stunning. The colonel fought his desire to kiss her.

"Yeah. On the road, just outside of camp. You'll go out the emergency tunnel."

"Pax vobiscum," she chimed as she and LeBeau passed him.

Looking after them, Hogan hastily, sloppily crossed himself and prayed he'd not just sent Louis into a trap.

HH HH HH

Not a trap, but a fiasco. They got to the Marcks' residence and parked the car in a sidestreet. As they approached the door, they were cut off by Gestapo agents who roughly shoved them aside. LeBeau hissed at Magic Flute, who'd turned as white as her wimple, "What do we do now?"

"We keep to the plan."

"Lovely." He followed her in the wake of the Gestapo agents.

They got past the vestibule, into the foyer, but were blocked by what seemed mobs of Gestapo troops. Magic Flute motioned them towards the very back. Raised voices in the study were only partially identifiable. LeBeau made out Major Hochstetter. Who could not recognize that growl? He thought the other was the general. Magic Flute leaned over and said, "Major Dietrich Feldcamp."

"What's he doing here?"

Field Marshal Marck opened the door to his study and strode out, demanding that the troops leave his house immediately. "I do not care about your petty threats, gentlemen. Your intrusion into my household has caused undo hardship to my dying wife. I will not forget her discomfort."

He swept the room with his eyes, lighting on the two cowering nuns in the back. "Meine Schwestern," he beckoned. LeBeau thought he was going to have a heart attack--even more so as Magic Flute seemed to glide toward the field marshal, who took her hand in his, saying as he kissed it, "I am so glad that you could come, meine Schwester."

She responded evenly, dispassionately, "We were summoned." She indicated LeBeau with a bare nod. "This is Sister Josepha. I am Sister Maria Gabriela. May we see your wife?"

Hochstetter attempted to bar their way. "Herr FeldMarshal, these women have not been cleared by my men...."

Field Marshal Marck exploded, "They are sisters of the Holy Cross convent here in Hammelburg!" And with sweeping command, he caused the troops to part before him. The two nuns glided in his wake up the stairs. He motioned them into Frau Marck's room.

A gaunt woman barely turned her head on the pillow. "Dieter?"

He practically flew to the bedside. "Ja, my darling? The sisters have come." Her dying eyes took them in. LeBeau was moved to real compassion. This was no easy death.

"Sehr gut," she wheezed as the two nuns knelt beside the bed and began the Miserere.

The field marshal left after squeezing his wife's hand. The door swung shut. The dying woman looked into the face of Sister Maria Gabriela--and laughed. It sounded more like a cackle.

LeBeau looked at Magic Flute, who had completely lost her composure. She stared into the woman's face.

Alix Marck continued, "So, Elena, it's true. You are a spy. I should scream."

Magic Flute found her voice. "Alix, my real name is Miriam, not Elena. And I am...."

"English."

"Welsh, thank you."

LeBeau rolled his eyes heavenward. Here I am, he thought, a man dressed as nun in an attempt to assassinate a Bosche general, and now we're having a truth session with the general's dying wife. This is trop ridicule, trop absurde.

"What should I do with you, Elena? The Gestapo agent turned nun. You are very clever, dear, but not clever enough to get past Dietrich. He became inordinately suspicious of you after you refused him. I tried putting him off, to no avail."

"Alix, I wish you a speedy and merciful death." She jumped up, grabbed LeBeau, and ran to the window. LeBeau saw what she was up to. He put his back up.

"I am not jumping out the window."

Footsteps thumped up the stairs.

"Oh, and you have a better idea?" LeBeau shook his head and went out the window. Alix Marck started yelping piteously. Miri darted over to the bed, snatched up a pillow, and stuffed it over the woman's face. The Welsh spy pushed it once before ran through the window, jumped on the ledge, and pulled the window shut behind her. LeBeau had fortunately found the gutter and beckoned to her. They carefully took it to the street and disappeared around the corner as Hochstetter yelled out the window for them. With not a moment to spare, they sped away.

Silence engulfed them as they made their way back to camp—until LeBeau asked, "Dietrich?"

"Feldcamp fell in love with me. I encouraged him. Part of me wanted that. But it was also a part I had to play. But when he asked me to marry him, I had to refuse. Acting only goes so far, and one bad marriage is sufficient."

LeBeau didn't miss the bitterness in her voice. He cursed under his breath. "Feldcamp?"

She stopped the car. "DO NOT underestimate Feldcamp. He's much smarter than Hochstetter. He's the one who knows about your little operation. Of course, I messed up the files. All part of the complex reasons I need to get out of here." She started driving again.

HH HH HH

"So the mission went sour? How come?" The colonel's hoarse voice made his anger and his suspicion all the rougher.

Dressed again in her black dress, Magic Flute stood to attention as the colonel glared at her in ire. Nothing proclaimed her British army more than that ramrod straight spine.

Her words killed the effect. "Your lip seems to be healing nicely, Robert."

Hogan thought he was going to explode. His eyebrows hid in his hairline. He looked meaningfully at LeBeau. "Take a walk, corporal." LeBeau saluted, turned on his heel, and rapidly departed.

Deadly-voiced despite his cold, Hogan said, "I suppose there's a reason for that insubordination?"

Broadbent hadn't relaxed. She focused on the open collar of Hogan's green cotton pyjamas under the green dressing gown. "Why did the mission go sour? Several reasons. If you had trusted me, we could have gotten there sooner. An hour earlier would have been good. But, the reality is this: Hochstetter and Feldcamp are working together, something I didn't anticipate."

"Why not?" he demanded. Her emphasis on I was very clear to him.

She sighed heavily as she continued to stare at the point where Hogan's collarbones came together. He wished she'd look between his shoulder and his ear. Her intense gaze burned a hole in the base of his throat.

"The tradition within the Gestapo is to set everyone against each other. They are professional rivals. Furthermore, they were personal rivals. They both vied for my affection. I played them off against each other that way." Broadbent swallowed hard. "I can only assume that Dietrich made some sort of truce with Wolfgang after I turned him down."

Hogan goggled at her in sheer surprise--his jaw dropped, his eyes widened. With a shake of his head, he asked incredulously, "Let me get this straight. FELDCAMP asked you to marry him? And you turned him down? This all hinges on hurt feelings?" Hogan sat down on the edge of his bunk.

Broadbent relaxed. "Yes. To all of it. It would be laughable, Robert, if it weren't so bloody awful." She paused. "And bloody dangerous."

Most of the wind had been taken out of Hogan's sails, and he sagged emptily. "And now what do we do?"

"I'll think of something. But I will do it alone. I work better that way." She stared out the window. She started trembling. "And if I go down, I only take myself."

The resignation, the vulnerability in her voice pulled Hogan back to her. He moved to within inches of her. He could just catch a whiff of her rich, dusky perfume. She turned her head away as his hands started stroking her arms. He pulled her around to stare into her eyes. The emotion mirrored therein had fluctuated from anger to betrayal to fright, and now he felt himself melting into her. He closed the distance between them and kissed her deeply, intensely. He felt her head tilt back against his arm. When Hogan came up for air—and he could hear her inhale sharply—she buried her face in his chest. His cheek rested on the top of her head.

He murmured reassuringly, "Hold on just a little longer, Miri, and it will all be over. You'll be home."

They held each other for several minutes before Kinchloe barged in on them. Without prelude, he said, "Colonel, Gestapo just rolled in. Feldcamp and Hochstetter heading here with Klink in tow."

Broadbent and Hogan broke apart, and before he or Kinchloe could stop her, she opened the window and disappeared. Kinchloe shut the window as the colonel jumped into his bunk, pulling the blanket up to his chin. Not a moment too soon, either, as Feldcamp, Hochstetter, and Klink poured into his quarters. The Gestapo waved Kinchloe out.

Klink protested. "But, gentlemen, Lt. Col. Schmidl carried out a rather physical interrogation of my senior POW. He was dragged unconscious and bleeding from the cooler and has barely been able to walk since then. She then relented, providing him humane treatment before turning to silent staring over the course of an entire evening."

Hochstetter sounded weary, as if he'd been speaking to idiots all day. "Klink, Schmidl was a plant. What you saw was a well-constructed scene to make you think she'd interrogated Hogan. I'm sure there's not a bruise or a mark on him."

Klink turned into a quivering mass of Jell-O. "I'm sure Colonel Hogan won't mind you examining him."

Resenting this discussion of him as if he weren't even present, Hogan snorted. "I must protest, Herr Kommandant. It's a violation of the Geneva Convention. It violates my modesty. Above all, can't you see I'm a sick man?"

"I don't really care about the Geneva Convention, your false modesty, or your illness, colonel. I want you to strip," Dietrich Feldcamp ordered coldly as he reached down and pulled the American out of his bunk.

With eyes as wide as saucers and hands clutching his dressing gown protectively, Hogan demurred. "Excuse me, gentlemen, but I'm not that kind of fella."

Hochstetter stepped up to Hogan, peering into his face. "How did you hurt your lip?"

"A very nice Gestapo agent gave me a pop in the nose, and her ring cut my lip. Let me tell you, that hurt."

"She was not Gestapo. She is a British spy." Real, cold anger from Feldcamp this time.

"You let the British in? What WILL old Scramble Brain say to that?"

"Hogan!" Klink snapped.

The Kommandant hadn't much backbone at the best of times, but certainly not with as much Gestapo as had been around lately. And given the attitude of these two goons, Hogan certainly couldn't blame him.

Hochstetter pried Hogan's hands away from his dressing gown, roughly pulling it open. He ripped the pyjama jacket from neck to navel, revealing the American's pale, hairless, and shoe-printed chest. Both Gestapo officers peered and pressed at the bruises. Hogan sighed, occasionally groaning. This was worse than the poking and the prodding of the flight surgeon, and the pyjamas were beyond even Newkirk's ability to repair.

After a moment or two, the pilot queried crossly, "Want to see the knee?" And let's get this farce over with? he mentally added. He raised his pyjama leg and displayed a swollen, purple-green knee. "Now, can I go back to bed?" He pulled his garments together with wounded dignity.

Hochstetter growled, but it was Feldcamp who dismissed him. "We've seen all we need to see." Anymore would have been prurient interest, thought Hogan. "Apparently, Schmidl continued in her duty with you."

They all stomped out of his office.

HH HH HH

While Hogan was entertaining the Gestapo, the Welsh spy clambered into the boot of Feldcamp's car. Magic Flute was going to get her man—even if it killed her. She was going to let the Gestapo take her back into town. Knowing Dietrich, she thought, he'll go back and argue with Marck. She patted the small calibre pistol in her stocking holster.

She got into town without a hitch. The car drove right up to Marck's residence. After the two Gestapo officers had entered through the front door, Magic Flute went around to the side window of the study. It was unlatched. Voices were shouting at one another in the hallway. A smile just tweaked her lips as she hopped through the window. Silently crossing the room to hide behind the light, she waited. Field Marshal Marck dispatched his Gestapo interlocutors with a curt dismissal—a growl that would have curdled milk. Muttering to himself, he came back to the desk, sat down, and took up his pen.

There was no plan to this. She was just running on instinct this time. Removing the pistol from her stocking top, she approached the field marshal with cat-like tread. He didn't see her, nor did he even seem to have the atavistic reaction stereotypically associated with people about to be killed. Without touching him, she placed the barrel of the pistol right behind his ear and squeezed the trigger. The explosion of gases and bullet sounded very loud in her ears. Marck slumped over his desk, a pool of blood widening beneath his shattered head. She glanced over the desk to see if anything important were lying about and noticed the calendar. Tomorrow was March 1. She sighed in relief—and then bolted out the window and down the alley.

The alley let out not far from the Hofbrau. Miriam wondered how she was going to get out of Hammelburg when to her amazement—coincidence or divine intervention she couldn't tell—Klink drove up. As soon as he disappeared into the Hofbrau, the Welsh spy darted over to the car and easily tucked herself into the boot. "Thank you, Dewi Sant," she swiftly prayed.

HH HH HH

Klink did not return to Stalag 13 until very late, and Magic Flute had had to listen to his drunken ramblings about the Gestapo. And worse, his singing. What a spineless sop, she thought mercilessly. And his driver had managed to hit every bump in the road. By the time the private put the car in the motor pool, Magic Flute wanted to scream. Stiffly, she got out of the boot, then used the car as cover until she could duck out to the barracks. Fortunately, she was all in black, and zigzagging between buildings, she quickly made her way over to Hogan's window—which was latched. Damn him! she thought angrily. He bloody looked me out in the cold. With shivering hands, she tried to ease the latch, but to no avail. She tried pushing more firmly, when suddenly the window gave completely, throwing her over the sill. With her head staring at the inside wall and her bum prominently displayed on the sill, she wondered if her career, if not her life, were going to ignominiously end at any moment.

"What an attractive position, Miri," croaked a sleepy voice.

Without raising her head, she snapped, "Don't just stand there, Robert. Get me off this window sill." She heard him snicker as he grabbed her around the waist, tucked her next to him like an American football, and pulled her through. He set her on her feet as she glared up at him. "Thank you ever so much."

"You're welcome, dear." Hogan climbed back into his bunk, secured his white flannel nightshirt between his knees as he drew the blanket back over himself. He was softly snoring within seconds.

Miri jstood there, gawping at the recumbent form, for a few seconds. She realized the bunk above him was empty. I guess that's where I get to sleep. I do hope he's left me a pillow and a blanket. Stepping carefully on the lower bunk—she didn't want to step on any bare toes—she pulled herself into the upper bunk. Yes, a blanket, but no pillow. "Baaagh" she growled as she curled herself into the smallest possible ball.

HH HH HH

The next morning, Hogan slept right through roll call. Sgt. Schultz, quietly, with real grace, entered to make sure the colonel was indeed sick in bed, that there was no monkey business. Looking down, the corpulent guard studied the sleeping pilot a moment, thinking how boyish the American appeared. Why was it, he wondered, that wicked, impish boys always seemed so angelic when sound asleep? When he realized that Hogan had displaced his blanket, Schultz reached over and pulled it over the prisoner's shoulders. He straightened up, and he looked directly into the dark eyes of Miriam Broadbent alias Elena Schmidl.

Schultz started stammering, "You're…you're…you're the Gestapo colonel…everybody is looking for. You're…."

Broadbent cut him off. "Oh, do be quiet, sergeant. You'll wake Colonel Hogan." She looked down on the sleeping man. Gently, she added, "He needs his sleep, poor lamb." The major swung herself out of the upper bunk, landing lightly beside Schultz whose eyes popped.

Muttering "I see noth-thing" under his breath, Schultz hurriedly retreated and made a bee line for the barracks door.

Kinchloe intercepted him. "What's wrong, Schultz?"

"Please, Sgt. Kinchloe, no more of your funny business," he whined. At the puzzled look on Kinch's face, he added, "Colonel Hogan has a woman in his room…."

"Ruddy officers get all the perks," groused Newkirk from his bunk.

Schultz didn't take his eyes off Kinchloe. "It's the Gestapo colonel."

Kinchloe put a consoling arm on Schultz's shoulder. "Thing is, Schultzie, she's not a Gestapo colonel. She's a British army major."

"Oh," he said, relaxing. "That makes it better." He smacked his face with his hand. "Donnewetter! What am I saying?"

"Don't worry, Schultz, she's leaving today."

"Not a moment too soon," hissed LeBeau.

"Are you sure, Sgt. Kinchloe?"

"Absolutely, Schultzie."

The big man sighed deeply before adding, "Did you know she called him 'poor lamb'? I didn't know she was fond of him." He stood at the door, shaking his head in his usual confusion.

Leaning against the doorjam, grinning from ear to ear, barely able to keep from laughing, Kinchloe looked up at Newkirk. "Oh, boy, wait till the colonel hears that one. Poor lamb indeed!"

"The major's going to need all the distance between 'ere and Wales when the guv'nor finds out. He'll go spare."

Carter, who'd ambled into the conversation, overhearing the majority of it, looked thoughtful. "I don't know. It's pretty endearing." He cocked his head. "You know, I think they're kinda sweet on each other." He earned a cap thrown at him from Newkirk and the classic Gallic shrug from LeBeau. The chemist added, plaintively, "Well, don't you?"

"Jolly joker," said Schultz, who left the men to their own devices.

Nota Bene: I originally posted these several years ago—1999 or 2000, I can't remember. I pulled them down in a flash of white-hot anger that did nothing but deprive the characters of a proper stage and HH fans, I hope, some amusement.