No ownership of the Hogan's Heroes characters is implied or inferred. Copyright belongs to others and no infringement is intended.

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Kinch stepped down onto the runway, still breathless from his time in the air. He turned to Pritchard as the Captain disembarked from the Bristol Beaufighter. "It's a good thing you were kidding about your lack of training on this thing, sir."

"Kidding?" Pritchard echoed. "I wasn't kidding, Kinch, I just read the manual and had a good look at the controls." He leaned in closer. "Bet you could do the same thing, too."

"I'd like to have a go one day, Captain." Kinch tried not to sound hopeful. One time up in this plane was as much as he could hope for.

"Keep reading that manual, Sergeant. You never know what you're in for."

"Yes, sir."

"Time to head back for mess and sack time. You've got another hike tomorrow, and another flight as well."

"Captain? Another flight?"

"You don't think one go up in that plane is enough, do you, Sergeant?"

"No, sir!" Kinch answered enthusiastically. Then he calmed down and added, "Sir, can I ask you a question?"

Pritchard stopped lighting his cigar and looked at Kinch. "What is it, boy?"

"Why are you letting me do this, sir?"

"Son, I may work for the US Government. I may do everything they tell me to do without blinking an eye. I may even agree with some of it. I may." Kinch stood quietly, listening. "But the way I figure it, God gave us brains, son. And He intended us to use them. Now, you boys were sent out here to look. Look at what? We have eyes, you have eyes. We have hands, you have hands. We have blood running through our veins. So do you. I can't see anything so all-fire different, and I don't have time for people who do. And I don't have time to waste babysitting a bunch of grown men who aren't going to be doing anything constructive. I didn't join the US Army Air Corps to look after kids. If I thought that's why I was sent here, I'd go AWOL right now. If you're here, you're in the war. There's no point in letting you go to waste."

"You could get yourself in a lot of hot water, sir."

Pritchard laughed softly. "What are they going to do—fire me?" He paused at the stricken look on Kinch's face. "Don't look so desperate, Kinch. They won't touch me. They'll say I'm eccentric… and then they'll indulge me."

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The letter home Kinch started writing the next day was full of hope and happiness, but gave no details of his outing. It might have been superstition, but he wanted to do nothing that would jinx his chances of getting back in that British plane. And if Pritchard was being watched, anything Kinch said might be caught by the censors and the Captain would be forbidden from allowing it to happen again.

He went through the paces of his hike without really noticing the strain, and when he was dismissed from the day's training he went straight back to the airfield where the Beaufighter sat, unattended. Taking a quick glance around him, he climbed up to peer in through the plexiglass at the panel of controls and tried to recite each one as though it were his own plane. Got that one… that one… What's that? Damn. Better go back and read again…. Okay, "Kinch," show Pritchard what you're made of….

And it was back to the books again.

Next morning after assembly, Pritchard once again pulled Kinch aside. "I'm heading back up today, Sergeant, and I've been asked to bring the plane into formation with the US planes. You up for it?"

Kinch's eyes widened. "Sir? Yes, sir!"

"You going to stay awake this time, Kinch? I'm planning on letting you take the controls." Kinch gave a start. Pritchard chuckled. "Couldn't help but notice you yawning your way through assembly this morning. I'm not that boring, am I? Or is it that you've been spending so much time trying to figure out that damned bird on the airstrip?" Before Kinch could answer, Pritchard continued. "Don't answer that; I prefer to think that it's the plane, not me."

Kinch grinned. "I'll listen to anything you have to say, sir. And I won't let you down, sir. I think I know this aircraft now like the back of my hand."

"You'd damned well better."

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"Formation is now at ten thousand feet," Pritchard announced.

"Ten thousand feet. Yes, sir," Kinch repeated, slowly banking the plane up toward the other aircraft starting to fill the sky. "Where are these planes headed, sir?"

Pritchard paused before answering. "France."

Kinch blinked unbelievingly. "France?" he echoed.

"That's right. The bomber boys are busy and they need our help. I was given permission to let this little bird fly along with the others. Is that all right with you, boy?" Pritchard asked.

Kinch was sure Pritchard wasn't looking for an answer, but he gave one anyway. "Um… yeah." He tightened his grip on the throttle, now feeling totally out of his league. He wet his lips with his tongue as he felt a thin sheen of perspiration forming on his brow. "Captain Pritchard, are we going into battle?"

"That is a distinct possibility," Pritchard replied. The Beaufighter pulled up alongside the P-38's already starting to litter the sky. Pritchard looked out beyond them as his voice lost all its humor. "It's time you joined the fray, Sergeant. Do you feel up to the challenge?"

Kinch nodded, almost unable to speak. "Yes, sir." What choice do I have?

"Good. Then let's get out there, and then let's get home."

As Kinch made sure his plane kept up with the others, his mind waged a war of its own. He was of two minds about all of this. This was what he had gone to the Tuskegee Institute for so many months ago: to fly for the US Army Air Corps. To help fight the Germans. To be a real part of the war, and prove that colored men—that he—was as good and worthy of being in uniform as any white American male. But he had also expected to be prepared, forewarned, when the day actually arrived. I haven't even written a "farewell" letter home. My family doesn't even know I'm in the air! How in God's name are they going to understand if they get a letter from the US Army saying, "We regret to inform you that your son has been killed in action," when they don't even know I was in action?

Shut up and fly, Kinchloe. This is what you wanted all along. I think.

Pritchard seemed to sense Kinch's disquiet, but he waited until the planes were well underway to their destination before he spoke again. "I know this is a bit of a shock to you, Kinch," he said. "But if I had said to you, 'Let's get this baby moving today so you can get shot at,' you might not have been so anxious to join me."

Kinch shrugged. "Maybe you underestimate me, Captain."

"Never seen a sane man yet who wants to face the enemy. And you aren't even supposed to be here."

Kinch nodded but kept his eyes straight ahead. "So why am I?"

"You got a lot of questions, boy," Pritchard said, shifting into the detached mode that Kinch was starting to realize the Captain used when he was trying to justify things to himself. "You doubt you can handle it?"

"No," Kinch answered, almost too quickly and too strongly, he thought. "It's just that… well, I didn't think the military liked coloreds."

Pritchard chuckled. "Oh, they like 'em, all right. They're just perfect for being ground crew and working in the mess hall and even making an occasional foot soldier. Hell, take a look at what they managed in the Civil War. But they're damned slow at recognizing anything else the colored man can do. Like use his own brain. Work unsupervised. Make life and death decisions, like those that you need to make when you're in a fighter plane heading to France." He lapsed into silence.

Kinch considered Pritchard's answer. "But… why me?"

"You mean why not some other colored boy waiting to get up in the wild blue yonder?" Kinch nodded just slightly. Pritchard took just a second to compose his thoughts. "A fair question. And the answer is because you wanted it." Kinch didn't know how to reply. "Look, Sergeant, I've been around for a long time. Seen a lot of things, made a lot of friends, made my share of enemies, too. Now make no mistake about it: I follow orders, and I do exactly what I'm told. You don't survive in the military by thinking for yourself. That got me where I am today, be that good or be it bad. But it got me here, and it got me the ear of a few people in the right places, even when I decide to be a bit rebellious. Like now. So when I told them I wasn't going to be stuck behind a desk, babysitting a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears colored fellas so they could just sit out the war from a distance… well, at least one person listened. And you seemed so eager from Day One, so willing to absorb anything and everything…I thought you might just be the one black fella who was going to show them all what you could do."

Pritchard paused. Kinch said nothing. Finally, Pritchard said, "Was I right?"

Kinch felt his resolve steeling during Pritchard's explanation. In the last few years there had been fewer and fewer reasons for him to believe that the whites could ever really want to treat colored people equally. In Detroit, even though there was such a high ratio of black families, relations between the races were terribly strained, and riots had broken out more than once—riots that Kinch had witnessed and empathized with, though he had never been involved in them himself. He had grown tired of taking the back route home, tired of living in a crowded apartment because there was little proper housing for black families, tired of being treated like a second class citizen—if anyone bothered to treat him like a citizen at all. He knew that there were some good people around, people who bucked the system and went with their gut feelings. But most of them had been absorbed into the majority—those who thought colored people deserved nothing more than their contempt, almost eighty years after slavery was abolished. Now, here was one man standing out from the majority, daring to take a chance on a black man, willing to let him—almost forcing him—to stand up for himself and his race. What more could he have hoped for? Kinch wouldn't waste this chance by being halfhearted. He couldn't.

"Yes, sir, Captain. You were right. Let's get these German devils."

"Fine. Now do me a favor, Sergeant, and pull up before we crash into the English Channel."

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From then on, Kinch didn't give a second thought to what he was doing up in the sky. While it was, admittedly, strange to be flying in a British plane with a bunch of Americans, he didn't question it; Pritchard certainly had ways of getting around regulations, and this was just more evidence of it. After all, the rules dictated that colored men didn't fly US planes into battle. Kinch finally decided that this was just another unique part of what was already a unique experience: being a colored man flying for the United States Army Air Corps… even when they weren't supposed to be. If he had to come at it backwards, so be it.

He flew several more sorties with Pritchard beside him, each time feeling more and more in control of the fighter. Most of the time in the beginning, Pritchard took over when they got close to the enemy; Kinch would do back-up, and be the eyes and ears of the operation.

Tonight, Pritchard told Kinch that they were flying out again, this time right to the east side of the Netherlands, where the Germans had a munitions plant that the Allies wanted to get rid of. Kinch had managed in the last few days to organize himself enough to write a cheerful letter home, which he sent, and a more serious letter home, which he didn't. He left instructions to send it if he ever didn't come back to base, and when he found out that bunkmate Denver Jones had also been flying with another instructor on another aircraft, he promised to do the same for him.

Kinch boarded the Bristol Beaufighter with a little more than his usual trepidation, something that didn't go unnoticed by Pritchard. "You all right, Kinch?" he asked, settling into his seat and starting his safety checks.

"Yes, sir, I'm fine," Kinch said shortly.

"You don't sound fine, son," Pritchard said.

"Just a bit off tonight, I guess," Kinch shrugged. He sat down and began his routine before take off as well.

"There's no room for doubts up in the sky, son. If you're not ready to do this, you can get off this plane right now, no hard feelings. I brought you here; you're not actually required to be here. Nobody would think less of you, including me."

Kinch considered the offer. He knew Pritchard wasn't having a go at him, that he was being sincere. And the Captain was right: Kinch really didn't have to be in the air. He didn't have to be flying into enemy territory. After all, the US Government hadn't even given its blanket approval to have colored men flying for the military. But could Kinch back out now?

"No, sir. I'm ready to go. You don't have to worry about me."

Two hours later, he'd wish he had turned and run for home.