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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It was through a haze that Hogan saw his departure from the hospital at Hohemark. Still exhausted and overwhelmingly sore, he dressed mechanically when ordered, and walked—hobbled, really—to the exit, where a truck was parked outside at the curb, waiting.

Hogan did not turn back and look at the hospital as he left. He wanted to forget this place as quickly as possible, and indeed, he already could not remember some of what had happened there. The overriding emotion was fear; the overriding sensation was pain. If he could blot some of it out forever, he would consider it a prayer answered.

In the back of the truck, he was again shackled to a pole running the length of the cabin, with an armed guard sitting beside him, smoking a cigarette, uninterested in his charge. Hogan leaned back against the wall of the truck with a groan and closed his eyes, wondering somewhere in the back of his mind where he was going, but not concerned enough about it to be able to think past the condition he was in now. He wanted sleep; he needed it. But each pothole in the road jolted him back to wakefulness and antagonized his suffering body.

Still, the time passed mercifully quickly, and when Hogan was roused to disembark from the truck, he wasn't sure how long they had been traveling. He moved out slowly, like an old man, and was cuffed again with his hands in front of him. He blinked in the bleak light of the day, his eyes still sore from the last few days of sleeplessness, and a guard had to keep hold of Hogan's arm to stop him from sinking to the dirt beneath them. Hogan looked around, only slightly curious, and saw large, long wooden buildings, guards with rifles, and barbed wire fences.

Barbed wire fences.

Hogan was in prison.

A wave of sadness swept through Hogan as he felt fully for perhaps the first time that his fight was over. He had withstood everything the enemy had thrown at him, and this was his reward: imprisonment. Perhaps now the Germans would leave him alone. But what would he be left with, now that he had been drained of every shred of dignity and pride he had left England with so long ago?

Hogan was yanked back into reality when the guard started pulling him toward a smaller building somewhat separated from the rest of the large structures. No longer completely aware of the protests being lodged by his body, Hogan moved wordlessly along with his keeper, and stepped awkwardly up the two steps to the entrance. Another armed guard opened the door, and Hogan was pushed gently inside an antechamber and then led into a small office, where an officer was hunched over his desk, his eyes intense and focused on whatever paperwork lay spread out before him.

The man looked up when Hogan was thrust before him. The man guarding Hogan offered a salute. "Das ist Hogan?" the officer asked the guard, returning it.

The guard replied, "Ja, Kapitän Zurbrück,"and handed over some papers.

Zurbrück glanced at the papers and nodded. "Entfernen Sie seine Handschellen," he said.

The guard unlocked Hogan's handcuffs, and though his wrists were infinitely tender and sore, the American did not move to relieve the ache in them. He stared straight ahead, expressionless, as the Captain continued to review the papers in his hands.

"Wir werden fortsetzen, ihn zu befragen," Zurbrück remarked. He looked at Hogan and asked in perfect English, "Do you understand, American? We will continue to question you here."

The final light of hope that Hogan had, unbeknownst even to himself, been holding, was extinguished. His eyes dulled. He said nothing.

"Are you in there, Colonel Hogan?" the Captain asked, half-mocking, and half-serious.

Hogan spoke almost inaudibly. "Hogan, Robert E., Colonel. US Army Air Corps. Serial number 0876707." Inside, he was weeping. No, oh no, not again…. Oh my God, oh my God, please help me.

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Time passed slowly in the transition camp outside Frankfurt. Hogan originally found himself in an extremely large barrack, housing dozens of men from different militaries, all of whom, it seemed, had caused the Germans some sort of trouble, either in their activities before their capture, or during their interrogations. Hogan kept mainly to himself, too stricken to pay more than token attention to anything around him, and too ill to pretend that he cared. Once in awhile a fellow prisoner would come along and try to offer him some conversation, but Hogan's muddled and feverish mind was finding it difficult to understand the words of even the English prisoners, and eventually the visitors that continued passing through did little more than sit by him, or quietly offer him a cigarette, which he refused after the first time, as the deep inhalation made him dizzy and sore.

When he had time to reflect on it later, Hogan realized that the other men in the camp were doing their very best to make him feel part of a group, so that he would not feel isolated, which led of course to hopelessness. The men had obviously been made aware that Hogan was different from the everyday prisoner brought into Wetzlar. Unlike most of them, he was taken after roll call every day by an armed guard, and was not returned until late that night, if at all, when he would retreat to his thin, scratchy mattress, and curl up into himself, rocking mindlessly until sleep overtook him. And even then, the others could hear him muttering restlessly. Always the same thing: name, rank, and serial number.

Once a week the prisoners were sent into the delousing station, and Hogan became part of the routine of undressing, bundling up his clothes, and passing under a spray that was mixed with carbolic acid. It only took one run under that shower for the men to learn to keep their eyes squeezed shut and their mouths tightly closed. After that session came a trip to an ordinary shower—with water so cold it was almost more of a treat to get out than to get in for a wash. Hogan learned to use the abrasive, ersatz soap on offer, since Red Cross parcels didn't seem to make it to this camp, and to dry himself with similarly ersatz towels filled with straw that was just as hard and rough as anything found on a farm.

One day about two weeks later, a British non-com approached Hogan as he was lining up with his tin cup for a thin soup of water and rutabagas, and stood silently beside him. At first Hogan thought he had come with the intention of saying something. But the Corporal did not speak, and eventually Hogan felt compelled to ask, "Something I can do for you?"

The Corporal smiled slightly. Hogan's answer had not been cocky or aggravated, he noticed, just resigned. "Just thought I'd see how you're bearing up today, Colonel," he said.

Hogan frowned. "Okay, I suppose," he said, non-committal.

"They've taken quite a shine to you, the Krauts," the young man continued. Hogan didn't answer, unsure what the Corporal meant. "Can't seem to leave you alone. Must be the friendly sort."

Hogan nodded once. "Friends I could do without," he said shortly.

"I can tell," answered the man. "Couldn't help but notice you seem a bit worse for wear most nights." Last night he had seen Hogan return to the barracks after two days away, bent almost double, cradling his ribs and biting his lip hard. And when Hogan thought all the others had fallen asleep, the Corporal watched as the Colonel cautiously stretched out a bit on his bunk and moaned softly, and silently sobbed in the darkness. "I'm Greg Cook, by the way, Colonel. Been here about two weeks. They don't seem to want to give me a permanent home yet. Or you either, from the look of it."

Hogan shrugged, then wished hadn't. He winced. "How long do they keep people here?" he asked, turning away.

It was Cook's turn to shrug. "Don't know. It depends on what they want out of you." He fell silent. Hogan didn't speak. "You don't have to hide it, sir," Cook said finally. "We all know the Krauts are roughing you up." Hogan said nothing. Tentatively, Cook added, "They must be pretty anxious to learn whatever it is you're not talking about."

Hogan shook his head. "I just want to forget about it," he said, his voice catching.

Cook nodded. "Understood," he acknowledged. "The fellas, they don't expect you to talk about it. They just come around so you know they're on your side. The Krauts seem to be doing their best to isolate you—so they can break you. And we good guys have gotta stick together, right? We all have our own horror stories. And it can't be easy for you; at least our questioning is done. Yours just seems to keep going."

Hogan nodded vaguely, grateful. "Thanks," was all he could think of to say.

"Remember, Colonel—the only way to stay standing in this place is to hold each other up."

Hogan turned back to the Corporal and nodded. In that one instant, his complete hopelessness found itself invaded by one small glimmer of optimism that refused to go away. "Thanks, Cook," Hogan said. "I'll do my best to remember that."

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A few more days passed, and Hogan tried to make the most of the wisdom of young Cook, who shortly after disappeared from the barracks, having been given a permanent assignment in a Stalag Luft. Little by little several men had disappeared, only to be replaced by others, who were then also assigned a permanent wartime prison. Hogan, however, remained, and eventually he was pulled away from the company of the others and put into solitary confinement, where his interrogation was renewed with sudden and physical vigor. Finally, after two days of the kind of treatment he had feared receiving when he had arrived, he was brought before Zurbrück.

"Colonel Hogan, this is General Albert Burkhalter." The Captain introduced the large man standing next to him with an air of marked respect. Hogan glanced at the Luftwaffe General. He had a long scar running down his right cheek, and small, dark eyes peering out from a puffy face. A cigar was hanging out of his large red lips, but still he managed a scowl that made Hogan uneasy.

Hogan said nothing and did not move.

"You will salute a superior officer!" Zurbrück shouted, prompting the guard beside Hogan to strike the American in the back with the side of his rifle. Hogan took the abuse without comment, grimacing but not obeying.

Zurbrück was about to order another strike when Burkhalter himself intervened. "Never mind that, Captain—I would expect no less from this man." He turned to Hogan. "Your reputation precedes you, Hogan. I am looking forward to getting to know you better."

Hogan was impressed with the General's command of English. But he did not answer him.

"I work directly under the Fuhrer, Hogan," Burkhalter continued, unbothered by Hogan's silence. "And I must tell you that he is fascinated by your powers of endurance." Hogan felt a small thrill of fear course through him. "When you were first brought into the hospital after your capture, no one thought you would even survive, much less make interrogation a nightmare for the Luftwaffe and the Gestapo."

Hogan felt adrenalin race into his bloodstream. He started looking quickly around the room; was anyone there going to bring him back to that nightmare again?

As if he could read Hogan's thoughts, Burkhalter continued. "Have no fear, Hogan; the Gestapo will not be coming back—not yet. I have decided that the interrogators here at Wetzlar will attempt to loosen your tongue one more time, and then, we will assign you a permanent camp. If you do not require a trip back to the Hohemark first."

Hogan turned cold at the mere thought of the house of horrors, and felt his breathing turn sharp and shaky. Burkhalter appeared not to notice, and Hogan was dismissed, to endure one final confrontation—winner take all.

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The following days took on a hellish form for Hogan. He was at first given the opportunity to simply explain everything he knew about the Allied plans for attack formations, daylight raids, and offensive strategies. But Hogan was used to that routine and gave his standard answers, punctuated with an occasional smart remark that helped him to cope with the tedium and underlying fear of it all, but which earned him a couple of sharp backhands across the mouth.

When the interrogators concluded, as they had suspected from the beginning, that this method of questioning was not going to yield any results, they tried to wear Hogan down in other ways. First they made him stand from sunup to sundown in the interrogation room, not allowing him a chance to sit or change position, even when they almost grudgingly offered him food and water, which was meager at best. Hogan felt his muscles stiffen and cramp, and when he had to give in to their weakness he was pulled back up bodily, and held in place while someone slapped him, or struck him, or spat on him.

Still, Hogan said nothing, and the Germans then advanced to plunging Hogan's head in a large, deep tub of ice water when he refused to answer their questions, or repeated his name, rank, and serial number, which was often. He gasped and spluttered frantically when this treatment first began, thrashing about as images of himself drowning filled him with great fear. But he quickly learned that the best way to last longer in the water was to hold still and conserve his breath, and after a longer period of stillness, the Germans would think he had already succumbed and pull him out, and he would gulp in as much fresh air as possible, trying to recover before the next immersion, which would be soon, and merciless.

Eventually, the people questioning Hogan reverted to one-on-one physical abuse. They beat him with their fists and with their guns. They dragged him from one side of the room to the other by handcuffs that were already too tight to begin with. They shone bright lights in his burning eyes so he couldn't see the blows coming at him from behind. They taunted him with food and water that they put so close to his face he could have tasted it if he hadn't been yanked back by the larger of the guards just as it was offered. Hogan knew they had never had any intention of letting him get it anyway, but it was still an almost unendurable cruelty when he was so in need of water, and food to sustain him through his ordeal.

After five days with very little food, water, or sleep, and with fresh aches and pains to embrace him, Hogan was brought back to the main office of the camp, and presented to the officer in charge. Zurbrück looked at him with distaste, shaking his head at the filthy, sweating, exhausted man before him. Now used to such appraisals, Hogan said nothing, his head bowed and his eyes half shut.

The Captain came around to the front of his desk and encircled Hogan. "Foolish, stubborn American," he said with a sneer. "Don't you realize that you gain nothing by your silence?"

Zurbrück pushed Hogan from behind. Hogan closed his eyes and concentrated on stopping himself from falling forward. Still he said nothing.

"We already know about your precious daylight raids," the Captain continued, mocking. "They are continuing, and the losses are very heavy. Colonel Hogan, don't you realize you can help save the lives of your own countrymen by cooperating with the Luftwaffe and answering our questions?"

It was nothing Hogan had not heard before. But standing here, dizzy and tired, and knowing deep down that the Germans were right about one thing—that the losses were extremely heavy if the raids were, indeed, ongoing—Hogan wished with all his heart that he could tell Zurbrück everything he knew, everything he thought was coming, and end his own torture, and possibly save some of his own men. But it was not to be: Hogan knew that telling the enemy anything at all, even something that seemed insignificant, could be used against him and against the Allies. And that was something he would not be able to live with, even if it meant possibly saving himself physical torture.

The self-inflicted mental torture would be just as devastating.

One breath. Two breaths. Three breaths. Four… Hogan tried to concentrate on taking one second at a time; one minute at a time seemed too big a task at present. As the Captain continued his self-important attempt to wear Hogan down, the American Colonel started to feel that he was, after all, starting to lose his resolve. He would never tell the Germans anything; of that he was certain. But his determination not to lose hope, not to give up and simply exist, was crumbling around him. Cook had been right: Hogan's interrogation seemed to go on and on, long after other men had been left alone. Burkhalter had promised Hogan would be assigned a permanent home to sit out the rest of the war once the Wetzlar interrogators were done with him. Yet here was Zurbrück prattling on about Allied losses and how Hogan himself had information that could very well put an end to what would have to be devastating statistics. Wherever he went, Hogan would not be allowed to simply wait out the war. He had been singled out for special treatment, and the Germans were not going to let him go until they had squeezed every ounce of life out of him.

"Did you hear me, Colonel Hogan?" Zurbrück spoke more forcefully.

Hogan slowly moved his eyes to meet the Captain's. "Sorry?" he asked, almost in a whisper.

"I said the General will be here in mere moments. Go wash up. I don't want him to see you looking like that."

Then you shouldn't have had your goons do this to me in the first place, he thought angrily. The tiny spark of defiance in his mind both surprised him and rekindled a small bit of hope in his soul. The roller coaster of emotions was making him light-headed. He simply nodded and turned to allow his ever-present guard to escort him back to the barracks.

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Growing stiffer and sorer by the minute, Hogan stood at attention as demanded when he returned to Zurbrück's office. Burkhalter had returned, and Zurbrück was insisting in proper protocol, which this time, Burkhalter seemed pleased with. The General looked Hogan up and down, his eyes resting for a moment on an undressed, slightly inflamed cut on Hogan's forehead, and then looked him straight in the eye. Hogan found himself staring back, sure the General would see a look of pure hatred reflected in his eyes. Burkhalter himself had done nothing to Hogan, yet at that moment he represented everyone that had, and everything that had made Hogan suffer, and Hogan was determined not to look away.

"I am told that your meetings with the camp's interrogators did not yield any results," Burkhalter remarked.

Hogan remained quiet, no longer looking at Burkhalter, but staring at the wall behind Zurbrück's desk.

"I should have expected that much from you," Burkhalter continued. "Your records from the Durschgangslager der Luftwaffe and the Hohemark already indicated a very strong will. For that reason, Hogan, you will not be placed in the LuftStalag that was originally planned for you. Instead, you will be sent to an enlisted man's camp down south near Hammelburg, where you will find yourself surrounded by men who are perhaps less… determined… than yourself, and where you will hopefully be deterred from any high-flying ideas about an escape back to the Allies, if you'll excuse the expression."

Hogan still said nothing. His mind was far away.

Burkhalter turned to Zurbrück. "We shall leave immediately."

"We?" Zurbrück echoed.

"Colonel Hogan is a special prisoner. He deserves a special escort. Plus I have business down south that I must attend to, so this will be the perfect opportunity to get to know Hogan better."

If getting better acquainted with Hogan had been Burkhalter's true intention, he would have been sorely disappointed. Hogan, handcuffed, said hardly a word on the trip in the back of the shiny black staff car, giving only monotone, monosyllabic answers when it appeared that staying quiet would have sent the General into a rage that included physical release on the prisoner. Burkhalter's attempts to draw Hogan out eventually petered out, leaving the American to his own thoughts.

Those thoughts were chaotic. Hogan looked blankly out of the car window, watching the countryside whip past as he was transported from Hell to God Knew Where. Another camp. Another chance for some ambitious officer to use me as a way to a promotion. Another round of interrogations?

No. No, Burkhalter said if they couldn't get me to talk, they'd put me in a camp for the duration…. But he didn't say they would leave me alone. He didn't promise there'd be no more of this torture! Oh my God, my God, I don't think I could take any more of this. Please, God, please let it be over. Let me just sit it out like the others. Let me just sink into nothingness and disappear….

Hogan nearly sobbed as sudden images of Goldilocks burst into his mind, and the faces and voices of his men imposed themselves on him unexpectedly. We've lost both waist flank guns…. Oh my God. God! God! … We've got a fire starting back here! … Bail out! Do it now! He heard Little John's panicked voice, saw Montgomery's bloody, lifeless body in the cockpit, felt the terror of the ten men and the rush of fear that came as he stood poised to leap from the plane. Then there were flashes of the time to follow, blessedly no more than that, as each memory seemed punctuated with pain or fear or illness. And then there was Wetzlar. Most of that was clearer than he wanted it to be, but only time would hopefully obliterate those experiences. Hogan started to retreat, drawing further and further away from the things his mind was forcing upon him, until by the time they reached their destination he was far, far away from Germany.

The car idled as the driver announced the General's arrival at the camp. Hogan took only a cursory look outside, still not connecting with anything his eyes lit on. Anything except the twelve-foot barbed wire fences. Another prison.

The car rolled slowly toward what looked like a small administration building and a tall, lean, balding man wearing a monocle and with a riding crop stuffed under his left arm came blustering down the stairs. Just get through this, Hogan thought. Take one second at a time…one second at a time…

"This is the end of the road for you, Hogan. Your new home," Burkhalter said, picking up the bulging file on his prisoner that he no doubt intended to hand over to the officer in charge of this camp. He got out of the car when it was opened for him.

Hogan's eyes automatically, involuntarily, scanned the compound, taking no special note of anything, or anyone, vaguely noticing two men in the distance leaning against a building labeled "Barracke 2"—a small one with a red scarf and red beret, and a taller one in RAF blues. He was uncomfortably brought back to the present by the face peering in his window—that monocled officer, squinting in his scrutiny—and blinked as though in discomfort as the driver came around and pulled him out of the car.

"You are Colonel Hogan?" asked the unknown officer.

"Of course he is, Klink; I just told you he was Hogan," Burkhalter said, annoyed.

Klink nodded quickly. "Yes, of course, General, this is Hogan," he amended.

Hogan said nothing, his eyes staring lifelessly at the ground, his mind running through the rules like a tape on a perpetual loop: Name, rank, serial number. Say nothing. Feel nothing. He once again felt himself uncomfortably close to tears as he repeated the final instruction. Feel nothing. Oh God, please…. I don't need to be a hero; just let me survive…. Please. Help me find a way to hang on until I get home.

Hogan let Klink's sugar-sweet voice wash over him without reaction. "Colonel Hogan, welcome to Stalag 13."

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Author's Notes:

Though some of the treatment and incidents in this story may have seemed extreme, as often as possible I used true to life experiences of Americans who were sent to England to fly B-17s early in the war, and of those who were shot down. The experiences were those of many people; however, I used Colonel Hogan to personify them, and though it was not common for a single person to undergo all of those things, it was known to happen, if the prisoner was deemed valuable enough to question and study. The timeline and general outline of events was lifted with permission from M L Breedlove's fan fiction "Weaving a Web of Freedom: Undoing the Past" (Thanks, Marty!).

Many of the places and people used in this story were real. Major Otto Boehringer, for example, was a real interrogator for the Durschgangslager der Luftwaffe, and prisoners were indeed kept for up to forty-five days in extreme cases, before being sent on to Wetzlar, the transition camp outside of Frankfurt-on-Main.

The German song and its translation in Chapter Six are gently borrowed from the book, "A Touch of Sabotage: 1940-1945" by Jack Goyder. Goyder was ordered by the British to be captured by the Germans so he could commit acts of sabotage against the Nazis, and the book is well worth reading.

Hogan's experiences at the Hohemark were based on real testing that the Nazis conducted on prisoners when trying to improve their own performance. The "trip" he takes in Chapter Eleven is based on real effects of mescaline, which is a long-used, naturally-occurring drug. And the testing in the freezing room and the oxygen testing were also done to help German soldiers over the long term.

The US Army Air Corps began daylight bombings on 17 August 1942, over a railway yard in Rouen, France. Daylight raids had been trialed by the British and discontinued because of heavy losses. B-17s went out without fighter escort, as no US fighters had the necessary range to fly with them, and suffered extremely heavy losses until they were finally able to get a fighter that could make the trip without having to stop for refueling.

This story leaves off where the beginning of the trilogy that starts with Welcome to Stalag 13 begins. You can read all four stories independently, or read them from start to finish for continuity.

Thanks to all for your encouragement and your feedback. It is always listened to and appreciated.

Linda