After an hour, the door of Hogans cell was kicked open. Hochstetter stood in the doorway, smiling a devilish smile: "Hogan, get up and turn around!".
Hogan, who understood, that resistance was useless tried to ignore his aching body and slowly walked over to Hochstetter. Then he turned around. Hochstetter took out his handcuffs and handcuffed him.
Hogan nearly protested, because the handcuffs were fixed too tight around his obviously broken wrist, but then he realised it would only be a reason for Hochstetter to put them on even tighter. Biting his lip in anger, he was guided outside to a truck.
"Get up the truck, fast!", Hochstetter ordered, but Hogan knew, he wouldn´t manage without being able to use his hands, but he also realised, that Hochstetter would have him thrown up the truck if he did not try.
With a huge leap, he tried to jump onto the plattform and managed it nearly perfectly. Just the landing went rather bad and so he found himself lying on the floor of the truck again.
The driving seemed to go on for hours, but it could only have been about twenty minutes, befor they reached Stalag 13. The guards, not even asking Hogan to get out just took him and threw him onto the ground.
Klink rushed out of his office, when he saw the Gestapo truck entering the gates. Horrified he looked upon his senior POW, who was lying on the ground and did not make the slightest attempt to move.
"Hochstetter, what have you done to my prisoner? Schultz, take those handcuffs of him and get Rickman. Call the guys from barracks two and tell them to get Colonel Hogan into the barracks, fast!".
Before Schultz could run off, he was stopped by Hochstetter. "Oh no, Schultz, you will not go anywhere. Klink, Hogan is still my prisoner, he will spend the night in solitary confinement and he does not need medical help, because tomorrow, he will be facing a firing squad. It would be useless effort to apply medicine to him.".
Klink was startled and forgetting al his fears for the Gestapo he shouted: "What! Hochstetter, who do you think you are? Are you mad? This man is my prisoner and he will not be shot at any time! Due to the Geneva convention it is-".
Klink was stopped by a sudden outburst of anger from Hochstetter: "Waargh! Klink you silly person! This man is not an ordinary POW, he is a saboteur! And the Geneva convention does not apply to spies! And if I were you, I would shut my big, silly mouth, because you could find yourself at the Russian front very quickly, if you resist the orders of the Gestapo! Guards, take him away!".
Klink intimidated, as usual only murmured a few not understandable words, turned around and headed for his office. Hochstetter looked around, saw Hogan being dragged to the solitary confinement and then ran of to Klinks office as wel.
Kinch, Lebeau, Carter and Newkirk had seen the arrival of Colonel Hogan. As they saw, that he was dragged away, they wondered. Why didn´t they return Hogan to the barracks? As they saw, that Hochstetter and Klink headed for Klinks office, they ran of to fetch the coffee pot.
Klink sighed as he saw, that Hochstetter entered his office. "Hochstetter, what do you want from me?".
Hochstetter took out a piece of paper and threw it onto Klinks desk. "Here Klink, this is the order to shoot Hogan. You must sign this and I will advise you to do so. I will retrieve the paper this afternoon, and if it´s not signed...".
Then he rushed out of the office, leaving Klink alone with his doubts and fears.
Admit it Wilhelm, you are afraid of the Russian front, you are afraid of dying. But you also want to help Hogan. You understand, it is you or him. If you sign it, you will never be able to look into the mirror again. You will have to live with the idea, that one of your friends died, because you were to afraid to save them. But if you don´t sign it...
Klink put his head into his hands, not knowing what to do.
Kinch, Carter, Newkirk and Lebeau could not believe what they had heard. Colonel Hogan about to be shot? Hogans life in Klinks hands? Kinch was the first to regain his speech: "Boys, we can´t let Colonel Hogan down, but before we do anything, we must speak to him. Newkirk, go through the tunnel, try to speak to him and Lebeau, go to Klink, try to get some information.".
Newkirk and Lebeau nodded and disappeared.
Hogan sat in the solitary confinement, trying to think of a plan, trying to think about something that might save him, but his head was empty. Then he heard the sound of someone crouching into the cell. He glanced out of the cell and saw Schultz snoring on his rifle. There was no danger of being discovered. Glad to be able to talk to someone, Hogan opened the tunnel entrance entirely and whispered: "Everything´s safe, come in.".
Newkirk crouched inside and sat down next to Hogan. "Colonel, do you know, that Hochstetter wants to shoot you tomorrow morning?".
Hogan nodded silently, then regained his voice and said: "Yes Newkirk, but don´t you lot get involved in this. Keep out, it´s to dangerous, you can´t help me in standing beside me and getting shot as wel.".
Newkirk shook his head, but decided to overhear the last bit of the sentence. "Colonel, did you tell them anything? How did they come to the point to execute you as a saboteur?".
"I did not tell them anything, but you know Hochstetter. Anyway, it wasn´t him, who interrogated me, it was an Obergruppenführer, called Wachtelschneider. At last, when he realised he wouldn´t get any information from me, he called in Hochstetter to do with me as he pleased. But there´s still something I don´t understand. Just after they had taken me back after the last meeting with Wachtelschneider, I heard a guard saying that he had heard Wachtelschneider telling Hochstetter he should not do anything without thinking. I still can´t think about a reason for that. But Newkirk, in a moment the new guards are coming, you need to go back now.".
Newkirk nodded, but before he closed the tunnel entrance, he said: "Colonel, we won´t let you down, we will find a way...".
Hogan shook his head: "Newkirk, really it is not possible. It is over. Continue without me, show them, they haven´t got you, don´t let everything go now, don´t risk your lives for me...".
Hogans voice had become unsteady as he said this, but he gathered the power to continue: "Newkirk, don´t try, this is... an order".
Newkirk could do nothing, to comfort Hogan, he could do nothing to take away his own feelings of pain, that Hogan was right, that they could not do anything. But something in the back of his mind said to him:
There must be a way. There were so many impossible things you pulled off, it is possible...
He looked Hogan into the eyes, hoping a look would tell more than a thousand words could ever say and made his way back through the tunnel, which looked darker than it had at any time before.
Meanwhile, Lebeau headed to Klinks office. When he knocked at the door, he was called in by an obviously irritated voice of the Kommandant. When he stood in front of the desk, Klink asked, with his mind obviously somewhere else.
"What do you want?".
"I wanted to talk to you about le colonel, mon commendant. We saw ´im arriving over ´ere just about an hour ago. Why isn´t ´e back in the barracks?".
Klink sighed and said: "He is in the solitary confinement, Hochstetter wants to shoot him next morning and he wants me to sign the order to do so. And now, get out! Dismissed!".
Lebeau realising, that Klink wouldn´t tell anything else headed back towards the barracks.
There they met al together, to discuss their plans. After both Lebeau and Newkirk had telled their story´s, Kinch jumped up.
"We need to go to Klinks office, right now and convince him, that he mustn´t sign the paper. If he doesn´t, Hochstetter can´t shoot Hogan. Come on guys.".
Everybody followed the sergeant, with a slight glimmer of hope.
Klink looked surprised, when he saw the men rushing into his office.
"And what do you want from me? Make it short, I have got enough to worry about!". While he said this, he knew he was being unreasonable. Here in front of his desk, stood the friends of the man, who was awaiting death and he was the man in charge, to decide wether it would happen or not. They had al right in the world, to come and speak to him.
Kinch, being the second leader of the group spoke: "Colonel Klink, we heard about the order to shoot Colonel Hogan and we also heard about the order, you have to sign. We come to ask you to shred the paper, please don´t think about giving Hogan to those Gestapo bastards. He is not an ordinary Colonel, he is our friend as well."
Klink nodded. You don´t know, how close you are to my thoughts. I agree with every point, but there is Hochstetter...
"Sergeant you must understand, that I don´t want this to happen either, but there is the Gestapo... I- Oh I just need time to think. Dismissed!".
As the friends moved out, they knew, that if it was for Klink, the shooting would not happen, but the Gestapo. They needed to wait now and pray.
Klink meanwhile was fighting his feelings of fear, anger and helplesness.
Klink, if it were you, waiting in the solitary confinement and Hogan was in your place, what would he do? I know it, he would not sit around helpless, waiting for someone to solve the problem for him, he would take action.
Wilhelm, do you remember the time, when you were about to be shot, after the Gestapo was convinced you had commited treason? And Hogan showing up with his plan, to form a suicide squad with Carter as a German general? And how you and the men from Barracks two were sent to the Russian front and Hogans men taking over the train, bringing you back safely and cleaning up the general who had caused al the problems? Do you remember how they risked their lives for you?
Drifting away in doubts and feelings of guilt, Klink sat in his office, thinking.