Troy had thought he'd gotten enough of pubs in North Africa, but Jack had insisted that they celebrate with a proper English pub. His favorite had vanished during the bombings, but the one he'd been dragged to seemed decent enough. They'd secured a small table, cramming the commandos together in an easily defensible corner, and he was trying to cut his teeth on authentic English food and was unimpressed.
"OI!" He was pulled from his musings, not by Tully or Hitch's conversation or even Moffit's quiet words, but the loud voice of the waitress. She maneuvered between the tables easily and pointed a finger at Hitch and then at Tully. "Who are you, blokes?"
"Ma'am," he said, wondering what the hell they could have done in the few days that they'd been in London, "if they've caused any problems."
"They help right my shop," she said, passing the two a beer. "On the 'ouse for being so helpful."
"Thank you," Hitch replied, blinking rapidly and giving her a winning smile. "Ma'am."
"Ma'am?" the woman laughed, "call me Mavis. Mavis Newkirk."
"I thought you worked at the shop?" Hitch asked.
"I do both," Mavis replied with narrowed eyes, and Hitch nodded. "And you," she pointed to Tully, who lifted his eyes from his beer. "Your biscuits were just the ticket." She leaned down and planted a kiss on the young driver's cheek, and Troy grinned as he finally figured out where Tully's treats had gone.
"What happened?" Moffit asked as the woman swanned off, already shouting at other customers.
"When we went to get the orders," Hitch answered, watching the woman smack a customer over the head. An old man in blue and gray, a crutch his testament to his missing leg. "She was in the backroom, and we heard something crash. Her table had been knocked over, and everything went everywhere."
"Seemed upset," Tully muttered, taking a pull of his drink. Troy knew that that meant she'd been near hysterics.
"So we helped clean up, Tully gave her his cookies, and we left."
"Made quite the impression then," Moffit interjected, watching the woman work. Occasionally she looked over at their table, her eyes on the back of Tully's and the Hitch's heads.
Tully said nothing, and Hitch only shrugged.
"We haven't been in London long enough for you two to cause problems."
"I think we have," Jack disagreed, "you two can get into trouble anywhere."
"Like Alexandria?" He suggested coyly and watched red flush across the professor's face.
"We do not discuss Alexandria," Moffit hissed, and the two drivers perked up. There was a story they aren't privy to, and getting the details from Jack and Sam had been near impossible. It was a juicy one, too; they'd nearly been drawn up on charges for the mess they'd made. Not a single detail had leaked out, and everyone was curious.
"Let sleeping dogs lie, Sarge," Tully said, and Troy nodded even as Moffit's dark glower only deepened.
"Finish up your drinks, lads," Moffit said instead, "we have a great deal of training tomorrow."
#$#$3
April of 1943 rolled to a close, with Dietrich still managing to juggle the politics and nonsense involved in his situation. Hearing that Fieldmarshel Rommel was in the Hammelburg area gave him a faint sense of hope and crushing humiliation as he realized that there was no way to bear this insult lightly. His commander had been tired and ill before his transfer back to Germany, and Dietrich hoped that he never paid a visit to Stalag 13 if only because the man would recognize him and his hat.
A week and a half into May, with the weather shifting into an unfortunate cold snap that would probably do significant damage to the crops nearby, Major Hochstetter returned.
His black car pulled into the camp, and the air within shifted imperceptibly. The volleyball game broke up and vanished into their respective barracks. Carter, who had been on laundry duty, vanished into his hut to get Colonel Hogan, and Dietrich had a terrible sinking feeling that Hochstetter was here for him.
Deciding to delay the inevitable, he withdrew from eyesight and went behind barracks five to nominally supervise the laundry. Both of them working paused heard the tell-tale scream of the short Gestapo man and sent him commiserating looks as a frantic Shultz waddled around the barracks in pursuit of Dietrich.
"Captain Troy," he said, "Major Hochstetter requires you in the commandant's office." He looked...terrible. Dietrich was not inclined to sympathy with the fat man, but something about his attitude spoke of some tragedy has happened. Given that he had no idea what could have happened or what might have happened, he decided to ignore the man's obvious grief in favor of his own situation.
He glanced back at the two Americans, who were watching the scene carefully, and with a faint rise of his eyebrows, hoped he had conveyed the depths of his concern. As soon as he moved to follow the fat sergeant, he watched on vanish into the barracks with the obvious intention of warning the colonel.
The man in front of Klink didn't resemble an officer as much as a wild, feral animal in uniform. Red-faced and snarling, he turned on Dietrich as soon as he entered the room, his entire body trembling with rage. It was almost the exact look of hatred and insanity that had been Wansee's face before Dietrich had shot him. An action he came to regret less and less as time went on.
"YOU!" Hochstetter screamed, storming into Dietrich's personal space. "YOU ARE A TRAITOR AND A COWARD!"
He didn't bother to respond, given that it was clear Hochstetter was only screaming for the sake of screaming.
"NORTH AFRICA HAS FALLEN, AND YOU ARE TO BLAME!"
It was absurd to think that the fall of an entire military campaign could be the blame of one man, and that thought lingered before reality capsized his thoughts. He couldn't help the gasp of shock the emerged from his mouth at the news.
His men...his command. They were all...dead?
"That's right, captain," Hochstetter pressed uncomfortably close. "Clearly, your men reflect their commanding officer. Weak and cowardly, surrendering to the Allies in the desert, betraying Germany and."
He couldn't ask a question as the door slammed open, and Colonel Hogan waltzed in.
"Major Hochstetter," he beamed.
"WHAT IS THIS MAN DOING HERE?"
"You have one of my men, and I have the right to be." Dietrich, in the midst of glancing over at Hogan, caught the faint motion of a hand swinging for his face. Battle-hardened instincts had him bring a hand up to block and the other to wrap around the shockingly bony wrist before twisting the short man's arm around until he had the man in a painful and sudden choke-hold.
Hochstetter's protests were garbled; it was hard to speak with that much pressure on your throat. Klink gaped at the scene before leaping into action.
"CAPTAIN TROY! RELEASE HIM!" He called, just as Hogan shouted something along the same lines, and he forced himself to obey. Releasing the major as the colonel stepped between the wheezing Gestapo man and Dietrich.
"SHULTZ! Take Captain Troy to the cooler! I will deal with him later." Doubtless more of a ploy to separate him from Hochstetter and to keep the Gestapo man from shooting him in Klink's office. He went willingly, head high and not bothering to hide the smirk on his face.
Hochstetter was only so smug when he was certain that no one would fight back, and even though he hadn't really been hurt, Dietrich couldn't help but believe that he had been unbelievably rattled.
The cooler was as advertised, cold and miserable. The cell had only a small bench and the most basic facilities, and as he settled onto the bench thinking over the news that he'd heard. North Africa, the entire Korps. Every single man he'd served with, every single man he'd commanded, and the Gestapo's pathetic power play had separated him from where he was supposed to be.
Dead or captured by the Allies wasn't as great a set of options, but compared to the fact that he was wearing Sgt. Troy's hat and currently occupying a cell in a German prisoner of war camp, it wasn't as if there was a difference.
Except, and this he had on good authority that the Allies had much better food for their prisoners.
It was an hour before Colonel Hogan arrived, slipping up to the bars with an expression of pained admiration.
"Captain."
"Colonel." He stood and waited for the man to continue.
"Best I could do was lower it to a week," he said apologetically, which gave the former Panzer commander pause. Dietrich had been expecting his death and execution, and he couldn't imagine how the man had swung only a week in solitary confinement.
"Thank you," he said instead of demanding how he could have done it.
"Right," Hogan knocked on the cell door a few times, looking conflicted, "don't rock the boat, Captain. I'll see you in a bit."
A week was not a bit, but he didn't mind.
"Colonel...is it true? Has North Africa fallen?"
The man paused, glancing to the side, and that was all the answer Dietrich needed. He sat down slowly, his eyes closing as he considered what sort of fate might await them.
"Will...they be alright?"
"They should be fine," Hogan replied, damningly confident and comforting.
Dietrich nodded, not at all comforted, and when he was left alone with his thoughts, the only thing he could see was his young aide's face, warped in fear and anger as the Gestapo had dragged him away.
He dreamed fitfully, memories and nightmares crossing his mind one after another and combining to create images like Fraulein Bauer standing over Troy, blood on her hands. The strong, steady sergeant hacked to pieces. The child who had fallen down the well, dead and bloated, Perkins hung with his own belt and laughing, the countless men he had commanded, screeching of jeeps, half-tracks, and tanks.
Something grabbed him, hauling him awake, and he came to, staring into the wide, startled eyes of Sergeant Carter. The fingers clamped over his mouth prevented any shouting, but if Dietrich decided to fight, the skinny long-time prisoner wasn't going to win.
Pressing his free finger to his lips, Carter waited for acknowledgment. When he nodded, the young man sank back on his heels. Beyond him, Dietrich could see the part of the floor that created the entrance to the tunnel system. He had known they had a tunnel into the cooler, but seeing it from this end was a shock.
"Sergeant," he pitched his voice low, and the younger man handed him a pail. It looked like a repurposed paint can...which it was. "What?"
"Dinner in the cooler isn't that great," Carter explained, nodding to the tray of slop that had been pushed through the bars. Clearly another form of punishment. "Colonel Hogan thought you'd like something else."
Food was food, but whatever the Heroes had scraped together had to be better than the gray sludge.
"Lebeau says thanks," the young man's eyes twinkled as the captain sat up and accepted the pail. "Send it back into the tunnel when you're done, and don't forget to re-seal it."
"I understand."
"Thanks from me too," Carter muttered, moving back across the floor as a distant noise came down the hall. "I've got a few things I want to get him back for." He rubbed his shoulder, and Dietrich wondered if Hochstetter realized just how universally loathed he was. To point where the angriest Frenchman he had ever met had made Dietrich a special meal for simply putting him in a chokehold.
He couldn't conceive being so hated; he couldn't even conceive wanting to be so hated.
#$#$#
"Kinch? What did London say?" Hogan slid down the ladder, feeling exhausted. It had taken some of his finest work to keep Dietrich from getting shot that afternoon, and he actually owned Klink a favor. The man being a staunch defender of the unfortunate man, had actually done more for him than Hogan had, and there were only a few times when he saw Klink use anything like his backbone.
"Only that if they decide to kill him then if we interfere or not is up to us. They want to keep us operational, and if we can't do that without."
"I got it." He scrubbed a hand down his face, "at least that's something. First time I've never seen Klink boots the man out of his office."
"I'm impressed," Carter said, emerging from a distant tunnel. "Just got back from taking the captain his dinner."
"And?"
"He was having nightmares," Carter said after a moment of thoughtful silence. "And he wasn't talking in German or English."
"Really?"
"I think it was Arabic, didn't sound nice, and he looked ready to flatten me when I woke him up."
"Combat ready soldiers do that," Hogan reminded Carter, remembering the first few weeks of Carter's arrival. He'd gotten a lovely bruised arm for startling the younger man.
"Yes, sir."
"Okay,' he took a deep breath, "any news on Volker Shultz?"
"I wired London, and they said that they'd contact Cairo, but it could take a while. The whole of the Korps has to be processed."
"Who is Volker Shultz?" Carter wondered.
"Shultz's oldest son, he was assigned to North Africa a few months ago. Only a little over sixteen, and he's been captured."
"Why are we looking for him?"
"Because we need Shultz here, and if that means we have to pull a few strings to make sure that the kid's okay, then we're going to pull strings."
"Send him to Canada," Carter said after a moment, "it'll be nicer than England."
"You got somethin' against the Crown?" Newkirk appeared, his eyes sparkling with mischief.
"No, but Volker Shultz would probably be safer and happier in Canada or America. They even have trustees in America where prisoners can go work on farms or live with families." Hogan would have disputed the claim, except that Carter had a network of family across the entire country and someone had probably slipped him the information recently. "If he is that young, then he could probably get a nice gig."
"Really?" Newkirk looked jealous and then paused. "I'd hate to be handed out to some German family; you just know that they'd be 'orrible."
"The difference is that America is a long way from the war," surprising Hogan with his rare insight. "And it's a lot easier to be nice to the enemy when it's not the reason you've got blackout curtains."
"Wire London," Hogan said, accepting Carter's idea without another thought. "Tell them we want him on a plane to America for safekeeping. Anything happens to him at Allied hands, and we can kiss Stalag 13 goodbye."
"Yes, sir." Kinch turned to his radio and began tapping out a message.
#$#$#
A week in the cooler went by so slowly that by the time Shultz, still miserable, opened the door, he was grateful to see the barbed wire of fencing and the towers and the lazy baseball game taking place. He hadn't shaved in a week, and his face was layered in a thickening beard he hadn't realized he could grow.
"Captain Troy!" Private Davies appeared at this side, his youthful face breaking into a bright smile that he could have only learned from the Americans. "I'm glad you're out! Colonel Hogan said that you should go speak to him when you get cleaned up."
"Right," his accent was probably audible, but given that he hadn't spoken more than a few words in the last week, it couldn't be helped. "Follow me."
"Sir?" Davies followed easily enough, a little confused, into Barracks five, where his things remained mostly untouched. It was obvious that Sgt. Thomas had been in there, dusting, but he'd left everything as it was.
From the locker, he pulled one of the sweaters from the Troy family. It wasn't blue, but it was warm in the way that nothing Davies was wearing was.
"Here, courtesy of my mother." he handed it over, and the young man's face lit up.
"Blimey! Sir! I can't accept this!" The young man was frozen, gaping at Dietrich as he threw together his kit.
"You will," he ordered, "and you refrain from getting ill again."
"Sir!"
"That is an order, Private," he said firmly, and the Englishman blinked rapidly. "I find your regular outerwear entirely unsuitable."
"Sir," he swallowed and nodded. "Yes, suh! Thank you, suh!"
"Go," he jerked his head to the side, and the young man fled his little room with his new sweater. It was only after the briefest of showers, a shave, and a change into a clean uniform that Dietrich even considered presenting himself to Hogan. Slipping Troy's hat onto his head, he made his way to Barracks 2, head high, and entered the room to find the regular crew of troublemakers pouring over a map.
"Colonel Hogan," He saluted, and the man straightened. "You wished to speak with me."
"Hi, Captain!" Sergeant Carter, having been his only contact with the outside world, was a welcome sight. His eyes were bright and cheerful, and he looked impressed. "Welcome back!"
"Not all it's cracked up to be, is it?" Newkirk asked, and Dietrich ignored the dig.
"Let's go to my office," Hogan said, shooting Newkirk a glare. "Fellas, give us some privacy." the crew dispersed out the door, and joining the man in his quarters, he waited for whatever reprimand was coming his way.
Hogan only hugged himself, leaning against his desk while gazing at Dietrich with something approaching admiration. "That," he said, "was the most reckless thing you could have done, captain."
Dietrich said nothing.
"You're lucky you're not dead, and if had been anyone else, you would be. Not only that," he gestured with a seemingly lazy hand, "we'd all be dead too."
"Yes, sir."
The man observed him, "I'm sorry about your men, captain."
"They were abandoned and betrayed," he hissed suddenly, "abandoned and betrayed by the very men and people they swore to protect and serve. I suppose I can only be grateful that my men will have decent rations now." He let out a hollow laugh that would have gotten him slapped by any other officer. Hogan only quirked an eyebrow up.
"And by Hochstetter too," the man mused, "he tried to denounce you to me."
"He intends for me to die here."
"Yes." It wasn't exactly cruel, but the truth was often the worst thing someone could hear.
"It's personal."
"I'm guessing." Hogan stared. "I understand that you're a German and an officer cut out of the old cloth, but if you want to live to see the end of this war, then you're going to need to be willing to dirty that cloth up a bit." From serving honorably to this . He felt his jaw clench. "When was the last time you were in Germany, Captain?"
"Five years ago, on leave to visit my sister."
"Everything has changed since then," Hogan told him. "You, as an upstanding citizen and officer, are in just as much danger from the brass as I am. You're too moral, and that's on record , Captain Dietrich."
"I am aware of the dangers posed by."
"I don't think you are," the American interrupted coldly, looking so far from his usual genteel, personable self that Dietrich only stared. "Killing a Gestapo officer means that retaliation is taken out on the civilians, deportation, execution, prison, and God knows what else. You put the lives of every man in the camp in danger. You're not standing in front of me in an American uniform and with the name of a dead man because of anything we've done. This," Hogan gestured to Dietrich. Dietrich straightened as much as he could, acutely aware of the American uniform, the oath he had taken before the war, the men he had killed and protected. "Is all Gestapo."
"I do not need the sales pitch, Heer Oberst," he said firmly, "I wish to defect."
"Defect?" Hogan paused and blinked.
"Is that not what you wished?' He asked, watching the man's expression.
"Why?" Hogan was watching him very carefully, his attention sharp and heavy.
"I have spent a week alone with the knowledge that North Africa was a waste of men and resources and that my men and myself were abandoned and betrayed by the high command. I can no longer sit by and watch as evil infects my home and puts the lives of my family at stake. While I have been...complacent these last few months, I desire to do this properly." He lifted Sergeant Troy's hat into the air between them. "The man who wore this hat is a man of great integrity, and I witnessed him go against orders and God to protect innocents and his men. He obeys the laws of man until they interfere with decency and humanity. I learned much from my enemies, even the fact that being able to face yourself in the mirror outstrips the fear of facing a firing squad. If I am to wear this hat and bear his name, then I will do it properly."
Hogan was smiling, and he held out a hand. "Welcome, Captain Dietrich; we're glad to have you."
Feeling as if he was betraying everything he'd ever fought for, he shook Hogan's hand firmly.
"I did see Private Davies around in that new sweater of his," Hogan said after a minute. "Pretty generous."
"I fear that a stiff wind would carry him off," Dietrich said, "and should he fall ill again, I do not think he will survive."
"We'll handle it if he gets sick again," but the man seemed pleased by Dietrich's concern. It chilled his heart to think that such basic manners for his fellow man had become the exception rather than the rule. "You're free to return to your barracks, and as far as anyone is concerned, I've given you a pretty strict talking-to."
"You have," he replied, and Hogan's eyes twinkled. "Good afternoon, sir." With a salute, he exited Barracks 2 and moved toward Barracks 5. When he entered, the men looked up, and a faint applause broke out.
He was fairly sure that news of his defection couldn't have broken out this quickly, so he raised his eyebrows and watched Sergeant Thomas approach.
"What is this?"
"A thank-you," Thomas handed him a small package. Three cookies wrapped in a handkerchief. "There's not much we can do about a bully like Hochstetter, and it's good to see someone do something."
"I could have gotten you killed," he answered, and Thomas shrugged.
"We've been gambling with the reaper since we got here," the flier smiled, and Dietrich felt something in his chest give an unpleasant thump. "You should see Davies, though; he looks like he's drowning in that sweater."
"He will grow into it," Hans shrugged, repeating what his mother had said of him often enough. "When he grows up."
The laugh that he garnered was nearly enough to wash away his worry.
#$#$#
Private Tully Pettigrew did not expect the first thing to happen in his day was to be rushed away from their base and toward downtown London with MP's from British intelligence. He wasn't too concerned though, he hadn't done anything against regulation, and he was pretty sure that his nonchalant attitude was making the MP's nervous.
He was fine settled in the car, chewing on a matchstick and watching the city go by. Hitch had been left behind, and he wasn't sure where the lieutenants were, but he figured that if everything went south, then they could help out.
He was a little surprised to be dragged into the heart of British intelligence, being ushered past men with higher and higher rank, until he was escorted into an office with three generals and an admiral, and Captain Scamander.
Saluting, he wondered what could have happened.
"Private Pettigrew," General Butler eyed him without the usual lack of respect and trust. If Tully were the sort to be flattered, he would have been flattered. "Please, sit."
He obeyed, wondering why they hadn't asked him to get into his dress uniform. In the middle of all of this, he looked out of place. No way would his Ma ever believe that her son had ended up in the middle of a place like this.
"Private Pettigrew, do you know why you're here?"
"No, sir." He glanced from man to man.
"We have several questions to ask you, and we want you to answer them honestly and without reservation. The lives of several hundred people and the entire course of the war could depend on whether or not you're telling the truth." With that, Tully could only frown slightly. He glanced from Scamander and then to the other officers who were all watching him closely.
"Yes, sir."
"Good, now...this is all very strange to you, Private, but I need to know your opinion of one Captain Hans Dietrich."
Tully blinked once or twice and wondered why the hell they were coming to him, of all people, for the opinion on an enemy officer. A dead enemy officer at that.
"He was smart and dangerous."
"Yes," a British general said, "we know that. His record speaks for itself."
"What sort of a man he is." General Butler said, and Tully tilted his head to the side.
"He's alive?" The four men exchanged a series of glances, and Tully shrugged. The admiral looked peeved, and as far as Tully could tell, Captain Scamander looked a little proud of him.
"Would Captain Dietrich ever work with or cooperate with the Gestapo?"
"No," he didn't hesitate in the slightest. He didn't need to. He remembered the scuffle with Captain Wannsee as well as the other rats, and he could read a bullet wound just as easily as his lieutenants.
"And would you believe Captain Dietrich if he defected?" One of the others demanded, probably one of the rank happy British officers who looked a little surprised when Tully met his eyes evenly.
"What happened?"
"Private Pettigrew," General Butler snapped, but he looked pleased even if for a second. "That is classified."
"It would take a lot to shake Captain Dietrich," he said slowly.
"But would you accept him for his defection?"
Again, he wondered why the hell they were bothering with him. Why not Troy? Why not Moffit? Dietrich was an officer, a gentleman, strange and utterly foreign the same way most everyone he met now was. Then again, maybe the reason they asked him was because Dietrich never really dealt with Tully as much as he dealt with Moffit to Troy. How an officer spoke to and dealt with the lowest ranks went a long way to showing what sort of man they were. Then there was the fact that Dietrich had saved Troy, not Tully, so Troy might be inclined to be more generous about it. There were lines men didn't cross...until they had to.
"Yes," he said, "I would."
"Would you trust him with the lives of half of our spy network in Germany," demanded General Butler.
"Does he know about North Africa?" Tully wondered, and the men again paused to look at each other.
"Yes," Captain Scamander said slowly, "he does."
"Then he's good." Tully went to stand, but one of the brits smacked the table.
"Sit down, Private. It is not simply enough for your word, and I demand an explanation! Why?"
Tully frowned; it was a clear as day to him, but it made sense that they were suspicious. With a sigh, he opened his mouth and began to speak.
#$#$#
Troy was on rotation for preparing dinner that night and finding Captain Scamander and Private Pettigrew on the front step was enough to distract him from the food.
"Smells smashing!" Scamander beamed, ignoring Troy's frown, and moved around the kitchen to eye the things in the pot. "Lovely, I say. A spot of tea for Pettigrew here? I'm afraid they ran him through the wringer, and his voice might be a little hoarse." Since the tall Brit had vanished that morning, and Tully had been called in for something just an hour later, and neither of them had been seen for hours, he was understandably wary.
"Hoarse?" he looked at Tully. The man looked tired, and he nodded without speaking. Given how little actually spoke, it probably hadn't taken long for his voice to start hurting. "Jack!" He moved to the threshold, slapping the trim. "We need tea!"
"I taught you how to make it!" Moffit protested, moving down the stairs with his nose still in the codebook. "Why can't you seem to. Ah, Tully! You're back! Where have you been?"
"Busy," Scamander moved into the dining room. "I've put the kettle on. Call down the fourth, if you please. We have a few things to discuss."
#$#$#
Private Volker Shultz sat with the dozens of other prisoners, trying not to shake with despair or fear or even to waste his precious water with tears, but it was hard not to be afraid. It was hard not to be terrified when he was surrounded by armed men, and he was without a weapon and hundreds of kilometers from home.
"SHULTZ!" Hearing his name bellowed out was enough to make him lift his head. He turned to stare at the men who had called. A corporal with armed guards
"What does he want?" The man next to him asked, and Shultz shrugged, utterly confused.
"SHULTZ, VOLKER PRIVATE!" The man called again, looking sweaty and hot. "Front and center." Shultz froze, and only when the man shoved him. He stood slowly, aware of every eye on him, and made his way to where the British man was waiting. "Right," the man peered at him, "off we go. Come along."
"Sir?" He fell into line behind the man, eyeing the two guards nervously. "What?"
"Hush up, come along, we don't have all day." The man escorted him to a jeep waiting at the entrance of the transit camp. "Come along."
He obeyed, climbing into the passenger's seat and eyeing the men who sat back with the weapons still at the ready. The last thing he expected was to be taken to an enormous office where several officers were standing around, and one, in particular, looked annoyed at everything.
"Private Shultz," the man beside him said, saluting, "as requested."
"Thank you, Corporal. Dismissed, we'll call you when we're done." Volker swallowed hard as he was left behind, facing several officers, American and British, and someone in the French Foreign Legion uniform.
"Well, Private Shultz, don't try to pretend you don't speak English. We know you do." He nodded, feeling his palms getting sweaty. "Right, you're only about sixteen or seventeen?
"Private Volker Shultz," he said, "serial number."
"And your father is Sergeant Hans Shultz, currently in the Luftwaffe and sergeant of the guard at Stalag 13, reporting to Colonel Klink?"
Volker had met the colonel once, tall and stork-like with an irritating personality….but how did they know who his father served with? How did they?
"You prefer pumpernickel with jam, not butter, and you had had plans to enter university and study civil engineering. Your favorite cat's name was named Cake, one of the first words you learned in English."
Volker gaped, both a little terrified by the fact that they knew so much about him and his father. Truly Allied intelligence was...dangerous.
"This is you?" The man asked, and without much else to do, he nodded. "Excellent. Well, Private Shultz, it goes without saying that the war is over for you. If you ever see combat again, I'll eat my hat." He seemed perfectly sincere, and Volker was a little too frightened to think clearly.
"What are you going to do to me?" He cried, realizing that not only were the men around him bigger, but they were also stronger and a lot older. Trying to hold back his tears was nearly futile. Any time he had been pulled in front of this many men, older and stronger, it had ended badly. It was how he ended up in the desert in the first place.
"Steady on, lad, we're not going to torture you." The man handed a guard a handkerchief, who passed it to the frightened private. Volker accepted it with a frown and used it to stem the few tears trickling from his eyes. "We would like to know how you ended up in the desert in the first place."
"My father," he said, the tears coming harder and heavier. He knew just what people would say and think to see a grown soldier crying in front of his enemies. "He angered a powerful man, and they sent me away to punish him. I was not finished with training yet."
"And you're a little young to be fighting, so they wanted your death to punish him?"
Nodding, Volker choked back on the lump in his throat.
"Right, any idea who?"
He shook his head and tried to scold himself into behaving. It was insulting to see anything like pity in the enemy's eyes, but one of the Americans reminded him of Colonel Hogan. The one time that he'd showed up at their little home, having escaped just to surrender himself to Volker's father. He had never seen his father so upset, and the man had refused to but short the last few hours of his leave to escort him back. Colonel Hogan had ended up playing with baby Hannelore and chatting with Gerhard, who was still practicing his English. Volker didn't like American fliers, but he liked his father more, so turning in his family was out of the question, and if he'd glared at the man, no one seemed to notice or care.
"Well, rotten luck that. Well, lad. I think you'll like where you're going. Guards, take him."
"Where am I going?" He turned, panicked as the guards yanked him along. "Where are you taking me?"
He got no response and was tossed into the back of a transport truck without warning.
#$#$#
Kinch wanted to be a little more surprised when, halfway through his shift on the radio, the scent of aromatic coffee tickled his nose. From the tunnel leading from Barracks 5 came Captain Dietrich, shifting out the dark and looking otherworldly and nearly inhuman.
"Sir," he nodded faintly, not at all surprised when a cup of coffee was set next to his paper pad. "Coffee?"
"Courtesy of Frau Troy."
"How did she get it in through the mail?"
"By using the Gordian knot to tie her package."
"She won't be able to do that again."
"Doubtless."
Kinch picked up the coffee, savoring the heat and the smell. "What brings you down here, captain?"
"Right the point," he observed, and Kinch lifted his coffee cup.
"I wouldn't have accepted this bribe otherwise, sir. What's on your mind?"
"My men," He decided to get straight to the point, "what can you tell me about what happened?"
Kinch stared at the taller man; he looked tired and stressed beyond the normal tiredness and stress of Stalag 13. Worry did that to people, he had discovered some time ago. Without a word, he slid a piece of paper he had been saving for this occasion and handed it over. For several moments the tunnel was quiet, and Kinch savored the coffee as the German beside him read the information.
"You anticipated my request?"
Kinch nodded and watched the man pursed his lips before passing the paperback. "Canada is nice this time of year."
"Is it?" The man's hollow laugh caught him by surprise. "I wouldn't know." More silence followed, and Dietrich let out a faint sigh. "Doubtless, you can tell what happened."
That was a surprise, most officers didn't give Kinch a second thought, and most tended to underestimate him, with Hogan as the rare exception.
"They were left to die," he said, knowing that Dietrich didn't want to hear it but that it probably needed to be heard from someone else. "They didn't have a chance."
"They had chances," the man hissed, "they had the opportunity and meant until such political nonsense got in the way." He looked over at Kinch.
"If Hochstetter hadn't betrayed you, then you'd be over there too, or you'd be dead. You're good, but no one is that good."
"And shouldn't I be with them?"
"You're no good dead, and you can do a lot more here." Kinch frowned, "but we'll have to get you some acting lessons with Carter."
"Germany is my home," Dietrich waved him off, "I know."
"No, you don't," Kinch shook his head, "once upon a time, maybe, but you've been gone too long. It's changed, and it keeps changing for the worse. Guys like Hochstetter are the rule, and you would probably be in more danger if you'd returned to Germany as the officer you left as."
"That is absurd," but the man didn't look convinced at his own words.
"Don't believe me, ask Carter or Newkirk. Hell, ask Lebeau if he'll listen to you. You won't get anything out of the guards. Hold on," a burst of static came down the line, and he busied himself with accepting a message. As he decoded the message, a smile tipped his mouth up, and he handed the slip of blue paper. "Can you take this to Colonel Hogan? He's been waiting on this."
"Yes," Not caring if it was top secret, he flipped it open to see "V.S. safe in L. Move to A soon."
Up the ladder and into Barracks 2, he found himself in the middle of an argument about the relative rank of a mouse. The mouse in question was perched perfectly happily atop Sergeant Carter's hat and wearing a tiny sweater with captain's bars stitched on.
"I was outranked by the monkey!" Lebeau snapped, "I do not want to be outranked by a mouse!"
"Freddie earned his rank!" Newkirk seemed to be sewing up a Gestapo uniform and was adding to the argument simply to annoy the smaller man.
"And so has Felix!" Carter exclaimed, genuinely involved in the argument.
Deciding that even defection didn't mean he was going to bother with the bizarre subculture that was Barracks 2, he knocked on Hogan's door and entered when given permission. Hogan was pouring over several maps, and for once, the easy smile on his face had been traded in for a frown.
"Captain?"
"A message," he answered, passing him the blue note.
"Finally, some good news," Hogan stood, "what are they arguing about?"
"The rank of a mouse." He watched Hogan heave a sigh and moved to the door.
"Newkirk! Get Felix his captain's bars! He's earned them."
An outburst of outraged French was enough to make Dietrich smile and shrug enigmatically when Hogan shot him a suspicious glance.
"He is a passionate man."
"Carter!" Hogan said, "go tell Schultz that I want to see him. Captain, thanks for the message." Nodding, Dietrich retreated back down the tunnel and toward Barracks 5. He didn't see Kinch receive another message or emerge from the tunnel with a grin on his face.
"Colonel, you're not going to believe this," he handed over a note just as the door opened and Shultz came through. "But London checked with someone they trusted to verify the captain...apparently he's been cleared, and we're cleared to clue him in at our discretion."
"One person, to verify him?"
"No idea," Kinch stepped away as Shultz gave a slow salute.
"Colonel Hogan, what is it? I am very tired, and I. "
"Volker is safe," the colonel said, and the man's face crumpled with relief.
"My boy, he is alive and safe?"
"You'll be getting word from the Red Cross soon, and he's safe."
The enormous sergeant didn't wait a moment to start sobbing into his hand; utter relief had him collapsing onto the bench and nearly crushing it. For several minutes, Barracks 2 was quiet save for the old man's relief.
It wasn't often that any of them really thought about what they were doing in terms of the human toll their efforts had, or in fact, how many young men would be fighting and dying across Europe and North Africa. One of the reasons that they were urged not to connect with their captors was to avoid any sudden attack of consciousness.
"Will I get to see him again?" Shultz asked, brushing away the few tears rolling down his face. "Colonel Hogan, please. He is only a boy!"
"He's a prisoner for the duration, Shultz," Hogan shrugged, "there's nothing I can do."
For a moment, the ex-toymaker looked wildly furious, and he deflated with a sigh. "He is safer then. If he is far from the fighting."
"Yes," the barracks was quiet for a moment, and the man stood again.
"I see nothing, Colonel Hogan," Shultz told him... "I know nothing...will I get a letter soon?"
"Soon as they can manage," Hogan replied, and the man nodded before re-donning his helmet and trudging out into the chilly evening.