Author's Note:
Tonight, I thought I'd try something a little different for me. This is my stress-induced attempt at writing something vaguely like an episode. It should only be about two chapters and not very long, but I thought I'd give it a try anyway.
Obviously, I still own nothing. Except for series 4, I own that. On DVD, but that counts right?
"I'm sorry, Colonel."
The first words spoken in what feels like hours echo hollowly through Colonel Hogan's draughty office.
It was the middle of the night, gone three in the morning at the very least, and yet the most infamous occupants of Barracks 2 were wide awake. They hadn't even tried to go to sleep, and no matter how tired they were it wouldn't claim them for many hours yet.
For better or worse, Carter's quiet apology broke the tense silence that had suffocated the four men since they had returned.
With more effort than he really had in him, the Colonel levered himself up, turning a gentle gaze on his exhausted men. "It's not on you, Carter," he reassured him, voice as strained as it was barely audible. "London needed the information, I signed off on the plan. My fault."
The refusal was immediate and adamant.
"Mon colonel, you couldn't have seen-"
"He was a Gestapo man, sir-"
"I was supposed to be there!"
Silence rang where Newkirk's voice ought to have followed Carter's. Another unwanted reminder of how spectacularly wrong the night had gone.
Newkirk captured, Hogan shot, Kinch injured; it was fair to say that the night could not have gone much worse.
In fact, as Hogan saw it, the only mercy in the entire situation was Hochstetter's current presence in Berlin. Otherwise, bright and early tomorrow morning, they'd be standing in front of their own personalised firing squad - that is, if Hochstetter didn't want to torture them a bit first.
"What are we going to do, Colonel?" Kinch asked, ever the voice of reason. "If Newkirk doesn't make roll call tomorrow morning, we're all in trouble."
Hogan closed his eyes, fighting past the fog of pain and bone-deep exhaustion. "Newkirk is going to sleep in here again tonight," he announced, keeping a close eye on Carter, who slumped against the desk. "Just like we did last time he was enjoying the Gestapo's fabled hospitality."
"Pillows, record, the works?" Kinch checked, earning himself a nod from the Colonel.
"What about you, Colonel?" LeBeau wondered, concern evident in his eyes. "You cannot sleep out there like this." One hand gestured helplessly towards him, as if to encompass the bullet hole in his side and the amount of blood he'd lost on their run back to camp.
"I stay here too," Hogan sighed. "If I can't persuade the Kommandant that I have a cold as well, I'm a very poor actor."
"Or a very injured one," Carter muttered, still casting a dark glower at the floor. That he was blaming himself for Newkirk's capture was apparent, even though Carter and LeBeau had remained behind in camp for tonight's failed mission.
A flickering smile crossed Hogan's face, just enough to ease some more of the tension in the room. "He'll believe me, don't worry."
If there was one thing Hogan knew he could do blindfolded, shot and in his sleep, it was manipulating Klink.
"Try and get some sleep, guys, we've got a long day tomorrow." Hogan waited until LeBeau and Kinch had shuffled out, saving his energy for what was coming. "I ordered you to stay behind, Carter," he stated quietly, the words no less powerful for the effort it was taking him to say them. "Newkirk volunteered to come with me. He wouldn't want you beating yourself up about this."
"We're supposed to be a team," Carter protested.
Hogan knew Carter was referring to himself and Newkirk, and he knew that was on him for partnering them so often. "We are," he said gently. "Which is why sometimes I'll ask you and LeBeau to stay behind while Kinch and Newkirk come with me."
It wasn't his most subtle point, but in the state he was in he didn't care as long as it got the job done.
And it did.
Carter's gaze fell to the floor again, his foot scuffing the floorboards. Even though no words were said in reply, Hogan knew his message had been received loud and clear.
"We'll get him back, Carter," Hogan assured his senior sergeant. "I promise."
"When is it going to be safe enough to, sir?"
.
Carter's quiet question in reply was echoed by LeBeau after roll call the next morning. It was still early and bitingly cold, but at least Klink and Schultz had believed Hogan's excuse that Newkirk was in bed with a fever. When he heard LeBeau's worried question, every ounce of helplessness he felt came rushing back, hitting him with the force of last night's bullet.
"Well," Hogan said, shifting a little in place. Fire burned anew along his side, but he pushed it away stubbornly. He still had work to do. "There's nothing we can do for Newkirk until tonight at the earliest. I'll see what I can do to distract the Kommandant, give you some more leeway."
"Hooooogaaann!"
"Speak of the devil," the Colonel muttered, pasting on a smile. "Wish me luck."
"Good luck, sir," Carter wished, his thoughts still miles away in a cold cell in the Hammelburg Gestapo Headquarters.
If there was any doubt that the Colonel was not well, it was gone by the time he had hobbled halfway across the compound. His ashen face and slow steps all but convinced the Kommandant for him. He didn't even need to fake a cough or mumble about chicken soup. Their meeting was necessarily short - the Colonel too exhausted to stand long, and the Kommandant too worried about catching cold - and losing his command if the disease was contagious enough - to entertain him.
It was with a kind of agonised victory that the Colonel returned to the hut.
"The Kommandant has ordered our barracks quarantined until further notice," Hogan announced, safely settled back into his lumpy but secure bunk. Though the Colonel was disappointed not to be able to go out with his men, he was proud nonetheless. He had good men and he trusted them implicitly. "Carter, the rest is up to you."
Normally, he'd give the mission lead to Kinch, but there was no one he trusted more to run this particular mission than Carter.
Carter stood tall, every inch the senior sergeant he (and the other men) sometimes forgot he was. "Yes sir," he grinned, letting some enthusiasm overtake the near-constant weight of worry. "We've ran this play before, but I think it'll work again."
"The munitions dump?" LeBeau guessed, shaking his head at the irony.
"Newkirk would appreciate the poetry," Carter replied brightly, it only took him a little effort to keep it up. "We blew up a munitions dump last time we rescued him from Gestapo HQ, we'll do it again too. Sort of like a welcome back to Stalag 13 present for him."
"I volunteer," Kinch offered, standing just a little too stiffly for anyone to believe he was uninjured. They all knew it would take more than a bruised rib or two to stop him from helping where he could.
Carter risked a glance up at the Colonel's bunk, Hogan nodding slightly. "Take Olsen too; he's the one that scouted it for us."
Carter's eyes gleaned under his cap. "I'll make up some charges, I've got just the thing to cause one heck of a distraction."
"And what shall we be doing?" LeBeau wondered, holding tightly to a mug of his inexplicably excellent coffee.
A grin almost reminiscent of Hogan's most mischievous lit up Carter's face. "We've still got a couple of Gestapo uniforms in our size downstairs," he reminded the Frenchman.
"We're going to walk through the front door?" LeBeau's incredulity almost made Carter laugh. Almost. The image of Newkirk in a cold, dark cell made it impossible.
"Do you know of a better way?"
LeBeau grumbled something in French. "When I get him out of that cell, he's going to be my new dishwasher for a month."
"Works for me," Carter agreed, sunny and cheerful. They were going to get her best friend back and then Carter would strenuously object if the Laurel to his Hardy ever thought about going out on a mission without him.
See? He could plan just like the Colonel. And his siblings thought his extra schooling would never pay off.
.
The rest of the present Unsung Heroes quietly left the room to prepare for that night's rescue and sabotage missions, leaving Carter alone with the Colonel.
"I should go too," Carter offered, honestly a little nervous at the thought of leading this particular rescue mission. "I've got some bombs to make."
Hogan chuckled and winced, mistaking Carter's nervousness for his usual enthusiasm about everything that went boom!
"Just do me a favour, will you?"
Carter paused by the door, turning slowly towards the Colonel's bunk. He'd be lying if he thought the Colonel's tone didn't worry him a little. "Of course, sir."
"Don't shout each other's names out in the middle of the cells, alright?" Hogan all but pleaded. "It gave me nightmares how reckless we were last time."
"Oh boy," Carter slumped in relief. "We worked that out after you read us the riot act for it, sir."
A fleeting smile crossed Hogan's lips, almost looking like his normal self. "As long as you're prepared."
Carter grinned again, letting the Colonel's unspoken yet audible belief in them - in him - buoy his steps. He snapped to a more perfect salute than any of them would give outside the hut. "We'll be back in a few hours, Colonel," he said, confidence replacing the usual naivety of his voice. "And Newkirk will be with us."
As Carter shut the Colonel's door, he heard him tease, "Well, no plan's perfect!"
Thank you.