Thank you to all who have been reviewing and messaging. This time there's a giant glaring *hint* as to what's going on. I hope that you all enjoy.

In the morning Newkirk didn't look as if he'd rested at all. Almost as soon as roll call and breakfast were done, he'd headed down into the tunnel to begin working on uniforms. He'd been short with everyone but completely rebuffed every attempt at conversation from Carter.

Once down in the tunnels, Newkirk started down to his sewing area but then paused at the radio alcove. Glancing around, he settled into Kinch's chair and tuned the radio to the BBC channel to listen for more news. The British announcer read off a great deal of uplifting reports on how well the Allies were doing in beating the German forces. Newkirk grimaced slightly. He knew some of the reports were false. It was difficult to sort the real news from the public relations reports. They mentioned the German bombings but failed to clarify exactly which areas had been hit and Newkirk closed his eyes listening to the little bit of home. All of his worry and dread built up as he waited. The announcer repeated most of the news again. Just as Newkirk was about to give up, Sergeant Baker appeared stepping into the alcove.

"Oh! Sorry, I didn't know you were in here..." Baker was startled but recovered quickly. "I can come back in ten minutes, if you're using the radio... but Colonel Hogan wanted me to send out that list..."

Newkirk pulled the headset off and slapped it into the sergeant's hand. "No, I'm done." He headed to his alcove to sew but suddenly realized that he was too keyed up to sew. Pacing back and forth just outside the sewing room, he tried to shove aside his worry. Finally he gave up and headed back up to the barracks, he could retrieve the packet of heavy needles. Those were best for sewing the heavy outer coat material anyway.

Back in the barracks, Kinch found Carter sitting forlornly at the table. Hogan was discussing finding more coffee with LeBeau. The Frenchman had traded almost a pound of the precious stuff away for staples to feed everyone better food for nearly a month. At the time it seemed a good trade, but then, at the time, they'd all had coffee. Now he was stretching the little remaining coffee with a lot of poor additives and replacements.

"I'll lean on Klink later today and see if I can get him to cough up some of the missing Red Cross packages. That should get us enough coffee for you to stretch until we can get some more." Hogan slung an arm around LeBeau's shoulders. "We all know you do the best at stretching the foodstuffs."

Kinch agreed. "And LeBeau is the only person I know that can make even the worst rations taste good."

Now LeBeau was smiling and looking pleased. "Merci. I try."

Hogan noticed Carter sitting quietly and left LeBeau to go lean on the table. "Hey Carter, I thought you'd be outside. I mean, you can make more explosives but if there's a little sun, might as well enjoy the slow days, right?"

"Yeah, I guess." Carter was picking at the seam on one of his gloves. "I'll get the explosives done, sir. Don't worry."

"I'm not worried about the explosives. What's wrong, Carter? Usually I have to rein you in to keep you from playing with explosives. Are you missing ingredients?"

"No sir. It's fine." Carter looked up at the empty bunk over his own and then back at Hogan. "I promise, I'll get it all done."

LeBeau slipped over to settle on the bench beside the young man. "Why are you so quiet?" He elbowed him lightly. "Come, we'll go outside and find some of the other Americans and maybe play baseball?"

"No, I should just go work on stuff." Carter looked at LeBeau. "You're Newkirk's friend. Can you tell him I'm sorry? I mean, so he'll listen and not be mad at me anymore?"

LeBeau exchanged a look with Kinch. "Oh Carter, he will get over it. Just don't say you're going to tie him up like that, okay?"

"Well I only was going to do it to keep him safe!" objected Carter.

Kinch came to sit at the table too, throwing one look to check that the tunnel entrance was closed. "It's not the leash that he objects to, but the idea that you'd force him to be tied up where he couldn't get loose." He held up a hand to forestall the repeated protest. "It doesn't matter why you want to do it. Some of the guards tied him to a bunk once and he gets a little crazy at the idea now, okay? Don't ask him about it. Just don't suggest it either."

Hogan bristled slightly. "When did this happen? Who did it? WHY would they do that?" He hesitated. "Did... did they..."

"Non." said LeBeau firmly. "It was a long time ago, mon colonel. The guards were angry because Newkirk got out of the cooler, you know how he is. But they didn't want to tell the kommandant so they tied him up in one of the empty barracks and left him there." LeBeau's face grew hard. "It was cruel and they just wanted to punish him for making them look bad. We didn't know he wasn't in the cooler until Kinch heard him in the barracks a couple days later."

Kinch nodded. "We told the guards if they didn't let him go right away, we'd tell Klink and the Red Cross and I think LeBeau told some of them he would poison their food... whatever it took to make them let him go." He gazed at Hogan. "Please, don't ask him about it. Just let it go and don't suggest tying him up."

"Alright." Hogan thought quietly. "You should have told me about this."

"Mon colonel..." LeBeau suddenly smiled ruefully. "You must understand, a great many things happened before you arrived here. Many things that some of us had to forget about."

"Okay, so how did our sneak get out of the barracks last night? I thought we got all the entrances secured?" Hogan moved on. He resolved to look into all of this at a later date. Right now, they needed to figure out the more specifics of how his man was escaping.

"We're not sure, sir," said Carter. "We really searched the barracks this morning but there just wasn't anything we could find."

Hogan frowned and seemed ready to object and LeBeau spoke up defending Carter. "He's right, mon Colonel. All the traps were still on the windows, I was asleep on the tunnel entrance and we all heard the door was still secured. He must have found another way out, but we couldn't find it."

After a few seconds of thought, Hogan put on a smile and clapped LeBeau on the shoulder. "Well, it's only natural, Newkirk is sneakier than the rest of us."

"Knew me bloody ears were burning for a reason." groused Newkirk as he climbed up from the tunnel. He looked haggard and only grunted in response to greetings from LeBeau and Kinch. Carter earned a glare when he tried to ask after him.

Hogan stifled the desire to grab and shake the Brit. He knew the man was tired and out of sorts from the sleepwalking incidents and was justifiably angry with Carter. Hogan sipped at a lukewarm cup of coffee and watched Newkirk hunting through his footlocker for something. Hogan usually let the men solve their own interpersonal issues. Normally the 'laurel and hardy' pair would never be mad more than an hour or so before they'd be back together again, plotting mischief or arguing over a game of cards.

"LeBeau, did you take my pack of 'eavy needles again?" Newkirk slammed the lid to his footlocker as he gave up his search.

LeBeau rolled his eyes. "Non, why would I take your needles? You took them to the rec hall when you were helping with the canvas raincoats. Maybe you left them there."

"Maybe." Newkirk got to his feet and headed for the door.

Carter jumped up to intercept him. "I'll go look for you!"

Putting a hand out to push the eager young American further away from him, Newkirk scowled at him. "And just 'ow are you going to find something when you don't even know where I was using them in the bloody rec 'all? Useless git." He stalked out through the door before anyone could protest, leaving a dejected Carter behind to slump down at the table.

"Carter, you know he's just angry. He'll get over it." LeBeau gave their friend a pat. "He just has a hot temper."

Hogan agreed. "You two are always having fights. Never lasts long, so hang in there, okay?" He started back to his office when the barracks' door opened to a very bright-eyed Newkirk returning followed closely by Schultz. "Hello Schultz, what can we do for you?"

"Schultz 'as our mail!" spoke up Newkirk. He was hovering at Schultz's elbow. "Go on then, Schultzy, give over!" The Brit was joined in his entreaties by the rest of the barracks immediately. Mail call was always a grand event for everyone. The men crowded up to the hapless German guard, all of them yelling at once.

Colonel Hogan waded into the mess and rescued Schultz by taking the mailbag away. "Okay okay! Pipe down guys!" In sharp contrast to how they mobbed Schultz, ignoring all pleas and orders to back off, the POWs all quieted and backed up for their Colonel. "Sorry Schultz, they're just excited, you know how it is."

"They are animals, Colonel Hogan! Puuulease! You return the mailbag later!" Schultz took the opportunity to scoot out through the door and escaped the minor mob scene.

"Okay... calm down!" Hogan began calling out names and handing over the prized letters to each of his men. Carter was ecstatic to receive two letters from his family while LeBeau gathered up three from both family and a girl in Paris. Even the more somber Kinch broke into a grin as he plucked a letter from his parents out of Hogan's outstretched hand. Hogan tucked the next to last letter into his own jacket and handed the last one to Olson.

Olson crowed happily as he claimed his mail. "Best thing to happen all week!" He immediately took to his bunk, flopping onto his back and pulling the pages out of the envelope. "Hey, censors hardly touched mine!" He held up the paper that only had a few holes cut into it.

Hogan smiled as he watched the men comparing the amount sliced out of the letters and then noted Newkirk looking downcast. "Hey, Newkirk, nothing this time, but I'm sure you'll get something next mail call, right?"

Carter suddenly took notice and climbed back out of his bunk. "Hey buddy, you can share my letters, I mean... you can read one while I read the other, it's not from your own folks or anything but..."

Newkirk flashed a look of annoyance that seemed excessive even with his current black mood. "Carter, that's just stupid. I don't know your bleeding Yank family."

Hogan stepped in. "Ease off, Newkirk. Carter's just trying to be nice."

"Yessir." Newkirk's tone was flat but he wasn't fooling Hogan. "I better go find those needles, sir." He left before Hogan could say anything else to him.

Carter folded his letter in his hand and unfolded it again before he went back to his bunk. Hogan walked over to look in at him. "That was a nice thing to offer, Carter. I'm sure Newkirk would appreciate it if he weren't being such a jerk right now."

"It's okay, sir. He's just still mad." Carter began to stare at one of his letters, pretending to not be bothered.

Olson gave a short bark of laughter. "Well, not to be mean or anything, but Newkirk is a bit spoiled. He usually gets mail almost every single mail call, and usually more than one letter too. He writes more correspondence than most newsmen do!"

Hogan smiled as a little bit of laughter broke out. "Well, my mother did tell me that to get letters, I had to write letters, so I guess that's the secret. In fact, I think I'm going to go see what dear old mom has to say to me and then... I'm going to write her a nice long reply." There were murmurs of agreement from those still paying attention and Hogan disappeared into his office.

End Chapter

Poor Carter. Thank you for reading. Readers appreciated, reviewers adored.