Apologies for the long time since my last update. Life... it happens. Still, thank yous to my betas and friends and to all the reviewers.

Chapter 10

The rest of the day passed without much notice. Carter managed to get enough Americans enthused to play a baseball game but they ended up having to coax some English to make the other team. Once the game was in full swing, the rules had an alarming tendency to switch from baseball to cricket without warning. Carter wasn't exactly certain which game brought the idea of tackling the ball holder but it seemed like everyone enjoyed that aspect so he kept quiet.

The third time that an English player ran back from the first base to the home plate, Carter had to figure out how to mesh the two games. The ensuing discussion involved both teams, half a dozen bystanders, one confused Langenscheidt and a great deal of arm waving and shouting.

Kinch was sitting on the bench outside of their hut watching. Newkirk emerged from the barracks, blinking at the wan sunlight before settling onto the bench beside Kinch to light up a cigarette. "Hey Kinch. What the ruddy 'ell are they playing?"

Kinch held out a hand and was given a cigarette. "I think it was supposed to be baseball, but your English pals decided that it should be cricket. Then someone tackled one of the cricketeers and now they're playing mayhem."

"Ahh, rugby." Newkirk chuckled then winced as someone made a flying tackle on Carter. "Ouch. I didn't think Carter even 'ad the ball."

"He didn't. I think they're just tackling random people now." Kinch inhaled deeply on his cigarette and eyed the Brit for a moment. "You feel any better now?"

"I'm fine." Newkirk leaned back on the bench, resting his back on the barracks and crossing his legs. His lazy eyes were checking every person in the compound, guards and POWs alike. He finally turned a placid gaze on the tall black man beside him. "I'm sorry about all the fuss. I feel like a right nutter waking up out in the compound." Looking back at the compound blankly, Newkirk spoke very quietly. "I'm not going to sleep tonight."

"Hey, you gotta sleep sometime." said Kinch.

"Yeah but I just 'ad a nap. I'll drink some coffee and just stay up. Won't be much different than 'aving a mission and not getting back until near roll call." Newkirk shrugged a bit. "Once the other blighters all go to sleep, I'll get up." He glanced over at Kinch. "Just figured I better tell someone. If I tell any of the others then they'd want to stay up with me."

"I can sit up with you." said Kinch.

"No, mate. No reason for both of us to lose sleep. I'll be fine." Newkirk lifted his cigarette to his lips and ignored the slight tremors in his hand. It was nothing. "I'm going down to the radio room, see if there's a BBC report on."

"Man, Peter... you know it's just going to be full of news about London getting bombed. Why do you have to torment yourself?" Kinch's voice was full of sympathy.

"Kinch, if your neighborhood were being bombed every night, wouldn't you want to hear every report you could?" Newkirk took a long drag on the cigarette before tossing the butt onto the ground. "I'm going downstairs." He waved a hand at the mob of ball players. "If they start to murder Carter, call me up. I'll want to watch." His smile didn't touch his eyes.

Kinch smiled back anyway. "Yeah. No problem." He could clearly see the pain in his friend's eyes and knew that any attempt at consolation would be met with a sharp rebuff. Their prickly thief kept far too much to himself.

Newkirk went inside and climbed down the ladder to head for the radio room. If his timing was good, he should be able to catch the London news reports.

Newkirk came awake all at once, gasping and attempting to flail away from the tight grip on his arms. "No! NO!" He blinked at Kinch who was holding him firmly to keep him from falling over. "Whaa? I wasn't... I wasn't sleepwalking, was I?"

Kinch shook his head and smiled. "No, you just fell asleep on the radio desk. Looks like you were listening to the BBC and dozed off." He let go of Newkirk's arm. "Was there anything new on the BBC?"

"No." Newkirk rubbed his face and shrugged. "Same reports. Keep winning the war, Germany is losing..." His accent changed to a posh upper crust British one. "Keep a stiff upper lip, wot wot? Cheerio!" His wan smile didn't fool Kinch.

"Sorry, I wish they'd give you some good news for a change." Kinch motioned him aside and settled behind the radio himself. "Colonel Hogan wanted me to check in with London. He's been wondering why they've kept us on lockdown."

"No telling. All those officers, no wonder London can't make up their mind." Newkirk blinked a few times and reached to adjust his greatcoat. "I'll go upstairs." He paused after only a step and glanced at Kinch. "Can I get some of your paper?"

Kinch hummed absently, already adjusting the dials. "Paper? For forging? What letterhead you need?"

"No mate, writing paper, I'm out. For a letter." said Newkirk with deliberately casual offhand manner.

"Oh sure." Kinch put on his earphones. "In my footlocker, under my brown shirt." Newkirk started away after a murmured thanks and Kinch turned slightly to call after him. "Hey, tell Mavis I said hello and that I'm trying to keep you out of trouble, okay?"

"Yeah... bloody Yanks think you're all comedians." Newkirk flashed a quick grin back at his friend. His sister had occasionally sent notes to some of his mates that he mentioned in his letters. She also had chastised her brother when he failed to write her on a semi-regular schedule. When he'd landed in the cooler for two months once, she had sent a scathing letter to LeBeau first and then had actually sent a harshly scolding letter to the kommandant of the camp for not allowing him to send his regular letter to her. It was one of the few times Newkirk had seen a human side to that early kommandant. He had come to the cells, checked on his health and then handed over writing supplies for him to immediately write her a reply. The kommandant hadn't given him any of her letters, explaining with a haughty air that he was still being punished for his escape attempt. But the letter to Mavis went out. Once out of the cooler, he'd told his barracks-mates that the kommandant had looked as if he feared Mavis Newkirk would show up on his doorstep with a wooden spoon to whap him if he didn't allow her brother to write to her.

Pushing aside the pangs he felt at missing his sister, Newkirk climbed up into the barracks and went to find the paper. It didn't take him very long to write out a letter and then he sat and read it over a few times. He felt his mood beginning to turn dark and abruptly stood up and put the letter into an envelope and took it to Hogan's office to put on his desk. Then he headed outside to walk around the edge of the fenceline. He let his eyes halfway close and sauntered along with his hands tucked deep in his coat pockets.

The guards on the fence and in the towers got nervous whenever they saw the familiar Brit paying any extra attention to the fences. He was known to be one of the POWs who went "wire-crazy" and made unwise and often absurd escape attempts. His acquiring friends in the camp hadn't lessened the attempts, although his psychosis over being a POW was much milder. It had taken Hogan with his crazy sabotage operation to bring him down among the rest of the lunatics inhabiting the stalag.

He smiled to himself. Hogan's early attempts at controlling the Brit had been almost as disastrous as the German's. Even now, he was the least tame of Hogan's crew. Newkirk lifted his gaze to one of the guard towers as he grew closer to it. He watched the guard eying him. The guard called his fellow guard over to look as well and both of them watched him carefully.

Out of sheer mischievousness, he stopped and eyed the tower and took a few steps back along the warning wire to gaze solemnly at the fence. Newkirk watched with great amusement as the tower guards got more and more agitated.

Finally one of them couldn't take his staring at the fence any longer and shouted in German at him to back away from the warning wire.

Newkirk waited until the guard repeated the order in an even more shrill tone before he tilted his face up to look at them in the tower. He gave them his most expressionless face until he saw the guard draw breath to shout again before he turned slowly to look at a pair of rapidly approaching guards that had heard the shouting. Watching them for a few seconds, he finally turned and continued his careless saunter along the fenceline, to all appearances completely unbothered by the guards. Inwardly he felt a great deal of amusement. One of the first things Hogan had gotten him to do was to "distract" the guards on one side of the camp so that Kinch and LeBeau could work on a hidden opening on the far side of the camp, before they'd devised the more elaborate exit routes. All Newkirk had to do was to go look like he was thinking about going over the wire for all the guards to immediately go on alert.

The very familiar itch made his arm twitch a few times. The barbed wire still seemed to close in on some days. Sure, they had the emergency tunnel. Even better, they had missions outside the wire. Even when he ended up outside the wire trying to outrun an Allied bombing run, he still felt the thrill deep in his chest that screamed 'freedom' to him. Of course, that thrill was rather deeply hidden underneath the terror of bombs falling too.

He put aside those thoughts too. Staying in the camp for nearly a week now made him a little bit twitchy. He should ask Hogan to let him out, just to be outside the wire. His lips curled slightly. Or he would just go out and not get caught. It was always easier to feign ignorance than to gain permission.

End Chapter

I'll update much sooner for the next chapter! Promise! Apologies for the lateness again and thank you to all the reviewers and a big thank you to the very kind Kirin for checking up on me! This chapter is dedicated to you!