"O-…Oh I get it." Carter said, several hours after the heroes had returned to the (relative) safety of Stalag 13. "Storks. I get it now."
"You nut…" Newkirk shook his head at the American that had been a regular crick in his neck for almost three years, but he found himself unable to stay annoyed for long.
In the two days since they had rescued Kinch and Carter the group had been tightly focused on organizing the safe transport of four of the seven nuns to their families either through the underground or as the direct result of their own trips out of the camp. There had been plenty of close calls and their efforts had been stymied frequently by Carter's injury. But, after what Kinchloe had told them about the explosion and the twenty four hours that followed, it was nothing short of a miracle that Carter was still with them.
At the moment the four men who remained of the core underground group known as Papa Bear, stood staring at a wrinkled map of Germany in Colonel Hogan's private quarters. Looking over the often revised list of solutions, Kinch said, "So that's it then. There's no way we can get the last three out?"
"The Mother Superior of the Convent has agreed to take the youngest one, Louise, but Mother Mary Catherine is still in Berlin and can't get away at the moment." LeBeau responded, touching a finger to the capital city of Germany.
"And then there's Genevieve's parents who are in Paris of course…" Newkirk said, drowsing over a cup of steaming coffee. "And Alma's folks are in China."
"Taiwan actually…" Carter piped up from where he sat on the colonel's top bunk. "South of the Henan Province."
Newkirk shot a perturbed look over his shoulder while the others moved on.
"So they will be staying with us for a while longer." LeBeau suggested, searching the faces of the other men.
"We can only expect them to live in the tunnels for so long." Newkirk said, dropping his volume. "We'll 'ave to come up with a better long term solution soon enough."
"What about the other members of the underground. Would anybody in Hammelburg take them in?"
LeBeau made a face and shifted uncomfortably. "If they had been boys, then oui, perhaps but…girls are harder to explain. Especially girls that don't look like Germans or speak like Germans."
"I wonder if Liesel and her Uncle would consider-"
"Oh no, Kinch." Newkirk began, his voice steady and quiet. "That fifty mile trip was a disaster the first time, and a near disaster the second time. If we're sending them anywhere near that part of Germany, it'll be by parcel post, or not at all."
Kinch started to bristle at Newkirk's tone, not for the first time recalling that he outranked the Englander, but the longer he thought about it the more he agreed. They'd pushed the limit on their latest short runs to Hammelburg. Anything else could bring down the whole house of cards that they'd been left with after Hogan's departure.
"Alright, nix on Liesel then." Kinch acquiesced, then looked around. "Anybody else have any ideas?"
"Well I think-"
"Carter, if you say one word about rescuing Colonel Hogan I will climb up there and stuff a sock in your mouth." LeBeau snapped, earning surprised looks from the other two men at the table. "I'm tired of hearing it." LeBeau explained his face flushing bright red. "We all want to try. We all are worrying about Hogan but there is nothing we can do about it. He gave us our orders and we have three little girls depending on us."
Newkirk sighed and put a hand on his little mate's shoulder, understanding exactly how the man felt. "You're right, LeBeau." He agreed quietly.
Undaunted, Carter cleared his throat and said, "Well for the record that wasn't what I was gonna say." The comment earned him the full attention of the other men and Carter slipped down from his perch, landing smoothly on his good leg. He limped carefully to the table and gently took the clipboard bearing the list of locations and names from Kinch, muttering a polite, "Thank you." Before he studied the information carefully.
"That Mother Superior, the one in Berlin."
"Mother Mary Catherine." Newkirk offered.
Andrew nodded his head, "Yeah, her. She can't come here, and we can't get the girls to her. But she could still order them from one place to another, right?"
He received a few hesitant nods from the others then said, "Right. Now, suppose she sends a telegram to the ladies at another convent. One that's closer to Stalag 13. Easier to get to. And she tells them that she's sending them a group of novels-"
"Novitiates…" LeBeau corrected with mild annoyance.
"Novitiants…right. And that these girls are new to the order in Berlin, but that they don't have any room for them yet."
"Mate, the word is novitiates."
"Nov-livciates, right. So then one of us dresses up as a priest, or a nun or something and we send the girls out to the closest convent." Carter continued, ignoring the looks of disbelief, and sweeping his finger across the map as if it contained the girls themselves. "They stay there until the Mother Superior sends word that room has opened up in Berlin. Then the church itself, sends the girls to Mother Mary Catherine."
The men around him were silent, staring in disbelief. When no one spoke for a good ten minutes Carter added. "Then the girls are safe." He popped a smile on his face just for appearances sake, starting to sweat a little at the focused scrutiny.
Finally Newkirk took to his feet and slung his arm around Carter's shoulders. "Carter…" The Englander paused to consider the group and make certain that they were all in agreement before he said, "You've just come up with a brilliant plan."
Carter thought about it for a minute before he hazarded a grin. It didn't feel much like a victory with Newkirk suddenly being that nice to him, but LeBeau and Kinch were grinning at him too, and after a few seconds Carter relaxed and shoved his hands into his pockets.
"Thanks, Newkirk." He said proudly.
"I'll get a message to the Mother Superior right away." Kinch said, getting up from the table and slapping Carter on the shoulder before heading for the tunnels.
"Speaking of messages, did we ever hear back from Tiger?" Newkirk called, following Kinch into the main room.
"Oh yeah! We were so busy last night I forgot about that…the message came in about midnight last night."
"What message?" Carter asked limping through the door after LeBeau.
While Kinch searched his pockets for the scrap of paper he'd written the reply on, Newkirk searched his pockets for a cigarette and explained, "When Tiger showed up at the meetin' of the underground, anxious to have us go out and blow up a convent that had already been blown up I found it just the least bit peculiar. I asked her to uh…take a survey of sorts."
By the time Newkirk had found and lit his cigarette, Kinch had produced the message. "She did a great job with it, too. She heard back from groups all over Germany, and from Belgium, France, Poland…even Austria."
"All those people got the same message? To blow up one innocent convent?" LeBeau asked, alarmed.
"Blimey!" Newkirk muttered, reading over the list.
"So the Gestapo went fishing." Kinch said.
"More like…threw some choice rocks into the pond." Newkirk said. At Kinch's confused look, Newkirk picked up a coffee cup sitting on the main table and set it down again, just hard enough to ripple the surface. "Waves you see. Figuring he's the one that done it, Hochstetter put out some information that he knew would make some waves, then waited to see who popped up to deal with it."
"So the message really did come through the underground." Kinch said, dismayed.
"Passed down a coupl'a times." Newkirk agreed.
Carter's face suddenly lit up and he let out a lengthy, "Oooh…" Then looked expectantly at the others, certain he was once again the last to come to the right conclusion. When all he got in return were perturbed and confused looks he said, "Kinch…we both know our bomb didn't go off."
"Hey…that's right. Carter's bomb got buried in the rubble. We didn't get anywhere near the place before it hit the fan. How did the church blow up?"
LeBeau shrugged then offered, "We weren't the only ones to get the message. There's no reason to think we were the only ones to act on it."
"How d'ya like that? Blown up by our own people." Kinch remarked, smirking a little at the irony.
"Ya know I kinda find it…reassuring." Carter said, his hands once more in his pockets as he pontificated.
Newkirk snorted a puff of cigarette smoke and said, "Reassuring?"
"Yeah. I mean…at least we're thorough."
The men had to agree with the sergeant's statement and broke apart chuckling. Kinch headed for the bunk that would lift up and lead into the radio room. He was stopped from hitting the spring release when the man stationed at the door for the morning hissed, "Schultz coming, Klink is with him."
The men scrambled, hiding any work they'd been doing and reverting to the latest diversion. In this case, following a debilitating wave of illness, and with their favorite leader and commanding officer gone, they'd been doing nothing, in as morose a way as possible.
Klink and Schultz arrived to a depressing scene of men without happiness or purpose. Most of the men who weren't still tucked in bed, sat on their bunks, or at the table staring at nothing. They barely responded to the Sergeant of the Guard's "Acthung!"
Klink stepped into the room, taking a brief circuit of the table, his face clinched in suspicion and mild disgust. His focus settled on LeBeau, Newkirk, Kinch and Carter and he pointed a finger in their direction.
"You men there, who is the highest in rank in these barracks?"
After a decent pause for thought Kinch said, "Well I guess that would be me, sir."
"Well, actually Kinch…" Carter piped up.
"Ah, yes it's him, sir." Newkirk confirmed standing and putting a hand on Carter's shoulder, squeezing a little harder than necessary.
"Really?" Klink whined, sensing discord and wheedling his way into the crack it created.
"Your date of rank, Sergeant?" Klink demanded of Kinch.
"I can't really remember exactly, sir, but-"
"Silence!" Klink barked, missing the flash of irritation on Kinch's face. Klink whirled on Carter next and demanded, "You believe that your date of rank precedes his?"
Carter glanced at the faces around him, then winced a little under the pressure of Newkirk's fingers and finally said, "No, I was just thinking that Kinch was definitely made sergeant before me. A-and he's a staff sergeant, too."
The second after his mouth closed, Carter could feel the pressure of Newkirk's fingers releasing and he gave the corporal a surprised look that, thankfully, the gloating Klink did not see.
"Sergeant Kinchloe is in charge then?" Klink asked. "Well, not for long. I've requested for an old favorite of yours to be sent to this prison camp. An RAF colonel that the Kommandant of Stalag 16 is delighted to be rid of."
Klink began to pace again, tickled pink at the looks of dismay on the faces of the men. He'd been unsettled and dazed in the past week, irritated by the arrogance of the Gestapo, and in his own way missing the company of his enemy and fellow officer, Colonel Hogan. A little fearful of an uprising as a result of the colonel's departure. Wilhelm's decision to transfer a senior officer into the camp had been the first choice he'd made on his own that he felt confident about. The reactions of the men in Barracks 2 were quickly confirming that decision.
"He will be transferred in two days, at which time you will relinquish your command to him. Until that time there will be discipline, cleanliness, respect for the guards, and no escapes! And remember…Colonel Hogan is no longer here to protect you men. Any infraction of the rules will be met with the strictest of punishments. No exceptions." With a snap of his heels, Colonel Klink turned to Schultz who snapped him a salute.
Klink wavered briefly. Schultz looked unhappy, just as unhappy and listless as the men, and Klink knew it had everything to do with Hogan's absence. An absence Klink could do nothing about which made him angry.
"Schultz!" Klink growled, "To the next barracks."
Schultz gave him a disappointed, "Yawhol." And the duo left.
"How much you wanna bet which colonel he's sendin' our way?" Newkirk raged the minute the door closed, snapping his cigarette to his mouth and fueling the rapid pounding of his heart.
"He means Crittendon, and that means getting those girls out tonight at the soonest, tomorrow at the latest." Kinch said, his voice taking on a stronger hint of command that settled Newkirk, mid-step, and drew the attention of the rest of the men. "So that's what we're gonna do. Once I've talked to the Mother Superior, I'll try to contact Snitzer and see if he can't help us get the girls out sometime in the next twenty-four hours."
"We still don't know where to take them." LeBeau said. "Where is there a convent nearby?"
"Hopefully Mother Mary Catherine will know that. In the meantime, Newkirk, the girls' clothes are looking too ratty for them to pass as new members of the church. See what you can do about new outfits. Civilian clothes will work for what we're tryin' to pull off."
Newkirk gave him a surprised but pleased, "Will do, Kinch."
"LeBeau, I'd like you to spend some time with the ladies, make sure they understand exactly how important it is that they say nothing to anyone about any of this. You and Carter work up a good script for them to follow and go over it with them until they can't remember anything else."
All around him the men that he had been imprisoned with for three years nodded their agreement. Kinch knew each man to be fully capable of doing what he had asked, and had no doubt that every detail would be worked out in the end. He didn't know if he was relying on the ghost of the authority Colonel Hogan had, or on something hidden within himself, but for the time being it didn't matter.
"One more thing, guys. I don't intend to take over, and I don't intend to hand the reins to Colonel Crittendon and call it quits, either. We're gonna get Colonel Hogan back. But we're gonna do it smart. Until then, we keep Papa Bear alive. Agreed?"
He received a chorus of affirmation that followed him down into the tunnel where he set to work at the radio station, glad he could retreat to something so familiar.
LeBeau followed close behind him but Carter lingered above, stopping Newkirk before the Englishman could disappear down the ladder.
Rubbing at the stinging spot on his shoulder Carter gave Newkirk a wounded look and asked, "Hey, why'd you hold me down like that? That kinda hurt?"
Peter sighed and gently put his hand on Carter's shoulder, his face growing sincere. "Carter, in your own bizarre way you've always been a one about proper military protocol. And I'll admit that from time to time we need that sort of thing. But of all the men here that could have volunteered as ranking officer, you could not."
Carter squinted then asked, "Well, why not?"
"How are you gonna explain gettin' your leg near blown off? You're barely healed as it is, Carter, now what sort of a mate would I be, if I let that blighter take you in for questioning because of a mysterious limp that we can't explain?"
Carter hung his head a little nodding, and Newkirk tugged at his shoulder until the sergeant looked up again.
"You're a valuable part of this team, Andrew, or the colonel wouldn't have kept ya. And your my mate, even if you do say ruddy stupid things from time to time."
"And cave in tunnels when I don't get the mixtures right…"
"And get lost in the woods because you've dropped the bloody compass…" Newkirk smirked, happy to see Carter cheering up a little.
"You know, Newkirk, I did finally find that compass. The one that I lost. Ya see, I got lost a second time and.." As Carter continued to ramble Newkirk led the way into the tunnel, and this time, instead of interrupting, Newkirk just shook his head and smirked.