It's the third and final chapter of the story... is Newkirk really able to be mean this long and hold a grudge forever? Find out in this installment of... Get In Your Bunk!
Disclaimer: I own no rights towards any of the show or characters, all mistakes are mine alone. I share kudos to my Twitter crew for encouragement and my beta TinySprite who is always, as ever, made out of awesome and win.
Chapter 3
Far too early in the morning, Schultz came barging in, bellowing for everyone to get up and go out for roll call right away. Carter stuffed his feet into his boots and found his hat as quickly as possible. The night before had been unpleasant as his bunkmate had found plenty of times to make comments directed at Carter. While the younger American thought that he saw a little sympathy from LeBeau, and Kinchloe had spoken up once to chastise Newkirk, most of the rest of the barracks still seemed to agree with Newkirk. Once the lights were out, Carter had gone to sleep quickly, being awoken only once when he thought he heard someone moving around the barracks. He'd decided to keep his nose out of whoever's business it was for once and rolled over and gone back to sleep.
This morning, everyone seemed more interested in getting their clothing on than in whether Carter was doing what he was supposed to. Carter, for his part, made certain that he was one of the first ones out the door and standing in his place so that no one could find fault in him.
Colonel Hogan emerged and took his spot in front of Carter. The officer looked tired and Carter wondered if he'd had a poor night's sleep. Carter decided to at least make the attempt to be friendly and nice. "G-good morning, sir. I hope you rested well."
Before Hogan could turn to look at him, Newkirk twisted to glare. Both hands were jammed deep in his coat pockets and he looked a lot more rumpled than Carter thought he should, even for just getting up. "Shut up, you twister. No one needs to 'ear from you."
Hogan made a soft noise and Newkirk turned back around to face forward, grumbling softly. Hogan watched his British corporal for a moment until he quieted. Then he turned enough to give Carter a little smile. "Good morning Sergeant Carter. Thank you. It's nice to get a civil greeting first thing in the morning. Some people might think about adopting that sort of attitude." His smile took in the cold Englishman who muttered under his breath softly. "I said… some people might think about adopting that sort of attitude..." repeated Hogan firmly.
Tilting his head a bit, Newkirk responded with gritted teeth. "Good morning, Colonel Hogan, sir. It's a bloody lovely morning, sir, don't you think, sir? Perhaps, sir, later we might go on another wee little stroll, sir, considering that the last stroll we went on, went so very bleeding well…. sir." His eyes shifted to Hogan and even though he was getting a withering look from his C.O., he didn't seem very fazed. "Sir, I'm not quite limping, not yet anyway… sir. But I'll do me very best to be cheerful for you, sir." He smiled in a way that made Carter want to edge away.
"Newkirk..." Hogan's tone was quite clear to Carter and even the annoyed Newkirk finally settled. "If I remember correctly, you did want to go on that stroll. In fact, need I remind you that you insisted on strolling."
Newkirk's gaze dropped and he shuffled his feet a little. "Yes sir." After a quiet second or two, he glanced up and then fastened his eyes on the ground again. "Sorry guv'ner."
"Better." Hogan wrapped his arms around himself as he turned his attention back to the compound. "Maybe later today you can pick some daisies. That should cheer you up."
"Yes sir." Newkirk sounded extremely resigned to whatever 'picking daisies' meant. Carter would bet that it had nothing to do with wildflowers. As long as the 'new guy' Carter was standing nearby, he would expect for anything underhanded to be talked of only in code. Until they could trust him, the POWs in the camp would keep all references to escape plans and such quiet. Carter would have done the same thing. After all, the Germans could be trying to slip in a ringer disguised as a POW.
Carter shuffled his feet too suddenly. Or instead of a disguised German, it could just be a big-mouthed American.
Schultz came down the line counting and looked excessively pleased to have the right amount of prisoners. That made Carter a little confused too. Why would the guard not expect there to be the right number? The kommandant had been very adamant about there never having been a successful escape. Maybe the guard was just nervous about attempted escapes.
His head jerked up when everyone began to mill around. He'd let his attention drift off again and missed whatever morning speech their German captor had given. He supposed that wasn't a big loss. Every morning it was the same theme. No one ever escaped, the Germans were winning the war, and finally there was sometimes a request for volunteers to do various work projects. Sometimes Hogan would give in and some of the POWs would go repair roads or shovel snow. Sometimes he refused and no one did any work at all.
But that was all officer stuff. Nothing for Carter to worry over. So far, he hadn't even had to go on any hard work details. He'd picked up trash in the compound a few times but nothing else. He filed inside with the others, listening to their tired morning chatter. Before he could even look around, Newkirk gave him a shove and Carter sighed and headed for his bunk without waiting.
This time LeBeau spoke up. "Hey Carter, you don't have to do that." The little Frenchman walked over to stand in front of Newkirk. "Don't you think you're being just a little hard on him? He just made a mistake."
Newkirk glowered down at LeBeau. His eyes glanced around the room to check for who might back him up. "I think that I got a right to be 'ard on the stupid git."
"Yeah, but you've been hard on him already so get over it." Surprising Carter, Olsen came to his defense too. "You hold a grudge too long, Newkirk. Give it up and let the guy alone." Olsen even came over to tug Carter out of his bunk and pretended to brush him off a bit. "Don't pay any attention to the surly old limey. He's just grumpy."
Carter wrung his hands a little, looking around. "It's okay, I would be mad too. I shouldn't have said anything at all."
LeBeau smiled and nodded. "No but you didn't know. I should have made sure you knew which guard to trust and which ones are pigs." His gaze went back to Newkirk who continued to frown. "Just leave him alone. He didn't mean it and he already said he was sorry."
Newkirk opened his mouth to retort angrily but at that moment, Kinchloe and Hogan came back out of the office. Kinchloe smiled at Carter and the rest. "Hey, did Newkirk finally forgive you after all? Good for you, Newkirk. I knew you wouldn't keep holding that grudge forever." Kinch went for the coffeepot to pour a cup. "Carter, you'll find that Newkirk isn't a bad guy. He's just grumpy."
Olsen grinned and nudged Carter with an elbow. "I already told him that."
Sounding defensive and still angry, Newkirk tossed his metal cup into the sink and headed out of the barracks by himself. "Well I'll just leave the bloody 'Carter appreciation club' to your bloody selves then. I'm going to get breakfast."
Grinning, LeBeau called after the retreating man. "Don't forget I need more vegetables and I want my pot back too!" The noises that came back just before the door shut firmly didn't sound very complimentary.
LeBeau didn't seem bothered by it at all. "Don't worry, Sergeant Carter. Le Anglaise will replace the stuff that the Krauts took. Until then we'll have to make do with messhall food though."
Colonel Hogan smiled around his coffeecup as he sipped. "Can I assume by all this fuss that whatever I wasn't being told about is now resolved and I don't need to get involved?"
Kinch sobered and nodded overly seriously. "Yes sir. We don't need any officer style interference."
"Oh good." Hogan blinked solemnly. "I do so like to feel useless around here." Before Carter could begin to speak up, he flipped a hand towards the door. "Come on then, let's go get what the Germans are calling food this morning. Wouldn't want it to get cold."
Olsen was making a face. "Sir, it's a piece of bread. It's already cold."
Wrapping his scarf around his neck, LeBeau piped up. "The coffee is usually warm!"
Olsen had a retort to that as well. "I don't think being warm improves that sludge they call coffee."
Kinch shooed all of the men out behind Hogan. "It sure don't hurt it any either. Come on, Carter, we better hurry or these guys will steal our breakfasts too. And the goons won't give seconds."
"Sure thing!" Carter let himself be taken along in the group quite happily. If they were willing to forgive and forget, then he'd be happy to go along with whatever they wanted to do. Anything, as long as he wasn't being shunned any longer. As they walked across the compound towards the messhall, he saw another of the British POWs and stopped smiling. Maybe he could even make up with Newkirk. After all, they were bunkmates, and if the Englishman was going to stay angry with him, it would make life in the barracks uncomfortable.
After having the brown liquid they called coffee and his piece of brown bread, Carter wandered out through the compound trying to stretch his legs but not get too close to any guards, fences, towers, offices or other POWs. If he was mostly forgiven, he wanted to stay in the good graces of everyone that he could.
When he rounded one of the barracks buildings, he spotted Newkirk seated on a bench outside and hesitated before he straightened up and steeled himself to confront him. Carter pushed down his nervousness and approached the bench, careful to not get within easy hitting distance. He cleared his throat as Newkirk watched him silently.
"I uhhh, I'm... I want to apologize. Again. Cause I know it was dumb to tell a guard anything but LeBeau did say to be nice to Schultz and I just assumed it was that guard. I mean, it's not LeBeau's fault at all, it's all me. Don't get mad at anyone else. I mean, I don't want you mad at me, but if you are mad, I understand because it was my fault and I was stupid. But I wish you weren't mad at me. But I still understand if you want to stay mad." Carter finally closed his mouth before he blathered on too much.
Newkirk took a long drag on his cigarette, looking rather amused at the long apology. His eyes held a lot more humor than made sense right now. He breathed out the smoke slowly before he spoke.
"Look mate, it was an 'onest mistake. You're new, you'll make some dumb moves. I'll try to 'ang about and yank your arse out of trouble when you do. You'll catch on."
This wasn't anything Carter had expected. "But... but you're were so mad at me..."
"Wasn't that brassed off at you. Couldn't be arsed to get angry over every little bodge a new bloke makes." There was definitely amusement in Newkirk's voice now. He seemed to be having a private laugh at Carter's apology.
"But..."
"I didn't want all the other blokes to beat your arse bloody over it."
"I don't understand."Carter was completely confused now.
"You don't catch on real quick, do you?" Newkirk took another long drag on his cigarette and crushed the spent butt out on the edge of the bench. "Give me a fag and I'll explain it."
Carter looked puzzled but dug around in his pockets to find a cigarette pack. He handed them over. "I really don't smoke much anyway."
"Thanks mate, that's right kind of you." Newkirk shook out one and tucked the rest into a pocket safely. "So, everyone in the barracks wanted to give you a beating, right?" He waited for Carter to nod, taking the moment to light up the cigarette and inhaled deeply, letting the smoke trail out slowly. "American cigarettes." His eyes flicked around, checking the compound. Carter noticed he never seemed to stop looking around. "If I 'ad stood up for you and told them not to beat you, they'd beat you and probably beat me too. Or I'd 'ave to fight them and they're mostly good mates, you understand? So I decided I'd just get the jump on punishing you. If you were being punished, they wouldn't butt in to deal out anything extra, see?" He smiled slyly and indicated the compound with a lazy wave of the cigarette. "There's unspoken rules about that sort of thing. It was me that you wronged the most, so I 'ad dibs on 'anding out some damage."
Carter frowned. "So you're saying that you treated me like dirt to keep everyone else from doing it? You think that you yelling at me and making me feel horrible would make everyone else not be mad? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! That's... that's just stupid." He was trying really hard not to feel outraged but... he suddenly thought it through again. Didn't everyone seem to be over being mad at him? Wasn't it true that not one person had laid a finger on him, even when they all had wanted to beat him up? Of course they had wanted to beat him but then Newkirk had shoved him... into his bunk... his eyes fastened on the still-so-amused expression. "You made them like me by making them think you were being mean."
Snorting softly, Newkirk waved the cigarette in his direction. "You are a slow one."
Carter continued to stare at him. "Well... ummm... thanks."
Newkirk's face broke into an easy smile. "You're welcome but don't mention it. I wouldn't want anyone 'ere thinking that I go about manipulating folks, you understand. Not my place. That's the guv'ner's job."
"I don't understand." Carter backed up as Newkirk unfolded gracefully from the bench to begin walking back towards Barracks Two. He fell in beside the Englishman. "Who's the governor?"
"Why, Colonel Hogan, of course." Newkirk's smile widened as he saw Kinchloe giving him some hand signal. "And as far as you understanding, it looks like you're about to get some explanations." He nudged Carter with an elbow. "Welcome to the rabbithole, Yank."
Carter blinked in confusion and turned to see Colonel Hogan waiting for him, arms wrapped around his ribs and leaning against the barracks wall casually. That clever expression that said he was keeping far too many interesting secrets was still in place and this time he was looking directly at Carter.
"Come along Sergeant Carter." Hogan stood up and put one fatherly arm around Carter's shoulders. "We have a few things to show you…"
The End
And that's how Carter was welcomed into the madhouse. At least, here in my little universe(this version of it, anyway).
Thank you for reading!
