Down in the subterranean radio room, Colonel Hogan paced the chamber.
"Can you ask London to repeat that, Kinch?" he asked.
"Papa Bear calling Mama Bear," the radioman said. "Please repeat previous message."
"Mama Bear to Papa Bear," the voice over the line responded. "Requesting Papa Bear to help retrieve the bowls of porridge returned to Stalag 6."
"I was afraid of that," the Colonel murmured. The captured fliers knew too much about their operation to remain in Stalag 6, especially if Hochstetter still had plans to pump information from them. It was the Major's goal to gather enough evidence against them, and if the fliers hadn't talked yet, Hochstetter wasn't going to leave them until they spilled the beans.
"It can't be done, Colonel," said Baker, with a shake of his head. "They're asking too much from us; how can we possibly free those men?"
Hogan was about to admit that he wasn't so sure about it himself, but loud shouts from up in the barracks distracted him.
"LeBeau?" he asked, recognizing the accent. "He's supposed to be with Klink; what's he doing back here?" He moved towards the ladder.
"Colonel, what do I tell London?" Kinch asked.
"Tell them to stand by for my answer," Hogan said. He rapped his fist against the trapdoor to activate it. The bottom bunk rose as the trapdoor opened, and LeBeau, who had been getting his things from the top bunk, shot a dark look at the Colonel.
"LeBeau, what's going on?" Hogan asked. A quick look around the barracks revealed the subdued Newkirk and the worried Carter. "You three shouldn't be here right now."
"Not to worry, mon Colonel," said LeBeau, slightly cold towards Hogan, also; after all, the cook-the-dinner-to-release-Newkirk plan had been his. "Come tomorrow morning, I won't be here."
"Our plan worked too well; Mullenberg is taking LeBeau with him to Stalag 6 tomorrow," said Carter.
"Can't you do anything, Sir?" Newkirk asked, quietly. While he was trying not to let more than a hint of a plea in his voice, his worried eyes spoke volumes. "It should be me going, not 'im…"
Ah, bon; you want to take my place?" LeBeau snapped back. "Please, feel free to do so!"
"Hold on just a second," said Hogan, raising his hand for quiet. He was hardly daring to believe how fortuitous this was. He crossed back to the tunnel entrance. "Kinch? Tell London that we accept the mission!"
"What mission?" LeBeau asked, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. "Colonel, please tell me this is some way to get me to London or Paris."
"It's going to be a way to get you—and those recaptured fliers—on the route to safety," Hogan said. "LeBeau, I need you to be our inside man in Stalag 6."
"Non!" the Frenchman exclaimed. "Non; I am escaping tonight!"
"Colonel, you can't do this to 'im!" Newkirk said, stepping forward. "Louis doesn't deserve to go through that!"
LeBeau was too upset to tell Newkirk that he didn't need the Englishman to stand up for him.
"He's right," said Carter, stunned by Hogan's announcement. "Stalag 6 isn't like Stalag 13; it's going to be far more dangerous to try and arrange an escape there!"
"London wants those recaptured fliers to be out of that place as soon as humanly possible," Hogan countered. "They know too much, and it's a miracle if they haven't said too much already. Do I have to remind you of what's going to happen if Hochstetter gets even one juicy piece of evidence from them? The fat lady starts singing our swan song!"
"Oh, I see," said LeBeau, darkly. "Mullenberg taking me there fits into your plan, so here I go, being the sacrificial lamb!?"
Hogan sighed. "LeBeau, I promise you, we will get you out of there, along with those fliers. Once you're out, you can come back to Stalag 13, and I'll work something out with Klink to revoke that transfer. But if you'd prefer it, you can escape; you can hide in London for as long as you have to, and then you can return to Paris."
LeBeau blinked. The prospect of going home and seeing his family again—after not being able to see them for years—was utterly tantalizing to him. He did not want to go to Stalag 6, but Hogan was issuing an order, along with a pass home as compensation.
"I will accept, Colonel," he said at last. "I will go home after this mission is complete."
"Go 'ome!?" Newkirk repeated. "Oh, that's nice! You're going to just leave--?"
"You, of all people, have no right to stop me!" LeBeau countered.
"I know that!" Newkirk shot back. "But I just thought--"
"Alright, you two," said Hogan, breaking up the impending fight. He had known that LeBeau had been upset with Newkirk, but he hadn't realized that it had gone this far.
"Guys, please," said Carter, looking from one to the other. "Louis, deep down, you know why we don't want you to go; it's the same reason why you wanted to stop me from going when I wanted to see Mary Jane. And we know we can't stop you, so we won't even try. But I don't think that you should leave like this—with you and Peter so mad at each other!"
"I'm not mad, Andrew," Newkirk sighed, sitting down on his bunk. "Louis was right about me being the reason 'e as to go to that place. 'E's got a right to be mad." He glanced at the furious Frenchman. "I know it's too little, too late, but… I'm sorry, Louis. You know I'd never want to lose a mate, but I've done it. And I've got no one but meself to blame for it."
He said no more, but he did not want to admit that LeBeau's decision to leave Germany did hurt. And Newkirk felt guilty once again for thinking like that; he couldn't blame LeBeau. After all, the both of them had been prisoners of war the longest. Who wouldn't want to go home?.
Kinch and Baker now came aboveground, inquiring as to what was going on. As Carter softly began to explain, LeBeau stared silently at Newkirk, his expression unreadable. The righteous anger was beginning to fade. Newkirk wasn't his usual, smart-aleck self; his words had been humble and sincere. LeBeau had to admit to himself that he had never seen Newkirk so subdued before.
"Well," he muttered at last. "I suppose I should thank you for giving me an eventual chance to go home, even if I have to put up with Stalag 6 first."
Carter sighed, hoping that this was a sign that they were going to patch things up before LeBeau left.
Newkirk gave a wan smile, but didn't say anything. In one way, it was all so surreal; it wasn't going to sink in until LeBeau actually left them, he realized.
"It's ironic," he said, after a little while. "There would've been a time that I'd have been chuffed to bits if I'd 'eard you were going."
LeBeau just grunted in response. He still was upset with Newkirk, but he was finding it more and more difficult to stay mad.
"And now you're actually going," Newkirk went on. "And 'ere I am, trying to…" He trailed off, not even sure of his words anymore. Nice going, Louis; you've gotten me as sentimental as some ruddy soap opera character.
There was no doubt in his mind that he was going to miss his unlikely friend. And if anyone had told him years ago that he would have been feeling this way, the Englishman would have found it impossible to believe. His first meeting with Louis LeBeau was one that neither of them would soon forget.
With every ounce of his boisterousness in tow, Newkirk's arrival in Stalag 13 in 1940 had come with the force of a whirlwind. He had attempted to launch a series of unsuccessful escapes that ultimately led to him spending most of his time alone in the cooler. It had become so much of a routine, the guards had started to jokingly refer to the cooler as Newkirk's default bunk.
On one such night in the cooler, Newkirk had woken up from his sleep upon hearing angry shouts in German and French. Almost lazily, he turned to see Schultz and Langenscheidt dragging in a short-statured Frenchman, who was angrily cursing them. The two Germans seemed quite glad that they could not understand a word of the Frenchman's ranting, and they had quickly retreated as the new prisoner continued to hurl insults at them without stopping as he glared at them from within Newkirk's cell.
"You know you're going to have to breathe at some point, right?" Newkirk asked, smirking.
The Frenchman then proceeded to give him a fiery glare—the first of many that he would give the Englishman over the years—and had then continued his cursing—at Newkirk.
"Now 'ang on a minute!" Newkirk replied, getting to his feet. He may not have known much French, but he knew enough to know that he had been insulted. "I'm not going to stand for this!" The Englishman gritted his teeth in frustration as the replies he received were still in French.
Oh, charming, he thought. How do I counter what I can't even understand!?
Growing more and more frustrated as the shorter man ranted on, Newkirk finally reached his breaking point.
"Oh, shut up!" he bellowed, shoving the Frenchman aside with his arm. "Whoever said that French is the language of love needs to 'ave 'is 'ead examined!"
"French is a language that requires eloquence and elegance to understand!" the shorter man countered. "You can forget about trying to understand it!"
"Ye gads, 'e can talk English!" Newkirk responded, sarcastically. "Right; do you understand the words 'sit down and shut up'?"
"You, apparently, do not," the other countered.
This had started the bilingual argument again, prompting Schultz to come back to the cell.
"Please," he said, one step short of going on his knees before them. "I have had a long day. Have mercy on me. Stop this fighting; it's not nice. Maybe you will get along better if you are introduced. Corporal Newkirk, meet Corporal Louis LeBeau, the newest prisoner at Stalag 13. Corporal LeBeau, meet Corporal Peter Newkirk, our camp's troublemaker." The big man let out a sigh. "There. No more fighting, verstehen?"
Both Corporals merely muttered in response. Satisfied, Schultz turned to leave, but a pained expression soon appeared on his face; the argument had picked up again the moment his back had turned.
"I hear nothing…" he moaned, as he retreated. "I see nothing—nothing!"
"You're as big a charmer as 'e is, Louis!" Newkirk said, indicating Schultz.
"Well, I'm glad that we have more charm than you, Pierre!" LeBeau countered.
"It's Peter."
"I shall call you whatever I wish!"
"Is that so!?" Newkirk fumed.
Having enough of the verbal spats, he swung his fists at the Frenchman. LeBeau yelped in surprise and dodged, swinging his fists back at him. The noise of the brawl should have brought Schultz running in to break it up, but the exhausted sergeant had placed earmuffs on to battle the bitter cold and was oblivious to the fight, slowly falling asleep on his feet.
Newkirk soon had LeBeau backed into a corner of the cell, but the Frenchman had refused to give up that easily. His fist connected with Newkirk's nose. Covering his nose, Newkirk struck back with a blind punch that hit LeBeau's jaw.
The Englishman staggered back, removing his hand from his nose and cursing as he saw the blood on his hand. As he reached into his pocket for a handkerchief to treat the nosebleed, he was vaguely aware of a weak moan from LeBeau. When Newkirk looked up, he was stunned to see LeBeau slumped against the cell wall, unconscious.
Blimey, I didn't think I hit him that hard…
He checked up on the Frenchman, making sure that he was alright. Even if LeBeau had been fighting with him moments ago, Newkirk had enough concern to do so; after all, they were on the same side, when it came down to it.
Newkirk could not have known, however, that it hadn't been the blow to his jaw that had rendered the Frenchman unconscious. It had been the sight of the blood.
"Pierre?"
The Frenchman's voice brought Newkirk back to the present. The Englishman swallowed back the lump that was forming in his throat. Their first meeting had started with a fight; he did not want what was likely to be their last bit of time together (for a long time, anyway) to end the same way.
"Yeah?" he asked, trying to work out what he was going to say.
LeBeau's expression still seemed to be on the cold side, but it was hard not to be upset. Still, Carter was right; if he was going to say goodbye to Newkirk the next day, it may as well be as a friend.
"I accept your apology, Pierre."
Newkirk nodded, but the weight was not gone from his shoulders. It did not change the fact that this fiasco was his fault; LeBeau would still have to endure whatever Mullenberg put him through. The only comfort was that they would somehow eventually get LeBeau to Paris. And Newkirk would see to it that he helped him get there; it was the very least he could do.
Carter looked even more relieved, managing a sad smile as Kinch and Baker spoke with LeBeau. LeBeau and Newkirk's friendship would survive, he hoped. There was a chance that his time in Stalag 6 would put LeBeau in a bad mood again, but Carter wanted to believe that it wouldn't be enough to permanently turn LeBeau against Newkirk.
He's just going to be cooking, right? It's nothing our Louis can't handle, Carter said to himself. He'll be okay.
Hogan, on the other hand, was having his doubts about this. But as an officer, he knew that he couldn't afford to second-guess himself now that the decision had been made. He had given his word to LeBeau that they would get him out somehow; he could not make any error that would cause him to become a liar—not with the Corporal's life at stake.
The Colonel's eyes glanced around the barracks, pausing on each of his men. There was LeBeau, his face slightly pale, but determined. There were Kinch and Baker, preparing to say what was on their minds before moving on to the first of many goodbyes. There was Carter, whose expression was a fixed look of worry and hope. And then there was Newkirk. Newkirk's eyes met the Colonel's for a moment before the younger man looked away. But Hogan had seen the look of uncharacteristic helplessness in the Englishman's eyes.
The Colonel sighed. It was going to be a long night for all of them.