The rest of the day passed by slowly for those dwelling in both Stalags. LeBeau was released from the cooler in time to prepare Mullenberg's lunch. The colonel did not question him further; the promise of the truth serum's arrival was enough to allow him to postpone his questioning until it arrived.
LeBeau noticed that the colonel had not continued with the interrogation; he immediately began to suspect something. It was later in the day, during the preparation of dinner, that LeBeau finally got the chance to speak with Major Vulsor in the kitchen. Before the Frenchman had a chance to ask him about possible escape attempts, the major warned him of Mullenberg's plan first.
"I should not have brought it up," the major said, disdainfully.
"How could you have known?" LeBeau asked. He winced as he once again thought of Newkirk; how could the Englishman have known of Gretel's true identity? He pushed the thought aside for the moment. "Does this serum work?"
"I'm not sure," the major replied. "She only got a chance to test it once, but she never wrote down what the results were. And this isn't even the original serum; it's what Backsheider's boys have been working on, based on the notes that do exist."
"Then maybe I'll be lucky, and it won't work," hoped the corporal. Hope was all he could do at the moment; one slight slip of the tongue was all that it would take to sentence himself and his closest friends to death.
The Frenchman lowered his voice as he went on. "Chances are good that Mullenberg is only going to start with a small dosage of this serum; it gives me time to work on an escape plan." He sighed. "I will be needing your help after all, it seems. I do not have the manpower to break those eight men out of here by myself."
The major blinked; LeBeau was undoubtedly desperate if he was willing to trust him so readily. And with the looming threat of a truth serum ready to expose Papa Bear's organization, the corporal had every right to be desperate.
"I will help in whatever way I can," he promised.
"Merci, but I am not sure of what to do just yet," LeBeau confessed. "I have the means to put Mullenberg out of action for a few hours, but that won't help with getting past the guards. Do you have any ideas?"
"How spicy do you cook your food?"
"That depends," the corporal replied. "I could fire up some dishes if I was requested to do so, but it is very rare that I am asked. And Klink cannot even take it; the one time I tried adding some spice to his food, he was brought to his knees, drinking directly from the water pitcher. He forbade me from making anything like that ever again; he promised to send me to the cooler for trying to make him ill if I did."
Vulsor chuckled, but then grew serious again as he pondered over their options. "It'd be impossible to get some hot peppers here, but do you happen to have any of your own—fresh or dried?"
"Oui; I managed to get some peppers after pulling some strings; I dried them out, and I grind them as I need them," he said. Actually, it had been Hogan who had pulled the strings, asking a baffled Mama Bear for spices on LeBeau's behalf on one particular occasion. Mama Bear eventually indulged the request; London had long since learned that all requests from Hogan, however bizarre they might be, were better off granted.
"If you've brought it with you, we're in business," said Vulsor. "A pinch of that in the eyes of the guards, and they won't be able to see if you're coming or going—and they certainly won't be able to aim. It won't be enough, but it's a start."
LeBeau stared in amazement. After all the cooking he had done, the idea had never once crossed his mind.
"Incroyable," he mused. If this worked, and he successfully escaped, he would have to tell Newkirk and Carter about it… if he ever had the chance to talk to them again.
He hurriedly pushed the thought from his mind, not wanting to think about the different—and terrible—circumstances that could prevent him from talking to them again.
"Major, I think I shall enjoy working with you," he said.
"So do I, Corporal," the older man replied. "Let's just hope that Backsheider's take on Mother's serum won't put this partnership to a premature end."
LeBeau only nodded as he turned back to his cooking, staring at the stew bubbling on the stove. More than ever, he longed for a tunnel to disappear into.
For Newkirk, the waiting game had never been more maddening than today. He hardly ate, in spite of the fact that Private Garlotti had succeeded in making a decent meal for both lunch and dinner.
"Newkirk, a man doesn't live on wine alone," Hogan said, seeing that the corporal had, for the most part, skipped dinner. He glanced at the bottle, which was almost as the same level it had been since morning; the glass in Newkirk's hand was full, as though he hadn't touched it in hours. "And you haven't been drinking much of that, either—not that I want you to."
Newkirk mumbled something incoherently, but Hogan distinctly discerned the words "not hungry."
That wasn't the problem, Hogan knew. The core of the problem was LeBeau's absence, and judging by Carter's nervous state, Newkirk was planning to take things into his own hands—or already had. The colonel made a mental note to keep an eye on him. He wouldn't past the Englishman to do something rash when being driven by emotion; in fact, it was almost expected.
"Do eat something if you get hungry, hmm?"
Newkirk just mumbled something else in reply, raising the glass to his lips as Carter opened the door to the office again.
"I've picked up some information, Sir," he said. "Do you want the bad news or the good news first?"
"The good news," Hogan said, humoring the sergeant.
"Well, the good news is that Schultz told Klink about Burkhalter getting upset over the transfer, especially the reasons for it, and Klink was pretty nervous," Carter said. "The bad news, though, is that Klink said he's lucky that Burkhalter is on furlough somewhere in the Alps right now."
Hogan fought the urge to slap his forehead.
"So much for that idea," he sighed. "Time to come up with a Plan B…"
To his surprise, Newkirk remained silent, not offering a single one of the undoubtedly numerous plans forming in his head. The Newkirk that Hogan knew wouldn't miss an opportunity to speak his mind.
Dismissing it for the moment, Hogan pondered on a backup plan for a moment before coming to a decision.
"There's no other choice; I need to get in touch with the Düsseldorf Underground."
Newkirk sputtered and coughed slightly on account of trying to stifle his gasp while drinking the wine. Carter conspicuously paled. Hogan glanced at the both of them, his eyebrows arching in suspicion.
"Would you like me to get in touch with them now, Colonel?" Kinch asked.
"Not right this second; it should be time for lights out, and I want to give some time to make sure that Schultz isn't going to be coming in here," said Hogan, wanting to see what a delay would cause Newkirk and Carter to do. He crossed to his office, pausing as Carter stood aside. "I guess you can go off of coffeepot duty. Oh, and Olsen—can you hit the lights?"
He went inside as Carter stepped out and as Olsen turned the lights off.
"And I reckon I'll go put the wine away," Newkirk said, picking up the bottle.
"Feel like keeping me company, Carter?"
Honestly, no, the sergeant thought, wondering what Newkirk was going to drag him into now; it could only get deeper from here. Despite the feeling of impending disaster, he followed Newkirk down the tunnel.
"Any other bright ideas?" the American whispered, uncharacteristically harsh.
"I'm working on one," Newkirk said. "But it'd take a fair bit of smooth talking to convince Briar Rose to pretend that she never heard the first order; she might suspect that one of the Papa Bears was a fake."
"That's because the 'Papa Bear' she spoke to was a fake!" Carter countered. "There's only one way out of this; you've got to tell Colonel Hogan that you impersonated him! He's going to figure it out once he picks up that radio!"
"I know; I'm trying to figure out 'ow far along the road to Düsseldorf we can be by then. The von Siedelberg disguise is back there, and there's a captain's uniform, too, with I.D. all ready to go; I can go as your aide."
Carter's jaw dropped open.
"No!" he insisted. "I went along with you all this time, even though I didn't want to; I am not going to Stalag 6 as von Siedelberg or anyone!"
"I'm only going to go if there's no information on Louis… or if it looks like the Guv'nor is going to give me an injury for impersonating 'im."
"We are not going to Stalag 6 for those reasons, or any other ones!" Carter said, clenching his fists. "Newkirk… don't make me have to pull rank on you!"
The words sounded as though someone else had spoken, not the normally mild-mannered technical sergeant who usually didn't care about rank. Even Carter himself hardly recognized the voice as his own; the words were as foreign to him as the ones he would utter while in disguise as a German.
The Englishman gave a dark glare to the younger American. "You wouldn't dare…"
Carter did not want to have to resort to this; it was a card that he had never wanted to play—especially not on one of his closest friends. Regardless, his voice remained perfectly calm.
"Try me. I didn't become a technical sergeant just because of my expertise in demolitions, you know." He stared straight into the corporal's eyes. "We are not going to Düsseldorf; we are not going out of this camp."
"Right, then, Sergeant; at least I know where we stand," Newkirk replied, bitterness lacing his voice. "As you wish; we are not going to Düsseldorf."
Satisfied, Carter turned to head back upstairs.
"I'll go alone," Newkirk muttered at his retreating back. He couldn't blame Carter for doing what he did, of course; looking back, it hadn't been fair to try to get Carter involved in a dangerous scheme.
Once he was sure that Carter had gone, Newkirk set to work getting the captain's uniform ready; the papers would give his name as Captain Sturm von Leonhart, and a few addition details would describe him as von Siedelberg's aide.
After brushing the tunnel dust off of the uniform, Newkirk proceeded to wait and see the developments before deciding to change into it. He did not have to wait for very long; Hogan, Kinch, and Baker soon arrived in the radio room.
"Papa Bear to Briar Rose," Hogan said. "Come in, Briar Rose."
"Reading you loud and clear, Papa Bear," Briar Rose replied. "I regret to inform you that I was unable to get the information on the bowls of porridge you requested earlier."
"What…?" Hogan quietly exclaimed. He exchanged a glance with the two radiomen before turning back to the set. "Could you please repeat that, Briar Rose?"
"I regret to inform you that I was unable to get the information on the status of the nine bowls of porridge you requested this morning," Briar Rose answered. "The area was too heavily guarded; we were unable to get anywhere near it. Our agents were driven from the area."
Hogan's eyes narrowed. "Newkirk."
"He didn't…" Baker said, with a shake of his head.
"Oh, I think he did," Kinch replied, decidedly not amused by the Englishman's antics. "What now, Colonel?"
Hogan drummed his fingertips on the table for a moment before picking up the transmitter again.
"Message received and understood, Briar Rose," he said.
"We can also report, Papa Bear, that Major Hochstetter left this morning; he intends to return at an unspecified time and date," Briar Rose added. "I do not know if that information will be of any value to you."
"It might very well be," Hogan replied, "But I recommend that you all lay low for some time, especially if Hochstetter intends to return. You've already stuck your necks out."
"Understood, Papa Bear; we will wait for your next instructions. Briar Rose out."
"So much for Plan B," Baker sighed.
"And you can thank Newkirk for lousing that up," Kinch replied, bitterly, as he shut the radio down.
"I'm sure Newkirk meant well," the younger techie answered. "He's worried about Louis like the rest of us."
"Newkirk always means well, just like he did when he thought he was rescuing that girl. Newkirk doesn't understand that the more he carries on like this, the worse it's going to get for us," Kinch said. "We can't even use the Düsseldorf Underground anymore; unless LeBeau can make some friends in that camp, he's on his own for this!"
The Englishman, who had been further down the tunnel and able to hear every word, flinched. He hadn't realized that he might render Briar Rose's operation temporarily useless, and that was exactly what he had ended up doing. The guards were likely to remember the faces of the agents they had driven off; they would get too suspicious if they saw them in the area again.
Newkirk now glanced at the captain's uniform in his hands. Carter's words quickly came back to him, along with the ones that Kinch had just spoken. They were right; he was in deep enough trouble now. Dare he risk getting in deeper?
He shut his eyes, and the vision of the previous night's dream came, unbidden, to his mind. It was almost a self-fulfilling prophecy; Newkirk had, unknowingly, just severed the only contact that LeBeau could have had with the outside, putting him in greater danger than before.
He's on his own for this… Newkirk mentally echoed Kinch.
The corporal's eyes shot open. He couldn't let LeBeau handle this on his own; one man taking on the entire staff of Stalag 6 by himself would not make it out alive. Even if the risk was too great, Newkirk would have to go as Captain von Leonhart and arrange something—anything!
As Baker spoke again, the corporal drew himself back to the present.
"You're rather quiet, Colonel; do you have any ideas?"
"No, I don't," said Hogan. "But I do know that I need to have a long talk with a certain corporal."
Newkirk's mind raced as the three headed back up to the barracks; they would be looking for him. Perhaps, if he left right now, he could be back by morning roll call. He could then say to Hogan that he had been pacing the network of tunnels the entire night, thinking. And there would be nothing to prove that he had not been doing so.
He retreated further into the tunnel and quickly changed into the captain's uniform, placing on a false mustache and pocketing a gun for good measure. Before heading down the tunnel he headed back towards the radio room, making sure that all was quiet. Satisfied, he crept back along the tunnel, climbing up the ladder and exiting via the tree stump.
Cautiously, he looked around as he climbed out, pressing himself flat against the ground as the searchlight made its sweep. Gently closing the door in the stump, he began to creep towards the direction of the woods. Once he made it into Hammelburg, he would be able to requisition (or, if it came down to it, commandeer) a staff car or some other method of transportation to get him to Düsseldorf.
A quiet voice made the corporal freeze in his tracks.
"You know, if you could dig dirt as quickly as you dig yourself into a hole, we'd have twice the number of tunnels right now."
The voice was an American one, but it was one that Newkirk had heard speaking German countless times before in order to trick their adversaries.
"Andrew…" he pleaded, as he turned to face the sergeant.
"You lied!" Carter hissed.
"I 'ad to, Andrew," Newkirk said, moving to place a hand on his younger friend's shoulder. "Andrew, please…"
"Don't 'Andrew' me!" the sergeant countered, pulling his shoulder out of the way. "I thought for sure that you'd be honest with me. Boy, was I wrong…!" He took the fake I.D. out of Newkirk's pocket. "Captain Sturm von Leonhart, huh? At least you didn't go as von Siedelberg; you'd never pass for him."
"Look, Andrew, I'll make it up to you; I swear it," Newkirk promised. "But you've got to let me go through with this; the Guv'nor 'as ordered the Düsseldorf Underground to lay low because some of them were driven away by the Stalag 6 guards earlier."
He made a grab for the I.D., but Carter pulled it out of the way.
"And whose fault is that?" the sergeant asked.
"It's me own ruddy fault; you don't 'ave to rub it in," Newkirk said, bitterly. "That's why I need to make sure that Louis is fine… or as fine as 'e can be in that kind of situation. You want to make sure that 'e's fine, too, don't you?"
"That card isn't going to work on me anymore," Carter said. "Come on; we're going back to the barracks."
Newkirk didn't move, which prompted Carter to glare at him.
"I said that we're going back to the barracks, and we're going to stay there and see what Colonel Hogan has planned," the sergeant said.
Newkirk knew when he was beaten, and he went back quietly. What stunned him the most was who had beaten him; he had never expected Carter to be the one.
You've earned your stripes, Andrew, he thought. That's more than can be said for me.
Carter's expression did soften, however slightly, once they were inside the tunnel.
"Don't ever make me have to pull rank on you again," he said.
"It 'urt you as much as it did me, eh?"
"Well, I wouldn't go that far," Carter replied, sounding more like his normal self as a smile finally found its way to his face. "I'm not the one in trouble."
"You can say that again, Carter," a new voice replied.
Both Newkirk and Carter now froze as they saw Hogan standing before them in the tunnel, several feet ahead. His arms were folded as he stared Newkirk down; if Carter had been upset earlier, then Hogan was downright furious.
"Oh, Cor…"