Klink went to the far end of the strip, clutching his mask and sabre in the manner of a drowning man clinging to pieces of flotsam. "Shouldn't he take off the mask for the salute?" he asked, looking at Carter with a worried frown.
"He never takes it off when fencing," replied Schmidt, then leaned towards Klink in a confiding manner, and whispered, "He has a scar. Well, more than that, really. Believe me, Colonel, you don't want to see it. It only makes him angry if his opponent insists on seeing it."
He moved to the side of the piste. "En garde," he said.
Carter tried desperately to remember everything - anything - he'd been told in the last hour.
"Prêts?"
He couldn't think of a thing. The whole lesson was a complete blank.
"Allez."
Neither Klink nor Carter made a move. For ten seconds - fifteen seconds - there was no sound. Emil, standing on the opposite side of the strip from Schmidt, folded his arms, and looked up at the ceiling, the picture of adolescent boredom.
"Halte!" said the fencing master. "Gentlemen, allow me to congratulate you on your excellent deportment. Now stop wasting my time, and start fencing. En garde. Prêts? Allez."
This time Klink actually took the initiative, making a couple of ungainly hops forward, like a magpie preparing to pounce on an unwary snail. Carter held his ground. The Kommandant swayed back and forth, looking about as unmenacing as imaginable, then suddenly rushed forward, waving his sabre with all the precision and control of a runaway windmill. Carter retreated, trying to parry, but he wasn't fast enough, and Klink's blade whipped across his leg, just above the knee.
It didn't start stinging for several seconds, but he knew all about it after that.
"Halte!" called the fencing master. "Off target. No hit. Above the waist, please, Colonel, or it doesn't count. En garde. Prêts? Allez."
Less than five seconds later, Carter received another hit, in the same place as the first. And this time it didn't just sting; it was enough to bring tears to his eyes. He bit back an exclamation, pressing his lips tightly together.
"Halte! Off target, no hit. Please, Colonel, try to direct your attack with more accuracy. Monsieur André, your guard is a little erratic. Remember what I said."
You said a whole lot of stuff, thought Carter resentfully. Nevertheless, he took up his stance again, prepared to take another hit if he had to.
"En garde."
Fence the man, not the weapon. That was it, that was what he had said.
"Prêts?"
Carter straightened up, his eyes suddenly fixed on his opponent. Kommandant Klink. The man whose business it was to make their lives a misery. The man who put sawdust in the bread they ate, bargained for stale meat and shrivelled vegetables, and watered the milk even more than it already was, just so he could skim a little off the top of the camp budget. The man who ordered prisoners to be locked up the cooler over trivial offences, sometimes for weeks at a time, and who smiled when he gave the order.
"Allez."
And this time, when Klink advanced with another of those ridiculous jumps, and more wild sweeps of the sabre, Carter was ready. How he knew what to do would forever remain a mystery, but it just made sense. He didn't try to parry; he dipped his blade beneath one of Klink's uncontrolled slashes, then let it swing round towards the Kommandant's elbow. Klink uttered a squeak, and almost dropped his sabre.
"Halte." There was unconcealed satisfaction in Schmidt's voice. "Attack from my left failed, counter-attack was good. Point to the fencer on my right."
On the next rally, Carter did it again.
Boy, this is actually fun! he thought. I wonder what else I can do?
In pursuit of this thought, he changed his tactics, and instead of waiting for Klink to start the attack, he made the advance himself. Klink, totally unprepared, scuttled backwards in a near panic, and stumbled over the end of the strip.
"You have gone off the piste, Colonel Klink," observed Schmidt, gravely reproving. "That's a point against you. The score is three-nil."
"You didn't give me a warning," whined the Kommandant, stepping back onto the strip.
"You didn't give me time," replied Schmidt. "En garde..."
Newkirk, watching from the relative safety of the changing room, could hardly contain his enthusiasm over the next quarter of an hour. He had no idea how Carter was pulling this off, but Klink was well on the back foot. By the time Schmidt called time, Carter had eleven points to his credit; three of them for scaring Klink into running off the end of the strip. Klink, by some fluke, had managed two valid hits, and a few more off-targets. They were both going to be sore tonight.
They were both pretty breathless right now. Carter's chest was visibly expanding and contracting with every breath, but he was still upright; it took a lot to wear him down. Nobody who wasn't in good shape lasted long on Hogan's team. Klink was another matter. He only managed to get the mask off his head with Emil's assistance. Beneath the mesh, his face - in fact, the whole of his bald head - was scarlet, and dripping with sweat. He staggered towards the nearest seat; if the way he moved was anything to go by, he'd aged a couple of decades in the last fifteen minutes.
Schmidt allowed him to reach the chair before speaking: "You didn't shake hands, Colonel. It is in the rules, you know. You must shake hands with your opponent."
Klink, in the act of lowering his aching body onto the seat, stopped. He couldn't look any more miserable than he already did, but the expression of reproach on his face as he turned was one of the gladdest sights Newkirk had seen in years.
"Quickly, please, Colonel. Monsieur André has an appointment elsewhere." So he did; at Stalag 13, for roll-call.
The Kommandant had no choice but to hobble back to the piste, and offer his left hand to Carter, while the fencing master beamed on them in complacent approval.
"You seem a little stiff, Colonel," he observed kindly. "Perhaps a few stretches would help. Emil, please show the Kommandant a few easy exercises." He nodded to Carter, glancing towards the changing room door, and Carter took the hint, and retired.
"That was brilliant, Carter!" whispered Newkirk, as soon as Carter was well inside and the door closed.
Carter, with a sigh of weary relief, took off the mask. He was flushed, and his hair clung in damp strands to his forehead, but he was smiling; slightly perplexed at what he'd achieved, but unable to hide his satisfaction at having achieved it. "It's pretty good fun, Newkirk," he said. "Especially against Klink." He wriggled his shoulders a little, and winced. "But it sure hurts sometimes."
Newkirk helped him out of the jacket. "Oh, blimey, Andrew!" he muttered, at sight of a bright red welt across Carter's inside forearm.
Carter glanced at it in bemusement. "Gosh. I didn't feel that one at all. Guess Klink got lucky there. He got me a couple of good ones on the leg, but he didn't get any points for that."
Newkirk's face, when on the removal of the breeches he caught sight of the complex arrangement of rapidly blackening bruises on Carter's thigh, was a clear indicator of future trouble for the Kommandant, but Carter was philosophical. "At least I got something to show for it."
"You certainly have, Carter," said Newkirk, wincing in sympathy.
He helped Carter into his street clothes, then went to the door. Herr Schmidt was watching his young assistant as he worked on the hapless Kommandant, who was being stretched and twisted into shapes and positions normally associated with modern sculpture rather than human physiology.
The fencing master caught Newkirk's eye, and gave him a subtle nod. "Emil," he observed, "Colonel Klink looks as if his shoulders are too tight. Perhaps you could give him some help with that."
Emil, ever obliging, promptly directed Klink to lie on his stomach, then, with one knee planted firmly between the Kommandant's shoulder blades, yanked one arm up till it was almost vertical.
"How's that?" he asked innocently; and as Klink just moaned in reply, he gave a little nod of satisfaction. "Good, that means it's working." He set to work on the other arm; and with the Kommandant's attention fully engaged, Newkirk and Carter were able to slip out of the studio and into the street.
"You know, Carter," said Newkirk, as they headed home, "I don't know if we should mention it to anyone about Klink being there. Colonel Hogan wasn't too keen on letting us out, he might decide to put his foot down next time."
"Gee, Newkirk, I don't know," murmured Carter. "All those bruises are going to take some explaining."
Newkirk smirked. "You want to tell everyone Klink got past your guard?"
And Carter, thinking it over from that viewpoint, came to the conclusion that maybe Newkirk was right.
"...over the target area in forty-five minutes. Over and out." Kinch lowered the microphone, and turned to Hogan. "Plane's right on schedule," he said.
"Let's hope Klink is," replied Hogan. But he had no real concerns on that score.
"Gee, I guess we'll never fight our sabre duel," Carter remarked casually.
He wasn't game to look at Newkirk, in case either of them cracked up. But they both knew, that duel had already been won.