Corporal Dieter Lechler had just turned in for bed when the plane exploded. Asleep in the guard's barracks near the motor pool, he'd been jerked awake by the noise, then pressed into service putting out fires that got too near the camp's supply of fuel. The desperate sweep into action didn't stop there and Lechler, recently assigned to the camp, began to wonder if this sort of thing happened frequently. Every other guard in the place seemed to know exactly where to run for the water buckets, the sand, the blankets and emergency supplies.
He had thought that assignment to a POW camp in the middle of Germany would be safe, the easy life. Now suddenly Allied bombers were exploding and crashing in the camp.
Shortly after Lechler was assigned to drive one of the trucks to the local hospital he was even more surprised to have his vehicle, the last truck in the convoy, held up by a man in a stained Hitler Youth uniform.
At gun point Lechler was forced to carefully put a blanket wrapped child in the back of the truck then was ordered in accented German to continue driving the truck to the hospital as if nothing had happened.
He tried to talk to the young man, who seemed a might confused, and was clearly injured, but every effort was denied with a shouted, "Schweigen!"
Lechler finally lapsed into silence as requested and remained that way until they reached the hospital, the facility already overrun with casualties from the bombing raid. The Hitler Youth himself carried the unconscious child into the hospital and Lechler, no longer under the gun, helped unload the rest of the wounded.
The sergeant of the guard ordered Lechler to remain at the hospital, while the other two trucks returned to the camp. The stream of wounded didn't stop and the desperate hospital staff put the corporal to work doing menial tasks until the wee hours of the morning.
Just before day break Lechler poured two cups of thin coffee and brought them out to the crowded waiting room. He found the bowed head of a familiar figure and sat on the floor next to the young man who had held him briefly hostage. The Hitler Youth's hands had been bandaged since then, and his friend, not a child, but a very small man, had also been treated and laid on a thin mattress on the floor beside him.
"Hey…" Lechler said, not sure what to call the man. The blood and dirt smeared insignia on his uniform marked him as having the highest possible rank for a member of the Hitler Youth, but he hardly showed the initiative that such a cadet would have needed to gain it. "Did you lose your unit?"
The man lifted bleary, bloodshot eyes that bounced between Lechler's face and the extra cup of coffee in his hands. After a few seconds of consideration the man took the proffered steaming cup and sipped gingerly from it, careful of the thick bandages wrapped around his palms.
Lechler waited for an answer, curious, if not concerned.
"Will your friend be alright?" He asked to break the silence, gesturing slightly towards the unconscious man on the mat.
After a moment more of hesitation the uniformed man stuttered softly, "Yah, yah. He is good."
Lechler nodded and tried a smile that the tired man didn't return. He thought for a moment, looking toward the first rays of light coming through the windows. "I have a truck you know. I could drop you, wherever your unit is stationed."
The offer seemed to spark a response out of the young man who straightened a little and thought long and hard about the question. Finally the man smiled and said apologetically, "It is too far. But…thank you."
The response seemed a little bizarre, and it took Lechler a few minutes to get his sleep deprived brain in working order before he realized why. The uniformed youth had been on foot, clearly without transportation and less than a mile away from a POW camp. He must have carried the smaller man to the road. He had also felt the need to hold the prison guard at gunpoint for the entire trip to the hospital.
Deserters, Lechler thought, with a start. Or something else. Only the taller man had been in a uniform, the other buried in a mud covered blanket. He had assumed the smaller man to be a child at the time and hadn't questioned the identity of the Hitler Youth, but now...
Lechler began to feel his pulse speeding up, the coffee buzzing more rapidly through his system. He was desperately trying to think of a question that would quell his suspicions when one of the nurses, a beautiful blonde woman, bent to talk quietly to the man in the Hitler Youth uniform. Already a group of medics were moving the wounded, shorter man onto a stretcher, and the nurse helped the Hitler Youth to his feet.
Before Lechler could protest the sergeant of the guard from Stalag 13 barked from the door and Lechler jumped to his feet, responding with a hasty salute. He was ordered to return the truck to Stalag 13 and get some sack time as quickly as possible.
It wasn't until the following morning that he remembered the Hitler Youth, but by then there were other things to worry about.
Kommandant Klink's world was falling apart. His perfect no escape record had been marred by the English Corporal Newkirk's run for freedom. The senior POW officer had been arrested by the Gestapo, accused of espionage. Two more of his prisoners were now presumed dead following a failed air raid by the Allies and he was seven guards short.
The prisoners were restless, no longer sullen as they had been when Hogan was taken away, but now angry and demonstrative. A midnight escape attempt had taken the guards all morning to quell and at least one of his own men had been shot by a trigger happy private in the confusion.
Burkhalter had promised to bring a dozen new men with him when he came, but seemed not to care about the extenuating circumstances surrounding Klink's failure to control his own camp.
It didn't matter. Klink knew whose fault it truly was. And he knew what would fix it. He need only convince the general, and order would be restored.
The Kommandant's confidence flagged a little as he stood watching Burkhalter's car come through the gates followed by two trucks of soldiers. Each of the twelve fine examples of German manhood spilling out of the back of the trucks renewed his faith in the Fatherland, and in his own ability to control its prisoners until glory could be achieved. Klink felt a kinship with those men, soldiers all. He even thought he recognized one of the drivers.
Riding crop tucked deep into his armpit, Klink snapped a salute as Burkhalter maneuvered out of his car, and held his hand creased against his brow until the general impatiently returned the gesture, walking past the Kommandant and into his office.
Any confidence Klink had recovered deflated instantly like a balloon and he gave a withering glare to the familiar looking driver before he turned and followed his superior officer into the information center of the stalag.
"General Burkhalter, I hope you will take into consideration.." Klink began, the minute he stepped into his private office. Burkhalter had already seated himself at his desk, his desk, and looked expectantly at him in a way that warned that what the big man wanted was silence.
Klink pressed his lips together and snapped to attention.
"Sit, Klink. And listen."
"Yes, sir, sit and listen." Klink did just that, straining his back as he sat ramrod straight.
Burkhalter studied him carefully for a few minutes then leaned across the desk, his hands folded into a puffy ball. "It would seem, Colonel, that you are losing your grip here."
Klink desperately wanted to protest, and his whole body vibrated with a stifled response that didn't make it past his lips. Burkhalter waited for him to settle then continued.
"If I were a man given to studying statistics I would find it impossible that happenstance alone could be responsible for your recent…misfortunes."
Klink nodded, trying to smile, but his stomach was so sour that it his smile curdled on his lips.
"There are some in Berlin who view you as a military genius. To some extent, I must agree…that there is a genius in this camp. Or at least there was."
Klink bristled, confidence waning, rushing again to protest but using every ounce of control that he had left to remain quiet.
Burkhalter seemed surprised by his restraint and let his eyebrows rise before he continued. "It doesn't take an analyst to see what single event led to this catastrophic collapse. However, it is of greater value to Berlin to shut this camp down, than to try to fix it."
"Shut down…?" Klink finally blurted, unable to contain it.
"Given the state of the grounds, the guards, the prisoners. It would be easiest to move the POWs to separate camps and reassign your guards, than to try to create something out of nothing."
"But.."
"Klink! The only thing going for you at this moment is the inefficiency in the administration department in Berlin. They are slow to accept change, otherwise those trucks would have been empty, waiting to carry this camp to the dump!"
The starch ran out of Klink as the blood ran out of his face, but he thrust out his chin, desperately hanging on to the shreds of his dignity.
Burkhalter, while feeling some triumph at knowing that this bumbler would finally be out of his hair, still had orders. Superiors that he was expected to report to. Second, third and fourth chances that he had been ordered to give.
"You have four weeks."
"Four weeks?"
"To prove me wrong."
"P-prove…"
"In four weeks this camp must be returned to order. The buildings, the grounds, the prisoners. A model prison camp, Klink."
Wilhelm's smile started to return, hope superseding the impossibility of this second chance he was being given. "Thank you, sir! Your confidence in me is overwhelming, sir. I'll be requisitioning supplies immediately, sir."
"Don't bother."
"What?! B-but sir, you said that-"
"I said…that administration is slow. Lots of paperwork. You can hardly expect them to process requisitions when they are already overloaded with prisoner transfers. Therefore, you are on your own."
"But I…"
"I'm sure you have friends, Colonel. Favors that you can call in."
"But, sir, that's im-"
"Klink!" Burkhalter shouted, rising to his feet in an explosion that caused the thin Kommandant to jump out of his chair to rigid attention. "Everyday on the Russian front German officers are forced to do the impossible or lose their very lives!" The general roared, his face blood red. The big man's blood pressure had spiked, setting up a painful jab in his chest. His doctor's recent words of warning echoed in his ears and he forced deep breaths into his lungs until he had calmed. Klink was quaking in front of him and he could see that he'd made a lasting impression on the Kommandant. "If you can not make Stalag 13 a perfect model of German efficiency by the end of four weeks, it will be closed. Is that understood?"
Defeat in his eyes, colored by the last vestiges of Klink's failing survival instinct, the colonel dragged himself to attention and stiffened his arm in a salute. "Yes, sir." He responded, looking as though every ounce of his concentration was now focused entirely on maintaining attention.
For a few minutes Burkhalter felt like a bear. A violent, rabid bear, desperate to sate a ravenous hunger. He wondered if he had already gone mad, driven there by men like Klink and POWs like…no. Hogan was not an option. Hogan did not exist anymore. Hogan was dead to him and dead to the Fatherland.
"Very good." Burkhalter said, then left the office, giving Klink's secretary a smile that she did not return. Burkhalter ordered his drivers back into their trucks, then stepped into his vehicle and left the camp as hastily as he could, hoping that the four weeks would pass quickly.
The sooner Stalag 13 was shut down for good, the better.