Thank you to all the folks reading this. A huge thank you to all the folks sending me feedback as well. Big thanks to my peeps who keep putting up with my obsession and to Bits and Pieces for the moral support and to the infamously awesome TinySprite for all her work.

No, Smoky, I won't do Hendrich's POV. Anything you can't see from outside his head, you probably don't want to know. Just figure he's a sick individual who gets his jollies from abusing others. There's no sad childhood story there, just a sicko.

I apologize for not responding already to each review yet, but I will get to those replies tonight, promise! It's been a rather insane week.

Chapter 7

Kinch held in the sigh of frustration as he stood in front of the kommandant's desk. He was holding his hat in both hands and trying not to fidget and trying to stand far enough away that he didn't loom over the German. He knew he tended to intimidate Klink and the last thing they needed right now was for Klink to feel threatened by the tall black man.

He inhaled softly and began again. "But Kommandant Klink, it's against the Geneva Convention for that Army Major-General to abuse a POW this way and now he's removed him from camp without proper authorization. Surely there is something you can do. You're the kommandant of the camp. You can demand the return of your prisoners." His voice was beginning to grow desperate. The Colonel was so good at manipulating Klink into doing exactly what they wanted him to do. No one else in the camp had as much ability. Kinch swallowed carefully. Right now it all hinged on Klink. He was the only authority they had. "Kommandant, the men are very upset and I don't know that I can keep them from acting out."

"If they act out, they will be punished." Klink was falling back on unreasonable sternness. "Any breaking of the rules will be dealt with harshly. Once a few of them see their fellow prisoners punished, they will stop. I will not tolerate any interference in the efficient running of this camp!" His hand impacted the desktop with a loud smack.

"Then why did you allow that Kraut bastard to take one of your POWs!?" Kinch retorted. "He's the one disrupting the POWs here. If you'd dealt with him instead of allowing him to abuse prisoners for sport, there would be no situation at all."

Klink stiffened and Kinch knew he'd taken the wrong tact. Klink stood up. "I will not tolerate being questioned by a prisoner in my own office! I suggest you remove yourself immediately. If any POW wants to make himself a target, then I will make him an example. Do you understand? You are my prisoners. You do not give orders, nor make demands of me. Now leave."

Kinch was seething but gripped the edges of his hat tighter to control his temper now. Every moment Newkirk was gone there was less of a chance of him returning unharmed. "But herr Kommandant please... Corporal Newkirk..."

"Silence." said Klink. "Major-General Hendrich may return Corporal Newkirk when he is..." Klink's face fell slightly from the angry mask. "... when he is finished with him. Until then, this stalag will run as it has always run. Tell the prisoners that no breaking of the rules will be forgiven and that if even one incident occurs, all prisoners will be confined to the barracks for a week without privileges. Am I understood?"

Kinch gave in. If he continued to push, he would just get the entire camp punished. "Yes, herr kommandant. Understood, herr kommandant."

"Good. You are dismissed." Klink snapped a salute in return to Kinch's grudgingly given one. Kinch was opening the door to leave when Klink spoke quietly. "I am certain Hendrich will return the Englander."

Kinch paused for a second. "Yes, herr kommandant." He exited without further comment. Flipping his hat back up onto his head as he left the kommandantur, he fumed that Klink's backbone only seemed to blossom into being when he dealt with prisoners and not with the visiting Major-General. "Damned useless Kraut."

Olson and a small group of prisoners from the other barracks were engaged in a staring match with the guards at the front gates. The dozen or so POWs stood in a huddle, glaring balefully at the guards who shifted nervously in their positions. Olson had made sure to stop his group just short of easy speaking distance and well outside of the inner warning line. The group muttered to each other and milled around but did not give the Germans any true reason to disperse them. The distance was enough that the gate guards couldn't approach to shoo them away without leaving their posts. But they were definitely close enough to keep the attention on themselves.

American Private Adams lowered his voice. "This ain't right, none of us meant for any of this to happen when we elected Newkirk!" Olson gave him a questioning look and he set his jaw and continued. "Look, sure Newkirk is good at conning Germans and yeah, most of us figure he'd give us little guys a good shake, being a corporal himself and all..." He took a breath. "But mostly we picked him just to get his goat, you know? He wins near about every poker game and he's pulled a bunch of pranks on us lately and we figured he'd get right uncomfortable being our figurehead."

Olson interrupted. "You guys elected Newkirk as a joke?! Seriously, man, that's just not right."

Now Adams was fighting a guilty look. "It wasn't like any of us wanted him hurt in any way! We thought he'd have to deal with Klink and have extra duties. None of knew any of this stuff was going to happen." His voice dropped to a whisper. "We can break out. My barracks knows the guard schedule and a good spot on the fence to cut a hole. I know we could get half a dozen guys out tonight!"

Olson leaned in to listen to Private Adams and then shook his head. "No, even if we just broke out, what would we do then? Can't go roaming every town in Germany looking for Newkirk. We'd just be shot."

Private Adams fumed. "But it sure ain't fair." Adams had always been a moody one. "Ain't right for no German officer to come take one of us away like this. Bad enough they just come take Hogan for 'questioning'." Olson kept quiet about who had actually taken Hogan away. The details of operations were not given to anyone outside of the core team unless absolutely necessary. Adams wasn't involved in any missions and therefor believed the same story as the Germans. "If they can just come take anyone away, what's to stop them taking any of the rest of us? Or they could just line up some of us and bang bang bang! We're dead as examples."

Olson took a breath in and tried to think quickly. "Look, Klink wouldn't let someone just come kill a bunch of his POWs, it'd look bad on his reports to Berlin." The joking tone didn't go over well with Adams. "Things will be all right."

Adams continued to frown. "It's not all right. They took Newkirk."

Olson patted him. "Newkirk is a tough Cockney. He'll be okay."

Instead of being reassured, Adam shook him off. "It's just not fair, the stupid Germans are all about having a hundred and one rules we have to follow all the time and they don't even follow their own rules." His glower deepened as he looked towards the gate for a moment. Then he turned back to Olson. "Newkirk always wrote my letters you know. He never even made fun of me."

Olson nodded slowly. "It's okay. We'll get him back." He suddenly stepped past Adams to grab the arm of another POW. "Hey, ease up! No throwing rocks!"

A few of the prisoners looked around as Olson objected. The guards shouted angrily for them to stop and with Olson's urging, they grudgingly dropped various small rocks. The glares and disparaging comments continued however.

Kinch's voice made them all turn and pay attention. "All right, that's enough. You guys go on and stay out of trouble." He walked up beside Olson. "I thought I said not to get into trouble. Come on, Olson, throwing stones? Were you trying to get someone shot?"

"Hey, I wasn't..." said Olson.

"He didn't tell anyone to do nothing." said Adams, cutting him off. "But if he had, it's more than you've done, ain't it?" His glare at Kinch made it clear exactly who he faulted for the situation.

Olson began to retort but Kinch brushed him aside. "Look. Colonel Hogan left me in charge. You might not like what's happening, and let me assure you, there's no one in this camp that's happy about any of it. But that doesn't mean I'm going to let you or anyone else get themselves shot." He raised his voice to address the entire group. "You guys get away from here. Klink is already looking for excuses to put the whole camp on lockdown and confine us all to barracks."

The rest dispersed slowly, muttering the entire time. Olson gave Adams a light push to start him on his way. "Don't worry, old Kinch knows what's best. I'll talk to you later on. Tell everyone to lay out and not to upset the Krauts, okay?"

Adams shot one last look at Kinch but agreed quietly as he headed across the compound towards the barracks. Olson fell into step beside Kinch as they headed for Barracks Two. "I take it your talk with Klink didn't go as well as we hoped for?"

"Not by half, old chap." Kinch snorted. "Klink is too scared to buck that Major-General even when he's not in camp anymore." They entered the barracks and LeBeau immediately offered the two some coffee. "Thanks, Louis. Klink is a dead end. He doesn't have enough rank or backbone to do anything useful."

The false bunk lifted up and Baker's head poked up. "Guys, I got Robin Hood on the radio but he just had a message to let us know Papa Bear will be back in the den tomorrow or the next day at the latest. I tried to give him a message to let Papa Bear know what's going on but it's a one way chain."

Kinch huffed in frustration. "Great. No way to contact them. By now the Underground is probably already moving Hogan back to us."

Olson shrugged. "If he's on his way back, there's nothing we could do to rush things along anyway."

LeBeau nodded and sat at the table with an air of dejection. "Oui. If Klink cannot get Newkirk back, what could Colonel Hogan do? Even if he were here to convince him to try, Klink still can't intimidate a Major-General. We'd need someone higher in rank to bully the bosch."

Kinch's expression changed slowly from hopeless to almost gleeful. "That's it, LeBeau! You're a genius! We'll just get someone higher in rank!" He headed for the tunnel entrance while laughing. "Hendrich won't know what hit him."

The two left behind at the table looked at each other then each shrugged in unison. Then they both rushed to follow Kinch down the ladder.

END CHAPTER

Honestly, I'll be surprised if less than half the readers have already figured out Kinch's plan. The guys are all smart and creative themselves, so don't despair, I'm sure they'll come up with a plan to help Newkirk.