"Want me to teach him some manners, Gov'nor?" Newkirk asked gruffly, glaring at the retreating back of François.
"No," Hogan answered running a hand over his face. Could this get any worse?
"Oui, many manners," Tiger countered fuming. "I will not under any circumstances accompany him anywhere!"
"No one is asking you too. Just give me a little time and I'll come up with something," Hogan said and started to go after the scientist but was stopped by Kinch calling down the hallway.
"Sir, I just got off the radio with our underground contacts. It's not safe for anyone to move around right now. Everyone is holed up because the SS and Gestapo are out in force searching for François while blaming the Wehrmacht. However, the Wehrmacht are denying any involvement in either the rescue of François or the killing of the Gestapo mole. Fortunately, neither the SS nor Gestapo believes them. So it looks like the distractions are working for now. As far as anyone can tell, the underground is in the clear, but we know how quickly that can change," Kinch explained confused at the looks on the other three's faces.
"Well that's bloody good news," Newkirk said. "Right about now, we sure can use some."
"At least that much is going the way it should. When will London be back on air?" Hogan asked.
"In a few hours, sir," Kinch answered. "What did I miss?"
"François is determined that I should go to England with him," Tiger answered with a scary smirk. Kinch raised both eyebrows wondering if the man had a death wish.
"I want to speak with Butler as soon as possible. In the meantime, I'm going to talk with François alone," Hogan ordered leaving the group going to the back of the tunnels.
He looked out the window and the camp seemed to be back to normal. Normal? What was that? He half laughed morosely. Things were never normal in this pigpen. And life could never be normal again. Two days ago, he'd awoken to confused commotion in the guards barracks instantly knowing something serious had happened. For half of a groggy moment, he'd hoped that Klink or Schultz had shot themselves in a gesture to save the German war effort. Hastily throwing his uniform on and hopping into his boots, he joined the other poor slobs who found themselves assigned to this backwater sewer. Then he heard it, a guard had been killed. One of the prisoners had finally crossed the line he thought, only to learn the guard had been outside the wire. No matter, it must have been an escaping prisoner. The idiot Klink didn't even order an immediate and full roll call. Instead, he sent Langenscheidt, Mueller, and Schmidt to do barracks checks without waking the prisoners, three more worthless examples of German soldiers. He knew for a fact that they only checked a few barracks instead of the entire camp. Although he couldn't get it out of them, his gut said, no one went near barracks two, too afraid not everyone would have been home.
He glared in the direction of the hut in question, then turning walked slowly to sit back down on his bed. Tears poured out of his eyes, unashamedly. His head buried in his hands, remembering as he heard the name of the dead guard, Corporal Walter Waechter. He'd run to the front gates, positive they'd been wrong about the name. There was no way he could be dead, no not Walter! He prayed Walter had been the one to find the dead guard, and the guard making the report was mistaken on who had died. However when he saw them carrying him in on a stretcher, it was all he could do to not fall to his knees in overwhelming grief. Instead, he walked alongside the stretcher giving him a soldier's homage. They laid him in the guards' infirmary, and he stood guard over the body. Voices around him were talking, but he couldn't hear them, his eyes transfixed on the face he knew so well.
He remembered when Walter was born. He'd been six years old, so proud to be a big brother, which lasted until he realized the new baby got more of his parents' attention than he did. Although he came around quickly, reveling in the role of protecting and tormenting his sibling. They grew up the best of friends and were as close as two men could be. When Germany called for volunteers, it was Walter who convinced him to join. His enthusiasm for Hitler was contagious, so the brothers joined the military together to defend their homeland. When they left home, his mother made him promise to look out for her youngest. He promised her that no harm would come to either of them, secretly wondering how to keep his more zealous younger brother in line. Now his face stared back at him almost as if he were sleeping. He wanted to reach down shaking him, telling him to wake up and quit this cruel joke.
Kommandant Klink came in and all the voices hushed. The man appeared horrified at the sight of his dead soldier, and he thought the commander might faint. The bumbling idiot held something in his hand, so he inquired what it was. Klink showed him the button found close to Waechter, a piece of fabric still attached where the button had been ripped from a uniform. But it was a Wehrmacht button, which made no sense. He expected it to be off an Allied uniform. He volunteered to stand guard over the body until the proper arrangements could be made. Klink granted him the request, and finally all the others left the small building allowing him to be alone with his brother.
He caressed the side of the stilled face running his hand over the curly blond hair, as his tears flowed for the first time. Holding onto Walter's hand, he broke down into deep sobs. How? How could this have happened? At some point, he gained control over his emotions, taking a close look at the body for clues that would lead to the monster who committed this heinous act. The look of shock on Walter's face indicated he was taken by surprise. Walter was a careful and observant soldier, so he deduced there was more than one assailant. What did Walter see in those last seconds of his life? What did he feel? Did he to cry out for his older brother? No one realized they were brothers, because Walter favored their father, and he favored their mother with deep black hair. He vowed when he found the bastard responsible for Walter's death, the man would feel great pain in the last moments of his life. Reaching into his brother's pocket, he removed the photo of Heidi, Walter's wife of two years. In a recent letter she'd written, they found out that she was expecting their first child. Walter had gone home on leave just before starting this assignment. The baby would be born in a few weeks, but his brother would never know the joy of holding his own child, a cruel irony of this war. They took this assignment to protect Germany so they could raise a family in peace.
Wiping the tears from his eyes, he stood up from his bed then went over and pulled out the chair from the desk sitting down. Opening the drawer and taking out a notepad and pen, he breathed a gloomy sigh starting his sad task. On the paper, he wrote: Dear Heidi, It is with the greatest of sorrow…
Blinking the moisture from his eyes, he stared out the window once more recalling his meeting with Major Hochstetter yesterday. The Major had offered to pull him out of Stalag 13 so he could grieve properly and help with the manhunt for the Wehrmacht officers, but he insisted on staying. Everything pointed to this being a German military operation gone horribly wrong. Hochstetter believed his brother had come across the two officers who kidnapped the scientist and interrupted their plans. The Major said he was sure that sooner or later, Barrett's body would show up. With the fiasco of the kidnapping, the Wehrmacht couldn't keep Barrett alive without admitting their own guilt in the death of several German soldiers. However, in his gut, he knew somehow that the prisoners were involved in his brother's death. Hochstetter disagreed, but allowed him to stay to complete the mission they'd started since it would take Papa Bear down. He was ordered to listen for any information that might lead them to the missing scientist.
Turning back to the letter, he vowed to Walter that he'd care for Heidi and the baby all the days of his life; after finding and killing the men responsible for his little brother's death. How he'd accomplish that he wasn't sure, but one thing was for certain, he'd have to get Schultz to allow him to be the replacement guard for Barracks Two. And he knew exactly how to make that happen.