Author's note: Character exploration time again – completely and totally unrelated to the previous snippets, but then again this 'story' is basically a collection of odds and ends I just hope you like.
Disclaimer: I own the basic idea for this chapter, but that's it; CBS owns the rest. Or Bing Crosby does/did. Personally, I prefer this last possibility – channels don't create characters, people do :o)
Stalag by Starlight
3. Senses
Hogan is all eyes. He prides himself in his knowledge of various goings-on, because it's a deadly game they play, and he has to see everything in order to know everything in case something goes wrong – and something usually does. While he talks to you, whether he's explaining the particulars of a plan, spinning you a line, or just thinking aloud, his eyes dart everywhere, scan his surroundings, size you up, and when he's finished he knows anything he wants to know.
Carter's nose got him out of many a hairy situation, literally (mixing chemicals can be dangerous if you don't know exactly what you're doing, and the wrong smell can be a pretty good red signal) or not (for all that the guys say he's oblivious to a lot of stuff and absent-minded to boot, he's gotten pretty good at sniffing out trouble over the years); sometimes he feels that he – and the other guys – doesn't trust it as often as he should.
Newkirk is the feather-light touch on the door of Klink's safe, the friendly hand on your shoulder, and the white-knuckled grip on the handle of his "pencil sharpener". When he has a mind to, his fingers can fish unnoticed into your pockets and cull whatever is hidden in them; no door, no lock can resist them.
LeBeau tastes life as though it was a five-course meal that somebody else prepared: he takes things as they come, savouring the good and dismissing the bad as a shoddy cooking job. It makes the good moments all the richer and sweeter for it, and when something comes that leaves a bitter taste, he does what he's always done – rolls up his sleeves and tries to fix it.
Kinchloe is the ever-vigilant ears of the camp. He doesn't talk much, but he can always find time to listen to you, perhaps offer a word of support and comfort; his warm, companionable silence works just as well. In the dead of night, when the men are either out in the woods, pacing in the barracks, or asleep in their bunks, he's the one who stays at the radio and listens to the world going on, with and without them.
Kinch's role as the radioman always strikes me as a deeply lonely job despite the importance of communication – you're not on your own (not with so many people you can interact with) but you're still physically alone … It's like being the only human being in a room full of ghosts. Or maybe my mind words in strange ways and I tend to over-think things :o)
See you next week, and thanks for reading!