"I guess it must have been four, maybe five days I was on the run. I got into a routine, going as far as I could at night, making sure I was under cover before the sun came up. I kept to the woods, and I found water, but I didn't have any food, and I didn't get a lot of sleep. So after the first couple of days I wasn't really thinking straight."
Hogan didn't say anything. The last thing he wanted to do was interrupt, now that Mills was finally ready to talk. If he needed to, he could ask questions later, once he'd completely gained the man's trust. For now, he stayed quiet, sitting upright on the old wooden chair, and concentrating on taking in as much of the story as possible before Schultz came back.
From outside came the normal sounds of the daily camp routine: the arrival and departure of the motorcycle courier with the day's despatches, the changing of the guard at the front gate, a flurry of barking from the dogs when one of the goons strayed too close. Hogan scarcely heard them, as he followed Mills' weary, stumbling progress through an unknown forest.
"I think I must have gone round in circles a bit." Mills sounded like he was describing a bad dream, one he didn't want to remember. "Seemed like I wasn't getting anywhere. But then the forest opened out, and it was all fields and farms. I got real spooked about it, thinking I'd get caught out in the open. So I went back to the woods."
He fell silent, his eyes fixed on the wall opposite. After a few seconds, he added softly, "I couldn't do it, not on my own. That's why I decided to turn myself in to the first Kraut I saw."
Once again, he stopped, and bit his lower lip. But if he thought the colonel would think the worse of him, Hogan quickly set him straight. "A lot of downed airmen end up coming to that. There's no shame in it. So how'd it work out?"
Mills flushed, and to Hogan's surprise, he gave a wry laugh. "It was like something out of a Laurel and Hardy film. Suddenly it was like the whole of Germany was deserted. I couldn't find anyone to surrender to. It was raining pretty hard that day, so I figured they'd all stayed indoors. Like I said, I wasn't thinking too clearly by then. I ended up taking shelter in a barn, thinking as soon as it eased off I'd go find the nearest farmhouse. Fell asleep while I was waiting, and when I woke up I found myself staring at the business end of a pitchfork. And that's when I really started to think I'd gone crazy."
He had moved, sitting so his back was against the wall. Hogan, watching keenly, started to notice the little movements, and the fleeting hints of emotion, which colored the basic story. It was unlikely Mills had any idea of the extent to which his body language was supporting his explanation, but Hogan had no doubt of its veracity.
"I put my hands up, and told them I was an American airman, and they should call the MPs. And they - there were two of them - they looked at each other like they didn't know what to do. Then one of them started waving me towards the door. My German ain't so good, but I'm pretty sure he was telling me to beat it. So there I was, practically begging them to turn me in, and them trying to shoo me away before anyone else saw me."
Up till now, Hogan had maintained an appropriately grave demeanor, but as his ever-active imagination pictured the scene, his lips began to twitch. "Yeah, I guess if I saw that in a movie, I'd think it was hilarious," he remarked.
Apparently Mills had a pretty well-developed sense of the ridiculous, too. For the first time since he'd arrived at Stalag 13, he was actually smiling, albeit only slightly, and with an ironic gleam in his eyes. "I can laugh about it now, but it sure wasn't funny at the time. Especially when the people they were there to meet turned up. Three of them, an old guy and a couple of women."
Hogan leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and loosely clasping his hands. This was getting interesting.
"They seemed pretty shook up to find me there," Mills went on. "So they all went into a huddle. I guess they were trying to work out what to do with me. Finally, the first two fellers and the women left, and the old man came over and started talking in English. Asked me if I was American, and how long ago I'd been shot down, and where I was trying to get to. So I gave him the whole name, rank, serial number routine, and finally he gave up asking, and told me to stand up and go with him."
"Just like that?" said Hogan.
Mills glanced at him. "I know what you're thinking. But he wasn't scared. He was a tough old bird, and I guess he could tell I was too beat to give him any trouble. But he didn't turn me over to anyone. He took me to his house, and his wife gave me a meal and made up a bed for me, and the next day he told me they'd try to get me out of Germany."
He broke off abruptly. Hogan waited briefly, but with the increasing likelihood of Schultz coming back, he had to push the conversation on. "Who was he? Part of the underground network?"
At once, Mills drew back. "No names."
"Okay, that's up to you," said Hogan.
Mills regarded him narrowly for a few seconds. "You're sure the Krauts don't have this place bugged?"
"I can guarantee it." Hogan met the searching gaze with absolute confidence, and after a few moments Mills, reassured, went on with his story.
"They help people who need to escape. Jews, mostly. They don't usually have anything to do with Allied servicemen, but I'd dropped in on a rendezvous, which kind of put them on the spot. If they ran me in, they'd have the Gestapo asking a whole lot of questions about what they were doing out there. They figured it was safer for them if they got me out."
"By the same route their other customers use?"
"Pretty much. The man who took me in got some clothes for me, and told me he'd organized for me to ride in the guard's van of the overnight train as far as Mendelburg, where the next safe house was. That was...that would have been...I'm not sure how long ago that was." Mills' voice faltered, and his brow furrowed.
"Don't worry about it," said Hogan. "Just tell me what happened."
Mills moved slightly, and folded his arms across his chest, before he continued. "I got off the train at Mendelburg, like I was supposed to, and I had directions to get to the safe house. It was around two in the morning, and there should have been nobody around. But just when I was leaving the station, a couple of cars turned up. Turned out to be the police - regular, not the Gestapo. Most of them headed straight for the platform, and I heard a lot of shouting, but when I tried to get out of the way, a couple of them stopped me, and started asking a lot of questions. Next thing I knew, the rest of them came back dragging a guy they'd found hiding somewhere. Seems the station master had spotted him skulking round, and called the cops."
He brushed one hand across his face. "It was Lieutenant Smith, and he looked like hell. And as soon as he saw me, he just came out with What are you doing here? I thought you were dead. So if I had any hope that the Krauts weren't on to me, that was the end of it. They took us both in, and put us in a cell to wait for someone to come for us."
"I guess you were pretty mad at him," said Hogan after a pause.
"Not then, not so much. He was pretty messed up," replied Mills. "Not just physically, I mean. He'd been on the run the whole time. He was almost incoherent, but apparently he'd had the same idea as me, to get to the coast. He'd stumbled across the railroad track, and started following it, thinking maybe he could jump a train."
"Without knowing where it was going? That's crazy. For all he knew he could have ended up halfway to the Russian Front."
Mills gave a soft sigh. "I think he really was half crazy by that time. Once we were locked up, he got into a hell of a state. It was like he just couldn't deal with getting captured after everything he'd gone through. I got scared, thinking he might do something drastic. You know what I mean."
"Yeah, I do. We've seen a few guys like that," replied Hogan, and not by so much as the blink of an eye did he give any hint that until recently he'd classified Mills among them.
"I couldn't let him go on like that," said Mills. "I had to do something. But I made a big mistake. I told him if we could manage to get away, I knew where to go for help. I didn't realize that the Krauts were listening in, and as soon as their chief heard that, he made a call to someone he knew would be interested. Couple of hours later, they came for us. But they didn't take us to any transit camp."
"Where was it?"
"Don't know. It was still dark, and they didn't give us a chance to look round." Mills paused, his eyes darkening. Then he went on, very softly. "There was a Gestapo officer, he questioned me as soon as I arrived. He said he wasn't interested in Allied prisoners, they could come and go as they liked as far as he was concerned. But the people who helped me, he was real interested in them. He's been after them for a long time. If I told him what I knew, he could arrange for me to get to Switzerland. If I refused the offer, he'd have to convince me to change my mind. So I told him to go to hell."
"Good for you," said Hogan. "But I bet he wasn't impressed."
"No. He wasn't." Mills' eyelids fluttered rapidly. "He told his goons to teach me some manners, and to make sure they didn't kill me. When they'd finished, they tossed me in a cell to think it over, and they left me alone."
Hogan's jaw clenched. That explained the bruises. "How long?"
"I'm not sure. Three or four days, maybe. Long enough for them to go to work on Lieutenant Smith. When they finally had me in for more questioning, the guy in charge said he'd been very helpful. Couldn't tell them anything about the Underground people, so they got him to talk about me. Where I came from, and how long I'd been at 182 Squadron, and how many missions we'd flown together - hell, he probably told 'em what I had for breakfast, before the Saarbrücken raid. And he told them something else, too." He finished on a low, harsh note.
"Was it the same thing that's been reported around Stalag 13 the last couple of days?" asked Hogan.
Mills didn't answer him. After a few seconds, he drew a deep breath, and went on. "The Gestapo officer told me the Switzerland offer wasn't available any more. The Luftstalag administration had been making enquiries. They knew a couple of airmen had been captured at Mendelburg, and that the Gestapo had us, and they weren't happy about it. So the deal now was, if I co-operated, I'd be transferred to a POW camp, with a clean record. If not...well, they've got other ways of dealing with undesirables. All he had to do was give the Luftwaffe a full report on what kind of degenerate they had on their hands, and they'd back off, and let the Gestapo deal with me."
Hogan gave a soft, cynical grunt. "He was bluffing."
"Maybe. At the time, I just gave him the same answer as the first time, with the same result," said Mills. "After that, they left me in the cell for another couple of days. When he had me brought out again, he told I was going to be moved to a Luftstalag. He seemed pretty annoyed about it, but he said it was only temporary, until he got a ruling about whose prisoner I actually was."
"In other words, he hadn't managed to convince the Luftwaffe to waive their authority." Hogan stood up, and stretched his back, which was starting to stiffen up.
Mills continued as if he hadn't heard. "He said not to get any ideas about escaping, because the camp they were sending me to was the most secure in Germany. No prisoner had ever made it out, so I'd have no chance. And just to make sure, they had someone on the inside, one of the prisoners. He'd be watching every move I made, and if I did try to make a run for it, or if I said a word about where I'd been, or what they wanted from me..."
"Their guy would take steps," Hogan concluded. "As he did - whoever he is. Anything else?"
"Yeah. He said he'd be coming to see me after a week or so, to find out how I was getting on. And by that time, he'd have gotten the red tape ironed out, so there'd be nothing to stop him from taking me away. So I could look on it as one last chance to see reason."
Hogan had started pacing slowly along the passage, frowning in thought. "It's not quite that cut and dried. The Luftwaffe are pretty keen to follow the letter, if not the spirit, of the Geneva Prisoner of War Convention, partly because it makes 'em look civilized, and partly because our side's got more of their airmen than they do of ours. But if he knows which strings to pull, and how to cover his tracks, he might just be able to pull it off."
He came to a stop in front of the cell, regarding Mills with a thoughtful frown. "Has this guy got a name?"
"I never heard it," said Mills, in a weary monotone. "Nobody seemed to think I needed to know, not even the big cheese from the Luftstalag administration."
"What big cheese?"
"I forget his name. He was there when we got to the transit camp. Big fat son of a bitch, looked like three hundred pounds of liverwurst stuffed into a sack."
The description prompted a grin from Hogan. "Did he have a duelling scar across his right cheek?"
"Yeah." Mills sat upright, a startled look in his eyes. "You know him?"
"General Burkhalter, head of the Luftstalag organization. I know him, all right," said Hogan. "What was he doing there? He doesn't usually welcome incoming prisoners personally."
"Far as I could tell, he wasn't interested in me at all. I was just an excuse for him to score off the other guy. It sounded like they've been trying to knock each other off for a couple of years, because the fat bastard said something about paying back a debt from the old days at Smolensk."
"Operation Barbarossa," murmured Hogan. "Burkhalter was an infantry commander during the Russian campaign. Like most Kraut generals, he makes enemies easily, and he can hold a grudge."
"Well, whatever it was, it must have been something big. The Gestapo officer looked about ready to shoot him. He said the matter wasn't finished yet, and he'd be taking it further. And then he left. Burkholder - whatever his name was - didn't hang around either, but his aide stayed back for a minute, to let me know that if I made any trouble about how I'd been treated, the general might have to reconsider his decision. He told me to clean myself up, gave me some old uniform coverall they'd gotten from somewhere - I didn't ask, and I don't want to know. Then they handed me over to the transit camp guards, who put me in the truck with the other guys and brought me straight here."
There was a little silence after he finished talking. Hogan rested his shoulders against the bars, running his thumb over his upper lip as he went back over the story. "What happened to Smith?" he asked.
"Don't know. And I don't care," replied Mills brusquely.
From the top of the stairs came the sound of the main cooler door opening. There was no time for more questions, but Hogan felt he already knew enough information to go on with. "Okay, Mills, leave it with me," he said. "And don't give up. You're in a tight spot, but..." He broke off, then went on in a different tone. "...but I'm sure the Kommandant will be willing to reduce your sentence, as you've seen the error of your ways. I'll see what I can do."
He turned to greet Schultz, who was rushing down the stairs. "Gosh, Schultz, what kept you so long? I'm a busy man, I can't hang around all day while you're off fraternizing with the rest of the prisoners."
"Oh, I am sorry, Colonel Hogan. Carter was showing me a card trick. Only it didn't seem to work very well," said Schultz breathlessly. "He had to do it a lot of times, and it still didn't make sense."
"All right. I'll overlook your tardiness this time," replied Hogan, in a grave, disapproving tone. "But don't let it happen again." He glanced at Mills, who had slumped back against the wall. Clearly, he didn't put much faith in Hogan's last few words. But as Hogan left the cooler, he was already working on the problem.
One detail in particular, something Mills had probably let slip by accident, had set alarm bells ringing in his mind. If everything he had said was true, the consequences, if the Gestapo broke him, wouldn't just encompass the unknown heroes who had helped him. The net would spread wider than that. Possibly wide enough to trap Hogan and his men.