I'm sorry; I know this is late. Don't hurt me.

For a moment Hochstetter could only stare at him, lower jaw flapping.

Then he roared, loud enough to blast everyone's eardrums, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"; totally bypassing his traditional rule of asking the question three times with increasing levels of volume.

After a moment of looking dazed, Carter said, "Well, I live here now. In fact, I've been here so long that it's kind of home away from home. Especially after we started having our own traditional Christmas party-"

"What has happened to your face?" Burkhalter interjected, squinting.

Even with all the blood cleaned off, you could still tell that something had happened to Carter. Both his cheeks and his nose were swollen and bruised, with a few cuts here and there, and one of his big blue eyes was going to have a nasty shiner for a while.

Now Carter looked embarrassed.

"Um, earlier tonight me and Newkirk tried to switch bunks because we were testing them, trying to see whose was more comfortable. But we forgot that I sometimes walk in my sleep, and I guess I decided to go for a stroll a couple of hours ago."

Anyone else would have been suspicious of this little explanation, especially taking into account the fact that there were bruises on both sides of his face. Klink and Burkhalter, however, were at least marginally familiar with Carter; if anyone was capable of doing it, it was him.

By now, however, Hochstetter had recovered from his shock somewhat, and snarled, "Lies! He was being questioned by myself and one of my staff, that is what happened to his face!"

"Oh, come off it, Major," said Hogan, "How could you have been questioning him when he's been here all night? We haven't even finished cleaning up the spot where he landed, look!" And he indicated a spot in the space between bunk beds with some blood smeared on the floorboards (Lebeau looked away, queasily).

Klink was by now looking quite satisfied with the explanation; Burkhalter's expression was more along the lines of "too tired and bored with all this nonsense to care."

And then Hochstetter's eyes lit up as he looked down at Carter's hands, which were encased in their usual gloves, the right one lying a little unusually stiffly against the blanket.

"Take off your gloves."

Carter's eyes widened in alarm.

"What?"

The Gestapo officer grabbed his right wrist in one hand, started to pull off the glove with the other-

"Hochstetter!"

General Burkhalter spoke in the tone he usually used when addressing Klink; i.e. the tone of a man who is at the end of his patience.

"You dragged me here at this ungodly hour of the morning claiming you were holding one of Colonel Hogan's men for questioning in Hammelburg, and therefore he would be out of camp."

Lebeau took advantage of the distraction to discreetly remove Carter's wrist from Hochstetter's grasp, and shuffle him as out of reach as possible.

"Instead," Burkhalter went on, "I see Colonel Hogan's man not out of camp, and the only thing he seems to be guilty of is walking in his sleep!"

He yanked the door open, and stomped out the door, before whirling around.

"You can walk back to Hammelburg if you wish to stay here attempting to prove your ridiculous claims, but I am leaving!"

And he marched on, with Klink rushing after him in sycophantic sympathy.

Hochstetter's face slowly flooded with a deep, burning crimson.

"Might want to watch your blood pressure, Major," said Hogan sweetly, "you might end up having a stroke."

"We should be so lucky," Newkirk muttered.

You can probably guess what Hochstetter's response was, once he was able to finally form coherent speech.

"BAAAAH!"