Title: The Lambeth Walk
Author: pronker
Era: November 1944
Summary: The Heroes deal with challenges great and small.
A/N: At end.
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"Worst case I've ever seen." Wilson shook his head as he surveyed his patient. "Wish I could do something for you, but I can't. Get dressed, I've got a lot to do with this epidemic on my hands."
Newkirk's jaw dropped as his eyebrows climbed into his hairline. "Nothing? There's no cure? Like straightaway?"
"Just time, my friend, time." Wilson always seemed to dispense this advice, for all the good it did his reputation. Newkirk flinched as he began rebuttoning his jacket and Wilson put on a blank this is just routine face as he aided Newkirk in the task with brisk, efficient fingers. Newkirk remembered others returning to barracks in the past few days reporting the same five words and grumped to himself on the way back. Schultz had escorted him to Wilson's infirmary and then growled pfah at the sluicing skies before sneaking away to his quarters for a raincoat.
For once, the colonel proved unsympathetic to his men's complaints. Newkirk suspected the reason for his own disaffection sprang from Hogan's dismissal of the ailment because of its non-mission character. The order "Tough it out" sounded, well, tougher than the barracks expected from their leader, given the circumstances. When the annoying symptoms erupted in the prisoners one by one, Hogan ordered each of his men to consult Wilson. He listened stone-faced when they returned with Wilson's diagnosis and dispensed the same three words tough it out. No comradely clap on the shoulder, nothing but dispassionate regard and the order delivered with folded arms before Hogan retired to his separate quarters. This attitude contained poor form, in Newkirk's opinion, and his high regard for Hogan flagged a bit. He pulled his turtleneck to his chin as he trudged through a sloppy puddle.
Winter painted the entire camp in dreary gray-browns. And it wasn't even a proper winter yet, griped Newkirk to himself, too early for Advent calendars, Yule and all other festivities recalled so fondly, no matter your country of origin. Newkirk felt positive that the rain would become sleet before long, possibly hail and certainly snow. He indulged himself in a full-on grouse as he slogged back to Barracks Two.
LeBeau, for example, chafed at the disruption of his cooking routine; he had been the first afflicted. Barracks Two suffered in the lack of good cooking accomplished with Gallic flair despite limited supplies. Cor, what if Klink entertained some nabob and demanded Louis's services as chef? Newkirk shivered as a rivulet dripped from his hair down his neck. That would be a fair go; LeBeau's mood infected the whole barracks, sometimes. Louis prided himself on delicacies pureed, marinaded or drizzled, no plain Simpson's-in-the-Strand roast beef or Lambeth bangers and mash for him. Newkirk's mouth watered and he changed the subject.
Now you take Kinch, Newkirk thought as he managed a dispirited wave to his favorite guard. Schultz presented a damp gray mountain with a gloomy face, decked in a tented overcoat topped with a rain slicker. Schultz clutched his Karabiner in front of him like you'd hold onto a pole in a London tube's crowd at quitting time. Did he need the rifle in the dicey wet footing, like a high wire artiste's balance pole scene from Newkirk's performing days? Newkirk's mood lifted as he forgot his ailment for a moment. He pictured Schultz in full dress uniform teetering thirty - no, make that a safer twenty - feet above ground.
His cheeky grin lingered until Schultz lurched out of view after a dismissive raus towards the barracks, and then Newkirk returned to considering Kinch. Too bad Kinch caught the dread disease, he thought. Could something be done about that? Communiqués with London, with home, seemed paramount and Newkirk about-faced to return to Wilson, demand he do his job and cure everyone, radio operator Sergeant James Kinchloe first and foremost. After three squelching strides, Newkirk about-faced once more. Nah, no good. Wilson couldn't work miracles and if he could, he'd be even more insufferable. Why did he tell each airman worst case I've ever seen time after time? Did he think all his patients needed was to feel special? Why not say stop goldbricking it's not so bad?
Newkirk slowed his steps as he neared Barracks Two. He scowled at the laundry bucket filling with icy water and the empty clothesline, cursing the items with words he never - well, hardly ever - used. Then he remembered Helga's slender, tender hands. In his mind's eye, he apologized to her for his language, groveled really, because where was she? Why had she abandoned them? Oh, the official reason stood fast: Helga moonlighted as their manicurist trusted to enter the tunnels, but she inherited some money and the extra Reichsmarks allowed her to quit work altogether. Klink replaced her immediately with the less-trusted Hilda. Helga's memory lived on because she'd bequeathed them a mile-high stack of blue notepaper.
Carter, sweet and loopy lad, he, concocted a tale directly after symptoms began. Helga did not truly desert them but used her freedom from stenography to aid the Underground in a more important role, one more vital than a grubby prisoner's hygiene. Hogan neither confirmed nor denied this. Perhaps he didn't know, either, but Newkirk admitted to having trouble believing that.
Hogan's image slipped some more.
Newkirk halted just outside the door, pruny fingertips poised to open it. He stood drenched, discouraged and far in body and spirit from his mates. Why was he so on to rejoin them? Carter stripped off his gloves yesterday, which was unnerving enough to witness in this distressing plague; Kinch climbed up and down the ladder, wincing every time he hauled his brawn over the splintery lip of the bunk; LeBeau forced himself to boil water for plain potatoes using, Newkirk suspected, far worse French swears than Newkirk uttered four minutes ago, and he, Newkirk, could neither shuffle nor hold a deck.
It was enough to make a bloke blubber.
Hogan must have been waiting just inside the door and timed his favorite safecracker's return to the minute. The colonel edged the door open with one hand to shield the barracks floorboards from further wet warping, gesturing Newkirk to scramble inside with the other.
Oh. Oh, no.
The guv caught it, too!
Newkirk choked out desperate denial of the sight, then turned to sprint back to the infirmary. He burst in without knocking while mud from grimy boots splattered the passably clean floor.
He caught Wilson red-handed. Or rather, not-red-handed. The medic slid the evidence under a pile of reports, but Newkirk rustled it out to brandish it before Wilson's defensive face. The almost full tube of Gold Bond cream appeared chock-a-block with healing, soothing white lotion.
"It took me nigh drowning to twig to it! 'Strewth, I noticed your hands pale and pretty when you helped button me up so I figured you trapped some poor git into doing your laundry, but no, no, you held out the cure, selfish. Some angel of mercy you are!"
Wilson rose to his feet. "The cream came from the Red Cross, if you please. And I don't please to spread it around." He grabbed for the tube. "What happens if I get hangnails, too, and the camp loses its one and only medic?"
"I don't care if your mitts chap to, to the color of LeBeau's bouillabaisse," Newkirk spat as he danced to a corner, "you're not getting away with making me mates suffer."
He paused at the door, glancing over his shoulder at Wilson. "You don't deserve this, but I'll lie that you had one tube left and I cut cards for it."
Wilson threw his hands into the air. "Whatever you say. Just get out of here."
Newkirk strutted the Lambeth Walk all the way back to Barracks Two.
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The End
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A/N: This response to "Pick a challenge, any challenge #615" derives from 96 Hubbles' "Challenge #1 Beginnings - Sayla", at least the part of it re Helga. The response includes Deepbluethinking's "Hurt/Comfort challenge #614". And oh yes, my own "Why is the notepaper always blue? Challenge #612." :)
If you'd like dancing the Lambeth Walk, then search YouTube "lambeth walk 1939" for the film clip of Lupino Lane's hit song and the Hitlarious version devised by Charles Ridley in 1941 by searching "lambeth walk nazi style."