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Text and original characters copyright 2022 by Teresa Strati
Chapter Two - The Guest
Sunlight hit his bunk. He didn't recall falling asleep.
Pounding on his door and one very loud guard shouting "Schnell! Schnell!" gave rise to the routine dawn roll call.
When he joined his men, the mood was somber. It didn't help that he didn't have a plan.
Outside snowflakes covered the grey mud of camp life. German soldiers huddled within themselves trying to keep warm. Colonel Robert Hogan grimaced. German soldiers had more layers of clothing than any prisoner in this Prisoner of War camp and they scrunched against the cold – what irony.
Today - He hated everything before him. If the rumours were true; today he allowed the anger to rise from his gut and form a lump in his throat. He wanted action and accountability.
Today - He didn't feel like talking to the portly German Sergeant that walked up and down the line of prisoners – his men – counting as if he was reciting numbers in a math class. He didn't want to look at the excuse for a Kommandant and smile – his enigmatic forced smile. Hogan just stood at attention and swallowed hard and in his mind he counted until he reached the number the underground gave him.
Today - he allowed himself to wallow in despair; to question – was he making a difference?
"Repooooooort!" Kommandant Colonel Wilhelm Klink bellowed
Schultz straightened, preening himself as if he was a peacock, to his full height, at full attention. "All present and accounted for, Herr Kommandant." he yelled.
"Dismissed!" the Kommandant cried out before turning around and returning to his office, or his bed.
Hogan glanced around at his men then walked back into the hut - a confine that today looked like the inside of a hovel.
He immediately poured himself a coffee. Bless the little Frenchman – Corporal Louis LeBeau – always a pot of coffee ready on the small wood fired stove.
"Ah, Gov', any word?" Corporal Peter Newkirk asked, hunched over with his hands in his pockets.
Hogan sipped his coffee. He wasn't going to lie. If anything, it was with these very men that he felt he could be the most honest and transparent – and honest is what he was going to be – right down to the abject reality that now, at this point in time, he didn't have a plan.
"London wants more proof. They won't do anything until they have concrete proof."
"How are we going to get that?" Carter exclaimed. "He's dead!"
"We can't just ignore it, surely." Newkirk muttered, horrified that it might be a possibility.
"No. We won't ignore it. We'll get that proof, somehow."
"Staff car approaching, Colonel," Carter announced from his vantage point at the door.
Hogan joined him, coffee securely in hand. "A little early for visits to our Kommandant even for the Gestapo."
The driver opened the passenger side door, just as a German dignitary stepped out then extended his hand. Red high heeled shoes supported by long – very long legs and the emergence of a female in a heavy winter overcoat and hood covering her features.
Suddenly, Hogan felt a pang – an old, very familiar, very dangerous pang.
The female hooked her arm into the German General's arm, lowered her head and paced alongside him, occasionally leaning into him.
Hogan's pang just turned into a slow twisting of his gut.
He watched a flustered Klink rush to welcome the dignitaries.
"I thought General Burkhalter and the Gestapo had the monopoly on dropping in on Klink unannounced?" Newkirk said.
Hogan watched. The dignitaries stepped away from the car but instead of turning to greet the Kommandant, they turned to face Colonel Hogan's hut. The woman left the General standing and started making her was towards Barracks Two.
She flipped off her hood and raised her arms in jubilation – "Hogan! Darling!"
Hogan spit out his coffee. His gut just somersaulted.
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