A DISGRACE TO THE BRITISH UNIFORM

I can pinpoint when I started to dislike Group Captain Crittendon. It was the moment he arrived as the new senior POW at Luft Stalag 13. Colonel Hogan's men—which includes me, I'm proud to say—were in the middle of an urgent mission to get a German baroness in possession of important information out of the country to England and safety. Crittendon waded in and nearly mucked it all up.

I suspected at first glance that he was a useless sod, a proper Hooray Henry in his white scarf and gloves and silly Ronald Colman mustache. It looked a bit more Charlie Chaplin or Adolf Hitler to me. But I was willing to give him a chance. I didn't start to loathe him until he started asking me questions and snapping at me to answer and generally making my life miserable.

You see, I can't get the words out that fast. I just can't. I've learned to set my voice to a growl so I can give a quick reply—"Newkirk, Sir" or "Yes, Sir." But the minute someone I've never met starts pounding me with questions that require me to form a sentence, I'm going to stammer. It's just a fact. And yes, it's a liability in the RAF or probably in any military on the planet. You're supposed to respond promptly and clearly when an officer speaks to you.

I can do that. It just takes me longer. And not minutes longer; just a few seconds. But Crittendon didn't have ten seconds worth of patience.

See, I can do everything else that's expected: Stand to attention, salute properly, march, run, shoot, repair airplane motors, keep my uniform and kit in order, shine my boots, make my bed, sweep a floor, peel potatoes, present myself for inspection. I'm very good at all of this, and I have some other rather specialized skills as well. It's just getting the bleeding words out without stumbling that's hard. I suspect if there wasn't a war on, they wouldn't have taken my sort. But beggars can't be choosers, right?

Most of the time, sergeants or officers notice. Well, first they assume I'm terrified or having trouble breathing, which is both wrong and bloody annoying. But eventually I get the words out, and I just tell 'em: "I have a stammer, Sir." I won't say most people are kind about it, and they certainly don't let me off the hook. They poke at it constantly, telling me to hurry up. But they adjust, and they usually give me a moment to bleeding well finish a thought. And once they do, it gets better and I start to stammer less. Like my Mum always said, a little understanding goes a long way in this harsh world.

But Crittendon just never shut up long enough to hear me or figure out what was going on. He just barreled over me from the day we met.

It was a horrible day, because he had turned up to replace Colonel Hogan, that's what. Well, nobody could replace that man—he's a ruddy genius and the best sneak I know, present company excluded. And the most decent officer I'd ever met, hands down. He treated all of us like humans, whether we was brown or white, French or English, a gent or a barrow boy, smooth talking or stammering up a storm.

Crittendon had such an air of superiority, as if he was meant to be in charge, and that didn't sit well with any of us. I mean, fair enough, he was British, but that was literally all he had going for him. Deep in my working class gut, I knew that a clueless gatecrasher from the gentry was the last thing our sabotage and rescue outfit needed.

My mate Carter was worried, too, and he was working all the angles as soon as Colonel Hogan told us he'd been replaced.

"The British didn't send this Crittendon to take Colonel Hogan's place. The French didn't send him. And the Americans didn't send him. So, we can just ignore him, right?" Carter reasoned.

"Wrong! He's senior prisoner of war officer now and he's in charge of operations," Hogan said.

Blimey, I'd only known Colonel Hogan a few months, but I really hated it when he started doing things by the book. Half the reason he got my interest in the first place was that he never did anything predictable.

Colonel was obviously wrong and Carter, of all people, was on the right track. Crittendon didn't know a thing about our operation, and London certainly hadn't approved him. Why turn over the reins him? I knew I had to speak up, so I prepared myself by taking a deep breath and making my voice as loud and clear as I could.

"Our ssside didn't put him in charge at all, Colonel. It was Klink. And j-j-j-just because Klink put him in command, that d-doesn't mean he's got the security clearance to lead our team, Sir."

There. That wasn't so bad. Only a few bumps.

"Look, everything's going to turn out fine," Hogan said, ignoring my implied question as he packed up his quarters. Why he was doing that was another mystery. Where was he planning to go? There were two bunks in the room; surely the only two Allied officers in the entire camp could share the space. Or was Hogan going to bunk with us other ranks? It made no sense at all.

There wasn't time to figure out what sleeping arrangements Hogan had in mind, though, because the door to his quarters swung open and in strolled Group Captain Rodney Crittendon. Posh and patronizing, he was. He strutted like a chap who thought a hard day's work consisted of rowing, rackets or rugby. He dispensed a dozen "jolly goods," "old boys," "bad shows" and "chaps" before settling down to business. There were escape tunnels to dig, and for some reason, his eyes settled on Carter and me.

He didn't even ask Carter his name. He just took one look at his skinny frame and long arms and decided he could dig like a badger.

But then he turned his attention to me, the only other RAF man in the room, and he did the most awful thing. He took an interest.

"What's your name, Corporal?" he asked.

My heart was racing so fast that I thought there it would burst right out of my chest and splatter the room. In my whole life, there was no question I dreaded more than that one. I know you think I would get used to it, because obviously I know the answer. But when you stammer as badly as I do, you don't like questions with only one correct answer, like "What is the capital of Turkey?" or "What's your date of birth?" At least if I'm asked "tea or coffee," I can usually get one of the words out correctly, so I have a low chance of looking a fool, and a 50% chance of getting the drink I actually want.

Like I said, if I shift to a growl, I can usually say my name. But saying my name smoothly and clearly in response to a direct question while under stress was not in my repertoire. And I was under stress; I mean, Colonel Hogan was being replaced. My eyes darted anxiously to Hogan, Kinch and LeBeau in turn, and then I looked desperately at Carter, hoping one of them would get a clue and introduce me. But apparently I'd been too persuasive when I told them all that they should always let me talk, even when it took me an extra long while. Because they all just looked at me with that encouraging, cheerful expression they'd perfected whenever they saw a particularly bad stammer coming on.

"Your name, Corporal?" Crittendon repeated. At that moment, I thought it would be awfully clever if my uniform had a name tape like Colonel Hogan's did. That would simplify my life, though it would be equally effective if a chasm in the earth would simply open up and swallow me.

The Group Captain was looking at me with such irritation that I knew I was going to have to respond. So I opened my mouth and forced out a sound.

"Uh, uh, uh…" I began. I couldn't locate where to put my tongue to make the "N" sound.

"Speak up, man! Spit it out!"

Oh, that was really helping.

"Uh, uh, uh, uh," I continued. But it was no good. I was absolutely stuck, with my mouth hanging open, frantically trying to think up a plausible synonym for Newkirk, like Fresh-Church or Modern-Chapel. Or any word I could get out at all, really, because at this point any complete thought would do. But I couldn't think, because my cheeks and my ears seemed to have caught fire.

"For heaven's sake, man, out with it! What is your name?"

At that point, Colonel Hogan took notice and had mercy. "This is Corporal Newkirk, Sir. You need to give him time to respond. He stammers."

Crittendon looked at me and scoffed. "Nonsense. It's nothing some brisk air and vigorous exercise won't fix. Right, Newton? Bit flabby," he said, smacking me across the middle so hard that I gasped, "but you're English. We'll take you."

"Wwwwwwell, actually sir, me mmmmmother's more Welsh," I managed to say. "And the nnname is Nnnnn, Nnnnnn…" My God. Why was I talking at all? I really needed to have a chat with myself about this impulse to respond.

Crittendon cut me off with a staccato outburst that made my heart jump. "Coal miners! The very best. We'll start digging this morning," he said energetically.

Colonel Hogan tried at that point to subtly explain what our mission was, but it was hopeless. Crittendon made clear that it wouldn't be cricket to do anything behind "Jerry's" back. The rules of war were to be obeyed, and if he saw anything other than a bona fide escape attempt, he'd personally turn in the perpetrators. Colonel Hogan didn't say another word; he had a real problem on his hands now.

While I actually like cricket despite not being a toff at all, in that moment I hated it with a passion for making any Englishman, even one as dim as Crittendon, believe that the concept of fair play was shared by the bleeding Nazis.

As my breathing stabilized, I heard the words "but that would be spying." Then Crittendon barked again, and suddenly me and Carter were trotting out the door in double-time, looking desperately over our shoulders at Hogan, Kinch and LeBeau. All of whom seemed either too forlorn or too dumbfounded to interfere as Crittendon snapped out, "Let's go, Carter, Newman. Right turn, double march! Hut, two, three, four. Hut, two, three, four."

I'm not sure how we dug the tunnel so fast. It may have had something to do with the milk tins rigged with candles that we wore on our foreheads. Apparently nobody told Crittendon that metal conducts heat and that candles produce flames that produce heat. I could feel a circle burning its way into my forehead. It certainly provided motivation to get on with it.

"He's mad, you know," I told Carter as we lit cigarettes and dug like rabbits. "The whole thing's mad."

"Kind of primitive alongside of the tunnels we've got," Carter replied. "We could be at this for months."

I was raving by this point, and when that happens I don't stammer at all. "You know, it's enough to drive a man to escape. I have to bite me tongue to keep from telling him."

"Better not. Colonel Hogan would bite more than your tongue," Carter replied.

Really? I thought. Why would Colonel Hogan wish this on us? Suddenly a cave-in seemed like a nice, clean way out. Next thing I knew, Crittendon was calling my name, or something like it, and I was banging my head—not once, but twice—on the pathetic excuse for a support beam we'd rigged up.

"Newley!" he yelled.

"I'm coming, Sir," I shouted back, panicking. I really did need to find a way to tell him my actual surname.

When I caught up with Crittendon, he was breaking through to what I suppose he thought was freedom. Unfortunately, it was another tunnel. He was crouched there making sounds of astonishment at whatever it was he was seeing as light flooded in, when suddenly his body went limp. I pushed him aside so I could peep through and there was Colonel Hogan, staring back at me and grinning. Seems he had dropped his spanner on the Group Captain's head.

Oops. Sorry, not sorry.

I poked my head through and I was as astonished as Crittendon. It was part of a plane—an American one that had gone missing. Here it was in our tunnel, with a bunch of the lads trying to repair it. I didn't even ask what Colonel Hogan was up to. I just waited for instructions.

They came quickly, and they were a bit disappointing. Carter and I were to continue to be Crittendon's lackeys. But the good news was, we were going to help him escape, along with the airplane.

We got him through the tunnel and into bed, and when he came to the next morning, Carter and I took him outside for a bit of fresh air as we bandaged him up. The blighter wasn't done yet. He was still intent on escaping. The fact that it was broad daylight did not seem to deter him.

Colonel Hogan had already sent Carter and me off to lay the groundwork while he directed the carefully controlled chaos he'd created. We were to set Crittendon free, but make him think he'd done it himself. We got a portion of the fence ready to collapse to ensure that no matter how Crittendon bumbled, he'd get the bloody hell out of camp.

So we did what we were trained to do. We followed our leader and took commands. Crittendon led us to the place in the fence that Hogan had maneuvered him to focus upon, and he ordered us to start cutting. Which we did, but nobody was going to get through as fast he was. We wished him luck and watched with glee. He took two snips and the whole thing hit the ground.

Once he scrambled outside the wire, Crittendon noticed the sound of an aircraft engine warming up. He called to Carter and me, "Come on."

Well, I had to break it to him. "Uh, begging your pardon, Colonel, you're outside the camp now. That makes Colonel Hogan the senior officer, and he prefers us to stay." I had no trouble getting those words out at all.

But his next words stung. "You're a disgrace to the British uniform," he told me.

I smiled and gave him an American salute. "Right, sir," I answered. But I wanted to wring his neck.

Carter jumped in at that point. "You better get moving, Colonel. You're in the middle of a landing strip."

The look on old Crittendon's face almost cancelled out my irritation with him. But not quite. We'd accomplished our little bit of Colonel Hogan's crazy mission to get a plane and a baroness out of Germany and British officer off his back. But it was a lesson, you know?

It seems wrong to me when a prat like Crittendon underestimates me. I know I'm clever. I know I'm quick witted and observant. I know I have skills that make me valuable in many situations. Colonel Hogan knows this, and once he understood that I stammered, he just gave me extra time to answer. Once I knew he wasn't going to bite off my sentences, I started stammering less and less around him. That's really how it works. The stammer doesn't go away, but it gets better if you're not always worried about being interrupted or laughed at or just bleeding silenced. If you know people are listening, like your CO, even if you're not in the same army.

To Crittendon, I'm just something that got stuck under his shoe.

When I thought back on it, I realized Colonel Hogan had never intended to give the reins over the Crittendon. He went through the motions. He gave up his room and his command and played second fiddle. But he still did what the mission demanded. He obeyed the chain of command even as he was ignoring it so that he could do the thing he had promised to do. Bloody hell. That was clever.

I'd rather work for a man like Colonel Hogan than Group Captain Crittendon any day of the week. It don't have a thing to do with the uniform. It has to do with following an officer who knows how to inspire and lead, and how to make every man feel his contribution matters, even if it is only keeping bloody Crittendon busy and distracted while the real work goes on. He knows the difference between the rules and the reasons. He knows how to do what's important.

This story is a different perspective on the season one episode, Fight of the Valkyrie. It was written in response to a request on AO3 by Cerridwen, who wondered how Crittendon would deal with Newkirk's stutter. Although Crittendon is always called Colonel on the show, I've given him the correct title of Group Captain.