Too Close
By Deana Lisi
I don't own any Hogan's Heroes characters. Bummer.

Epilogue to the season 2 episode, 'Swing Shift'

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Newkirk sighed as he stood next to Colonel Hogan during roll call, immensely glad that the day was over. They had successfully destroyed the canon factory near Hammelburg, despite Newkirk accidentally being drafted into the German army when he was impersonating the company's foreman. When Klink had walked into the room looking for new guards, and he'd been made one of them, he thought he'd have a heart attack. How would he ever be able to get out of this? He saw Klink walking over to look at the group, and, desperate to cover his face, he'd faked a loud sneeze into a handkerchief. He had to do that several times to prevent Klink from recognizing him, and when the phone rang and announced that Foreman Mueller was discharged from the Army and could go back to his job, Newkirk thought he would faint from sheer relief. He'd pretended to sneeze again when Klink walked closer, and bolted.

That was too close, he thought to himself as he stood in role call. He came back to the present to hear that Klink was giving his usual speech about no escapes, which no one was paying attention to. Suddenly, he wiggled his nose when an odd itch developed inside it.

"…no one has ever been able to fool me!" Klink exclaimed.

Newkirk could've laughed at that, but instead he startled everyone with a huge sneeze. "ACHOOOO!"

Klink stopped.

Hogan looked at Newkirk in shock, unable to believe that he'd do something so foolish in obvious reply to Klink's statement.

Newkirk returned the look as he wiped his nose…with the same orange handkerchief that he'd used in front of Klink in the induction center. His eyes looked very frightened as he realized that he was possibly in very, very deep trouble.

Hogan realized that by some insane irony, Newkirk's sneeze had been a real one. Before Klink could say anything, he turned to Newkirk and bumped him with his shoulder, forcing him back towards the barracks, with everyone else following.

Klink walked forward, shocked and suspicious. Had the new potential guard actually been Newkirk in disguise? He hadn't been able to see the man's face, thanks to the handkerchief he constantly sneezed into…a handkerchief that looked just like the one that Newkirk had just used…it couldn't be…could it?

Hogan took hold of Newkirk's arm and escorted him inside, quickly closing the door once everyone had entered. The minute it was closed, everyone started talking at once.

"Pipe down!" Hogan exclaimed. "Newkirk…I'm guessing that was a real sneeze."

"Of course it was!" said the Englishman, his voice sounding very nervous. "Do ya really think I'd go an' implicate meself like that? Oh, by the way, Colonel Klink, I did fool ya, just today, even, when I escaped from the stalag, impersonated a German, an' helped ta blow up ya bloomin' canon factory!"

"All right, all right, calm down," Hogan said, understanding his panic. Their entire underground operation would be blown if Klink figured out that Mueller had actually been Newkirk, and they'd all face the firing squad.

Newkirk seemed to realize that at the same time that Hogan did, and he paled, abruptly sitting down on the bench at the table.

Carter, always the one to worry about his friends, sat next to him.

"Now wait, let's not lose our heads just yet," Kinch said, always the voice of reason. "Klink's not very bright. What's he supposed to tell the Gestapo, that he arrested Newkirk because he sneezed just like some German he saw today?"

Everyone was quiet, realizing the truth in his statement.

"But what if this is it, mate?" Newkirk said. "Do ya all realize how long we've gotten away with what we've been doin'? Trust somethin' as ridiculous as a bloomin' sneeze ta be the thing that does us all in..."

Hogan went over to the door and opened it slightly, peeking out. Seeing no one approaching, he closed it again and walked back over. "There's nothing we can do but wait and see if Klink figures it out."

In answer to that, Newkirk sneezed again. Wiping his nose, he mumbled, "Told ya it was real."

Hogan pointed at him. "I don't know if you're catching a cold or what, but you better not do that in front of Klink again."

Newkirk lowered the handkerchief. "Trust me, I'll be keepin' a low profile for quite a while…maybe till the end of the war!" He dropped the handkerchief on his lap and put his elbows on the table, resting his head in his hands with a deep sigh.

Hogan went back to the door and peeked out it, not seeing Klink or anyone else heading towards their hut.

For the next hour, Newkirk and Hogan constantly looked out the door. The American colonel was desperately rehearsing in his mind what he would say to Klink if the Kommandant came to them with the accusation. Newkirk was scared…not only afraid for his own life, but utterly terrified at the thought of being the accidental tool that would get his friends killed.

By 1am, they realized that Klink would not be coming—at least that night—so everyone went to bed…but none of the five men got any sleep.

When Schultz came in the morning to announce roll call, Newkirk nearly fell off his bunk from fright, his dozing mind thinking that the Germans had come to kill him and the others. His hands were shaking as he got dressed, and he sneezed three times before going outside, not even noticing that he'd done up his coat buttons in the wrong holes.

Winter was fast approaching, and it seemed colder than normal that morning. Newkirk pulled his collar up and kept his nose inside it, in an effort to not only keep himself warm, but to try to cover up the fact that he was holding in sneezes. He could not understand why his body had suddenly betrayed him in this manner…what are the chances that he would fake sneezing to hide from Klink, only to start sneezing for real before the day was through? Insanity.

He decided that he really must be coming down with a cold; his head ached and felt like it was stuffed with cotton.

Suddenly he went ffft, and Colonel Klink looked at him.

"Did you say something, Corporal Newkirk?" said the Kommandant.

Newkirk hadn't been paying attention to what he'd been saying, and had no idea if the sound of his held-in sneeze had come at a bad time and appeared as a sarcastic snort, or a laugh, even. "No, sir," he said, his voice sounding nasally.

Klink stared at him for a second.

"Sounded to me like he sighed, Kommandant," said Hogan. "We're all sighing…it's pretty cold out here, and a lot of us don't have nice coats like you."

Klink could have argued that Newkirk had an adequate coat, unlike some of the other prisoners, but he didn't, apparently wanting to go back inside himself. "It is cold out here, isn't it?" he said, pretending not to have noticed. "Fine; that is all. Disssssmissed!"

Everyone turned and gratefully went back into their barracks.

Newkirk climbed right back onto his bunk, coat and all, sneezing his way up the ladder. He laid back down with a sigh, dozing off almost immediately until a hand touched his shoulder and he opened his eyes.

Carter was standing next to his bunk, holding a mug out to him.

Newkirk turned onto his side and raised himself up on his elbow, accepting the cup and taking a sip. Instead of finding the coffee that LeBeau had made for everyone, he found that Carter had specially fixed him a cup of tea. "Ohh, thanks, Andrew," he said, gratefully.

Carter smiled. "You're welcome." He waited until Newkirk drank the whole thing, and then took the empty mug from him.

The five Heroes spent the day talking and catching up on their lost sleep; desperately hoping that Klink—or the Gestapo—wouldn't suddenly barge in and arrest them all.

Newkirk continued to sneeze, and eventually added coughing to the mix, proving that he had indeed caught a cold.

London radioed them that night, giving them a new mission; a German defector had informed them about a telephone pole four miles away from the stalag that had a combination safe built into it, and they wanted Hogan and his Heroes to retrieve its contents.

By the next day, they'd ultimately assumed that Klink had either not made the connection between Newkirk and Mueller, or had decided that it was impossible…after all, there had never been a successful escape from Stalag Thirteen! They were all extremely relieved, and tried to drop their anxiety over the incident.

Newkirk's cold was getting worse, and as the time approached to head out on their mission, he was sure that he now had a fever. But he didn't say anything to the others…what was the point? He was the only one who could open the safe.

Sneezing again as he climbed out their tunnel stump, he had no idea that he would soon come to wish that he'd spoken up and had the mission postponed, as the night's events were about to become just as potentially deadly to him as if Klink had discovered his involvement in the canon factory sabotage…

THE END

See my story, 'The POW Who Came in from the Cold' to pick up where this left off! ;)