Author's note: Whether the Hogan's Heroes plot bunny strikes again or not, I'll always treasure this fandom dearly, because it means my first completed chaptered story ever. I've been writing fanfiction for practically eleven years, and I've completed 17 one-shots and the translation into French of a 4-chapter story, but this is the first time I manage to actually finish something that has more than one chapter. I know it's silly, but I'm actually rather floored by this :o)

Thank you so much for the warm response to this fic; I never hoped for (much less expected) half of the kind and encouraging comments it got. Merci beaucoup, and I hope you like this last chapter as well!

To ChaosandMayhem, thank you so much for being a great beta reader and an even better friend :o)

Disclaimer: I own a brush-tip black marker (which is perfect for doodling Corto Maltese stuff and making the doodles look better than they are!) but I don't own Hogan's Heroes – the show or the characters. I just like playing with them, but I'm putting them back when I'm done! Which is at the end of this chapter, really...

Soul Food

Chapter Five: Bouillon de Poule

January 19th, 1945

Sergeant Schultz stood in the relative shelter of the officer' mess hall door frame, watching snow fall and thinking about many things at once. Occasionally he remembered to shiver a bit to keep warm.

He thought about the Allies advancing, the Russian in the east and the rest – mainly American and British troops – in the west. Some said the winter might slow them down, some said the Wehrmacht would, but anybody with a smidgen of sanity or common sense would agree that it was barely a matter of a few months before they reached the Hammelburg area. Schultz could not yet decide if the thought terrified or relieved him, but at least the war would be over, for better or worse.

The second thought had a lot to do about snow.

Schultz had been no stranger to snow before the war, but now after spending so much time outside or in poorly heated barracks he felt he had seen every possible form of frozen water and had quite enough of it. There was the hard-falling curtain of white, the treacherously soft but relentless small flakes, the steel-hard slippery ice under your foot, the dripping stalactites, the off-white patches that seemed to stay forever …

Snow had never really meant danger, though. It had just been a nuisance.

The rumbling of his stomach naturally lead to another thought.

The first winter spent in Stalag XIII had been a disaster. They had been poorly organised, ill-equipped against the cold, food rations had been woefully miscalculated, but somehow everybody had survived while the farms in the vicinity had made a fortune selling them poultry and vegetables. Now, though, food was getting scarce everywhere, towns and countryside alike. The patch of potatoes behind Barracks 11 had grown a lot bigger than regulations allowed, and the prisoners had planted other vegetables around the camp, but quantities remained quite inadequate to feed so many men. Guards had it no different; earlier today, Schultz and twenty other guards had had to make do with one meagre chicken – Grüninger's cooking talents had not improved much over the past four years – and a couple of hours later he still felt hungry.

If someone had told him a few months ago that someday he would miss his wife's cooking, he would have laughed and laughed and told them to – what had Harper said that one time? Oh yes. 'Pull the other one, it's got bells on'.

Thinking about Harper drew his eyes to the left, toward the outlines of the infirmary barrack behind the falling snow. Yet another grim thought to add to the list.

The past few weeks had been the most miserable in – admittedly rather short – Stalag XIII history. Half the guards and two thirds of the prisoners had come down with the same bout of vicious, tenacious fever that a lot of people in Hammelburg were currently laid up with. Those it had spared had been left weak and shaking for days; the unlucky others had crowded up the infirmary, curled up miserably under heaps of blankets and muttering in their delirium while their fever spiked. It had got so bad that Schultz had ended up sidling up to Colonel Hogan and asking him for one of those miracles he and his men were prone to pull off, saying he didn't care what monkey business they had to do and was even willing to help if necessary.

Hogan had given him his first real smile in days, clapped him on the shoulder and answered with a sombre shrug that their usual fairy godmother was too short on gifts right now to spare any, and that they would have to ride it out.

Honestly, it was nothing short of a miracle that nobody died.

At least the worst of it seemed to be over now. Wilson, the camp medic, had told Schultz during morning roll call that Mackenzie's fever had finally gone down during the night, which meant that, of the last really serious cases, only two remained.

It had been completely different four years ago, Schultz reflected. He had worried for the prisoners then, of course, but they had been enemies, and, most of all, strangers. Now, after so many months getting to know them, talking with them, delivering their mail, not to mention letting himself get dragged into hairy schemes, things couldn't be more different. They all had names, voices, families. McLean, from Barracks 4, played the flute very well, and Cavanagh, who had a good voice and knew a lot of songs, usually accompanied him. Giamatti, from Barracks 9, had a little girl at home named Rosie, just like Schultz's own little Rosa. Hirsch had been an artist before the war, and had decorated the walls of Barracks 7 with small but colourful paintings Schultz liked so much he had never reported them to Klink although he probably should have …

And then there was the men from Barracks 2. The ones he knew best, but understood so little of. The ones who gave him the most grief, but the ones he'd ended up liking best, perhaps, of the whole camp. Why would he have done some of the most insane things he had ever done in his life otherwise?

Speaking of the devils …

Schultz could make out three – no, four men walking in his direction, and even through the snow the figures were unmistakeable, though they showed little of their usual cheerful selves.

They clearly had a lot on their minds, too.

Carter gave him a half-hearted smile. It was a well-acknowledged fact in camp that the day Carter stopped smiling would be a definite sign that the end was nigh.

"Hi, Schultz."

"Hello, Carter." He frowned. "What are you boys doing here? It's not dinner time yet. And you, Newkirk, shouldn't you be in your barrack? Or in bed?"

The Engländer looked pale – even by usual British standards – and shivered more visibly than the others, but he returned Schultz's look of reproach with a steady stare and a fleeting cheeky smile.

"Wilson gave me the all-clear days ago, Schultzie. Besides, I was going mental in there anyway. You've played gin with him," he added, jerking a thumb towards a sheepish-looking Carter, "you should know."

From the side glance Hogan shot him, they clearly had had this discussion already, and Newkirk had won this round. If Colonel Hogan had agreed to let him out, it was a good sign.

"I have a few books, if you're bored," Schultz offered, knowing from experience that a bored, sick and worried Corporal Newkirk was a dangerous Corporal Newkirk. He only got a shrug in response.

"Nah, think I'll let that pass. Mein Kampf's not all it's cracked up to be."

"Newkirk!" Schultz protested, stung. "I don't mean –"

Hogan interrupted him. "Relax, Schultz. We're here on business."

"Monkey business?" he asked warily. From behind Carter, Kinchloe's eyes twinkled.

"Cooking business, Schultzie."

The reason for their presence there suddenly dawned on the sergeant, and he gave a small smile. "You want to – oh, that's nice." Completely verboten, but nice all the same. "How are they, by the way?"

"Harper's fever broke down about an hour ago," said Hogan, looking as though he was making an effort not to sound tired. It wasn't working. "Wilson said he should improve now."

"And …?"

The colonel paused for a second and said, "Still no change."

Newkirk suddenly became very interested in the tips of his shoes.

Schultz thought of the last roll calls and the carefully folded red scarf on the empty bunk, and felt something twist unpleasantly in the region of his stomach. It quickly jumped up to his throat and tightened its grip.

"You know he'll pull through," came Kinchloe's quiet voice. When Schultz looked up, he found Carter staring at him. To his surprise, one corner of the American's mouth crooked up.

"'Course he will. He wouldn't let us down like that, would he? Not our Louis, no sir. Besides, that's why we're here."

"What? Why?" Schultz asked through whatever was blocking his throat, his voice sounding unusually high … unless the reason for it was an oncoming sense of dread, confirmed when Hogan crossed his arms in the all-too-familiar gesture that meant he was probably up to no good.

"We're engaging in a bit of pilfering, Schultz."

"Yeah, we're commandeering the mess hall," Carter piped up, stepping forward.

"You've had chicken today, right?" Kinchloe asked, sounding like he was checking a fact rather than asking a question.

Schultz's eyes jumped from one to the other in mounting confusion, trying to stay focused. They meant well, he knew they did, but prisoners not on KP duty were not allowed in the officers' mess. Who knew what they might do with the knives, the forks, the food?

Apart from stealing stuff to make soup, that is.

"Colonel Hogan," he pleaded, wishing the commanding POW officer would show some sense for once – or at least try to see things his way, "I cannot let you all in there! What if one of the guards notices? What if Kommandant Klink notices?"

"So you can let one of us in, but not more?" Hogan said, and the faint spark in his eyes told Schultz this was a losing battle. He plodded on anyway.

"No, I can't let any prisoner in, no matter who or how many he is. I mean …"

"You said we can't all go in there," Carter pointed out, one gloved finger raised. "So, technically, it means that one of us can. Or some of us. Hey, how're we gonna decide? Are we gonna vote or something?"

Schultz opened and closed his mouth wordlessly. Kinchloe's slight smile was one more nail in the coffin of his duty.

"A vote sounds a reasonable choice."

"One man, one vote – the democratic way," said Hogan, something Schultz failed to identify flashing in his eyes. "Sounds fair to me."

"But, Colonel Hogan," Schultz groaned, "a prisoner of war camp is not a democracy!"

"Wait a minute, Schultzie," interrupted Carter, his tone almost cheerful. "You agreed that at least one of us could get in, now we're just deciding who it's going to be."

"But – but –" Schultz was floundering, and he knew it. He tried to hang on to the last weapon he had left – diversion. "What are you planning to make, anyway? The truck only arrives tomorrow. I think there are a few potatoes left, and perhaps a rutabaga or two, but apart from that …"

"What, you ate the whole chicken?" asked Kinchloe, one eyebrow raised. "Didn't you leave anything at all?"

Schultz knew he was not supposed to apologise to a prisoner. It was probably written somewhere in one of Kommandant Klink's camp rule books. But it was difficult not to when they were looking at him like that.

"Sorry, Kinchloe. Even the bones are gone – Grüninger gave them to the dogs."

It was subtle enough, but the disappointment was obvious. Shoulders slumped slightly, smiles sank, and Newkirk mumbled, "Well, so much for that."

The five low, terse words from the normally talkative Englishman were a bigger blow to Schultz's resolve than the entire conversation had been. He gave a small sigh.

"He's still not eating anything, is he?"

Silence answered his question.

"Always been a picky little blighter, that one," Newkirk muttered with a half-hearted attempt at derision that fooled no-one, even Schultz.

"It's been five days," Carter said in a small voice. "Even Mills was keeping food down after five days." He paused, then added thoughtfully, "I bet he's really hungry."

"Kinch here knows a recipe for chicken soup he got from his grandma," Hogan picked up, a hand on his sergeant's shoulder. "A kind of light broth, with rosemary and other herbs. So we figured –"

"Wait …" The word 'broth' had jolted something in Schultz's memory. He had indeed kept something from the hapless chicken. "I stored the cooking water just in case. Perhaps you can make soup from that."

Judging from the men's reactions, they could. Carter's grin was the largest by far, and even Newkirk perked up.

"Did you save it to make soup, then?" asked Kinchloe with the hint of a smile behind his moustache. Schultz shrugged.

"No, it's just a habit I picked up from the little cockroach. He always does that when …" He trailed off when his eyes and ears caught up with his mouth, and groaned. Leave it to him to add the final proverbial straw that made his own resolve vanish. "Ooh, fine. I suppose making soup isn't such a bad idea. But I can't let you go in there unsupervised!"

"That's okay, Schultzie," Hogan said, clapping him on the back as he strode past him on his way inside the officers' mess. "I'll mind the kids, you mind the store."

"We promise we'll be on our best behaviour," Carted piped up, following the colonel inside before Schultz could even think of reacting, let alone decide how.

"Don't worry, your secret is safe with us," added Kinchloe in such an earnest, sincere voice that it made Schultz wonder if the man actually was serious or if he was just being ironic. Unless it was sarcastic. Schultz always mistook one for the other, and as a result he disliked both on general principles.

Hence his wariness when Newkirk stopped in front of him as well and grinned, blue eyes twinkling. As it turned out, he needn't have worried this time.

"Thanks, mate. You're all right, you know."

"Of course I am, when I do what you ask," Schultz grumbled, fighting an oncoming smile. The Engländer's own grin widened, with a trace of wickedness.

"Well, yeah, there is that. But you saw nothing, right?"

"Nothing – nothing at all!"

"Smashing." The usual chipper undertone was back in his voice, but something in his eyes made Schultz call him back.

"Oh, Newkirk?"

"Yeah?"

Schultz hesitated a little before venturing tentatively, "I know it looks very bad, but don't worry. I'm sure the cockroach will be all right in the end." What 'the end' would be, he didn't know, but he hoped every man in camp would be alive to see it.

Newkirk's eyes widened. "'Worry'? Nah, I'm not worried. Never was. He's just taking his bloomin' time to shake this thing off, that's all. Do I look worried to you?"

Schultz crossed his arms and stared at him pointedly. Newkirk stared right back, then shuffled a bit in the dirty snow, clearly uncomfortable.

"Oh, all right, yes, of course I'm worried. Been going spare cooped up in the barrack staring at that bloody scarf. It's not right that it's there and he's not. It was bad enough when it was Baker or Mills, and you know how Mills got, but … Well." He planted his hands in his pockets, his expression a weird mix of defensiveness and the tiny hint of a self-conscious smile. "He's me little mate. Closest thing to a brother I got if you don't count Carter … A five-foot-tall Frog with a temper, a big mouth and a heart that's bigger than he is. Funny thing, life."

"Too bad you don't like what he cooks, eh?" Schultz said, smiling what he hoped came across as a sly grin at catching his favourite cynical Englishman in a rare heartfelt moment.

Newkirk shrugged. "Yeah, about that … I hate to say it, because you know how insufferably smug he gets, but his cooking isn't so bad. In fact, sometimes it's actually ruddy good." He paused, as though only just registering what he had said. "But don't tell him I said that," he quickly amended.

A sense of déjà vu sneaked up on Schultz until a vague, four-year-old memory resurfaced, drawing a large, sincere smile from him, the likes of which he hadn't felt in weeks.

"Oh, I won't, Newkirk. As a matter of fact I heard nothing."

Newkirk tilted his head slightly to the side and stared at him, one eyebrow cocked quizzically.

"You never do, Schultzie, do you?" A smile made his way onto his face, and he patted the sergeant on the arm in a friendly manner that meant Schultz probably didn't need to check his pockets. "Well, I'm off to make soup. Come on in, this should be worth a butcher's."

Before Schultz could open his mouth to ask exactly what a butcher had to do with chicken soup, Newkirk had joined his comrades in the kitchen; a couple of seconds later, he heard him exclaim, "What d'you mean, 'do you know what rosemary looks like'?"

FIN – THE END – ENDE

bouillon de poule: chicken (literally, hen) broth

verboten: forbidden

a butcher's (hook): a look

I probably wouldn't have written this story at all if it hadn't been for François, my husband, best friend, partner in crime and lots of other things, who loves to cook; he was the one who taught me cooking wasn't as complex and daunting as I thought, and didn't have to be – you just need a little passion :o)

Thank you all for reading! I hope you have a fantastic New Year's Eve réveillon (dinner/evening), and I wish you all the best for 2012 :o]