"Hey, here he is!"

It was a tired-looking but smiling Newkirk who entered the barracks that night exactly thirty days later, sporting heavy stubble, and the rest of the men, most already in whatever they used for pajamas, crowded around him to welcome him home. "How was the cooler?" Carter asked, as LeBeau handed the RAF corporal a cup of steaming hot coffee.

"Better'n the bottom of the Dusseldorf River," Newkirk assured him. "I ain't got no complaints on that score… but I'll be glad to sleep in a more-or-less real bed tonight."

"I don't know who's happier to see you back; us or Klink." Kinch fitted a half-dollar over his left eye to mimic the Kommandant's ever-present monocle. "Corporal Newkirk…" he began in his best tremulous imitation of an overwhelmed Klink, which was pretty darn good, "you have been recaptured… there has never been a successful escape from Stalag 13…" He slammed his hand down hard on the table hard enough to rattle the tin cups. "Thirty days in the cooler!"

"Kommandant, blow it out your ear," Newkirk replied, evoking laughter from everyone present. "And one of these days I just might say that to the silly old sod's real face."

In his adjoining office, Hogan shrugged into his bathrobe and tied it shut over his pajamas, then stuck his bare feet into his slippers. Well, this was it. Everyone was here again, finally, and they had to talk. And depending on how it went, maybe instead of hitting the sack they would have to spend some time tonight getting ready for some big changes.

When he joined them in the main barracks he saw that Newkirk had Winston in his lap, and was giving the pup the V-for-victory sign… Churchill himself probably wouldn't have responded by chewing eagerly on the corporal's extended fingers, but it was a perfectly logical thing for a puppy to do, and the men were all laughing. "Welcome back," Hogan told Newkirk, perhaps a little tentatively.

"Thanks for leavin' the light on, sir."

Well, that was as good a beginning as any. Since Hogan himself had drawn only ten days' confinement to barracks for his own 'escape', he expected Newkirk to be a little bitter about the harsher punishment Klink had meted out to the corporal, but Newkirk's voice didn't have the hard edge that might have been expected under the circumstances. He'd had plenty of time to think in the cooler... it could have gone either way. Maybe there was a chance after all. "Listen, fellas, now that everybody's here, we all have to talk… I'll leave it up to you; tonight or tomorrow?"

The prisoners exchanged glances, smiles fading. Kinch was the first to speak. "I don't think I could sleep anyway, wondering what was up." Nods and nervous murmurs of agreement filled in around his words.

"Okay…" Hogan took a deep breath and dug his hands into the pockets of his robe. "It's like this…"

Carter, on lookout at the door, suddenly pushed it shut. "Guard comin'… it's Schultz."

LeBeau hurriedly swept Winston out of Newkirk's arms and rushed to deposit him in Hogan's office, then closed the door firmly. "Get Schultz outta here as quick as you can, okay?" Hogan asked.

"Will do," Kinch assured him… fine timing; the colonel had something obviously important to discuss with them and now they'd have to wait until Schultz left to find out what was up. Given everything they'd all been through over the past several weeks, that didn't set too well. The colonel had a real serious look on his face and that couldn't mean anything good. Now what was about to drop on them?

They gave it their best shot, but Schultz didn't fall for the old hello-turn-around-goodbye this time; he resisted the crush of back-slapping designed to turn him towards and then back out of the door, and instead forced his way into the center of the room. "What are you hiding…?" he asked, narrowing his round blue eyes in Hogan's direction.

"Hiding? Us?"

"Ja, you… you are hiding something; what is it, what-what-what-what-what?"

Hogan folded his arms, tipped his head thoughtfully to one side and appeared to be concentrating very hard. "Well, let's see… a dog…"

Schultz looked entirely blank… but that was pretty much par for the course with him. "A… a dog?"

"And a radio," Kinch spoke up helpfully.

"About a mile or so of tunnels," Newkirk chimed in.

"A darkroom, and a magnifique wine cellar," LeBeau added, kissing the tips of his gathered fingers in a gesture of enthusiastic approval.

"And a whole bunch of Kraut officer uniforms," Carter finished. "But I don't think we've got anything in your size at the moment, big fella… too bad; you'd make a great Hermann Goering for Trick Or Treat."

"Jolly jokers…" Schultz grumbled. Little did he realize that the prisoners had indeed just given him pretty much a complete inventory of everything they really had been hiding from their captors for the past several years.

"What do you want, Schultz?" Hogan asked. "It's almost time for lights out, and we're all here."

The sergeant looked visibly relieved. "That makes a nice change… danke."

"Bitte."

"I came to say goodbye."

"You going somewhere?"

Schultz's eyes took on a wide, honestly hurt expression. "You don't remember that I go to the Russian Front…?"

"Oh that…"

Before Schultz could look any more heartbroken at the colonel's astonishing lack of concern for his welfare, Hogan motioned to Kinch, who withdrew a folded document from his inside pocket. "Here you go, Schultz… we fixed your transfer; forget it, you're staying here."

From the depths of despair to the pinnacles of ecstasy in three quarters of a second… possibly a new world's record. "I am?" he bubbled excitedly. "How did you do…" Then he lost a bit of his enthusiasm. "Never mind… I do not want to know…"

"It was easy, Schultz," Hogan assured him. "We doctored your medical records… pun intended. Take a look."

Schultz was only brave enough to take the briefest of glances at first, then when nothing scared him too badly he forced himself to take a longer look, using both eyes this time. It was true. There was his name… his rank… his serial number… and his weight. From about 1930. "Two hundred and eighty pounds…?" he asked, hardly daring to believe it was true.

"Sure. See, you started at three hundred and thirty. We took the first three and made it into a two… then took the second three and made it an eight… left the zero on the end… you just lost fifty pounds. That puts you at an acceptable weight for your height… and by the way, we also made you three inches taller while we were at it, just to be on the safe side. You're in fighting shape... more or less... and certified for guard duty. Congratulations. This'll be on Klink's desk first thing in the morning."

The boundless joy on the sergeant's face could have illuminated the entire room if the bulb in the overhead fixture had blown out at that very moment. "Colonel Hogan, I do not know how to thank you!"

Just go, Hogan thought silently… please, Schultz, just go.

"Why don't you go call your wife and give her the good news?" Carter suggested.

"Ja, das ist eine gute Idee!"

"And why don't you go do it now?" Newkirk added.

The men all swarmed in to spin Schultz around on his axis and propel him towards the door; this time they managed it and were able to push it shut behind him. LeBeau pressed his back against it and dug his heels into the rough-hewn floor, just in case… a human doorstop. "Okay…" he began a little nervously with a glance towards the colonel. "Let's talk… about what?"

This was not gonna be easy. But the best thing to do was probably to come right out and say it. "General Gaines met with me before I left London," Hogan began. "He asked if I thought we should disband the outfit." The group's loud, confused response of shock and protest ebbed to a dull murmur when Hogan held up his hands for quiet.

"What did you tell him, sir?" Carter asked with a look that said he might not really want to know the answer.

"I told him I didn't know what to tell him… that I wanted to hear what you guys had to say about it."

"When he says 'disband'…"

"He means the whole nine yards… blow the tunnel, burn the evidence, everybody out. He says we've done a great job but he's not sure we can keep it up after… well, after what happened. It's my fault. I should've known better."

It had almost come to that on a couple of occasions when the Germans had been breathing a little too heavily down their necks, but it was still a thought none of them really wanted to seriously consider. "Blow the tunnel…?" Carter repeated. "Everything…?"

Hogan nodded. "That's right… the works. "

"You mean we'd be out of a job," Kinch summed up.

"Yeah, but you'd be able to look for another one in Detroit." Hogan nodded when the expressions of disbelief began another crescendo. "This is a special operation and you're all volunteers… you knew that from the start. Instead of pinning medals on you, the Allied High Command thought that sending you home would be a nice, tidy way to say thanks for a job well done."

Home. A simple word that meant so many different things to each of them.

Kinch could already picture himself setting up the Christmas tree in his grandmother's front room come December. He remembered exactly where the boxes of ornaments were stored, in the closet under the stairs, right next to the water heater that sometimes dripped a little. It would be due for an overhaul by now… he could take care of that in about an hour. His toolbox was in the back of the same closet, right where he'd left it.

Newkirk thought of the Red Lion Pub, where an empty glass for each of the regulars who'd gone off to war sat on the shelf above the bar, just waiting for the punters to come back home, slide onto a stool, and order up a pint. There was one up there with his name on it. And he could sure use a drink… real ale, not that swill the Gerries called 'beer'.

Carter imagined himself on his motorcycle, zipping down the road toward Mary Jane's house, to pick her up for the movies. He'd take her to the drive-in to see something with Betty Grable. They'd have to leave the speaker hooked to the post, since they wouldn't have a window, but that wouldn't matter. He'd get them a Coke at the refreshment stand… just one. He'd pop the cap off with his Boy Scout knife, and they'd stick in two paper straws… and maybe in a while they wouldn't care if they could hear what Betty Grable was saying or not.

LeBeau saw himself pulling the bell chain on his mother's front door in the Marais. He had lost the key years ago, the night his unit had been taken prisoner and the guards in the holding camp had forced him to turn out all his pockets and taken everything he owned… he'd carried nothing of value to anyone except himself, but they'd taken it all anyway, just to hurt him, to leave him empty. How strange to be worried all this time that he wouldn't be able to get back into Maman's house… of course she would answer the bell. And give him a new key. After she'd hugged and cried over him for a day or two.

Well. Hogan couldn't remember the last time the boys had gone this silent for so long, all at the same time. The faraway looks on their faces… the slight, one-sided smile that pulled at a corner of Newkirk's mouth… and for some reason Carter's lips almost looked to be pursed around an imaginary straw; goodness only knew what was going through his imagination at the moment. They were thinking of home, and they were good thoughts. Maybe that was the answer he'd been asking them for, and they just hadn't come out and said it in words yet.

He cleared his throat, and the sound seemed to wake each man from his own private daydream. "So what do you think?" This time nobody seemed to want to be the first to speak, which was something of a rarity. "If you want to talk it over amongst yourselves in private, that's fine. We can take it up again in the morning, and…"

"We're… we're not done here," Kinch ventured a little tentatively. "I mean… the war's not over." He looked to his left, at Carter.

"If we leave, who's gonna keep the escape route going?" Carter asked.

"They'll start up another unit," Hogan replied. "The Allied High Command isn't interested in re-staffing Stalag 13; headquarters thinks it's safer for everybody to start a new escape operation if we close up shop here… start fresh with a new crew. We've attracted a lot of attention from the Gestapo. There's a good chance they'll find our operation sooner or later… we've always known it was possible. You guys have done your jobs and then some. Believe me, nobody's talking about giving up…"

"Isn't that what we are talking about?" Louis asked. "Ça, non." He shook his head firmly, then looked to Newkirk.

There goes my bloody pint. "In for a penny, in for a pound…" was what the Englishman managed to mutter in agreement… okay, he'd said it; who was going to demand that he said it with more conviction? That was the best he could do. He supposed that glass would still be up there on the shelf at the Red Lion waiting for him next month… next year… whenever he could walk the streets of London again knowing that the King was on his throne and all was right with the world once more. That pint of ale would taste awfully bitter right now, knowing they hadn't yet seen their mission through to the end.

Hogan was relieved. Maybe, he admitted to himself, even a little surprised. But he had a good team. They worked well together, and not even the likes of Simon Knatchbull-Quimby and General Biedenbender had been able to mess with that… well, not permanently, at least. "Okay…" he nodded. "I guess you know that's what I hoped you'd say. So tomorrow we'll all punch in and get back to work. Business as usual."

Four heads nodded in unison; four voices replied "Yes, sir." And four hearts meant it.

He nodded and allowed himself a smile. "Goodnight, fellas."

"We must be crackers…" Newkirk muttered as Hogan opened the door to enter his office.

"Les quatre fous," LeBeau nodded. "They offer us a chance to go home and we say non, merci; we'd rather stay in this rat hole."

"Maybe," Kinch put in. "But we did the right thing."

"After all that?" Newkirk asked. "How can we be sure? The colonel suspected us all of bein' traitors, in case it's slipped your mind already."

"Well…" Carter shrugged. "Like Charlie Chan says… 'suspicion is like rainfall… it falls upon both just and unjust.'"

Newkirk tipped Carter's cap down over his eyes and gave the back of his head a cuff. "I always said you were all wet."

A moment later they were startled to hear the colonel's now-hear-this voice from his office. "I want all you guys in here, on the double!" They only took a brief moment to glance at one another before double-timing it to the doorway. What now?

The colonel stood, arms folded, looking with profound annoyance down at the floor where Winston contentedly chewed on what remained of his left shoe. The leather top was in shreds, the laces completely disintegrated.

"Um…" Newkirk was the only one who could find his voice yet, and for the moment that was the best he could do by way of either explanation or apology. That pint at the Red Lion might yet be within his reach… but he might be drinking it with a dishonorable discharge in his pocket. "I'm sorry, sir…"

Hogan bent down and lifted the puppy… he had a little trouble disengaging the pup's teeth from what was left of the shoe. "Look at this, willya? The whole shoe… the heel…" He plucked at the small white strip that dangled from Winston's whiskers and held it up so they could see it, damp and shredded but still vaguely recognizable as paper. "The code…"

Uh oh. What was the penalty for eating the only copy of an officer's eyes-only code? The men looked at one another with worried expressions. Surely he wouldn't…

Hogan smiled and patted the pup's head affectionately. "Good dog," he praised. "What do we need with that, huh? We're better off without it." As if he actually understood the praise, Winston eagerly began licking the colonel's face.

Hogan balled up what little was left of the code and tossed the mangled, sticky scrap into the trash can. From now on, anything London had to say… it could say to all of them.

THE END

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who read; hope you enjoyed it. My special thanks to everyone who took the time to comment; I really appreciate all the input I receive. And extra-special thanks to my beta reader, my dad... a WWII Signal Corps veteran who patiently corrects the mistakes I make about the Army, vintage aircraft, the Boy Scouts, life in the 1940's, and other stuff he knows way more about than I do.