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Colonel Robert Hogan leaned against the wall of the barracks, pulling his collar tight and high to keep out the chill. A few of his men milled around the camp already. When Burkhalter’s car pulled through the gate, he knocked on the door. “He’s here.”
Carter, Kinch, LeBeau and Newkirk filed out and did their best to look busy and useful where the General could see them. Hogan slipped into the barracks to the teapot where he could listen to Klink’s conversation with the general.
A week ago, Carter overheard Klink and Schultz talking about Burkhalter’s plans to move Hogan and some of the others to a different camp. They didn’t say why or when, only that it had been discussed. Carter had described Klink as livid. I've never seen him so not-pale, sir.
Klink normally rushed out to greet Burkhalter and tried to ingratiate himself with the man. Not today. Hogan didn’t know what that meant.
He couldn’t be moved from Stalag 13. No other camp would allow him to accomplish what he had. He couldn’t leave his men. And he didn’t want to leave Klink behind, either. They were friends, whether Klink wanted to own up to that or not. And whether Hogan had to pretend otherwise in front of the rest of the camp.
He should have kept one of his men with him, one whose German was more fluent than his, but if the conversation went badly and he was going to be transferred, he didn’t want to have to put on a brave face for anybody.
“Klink.” Burkhalter snapped the word like it tasted bad in his mouth. A chair creaked, probably Burkhalter sitting down.
“General Burkhalter. I assume you’ve come to discuss the transfer of my prisoners?”
Hogan’s stomach clenched, both at the confirmation of what was happening, and at Klink not laughing his words out, trying to kiss up to the general. His voice was stern, his tone cold.
“I have. I believe Colonel Hogan and approximately nineteen other prisoners will be moved--”
“Unacceptable,” Klink said. “You can’t have Hogan.”
Hogan held his breath. What?
Burkhalter started to say something and had to cough. Choked on his own fury, Hogan thought. “I can’t have Hogan?” he finally croaked out.
“He’s--he’s crucial to the morale of many of the prisoners in the camp.” Papers shuffled. “I’ve drawn up a list of prisoners that would be most suitable for a transfer for various reasons. You may pick your twenty from this list.”
“Excuse me?” Burkhalter’s voice shook with rage. “I may . . . who are you to tell me--”
“I am the Kommandant of this camp!” he shouted. Klink shouted at General Burkhalter. “A camp with a perfect record. No escapes. Maximum efficiency. To maintain the finely-oiled machine that is Stalag 13, I must be able to choose who stays and who goes!”
An uncomfortable pause. A chair moving. Burkhalter getting up, or Klink?
“Colonel Klink, do you have any idea--”
“Oh, I have some ideas, General. That this is an attempt to smear the good name of Stalag 13 by introducing problem prisoners intentionally and rocking the boat, of which I am the captain. I know exactly what you’re doing. The only thing I don’t know is why. I'm aware that you do not like me.”
Klink’s voice dropped, vibrating with rage. “But frankly, General Burkhalter, this is beneath you.”
Klink had sent a good volley. Hogan was proud of him, he'd been surprisingly impressive, but it was over. Hogan would be transferred, and Klink was going to be sent to the Russian front. Hogan imagined Burkhalter’s face must have been an alarming shade of red, and his blood pressure something in the record-setting range.
A chair creaked. That was Burkhalter getting up.
“My sister, at that cocktail party you also attended a few weeks ago in honor of Herr Frauchlin, became inebriated, and you escorted her back to her hotel room.”
“Is that what this is about? I can assure you, General, I did nothing she should be upset about. I was a perfect gentleman.”
“Yes, Klink. You were a perfect gentleman. That’s what she’s upset about. I grew tired of hearing how I should be a better sibling and punish you for it. I agreed to shut her up. Now that I see how passionate you are about the operation of your camp, and how a poor performance after the changes would reflect on me, I’m not so sure.”
“This was your solution? Disrupt my camp in revenge for your sister?”
“Perhaps not one of my finer moments.”
Hogan snorted. No, it wasn’t, but in comparison to everything else he did, eh.
Klink cleared his throat. “If you’ll see your way clear to cancel the transfers, the next time I encounter your sister, I will complain about how humiliated I was when you stormed into my camp and found numerous violations of protocol. Of course I’ll play along with anything else you want to tell her.”
“Very well.” Burkhalter’s heavy steps, and what sounded like Klink hurrying around his desk to see the General out. “You have never spoken to me in that way before, Klink.”
“Yes, well, General, I--”
“Do not apologize. I prefer you when you actually appear to have a spine.”
“Thank you, General.”
Hogan slumped in his chair, as relieved for Klink as himself.
That speech about disrupting his camp and Hogan being good for morale had sounded rehearsed. But you can’t have Hogan came out differently. Klink had sounded desperate. Nervous, while the rest of it had been angry, rock solid. It stirred things in Hogan, things that had been swirling for a while. He'd been right to listen alone.
The door swung open, Kinch and Carter. “Burkhalter’s gone, sir.” His men crowded around him wanting to know what happened. He told them, and there were back pats and one-armed hugs, and while his men celebrated that they got to stay in Stalag 13 for another day, Schultz opened the door.
“Colonel Hogan, Herr Kommandant wants to see you in his office.”
Perfect timing, because Hogan wanted to see him, too. He ordered the men back outside to perform various tasks until he returned to ensure no one listened to their conversation.
***
When Schultz announced that Hogan was there to see him, Klink didn’t move from where he stood, gazing out the window, hands clasped behind his back. After Schultz left, Hogan slipped two cigars from the humidor on Klink’s desk and dropped them into his pocket, then sat and put his feet up.
“Sir? You said you wanted to see me.”
“Oh, yes, Hogan. I recently had occasion to acquire a few treats from Switzerland.” He turned and frowned at Hogan, who dropped his feet and sat up. Klink opened his desk drawer and pulled out a chocolate bar. “I know of your fondness for it.”
He held it out. Hogan took it, his fingers brushing Klink's hand. They both held the chocolate longer than necessary. “Thank you, Colonel.”
Klink waved his hand. “You see, I’m not without compassion, Hogan. I’m not completely insensitive to the fact that you live as a prisoner, hmm? And the smooth operations of this camp mean that I simply can’t show favoritism to any one prisoner. Yet I know how much you do to keep your men in line, so a reward, from time to time, seems only fair.” He moved back to the window and looked out. At what, Hogan didn’t know.
“Oh, the men love you, sir.” Hogan stood and unwrapped the chocolate as he moved closer to the window. “But I completely understand. You know I would never take a favor like this and turn it against you.”
“Actually, that sounds exactly like something you’d do. Perhaps I should--” Klink turned and reached for the chocolate.
Hogan pulled it away and took a bite. “Ah, ah." He wagged his finger in the air. "No takesies-backsies.”
Klink smiled. “No takesies-backsies. Another American phrase, like olly olly oxen free?” He exhaled and stared through the glass again. “You know, Hogan, I was in the military before the Nazi party came into power.”
“I’m aware of that, sir.” Hogan had hoped Klink would tell him about Burkhalter’s plan and how he’d foiled it, but he didn’t seem inclined to.
“You can stand on a beach in one place for hours, dry and warm from the sun. If the tide comes in around your ankles, it doesn’t necessarily mean you intended to get wet.”
The chocolate was creamy and sweet, better than any he'd had back home. “Someone standing on the beach can step away from the tide.”
“Not if it comes in so fast and hard it’s up to your throat and you’re washed away from the shore before you understand what’s happening.”
This wasn’t the first conversation they’d had like this. It wouldn’t be the last. The last, Hogan suspected, would come just before the end of the war or right after, when Klink would say what he thought about the Nazi party without couching his distaste in metaphors. Hogan looked forward to that day.
He looked forward to a lot of things about the end of the war.
But he was mired in war right now, and what Klink said to Burkhalter was going to eat at him if he let it go. It was a huge risk he’d berate any of his men for taking, but his men didn't need to know. “So, Burkhalter wanted to transfer me,” he said.
Klink’s head snapped toward him. “How could you possibly know that?”
“A couple of my men were outside your window, going about their business, but your shouting was loud enough they couldn't help but overhear. I’ve already disciplined them for hovering near your office, sir, but I’m curious if they were right.”
Klink’s shoulders rose and dropped with a slow breath. “He did want to transfer you. I wouldn’t allow it.”
“Because of morale. In the camp.”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you told him he couldn’t have me.”
Klink’s face pinked up and his eyes widened so that he had to adjust his monocle. “Of course.” He waved a hand again. “The men listen to you, and if you were transferred I feared they might rebel, that’s all. What other reason could there possibly be?”
Hogan took a bite of the chocolate. “I don’t know. I thought maybe you liked having me around.”
“You are a prisoner of war. I do not like having any prisoners, or the war itself. But as prisoners go, this camp could do worse than you.”
Klink was as tense as piano wire, and his eyes kept flitting to Hogan’s lips.
Hogan licked chocolate from the corner of his mouth with deliberate slowness. “I see. And all this time, I thought maybe you’d wanted to kiss me. Or something.”
Klink’s mouth dropped open.
You had to keep pushing, Bobby. Now you might be the one who ends up at the Russian front. Stuffed in a cannon.
Klink turned to the window again, hands clasped tight behind his back but his fingers flapped like he wanted to grab something. “Don’t be ridiculous, Hogan.”
“Sorry, sir. I just thought--”
“I am the Kommandant of this camp. Of course I don’t want to kiss you. But even if I did, I couldn’t, you understand.”
Hogan licked his lips and swallowed hard. He hadn’t expected this kind of a reply. “Why not, sir?”
“Because of that, right there." Klink turned to Hogan and threw his hand out. "You call me sir. I am essentially your jailer, Hogan. I have power and authority over you. If I kissed you, it would be inappropriate and an incredible violation of your rights under the Geneva Convention. A prisoner might feel obliged to unwillingly return my affections because of who I am. And a prisoner might decide to play into my affections in order to manipulate me and gain favor." Klink’s voice shook the same as it had during part of his conversation with Burkhalter. "Either way, I would never put a prisoner or myself in such a position.”
They stared at each other. Hogan cleared his throat. “No matter how badly you might want to?”
Klink inhaled deeply. “No matter how badly.”
Hogan stepped toe to toe with Klink and cupped the back of his neck. He kissed him, not a hesitant or tentative kiss the way a first kiss often was, but an intimate one, deep and unflinching, like he’d imagined doing it when he let himself think about such things. He’d come this far, after all, and fortune favors the bold--another American saying that delighted Klink, he’d discovered.
Klink’s lips parted beneath his. Hogan slipped his tongue past them and shivered at the moan he got in return. Klink didn’t move or touch him in any way, but his mouth was pliable and warm, and the monocle that fell from his eye bumped against Hogan’s cheek.
When Hogan broke the kiss and stepped back, he caught the monocle that fell between them in the palm of his hand.
Klink stared at him. “Hogan--”
“I’m aware I shouldn’t have done that, sir. But . . .” He drew his shoulders up, uncertain what to say now that he’d acted without thoroughly considering the consequences.
“No takesies-backsies,” Klink mumbled.
Hogan stepped close again. “I would never try to manipulate you for favors, or use any favors you grant me against you, no matter what you might think.” He pressed the monocle into Klink’s hand, and pressed the rest of his chocolate bar into the other. “We have enemies in war, but I have no intention of making personal ones. Because this war isn't going to last forever."
“No. No, it’s not,” Klink said softly. “Dismissed, Hogan.”
Hogan left. He licked his lips and rubbed his fingertips over them to remove any remaining chocolate and to remember what he'd done so he couldn't convince himself he'd dreamed it later. Hogan shivered against the cold breeze and went to reassure his men that everything would continue the same as it had been. Almost everything.
Klink stared down at the monocle for a moment, then put it in place. He watched Hogan hurry across the camp and took a bite of the chocolate bar Hogan had returned to him. Klink ate and thought about beaches and tides and what Deutschland’s eventual victory in this war would mean for someone like Hogan, and someone like himself.
The chocolate melted in his mouth, and he closed his eyes to savor it.