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“Did you hear him? ‘Know your place?’” Peter Newkirk practically spat out the words. “Ruddy officer.”
“What are you complaining about?” LeBeau asked. “He seemed like he was being friendly.”
Newkirk sneered. “You’re fooling yourself, lad,” he said. “I’ve heard that rubbish all me life. ‘Mind your manners. Don’t get above your station.' It’s the ruddy English class system. Toffs like him, they look down on my kind. They stay on top by suppressing us.”
“He’s not Anglais, Newkirk. He’s American.”
“A toff is a toff. I’ve seen his shoes. Bright and shiny and not a single hole in them. You can always tell by the shoes.”
“He hasn’t been here long,” LeBeau said with a shrug. “They haven’t worn out like ours.” He only noticed once in a while that he could feel every pebble under his toes. His soles were shot.
“I don’t need no fancy Yank colonel to tell me what he thinks of me,” Newkirk grumbled. “Know your place, indeed.”
“I thought he liked you,” LeBeau shrugged. “He seemed interested in those, uh, unique skills you have.”
“I wish you hadn’t told him any of that,” Newkirk grumbled. “Now he probably thinks I can scrounge things for him. I’m useful.” He put an ugly spin on the last word.
Newkirk knew what he saw when he looked in the mirror. An urchin. A guttersnipe. A little Cockney scruff. He just hated when anyone else saw it.
That night, when the whistle blew for rollcall, Newkirk hung back. He watched the new senior officer stroll out, smirking and bursting with confidence. Newkirk rolled his eyes, pulled his coat collar up, and crept out, head down. Then he heard that annoying American voice.
“Newkirk! Over here. Don’t you know your place?”
“I know my place,” he snapped. He knew what the Yank was thinking. Liar. Sneak. Pickpocket. Thief.
“Good. Then stand right here with me,” Hogan said with a smile. He leaned in. “You can help me harass Klink. This will be fun.”
The penny dropped, and a smile lit Newkirk’s face. Oh, yeah, he did know his place. And a very fine place it was turning out to be.