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He was sitting alone on the bench outside of Barracks 2 when I returned from the Kommandantur, a solitary figure in blue, clouded in a haze of cigarette smoke, deep in thought.
I wasn't surprised; Carter had filled me in on Crittendon's reaction when he and Newkirk declined to follow him through the collapsed wire. "A disgrace to the British uniform," he had said. Carter said Newkirk had responded gamely, almost cheerfully, but he could tell the words cut.
"You should have seen his face, Sir," Carter had told me. "He smiled like he didn't care, but I could see he was really bothered."
"Bothered?" I asked. That didn't sound so bad.
"Well, humiliated," Carter elaborated. "Crushed. It was in his voice."
Crushed was bad; humiliated was worse. Carter didn't talk about others lightly, so I added Newkirk to my list of things to worry about now that Crittendon was nearly gone.
As I approached, Newkirk stood to attention and stamped his cigarette out. "How'd it go, Sir? What's to become of Group Captain Cr-Crittendon?"
"At ease, Newkirk," I said, taking a seat on the bench beside him. He sat again, slumping forward, elbows on knees, exactly as when I spotted him. Posture was his language; the words he toiled to say came out whether he spoke them or not.
"He's being transferred to Stalag 18 in the morning, and Klink isn't filing a report to Berlin. All's well that ends well. You and Carter handled him well, Newkirk."
"Th-thank you, Sir. I'm glad it wasn't worse for him," he replied, but there was no enthusiasm in it.
I rested a hand on his back and felt his breaths rise and fall, shallow and rapid. Anxiety had him in a grip. "Breathe deeper," I said softly. "Make it even." I didn't need to explain; I paced him as I had before, silently demonstrating calmness. Eventually, he sat up straight and leaned his head against the wall, his eyes searching the afternoon sky. Then he pulled another cigarette from his breast pocket and lit up.
"I heard what he said," I told Newkirk quietly. "He's wrong. You know that."
He was biting his lip. He shrugged before he ground out an answer. "I'm used to it, Sir. Officers never had m-much use for m-my sssss… sssss…. sssort. It's j-j-j-just how it is."
It was a punch in the gut. I'd trained long and hard to be an officer. I knew Newkirk respected me, but his trust was delicate. It killed me that at some level, I was one of "them," and I probably always would be.
"We both know he's wrong," I said firmly.
"What's he wrong about, sir?" he asked wearily. "I defied his order."
"I'm your commander, and you were following my orders," I replied.
Newkirk tipped his head to the side, looking dejected. "I know that, but he thinks I have no honor, Sir, and he's a British officer. I'm in service to His Majesty, and so is he, and he considers me a d-disgrace. And perhaps I am, because I wanted to belt him."
"Everyone wants to belt Crittendon, Newkirk. He's insufferable." Usually humor helped, but this time it drew only a little snicker. "What matters is that you did as I requested." I was repeating myself, but sometimes I had to with Newkirk.
Newkirk was shaking his head. "With all due respect, Sir, it's n-not about whose orders I fffffollowed. It's about how I talk."
"Your stutter? He was pretty hard on you about that, Newkirk, but you did OK. You stuck up for yourself."
"No, that was only part of it, Sir. It's j-j-j-just… no matter what I do, I'm less than human to his sort. He c-couldn't even remember my name, and I couldn't correct him even when I tr-tried. I c-couldn't get the words out."
"My sort." "His sort." I'd never labored under class distinctions, but Newkirk had. I looked at Crittendon and saw a buffoon; he saw power, arrogance and oppression.
"What do you think he sees when he looks at you, Newkirk?" I asked gently, bracing for anger. I got it.
"Scum," Newkirk practically spat. "An ignorant guttersnipe. Someone who can't tell his arse from his elbow."
"Language, corporal," I warned. Decorum mattered; he was learning that. "Now, what do you see?"
"Sssssorry, Sir." He hesitated. "The same thing," he said. "And a thief to boot."
I shook my head. "That's not what I see, Newkirk." I waited for him to ask, but a glance confirmed I'd be waiting a long time. He wasn't going to risk speaking, judging from how he was gnawing his lip and squeezing his hands.
"I see a resourceful soldier," I said, putting an arm over his shoulder, pulling his head close. "I see a brave, clever warrior who'll take on any job to help his team. I see a fighter who exercised self-restraint when he could have snapped back. I see a soldier who's a credit to his uniform, and who cared enough to ask after the officer who abused him. I see a man that I'm proud to have on my team."
He sat still for a long moment, then swiped at his eyes with his sleeve.
"Bloody officers," he said.
I looked at him, startled. What had I said wrong?
"Making a grown man want to cry," he growled as he leaned into my shoulder. "Thank you, Gov. I'm honored to serve with you."