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The Price of Compassion
“Colonel, I think Humphrey has the same respiratory infection the rest of the guys have,” Wilson sighed from behind a surgical mask, hands in his pockets.
“Damn it, not the update I wanted Wilson,” Colonel Hogan ran a hand through his hair.
“I know sir, but he needs to be quarantined too.”
“How many does that make now?” Colonel Hogan sighed heavily.
“Thirty-five.”
The Colonel shook his head slowly, “At this rate, we’re going to have to find you some relief, so you don’t collapse from exhaustion. Are they responding to penicillin?” Luckily, London had dropped them off a good amount when the outbreak had started a week prior.
“Not at all Colonel, I think it’s influenza.”
“Damn,” Colonel Hogan was old enough to remember 1918. “You sure?”
“I mean I can’t say for sure, but it seems like it. Some of the first to get sick are starting to recover slowly, so I am cautiously hopeful that with fluids, rest, and keeping the fevers down we can keep this from being really bad.”
“Ok, do you need anything else?”
“No, just as soon as someone shows symptoms, get them here so it doesn’t continue to spread.”
“You got it,” Hogan nodded and then retreated back to the relative warmth of barracks 2.
“I think it’s Typhoid Fever Newkirk, you need to go see Wilson.” Hogan heard Carter say as soon as he entered the barracks.
“Nah, it’s just a stomachache mate,” Newkirk groaned, doubling over, sitting on the edge of the bench in front of their bunk.
“I saw it before, once when the lady who owned the cafe down the street from me was sick and then other people got sick. They traced it back to her and everyone had symptoms like you do.”
“Coincidence mate,” Newkirk pulled the blanket around his shoulders and his chattering teeth belied his chills.
Carter placed a hand onto his teammate’s forehead. “You’re burning up pal, let me look at your chest.”
Newkirk waved the other man off before groaning and reaching for the bucket beside him and retching into it.
Hogan sighed and walked from where he’d been watching inside the door and reached out to feel Newkirk’s forehead for himself. Carter had been right. “Are you sure it’s not what’s going around the camp, Carter?”
“None of them had the cramping like he does, and he doesn’t have a cough. That’s why I wanted to look at his chest to see if he has a rash, sir.”
“Newkirk, let him look.”
Newkirk groaned but exposed the spotted rash.
“You’re going to sick bay,” Colonel Hogan ordered with finality.
“Come on Newkirk, I’ll help you,” Carter helped the Englishman to his feet and supported most of his weight.
“No, got it,” Newkirk mumbled weakly.
“Ok, buddy,” Carter placated without doing anything differently.
“Told ya.”
“That you did, almost there,” Carter wasn’t sure for whose sake he said so.
Carter knocked on the medical hut’s door as Wilson’s handwritten sign instructed. He shifted Newkirk’s weight as the Englishman started to lean on Carter even more. “Hurry up,” the American mumbled under his breath.
“Carter, what’s wrong with Newkirk?” Wilson couldn’t hide the shock on his face at seeing the nearly lethargic Newkirk slumped against Carter.
“I know I’m not a medic or anything, but I think he’s got Typhoid Fever, dunno where he got it from. If it was here in camp, I feel like more people would have the symptoms, but I guess anything is possible,” Carter explained in one long winded breath.
“Give me a second, I need to partition off a space for him, so he doesn't wind up with influenza on top of it.”Wilson had slowly learned to trust Carter’s instincts when it came to illness; also, Newkirk just looked sick. He returned quickly with two linen masks identical to the one he wore, “here, let me help you put these on,” he helped tie them since Carter was supporting most of Newkirk’s weight. He positioned himself on Newkirk’s other side and helped transport him to the office where he’d set up a cot. “I think this’ll work out best.”
Carter nodded his head, “You look exhausted, when was the last time you slept?” Carter inquired after they got the feverish Newkirk settled on the cot and Wilson had begun to examine the sick man.
Wilson chuckled; Carter was more observant than people gave him credit for. “It’s been a few days since I’ve gotten more than a cat nap,” He admitted truthfully, there was no reason to lie.
“Tell me what needs done around here and I’ll do it, scrub bedpans, whatever, you need rest.”
“Don’t you have something more important to be doing?”
Carter shook his head, “not right now.”
Wilson sighed, then nodded his head and proceeded to tell Carter what he could do to help. And so Carter set to work and allowed the overworked medic to catch up on some much-needed sleep.
-hh-hh-
“What’s taking Carter so long to get back here?”
“Maybe Wilson thinks he’s sick too?” Kinch tried to throw out the most plausible answer to his CO’s question.
Hogan shook his head, “Wilson would have let us know by now, it’s almost time for roll call. I’m sure he has his reasons for not being back yet, so you were going to tell me what you found out from Doc?”
“Yes, so from what I can gather, there is an outbreak in town, Newkirk must have contracted it when he was on that mission last week.”
“And it is Typhoid Fever?”
Kinch nodded his head, “Doc said that as long as we’re washing our hands like we’re supposed to, everyone else should be fine.”
Hogan had drilled into his men's’ heads from day one that good hygiene in such close quarters was paramount. He hoped and prayed that everyone took that as seriously as he did. “When was the last hygiene refresher class Wilson gave?”
“End of September, I think.”
“Good, good. We don’t need another outbreak on our hands right now.”
“No, no we don’t, are you going to tell Klink?”
Hogan mulled it over for a few seconds before answering with: “No, no reason to try to explain where he got it from, as far as he’s concerned, Newkirk has what everyone else in camp has.”
“You got it Colonel; what do you want me to tell London about their request?”
“Tell them we’ll figure a way to pull it off.”
“I’d expect nothing else,” Kinch smirked, “I’ll radio an affirmative after roll call.”
“Wilson, Wilson,” Carter jostled the sleeping man begrudgingly.
“What, what’s wrong, who’s hurt? I’m awake!” He bolted upright and looked around the small office.
“Sorry to wake you buddy, but it’s time for roll call,” Carter rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.
Wilson took some deep calming breaths and ran a hand through his hair. “Thanks Carter, I needed that nap.”
“I could tell; you slept like the dead!”
Wilson chuckled, “I feel like I slept for a year.”
“More like 6 hours.”
Wilson rubbed the remainder of sleep out of his eyes, “Did everything go smoothly?”
Carter shrugged, “Johnson is spiking a fever, I’ve been making sure he drinks as much water as he can tolerate. Newkirk is hallucinating, restless, and keeps throwing up, I’m afraid he’s going to choke,” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets.
“Why didn’t you wake me up sooner Carter?!” Wilson jumped out of his cot and rushed to Newkirk’s side to assess him again.
“I wanted you to sleep.”
Wilson sighed, “Carter, next time, wake me sooner.”
Carter nodded and looked down at the floor, he felt like a kicked dog.
“Can you go draw up some penicillin for me?”
-hh-hh-
“Colonel Hogan!” Schultz whined, as he approached the ranking POW, “Where is Carter, where is Newkirk? No, don’t tell me, this monkey business, I do not want to know, but this could be worth my life!”
“Newkirk is in sick bay, he came down with influenza this morning, and Carter, well, he went with Newkirk to sick bay and he’s not back yet, so Wilson probably put him to work, I’d check over there.”
“Oh, well, that is better than them having escaped!”
“Who’s escaped? Release the dogs!” Klink bellowed having heard the word escape as soon as he stepped foot on the compound.
“Hold it Kommandant, no need, there’s no escape, just two men are over in sick bay.” Hogan cut Colonel Klink off from issuing any other unnecessary orders.
“Two more sick?” Klink felt a little faint himself.
“No, just one, the other is helping Wilson out because he’s overworked at the moment,” Hogan covered with the most plausible explanation for Carter's prolonged absence.
“Does he have experience as a medic?”
“No, he just likes to help where he can.”
“Then he shouldn’t be around sick people and then coming back out with the healthy people, you should know better, Colonel Hogan. The man is to stay and assist Wilson.”
“I’ll let him know Kommandant,” Colonel Hogan saluted Klink.
Klink saluted back before dismissing the men and hurrying back into his office.
“Well, there goes one more man for our plan,” Kinch mumbled under his breath as they reentered barracks 2.
“He can still come down into the tunnels, no?” LeBeau’s voice was permeated with hopefulness.
“Kommandant Klink is right, on the off chance he picked something up in the last few hours, he doesn’t need to be spreading it to the rest of camp. Like it or not, he’s quarantined now too.”
-hh-hh-
“What?! No, Colonel, I’ll drive Wilson crazy!” Carter’s eyes went wide as Colonel Hogan told him the bad news.
“Did you think about that before staying here for seven hours?” Colonel Hogan crossed his arms, he wasn’t mad per se, but he was miffed that Carter hadn’t been thinking when he made the decision to offer to help Wilson.
Carter hung his head, “I didn’t see the harm in letting him nap, sir.”
Hogan sighed, Wilson was bound to need a break at some point. “What’s done is done, just give Wilson a hand and we’ll figure out the mission without you and Newkirk.”
“What mission Colonel? I thought we didn’t have anything right now?”
“London wants us to rendezvous with this German officer who is defecting to Switzerland and see if we can convince him to go to London instead, he’s got some information they want, so the hard part is we don’t have Newkirk to forge papers for him and you to develop pictures, but we’ll make it work.”
“Sorry Colonel, I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”
“I know Carter, you had good intentions, just ask next time, ok?”
“Yes sir.”
“How’s Newkirk doing?”
“Not too good colonel, Wilson said it’ll take a few days before he’s over the worst of it. I’m worried about him though.”
“We all are Carter, but he’ll pull through, he’s a fighter.”
“Colonel, I really am sorry that I didn’t think before getting myself trapped in here.”
“I know Carter, it’s probably for the best, Wilson couldn’t continue at the rate he’s been going for much longer. Just do whatever he asks, oh, and Carter,”
“Yes sir?”
“Don’t get sick too.”
Carter felt a smile creep onto his face underneath the mask he was wearing, “You got it boy! I mean sir.”
Colonel Hogan found himself chuckling as he walked away from the infirmary. Carter had a heart of gold, of course when the rest of the camp was treating the infirmary like a leper colony, Carter would get stuck inside it helping.
-hh-hh-
“Colonel, I can develop the film, probably not as good as Carter, but you know I can do it.” Garlotti chimed in as Hogan, LeBeau, and Kinch sat at the table in the center of barracks 2 throwing around ideas as to how they were going to pull off this defection.
“True, you did help us out that one time when Carter was sent on that week-long work detail,” Kinch tapped his pencil on the table.
“Oui, you did not do a half bad job,” LeBeau had to hand it to the Italian-American.
“Ok, then that’s settled, Garlotti will develop what we need, anyone want to volunteer to try and forge papers? The hard part should already be done, I know Newkirk keeps a few that just need the blanks filled in on hand for emergency situations,” Colonel Hogan was starting to be a bit more optimistic that being down two men wasn’t going to be the handicap he’d initially feared.
“I’ll do it Colonel, if that’s all there is to it anyway,” Kinch didn’t see why he couldn’t pull that much off.
“Okay, sounds like we’ve got ourselves a plan,” Colonel stood up from the bench and stretched.
“Not to be a Newkirk mon colonel, but that’s if we can convince him to come to our side and not just go to Switzerland like a coward,” LeBeau inquired, wrapping his hands around his now tepid cup of coffee.
Hogan shrugged, “I guess I’ll just be extra convincing.”
-hh-hh-
“Carter, when you’re done with that, go check on Newkirk,” Wilson nudged Carter who seemed to be in his own world as he scrubbed the floor. It was so nice to have someone to help, especially someone willing to help keep the place cleaner.
Carter looked up with a dazed look in his eyes like he hadn’t heard a word Wilson had said.
Wilson shook his head and repeated himself.
Carter smiled and nodded, “you got it, wow, this floor really needed to be cleaned buddy.”
“You have no idea,” Wilson sighed.
Carter nodded his head, he couldn’t imagine being in Wilson’s shoes constantly.
“What have you been thinking about Carter? You’re unusually quiet,” Wilson was shocked at how reserved Carter had been the last three days, doing whatever he was told with a cheerful smile, and not having much to say other than answer questions. He had been sure that the infamous chatterbox was going to have him climbing up a wall by now.
Carter reclined onto his haunches from kneeling and gave Wilson a sheepish smile, “I’ve been going over equations in my head for this new thermodynamic reactor I want to try out for my bombs.”
Wilson felt taken aback, he knew Carter was the mastermind behind the heroes explosives, but he didn’t realize the kid was experimenting and coming up with his own devices. “Oh, that sounds complicated.”
Carter shrugged, “I told myself I needed to find something that would take me a few days to work out so I didn’t make you go crazy.”
“Well, uh, thank you, but you know you can talk to me.”
“Ok, but just let me know if I’m talking too much, because there’s really no middle ground for me, either I’m lost in thought or everything I think comes out of my mouth.”
Wilson felt himself laughing a deep belly laugh and patted Carter on the back. “Good to know.”
Newkirk was still hallucinating or at least that’s initially what Carter thought when he walked into where his friend was asleep. But he quickly realized he was sleep talking and having a horrific nightmare.
Carter inched closer to Newkirk and placed a hand to his forehead; the Englishman was burning up again. Carter snuck back out and brought back cool rags and tried to cool his friend down.
-hh-hh-
“Just think about it, what if we can’t stop them and they take over Switzerland, what’ll happen to you then?” Colonel Hogan crossed his arms as he attempted to persuade the shifty and jumpy man.
“Switzerland is neutral.”
“And Russia was your guys’ ally. Your point?”
The German paled and rocked back and forth and checked over his shoulder for the 50th time in less than 5 minutes. “England isn’t any safer.”
“They’ve held off relentless attacks for years. You’ll be safer there than anywhere in mainland Europe.”
“OK, I’ll go, but on one condition.”
-hh-hh-
“Colonel, do I have to? Sauerbraten, Sauerkraut, and Kartoffelgratin?” LeBeau groaned.
“At least he’s not asking for pizza,” Kinch chuckled.
LeBeau muttered curses in French, “fine, but the next time Klink asks me to cook for him, I’m using dog food to protest.”
Hogan shook his head in amusement, “just as long as you give me a heads up so I don’t eat it.”
LeBeau agreed, and got started on cooking, much to his chagrin.
-hh-hh-
“Where am I?” Newkirk bolted upright and frantically looked around, not recognizing his surroundings. His eyes locked onto a slumped form on a chair pulled up next to him. “Andrew?”
The sleeping man stirred, “Newkirk?” he mumbled, rubbing the remnants of sleep from his eyes.
“Where the bloody hell are we?”
“Wilson’s office, he didn’t want you catching what everyone else has.”
“Why are you here?”
“Well, Wilson was tired, so I let him take a nap, then I got trapped in here because they didn’t want me contaminating people.”
Newkirk fought the urge to roll his eyes, what a Carter thing to do, the guy was too nice. “What, so you’ve just been sitting next to me for a couple hours?”
“This time, I guess it's been a couple hours already,” Cater shrugged, glancing at his watch.
“What do you mean by this time?”
“You’ve been feverish and out of it for five days now, even with penicillin.”
“Blimey, five days, and you’ve been what, mopping my forehead?”
“Sometimes, but I’ve been doing other things too, helping Wilson with small stuff that I can do.”
“Have you driven him nuts with your constant nattering?”
Carter shook his head, and changed the topic, “You finally have some color back in your face, maybe Wilson will let you out of here in a few days.”
“You mean, I'm still stuck here?” Newkirk fell back on his pillow dramatically. “I feel fine.”
“I hear our patient has finally decided to wake up,” Wilson entered the small room.
“I fell right as rain; can I leave now?”
Wilson sighed, “You have been really sick Newkirk, I want to keep an eye on you for at least another day to make sure you don’t start having a fever again.”
Newkirk knew that was reasonable, but he’d never tell anyone that, so he huffed out a groaned “fine.”
-hh-hh-
“Newkirk, Carter!” The two men were swarmed by Kinch and LeBeau as soon as they entered barracks 2 for the first time in almost a week.
“Missed me that much, did ya?” Newkirk grinned, messing with LeBeau’s hat.
“It was not the same without you two, let me make you something to eat!” LeBeau instantly started busting out his cooking utensils.
“It feels so good to be back,” Carter yawned as he slid into his bunk and almost immediately fell asleep.
“What was he doing over there?” Kinch raised an eyebrow as he directed the question to Newkirk.
“What didn’t he do, other than a cat nap here or there, neither him nor Wilson slept hardly at all. When Colonel Hogan told Carter he could leave with me, Wilson had to hide his disappointment. He needs an assistant, that’s for sure. Thanks, LeBeau,” he accepted the hot coffee that was handed to him.
“It’s that bad?” Kinch scratched his jaw.
“When we left, there were still 14 men sick with that coughing junk, that's after 6 men were deemed well enough to go back to their barracks yesterday afternoon.”
“Maybe Colonel Hogan can figure out something for the poor guy.”
“Maybe,” Newkirk took a sip of the coffee and almost spit it out, “I almost forgot how bad this swill is.”
Kinch and LeBeau both felt grins creep across their faces, it was good to have Newkirk back.
“You’re not allowed to get sick like that ever again!” LeBeau announced definitely, tapping his wooden spoon on the pot he had been stirring.
“I’ve been stuck in the cooler for longer than a week, Louie.”
“Sure, but that’s not the same. I think since it was both you and Carter, it was more noticeable, even Garlotti couldn’t make up for the both of you,” Kinch teased.
“Wow, thanks, see if I ever do any favors for you again,” Garlotti threw back with a grin.
“Anything good happen while I was gone?”
“LeBeau cooked a bunch of German food to convince a defector to go to England instead of Switzerland,” Garlotti hopped down from his bunk and joined Kinch and Newkirk at the table.
LeBeau muttered curses under his breath.
“At least you didn’t have to sing for him too mate,” Newkirk chuckled.
LeBeau scoffed and rolled his eyes but felt a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“I developed pictures, and I think Carter has some competition on his hands,” Garlotti wiggled his eyebrows.
“They turned out ok, don’t get ahead of yourself,” Kinch teased good naturedly.
“They turned out great and you know it!”
“Are you sure he didn’t make up for the both of us?” Newkirk raised an eyebrow, “seems to me like he’s doing pretty good.”
LeBeau snorted and Kinch chuckled.
“Still not the same. Did you hear that you got sick from a bar maiden in town?” Kinch tried to change the subject.
“Oh blimey, that’s just my luck, nobody else in camp came down with what I had?”
“No, you’re unique as always.”
“Good, just the way I like it.”
They all shared a good laugh and settled into a game of friendly poker. As friendly of a game of poker as you could have when Peter Newkirk was involved.