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Der Meißel der Seele	By : Wertiyurae Category: G through L > Hogan's Heroes Views: 1600 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the television series that this fanfiction is written for, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 15
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- 17
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Now there were two of them to watch. It was irregular and not all together safe to have an unarmed man watch two unrestrained prisoners. Well, Klink certainly didn’t feel all that safe at the moment and it had been tempting to have at least the ‘escaped’ prisoner restrained but, in the end, he decided that there was no reason Carter to have to suffer for his raging paranoia.

So, they remained unrestrained. As for why he was watching them by himself, he’d had two alternatives and neither were ones he liked. Either he had Sergeant Schultz or Corporal Kruger in the back with him to keep an extra set of eyes on the prisoners or he joined the driver in the front while one of the guards took his place in the back. The first was no good because then there would be three people that Klink had to watch and the second was no good because Klink wasn’t completely certain he could get out of the truck without help considering the difficulties he’d had getting in.

The other alternative was to borrow a rifle from one of the guards. But, with the way his imagination had been running away with him, he didn’t trust himself with a gun. With all the terrible things he could say about himself lately, he didn’t need to add ‘murderer’ to the list.

So, he was stuck where he was, watching the two Americans like the Iron Eagle Colonel Hogan often called him. At least they seemed to be behaving themselves. It was a bit difficult to see them in the dark but they were only three feet in front of him so he could make out the important details. Hogan was leaning back with his hat over his face, either napping or thinking, while Carter spent much of his time staring at the floor when he wasn’t returning Klink’s stare. If the way the younger man was fidgeting was any indication, he was uncomfortable with the scrutiny.

Klink could sympathize with that feeling but he other things to worry about besides Carter’s comfort. While the man looked as harmless as always, Klink felt like he couldn’t risk the possibility that he was wrong about that too. What reason did he have to trust any of the prisoners, anyway? Besides, his miscalculation about this escape attempt had already put him in enough trouble tonight. Trembling fingers drifted towards his mouth as he recalled the violence of General Adler’s kiss and the fury in those cold eyes . . .

What was Adler going to do to him once he got back to camp? Getting back early might assuage the man’s anger somewhat but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t going to make Klink pay for this escapade. He already thought that Klink was responsible for it and Klink doubted that anything he could say would do anything to change his mind. And, even if the General did believe he wasn’t responsible, odds were that Adler would make him pay anyway.

Swallowing down a sudden bout of nausea, he shook his head sharply and tried not to think about it anymore. It wouldn’t do him any good to worry about what was waiting for him later - he had to pay attention to what was happening now. And, right now, Sergeant Carter was staring at him. Much of the man’s expression was lost to the shadows but the tilt of his head indicated that he was staring at him intently.

“Kommandant?”

Klink jumped a bit, not expecting Carter to actually speak to him. “What is it?” he asked, trying very hard not to snap.

Carter hesitated, and, when he finally spoke, he sounded very uncertain. “Is . . . Is there something on my face?”

Klink could only gape at him in complete and utter incomprehension. What on earth . . . ?

As if sensing the Kommandant’s confusion, he elaborated. “I mean, you keep looking at me and you have this weird look on your face and I was just wondering . . .” He trailed off with a helpless shrug.

Technically speaking, Kommandants of POW camps didn’t owe their prisoners explanations about anything but Klink knew that this situation would become more awkward if he simply ignored the question. But what to say? I’m watching you because I have this paranoid idea that you’re going to jump me as soon as I’m not paying attention. No. “I’m just thinking, Sergeant.” Then an idea to forestall any more questions came to him. “I was just thinking about what your punishment should be.”

Thankfully, Carter looked back down at the floor after saying a quiet “Oh.”

Not so thankfully, Colonel Hogan chose that moment to resurrect the conversation. “Come on, sir - don’t you think he’s suffered enough?” Then he elbowed the Sergeant who suddenly tried very hard to look dejected. “This poor boy just lost his girl.”

Klink could feel himself frown. What was this? He remembered the cover story about the Sergeant receiving some bad news from home but why was Hogan bringing it up now? Because this sounded an awful lot like the American was trying to cajole him into giving his man a lighter punishment - much like he would if this was a normal escape attempt. But this wasn’t one of those so why was he doing it? Did Hogan just want to put on a convincing show for Schultz and Kruger?

Eyeing the Sergeant who was still overplaying his look of depressed dejection, Klink decided that that wasn’t the reason. If this was for the guards, there would be little point in the younger man’s overacting - neither of them was in any position to see the performance. But that left Klink as the audience and that didn’t make any sense because this whole escape attempt business had been his idea in the first place!

Unless . . . Unless the Sergeant didn’t know about the dea- the arrangement that he and Colonel Hogan had come to earlier? It was a possi -

“Sir?”

Klink blinked at the interruption and needed a few seconds to remember want they had been talking about before his thoughts had wandered. Right. Sergeant Carter’s punishment. He knew what Hogan wanted him to do but knew, just as surely, that that would be a big mistake. Glancing at Carter, he wished he knew for certain whether or not the younger man was in on this - it would make sorting this problem out much easier. “I have to give him something, Colonel,” he said at last.

Hogan adopted an expression of moral outrage that Klink doubted was genuine. “Don’t you have a heart? I’m sure Sergeant Carter will never do it again,” then he glared at Carter who shied away from the look, “if he knows what’s good for him.”

Fleetingly, Klink wondered if that was how he looked when General Adler threatened him. Bringing himself back to the present, he allowed himself a sigh and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Hogan, but my hands are tied - I can’t let him off without any punishment at all.” That would be putting the possibly not so figurative nail in his coffin: letting the man who attempted to escape off would only comfirm Adler’s suspicions.

But there had to be something he could do; even if this whole thing hadn’t turned out quite the way he’d planned, giving Hogan’s man a harsh punishment seemed like poor thanks for what he’d tried to do. A compromise, perhaps? Before he could come up with something satisfactory, the truck stopped and he heard Schultz talk to the guard at the gate.

Stalag 13. They were back at camp already. Panic swelled in Klink’s stomach and he wondered if maybe he’d been too hasty in ending Hogan’s goose chase early. It wasn’t a good idea to risk increasing Adler’s wrath but Klink didn’t feel anywhere near ready to face the man again. To walk into his bedroom and come face to face with that monster. To be violated on his own bed. To find out whether last night’s reaction had been only a fluke. And to face the very real possibility that it hadn’t been.

A hand shaking his shoulder snapped him out of his terrible musings and he stared into the concerned face of Colonel Hogan who suddenly looked an awful lot like the General. The man was saying something but Klink wasn’t sure what it was: blood was pounding too loudly in his ears for him to hear anything - he couldn’t even hear the ragged breaths that came when he remembered to breathe again.

The hand on his shoulder was just resting there but who knew when that would change? He knew that it was Hogan’s hand and Hogan wasn’t likely to do something violent like Adler but, at that moment, Klink’s overtaxed imagination couldn’t help but amalgamate the two. He could feel the heat of it through his jacket. Worms on his skin.

He stamped down the urge to back away, to free himself because he didn’t want to be hit again. Instead, he closed his eyes tightly and clenched his fists. “Please . . . Please let go of me.”

Abruptly, the wieght of the hand disappeared. Emabarassment replaced Klink’s terror as his head cleared. He knew he’d over reacted. Again. Opening his eyes, he saw that Hogan, who didn’t look very much like Adler at all, really, had backed away, an unidentifiable expression on his face. Then, very quietly, as though dealing with an animal that might bolt any second, he spoke: “We’re back at camp, sir.”

Klink nodded and stood slowly, uncertain whether his unsteadiness was due to the episode he’d just had or due to the aches that had plagued him since General Adler had . . . collected on their deal. Glancing around, he saw that they weren’t alone in the truck: Sergeant Carter was there as well, hovering behind Hogan and looking completely bewildered. He felt too exhausted by the brief bought of terror to worry too much about what the prisoner might think.

Besides, he had other things to worry about. He turned away from the Americans (which proved to be a difficult task all on its own) and made his way to the back of the truck. Stopping at the edge, he looked down and felt his heart sink. To think, yesterday, he’d have made it down without any trouble at all. Now? Now it looked very high indeed.

Sergeant Schultz stood to his right on the ground and gazed up at him, uncertainly holding out his arm for Klink in a silent offer of help. Klink looked at the arm and at the Sergeant. He had nothing to fear from Schultz. Nothing. Klink took hold of the arm. It was going to be fine. Once he climbed out of the truck, he forced himself to stand next to Schultz until Hogan, Kruger and Carter joined them.

As soon as Carter arrived, Schultz took hold of the younger man’s arm, as though he feared that the American might try to escape again. “What do you want done with the prisoner, Kommandant?”

Klink regarded Carter with a frown. How could he be so calm? Sure, Sergeant Schultz was about as intimidating as a jelly doughnut (although, he reconsidered with a stab of self loathing, he could hardly claim that was true for him anymore) but the two men were on the opposite sides of the war. Here he was, about to receive a punishment from his jailer and he wasn’t the least bit afraid - he didn’t even have the decency to look nervous about it!

Fine, Klink thought with more than a bit of jealousy, let’s see about that. “Put him in the cooler. Two weeks ought to do it, don’t you think?” he finished with a smile, feeling a measure of sadistic glee at the look of dismay on Carter’s face. That’ll teach him to be so . . . complacent. There was still no fear but Klink hadn’t really wanted that anyway: he had enough reasons to hate himself without acting like General Adler.

“But Kommandant -” Hogan protested, sounding almost betrayed.

Klink held up his had to silence the Senior POW while, simultaneously fighting the impulse to back away from Hogan’s obvious ire. “Colonel Hogan, it’s late and I want to go to,” he only stumbled on the word a little, “bed. If you want to discuss this man’s punishment, it will have to wait until tomorrow.” While he’d given Carter two weeks in the cooler to be spiteful, this would work out perfectly: Hogan could ‘convince’ him to decrease the punishment and General Adler would be satisfied that Klink didn’t have anything to do with this escape after all . . . Well, the General wouldn’t have any more reasons to be suspicious of Klink’s part in it, anyway.

At least, that’s what he told himself.

Surprise and understanding flashed across Hogan’s face before his expression shifted into unhappy acceptance. “Very well, sir.” Then he turned his attention to Sergeant Schultz and glowered at him. “You better not rough him up like you did last time.”

Schultz looked helplessly at Klink. “I never did, Kommandant!” he sputtered, sounding affronted at the very idea of being accused of such a thing. He turned towards Hogan and muttered something that sounded like ‘You jolly joker!’, before turning back, his mouth open to, no doubt, offer some more feverent denials.

“Fine, Sergeant,” Klink interrupted, realizing that Schultz could continue in this vein for hours if he let him. While there was a part of him that saw the attraction of that idea, he knew if he hoped to get through tonight in more or less one piece, he had to stop stalling. “Just take him to the cooler.”

Schultz looked positively relieved as he saluted. “Yessir!”

Now that that was out of the way, Klink looked to Corporal Kruger. “Take Colonel Hogan back to his barracks.”

Once both men were gone, Klink wrapped his arms around himself, fighting a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. He could remember a time when standing next to four men wouldn’t have bothered him at all. Hell, he could remember a time when standing in front of all the Allied prisoners with their heckling and hateful gazes during roll call didn’t make him feel the least bit nervous. And there was a time, he was fairly certain, when a simple hand on his shoulder didn’t make his heart climb into his mouth.

Had it only been yesterday? He shivered and held himself a bit tighter. Yes, but it seemed a lot longer than that now.

He shivered again as a chill breeze cut into him. It wasn’t getting any warmer out here, was it? And, as much as he would rather stand out in the cold all night, he knew that there was no way he could. General Adler was waiting and he was in enough trouble as it was. Waiting and stalling would no doubt make the General more angry and whatever he had planned worse.

Doing his best to ignore his churning stomach, Klink slowly climbed up the steps of the office building and walked inside. He hung his coat on the rack in his office and, after a moment’s indecision, poured himself a small drink from the bottle he kept on his filing cabinet. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, to truly settle him but, he hoped, it might help him gain some control over his jumpy nerves. He wanted to have some control over himself before he faced Adler again.

Control. Now that was funny.

Klink quickly swallowed down a sob and then the liquor which felt like a flaming rock tumbling down his throat. Taking several deep breaths, he tried to stop the tears he could feel forming from falling. He had no control over what Adler was going to do to him but he had no interest in crying in front of the villian if he could avoid it - bad enough that he’d already done so in front of Colonel Hogan. If course, Klink doubted that the American had enjoyed the sight as much as Adler would.

An indeterminable amount of time and one drink later, Klink felt calm and in as much control as was possible considering the circumstances. control as he could possibly be considering the circumstances. Summoning up his courage, he stalked through his quarters and opened his bedroom door -

-seeing no one. Even though the main source of light in the room was coming through the door that he’d just opened, he could plainly see that there was no one on the bed.

Klink stood in the doorway and wondered what was going on. Had Adler changed his mind? That seemed unlikely considering what he knew about the man but, if Adler hadn’t, then where was he? He turned his head to look in the main room and was unsurprised to find that he hadn’t simply walked by Adler there without noticing him.

Cautiously, not trusting this situation at all, he walked into the room and started for the bedside table. Maybe shedding a little light on the subject might help. Just as he’d reached his destination, the bedroom door slammed, plunging the room into darkness. Klink spun around just in time to be pushed back onto the bed.

It didn’t take Klink very long to figure out who the weight on top of him was and whose mouth had latched onto his own and whose tongue was in his mouth. Or whose hands were busily working on the buttons of his jacket and then his shirt.

“Welcome back, Wilhelm,” Adler whispered as he drew back, his hands already finding purchase beneath Klink’s belt. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
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Der Meißel der Seele