Author's Note: Here's the last chapter! I hope you enjoyed reading this story as much as I did writing and especially finishing it :o)

Disclaimer: The guys belong to Ruddy and Fein's estate, their prisoner belongs to me. Who knows, he could come back someday (I doubt it, though).

Out of the Frying Pan

Chapter Four

It was usually quiet underground. Every sound from the surface which made its way down was muffled, deadened by the distance it had to travel to get there. Any noise from somewhere in the tunnels, though, carried pretty well.

Kinch's first instinct when he heard the shout and the loud thud from the tree stump entrance was to pick up the gun he kept nearby when he worked in the radio room, and go investigate.

The sight which greeted his eyes when he got to the bottom of the ladder made him stop in his tracks for a second.

Carter and LeBeau were sprawled out cold on the floor beneath a guy in a German flight suit, whose hands were bound behind his back. What appeared to be LeBeau's scarf was tightly knotted behind his head, covering his eyes, and he was making a commendable but futile effort to either remove it or possibly rub his head, groaning. Meanwhile, Newkirk descended the last rungs. Relief flooded his face when he saw Kinch.

"Good to see you, mate. Blimey, what a night."

"It's only two in the morning, Newkirk," said Kinch, taken aback by his friends' state. Aside from the German, who only had bits of leaves and things stuck on his face and his flight suit, they were all drenched, covered in mud and scratched and bruised all over. Carter's jacket was in tatters, and Newkirk's clothes had a singed look. Some of the hair of the back of his head curled up a little. "What happened?"

"Bad luck, mostly. Look what we picked up on the way, though."

Kinch grabbed the German pilot to get him off Carter and LeBeau, who were stirring, and sharply instructed him in his language to shut up and stay still. The prisoner froze instantly.

It didn't take very long for Carter and LeBeau to come to. When they did, they looked like they very much regretted leaving the happy land of Unconsciousness.

"J'ai un de ces mal de crâne," muttered LeBeau. "Je te retiens, Newkirk! Bon Dieu, mais qu'est-ce qui t'a pris de le lâcher, le Boche?"

Carter, who still appeared a little dazed, was much more laconic but no less meaningful.

"Ow."

"You think it was easy, holding the blighter up with one hand while I made sure the Krauts wouldn't spot the tunnel entrance?" Newkirk immediately retorted. "Guess what, mate, it's not."

LeBeau glared at him blearily, and was about to reply something undoubtedly unpleasant, but was interrupted by a great big sneeze. Kinch threw both of them a Look.

"Stop it, you two. Carter, you okay?"

"Sure," said Carter in a voice that was still a bit too faraway for Kinch's liking.

"How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Aw, come on, Kinch, I didn't get knocked out that bad."

"How many, Carter?"

"… Five. No, wait, four."

Kinch looked at his index and middle finger, and sighed.

"Right. Go on up, I'll get the medic to check you out. All three of you," he added with a pointed glance at Newkirk and LeBeau, who were shivering. "What did you do, went for a swim in the river?"

"Well, no," said Newkirk. "That would have been stupid of us, wouldn't it?"

"Then why …?"

"We fell in a pond."

"We fell," LeBeau pointed out, looking marginally less grumpy. "Newkirk jumped."

"'Cause he was on fire at the time," said Carter helpfully, as though that explained everything instead of raising even more questions. Kinch felt a sudden urge to rub the bridge of his nose.

"Okay. Stop. You'll be better off in dry clothes. Just give me a second –"

He walked over to the German and told him in no uncertain terms that the war was over for him, that he was now a prisoner, and his future would be much brighter if he cooperated completely. As in, he would actually have one.

Kinch finished by demanding said prisoner's name, and the German mumbled sullenly, "Leutnant Richter. Fritz – äh, Friedrich – Richter."

"Well, what do you know, guys," said Carter with a half smile, "his name really is Fritz after all."

Newkirk and LeBeau gave him singularly similar looks.

"Great. That would have kept me up tonight for sure if –" Newkirk was interrupted by the clatter of the bunk bed rising. Five seconds later, Colonel Hogan was standing in the tunnel, two mugs of coffee in hand, surveying his troops with a rare bemused expression.

"What …?"

Newkirk, Carter and LeBeau all started to explain at the same time.

"You see, there was this fog –"

"– Then the plane fell on us!"

"… Fire all over the place, sir, I swear that bloody pond saved my life –"

"– I almost drowned, but then Carter pulled me out."

"We did get Carter back, though, he was all tangled up in brambles –"

"… But the pilot got the jump on us, knocked Newkirk out real bad –"

"Patrol turned up, shooting everywhere –"

"Can you believe Newkirk dropped that Boche on us!?"

"… And I'm pretty sure Kinch wasn't holding up four fingers. … What?"

For once, Hogan looked completely dumbfounded. It was so unusual that, for a second, Kinch seriously considered snapping a picture to immortalise the moment. Which, Hogan being Hogan, naturally didn't last.

"Well," he said with a smile, "looks like you fellows had an interesting trip back."

The offhand quip drew completely unexpected reactions from the trio. Newkirk looked uncomfortable, LeBeau stared at Hogan with a startled expression, and Carter frowned in an almost reproachful way.

"Think we'll all be very happy if we don't hear that word again tonight, Guv'nor. For … some reason."

"Forget tonight, I don't want to hear it ever again! … Or at least not before a month."

"You know, sir, those times when you say, 'At least it's not raining', and then it starts raining right away? Well, it was like that, except with a plane crash, and fire, and really really cold muddy water, and people shooting at us."

They gave vague, half-hearted salutes and squelched off to the bunk bed entrance, leaving a completely nonplussed Kinch (and Hogan) behind, trailing muddy footprints all the way.

"Kinch," said Hogan after a little while, "you don't believe in jinxes, do you?"

"No, sir."

"Good."

"Then again …"

"What?"

Kinch cast a thoughtful glance at the trussed-up, gagged German in the corner, then up at the now closed tunnel entrance, and finally at his CO.

"Just be careful next time you want to say 'What could possibly go wrong?' before a mission, even if it looks pretty simple. You know, just in case."

THE END

Notes/Translations:

J'ai un de ces mal de crâne: "I've got one (heck) of a headache"

Je te retiens, Newkirk! Bon Dieu, mais qu'est-ce qui t'a pris de le lâcher, le Boche?: "I won't forget this/Dammit, Newkirk! What the hell were you thinking of, letting go of that Kraut?"

For the record, I don't believe in jinxes, and I don't think Kinch does, either. But after a particularly spectacular bad day (or night, in this case), it's so, well, tempting to think that some phrases were just tempting fate …

Hope you liked! Have a good New Year's Eve :o)