#this has been in my head ever since i heard the order of sharps acronym

[belphegor1982]

The Many Merry Majorly Mangled Demises of Major Wolfgang Hochstetter

Second and final chapter :o) (part 1 here) (the story on FFnet)

Chapter Two: Bad Decisions, Bad Lawyers, and Ballerinas

The other stories were longer, giving the men – and Hogan – things to do with their time for a week more. Which was a relief with the unholy combination of Major Hochstetter and execrable weather keeping all the prisoners in their barracks. They were used to living in each other’s pocket, but spending every minute of every day in a cramped space with no real possibility to go outside, play a sport that provided an excuse to run, or even just see the sky without standing at attention – that was hard, bordering on unbearable.

Thankfully, they not only had new reading material, which was rare enough, but a personal choice to make. Several men surreptitiously reread stories in order to be certain to cast their only vote in the right place. As a result, cabin fever didn’t sink in as much as it might have.

The list of stories (represented by numbers) pinned on the wall in Hogan’s office steadily acquired crosses. It also acquired another ‘M’ at some point, sandwiched between two at the top of the paper, making the title a mysterious ‘TMMMMDMWH’. Hogan pondered over the change in the acronym for their literary endeavour until Carter admitted to adding the extra letter.

“I thought, since Hochstetter’s a major and it’s about making sure he gets it in every kind of way possible, ‘The Many Merry Majorly Mangled Demises of Major Wolfgang Hochstetter’ would be… I dunno. Fitting? ‘Cause I really think he’s gonna get majorly mangled. That’s kind of the point, right?”

“Absolutely,” said Hogan, not certain whether ‘majorly’ was orthodox grammar but completely willing to overlook it as long as his men were happy. “That’s exactly the point, Carter. Nice touch.”

Carter smiled his lopsided grin, the one Hogan had come to associate with particularly successful explosions; it suddenly made him recall an especially messy Hochstetter death involving grenades, fireworks, and a cannon.

No need to wonder who the author was. It had been a long time since their resident mad bomber had something to blow up.

****

At long last, after one week, everybody had put a cross next to the story he preferred and the time came to compile the results and reveal the winners. The men gathered around the table and on the adjacent beds, looking eagerly at Hogan and the paper in his hands. He didn’t remember being the centre of such attention from that many men since the last time he had told them the Red Cross delivery truck would arrive on time for once.

“Right,” he began. “Here are the results of the ‘Many Merry Majorly Mangled Demises of Major Wolfgang Hochstetter’ contest.”

“‘Majorly mangled’, huh?” said Newkirk. “I like the sound of that. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke.”

“Shh, I want to know the results!”

“Yeah, who won the gold?”

Hogan gave them a look, and Newkirk, Davies and Carter fell silent. “I figured I’d go with bronze first, then silver, then gold. So the bronze goes to…”

There were a few sharp intakes of breath. Hogan suppressed a smile and said, “Story number 6. That’s the one with the woodchipper. Who wrote it?”

Olsen raised his hand amidst grins and chuckles with a broad smile.

“Congratulations, Olsen.” Hogan grinned as he handed him the story. “Care to do the honours?”

Olsen took the paper, glanced around at everyone, and read.

****

Have you ever been chased by a pack of dogs? Not much fun, right? Well, that’s why Major Hochstetter was running so fast that night. He’d already left a boot and half a pant leg in the jaws of one of the dogs and he had no intention of giving them more than that.

A raid against the Underground had gone bad. Don’t ask me how, those Gestapo guys aren’t the talkative type, and it’s very unlikely that they’d talk to me (they prefer to ask the questions, anyhow). So one of the Underground people kept a dozen dogs, probably for hunting, and he set them loose on the black uniforms before high-tailing it.

The Gestapo scattered, and for some reason, all the dogs decided to hunt them some major, and believe me, they weren’t looking to play fetch. Not that Hochstetter had the time to stop to pick up a stick, too (or his gun, wherever he had dropped it). No, he ran for his life, like he had never run before. You always run faster if there’s something chasing you, anyway. He ran, he ran, and when he couldn’t run anymore, he ran some more. Behind him, the dogs were howling, as though they sensed their prey was tiring and they would close in on it soon enough.

Salvation came with the walls of a park and a trash can; he jumped on one to climb the other. Now laugh all you want; I know Hochstetter’s no athlete, but in those kinds of circumstances anyone can do acrobatics like that. He did huff and puff like the wolf from the fairy tale, though.

The dogs were still howling, and they tried to snap at his feet, but Hochstetter was out of their reach. He stood on the stone wall, straightened his jacket and sneered at the dogs.

And then he slipped and fell off the wall.

The good news was, this was the dog-free side. The bad news, well… He fell right into a woodchipper. Woodchippers are not exactly supposed to chip people, so what followed was ugly, noisy, and messy, and made the dogs run away whimpering.

The next morning, the gardener found a finger. He sent it to the police, on the grounds that it didn’t belong to him and its owner might miss it; but nobody ever claimed it.

****

The final sentence was punctuated by applause and snickers with a few mock winces thrown in. Floyd clapped Olsen on the back, laughing, while Kinch smiled in appreciation.

“You sure didn’t do things by half, did you?” said Saunders approvingly. “A bloody woodchipper. That’s just nasty.”

“You can talk,” Olsen retorted. “I know you wrote the one where Hochstetter goes to Australia and gets bitten, stung, poisoned, and eaten. Sounds like you made up half the critters in that story.”

Saunders’ expression was undeniably proud. “What can I say, Oz puts the ‘wild’ in ‘wildlife’.”

“Yeah? Well, I’ll take my pack of dogs over your drop bears any day. And those are about the only animals that make sense.”

“Funny you should say that, because—”

“Guys,” interrupted Kinch, “later, okay? I want to know who won.”

Hogan shook his head, and announced, “The silver medal – if we had one – goes to story number 12. Who wrote ‘Hochstetter’s Trial Tribulations’?”

Baker unfolded from his chair with a smile. People clapped his back and applauded as he made his way to the head of the table.

“Nice job,” said Hogan with feeling. He handed the corresponding roll of paper to Baker, who cleared his throat and began to read.

****

They kicked in his door at three in the morning. In retrospect, Major Hochstetter should have considered this a very bad sign.

“This is ridiculous!” he bellowed when Gestapo invaded his apartment, throwing clothes and books everywhere. Then he spotted Kluglicht, his assistant, and roared, “Kluglicht! What are these men doing here?”

Kluglicht, despite his name, was not the brightest bulb in the box, which was why Hochstetter had hired him in the first place: he was too dumb to question orders. He saluted his superior and stared at him blankly for half a minute.

Then a captain stopped in front of Hochstetter’s bed and clicked his heels.

“Major Hochstetter, you are hereby charged with treason and conspiracy to assassinate the Führer. Please follow us.” He paused and sniffed. “Once you’re decent.”

Obviously, dragging a Gestapo major clad in black and white death-heads pyjamas to headquarters was not done, even if he was a suspect.

Hochstetter was so shocked he didn’t even protest. At first.

They kept him locked up for three months, or maybe two weeks. It was hard to tell, without a window. The first few days, Hochstetter heaped invectives upon invectives on his invisible jailers; then he tried to shout he was innocent, and had absolutely no part in any conspiracy against Hitler, and so on. Then he ended up pleading and begging for someone to talk to him. (It has to be said that the first time he resorted to this, he whispered so that the fewer possible people heard him, which, you must admit, kind of defeated the purpose.)

The only visit he eventually got was Kluglicht, who brought him a stale cake with a broken nail file in it.

“Sorry, Herr Major, I had to use my brother-in-law’s oven and I think the nail file broke during the baking…”

“Never mind your brother-in-law, Kluglicht,” Hochstetter snarled, happy to finally have someone to yell at. “How long have I been here for?”

“I don’t know, Herr Major, what time is it?”

“Dummkopf! Give me the date!”

Kluglicht stared at him blankly, then appeared to think. A minute later he slowly nodded.

“It’s the… 6th. Of March. Right. Because last week we were in February and now we’re in March.”

Only a few days had passed since the arrest. Hochstetter stared at him.

“Oh, and they told me to tell you that your trial begins tomorrow.”

“Splendid,” growled Major Hochstetter. “I suppose I don’t get a lawyer, do I?”

“Yes you do, Herr Major.”

“Really!?”

“I volunteered, Herr Major.”

Hochstetter sat back and stared at the wall.

“They really want me dead.”

The trial was ugly, even for Nazi Germany, where ‘trial’ is a word that makes bad people smirk and good people shake their heads. At some point during the accusation, Kluglicht lost his footing completely and yelled, “That – that ain’t true!”, at which point the prosecution roared with laughter and Hochstetter pounced on his assistant-turned-lawyer and started to throttle him. They pulled him off Kluglicht with great difficulty and attempted murder was added to the treason charges.

In the end, when he was declared guilty, Hochstetter was almost resigned to his fate. He baulked when the guards took him back to his cell and handed him a gun, though.

“What on earth am I supposed to do with this, you idiot? Shoot you and escape so you can shoot me in the back?” That was his personal experience talking. “I bet it’s not even loaded.”

“Herr Major, there is one bullet in the gun.”

Ah. That sort of escape, then.

Wolfgang Hochstetter drew a breath, cocked the gun, and shot.

He missed and took out an ear instead.

They hanged him the next day.

****

Cheers, two-tone whistling, and applause broke out after the last sentence.

“Nice one! Not very original, as deaths go, but points for style,” Newkirk called out.

“Yeah, I didn’t know you could write like that, Baker!” exclaimed Carter admiringly. Baker acknowledged the compliments with a nod and a smile, his face flushed, looking somewhat self-conscious but pleased. Hogan waited until he was back between Saunders and Addison and the noise had died down to take up the list again.

“And now, the winner of the ‘Many Merry Majorly Mangled Demises of Major Wolfgang Hochstetter’ contest – the story that got the gold. And the prize goes to—”

He was going to draw out the suspense a little bit, but was interrupted by the door opening, letting in an icy wind and a puzzled Sergeant of the Guard.

“What are you all doing?”

“Giving out Academy Awards, Schultz,” replied Hogan easily.

“What Academy?”

“Well, the Barracks Two Academy of Arts and Letters, of course. We just had a little contest and we were just about to announce who won the gold medal.”

“But you barged in before the Colonel could tell us,” said Carter in a tone that almost managed to be reproachful. “Boy, that’s rude.”

Schultz ignored Carter and peered at the paper in Hogan’s hands in a way he probably thought of as shrewd.

“A gold medal? And where did you get that, hmm?”

LeBeau rolled his eyes. “It’s a figure of speech, Schultz. It just means the story that won the contest.”

Schultz’s eyes jumped from the paper, to LeBeau, and back to Hogan. “What contest.” It hardly even sounded like an actual question.

Hogan crossed his arms and looked him in the eye. “Since the recreation hall is still closed and the Escape Committee put off escape attempts due to bad weather, we had to make our own entertainment. So we wrote a few short stories and had a little contest. What are you doing here?”

“Escape Committee. Jolly joker.” Schultz rubbed his hands then blew into his fingers before continuing. “I came here for a surprise check.”

Ah, yes. Another display of Hochstetter’s ‘ring of steel’ – surprise roll calls, random bed checks, and more or less regular head counts. The guards (Schultz in particular, since he was their own appointed barracks guard) were especially peeved about it, as it meant that not only did they have to make their rounds all day in the cold, with no possibility to take a five-minute break on a bench or take refuge in the barracks on a pretence of a chat, but all their furloughs had been cancelled. The current animosity rising against Major Hochstetter did not come from the prisoners only.

Hogan and his team had nothing going on, no reason to be down in the tunnel, not a single man missing – just as things had been for weeks. There was absolutely no reason to send Schultz on his way or distract him from counting the prisoners. Plus, just the look on his face when he realised what the overall theme of the contest had been had to have some entertainment value.

“Okay, Schultz, count all you like, we’re all here. Just let me tell the guys whose story won, and then the author can read it aloud. You can even listen to it, if you behave.”

There was a hopeful tint to Schultz’s frown.

“No monkey business?”

“None whatsoever. Just reading.”

Schultz nodded, still looking unsure. Hogan reported his attention to his list.

“And the winner of the ‘Many Merry Majorly Mangled Demises of Major Wolfgang Hochstetter’ contest is –” he ignored Schultz’s startled squeak, always surprising coming from such a large man “– ‘Hochstetter and the Junior Ballerina Corps of Bad Wiedenburg’!”

Amidst the laughter and the applause, Schultz had gone pale, round blue eyes popping out. The thought occurred to Hogan than he might have made a fine silent comedy actor, once upon a time.

“What—what—what—”

“It’s the title, Schultz, try to keep up.”

“So,” said Olsen with a laugh, “who’s the guy who put Hochstetter in a tutu? Gee, thanks for the mental image. I’ll have nightmares all night.”

Hogan went to look at the rolls of paper in the basket and picked the right one. The writing was small, slanted, and a little cramped as the writer reached the end of the page. None of the stories had been signed, but somehow, it wasn’t hard to figure out who the author had been. He had to ask, however, and did with a grin. “So who’s the author of this fine piece of literature?”

Newkirk stood up with lazy grace and gave a mock bow. The twinkle in his eyes suggested he was much happier with the results than he let himself show. Hogan swapped places with him as he picked his story, unfurled it from its roll and began to read.

“Once upon a time…”

“Oh, it’s a fairy tale?” Schultz seemed to have gotten over his initial shock and was looking around hesitatingly. “It’s harmless then. Right?”

“I dunno, Schultzie,” said Newkirk. “Is it treason to listen to a story about the death of a Gestapo major? ‘Cause that’s what this is all about.”

Hogan started counting down to the moment Schultz would hear nothing, know nothing, and hightail it out of the barracks. Five… Four… Three…

To his surprise, when Schultz came to a decision, he didn’t go to the door; instead, he sat down on Carter’s bunk and laid his rifle on his knees with an expression not unlike a cat waiting for cream.

“I know I usually see nothing, hear nothing, and know nothing, but this I think I want to hear,” he said with a wink, as though sharing something that was part big secret and part highly amusing joke. A few chuckles and snickers answered him, and Newkirk went back to his paper with a grin.

****

Once upon a time, there was a Gestapo major who was a paranoid bastard.

All Gestapo majors are paranoid bastards if you ask me, but this one was special. He wanted to do everything himself in case some nasty old Underground members got him by surprise. He cooked his own food (badly), typed his reports (took him hours), and – especially – spent his days nosing around, watching people go about their lives. If he could have got himself to watch himself, he would have done it. That’s how paranoid he was, ladies and gents (but mostly gents, unfortunately).

One day, Major Hochstetter (for such was the name of our quirky paranoid Gestapo major) got a tip that an Underground member might be hiding amidst the Junior Ballerina Corps of Bad Wiedenburg.

The Junior Ballerina Corps of Bad Wiedenburg have twenty-six girls, all between the ages of nineteen and twenty-two and a half, who are trained scrappers. They can use their feet in about forty-seven ways that no other girl between nineteen and twenty-two and a half can or should. One ballerina doing the grand jeté is able to break the noses of twelve men in twenty seconds.

Yes, they are a fearsome lot. What else do you expect from Nazis, mate?

Now, our esteemed major was in a major quandary, so to speak – but not for long.

He decided that someone should infiltrate the Junior Ballerina Corps of Bad Wiedenburg to find the mysterious Underground member.

And since he was such a paranoid bastard, he couldn’t trust anyone but himself for the task.

He had to clear with his superiors the fact that the Junior Ballerina Corps of Bad Wiedenburg would now count a member who was not, in fact, a girl between nineteen and twenty-two and a half, and was stockier and rather more hairy than the norm. His superiors thought he was a loony, so they waved him off and concentrated on something more serious, like stopping the eighty-three attempts to kill Hitler.

Major Hochstetter had trouble in the beginning, as you might guess. He only knew how to break people’s noses by punching them, or slamming them into walls; but this was ballet. You have to be graceful to do ballet dancing, even when you’re twisting a man’s arms behind his back and karate-chopping him into oblivion. Hochstetter had about as much grace as a rhinoceros stuck in a mud hole.

No, he did not break anyone’s nose with his feet, even on purpose. It takes skills and muscles he didn’t have.

But he was coming along nicely. The girls were starting to talk about letting him perform with them for the Heidelbergestburg Winterfest. He even had a lead or two as to the identity of his victim—er, suspect.

Every year, the Opera of Heidelbergestburg organised a special performance on the Heidelbergestburg Lake. It’s east of Berlin and very cold, so each winter the lake freezes over so much that a whole Panzer division can cross it on their way east (not that they do, they’re usually seen running the other way).

Hochstetter thought it the perfect time to unmask his suspect.

The upper crust sat in chairs carved in ice – because it was so chic – and applauded when the Junior Ballerina Corps of Bad Wiedenburg (plus one) skated their way gracefully (minus one) to the middle of the frozen lake. A band was playing The Blue Danube (the girls had insisted).

Hochstetter had never been on ice skates before, but he made a valiant effort. He could barely refrain from grinning, like the cat who watches the canary, knowing it will catch the bird as soon as it gets out from its cage. Between two pas de chat and just before the sauté, he caught up from the girl he suspected and whispered nastily, “I’m on to you, Fräulein.”

He really couldn’t wait for the moment when he’d arrest her, you see.

The girl only smiled and did a pirouette. Hochstetter went on with his sauté.

The finale involved him doing an arabesque while the girls formed a circle around him, but there was one problem. They did not stop at one circle.

In fact, they continued to circle him, faster and faster, until he just couldn’t move for fear of getting his face ice skated.

The leader detached herself from the group somehow, and smiled. It should have been a pretty smile, because she was such a pretty girl, but it sent shivers down Hochstetter’s spine.

She said, “You came here to find an Underground member, didn’t you, Major?”

He was scared and furious, but he nodded.

“Congratulations. You’ve found twenty-six.”

She took up her place in the circle before he had time to think of something clever to say.

When the ice broke, they all skated back, and watched him sink into the icy waters. They laughed when he cursed them, blew him kisses when he threatened them, and smiled the same smile as the cold took him and he finally went under.

There were a few bubbles, and that was it.

When his superiors heard of his death, they shrugged it off and went back to the plots against Hitler. One loony to deal with was enough.

****

“That was nice,” said Kinch after Newkirk punctuated his story with a resounding “The end”. Like the others, he was grinning from ear to ear. “Inventive.”

“Oh, Newkirk, that was wicked,” Schultz chimed in severely. The reproach in his tone quickly gave way to a smile and a twinkle in his eye. “But not bad.”

Hogan himself had enjoyed every word as well as Newkirk’s lively performance as a storyteller, and he applauded with the rest. “You really liked the idea of drowning Hochstetter, didn’t you, Newkirk?”

Newkirk’s grin would have put the proverbial cat to shame and given the proverbial canary a heart attack.

“Actually, sir, I reckon he froze to death before he drowned. But I really liked the tutu. And it’s not like he’s never danced before, is it?”

He looked pointedly at LeBeau, whose answer was a fierce glower and a muttered, “Oh, very funny. You know he almost broke my feet? I couldn’t walk normally for a week after those ‘dance lessons’1.”

“Il casse les pieds à tout le monde2,” Kinch pointed out. “Why should you be any different?”

The expression on LeBeau’s face was beautiful; there had to be a pun in Kinch’s words, Hogan thought, because it was halfway between outrage and absolute delight. If Schultz’s expression was anything to go by, he was just as confused as Hogan was – the difference being, he quickly shrugged it off, used as he was by now to not understanding the finer points of foreign languages, English or French.

“Colonel Hogan,” he said confidentially – in a stage whisper, that is, “I know I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Kommandant Klink received a phone call from Colonel Hertel two hours ago.”

“You don’t say?” said Hogan, keeping his tone light and mildly interested. Hertel was Hochstetter’s new superior, which was why he had given the go-ahead on the ‘ring of steel’ – most of the Gestapo hierarchy didn’t hide their impatience (or their disdain) of Hochstetter’s well-known Stalag XIII fixation.

“Misses his radio-detection truck, does he?” asked Newkirk. “Always knew these Gestapo blokes were the sentimental type, deep down.”

“Well – kind of. He said that since Major Hochstetter found nothing, he had a better use for the men and the equipment stationed at Stalag XIII. They leave tomorrow.”

The cheer that went up in the barracks might have been a little quieter than the receptions the winning stories had gotten, just in case, but there was a sudden definite lift in moods among the men. Hogan himself couldn’t help a smile as hope rose in his chest, like the warmth of a cup of good coffee. They would be back in business soon.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” he said to a Schultz who looked torn between fretting over the prospect of more monkey business and resigned to its (probable) inevitability. “Hey, you know what? Next time Hochstetter gets to police the camp, you’re welcome to our little writing contest. I’m curious to see what you’ll come up with.”

Schultz’s face fell. He all but fled to the door of the barracks.

“Colonel Hogan, I can listen to a story, because you were reading it and I was just there. Sometimes I don’t hear nothing. But participating? I won’t be able to say that I know nothing!”

The last word was guessed more than heard, since it was half muffled by the door closing as Schultz made a hasty tactical retreat. The news he had brought remained in the air, like a promise of better things to come.

Major Hochstetter would most likely not come to an ignominious end via frozen lake and Underground ballerinas, by shooting himself in the ear, or mauled by a pack of dogs. But Hogan swore to see to it that he would not evade judgement later, when the time came.

In the meantime, they finally had their whole range of weapons back – including, not the least, words.

THE END

Whoo-hoo! I’ve had that one in my WIPs since April 2013 – wrote pretty much the first chapter and the three contributions, then got stuck. Hope more stories will unstick like that!

Notes/Translations:

1 LeBeau having to give ‘dance lessons’ to Hochstetter is from “Six Lessons from Madame Lagrange”, in the 5th season. After rewatching though, I came to the unfortunate conclusion that Hochstetter is not shown stepping on LeBeau’s feet. Oops. (We’ll just say there’s an ellipse, won’t we.)

2Il casse les pieds à tout le monde: Taken literally, “he breaks everybody’s feet”, but it’s a figure of speech meaning “He gets on everybody’s nerves/He drives everyone up the wall”.

Thank you for reading! :o)

#Hogan's Heroes #my stuff #fanfiction