Great story! I LOVE hearing how Carter, Newkirk, and LeBeau become good friends. Supporting Carter and listening to his nightmare was a wonderful start to friendship. I liked how all three of them sat together on Carter's bed while they talked...they were literally getting closer; Newkirk & LeBeau were still closer friends, so they sat next to each-other. Activities like this will bring them closer together. Thanks for the cute, fun story!

Just wonderful:-)
Mrs Px

I love this story. The friendship between Carter, Newkirk and Le Beau is great. I think you write them all so well.

What I wouldn't give to see that expression on LeBeau's face. Oh, Carter, you adorkable pyro.

Thank you so very much for this story of the beginning of the most beautiful friendships of the show (if you ask me anyway). It is truly touching, seeing how they all were back then, yet still cared about each other and helped each other through the rough and enjoyed each other in the smooth. :)

Excellent! A delightful tale.

I really enjoyed your story. I've had a couple of up close and personal experiences with elephants and found them to be intelligent and gentle creatures but I also think that their attitudes depend largely on the individual elephant, just like with people. Some are nice and some are cross.

Laughed SO hard at the "I think it would have been even better with a little ketchup." line and imagining LeBeau's expression! Thanks for writing and posting!

Awwwww. I love Newkirk and Carter bonding time. Its so cute! With a bit from our favourite Frenchman .

And more so with the way you've written it! Loved this, so thank you very much :D

Aza
XX

This is such a lovely portrait of the beginnings of a friendship, how Newkirk is shrewdly judging what he’s seen of Carter in the past few days and responding with both the compassion that’s natural to his character and the tough-guy front he covers it up with. I really liked how you set the stage by showing Newkirk’s conflicted feelings about staying in Stalag 13 near the beginning of the story. The description of the sleeping men’s sounds was a great slice-of-life detail to add in too, something the guys would all be very much aware of. I was particularly impressed with the dream that you came up with for Carter: most dreams in stories have either too much or not enough sense to them, but this one seemed real in the way that it addressed Carter’s very natural anxieties. I also liked the way he was thinking about home rather than more recent likely traumas, which you later reinforced through Newkirk and Carter’s fears for family and friends in their homes. The idea of all three guys curled up on the bunk together was hilarious, but it’s set up quite convincingly. (But bedsprings on those wooden bunks? I think you mean wood slats…) Carter’s comments about his grandparents offer intriguing backstory hints too. You have some lovely little lines: it’s a small point, but I liked Newkirk’s inward comment that they’re all foreigners in this place. I think that one hit me because it’s a story about how they become less foreign to each other. And of course, the way you cap the story with LeBeau’s satisfaction with Carter’s appreciation of the dinner he made, followed by Carter’s naïve addition, and Newkirk’s reaction – all that was equally priceless!

I love your opening quote.
Yeah, comments about his Sioux ancestry would be confusing if you didn't know.
Oh...my...gosh! I'm gasping right now (Allergies turn laughter into suffocation.) Ketchup! Priceless! Oh, Carter, so endearingly innocent.
Very nice. Very nice.

"And if an elephant turns up," said LeBeau with one of his unique wide grins, "Kinch will alert us before it comes, the colonel will come up with a plan to get rid of it, Newkirk will pick its pockets and I'll cook it in a ragoût. I wonder which wine goes with elephant meat …"

brilliant. and then this:

"I think it would have been even better with a little ketchup."

Carter's grandparents. I think there is another story there.

Great story!

Great story! Thanks for sharing it (; I wouldn't have known it was translated if you hadn't said. It was great!

"And if an elephant turns up," said LeBeau with one of his unique wide grins, "Kinch will alert us before it comes, the colonel will come up with a plan to get rid of it, Newkirk will pick its pockets and I'll cook him in a ragoût. I wonder which wine goes with elephant meat …"

Delicious ;). Fantastic friendship story, thank you so much!