Hart’s War

Chapter Eight

Tommy took two dozen fast strides forward, sprinting furiously, then threw himself up against the wall of Hut 102, breathing hard, pushing his back stiffly to the wooden frame of the building, trying to meld together with the hard boards.

He watched as the searchlight's beam danced away from him, erratically poking and probing the corners and edges of the huts, like a dog sniffing for some prey at the fringe of some tangled briars. The searchlight seemed to him to be alive, tinged with evil. He inhaled sharply as the beam hesitated at the roofline of an adjacent hut, then, instead of proceeding toward more distant barracks, inexplicably began to sweep back toward him, abruptly retracing its steps. He shrank back in sudden fear, frozen in position, unable to move, as the light crept steadily toward him, closing in on him inexorably. The beam was perhaps three feet away, malevolent, searching as if it somehow knew he was there, but unsure of precisely where, in some deadly version of the children's game of hide-and-seek, when he felt Scott's hand suddenly seize his shoulder and savagely drag him down.

Tommy dropped to the cold earth, and felt himself being pulled back into a small depression next to the hut. He scrambled backward, crablike.

"Head down," Scott whispered urgently.

As he buried his face in the dirt, the searchlight passed across the building above them. Tommy squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the whistles and shouts from the goons in the tower manning the light. For an instant, he thought he could hear the unmistakable sound of a round being chambered in a rifle then there was silence.

Gingerly he raised his face from the dust, the dry, musty taste lingering on his lips. He saw the beam of light had swept away, across a nearby roof, probing the distance, as if hunting for some new quarry.

He let his wind out slowly, making a sighing sound. Then he heard

Scott beside him, speaking softly in a voice that clearly made its way past a grin: "Well, that was goddamn close."

He pivoted, just able to make out the black airman's shape prone in the dirt beside him.

"Gotta move a little faster when trouble starts coming in your direction," Scott whispered.

"Good thing you weren't in a fighter. Hart. Stick to bombers, nice and steady and solid bombers. Don't need to react quite so quickly in bombers.

And maybe when you get back to the States you better stick to non contact sports, too. No football, no boxing for you. Golf would be good. Or fishing. Or maybe just read a lot of books."

Tommy frowned. He felt a sudden surge of competitiveness within him.

In prep school and then as an undergraduate, he'd been an excellent tennis player. And growing up in Vermont, he'd learned to be an expert skier. He wanted to say something about the capacity to stand on the lip of some snow-covered ridge, cold wind cutting through woolen clothing, staring down the side of some steep trail, and the abandon that he would call up from deep within to launch himself over the edge and down. He thought it took a different sort of recklessness and bravery. But he knew it wasn't the same as climbing into the ring to face down another man bent on harm and hurt, the way Lincoln Scott had.

That was something more primal, and he wasn't sure he could do that.

He thought suddenly that there were many questions about himself that needed answering, and that he had postponed asking almost every one of them of himself.

"You gonna be okay. Hart?" Scott asked sharply.

"I'm fine," Tommy replied, shaking the questions from his imagination.

"A little spooked. That's all."

Scott hesitated, still slightly amused, then added: "All right, counselor. Lead the way. Tight formation. Wing to wing."

Tommy scrambled to his feet, regaining his bearings. He took a long, slow breath of the nighttime air, like inhaling black vapors, and realized that it had been almost two years since he'd been outside of the hut in the dead of midnight.

Prisoner-of-war camp demanded the most simplistic of routines: Lights out shortly after dark. Go to bed. Go to sleep. Fight off nightmares and sleep terrors. Wake up at dawn. Rise. Be counted. Do it all again.

In his months inside Stalag Luft Thirteen there had been perhaps a dozen nighttime air raids close enough for the camp sirens to be sounded, but the Germans hadn't provided any bomb shelters inside the wire, nor had they allowed the men to construct any, so prisoners weren't scrambled out into the dark to seek protection from their own high in the air above them. Instead, at the first alarm, the Germans merely sent ferrets through the camp rapidly padlocking the doors to each hut. Their fear was that kriegies would try to use a raid as a diversion to escape, and in this they were probably correct.

There were always some prisoners willing to risk everything on a whim.

Escape was a powerful narcotic. The men addicted might use any advantage available even when they understood that no one had as yet been successful at escaping from Stalag Luft Thirteen. The Germans knew this, and locked the doors as the sirens sounded. So the airmen waited out the approaching deep whomp-whomp-whomp of bombs in silence and near-panic inside their huts, knowing that any one bomb in the arsenals that they themselves had once carried through the sky could level any of the flimsy wooden huts with ease, killing everyone inside almost as an afterthought.

Tommy did not know why the Germans didn't lock them into the huts every night. But they didn't. Probably because they would have had to lock down every window as well, which would have taken hours to accomplish.

And then the kriegies would have constructed false doors and escape hatches to give themselves access to the night. So during a raid the doors were locked and the windows left open, which made no real sense.

Tommy always supposed that had bombs actually started to fall on the camp, there was no way of telling what the kriegies would do, so he believed the exercise of locking the doors was actually useless. Still, the Germans did this, without explanation. Tommy presumed there was some stiff and inviolable Luftwaffe regulation they were following, even if it made utterly no sense.

His eyes slowly adjusted to the night surrounding him.

Shapes and distances that were so familiar in the daytime sluggishly took on form and substance. Black silence enveloped him and he became aware of Scott's steady breathing at his side.

"Let's move," the Tuskegee airman urged softly, but insistently.

Tommy nodded, but took one long look up into the sky above them. The moon was nearly full, shedding helpful sheets of wan light over their course, but what he looked for were the stars. He counted the constellations, recognizing forms in the familiar arrangements above, warmed to the great swath of filmy white that was the Milky Way. It was, he thought, like seeing an old friend approaching in the distance, and he half-raised a hand as if he were about to wave a greeting. He realized that it had been months since he'd stood outside in night's quiet and read the heavens above. He reminded himself that he was the navigator, and with a long, last glance at the blinking dots of light above, he darted forward, heading toward the Abort.

The two men zigzagged from shadow to shadow, moving swiftly toward the distinct joined odors of lime and waste emanating from the Abort. The familiar, musty smell that to the men in their prior lives might have been overwhelming and disgusting was, to the kriegies, as routine as bacon frying on a Sunday morning back home.

Their feet made padding sounds against the damp earth.

They did not talk until they reached the entrance to the Abort, where

Tommy hesitated, kneeling down in a spot of greater darkness, letting his eyes penetrate the night around them, searching for the next move.

"Where to, counselor?" Scott said under his breath.

"What are you looking for?"

Tommy narrowed his eyes, thinking hard. After a moment, he turned and whispered to Scott.

"You're the strong man. All right. Imagine you've got to carry Vincent Bedford. Fireman's carry, over your left shoulder. He weighs what? One fifty-five? One sixty?"

"One sixty, maybe one seventy, max. He was a skinny little bastard.

But he ate better than the rest of us. A middleweight."

"Okay. One seventy. But deadweight. How far can you carry that body,

Scott? Left shoulder."

"I wouldn't use my left shoulder…"

"I know that."

In the darkness, he could see the fighter pilot's head nod in comprehension.

"Not too far. Probably farther than you might think, because the killer's adrenaline would be pumping something furious. But still, not too far. It's not like carrying some buddy whose life you want to save. So, maybe a hundred yards. A little more or maybe a little less, depending on how nervous you are."

Tommy measured to himself. He started to calculate an equation, using distance, factoring in the sweep of the searchlights and proximity to the huts. There was a spot, he thought, close enough so that it would be this Abort that the killer chose, and not one of the others. And a route to the Abort that provided some safety.

He nodded his head, but thought the why of the murder still eluded him.

"He needs to avoid the searchlight and the goons by the wire and not make a sound that might wake up some kriegie, and this is where he ends up. So where do we go, lieutenant?"

Tommy said.

"Give me your best guess."

Scott hesitated for a second, his head pivoting, surveying the darkness ahead of them, then he whispered, "Follow me."

Without waiting for an acknowledgment from Tommy, the black airman darted across the alleyway between the two huts, past the entrance to the Abort. Working his way slowly, staying close to the wall of Hut

102, he maneuvered to the end of the building. Tommy jogged to keep pace.

From where they were standing in the shadows, both men could see the wire, thirty yards ahead, sweeping away from them, angled out to enclose the exercise and assembly areas.

A guard tower rose up in the pitch black, another fifty yards distant.

In the moonlight they could see the profiles of a pair of goons, on the platform. Tommy knew the tower contained both a searchlight, now shut off, and a thirty-caliber machine gun. He shuddered. He was about to speak when Lincoln Scott filled in his very words, spoken in a whisper.

"Not this way. Not with those Krauts up there. Too risky."

From somewhere in the darkness, a Hundfuhrer's dog barked once, only to be shushed by his handler. The two Americans shrank back against the wall.

"The other way, then," Tommy said.

"Longer, but…"

"… safer," Scott finished.

He immediately began working his way back to where they had started.

Moving quietly, it took the two men almost a minute to reach the front of Hut 102. To their left, across the open space of the yard, were the stairs to Hut 101, which they'd exited earlier.

Lincoln Scott took a single step out toward the stairs to Hut 102, then immediately shrank back. His movement caused Tommy Hart to hug the wall, and within seconds, he saw why: The searchlight that had dogged them at the start of their excursion was playing about, erratically lighting up the corner of another hut a short distance away.

The same damn problem as at the other end. Tommy thought abruptly. He could feel his breathing coming in short, wheezy gasps. The searchlight was death. Maybe not certain death, but possible death, and he hated it with a sudden and total anger.

He knelt down, watching it sweep across the distance, cutting through the darkness like a sabre.

Scott lowered himself beside Tommy.

"I doubt he came this way, either," he said.

"Not weighed down and carrying a body."

Tommy half-turned, staring down the black corridor toward the Abort.

"I don't think he was killed anywhere here. Too much noise. Too close to all the windows. If Vic shouted, even just once, someone would hear him. They could hear a fight, too. But the problem is, I don't see how you could carry a body around either end of the building. So, how the hell does it get here?"

"Maybe he didn't carry it around," Scott said quietly. "You know, the same problem exists for any of the escape committee men or the tunnelers-anyone in Hut 101 who needs to be out and somewhere else at night, right?"

"Right," Tommy said, starting to think.

"Well, that means there's another route. One that only a few folks know about," Scott said.

"Only the men who need it."

Scott craned his head past Tommy. He lifted his hand and pointed back down the length of Hut 102. "There's a crawl space," he said, still keeping his voice soft.

"There's got to be. A way to pass completely under this hut, come out on the other side…"

Scott didn't continue. Instead he started to creep back the length of the hut, peering under the edge of the building. At the fourth window, shuttered above their heads, he suddenly ducked down and whispered sharply, "Follow me. Hart."

With those words, the black airman abruptly wiggled beneath the lip of the hut, his legs and feet disappearing as if they'd been swallowed up by the earth.

Tommy dropped to the hard ground, bending over, staring underneath Hut 102. For an instant he could detect just the slightest sensation of movement in the utter darkness beneath the barracks and he realized that it was Scott worming his way beneath the floorboards. The narrow blackness of the space under Hut 102 was enveloping. He inhaled sharply, reeling back a step, almost as if the emptiness of the space had reached out and grabbed at him. His heart started to race and he felt a sudden heat on his forehead. He gasped again, almost as if it were hard to breathe, and he told himself: You can't go in there.

He would not give a word to the terror that swept over him.

It was deep, rooted hard within his heart and reaching down into the pit of his stomach, where it twisted and clenched at his guts. He shook his head. Not a chance, he said. Not under there.

He forced himself to look again into the crawl space and saw that Scott had traversed the breadth of the barracks and emerged on the far side.

There was just enough moonlight for Tommy Hart to make out the distant exit. A skinny passageway that unless you were looking for it wouldn't be noticed.

The hut was probably not more than thirty feet from side to side, but to Tommy this seemed an impossibly long road. He shook his head again, but penetrating past the voice within him that refused to follow was Scott's urgent whisper: "Come on. Hart! Damn it! Hurry up!"

He told himself: It's not a tunnel. It's not a box. It's not even underground. It's just a tight fit with a low ceiling. In the daylight, it wouldn't be a problem. Just like crawling under a car to work on a transmission.

He heard again, more insistent: "Come on. Hart! Let's go!"

Tommy realized it was his idea to be out of the bunk rooms at midnight.

He realized that searching for the murder location at night was his idea. Everything was his idea. He realized that this was something he had to do, and so, trying feverishly to clear his mind of all fears and tremors, locking his eyes on the distant exit, he thrust himself under the building, crawling rapidly with a desperate man's urgency.

He scrambled forward, pawing at the loose dirt beneath the hut. His head bumped against the flooring above him, but he pushed ahead, feeling the first awful taste of panic rise in his throat, threatening to freeze all his muscles. For an instant, he thought he was lost, that the exit had disappeared.

He imagined he was drowning and he struggled against the wave of fear.

He lost track of time, unable to tell whether he'd been in the passageway for seconds or hours, and he started to cough and choke as he scrambled ahead. He could feel the panic taking him over, thought that he was going to pass out and then he burst through, rolling forward, only to be grabbed by Scott, and pulled to his feet.

"Jesus, Hart!" the black airman whispered.

"What the hell's the matter?"

Tommy gasped for breath, like a man rescued from wildly tossed seas.

"Can't do it," he said slowly.

"Not in enclosed spaces.

Claustrophobia. Just can't do it."

His hands were shaking and sweat streaked down his face.

He shivered, as if the night had suddenly turned cold.

Scott draped an arm around Tommy's shoulder.

"You're okay," he said.

"You made it. It wasn't that bad, huh?"

Tommy shook his head.

"Never again," he said.

Breathing in harshly, he picked up his head and surveyed the darkness around them. It was like being in another world, to suddenly arrive in the alleyway between two unfamiliar huts. Though there was little difference in reality, it seemed to be odd, unique. He swept his eyes down the corridor.

And then he saw what he thought he needed to see.

The huts had been laid out in typical German regimentation, row upon row. But Hut 103 had been angled slightly nearer the end of Hut 102.

The stump of a large tree that had been cut when the campsite had been cleared had not been removed, and the building had been pushed closer to the adjacent hut. The narrowing V shape caused by the odd convergence of the two huts created a darker, shadowy spot. He pointed in that direction.

"Down there," he said.

"Let's go."

The two men maneuvered down the length of the barracks once again until they reached the end. He saw that there was some cultivated earth, and he just made out the shapes of some garden plants. But the area was far blacker, protected from the night better than the ends of the other huts. The roofline cut off the moonlight. The narrowing space seemed to defy the searchlight, which lingered on an opposite hut's roof, spreading some light in the alleyway, but creating many deep shadows as well. And the wire, with its perimeter guards and goon tower, was pushed out to accommodate another series of tree stumps. This made him pause, for he realized that in the day, the same spot would receive less sunlight. And this made it an odd location for any kriegie to place a garden.

Tommy considered. An easy place to wait hidden. A quiet place. Very dark. He walked forward, then turned, realizing that he was concealed by the darkness, while anyone making their way down the alleyway would be outlined against distant searchlights. He nodded slowly to himself, and spoke directly to his own imagination. A spot, he told himself, that provided much of what a killer needed.

Tommy felt a rush of excited satisfaction, though one lingering question plagued him, and dampened his enthusiasm: Why would Trader Vic have stepped into that particular darkness?

What had drawn him to that spot, where a man with a stiletto was waiting for him to turn his back?

Something had beckoned Vincent Bedford to the juncture of the two huts.

Something he thought was safe. Or profitable.

Either was a possibility with Trader Vic. But it was death that had waited there for him.

Tommy slowly turned, staring at the huts around him. He dropped to one knee, feeling the clumps of dirt of the garden.

And why would he have to be moved after he was killed? It would be far less of a risk for the killer to simply leave Bedford's body where the killing took place. Unless there was something nearby that he did not want to draw attention to.

"What do you think?" Scott whispered.

"This the place?

Sure seems like about the best place to do someone real quiet like, "I think I'll make a point to come back in the daylight," Tommy replied, as he nodded his head.

"See what I can see. But I'd say this spot's a good candidate for the murder location."

"Then let's get the hell out of here."

Tommy rose.

"All right," he said. But as he took a step forward, Scott suddenly grabbed his arm.

Both men froze.

"What?" Tommy whispered.

"I heard something. Quiet."

"What?"

"I said' Quiet Both men slipped back to the wall of the hut, squeezing hard against it. Tommy held his breath, trying to erase from the night even the noise of his own wind. And into this silence, he heard a thudding sound. Unmistakable but quick, and he couldn't make out where it came from. He slowly exhaled, and heard a second noise, almost a scraping or rustling sound. He bit down hard on his lip.

Scott tugged at Tommy's sleeve. He held a finger over Tommy's mouth to signal silence, then gestured for Tommy to stay close. The black airman then started to move, catlike, graceful, but with an undeniable urgency, through the darkness of the alleyway. Tommy thought Scott seemed to be well educated in the ability to move silently. He tried to keep pace, stepping forward as softly as he could manage, hoping his footsteps would be muffled against the surrounding night.

But every motion he made seemed to him to be a racket.

He could feel his pulse racing, and he pivoted his head, searching the darkness for the source of the sounds that trailed them. Every shadow seemed to move, every slice of nighttime held some form that eluded distinction. Each drop of blackness seemed to mask a gesture that threatened them.

Tommy thought he could hear breathing, then he thought he could hear boots tramping in the nearby exercise yard, then he realized he could hear nothing for real, save the nasty fear-noise of his own heart pounding away within his chest.

They reached the crawl space and Tommy's hands started to shake. Acid bile filled his dry throat and he wasn't certain that he could speak.

Scott paused, bending toward Tommy, cupping his hand around his ear and whispering.

"I'm pretty damn sure someone's back there following us. If it's a Kraut, we can't show him the passageway beneath the hut. They figure out that kriegies are using the crawl space and they'll dump concrete in there tomorrow. Can't do that. We're gonna have to try to make it around the front. Dodge the searchlight."

Tommy nodded, an odd wave of relief coursing through him as he recognized he wouldn't have to traverse the passageway again. And with that relief came the understanding that Scott's observation was correct. Tommy thought that at least Scott was still thinking like a soldier. But at that moment, he didn't know what frightened him more: being forced to crawl beneath Hut 102 or trying to elude the searchlight or waiting for whoever was following them through the darkness to emerge. They all seemed equally evil.

"But maybe it's one of our guys," Scott whispered.

"And maybe that's worse…" He let his words trail off into the slippery cool air.

With a single glance backward into the void behind them, Scott crept forward to the front edge of Hut 102. Tommy followed on his heels, tossing his own gaze backward once or twice, imagining forms darting through the black night behind them. At the front of the hut, Scott bent down and peered around the edge.

Almost immediately, the black flier pivoted toward Tommy.

"The light's pointing away!" he said, his voice still barely above a whisper but with the demands of a shout.

"We go, now!"

Without hesitating, Scott burst around the corner, dodging the stairs to Hut 102, arms pumping, flat out sprinting for the door to Hut 101, like a halfback who spots a hole in the line.

Tommy had launched himself directly behind Scott, moving rapidly, although not quite able to keep pace with the black flier. He saw the searchlight's beam cutting through the night away from them, blessing them with the same darkness that had seemed a moment earlier to be filled with terrors. Then he saw Scott take the steps up to their barracks in a single leap, grabbing at the door handle and jerking the door open.

As the searchlight abruptly changed direction, and began to race across the dirt ground and wooden huts toward him, Tommy pushed himself forward, flying the last few feet through the air a step ahead of the light, tumbling through the open door. Scott dragged the door closed as he fell to the floor inside the hut, next to Tommy. There was an instant halo of light that passed over the exterior of Hut 101, then proceeded on, oblivious to their presence inside the door.

Both men were quiet, their breath coming in rapid, spasmodic bursts.

After close to a minute, Scott lifted himself up on one elbow. At the same time, Tommy felt around for the candle he'd left behind, then found a match in his shirt pocket. The match flickered as he struck it against the wall and the candle threw weak light on the black airman's grin.

"Any more adventures planned for this evening. Hart?"

Tommy shook his head.

"Enough for tonight."

Scott nodded, still grinning.

"Well, then, I'll see you in the morning, counselor."

He laughed. His teeth flashed as they reflected the candlelight.

"I wonder who it was that was out there with us? A Kraut?

Or maybe someone else?" Scott snorted.

"Kinda makes one wonder, don't it?" Then he shrugged, rose to his feet so that he loomed up over Tommy and, slipping out of his flight boots, padded off down the corridor without speaking another word.

Tommy reached down to pull his own boots off, wondering the same thing.

Friend or foe? And which was which? As he tried to unlace the shoes, he discovered his hands were still quivering, and he had to take a minute to get them under control.

It was a fine morning, warm, filled with springtime promises, with only a few billowy white clouds scudding across the distant horizon like sailboats on a faraway sea-the sort of morning that made the war seem distant and illusory. It seemed to affect the Germans, as well; they completed the morning count rapidly, dismissing the men with more than the usual quick efficiency. The kriegies dispersed throughout the camp lazily, some men gathering into knots and just idly standing about smoking in the assembly yard discussing the latest war rumors, gossiping, and telling the same jokes they had already told day in and day out for months and sometimes years. Others picked up and formed the ubiquitous baseball game. A number of men stripped off their shirts and moved chairs out into the sunshine to bathe in the warmth, and others started walking the wire, like strolling through a park, although the sun glistened off the barbed wire to remind them where they were.

As he expected. Tommy Hart saw Lincoln Scott quick-marching from the assembly ground and entering Hut 101 alone, looking neither to right nor left, to return to his room, his Bible, and his solitude. Then Tommy started to retrace their steps from the midnight before.

He tried not to attract any attention to himself, though he realized, ruefully, that by behaving in such an obviously nonchalant manner he was undoubtedly more noticeable rather than less. But there was nothing he could do about this. He moved slowly, almost as if absentmindedly. He ignored the crawl space under the fourth window of Hut 102, fighting off the urge to inspect it during the daytime. He had a lingering question or two about that passageway, but he had not fully formulated the questions in his mind. Only that, like so many things, something struck him as oddly out of place. There was some connection, some linkage that he didn't fully comprehend, he thought.

In addition, he did not want anyone to know that he and Scott had located this route beneath the huts.

So he made his way slowly around the front of Hut 102, scuffling his feet in the dirt, occasionally pausing to lean up against the building and smoke, turning his head toward the sunshine. In the daytime, the distance seemed benign. He swallowed hard against a chill that passed through him as he remembered the race against the searchlight from the previous night.

It took a few lazy minutes before he turned and started to travel quickly down the alleyway formed by the juncture of the two barracks.

In the daytime, the V caused by the tree stump was even more pronounced, and he was surprised that he'd never noticed it before.

Tommy paused before approaching the spot at the end of the two huts. He turned around sharply, trying to see if he was being watched, but it was impossible to tell: There was a kriegie on a stoop, darning socks, the needle reflecting the sunlight as he pulled it through the wool; another was leaning in a spot of sunshine, reading a tattered paperback book with seeming intensity. Two men near the front of Hut 103 were idly tossing a softball back and forth, and three other men a few feet distant were engaged in some debate that seemed to require much gesturing and laughter. Other men wandered past, some moving slowly, others rapidly, as if they had some pressing engagement; it was impossible to tell if any one of them was inspecting him. Leaning back against the wall of the hut, he lit another cigarette, trying to blend in with the camp routine as unobtrusively as possible. He smoked slowly, his eyes darting about, surveying the other men, and when he finished, he flicked the butt away. Then he abruptly turned and headed to the juncture of the two huts.

The small garden that he had just been able to make out in the dark seemed desultory and almost abandoned. There were some potatoes and some greens struggling to take root.

This was unusual: Most prisoner-of-war gardens were tended with extraordinary care and single-minded dedication; the men who tilled them were devoted to their tiny patches of dirt, not merely for the food they created, which helped supplement the meager rations culled from Red Cross parcels, but because of the great morsels of time they occupied.

This garden was different. It had a shadowy, neglected air to it. The earth was turned, but clumps of dirt hadn't been broken up. Some of the plants needed trimming. Tommy bent down, kneeling, and felt the ground. It was damp and moist, which was what he would have expected, given the lack of sunshine that filtered into the spot. There was a slight musty and rotten smell to the ground.

He stared at the brown dirt. If there had been any blood spilled here, he thought, it would have been a simple matter for the killer to return the following day and simply cultivate it into the earth. Still, he let his eyes move slowly across the plain, right to the edge of Hut 103.

Then he stopped, his heart quickening.

His eyes fixed upon a faded gray, worn wooden board, just above the ground. There was a small but substantial streak of dark brown clearly marring the wall. Almost maroon colored.

Dry, flaky.

Tommy stood up sharply. He had the presence of mind to spin about, once again checking to see if he was being observed.

His eyes inspected each of the men lingering within his sight line. It was possible, he realized, that none of them, or all of them, were keeping watch over what he was doing.

He calculated in his head rapidly, as he turned back to the small stain he'd noticed. He took a deep breath. If it was what he thought it was, and if he approached it, he knew he would be signaling something to the man who had killed Vincent Bedford, and it was not a signal, he was certain, he wanted anyone to read. There is a fine line, he thought, between defending a man by denial-by attacking the evidence against him and offering different explanations for actions-and the moment that the defense takes a different tack. Shifts its sails and sets off on the more dangerous course, where the finger of accusation is pointed at someone new. Tommy knew there were risks in stepping forward.

He glanced about, once again.

Then, shrugging inwardly, he picked his way amid the ill-tended rows of vegetables to the side of Hut 103. He knelt down, reaching for the wooden wallboard, touching the smear of dark with his fingertips.

His first touch persuaded him that it was dried blood.

Looking down, he ran his fingers through the dirt. Any other signs of death would have been absorbed, but this board had captured some. Not much, but some, nonetheless. He tried to picture the sequence at night. The man with the blade.

Vic's back turned. The swift jab, delivered assassination-style.

He thought: Vic must have jerked about and fallen, slumping in the arms of the man who killed him, bending just slightly, dripping his life away for a moment, unconscious, death hurrying to take possession of his heart.

Shuddering, Tommy turned once again to the wallboard.

He realized that the same angles that had created the darkness in the spot had also prevented the recent rain from washing away the bloodstain. This was, he thought, nastily ironic, and it filled him with a cold, harsh amusement.

For an instant, he was unsure what to do. If he'd had the Irish artist with him, he would tell him to sketch the spot. But he realized that the likelihood of him going and finding Colin Sullivan in the North Compound and then returning through the gate and finding the bloodstain untouched were slim. It was smarter to presume that someone was watching him.

So, instead, he reached down and seized hold of the board, and tugged hard. There was a cracking sound as the flimsy wood gave way.

He rose up, with the broken hunk of wood. The bloodstain was captured in the center of the board. He looked down and saw that the damage done to the wall of Hut 103 was minimal, but noticeable. He turned away, and realized that at least a dozen kriegies had stopped whatever they were doing and were regarding him intently. He hoped the curiosity in their faces was typical kriegie curiosity, driven by a fascination with anything that was even the slightest bit unusual or different, anything that might break the tedious routines of Stalag Luft Thirteen.

He shouldered the board, like a rifle, and wondered whether he had just done something terribly foolhardy and eminently dangerous. Of course, he thought to himself, that was what the war was all about: putting oneself at risk. That was what was easy. The tricky part was surviving all the chances one took.

He marched to the end of the hut and saw that one of the men playing catch with the softball was Captain Walker Townsend. The Virginian nodded at Tommy, took in the section of board slung over Tommy's shoulder, but did not interrupt his game. Instead, he reached up and plucked the softball from the air with a graceful, practiced motion. The ball made a sharp, slapping sound as it stuck in the pocket of the captain's faded leather baseball glove.

He delivered the blood-marked board to Lincoln Scott, who had looked up from his bunk with surprise and some enjoyment when Tommy entered the room.

"Hello, counselor," he said.

"More excursions?"

"I retraced our steps from last night and I found this," Tommy replied.

"Can you keep it safe?" he asked. Scott reached out and took the board out of his hands and turned it over, inspecting it.

"I guess so. But what the hell is it?"

"Proof that Trader Vic was killed between Huts 102 and 103, right where we thought. I believe that's dried blood."

Scott smiled, but shook his head negatively.

"It might be. It might also be mud. Or paint. Or lord knows what. I don't suppose we have any way of testing it?"

"No. But neither does the opposition."

Scott still regarded the board with skepticism, but at least nodded his head slightly in agreement.

"Even if it is blood, how do we prove it belonged to Bedford?"

Tommy smiled.

"Thinking like a lawyer, lieutenant," he said.

"Well, I don't know that we have to. We merely suggest it. The idea is to create enough doubt about each aspect of the case against you that the whole of their picture crumbles.

This is an important piece."

Scott still looked askance.

"I wonder whose garden that is?" Scott asked, as he gingerly fingered the ripped piece of wood, turning it over and over in his hands.

"Might say something."

"It might," Tommy acknowledged.

"Though my guess is that I probably should have found that out before drawing attention to the spot. Not a helluva big chance anyone will volunteer that information now, I would think."

Scott nodded, turned, and placed the board beneath his bunk.

"Yeah," he said slowly.

"Why should anyone help me?"

The black flier straightened up, and without warning, his jocularity fled. It was as if he'd suddenly been ripped from the abstract of his situation, back to its reality. He quickly spun his eyes around the bunk room, past Tommy, examining each of the stolid wooden walls, his prison within a prison. Tommy could sense that Scott had traveled somewhere within his head, and when he'd returned, he'd also returned to his sullen, angry, the-world-against-him attitude. Tommy did not point out that it seemed that a number of people were already helping the black flier. Instead, he turned toward the door to exit the room, but before he could step in that direction, Scott stopped him with a fierce glance and a bitter question: "So what's next, counselor?"

Tommy paused before replying.

"Well, drudge-work mostly.

I'm going to interview some of the prosecution witnesses and find out what the hell they're going to say and then go and talk strategy with

Phillip Pryce and Hugh Renaday. Thank God for Phillip. He's the one putting us ahead, I think. Anyway, once I've done that, then you and I will start preparing hard for Monday morning because I'm sure Phillip is already outlining a scenario he'll want us to follow precisely."

Scott nodded, snorting slightly.

"Somehow," he said quietly, "I don't think that it's going to work out quite as theatrically as all that."

Tommy had turned and was halfway through the door, but there was so much frustration in Scott's words that he turned and asked, "What's the problem?"

"You don't see the problem? What, are you blind. Hart?" Tommy hesitated, stepping back into the small bunk room.

"I see that we're accumulating evidence and information that should show the prosecution's efforts to be so many lies…"

Scott shook his head.

"You'd think the truth would be enough."

"We've gone over that," Tommy said with brisk finality.

"It rarely is. Not merely in a court, but in life."

Scott sighed, and drummed his fingers against the leather jacket of the Bible.

"So, we can show that Bedford wasn't killed in the Abort.

We can suggest that he was killed in a fashion resembling an assassination. We can argue the actual murder weapon wasn't the knife that was so damn conveniently planted here although we can't really explain why Bedford's or somebody else's blood was all over it. We can claim that my boots and my jacket were stolen on the night in question by the real murderer but that particular truth is going to be a hard one for any judge to swallow, huh? We can attack every aspect of the prosecution's case, I suppose. And what good does it do us? They still have the strongest piece of evidence available to them. The evidence that's going to put me in front of that firing squad."

Scott shook his head sharply from side to side.

Tommy stared at the mercurial fighter pilot and for the first time since meeting him in the cooler cell thought him to be a truly complicated man. Scott had returned to his bed, hunkered down, shoulders slumped forward. It was like the portrait of an athlete who knows that the game is lost although there is still time remaining on the clock. The score insurmountable no matter what occurs. He lifted his massive right fist and rubbed it hard against his temples. The confident adventurer of the night before, the man who rose to the hunt in the darkness and danger of the camp at night, had disappeared. The fighter pilot who had led the mission of the midnight past seemed to evaporate, replaced by a resigned, discouraged man; a man filled with strength and speed but shackled by his situation.

Tommy was struck by the thought that it seemed at least in part that history was as much a part of the case against him as was any morsel of evidence.

"What's that?" he asked.

Scott sighed slowly, then broke into a rueful smile.

"Hatred," he said.

Tommy did not reply, and so the black flier continued after a momentary hesitation.

"Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to be hated by so many men?" he asked.

Tommy shook his head.

"I didn't think so," Scott said, bitterness crawling over his words. He thrust back his shoulders, as if gaining a second wind.

"Anyway, here is what is true and what they can prove, beyond any damn reasonable doubt: I hated Bedford and he hated me and now he's dead.

That hatred is all they need.

Every witness they call, every bit of evidence no matter how faked or false or phony. Hart-will have that hatred supporting it. And every decision being made in this 'trial' we're starting on Monday, well, it has the same hatred coloring it.

They all hate me. Hart. Every one of them. Oh, I suppose there are men in the camp who maybe don't care all that much, one way or the other, and some who know that my fighter group saved their asses aloft maybe more than once, and those men are willing to tolerate me. Might even be inclined to give me the benefit of the doubt. But when you get right down to it, they're all white and I'm black, and what that means is hatred.

Why do you think it will be any different on Monday, no matter what we prove? It has never been different. Never. Not since the first slave was taken off the first slave ship in irons and put on sale in the open marketplace."

Tommy started to speak. There was something in the grandiosity of Scott's words that irritated the hell out of him, and he was eager to say it. But Scott held up his hand like a policeman on a street corner directing traffic, cutting him off.

"I'm not blaming you. Hart. And I don't think you're necessarily one of the worst, you know. And I do think you're trying your damnedest.

And I'm appreciating that. I really am. I just sometimes sit here, like this morning, and realize it ain't going to do me any damn good at all."

He smiled, shaking his head.

"So," he continued, "I want you to know. Hart, that I'm not blaming you for what happens, no matter what. I just blame all that hatred.

And you know what's almost funny? You've got it, too. You and Renaday and Pryce. Maybe not as much as MacNamara and Clark and that sorry-ass dead man, Bedford, but you've got it, somewhere inside of you, probably where you can't see it or hear it or feel it. But it's there, the exact same hatred. And I'm thinking that when it comes right down to the end of all this, that last little bit of hatred for me and the folks like me, well, it'll cause you to do something. Or not do something, it amounts to the same. Maybe not something terribly big, or seemingly important or crucial, but something nonetheless. Like not ask a key question. Not want to rock the boat. Who knows? But in the end, well, saving my sorry life and ass won't quite be worth the price you'll be asked to pay" Tommy must have appeared surprised, because Scott laughed again, still tossing his head back and forth.

"You just have to understand, Mr. White Harvard from Vermont.

It's inside you and there ain't nothing you can do about it," Scott continued, his words momentarily lapsing into a singsong yessuh-nosuh tone that mocked his situation.

"… And when the end comes, there it will be. That of' devil, hatred.

And so, you jus' won't take a step that you might have, like if I was another white man. You jus' won't have no part of doin' that, no suh…"

Scott exhaled slowly, and let his voice return to the educated flat Chicago tones with which Tommy was familiar.

"But you understand. Hart, I'm not holding this against you.

You're doing your best, and I appreciate that. At least, you think you're doing your best. It's just I understand the nature of the world. We may be locked up behind barbed wire here in Stalag Luft Thirteen, but human nature doesn't change.

That's the problem with education, you know. Shouldn't take the boy off the farm. It opens his eyes and what he sees isn't always what he might want to see. Like blacks and whites.

And what happens? What always happens. Because there isn't any piece of evidence in this entire world strong enough to overcome the evidence of hatred and prejudice."

Scott gestured toward the blood-marked board beneath the bunk.

"Especially some hunk of wood," he said. Tommy thought for a moment about the black flier's speech, then shrugged.

"I can think of one thing," he replied.

Scott smiled.

"You can? You must be a damn sight smarter than I thought. Hart. What might that be?"

"Someone else hated Trader Vic more than you did. All we have to do is find that particular hatred. Someone hated Vic enough to kill him, even here."

Scott leaned back on his bed, bursting into laughter.

"Well, Hart," he said, his chest expanding and his voice loud.

"You're right, I guess. But it seems to me, in this war, murdering one another's about the easiest damn thing we do. And I'm not all that sure it all the time has a whole lot to do with hatred. More often than not, it seems to have more to do with convenience" Scott spoke this last word with sarcastic emphasis, before continuing.

"But what you say has possibilities. Even if they are unlikely ones."

Lincoln Scott stretched again, like a tired man. Then he slowly rose to his feet and walked over to Tommy Hart.

"Stick out your hand. Hart," Scott said abruptly.

Tommy held out his arm, thinking that it was an odd moment for Lincoln Scott to want to shake hands. But this wasn't what Scott did. Instead, he simply poised his own hand next to Tommy's. Black and white.

"See the difference?" Scott asked.

"I don't know what we can say that's going to make anyone in that courtroom forget it. Not for one second. Not one lousy second."

Scott turned away, but stopped and twisted back toward Tommy.

"But trying should be fun. And I'm not the type that likes to go down without a fight, you know. Hart? You learn that in the ring. You learn it in a college classroom when you're the only Negro there and you damn well better work harder than all your white classmates if you expect not to flunk out. I learned it at Tuskegee when the white instructors washed guys out of the program guys who could fly circles around any white pilot for failing to salute them on the parade ground fast enough. And when on the night before we were to ship out to go to battle and die for our country, the good old boys in the local chapter of the Klan took it upon themselves to give us a proper southern send-off by burning a cross right outside the camp perimeter. Fairly well lit up the night, that did, because the white MPs guarding the camp didn't think it necessary to call in the fire brigade to put out the flames, which also tells you something. You learn it in a prisoner-of-war camp, too, when nigger is the first word you hear as you march through the gate, and it doesn't come out of some Kraut's mouth, either. Losing may be inevitable.

Hell, Hart, we all die sometime, and if this is going to be my time, well, so be it. But not without taking a swing or two.

Maybe throwing a punch. You see, how you retain your dignity is by fighting hard and moving forward. That's what my daddy the preacher used to say on Sunday mornings. No matter how little the step might be, keep moving forward.

Even when you know the outcome already."

"I don't presume that-" Tommy started, but Scott again cut him off.

"That's the luxury of a decidedly white attitude. My own attitude has a different color," Scott said. This time, as he turned away from

Tommy, he reached back down to the bunk for his Bible. But instead of sitting, he went over to the bunk-room window, leaning up against the wall at its side and staring out into the camp, though precisely what Scott was suddenly looking for Tommy could not tell.

There were a half-dozen kriegies waiting in the corridor outside Lincoln Scott's solitary bunk room. They straightened up as Tommy closed the door behind him, suddenly standing together, blocking his path to the outside. Tommy stopped in his tracks, eyeing the men in front of him.

"Someone got a problem?" he asked slowly.

There was a momentary silence, then one man stepped forward.

Tommy recognized him. He had been one of Trader Vic's roommates and his name was on the witness list that Tommy carried in his breast pocket.

"That would depend," the kriegie answered.

"Depend on what?"

"Depend on what you're up to, Hart."

The man stood squarely in the center of the corridor. He folded his arms across his chest But the others gathered in a phalanx behind him.

There was little doubt about me menace in their eyes, and none in the way they stood. Tommy breathed in sharply, lowering his own hands, and clenching them into fists. He told himself to keep his wits about him.

"I'm simply doing my job," he said slowly.

"What is it you're doing?"

The roommate was barrel-chested, shorter than Tommy, but with a thicker neck and arms. He was in need of a shave, and he'd pushed his slouched hat back on his head.

"What I'm doing is checking on you, Hart."

Tommy stepped forward.

"No one checks on me," he said briskly.

"Now, out of the fucking way."

The group of men tightened formation, blocking his progress. The roommate stepped directly into Tommy's path, chest pushed out, so that now the men were only inches apart.

"What was with the board. Hart? The one you ripped from Hut103?"

"My business. Not yours."

"You're goddamn wrong about that," the roommate replied.

This time he punctuated his words by stabbing a finger three times in Tommy's chest, making him step back a single stride.

"What was with the board? It got something to do with that murdering bastard that killed Vic?"

"You'll find out same time as everybody else."

"No. I think I'll find out now."

The roommate stepped forward, as did the men behind him. Tommy searched their faces. He recognized most; they were men who'd played baseball with Vic, or who'd assisted him in his trades. One of the men, hanging near the back, to Tommy's surprise, was the band leader who'd led the jazz concert at the wire for the man who'd died in the tunnel. He hadn't known that Vic was friends with any of the musicians, and this made him pause for a moment.

The roommate jabbed his finger into Tommy's chest a second time, grabbing for Tommy's attention.

"I don't hear you. Hart."

He didn't reply, but behind him, he suddenly heard the door to Scott's door swinging open. He did not turn, but he was suddenly aware of another presence behind him, and he guessed, judging from the faces of the kriegies, that Scott was approaching.

The men fell into a silence, and Tommy could hear sharp breaths of air, as men waited for something to happen. After a moment, the roommate spoke.

"Fuck off, Scott. We're talking to your mouthpiece here. Not you."

Scott was now at Tommy's shoulder. Tommy was surprised to hear both harshness and amusement in the black flier's response.

"Is there going to be a fight?" he asked almost lightly.

"Because if there is, well, I'd like that. I'd really like that, because I know who I'm taking a piece of first."

There was no immediate reply, and Lincoln Scott laughed.

"Yes, indeed," Scott said.

"I definitely think I'd like a real good fight. Even with bad odds, you know. I've been cooped up here without enough proper exercise all these weeks, and I think a fight is precisely what I need. Maybe help get some of the tension out of my system before we head to court on

Monday. I could use that. I genuinely could. So what do you say, gentlemen? Who's ready to get started?"

Again there was a momentary silence, then the roommate stepped back.

"No fight," he said.

"Not yet. Against orders."

Scott laughed again. A low, hard, even, humorless laugh.

"Too damn bad," he said.

"I was really looking forward to one."

Tommy saw some confusion mingle with anger in the face of the roommate.

What he didn't see was fear, and he thought that the man might be thinking that he was a match for the black flier.

"You'll get your chance," the man said to Scott.

"Unless they shoot your black ass first."

Before Scott could answer this. Tommy suddenly pointed at the roommate.

"You're on the damn list," he said sharply.

The man pivoted toward him.

"What list?"

"Witness list." Tommy again looked at the faces of the men in front of him. Two of the other men standing there were also among the men the prosecution was going to call. One was another roommate of the murdered captain, the other was an occupant of another bunk room in Hut

101, from down the corridor.

"You, and you, too," Tommy said briskly.

"Actually, glad you're here. You can save me some time finding you.

What are you going to testify to on Monday? I want to know, and I want to know right goddamn now."

"Screw you. Hart. We don't have to say anything," the man from down the hallway said. He was a lieutenant and had been in the bag for close to a year. Second seat on a B-26 Marauder that had been shot down near Trieste.

"That's where you're wrong, lieutenant," Tommy said coldly, endowing the word lieutenant with the same intonation that he would have attached to an obscenity.

"You are required to tell me precisely what you will testify about on Monday. If you don't believe this, then we can go and find Colonel MacNamara and he will so inform you. Of course, I would also be obligated to inform him about this little gathering here. He might conceivably also interpret it as a violation of his direct order. I don't know-" "Screw you. Hart," the man repeated, but with less conviction.

"No, screw you. Now answer the damn question. What are you going to testily to, lieutenant…"

"Murphy."

"That's right. Lieutenant Tim Murphy. I believe you come from western

Massachusetts. Springfield, if I remember correctly.

Not far from my home state."

Murphy looked away angrily.

"You have a good memory," he said.

"All right. Hart. I will be called to testify about the fight and the other confrontations between Scott, there, and the deceased. Threats and other menacing statements made in my presence. That's what these other men will be speaking to, as well. Got it?"

"Yeah, I got it." Tommy turned to the roommate.

"That correct?"

The man nodded. A third also shrugged in agreement.

"You got a voice?" Tommy asked the third flier.

"Yeah," the man said in an unmistakable flat, midwest tone.

"I got a voice. And I'm gonna use it on Monday to see his sorry ass get convicted."

Lieutenant Murphy stared past Tommy, hard at Scott.

"Isn't that right, Scott?" the man asked. The black airman remained silent, and Lieutenant Murphy snorted a mocking laugh.

"That remains to be seen," Tommy said.

"I wouldn't bet my last pack of smokes on it." This, of course, was false bravado, but it still felt good, tumbling from his mouth. He turned to the other men standing in the corridor.

"I'd like to hear all of your voices, one by one."

"What the hell for?" one of the men who'd been silent asked.

Tommy smiled nastily.

"Funny thing about voices. Once you hear one, especially a cowardly one that threatens you in the middle of the damn night, well, you're not likely to forget that, are you? I mean, that voice, those words, the sounds they make, why, they damn well are gonna stick right in the front of your head for a long time to come. And you sure as hell aren't gonna forget that voice, are you? Even if there's no clear face to assign to it, you're still not going to forget the voice."

He looked at the remaining men, including the band leader

"You have a voice?" Tommy demanded.

"No," the band leader replied. Then he and two of the other men abruptly turned and rapidly marched away down the corridor.

None of them were big men, but they still walked with distinct size and anger. And if they had an inadvertent y'all or Yankee in their language, as did the two men who'd paid him the threatening visit in the middle of the night several days past, they had not shared it with Tommy.

Trader Vic's roommate looked over at Scott.

"You'll get your fight someday," he said.

"I can promise that…"

Tommy could sense Scott coiling beside him.

"… nigger," the man concluded.

Tommy stepped forward, blocking the path of the explosion he believed was coming from Scott. He pushed his face up against the roommate's, so that they were almost nose to nose.

"There's an old saying." Tommy spoke quietly, almost whispering.

"It goes something like this: "God punishes those whose prayers He answers. "You might think about that."

The roommate narrowed his eyes for just an instant. Then, instead of answering, he grinned, stepped back a single stride, spit sharply at the wooden floor, right at Tommy's boots, and then executed a precise, military about-face and marched away down the corridor, followed by the remaining men.

Tommy watched until the door to the assembly yard opened and clattered shut as they slammed it behind them.

Scott exhaled slowly.

"I think we will fight," he said.

"Before they shoot me."

He paused, then added.

"The rest? Well, Hart, that was what I was talking about. Hatred.

Ain't nice in person, is it?"

Scott didn't wait for a reply, but disappeared back into his room, leaving Tommy alone in the corridor. Tommy leaned up against the wall, catching his breath. He felt an odd exhilaration, and was curiously flooded with a long-forgotten memory of a time right before he and his bomber group had headed overseas. They'd been flying in formation over the coast of New Jersey, on a spring day not unlike this one, steadily making their way northeast toward Boston's Hanscom Field and their jump-off place to cross the Atlantic.

They were in the lead plane, and the captain from West Texas was looking out over New York City, talking in a rapid-fire monologue, excited about seeing the skyscrapers of Manhattan for the very first time.

"Hey, Tommy," he'd called out over the intercom, "where the hell's that big of' bridge?" And Tommy had replied with a small laugh, "Captain, they've got lots of bridges here in New York and they're all big. But the George Washington? Just take a look to the north, captain.

About ten miles right up the river." There had been a momentary pause, while the captain looked, and then he'd abruptly put the Mitchell into a short dive.

"Come on, boys," he said, "let's have some fun!"

The formation had followed the Lovely Lydia down to the deck, and the next thing Tommy knew, they were flying right up the Hudson, the easygoing whitecaps of spring water glistening beneath their wings. The captain steered the entire group under the bridge, their engines echoing and roaring as they passed beneath some astonished motorists, who'd stopped in mid-span as the flight passed below them, close enough so that Tommy could see the wide eyes of one small boy who waved frantically and joyously at the bombers. The intercom was filled with the whoops and hollers of excited crewmen. The radio crackled with the shouts from the pilots of the other planes in the formation.

Everyone knew what they'd done was dangerous, illegal, and foolhardy, and they were likely to get their butts chewed out at the next checkpoint, but they were all young men who thought it still a delightfully fine and outrageous idea on a beautiful, breezy afternoon.

The only thing that might have made the dare deviltry better would have been some young women to admire it. Of course. Tommy thought, this was months before any of them knew anything about the lonely and ugly deaths that awaited so many of them.

He looked down the empty corridor of Hut 101 in Stalag Luft Thirteen and remembered that moment and wished he could feel that sort of excitement once again. Risk and joy, instead of risk and fear. He thought that was what the reality of war stole from him. The innocent chanciness of youth.

Tommy sighed deeply, shook the memory from his head, and walked down the corridor. His boots echoed in the empty space. He flung open the door, and stepped down into the dirt of the camp ground, the sunlight blinding him for an instant.

As he raised his hand to shield his eyes from the glare, he saw two men standing just a few feet apart from each other, both watching him. One was Captain Walker Townsend, who had abandoned his baseball glove. The other was Hauptmann Heinrich Visser. The two men had obviously been speaking together.

But their conversation stopped when he hovered near.