Hart’s War

Chapter Eighteen

By the time he reached the bottom of the shaft, Tommy thought he could no longer breathe. Every foot he dropped himself into the earth seemed to rob him of air, so that when finally his toes touched the hard, packed dirt twenty feet down, his breath was already coming in short, spasmodic bursts, wheezy and harsh, his chest feeling as if a giant rock were pressing down upon it.

There were two men working in a small space, almost an anteroom at the head of the actual tunnel, perhaps six feet in width and barely four feet high. Their faces were illuminated by a pair of candles mounted in emptied meat tins; the faint light seemed to struggle against the shadows that threatened to overcome the entire space. Both men wore rings of sweat around their foreheads; their cheeks were streaked with dirt and exhaustion. One man was dressed in a suit not that different from the one Fenelli wore, and he was seated behind a makeshift bellows, operating the pump furiously. The bellows made a small whooshing sound, as it pumped air up the tunnel; Tommy guessed this kriegie must be number twenty-seven. The other man wore only skivvies.

He was small, compact, and heavily muscled. It was his job to take each bucket of dirt that was passed back and climb it up the shaft for distribution.

The man in the suit spoke first. He didn't stop his pumping at the bellows, but astonishment marked each of his words.

"Hart! Jesus, buddy, what the hell are you doing here?"

Tommy peered through the flickering light and saw that the man doing the pumping was the fighter pilot from New York, the man who had helped him in the assembly yard.

"Answers," Tommy wheezed. He pointed up the tunnel.

"In there."

"You're going up the tunnel?" the New Yorker asked.

Tommy nodded.

"Need the truth." He choked out each word harshly.

"The truth is up there? About Trader Vic?"

Tommy nodded again.

The man continued to work, but looked surprised.

"You sure? I don't get it. The tunnel and Vic's death? Major Clark never said anything to anybody working this dig that Vic had something to do with this."

"All hidden," Tommy coughed out.

"All connected." It took an incredible effort for him to drag enough air past all his fear to find enough wind to speak.

"Got to go up there and get the truth."

"Well, I'll be damned," the pilot said, shaking his head back and forth. His face glistened with the effort from pumping the bellows.

"I'll say this for you, buddy. You may not find that whoever it is you're looking for is all that eager to talk. Especially with freedom only a coupla feet away."

"Got to go," Tommy repeated, "got no choice anymore."

Each word he spoke seemed to sear his chest like a burst of superheated air exploding from a fireball.

The New Yorker continued his hard work without hesitation.

He shrugged.

"All right," he said, "here's the deal. There are twenty-six guys spaced out down the length of the tunnel. A kriegie every ten feet or so. Each bucket gets passed forward to the front, filled up, then passed back. Each guy scoots forward like a crab, then backs up, sorta like some crazy turtle in reverse.

We're on a pretty tight schedule here, so you better keep moving and get whatever it is you're gonna do, done.

And you're gonna hafta squeeze by every guy in the tunnel.

There's a rope to help you pull yourself along. But for Christ's sake don't hit the goddamn ceiling! Try not to lift your head at all. We used wood from the Red Cross parcels to shore up the roof, but it's unstable as hell, and if you bang into it, it's likely to come down on your head. Maybe on everybody's heads. Try not to scrape the walls, either. They ain't much better."

Tommy took in everything the man said. He turned his eyes toward the tunnel shaft. It was narrow, terrifying. No more than two feet by three feet. Each kriegie waiting in the tunnel had a single fat candle creating little islands of light around them; those were the only sources of illumination along the entire length.

The New Yorker smiled.

"Hey, Tommy," he said, grinning through the exertion, "when I get home and make my first million and I need some damn sharp polished-shoes Ivy

League lawyer to watch out for my money and my butt, you're gonna be the guy I'm gonna call. You can count on it. Anyway, hope you find what you're looking for," he said.

Then he bent forward, peering up into the tunnel, and he half-whispered, half-shouted a sort of warning: "Man coming up.

Make way!"

"Hope you make it home okay," Tommy managed to say, his throat already parched with dust and fear.

"Gotta try," the New Yorker said.

"Better than spending another minute wasting away in this damn place."

Then he bent down and renewed his pumping with increased vigor, forcing blast after blast of air up the length of the tunnel.

Tommy ducked down, on his hands and knees. He hesitated for just an instant, finding the rope with his fingers and grasping hold of it, then he thrust himself forward, on his belly, crawling forward like some eager newborn, but with none of a child's sense of adventure.

Instead, all he could discern was a deep, cavernous terror echoing within him, and all he knew was that the answers he needed that night lay some seventy-five yards ahead, at the very end of what any reasonable person would take one single glance at and recognize was little more than a long, dark, and dangerously narrow grave.

Hugh Renaday was also crawling.

Moving slowly, with painstaking deliberateness, he'd managed to cover almost a hundred yards, so that he was now well into the center of the open exercise and assembly area, and he deemed it reasonable now to turn and try to maneuver back close enough to the front of Hut 101 where he could burst up and sprint for the doorway when the final shadows of the night aligned themselves conveniently. Of course, he realized, sprinting was going to be an experience. The pain in his knee was excruciating, a flower of agony dropping throbbing petals of hurt throughout his entire leg.

For a moment, the Canadian lowered his face into the dirt, tasting the dry, bitter grime on his tongue. The exertion of crawling had forced him into a sweat, and now, taking a second to rest, he felt a hard chill move through the core of his body. He remembered a time when he was younger and he'd had the wind knocked out of him during a game, and he'd lain on the ice, gasping, feeling the deep cold seep through his jersey and socks, as if to remind him who was really the stronger. He kept his face buried down, thinking that this night was trying to teach him much the same lesson.

A part of him had already accepted that he would be shot and killed that night. Maybe in the next few minutes. Maybe he had an hour or two left. This gloomy sense of despair fought hard against a wild and almost uncontrollable urge to live. The fight between these two conflicting desires was clouded by all that had happened, and the more pure need that Hugh inwardly seized on that regardless of what happened to him, he would do nothing to compromise his friends' lives.

And he supposed not compromising them meant not compromising the escape that was being mounted that night.

A great quiet surrounded him, and he listened to his raspy breathing.

For a moment, silently, he spoke to his own knee, berating it: How could you do this to me? It wasn't that hard a cut. I've asked you to do much more difficult things, turns and spins, and drives on the ice, and you've never complained before, and certainly never betrayed me.

Why this bloody night? The knee did not answer back directly, but continued to throb, as if settling into a comfortable pain that it could deliver steadily. He wondered what he had done. Torn ligaments?

Dislocation? Then, still face down in the dirt, he shrugged, as if to say that it made no difference.

Slowly he lifted his eyes, carefully surveying the area around him. The guards in the towers, the Hundfuhrers leading their dogs around the perimeter, were nowhere to be seen, but, he told himself, that didn't mean they were not there. All it meant was that he could not see them.

Still, he was encouraged.

If he could not see them, then perhaps they could not see him.

Carefully, still hugging the earth, Hugh Renaday turned slightly, snaking himself forward again, but now angling back on a diagonal path toward Hut 101. He made a plan, which also reinvigorated him: crawl another fifty yards, then wait.

Wait at least an hour, maybe two. Wait for the last and deepest part of the night to arrive, and then make an attempt for the hut. That would give Tommy and Scott enough time to do whatever it was that they had figured out they had to do. And, he hoped, it would give the escapees enough time as well.

Hugh sighed sharply, as he pushed forward with slow, yet steady determination. It seemed to him that there were many needs being filled that night, and he was damned if he knew which was the most important. He knew only that he was crawling along a razor-thin edge himself. He had an odd, almost funny memory strike him right then. He recalled a science class in high school, where the teacher had boastfully told a disbelieving bunch of students that a slug could actually crawl across the straight edge of a razor without slicing itself in two. And the teacher had backed this up, producing a brown, slimy slug and the obligatory shiny razor, and the students had lined up and watched in astonishment as the snail did precisely as advertised. He thought that this night he had to be no different from that snail. At least, that was what he believed.

Thirty yards to his right, the barbed-wire barricade loomed up. He kept himself pressed down, told himself to measure progress in inches, maybe even centimeters. He told himself:

Let the night work for you.

At that moment, though, he heard a single, sharp bark, from just beyond the wire fence, followed by a clear, harsh, low growl. He froze, pushing himself down as far as he could into the embrace of cold dirt.

There was a metal jangle as a Hundfuhrer pulled back hard on his dog's chain. He heard the goon talk to his animal, calling it by name.

"Prinz! Was ist das? Bei Fuss! Heel!

"The dog's growl had changed into a constant teeth-bared guttural sound, as it struggled to pull ahead.

Hugh shuddered, barely with enough time to be afraid.

Each Hundfuhrer carried a small, battery-driven flashlight.

The Canadian heard a click, and then saw a weak cone of light sweep back and forth a few feet away. He dug himself even deeper, still frozen in position. The dog barked again, and Hugh saw the edge of the torch's beam trickle across the back of his outstretched hands. He did not dare move them.

Then he heard a voice cry out in the darkness: "Halt!

Halt!"

The dog began to bark over and over, frantically, its voice shattering the night as it strained to get forward. He heard the Hundfuhrer chamber a round in his rifle, and, in the same second, a searchlight from the closest tower switched on with an electric thud. It creased the darkness, blistering him with sudden brightness.

He struggled quickly to his feet, his leg pulsating in objection, immediately lifting his hands far above his head. Hugh cried out desperately, "Nicht schiessen! Nicht schiessen!" as he stood alone in the glare of exposure. He took a deep breath, and whispered to himself, "Don't shoot…" Then he closed his eyes, and thought of home and how, in the early days of summer, dawn always seemed to sweep across the Canadian plains with a purple-red clear intensity, as if overwhelmed, excited, and undeniably joyous at the idea of another day.

For a single microsecond he felt a complete and ineffable sadness that he would never be awake to see those moments again. Then, crowded into this final thought, he managed to wish Tommy and Lincoln good luck.

Hugh squeezed his eyes tight against the last second about to arrive for him and heard his own voice, strangely distant and oddly unafraid, try one more time: "Nicht schiessen! " he shouted. He wished, in that moment, that he could have found a braver, more glorious, and less lonely place to die. Then he quieted, hands raised high in the air, and simply waited with surprising patience to be murdered.

In the undiluted terror that had overtaken him, twenty feet beneath the surface. Tommy could no longer tell whether it was stifling hot or bone-chilling cold. He shivered with every inch forward, and salty sweat clogged his eyes. Every foot he traveled seemed to take the last of his ebbing strength, rob the final breath he could pry, wheezing, from the air of the tunnel that threatened to entomb him. More than once he'd heard an ominous creak of flimsy wood shoring up the walls and ceiling, and more than once dusty rivulets of dirt had streamed down onto his head and neck.

The darkness that surrounded him was marred only by the candles held by each man he worked his way past. The kriegies in the tunnel were astonished at his presence, but still they moved aside as best they could, pushing themselves dangerously against the wall of the tunnel, giving him precious inches of empty space to squeeze past. Every man he met held their breath as he scraped by, knowing that even taking a single extra breath might bring the roof down on all of them.

There were a few curses, but no objections. The entire tunnel was filled with fear, apprehension, and danger, and to the men waiting in the darkness. Tommy's steady trip to the front was merely another awful anxiety on what they dreamed would be the road to freedom.

He recognized several of the men-two from his own hut, who grunted an acknowledgment as he crept past, and a third who'd once borrowed one of his law texts, desperate for anything to read to break the monotony of a snowy winter week.

There was a man with whom he'd once had a funny conversation in the yard. sharing cigarettes and ersatz coffee, a wiry, grinning fellow from Princeton who had insulted Harvard most wildly and hilariously, but who had readily agreed that any Yale man was probably not only a shirker and a coward but likely to be fighting for the Germans or the Japanese, anyway. The Princeton man had pushed back against the wall, and gasped when some dirt from the roof streamed onto both their heads.

Then he'd urged Tommy on with a whispered, "Get what you need. Tommy."

This alone had encouraged Tommy to travel another half-dozen feet forward, stopping only to seize the dirt-filled bucket from the man ahead, and pass it back to Princeton, behind him.

The muscles in his arms and legs screamed pain and fatigue at him. His neck and back felt as if they were being hammered by the red-hot tongs of a blacksmith. For an instant, he lowered his head, listening to the yawing sound of the wooden supports, and thought that nothing in the world was more exhausting than fear. No race. No fight. No battle.

Fear always ran faster, hit harder, and fought longer.

He dragged himself forward, struggling past each of the designated escapees. He was no longer able to tell whether he 'd been crawling for minutes or hours. He thought he would never get out of the tunnel, and then imagined that it was like some particularly terrifying dream from which he was destined never to awaken.

He pushed on, gasping for air.

Tommy had counted the men in the tunnel, and knew that he was squeezing past Number Three, a bankerly type wearing wire-rim glasses streaked with moisture, whom Tommy presumed was the chief camp document forger.

The man twisted aside, grunting, wordless, as Tommy maneuvered past him.

For the first time. Tommy could hear the sounds of digging coming from up ahead. He guessed there were two men, working in a small space not unlike the anteroom where he'd found the pilot from New York. The difference would be that they would have no abundance of crate boards to shore things up. Instead, they would be scraping the dirt from above their heads, packing it in the empty buckets and passing it back.

There would be no need for an elaborate, concealed exit, the way the entrance was so cleverly hidden back in the privy in Hut 107. The exit would be the smallest possible hole a kriegie could worm through.

Tommy thrust himself toward the sound of the digging.

There must have been two candles in that space, because he could just make out a nickering, indistinct shape. He crept forward, still without a concrete plan beyond confrontation, thinking hard to himself that what he needed to know was just at the edge of his reach.

He knew only that he wanted to reach the end. The end of the tunnel.

The end of the case. The end of everything that had happened. He could feel panic surging through him, mingling freely with confusion and desire. Driven by the difficult twins of fear and fury, he pushed himself the final few feet, almost popping into the anteroom to the escape's exit.

Above him, the tunnel rose sharply toward the surface.

A makeshift ladder built from scraps of wood was thrust against the side of the shaft. Near the top of the ladder, one man hacked at the remaining clods of dirt. Midway down, a second man caught the earth as it fell from beneath the pickax, collecting it in the ubiquitous bucket. Both men were nearly naked, their bodies glistening in the candlelight with sweat and streaks of dirt that made them seem prehistoric, terrifying. Thrust to the side of the anteroom were two small valises and a pile of clothes they would change into as soon as they burst through to the air. Their escape kit.

From above him, the two men hesitated, looking down in surprise.

Tommy could not make out the face of Number One, the man with the pickax. But his eyes met Number Two.

"Hart!" the man whispered sharply.

Tommy struggled halfway to his feet in the tight, narrow space, ending on his knees like some supplicant in a church looking up at the figure on the Cross. He peered through the nickering light, and after a single, long silent moment, recognized Number Two.

"You killed him, didn't you. Murphy?"

Tommy said harshly.

"He was your friend and your roommate and you killed him, didn't you?"

At first, the lieutenant from Springfield didn't reply. His face wore an eerie look of astonishment and surprise, and then slowly dissolved into recognition, followed by rage.

But what he said was, "No, I didn't. I didn't kill him."

Then he hesitated for a half-second, just long enough for the denial to toss Tommy wildly into confusion, and then he threw himself down on Tommy, grunting savagely, his dirty, strong hands reaching inexorably for Tommy's throat.

At the tail of the tunnel in Hut 107, Major Clark glanced down at his wristwatch, shook his head, then turned his stare toward Lincoln Scott.

"Now we're behind," he said bitterly.

"Every minute is critical, lieutenant. In another couple of minutes, the entire escape will be in jeopardy."

Scott stood by the entrance to the tunnel, almost straddling it, like a policeman guarding a door. He returned the major's glare with a singularly cold gaze of his own.

"I do not understand you, major," he said.

"You would allow Vic's killers to go free and the Germans to shoot me.

What sort of man are you?"

Clark stared, coldly, harshly, at the black airman.

"You're the killer, Scott," he said.

"The evidence has always been clear-cut and unequivocal. It has nothing to do with this escape tonight."

"You lie," Scott replied.

Clark shook his head, answering in a low, awful voice, with a small and terrible smile.

"Do I, now? No, that's where you're wrong. I know nothing of any conspiracy to set you up as the killer. I know nothing of any other man's participation in the crime. I know nothing that would support your ridiculous story. I know only that an officer was killed, an officer you made no secret of hating. I know that this officer had previously provided valuable assistance to prior tunnel escape efforts, to wit, acquiring documents for forgers to work on, German cash, and other items of importance. And I know that the German authorities were very interested in this murder.

More interested than they had a right to be. And because of this interest, I know that this particular tunnel, our best chance to get some men out, was severely threatened because had they decided to hunt for the killer and the evidence to support charges, they would have torn the camp completely apart, probably exposing this escape attempt in the process.

So the only thing you are possibly correct about, lieutenant, is that as chief of escape security, I was genuinely pleased that you presented yourself covered with blood and guilt at a critical moment. And I have been pleased that your little trial and your little conviction and your little execution, which I'm certain is to follow quite quickly, has proven to be such a wonderful distraction for the Krauts."

"You don't know about those men at the front of the tunnel?" Scott asked, almost incredulous at the venom served in his direction.

Major Clark shook his head.

"Not only do I not know, I don't want to know. The obviousness of your guilt has been very helpful."

"You would shoot an innocent man to protect your tunnel?"

The major grinned again.

"Of course. And so would you, if you were in my position. So would any officer in charge.

Men are sacrificed in war all the time, Scott. So you die and we protect a larger good. Why is that so strange for you to understand?"

Scott did not reply. He wondered, in that second, why he was not filled with outrage, filled with fury. Instead, he looked over at the major and felt nothing but contempt, but it was the most curious sort of contempt, for a part of him understood the precise truth in what the man had said. It was an evil truth and a terrible one, but a truth of war nonetheless.

He hated that, but oddly, accepted it.

Scott looked back into the tunnel shaft.

Fenelli spoke then.

"Man, I wonder what's taking him so long?" The would-be doctor was perched by the tunnel entrance, balancing, craning forward to hear something other than the steady whoosh-whoosh of the homemade bellows.

The black flier swallowed hard. His own throat was dry. In that moment he realized that he'd allowed a terrified man, the only man who'd really befriended him, to struggle into the darkness alone only because he was so eager to live. He thought that all his own proud words about willingness to die and sacrifice and taking a stand and dignity had abruptly been proven hollow by the simple act of letting Tommy crawl into that tunnel searching for the truth necessary to set him free. Tommy had not made any of the same fine and brave speeches that he had made, but had quietly faced down his own terrors and was sacrificing himself. Too dangerous. Too uncertain, Scott thought suddenly. It was a trip that Scott suddenly realized he should never have allowed Tommy to take on his behalf.

But he had no idea what to do, other than stand guard and wait. And hope.

He looked back at Major Clark. Then he spoke to the smug and pretentious officer with an unbridled cold hatred: "Tommy Hart doesn't deserve to die, major. And if he doesn't come back out of that tunnel, well, I'm going to hold you personally responsible, and then trust me: There won't be any goddamn uncertainty at all about the next murder charge I face."

Clark took a short step back, as if he'd been slapped across the cheek.

His own face was set in an unruly combination of fear and fury. Neither emotion was particularly well hidden.

He glanced over at Fenelli and choked out a few words.

"You heard that threat, didn't you, lieutenant?"

Fenelli grinned.

"I didn't hear a threat, major. What I heard was a promise. Or maybe just a statement of fact. Kinda like saying the sun's gonna come up tomorrow. Count on it. And I don't think you've got even the slightest understanding why they're different. And you know what else occurs to me, right now? I'm thinking it might be a real good thing for you and your immediate future if Tommy gets back here safe and sound pretty damn fast."

Major Clark did not reply to this. Nervously, he, too, stared toward the tunnel entrance, which yawned silently in front of them. After a moment, he said to everyone and no one, "We're running out of time."

To his astonishment, the Hundfuhrer did not immediately shoot him. Nor did the tower guards who put his chest in the crosshairs of the thirty-caliber machine gun they manned.

Hugh Renaday stood motionless, arms lifted high, almost suspended in a single shaft of light. He was blinded by the searchlight's glare, and he blinked hard, trying to peer past the cone of brightness into the night beyond and the German soldiers he could hear calling to one another. He allowed himself a small measure of relief: No general alarm had been sounded. And, so far, he had not been shot, which also would have triggered a camp wide alert.

Behind him, he heard the creaking sound of the compound's main gate swinging open, followed by two pairs of footsteps pounding across the assembly yard toward where he remained standing. Within a few seconds, two helmeted goons, their rifles at the ready, lurched into the spotlight, like actors joining a play in progress on the stage.

"Raus! Raus!" one of the goons blurted out.

"Follow! SchnellF The second goon quickly patted Hugh down, then stepped back, prodding him in the center of the back with the barrel of his rifle.

"Just out taking in a little of the fine spring German air," Hugh said.

"Can't exactly see what you chaps believe is the problem…"

The goons did not reply, but one man thrust his gun barrel into the small of his back with a little more vigor. Hugh limped forward, the pain renewed in his knee, deep core-striking bolts of agony. He bit down hard on his lip and tried to hide the limp as best he could, swinging the bad leg forward.

"Really," he said briskly, "can't see precisely what all the fuss is about…"

"Raus," the goon answered glumly, now pushing the limping man forward with his rifle butt.

Hugh gritted his teeth and, dragging his leg, followed close. Behind him, the searchlight shut off with a thud, and it took several seconds for the Canadian's eyes to adjust again to the darkness. Each of those seconds was punctuated with another shove from the guard. For a moment, he wondered whether the Krauts meant to shoot him in privacy, somewhere where his body wouldn't be on display for all the other kriegies.

He thought this very possible, given the sensitivity to the trial and the high-running emotions in the camp. But the pain that was racing through his leg prevented him from much further speculation. Whatever was going to happen would happen, he told himself, although it was with some relief that he realized the two guards were heading toward the primary administration building. He could see a single light flick on inside the low, flat house, almost as if in greeting.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and the goon shoved Hugh again, a little harder, and Hugh stumbled forward, almost falling on the front steps.

"Curb your enthusiasm, you bastard," he muttered as he regained his balance. The German gestured, and Hugh mounted the stairs as rapidly as his leg would permit.

The front door swung open for him, and in the weak light emanating from the interior, Hugh made out the unmistakable form of Fritz Number One, holding the door. The ferret seemed surprised when he recognized the Canadian.

"Mr. Renaday," Fritz whispered.

"Whatever are you doing?

You are most fortunate you were not shot!" The ferret kept his voice low, concealed.

"Thank you, Fritz," Hugh answered quietly, but with a half-smile, as he stepped inside the administration building.

"I hope to bloody well stay that way. Unshot."

"This could prove to be difficult," Fritz Number One said in reply. And in the same second, Hugh saw a disheveled and clearly dangerously angry

Hauptmann Heinrich Visser sitting at the side of a single desk, reaching for one of his ever-present brown cigarettes.

Tommy blocked the first assault with his forearm, slamming Murphy across the face. The lieutenant from Springfield grunted, and pushed

Tommy back savagely against the dirt wall of the anteroom. Tommy could feel sandy grit tumbling down his shirt collar as Murphy's fingers clawed at him. He was able to wedge his left arm up under his attacker's neck, forcing the man's head back, and then he rocked him hard against the opposite wall.

Murphy replied, getting his right hand free and landing a punch to Tommy's cheek, cutting it, so that blood immediately started to trickle down, mingling with dirt and sweat.

The two men twisted together in the narrow confines of the tunnel, kicking, pushing, trying to gain some sort of advantage, fighting in a ring that provided none to either man.

Tommy was only vaguely aware of the third man, higher on the ladder, Number One on the escape list, who still held a pickax in his hands.

Murphy threw Tommy back, snarling, and Tommy managed to throw a short uppercut into his jaw, hard enough so that Murphy shot backward momentarily. It was a fight without room, as if a dog and cat had been dropped into a single burlap bag together, and tore at each other in that impossible place, neither able to use whatever advantages or cunning Nature had designed for them.

Tommy and Murphy ricocheted back and forth, slamming the wall, muscle against muscle, scratching, clawing, throwing wild fists, kicking, punching, trying to find some means of gaining the upper hand. Shadows and darkness slithered like snakes around them.

An elbow caught him in the forehead, and he was almost stunned. In dizzy fury and complete rage. Tommy kicked out, striking Murphy in the shin with a nasty crack. Then, in almost the same motion, he lifted his knee hard, and drove it into Murphy's groin and stomach. The lieutenant from Springfield moaned deeply, and fell back, clutching his midsection.

At the very same second, out of the corner of his eye, Tommy caught the sensation of something moving his way, and he ducked down, just as the point of the pickax whizzed past his ear. But the force of the miss drove the blade deep into the dirt, and Tommy was able to swing around, smashing upward with his right hand. He felt his fist slam into the other man's face. There was a creaking sound and a snapping noise as a rung on the ladder broke. Tommy realized that by trying the one deadly swing with the ax from above, the man had risked everything, and in the same motion. Tommy grabbed at the short handle, finding it and wrenching it loose, and pulling the attacker off balance, so that he tumbled down wildly, smashing his face into the wall of dirt.

Tommy threw himself back against the opposite wall, brandishing the ax in front of him, breathing harshly. He lifted the ax above his shoulder, ready to crash it down into the back of the third man's neck.

Murphy started to reach for him, then stopped, crying out sharply

"Don't!" The eerie candlelight threw alternating shadows and streaks of light across his terrified face.

Tommy hesitated, wrenching control past rage. He lifted the ax a second time, as the third man started to roll over, lifting his own forearm to try to deflect the thrust heading his way.

"Don't move!" Tommy hissed.

"Nobody goddamn move!"

He held the ax in a ready position.

Murphy seemed taut, about to spring, then stopped. He slumped back.

"Killer!" Tommy started to shout, but before he was able to speak another word, the third man said quietly, in a voice held low, that defied the murderous fight they'd just engaged in, "Hart, don't say another word!"

Tommy half-turned toward the voice. It took him a half second to recognize the slightly tinged, soft southern tones, and to remember where he'd heard them before.

The leader of the Stalag Luft Thirteen Prisoner Jazz Band stared across at Tommy. He smiled wickedly, as if amused.

"You are a right tenacious fellow. Hart," the band leader said. He shook his head back and forth.

"Like some damn half-crazed Yankee bulldog, I must admit. But you're wrong about one thing. Murphy didn't kill our mutual friend, Vic.

I did."

"You!" Tommy whispered sharply.

The man grinned.

"That's right. I did. And pretty much the way you and that goddamn Kraut Visser had it all figured, too.

Imagine that. You kill a man in old-fashioned New Orleans style" the band leader mimicked sticking a knife in the throat as he spoke "and some Kraut Gestapo-type goon figures it out. Damn. And you know what else. Hart? I'd do it again tomorrow, if I had to. So, there you have it. Are you gonna fight us some more, now?"

Tommy brandished the ax. He did not know how to reply.

The band leader continued to smile.

"We got a little bit of a problem here. Tommy," he said. He kept his voice low.

"I need that ax. I'm one swipe, maybe two, from breaking through. And we're on a little bit of a tight deadline here. We gotta get going if we're like to have any chance. There are three trains heading to Switzerland this morning. Men that catch the first, likely to have the best chance of making it close enough to the border so that they can find their way across. So I need that ax, and I need it right now.

Sorry I tried to kill you with it. You sure did duck at the right moment. But, hell, now you gonna have to give it up."

The band leader held out his hand. Tommy did not budge.

"The truth, first," he said.

"Gotta keep your voice down. Hart," the band leader said.

"If there are any goons in the trees, they might hear us. Even down here. Voices carry. Of course, it likely would seem to one of them like it was somebody whispering from the grave, but that ain't so far from the truth, now is it?"

"I want to know," Tommy replied.

The band leader smiled again. He motioned toward Murphy, who started to dust some of the dirt from his body.

"Get dressed," he said.

"We're going to move soon."

"Why?" Tommy demanded softly.

"Why? You mean why are we trying to get out?"

Tommy shook his head.

"No. Why Vic?"

The band leader shrugged.

"Two reasons. Tommy. The best of reasons, too, when you think about 'em. First, Trader Vic was trading information with the damn Krauts.

Sometimes, when he needed something special, like a radio or a camera or something, he would whisper a number to some ferret.

Usually Fritz Number One, you know. That would be the number of the hut where a tunnel was getting started. Coupla days later. Krauts would show up. Pretend it was a routine search. Bust it up. We'd start digging someplace different.

Run through the whole charade again. Vic, I think, he never figured he was doing all that much harm, you see. The Krauts would ruin the tunnel, maybe toss somebody in the cooler for a week or so. Mostly, what Vic figured, was that nobody was getting hurt and everybody was getting ahead. Especially him. Only thing that wasn't happening was nobody was getting out. Which might be a good thing, we'll see.

Anyway, it like to kill old MacNamara and Clark. They started digging deeper tunnels. Longer tunnels. Harder tunnels. Those two figured that if they didn't manage to get at least one of us out of here, they would be failures as commanding officers.

Wouldn't never be able to face one of their old West Point buddies after the war. Why, Tommy, you can see that. And they didn't know for sure what Vic was doing. No one did, because Vic, he kept these things pretty close to his vest. He thought he had it all figured out.

Playing everybody against everybody. Weren't that just like Vic?

Anyway, he figured he had it all doped out. And he did. He was some sort of operator, Vic. Until those two guys died in that tunnel…"

The band leader stopped, took a deep breath of the thin harsh air surrounding them, then continued.

"They was my friends, those two. That one boy was the sweetest clarinet I ever heard. Back home in New Orleans, people like to sell their souls to be able to play one note half as good as him. And they wasn't supposed to be down there, not at night, you see. Vic hadn't figured on anyone digging that late. But MacNamara and Clark, they ordered round-the-clock digging. Two tunnels. That one and this one.

Only that one caved in with my friends inside when the goddamn Krauts drove one of their trucks right over the top. They wouldn't have known where to do that if it weren't for Vic."

Tommy nodded.

"Revenge," he said.

"There's one reason.

And betrayal, too, I guess."

Murphy looked over at Tommy.

"Best reasons of all," he said.

"The sorry bastard. All he did was make one mistake.

You shouldn't go around making deals with the devil, because he might just come back and ask a higher price than you want to pay. That's what happened. Funny thing, you know. Vic was a fine flier. Better than fine. A real hotshot. A brave man in the air. Deserved every medal he got. It was on the ground that he couldn't be trusted none."

Tommy slumped back, trying to sort through everything the band leader said. Like a deck of cards being shuffled, details started to fit together, stacking one after the other neatly.

"So," the band leader continued, "there you have it. Vic got me the knife, just as I asked him, and then I turned around and I used it on him, while Murphy here kept him occupied from the front. At first we figured to pin the whole thing on one of the ferrets, you see, make it look like Vic got killed when some big old trade went wrong, but your boy Scott made it so damn easy. Weren't no special hardship framing him up for the killing. And it sure as hell kept the Krauts from poking around none, too. You think old Lincoln Scott realizes what a service he's provided? I don't suppose he'll take much comfort in that."

"Why didn't you tell the truth? Why didn't…"

The band leader held up his hand.

"Why, Tommy, you ain't thinking this through. What the hell good would it do me, and my Yankee helpmate here, if anyone knew the truth? I mean, we'd just be facing charges back home, wouldn't we? All this trouble to escape, only to get back to the States and be charged with Vic's murder? Not very likely, I think. Not after all this trouble."

Tommy nodded. He knew instantly that unsaid in what the band leader implied was a single necessity: Lincoln Scott would have to be blamed, tried, convicted, and shot. It was the only way the men in the tunnel escaping could actually be free.

"MacNamara and Clark," Tommy said slowly, "they didn't want the truth, did they?"

The band leader grinned.

"No sir, they did not. I doubt they'd have wanted to hear it, even if it'd come up and smacked them in the face. They wanted Vic taken care of.

They didn't want nothing to do with it. The truth. Tommy, as you can hear, is right messy for all involved. Trader Vic was a hero, and the army don't like its heroes tarnished none. And blaming Scott, well, that particular lie, well, it was working real fine for just about everybody. Everybody save Scott, that is. And I don't know this for sure, but I'm guessing right about now Clark and MacNamara didn't count on this quiet boy from Harvard making such a mess and all, either."

"No," Tommy replied.

"I guess they didn't."

"Well, you sure have. There you have it. Now, I need that ax," the man said. His voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried both threat and urgency.

"Either you let me dig us out of here, or go ahead and kill me, 'cause one way or the other, I will be free by the time the sun comes up!"

Tommy smiled. It was a great word, he thought, the word free. Four letters that meant much more. It really should have been a great, long, exultant word, a word with power and strength and pride. He paused and realized that he had to find a way to accommodate everyone that night.

"Stalemate," he said abruptly.

The band leader looked surprised.

"What you mean by that?"

"I mean, no ax. I mean, maybe I'll raise my voice. I don't know what the hell I'll do. Maybe kill you, like you tried to kill me. And then dig these other men out." This was a bluff, Tommy knew. But he said it nonetheless.

"Hart," the band leader said sharply, "it ain't just us. There's seventy-five men heading out tonight. And ain't none of them waiting behind us done anything to deserve losing their chance at freedom. They worked long and hard and dangerous for this chance tonight. You can't be taking that away.

And maybe what I've done ain't perfect by all accounts, but I ain't sure it's altogether wrong, either."

Tommy eyed the man carefully.

"You killed a man."

"I did. That's what happens in war. Maybe he deserved to die. Maybe not. Only I don't want to be blamed for it. I don't want to dig my way out of this Kraut hellhole to face an American firing squad."

"True," Tommy said softly.

"So, how do you want to solve this, because I'm not leaving here until I know that Lincoln Scott isn't going to face the damn firing squad!"

"I want you to hand me that ax."

"And I want Lincoln Scott to go free."

"There's no time," Murphy piped up.

"We gotta get going!"

Silence filled the tiny space, closing in on the three men jammed into the area, covering them like a dark wave closing over their heads.

The band leader seemed to think hard for a moment. Then he smiled.

"I guess what we'll all have to take is some chances here," he said slowly.

"What do you think, Tommy? This is a good night for taking chances.

You ready to take some risks?"

"Yes, I am."

Again the band leader laughed.

"Then I guess we got a deal," he said. He stuck out his hand to shake

Tommy's, but Tommy continued to wield the pickax. The band leader shrugged.

"Hart, I gotta say this: You are some sort of hard man."

Then he scrambled to the wall where the tunnel opened into the small anteroom. The band leader took one of the candles and waved it back and forth. Then he hissed as loudly as he dared: "Number Three? Can y'all hear me?"

There was a momentary silence, then a voice crept up the dark tunnel.

"What the hell's going on up there?"

Even Murphy smiled at that most obvious question.

"We're having a little conversation about the truth," the band leader whispered back.

"Now, Number Three, you listen real carefully and you make damn sure you get this right. Lincoln Scott, the Nigra flier, he didn't kill nobody! Especially not Trader Vic! You have my absolute swear to God word on that. You got that?"

There was another small hesitation, then Tommy heard the voice rise up the tunnel, asking, "Scott is innocent?"

"That's one hundred percent right," the band leader said.

"Now, you pass that back in line. And keep right on passing it back, got it? So that everybody knows the real truth. Including that sorry bastard Clark, waiting back there at the start of the tunnel!"

There was another hesitation from Number Three, and then the most critical question.

"Well, if Scott is innocent, then who killed Trader Vic?"

The band leader grinned again, turning to Tommy for an instant, before whispering his response up the tunnel.

"The war killed Vic," he said.

"Now, you pass that word back just like a bucket of dirt, because we are going to start moving outta here in the next ten minutes!"

"Okay. Scott is innocent. Got it."

Tommy craned forward into the tunnel and heard Number Three scramble backward and then say to Number Four, "Scott is innocent! Pass it back!"

He listened for a moment, as the message was relayed down the length of the tunnel.

"Scott is innocent! Pass it back!" He heard it over and over, echoing in the small space, "Scott is innocent! Pass it back! Scott is innocent! Pass it back!" until the words faded totally into the great blackness behind him. Then Tommy slumped over, suddenly exhausted.

He did not know for certain whether those three words broadcast to all the men in line in the tunnel and waiting up in Hut 107 would be sufficient to free Scott. Scott is innocent! But in the sudden total fatigue that overcame him, he understood they were the three best he could pry out of this night. He held out the pickax to the band leader who took it from him.

"I don't even know your name," Tommy said.

For a moment, the band leader brandished the ax, as if he were going to strike Tommy.

"I don't want you to know my name," he said. Then he smiled.

"You got lots of faith, Hart. I'll give you that. Not precisely a religious faith, but faith anyhow. Now, as to the rest of our little discussion here tonight…"

Tommy shrugged.

"I would say that somehow comes under the attorney-client privilege.

I'm not exactly sure how, but if anyone ever asked me, that's what I'd say."

The band leader nodded.

"Tommy, I think you maybe shoulda been a musician. You sure know how to carry a tune."

Tommy took this as a compliment. Then he pointed toward the roof.

"Now's your chance," he said.

The band leader grinned again.

"Ain't gonna be all that simple for you now, Tommy boy. This little misunderstanding has caused us a significant delay. First, Tommy, I done something for you. That's the chance I took. Now, you're gonna do something for me. Take a chance for me. Not only for me; for all the other kriegies waiting in this damn tunnel and dreaming about getting home. You're gonna help us get outta here."