Hart’s War

Chapter Six

At the following morning's roll call, the kriegies assembled in their usual ragged formations, except for Lincoln Scott. He stood apart, at parade rest, arms clasped behind his back, legs spread slightly, ten yards away from the nearest block of men, waiting to be counted like every other prisoner.

He wore a blank, hard expression on his face and kept his eyes straight ahead, looking neither right nor left until the count was completed and

Major Clark bellowed the dismissal.

Then he immediately turned on his heel and quick-marched back to Hut 101, disappearing through the wooden door without a word to any other kriegie.

Tommy thought for a moment of pursuing him, then turned away. The two men had not discussed the discovery of the knife-other than for Scott to deny any knowledge about it.

Tommy had spent the night in his own bunk fitfully, nightmarishly, waking more than once in the dark feeling a sullen, helpless cold surrounding him. Now he quickly headed for the front gate, at the same time waving at Fritz Number One to provide an escort. He saw the ferret spot him and seem to hesitate, as if eager to avoid him, then seemingly think twice of that desire, stop and wait. Before he reached the ferret, however, Tommy was intercepted by Major Clark. The major wore a slight, mocking grin that did little to mask his feelings.

"Ten a.m." Hart. You and Scott and the Canadian who's helping out and anyone else you damn well need. We're going to be set up in the camp theater. My guess is that we're going to play to overflow crowds.

Standing room only, huh, Hart? What sort of performer are you, lieutenant? Think you can put on a good show?"

"Anything to keep the men occupied, major," Tommy replied sarcastically.

"That's right," Clark answered.

"Will you provide me with lists of evidence and witnesses at that time, major? As you are required by military law."

Clark nodded.

"If you want…"

"I do. I'm also going to need to inspect the alleged evidence.

Physically."

"As you wish. But I fail to see " "That's precisely the point, major,"

Tommy interrupted.

"What you fail to see."

He saluted and, without waiting for a command, turned sharply and headed toward Fritz Number One. Before he'd taken three steps, he heard the major's voice bursting like a shell behind him.

"Hart!"

He stopped and pivoted.

"Sir?"

"You were not dismissed, lieutenant!"

Tommy came to attention.

"Sorry, sir," he said.

"I was under the distinct impression we'd finished our conversation."

Clark waited a good thirty seconds, then returned the salute.

"That's all, lieutenant," he said briskly.

"Until ten a.m. Be on time," he added.

Once again. Tommy turned, heading rapidly toward the waiting ferret.

He thought he'd taken a risk, but a calculated one. Far better to have Major Clark furious with him, because that would only serve to draw his focus away from Scott.

Tommy sighed deeply. He thought things could not seem much worse for the black airman, and not for the first time since the discovery of the homemade knife the prior evening, Tommy felt a deepening sense of discouragement travel through him. He felt as if he only had the flimsiest idea what he was doing in fact, it seemed to him he hadn't done anything and realized that Lincoln Scott would be standing in front of a German firing squad if he didn't come up quickly with some sort of genuine scheme.

As he walked, he shook his head, thinking it was all well and good to suggest that they find the real killer, but he was unsure what the first step would be in that search. In that second, he longed for the simple navigational tasks aboard the Lovely Lydia. Find a marker, use a chart, note a landmark, make some simple calculations with a slide rule, bring out the sextant and take a sighting, and then chart a course to safety. Read the stars glittering above in the heavens and find the way home. Tommy thought it had been easy. And now, in Stalag Luft Thirteen, he had the same task in front of him, yet was unsure what tools to use to navigate. He walked along quickly, feeling the early morning damp loosen in the air around him. It would be another good day for flying, he thought to himself. This was incongruous. Far better to wake up to fog, sleet, and wildly tossing storms. Because if it were a clear, bright, warm day, this meant men would die. It seemed to him that death was better delivered on gray, cold days, the chilling, wet times of the soul.

Fritz Number One was shuffling his feet as he waited. He made a smoking gesture, making a V with two fingers and then lifting them to his lips. Tommy handed him a pair of cigarettes.

The ferret lit one, and placed the other carefully in his breast pocket.

"Not so many good American smokes now, with Captain Bedford dead," he said, eyes sadly following the thin trail of smoke rising from the end of the burning cigarette.

The ferret smiled wanly.

"Maybe I should be quitting.

Better maybe to quit than smoke the ersatz tobacco we are being issued."

Fritz Number One strode along with his head declined, giving him the appearance of a lanky, gangly dog that has been disciplined by its master.

"Captain Bedford always had plenty of smokes," he said.

"And he was most generous. He took good care of his friends."

Tommy nodded, but was suddenly alert to what the ferret was saying.

"That's what the men in his bunk room said, too."

Almost exactly. Tommy thought to himself. Word for word.

Fritz Number One continued.

"Captain Bedford, he was liked by many men?"

"It seemed that way."

The ferret sighed, still walking along rapidly.

"I am not so sure of this, Lieutenant Hart. Captain Bedford, he was very clever. Trader Vic was a good name for him. Sometimes men are too clever. I do not think clever men are always so well liked as they maybe believe. Also, in war, to be so clever, this is not a good thing, I also think."

"Why is that, Fritz?"

The ferret was speaking softly, his head still bent.

"Because war, it is filled with mistakes. So often the wrong die, is this not true, Lieutenant Hart? The good man dies, the bad man lives.

The innocent are killed. Not the guilty. Little children die, like my two little cousins, but not generals."

Fritz Number One had deposited an unmistakable harshness in the soft words he spoke.

"There are so many mistakes, sometimes I wonder if God is really watching. It is not possible, I think, to outwit war's mistakes, no matter how clever you may be."

"Do you think Trader Vic's death was a mistake?" Tommy asked.

The ferret shook his head.

"No. That is not what I mean."

"What are you saying?" Tommy demanded sharply, but beneath his breath.

Fritz Number One stopped. He looked up quickly, and stared at Tommy.

He seemed about to answer, but then, in the same moment, looked past Tommy's shoulder, his eyes directed at the office building where the commandant administered the camp. His mouth was partly open, as if words were gathering within his throat. Then, abruptly, he clamped shut, and shook his head.

"We will be late," he said between tightly pursed lips. This statement, of course, meant nothing, because there was nothing to be late for save the mid-morning hearing still several hours distant. The ferret made a quick, dismissive gesture, pointing toward the British compound, and hurried Tommy in that direction. But not fast enough to prevent Tommy from tossing a single glance over his shoulder at the administration building, where he caught sight of Commandant Edward Von Reiter and Hauptmann Heinrich Visser standing on the front steps, busily engaged in a rapid-fire conversation, both men seemingly on the verge of raising their voices angrily.

Phillip Pryce and Hugh Renaday were waiting for Tommy just inside the entrance to the British compound. Hugh, as always, was pacing about, almost making circles around their older friend, who wore his anticipation more subtly-in the lift of his eyebrows, the small upward turn at the corners of his mouth. Despite the fine morning that was rising around them, bright sunshine and advancing temperatures, he still draped a blanket across his shoulders, again giving him an antique, almost Victorian look. His cough seemed immune to the advantages of the spring weather, still punctuating much of what he said with dry, hacking sounds.

"Tommy," Pryce said, as the American quickly approached.

"Let us walk a bit on this excellent morning. Walk and talk.

I've always found that sometimes movement can stimulate one's imagination."

"More bad news, Phillip," Tommy replied.

"Well I have interesting news," Hugh replied.

"But you first. Tommy."

As the three men traveled around the perimeter, just inside the British camp's similar barbed-wire deadline and looming guard towers. Tommy filled them in on the discovery of the knife.

"Had to be planted there," he concluded.

"I mean, the whole show was orchestrated like some carnival magic act.

Poof!

The murder weapon. The alleged murder weapon. It made me furious, too, the way Clark baited Lincoln Scott into agreeing to the search. I would bet my GI insurance that they already knew the knife was there.

Then they make this little scene of searching his stuff, not that he has much, and then wham!

Bang! They pull back the bed and find a loose board. Scott probably didn't even know there was a hiding place underneath the flooring. Only the old boys in the camp know about those spaces. Totally transparent, the whole performance…"

"Yes," Pryce said, nodding, "but nastily effective. No one, of course, will see the transparency, but the word that the murder weapon has been discovered will likely further poison the atmosphere. And giving it all the veneer of legality, as well. The issue. Tommy, of course, is less how it was planted than why. Now, perhaps the how will provide us the why, but the reverse is often true, as well."

Tommy shook his head. He was a little embarrassed, but spoke quickly, so as not to display it. He had not yet made that particular leap of logic.

"I don't have an answer to that, Phillip. Other than the obvious: to close all the loopholes through which Lincoln Scott might manage to extricate himself."

"Correct," Pryce said, with a small flourish of his hand in the air.

"What I find most interesting is that we seem, once again, to be thrust into an unusual situation. Do you not see what has taken place, so far, with each aspect of this case, Tommy?"

"What?"

"The distinctions between truth and falsehood are very fine and narrow.

Almost imperceptible…"

"Go on, Phillip."

"Well, in every situation, with every piece of evidence that has surfaced so far, Lincoln Scott is pushed into the awkward position of providing an alternate explanation to the arrival of a fact. It is as if our young black flier must counter everything by saying, "Now see here, let me give you another reasonable explanation for this and for that and for this, too." But is this something that young Mr. Scott seems capable of?"

"Not very bloody likely." Hugh muttered.

"It wasn't hard for me to trip him up, and I'm on his bloody side. And it seems Clark only had to say, "If you have nothing to hide…" and Scott eagerly jumped into his trap."

"No," Tommy agreed rapidly.

"He is very intelligent and always at least a little bit angry and obviously goddamn headstrong.

He is a fighter, a boxer, and I think he's used to direct confrontation. Even violent ones. This is, I think, a poor combination of traits to have in an accused man."

"Quite so, quite so," Pryce said, nodding.

"Does this not make you think of a question, or two?"

Tommy Hart hesitated, then replied forcefully.

"Well, a man is murdered and the accused is black and a loner and unpopular, which makes him terribly convenient for most everyone involved, and there is a stack of decidedly obvious evidence against him that is difficult to counter."

"A perfect case, perhaps?"

"Very perfect, so far."

"Which should make one wonder. In my experience, perfect cases are rare."

"We need to create a less perfect scenario."

"Precisely. So, where does that leave us?"

"In trouble, I think," Tommy said, smiling wryly.

The older man grinned, as well.

"Yes, yes, that would seem so. But I am not completely sure of that.

Regardless, do you not think it is time to turn some of these disadvantages to our benefit? Especially Mr. Scott's aggressive behavior?"

"Sure. Okay But how?"

Pryce laughed out loud.

"Well, isn't that the eternal question?

Same for a lawyer. Tommy, as it is for a troop commander.

Now, listen to Hugh for a moment."

Tommy turned toward the Canadian, who was on the verge of laughing.

"Little bit of the old but unfamiliar and hardly common in Stalag Luft Thirteen sort of good news, Tommy, of which we've had so precious little. I found the man who examined Captain Bedford right where you said he'd be, in the medical services hut."

"Good. And he said?"

Hugh continued to smile.

"Most curious, what he had to say. He said he was ordered by Clark and MacNamara to prepare Bedford's body for burial. He was told not to perform any sort of even half-baked autopsy. But the fellow couldn't really help himself. You know why? He's a young guy, what you folks in the States call a real go-getter, a hotshot first lieutenant decorated in combat who doesn't particularly like taking damn fool orders and who has coincidentally spent the past three years working in his uncle's mortuary in Cleveland, Ohio, while putting money away to attend medical school. He got drafted after finishing a single semester. Gross anatomy, you know, right off the bat in medical school. So, there was this body and the lad was shall we say 'academically' curious.

About such delightful things as rigor mortis and lividity."

"Sounds good, so far."

"Well, he had the most intriguing observation."

"Which is?"

"It wasn't slicing his throat that killed Captain Bedford.

No great outpouring of blood from a slashed jugular."

"But the wound…"

"Oh, that was the wound that killed him. But it wasn't delivered like this…"

Hugh stopped, lifted his fist to his throat as if holding a blade, and then drew it across the front rapidly with a cutting motion.

"Or like this…" This time, Hugh stood facing Tommy and slashed the air between them, like a child playacting at a sword fight.

"But that's-" "That's what we thought. More or less. But no, our erstwhile doctor thinks the killing blow was, well, let me show you…"

Hugh moved behind Tommy and suddenly reached around him with his right arm, grasping the American underneath the chin with his thickly muscled forearm and partially lifting him into the air in the same second, using his hip for leverage, so that Tommy's toes abruptly reached for the earth. In the same movement, Hugh brought his left hand up firmly, again in a fist, as if grasping a knife, and jabbed it against the side of Tommy's neck, just beneath the jawbone. A single, sharp blow, not a slash as much as a punch with the fictional point of the blade.

The Canadian dropped Tommy back to the ground.

"Jesus," Tommy said.

"Just like that?"

"Correct. And did you notice which hand held the knife?"

"Left." Tommy smiled.

"And Lincoln Scott is right-handed.

At least, that was the hand he threw the punch at Hugh with.

Intriguing, gentlemen. In-fucking-triguing." Tommy snorted the obscenity, which made the others grin.

"And our young doctor-in-training? He based this helpful conclusion on what precisely?"

"The size of the wound for the first part, and then the lack of obvious fraying around the edges of the wound. You see, a slash produces a different appearance to even the semi trained and partially educated eye than a stab."

"And a first-year medical student saw this?"

Hugh grinned again, punctuating his reply with a quick laugh.

"A most interesting medical student. With a most unique background."

Pryce was also smiling.

"Tell him, Hugh. This is delicious, Tommy. Simply delicious. A fact that tastes nearly as good as a large slice of rare roast beef and a generous dollop of Yorkshire pudding."

"Okay. Sounds good. Shoot."

"Our mortuary man did all the gangster funerals in Cleveland.

Everyone killed by the local mobs. Every last one. And they apparently had a bit of prewar trouble between competing, ah, interests in that fine city. Our soon-to-be doctor laid out the bodies of at least three men with their necks cut in the precise same way, and curious lad that he is, he asked his uncle about it. And his uncle conveniently explained that no professional killer would ever just slash a man's throat. No sir. Far too bloody. Far too messy. And difficult. And oftentimes the poor bastard with the neck laid open has just enough energy remaining to pull out one of those quite large thirty-eight-caliber pistols that the gangsters seem to favor and squeeze off a few shots, which, of course, is awkward for the assassin trying to exit, stage left. So they use a different technique. A long-bladed stiletto punched upward, as I demonstrated. Slices the vocal cords on the way to the brain so the only sound you hear perhaps is a little gurgle, twist it around once or twice to mess up the gray matter, and the man drops to the floor dead. Very dead. And it's neat. Hardly any blood at all. Do it just right, and the only risk you have to yourself is fraying your shirt as the blade passes over the arm that lifts the victim off the floor."

"And obviously," Tommy said eagerly, "the wound is delivered…"

Hugh finished the sentence for him,"… from behind. Not in front. In other words…"

Tommy stepped in,"… an assassination and not a fight. A sneak-attack, not a confrontation. With a stiletto. Interesting."

"Precisely," Hugh said, with a small laugh.

"Good news, as I said. Lincoln Scott may be many things, but he doesn't seem like some sort of lurking back-stabber."

Pryce nodded, listening.

"And there's one other rather intriguing aspect of this style of killing."

"What's that?" Tommy asked.

"It is the exact same method of silencing a man that is taught by His Majesty's Commando Brigades. Neat. Quiet.

Effective. Fast. And, by extrapolation, perhaps taught by your

American counterparts in the Rangers. Or elsewhere in your more clandestine services."

"How do you know that, Phillip?"

The older man hesitated before replying.

"I'm afraid I have some education in commando techniques."

Tommy stopped, staring at the frail barrister.

"Phillip, I can't really see you as a commando." He laughed as he spoke, but when Pryce turned toward him, the laugh faded, for he saw his friend's face had fallen, graying even in the sunlight, stricken with a hurt that seemed to reverberate from deep within.

"Not me," Pryce said, choking slightly.

"My son."

"You have a son?" Tommy asked.

"Phillip," Hugh chimed in, "you never said anything-" Pryce raised his hand to stop the other men's questions. For an instant the older man seemed so pale that he was almost translucent. His skin had turned a pasty, fish like color. At the same time, he took a step toward them, but he staggered as he came forward, and both Tommy and Hugh reached out, as if to grasp him. Again he held up his hand, and then, abruptly, Pryce simply sat down in the dust of the perimeter path. He looked up sorrowfully at the two fliers, and said slowly, painfully,

"My dear boys. Dear Tommy and Hugh. I'm sorry.

I had a son. Phillip Junior."

Tears were pushing at the crinkled edges of the wing commander's eyes.

His voice seemed like leather cracking under tension. Between the tears that started to slide down his cheeks, Pryce smiled, as if this great sadness within him was also, oddly, amusing.

"I suppose, Hugh, he's the reason I'm here, now" Hugh bent over toward his friend.

"Phillip, please…"

Pryce shook his head.

"No, no. Jolly well should have told you lads the truth months ago.

But kept it all bottled up, you know. Stiff upper lip. Carry on and all that. Didn't want to be more of a burden than I already am…"

"You're not a burden," Tommy said. He and Hugh dropped to the ground and sat next to their friend, who started to speak as his eyes traveled beyond the wire, out toward the world beyond.

"Well, my Elizabeth died at the start of the Blitz. I'd asked her to go to the country, but she was stubborn. Delightfully so, you know, truly that was why I loved her. She was fearless and she wasn't for a moment going to allow some little Austrian corporal to run her out of her home, no matter how many damn bombers he sent over. So I told her when the sirens sounded, to make her way to the underground, but she sometimes preferred to sit out the raids in the basement.

The house took a five-hundred-pounder straight on. At least she didn't suffer…"

"Phillip, you don't have to…" Hugh said, but the older man simply smiled and shook his head.

"So then there was just Phillip Junior and myself. And he'd already enlisted, you see. Nineteen years old, and a commissioned officer in the Black Watch. All kilts and pipes swirling with that screeching noise that the Scots call music, claymores, and tradition. His mother, you see, she was a Scot, and I think he thought he owed it to her. The Black Watch, Clan Fergus, and Clan McDiarmid. Hard men all. They were trained as commandos, fought at Dieppe and St. Nazaire, and Phillip Junior would come home on leave and show me some of the more exotic techniques he'd been educated with, including how to silence a sentry which was precisely what we've run into here. He used to say that their instructor, this wiry little red-haired Scot you could hardly understand his brogue was so thick, would always end his lectures on killing with the phrase: "Gentlemen, remember: Always be neat."

Phillip Junior loved that.

"Be neat," he'd say, as I cut us some beef for dinner. And then he'd laugh. Great laughter, boys. He had a huge, unrestricted bellow of a laugh. It would simply stir up like a volcano and burst forth. He loved to laugh. Playing rugger during his public school days, he'd be grinning and laughing even with blood dripping from his nose. I thought when his mother was killed that he would no longer take such joy in life, but even with that sadness weighing on him, he was still irrepressible. He loved every breath he took. Delighted in it. And he, in turn, was loved. Not just by me, his dull and doting dad, of course, but by his chums at school, and all the young ladies at socials, and then by the men he commanded, because all of them knew him to be guileless and brilliant and dependable. A child becoming a man.

He seemed to grow larger with every minute, and I was in awe of what the world held out for him."

Pryce took a deep breath.

"They had a rule, you know, in the commandos. Behind Kraut lines, if you were wounded, you were left behind. A nasty rule, that. But essential, I suppose. The group is always more important than the individual. The target and the assignment are more important than any one man. Any one life."

Pryce choked on the words.

"But you know," he continued, "that simply wasn't my boy's style. No.

Not Phillip Junior. Too loyal, I suppose. A friend would never abandon a friend, no matter how awful things appeared, and that's what he was. A friend to all."

Hugh was gazing through the wire. He had a faraway look in his eyes, almost as if he could just make out the prairies of his home, just beyond the sentinel trees at the edge of the Bavarian forest.

"What happened, Phillip?" he asked quietly.

"His captain took three rounds in the leg, just tore it all to hell, you know, and Phillip wouldn't leave him. North Africa, you see. Not terribly far from Tobruk, in that great mess of things Rommel and Montgomery made. So my Phillip carried his commander ten miles through that damnably hot desert with the Afrika Korps everywhere around them, right up on his back, the captain threatening to shoot himself every mile of the way, ordering Phillip to leave him behind, but of course Phillip wouldn't. They walked all day and most of the night and they were only two hundred yards from British lines, and he finally handed over the captain to a couple of the other men. There were German patrols working everywhere in the night, the lines were so fluid, you didn't really know who was friend and who was foe. Very dangerous.

Possible to get shot by either side, you see. So, he sent the team ahead, carrying the captain, and he stayed behind to cover their retreat, last man with the Bren gun and some grenades. Told them all he'd be right along in a shake or two. The others made it home.

Phillip didn't. Don't know exactly what happened.

Missing in action, you understand, not even officially dead, but of course I know the truth. I got a letter from the captain. Nice fellow. An Oxford don, actually, read the classics and taught some Latin and Greek before the war. He told me that there had been explosions and machine-gun fire from the spot where Phillip had set up his rear guard He told me that Phillip must have fought desperately hard against all the odds, because the firing went on for some time, furiously, more than enough time for the rest of his team to reach safety.

That was Phillip, wouldn't you know. He would gladly have traded his life for those of the others, but he wouldn't trade it cheaply. No, not Phillip. It would take more than a few of those Kraut bastards to kill him. The captain, he lost his leg.

But he lived because my boy carried him to safety. Phillip, they put him up for a VC. And he lost his life."

Pryce shook his head again.

"He was beautiful, my boy. Perfect and lovely and beautiful.

He could run, you know. Run forever. I could see him on the playing fields when he was younger at the end of a match when everyone else was wheezing and dragging and he would still be loping along, laughing, effortless. Just for the joy of it.

And I suppose that was the way he felt, right up to the end, even with the bastards closing in on him and his ammunition expended. And on the day I got that letter from the captain, Hugh, any hope I had left within me died, and all I wanted to do was to kill Germans. Kill Germans and die myself. Kill them for killing everything I loved. And that's why I climbed into that Blenheim alongside you, Hugh. And the gunner I replaced?

He wasn't really ill. No. I ordered him out, because I wanted to man that gun. It was the only way I knew to kill the bastards."

Pryce sighed hard, raising his hand to his cheeks, gently touching with his fingertips the moisture flowing down. He looked over at Tommy and Hugh.

"You boys, you both remind me of Phillip in different ways. He was tall and studious, like you, Tommy. And he was strong and athletic, like you, Hugh. Now, damn it, don't either of you die. I couldn't stand it, you see."

Phillip Pryce took a deep breath. He wiped the tears away from his eyes with the sleeve of his tunic.

"I think," he said slowly, inhaling deeply with seemingly every third word, "that it would do my poor torn and broken heart good to see our young and innocent Mr. Scott live, as well. Now, let us turn our attention to this morning's hearing."

Lincoln Scott was seated on the edge of his lone bunk in the empty room when Tommy, accompanied by both Hugh and Pryce, entered. It was shortly before ten a.m. and the black flier was holding the unopened Bible in his lap, almost as if the words within could emanate directly through the worn dark leather binding and be absorbed into his heart through the palms of his hands. He rose as the three men entered. He nodded toward Tommy and Hugh, and then looked at Phillip Pryce with some curiosity.

"More help from the British Isles?" he asked.

Pryce stepped forward, his hand extended.

"Precisely, my boy. Precisely. My name is Phillip Pryce."

Scott shook his hand firmly. But at the same moment, he smiled, as if he'd just heard a joke.

"Something amusing?" Pryce asked.

The black flier dipped his head.

"In a way, yes."

"And what would that be?"

"I'm not your boy," Scott said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You said, 'precisely, my boy…" Well, I'm not your boy.

I'm not anyone's boy. I am a man."

Pryce cocked his head to the side.

"I don't think I totally follow…" he started.

"It's the word: boy. When you call a Negro boy, it is derogatory.

Slave talk. Out of the past. That's what Captain Bedford called me, over and over, trying to get beneath my skin," Scott said, his voice level, but marked with a cold, edgy restraint that Tommy recognized from their prior conversations.

"He, of course, wasn't the first cracker bastard to insult me that way since I enlisted, and probably won't be the last.

But I am not your, nor anyone else's, boy. The word is offensive.

Didn't you know this?"

Pryce smiled.

"How intriguing," he said with unmistakable enthusiasm.

"What is a modest term of friendliness in the speech of my country takes on an utterly different connotation to Mr. Scott, with his background. Fascinating. Tell me, Lieutenant Scott, are there other words in common English use that are impregnated with such different meanings that I should be aware of?"

Scott seemed slightly taken aback by Pryce's response.

"I'm not certain," he said.

"Well, if there are, please let me know. I sometimes think when talking to young Tommy here, that we made a great error a couple of centuries back when we allowed you Americans to appropriate our wonderful native tongue. We should never have shared it with you adventurers and ne'er-do-wells." Pryce spoke rapidly, almost merrily.

"And why are you here?" Scott interrupted sharply.

"But, my dear…" Pryce stopped himself.

"My dear lad?

Is that acceptable, lieutenant?"

Scott shrugged an agreement.

"Well, I am here to lend a little behind the scenes assistance and expertise. And before you enter into this morning's little hearing, I wanted to meet you for myself."

"You are an attorney, as well?"

"Indeed, I am, lieutenant."

Scott looked askance, as if not believing the wisp of a man standing in front of him.

"And you wanted to inspect me?

Like some side of beef? Or a carnival sideshow freak? What was it that you came over here to see?" He threw out the questions with a harsh near-rage, so that they blistered the air of the room.

Pryce, still breezy, hesitated briefly, like a comedian's pause before dropping the punch line. Then he fixed the black flier with a single, penetrating look.

"I expected to see only one thing, lieutenant," he said quietly.

"And what was that?" Scott replied, his voice slightly high-pitched.

Tommy could see that the knuckles of the hand holding the Bible had turned a lighter color, he was squeezing them so tightly.

"Innocence," Pryce responded.

Scott took a deep breath, filling his barrel chest with air.

"And how is it that you can see this, Mr. Pryce? Is innocence like a flight jacket that I can put on in the morning, or when it's cold? Is it in the eyes, or the face, or in the way I stand at attention? Is it a mannerism? A smile, perhaps? Tell me, how does one wear a quality such as innocence? Because I'd like to know. It might help in my situation."

Pryce seemed delighted by the questions thrust in his direction like so many rifle shots.

"You wear innocence by not pretending to be something other than what you are."

"Then you should have no problem," Scott answered, "because that's the way I am."

Pryce nodded.

"Perhaps. Are you always this angry, lieutenant?

Do you always bristle at the people trying to help?"

"No. Yes." The black flier snorted.

"I am who I am. Take it or leave it."

"Ah, an American attitude, to be sure."

"I am an American. I may be black, but I am an American."

"Then perhaps it would be wise," Phillip Pryce gestured toward Tommy,

"to trust your fellow American trying to help you."

Scott's eyes narrowed, focused sharply on the older British flier.

"While all my other fellow Americans are trying to kill me?" he asked with a noticeable sneer.

"Trust, I've learned, is something best left to those who earn it, not those who ask for it. You earn it under pressure. In the air, flying wing to wing in a gusty crosswind. You earn it when you dive through a flight of Messerschmidts. It's something that's not easy to get, and once achieved not easy to lose."

Pryce burst out in laughter.

"Absolutely!" he said.

"You are absolutely correct!"

He turned toward Tommy and Hugh.

"The lieutenant is a philosopher, as well. Tommy. You did not tell me this."

Scott still didn't seem to know what to make of the wiry, partially emaciated British gentleman laughing, wheezing, coughing, and obviously taking complete delight in the turns and twists of their conversation.

"You're a lawyer?" he asked again, slightly incredulous.

Pryce turned back briskly. He stared directly at Lincoln Scott for several long seconds. And when he did answer this question, he did so in a deadly serious, low-pitched, and intense voice.

"I am. And the bloody well best you will ever encounter.

And this is what I suggest you do this morning. Tommy, pay close attention."

For a moment, Scott seemed hesitant. But as the wing commander continued to speak, he started to nod his head in agreement. Tommy and

Hugh joined in, so that as Pryce spoke softly, the other men were gathered in a tight knot around him.

The theater at Stalag Luft Thirteen was located in the center of the camp, next to the hut where the Red Cross parcels and mail were delivered, adjacent to the makeshift medical services building. It was slightly wider than the housing huts, low-slung and hot when the temperatures rose, freezing in the winter. But any performance was jam-packed, from the camp jazz band to The Front Page, performed on the slightly raised stage with dripping candles in footlights fashioned from processed meat tins. Occasionally a German propaganda newsreel was shown, or a feature film of happy, singing Bavarian maidens-all projected by an ancient, cranky machine that frequently broke the film strips-to the wild applause of the prisoners. The best seats in the front of the room were constructed from leftover crates. Others were rough boards nailed together to make uncomfortable pews. Some men would bring blankets to sit on, cramming their backs against the thin processed-wood walls.

At precisely ten a.m. on the wristwatch that had been so coveted by Vincent Bedford, Tommy strode through the wide double doors that opened into the theater, flanked on one side by Hugh Renaday and on the other by Lincoln Scott. The men marched in step, shoulders drawn back tightly, their uniforms as pressed and as clean as they could make them. Their boots resounded off the flooring planks with determined precision.

In unison, the three men wheeled directly up the center aisle, eyes to the front, quick-paced, maintaining formation, like a color guard on parade.

The auditorium was filled to capacity and beyond. Men were jammed into every corner and cranny of the space, shoulder to shoulder, straining to see. Others hung outside, groups of fliers listening through the open windows. Kriegie heads pivoted like falling dominoes as the accused man and his two defenders paced by. A makeshift bar had been created at the foot of the stage, two two-board tables set next to each other, facing three chairs set behind a longer table propped in the middle of the platform. Each chair was occupied by a senior camp officer, with Lewis MacNamara in the center seat.

He was fingering a wooden mallet that hovered over a hunk of two-by-four. A homemade gavel. Major Clark, accompanied by another officer whom Tommy recognized from the search the prior evening, was already seated at the prosecution's table. In a far corner at the front of the stage, Hauptmann Heinrich Visser, accompanied again by a stenographer, was seated. He was pushing back on his wooden, stiff-backed chair, so that he was balancing against the wall, a slightly bemused look on his face. The kriegies had afforded him some space, so Visser and the stenographer were isolated, their steel-gray uniforms standing out amid the sea of woolen olive drab and tanned brown leather that the American fliers wore.

The room, which had been noisily buzzing with anticipatory conversation, fell into a complete silence as the three men marched past, maintaining their lockstep and rhythm.

Wordlessly, Lincoln Scott and Hugh took seats at the defense table.

Tommy, standing between the two, remained on his feet, staring up at

Colonel MacNamara. He held several legal texts in one hand and a notepad in the other. These he abruptly dropped to the tabletop with a solid thud, like the report of a distant mortar round.

Colonel MacNamara stared down at the three men, fixing each in turn, then said briskly: "Are you ready to proceed, lieutenant?"

Tommy nodded.

"Yes. Are you planning on presiding, colonel?"

"I am. As Senior American Officer, it is my duty "

"I would object!" Tommy said loudly.

MacNamara stared at him.

"Objection?"

"Indeed. The potential exists for you to be called as a witness in this matter. That would preclude your being able to preside."

"Witness?" MacNamara looked both puzzled and slightly angry.

"How so?"

But before Tommy could reply, Major Clark leapt up.

"This is unreasonable! Colonel, you are required by your position as commander of the American sector to preside over these proceedings. I don't see what testimony you could possibly give-" Tommy interrupted.

"A defense in a capital case should have the widest possible leeway in bringing forth evidence-any evidence-they believe will help their case. Anything less would be unfair, unconstitutional, and more fitting for the jackbooted thugs we are fighting than freeborn Americans!"

With these final words. Tommy swung around waving his arm at Heinrich Visser and the stenographer, who scratched away at his pad, although his forehead seemed to have reddened.

Visser dropped his chair legs forward, like twin shots, and seemed about to stand, but he did not. Instead he merely stared straight ahead and continued to smoke his cigarette.

MacNamara held up his hand.

"I will not limit the defense, you are correct. As for my own potential testimony, well, that remains to be seen. We will cross that particular bridge if and when we arrive at it."

He made a slight nod toward Visser, as he spoke.

Tommy nodded, as well. Behind him, amid the packed crowd of kriegies, he could hear a few mumbled words, but these were followed by numerous bushings. The men wanted to hear.

MacNamara continued.

"Today we are here merely for a plea. And lieutenant, as you have requested. Major Clark has compiled a list of witnesses and evidence.

Let's get on with the business, please."

Major Clark turned to Tommy. He gestured toward the man seated beside him.

"Lieutenant Hart, this is Captain Walker Townsend. He will be assisting me in these matters."

Captain Townsend, a lean, athletic man with thinning, sandy-colored hair and a pencil-styled mustache on his upper lip, half-rose from his seat, nodding toward the three men at the defense table. Tommy guessed that he was probably in his early thirties.

"He will be in charge of the witnesses and evidence. You may make necessary arrangements through him," Major Clark continued in his snappy, military voice.

"I believe that is all we have, for this moment, colonel. We can proceed with the recording of the plea."

MacNamara hesitated, then said in a loud, penetrating voice:

"First Lieutenant Lincoln Scott, you are accused of the premeditated murder of Captain Vincent Bedford. For the record, how do you plead?"

Scott fairly leapt to his feet to answer, but held his tongue for several seconds. When he did speak, it was loud, decisive, and with unbridled intensity.

"Sir!" His voice filled the entire auditorium.

"Not guilty. Your Honor!"

MacNamara seemed about to reply, but Scott beat him to the silence that had filled the room, half-pivoting where he stood, so that he partially faced the kriegie audience. His voice soared like his preacher father's, filling the air above the crowd of men.

"It is true that I despised Vincent Bedford! From the first minute that I arrived in this camp, he treated me like a dog.

Worse than a dog! He insulted me. He baited me. He taunted me with obscene and hate-filled names. He was an utter racist and he hated me every bit as much as I came to hate him. He wanted me dead from the moment I arrived here! Every man here has heard how he tried to kill me, by trying to get me to cross the deadline. But to this, I did nothing! Any other man here would have been justified in fighting

Vincent Bedford and maybe even killing him for what he tried to do! But I did nothing of the sort!"

Major Clark had leapt to his feet, waving his arms, trying to get the court's attention. He began to yell, "Objection! Objection!"

But Scott's voice was the greater, and the black flier prevailed.

"I came here to kill Germans!" Scott shouted, suddenly swinging about and pointing an accusing finger directly at Visser.

"Germans like him!"

Visser's face instantly paled, and he abruptly dropped the cigarette from his solitary hand to the floor, grinding it beneath his boot. He half-rose in his seat, then slumped back.

He fixed the black flier with an unbridled look of hatred.

Scott met the gaze with a similarly hard look of his own.

"Maybe some people in the camp have forgotten that's why we're here," he said loudly, swinging his eyes to MacNamara and then Clark and finally back to the assembled kriegies.

"But not me!"

He paused, letting the sudden silence grip the theater.

"I have been goddamn successful at killing the enemy!

There were nine swastikas painted on the side of my bird before I got shot down." Scott stared across the rows of men.

"And I'm not alone. That is why we're here!"

And then he paused again, just snatching a quick burst of air, so that his next words resonated throughout the auditorium.

"But someone at Stalag Luft Thirteen has something else in mind! And that someone killed Vincent Bedford…"

Scott drew himself up, his voice barreling through the still air of the theater. He jabbed the air with his finger.

"It could be you, or you, or the man next to you…" As he spoke, he pointed randomly into the audience, fixing each kriegie that he selected with a steady, unwavering gaze.

"I don't know why Vincent Bedford was killed…" He took a deep breath, and then shouted: "But I'm going to find out!"

Then Scott swung back, facing MacNamara, whose face had reddened, but who at the same time seemed to be listening intently to every word the black flier said, and who seemed to have collected his own anger and stored it someplace deep within himself.

"Not guilty, colonel. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not damn guilty! Not in the slightest!"

And then he abruptly sat down.

The room immediately burst into a tangled Babel of voices, explosions of hurried, excited speech as the collected kriegies reacted to Lincoln

Scott's words. Colonel MacNamara oddly allowed the cacophony to continue for a minute before he started to hammer the hunk of wood, bellowing for order and silence.

"Good job," Tommy whispered directly into the black flier's ear.

"That'll give them something to think about," Scott responded.

Hugh was fighting to keep from grinning.

"Order!" MacNamara shouted.

As swiftly as it had burst forth, the noise started to dissipate, suddenly leaving only the sound of the mallet striking the wood. Into this vacuum. Tommy leaped. He shoved his chair back and rose to his feet. He made a small gesture toward Scott and Hugh, and they, too, pushed up. The three men snapped their heels together, coming to attention.

"Sir!" Tommy bellowed, drawing every bit of stentorian presence from deep within his chest.

"The defense will be ready to proceed at zero eight hundred hours on Monday, directly after the morning Appell The three men saluted in unison. MacNamara wordlessly nodded just slightly, and lifted two fingers to his own forehead, returning the salute. Then the accused and his two defenders pivoted, and assuming the same winged formation they used when entering the room, the three men exited the bar, and marched down the center aisle again. Silence followed their heavy tread on the wooden flooring. Tommy could see surprise, confusion, and doubts on the faces of the men jammed into the theater. This was what he had expected their performance would engender. He had anticipated, as well. Major Clark's tight-faced anger and Colonel MacNamara's more calculated reaction. However, the look that had taken him aback had been the wry, almost delighted smile on the face of Clark's assistant.

Walker Townsend. The captain had seemed oddly energized, as if he'd just heard some great and glorious piece of good news, which was. Tommy

Hart thought to himself, the precise opposite response that he'd expected from the challenge they had thrown down.

And as he marched forward, he felt a quiver within him, almost a cold shaft that went through his heart like the first icy breath on a winter morning back home in Vermont. But this lacked the clarity of those times, replacing it with a darkness and a murkiness that seemed almost fog-ridden. Somewhere in that audience, facing him, he knew, was the real reason Vincent Bedford had died. And that man was likely to be less enthusiastic about the threat Lincoln Scott had publicly issued.

And that man might do something about it.

Tommy reached out, shoulders still locked squarely, head back, and pushed open the doors, rapidly exiting the packed theater and rushing out into the midday sunshine of late spring at Stalag Luft Thirteen. He stopped and gasped sharply, breathing in deeply from the rusty, tainted, impure, and barbed-wire enclosed air of imprisonment.