Hart’s War

Chapter Seven

After the hearing, they left Lincoln Scott alone in his bunk room. The black flier had been electric, excited, by the morning's action. He had shaken hands with both Tommy Hart and Hugh Renaday, and then suddenly dropped to the floor and started in on rapid-fire push-ups.

They made plans to meet later in the day to map out their next step, and Tommy left Scott behind, the Tuskegee airman dancing lightly in a corner of the room, shadowboxing imaginary opponents, snapping hard left jabs and swooping right haymakers, using the bright midday light that filtered through the bunk-room windows and threw just enough darkness into the corners to create the shadows necessary for the mock-fight.

Hugh spotted a ferret snooping around Hut 105, probing the dirt in a small garden by the side of the barracks. The ferret demanded three cigarettes to accompany the two men back to the British camp, where they intended to inform Phillip Pryce about the morning's session.

Tommy negotiated him down to two smokes, and the three men rapidly crossed the exercise area, heading to the front gate. A baseball game had started up, and there were some men doing calisthenics on the side, calling out numbers in unison. Both groups paused slightly as they passed by-not stopping what they were doing, but slowing, taking note.

Tommy braced for a verbal onslaught, but nothing was said in their direction, no catcalls, no obscenities, no epithets.

He took this as a positive sign. If they'd managed to sow some doubt amid the kriegies with the forcefulness of Lincoln Scott's words of denial, then that was good. Perhaps the same questions were rooting in the minds of the three judges.

He wished he knew more about the two officers who sat by MacNamara's side on the tribunal. He made a mental note to find out who they were and where they came from, and how they'd arrived at Stalag Luft Thirteen. He wondered whether the circumstances of each kriegie's capture wasn't some sort of window on who they were, or who they might become, and thought to ask Phillip Pryce about this. He thought, too, that he needed to understand the SAO better, as when all was said and done, he doubted whether the two men flanking him on the tribunal would vote against him. He recalled what Phillip Pryce had said on the first day-"all the forces at work"-and reminded himself to take better care of answering that question.

He found himself walking swiftly, almost a half-trot, as if the weight of the things he needed to do was prodding him in the back. He guessed that some of the same thoughts were powering Hugh as well, because the Canadian was keeping pace without complaint or question. The German ferret, however, dragged behind lazily, and more than once the two airmen gestured for him to hurry.

"Tommy," Hugh said quietly, "we need to find the murder location. Every hour that passes it gets colder. The man we're looking for has had more than enough opportunity to cover it up. In fact, I have my doubts we'll ever find it."

Tommy nodded his reply, but said, "I have an idea, but I need to wait just a little longer."

Hugh snorted once and shook his head.

"We'll never find it," he repeated.

The gate swung open for them-Tommy took note that the regular gate goons were becoming accustomed to their back and forth travels, which he thought might be a valuable thing, although he didn't know precisely how. They continued through the area between the camps. There was singing coming from the shower house, and Renaday started to hum along as they both recognized the words to "Mademoiselle from Armentieres," bellowed at the usual high volume: "… Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parlez-vous? Mademoiselle from Armentieres, parlez-vous? Mademoiselle from Armentieres, hasn't been fucked in forty years, hinky-stinky parlez-vous…"

Like many of the British songs, this one dated back to the First World War, and grew increasingly ribald.

Tommy had his attention on the shower house when he suddenly heard the brusque, harsh German command from behind, overcoming the echoes of the song: "Halt!"

The ferret instantly snapped his cigarette from his lips and came to attention. Hugh and Tommy swung toward the sound of the voice. As they pivoted they saw an adjutant in shirtsleeves half-running down the steps from the administration building and crossing the dusty road toward them. This was unusual. German officers did not like to be seen by the kriegies in anything less than full uniform, nor did they ever like to appear rushed, unless someone higher up on the chain of command had issued an order.

The adjutant hurried up to them. His English was fractured, but he was able to make himself clear: "Hart, pliss vit me. You, Renaday, back to home…"

He pointed at the British compound ahead, "What's this about?" Tommy demanded.

"Vit me, pliss," the adjutant said. He waved his arms to add some urgency to his words.

"Not to want to keep waiting, pliss…"

"I still want to know what this is all about," Tommy replied. The

German officer's face seemed to contract, and he stamped his foot once, raising a dusty puff of dirt.

"Is ordered. See Commandant Von Reiter."

Renaday's right eyebrow shot up.

"Now, isn't that interesting," he said quietly. He turned to the ferret, who had not moved a muscle.

"Okay, Adolf, let's go. Tommy, I'll be waiting with Phillip. Very curious summons, this," he added.

The German officer seemed immensely relieved that Tommy was willing to accompany him, and he held the door open for the American as they stepped inside the administration building. Several of the clerks sitting behind desks looked up curiously as he entered, but then when the officer followed, they dutifully returned their eyes to whatever documents they had in front of them. German military bureaucracy was steady and thorough; more than anything, it sometimes seemed, they hated the ingenuity and creativity of their prisoners. Tommy was pushed once in the direction of the commandant's office, which made him stop, pivot, stare at the adjutant with a narrow gaze. When the officer stepped back, dropping his hands, Tommy turned again and walked sharply across the floor and pulled open the door to Von Reiter's room.

The commandant was behind his desk, waiting. A single, uncomfortable chair was arranged in front of the desk, for Hart to sit in, which he did, as Von Reiter gestured toward it.

But as soon as he sat, the German immediately rose to his feet so that he towered above Tommy. Von Reiter, too, was in shirtsleeves, his tailored white shirt glistening in the light pouring through a wide window that overlooked the two compounds. The starched collar pushed at the officer's ruddy throat. The jet black Iron Cross he wore around his neck gleamed against the immaculate shirtfront. His dress jacket hung from a hook on the wall, a polished black leather gun belt with a Luger in a holster hanging next to it. The commandant walked over to his jacket and brushed a piece of imaginary lint from the lapel. Then he turned to Tommy.

"Lieutenant Hart," he said slowly, "your work goes well?"

"We are only in the beginning stages, Herr commandant," Tommy answered carefully.

"And certainly Hauptmann Visser can fill you in with whatever details you require."

Von Reiter nodded, and returned to his seat.

"Hauptmann Visser is, how do you put it? Staying in touch?"

"He takes his job seriously. He seems most attentive."

Von Reiter moved his head in a half-nod.

"You are here many months, lieutenant. An old-timer, as Americans say.

Tell me, Mr. Hart, you find life at Stalag Luft Thirteen to be… acceptable?"

This question surprised Tommy, but he tried to withhold any sign of this sensation. He shrugged, in an exaggerated fashion.

"I'd rather be home, Herr commandant. But I am also glad to be alive."

Von Reiter nodded and smiled.

"This is the one quality all soldiers share, true. Hart? No matter how harsh life is, it is still better to enjoy it, because death is so easy to acquire in war, do you not think?"

"Yes, Herr commandant."

"Do you believe you will live through the war, Hart?"

Tommy inhaled sharply. This was the one question, bluntly put, no kriegie ever asked or answered, never gave voice to, not even in a joke, because it immediately opened the door to all their deep and uncontrollable fears. The wake-up-choking-in-the-middle-of-the-night fears. The staring-at-the-barbed-wire-in-the-middle-of-the-day fears. It invoked the names and faces of all the men who had died in the air around them and all the men still breathing, but destined to die in the seconds, minutes, hours, and days to come. He slowly released his breath and answered obliquely, forcing himself not to truly dwell on this, the worst of all questions.

"I am alive today, Herr commandant. I hope to be alive tomorrow."

Von Reiter's eyes seemed piercing. His stiffness. Tommy thought, masked a man of considerable intellectual intensity and rigid formality. This was always a dangerous combination.

"Captain Bedford, he undoubtedly felt the same on the final day of his life."

"I wouldn't know what he felt," Tommy replied, but of course, this was a lie, for he did know.

Von Reiter continued to fix Tommy with an unwavering gaze. After a momentary silence, he continued his queries:

"Tell me. Hart, why do Americans hate the blacks?"

"Not all Americans do."

"But many, yes?"

Tommy nodded.

"Yes. It seems so."

"And why is that?"

Tommy shook his head.

"Complicated. I'm not sure I really could say."

"You do not hate Lieutenant Scott?"

"No."

"He is inferior to you, no?"

"Doesn't seem that way."

"And also you believe in his innocence?"

"I do."

"If he has been falsely accused, as you say, then we have many problems. Many problems. Both for your commander, and myself."

"I haven't really considered that question, Herr commandant.

Perhaps."

"Yes, this will be true. It might be wise for you to examine this question, lieutenant. But perhaps, on the other hand, he is truly guilty and you are merely doing what you have been ordered.

Americans are fond of showing the world how just and fair they are.

They speak of rights and laws and their beloved founding fathers and their documents. Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and the Bill of Rights. But I think they forget about order and discipline, too.

Here, in Germany, we have order…"

"Yes. I've seen it."

"And here in Stalag Luft Thirteen, we have order, as well."

"I suppose."

Von Reiter paused again. Tommy shifted about in his seat, eager to leave. He did not know what the commandant was searching for, and in the absence of this knowledge, he was uncomfortable about what information he might impart unwittingly.

The German laughed briefly.

"And sometimes, I think this is correct, lieutenant, justice for

Americans, the show is more important than the truth. Do you not agree?"

"I haven't thought of it."

"Truly?" Von Reiter looked at him quizzically.

"And you a student of your own laws?"

Tommy did not reply. Von Reiter smiled again.

"Tell me. Lieutenant Hart, for I am eager to know: Which is more dangerous, if Scott is guilty or if he is innocent?"

Tommy remained silent, not answering the question. He could feel sweat trickling down beneath his armpits, and the room seemed to increase in heat. He wanted to leave, yet was rooted to his seat. Von Reiter's voice was rough-edged, but penetrating. He thought in that second the commandant was a man who saw secrets within secrets, and he told himself that the commandant's creased uniform and stiff-backed bearing were every bit as deceptive as Hauptmann Visser's cryptic, questioning glances.

"Dangerous for whom?" Tommy answered cautiously.

"Which result will cost men their lives. Guilt or innocence, lieutenant?"

"I don't know. It is not my job to know."

Von Reiter allowed himself a small, unfriendly laugh, nodded, and idly picked up a sheet of paper from his desk, staring at it for a moment before continuing.

"Vermont is your home, no?"

"It is."

"It is a state not unlike here. Thick woods and harsh winters, I believe?"

"It has many quite beautiful forests and a long, hard winter season, yes," he said slowly.

"But it is not like here."

Von Reiter sighed.

"I myself have only been to New York.

And just once. But London and Paris many times. Before the war, of course."

"I never traveled all that much."

The commandant took a long look out the window.

"If Lieutenant Scott is declared to be guilty, will your colonel truly demand I provide a firing squad?"

"You should ask him."

The commandant frowned.

"No one has escaped from Stalag Luft Thirteen," he said slowly.

"Only the dead, like the unfortunate men in the tunnel. And now, such as Captain Bedford. It will remain that way, do you not think, lieutenant?"

"I never try to guess what the future holds," Tommy replied.

"It will remain that way!" Von Reiter said forcefully. Then he swung away from the window.

"Do you have a family. Lieutenant Hart?"

"Yes. Of course."

"A wife? Children?"

"No. Not yet." He hesitated as he spoke.

"But there is a woman, no?"

"Yes. Waiting back home."

"I hope that you will live to see her again," Von Reiter said briskly.

He waved his hand at Tommy, signaling the end of the meeting. Tommy rose, and started toward the door, but Von Reiter added one other question, almost as an afterthought.

"Do you sing, Lieutenant Hart?"

"Sing?"

"Like the British."

"No, Herr commandant."

Von Reiter shrugged again, grinning.

"You should perhaps learn. As I have. Perhaps after the war I will write a book containing all the music and words to the filthy British songs and thus I will make some money to welcome my old age." The commandant laughed out loud.

"Sometimes we must learn to accommodate that which we also hate," he said. Then he turned his back on Tommy and stared out of his window at the two compounds. Tommy moved swiftly through the office door, unsure whether he had just been threatened or warned, and thinking that there was probably much the same menace contained within each.

Tommy passed a game of mouse roulette going on in one of the bunk rooms as he hurried to Renaday and Pryce's quarters.

A half-dozen British officers were seated around a table, each with a modest stack of cigarettes, chocolate, or some other foodstuffs in front of them. Betting materials. In the center was a small carton, with air holes punched in the sides.

The men were shouting, joking, mercilessly insulting and teasing each other, back and forth. American pilots' obscenities tended toward the short and brutal. The British, however, seemed to take some delight in the exaggerations and florid language of their verbal assaults. The air was filled with these.

But at a sudden signal from the croupier, a lanky, thickly bearded pilot wearing an old gray blanket tied around his waist as a sort of half-kilt, half-dress, the men grew instantly silent. Then, once the quiet was complete, the croupier lifted the lid of the box and a captured mouse timidly peeked out over the edge.

Mouse roulette was simple. With a little prodding and encouragement from the croupier, the mouse would tumble onto the tabletop, and look about himself at the waiting but absolutely stock-still, hardly breathing, rigid and perfectly silent men. The only rule was that no one could do anything to attract the mouse in the slightest; the terrified kriegie mouse would eventually break out in one direction, scurrying toward what it so fervently believed was the least threatening presence and safety. Whichever man was closest to the breakout was declared the winner. The problem with mouse roulette, of course, was that more often than not, the fleeing mouse would try to escape into the space between two of the men, which led to great mock disputes trying to assess what the mouse's true intentions had been, other than freedom, which was always its single-minded and greatest hope and desire.

Tommy watched the game for a moment, up until the point the mouse made its futile break, then he hurried on as the game dissolved into loud laughter and counterfeit arguments.

When he arrived at the door to the bunk room, he saw there was a third man sitting in the room alongside Pryce and Renaday, who looked up quickly as Tommy entered. The stranger was a dark-haired but fair-complected young man, very thin, like Pryce, with narrow wrists and a sunken chest, which gave him an oddly birdlike appearance behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. His smile was cocked slightly to the left, almost as if his entire body were leaning in that direction.

All three men rose, as Tommy stepped forward.

"Tommy, this is a friend of mine," Hugh said briskly.

"Colin Sullivan. From the Emerald Isle."

Tommy shook hands.

"Irish?" he asked.

"I am, indeed," Sullivan replied.

"Irish and Spitfires," he added. Tommy had difficulty imagining the slight young man wrestling with the controls of a fighter plane, but did not say this out loud.

"Colin most generously has offered to help out," Phillip Pryce said.

"Show him, my boy."

The Irishman reached down and Tommy saw that he had a large sketch pad half-stuck under the bed.

"Actually," Sullivan said to Tommy, "Irish, Spitfires, and three boring years at the London School of Design before getting involved in all the patriotic foolishness that seems to have landed me here."

Sullivan opened the sketch pad, and handed Tommy the first drawing. It was a dark vision of Trader Vic's body, stuffed into the Abort stall, rendered mainly in the gradations of gray created by a charcoal pencil.

"I had to work with Hugh's recollections," Sullivan said, smiling.

"And surely you know that the Canadians, being a hairy and rough-hewn people as wild as Indians and with the imaginations of buffalo, have no natural gifts for the poetry of description, like my countrymen and myself," he said, tossing a quick smile at a grimacing, but obviously pleased, Hugh Renaday.

"So it's the very best I could do, allowing for my limited resources…"

Tommy thought the sketch caught the murdered man's figure perfectly. It was both nightmarish and brutal, in the same space. Sullivan had used some precious paints to display the modest blood streaks on the American's body. They stood out sharply, in dramatic contrast to the darker, somber tones of the pencil's shadings.

"This is fantastic," Tommy said.

"That's exactly what Vic looked like. Are there more?"

"Aye, absolutely," Sullivan said, with a quick grin.

"Not precisely what my old life-drawing professor probably had in mind back in my school days, but he did always rather tediously lecture us to employ that which is at hand, and though I might prefer some naked fraulein posing provocatively with a thank-you-very-much smile…"

He handed a second drawing to Tommy. This showed the critical neck wound on Trader Vic's body.

"I worked with him on that one," Hugh said.

"Now what we'll need to do is take it and show it to the Yank who examined the body, just to make certain it's accurate."

Tommy flipped to another sketch, this a drawing of the interior of the Abort displaying distances and locations. An ornate, feathered arrow pointed toward the bloody footprint on the floor. A final sketch was a redoing of the tracing of the boot print that Hugh had done on the scene.

"A damn sight better than my clumsy efforts," Renaday said, grinning.

"Like usual, all this was Phillip's idea. He knew Colin was my friend, but of course, I hadn't thought of putting him on the case."

"It was fun," Colin Sullivan said.

"Far more intriguing than yet another bloody drawing of the northeast guard tower.

That's the one that gets the best afternoon light, you know, and the one we in the camp art classes all dutifully troop out and draw every day that it's not raining."

"I'm impressed," Tommy said.

"These will help. I can't thank you enough."

Sullivan shrugged.

"Back home in Belfast," he said, now speaking slowly, "well, let me put it to you this way, Mr. Hart: I'm Irish and I'm a Catholic, and that fact alone should tell you that I've been treated like a nigger probably every bit as often as your Lincoln Scott has been in the

States. So, there you have it. I'm more than pleased to help out."

Tommy was slightly taken aback by the forcefulness of the slight

Irishman's sudden vehemence.

"These are excellent," he said again. He was about to continue with praise, when he was interrupted by a cold and quiet voice from behind him.

"But there is an error," the voice said.

The Allied fliers pivoted, and saw Hauptmann Heinrich Visser standing in the doorway, staring across the room directly at the drawing in

Tommy's hands.

None of the three men responded, letting silence swirl through the small space, filling the room like a bad scent on a weak wind. Visser stepped forward, still regarding the drawing with a studious and intent look. In his only hand, he carried a small, brown leather portfolio, which he set down on the floor at his feet, as he leaned forward and jabbed an index finger at the drawing that mapped the scene.

"Right here," he said, turning to Renaday and Sullivan.

"This is mistaken. The boot print was another few feet over, closer to the Abort stall. I measured this distance myself."

Sullivan nodded.

"I can make that change," he said in an even voice.

"Yes, make that change, flying officer," Visser said, lifting his eyes from the drawing, and staring narrow and hard at Sullivan.

"A Spitfire pilot, you said."

"Yes."

Visser coughed once.

"A Spitfire is an excellent machine.

Quite a match even for a 109."

"That is true," Sullivan said.

"The Hauptmann has personal experience with Spitfires, I would imagine." The Irishman then pointed directly at the German officer's missing arm.

"Not the best of experiences, too, I'll wager," Sullivan added coldly.

Visser nodded. He did not reply, but his face had paled slightly and Tommy saw his upper lip quiver.

Sullivan took a deep breath, which did nothing to change his own slight and sallow appearance.

"I am sorry for your wound, Hauptmann," he said, his voice taking on even thicker inflections and accents from his native country.

"But I think that you are among the truly fortunate. None of the men piloting 109s that I shot down ever managed to bail out. They are all up in Valhalla, or wherever it is that you Nazis think you go when you pull a cropper for the fatherland."

The words from the Irishman were like blows in the small room. The German straightened his shoulders as he stared at the young artist with unbridled anger. But his voice did not betray the rage that the Hauptmann must have felt, for his words remained even, icy, and flat.

"This is perhaps true, Mr. Sullivan." Visser spoke slowly.

"But still, you are here in Stalag Luft Thirteen. And no one knows for certain whether you will ever see the streets of Belfast again, do they?"

Sullivan did not answer. The two men eyed each other hard, without compromise, and then Visser turned back to the drawing and said, "And there is another detail that you have gotten wrong in the drawing, Mr. Sullivan…"

The German pivoted slightly, looking at Tommy Hart.

"The boot print It was facing the other direction."

Visser took his finger and pointed down at the sketch.

"It was heading in this direction."

He motioned toward the back of the Abort to where the body was discovered.

"This," Visser continued, coldly, "I think you will find, is an important fact."

Again, none of the Allied fliers spoke. And in this second silence, Visser turned again, so that now he was facing Phillip Pryce.

"But you. Wing Commander Pryce, you will already have seen this, and you will, I have no doubt whatsoever, understand its true significance."

Pryce simply stared at the German, who smiled nastily, handed the sketches back to Tommy Hart, and reached down to his leather portfolio.

With some dexterity, using his only hand, he managed to extract a small, tan, dossier folder from within the portfolio.

"It took me no small amount of time to obtain this, wing commander. But when I did finally acquire it, ah, the intrigue that it held. Quite interesting reading."

The other men in the room remained quiet. Tommy thought Pryce's breath was filled with the wheeziness of tension.

Heinrich Visser looked down at the dossier. His smile faded, as he read: "Phillip Pryce. Wing Commander, 56th Heavy Bomber Group, stationed in

Avon-on-Trent. Commissioned in the R.A.F, 1939. Born, London, September 1893. Educated at Harrow and Oxford. Graduated in the top five in his class at both institutions. Served as an air adjutant to the general staff during the first war. Returned home, decorated.

Admitted to the bar, July 1921. Primary partner in the London firm of Pryce, Stokes, Martyn and Masters. At least a dozen murder trials argued, all of the most sensational, with great headlines and all due attention, without a single loss…"

Heinrich Visser stopped, looked up, fixing the older man.

"Not a single loss," the German repeated.

"An exemplary record, wing commander. Outstanding record. Quite remarkable.

And probably quite remunerative, as well, no? And at your age, it would have seemed that you had no need of enlisting, but you could have remained throughout the war enjoying the comforts of your position and resting amid your quite noteworthy successes."

"How did you obtain that information?" Pryce demanded sharply.

Visser shook his head.

"You do not truly expect me to answer that particular question, do you, wing commander?"

Pryce took a deep breath, which caused him to cough harshly, and shook his head.

"Of course not, Hauptmann" The German closed the dossier, returned it to his portfolio, and glanced across at each of the men, in their turn.

"Not a single loss in a capital case. Quite a phenomenal accomplishment, even for a barrister as prominent as yourself.

And this case, where you have been so ably, yet so discreetly, assisting young Lieutenant Hart? You do not predict that it might become your very fast failure?"

"No," Pryce said abruptly.

"Your confidence in your American friend is admirable," Visser said.

"I do not know that it is widely shared beyond these walls." Visser smiled.

"Although, after this morning's performance, perhaps there are some who are reevaluating their opinions."

Visser worked the portfolio up beneath his remaining arm.

"Your cough, wing commander. It seems quite severe. I think you should see to its treatment before it worsens further," the German said briskly. Then, with a single, farewell nod, he turned sharply on his heel and strode from the room, the metal tips of his boots making a machine-gun-like sound against the worn wooden boards.

The four Allied fliers remained silent for a moment, until Pryce broke the quiet: "The uniform is Luftwaffe," he said thinly, "but the man is

Gestapo."

It was later in the day when Tommy hurried across to the South Compound, heading toward the medical services tent to interview the

Cleveland mortuary assistant. He was troubled by Visser's appearance.

On the one hand, the German seemed to be trying to help-as evidenced by his pointing out the flaws in the crime scene sketches. But then there was so much unmistakable threat in everything he said.

Pryce, in particular, had been unsettled by the Hauptmann's unstated intentions.

As he paced quickly through the darkening shadows that littered the alleys between the housing huts. Tommy Hart found himself thinking about the game of mouse roulette he'd seen earlier. He decided that he would no longer feel anything but sympathy for the mouse.

There were a couple of airmen standing outside the medical services hut, smoking. They parted as he approached, and one of the fliers said, "Hey, Hart, how's it going?" as he passed.

He found Lieutenant Nicholas Fenelli inside one of the small examination rooms. There was a small table, a few hard-backed chairs, and a tabletop covered with a rough white sheet. Light from a single overhead electric bulb filled the room. On a pair of wooden shelves that had been nailed to one wall there was an array of medicines sulfa drugs, aspirin, disinfectants and creams, bandages, and compresses.

The selection was modest; all the kriegies knew that getting sick or injured was dangerous in Stalag Luft Thirteen. A routine illness could easily become complicated by the lack of proper medical materials, despite the efforts of the Red Cross to keep the dispensary stocked.

The Allied prisoners believed that the Germans regularly pilfered the precious medicines for their own hard-pressed hospitals, but this was denied by the Luftwaffe commanders, who scoffed at the allegations.

The more they scoffed, the more the kriegies were convinced they were being robbed.

Fenelli looked up from behind the table as Tommy entered.

"The man of the hour," he said, extending his hand.

"Hell, that was some show you put on this morning. You got an encore planned for Monday?"

"I'm working on it," Tommy replied. He glanced around.

"You know, I've never been in here before…"

"You're lucky. Hart," Fenelli said brusquely.

"I know it ain't much. Hell, best I can do is lance a boil, maybe clean out some blisters, or set a broken wrist. Other than that, well, you got trouble." Fenelli leaned back, glanced out the window, and lit a cigarette. He gestured at the medicines.

"Don't get sick, Hart. At least not until you think Ike or Patton and a column of tanks is just down the road." Fenelli was short, but wide-shouldered, with long, powerful arms. His curly black hair hung over his ears, and he was in need of a shave. He had an open grin, and a cocky, self-assured manner.

"I'm not planning on it," Tommy said.

"So, you're going to be a doctor?"

"That's right. Back to med school as soon as I get my sorry butt outta here. Shouldn't have too much trouble with gross anatomy class after all the stuff I've seen since I got my greetings from Uncle Sam. I figure I've seen just about every body part from toes to guts to brains all laid out nice and special thanks to the fucking Krauts."

"You worked in the mortuary back home…"

"I told all that stuff to your buddy, Renaday. All true. And not nearly as bad a place to work as folks'll think. One thing you can always count on: Working in a mortuary is a nice, steady job. Never a shortage of stiffs heading your way.

Anyway, as I told your Canadian buddy-shit, I wouldn't want to get in a fight with him, you see the shoulders on him?

Anyway, I told him, soon as I saw that knife wound in Trader Vic's neck, I knew what the hell had happened. Didn't have to look at it for more than one second, although I did. Took a nice long look. I seen it before and I know how it got put there, and I haven't got no trouble telling anyone who's interested."

Tommy handed Fenelli the sketch of the neck wound that Colin Sullivan had made. The American swiftly nodded.

"Hey, Hart. This fella can draw, all right. Yeah. That's exactly what it looked like. Even the edges, man, he's got them just right.

Not sliced, like you'd think, but just frayed a bit where the knife went in, bang! and then got worked around…"

As he spoke, Fenelli mimicked the blade entering the throat. Tommy took a deep breath, imagining the last second of panic that Trader Vic must have felt as he was grasped from behind.

"So, if I call you to the stand…"

As he spoke, Fenelli handed Tommy back the sketch of the neck wound.

"Sure. No problem. Maybe piss off Clark a bit. But that man's in genuine need of pissing off. Tight-ass career army type. Screw him."

Fenelli laughed out loud.

"Hey," he said, grinning, "you gonna spring this on Monday? Not bad.

Hart. Not bad at all. That old fart Clark don't have nothing going for him like this."

"Not Monday," Tommy replied.

"But soon enough. Think you can keep your opinions to yourself?" he asked.

"No matter what happens when Clark starts to trot out his witnesses and evidence…"

"You mean you want me not to go around shooting my mouth off and telling everybody that Vic bought it just like some low-level capo did on some real dark street corner back home? Sure. You may not learn a lot working in a funeral home in Cleveland, but you do learn how to keep your mouth shut."

Tommy reached out and shook Fenelli's hand.

"I'll be in touch," he said.

"Just don't go anywhere."

The would-be doctor laughed hard.

"You're a card, Hart."

Tommy was about to exit the door to the dispensary when Fenelli said, "Hey, Hart, one thing. You know this guy that's sitting next to Clark?"

"Townsend, I think his name is?"

"That's the guy. You know anything about him?"

"No. I was going to head over to his hut now."

"I know him," Fenelli said.

"We came into this shithole same time, same transport. He was a Liberator pilot, shot down over Italy."

"Did he have a story?"

Fenelli grinned.

"Hey, Hart, everybody's got a story, don't you know? But that ain't what I think you're gonna find interesting about Captain Walker Townsend, no sir." Fenelli mimicked a slight southern accent as he spoke.

"You know what Captain Townsend was back in the States before landing his ass over here?"

Tommy did not say anything. Fenelli continued to smile.

"How about chief assistant district attorney in Richmond, Virginia?

That's what he was, and you can bet every damn carton of smokes you've got that's the reason Clark has him sitting in the next seat."

Tommy breathed out slowly. This made sense to him.

"And one other cute little detail. Hart, which I remember from the two days Townsend and I spent in the same stinking cattle car while we was being shipped here. Man tells me he did all the murder prosecutions in Richmond. And the man likes to tell me that hell, he's got more men on death row in ole Virginny than he did bombing missions before he got shot down. Like that was some sort of funny kinda ironic thing and all."

Fenelli reached into his shirt pocket, removing another cigarette, which he lit, blowing rings of smoke into the air.

"Just thought you might like to know who you're really up against.

Hart. And it for sure ain't that hot-headed idiot Major Clark. Good luck."

Tommy found Captain Walker Townsend in his bunk room in Hut 113 working on a crossword puzzle contained in a dog-eared paperback booklet filled with various games. The captain had nearly completed the puzzle, writing each entry in faint pencil strokes, so that it could be erased upon completion and traded for a can of processed meat or a chocolate bar to some other bored kriegie.

Townsend looked up as Tommy entered the room, smiled, and immediately asked: "Hey, lieutenant. What's a six-letter word for failure?"

"How about fricked?" Tommy responded.

Townsend roared with laughter, a voice much greater than his slight build would seem to have accommodated.

"Not bad. Hart," he said. His accent was definitely southern, but only in the mildest way. It lacked the Deep South contractions and distinctions that marked Vincent Bedford's speech as well as many others'. His was almost gentle, rhythmic, closer to a lullaby's tones.

"Y'all are sharp. But somehow, I don't think that's what the editors of the New York Times had in mind when they put this together…"

"Then how about defeat!" Tommy suggested.

Townsend looked down at the puzzle for an instant, then smiled.

"That works," he said. He put his pencil and the paperback down on the bunk.

"Damn, I hate those things. Always make me feel dumb. You just got to have one of those minds that works the right way, I guess. Anyways, when I get back home, I won't never do another."

"Where's home?" Tommy asked, already knowing the answer.

"Why, the great state of Virginia. The capital city of Richmond."

"What did you do before the war?" Tommy asked.

Townsend shrugged, still smiling.

"Why, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. And then I got my law degree and went to work for the state. Good work, working for the state.

Steady hours and a nice paycheck at the end of the week and a pension waiting down the road some time."

"State attorney? What's that? Land acquisitions and zoning regulations?"

"More or less," Townsend replied, still smiling.

"Of course, I didn't have the same advantages as you. No sir. No Harvard University for me, I'm afraid. Just night classes at the local college. Worked all day in my daddy's store-he sold farm equipment just outside the city. Went to school at night."

Tommy nodded. He wore a smile of his own, one that he hoped would make Townsend believe that he'd swallowed the lies without chewing.

"Harvard's overrated," he said.

"I think you learn as much about the law in a lot of less fancy places.

Most of my classmates were only interested in getting their degrees and getting out and making a fast buck, anyway."

"Well," Townsend said, lifting his shoulders, "still seems to me to be a mighty fine place to be studying the law."

"Well," Tommy said, "at least you're a graduate. So you've got more practical experience than I do."

Townsend held his hands out in a what-do-you-know gesture.

"Probably not all that much more, what with your moot courts and such up there in Boston. And hell. Hart, this military tribunal ain't much like what we got back home in all those county courthouses."

No, Tommy thought. I bet it isn't, but the outcome is designed to be the same. He did not say this out loud. Instead, he said, "Well, you've got a list of witnesses for me. And I'd like to inspect the evidence…"

"Why, I've been waiting for you all day, since this morning's hearing-fine job you did on that, too, I must admit. Why, Lieutenant Scott, he seemed filled to the very brim with the righteous indignation of the truly innocent. Yes sir. He did. Why, I must say that all I've heard from the other kriegies all this long day has been doubt and questions and wonderment, which is, I'd wager, more or less what y'all had in mind. But, of course, they haven't seen the evidence in this matter, as I have. Evidence doesn't lie. Evidence doesn't make nice speeches. All it does is point the finger of guilt. Still, my hat's off to you, Lieutenant Hart. You had a fine start."

"Call me Tommy. Everybody else does. Except for Major Clark and Colonel MacNamara."

"Well then. Tommy, I must congratulate you on this first day."

"Thank you."

"But as you'd expect, I'll be doing my best to make it a mite harder from here on in."

"That's exactly what I'd expect. Starting Monday morning."

"Right. Monday morning, zero eight hundred, like y'all said. Just so's we understand, there's nothing personal. Just following orders."

Tommy breathed in sharply. He'd heard that phrase before.

As he exhaled, he thought to himself that the one thing he was absolutely sure of was that before the end of Lincoln Scott's trial, things were going to get very personal. Especially toward Captain Walker Townsend, who seemed to have so little trouble lying to him.

"Of course. I understand perfectly," he replied.

"Now, the list? The evidence?"

"Why, I have those items for you here, right now," Townsend said. He reached beneath his bunk and removed a small wooden locker made from balsa wood. He removed a leather flight jacket, a pair of sheepskin-lined flying boots, and the homemade knife. The two strips of cloth, one from the frying pan handle and the other from the knife, were wrapped up. Townsend also removed these and spread them out on the bunk.

Tommy looked at those first. The Virginian sat back in his seat, saying nothing, watching Tommy's face for reactions.

Tommy was reminded of the players in the game of mouse roulette right at the moment the croupier released the frightened mouse. The players remained still, expressionless, mentally urging the terrified animal in their direction. Tommy adopted much the same visage.

There was no doubt in his mind that the two cloth strips were the same, and that the one from the blade seemed to have small but noticeable flecks of blood on one edge. He noted this, then set the cloth back down. He picked up the knife and carefully measured its dimensions. It was constructed from a flattened piece of iron, almost two inches wide and nearly fourteen inches long. Its point was triangulated, but only one edge had been sharpened into a razor.

"Almost like a small sword," Townsend said. He mock-shuddered.

"Nasty item to kill someone with, I say."

Tommy nodded, replacing the knife on the table and picking up the flight boots. He turned them over in his hands, inspecting the flat leather soles that had been stitched onto the softer fur-lined tops. He noted that the bloodstains were predominantly on the toes of the boots.

"Good thing it's nearly summer," Townsend said.

"It would be a shame to not be wearing those things in the winter, now, wouldn't it?

"Course, this damn German weather is as unpredictable as I've ever seen. One day we're all out of doors, sunning ourselves like on some trip down to Roanoke or Virginia Beach. Next, well, standing around the morning Appell freezing our tails off. It's like it can't make up its mind to get on with the summer. Ain't like that back home. No sir. Virginia we get that nice easy winter and early spring. Long about now there's honeysuckle in bloom. Honeysuckle and lilacs. Like to fill the air with sweetness…"

Tommy set the boots back on the bed, and gingerly lifted the leather flight jacket. He saw why Lincoln Scott had not noticed the bloodstains when he reached for the coat after awakening in the near-dark to the sound of German whistles and cries. There was blood on the left knit wrist cuff, and another small streak near the collar on the same side. A larger stain was located on the back. He turned the jacket around once or twice more, then shook his head slowly, sighing.

"Well," Tommy said.

"Back home I'd probably claim these items were all seized illegally, without due process."

"Now, I'm not thinking that's an argument likely to work here and now.

Tommy," Townsend said.

"Maybe back home, but-" Tommy interrupted him.

"But not here. You're right about that. Now about that list?"

Townsend reached into his shirt breast pocket and removed a piece of paper containing ten names and their hut locations. He handed it over to Tommy, who accepted it, without looking at the names, sliding it into his own shirt pocket.

"I suppose it is premature to start talking about sentencing," he said slowly.

"I mean, I think I managed today to prevent a lynching from taking place. But we should discuss the possibilities given the likely outcome, don't you think, captain?" With a defeated look in his eyes.

Tommy swung his hand over the array of evidence.

"Why, Tommy, please call me Walker. And yes, I do believe that is premature, as you say. But I am most willing to have these discussions at a later point. Maybe on Monday afternoon, what do you think?"

"Thanks, Walker. I'll get back to you on that. And thanks for being so reasonable about all this. I think Major Clark is-" Townsend interrupted.

"A mite difficult? Temperamental, perhaps?"

He laughed and Tommy, smiling falsely, joined him.

"That's for sure," he said.

"The major has been in the bag too damn long. As have we all, I suppose, because maybe one minute's a minute too long.

But he and the colonel mostly. Far, far too long, I'd say. And too long for you, too. Tommy, from what I've been told."

Tommy patted his chest where the list was now located.

"Well," he said, stepping back.

"Thanks again. I'm back to work."

Walker Townsend gave a small nod and reached for his crossword puzzle.

"Well, then, you need anything from the prosecution,-Tommy, you just feel welcome to come see me anytime, day or night, at your convenience."

"I appreciate that," Tommy said. Liar, he thought to himself.

He made a small, false-friendly wave, and turned quickly.

He took in a razored, long breath of cool air, thinking that for the first time since the moment he'd viewed Trader Vic's body stuffed into the filthy Abort, he'd just seen hard evidence instead of mere words, no matter how forcefully spoken, that persuaded him that Lincoln Scott was absolutely innocent of the airman's murder.

The luminous dial on the watch Lydia had given him read ten minutes past midnight when Tommy gingerly slipped from the relative warmth of his bunk and felt the cold floor penetrate through his thin, oft-damp wool socks. He perched on the edge of the bed for an instant, like a diver waiting for the right moment to launch himself toward the water.

The night sounds of the bunk room surrounded him with a steady familiarity, the same snores, coughs, whimperings, and wheezes coming from men he'd known for months and yet thought he hardly knew at all.

The darkness seemed to envelop him, and he fought off a momentary, unsettled panicky sense, some of the leftover residue of his claustrophobia. The nights always seemed to be as close as the closet he'd shut himself into as a child. It took a conscious force of will to remind himself that the bunk-room darkness wasn't the same.

One of the guard tower searchlights swept across the outside window, boarded to the night, the strong light penetrating the cracks in the wooden shutters for a few seconds, traveling across the far wall. He welcomed the light; it helped to orient him to where he was and push away the childhood nightmare memories that dogged him in all tight, dark spaces.

Reaching down beneath the bunk, he found his boots.

Then, with his left hand, he located his leather flight jacket and the stub of a candle fixed into an empty processed-meat tin can. He did not light the candle, preferring to wait for the next searchlight sweep, which would provide him with just enough light to slip from the bunk through the door and out into the hut's central corridor.

Tommy did not have to wait long for the light to sweep past. As it threw its filmy yellow brightness across the room, he rose, boots, jacket, and candle in hand, took three quick strides to the door, and slipped through. He stopped in the corridor for an instant, listening behind him, making certain that he had arisen without waking any of the other men in his room. Silence, save for the routine noises of sleep, surrounded him. He reached into his pants pocket and removed a single match, which he scraped on the wall and which burst into flame. He lit the candle, and moving like some ghostly apparition, he tiptoed down the corridor, heading steadily toward Lincoln Scott's room.

The black flier was asleep in a heap in the solitary bunk, but the pressure of Tommy's hand on his shoulder made him lurch upright, and for a moment Tommy thought Lincoln Scott was going to throw one of his lethal-looking right crosses in his direction, as Scott twisted in the bed, groaning obscenities.

"Quiet!" Tommy whispered.

"It's me. Hart."

He held the candle up to his face.

"Jesus, Hart," Lincoln Scott muttered.

"I thought…"

"What?"

"I don't know. Trouble."

"Maybe I am," Tommy continued, speaking softly.

Scott swung his feet out of the bunk.

"What're you doing here, anyway?"

"An experiment," Tommy replied. He grinned.

"A little reenactment."

"What do you mean?"

"Simple," Tommy said, still speaking softly.

"Let's pretend this is the night Vic died. First you show me exactly how you got up and moved around on that night. Then we're going to try to figure out where Vic went before he landed nice and dead in the Abort" Scott's Clark head nodded.

"Makes sense," he said briskly, shaking sleep from his eyes.

"What time is it?"

"A little after midnight."

Scott rubbed a hand across his face, moving his head up and down.

"That would be about right," he said.

"I don't have a clock, so there was no way for me to tell for certain what the time was. But it was pitch black and the place was quiet and it seems to me that would be about right. Maybe a little earlier or an hour or so later, but not much more. Certainly not close to dawn."

"Just before dawn was when his body was discovered."

"Well, I was up earlier. I'm sure of it."

"Okay," Tommy said.

"So, you got up…"

"This is more or less where my bunk was," Scott continued.

"Four double-decker bunks, two on each side. I was closest to the door, so the only person I was worried about disturbing was the guy on top of me…"

"Bedford?"

"Directly across the room. Bottom bunk."

"Did you see him?"

Scott shook his head.

"I didn't look," he replied.

Tommy was about to stop the black flier, because this answer didn't make any sense to him, but he hesitated, then asked, instead, "Did you light the candle at your bed?"

"Yes. I lit it, then shielded it with my hand. Like I said, I didn't want to wake the others. I left my boots and jacket…"

"Where exactly?"

"Boots at the end of the bunk. Jacket on the wall."

"Did you see either of them?"

"No. I didn't look. And I had no reason to suspect someone might take them. I was meaning to do my business and get back into the rack as quickly as possible. The toilet's not far and I wanted to be real quiet. I went barefoot. Even though it was goddamn cold…"

Tommy nodded, still troubled, then he shook this off and said, "All right, let's go. Show me exactly what you did that night-except this time, bring your boots and jacket. Move the same way, at the same speed." He checked the dial of his watch, timing the black flier.

Without a word, Scott rose. Like Tommy, he seized his boots in his hand. Slightly bent at the waist, he stepped away from the bunk. He gestured toward where the other men would have been sleeping, pointed at the wall where his jacket now hung from a single nail. Still moving quietly, but being trailed by Tommy, Scott walked across the room in perhaps two long strides, and swung the door open. Tommy took note that unlike many of the doors in the hut, this one seemed to have had its hinges oiled. It made a single creaking sound that he did not think in and of itself was enough to awaken even the lightest sleeper.

And it only clicked once, as it closed behind them and they were in the corridor.

Scott gestured toward the single toilet. It was placed in a makeshift stall, hardly bigger than a wardrobe, only twenty feet from Scott's bunk room. Tommy held his candle up above his head to light their route. Their feet padded silently against the wooden floor.

Outside the toilet, Scott finally spoke.

"Inside. Used the toilet, then returned to the room. That's it."

Tommy looked down at the green light of his watch face.

No more than three minutes had passed since Scott had stepped from his bunk. He turned and looked all the way back down the corridor. For a single instant, his stomach contracted and he swallowed hard. The darkness of his fear of enclosure scratched at his heart. But he fought off the clammy sensation and concentrated on the problem at hand. The only exit to the hut was at the far end, past all the remaining bunk rooms. He thought that to travel from the toilet to the outside, anyone would have to walk past close to one hundred sleeping men, behind a dozen closed doors. But there was no telling who might hear footsteps. Who might be awake. Who might be alert.

"And you saw no one?" he asked again.

Scott turned away, staring back into the darkness.

"No. I told you. No one."

Tommy ignored the hesitation in the Tuskegee airman's voice and pointed forward.

"All right," he said quietly.

"So much for what you did. Now for what Trader Vic might have done."

Still with their boots in their hands, the two men quietly maneuvered down the hut's central corridor, using the weak candle light to illuminate their path. At the entrance door to Hut 101, Tommy paused, thinking. A searchlight swept past, throwing its light onto the steps for an instant as it traveled forward. Tommy looked back down the corridor, toward the bunk rooms. The searchlight was outside and to the left, which meant that it covered every room on that side of the building, which was the side that he and Lincoln Scott and Trader Vic had all lived on. He realized that it was conceivable that someone could exit from one of the windows on the right side of the hut; they would only catch a portion of the searchlight's path as it swept across the walls and roof. But it would have been impossible for anyone to move through the sleeping kriegies in the tight spaces of the bunk rooms on that side unless something had been prearranged. He was certain that the men who left in the night to tunnel, especially the ones who had died beneath the ground so recently, had been from that side of the hut. Anyone else escape committee types, forgers, spies, for whatever reason would need to alert the entire membership of the room of whatever window they intended to use. This, he thought, violated every principle of military secrecy. Even though the men could be trusted, it was a foolish chance to take. Also, it identified the men who were working late into the night, which was another security violation.

So, Tommy thought, measuring, assessing, adding factors together as swiftly as possible, feeling slightly like he did in the moment before some white-haired law school professor chalked an essay question on a blackboard, anyone needing to exit Hut 101 in the middle of the night, and needing to do it without attracting attention either from his fellow prisoners or the Germans, would probably risk going out the front door.

The searchlight swept past again, light quickly filtering through the cracks in the door and then, just as swiftly, fading back into darkness.

The Germans did not like to use the searchlights, especially on nights when there were British bombing raids on nearby installations. Even the most uneducated German soldier could guess that from the air the sight of probing searchlights would make the camp appear to be an ammunition dump or a manufacturing plant, and some hard-pressed Lancaster pilot, having fought off frightening raids by Luftwaffe night fighters, might make an error and drop his stick of bombs right on top of them.

So the searchlight use was erratic, which only made them more terrifying to anyone who wanted to maneuver from one hut to another at night. It was difficult to time their sweeps because they were so haphazard.

Tommy took a deep breath. Getting caught in a searchlight's beam probably meant death.

At a minimum, it would prompt whistles and alerts, and if one got his hands up fast enough, before a Hundfuhrer or one of the tower goons pulled his Schmeisser machine pistol into a firing position, probably only a fortnight in the cooler. And getting caught outside would also compromise the tunnel or the meeting or whatever purpose the kriegie had for being out. So, Tommy considered, there never was a routine motivation for exiting the hut after lights out.

He slowly released his pent-up wind, making a whistling sound between his teeth.

Nothing routine about this excursion, either, he thought.

Tommy zipped up his flight jacket, and bent down to tie on his shoes, gesturing for Scott to do the same.

Scott started to smile. The easygoing, devil-may-care grin of a warrior accustomed to danger.

"This is dicey, huh, Hart?" he whispered.

"Don't want to get caught."

Tommy nodded.

"Getting caught isn't quite the problem.

Getting dead is. Don't really want to get shot," he said. His throat had parched suddenly, the dryness reaching his tongue.

"Not now…"

"Not ever," Scott said, still grinning. Tommy thought Scott probably felt closer to being a fighter pilot then than he had in any second since he'd first leapt free of his burning plane over occupied territory. As he knotted his boots, the black flier asked, "So, where we heading first?"

"The Abort. And then we'll backtrack a bit."

"What're we looking for, exactly?" Scott asked.

"Exactly? I don't know. But possibly? We're looking for a spot where someone might feel comfortable committing a murder."

With that. Tommy turned to the door. He blew out the candle.

He was breathing in a shallow, steady fashion, poised like a sprinter getting ready to start a race. As soon as the searchlight swept over the front of the hut, he grabbed at the door handle, jerked it open, and with Scott inches behind him, dove out into the inky darkness creeping right behind the searchlight's beam.