We're simply trying to reach an accommodation.
A mutual opportunity, I'd say. An arrangement promising satisfaction to all parties.'
Tommy shook his head.
'I've told you before, I won't trade it.'
Bedford smiled with mock astonishment.
'Everyone and everything has a price. Hart. You know that. I know that. Hell, when you think about it, that's pretty much what those law books of your'n say on each and every page, don't they? And anyways, what y'all think is so important about knowing what time it is? There ain't no special time, here in this place. Wake up the same every day.
Bed at night, jus' the same. Eat. Sleep. Roll call. Every day. Jus’ the same. So, tell me, Hart, why y'all need that watch so damn much?'
Tommy glanced down at the Longines watch on his left wrist. For an instant the steel casing reflected a burst of sunlight.
It was an excellent watch, with a sweep hand and jeweled mechanism. It kept precise time and seemed oblivious to the shocks and batterings of war. But, more important, etched into the back were the words I'll be waiting and the initial L. Tommy merely had to listen to the muffled ticking to be reminded of the young woman who'd given it to him on his last leave home before shipping out. Bedford, of course, knew none of this.
'It's not the time it keeps,' Tommy said in reply.
'It's the time it promises.'
Bedford laughed out loud.
'Man, what you mean by that?'
The southerner smiled again.
'Suppose I fix it so you gets to see those limey friends of yours whenever you want? I can do that. Suppose you start getting an extra parcel each week?
I can make that happen, too. What you need. Hart? Food?
Some warm clothes? Maybe books? Even a radio. I can get you one. A good one, too. Then you be able to listen to the truth and not have to rely on all the scuttlebutt and rumor that floats around this place.
You jus' got to name your price.'
'Not for sale.'
'Damn.' Bedford stood up, finally irritated.
'Y'all ain't got no idea what I can get with a watch like that.'
'Sorry,' Tommy replied briskly.
Bedford seemed to snarl for a moment, then replaced the look of angry frustration with another grin.
'Time will come, lawyer man. And you'll end up needing to take less than you're offered here today. Ought to know when a trade is ripe.
Don't want to be making no trades when you truly need something'.
Always get the short end, then.'
'No deals. Not today. Not tomorrow. Be seeing you. Vic.'
Bedford shrugged, with an exaggerated motion. He seemed about to say something else, when both men heard the shrill whistle of the afternoon
Appell. Ferrets materialized by each block of huts, shouting 'Raus!
Raus!' and men began to emerge from the buildings, slowly making their way to the parade ground.
Tommy Hart ducked back inside Hut 101 and replaced the legal text on the shelf. Then he joined the flow of men shuffling through the afternoon sun toward the assembly.
As always, they gathered in rows five deep.
The ferrets counted, walking up and down the rows, trying to make certain no one was missing. It was a tedious process, one the Germans seemed to accept with dedication. Tommy could never understand how it was that they weren't bored senseless by the twice-daily exercise in simple mathematics.
Of course, he conceded inwardly that on a day that two men died in a tunnel, the ferret who missed a count would very likely find himself on a troop train bound for the eastern front. So the guards were being cautious and precise, even more so than their usual cautious and precise natures ordinarily allowed for.
When the count was satisfactorily accomplished, the ferrets returned to the front of the formations, reporting to the Unteroffizier assigned to that day's task. He would, in turn, report to the commandant. Von Reiter did not attend every Appell.
But in order for the men to be dismissed, he had to give the order. The kriegies found this extra wait wildly irritating, as the Unteroffizier disappeared through the front gate, heading toward Von Reiter's office.
The delay this afternoon seemed lengthy.
Tommy stole a glance down the formation. He noticed that Vincent Bedford was at attention two spaces away. He looked back to the front, and saw that the Unteroffizier had returned and was speaking with SAO MacNamara. Tommy could just make out a look of concern on the face of the colonel, then MacNamara did an abrupt turn and marched out the gate with the German, disappearing into the commandant's office.
It was ten minutes before MacNamara reappeared. He strode swiftly back to the head of the formations of airmen.
But then he seemed to hesitate for an instant before speaking out, in a large, parade ground voice: 'New prisoner coming in!'
MacNamara paused again, as if he wished to add something.
But the kriegies' attention swung quickly in that momentary delay, to where a single U.S. flier, flanked on either side by goons with rifles, was emerging from the commandant's office. The flier was tall, a half foot taller than either of the guards accompanying him, trim, wearing the sheepskin jacket and soft helmet of a fighter pilot. He marched forward rapidly, his leather flight boots kicking up small puffs of dust from the earth, coming to attention in front of Colonel MacNamara, where the flier snapped off a salute that seemed creased, it was so sharp.
The kriegies were silent, staring ahead.
The only sound Tommy Hart heard, in those seconds, was the unmistakable drawl of the Mississippian, whose every word was filled with undeniable astonishment:
'I'll be goddamned…' Vincent Bedford said loudly.
'It's a damn nigger!'
Chapter Two
The arrival of First Lieutenant Lincoln Scott at Stalag Luft Thirteen galvanized the kriegies. For nearly a week, he replaced Freedom and the War as the primary topic of conversation.
Few of the men had had any inkling that black pilots were being trained by the U.S. Army Air Force at Tuskegee, Alabama, and fewer still were aware that they'd begun fighting over Europe late in 1943. Some of the later camp arrivals, B-17 pilots and crew mainly, told of flights of shining, metallic P-51 fighters diving through their formations in pursuit of desperate Messerschmidts, and how the 332nd fighter wing wore distinctive red and black chevrons painted on their tail rudders.
The men from these bombers had had the luxury of some experience in their acceptance of the men from the 332nd; as they pointed out in debate after debate, it really didn't make much difference to them who it was or what color they were, as long as the fighters drove off the attacking 109s, because being chopped
