'Yes sir.'
'Did your examination of the body suggest to you anything in this regard?'
'Yes sir. Because of the contusions and the knife wound, and after talking with you, I kinda figured that whoever killed Captain Bedford was possibly pretty much ambidextrous, sir.
Or real close to it.'
Townsend nodded slowly.
'Ambidextrous means someone who is equally capable of using either right or left hand, correct?'
'That is correct, sir.'
'Like a particularly skilled boxer?'
'I suppose so.'
'Objection Tommy again leapt to his feet.
Colonel MacNamara stared at him, and held up his hand for Tommy to halt before going further.
'Yes, yes, I know what you're going to say. Lieutenant Hart. This is a conclusion that the witness is not capable of reaching. Absolutely correct. Unfortunately, Mr. Hart, it is a conclusion that is obvious to the entire tribunal.' He waved Tommy back into his seat.
'Do you have something further for Lieutenant Fenelli, captain?'
Townsend smiled, glanced over toward Major Clark, and shook his head.
'No sir. We have no more questions. He's your witness now, Lieutenant Hart.'
Shaking with rage, his mind seared with every imaginable sensation of fury and betrayal. Tommy rose and, for a long second or two, simply stared across the room at the witness seated in front of him. His imagination was jumbled with confused emotions, all painted over in the red of anger.
Tommy bit down on his lower lip, wanting to do nothing except savage Fenelli. He wanted to embarrass him and show him to the entire camp to be the back-stabbing dishonest gutless cowardly liar that Tommy believed him to be. He searched through the thicket of rage for the first question that would expose him to the assembly as the Judas Tommy considered him. Tommy was breathing hard and harsh, and he wanted his first query to be devastating.
He opened his mouth to fire this first salvo, but stopped, just as he caught, out of the corner of his eye, the look on Walker Townsend's face. The captain from Virginia was leaning slightly forward, not so much grinning as he was flush with eagerness. And Tommy, in that short moment, realized something he thought important-that what Captain Townsend, and Major Clark at his side, were anticipating was not what Fenelli had already said from the witness stand. But what he was about to say, when Tommy thrust his first infuriated question across the theater.
Tommy took a deep breath. He glanced down at both Hugh Renaday and Lincoln Scott, and he could tell the two men wanted him to verbally carve the lying medic into tiny pieces.
He let out air slowly.
Then he looked past Fenelli, up to Colonel MacNamara.
'Colonel,' he said, plastering a small, fake smile onto his face.
'Obviously Lieutenant Fenelli's change of tune takes the defense by complete surprise. We would request that you adjourn these proceedings until tomorrow, so that we can discuss strategy.'
Captain Townsend rose.
'Sir, there's almost an hour until the evening Appell. I think we should continue as late as possible.
There's more than enough time for Mr. Hart to ask some questions, and then, if need be, continue in the morning.'
Tommy coughed. He crossed his arms in front of him and realized that he had just avoided a trap. The problem was, he couldn't quite see what the trap was. He glanced sideways and noticed that Major Clark had curled his hands into fists.
MacNamara seemed oddly oblivious to what was going on. Instead, he started to shake his head back and forth.
'Lieutenant Hart is correct,' he said slowly.
'There's less than an hour. Not really enough time, and these things are better when they're not cut in two. We'll recess now, and pick up again in the morning.' He turned briefly toward Hauptmann Visser, sitting by the side of the room, and lectured him with an irritated, inconvenienced tone of voice: 'We could be far more efficient here, Herr Hauptmann, and bring things to a much more rapid and orderly conclusion if we were not constantly having to interrupt ourselves for the regularly scheduled roll calls. Will you bring this up with Commandant Von Reiter?'
Visser nodded.
'I will mention it to him, colonel,' he replied dryly.
'Very good,' MacNamara said.
'Lieutenant Fenelli, please remember that just like the other witnesses, you are under oath and not to discuss your testimony or any other aspect of this case with any other person. Understand?'
'Of course, sir,' Fenelli answered briskly.
'Then we are dismissed until tomorrow,' MacNamara said, rising.
As before, Tommy, Scott, and Hugh Renaday waited for the theater to empty out, remaining at their table silently, until the last echo of flight boots faded from the cavernous room behind them. Lincoln Scott was staring straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the vacant witness chair.
Renaday pushed back from the table hard, and spoke first.
'Blasted liar!' he said angrily.
'Tommy, why didn't you go right after him? Tear his dishonest throat out!'
'Because that was what they wanted. Or, at the least, that was what they expected. And what Fenelli said was bad enough. But maybe what he was about to say was going to be worse.'
'How do you know that?' Renaday sputtered.
'I don't,' Tommy said flatly.
'I'm just guessing.'
'What could he say that was worse?'
Again, Tommy shrugged.
'He was equivocating on all those lies, lots of maybes and coulda’s and should as Perhaps when I asked him about being paid a visit by Townsend and Clark, perhaps he wasn't going to be quite as unsteady.
Maybe the next lie was going to sink us. But I'm guessing.
Again.'
'Bloody dangerous guesswork, my lad,' Hugh said.
'Just gives the deceitful bastard all night to ready himself for the onslaught.'
'I don't know about that,' Tommy said.
'I think I'll pay Mr. Fenelli a little visit after dinner.'
'But MacNamara said…'
'The hell with MacNamara,' Tommy replied.
'What the hell can he do to me? I'm already a prisoner of war.'
This response tripped a slight, sad grin onto Lincoln Scott's face. He nodded. But he did not speak, seeming to prefer to keep all the terrifying thoughts that had to be burning within him contained. And one thing was obvious: Perhaps Colonel MacNamara couldn't really do anything worse to Tommy, but that wasn't the case for Lincoln Scott.
The evening sky was clearing, the irritating cold drizzle had ceased, and there was a little promise of milder weather ahead at the evening Appell. Tommy stood patiently beside Lincoln Scott as the mind- numbing process of being counted was repeated again. He wondered for a moment just exactly how many times the Germans had counted him during his years at Stalag Luft Thirteen, and he pledged that if he ever made it home to Vermont, he would never ever allow anyone to count his head out loud ever again.
