apart by the twin twenty-millimeter cannons mounted in the stubby Messerschmidt's wings and dying in a flaming B-17 was an ugly, frightening business. But there weren't many of these crewmen in the camp, and there was still widespread disagreement among the kriegies as to whether any black man had the required intelligence, physical ability, and the necessary heart to fly warplanes.
Scott himself seemed unaware that his presence stirred loud and sometimes contentious arguments. On the evening he arrived in the camp, he had been assigned to the bunk in Hut 101 that had been occupied by the dead clarinet-playing tunneler. He had greeted the other men in the room in a perfunctory manner, stowed what few belongings he had with him beneath the bed, then crawled into his space and remained quiet for the remainder of the night.
He told no warrior's tales.
Nor did he volunteer information about himself. How he'd been shot down remained unknown, as did his hometown, his background, and his life. Over his first few days in the bag, a few kriegies made efforts to engage him in conversation, but Scott politely and firmly rebuffed each attempt. At mealtimes, he fashioned simple spreads from his allotted Red Cross parcels. He did not invite anyone to share with him, nor did he ask anyone to share from their parcels. What he received he used, alone. He did not join in camp conversations, nor did he sign up for classes, courses, or activities. On his second day at Stalag Luft Thirteen he obtained from the camp library a ripped and worn copy of Gibbons The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and from the YMCA he accepted a Bible, both of which he read silently, sitting outdoors in the sunshine, back against the hut, or on his bed, bent toward one of the windows, searching for the weak light that filtered past the grime- streaked glass and wooden shutters into the room.
He seemed, to the other kriegies, mysterious. They were surprised by Scott's stand- offishness Some found arrogance in his aloofness, which translated into a number of thinly veiled cracks. Others merely found his solitude unsettling.
All the men, even those like Tommy Hart who might have been seen as loners, relied on and needed each other, if only to reassure themselves that they weren't alone in the world of confinement that was Stalag Luft Thirteen. The camp created the oddest of psychological states: They were not criminals, but they were in prison. Without each other's support and constant reminders that they belonged to a different life, they would be adrift.
But outwardly, Lincoln Scott seemed immune to this.
By the end of his first week inside Stalag Luft Thirteen, when not wrapped up with Gibbons’ history or with the Bible, he had taken to spending his days walking the perimeter of the compound. One circuit after another, for hours. He would stride rapidly along the dusty trail, a foot inside the deadline, eyes riveted to the ground except for occasional pauses, where he would stop, turn, and stare out at the distant line of pine trees.
Tommy had watched him, and was reminded of a dog on a chain, always moving at the very limit of its territory.
He had been one of the men who made an effort in the first few days to enter into a conversation with Lieutenant Scott, but had had no more success than any other. In the midst of a mild afternoon, shortly before the order to start the evening count was to be given, he had approached the lieutenant as the black man made one of his tours of the edge of the camp.
'Hey, how you doing?' Hart had said.
'My name's Tommy Hart.'
'Hello,' Scott had replied. He did not offer his hand, nor did he identify himself.
'You settled in okay?'
Scott had shrugged.
'Seen worse,' he muttered.
'When new guys come in it's sort of like having the daily paper delivered to the house, only a couple of days late.
You've got all the latest, and even if it's out of date, it's still better than what we've got, which' is rumor and official crap over the illegal radios. What's really happening? How's the war going? Any word on the invasion?'
'We're winning,' Scott had answered.
'And no. Lots of men sitting in England. Waiting, same as you.'
'Well, not exactly the same as us,' Tommy said, grinning, and gesturing toward a machine- gun crew in the guard tower.
'No, that's true,' Scott said. The lieutenant had kept walking, not looking up.
'Well, you must know something,' Hart asked.
'No,' Scott had replied.
'I don't.'
'Well,' Tommy had persisted, 'suppose I walk along with you and you tell me everything you don't know.'
This request brought the smallest of smiles to the black man's lips, just the slightest turn upward, and he blew out some wind, as if concealing a laugh. Then, almost as quickly as that moment was there between them, it dissipated.
'I really prefer to walk alone,' Scott had said briskly.
'Thanks for asking, though.'
Then he'd continued his trek, as Tommy stopped and watched him stride on.
The following morning was Friday, and after the morning Appell Tommy went back to his bunk. From a small wooden box beneath the bed, he took several fresh packages of Lucky Strikes from a carton that had been delivered in his latest Red Cross parcel. He also grabbed a small metal container marked earl grey tea, and the uneaten majority of a large chocolate bar. In his jacket pocket, he secreted a small can of condensed milk. Then he collected several sheets of brown scrap paper, which he'd used to scrawl notes upon in cramped, tight handwriting.
These he stuffed between the pages of a worn text on forensic evidence.
He walked outside Hut 101, searching for one of the three Fritzes. The morning was warm, and sunlight gave the yellow-gray dirt of the compound a glow.
Instead he spotted Vincent Bedford pacing along, with a determined look on his face. The southerner paused, his face turning rapidly into a look of anticipation, and quickly approached Tommy.
'I'll sweeten the deal. Hart,' he said.
'You're just a hard nut to crack. What'll it take to get that watch?'
'You haven't got what it will take. Sentimental value.'
The Mississippian snorted.
'Sentiment? Girl back home?
What makes you think you'll get back there in one piece?
And what makes y'all think she'll be waiting for you once you do?'
'I don't know. Hope? Trust?' Tommy replied, with a small laugh.
'Those things don't amount to much in this world of ours, Yankee. What counts is what you got right now. In your hand.
That y'all can use right away. Maybe ain't gonna be no tomorrow.
Not for you, maybe not for me, maybe not for any of us.'
'You're a cynic, Vic.' The southerner grinned 'Well, maybe so, maybe so. Nobody never called me that before. But I won't deny it.'
They were walking slowly between two of the huts, and they emerged onto the edge of the exercise area. A softball game was just starting up, but beyond the outfield, both men caught sight of the solitary figure of Lincoln Scott, marching along the edge of the perimeter.
'Sumbitch,' Bedford muttered.
'Today I got to do something about this situation.'
'What situation?' Tommy asked.
'The nigger situation,' Bedford replied, turning and staring at Hart as if he were unbelievably
