'I liked to chart the stars in the heavens. They're different, you know. They make the smallest adjustments for the time of night and the time of the year. Positions change. Some shine more brightly. Others dim, then reemerge. I liked to look up at the constellations and see the endlessness of the night…'
The others had remained quiet, and Tommy had shrugged.
'But I should have had another hobby. Like tying flies or playing hockey, like you, Hugh. Because when the air corps found out I could perform celestial navigation, well, next thing I knew I was in a bomber, flying hell for leather above the Mediterranean. Of course, most all our sorties were in the daylight, so the usefulness of my ability to chart a course using the stars was, ah, limited. But that's the air corps way of thinking and that's what landed me here.'
Both men had laughed. To make a joke about the army was always worth a laugh. But after a few seconds, the smiles had seeped away and they grew silent until Lincoln Scott had said, 'Well, maybe you'll be able to navigate us out of here one day.'
Hugh had nodded.
'That would be a happy day' he had said, which was the last time they talked of that most difficult of subjects, though throughout the long night in the bunk room that thought had never strayed far from Tommy Hart's imagination, as sleep eluded him and his mind increasingly centered on the courtroom and the drama that awaited them in the morning.
The Senior American Officer was drumming his fingers against the table, doing little to conceal his irritation as Tommy, Hugh, and the defendant picked their way through the audience.
The center aisle was so congested with kriegies that any attempt to enter in formation, as they had before, would have been thwarted by the overflow crowd, which barely had enough room to squeeze tightly together and let the three men pass. Murmurs, whispers, and a few softly spoken comments flowed behind them like the modest white frothy wake behind a sailboat. Tommy did not listen to the words, but took note of the different tones, some angry, some encouraging, some merely confused.
He took a quick glance at Commandant Von Reiter, who now occupied a seat just to the left of Heinrich Visser. The German commander was rocking slightly in his seat, grinning faintly. Visser, however, was stone-faced, impassive.
Tommy was still unsure whether Visser had helped or hurt the case, but he had done one important service, which was to remind all the kriegies who the real enemy was, which, on balance, Tommy thought, was better than anything else he could have wished for. The problem that remained was to make the men of Stalag Luft Thirteen remember that Scott was on their side. One of them. And that, Tommy thought, would be difficult enough and maybe impossible.
'You are supposed to be in position, ready for trial, along with the rest of us, Mr. Hart,' Colonel MacNamara said stiffly.
Tommy did not reply to this statement, but merely said, 'We are ready now to proceed, colonel.'
'Then please do so,' MacNamara said. His words were singularly cool.
'The defense at this time would call First Lieutenant Lincoln Scott of the 332nd Fighter Group to the witness stand!'
Tommy said as forcefully as he could, his own voice lifted up over the heads of all the gathered men.
Scott pushed himself out of his seat at the defense table and crossed the space to the witness chair in three great strides. He rapidly seized the Bible offered to him, swore under oath to tell the truth, and thrust himself into the seat.
He looked up toward Tommy with the eagerness of the boxer he was, awaiting the sound of the bell.
'Lieutenant Scott, tell us how you arrived at Stalag Luft Thirteen.'
'I was shot down. Like everyone else.'
'Then how was it that you were shot down?'
'A Focke-Wulf got on my tail and I couldn't shake him before he got off a lucky shot. End of story.'
'Not exactly,' Tommy said.
'Let's try this differently:
Did there come a time when, having completed your regular patrol and enroute to your base, you heard a stricken and crippled B-17 broadcast a call for help across an open air channel?'
Scott paused, and nodded.
'Yes.'
'A desperate call?'
'I suppose so, Mr. Hart. He was all alone and had two engines out and half his tail stabilizer shot away and was in trouble. Big trouble.'
'Two engines out and he was under attack?'
'Yes.'
'By a half-dozen enemy fighters?'
'Yes.'
Tommy paused. He understood that every man in the audience knew exactly what the men in that bomber's chances had been at the moment they pleaded for help from anyone who might hear them. As close to zero as a flier could get. Death for them was only seconds away.
'And you and your wing man, the two of you, you went to this crippled plane's aid?'
'That is what we did.'
'You didn't have to?'
'No,' Scott replied.
'I suppose not technically, Mr. Hart.
The plane belonged to a group that was not one we were assigned to protect. But you and I know that that is only a technical consideration. Of course we had to help. So, to suggest that we didn't have to, well, that's a foolish statement, Mr. Hart. We did not think we had a choice in the matter. We simply attacked.'
'I see. You didn't think you had a choice. Two against six.
And how much ammunition did you have remaining when you dove into the attack?'
'A few seconds. Just enough for a couple of bursts.' Scott paused, then added, 'I don't see why I need to go through this, Mr. Hart. It hasn't got anything to do with the charges here.'
'We'll get to those, lieutenant. But everyone else who's taken the stand has explained how they managed to land here in this camp, and so will you. So, you attacked a vastly superior enemy force all the time knowing you did not have enough ammunition to make more than one or two passes?'
'That is correct. We both managed to down a Focke-Wulf on the first attack, and we hoped that would draw them off. It didn't work out that way.'
'What happened?'
'Two fighters tangled with us, two pursued the bomber.'
'And what happened next?'
'We managed to scare off the two, by getting around behind them. With the last of my ammunition I shot down another.
Then we went after the remaining fighters.'
'Without ammunition?'
'Well, it had worked before.'
'What happened this time?'
'I got shot down.'
'Your wing man?'
'He died.'
Tommy paused, letting this sink in to the audience.
'The B-17?'
