'I can't bloody well move anyway. You go on!'
'No,' Tommy replied, keeping his voice as soft as possible, but stricken with urgency.
'We'll get you when the light goes off.'
The searchlight stopped again, illuminating the ground perhaps twenty feet away from Hugh.
'Leave me, goddamn it. Tommy! I'm finished for tonight!
Kaput!' Scott reached out and touched Tommy on the arm.
'He's right,' Scott said.
'We've got to go on.'
Tommy spun toward the black flier.
'If that light catches him they'll shoot him! I'm not leaving him out there!'
'If that light catches him, this place'll be crawling with Krauts in thirty seconds! And all hell will break loose.'
'I won't leave him! I left someone behind once before, and I won't do it again!'
'You go out there,' Scott hissed, 'and you'll end up killing him and yourself and God knows who else tonight.'
Tommy turned, in agony, toward Hugh.
'He's my friend!'
Tommy whispered painfully.
'Then act like one!' Scott replied.
'Do what he says!'
Tommy turned, searching the shadows for Hugh. The searchlight continued to bounce around, firing light a few feet away from the Canadian. But what Tommy saw astonished him, and must have done the same for Scott, because Tommy could feel the black flier's grip tighten on his arm.
Hugh had rolled over onto his stomach, and moving with a deliberate and utterly agonizing slowness, was crawling forward, away from the front of the hut, heading steadily, painstakingly, and inexorably toward the assembly yard, pointing himself away from his friends who might have tried to help him, and directly away from the men making their way to Hut 107. He was moving away, as well, from the searchlight's beam, which was only a momentary relief because he was steadily proceeding into the vast central open area of Stalag Luft Thirteen. It was the neutral area, a black expanse without any place to conceal himself, but Tommy knew that Hugh had realized that if he were spotted there, it would not immediately alert the Germans to anything happening in the darkened row of huts. The problem was, there was no way to immediately return to safety from the center of the exercise area. Over the course of the night's remaining hours, he might be able to loop around, crawling all the way, back to Hut 101. But far more likely Hugh would have to wait out in the yard until morning or discovery, and either one might mean his death.
Tommy could just make out the Canadian's faint shape working against the cold earth, as Hugh snaked his way into the yard. Then Tommy turned to Scott and pointed to the entrance to Hut 107. 'All right,' he said.
'Now it's just us.'
'Yeah,' Scott replied.
'Us and whoever's inside waiting.'
Silently, the two men made their way over to the deep shadow at the side of the stairs leading into Hut 107. They paused there for just an instant, both Tommy Hart and Lincoln Scott filled with renegade thoughts. Tommy tossed one glance back in the direction where Hugh had crawled off, but he could no longer make out the shape of his friend, who'd been, for better or worse, swallowed up by the darkness.
Tommy reached up, knocked twice, and whispered: 'Forty-one and forty-two…'
There was a momentary hesitation, then the door creaked slightly as someone inside the hut cracked it open.
They jumped forward, grabbing at the opening, and pushing into the hut.
Tommy heard a voice, alarmed, but still whispering, say, 'Hey! You're not…' and then fade away. He and Lincoln Scott stood, inside the door, staring down the corridor.
There was an overwhelming eeriness to the scene that greeted them. A half-dozen candles nickered weakly, spaced out perhaps every ten feet or so. Kriegies lined the corridor, all seated on the floor, their legs pulled up beneath them so as to use less space. Perhaps two dozen of the men were dressed in what they hoped would pass for civilian clothing, their uniforms retailored by the camp's sewing services, dyed by ingenious combinations of ink and paints, so that they no longer were colored in the familiar khaki and olive drab of the U.S.
Army. Many men, like the man Tommy had spotted leaving Hut 101, carried makeshift suitcases or portfolios. Some wore workmen's hats and carried mock toolboxes. Anything extra that might make them appear to be other than what they truly were.
The man who'd opened the door was still in uniform. Not heading out that night, Tommy realized. He could see, as well, that every few feet there were support staff, still in their uniforms. In all, there had to be close to sixty men silently stretched down the length of the hut's center corridor. Of these, probably only two dozen were on the escape plan and patiently waiting their turn.
'Goddamn it. Hart!' the man at the door hissed.
'You're not on the list! What are you doing here?'
'You could call this a truth-seeking mission,' Tommy replied briskly.
He said no more, but stepped over the feet of the last man waiting, and started down the corridor. Lincoln Scott picked his own way, directly behind Tommy. The weak candlelight threw odd, elongated shadows against the walls. As they passed, the kriegies remained silent, saying nothing, but watching the two men as they stepped forward. It was as if Tommy and Lincoln were penetrating the secret midnight ritual of some unusual order of monks.
Ahead of them they could see a small cone of light coming from the single-toilet privy at the far end of the hut. A kriegie emerged, holding a makeshift bucket filled with dirt, which he passed to one of the uniformed men standing nearby. The bucket was handed on, and finally disappeared into one of the bunk rooms, like an old-fashioned fire brigade passing water to the base of some flames. Tommy peered into the room as he stepped past, and saw that the bucket was being lifted up into a hole in the ceiling, where another pair of hands grabbed for it. He knew that above, in the crawl space below the ceiling, the dirt was spread about, and then the empty bucket passed down, making its way through pairs of eager hands, back toward the privy.
Tommy stepped up to the door. The men's faces seemed streaked with anxiety, marked by the tension of the night and the flickering light from the candles, as another bucket filled with dirt was lifted from a hole in the floor of the hut's sole bathroom.
The tunnel went down beneath the toilet. Kriegie engineers had managed to lift the entire commode and move it several feet to the side, making an opening perhaps four feet square.
The waste pipe descended in the midst of the opening, but had been blocked off at the top. The men in Hut 107 had clearly disabled the toilet in order to dig the tunnel. Tommy was struck with a momentary admiration for the scheme.
Then he heard a sharp, angry voice coming from his side.
'Hart! You son of a bitch! What the hell are you doing here?'
Tommy turned and faced Major Clark.
'Well, major,' he replied coldly, 'I'm looking for some explanations.'
'I'm going to see you brought up on charges, lieutenant!'
Clark blustered, still keeping his voice low, but unable to conceal his anger.
'Now, get the hell back into that corridor and wait there until we're finished here! That's an order!'
Tommy shook his head.
'Not tonight it isn't, major. Not yet.'
Clark stepped across the small space, thrusting his face into Tommy's.
'I'll have you…' he started, only to be interrupted by Lincoln
