Scott, who pushed his broad shoulders forward, and jabbed a finger in the diminutive major's chest, stopping him in his tracks.
'You'll have us what, major? Shot?'
'Yes! You're interfering with a military operation! Disobeying an order in combat! That's a capital offense.'
'Well,' Scott said, with an angry smile on his lips, 'I seem to be accumulating those sorts of charges with some frequency.'
To the side, they heard a muffled laugh from several of the other men, a burst probably caused as much by the tension of the night as by what
Scott had said.
'We're not going anywhere until we have the truth!'
Tommy said, pushing his own face down at the major's.
Clark's face twisted, contorted with rage. He turned to several kriegies standing nearby, just beyond the tunnel entrance.
'Seize these men!' Clark hissed.
The kriegies seemed to hesitate, and in that taut second, a different voice rose, filled with a surprising humor, and accompanied by a truculent laugh.
'Hell, major, you can't do that! And we all know it. Because those two guys are just as important as anyone else here tonight. Only difference is, they didn't know it. So I guess they ain't as stupid as you thought, huh, major?'
Tommy looked down and saw that the man who had spoken was hunched over by the side of the tunnel. He was wearing a dark blue suit, and looking like a somewhat bedraggled businessman. But his grin was unmistakable Cleveland.
'Hey, Hart,' Lieutenant Nicholas Fenelli said lightly.
'I really didn't think I'd see you again until we made it home to the
States. So, what do you think of the new threads? Pretty sharp, huh?
Think the girls back home will be lining up for me?'
Fenelli, still smiling, gestured to his suit jacket.
Major Clark turned angrily to the camp medic.
'Lieutenant Fenelli, you're not a part of this!'
Fenelli shook his head.
'That's where you're wrong, major. And every flier here knows it.
We're all a part of the same thing.'
Just then another bucket of dirt rose from the tunnel entrance, seemingly pinning Major Clark between the need to distribute the dirt and to deal with Tommy Hart and Lincoln Scott, Clark glared at the two lieutenants, and down at Fenelli, who just grinned insouciantly back at him. He pointed at the bucket brigade to move the dirt along, which it did, swinging past Tommy and Lincoln. Then Clark bent down and whispered to the men in the tunnel: 'How much farther?'
It took almost a minute of silence for the question to be relayed up the tunnel and another minute for the answer to come boomeranging back.
'Six feet,' a disembodied voice said, rising from the hole in the floor.
'Just like digging a grave.'
'Keep at it,' the major said, frowning.
'Stick to the schedule!
'Then he turned back to Tommy and Lincoln.
'You two are not welcome here,' he said coldly and calmly, apparently having regained his composure in the time it took for the message to be sent up the tunnel and returned.
'Where's Colonel MacNamara?' Tommy asked.
'Where do you think?' Clark asked. Then he answered his own question sourly.
'In his bunk room, deliberating with the other two members of the tribunal.'
Tommy paused, then asked, 'And he's writing a speech, too, isn't he?
Something that will keep that morning Appell delayed even further, right?'
Clark grimaced and didn't reply. But Fenelli did.
'I knew you were smart enough to figure that out, Hart,' he said with his small laugh.
'I told the major that, when he first approached me about making some small alterations in my testimony. But he didn't think you could.'
'Shut up, Fenelli,' Clark said.
'Alterations?
'Tommy demanded.
Clark did not reply to this. He turned to Hart, his face set, illuminated by candles that exaggerated the red rage coloring on his cheeks.
'You are correct that the ending of the trial provided us with a crucial opportunity that we elected to seize. Take advantage of. But that's all it provided. An opportunity.
There. Now you've had your damn question answered. Get out of the way. We don't have any time to waste, especially on you. Hart, and you, too, Scott.'
'I don't believe you,' Tommy said.
'Who killed Trader Vic?' he asked insistently.
Major Clark pointed a finger directly at Lincoln Scott.
'He did,' he replied harshly.
'All the evidence points to him. It has from the start. And that's what the tribunal will conclude tomorrow morning. You can take that to the bank, lieutenant.
Now get the hell out of the way.'
Another bucket rose from the hole in the floor and was seized by a kriegie, who silently moved it into the corridor.
Tommy was only peripherally aware that many of the men behind him had pushed forward, trying to hear the words being spoken above the tunnel entrance.
'Why was Vic killed?' Tommy asked.
'I want the damn answers, major!'
For a moment, the entire corridor jammed with men, and the men working in the tunnel entrance all seemed to hesitate, letting this question echo about the tiny space, painting each kriegie with the same doubt.
Clark folded his arms in front of his chest.
'You won't be getting any more answers from me, lieutenant,' he said.
'All the answers you need have already come out at trial. Everyone here knows that. Now stand aside and let us get finished!'
The major seemed rocklike. Uncompromising. Tommy was suddenly at a loss as to what to do. It seemed to him that somewhere close by everything that had happened in the camp over the past weeks could be explained, but he had no idea where to turn. The major was turning obstinacy into a rock-solid lie, and Tommy did not know how to break that barrier. He could sense Lincoln Scott wavering at his side, almost defeated by this final obstacle before them. Tommy searched about, trying to find his next step, next maneuver, but was greeted with a confused emptiness within himself.
He knew he couldn't compromise the escape effort. He did not know what threat he could make, what lever he could pull, what invention he could come up with that would break the sudden stalemate in the privy. He thought right at that second that on the other end of the tunnel men were going to break free, and the truth was going to leave with them.
And just as this thought crept into his heart, Nicholas Fenelli abruptly piped up again.
'You know. Hart, the major isn't going to help you. He hates
Lieutenant Scott as much as Trader Vic did, and probably for the same damn reasons. He probably wants to be there to see that Kraut firing squad take aim. Hell, sounds to me like he'd be willing to give
