word for Tommy.
A pat on the back. A whispered, 'Good luck,' or 'See yah in Times Square!' The man from Princeton had added a 'Well done. Harvard. They must have taught you something worthwhile at that second-rate institution…' before he, too, slipped silently into the cover of trees and bushes.
It was frustrating going. More than once Tommy had held his breath when he'd detected the figure of a. Hundfuhrer and his dog moving along the far edge of the wire. Once a searchlight had clicked on in the tower closest to the escape, but had swung its probing beam in the opposite direction. Tommy remained huddled by the tree, trying to be alert to every sound around him, thinking that any single noise could be the noise of betrayal. And any sound could signal death. Either for himself or for one of the men setting off toward town, the station, and the series of morning trains that would carry them away from Stalag Luft Thirteen.
Every few seconds. Tommy glanced down at the dial of his watch and thought that the escape was moving along too slowly. The steady creep of morning would bring the escape to a halt as rapidly as discovery.
But he knew also that hurrying would just as swiftly defeat the escape.
He gritted his teeth and stuck to the plan.
Some seventeen of the men spread down the length of the tunnel had made it up and out when Tommy first spotted the weak flashlight beam bouncing erratically toward him, probably no more than thirty yards away. The light was moving right at the edge of the forest, not along the wire in the hands of a Hundfrihrer, on a collision path with the tunnel exit.
He froze in position, watching the light.
It probed and penetrated, swinging first one way, then another, like a dog just picking up an unusual scent on a wayward wind. He could tell that whoever was behind the light was hunting, but not searching in a systemized, deliberate fashion. More curious, almost questioning, with a slight element of uncertainty in each movement. Tommy pushed himself back, trying to blend against the tree, gingerly swinging around behind, so that he was completely concealed. And then, he understood, hiding did him no good.
The light moved forward, closing the distance.
He could feel his heart accelerating within his chest.
There is a spot far beyond fear that soldiers find, where all the children of terror and death are arrayed against them. It is a terrible and deadly location where some men find paralysis and others are trapped within a miasma of loss and agony.
Tommy was perilously close to that spot, as his muscles twitched and his breath came in short raspy bursts, watching the slow progress of the light inexorably closing in on the escape hole. He could see that there was no chance that the German on the other end of the light would miss the exit, and certainly no chance he would miss the rope stretched across the ground. And Tommy could see, as well, that there was no way he could race forward and throw himself down the tunnel without instantly being seen and an alarm sounded. In that second, he understood: He was as good as captured. Perhaps as good as shot.
He caught his breath.
Tommy knew, as well, that waiting on the top rung of the ladder, eagerly anticipating the two tugs on the rope that would signal his chance had arrived, was Number Eighteen.
He tried, in that moment, to remember who Eighteen was. He had pushed past him, in the narrowness of the tunnel, it seemed hours earlier, been close enough to smell the man's anxious sweat, feel his breath, but still Tommy couldn't put a face to the number. Number Eighteen was a flier, just as he was, and Tommy knew he was poised, inches below the surface of the earth, eager, nervous, excited, and expectant, perhaps a little impatient, the rope tight in his hands, praying for his opportunity and praying, probably, for the same thing that all men who know that death is lurking close by, with all its capriciousness, pray for.
The light swung a few yards closer.
In that second. Tommy realized it was completely up to him.
With every foot that brought the light closer, the choice became clearer. More denned. It was not that he was being called upon to risk everything as much as it was that everyone else had risked so much and he was the only man available to protect the chances and hopes taken that night. He had foolishly believed that descending into that tunnel and fighting for the truth about Lincoln Scott and Trader Vic had been the only test he would undergo that night. But he was wrong, for the real battle lay directly in front of him, moving slowly yet steadily toward the tunnel exit. He had been young when he enlisted in the air corps, and filled with a patriotic fervor when he entered his first battle, only to come quickly to understand that there is much in war that is brave, little that is truly noble. It is only in the distant outcome that historians debate where some sense of nobility reigns. Instead, what is delivered in the most hellish of fashions are the most elemental of hard and dirty choices, where all that Tommy had once been and all he hoped he might be paled harshly when measured against the urgent needs of so many men that night.
Bookish Tommy Hart a student of laws and a most unlikely warrior, who in truth wanted nothing more than to return home to the girl he loved and the life he'd lived, and the life he'd promised himself with all his hard work and studies swallowed hard, clenched his hands into fists, and slowly started to move, angling toward the approaching light.
He moved stealthily, commando like his eyes focused on the threat, his throat parched, his heart pounding, his task suddenly and terribly crystalline.
He remembered what the band leader had said in the tunnel: We're all killers.
He hoped the musician was right.
Tommy closed on the target, barely daring to breathe.
The hole in the ground that he was maneuvering to protect was behind him, obliquely. The light beam in front still swung haphazardly back and forth. He could not see who wielded the light, but he was relieved when he craned his head forward, and couldn't detect the accompanying sound of a dog's sniffing and shuffling.
The light moved a few steps closer, and Tommy tensed each muscle, poised in ambush.
A few feet behind him, hidden just beneath the surface of the ground.
Number Eighteen could no longer stand the tension of waiting for a signal. He had raced through all the possibilities for delay in his head, measuring each of the dangers against the overwhelming need to get up and get moving. He knew how tight the schedule was, and knew, as well, that the only men who truly stood a chance at successfully escaping were the men who made it to the train station before any sort of alarm was given. Number Eighteen had worked many hours digging the tunnel, and more than once had been pulled choking from dusty cave-ins, and with an impulsiveness born of youth, had rashly decided within himself that breaking free was more important even than life. He could not stand the idea of coming so close to the outside of the wire and not making a run for it. And so his impatience overcame whatever bonds of reason he had remaining after spending so many hours flat on his stomach in the tunnel, and he decided in that second to make his move, signal or not.
He reached both hands up, thrusting himself through the hole, up into the clear air, pushing himself like a man vaulting out of a pool of water.
The noise froze Tommy.
The light beam swung in the direction of the scrambling sound, and
Tommy heard a surprised and whispered German, 'Mein Gott!'
Visser could just see, at the edge of the faint beam, the dark shape of
Number Eighteen, bursting forward out of the exit hole and hightailing it into the woods. The shocked Hauptmann took several quick steps forward and then stopped. As quickly as he could, he lifted the flashlight to his mouth, to hold it there, the only way that he could get his hand free to seize his pistol. It was, of course, the luckiest thing for the escapees, for the pressure of the light between his teeth kept Visser from immediately shouting out an alarm. The German pulled furiously at the holster flap and grabbed at the Mauser strapped at his waist.
He had nearly tugged the weapon free when Tommy smashed into him, aiming high on his chest, like a fullback protecting a ball carrier.
The impact nearly knocked the wind from both men. The flashlight was thrown into a bush, its deadly beam smothered by leaves and branches.
