'Jesus,' he said.
'Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. What a fucking mess. I had to dig through a pile of sand more than once. Things are getting pretty shaky in there.'
'Where's Tommy?'
The man shook his head.
'There's still men coming down the tunnel behind me,' he said. He seized a breath of air and struggled to his feet.
'Jesus. Feels good to stand up. Now, I'm out of here. Kee-rist!' He grabbed at the cable and with Fenelli steadying him, began to lift himself toward the safety of the surface.
It was right when Number Nineteen finally pushed through the tunnel entrance, that Major Clark leaned over the edge of the pit and shouted down, 'That's it! They just sounded the damn alarm!'
The howl of a distant air-raid siren managed to penetrate even to the depth where they were gathered.
'Where's Hart?' Scott cried.
Number Nineteen shook his head.
'He shoulda been right behind me,' he said.
'But I don't know where he went.'
'What happened?' Fenelli demanded, kneeling down and staring into the tunnel darkness. He craned his head into the hole, trying to hear sounds of crawling.
'Come on, you men, hurry up!' Major Clark cried out from above.
'Let's move!'
Number Nineteen continued to shake his head.
'I don't know,' he said.
'I was at the top of the ladder, waiting for the signal to run, you know, just like we'd been briefed, 'cept it was Hart on the other end of the rope, giving the signals, not the guy in front of you, like we expected. Anyways, I'm waiting and waiting and wondering what the hell, 'cause it's been more than a coupla minutes and we're supposed to be going every two, three minutes, and all of a sudden, all I can hear is the sound of two men fighting. And some kinda fight, too. No voices, not at first. Just grunts and hard breathing and punches being thrown and landing, too. Then there's silence and then like from nowheres, I can just hear some voices finally.
Can't hear what the hell anyone's saying, but that don't matter, 'cause next thing I know, there's Hart, right in the entrance, saying there's Krauts everywhere and to get my tail back up the tunnel fast, get everybody out, 'cause the alarm's gonna go off any second. So I drop back down and start back, but it takes damn near forever, 'cause guys are panicking, and fighting to get turned around and you can't barely breathe and there's dirt everywhere and you can't see a damn thing 'cause every candle is out. And then, here I am.'
'Where's Hart?' Scott shouted.
Number Nineteen shrugged, still catching his breath.
'I can't tell you. I thought he'd be right behind me. But he ain't.'
From above. Major Clark's voice bellowed down.
'Hurry up! Germans will be here any second! We have to close up!'
Scott turned his face up.
'Hart's not back!' he answered sharply.
Major Clark seemed to hesitate.
'He should be behind the last man!'
'He's not back!'
'We have to close up before they get here!'
'He's not back!' Lincoln Scott roared. Insistent.
'Well, where the hell is he?' the major demanded.
Tommy Hart could no longer separate the different pains that swept through his body. His mangled hand seemed to have distributed agony throughout every inch of his being. Every surge of blinding hurt was fueled by an exhaustion so total and utterly complete that he no longer really believed that he had the strength to pull himself down the entire length of the tunnel. He had traversed past the point where fear and terror held sway, deep into death's arena. That he was able to crawl forward almost surprised him; he had no real understanding where the energy came from. His muscles screamed threats of fatigue.
His imagination was a fevered blank fire of pain.
Still he dragged himself ahead.
It was darker than any night he'd known and he was terribly alone.
Sand rivulets leaked onto his head. Dust clogged his nostrils.
It seemed that there was no air left inside the narrow tunnel confines.
The only sound he could make out was the creak of support boards seemingly ready to give way. He pulled himself along, using a swimming motion, thrusting aside dirt that clogged his route, fighting every centimeter of the way.
He held out no real hope of being able to crawl the entire seventy-five yards. And he certainly no longer held any belief that he could cover the distance before the Germans descended upon Hut 107. In an odd way, though, the exhaustion, coupled with pain, and the immense effort it took to work his way ahead, all conspired to prevent him from being crippled by fear. It was almost as if all the other competing agonies that screamed inside his body didn't leave enough room for the most obvious and the most dangerous. And so defeat in this final fight didn't really dare enter his thinking.
Tommy grabbed at each inch of darkness and hauled himself forward.
He did not stop. Nor did he even hesitate, despite his exhaustion.
Even when he found his way partially blocked, and the narrow space made even smaller, he still snaked ahead, his lanky form slithering through the tightest of gaps. His head spun dizzily with exertion. Each breath of air he squeezed from the blackness around him seemed thinner, more fetid, filled with evil.
How long he had traveled, or how far, was unknown to him.
In a way, it seemed to him as if he'd always been in the tunnel.
That there never was an outside, never was a clear sky filled with fresh air and a great expanse of stars above. For a moment, he almost laughed, thinking that everything else must have been a dream; his home, his school, his love, the war, his friends, the camp, the wire all of it. None of it really ever took place. He had died, right there in the Mediterranean Sea, right alongside the captain from Texas, and everything else was merely some odd fantasy of the future that he was carrying with him into oblivion. He gritted his teeth and dragged himself another yard forward, thinking perhaps nothing was real, and this tunnel was hell, and that he had always been there and would always remain inside. There was no exit.
There was no air. There was no light. Not ever.
And into this delirium that overcame him, he heard a voice.
It seemed familiar. He thought at first it was Phillip Pryce's, and then no, it was his old captain calling for him. He struggled forward a little more, and broke into a smile, because he realized it had to be Lydia summoning him. It was home in Vermont, and it was summer, and she wanted him to sneak from his house into the warm midnight and give her just a single, deep kiss goodnight. He whispered a reply, just like any delighted lover reaching across a bed late at night in response to the merest of suggestive touches, a beckoning.
'I'm here,' he said.
The voice called out again, and he stretched forward.
'I'm here,' he said, louder. He did not have the energy to speak any harder, and what he managed was really barely approaching a normal tone. Again, he pulled himself ahead, half-expecting to see Lydia's hand reaching for his, her voice coaxing him toward her.
But what he heard instead was a terrible crack.
He did not even have time to panic when the roof above him shattered, and he was abruptly enveloped in a cascade of sandy dirt.
'I heard him!' Lincoln Scott shouted.
