'He's there!'
'Jesus!' Fenelli cried out, recoiling from the tunnel entrance as a blast of dirt like an explosion billowed through.
'Goddamn it!'
From above in the privy, Major Clark yelled down: 'What is it? Where's Hart?'
'He's there!' Scott answered.
'I heard him!'
'It's a goddamn cave-in!' Fenelli screamed.
'Where's Hart?' the major yelled again.
'We have to close up! The Krauts are rousting everyone out of the huts. If we don't close this up now, they'll find it!'
'I heard him,' Scott screamed.
'He's trapped!'
Both Scott and Fenelli looked up at Major Clark in that second. The major seemed to sway, like heat vapors above a black macadam highway on a hot August afternoon, before he made a decision.
'Get the buckets moving,' he shouted, turning toward the other men in the corridor.
'No one leaves until we dig Hart out!' He bent toward the tunnel anteroom.
'Coming down,' he yelled out. And then he grabbed a makeshift pickax and spade and launched them down into the hole in the earth.
They thudded to the ground. But Lincoln Scott had already thrust himself into the tunnel, burrowing forward, where he was tearing at the loose sand and dirt frantically, digging like some crazed subterranean beast. Scott ripped at the cave-in, kicking the dirt back behind him, where Fenelli shoveled it to the back of the anteroom.
Nothing Lincoln Scott had ever done in his life seemed as urgent. No moment of confrontation, no anger, no rage, nothing equaled his assault on the intractable loose sand. It was like trying to do battle with a ghost, with a vapor. He had no idea whether he had to dig through one foot or a hundred.
But distance made utterly no difference to him. He snatched at the dirt, throwing handfuls behind him, and he began to whisper a mantra, 'You're not dying! You're not dying…' as he dug toward the spot where he believed he'd heard the last faint sound of Tommy Hart's voice.
A few feet behind him, Fenelli cried out, 'Keep going!
Keep going! He's only got a few minutes before he chokes!
Dig, goddamn it! Dig!'
Major Clark remained poised on his hands and knees at the edge of the tunnel entrance, next to the privy, peering down.
'Hurry,' he cried.
'Goddamn it! Get a move on!'
At the end of the central corridor of Hut 107, the officer keeping watch at the front door abruptly turned and shouted back toward the privy: 'Krauts! Coming this way!'
Major Clark stood up. He turned to the bucket brigade standing in the corridor.
'Everybody out!' he ordered.
'Out to the assembly yard! Now!'
Somebody asked, 'What about the tunnel?'
And Clark replied, 'Ah, screw it!' But then he held up his right hand, as if holding the men back from following his first order. The major slid a wry, tension-riddled smile across his face. He looked at the gathered kriegies.
'Okay,' he said briskly.
'We need a few more minutes! Delay, delay, that's what we need. This is what I want: I want you men to disrupt the goddamn squad of Krauts heading this way. Like fourth and goal on the one-foot line! Just barrel-ass right into them, give 'em a real shot or two. Knock their butts flying! But keep on going, don't stop to throw more than one punch or two!
Keep going straight out into the yard and get into formation.
You understand what I'm saying? The old flying wedge, right through the enemy! But keep on going! Nobody gets himself shot. Nobody gets arrested! Just delay them as long as you can. Got it?'
Men up and down the corridor nodded. A few smiles broke out.
'Then get going! Give 'em hell!' Major Clark shouted.
'And when you hit that door, let's hear your voices.'
Some of the men grinned. A couple pounded fists into palms, stretched their knuckles. Muscles tensed. The officer watching at the door suddenly shouted, 'Get ready!'
Then: 'Go!'
'Go you kriegies!' Clark bellowed.
With three dozen furious banshee like shouts of angry defiance, the phalanx of American airmen poured down the corridor shoulder to shoulder, bursting through the front door.
'Go! Go! Go!' Major Clark cried out.
He could not see the entire impact of the assault, but he could hear a sudden tangle of voices as the men slammed into the approaching squad of Germans, instantly creating a melee in the dust of the assembly yard. He could hear cries of alarm and the thud of bodies coming together savagely. It was. Major Clark thought, a very satisfying sound.
Then he turned and yelled down into the tunnel.
'Germans!
Any minute now! Keep digging!'
Lincoln Scott heard the major's words, but they no longer meant much to him. It seemed the threat created by the cave-in was far greater than the squad of goons racing toward Hut 107. He battled against the darkness that threatened to envelop him, as well. He savaged the dirt in front of him with a fury born of years of unremitting rage.
Tommy Hart was surprised. Death seemed to be coming softly for him.
He had managed to curl up slightly as the cave-in dropped onto his head, giving him the smallest of air pockets, one with only a few precious breaths of stale and used air. He had not thought that the world could be any darker than it had been, but it was now.
For the first time that night, perhaps even in days and weeks, he felt calm. Completely relaxed. All the tension in every fiber of his body seemed to suddenly dissipate, sliding swiftly away from him. He smiled inwardly, realizing that even the great pain in his hand, which had managed to en flame his entire body, seemed to be extinguished in that moment, as surely as if it had been doused with water. He thought this was an odd, but welcome, gift that death brought to his last moments.
Tommy took a deep breath. He almost laughed out loud. It was the most curious thing, he wondered to himself. One takes breathing so much for granted. Each pull of air, tens of thousands of times every day. It is only when one has only a few breaths left, he thought, that one realizes how special each was, how sweet and delicious they each tasted.
He took another breath and coughed. The cave-in had pinned his head and shoulders, but not his feet, and he pushed a little, almost involuntarily struggling forward, still fighting in those last seconds.
He thought of all the people in his life, seeing each as if they stood directly in front of him, and was saddened that he was about to slip into memory for each of them. He wondered if that was what death truly was, simply passing from flesh to memory.
And in this last reverie. Tommy was surprised again, this time by an unmistakable scratching noise. He was perplexed.
He thought he was completely alone, and he didn't understand how any ghost could make this particular earthly noise.
It was a noise born of life, not death, and this confused him and astonished him greatly.
But it was not a ghost that suddenly seized his torn hand.
In the utter blackness of the tunnel, he was suddenly aware that a space had opened up in
