camp. That's why I was up in the middle of the night and sneaking around.'
Tommy nodded.
'I see,' he said.
Scott turned to him angrily, thrusting his face directly in front of
Tommy's. His eyes were narrowed, each word he spoke freighted with rage.
'You don't see a thing!' he hissed.
'You have no idea who I am! You don't have any idea what I've been through to get here! You are ignorant and unaware, Hart, just like everybody else! And I don't imagine that you have any real inclination to learn.'
Tommy took a single step backward, then stopped. He could feel an anger of a different sort rising within him, and he returned Lincoln
Scott's words with a thrust of his own.
'Maybe I don't,' he said coldly.
'But right now I'm the only thing standing between you and a firing squad. You might be smart to keep that in mind.'
Scott turned away, suddenly facing the cement wall. He lowered his forehead to the damp surface, then raised his hands to the smooth cement, so that he seemed to be balancing there, as if his feet weren't on solid ground, but instead gripping the narrowest of tightropes.
'I don't need any help,' he said quietly.
Still reverberating inwardly with an ill-defined rage. Tommy's first inclination was to tell the black flier that was fine with him, and walk out. He was perfectly happy returning to his books, his friends, and the routine of camp life he'd created for himself, simply letting each minute collect inexorably into an hour, and then add up into another day. Waiting for someone else to bring his imprisonment to a conclusion. A conclusion that held out the possibility of life, when so much that had happened to him had promised him death. He thought sometimes that he'd somehow managed to bluff his way to a pot in some uniquely deadly poker game, and having swept his winnings, even as meager as they were, into his arms, that he was unwilling to gamble again. Not even willing to look at a new hand of cards dealt to him.
He had reached a most curious and unexpected position in life. He lived surrounded by a world where there was danger and threat in almost any action, no matter how simple or inconsequential.
But by doing nothing, by remaining perfectly still and unnoticed on the small island of Stalag Luft Thirteen, he could survive. Like whistling past a graveyard. He started to open his mouth to tell Scott this, then stopped himself.
He took a deep breath, holding the air in his lungs.
Tommy thought in that second that it was the most curious of things: Two men could be standing next to each other, breathing the same air, but one could taste the future and freedom in each whiff, while the other could sense nothing but bitterness and hatred. And fear, as well, he considered, because fear is the cowardly brother of hatred.
And so, instead of telling Lincoln Scott to screw himself, Tommy replied, in as quiet a voice as the black flier had just used: 'You are mistaken.'
Scott did not move, but asked, 'Mistaken, how?'
'Because everyone here in this camp needs help to some degree or another, and at the moment, you need it far more than anyone else.'
Scott remained silent, listening.
'You don't have to like me,' Tommy said.
'You don't even have to respect me. You can hate me, for all it matters. But right now, you need me. And we will get along much better if you understand that.'
Scott remained pensive for several long seconds, before finally speaking. He still kept his head to the wall, but his words were distinct.
'I'm cold, Mr. Hart. I'm very cold. This place is freezing, and it's all I can do to keep my teeth from chattering. How about that for starters: Can you help me get something warm to put on?'
Tommy nodded.
'Do you have any spare clothing, other than what they took from you this morning?'
'No. Just what I was shot down with.'
'No extra socks or a sweater from home?'
Lincoln Scott laughed sharply, as if this was ridiculous.
'No.'
'Then I'll get some from somewhere else.'
'I would appreciate it.'
'What size shoes?'
'Twelve. But I'd prefer my flight boots back.'
'I'll work on that. And the jacket too. Have you eaten?'
'The Krauts gave me a hunk of stale bread and a cup of water this morning.'
'All right. Food, too. And blankets.'
'Can you get me out of here, Mr. Hart?'
'I will try. No promises.'
The black flier turned from the wall and eyed Tommy with an unwavering gaze. Tommy thought that it was probably the same narrowing of focus that Lincoln Scott used when he fixed a German fighter in the sight of his Mustang's machine guns.
'Make a promise. Hart,' Scott said.
'It won't hurt you.
Show me what you can do.'
'All I can tell you is that I'll do my best. I'll go talk to MacNamara after I leave here. But they're worried…'
'Worried? About what?'
Tommy hesitated, then shrugged.
'They used the words riot and lynching, lieutenant. They were afraid that friends of Vincent Bedford might want to avenge his death before they've convened their court and heard evidence and rendered a verdict.'
Scott nodded slowly. He smiled wryly.
'In other words, they would prefer to have their own lynching, but in their own time, and to make it all look as official as possible.'
'It would seem that way. My job is to prevent it from happening quite the way they want.'
'I shouldn't expect this will make you too popular,' Scott said.
'Let's not worry about that. Let's stick to the case.'
'What is their case?'
'That's my next task. To find out.'
Scott paused, breathing hard, almost like a man who'd just sprinted a race.
'Do what you can, Mr. Hart,' he said slowly.
'I don't want to die here. Don't get me wrong about that. But if you ask me, whatever you do won't make a damn bit of difference, because my guess is that minds are already made up, and a verdict already rendered. Verdict. What a stupid word, Hart.
What a truly stupid word. Do you know it comes from the Latin: to speak the truth. What a crock. What a lie. What a goddamn lie.'
Tommy did not respond to this.
Scott suddenly looked down at his hands, turning them over, as if searching them, or inspecting the color.
'It has never made a difference, Hart, do you understand?
Never!' Scott's voice rose sharply.
