But into the midst of that abrupt anger he heard another voice speaking to him, suggesting that perhaps he had just learned something important, something he should keep to himself.
And it was this voice that he decided to follow.
Tommy turned away, although he made absolutely certain that MacNamara and Clark had seen that he'd seen them spying on their progress from behind the window. With the black flier at his side, he climbed the wooden planks into Hut 101.
Lincoln Scott spoke first.
'Well,' he said quietly, 'it seems bleak.'
At first Tommy wasn't certain whether the fighter pilot was speaking about the case or the room, because the same could have been said of both. Everything accumulated by the other kriegies who'd once shared the space had been removed. All that remained was a single wooden bunk with a dirty blue ticking pallet stuffed with straw. A solitary thin gray blanket had been left behind on the top. Lincoln Scott tossed his remaining blankets and clothing down on the bed. The overhead electric bulb burned, although the room was filled with the remaining diffuse light of afternoon. His makeshift table and storage area were at the head of the bed. The flier looked inside and saw that his two books and store of foodstuffs were all intact. The only thing missing was the handmade frying pan, which had inexplicably disappeared.
'It could be worse,' Tommy said. This time it was Scott's turn to look at him, trying to guess whether it was the accommodations or the case that he was speaking of.
Both men were quiet for an instant, before Tommy asked:
'So, when you went to bed at night, after sneaking around to the toilet, where did you put your flight jacket?'
Scott gestured to the side of the door.
'Right there,' he said.
'Everybody had a nail. Everybody hung their jackets there. They were easy to grab when the sirens or the whistles went off.' Scott sat down heavily on the bed, picking up the Bible.
Tommy went over to the wall.
The nails were missing. There were eight small holes in the wooden wallboard arranged in groups of two, and spaced a couple of feet apart, but that was all.
'Where did Vic hang his coat?'
'Next to mine, actually. We were the last two in line.
Everybody always used the same nail, because we wanted to be able to grab the right jacket in a hurry. That was why they were spaced out, in pairs.'
'Where do you suppose the nails are now?'
'I haven't any idea. Why would someone take them away?'
Tommy didn't answer, although he knew the reason. It wasn't only the nails that were missing. It was an argument.
He turned back to Scott, who was starting to leaf through the pages of the Bible.
'My father is a Baptist minister,' Scott said.
'Mount Zion Baptist Church on the South Side of Chicago. And he always says that the Good Book will provide guidance in times of turmoil.
Myself, I am perhaps more skeptical than he, but not totally willing to refuse the Word.'
The black flier's finger had crept inside the pages of the book, and with a flick, he opened the Bible. He looked down and read the first words he saw.
'Matthew, chapter six, verse twenty-four: 'No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.'
Scott burst out with a laugh.
'Well, I guess that makes some sense. What do you think. Hart? Two masters?' He snapped the Bible shut, then slowly exhaled.
'All right, what's the next step? Now that I've gone from one prison cell to the next, what's in store for me?'
' Procedurally A hearing tomorrow. A formal reading of the charges.
You declare your innocence. We get to examine the evidence against you. Then, next week, a trial.'
'A trial. A nice word to describe it. And counselor, your approach?'
'Delay. Question authority. Challenge the legality of the proceedings. Request time to interview all the witnesses.
Claim a lack of proper jurisdiction over the matter. In other words, fight each technicality as hard as possible.'
Scott nodded, but in the motion of his head there was some resignation.
He looked over at Tommy.
'Those men just now, in the compound. All lined up and shouting. And then, when we passed through, the silence. I thought they wanted to kill me.'
'I did, too.'
He shook his head, his eyes downcast.
'They don't know me. They don't know anything about me.'
Tommy didn't reply.
Scott leaned back, his eyes looking up to the ceiling. For the first time. Tommy seemed to sense a mingling of nervousness and doubt behind the flier's pugnacity. For several seconds, Scott stared at the whitewashed boards of the roof, then at the bare bulb burning in the center of the room.
'I could have run, you know. I could have got away. And then I wouldn't be here.'
'What do you mean?'
Scott's voice was slow, deliberate.
'We had already flown our escort mission, you see. We'd fought off a couple of attacks on the formation, and then delivered them to their field.
We were heading home, Nathaniel Winslow and myself, thinking about a hot meal, maybe a poker game, and then hitting the hay, when we heard the distress call. Right in the clear, just like a drowning man calling out to anyone on the shore to please throw him a rope. It was a B-17 flying down on the deck, two engines out and half its tail shot away. It wasn't even from the group we were supposed to be guarding, you see, it was some other fighter wing's responsibility. Not the 332nd. Not ours, you see. So we didn't really have to do anything.
And we were low on fuel and ammo, but there the poor bastard was, with six Focke-Wulfs making run after run at him. And Nathaniel, you know, he didn't hesitate, not even for a second. He turned his Mustang over on its wing and shouted at me to follow him, and he dove on them. He had less than three seconds of ammunition left. Hart. Three seconds.
Count them: one, two, three. That's how long he could shoot. Hell, I didn't have much more. But if we didn't go in there, then all those guys were going to die. Two against six.
We'd faced worse odds. And both Nathaniel and I got a kill in our first pass, a nice side deflection shot, which broke up their attack, and the B-17, it lumbered out of there and the FWs came after us. One swung around onto Nathaniel, but I came up before he could line him up and blew him out of the air.
But that was it. No more ammo. Got to turn and run, you know, and with that big turbocharged Merlin engine, weren't none of those Kraut bastards gonna catch us. But just as we get ready to hightail it home, Nathaniel, he sees that two of the fighters have peeled off after the B-17, and again, he shouts at me to follow him after them. I mean, what were we going to do? Spit at them? Call them names? You see, with Nathaniel, with all of us, it was a matter of pride. No bomber we were protecting was going down. Got that? None. Zero.
Never. Not when the 332nd was there. Not when the boys from Tuskegee were watching over you. Then, goddamn it, you were gonna get home safe, no matter how many damn planes the Luftwaffe sent up against us.
That we promised.
