No black flier was going to lose any white boys to the Krauts.
So Nathaniel, he screams up behind the first FW, just letting the bastard know he's there, trying to make the Nazi think he's dead if he doesn't get out of there. Nathaniel, you know, he was a helluva poker player.
Helped put himself through college taking rich boys' allowances. Seven card stud was his game. Bluff you right out of your shorts nine times out often.
Had that look, you know the one, the 'I've got a full house and don't you mess with me' look, when really he's only holding a lousy pair of sevens…'
Lincoln Scott took another deep breath.
'They got him, of course. The wing man came around behind and stitched him good. I could hear Nathaniel screaming over the radio as he went down. Then they came after me.
Blew a hole in the fuel tank. I don't know why it didn't explode.
I was smoking, heading down, and I guess they used up all their ammunition getting me, because they broke off and disappeared. I bailed out at maybe five thousand feet.
And now I'm here. We could have run, you know, but we didn't. And the damn bomber made it home. They always made it home. Maybe we didn't.
But they did.'
Scott shook his head slowly.
'Those men out there in that mob. They wouldn't be here today if it'd been the 332nd flying escort duty over them.
No sir.'
Scott lifted himself from the bed, still clutching the Bible in his hand. He used the black- jacketed book to gesture toward Tommy, punctuating his words.
'It is not in my nature, Mr. Hart, to be accepting. Nor is it in my nature to just let things happen to me. I'm not some sort of carry your bags, tip my hat, yessuh, nosuh, house nigger, Hart. All this procedural crap you mentioned, well, that's fine. We need to argue that stuff, well, you're the lawyer here, Hart, let's argue it. But when it comes right down to it, then I want to fight. I did not kill Captain Bedford and I think it's about damn time we let everyone know it!'
Tommy listened closely, absorbing what the black man had said and how he'd said it.
'Then I think we have a difficult task ahead of us,' he said softly.
'Hart, nothing in my life up to this point has been easy.
Nothing truly worthwhile ever is. My preacher daddy used to say that every morning, every evening. And he was right then, and it's right now.'
'Good. Because if you didn't kill Captain Bedford, I think we're going to have to find out who did. And why. And I don't think that will be an easy task, because I haven't got even the slightest idea how to get started.'
Scott nodded, and opened his mouth to speak, but before any of the words came out, he was distracted by the sound of marching boots coming from the exterior corridor. The steady resonant noise stopped outside the doorway and seconds later the single thick wooden door to the bunk room flew open. Tommy turned swiftly toward the sound, and saw that MacNamara and Clark, along with a half-dozen other officers, were gathered in the hallway. Tommy recognized at least two of the men as former occupants of Trader Vic and Lincoln Scott's bunk room.
MacNamara stepped into the room first, but then stood just to the side.
He didn't say anything, but crossed his arms, watching, Clark, as always, was directly behind him, passing rapidly into the center of the room. The major stared angrily at Tommy, then fixed Lincoln Scott with a harsh, angry stare.
'Lieutenant Scott,' Clark hissed, 'do you still deny the charges against you?'
'I do,' Scott replied, equally forcefully.
'Then you will not object to a search of your belongings?'
Tommy Hart stepped forward.
'We do indeed object! Under what rule of law do you think you can come in here and search Lieutenant Scott's personal property? You need a warrant.
You need to show cause at a hearing, with testimony and with supporting evidence! We absolutely object! Colonel…'
MacNamara said nothing.
Clark turned first to Tommy, then back to Lincoln Scott.
'I fail to see what the problem is. If you are indeed innocent, as you claim, then what would you have to hide?'
'I have nothing to hide!' Scott answered sharply.
'Whether he does, or does not, is irrelevant!' Tommy's voice was raised, insistent.
'Colonel! A search is unreasonable and clearly unconstitutional!'
Colonel MacNamara finally answered in a cold, slow voice.
'If Lieutenant Scott objects, then we will bring this matter up at tomorrow's hearing. The tribunal can decide…'
'Go ahead,' Scott said briskly.
'I did not do anything, so I have nothing to hide!'
Tommy glared at Scott.
The black flier ignored Tommy's look and sneered at Major Clark.
'Have at it, major,' he said.
Major Clark, with two other officers at his side, approached the bed.
They quickly felt through the stuffed mattress and rifled the few clothes and blankets. Lincoln Scott stepped a few feet away, standing alone, back up against one of the wooden walls. The three officers then flipped through the pages of the Bible and The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and examined the makeshift storage table. Tommy thought, in that second, that the men were making the most perfunctory of searches. None of the items they inspected was really being closely scrutinized. Nor did they seem particularly interested in what they were doing. A sense of nervousness flooded over him, and he once again burst out, 'Colonel, I repeat my objection to this intrusion!
Lieutenant Scott is not in a position to intelligently waive his constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure!'
Major Clark seemed to smile at Tommy.
'We're almost finished,' he said.
MacNamara did not reply to Tommy's plea.
'Colonel! This is wrong!'
Suddenly the two officers accompanying Major Clark reached down and lifted the corners of the wooden bunk.
With a scraping noise, they shifted it perhaps ten inches to the right, dropping it back to the wooden flooring with a resounding clunk. In almost the same motion. Major Clark bent down to one knee, and started examining the floorboards that were now exposed.
'What are you doing?' Lincoln Scott demanded.
No one answered.
Instead, Clark abruptly worked one of the boards loose, and with a single, sharp motion, lifted it up. The board had been cut and then replaced in the floor. Tommy instantly recognized it for what it was: a hiding place. The space between the cement foundation and the wooden flooring was perhaps three or four inches deep. When he'd first arrived at Stalag Luft Thirteen, this had been a favorite kriegie concealment location. Dirt from the many failed tunnels, contraband, radios, uniforms recut into civilian clothing for escapes planned but never acted upon, stockpiles of useless emergency escape rations all were hoarded in the small vacant space beneath the floor in each room.
But what had seemed so convenient to the kriegies had not failed to gain the attention of the ferrets.
