'I am an American. I may be black, but I am an American.'
'Then perhaps it would be wise,' Phillip Pryce gestured toward Tommy,
'to trust your fellow American trying to help you.'
Scott's eyes narrowed, focused sharply on the older British flier.
'While all my other fellow Americans are trying to kill me?' he asked with a noticeable sneer.
'Trust, I've learned, is something best left to those who earn it, not those who ask for it. You earn it under pressure. In the air, flying wing to wing in a gusty crosswind. You earn it when you dive through a flight of Messerschmidts. It's something that's not easy to get, and once achieved not easy to lose.'
Pryce burst out in laughter.
'Absolutely!' he said.
'You are absolutely correct!'
He turned toward Tommy and Hugh.
'The lieutenant is a philosopher, as well. Tommy. You did not tell me this.'
Scott still didn't seem to know what to make of the wiry, partially emaciated British gentleman laughing, wheezing, coughing, and obviously taking complete delight in the turns and twists of their conversation.
'You're a lawyer?' he asked again, slightly incredulous.
Pryce turned back briskly. He stared directly at Lincoln Scott for several long seconds. And when he did answer this question, he did so in a deadly serious, low-pitched, and intense voice.
'I am. And the bloody well best you will ever encounter.
And this is what I suggest you do this morning. Tommy, pay close attention.'
For a moment, Scott seemed hesitant. But as the wing commander continued to speak, he started to nod his head in agreement. Tommy and
Hugh joined in, so that as Pryce spoke softly, the other men were gathered in a tight knot around him.
The theater at Stalag Luft Thirteen was located in the center of the camp, next to the hut where the Red Cross parcels and mail were delivered, adjacent to the makeshift medical services building. It was slightly wider than the housing huts, low-slung and hot when the temperatures rose, freezing in the winter. But any performance was jam-packed, from the camp jazz band to The Front Page, performed on the slightly raised stage with dripping candles in footlights fashioned from processed meat tins. Occasionally a German propaganda newsreel was shown, or a feature film of happy, singing Bavarian maidens-all projected by an ancient, cranky machine that frequently broke the film strips-to the wild applause of the prisoners. The best seats in the front of the room were constructed from leftover crates. Others were rough boards nailed together to make uncomfortable pews. Some men would bring blankets to sit on, cramming their backs against the thin processed-wood walls.
At precisely ten a.m. on the wristwatch that had been so coveted by Vincent Bedford, Tommy strode through the wide double doors that opened into the theater, flanked on one side by Hugh Renaday and on the other by Lincoln Scott. The men marched in step, shoulders drawn back tightly, their uniforms as pressed and as clean as they could make them. Their boots resounded off the flooring planks with determined precision.
In unison, the three men wheeled directly up the center aisle, eyes to the front, quick-paced, maintaining formation, like a color guard on parade.
The auditorium was filled to capacity and beyond. Men were jammed into every corner and cranny of the space, shoulder to shoulder, straining to see. Others hung outside, groups of fliers listening through the open windows. Kriegie heads pivoted like falling dominoes as the accused man and his two defenders paced by. A makeshift bar had been created at the foot of the stage, two two-board tables set next to each other, facing three chairs set behind a longer table propped in the middle of the platform. Each chair was occupied by a senior camp officer, with Lewis MacNamara in the center seat.
He was fingering a wooden mallet that hovered over a hunk of two-by-four. A homemade gavel. Major Clark, accompanied by another officer whom Tommy recognized from the search the prior evening, was already seated at the prosecution's table. In a far corner at the front of the stage, Hauptmann Heinrich Visser, accompanied again by a stenographer, was seated. He was pushing back on his wooden, stiff-backed chair, so that he was balancing against the wall, a slightly bemused look on his face. The kriegies had afforded him some space, so Visser and the stenographer were isolated, their steel-gray uniforms standing out amid the sea of woolen olive drab and tanned brown leather that the American fliers wore.
The room, which had been noisily buzzing with anticipatory conversation, fell into a complete silence as the three men marched past, maintaining their lockstep and rhythm.
Wordlessly, Lincoln Scott and Hugh took seats at the defense table.
Tommy, standing between the two, remained on his feet, staring up at
Colonel MacNamara. He held several legal texts in one hand and a notepad in the other. These he abruptly dropped to the tabletop with a solid thud, like the report of a distant mortar round.
Colonel MacNamara stared down at the three men, fixing each in turn, then said briskly: 'Are you ready to proceed, lieutenant?'
Tommy nodded.
'Yes. Are you planning on presiding, colonel?'
'I am. As Senior American Officer, it is my duty '
'I would object!' Tommy said loudly.
MacNamara stared at him.
'Objection?'
'Indeed. The potential exists for you to be called as a witness in this matter. That would preclude your being able to preside.'
'Witness?' MacNamara looked both puzzled and slightly angry.
'How so?'
But before Tommy could reply, Major Clark leapt up.
'This is unreasonable! Colonel, you are required by your position as commander of the American sector to preside over these proceedings. I don't see what testimony you could possibly give-' Tommy interrupted.
'A defense in a capital case should have the widest possible leeway in bringing forth evidence-any evidence-they believe will help their case. Anything less would be unfair, unconstitutional, and more fitting for the jackbooted thugs we are fighting than freeborn Americans!'
With these final words. Tommy swung around waving his arm at Heinrich Visser and the stenographer, who scratched away at his pad, although his forehead seemed to have reddened.
Visser dropped his chair legs forward, like twin shots, and seemed about to stand, but he did not. Instead he merely stared straight ahead and continued to smoke his cigarette.
MacNamara held up his hand.
'I will not limit the defense, you are correct. As for my own potential testimony, well, that remains to be seen. We will cross that particular bridge if and when we arrive at it.'
He made a slight nod toward Visser, as he spoke.
Tommy nodded, as well. Behind him, amid the packed crowd of kriegies, he could hear a few mumbled words, but these were followed by numerous bushings. The men wanted to hear.
MacNamara continued.
'Today we are here merely for a plea. And lieutenant, as you have requested. Major Clark has compiled a list of witnesses and evidence.
Let's get on with the business, please.'
Major Clark turned to Tommy. He gestured toward the man seated beside him.
'Lieutenant Hart, this is Captain Walker Townsend. He will be assisting me in these matters.'
Captain Townsend, a lean, athletic man with thinning, sandy-colored hair and a pencil-styled mustache on his upper lip, half-rose from his seat, nodding toward the three men at the defense table. Tommy
