Scott? The Germans? The camp? The war? And who was doing the hating?
Tommy slowly exhaled, and thought that questions made for poor armor, but they were all he had. His eyes open to the night, he stared up toward the ceiling of the bunk room, wishing that he could look up into the stars at home, and find the same comforting trail through the blinking celestial canopy that he'd always sought out when he was younger. It was an odd thing, he realized, to go through life believing that if a person could find one familiar route through the distant heavens, then they would believe that a similar course could be charted through the nearby swamps and shoals of earth.
This thought made him smile bitterly to himself, because in it he recognized Phillip Pryce's handiwork. What made Phillip such a fine barrister, Tommy thought, was that he was psychologically always a step or two ahead. Where others saw mere facts stiffly arrayed, Phillip saw huge canvases, drawn to the edge in nuance and subtlety. He did not know that he could ever fully achieve Pryce's capabilities, but he thought achieving some would be far better than none.
Tommy asked himself: What would Phillip have said about the disappearance and sudden reappearance of the crucial wooden board?
Tommy breathed slowly. Phillip would say to look to who gains what.
The prosecution gains. Tommy considered.
But then Phillip would ask: Who else? The men who hate Scott for his skin, they too gained. The real killer of Vincent Bedford, he gained as well. The people who didn't gain were the defense, and the Germans.
He continued to breathe in and out, slowly.
That was an odd combination. Tommy thought. Then he asked himself:
How are these others aligned?
He did not know the answer to that question.
Like a sudden storm surge ripping across a cold mountain lake, driving whitecaps onto still waters. Tommy danced amid all the conflicting ideas within him. Some men wanted Scott executed because he was black.
Some men wanted Scott executed because he was a murderer. Some men wanted Scott executed for revenge.
He inhaled sharply, holding his breath.
Phillip was right, he thought suddenly. I'm looking at it all backward. The real question is: Who wanted Vincent Bedford dead?
He did not know. But someone did, and he still hadn't any idea who.
Questions made a racket in his head, so that when the soft sound of feet outside the closed bunk room door finally penetrated to his ear, he was startled. It was a padding sound, men in their stockings, moving carefully to conceal their travel.
He felt his throat abruptly constrict, his heart begin to race.
For an instant, he thought they were about to be attacked, and he pushed himself up onto an elbow, about to whisper an alarm to Scott and
Renaday. His hand reached out in the darkness, seeking some kind of weapon. But in that momentary hesitation, the footsteps seemed to fade. He bent forward, listening hard, and heard them rapidly disappear down the central corridor. He took another deep breath, trying to calm himself. He insisted in that second that it had just been an ordinary kriegie, forced to use the solitary indoor toilet late at night. The same toilet that had caused so much trouble.
Then he stopped, and told himself that was wrong. There were two, and more probably three, sets of footsteps outside the door. Three men trying to move silently with a single purpose.
Not a lonesome flier feeling ill. And then he realized there was no accompanying sound of rushing water coming from the toilet.
Tommy swung his feet out of the bunk, rising silently and tiptoeing across the room, making absolutely certain he didn't disturb his sleeping companions. He pressed his ear up against the solid wood of the door, but could hear nothing else. The blackness seemed complete, save for the occasional wan light from an errant searchlight, as it swept the outside walls and rooftops and penetrated through the cracks in the wooden window shutters.
He slowly, gingerly, swung open the door just the smallest fracture, so that he could slip through noiselessly. Out in the corridor, he crouched down, trying to make himself hidden.
He pitched forward slightly, at the waist, craning to make out noises in the darkness. But instead of sound, a flicker of light caught his eye.
At the far end of the hut, at the distant entrance that he and Scott had used on their own midnight excursion, Tommy could see a lone candle's flame. The light was like a single, faraway star.
He held himself still, watching the candle. At first he could not make out how many men were waiting by the door, but more than one. There was a momentary silence, and he could make out the sweep of the searchlight as it crept past the entrance.
The searchlight was like a bully, swaggering about the camp. In almost the same instant, the candle was extinguished.
He heard the creak of the front door to Hut 101 opening, and the small thud of it being closed seconds later.
Two men, he thought. Then he instantly corrected himself.
Three men.
Three men went through the front door a few minutes after midnight.
They used a candle's light just as he and Scott had, to put on their flight boots while they waited for the searchlight to creep past. And then, just as he and Lincoln Scott had a few nights earlier, they'd immediately jumped into the darkness traveling behind it.
He took another slow, long breath. Three was very dangerous, he thought. A large and clumsy group to slip outside.
One was the easiest, moving alone, patiently and cautiously.
Two, as he'd found out with Scott, was tricky. Two men had to work in a coordinated fashion, like a pair of fighters diving to an attack, one plane in the lead, the other covering the wing.
Two men were likely to talk, even though in whispers. Two men raised the chance of detection considerably. But three men exiting, one after the other, like diving from a stricken bomber into a sky filled with flak and pirouetting planes and falling through the air before opening a parachute, three was very dangerous and almost foolhardy. Three men would invariably make too much noise. Three men would find fewer accommodating dark spots to hide in. The exaggerated movement of three men was likely to catch the eyes of the tower goons, no matter how sleepy and inattentive they might be.
Three was taking a huge risk.
And so the reward for those three men had to be great.
He slumped up against the wall, composing himself before he slid back into Scott's bunk room.
Three men in the corridor, sneaking out into the midnight.
Three men chancing their lives on the eve of the trial.
Tommy did not know how these things were connected.
But he thought it might be a good idea to find out. He just did not know how.
Chapter Eleven
One of the camp's least efficient ferrets had already counted the formation of airmen three times, and when he started in again, going down the five-deep rows with his monotonous eins, zwei, drei, he was
