"This could prove to be difficult," Fritz Number One said in reply. And in the same second, Hugh saw a disheveled and clearly dangerously angry
Hauptmann Heinrich Visser sitting at the side of a single desk, reaching for one of his ever-present brown cigarettes.
Tommy blocked the first assault with his forearm, slamming Murphy across the face. The lieutenant from Springfield grunted, and pushed
Tommy back savagely against the dirt wall of the anteroom. Tommy could feel sandy grit tumbling down his shirt collar as Murphy's fingers clawed at him. He was able to wedge his left arm up under his attacker's neck, forcing the man's head back, and then he rocked him hard against the opposite wall.
Murphy replied, getting his right hand free and landing a punch to Tommy's cheek, cutting it, so that blood immediately started to trickle down, mingling with dirt and sweat.
The two men twisted together in the narrow confines of the tunnel, kicking, pushing, trying to gain some sort of advantage, fighting in a ring that provided none to either man.
Tommy was only vaguely aware of the third man, higher on the ladder, Number One on the escape list, who still held a pickax in his hands.
Murphy threw Tommy back, snarling, and Tommy managed to throw a short uppercut into his jaw, hard enough so that Murphy shot backward momentarily. It was a fight without room, as if a dog and cat had been dropped into a single burlap bag together, and tore at each other in that impossible place, neither able to use whatever advantages or cunning Nature had designed for them.
Tommy and Murphy ricocheted back and forth, slamming the wall, muscle against muscle, scratching, clawing, throwing wild fists, kicking, punching, trying to find some means of gaining the upper hand. Shadows and darkness slithered like snakes around them.
An elbow caught him in the forehead, and he was almost stunned. In dizzy fury and complete rage. Tommy kicked out, striking Murphy in the shin with a nasty crack. Then, in almost the same motion, he lifted his knee hard, and drove it into Murphy's groin and stomach. The lieutenant from Springfield moaned deeply, and fell back, clutching his midsection.
At the very same second, out of the corner of his eye, Tommy caught the sensation of something moving his way, and he ducked down, just as the point of the pickax whizzed past his ear. But the force of the miss drove the blade deep into the dirt, and Tommy was able to swing around, smashing upward with his right hand. He felt his fist slam into the other man's face. There was a creaking sound and a snapping noise as a rung on the ladder broke. Tommy realized that by trying the one deadly swing with the ax from above, the man had risked everything, and in the same motion. Tommy grabbed at the short handle, finding it and wrenching it loose, and pulling the attacker off balance, so that he tumbled down wildly, smashing his face into the wall of dirt.
Tommy threw himself back against the opposite wall, brandishing the ax in front of him, breathing harshly. He lifted the ax above his shoulder, ready to crash it down into the back of the third man's neck.
Murphy started to reach for him, then stopped, crying out sharply
"Don't!" The eerie candlelight threw alternating shadows and streaks of light across his terrified face.
Tommy hesitated, wrenching control past rage. He lifted the ax a second time, as the third man started to roll over, lifting his own forearm to try to deflect the thrust heading his way.
"Don't move!" Tommy hissed.
"Nobody goddamn move!"
He held the ax in a ready position.
Murphy seemed taut, about to spring, then stopped. He slumped back.
"Killer!" Tommy started to shout, but before he was able to speak another word, the third man said quietly, in a voice held low, that defied the murderous fight they'd just engaged in, "Hart, don't say another word!"
Tommy half-turned toward the voice. It took him a half second to recognize the slightly tinged, soft southern tones, and to remember where he'd heard them before.
The leader of the Stalag Luft Thirteen Prisoner Jazz Band stared across at Tommy. He smiled wickedly, as if amused.
"You are a right tenacious fellow. Hart," the band leader said. He shook his head back and forth.
"Like some damn half-crazed Yankee bulldog, I must admit. But you're wrong about one thing. Murphy didn't kill our mutual friend, Vic.
I did."
"You!" Tommy whispered sharply.
The man grinned.
"That's right. I did. And pretty much the way you and that goddamn Kraut Visser had it all figured, too.
Imagine that. You kill a man in old-fashioned New Orleans style" the band leader mimicked sticking a knife in the throat as he spoke "and some Kraut Gestapo-type goon figures it out. Damn. And you know what else. Hart? I'd do it again tomorrow, if I had to. So, there you have it. Are you gonna fight us some more, now?"
Tommy brandished the ax. He did not know how to reply.
The band leader continued to smile.
"We got a little bit of a problem here. Tommy," he said. He kept his voice low.
"I need that ax. I'm one swipe, maybe two, from breaking through. And we're on a little bit of a tight deadline here. We gotta get going if we're like to have any chance. There are three trains heading to Switzerland this morning. Men that catch the first, likely to have the best chance of making it close enough to the border so that they can find their way across. So I need that ax, and I need it right now.
Sorry I tried to kill you with it. You sure did duck at the right moment. But, hell, now you gonna have to give it up."
The band leader held out his hand. Tommy did not budge.
"The truth, first," he said.
"Gotta keep your voice down. Hart," the band leader said.
"If there are any goons in the trees, they might hear us. Even down here. Voices carry. Of course, it likely would seem to one of them like it was somebody whispering from the grave, but that ain't so far from the truth, now is it?"
"I want to know," Tommy replied.
The band leader smiled again. He motioned toward Murphy, who started to dust some of the dirt from his body.
"Get dressed," he said.
"We're going to move soon."
"Why?" Tommy demanded softly.
"Why? You mean why are we trying to get out?"
Tommy shook his head.
"No. Why Vic?"
The band leader shrugged.
"Two reasons. Tommy. The best of reasons, too, when you think about 'em. First, Trader Vic was trading information with the damn Krauts.
Sometimes, when he needed something special, like a radio or a camera or something, he would whisper a number to some ferret.
Usually Fritz Number One, you know. That would be the number of the hut where a tunnel was getting started. Coupla days later. Krauts would show up. Pretend it was a routine search. Bust it up. We'd start digging someplace different.