Tommy thrust himself down the tunnel. There were no lights, not even a stray candle left behind to guide him. It was all a great and infinite blackness, mocking the dawn that was lighting the world beyond his reach.
Tommy crawled back to prison, alone, exhausted, blind, and deeply hurt, chased by the faraway sound of Fritz Number One's whistle shattering the orderly world above him.
Chapter Twenty
It was near chaos in Hut 107.
The would-be escapees gathered in the central corridor were frantically changing out of their re tailored suits, back into their frayed and worn uniforms. Many men had collected extra rations for the escape, food to eat while on the lam, and they were now stuffing their mouths with chocolate or processed meat, fearful that any second the Germans were going to arrive and confiscate everything they'd hoarded so diligently over the past weeks. The support personnel were seizing the clothing, forged documents, tickets, passports, work orders, anything the kriegies had constructed to give false legitimacy to their anticipated existence beyond the wire, and stuffing these into hollowed-out books, or behind walls in concealed hiding spots. The men who'd been part of the bucket brigade of dirt dropped down from the hole in the ceiling, furiously wiping sweat and grime from their faces while one flier carefully fixed the access panel back in place on the off chance that the Germans would not discover it. An officer stood by the front door of the hut, peering through a crack in the wood, shuffling men out of the hut singly and in pairs, as long as the coast stayed clear.
There had been twenty-nine men stretched out in the tunnel when Tommy had given the word of warning to Number Nineteen. The alarm moved more rapidly than the men, passed back in a series of shouts, just as the message about Scott's innocence had been. But as the warning streamed back, the men in the tunnel had fought to start their own retreat, which was far more difficult in the cramped and dark quarters. The men had moved desperately, almost frantically, some crawling backward, some struggling to get turned around. Even with the urgency passed back, it still took some time for each man to retrace his steps, filled with disappointment, some fear, plenty of anxiety, and a furiousness at the harshness of life that had stolen this chance from them.
Curses resounded in the tight spaces, obscenities rebounding off the walls.
When the men first started to emerge from the tunnel, Lincoln Scott had been poised near the edge of the entrance, adjacent to the privy. Major
Clark was giving sharp orders a few feet away, trying to keep discipline among the frenzied men.
Scott had turned and absorbed the disintegration of the scene around him. He reached down and helped to lift Number Forty-seven from the entrance.
"Where's Hart?" Scott demanded.
"Did you see Tommy?" The flier shook his head.
"He must still be up at the front," the man replied.
Scott helped push the kriegie back toward the corridor, where the man began to tear at his escape clothes. Scott looked down into the pit of the tunnel. The candlelight seemed to throw scars across the faces of the disappointed men as they struggled to crawl from the tunnel entrance. He reached down and grasped Number Forty-six's hand, and with an immense jerk, lifted the next in line to the surface, asking the same question: "Did you see Hart? Did you hear him? Is he okay?"
But Number Forty-six shook his head.
"It's a damn mess in there, Scott. You can't see a damn thing. I don't know where Hart is."
Scott nodded. He guided the flier out of the privy toward the corridor, then reached down and seized the black cable leading into the hole.
"What are you doing, Scott?" Major Clark demanded.
"Helping," Scott replied. He twisted about, almost like a mountaineer preparing to rappel down a cliff, and without saying another word to the major, lowered himself down to the anteroom. He could sense a fierce tautness in the cheap air of the tunnel, almost like entering a medical ward where disease lingers in the corners and no one has ever opened a window to bring in fresh air. In the rush to retreat, the bellows had been abandoned, kicked to the side of the space by one of the first kriegies to emerge from the tunnel. Scott saw that Number Forty-five was struggling with a suitcase, and he reached into the gray semidarkness and tore it from the grateful man's hands.
"Jesus," the kriegie whispered.
"That damn thing almost brought the roof down on my head.
Thanks." The man leaned up against the wall of the anteroom.
"There's no air," he whispered.
"No damn air up there at all. I hope nobody passes out."
Scott helped to steady the gasping man against the side of the pit, and put the access cable in his hands. The kriegie nodded thanks and started to pull himself up, hand over hand.
As soon as he'd managed to lift himself over Scott's head, the black flier turned and grabbed the bellows.
He set it upright, and then plunked himself down, straddling it as had the captain from New York earlier that long night. With a strength born of urgency, he started to pump away furiously, sending blasts of air down the tunnel.
Nearly a full minute passed before the next kriegie slid through the tunnel entrance. This flier seemed exhausted by the tension of the failed escape. He coughed and tore at the air in the anteroom gratefully with wheezing breath and pointed at the bellows.
"Good," he whispered dryly.
"You can't breathe up there. Not at all."
"Where's Hart?" Scott demanded, between grunts. His face glistened with the sweat of exertion.
The man shook his head.
"I don't know. Coming, maybe? I don't know. You can't see. Can barely breathe. There's goddamn sand and dirt everywhere and all you can hear are the other guys yelling to back up, get out, get out, get out. That and you can hear the damn boards in the roof creaking and snapping. I hope the whole thing doesn't come caving in. Are the Krauts here yet?"
Scott gritted his teeth. He shook his head.
"Not yet. You've got a chance to get out, quick."
Number Forty-five nodded. He sighed, gathering strength.
Then he, too, struggled up the cable, reaching toward the hands at the privy entrance that were extended to him.
Below, Scott continued to pump air with deadly speed. The bellows creaked and whooshed, and the black flier grunted hard at the effort.
Slowly, one after another, the men crawled out of the tunnel. All were filthy, all were scared, all were relieved to be able to see the surface. One man said, "That's what dying must be like." Another said, "It's like a damn grave in there."