Tommy abruptly saw Major Clark striding toward him.
Clark's face was rigid, his jaw thrust forward.
"Hart," he said briskly.
"You are not welcome here."
Tommy came to attention.
"Captain Bedford was my friend, as well, major," he replied, although he wasn't sure this was completely true.
Clark did not reply to this, but turned instead to the Hauptmann, saluting.
"Hauptmann Visser, will you please see to the release of Lieutenant
Scott, the accused, into Lieutenant Hart's custody. Now is certainly a reasonable time."
Visser saluted in return, smiling.
"As you wish, major. I will see to it immediately."
Clark nodded. He glanced again at Tommy.
"Not welcome," he said again, as he turned and strode away. Behind him, Tommy could hear the first thudding sound of a clod of dirt being shoveled onto the lid of Trader Vic's coffin.
Hauptmann Visser escorted Tommy Hart back to the cooler to release Lincoln Scott. Along the way, the German officer signaled to a pair of helmeted guards and to Fritz Number One to accompany them. He continued to hum brisk, lively cabaret tunes. The sky above them had finally completely cleared, the last wisps of gray clouds fleeing toward the east. Tommy looked up and spotted the white contrails of a flight ofB-17s crossing the plate of watery blue. It would not be long before they were attacked, he thought. But they were still high, maybe five miles up, and still relatively safe. When they dropped through the sky toward the lower altitudes for the bombing run, then they were in the greatest danger.
He looked across at the squat, ugly cooler and thought the same was true for Lincoln Scott. For a moment he thought that it might be safer to leave him in confinement, but then, almost as quickly, the thought fled. He squared his shoulders and realized that what he faced was no different from the airmen in the sky above him. A mission, an objective, their passage threatened the entire route. He stole one more glance skyward, and thought that he could do no less than those men above him.
Scott was on his feet instantly as Tommy entered the cell.
"Damn, Hart, I am ready to get out of here," he said.
"What a hellhole."
"I'm not sure what to expect," Tommy replied.
"We'll just have to take it as it comes."
"I'm ready," Scott insisted.
"I just want out of here. Whatever happens, happens." The black man seemed knotted, coiled, and ready to burst.
Tommy nodded.
"All right. We will walk across the compound directly to Hut 101. You will go straight to your bunk room. When we get there, we'll consider our next step."
Scott nodded.
The black flier blinked hard when they emerged into the daylight. For a moment, he rubbed his eyes, as if to clear the darkness of the cooler cell away from them. He was clutching his clothing and his blanket beneath his left arm, leaving the right free. His fist was clenched tight, as if he was ready to throw the same roundhouse that he'd sent whistling at Hugh Renaday earlier that morning. As his eyes adjusted, Scott seemed to stand more upright, regaining his athleticism, so that by the time the group reached the gate, he was striding with a military purposefulness, almost as if he were marching on the edge of a West Point parade ground, readying himself to pass in review of a group of dignitaries. Tommy stayed at his side, in turn flanked by the two guards, a step behind Fritz Number One and Hauptmann Visser.
At the barbed-wire and wood-framed gate to the southern camp, the German officer stopped. He spoke a quick few words to Fritz Number One, who saluted, then another few words to the guards.
"Do you wish for an escort back to your hut?" he asked Lincoln Scott.
"No," Scott replied.
Visser smiled.
"Perhaps Lieutenant Hart will see the value in an escort?"
Tommy took a quick look through the wire at the compound.
A few groups of men were out; things looked normal.
There was a baseball being tossed about, other men were walking the perimeter track. He could see men lying back up against the buildings, some reading, some talking. A few men were sunbathing, their shirts off in the warming air. There was nothing that indicated that a funeral had taken place less than an hour earlier. Nothing that suggested anger, or rage.
Stalag Luft Thirteen looked as it had every day for years.
And this troubled Tommy. He took a deep, slow breath.
"No," he said.
"We'll be fine by ourselves."
Visser sighed deeply, an almost mocking sound.
"As you wish," he said. He half-snorted, looking over at Tommy.
"This is ironic, no? Me offering you protection from your own comrades. Most unusual, do you not think. Lieutenant Hart?" Visser didn't really seem to expect a reply to his questions, and Tommy wasn't willing to give him one, anyway. Visser then spoke a few words in German and the armed guards stepped aside. Fritz Number One also moved out of their path. He was frowning, and seemed nervous.
"Until later, then," Visser said. He hummed a few short bars of some unrecognizable tune, his now-familiar small, cruel smile sliding around his face. The officer then stopped, turned to the soldiers manning the gate, and with a wide swing of his only arm, gestured for the gate to open.
"All right, lieutenant, let's go. Steady march," Tommy said.
Shoulder to shoulder, the two men stepped forward.
The gate had only begun to swing shut behind them when Tommy heard the first whistle. It was joined by another, and then a third and fourth, the high-pitched sounds blending together, traveling the length and breadth of the camp within seconds. The men throwing the softball back and forth stopped, and turned toward them. Before they had traveled twenty yards, the false normalcy of the camp was replaced by the noises of hurrying feet, and the rattling and thudding of wooden doors swinging open and slamming shut.
"Keep your eyes front," Tommy whispered, but this was unnecessary, as Lincoln Scott had straightened up even more, and was stepping across the compound with the renewed determination of a distance runner who finally spies the finish line.
In front of them, crowds of men streamed from the huts, moving as quickly as if the ferrets' whistles were calling them to an Appell or as if the air-raid sirens had sounded an alarm.
Within seconds, hundreds of men had gathered in a huge, seething block, not a formation as much as a barricade. The crowd Tommy wasn't yet sure whether it was closer to a mob gathered directly in their path.
Neither Lincoln Scott nor Tommy Hart slowed their stride as they approached the congregation.
"Don't stop," he whispered to Lincoln Scott.
"But don't fight, either."
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a barely perceptible nod from the Tuskegee airman's head, and he heard a slight grunt of acknowledgment.