Everybody always used the same nail, because we wanted to be able to grab the right jacket in a hurry. That was why they were spaced out, in pairs."
"Where do you suppose the nails are now?"
"I haven't any idea. Why would someone take them away?"
Tommy didn't answer, although he knew the reason. It wasn't only the nails that were missing. It was an argument.
He turned back to Scott, who was starting to leaf through the pages of the Bible.
"My father is a Baptist minister," Scott said.
"Mount Zion Baptist Church on the South Side of Chicago. And he always says that the Good Book will provide guidance in times of turmoil.
Myself, I am perhaps more skeptical than he, but not totally willing to refuse the Word."
The black flier's finger had crept inside the pages of the book, and with a flick, he opened the Bible. He looked down and read the first words he saw.
"Matthew, chapter six, verse twenty-four: "No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other."
Scott burst out with a laugh.
"Well, I guess that makes some sense. What do you think. Hart? Two masters?" He snapped the Bible shut, then slowly exhaled.
"All right, what's the next step? Now that I've gone from one prison cell to the next, what's in store for me?"
" Procedurally A hearing tomorrow. A formal reading of the charges.
You declare your innocence. We get to examine the evidence against you. Then, next week, a trial."
"A trial. A nice word to describe it. And counselor, your approach?"
"Delay. Question authority. Challenge the legality of the proceedings. Request time to interview all the witnesses.
Claim a lack of proper jurisdiction over the matter. In other words, fight each technicality as hard as possible."
Scott nodded, but in the motion of his head there was some resignation.
He looked over at Tommy.
"Those men just now, in the compound. All lined up and shouting. And then, when we passed through, the silence. I thought they wanted to kill me."
"I did, too."
He shook his head, his eyes downcast.
"They don't know me. They don't know anything about me."
Tommy didn't reply.
Scott leaned back, his eyes looking up to the ceiling. For the first time. Tommy seemed to sense a mingling of nervousness and doubt behind the flier's pugnacity. For several seconds, Scott stared at the whitewashed boards of the roof, then at the bare bulb burning in the center of the room.
"I could have run, you know. I could have got away. And then I wouldn't be here."
"What do you mean?"
Scott's voice was slow, deliberate.
"We had already flown our escort mission, you see. We'd fought off a couple of attacks on the formation, and then delivered them to their field.
We were heading home, Nathaniel Winslow and myself, thinking about a hot meal, maybe a poker game, and then hitting the hay, when we heard the distress call. Right in the clear, just like a drowning man calling out to anyone on the shore to please throw him a rope. It was a B-17 flying down on the deck, two engines out and half its tail shot away. It wasn't even from the group we were supposed to be guarding, you see, it was some other fighter wing's responsibility. Not the 332nd. Not ours, you see. So we didn't really have to do anything.
And we were low on fuel and ammo, but there the poor bastard was, with six Focke-Wulfs making run after run at him. And Nathaniel, you know, he didn't hesitate, not even for a second. He turned his Mustang over on its wing and shouted at me to follow him, and he dove on them. He had less than three seconds of ammunition left. Hart. Three seconds.
Count them: one, two, three. That's how long he could shoot. Hell, I didn't have much more. But if we didn't go in there, then all those guys were going to die. Two against six.
We'd faced worse odds. And both Nathaniel and I got a kill in our first pass, a nice side deflection shot, which broke up their attack, and the B-17, it lumbered out of there and the FWs came after us. One swung around onto Nathaniel, but I came up before he could line him up and blew him out of the air.
But that was it. No more ammo. Got to turn and run, you know, and with that big turbocharged Merlin engine, weren't none of those Kraut bastards gonna catch us. But just as we get ready to hightail it home, Nathaniel, he sees that two of the fighters have peeled off after the B-17, and again, he shouts at me to follow him after them. I mean, what were we going to do? Spit at them? Call them names? You see, with Nathaniel, with all of us, it was a matter of pride. No bomber we were protecting was going down. Got that? None. Zero.
Never. Not when the 332nd was there. Not when the boys from Tuskegee were watching over you. Then, goddamn it, you were gonna get home safe, no matter how many damn planes the Luftwaffe sent up against us.
That we promised.
No black flier was going to lose any white boys to the Krauts.
So Nathaniel, he screams up behind the first FW, just letting the bastard know he's there, trying to make the Nazi think he's dead if he doesn't get out of there. Nathaniel, you know, he was a helluva poker player.
Helped put himself through college taking rich boys' allowances. Seven card stud was his game. Bluff you right out of your shorts nine times out often.
Had that look, you know the one, the "I've got a full house and don't you mess with me' look, when really he's only holding a lousy pair of sevens…"
Lincoln Scott took another deep breath.
"They got him, of course. The wing man came around behind and stitched him good. I could hear Nathaniel screaming over the radio as he went down. Then they came after me.
Blew a hole in the fuel tank. I don't know why it didn't explode.
I was smoking, heading down, and I guess they used up all their ammunition getting me, because they broke off and disappeared. I bailed out at maybe five thousand feet.
And now I'm here. We could have run, you know, but we didn't. And the damn bomber made it home. They always made it home. Maybe we didn't.
But they did."
Scott shook his head slowly.
"Those men out there in that mob. They wouldn't be here today if it'd been the 332nd flying escort duty over them.
No sir."
Scott lifted himself from the bed, still clutching the Bible in his hand. He used the black-jacketed book to gesture toward Tommy, punctuating his words.
"It is not in my nature, Mr. Hart, to be accepting. Nor is it in my nature to just let things happen to me. I'm not some sort of carry your bags, tip my hat, yessuh, nosuh, house nigger, Hart. All this procedural crap you mentioned, well, that's fine. We need to argue that stuff, well, you're the lawyer here, Hart, let's argue it. But when it comes right down to it, then I want to fight. I did not kill Captain Bedford and I think it's about damn time we let everyone know it!"