So, instead, he reached down and seized hold of the board, and tugged hard. There was a cracking sound as the flimsy wood gave way.
He rose up, with the broken hunk of wood. The bloodstain was captured in the center of the board. He looked down and saw that the damage done to the wall of Hut 103 was minimal, but noticeable. He turned away, and realized that at least a dozen kriegies had stopped whatever they were doing and were regarding him intently. He hoped the curiosity in their faces was typical kriegie curiosity, driven by a fascination with anything that was even the slightest bit unusual or different, anything that might break the tedious routines of Stalag Luft Thirteen.
He shouldered the board, like a rifle, and wondered whether he had just done something terribly foolhardy and eminently dangerous. Of course, he thought to himself, that was what the war was all about: putting oneself at risk. That was what was easy. The tricky part was surviving all the chances one took.
He marched to the end of the hut and saw that one of the men playing catch with the softball was Captain Walker Townsend. The Virginian nodded at Tommy, took in the section of board slung over Tommy's shoulder, but did not interrupt his game. Instead, he reached up and plucked the softball from the air with a graceful, practiced motion. The ball made a sharp, slapping sound as it stuck in the pocket of the captain's faded leather baseball glove.
He delivered the blood-marked board to Lincoln Scott, who had looked up from his bunk with surprise and some enjoyment when Tommy entered the room.
"Hello, counselor," he said.
"More excursions?"
"I retraced our steps from last night and I found this," Tommy replied.
"Can you keep it safe?" he asked. Scott reached out and took the board out of his hands and turned it over, inspecting it.
"I guess so. But what the hell is it?"
"Proof that Trader Vic was killed between Huts 102 and 103, right where we thought. I believe that's dried blood."
Scott smiled, but shook his head negatively.
"It might be. It might also be mud. Or paint. Or lord knows what. I don't suppose we have any way of testing it?"
"No. But neither does the opposition."
Scott still regarded the board with skepticism, but at least nodded his head slightly in agreement.
"Even if it is blood, how do we prove it belonged to Bedford?"
Tommy smiled.
"Thinking like a lawyer, lieutenant," he said.
"Well, I don't know that we have to. We merely suggest it. The idea is to create enough doubt about each aspect of the case against you that the whole of their picture crumbles.
This is an important piece."
Scott still looked askance.
"I wonder whose garden that is?" Scott asked, as he gingerly fingered the ripped piece of wood, turning it over and over in his hands.
"Might say something."
"It might," Tommy acknowledged.
"Though my guess is that I probably should have found that out before drawing attention to the spot. Not a helluva big chance anyone will volunteer that information now, I would think."
Scott nodded, turned, and placed the board beneath his bunk.
"Yeah," he said slowly.
"Why should anyone help me?"
The black flier straightened up, and without warning, his jocularity fled. It was as if he'd suddenly been ripped from the abstract of his situation, back to its reality. He quickly spun his eyes around the bunk room, past Tommy, examining each of the stolid wooden walls, his prison within a prison. Tommy could sense that Scott had traveled somewhere within his head, and when he'd returned, he'd also returned to his sullen, angry, the-world-against-him attitude. Tommy did not point out that it seemed that a number of people were already helping the black flier. Instead, he turned toward the door to exit the room, but before he could step in that direction, Scott stopped him with a fierce glance and a bitter question: "So what's next, counselor?"
Tommy paused before replying.
"Well, drudge-work mostly.
I'm going to interview some of the prosecution witnesses and find out what the hell they're going to say and then go and talk strategy with
Phillip Pryce and Hugh Renaday. Thank God for Phillip. He's the one putting us ahead, I think. Anyway, once I've done that, then you and I will start preparing hard for Monday morning because I'm sure Phillip is already outlining a scenario he'll want us to follow precisely."
Scott nodded, snorting slightly.
"Somehow," he said quietly, "I don't think that it's going to work out quite as theatrically as all that."
Tommy had turned and was halfway through the door, but there was so much frustration in Scott's words that he turned and asked, "What's the problem?"
"You don't see the problem? What, are you blind. Hart?" Tommy hesitated, stepping back into the small bunk room.
"I see that we're accumulating evidence and information that should show the prosecution's efforts to be so many lies…"
Scott shook his head.
"You'd think the truth would be enough."
"We've gone over that," Tommy said with brisk finality.
"It rarely is. Not merely in a court, but in life."
Scott sighed, and drummed his fingers against the leather jacket of the Bible.
"So, we can show that Bedford wasn't killed in the Abort.
We can suggest that he was killed in a fashion resembling an assassination. We can argue the actual murder weapon wasn't the knife that was so damn conveniently planted here although we can't really explain why Bedford's or somebody else's blood was all over it. We can claim that my boots and my jacket were stolen on the night in question by the real murderer but that particular truth is going to be a hard one for any judge to swallow, huh? We can attack every aspect of the prosecution's case, I suppose. And what good does it do us? They still have the strongest piece of evidence available to them. The evidence that's going to put me in front of that firing squad."
Scott shook his head sharply from side to side.
Tommy stared at the mercurial fighter pilot and for the first time since meeting him in the cooler cell thought him to be a truly complicated man. Scott had returned to his bed, hunkered down, shoulders slumped forward. It was like the portrait of an athlete who knows that the game is lost although there is still time remaining on the clock. The score insurmountable no matter what occurs. He lifted his massive right fist and rubbed it hard against his temples. The confident adventurer of the night before, the man who rose to the hunt in the darkness and danger of the camp at night, had disappeared. The fighter pilot who had led the mission of the midnight past seemed to evaporate, replaced by a resigned, discouraged man; a man filled with strength and speed but shackled by his situation.
Tommy was struck by the thought that it seemed at least in part that history was as much a part of the case against him as was any morsel of evidence.