"What's that?" he asked.
Scott sighed slowly, then broke into a rueful smile.
"Hatred," he said.
Tommy did not reply, and so the black flier continued after a momentary hesitation.
"Do you have any idea how exhausting it is to be hated by so many men?" he asked.
Tommy shook his head.
"I didn't think so," Scott said, bitterness crawling over his words. He thrust back his shoulders, as if gaining a second wind.
"Anyway, here is what is true and what they can prove, beyond any damn reasonable doubt: I hated Bedford and he hated me and now he's dead.
That hatred is all they need.
Every witness they call, every bit of evidence no matter how faked or false or phony. Hart-will have that hatred supporting it. And every decision being made in this 'trial' we're starting on Monday, well, it has the same hatred coloring it.
They all hate me. Hart. Every one of them. Oh, I suppose there are men in the camp who maybe don't care all that much, one way or the other, and some who know that my fighter group saved their asses aloft maybe more than once, and those men are willing to tolerate me. Might even be inclined to give me the benefit of the doubt. But when you get right down to it, they're all white and I'm black, and what that means is hatred.
Why do you think it will be any different on Monday, no matter what we prove? It has never been different. Never. Not since the first slave was taken off the first slave ship in irons and put on sale in the open marketplace."
Tommy started to speak. There was something in the grandiosity of Scott's words that irritated the hell out of him, and he was eager to say it. But Scott held up his hand like a policeman on a street corner directing traffic, cutting him off.
"I'm not blaming you. Hart. And I don't think you're necessarily one of the worst, you know. And I do think you're trying your damnedest.
And I'm appreciating that. I really am. I just sometimes sit here, like this morning, and realize it ain't going to do me any damn good at all."
He smiled, shaking his head.
"So," he continued, "I want you to know. Hart, that I'm not blaming you for what happens, no matter what. I just blame all that hatred.
And you know what's almost funny? You've got it, too. You and Renaday and Pryce. Maybe not as much as MacNamara and Clark and that sorry-ass dead man, Bedford, but you've got it, somewhere inside of you, probably where you can't see it or hear it or feel it. But it's there, the exact same hatred. And I'm thinking that when it comes right down to the end of all this, that last little bit of hatred for me and the folks like me, well, it'll cause you to do something. Or not do something, it amounts to the same. Maybe not something terribly big, or seemingly important or crucial, but something nonetheless. Like not ask a key question. Not want to rock the boat. Who knows? But in the end, well, saving my sorry life and ass won't quite be worth the price you'll be asked to pay" Tommy must have appeared surprised, because Scott laughed again, still tossing his head back and forth.
"You just have to understand, Mr. White Harvard from Vermont.
It's inside you and there ain't nothing you can do about it," Scott continued, his words momentarily lapsing into a singsong yessuh-nosuh tone that mocked his situation.
"… And when the end comes, there it will be. That of' devil, hatred.
And so, you jus' won't take a step that you might have, like if I was another white man. You jus' won't have no part of doin' that, no suh…"
Scott exhaled slowly, and let his voice return to the educated flat Chicago tones with which Tommy was familiar.
"But you understand. Hart, I'm not holding this against you.
You're doing your best, and I appreciate that. At least, you think you're doing your best. It's just I understand the nature of the world. We may be locked up behind barbed wire here in Stalag Luft Thirteen, but human nature doesn't change.
That's the problem with education, you know. Shouldn't take the boy off the farm. It opens his eyes and what he sees isn't always what he might want to see. Like blacks and whites.
And what happens? What always happens. Because there isn't any piece of evidence in this entire world strong enough to overcome the evidence of hatred and prejudice."
Scott gestured toward the blood-marked board beneath the bunk.
"Especially some hunk of wood," he said. Tommy thought for a moment about the black flier's speech, then shrugged.
"I can think of one thing," he replied.
Scott smiled.
"You can? You must be a damn sight smarter than I thought. Hart. What might that be?"
"Someone else hated Trader Vic more than you did. All we have to do is find that particular hatred. Someone hated Vic enough to kill him, even here."
Scott leaned back on his bed, bursting into laughter.
"Well, Hart," he said, his chest expanding and his voice loud.
"You're right, I guess. But it seems to me, in this war, murdering one another's about the easiest damn thing we do. And I'm not all that sure it all the time has a whole lot to do with hatred. More often than not, it seems to have more to do with convenience" Scott spoke this last word with sarcastic emphasis, before continuing.
"But what you say has possibilities. Even if they are unlikely ones."
Lincoln Scott stretched again, like a tired man. Then he slowly rose to his feet and walked over to Tommy Hart.
"Stick out your hand. Hart," Scott said abruptly.
Tommy held out his arm, thinking that it was an odd moment for Lincoln Scott to want to shake hands. But this wasn't what Scott did. Instead, he simply poised his own hand next to Tommy's. Black and white.
"See the difference?" Scott asked.
"I don't know what we can say that's going to make anyone in that courtroom forget it. Not for one second. Not one lousy second."
Scott turned away, but stopped and twisted back toward Tommy.
"But trying should be fun. And I'm not the type that likes to go down without a fight, you know. Hart? You learn that in the ring. You learn it in a college classroom when you're the only Negro there and you damn well better work harder than all your white classmates if you expect not to flunk out. I learned it at Tuskegee when the white instructors washed guys out of the program guys who could fly circles around any white pilot for failing to salute them on the parade ground fast enough. And when on the night before we were to ship out to go to battle and die for our country, the good old boys in the local chapter of the Klan took it upon themselves to give us a proper southern send-off by burning a cross right outside the camp perimeter. Fairly well lit up the night, that did, because the white MPs guarding the camp didn't think it necessary to call in the fire brigade to put out the flames, which also tells you something. You learn it in a prisoner-of-war camp, too, when nigger is the first word you hear as you march through the gate, and it doesn't come out of some Kraut's mouth, either. Losing may be inevitable.