"Some people seem to be going to a whole lot of trouble just to make absolutely damn for certain sure that this poor old nigger gets shot.
And they sure as hell seem to have some damn fast timetable, too."
Then without another word, Lincoln Scott threw himself down on his bunk, tossing his thick forearm over his eyes, blocking out the unrelenting light from the single overhead bulb. He remained in that position, motionless, not even looking up, when Hugh reentered the bunk room. He stayed that way, not moving, like a man on a slab, right to the moment that the Germans cut the electric power to the huts, plunging all three men into the usual complete darkness of prisoner-of-war camp.
It was nearly midnight by the luminous dial on the watch that Lydia had given him and Tommy found himself unable to sleep, filled with an unruly nervousness that was not dissimilar to the anxiety he felt on the eve of his first combat mission.
Within himself, he could sense some doubt, some fear, some frustration at the capriciousness of the world that had put him in this situation.
He sometimes thought that true bravery was merely acquiring the ability to act, to do what needed to be done, in the face of all these emotions that urged him to find someplace safer and hide. He listened to the light sounds of sleep coming from the two other men in the room, wondering for a moment why they were not equally energized and didn't find sleep equally elusive. He supposed there was resignation in Lincoln Scott's breathing, and acceptance in Hugh Renaday's.
He felt neither of these emotions.
What he thought was that nothing had gone right in the camp from the moment Fritz Number One found Trader Vic's body. The steady routine of camp life-critical to both captors and captured-had been disturbed profoundly, and promised to be further disrupted when the black airman's trial started in the morning.
He mentally chewed on this idea for a moment, but it only led him to more confusion. There seemed to him to be so many layers of hatred at work, and for an instant he felt despair at ever sorting all of them out. Who was hated the most?
Scott? The Germans? The camp? The war? And who was doing the hating?
Tommy slowly exhaled, and thought that questions made for poor armor, but they were all he had. His eyes open to the night, he stared up toward the ceiling of the bunk room, wishing that he could look up into the stars at home, and find the same comforting trail through the blinking celestial canopy that he'd always sought out when he was younger. It was an odd thing, he realized, to go through life believing that if a person could find one familiar route through the distant heavens, then they would believe that a similar course could be charted through the nearby swamps and shoals of earth.
This thought made him smile bitterly to himself, because in it he recognized Phillip Pryce's handiwork. What made Phillip such a fine barrister, Tommy thought, was that he was psychologically always a step or two ahead. Where others saw mere facts stiffly arrayed, Phillip saw huge canvases, drawn to the edge in nuance and subtlety. He did not know that he could ever fully achieve Pryce's capabilities, but he thought achieving some would be far better than none.
Tommy asked himself: What would Phillip have said about the disappearance and sudden reappearance of the crucial wooden board?
Tommy breathed slowly. Phillip would say to look to who gains what.
The prosecution gains. Tommy considered.
But then Phillip would ask: Who else? The men who hate Scott for his skin, they too gained. The real killer of Vincent Bedford, he gained as well. The people who didn't gain were the defense, and the Germans.
He continued to breathe in and out, slowly.
That was an odd combination. Tommy thought. Then he asked himself:
How are these others aligned?
He did not know the answer to that question.
Like a sudden storm surge ripping across a cold mountain lake, driving whitecaps onto still waters. Tommy danced amid all the conflicting ideas within him. Some men wanted Scott executed because he was black.
Some men wanted Scott executed because he was a murderer. Some men wanted Scott executed for revenge.
He inhaled sharply, holding his breath.
Phillip was right, he thought suddenly. I'm looking at it all backward. The real question is: Who wanted Vincent Bedford dead?
He did not know. But someone did, and he still hadn't any idea who.
Questions made a racket in his head, so that when the soft sound of feet outside the closed bunk room door finally penetrated to his ear, he was startled. It was a padding sound, men in their stockings, moving carefully to conceal their travel.
He felt his throat abruptly constrict, his heart begin to race.
For an instant, he thought they were about to be attacked, and he pushed himself up onto an elbow, about to whisper an alarm to Scott and
Renaday. His hand reached out in the darkness, seeking some kind of weapon. But in that momentary hesitation, the footsteps seemed to fade. He bent forward, listening hard, and heard them rapidly disappear down the central corridor. He took another deep breath, trying to calm himself. He insisted in that second that it had just been an ordinary kriegie, forced to use the solitary indoor toilet late at night. The same toilet that had caused so much trouble.
Then he stopped, and told himself that was wrong. There were two, and more probably three, sets of footsteps outside the door. Three men trying to move silently with a single purpose.
Not a lonesome flier feeling ill. And then he realized there was no accompanying sound of rushing water coming from the toilet.
Tommy swung his feet out of the bunk, rising silently and tiptoeing across the room, making absolutely certain he didn't disturb his sleeping companions. He pressed his ear up against the solid wood of the door, but could hear nothing else. The blackness seemed complete, save for the occasional wan light from an errant searchlight, as it swept the outside walls and rooftops and penetrated through the cracks in the wooden window shutters.
He slowly, gingerly, swung open the door just the smallest fracture, so that he could slip through noiselessly. Out in the corridor, he crouched down, trying to make himself hidden.
He pitched forward slightly, at the waist, craning to make out noises in the darkness. But instead of sound, a flicker of light caught his eye.
At the far end of the hut, at the distant entrance that he and Scott had used on their own midnight excursion, Tommy could see a lone candle's flame. The light was like a single, faraway star.
He held himself still, watching the candle. At first he could not make out how many men were waiting by the door, but more than one. There was a momentary silence, and he could make out the sweep of the searchlight as it crept past the entrance.
The searchlight was like a bully, swaggering about the camp. In almost the same instant, the candle was extinguished.
He heard the creak of the front door to Hut 101 opening, and the small thud of it being closed seconds later.
Two men, he thought. Then he instantly corrected himself.