Hart's War Read online

  Tommy smiled at his friend. “It does, indeed, Phillip. It does indeed. And what you’re suggesting is?”

  Pryce sneezed loudly, but looked up with a grin. “Well,” he said slowly, relishing each word as he launched himself forward. “My experience is much the same as Hugh’s. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it will be the unfortunate lumberjack who has committed the apparently clear-cut brutality. Usually what is obvious is also true. . . .”

  He paused, still letting his smile wander around his face, curling up the corners of his mouth, lifting his eyebrows, crinkling his chin.

  “. . . But there is always that one in a hundred situation. And I distrust words and language that prompt one to conclusions instead of the more solid world of facts.”

  Pryce rose from his seat and moved across the room, as if abruptly driven by ideas. He opened a small chest made from an empty parcel box and removed tea and cups.

  “Phillip,” Tommy said, feeling a sense of relief for the first time that morning, “you sly dog. You’re driving at something. What is it?”

  “No. No. Not quite yet,” Pryce replied, almost cackling. “I think I shall not speculate further until I know more. Tommy, my dear boy, throw another fagot on the stove, let us have tea. I have prepared some notes for you that should help you with procedural matters to come. I have also suggested some avenues of inquiry. . . .”

  Pryce hesitated, then added, instantly dropping the humor from the edges of his words, adopting a seriousness that weighted them in Tommy’s mind: “The next few hours will be critical, I suspect. More will happen that influences this case. Watch your client carefully when he is released. Hugh, rely on your own instincts. I think it would be wise for all of us if we could fix in our own minds a settled belief in Lieutenant Scott’s denial.”

  Both men nodded. Pryce took a deep breath.

  “Belief is an odd thing for a defense counsel, Tommy. It is not necessary to believe in your client to defend him. Some would say that it is easier to not truly have an opinion, that the maneuverings of the law are only clouded by the emotions of trust and honesty. But this situation is not one that lends itself, I think, to the usual interpretations. In our case, to defend Lieutenant Scott, I think you must subscribe wholeheartedly to his innocence, no matter how difficult he makes that achievement. Of course, with this belief goes greater responsibility. His life will truly be in your hands.”

  Tommy nodded. “I will search for the truth when I see him,” he said, rather portentously, which caused Phillip Pryce to smile again, like a headmaster at a boys’ school slightly bemused by the overeagerness but undeniable sincerity of his charges.

  “I think we’re some ways from discovering truths, Tommy-lad. But it would be wise to start hunting for them. Lies are always easier to find than truths. Perhaps we can exhume a few of those.”

  “Will do,” Tommy replied.

  “Ah, that’s the Red, White, and Blue, All-American attitude. Thank God for that.”

  Pryce coughed and laughed, then he turned to the younger men.

  “And Tommy, Hugh, one further thing. A critical thing, I think.”

  “What is it?”

  “Find the spot where Trader Vic was murdered. The location will speak loudly.”

  “I’m not sure how.”

  “You will find it by doing what a true advocate must do to truly understand his case.”

  “What is that?”

  “Put yourself into the hearts and minds of everyone involved. The murdered man. The accused. And do not neglect the men who stand in judgment. For there may be many reasons that buttress the prosecution of a case, and many reasons a verdict is delivered, and it is critical that before that event takes place, you understand completely and utterly all the forces at work so diligently.”

  Tommy nodded.

  Pryce reached for a teapot and grandly swished it in the air to determine if it was filled with water, then plopped it on top of the old cast-iron stove.

  “Hugh’s famous lumberjack may be sitting on the floor with a discharged gun in his lap and reeking from alcohol. But who gave him the gun? And who poured him the drink? And who called him a name, prompting the fight? And, more important, who truly stands to lose or gain by the death of the poor sod lying on the barroom floor?”

  Pryce smiled again, grinning at both Renaday and Hart. “All the forces, Tommy. All the forces.”

  He paused, then added, “My goodness, I haven’t had this much fun since that damnable Messerschmidt got us in his sights. Tea ready, Hugh?” For a moment, the older man’s smile flickered, as he added, “Of course, probably young Mr. Scott fails to find all this quite so intriguing as I do.”

  “Probably not,” Tommy said. “Because I still think they mean to kill him.”

  “That’s the bloody problem with war,” Hugh Renaday muttered as he tended to the teapot and the chipped, white ceramic mugs. “There’s always some right nasty bastard out there trying to kill you. Who wants a spot of milk?”

  ***

  The guard outside Lieutenant Lincoln Scott’s cooler cell let the two fliers in without a word. It was closing in on noon, though the interior of the cell made it seem more like the gray of the hour just after dawn. Tommy assumed that Scott’s pseudo-release order would be processed soon, but he thought it would be more interesting to question Scott when he was still in the unsettled state that the isolation and starkness of the cooler created. He said as much to Hugh, who’d nodded and replied: “Let’s let me take a whack at him. The old provincial policeman’s dull but sturdy approach, perhaps?”

  This Tommy agreed to.

  The Tuskegee airman was in a corner of the cooler doing push-ups when Tommy and Hugh entered. Scott was snapping off the exercises, his body rising and falling like a metronome, counting out the numbers, the words echoing in the small, damp space. He raised his head as they came through the door, but did not stop until he reached one hundred. Then he pushed himself to his feet, staring at Hugh, who met his gaze with a singularly intense response of his own.

  “And this is?” Scott asked.

  “Flying Officer Hugh Renaday. He’s my friend, and he’s here to help.”

  Scott extended his hand, and the two men shook. But the black man did not release Hugh’s grip immediately. Instead, they remained linked for a second or two in silence, while the black flier stared hard into every angle of the Canadian’s face. Hugh returned the look with as withering a glare of his own.

  Then Scott said: “A policeman, right? Before the war.”

  Hugh nodded.

  Scott suddenly dropped his hand. “All right, Mr. Policeman. Ask your questions.”

  Hugh smiled briefly. “Why do you think I have any questions for you, Lieutenant Scott?”

  “Why else would you be here?”

  “Well, clearly Tommy needs help. And if Tommy needs assistance, then so do you. And we are speaking of a crime, which means evidence and witnesses and procedures. Do you not think a former policeman can help with these matters? Even here, in Stalag Luft Thirteen?”

  “I suppose so.”

  Hugh nodded. “Good,” he said. “Glad to get that straight, right off the top. A few other things you can clear up, as well, lieutenant. Now, it would be safe to say that the victim, Captain Bedford, hated you, correct?”

  “Yes. Well, actually, Mr. Renaday, he hated who I am, and what I stood for. He didn’t know me. He just hated the concept of me.”

  Hugh nodded. “An interesting distinction. He hated the idea that a black man could be a fighter pilot, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes. But it was probably a little deeper even than that. He hated that a black man would aspire and excel at a province ordinarily reserved for whites. He hated progress. He hated achievement. He hated the idea that we might actually be equal.”

  “So, on the afternoon that he tried to lure you into stepping over the deadline, that would have been not really directed at you personally, but more at what you represent?�
�

  Scott hesitated, then answered: “Yes. I believe so.”

  Hugh smiled. “Then those Kraut machine gunners wouldn’t really have been cutting you in half, it merely would have been some ideal?”

  Scott did not reply.

  Hugh smiled wryly. “Tell me, lieutenant, dying for some ideal, is it less painful? Is your blood somehow a different color when you die for a concept?”

  Again, Scott remained silent.

  “And, might I ask, lieutenant, did you hate in return in a similar fashion? Did you not really hate Captain Bedford, but hate instead what you consider to be the antique and prejudiced views he embodied?”

  Scott’s eyes had narrowed and he paused before replying, almost as if suddenly wary.

  “I hated what he represented.”

  “And you would do anything to defeat those odious views, correct?”

  “No. Yes.”

  “Well, which is it?”

  “I would do anything.”

  “Including die yourself?”

  “Yes, if I thought it was for the cause.”

  “That would be the cause of equality?”

  “Yes.”

  “Understandable. But would you kill, as well?”

  “Yes. No. It’s not that damn simple, and you know it, Mr. Renaday.”

  “Ah, call me Hugh, lieutenant.”

  “Okay, Hugh. It’s not that damn simple.”

  “Really? Why not?”

  “Are we having a conversation about my case, or in general?”

  “Are the two that separate, Lieutenant Scott?”

  “Yes, Hugh.”

  “Then tell me how?”

  “Because I hated Bedford and I wanted to kill every racist ideal that he represented, but I didn’t kill him.”

  Hugh leaned back against the cooler wall.

  “I see. Bedford represents everything you want to destroy. But you didn’t seize that opportunity?”

  “That’s correct. I didn’t kill the bastard!”

  “But you would have liked to?”

  “Yes. But I didn’t!”

  “I see. Well, sure is convenient for you that he’s dead, isn’t it?”

  “Yes!”

  “Lucky for you, as well?”

  “Yes!”

  “But you didn’t do it?”

  “Yes! No! Damn it! I may have wanted to see him dead, but I didn’t kill him! How many times must I tell you that?”

  “I suspect many more. And it’s a distinction that Tommy’s going to have some little difficulty arguing in front of a military tribunal. They are notoriously obtuse when it comes to these sorts of subtleties, lieutenant,” Hugh said sarcastically.

  Lincoln Scott was rigid now with anger, the muscles on his neck standing out like lines forged at some hellishly hot foundry. His eyes were wide, but his jaw was thrust forward; rage seemed to stream from his body like the sweat that ringed his forehead. Hugh Renaday stood a few feet away, leaning against the cooler wall. His body seemed languid, relaxed. Occasionally he punctuated a point with an offhand wave of his arm, or by rolling his eyes, looking upward, as if mocking the black flier’s denials.

  “It’s the truth! How hard is it to argue the truth?” Scott fairly shouted, the words bouncing off the walls of the cell.

  “And what relevance does the truth really have?” Hugh replied softly.

  This question seemed to stop the black man abruptly. Scott was bent forward at the waist, but rendered slightly open-mouthed, as if the force of words gathered in reply had jammed his throat like commuters hurrying toward a rush-hour train. He turned to Tommy for a moment, almost as if he wanted him to come to his assistance, but he still said nothing. Tommy kept his own mouth clamped shut. He thought they were all being measured, in that small room, heights, weights, eyesight, blood pressure, and pulse. But more important, whether they were on the right side or the wrong side of a violent and unexplained death.

  Into this small silence, Hugh Renaday eagerly stepped.

  “So,” he said briskly, like a mathematician reaching the end of a long equation, “you had motive. Plenty of motive. A goddamn abundance of motive, correct, lieutenant? And we already know you had the opportunity, for you have also rather blissfully admitted to everyone arrayed against you about leaving your bunk in the middle of the night in question. All that’s lacking, really, is the means. The means to perform the murder. And I suspect our counterparts are examining that question as we speak.”

  Hugh eyed Scott narrowly. He continued to speak in irritating, frank terms:

  “Don’t you think, Lieutenant Scott, that it makes much more sense to admit it? Own up to the killing. Really, in many respects, no one will blame you. I mean, certainly Bedford’s friends will be outraged, but I think we could argue fairly successfully that you were provoked. Provoked. Yes, Tommy, I truly think that’s the way to go. Lieutenant Scott should openly admit what happened . . . it was a fair fight, after all, wasn’t it, lieutenant? I mean, him against you. In the Abort. In the dark. It very well could have been you lying there. . . .”

  “I did not kill Captain Bedford!”

  “We can argue a lack of premeditation, Tommy. Some bad blood between men that leads inevitably to a rather typical fight. The army deals with these all the time. Manslaughter, really . . . probably do a dozen years, hard labor, nothing more—”

  “You’re not listening! I didn’t kill anyone!”

  “Except Germans, of course . . .”

  “Yes!”

  “The enemy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah, but wasn’t Bedford just as great an enemy?”

  “Yes, but . . .”

  “I see. It’s all right to kill the one, but jolly well wrong to kill the other?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t make any sense, lieutenant!”

  “I didn’t kill him!”

  “I think you did!”

  Again Scott opened his mouth to reply, then stopped. He stared across the small space at Hugh Renaday, breathing hard, like a man fighting ocean waves and currents, struggling to make the safety of the shore. He seemed to make some sort of inward decision, and then he spoke, in a cold, harsh fashion, evenly and direct, a voice of restrained passion, the voice of a man trained to fight and kill.

  “If I had decided to kill Vincent Bedford,” Lincoln Scott said, “I would not have done so in secret. I would have done it in front of everyone in the camp. And I would have done it with this . . .”

  With those words, Scott suddenly stepped across the space separating himself from Renaday, throwing a roundhouse right fist through the air, but abruptly stopping short of the Canadian’s face. The punch was savage and lightning-fast, delivered with accuracy and brutality. The black man’s clenched hand hovered inches away from Renaday’s chin, remaining there.

  “This is what I would have used,” Scott said, almost whispering. “And I wouldn’t have made any damn secret out of it.”

  Hugh stared at the fist for a second, then looked at the black man’s flashing eyes.

  “Very quick,” he said in his quiet voice. “You’ve had training?”

  “Golden Gloves. Light heavyweight champion for the Midwest. Three years running. Undefeated in the ring. More one-punch knockouts than I can count.”

  Scott turned toward Tommy. “I quit boxing,” he said stiffly, “because it got in the way of my studies.”

  “And those were?” Hugh demanded.

  “After obtaining my undergraduate degree magna cum laude from Northwestern, I received a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Chicago,” Lincoln Scott replied. “I have also done some graduate work in the unrelated field of aeronautical engineering. I took those courses in order to become an airman.”

  He dropped his fist to his side and took a step back, almost turning his back on the two white men, but then stopping and looking them, in turn, in the eyes.

  “And I have killed no one, except Germans. As I was orde
red to do by my country.”

  The two men left Lincoln Scott in the cooler cell and walked into the South Compound. Tommy breathed in hard; as always, the tight confines of the cooler cells triggered a slight unsettled sensation within him, like a reminder to be afraid. The cooler was as close as he wanted to get to confinement and his lurking claustrophobia. It was not a cave, a closet, or a tunnel, but it had some of the dreary, dark aspects of each, and this made him nervous, stirring his childhood fear within him.

  An odd quiet seemed to have settled across the American section of the camp; the usual numbers of men weren’t out in the exercise yard, nor were men walking the perimeter with the same steady, frustrated march. The weather had improved again, breaks of sunshine and blue sky interrupting the overcast Bavarian heavens, making the faraway lines of pine trees in the surrounding forest glisten and gleam in the distance.

  Hugh strode forward, as if the quickness in his feet mirrored the calculations in his head. Tommy Hart kept pace beside him, so that the two men were shoulder to shoulder, like a pair of medium bombers flying in tight protective formation.

  For a moment, Tommy looked up. He imagined rows of planes lining runways throughout England, Sicily, and North Africa. In his mind’s ear, he could hear the drone of the massed engines, a steady, great roar of energy, increasing in pitch and thrust, as phalanxes of planes raced down the tarmac and lumbered up, laden with their heavy bomb loads, into the clearing skies. He saw above him a shaft of daylight streaking through the thinning clouds and thought that there were officers and flight commanders sitting at desks in safe offices throughout the world seeing the same sunlight and thinking that it was a fine day to send young men off to kill or to die. A pretty simple question, that, he thought to himself. Not much of a selection. Not much of a choice.

  He lowered his eyes and thought about what he’d seen and heard in the cooler. He took a deep breath, and whispered to his companion: “He didn’t do it.”

  Hugh didn’t answer until a few more strides across the muddy compound had passed beneath his feet. Then he said, also quietly, as if the two men were sharing some secret, “No. I don’t think so, either. Not after he put that fist in my face. Now that made sense, I guess, if anything around here can be said to make sense. But that’s not the problem, is it?”