Hart's War

by John Katzenbach

An elbow caught him in the forehead, and he was almost stunned. In dizzy fury and complete rage, Tommy kicked out, striking Murphy in the shin with a nasty crack. Then, in almost the same motion, he lifted his knee hard, and drove it into Murphy’s groin and stomach. The lieutenant from Springfield moaned deeply, and fell back, clutching his midsection. At the very same second, out of the corner of his eye, Tommy caught the sensation of something moving his way, and he ducked down, just as the point of the pickax whizzed past his ear. But the force of the miss drove the blade deep into the dirt, and Tommy was able to swing around, smashing upward with his right hand. He felt his fist slam into the other man’s face. There was a creaking sound and a snapping noise as a rung on the ladder broke. Tommy realized that by trying the one deadly swing with the ax from above, the man had risked everything, and in the same motion, Tommy grabbed at the short handle, finding it and wrenching it loose, and pulling the attacker off balance, so that he tumbled down wildly, smashing his face into the wall of dirt.

  Tommy threw himself back against the opposite wall, brandishing the ax in front of him, breathing harshly. He lifted the ax above his shoulder, ready to crash it down into the back of the third man’s neck. Murphy started to reach for him, then stopped, crying out sharply “Don’t!” The eerie candlelight threw alternating shadows and streaks of light across his terrified face.

  Tommy hesitated, wrenching control past rage. He lifted the ax a second time, as the third man started to roll over, lifting his own forearm to try to deflect the thrust heading his way.

  “Don’t move!” Tommy hissed. “Nobody goddamn move!” He held the ax in a ready position.

  Murphy seemed taut, about to spring, then stopped. He slumped back.

  “Killer!” Tommy started to shout, but before he was able to speak another word, the third man said quietly, in a voice held low, that defied the murderous fight they’d just engaged in, “Hart, don’t say another word!”

  Tommy half-turned toward the voice. It took him a half-second to recognize the slightly tinged, soft southern tones, and to remember where he’d heard them before.

  The leader of the Stalag Luft Thirteen Prisoner Jazz Band stared across at Tommy. He smiled wickedly, as if amused.

  “You are a right tenacious fellow, Hart,” the bandleader said. He shook his head back and forth. “Like some damn half-crazed Yankee bulldog, I must admit. But you’re wrong about one thing. Murphy didn’t kill our mutual friend, Vic. I did.”

  “You!” Tommy whispered sharply.

  The man grinned. “That’s right. I did. And pretty much the way you and that goddamn Kraut Visser had it all figured, too. Imagine that. You kill a man in old-fashioned New Orleans style”—the bandleader mimicked sticking a knife in the throat as he spoke—“and some Kraut Gestapo-type goon figures it out. Damn. And you know what else, Hart? I’d do it again tomorrow, if I had to. So, there you have it. Are you gonna fight us some more, now?”

  Tommy brandished the ax. He did not know how to reply.

  The bandleader continued to smile. “We got a little bit of a problem here, Tommy,” he said. He kept his voice low. “I need that ax. I’m one swipe, maybe two, from breaking through. And we’re on a little bit of a tight deadline here. We gotta get going if we’re like to have any chance. There are three trains heading to Switzerland this morning. Men that catch the first, likely to have the best chance of making it close enough to the border so that they can find their way across. So I need that ax, and I need it right now. Sorry I tried to kill you with it. You sure did duck at the right moment. But, hell, now you gonna have to give it up.”

  The bandleader held out his hand. Tommy did not budge.

  “The truth, first,” he said.

  “Gotta keep your voice down, Hart,” the bandleader said. “If there are any goons in the trees, they might hear us. Even down here. Voices carry. Of course, it likely would seem to one of them like it was somebody whispering from the grave, but that ain’t so far from the truth, now is it?”

  “I want to know,” Tommy replied.

  The bandleader smiled again. He motioned toward Murphy, who started to dust some of the dirt from his body. “Get dressed,” he said. “We’re going to move soon.”

  “Why?” Tommy demanded softly.

  “Why? You mean why are we trying to get out?”

  Tommy shook his head. “No. Why Vic?”

  The bandleader shrugged. “Two reasons, Tommy. The best of reasons, too, when you think about ’em. First, Trader Vic was trading information with the damn Krauts. Sometimes, when he needed something special, like a radio or a camera or something, he would whisper a number to some ferret. Usually Fritz Number One, you know. That would be the number of the hut where a tunnel was getting started. Coupla days later, Krauts would show up. Pretend it was a routine search. Bust it up. We’d start digging someplace different. Run through the whole charade again. Vic, I think, he never figured he was doing all that much harm, you see. The Krauts would ruin the tunnel, maybe toss somebody in the cooler for a week or so. Mostly, what Vic figured, was that nobody was getting hurt and everybody was getting ahead. Especially him. Only thing that wasn’t happening was nobody was getting out. Which might be a good thing, we’ll see. Anyway, it like to kill old MacNamara and Clark. They started digging deeper tunnels. Longer tunnels. Harder tunnels. Those two figured that if they didn’t manage to get at least one of us out of here, they would be failures as commanding officers. Wouldn’t never be able to face one of their old West Point buddies after the war. Why, Tommy, you can see that. And they didn’t know for sure what Vic was doing. No one did, because Vic, he kept these things pretty close to his vest. He thought he had it all figured out. Playing everybody against everybody. Weren’t that just like Vic? Anyway, he figured he had it all doped out. And he did. He was some sort of operator, Vic. Until those two guys died in that tunnel. . . .”

  The bandleader stopped, took a deep breath of the thin harsh air surrounding them, then continued.

  “They was my friends, those two. That one boy was the sweetest clarinet I ever heard. Back home in New Orleans, people like to sell their souls to be able to play one note half as good as him. And they wasn’t supposed to be down there, not at night, you see. Vic hadn’t figured on anyone digging that late. But MacNamara and Clark, they ordered round-the-clock digging. Two tunnels. That one and this one. Only that one caved in with my friends inside when the goddamn Krauts drove one of their trucks right over the top. They wouldn’t have known where to do that if it weren’t for Vic.”

  Tommy nodded. “Revenge,” he said. “There’s one reason. And betrayal, too, I guess.”

  Murphy looked over at Tommy. “Best reasons of all,” he said. “The sorry bastard. All he did was make one mistake. You shouldn’t go around making deals with the devil, because he might just come back and ask a higher price than you want to pay. That’s what happened. Funny thing, you know, Vic was a fine flier. Better than fine. A real hotshot. A brave man in the air. Deserved every medal he got. It was on the ground that he couldn’t be trusted none.”

  Tommy slumped back, trying to sort through everything the bandleader said. Like a deck of cards being shuffled, details started to fit together, stacking one after the other neatly.

  “So,” the bandleader continued, “there you have it. Vic got me the knife, just as I asked him, and then I turned around and I used it on him, while Murphy here kept him occupied from the front. At first we figured to pin the whole thing on one of the ferrets, you see, make it look like Vic got killed when some big old trade went wrong, but your boy Scott made it so damn easy. Weren’t no special hardship framing him up for the killing. And it sure as hell kept the Krauts from poking around none, too. You think old Lincoln Scott realizes what a service he’s provided? I don’t suppose he’ll take much comfort in that.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the truth? Why didn’t . . .”

  The bandleader held up his hand. “Why, Tommy, you ain’t thinking this through. What th
e hell good would it do me, and my Yankee helpmate here, if anyone knew the truth? I mean, we’d just be facing charges back home, wouldn’t we? All this trouble to escape, only to get back to the States and be charged with Vic’s murder? Not very likely, I think. Not after all this trouble.”

  Tommy nodded. He knew instantly that unsaid in what the bandleader implied was a single necessity: Lincoln Scott would have to be blamed, tried, convicted, and shot. It was the only way the men in the tunnel escaping could actually be free.

  “MacNamara and Clark,” Tommy said slowly, “they didn’t want the truth, did they?”

  The bandleader grinned. “No sir, they did not. I doubt they’d have wanted to hear it, even if it’d come up and smacked them in the face. They wanted Vic taken care of. They didn’t want nothing to do with it. The truth, Tommy, as you can hear, is right messy for all involved. Trader Vic was a hero, and the army don’t like its heroes tarnished none. And blaming Scott, well, that particular lie, well, it was working real fine for just about everybody. Everybody save Scott, that is. And I don’t know this for sure, but I’m guessing right about now Clark and MacNamara didn’t count on this quiet boy from Harvard making such a mess and all, either.”

  “No,” Tommy replied. “I guess they didn’t.”

  “Well, you sure have. There you have it. Now, I need that ax,” the man said. His voice was barely above a whisper, but it carried both threat and urgency. “Either you let me dig us out of here, or go ahead and kill me, ’cause one way or the other, I will be free by the time the sun comes up!”

  Tommy smiled. It was a great word, he thought, the word free. Four letters that meant much more. It really should have been a great, long, exultant word, a word with power and strength and pride. He paused and realized that he had to find a way to accommodate everyone that night. “Stalemate,” he said abruptly.

  The bandleader looked surprised.

  “What you mean by that?”

  “I mean, no ax. I mean, maybe I’ll raise my voice. I don’t know what the hell I’ll do. Maybe kill you, like you tried to kill me. And then dig these other men out.” This was a bluff, Tommy knew. But he said it nonetheless.

  “Hart,” the bandleader said sharply, “it ain’t just us. There’s seventy-five men heading out tonight. And ain’t none of them waiting behind us done anything to deserve losing their chance at freedom. They worked long and hard and dangerous for this chance tonight. You can’t be taking that away. And maybe what I’ve done ain’t perfect by all accounts, but I ain’t sure it’s altogether wrong, either.”

  Tommy eyed the man carefully. “You killed a man.”

  “I did. That’s what happens in war. Maybe he deserved to die. Maybe not. Only I don’t want to be blamed for it. I don’t want to dig my way out of this Kraut hellhole to face an American firing squad.”

  “True,” Tommy said softly. “So, how do you want to solve this, because I’m not leaving here until I know that Lincoln Scott isn’t going to face the damn firing squad!”

  “I want you to hand me that ax.”

  “And I want Lincoln Scott to go free.”

  “There’s no time,” Murphy piped up. “We gotta get going!”

  Silence filled the tiny space, closing in on the three men jammed into the area, covering them like a dark wave closing over their heads.

  The bandleader seemed to think hard for a moment. Then he smiled.

  “I guess what we’ll all have to take is some chances here,” he said slowly. “What do you think, Tommy? This is a good night for taking chances. You ready to take some risks?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  Again the bandleader laughed. “Then I guess we got a deal,” he said. He stuck out his hand to shake Tommy’s, but Tommy continued to wield the pickax. The bandleader shrugged.

  “Hart, I gotta say this: You are some sort of hard man.”

  Then he scrambled to the wall where the tunnel opened into the small anteroom. The bandleader took one of the candles and waved it back and forth. Then he hissed as loudly as he dared: “Number Three? Can y’all hear me?”

  There was a momentary silence, then a voice crept up the dark tunnel. “What the hell’s going on up there?”

  Even Murphy smiled at that most obvious question.

  “We’re having a little conversation about the truth,” the bandleader whispered back. “Now, Number Three, you listen real carefully and you make damn sure you get this right. Lincoln Scott, the Nigra flier, he didn’t kill nobody! Especially not Trader Vic! You have my absolute swear to God word on that. You got that?”

  There was another small hesitation, then Tommy heard the voice rise up the tunnel, asking, “Scott is innocent?”

  “That’s one hundred percent right,” the bandleader said. “Now, you pass that back in line. And keep right on passing it back, got it? So that everybody knows the real truth. Including that sorry bastard Clark, waiting back there at the start of the tunnel!”

  There was another hesitation from Number Three, and then the most critical question. “Well, if Scott is innocent, then who killed Trader Vic?”

  The bandleader grinned again, turning to Tommy for an instant, before whispering his response up the tunnel. “The war killed Vic,” he said. “Now, you pass that word back just like a bucket of dirt, because we are going to start moving outta here in the next ten minutes!”

  “Okay. Scott is innocent. Got it.”

  Tommy craned forward into the tunnel and heard Number Three scramble backward and then say to Number Four, “Scott is innocent! Pass it back!”

  He listened for a moment, as the message was relayed down the length of the tunnel. “Scott is innocent! Pass it back!” He heard it over and over, echoing in the small space, “Scott is innocent! Pass it back! Scott is innocent! Pass it back!” until the words faded totally into the great blackness behind him. Then Tommy slumped over, suddenly exhausted. He did not know for certain whether those three words broadcast to all the men in line in the tunnel and waiting up in Hut 107 would be sufficient to free Scott. Scott is innocent! But in the sudden total fatigue that overcame him, he understood they were the three best he could pry out of this night. He held out the pickax to the bandleader, who took it from him.

  “I don’t even know your name,” Tommy said.

  For a moment, the bandleader brandished the ax, as if he were going to strike Tommy. “I don’t want you to know my name,” he said. Then he smiled. “You got lots of faith, Hart. I’ll give you that. Not precisely a religious faith, but faith anyhow. Now, as to the rest of our little discussion here tonight . . .”

  Tommy shrugged. “I would say that somehow comes under the attorney-client privilege. I’m not exactly sure how, but if anyone ever asked me, that’s what I’d say.”

  The bandleader nodded. “Tommy, I think you maybe shoulda been a musician. You sure know how to carry a tune.”

  Tommy took this as a compliment. Then he pointed toward the roof. “Now’s your chance,” he said.

  The bandleader grinned again. “Ain’t gonna be all that simple for you now, Tommy boy. This little misunderstanding has caused us a significant delay. First, Tommy, I done something for you. That’s the chance I took. Now, you’re gonna do something for me. Take a chance for me. Not only for me; for all the other kriegies waiting in this damn tunnel and dreaming about getting home. You’re gonna help us get outta here.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE ESCAPE

  Visser motioned Hugh across the administration room to a stiff-backed wooden chair next to his desk. The German’s eyes followed the Canadian’s progress closely, measuring the difficulty that Hugh had with each step. Hugh slumped down into the seat hard, his face tinged red with exertion, a line of sweat on his forehead and dampening the blouse beneath his armpits. He kept his mouth shut while the German officer slowly lit his cigarette, then leaned back, letting the gray smoke curl around them both.

  “I am impolite,” Visser finally said softly. “Please, Mr. Renaday,
indulge yourself if you so desire.” Visser motioned with his only hand to the case of cigarettes lying on the flat table between the two men.

  “Thank you,” Hugh answered. “But I prefer my own.” He reached into his breast pocket and removed a crumpled package of Players. The German remained silent while Hugh carefully removed a cigarette and lit it. When he inhaled the harsh smoke, he leaned back slightly in the chair. Visser smiled.

  “Good,” he said, “now we are behaving as civilized men, despite the lateness of the hour.”

  Hugh did not respond.

  “So,” Visser continued, maintaining an even, almost jocular tone, “perhaps, as a civilized man, you will tell me what it is you were doing out of your assigned quarters, Mr. Renaday? Crawling flat on your belly at the edge of the assembly yard. Most undignified. But why would you be doing this, flying officer?”

  Hugh took another long drag on the end of the smoke. “Well,” he said carefully, “just as I told your goon who arrested me, I was simply out, taking a breath of fine German night air.”

  Visser grinned, as if he appreciated the joke. It was not the sort of grin that meant he was actually amused, and Hugh was filled with the first sensations of dread.

  “Ah, Mr. Renaday, like so many of your countrymen, and the men they fight alongside, you seek to make sport of what I assure you is a most dangerous situation. I ask you again, why were you out of your assigned quarters after lights out?”

  “No reason that concerns you,” he said coldly.

  Visser continued to smile, although it seemed that the grin was using up more energy than the Hauptmann thought necessary.

  “But, flying officer, everything that occurs in our camp concerns me. You know this, and still you evade my most simple question: What were you doing out of your assigned quarters?”

  This time, Visser punctuated each word of the question with a small thump on the tabletop with his index finger. “Please answer my question with no further delay, flying officer!”

  Hugh shook his head.