With a nod to Colonel MacNamara, Walker Townsend sat down.

"Your turn, Mr. Hart" the SAO said.

"Be brief."

Tommy rose.

"I will. Your Honor."

He stepped to the front of the auditorium and raised his voice just loud enough so that everyone could hear.

"There is one thing that we all, every man here in Stalag Luft Thirteen, understands. Your Honors, and that is uncertainty.

It is the most elemental province of war. Nothing truly is certain until it is past, and even then, many times, it remains shrouded by confusion and conflict.

"That is the case with the death of Captain Vincent Bedford.

We know from the only real expert who examined the crime scene-Nazi though he is-that the prosecution's case does not fit the evidence.

And we know that Lieutenant Scott's denial remains un controverted by the prosecution, and unshaken by cross-examination. And so, members of the court, you are being asked to make a decision from which there is no appeal, and which is utterly final in its certainty on the most subjective of details. Details cloaked in doubt. But there is no doubt about a German firing squad. I do not think you can order this without an absolute belief in Lincoln Scott's guilt! You cannot order it because you do not like him, or because he is the wrong color, or because he can quote from the classics and others cannot. You cannot order it, because a death penalty cannot be based on anything except the most clear-cut and uncompromising set of undeniable facts.

The death of Trader Vic doesn't come close to meeting that standard."

Tommy paused, trying hard to think of something else to say, and believing that he had fallen short of Townsend professional eloquence.

And so, he added one last thought:

"We are all prisoners here. Your Honors, and unsure as to whether we will live to see tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that. But I would suggest to you that taking Lincoln Scott's life under these circumstances will kill a little bit of each of us, just as surely as a bullet or bomb would."

And with that, he sat down.

Behind him, voices suddenly babbled together, breaking first into murmurs, followed by cries and shouts, reforming as arguments and closing in on fights. Kriegies in pockets throughout the theater pushed and shoved, confronting each other angrily. Tommy's first thought was that it was abundantly clear that the two final statements from Walker Townsend and himself had done nothing to defuse the tension among the men, and, probably, had done more to cement already held beliefs.

Again the gavel pounded from the front of the theater.

"I will not have a riot!" Colonel MacNamara was shouting.

"And we will not have a lynching!"

"Hope not," Scott whispered under his breath. He wore a wry smile.

"You will come to order!" MacNamara cried out. But it took the kriegies almost a minute to settle down and regain some composure.

"All right," MacNamara said, when silence finally gripped the room again.

"That's better." He cleared his throat with a long, protracted cough.

"The obvious tension and conflict of opinions surrounding this case has created special circumstances," MacNamara blared out, as if he were on the parade ground.

"Consequently, in consultation with the Luftwaffe authorities"

MacNamara nodded toward Commandant Von Reiter, who touched the shiny black patent leather brim of his cap in a salute of acknowledgment "we have decided upon the following. Please understand. These are direct orders from your commanding officer, and they will be obeyed!

Anyone not following orders precisely will find themselves in the cooler for the next month!"

Again, MacNamara paused, letting the threat sink in.

"We will reconvene here at exactly zero eight hundred tomorrow morning!

The tribunal will render the verdict at that point! That will give us the remainder of this night to deliberate.

Following that verdict, the entire contingent of prisoners will proceed directly to the assembly ground for the morning Appell! Directly! There will be no exceptions to this! The Germans have graciously agreed to delay the morning count to accommodate the conclusion of this case!

There will be no uproar, no fights, no discussion whatsoever about the verdict, until after the count is completed. You will remain in formation until dismissal! The Germans will provide added security to prevent the outbreak of any unauthorized action! You men are warned.

You will behave as officers and gentlemen, regardless of what our verdict is! Am I completely clear about this?"

This was a question that didn't need answering.

"Zero eight hundred. Right here. Everyone. That's an order. Now you are dismissed."

The three members of the tribunal rose, as did the German officers. The kriegies struggled up as well, and began to file out.

Walker Townsend bent down toward Tommy, offering his hand.

"You did a fine job, lieutenant," he said.

"Far better than anyone had the right to expect from a fella standing up for the first time in a capital case. They must have taught you well at Harvard."

Silently, Tommy shook the prosecutor's hand. Townsend didn't even acknowledge Scott, turning instead to catch up with Major Clark.

"He's right. Tommy," Scott said.

"And I appreciate it, no matter what they decide " But Tommy did not reply to him, either.

Instead, he felt an utter coldness inside, for finally, in those last few seconds, he believed he'd seen a glimpse of the real reason Trader Vic had been killed. It was almost as if the truth were floating just in front of him, vaporous, elusive as always, almost invisible and ever slippery. Tommy reached out inadvertently, grasping at the air in front of him, hoping that what he'd finally seen was, if not the complete answer, at least the greatest part of it.

Scott was the first to speak when they finally arrived back at their barracks room inside Hut 101. The black flier seemed alternately both depressed and excited, reflective yet energized, as if filled with conflict and compromise and unsure exactly how to react to the long night that stretched in front of them. He paced fast across the room, pounding his fists against imaginary opponents dancing in the emptiness before him, then he turned, and slumped against the wall, like a man in the tenth round finding the ropes and hoping for a second or two's respite from the onslaught. He looked at Hugh, reclining on his bunk like a workingman fatigued from a long hard day's labor, then over to Tommy, who of the three of them seemed the most impassive and yet, oddly, the most volatile.

"I suppose," Scott said almost wistfully, "that we should celebrate because this is my last night of…"

He hesitated, smiled a little sadly, then finished his sentence: "… my last night of something. Innocence? Freedom? Being accused? No, that is unlikely. And I suppose it's not exactly right to say freedom, because we're all stuck here and none of us are free. But it's the last night of something, and I guess that's notable enough. So, what do you think? Break out the champagne or the hundred-year-old Napoleon brandy? Grill up some sirloin steaks? Bake a chocolate cake and decorate it with candles? Whatever will get us through the night."

Scott pushed off the wall and walked over to Tommy Hart.

He touched him on the shoulder in what, had Tommy been paying close attention, he would have recognized was perhaps the first spontaneous display of some sort of affection that the black airman had managed since his arrival at Stalag Luft Thirteen.

"Come on. Tommy," he said softly, "the case is over. You did what you were supposed to do. In any civilized world, you would have succeeded in creating a reasonable doubt, which is all that the law is supposed to require. The trouble is, we just don't currently live in a civilized world."