He kept a few stubs of pencil in a tin by his bed, and he twisted beneath his blanket, grabbing for one, and reaching at the same time for a sheet of scrap paper. He wrote this last thought down, and decided he would reexamine the carpenter's case once again. He smiled to himself, thinking this was a small act of legal desperation, because the facts that Hugh Renaday was stolidly relying upon were arrayed like a phalanx of hoplites against him. Still, he acknowledged, Phillip was a man of subtlety, and an intriguing argument might serve to shift him away from the evidence. That would be a major coup, he thought.

He wondered what sort of reputation the attorney who freed Bruno Richard Hauptmann would gain. Even in this fictional re-creation of the case.

He looked down at his watch. The Germans were oddly erratic in when they shut the lights off. For people who did most everything with utter predictability, this was unusual, and almost inexplicable. He guessed not more than thirty more minutes of light remained in the hut.

He took the watch off his wrist, and turned it over, reading the inscription as he slid his finger across it. He closed his eyes and found that he could shut away the camp sounds and smells, and taking a deep breath could find himself back in Vermont. There was a tendency to fantasize about the special moments back home the first time Lydia and he kissed, the first time he felt the soft curve of her breast beneath his palm, the moment he knew he would love her no matter what happened to him. But he fought off these memories, favoring daydreams about the ordinary, the routine days of growing up. He would remember pulling a glistening rainbow trout that rose to his dry fly from a small curve in the Mettawee River, where the flow of water had carved out a little pool that held big fish, and only he seemed to know about it. Or the early September day he'd helped his mother as she packed his bags for the academy, folding each shirt two or three times before placing it gently in the big leather suitcase. He'd been an excited fourteen that day, and hadn't really understood why she kept dabbing away tears.

He squeezed his eyes shut. The ordinary days were the special ones, he thought. The 'special days were spectacular.

Events to be memorialized.

He took a deep breath and slowly opened his eyes.

Tommy let out a long, slow sigh. It takes a place like this, he realized, to make you understand.

He shook his head slightly, reaching for the textbook, his attention driven like a herder's cattle team into focus, with mental whip and imagined sharp words.

He was lying like that, in his berth, concentrating on the case law governing a dispute between a paper corporation and its employees from more than a dozen years earlier, when he heard the first angry shout coming from one of the other bunk rooms in Hut 101.

The sound made him sit up sharply. He pivoted his head, like a dog that catches a scent on an odd breath of wind, turning toward the noise. He heard a second, then a third shout, and the thudding noise of furniture slammed against the thin walls.

He swung himself out of the bunk, as did the other men in his room. He heard a voice say, "What the hell's going on?"

But by the time the question was out, he'd already headed to the central corridor running the length of Hut 101 and toward the noise of the fight in progress. He barely had time to think how unusual this was, but in all his months at Stalag Luft Thirteen he'd never, not once, seen or heard of two men coming to blows. Not over a poker game loss, or a hard slide into second base. Not a dispute on the hard dirt basketball court, or over a theatrical interpretation of The Merchant of Venice.

Kriegies did not fight. They negotiated. They debated.

They took the minor defeats of camp in complete stride, not because they were soldiers trained to military discipline, but because they understood implicitly that they were all in the bag together.

Personalities that clashed invariably found ways of working out their differences, or studiously avoided each other. If men held rage, it was rage at the wire and at the Germans and at the bad luck that had put them there, although most realized that in its own way the bad luck that had caused them to be shot down was the greatest good luck of all.

Tommy ran toward the voices, hearing intense fury and uncontrolled rage. It was hard for him to understand what the fight was about. Behind him, the corridor was filling with the curious, but he'd managed to move quickly, and so he was among the first men to arrive at Trader Vic's bunk room.

What Tommy saw astonished him.

A bunk bed had been partially overturned, and was leaning up against another. A hand-hewn wooden locker filled with cartons of cigarettes and tins of foodstuffs lay scattered in one corner. Some clothes were strewn about and several books were dashed to the floor.

Lincoln Scott stood alone, back against one wall. He was breathing hard and his fists were clenched.

The other bunkmates were arrayed in front of Vincent Bedford.

The Mississippian had a trickle of red blood streaking down from beneath his nose, across the corner of his mouth, and onto his chin. He was struggling against four men, who pinned his arms back, holding him.

Bedford's face was flushed, his eyes wild.

"You're a dead man, nigger!" he shouted.

"Hear me, boy?

Dead!"

Lincoln Scott said nothing, but stared at Bedford.

"I'm gonna see you die, boy," Bedford screamed.

Tommy felt himself abruptly shoved aside, and as he pivoted, he heard one of the other kriegies abruptly cry: "Attention!"

In the same instant, he saw the unmistakable figure of Colonel MacNamara, accompanied by Major David Clark, his executive officer and the camp's second in command.

As all the men in the room clicked their heels together and saluted, the two men pushed themselves into the center of the bunk room, rapidly surveying the detritus from the fight. MacNamara's face reddened swiftly, but his voice remained even and harshly calm. He turned to a first lieutenant Tommy knew only vaguely but who was one of Trader Vic's roommates.

"Lieutenant, what happened here?"

The man stepped forward.

"A fight, sir."

"A fight? Please continue."

"Captain Bedford and Lieutenant Scott, sir. A dispute over some items Captain Bedford claimed were missing from his private locker."

"Yes. Continue."

"Blows were exchanged."

MacNamara nodded, his face still filled with restrained anger.

"Thank you, lieutenant. Bedford, what have you to say in this matter?"

Trader Vic, shoulders pushed back, stepped forward with precision despite his disheveled appearance.

"Items of personal importance were missing, sir. Stolen."

"What items?"

"A radio, sir. A carton of smokes. Three bars of chocolate."

"Are you certain they are missing?"

"Yes sir! I keep very careful count of my inventory at all times, sir."

MacNamara nodded.

"I believe you do," he said stiffly.

"And you believe Lieutenant Scott to have committed this robbery?"

"Yes sir."

"And you accused him of this?"

"Yes sir."

"Did you see him take the items?"

"No sir." Bedford hesitated slightly.

"I returned to the bunk room. He was the only kriegie here. I made my usual evening count of the stock " MacNamara held up his hand, shutting him off. He turned to Scott.

"Lieutenant, have you taken any items from Bedford's locker?"

Scott's voice was husky, rough-edged, and Tommy thought he was trying to withhold emotion. His eyes were straight ahead, as if fixed not on any person, but the opposite wall, and his shoulders remained thrust back.

"No sir."

MacNamara narrowed his own eyes, staring hard at the black flyer.