John Katzenbach - Hart’s War

He was aware that Lincoln Scott stood nearby, at Major Clark's side, as if standing guard. Fenelli, however, bent toward him again, lifting

Tommy's hand up.

"This is a mess," the medic said again. Fenelli turned toward

Commandant Von Reiter.

"He needs medical attention for these wounds immediately."

Von Reiter bent down, inspecting the hand. He staggered back slightly, as if shocked at the sight. The German seemed to hesitate, but then he reached forward and slowly and gingerly unwrapped the handkerchief from around the torn flesh. Von Reiter took the handkerchief and placed it in his tunic pocket, ignoring the deep wet crimson blood that stained the white silk. He frowned at the extent of Tommy's injury. He could see that the index finger was almost entirely severed and deep gouges and gashes marred the palm and the other fingers. Then he looked up and abruptly turned to the German lieutenant.

"A field dressing, lieutenant! Immediately."

The German officer saluted, and gestured toward one of the goons, still standing nearby at attention. The German soldier pulled a paper-covered pad of gauze impregnated with sulfa from a leather compartment on his campaign belt and handed it to Commandant Von Reiter, who, in turn, passed it to Fenelli.

"Do what you are able, lieutenant," Von Reiter said gruffly.

"This won't be adequate, commandant," Fenelli replied.

"He'll need real medicines and a real doctor."

Von Reiter shrugged.

"Bind it tightly," he said.

Then the German commandant rose stiffly and turned to Major Clark.

"These men," he said, gesturing toward Fenelli, Scott, and Hart.

"Cooler."

"Hart needs prompt medical attention, commandant," Major Clark objected.

But Von Reiter merely shook his head and said, "I can see that, major.

I am sorry. Cooler." This time he repeated the order to the German officer standing nearby.

"Cooler! Schnell!" he said loudly. And then, without another word, or even a glance toward the Americans or their tunnel, Von Reiter abruptly turned on his heel and marched quickly from the hut.

Tommy tried to stand, but fell back dizzily.

The German lieutenant prodded him with a boot.

"Raus! " he said.

"Don't worry, Tommy, I've got you," Lincoln Scott said, pushing the German to the side with a shoulder. He reached down and helped Tommy to his feet. Tommy rocked unsteadily.

"Can you walk?" Scott asked beneath his breath.

"I will damn well try," Tommy replied, gritting his teeth together.

"I'll help you," Scott said.

"Put your weight on me." He kept his arm under Tommy's shoulder, snaking around his back, holding him steady. The black airman grinned.

"You remember what I told you. Tommy?" he said quietly.

"No white boy's gonna die when a Tuskegee flier's watching over you."

They took a tentative step forward, then a second. Fenelli slid ahead of them and held open the front door to Hut 107.

Surrounded by helmeted, unsmiling German guards, watched by every man in the entire compound, Lincoln Scott slowly supported Tommy Hart across the width of the exercise yard. Without saying a word, not even when prodded by the occasional shove from a goon's rifle, the two men traveled arm in arm directly through the gathered formations of American airmen, who silently moved aside to let them pass.

They marched out of the barbed-wire enclosure, the front gate swinging shut behind them with a crash, moving steadily toward the cooler block.

It was only when they finally walked through the door to the punishment cells that they heard a great swelling sound of cheers suddenly rising up from the rows and rows of assembled men behind them. The cheers soared, filling the sunlit morning air, following them into the dank cement world of the cooler, penetrating the thick concrete building, tumbling through the open barred windows, resounding and echoing throughout the small space, overwhelming the sound of the doors locking behind them, making a wondrous music not unlike that of ancient Joshua's great horn when he stood defiant before the mighty walls of Jericho.

Tommy Hart shivered alone in the barren cement cooler cell for nearly a fortnight, the wounds in his hand worsening with every hour. His fingers swelled sausagelike with a fierce infection. The skin of his forearm was streaked with yellow-green marks, and he spent most of his hours leaning beside the cold wooden door, clutching his clublike hand to his chest. Searing pain was nearly constant and he weakened with every passing minute, frequently tumbling into a near-delirium that seemed to come and go as it pleased. The other men, in the adjacent cells, could hear him deep in the nighttime talking erratically to people long dead or far distant, and they would shout out, trying to seize Tommy's attention, drag him back to some sort of reality, as if stealing him away from hallucination was medicinal.

He was only vaguely aware that every day the other men screamed imprecations at any German guard who ventured into the cooler building, carrying black kriegsbrot and water for the prisoners, demanding that Tommy be taken to a hospital.

The Germans who were in charge of delivering the meager rations, or emptying the waste buckets from the cells, ignored these demands, wearing only stoic refusals to comprehend on their faces.

Only one of their captors, in the midst of the second week, showed any concern. That, of course, was Fritz Number One, who showed up shortly after the morning Appell, took a single look at Tommy's horrendous fist, and had Fenelli brought over from his nearby cell.

The medic from Cleveland had pulled back Tommy's fingers gently, shaking his head. He cleaned Tommy's face and wounds as best he could with a dry rag and clear water.

"It will be gangrenous within days," he told Fritz Number One, whispering furiously, when they returned to the hallway beyond Tommy's earshot.

"Sulfonamide. Penicillin. And surgery, to clean out the infected tissue. For Christ's sake, Fritz, tell the commandant that Tommy will die without help. And soon."

"I will speak with the commandant," the ferret had promised.

"It's on your head," Fenelli had said.

"And on Von Reiter's too, and trust me, there are folks here who won't forget what happens to Tommy Hart!"

"I will tell the commandant," Fritz Number One had repeated.

"Tell him! Don't wait. Tell him right now," Fenelli had half-demanded, half-begged.

But nothing happened for several more days.

Trapped in pain, fantasy, delirium, and cold, Tommy seemed to be entering some sort of odd netherworld. Sometimes he dreamed that he was still in the tunnel, and then he would awaken, crying out in fear.

Other times, the pain grew so great that it seemed to rocket him to a different plane of existence, where all he could see and feel were the memories of home that had served him so well in the months he'd been a prisoner in Stalag Luft Thirteen. It was this state that Tommy longed for, because as he envisioned the sky above the Green Mountains beyond the door to his Vermont home, the pain fled, if only briefly, and he was able to rest.

On the sixteenth day in the cooler, he could no longer eat.

His throat was too dry. Almost the entirety of his strength had evaporated. He was able to manage a few sips of water, but that was all.

The others called to him, tried to get him to join them in song, or conversation, anything to keep him alert, but he was unable. Whatever resources he had left, he used to battle the hurt emanating in red-hot surges up into his body. He was filthy, sweat and dirt covered him, and he was afraid he was going to lose control over his bowels. He thought, in one of the few rational moments that managed to overcome the delirium threatening to surround him completely, that it seemed a particularly stupid and silly way to finally die, bitten by a Gestapo officer, when he'd been through so much, and already been saved so many times.