John Katzenbach: Hart’s War

Both men hesitated, then nodded, as if they, too, knew their eyes were betraying them. War has a way of shrinking and expanding distances, depending on the threat involved in traveling through the contested space. It's always hard to see clearly. Tommy thought, especially when one's life might be at stake.

"I'd still like just one little old chance," one of the men said. He was perhaps a little older than Tommy, and much stockier. He hadn't shaved, and he wore his campaign hat pulled down hard to his eyebrows.

"Just one chance. I think if I could just get to the other side where there ain't no wire, well, hell, ain't nothing on this earth gonna stop me then " "Except maybe a couple of million Krauts," his friend interrupted.

"And you don't speak any German and where you gonna go to, anyways?"

"Switzerland. Beautiful country. All cows and mountains and those fancy little houses…"

"Chalets," the other man said.

"They call 'em chalets."

"Right. I figure maybe a couple of weeks getting nice and fat eating chocolate. Nice big, fat milk chocolate bars served up by some pretty blond farm girl in pigtails whose mommy and daddy ain't nowhere around.

Then maybe right back home to the States, where I got a girl maybe give me some damn special hero's-type welcome, you better believe."

The other pilot slapped him on the arm. The leather jacket muffled the sound.

"Dreamer," he said. He turned toward Tommy Hart, "Been in the bag long?" he asked.

"Since November, forty-two," Tommy replied.

Both men whistled.

"Whoa! Old-timer. Ever made it out?"

"Not once," Tommy replied.

"Not for a minute. Not even for a second."

"Man," the B-17 pilot continued, "I only been here five weeks and I'm already so crazy, don't know what the hell I'm gonna do. Kinda like having an itch, you know, right in the middle of your back. Right where you can't reach it."

"Better get used to it," Tommy replied.

"Guys try to blitz out. Get dead fast."

"Never get used to it," the man said.

Tommy nodded in agreement. Never get used to it, he thought. He closed his eyes and bit down on his lip, breathing in hard.

"Sometimes," Tommy said softly, "you've got to find your freedom up here…" He tapped his forehead.

One of the pilots nodded, but the other airman had turned back toward the main camp.

"Hey," he said, "look what's coming."

Tommy pivoted quickly and saw a dozen men marching in tight formation across the wide expanse of the compound's exercise ground. The men had obviously decked themselves out in Stalag Luft Thirteen finery; they wore ties, their shirts and jackets were pressed, there were sharp creases in their pants. Prisoner-of-war-camp dress uniforms.

Each man in the group was carrying a musical instrument.

The May sun suddenly reflected off the brass of a trombone, glinting sharply. A drummer had slung a single snare around his waist so that it hung in front of him, and as the men approached, he began to snap out a rolling, fast metallic beat.

The squad leader was set slightly ahead. His eyes were locked forward, staring through the wire to the forest beyond.

He had two instruments in his hands, a clarinet, held in his right, and a trumpet, which glistened, polished to a rich golden brown sheen. All the men maintained formation, quick-marching in unison, the leader calling out an occasional cadence above the steady rat-a-tat of the snare drum.

It took no more than seconds for the odd constellation to attract the attention of the other kriegies. Men began to stream from the huts, jostling shoulder to shoulder to see what was going on. In front of some of the side barracks there were officers tending to small gardens, and they dropped their makeshift tools to the dirt and fell in behind the marching squad. A baseball game, just getting under way in the exercise yard, stopped. Gloves, bats, and balls were left behind as the players joined the throng that had collected behind the marching men.

The squad leader was a short man, balding slightly, thin and muscular like a bantamweight wrestler. He seemed oblivious to the hundreds of airmen who had materialized behind him, continuing to march, eyes straight ahead. He repeatedly blared the cadence "Right, your right, right…" as the squad did a sharp left wheel that would have done justice to a West Point drill team, and approached the deadline. On the leader's barked command "Squad… Halt!" they came to a rest a few feet from the wire, their feet stamping in unison against the muffled dust.

The German machine gunners in the nearest tower swung their weapon in the direction of the men. They seemed both curious and intent. Their eyes were just visible beneath the dull gray steel helmets they wore, peering above the barrel of the gun.

Tommy Hart watched, but then overheard one of the B-17 pilots still standing by his side whisper in a deep voice of quiet despair: "O'Hara.

The little Irish mick who died in the tunnel last night. He was a New Orleans boy, just like the band leader They enlisted together. Flew together. Played music together. I think he was the clarinet…"

The band leader turned to the men, and called out: "Stalag Luft Thirteen Prisoner's Jazz Band… attention!"

The squad clicked their heels together.

"Take positions!" he ordered.

The squad stepped smartly into a semicircle, facing the barbed wire and the scar on the earth that marked the tunnel's final progress and where the two diggers lay buried. The men lifted their instruments to their lips, waiting for the signal from the band leader Saxophones, trombones, French horns, and comets stood at attention. The drummer's sticks paused over the skin of the snare. A guitarist fingered the fret board a pick in his right hand.

The band leader eyes swept over each of the men, assessing their readiness. Then he did an abrupt about-face, turning his back to the band. He strode three steps forward, right to the edge of the deadline, and in a swift motion, set the clarinet down against the wire. He raised up, snapped off a sharp salute to the instrument, and again performed an about-face. The band leader seemed to quiver, for an instant, as he returned to his position in front of the assembled musicians.

Tommy Hart saw a small tremble in the band leader lips as the man slowly lifted his trumpet to his mouth. He could see that tears were streaking down the cheeks of both the tenor sax man and one of the trombone players. The men all seemed to hesitate, and silence filled the air. The band leader nodded, licked his lips as if to steady them, raised his left hand, and began to mark time.

"On the downbeat," he said. "

"Chattanooga Choochoo."

Make it hot! Make it real hot! One, two, three, and four…"

The music burst forth, exploding like a star shell in the air around them. It soared into the sky, lifted above the barbed wire and the guard tower, flying birdlike into the clear blue, and disappearing, fading in the distance beyond the tree line and its promise of elusive freedom.

The musicians played with ferocity, unbridled intensity.

Within seconds beads of sweat emerged on their foreheads.

Their instruments bent and swayed with the rhythms of the music. Every few moments one of the band members would step forward into the center of the semicircle, soloing, dominating the syncopation, cutting loose with a saxophone's plaintive wail or a guitar's edgy energy. The men did this without a sign or a signal from the band leader reacting more to the surge of music that they had created, an old-time revivalists' intensity, responding as if some heavenly hand reached down and nudged them gently on the shoulder.

"Chattanooga Choo-choo" flowed like a river directly into "That Old Black Magic" and then into "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B"-where the band leader stepped to the forefront, blasting out trumpet calls in time with the other instruments. The music continued, unrestrained, unfettered, uninterrupted, dipping, swaying, inexorable in its force, each tune smoothly blending with neighborly friendliness into the next.