"We must all do our duty," he said with a hidden cackle, "however we see it."
The two men walked past a gray cinder-block building.
This was the cooler-the punishment barracks-with a dozen windowless and bare cement cells hidden inside.
"Empty now," Fritz Number One said.
They approached the gate to the British compound.
"Three hours. Lieutenant Hart. This is adequate?"
"Three hours. Meet you in the front."
The ferret swung his arm toward a guard, gesturing for the man to push the gate open. Tommy could see Flying Officer Hugh Renaday waiting just beyond the gate and he hurried forward to meet his friend.
"How's the wing commander?" Tommy asked, as the two men walked swiftly through the British compound.
"Phillip? Well, physically, he seems more run down than ever. He can't seem to shake this cold or whatever the bloody hell it is, and the last few nights he's been coughing, a wet, nasty cough, all night long. But in the morning he shrugs it all off and he won't let me take him to the surgeon's. Stubborn old bastard. If he dies here, it'll serve him right."
Renaday spoke with a brusque, flat Canadian accent, words that were as dry and windswept as the vast prairie regions that he called home, but contradictorily tinged with the frequent Anglicism that reflected his years in the R.A.F. The flying officer walked with a lengthy, impatient stride, as if he found the travel between locations to be inconvenient, that what was important to him was where one came from and where one ended up and the distance between really just an irritation. He was wide-shouldered and thickset, muscled even though the camp had stripped pounds from his frame.
He wore his hair longer than most of the men in the camp, as if daring lice and fleas to infest him. None had been so foolhardy as of yet.
"Anyway," Renaday continued, as they turned a corner, passing two British officers diligently raking soil in a small garden, "he's damn glad today's Friday, and that you're visiting.
Can't tell you how much he looks forward to these sessions.
As if by using his brain he defeats how lousy the rest of him feels."
Renaday shook his head and added: "Other men like to talk of home, but Phillip likes to analyze these cases. I think it reminds him of what he was once and what he's likely to be when he gets back to jolly old England. He ought to be sitting in front of a warm fireplace, lecturing a few acolytes in the intricacies of some obscure legal point, wearing silk slippers and a green velvet smoking jacket, sipping from a cup of the finest. Every time I look at the old bastard, I can't imagine what the hell he was thinking when he climbed on board that damnable Blenheim."
Tommy smiled.
"Probably thinking the same thing we all thought."
"And what, my learned American friend, might that have been?"
"That despite the large and near constant volume of incredibly persuasive evidence to the contrary, nothing much bad was going to happen to us."
Renaday burst into a deep, resonant laugh that made some of the gardening officers pick up their heads and pay a brief spot of attention before returning to their well-raked plots of yellow-brown earth.
"God's bitter truth there. Yank."
He shook his head, still smiling, then gestured.
"There's Phillip now."
Wing Commander Phillip Pryce was sitting on the steps to a hut, a book in one hand. He wore a threadbare olive blanket draped across his shoulders despite the warmth, and had his cap pushed back on his head.
His eyeglasses were dropped down on his nose, like a caricature of a teacher, and he chewed on the end of a pencil. He waved like a child at a parade when he spotted the two men striding in his direction.
"Ah, Thomas, Thomas, delighted as always. Have you come prepared?"
"Always prepared. Your Honor," Tommy Hart replied.
"Still smarting you know," Pryce continued, "from that hiding you gave Hugh and me over the elusive Jack and his unfortunate crimes. But now we're ready to do battle with one of your more sensational cases, what.
I would think it was our turn, what do you say, with the bats?"
"At bat," Renaday said, as Hart and Pryce warmly shook hands. Tommy thought the wing commander's firm handshake was perhaps a little less so than usual.
"You say at bat, Phillip. Not with the bats. The umpire says "Batter up!" and so on and that's what gets it all started."
"Incomprehensible sport, Hugh. Not unlike your foolish but beloved hockey in that regard. Racing hell-bent around on the ice in the freezing cold, trying to whack some defenseless rubber disk into a net and at the same time avoid being clubbed nearly to death by your opponents."
"Grace and beauty, Phillip. Strength and perseverance."
"Ahh, British qualities."
The men laughed together.
"Let's sit outside," Pryce said. He had a soft, generous voice, filled with reflection and enthusiasm.
"The sun feels fine. And, after all, it's not something we English are all that accustomed to seeing, so, even here, amid all the horrors of war, we should take advantage of Mother Nature's temporary beneficence. Again the men smiled.
"Gifts from the ex-colonies, Phillip," Tommy said.
"A little of our bounty, just a small repayment for your managing to send every bungling idiot general across the seas in seventy-six, to be taken advantage of by our New World brilliance."
"I shall ignore that most unfortunate, childish, and mistaken interpretation of a decidedly minor moment in the illustrious history of our great empire. What have you brought us?"
"Cigarettes. American, minus the half-dozen it took to bribe Fritz
Number One…"
"His price, I think, has oddly gone up," Pryce muttered.
"Ah, American tobacco! Virginia's best, I'll warrant. Excellent."
"Some chocolate…"
"Delightful. From the famous Hershey's of Pennsylvania…"
"And this…" Tommy Hart handed the older man the tin of Earl Grey tea. He had had to trade with a fighter pilot, who chain-smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, to get it, but he thought the price cheap when he saw the older man's face crease into a wide grin. Pryce immediately burst into song.
"Hallelujah! In excelsis gloria! And us doomed to refusing over and over that poor tired tin of foul alleged darjeeling.
Hugh, Hugh, treasures from the colonies! Riches beyond our wildest imagination. The makings of a proper brew up! A sweet to cut the appetite, a real, honest-to-goodness cup of tea to be followed by a leisurely smoke! Thomas, we are in your debt!"
"It's the parcels," Tommy replied.
"Ours are so much better than yours."
"True, alas. Not that we prisoners don't appreciate the sacrifices being made by our beleaguered countrymen, but " "The damn U.S. parcels are far better," Hugh Renaday interrupted.