Hart’s War by John Katzenbach

Author:John Katzenbach [Katzenbach, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thriller, cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

Firewood

Immediately after the regular evening Appell, Tommy Hart and Lincoln Scott headed directly for Colonel MacNamara's quarters. The two men walked swiftly yet silently across the assembly yard and directly into Hut 114, not speaking to anyone else, not speaking between themselves, passing small groups of kriegies getting ready to prepare their dinners.

For the most part, the men were carefully assembling various items gleaned from Red Cross parcels, combining foodstuffs-tinned beef or sausage, dried vegetables and fruits, and the ever-present processed milk called Klim that was the basis for virtually every sauce they could concoct. That afternoon, the Germans had provided some kriegsbrot and a meager issue of hard turnips and musty potatoes.

An enterprising kriegie cook could create an incredible range of meals from the materials in a Red Cross parcel, taking chances with ingredients (processed pork roll fried with strawberry jam garnished with tinned fruits). The more successful chefs often posted new recipes on the Stalag Luft Thirteen bulletin boards, and these recipes were attempted and revamped in dozens of different ways throughout the camp. The airmen replaced bulk with invention, and every new kriegie learned to both cook and eat slowly, trying to make each small, inadequate bite both evoke some memory of some fine meal eaten under far better circumstances, and at the same time last far longer than it deserved. No one wolfed down their food in Stalag Luft Thirteen.

As they passed down the central corridor of the hut, Tommy snuck a sideways glance over at Scott. As always, Scott was marching erect, with a tautness to his face that spoke of both anger and aggressiveness. Tommy thought there was some sort of enigmatic toughness to Scott that he did not even begin to understand, which sprang from some well within the man that Tommy doubted he would ever see.

In the same instant, he wondered what the black flier thought when he looked over at him. Scott had the rare capacity to make whoever was walking at his side appear smaller.

Tommy thought this quality came from what one had seen of life, and how it had been absorbed deep within, and Lincoln Scott had seen much. As for himself, he did not think Vermont and Harvard equaled the journey that Lincoln Scott had traveled, even though both men had arrived in the same place at the same time. There was one thing Tommy knew for sure: Scott still did not look like a prisoner of war. Perhaps he had lost weight this was inevitable given the stark and bare diet but there was no look of sullen resignation, nor one of cowed patience, which is its own type of defeat, in his quick dark eyes.

Tommy wondered about himself. Did Stalag Luft Thirteen melt the fighter out of him as surely as it did pounds? Had he lost desire?

Assertiveness? Pugnacity? The qualities that made a young man look forward to life. He sometimes dogged himself with questions, wondering whether he would be able to invoke these traits when he needed them most.

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