Hanging on

1

When he led them down to the front room after inspecting the second floor, General Rotenhausen stood with his back to the fireplace, his hands folded behind him even though there was no fire to warm them at this time of the year. Rotenhausen looked as if he desperately needed warmth. He was a bloodless man, as pale as linen. He smiled coldly at Major Kelly. There was no threat in his smile; it was just that Rotenhausen was incapable, even in the best of times, of a smile that was not icy. “Well, Father Picard, you have a most pleasant home. It will serve splendidly as our overnight headquarters.” His French was less than middling, but so far as Kelly was concerned his sentiment was absolutely perfect.

Kelly smiled and nodded, twisted his black felt hat in both hands. He wondered if a French priest would treat a German general as an equal or as a superior. The point was academic, really, because he was too terrified to be anything but obsequious and subservient. “I am pleased you like it, sir,” he said.

“Standartenführer Beckmann and I will require the two largest upstairs rooms. My aides could be quartered in the small front room. And the Standartenführer's aides could sleep down here, in the bedroom by the kitchen.” Rotenhausen turned to the black-uniformed SS colonel who sat on the bench sofa. He smiled, and this time he did put a threat into it. “Have you any objections to these arrangements, Standartenführer?”

The SS officer was even more the Aryan ideal than General Rotenhausen. He was six-three, two hundred and thirty pounds. Like the slim Wehrmacht general, he was in perfect condition; however, unlike Rotenhausen, Beckmann was muscular. His legs were strong and sturdy and looked as if they had been poured into his black trousers and knee-length leather jackboots. His hips and waist were flat. The Standartenführer's neck was a thick, bullish stem of gristle, hard muscle, and raised veins. His face was a sharply featured square with a long brow, deep-set eyes, a Roman nose, and lips as thin as pencil lines. He was perhaps forty years old, but he was not touched by age in any way; he looked as fresh and young as one of his aides. And as nasty. His face was pale like Rotenhausen's face, but his eyes were a lighter blue, so sharp and clear they seemed transparent.

Beckmann returned Rotenhausen's ugly smile. “I think the arrangements will be satisfactory. But I do wish you would drop the clumsy Schutzstaffeln title and call me 'Oberst' instead.” Beckmann looked at Kelly and shook his head sadly. “General Rotenhausen is such a one for form. Since we left Stuttgart, he has insisted on using the clumsy title.” Beckmann's French was no better than Rotenhausen's.

“Standartenführer Beckmann is correct,” the general said, directing himself to Kelly. “I am a man who believes in forms, rules, and dignity. Being a man of the Holy Roman Church, you must sympathize with me, Father Picard.”

“Yes, of course,” Kelly said.

“The Church relies on rules and form quite as much as the Wehrmacht,” Rotenhausen said.

“Certainly, certainly,” Kelly said, nodding stupidly.

Major Kelly sensed the friction between the two officers and thought he understood at least part of the reason for it. In the last year the German army, the Wehrmacht, had begun to lose nearly all of its battles to superior Allied forces. Meanwhile, the Waffen SS, the independent army which the SS had built despite Wehrmacht objections to this usurpation of its role, was still winning battles. Therefore, Hitler had begun to trust more in the Waffen SS and less in the Wehrmacht. The traditional army lost power, while the Waffen SS grew larger and more formidable. Hitler favored the Waffen SS in every case: officer promotions, weapons development, funds, weapons procurement, the requisitioning of supplies… And now as the Allies pressed closer to the fatherland, Hitler had given the SS permission to observe and oversee selected Wehrmacht units. A contingent of these black-uniformed fanatics now often accompanied a traditional army unit into battle— not to help it fight the enemy, but to be sure it fought exactly according to the Führer's orders. Naturally, the Wehrmacht hated the SS, and the SS hated the Wehrmacht. This was interservice rivalry carried to a dangerous extreme.

Kelly suspected that this institutionalized hatred was compounded by a deep personal antagonism between Rotenhausen and Beckmann. Indeed, he had the strong feeling that neither man would hesitate to kill the other if the time was ripe and the opportunity without peril. And that was no good. If the krauts were so insane that they were ready to kill each other, how much closer must they be to ruthlessly slaughtering innocent French villagers, priests, and nuns who got in their way?

Kelly twisted his hat more furiously, wringing it into a shapeless lump of sweat-stained felt

“Too much attention to rules and form makes dull minds and witless soldiers,” Beckmann said. He tried to make it sound like the prelude to a pleasant debate, but the goad was quite evident. “Wouldn't you say that is true, General?” Beckmann asked. He knew that, while Rotenhausen outranked him, the terror induced by the SS image would keep the other officer from responding as he might have to a subordinate officer in the Wehrmacht. “Don't you want to venture an opinion, Kamerad Rotenhausen?” He used the Kamerad only to taunt the General, who was not a member of the Nazi Party.

“Gewiss, Sagen Sie mir aber, bekomme ich einen Preis, wenn meine Antworten richtig sind?” The general's voice contained a note of sarcasm which even Kelly could hear.

The major had no idea what Rotenhausen had said. But the tone of voice had made Beckmann pale even more. His lips drew tight and curved in a vicious rictus as he fought to control his temper.

Kelly nearly tore his hat to shreds.

“Nein,” Beckmann told the general. He maintained his false serenity with a bit more ease now. “Sie bekommen keinen Preis….”

Rotenhausen smiled slightly. Whatever the nature of the brief exchange, however meaningless it had been, the Wehrmacht officer plainly felt that he had gained the advantage.

But around Beckmann, the air seemed charged with a very real if well restrained violence.

The two Wehrmacht oberleutnants who were Rotenhausen's aides stood at attention by the door to the kitchen hallway. They exchanged angry looks with an SS Haupt-sturmführer and an Obersturmführer, Beckmann's aides, who stood stiffly by the front door.

Though he was unaware of the fine points of the situation, Major Kelly knew that he must change the subject, get the two men thinking about something besides each other. “Will there be more officers who will require quality lodging for the night?” he asked Rotenhausen.

The general seemed to be relieved to have an excuse to break off his staring match with Beckmann. “Other officers? But already we have put out the other priests who live here, rousted your housekeeper from her room. We would not want to inconvenience you even further.”

“It would be no inconvenience,” Kelly said. “And… will your men want shelter for the night in the homes of my people?”

“Not at all,” Rotenhausen said, dismissing the suggestion with a wave of his hand. “We would not dispossess nuns and deaf-mutes for the convenience of soldiers. Besides, Father Picard, I am known as a tough commander. My men must be constantly battle-hardened. They've had too much good living in Stuttgart. It is time they slept out and endured a bit of hardship.”

“If it should rain—” Kelly began.

“So much the better for them!” Rotenhausen said. He was, Kelly thought, putting on quite a show for the Standartenführer.

Trying not to pray, Kelly turned to Beckmann. “And your men, sir? Will they require lodging tonight?”

Beckmann's broad face was set like a lump of concrete. “You know little about the Schutzstaffeln, Father Picard. I have but fifteen men with me — however, each one is tougher, more dedicated, more battle-hardened than any five other troopers the Third Reich commands.” He looked at Rotenhausen and cracked a concrete smile. “Present company excepted, of course.” To Kelly, he said, “My men will sleep out by the side of the road with the rest of the convoy. If rain should come, it will not perturb them, Father.”

Major Kelly twisted his hat and hoped that the meager light from the two large kerosene lanterns would not reveal the immense relief that must be evident in his face. Yesterday, he had decided that it would be best to offer the krauts shelter in order not to seem suspiciously secretive about the town's houses and schools. Of course, had either Rotenhausen or Beckmann accepted the offer, the hoax would have fallen down like a village of cards. In this respect, their personal feud and the interservice rivalry between the SS and the Wehrmacht had worked to Kelly's advantage. Neither wanted himself or his men to appear weak and soft in the other's eyes. And thus far, neither bad mentioned the necessity for a building-to-building search. They were so involved in their reciprocal hatreds that they might actually blunder through this whole long night without even suspecting the secreted enemy around them.

Kelly almost smiled at this thought — and then realized that he was indulging in hope. The deadly disease. If you hoped, you died. It was that simple, but he had forgotten. He began to tremble twice as badly as he had done, scared witless.

Rotenhausen took a pipe from his shirt pocket, a thin tin of tobacco from his trousers. As he prepared his pipe, he stared at the top of Beckmann's head and discussed the procedure for standing down the convoy until dawn. “The Panzers should be parked on both sides of the road, at least twenty feet between them. Likewise, the trucks and artillery wagons. Only the 88 mm guns and the antiaircraft kliegs should remain on the road where they have a good base for counterattack in the event of a raid. No vehicles will be pulled into St. Ignatius; there is no need to jeopardize nuns and deaf-mutes.” He finished tamping the tobacco. “We will post guards at all the intersections. Two-hour watches. Would you care to commit any of your men to this enterprise, Standartenführer?”

“Certainly, Kamerad,” Beckmann said. He propped his jackboots on a small table before the sofa. “We will take responsibility for the bridge.”

“Good enough,” Rotenhausen said. He looked past Kelly at the two Wehrmacht junior officers who waited by the hall door. In German, he gave them orders for the bedding down of the convoy.

Even while Rotenhausen was speaking, Beckmann gave his stone-faced aides their orders for the establishment of an all-night guard patrol on the bridge.

One Wehrmacht soldier left, and one remained.

One Schutzstaffeln man left, and one remained.

Major Kelly, standing in the middle of it all, sweating profusely and methodically destroying his hat, thought that this was like some complex game of chess in which real men were the pieces. Clearly, the rules were elaborate.

Having lighted his pipe, puffing calmly on it, the warm bowl gripped in one hand so tightly that it betrayed his studied nonchalance, General Rotenhausen said, “Father Picard, with your kind permission, I will have my aide start a fire in the kitchen stove and heat some water for my bath.”

“Certainly! Be my guest, General, sir,” Kelly said in mediocre French. “But first—” He sighed. He knew this might precipitate disaster, but he said, “My people will be wanting to get back to their beds. Could you tell me when you will want to search the village?”

Rotenhausen took his pipe from his mouth. Smoke rose between his lips. “Search the town, Father? But whatever for?”

Kelly cleared his throat. “I am quite aware that not all Frenchmen are as uncommitted in this war as those in St. Ignatius. I would understand if you wished to search for partisans.”

“But you have no partisans here, do you?” Rotenhausen asked, taking a few short steps from the stone fireplace, halving the distance between them.

“This is chiefly a religious community,” Kelly said. Remembering how convincing Maurice could be when he was lying, Kelly clutched at his heart. “God forbid that the Holy Church ever take sides in an earthly conflict of this sort.”

Rotenhausen smiled, stuck his pipe between his teeth again. He spoke around the slender stem. “You call this village St. Ignatius?”

“Yes, sir,” Kelly said.

“And how many people live here, did you say?”

Beckmann sat on the sofa, watching, face expressionless.

Major Kelly could not see the purpose in Rotenhausen's asking questions to which he already had the answers. But he responded anyway. “Less than two hundred souls, sir.”

“And the town is built around a convent of some sort?” Rotenhausen asked, smiling and nodding encouragingly.

He did not look like a man who would lead a backwoods French priest into a deadly admission and then blow his head off with four shots from a Luger. Nevertheless, he must be dealt with cautiously.

“The convent was here first,” Kelly said, cautiously. “The deaf came to be taught. Then the mute. Then deaf-mutes. Other sisterhoods established nunneries here to help with the work. The church was built. Then the store. A few of the laity moved in, built homes, seeking the calm and peacefulness of a religious community.” Kelly felt that his knees were melting. In a minute he was going to be writhing helplessly on the floor.

Rotenhausen took his pipe from his mouth and thrust it at Major Kelly. “To tell you the truth, Father, I would like to search your village.”

Kelly almost swayed, almost passed out.

“However,” the general continued, “I believe it would be a waste of time and effort. My men are weary, Father Picard. And they will soon be expected to fight the Allies. They need what rest they can get.” He put the pipe in his mouth and spoke around it. “Furthermore, the Reich is currently in no position to make an enemy of the Catholic Church. If we were to pry through nunneries and church schools looking for partisans, we would only help to force Rome into taking sides, and we would buy even more bad publicity for the German people.”

Behind Rotenhausen, Standartenführer Beckmann had gotten to his feet. Lantern light caught the polish on his leather belt, glittered in the death's head insignia on his cap and shoulders. He was an evil, black Frankenstein, his white face slightly twisted, half cloaked in shadows.

Kelly felt sure that Beckmann was going to disagree with the general. He was going to say the search should be held. Then everyone would die. Bang. Bang, bang, bang. The end.

But that was not what Beckmann had in mind. “Perhaps General Rotenhausen has given you the impression that Germany has, in the past, done the wrong thing and that, as a consequence, our country now suffers from a poor image in the rest of the world. I must set you straight, Father. Germany follows the dictates of the Führer, and it makes no mistakes.” He smiled at Rotenhausen. “There is no need to search St. Ignatius, because the Catholic Church is no enemy of the Reich. Oh, at times, a few of your bishops have acted unwisely. But for the most part, you people have remained neutral. Why, even Himmler is of your faith, Father. Did you know?”

“I didn't know,” Kelly murmured.

Standartenführer Beckmann's voice rose as he spoke. “Whether or not a search of St. Ignatius would generate bad publicity for the Reich is purely academic. The main reason we need not hold a search is that — you are all Catholics here. Christians. And that means you are not Jews.” Beckmann's voice had taken on a strange, chilling urgency. His face was strained, his eyes wild. “The Jews are Germany's only enemies, Father Picard. The Jews, Mischlingen, and subhumans are the threat to the race's perfection. When the world is Judenrein, then this war will end, and everyone will see that the Führer was correct!” He was breathing heavily now. “Free of Jews! How good the world will then be! And your great church recognizes this, Father Picard. It remains neutral. It is no ally of the Reich, but neither is it an enemy.”

Clearly, Rotenhausen found Beckmann's mania offensive. He turned away from the Standartenführer and ordered his aide to heat the bath water.

“Father Picard,” Beckmann said, even as Rotenhausen was speaking to his man, “how many griddles on the stove?”

“Four,” Kelly said. He was aware that the danger had passed, but he was slightly confused.

“My aide will heat water for my bath on two of the griddles, if that is all right with you, Kamerad,” Beckmann told Rotenhausen.

The general did not like that. But Beckmann's display of Nazi psychosis was enough to make him wary and, in fact, somewhat afraid of the SS colonel. “I suppose that will be fine,” he said.

The aides rushed for the kitchen, nearly colliding in the narrow hall.

“Dear Father Picard,” Rotenhausen said, “I believe we will not need you any more tonight. You may sleep in your own room. Tomorrow, please offer my apologies to your junior priests for our having had to put them out.”

“I will do that, General,” Kelly said. “Sleep well,” he said, nodding his head vigorously to both of them and bowing in an oriental fashion as he backed toward the stairs.

That was when he fell over the chair. When he backed into it, he thought he had somehow bumped into one of the soldiers, though there were no more men in the room. The knobs at the top of the backrest felt like gun barrels in his kidneys. He cried out, staggered forward, tripped, and fell.

Rotenhausen and Beckmann rushed over and helped him to his feet. “Are you hurt, Father?” the general asked, solicitously.

“No, no,” Kelly said. He was so relieved to find that he had backed into a chair instead of into a gun that he could hardly control his tongue. “It was merely a chair. Nothing but a chair.” He turned and looked at the chair. “It is one I have owned for years. A chair cannot hurt a man. A chair can do nothing to a man unless he wants it to.” He knew he was babbling, and his French was not good enough to trust to babbling, but he could not stop. For a moment, he had been sure they saw through him and were going to shoot him. But it had just been the knobs on the back of the chair.

“Be careful,” Beckmann said as Kelly backed away from them again. “You're walking right into it, Father.”

Sheepishly, Kelly looked at the chair. “I'm so stupid,” he said. He patted the chair. “But this is an old chair in which I have sat many times. It cannot hurt me, eh?” Shut up, you idiot, he told himself. He reached the stairs and started up.

“Father Picard,” Beckmann said. “Your hat.”

“My what?” What was a hat? The word seemed familiar. Hat? Hat?

Standartenführer Conrad Beckmann bent down, picked up the shapeless black hat, and brought it over to the steps. He handed it to Kelly. “You twist, tear, and rumple it so fiercely, Father. I hope we have not made you nervous?” He smiled.

Was it just an ordinary smile? Kelly wondered. Or was there something sinister behind it? Had Beckmann become suspicious?

“Nervous?” Kelly asked. “Oh, not me.” He looked at the ruined hat in his hands. “I twist it up because — well, because it is only a hat. It is only the hat which I have worn on my head for years. It cannot hurt me no matter how much I twist it up.” He gripped the lump of felt in both hands and wrenched it violently. He grinned weakly at Beckmann. “You see? I twist it, but it cannot hurt me. Just like the chair, eh?” He laughed nervously. Babbling, babbling…

“Goodnight, Father,” Beckmann said.

“Goodnight, sir. Goodnight, General Rotenhausen.” He turned and fairly ran up the steps to the second floor, past the house altar, down the short corridor, and into his room, closing the door behind.

“Why are priests all such idiots?” Beckmann asked Rotenhausen, as the door closed overhead.

In his room, Kelly collapsed on the mattress and hugged himself. He was shaking so badly that the brass bed vibrated under him like a drumhead. His hands were so cold he could feel the chilly outline of his fingers through his suit coat and clerical vest. Yet he was slimy with perspiration.

Don't pray, don't pray, don't pray, he told himself. He was so terrified that he was on the brink of prayer, and he knew that weakness would be the end of him. He hugged himself until the tremors gradually seeped away.

The room was blacker than Danny Dew. The sound of booted feet, foreign voices, and banging pans echoed up from downstairs, but this room itself was quiet. In a while, the darkness and silence soothed Kelly and restored a bit of his self-confidence.

Thus far, the ruse was working. Thanks to an unknown and unforeseeable personal clash between Beckmann and Rotenhausen, and thanks to their interservice rivalry, and thanks also to the Third Reich's favored treatment of the Catholic Church, nothing would be searched. The bulk of the convoy would not even spend the night in St. Ignatius, but would bivouac along the highway to the east. The long night was still ahead, and the crossing of the bridge in the morning, but it was beginning to look as if there were a good chance…

No! that was the wrong way to think. Optimism was foolish. It was dangerous at best. At worst: deadly. Don't hatch your chickens before they're counted, he told himself. And don't put all their baskets in one egg. The thing was not to hope, but to let the fairy tale carry you. Drift along, play the role, hang on.

Fifteen minutes after he had flopped on the bed with a severe case of the shakes, Kelly heard boots echo on the stairs. The officers' aides carried up two bathtubs and put them in the large bedrooms. A minute later, the first of the boiling water was brought up in heavy pails, with the general and the colonel directing their subordinates. Kelly heard water splashing. More orders in German. The sound of booted feet thumping down the stairs. Boots coming back up again. More water. More orders given. Two young aides thumping down the steps again. And then right back up, clump-clump-clump, this time with buckets of cold water to temper the baths.

Finally, the only sound on the second floor was a faint musical splashing as the men soaped and rinsed in the privacy of their rooms, skinning off the film of dust that coated them after a long day on the road. The splashing slowly increased in volume, as if the officers were becoming intoxicated with cleanliness and were jumping about in drunken exuberance, then gradually began to decrease in volume, and faded out altogether. The second floor was silent. Downstairs, two German voices were raised in conversation as Beckmann's aides prepared for bed in the room by the kitchen. In a few seconds, even that noise was stilled.

Kelly waited.

Ten minutes later, when neither Beckmann nor Rotenhausen had made a sound since abandoning their tubs, the major was confident that they had retired for the night. They would both be sleeping contentedly. They would pose no real threat until dawn. Until the convoy began moving through St. Ignatius and across the bridge, Beckmann and Rotenhausen were the least of Kelly's worries.

The most of his worries, until the sun rose, were his own men. He did not trust them for a minute. They were crazy. You could not trust lunatics. In the hours before dawn, as the tensions grew more severe, one of those men would do something idiotic, childish, dangerous, and perhaps deadly. Instead of staying in his assigned building where he could not get into trouble, one of those men— maybe dozens of them — would venture out under the misapprehension that he was safer beyond the limitations imposed by four walls. When that happened, Major Kelly wanted to be there to salvage the hoax — and their lives. His duty, then, was not to remain in the rectory and listen to the officers snoring their heads off. Instead, he had to be outside in the fake town, troubleshooting.

Careful not to make a sound, Kelly got off the feather mattress. His back ached from the base of his spine to his neck, and he was glad he did not have to sleep in a bed with so little support. If this madman Beckmann discovered the hoax, he would probably make Kelly sleep on a bed like this for several days and then shoot his head off.

When he was certain no one had heard the readjustment of the goose and chicken feathers inside the coarse mattress case, Kelly walked quietly to the room's only window, which was discernible against the dark wall despite the blackout blind that was taped to the window frame. He peeled the tape away. He lifted the blind without rattling it, and slid noiselessly underneath.

Beyond the glass, at the back of the rectory, lay a quiet French religious community: small houses, a dusty street, a nunnery, a churchyard… Kelly smiled, fond of his creation.

The window was well greased. It slid up with only a faint rasp of wood on wood. Slight though it was, that whispered reluctance seemed like a scream on the calm night air.

Kelly froze, holding up the bottom half of the window, listening for the thud of jackboots in the hall outside his room.

Two minutes later, when no one had stirred, Kelly squeezed through the window and stepped onto the board-shingled roof over the back porch. He eased the window down, not quite closing it. Stepping softly to the corner of the roof where a rose-vine lattice had been built to serve as his ladder, he climbed down to the ground.

He crouched at the edge of the porch. The night wind chilled the back of his neck as he surveyed the rear lawn.

He was alone.

Aware that the rectory windows were covered by blackout blinds, convinced that the night was dark enough to hide him from any German soldier patrolling the streets, Kelly ran to the fence that marked the, southern perimeter of the rectory property. A three-foot section of this shoulder-high barrier served as a hidden door. Kelly found the key panel, pressed on it, walked through. On the other side, he pushed the boards back into place and winced at the protracted squeak they made.

He was now on the southern half of the block. Four fake houses, a shrine to the Virgin, four outhouses, and one elm tree offered hiding places. He crept eastward along the fence, then left it for the less promising shelter of the second in a row of three outhouses. He pressed his back against the rough wall of the tiny building and tried to melt back into the purple-black shadows.

Beame was waiting as planned, his own back against the east wall, right around the corner from the major. In a trembling voice, Beame said, “Is that you, Major Kelly?”

“Beame?” Kelly whispered.

“Is that you, Kelly?”

“Beame?”

Beame did not move. Why wouldn't the man around the corner answer his question? Was it because the man around the corner was not Major Kelly — was, instead, some kill-crazy, sten-gun-carrying Nazi monster? “Major Kelly, is that you?”

“Beame?”

“Kelly? Sir? That you?”

“Beame, is that you?” Kelly asked. He put his palms flat against the outhouse wall, ready to push off and run if this turned out to be anyone but Lieutenant Beame.

“Major Kelly, why won't you answer my question?” Beame was shaking violently. He was certain that a wild-eyed, bloodsucking, death-worshipping Nazi maniac was around the corner, ready to pounce on him.

“What question? Beame, is that you?”

“No,” Beame said. “There's no one here.”

“No one?”

It was hopeless, Beame knew. “There's no one here, so go away.” Beame thought he was going to vomit any second now. He hoped that if he had to die he would be shot before he suffered the indignity of vomiting on himself.

Major Kelly risked a quick glance around the corner and saw Beame. The lieutenant was rigid, arms straight down at his sides, eyes squeezed shut, face contorted with a grimace of expected pain. Kelly slipped around the edge of the building and joined him. “Beame, what in the hell is the matter with you?”

The lieutenant opened his eyes and was so relieved to see Kelly that he nearly collapsed. Leaning against the outhouse, he said, “I didn't think it was you, sir.”

“Who else would it be?” Kelly whispered.

“I thought you were a kraut.” Beame wiped sweat from his face.

“But I was speaking English, Beame.”

The lieutenant was surprised. “Hey, that's right! I never thought of that.” He grinned happily, suddenly frowned, and scratched his head. “But why didn't you identify yourself at the start, when I first asked you?”

“I didn't know who you were,” Kelly said, as if the answer must be obvious even to a moron.

“Who else would it be?” Beame asked.

“I thought you were a kraut.”

“But I was speaking English—”

“Let's get down to basics,” Kelly hissed. He crouched, forcing Beame to hunker beside him. He looked around at the backs of the fake houses in which his men were sheltered, at the other houses, at the dusty streets that he could see between the buildings. Lowering his voice even further, he said, “Have you checked on the men?”

“Yes,” Beame said. “It wasn't easy with a kraut at every intersection. Thank God they didn't park the whole convoy in the clearing — or search the buildings. They aren't going to search, are they?”

“No,” Kelly said. “Look, what about the men? They okay?”

“They're all in their assigned houses — except for Lieutenant Slade.”

Kelly's stomach turned over and crawled around inside of him, hunting for a way out. “Slade?”

“He was supposed to be in one of the platform houses with Akers, Dew, and Richfield. None of them have seen him since early this evening.”

“You mean he's on the loose?” Kelly asked.

Beame nodded.

“What's the sniveling little bastard up to?” Kelly wondered. “What does that rotten little son of a bitch have up his sleeve?”

For a while, they were both silent, trying to imagine the inside of Slade's sleeve. At last, Beame could not tolerate any more of that. “What will we do?”

“We have to find him,” Kelly said. “Whatever he's got up his sleeve, it's rotten as month-old salami.”

“Maybe he ran away,” Beame said.

“Not Slade. He wants to fight, not run. He's somewhere in the village — somewhere he shouldn't be.” And we're all dead because of him, Kelly thought.

And then he thought: No, we're all dead because death is the theme of this fairy tale. Slade's a particularly ugly plot problem, that's all. What we have to do is go after him and play our roles and make ourselves small, please the crazy Aesop behind this so maybe he'll let us live. And then he also thought: Am I losing my mind?

“Won't be easy finding him,” Beame said. “Every intersection has a sentry.”

Kelly wiped one cold hand across his face, pulled at his clerical collar. “It doesn't matter how difficult it is. We have to find him.” He stood and moved away from the outhouse. “Let's get away from this place. It smells like shit.”

2

Lieutenant Slade wished that his mother could see him now. For the first time since he had been assigned to Kelly's unit, he was getting a chance to act like a real soldier. Tonight, he had the opportunity to prove that he was as heroic as all the other men in his family had been.

He lay flat on the ground beside a fake stone well, watching the sentry who patrolled the Y-B intersection. The kraut walked twenty paces east, then twenty west, turning smartly on his heel at the end of each circuit. He did not seem to be interested in anything around him. Probably daydreaming. Just like half the other guards Slade had thus far observed. Fine. Good. They were not expecting danger from nuns, priests, and deaf-mutes. When it came, they would be overwhelmed.

Slade waited for the sentry to turn toward the west. The moment the man's back was to him, he pushed up and ran silently across Y Street into the darkness between two of the single-story platform houses. From there, he slithered westward on his stomach, over to the Y-A intersection where he made notes on yet another sentry.

Now was almost time. He had very little reconnaissance left to do. He had noted each sentry, had discovered the weak points in the German positions. He was almost ready to lead a silent attack. In half an hour, he could go find Major Kelly and kill him. And then make heroes out of this whole pack of cowards.

3

Hiding in shadows, crawling on their bellies, running tiptoe from one tree to the next and from one building to the next, Major Kelly and Lieutenant Beame went all over the village looking for Lieutenant Slade. They stopped in at every house, school, and nunnery, hoping that someone would have seen Slade during the night and could shed light on The Snot's intentions.

But no one had seen him since early in the evening. Not that anyone had been looking for him.

“You try not to notice The Snot,” Lyle Fark told them as they stood with him and seven other men in one of the hollow two-story houses. “I mean, you don't want to know what he's doing, most of the time. But when he isn't there, you notice it right away. Everything's so tranquil. You get such a sense of well-being when he goes away.”

“And when did you get this sense of well-being?” Kelly asked.

“Early this evening,” Fark said. “Yeah, he must have disappeared around eight o'clock, because things seemed to pick up about then.”

It was the same answer they got from everyone. Slade had not been seen for several hours; but although they could just about pinpoint the time of his departure, they could not discover where he had gone.

Shortly after two in the morning, they slipped past the sentry at the bridge road and A Street and crawled over to the hospital bunker steps. A one-story house had been thrown up atop the hospital. It was like most of the other fake houses, except that it had outside steps into the cellar. The steps, of course, lead into the bunker where Tooley, Kowalski, Liverwright, and Hagendorf were holed up for the duration. At the bottom of the steps, Major Kelly stood up and softly rapped out shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits on the wooden cellar door.

A minute passed. Slowly.

Down by the river, frogs were singing.

Another minute passed. Slower than the first.

“Come on, Tooley,” Beame whispered. They were somewhat exposed on the steps, good targets for a Wehrmacht sharpshooter.

Kelly rapped on the door again. Even before he finished the tune, the portal scraped open a fraction of an inch, like the entrance to a crypt controlled by demonic forces.

“It's me, Tooley. Major Kelly.”

“Whew!” the pacifist said. “I thought it was a German.” He stepped out of the way, let them in. He was invisible in that lightless chamber.

When the door was closed again, Tooley switched on a flashlight, confident that none of its glow would escape the subterranean room. Liverwright, holding his wounded hip, loomed out of the darkness. And so did Maurice.

“What are you doing here?” Major Kelly asked.

“Dying,” Liverwright said.

“Not you,” Kelly said. “Maurice, you're supposed to stay away from here. You told me you didn't dare show your face around General Rotenhausen.”

Maurice nodded. “And I pray I will not have to.” His face glistened in the flashlight's glow.

“We have big trouble, sir,” Private Tooley said.

“Then you know about Slade?”

“Bigger trouble than that.” The pacifist sounded as if he were on the brink of tears. “Blood's going to be spilled.”

“Bigger trouble than Slade running around loose?” Kelley asked. He felt as if he might vomit.

Maurice moved forward, commanding attention with his hefty stomach and his low, tense voice. “Two hours ago, one of my contacts came from the west to tell me that an Allied tank division has broken through the German lines and is rolling rapidly your way. I have checked it out myself. The Allies are driving hard to capture this bridge of yours.”

“Ah…” Major Kelly said. He wished that he had been born without his legs. If he had been a cripple since birth, he would never have been drafted. He would be at home right now, back in the States, reading pulp magazines and listening to radio and having his mother wheel him to the movies. How nice. Why hadn't he ever before realized the wonderful life a cripple could have?

“Allied tanks?” Lieutenant Beame asked. “But this is no trouble! Don't you see? Our own people are on the way. We're saved!”

Maurice looked at Kelly. “There's another good reason for him to stay away from my daughter. I won't have her marry a stupid man.”

“What do you mean?” Beame asked, baffled. “Aren't we saved?”

“I'm afraid not,” Maurice said.

“Well, when are the Allied tanks getting here?” Beame asked.

“They ought to arrive before the Panzers start across the bridge from this side,” Maurice said. He looked knowingly at Kelly. “By dawn or shortly thereafter, Major.”

“Even better!” Beame said. “I don't understand why you're unhappy.”

Major Kelly sighed and rubbed his eyes with one fist. Maybe if he had been born with only one hand he could have avoided this mess. He would not have had to be really seriously crippled to stay out of the Army. “Think about it for a minute, Beame. In a couple of hours, you're going to have Allied tanks on the west bank of the river— and German tanks on the east bank. The Allies will control the land over there, and the Germans will control St. Ignatius. Neither the Allies nor the Germans are going to permit the enemy to cross that bridge.”

“Stalemate!” Beame said, smiling at Maurice, Tooley, Liverwright, then at Kelly, gradually losing the smile as he went from one face to the next. “Oh, God,” he said. “Oh, God, there's going to be a tank battle for the bridge!”

“Sure,” Kelly said. “They'll sit on opposite shores and shoot at each other. And we'll be right in the middle.”

Beame looked as if he were going to be sick on his own shoes.

“Don't be sick on your own shoes,” Kelly said. “I couldn't stand that right now.”

“Look,” Beame said, “we don't have to wait around for this battle. We can slip away into the woods until it's over.”

“Two hundred of us?” Kelly and Maurice exchanged a grim smile. “Even with darkness on our side, we've had trouble moving around town. That was just two of us. With two hundred — no chance.”

Despite the changes which had taken place in him recently, Beame was much the same as he had always been: naive, full of hope. “Well… what if we sent someone west to meet these Allied tanks before they got here? If we told them that the Panzers were here, maybe we could persuade them to let the Germans cross and hold the battle elsewhere.”

“This they will not do,” Maurice said. “For one thing, the Allied tank commander would know that the Germans will blow up the bridge after themselves. They almost always do these days. And the Allies wouldn't want to lose the bridge.”

“We can build them another bridge in a day!” Beame said.

Tooley nodded eagerly. “That's true.”

“You forget that only Blade knows we're here,” Kelly said. “The commander of those Allied tanks doesn't suspect there's a unit of engineers and laborers stranded behind the lines. Although, I suppose we could tell them… ”

Maurice shook his head sadly. “No good, mon ami. If it were any other Allied commander at the head of this force, he would help you. But this general will not even pause to listen to what you have to say. He's too caught up in the success of his one-unit campaign.” The greasy, sweaty old man looked at each of them and delivered the final blow. “The Allied tanks coming this way are commanded by General Bobo Remlock.”

“We're all dead,” Kelly said.

“Well,” Beame said, “I guess we are.”

General Bobo Remlock was a Texan who called himself The Fighting General. He also called himself Latter-Day Sam Houston, Big Ball of Barbed Wire, Old Blood and Guts, and Last of the Two-Fisted Cowboys. They had all heard about Bobo Remlock when they were stationed in Britain prior to D-Day. The British and Americans who had served under Remlock could never get done complaining about him. Remlock encouraged his men to call him Big Tex and Old Blood-and-Guts, though not to his face. What he did not know was that everyone called him That Maniac and Blood Beast and Old Shit for Brains behind his back. If Bobo Remlock were leading the approaching force, he would not stop for anything. He would roll up to the other side of the gorge and utterly destroy St. Ignatius in the process of liberating it.

“We do have one chance,” Maurice said.

“We do?” Beame asked, brightening.

“No, we don't,” Major Kelly said.

Maurice smiled. He put his two pudgy hands together, pressed them flat and tight, then threw them open as he whispered: “Boom!”

Kelly decided that Maurice had lost his mind, just like all the men in the unit had done.

“With the machines hidden in the convent,” The Frog said, “you also have many sticks of dynamite. Many yards of wire. A plunger and battery. If we waste no more time, we might be able to plant the explosives under the bridge. In the morning, if the expected showdown between Generals Remlock and Rotenhausen comes, we will quite simply demolish the bridge. Neither commander will be able to take his tanks down a gorge as steep as this one. And because there will be nothing left to fight for once the bridge is gone, both the Allies and the Germans will have to seek elsewhere for a river crossing.”

“Blow up our own bridge?” Kelly asked.

“That is right,” Maurice said.

“Blow up the bridge that we've busted ass to keep in shape?”

“Yes.”

“It's not a bad idea,” Kelly admitted. “But even if it works, even if Bobo Remlock goes away to look for another crossing, we're still not out of the frying pan. The krauts will come down hard on us. They'll think partisans set off the explosions, and they'll search St. Ignatius.”

Kelly had wisely decided not to assign any men to the fake house over the hospital bunker. He was doubly glad of that decision now. He had not wanted to put men in the house and then have them terrified out of their minds when Kowalski began to moan and mutter in one of his clairvoyant seizures. Even if they knew it was only Kowalski under them, any men in the house would have been scared silly by the sounds he made. Everyone was especially keyed up tonight. It would take very little to send them screaming into the streets. And if men had been upstairs right now, ears to the floorboards to listen to this conversation, they would have exploded like bombs with short fuses.

“Perhaps the Germans will not go looking for partisans,” Maurice said. “This Rotenhausen is a dedicated soldier. The first priority, so far as he will be concerned, should be Remlock's tanks. If you get to him soon after the bridge goes up, and if you tell him where to find the nearest fordable stretch of river, he will be off like a Sash, leaving St. Ignatius in peace.”

“Maurice, you are a genuis!” Beame exclaimed.

The greasy mayor accepted the compliment with little grace, smiling and nodding as if to say that Beame was perfectly correct.

“One thing,” Kelly said. “How much will you want for the dynamite and other equipment — which was once my property, but, as you may recall, which I am now only holding for you until this present crisis passes.”

“I want nothing more than what you have already given,” Maurice assured him, raising two workworn hands, palms outward to placate Kelly. “Naturally, I will expect you to rebuild the bridge and put up the tollbooth according to your original agreement.”

“And nothing new?”

“I am no monster, Major,” Maurice said, putting one hand over his heart. “I do not always require payment. When my friends need me, I am always there.”

4

The young Wehrmacht Schütze at the intersection of A Street and Y Street took his twentieth step eastward, turned sharply, and paraded toward the river again.

The Schütze at the intersection of B and Y took his twentieth step westward, turned just as sharply as the first soldier had done, and marched toward the forest.

In the half minute when both sentries had their backs on the block between them, Major Kelly and Private Tooley burst from the north side of Y Street and ran quietly across to the back of the convent yard. Kelly located the hidden door in the eight-foot-high fence — which was exactly like the hidden door in the fence behind the rectory — and they passed through. Tooley pushed it gently into place behind them.

They both stood still for a moment, listening to the sentries' jackboots.

No alarm was raised.

They went across the convent yard to the small door in the back of the false structure. Kelly hesitated a moment, then softly knocked shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits.

Lily Kain opened the door. “What's wrong?”

“Plenty,” Kelly said, slipping past her into the dark building.

When the door was closed, one of the other nuns struck a match. Two well-hooded kerosene lanterns sputtered up, the fuel feed turned as low as possible. They barely diluted the darkness.

The whole of the convent, with the exception of the foyer which had been finished toward the front, was one enormous room with a plain dirt floor. The walls soared up three stories to a jumble of wooden beams which supported the simple roof. There were no rooms laid off. There was no furniture. Only the phony nuns and the heavy machinery and various other supplies occupied these sacred quarters. The machines stood in two lines, one row against each of the longest walls. They looked like peacefully slumbering animals, oil and grease puddled under them instead of manure.

In the middle of the floor, between the machines, stood the other nuns. Fifteen of them in all. Kelly recognized Nathalie Jobert, and he smiled at her. She was a sweet little piece, all right. She was a good kid.

He also recognized Nurse Pullit, now Sister Pullit, but he did not smile and nod at the nurse. He tried to pretend Pullit was not even there.

“Have you found Slade?” Lily asked.

“How did you know he was missing?”

“David was around earlier, asking about him.”

“We have a worse problem,” he said. He told her about Bobo Remlock.

While he talked, he looked her over. If her face had not been so unwholesomely erotic, and if her big jugs had not molded to the bulky habit she wore like a knit sweater, Lily would have made a fine nun. Her winged cowl was neat and crisply starched. The rim of her cowl fitted tightly around her lovely face, holding her long hair out of sight. Her robe was black and fell to the floor, with a wide white vent down the left side. The Eisenhower women who had sewn the costumes really did know what a well-dressed nun should wear. Unless the nun was Lily Kain. If the nun was Lily Kain, the habit did not look good on her at all. If the nun was Lily Kain, she should wear pasties shaped like twin crosses over her nipples — and a G-string made out of rosary beads.

“Blow up our bridge?” Lily asked, when he finished telling her the plan. “Is that our only choice?”

“Seems to be,” Kelly said. He looked at his watch. “Almost three. We have a whole lot to do before dawn.”

He and Tooley located the T-plunger, a coil of wire, and a wooden case full of carefully packed dynamite which was wrapped in airtight plastic to keep the sticks from sweating. They lugged the stuff toward the door, anxious to get on with things.

“Major, wait!” Nathalie Jobert said, clutching his hand as he reached for the doorknob. “What about David?”

Kelly looked into her lovely black eyes and smiled. “He's fine. I'll keep him right beside me, safe and sound.”

“Will you tell him I said—” She looked away, wiped at her pert nose with the back of one slender hand.

“Yes?”

“Tell him that I—”

“That you love him?” Kelly asked.

She blushed and nodded.

“I'll tell him,” the major said. He leaned over and kissed her cool forehead below her winged white hood. “Now I have to go.”

She raised his hand and kissed it, just as the lights went out. “You're a wonderful man.” Then she was gone.

But Lily was there to detain him another minute when he opened the back door and stepped into the convent yard. She came outside with him and, while Tooley crossed the yard, threw both arms around him. “I don't love you,” she said, kissing him.

Kelly put down the T-plunger and the wire. He embraced her, crushed her against him, inhaled the vaguely musky odor that always clung to her. “And I don't love you.”

“I don't love you at all,” Lily said. “Not even a teensy little bit.”

“You make me so happy, Lily.”

“Do you love me even a teensy little bit?” she asked, looking up into his face.

“No. You mean nothing whatsoever to me.”

Lily shivered. “That's marvelous, darling.”

“Yes, it is, darling.”

“Kiss me again.”

Kissing her, he lost control and slid his hands down her back and cupped her round buttocks and began to knead her firm flesh through the black gown. Abruptly, he pulled away from her. “I have to get moving. We have to get the explosives planted under the bridge.”

Lily sighed. “Don't worry about anything, Kelly. As long as neither one of us loves the other even a teensy little bit, we'll be okay.”

“You're right,” he said.

He picked up the plunger and wire and left her. He crossed the convent yard, cracked the secret gate, and cautiously checked on the sentries at the nearby intersections. When both the Germans were facing away from him, he went out into St. Ignatius. Tooley followed him, carrying the box of dynamite.

Lieutenant Slade had just taken shelter at the base of an elm tree when he saw a gate open in the back of the convent fence. A second later, Major Kelly and that chicken-shit pacifist, Tooley, came out and pushed the gate shut and ran silently across Y Street, taking shelter by the side of the house just as the sentries turned to face that block. Both men had their arms full. But full of what?

Major Kelly led the pacifist westward, dodging from shadow to shadow, and Slade followed them. At the intersection of Y Street and A Street, they knelt beside the nunnery and waited for the sentry to face away from them.

Slade crept as close to them as he could, but was unable to tell what they were carrying.

What was this? What was Kelly doing out of the rectory? What cowardly, yellow-bellied plot were they involved in now?

The sentry turned his back.

Kelly and Tooley went across the road, lugging the mysterious objects. They took just enough time so that Slade was unable to follow them until the sentry had made one more circuit. When he got over there, they were gone.

Which was too bad. After all, now was the time. Slade had finished his reconnaissance. All that was left was to murder Major Kelly, preferably in silence. Knife him in the back… And then take a commando team into the rectory to slit the throats of the German officers. Soon, they would all be real heroes.

Smiling at the darkness, the lieutenant crept southward, trying to find where Major Kelly had gone.

5

Maurice opened the bunker door and ushered them into the eerily lightless room, closed the door, and switched on a flashlight. He shone the beam on the plunger and the wire, then on the dynamite which Tooley set gently on the floor. “It looks like enough,” he said.

“More than enough,” Kelly said. “The bridge will drop like a rock down a well.”

Shining the flashlight deeper into the bunker, Maurice said, “Everyone is here, all the men you requested.”

Danny Dew, Vito Angelli, Sergeant Coombs, and Lieutenant Beame sat on the hospital cots, eyes gleaming with reflected light.

“You've heard the whole story?” he asked the three newcomers whom Beame had fetched during his absence.

“We heard,” Danny said. “What a bitch of a night.”

“I think we should use the dynamite on the krauts,” Sergeants Coombs said. “Not on our own bridge.”

Major Kelly had only one weapon he could use on Coombs. He used it. “I'm a major, and you're a sergeant. We'll do things my way.”

Coombs scowled, grudgingly nodded agreement. In a pinch, he was a book man, a rule man, a regulations man, who would obey even a poor disciplinarian like Major Kelly.

“And what is your way?” Danny Dew asked, getting up from his cot and pacing in and out of the soft light

“There will be seven of us,” Kelly said. “Danny, Vito, Beame, Sergeant Coombs, Tooley, Maurice, and me.” As quickly as possible, he told them how they would do the job. “Any questions?”

Danny Dew smacked his lips. “Yas, massah. Dumb ol' Danny have a question, suh. You really think we's gonna be able to do all this without makin' a noise them guards up on the bridge would hear?”

Kelly shrugged. “We can try to be perfectly quiet That's all I can say. We can try.”

“We can do it,” Beame said, optimistic despite the way their situation had deteriorated.

“That reminds me,” Kelly said. “One other thing. The SS is guarding the bridge. There won't be Wehrmacht privates above us, but about four or five of those black-uniformed crackpots. So you better be twice as quiet.”

“Next,” Danny Dew said, “he's going to tell us we have to pull off this operation blindfolded.”

Maurice switched off the flashlight

The darkness was so deep it seemed to pull at their eyes.

Kelly opened the door the whole way. For a while, they stood there, letting the lesser darkness of the night creep in. When their eyes adjusted, Danny Dew picked up the plunger and the wire. Tooley hefted the case of dynamite and held it close against his massive chest. Major Kelly led the way out of the hospital bunker, and they followed. Liverwright, who was dying, closed the door behind them.

6

The clouds formed a thick roof from horizon to horizon. No stars shone. Only a hint of moonlight penetrated the black thunderheads.

Kelly and the others went south along the edge of the ravine, far enough back from A Street to be hidden from the German sentry at the intersection of A and Z. Well past the last of the fake houses, they made their way cautiously down the sloped ravine wall until they reached the riverbank.

A frog croaked in front of Kelly, startling him.

Recovering what little nerve he had left, the major looked upstream at the black framework of the bridge which was silhouetted against the blue-black sky. From this distance, it appeared deserted. The SS guards, in their black uniforms, blended perfectly with the night and the steel beams.

“Here's where we get wet,” Kelly said. He looked at Tooley. “You sure you don't want someone to help you with those sticks?”

“No, sir,” Tooley said. “I'm strong. I can handle them. We can't afford to lose any of them — or drop them and let them get wet. If we can't keep this stuff stable, we're all dead.”

“We're all dead anyway,” Kelly said.

“Major, we have — company,” Lieutenant Beame whispered, behind them.

Kelly whirled, expecting to see hordes of Germans rushing down the ravine slope. Instead, he saw three nuns, their white-winged hoods glowing ghostily in the darkness. Lily. Nathalie. And Sister Pullit. “What in the hell—”

“We had to come,” Lily said. “We'd have gone crazy wondering if you were dead or alive. Remember, each of us has a man out here.”

Kelly looked at Pullit.

“She's right,” the nurse said.

Kelly looked away from Pullit. The nurse resembled a nun too closely, so far as Kelly was concerned. Pullit was — sweet, dimpled, innocent, with a freshly scrubbed look.

“We want to go along with you,” Lily said.

“Are you crazy? You'll get us all killed!”

“We can help,” Lily said. “Haven't you heard? Women have more endurance and strength than men.”

The major was not yet able to cope with the situation. He kept looking from the nuns to his men and back to the nuns again. He could not understand how his life had come to this, how so many years of experience could have funneled down to this absurdity.

“They'll drown in those bulky costumes,” Tooley said.

“That's right!” Kelly said, seizing the argument. “You'll drown in those bulky costumes.”

Before anyone could object, Lily tore open her habit and shrugged out of it. She peeled away her hood and cowl and dropped that on the robe. All she wore, now, was a flimsy two-piece dancer's costume out of which everything might pop at any moment.

Every man there drew a long, deep breath.

“Lily—"Kelly began.

Horrified by something he had seen out of the corner of his eye, Kelly turned and confronted Pullit. The nurse had stripped, too, and now stood there in bra and panties. Lily's bra, stuffed with paper. Kelly had no idea who had given Pullit the panties: large, white cotton things with a blue-bow rim.

“No,” Kelly said. “No, I—”

“We have come this far,” Nathalie said. “You can't send us back now. That would be more dangerous than if we went with you.” She had taken off her own habit, stood there in panties and bra, giving Lily Kain a run for the money. Not a very serious run, so far as Kelly was concerned, but something of a run nonetheless.

Lieutenant Beame seemed to be Whimpering.

“Major,” Tooley said, “this dynamite is getting heavy. The longer we wait, the more time we waste—”

“Okay. It's insane, Lily, but you can come along.”

She grabbed him and kissed him, her heavy jugs pressing into his chest and rising dangerously in the thin silken cups. “We're all in this together, anyway.”

Kelly looked at Angelli, then at Pullit. “You two stay away from each other, you understand?”

They nodded sheepishly.

“Oh Christ,” the major said, turning away from them.

“We'll be all right, darling,” Lily said. “I don't love you.”

“And I don't love you,” he said.

“Good! I was afraid you were angry with me.”

“What's the use?” Kelly asked. “It's a fairy tale. You aren't the one who makes up the plot twists. You're just another character.”

The major went into the river first. He did not bother to remove his shoes or clothes, chiefly because there was no time left for that. The water swirled up to his knees, frothed around him like it frothed around the rocks which thrust up in the middle of it and the roots of the big trees that grew out over its eroded shore.

Speckled with white water, the river would do a fairly good job of hiding them while they approached the bridge. If they had walked north along the riverbank, they would surely have been seen. Any movement at all on the open land would catch a sentry's eye. But the river, constantly moving, concealed their progress and covered over the ordinary noises they might make.

And they would make a lot of ordinary noises, Kelly thought. There were too damned many of them. It was a fucking parade!

Kelly walked carefully. For every step, he tested the muddy bottom before committing his weight to it. He knew there were holes, drop-offs that could swallow him. Furthermore, he did not want to slip and fall on a water-washed stone or on a particularly slimy stretch of mud. The splash might not reach the SS men on the bridge. However, in falling, he might involuntarily cry out and bring the Germans down on them.

Behind the major, the others moved forward as cautiously as their chief. Nathalie watched where Kelly stepped, and still she tested every step of her own before taking it. Beame had trouble taking his eyes off Nathalie's ass and the slim line of her back, but he somehow managed not to slip or stumble. Pullit followed Beame, gasping as the cold water swirled higher. Danny Dew followed Lily Kain, wondering how he could pretend to trip and grab hold of either her ass or her jugs to keep from falling; he was afraid the move would be painfully transparent. Behind Dew came Maurice, walking like a man balancing on raw eggs and trying not to crack the shells. He held the T-plunger and the wire over his head. Coombs followed cautiously but less gracefully than Maurice, then Angelli. Private Tooley came last, and he was the most careful of all. Now and then, he fell behind the others and forced them to wait for him. He was taking no chances with the explosives.

Kelly led them eight feet out from shore, until the water reached halfway up his chest. Any deeper, and Angelli or Nathalie, the smaller members of the troop, might be swept downstream.

The Germans were their greatest worry, naturally. However, they also had to be afraid of drowning. At least Kelly was afraid of drowning. He could swim well enough, but he did not know how far he could get in a water-soaked suit and a pair of heavy-soled shoes.

Not very far, he supposed. Maybe five feet.

He put his foot forward, put it down, and felt it slide over the edge of a drop-off. He pulled back so fast he bumped into Nathalie and Beame and almost knocked them off their feet Nathalie not only had to keep standing, but she was modestly trying to conceal her belly button with one hand, as if that were the most obscene thing she could reveal to them. Her knees buckled, but she did not fall.

“What? What?” Lieutenant Beame asked, as if he thought Kelly had engineered the fall to get a feel of the French girl's excellent, slender body. Which was not a particularly bad idea…

“Almost fell in a hole,” Kelly said.

He did not know how deep the pit was, but he was somehow certain that it would have sucked him down and away before anyone could help him. Moving them a little closer to the shore, he found a way around the dropoff and continued toward the bridge.

A hundred yards from the span… ninety-five, ninety…

The water gushed between Lily's long legs, foaming around the crotch of her panties. Which was, in fact, also her own crotch. The foam tickled, but it also — well, aroused her. She shivered and moaned softly as she followed the others upriver.

Eighty-five yards, eighty…

Overhead, the sky split open and let out a bolt of white lightning which danced a crooked jig across the night. Major Kelly felt exposed as a paramecium on a biology student's lab slide. In that brief glare, he clearly saw two of the guards on the bridge, and he was certain one of them had been looking his way.

For the first time, he realized that if they were seen and if the krauts opened fire, a single bullet could strike the case of explosives and blow them all the way south to Spain.

The lightning did not frighten Danny Dew. It pleased him. The white light shimmering on Lily Kain's sleek body was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen in his life. It was so beautiful, in fact, that he did not care if the next bolt struck and killed him. He had already seen perfection. What was left?

Thunder followed the lightning. It slapped across the gorge like an explosion, reverberated between the sloped walls, reluctantly died away.

The sudden noise almost caused Angelli to fall. He had been leaning to the left, trying to look around the others and catch a glimpse of Nurse Pullit. The thunder startled him and put him off stride.

Cold, gray rain sliced across the river. Slanting in from the northwest, it made the water around them froth even more. It soaked the half of Kelly which he had thus far been able to keep out of the river.

Wonderful, he thought. Just great. A rainstorm. What next, Aesop?

He shuddered. If he had not already been an aethist, this latest trick of fate would have made him into one. Or would have convinced him that God was a nasty little boy.

Seventy yards to the bridge. Sixty-five… sixty…

Nathalie said, “Major!”

Kelly stopped, froze, looked at the looming bridge-works, trying to see what she had seen. Was one of the guards even now leveling a submachine gun at them? A bazooka? A howitzer? A cannon?

“Major,” she said, “Tooley wants to talk to you.”

Relieved that they had not been spotted, Kelly turned around and crowded in with the others. They formed a circle which resembled a football huddle, leaning towards each other, the rain beating at their backs and the river sloshing at their hips and waists.

Tooley sheltered the case of dynamite against his chest, bending over it as if he were trying to protect it from the other team. The krauts? “Major, the sticks are going to get wet. If they start sweating, this stuff will go off even if you just breathe on it wrong.”

“It's wrapped in airtight plastic,” Kelly said.

“So says the U.S. Army.” Tooley made a face. “You ever know the Army to do something right? You want to bet me there's not one little plastic seam that's split open? If one stick goes, it'll take the rest with it… ”

“What do you suggest?” Kelly asked.

“That we move faster.”

“And drop down a hole in the riverbed.”

“It's a risk we'll have to take,” the pacifist said.

“We're doing all right so far,” Lily said, with the enthusiasm of a cheerleader. Pullit and Nathalie joined in with her: “Yeah, we are! All right so far!”

“Tooley's right,” Angelli said. Next to the weight lifter, he looked like a child and strangely out of place here in the middle of the river on a stormy night. “The longer we stay out here, the more dangerous it is — because of the Germans, the dynamite, because of everything.” He smiled at Pullit and winked reassuringly.

“Okay,” Kelly said. “Let's move, then.”

They fell back into single file, started upstream again, moving more recklessly than before. The rain stung their faces, pasted their hair down, glued their clothes to them, slopped into the boxful of plastic-wrapped explosives. The water frothed around them and excited Lily Kain, and the bridge grew nearer.

Fifty yards, forty, thirty-five…

Major Kelly had wondered earlier if he were losing his mind. Now he was sure of it. He had never played in a football game in his life. He was not sports-oriented. Now, in the dead of night, in a thunderstorm, in the middle of a river, under the guns of German maniacs, pursued by a man with a caseful of unstable dynamite, he was caught up in what amounted to a goddamned game… The bridge piers loomed like goal posts.

Thirty yards, twenty-five…

The sky was branded by another lightning bolt, this one even brighter than the first. Major Kelly saw three SS sentries, two at the eastern end of the bridge and one just about in the middle.

He kept on moving forward.

No one cried out. There was no gunfire.

Twenty yards. Now fifteen. Ten…

They waded under the floor of the bridge without being seen. Major Kelly wanted to cry out in triumph as he crossed that all-important line. The rain on the bridge floor overhead was like the ovation rising from the stadium around them. It was glorious. But then he reminded himself that the job was not yet finished. The ball could fall to the other team any time now. They could still lose. Would lose. Did even a big league player dare hope for success?

7

After having built all those bridges across the gorge, they were perfectly familiar with the topography of the riverbed in this area. There were no holes or drop-offs. The bottom was scarred and uneven from all the construction work and from bombed bridges collapsing on top of it, but it was nowhere deeper than the middle of Tooley's chest or the base of Angelli's neck.

According to plan, Sergeant Coombs took a long-bladed knife and waded ashore to stand guard under the eastern cantilever arm. Danny Dew tested a matching knife against the ball of his thumb, kissed Lily Kain — who kissed back with passion — grinned whitely, and waded off to the west to mount guard over there.

Kelly motioned to the pacifist.

Tooley waded forward, holding the box of explosives against his broad chest, and stood in front of the major. He looked down at the sticks and grimaced at the water caught in the folds of plastic.

Kelly reached into the box and took out four packages of dynamite, six sticks to the bundle. He held two in each hand.

Maurice Jobert, who had taken the T-plunger all the way up the river, said something to Nathalie, scowling fiercely at her immodesty and at the way Beame reveled in her immodesty. Then he waded quietly to the shore and set the device down on the bank not far from where Coombs stood.

Except for the brief, whispered exchange between Maurice and Nathalie, no one dared to speak. The rain drumming on the river and on the floor of the bridge overhead was sufficiently noisy to cover their movements. But a voice was distinctive and might carry up to the SS sentries despite the overlaying susurration of the storm.

Private Tooley turned away from Kelly and carried the rest of the explosives over to the farside bridge pier. Stalking about in the bridge shadows, naked from the waist up, his powerful body tense and glistening, he looked like a mythical creature, a super troll making plans to kidnap travelers who passed above him… Angelli followed the big man, pushing through water that reached almost to his chin, holding the spool of copper wire over his head. Before Kelly could make known his objection, Pullit followed Angelli. The three of them, if the lovebirds could keep their hands off each other, would rig the sticks at the other pier.

Maurice came back into the water when he saw Beame and Nathalie were not going to be separated. His belly bobbled in the foam like a gigantic fishing lure.

Handing the four packages of dynamite to Beame, Kelly grabbed Lily and kissed her. She kissed back, with passion, as the water sloshed between her legs and foamed up her belly to her thinly sheathed jugs.

Revitalized by that kiss, Kelly worked his way over to the nearside pier and looked up the forty-foot-high column of stones and cement. Fortunately, their facilities here at the camp had precluded the construction of smooth, featureless bridge pillars. The stones protruded from the concrete and provided hand- and footholds. Kelly quickly judged the easiest route, hooked his fingers over an inch-wide ledge of fieldstone, and began to pull himself up.

In theory, it should have been a relief to get out of the cold water. His flesh was icy. His bones ached. And he was tired of resisting the river's steady pressure. But the theory was faulty. Clinging to the crude bridge pier, Kelly felt worse than ever. The rain lashed him. The growing wind chilled him to the bone. He had begun to develop a severe headache behind the eyes, and now it stretched around and pounded in his temples as well.

He thought of Lily, standing below him in her skimpy costume, her silk halter pasted to her jugs, her hard nipples standing out nearly an inch…

He kept on climbing. The cement was rough, and it chafed his hands. Each time he found a new grip, the sharp stones creased his fingers; and when he let his weight hang, the stone cut his fingers across the soft pads of flesh. The blood trickled down his hands and was sluiced away by the rain.

Three-quarters of the way up, thirty feet above the surging river, he stopped and pressed against the stone column, breathing quickly and shallowly. He could hear the thump of his heart above the rain and the thunder, and he wondered if the SS men overhead could also hear it. His toes were wedged onto a two-inch cleft in the pier. Above him, his bloodied fingers were curled over a concrete lip only half as wide as the one below. He did not see how he could regain his strength when all his resources were required to maintain his present position.

He looked down at Maurice, Beame, Nathalie, and Lily.

That was a mistake, even though he thought he could see Lily's nipples from clear up here. Dizziness enveloped him. The shimmering water, the white upturned faces, and the three stories of stone pillar falling away under him made him ill.

He thought of the brass bed at the rectory. Lily Kain. Putting it to her on a big brass bed…

He pulled himself up, scrabbled for a new handhold, held on, went on.

Ten minutes later, he reached the top of the pier upon which the steel support beams were set. There was just enough room to pull himself up and in, off the sheer face. He still had to hold onto a girder, but the eight-foot-wide pillar provided a welcome resting place.

When he regained his breath, he fumbled in his coat pocket and found the ball of thin, strong nylon string which he had picked up from the supplies in the convent. He held onto the free end and threw the ball over the edge, let it unwind as it fell away into darkness, dropped down and down and down to the river and to Beame.

A minute passed, then another. Finally, Beame tugged three times on the other end of the cord.

For a moment, Major Kelly wondered if all of this was actually worth the effort. Even if they placed the explosives and got away from the damned bridge without being seen, would they be any closer to ultimate safety? Would this dangerous enterprise bring them one day closer to the end of the war and the end of violence? What about Slade running around loose in the camp? What about Hagendorf, now drunk and unconscious but maybe sober and screaming ten minutes from now? What about all the other men and all their neuroses that might at any minute trigger a situation that could ruin the hoax?

Lily Kain.

Hard nipples.

Brass beds.

Baby, I don't love you at all.

He reeled in the line and dragged two packages of dynamite over the edge of the pillar. He untied those from the cord and tucked them against his belly, dropped the nylon again.

Two minutes later, the tug was repeated. Kelly reeled in the last two packages and then began to place all four of them around the steel bridge supports.

Ten minutes passed in unbearable inactivity. The rain dripped through the floorboards of the bridge and found Kelly. It dribbled in his face no matter how often he eased himself into a new position. Every two minutes a pair of booted feet stomped past, inches from his head, right on the other side of those boards.

Where in the hell were Tooley and Angelli? How long did they need to finish the job on the farside pier and walk back with the spool of wire? Were Angelli and Pullit wasting time over there — necking, smooching…? Or had they all been caught? Had everyone down there been apprehended? Was he waiting up here for people who had already been dragged off by SS guards?

Numerous paranoid fantasies raged through his mind, and he knew he had never been this lonely before in his life.

It was terribly dark and muggy up here. The rain striking the bridge floor inches away was no longer a reassuring cover-up for his own noises. It was a maddeningly relentless booming that would eventually deafen him. Muggy and cold… It should not be muggy and cold at the same time, should it? But it was. He was sweating and freezing all at once. He was—

Beame tugged at the other end of the cord.

Stiff and sore from lying in the narrow space between the bridge floor and the pier roof, the major cursed under his breath as he reeled in the line and fought the fiery ache in his shoulders and upper arms.

The end of the nylon cord was tied to the copper detonator wire. Kelly took the spool, which fed back to the explosives on the farside pier, and he began the tedious, tricky chore of wiring the detonators here without breaking the continuity of the line. The wire was wet and cold and slipped through his hands, but it did what he demanded of it.

Ten minutes later, fingers sliced even more than they had been, he was finished. The plastic packets had been holed only enough to allow him to attach the blowing caps, and now the copper wire was twisted tightly to the tiny initiators.

Kelly tossed the spool over the side and hoped Beame would see it coming. Then he started down to join the others.

The pillar was slippery, the concrete greased by the rain. Kelly lost his hold, almost fell, grabbed desperately for protruding stones, held on. But when he moved again, his shoes slipped off the ledges he had found for them. Over and over again, he lost half of his balance, teetering on the brink. When he was twenty feet down, with twenty more to go, his hands and feet slipped at the same moment, leaving him helpless. He fell.

He struck the water with an horrendous crash and went under. Water flowed in his mouth and nostrils, filling him up. Darkness pressed close. He could not tell for sure which way was up. He flailed, could not find air, tried to snort out the water he had swallowed, and succeeded only in swallowing more.

Then someone grabbed him and rolled him onto his back, put an arm under his chin in the familiar lifesaving hold. In a moment, he was safe again, on his feet against the pillar.

“Okay?” Lily whispered. It was she who had rescued him. She had lost her halter in the attempt. Her large, perfect breasts jutted up and out at him, all wet and shiny. The nipples were larger than he had ever seen them.

He spat out some water. “Okay,” he whispered back. He looked up at the bridge, and looked questioningly at her.

She came closer. Her jugs squashed against his chest as she leaned over and whispered in his ear. “You didn't yell. They heard nothing.”

“I don't love you,” he whispered.

“Same here.”

“Not at all,” he said.

“Not the least little bit,” she said.

They smiled at each other.

8

Because he was the slimmest, darkest, and quickest man among them, Vito Angelli was given the job of taking the spool of wire and the T-plunger up the sloped ravine wall to the rear of the village store, which was the nearest cover he would find up there.

Major Kelly sent all the others out into the river, then drew the private close and risked a whisper. “Remember, there are two krauts guarding the eastern bridge approach. When you go over the crest, you'll be passing within ten feet of them.”

Angelli nodded his head vigorously. He was drenched and shivering, and he looked like the classic drowned rat. He was badly frightened.

“If they see you and challenge you, don't play hero. Drop everything and run. To hell with blowing up the bridge. If you're seen, it won't matter any longer.”

Angelli nodded his head. He understood. Or he had palsy.

“You see the T-plunger?” Kelly asked, pointing to the device where it stood on the shore.

“Yeah,” Vito said, teeth chattering.

“Here's the wire.” Kelly gave him the spool. “Make sure you hold it like this, so it continues to pay out. If you hold it wrong, it'll be jerked out of your hand, or you'll be tripped up.”

Vito nodded and started for shore. Then he turned and came back, leaned close to the major. “If I buy the farm… tell Nurse Pullit my last thoughts were about her.”

Kelly did not know what to say.

“Will you tell her, sir?”

“Vito—”

“Promise, Major.”

Overhead, one of the SS guards laughed heartily at a Kamerad's Joke, and jackboots thumped on the board floor.

Looking into Angelli's dark eyes, the major suddenly realized that the private's affair with Nurse Pullit was his method of hanging on. Kelly had his cheap philosophy, and Angelli had Nurse Pullit. One was no worse, no crazier than the other.

“I'll tell her,” Kelly said.

“Thank you, sir.”

Angelli went ashore. He picked up the T-plunger and started up the slope, sliding sideways in the mud.

Still shocked by his insight into Angelli's condition, Kelly turned away from the shore and the bridge and waded out into the river where the others waited. The men were so fascinated with Lily's bare, wet jugs that they did not even see him until he thumped each one on the shoulder. He lead them south again, the way they had come.

They had no time to waste. If Vito made it, then there was no use watching him go. If he failed, they would not be able to help him, and they would become targets themselves.

Lightning speared the earth and glazed the surface of the river and made them stand out like ink spots on a clean sheet of typewriter paper. Each of them waited for the chatter of guns, the bite of a bullet in the back…

Major Kelly thought of brass beds.

9

Six men and three nuns struggled out of the ravine at the same place where they had gone down nearly two hours ago. They were wet and muddy and worn out.

Major Kelly led them northward along the ravine crest until they came back to the hospital bunker. The others went down the steps and slipped inside when Liverwright opened the door to them. The major continued north toward the rear of the village store.

Angelli was waiting there. He had made it.

“Never mind giving my last words to Nurse Pullit,” he whispered happily. “I'll tell her myself.”

“Yeah,” Kelly said. “Now let's get the job done.”