respect and fear in the men he questioned, insuring their cooperation. Also, he wore his uniform because it gave him an excuse to wear a hat which covered the worst of his widening bald spots and prevented the interrogation subjects from laughing at him and making cruel jokes. The only trouble was that he perspired heavily, leaving the uniform wrinkled and streaked with sweat. And he had twice cut himself while toying with the dagger.
“Next!” Kelly called.
Lieutenant Slade opened the door and escorted the next man inside: Danny Dew, who had just taken a break from his D-7 work in the gorge. Danny sat on the hot seat, leaned back, clasped his hands behind his head and smiled. “What's the hubbub?” he asked, flashing white-white teeth.
“Wipe that smile off your face, soldier,” Major Kelly said.
But he was no good at discipline, and he knew Danny Dew too well to throw the least bit of fear into him. Danny Dew looked sideways at Slade and grinned, as if they all shared some private joke.
“That's better,” Major Kelly said, refusing to acknowledge that the smile was still there. He leaned forward on the table, pointing the dagger at Danny Dew. “Corporal Dew, have you any idea why we're questioning every man in this unit?”
Danny grinned at him. “No, Massah Kelly.”
“Because,” Major Kelly said, “there is a traitor among us, and we are going to find out who he is before he has another opportunity to report us to the German Air Force or to — any other German force.”
“Wonderful, wonderful!” Danny Dew said.
Kelly nodded. “I will tell you what I've told every man so far, Dew: I want to trust you, but I can't. For all our sakes, I've got to assume that you could be the kraut agent. There's no way I can actually find out for sure, short of torturing you, and that is impractical. Therefore, I want to say this, Dew: if you are a kraut agent, and if you don't tell me now and let me find out on my own, later, I will have you executed without trial.”
Dew smiled. “Ain't nothin' in my ole head, Massah Kelly.”
“Christ,” Kelly said. “If you insist on doing that bit, can't you at least get it right? Not 'head'—'haid'!”
“Ain't nothin' in my ole haid, Massah Kelly!”
Kelly toyed with his dagger awhile. “Execution without trial,” he said again. “But that isn't all, Dew. Before I have you killed, I'll assign you to the radio room where you will be tied to a chair and forced to listen to every one of General Blade's calls.”
Danny Dew stopped smiling.
“Furthermore,” Major Kelly said, warming to the routine again, “I will order the shortwave channels kept open at periodic intervals so that you will have to listen to other transmissions of other officers like General Blade, wherever and whenever we can locate them.”
Danny Dew looked distinctly ill. He had taken his hands from behind his head and clasped them between his knees. He was hunched forward as if he were going to be sick on the floor.
“And when you're screamingly insane, then we'll kill you.” Kelly waved the dagger to emphasize the point. “Now, are you the damned traitor, the kraut informer?”
“No, sir!” Dew said.
Kelly smiled. He softened his tone of voice and tried to look sincere. “Actually, I wouldn't turn you in, even if I learned you were a traitor. You understand that? I wouldn't interfere with your work. It's just that I want to know, you see. I'd promise not to get in the way of your traitoring, so long as you stopped trying to fool me. Do you get my meaning?”
“Yes, sir. But I'm not the traitor.”
Kelly sighed. “Dismissed.”
Shaken, wondering if he were still under suspicion, Danny Dew got up and left the interrogation room.
Lieutenant Slade brought in the next man, who wasn't a man at all. It was Lily Kain. She was wearing a skimpy, sequined dancer's costume out of which her jugs might pop at any moment. She sashayed across the interrogation room and sat down in the chair in front of Major Kelly, crossed her gorgeous legs, and folded her hands in her lap. She grinned at Kelly and licked her lips and winked.
“First,” Kelly said, “you've got to understand that this is serious business, Miss Kain!” To forcefully underline this statement, the major raised the dagger and, as he finished the sentence, drove the wicked point of it into the top of his plank table-desk. He also drove the point of it through the edge of his left hand. “That's okay,” he said. He smiled at Lily and Slade to let them see how okay it was. “This is all a fairy tale anyway, a figment of some Aesop's imagination. None of it is real.” However, the blood was real enough.
8
When General Blade called at nine o'clock that night, he listened to Kelly's report on the B-17 attack, then got right to the bad news. “The German high command has ordered those Panzers and all attendant companies westward. According to our sources, Kelly, they'll be coming your way.”
Although he had been expecting this for days, Kelly was speechless. His hands shook. He felt cold and weary. “When, sir?”
“They'll be moving out from a staging area near Stuttgart the day after tomorrow, taking as direct a land route as possible. Twice they'll leave the regular highways for shorter secondary roads that will take them through the back country where Allied reconnaissance won't be likely to spot them. That's maybe a-hundred-eighty miles from your position, as the crow flies — two hundred and sixty miles by road. Considering the size of this deployment, they'll be lucky to make your camp in four or five days. So you'll have guests in about a week, Kelly.”
The major brushed nervously at his face. “How many guests, sir?”
“Not easy to say,” Blade said. “According to our sources inside Germany, this isn't a neat division. It's an amalgam of broken Panzer brigades that escaped the disaster in Russia — and some of the new tanks fresh from Hitler's underground factories near Munchen. There will also be a detail of SS overseers to watch that the
“Ninety!”
Blade went on as if he had not heard. “Approximately fifteen armored cars, ten self-propelled howitzers, four Jagd-panthers — that's the tank-hunting tank the krauts have — nine heavy-transport trucks carrying well-anchored 88-mm ack-ack guns to provide defense against air attack on the convoy. Then there are two big flatbed transports with high-range aerial searchlights to pick out targets for the 88s, forty-odd trucks carrying fifteen hundred infantrymen to secure what objectives the Panzers overwhelm, and an undisclosed number of motorcycle escorts and message men.”
“Has anyone there estimated the length of time they'll need to get across the bridge, sir? It's a narrow bridge, awfully narrow.”
“Twelve hours,” Blade said. “Or more.”
Kelly swallowed hard. “Maybe we could tear down this bridge and build a wider one before they get here. We could do it if you'd get us the materials—”
“Wouldn't do much good,” Blade said. “That convoy isn't going to drive straight through. They'll need a rest about the time they get to you. Even if the bridge were wider, they'd stay overnight.”
“Why don't we bomb the convoy, sir?” Major Kelly asked.
“It would be a high-risk proposition,” Blade said, “taking a squadron of bombers that far behind enemy lines to hit a well-guarded convoy.”
“Yes, but—”
“Command already decided to let them come ahead until they're in our territory where we have the advantage. We can take them out much easier and with fewer field casualties if they're closer to the front. Since your bridge was bombed this morning, I guess Command also decided to slow them down until a good defense can be readied. Otherwise, I can't tell you much.”
“How far behind the lines are we?” Kelly asked.
“Only one hundred and sixty-two miles, Kelly!”
“I don't suppose there's any chance that the front will have moved this far by the time the Panzers get
