Hanging on

Slade unbuckled his trousers, and took his potato-sack mask out of his undershorts. He had kept it there ever since he had fashioned it eight days ago. He had developed a rather severe rash on his testicles and stomach from continuous abrasive contact with the burlap, but he did not care. All that mattered was that no one had yet seen the mask — and no one would see it in connection with Lieutenant Richard Slade. Only Kelly would see it and know who was behind it. Then the bastard would die.

Now was the time.

Slade pulled the scratchy mask over his head. He buckled his trousers and took the heavy black revolver from his pocket. His hands trembled. To steady his nerves, he opened his mouth and sucked in a deep breath. He nearly choked on a mouthful of burlap. He spat it out, coughed, sneezed, and began to wonder if this was really a good idea.

But, yes, it was essential that he go through with it. If the unit was to organize and fight the Germans, that organization had to begin right away. There was no time for equivocation; Major Kelly must die. Slade must blow his head off and assume command. Tonight.

Now was the time.

He started for the eastern edge of the camp where he could follow the trees southward until he was behind Kelly's tent.

But he kept bumping into things. In less than ten steps, he bumped into a lumber pile. He recoiled from that only to bump into the blade of the D-7 dozer a moment later. Ten feet beyond the dozer, he walked into the collapsible loading crane and gave himself a knot on the forehead. Trying to be more careful, he walked with his hands out in front of him like a blind man feeling his way — and he fell into the seven-foot-deep main bunker from which the roof had been stripped two days ago. Work on the fake structure which would stand on the bunker had been postponed in favor of other projects, but in his blood lust Slade had forgotten about that. It was almost as if he were trying to walk into things. He wasn't trying to walk into things, of course. It was just damned difficult to see where he was going in the dark with a burlap bag over his head.

Getting painfully to his feet, surprised that he had broken no bones, he stuck his revolver in his pocket, and pulled himself out of the abandoned bunker. His shoulder ached; his head ached; he had twisted his ankle. Yet he would not give up. Outside again, on his hands and knees, he tugged the mask into place and looked around.

The tent site was silent. He could not recall if he had cried out when the ground dropped from under him. But even if he had, he had apparently not been loud enough to wake any of the men. Good. Now was the time.

Once more, he hobbled toward the eastern arm of the forest.

Petey Danielson was in the dream, sitting in a mystic, cross-legged pose, his glistening intestines spilled all over his lap. He dug his hands into them, trying to stuff his guts back into his torso…

Finally, Kelly woke, gagging, sweaty, his hands fisted. In a few minutes, when he retained only a vague impression of the nightmare, he became aware of a pressure in his bladder. Because he felt as if Danielson's spirit were lingering within the tent, he decided fresh air and a good piss were exactly what he needed. He got up and went outside.

The best way to get around while wearing a burlap bag over your head, Slade discovered, was to crawl on your hands and knees. He had learned this valuable lesson after walking into three trees. By the time he reached the corner of the clearing where the southern and eastern arms of the forest met, he was shuffling along quite nicely on all fours, making good time.

Slade figured he was wearing holes in his trousers, but he did not care. He cared only about blood. Kelly's blood.

In five minutes, he stopped directly behind Kelly's tent, his back to the woods. He knelt there, surveyed the camp, found it as quiet and still as it had been when he started his journey. A thrill of murderous anticipation coursed through him.

Now was the time.

He got to his feet, and as he did he heard movement behind him in the trees. Before he was fully erect and could turn to face the danger, Major Kelly collided with him, and they both fell down. Hard.

Falling, Kelly was surprised to see, by the weak light of the moon, that he had walked into a man wearing a potato sack over his head.

The man in the sack was so surprised he screamed.

“What the hell—” Kelly got shakily to his feet.

When he fell, the man in the bag had been trapped between Kelly and the trees. Now, he pushed up, whirled away from Kelly, and ran. He crashed headlong into a baby oak, staggered backwards, stunned by the collision.

“Hey!” Kelly said, his balance regained.

The man in the bag recoiled from the sound of the major's voice and plunged deeper into the woods. Flailing at the bushes on all sides, he tripped on a tangle of vines and fell into a cluster of milkweed plants.

“You there!” Kelly shouted.

Stumbling to his feet, slapping at his own face as if he were angry with himself, the man started to run again. He got five feet before he took a low hanging pine branch across the neck and very nearly killed himself.

“I don't understand,” Kelly said.

Coughing horribly, the man in the bag pushed past the offending tree. In a few steps, he hit a thrusting outcropping of waterworn limestone and went head over heels down a small hill, out of sight.

Major Kelly stood there for several minutes, listening to the man smash and batter his way with brutal and self-destructive force farther into the barely yielding forest. Eventually, the noises grew faint, fainter still, and faded away altogether.

Confused, Kelly returned to his tent and stretched out on his sleeping bag. But he could not sleep now.

The Germans were drawing nearer by the minute, and already there were too many of his men with severe neuroses that required him to waste precious time away from the construction of the fake village. There was Angelli mooning after Nurse Pullit, and Beame daydreaming about a girl he could not have, and Hagendorf drunk and unpredictable… and now there was this striking new direction which Lieutenant Slade's madness had taken, this running around in the middle of the night wearing an old potato sack over his head… He had known, watching the man in the bag nearly kill himself in the woods, that it was Slade. But knowing did not help. He still could not explain this new streak in the lieutenant's psychosis. All it could mean was more trouble.

And they already had more trouble than they could handle.

9

Major Kelly spent all morning running from one end of the clearing to the other, checking up on the work crews and solving construction problems with a rapidity and cleverness he had never known he possessed. Nothing could stump him. It was exhilarating — and it was killing him.

Half the engineering problems should have gone to Beame, but the lieutenant was not functioning at his best level. He probably would not be all right again until he found a way to bypass Maurice and get to Nathalie. The girl really was a gorgeous little piece, Kelly thought. But how could Beame let her good looks get between him and the job at hand? Didn't he realize that death was staring them in the face and preparing to bite their heads off?

Most everyone else realized this. With the midnight deadline swiftly approaching, the other men worked harder and faster than they had ever worked in their lives. The camp, the slowly fleshing skeleton of the fake village, hummed with fear and dread. The brutal sun cut through the clouds and made the earth sizzle, but not even that could burn away the cold sweat on the backs of their necks. Beame was about the only goldbricker today.

Besides Angelli, of course. Vito was supposed to be working on the crisis that had arisen with the village school. The two-story building, which was framed completely and walled on three sides, had begun to sway slightly in the wind and threatened to collapse now that it was nearly done. Angelli should have been exploring the beams in the school roof — which only he could do quickly and surely — and should have been directing his workers toward the trouble spots he found. Instead, Angelli was up at the hospital bunker romancing