Hanging on

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

The Schutze 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