Hanging on

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…