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.
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.
