Hanging on

Major Kelly sent all the others out into the river, then drew the private close and risked a whisper. “Remember, there are two krauts guarding the eastern bridge approach. When you go over the crest, you'll be passing within ten feet of them.”

Angelli nodded his head vigorously. He was drenched and shivering, and he looked like the classic drowned rat. He was badly frightened.

“If they see you and challenge you, don't play hero. Drop everything and run. To hell with blowing up the bridge. If you're seen, it won't matter any longer.”

Angelli nodded his head. He understood. Or he had palsy.

“You see the T-plunger?” Kelly asked, pointing to the device where it stood on the shore.

“Yeah,” Vito said, teeth chattering.

“Here's the wire.” Kelly gave him the spool. “Make sure you hold it like this, so it continues to pay out. If you hold it wrong, it'll be jerked out of your hand, or you'll be tripped up.”

Vito nodded and started for shore. Then he turned and came back, leaned close to the major. “If I buy the farm… tell Nurse Pullit my last thoughts were about her.”

Kelly did not know what to say.

“Will you tell her, sir?”

“Vito—”

“Promise, Major.”

Overhead, one of the SS guards laughed heartily at a Kamerad's Joke, and jackboots thumped on the board floor.

Looking into Angelli's dark eyes, the major suddenly realized that the private's affair with Nurse Pullit was his method of hanging on. Kelly had his cheap philosophy, and Angelli had Nurse Pullit. One was no worse, no crazier than the other.

“I'll tell her,” Kelly said.

“Thank you, sir.”

Angelli went ashore. He picked up the T-plunger and started up the slope, sliding sideways in the mud.

Still shocked by his insight into Angelli's condition, Kelly turned away from the shore and the bridge and waded out into the river where the others waited. The men were so fascinated with Lily's bare, wet jugs that they did not even see him until he thumped each one on the shoulder. He lead them south again, the way they had come.

They had no time to waste. If Vito made it, then there was no use watching him go. If he failed, they would not be able to help him, and they would become targets themselves.

Lightning speared the earth and glazed the surface of the river and made them stand out like ink spots on a clean sheet of typewriter paper. Each of them waited for the chatter of guns, the bite of a bullet in the back…

Major Kelly thought of brass beds.

9

Six men and three nuns struggled out of the ravine at the same place where they had gone down nearly two hours ago. They were wet and muddy and worn out.

Major Kelly led them northward along the ravine crest until they came back to the hospital bunker. The others went down the steps and slipped inside when Liverwright opened the door to them. The major continued north toward the rear of the village store.

Angelli was waiting there. He had made it.

“Never mind giving my last words to Nurse Pullit,” he whispered happily. “I'll tell her myself.”

“Yeah,” Kelly said. “Now let's get the job done.”

PART FIVE Hanging On Dawn — Dusk July 22,1944

1

Dawn tinted the horizon even as Major Kelly and Vito Angelli were tying up the loose ends of the operation. And on his way back to the rectory, the major was forced to lie low while a Wehrmacht squad marched up and down St. Ignatius changing the sentries at the intersections. By the time he reached the churchyard, Kelly knew it was too light for him to return to his room by way of the rose lattice and the rear window. Even if Rotenhausen and Beckmann were not up yet — and they surely were — the chances of some guard on a nearby street spotting him on his climb to the porch roof were too great to be ignored.

The bold approach was called for.

Nearly half an hour after dawn, he entered the back of the church. He hurried through the sacristy, up onto the altar platform, down into the auditorium, and out the front door. He winced as the rain struck him anew. He paused only a second at the top of the church steps, then went down to the street.

The Wehrmacht sentry on duty at B Street and the bridge road was wearing a green rain slicker and a disgusted look. He hunched his shoulders against the rain and paraded back and forth, putting as little into the duty as he could. He gave Kelly a brief smile but did not stop him, for he had just been posted and did not know that the priest had never passed from the rectory to the church.

Kelly went up the porch steps, crossed the porch, went through the front door with the rain still stinging his back. In the rectory foyer, rivulets of water streamed from him onto the floorboards.

General Adolph Rotenhausen was just then coming down the steps from the second floor, tamping tobacco into his pipe. “Father Picard! Where have you been at this hour, in this terrible weather?”

“At the church, General,” Kelly said.

“Oh, of course,” Rotenhausen said. “I suppose you have to get ready for Mass each morning.”

“For what?” Kelly asked.

“Mass, of course,” Rotenhausen said.

Before Kelly could respond, the general's aides appeared at the top of the steps with the officer's belongings, which they brought down and took outside into the morning rain.

Rotenhausen came to the open door, looked across the porch at the raindrops bouncing on the street. “Miserable day for travel.” He looked at his watch. “But Standarten-fuhrer Beckmann was out there an hour ago… Sometimes, I think those madmen deserve the world.” He glanced at Kelly and, for the first time, saw how wet the priest was. “You couldn't be so drenched just from crossing the street, Father!”

“Uh… I went for a walk,” Kelly said.

“In the rain?”

“Rain is God's creation,” Kelly improvised. “It is refreshing.”

Rotenhausen looked at Kelly's dripping suit, shook his head. He turned and continued to watch the rain slash in sheets across the bridge road.

Also watching the storm, Kelly thought of Lily's wet breasts. For a moment, he was warm and happy… and then he realized he could not afford to love her. He had almost made a drastic mistake.

Rotenhausen puffed on his pipe.

Thunder rolled across the sky. Behind the steady drumming of the rain was the dinosaurian roar of Panzer engines as the convoy prepared to pull out.