Hanging on

“We don't have to worry about Allied bombers today,” Rotenhausen said.

As he spoke, his aide ran up onto the porch. The man took a folded slicker from under his own raincoat, shook it out, and held it up for his chief. The general slipped his arms into the plastic sleeves and buttoned up, turned his collar high. He flipped his pipe upside down and tapped it against the door frame. Ashes fell on the wet porch floor.

“Good luck at the front, sir,” Major Kelly said.

“Thank you, Father. You have been most gracious.”

“Not at all.” Which was true.

Rotenhausen smiled, nodded, and turned away. He and his aide went down the steps and east along the bridge road to the first tank in the long convoy.

The rain continued to fall.

A flash of lightning made shadows jump across the veranda floor.

The first tank, Rotenhausen's tank, lurched into the middle of the road, tracks churning up mud and gravel, and started toward the bridge two and a half blocks away.

Still, no alarm had been raised at the west end. Bobo Remlock had not yet arrived. Maybe the Panzers would all get across before Old Blood and Guts made the far side.

Kelly left the front door. He hurried through the deserted house, passed through the kitchen and out onto the rear lawn.

The cold rain hit him again, but he hardly noticed. He was too worried about getting his head blown off to be concerned also about catching a cold. His baggy trousers were sopping wet and hung on him like a pair of old- fashioned beach pantaloons for men.

He passed through the hidden gate in the fence, and ran between two fake houses in which his men huddled fearfully. He crossed B Street, ran the length of the cemetery, and crossed A Street to the rear of the village store.

Lieutenant Beame was watching for him and threw down a rope from the store roof. Kelly took hold of the rope, tested it, then climbed the fifteen feet of vertical wall to join the lieutenant in his observation post.

Beame was not alone, though he should have been. Lily was there, too, braless beneath her habit. Pullit and Nathalie were behind Lily. Maurice was there, watching over his daughter, and Angelli was watching over Pullit. Danny Dew was sitting by the T-plunger with a rifle over his knees.

“We couldn't let you face this alone,” Angelli said.

“Of course not,” Kelly said.

“We had to share the danger with you.”

“What else?” Kelly asked. “Just keep down. Don't stand up, or someone on the street will see you.”

“No sign of Old Blood and Guts,” Beame said when Kelly knelt beside him.

The village store was the best observation post for the coming showdown. It was the only structure in St. Ignatius with a flat roof — not because French country shops had flat roofs, but because they had simply run out of the necessary beams and shingles and had been unable to give the place anything but a flat roof. Furthermore, the store faced the bridge road, where all the action, if there were any, would transpire; and it was close enough to the bridge to allow them to establish the detonator here.

Beside Beame, next to Danny Dew, the heavy T-plunger stood on the wet wood, waiting for its crossbar to be stroked down and the dynamite touched off beneath the nine-hundred-foot span.

And now they were prepared to do just that.

Kelly turned to Maurice. “You shouldn't be up here. You should be on the other side, waiting for Remlock.”

Maurice hesitated, looked at Nathalie, then at Beame. “You will see that they are kept apart?”

“Yes, yes,” Kelly said, impatiently.

“Very well.” Maurice went down the rope ladder and disappeared.

Kelly wiped a hand over his face and looked east along the bridge road. Rotenhausen's convoy was pouring into the far end of the town. Already, the first Panzer was halfway past the convent, less than a block from then: position and little more than a block from the bridge. Behind the first Panzer was another, and another — then two long-barreled Jagdpanthers, two heavily armored cars with 75 mm cannons, then a motorcycle with sidecar which was darting in and out of the convoy, working its way to the front where it belonged. Rotenhausen was starting slowly, but he would reach the bridge in less than two minutes.

Kelly saw that they would have to blow the span even if Bobo Remlock did not show up. If they took a chance and let Rotenhausen start across, and if Remlock showed up when some of the German tanks were already on the other side, there would be no way to avoid a battle that would level St. Ignatius — and kill everyone who pretended to live there.

He stooped low on the roof, trying not to be seen, and he placed both hands on the T-plunger.

“Already?” Lily asked.

He nodded.

“Just a minute, then.” She took a rifle from beneath her voluminous habit. “I thought we all ought to be armed, if it comes down to that.”

“You're going to fight tanks with rifles?” Kelly asked.

“Better than fighting them with rocks,” she said.

“I guess so.”

“I don't love you, Kelly.”

He kissed her, quickly. “I don't love you.”

To the east, the advance motorcycle escort weaved around the two leading tanks and shot out in front of the convoy with a loud growl. As Rotenhausen's Panzer churned by the last of the churchyard toward the A Street intersection, the motorcycle flashed past Kelly and the others, went over the bridge approach, and accelerated toward the west bank.

Over there, six German soldiers armed with automatic rifles stood guard over the farside approach. The cycle with its two Wehrmacht soldiers sped out of the bridge and blurred past them, roared toward the bend in the road — and braked suddenly when the first of General Bobo Remlock's tanks, a British Cromwell, hove into view, cruising at top speed.

“Here we go!” Danny Dew said, lying flat on his stomach and bringing his rifle up where he could use it.

Rotenhausen's Panzer, the first in the German convoy, was through the A-Street intersection and on the approach to the bridge when the general saw the enemy tank. The Panzer bit into the cracked macadam and held on, chugging to a stop at the brink of the bridge, at the corner of the village store. Looking over the edge of the roof, Kelly and the others could see the top of Adolph Rotenhausen's head just four feet below.

The rest of the German convoy slowed and stopped.

Even while Rotenhausen's tank was jerking to a standstill, Kelly looked westward again. Only a few seconds had passed since the cycle had taken the lead in the German line and zoomed across the bridge, though Kelly could have sworn it was more like two or three hours. Over there, the motorcycle was still bearing down on the cruising Cromwell and trying to come to a full stop on the wet pavement. Abruptly, the front wheel came up. The cycle rose like a dancing bear, then toppled onto its side. The monstrous, British-made tank slowed a bit, though not much, and ran right over the screaming Wehrmacht cyclists, grinding them into the mud.

Nathalie cried out.

“Sadistic bastard,” Lily hissed, staring at the Cromwell as if she could vaporize it with a look of pure hatred.

“One guess who's commanding the Cromwell,” Beame said.

“Old Blood and Guts,” Kelly said.

“Yeah. Big Tex.”

“The Last of the Two-Fisted Cowboys.”

“The Big Ball of Barbed Wire himself.”

“The Latter-Day Sam Houston,” Kelly said.

“Yeah. The Fighting General.”

“Old Shit for Brains,” Kelly said. “No doubt about it.” He could not understand how he could go on like this with Beame. He had never been so terrified in his life. And he had a great many other terrors to stack this one up