“What's that got to do with drinking too much?” Kelly asked.
“You'd drink yourself to death, too, if your philosophy of life was suddenly proven wrong.”
“No. I'd find something else to believe in.”
Hagendorf shuddered. “That's chaos. What do you believe, by the way?”
“That this is all a fairy tale, grand in color but modest in design. You and I are figments of some Aesop's imagination.”
“That's the worst philosophy I've ever heard.” He clutched his wine bottle in both hands. “It's illogical. A good philosophy must be based on logical precepts, on valid proofs. How can you prove we're figments of a cosmic imagination?”
“I don't have time to argue with you, Emil,” Kelly said, his voice rising on each word, until there was a hysteria in it which matched Hagendorf's hysteria. “The Panzers are coming! We have a whole village to build in just six days!” Red-faced, trembling, he unrolled a tube of onionskin paper and flattened it on the table, used a pair of metal ashtrays to hold down the ends. “I have a job for you, Emil.”
“Job?” Hagendorf looked skeptically at the paper.
Briefly, Kelly explained how they were going to hoax the Germans with the fake town. He tapped the paper. “I've done a preliminary blueprint of the town we'll build. You'll mark off the streets and lots.”
Hagendorf blanched. “You can't ask that of me!” His face was soft, soggy, pale as a fish belly. “Surveying again — I'll get a taste of how it used to be. I'll crack up!”
“I've been fair, Emil. You haven't had to work in weeks. Beame and I have done the bridge surveying, but that's simple stuff. I need you for this.” He pointed at the wine. “And no drinking until you're finished with the job.”
“You're killing me.” Hagendorf came over and looked at the plans.
“We already have the road that comes from the east and crosses the bridge.” Kelly traced this with his finger. “We're going to need two more streets paralleling that road — here and here. Then we need two crossing streets that go north-south. Finally, I want a sort of service road running all around the village, at the edge of the woods.”
“This is going to take a lot of time,” Hagendorf said.
“You have today,” Kelly said.
“Impossible!”
“Hagendorf, we have six days. Only six days! Every minute I waste arguing with you, the Panzers get closer. You understand me?”
“Can't do it without wine,” Hagendorf said, finishing his wine.
“You have to. I don't want this marked out by a drunk. You've become a real wino, Emil. You don't know when to stop.”
“Untrue! I've cut back. I've only had one bottle so far today.”
“Jesus, Emil, it's only an hour since dawn. You call that 'cutting back,' do you?”
“You're going to destroy me,” Hagendorf said. His round shoulders slumped more than usual, and he appeared to age before Kelly's eyes.
“Nonsense,” Kelly said. “Now, move! Let's get down to the machinery shed. Your men are waiting. We've dusted off your theodolite and other tools. Hurry, Hagendorf! Six days will be gone before you know it.”
“My theodolite,” Hagendorf said, dreamily. His mind spiraled back to more pleasant times when the world could be measured and known. Abruptly, he dropped his wine bottle and started to cry. “You really are destroying me, sir. I warn you! I warn you!”
Fifteen minutes later, as Kelly stood by the shed watching Hagendorf stagger away with his assistants, Private Vito Angelli — the Angel from Los Angeles as Pullit had begun to call him — came along with his French work crew. They all jabbered at once, laughed, and gesticulated furiously, as if they were on stage and required to exaggerate each gesture to communicate with the people in the back rows. Angelli stopped them at an enormous bomb crater north of the machinery shed.
Kelly hurried over and clapped Angelli on the shoulder. “Going okay?”
Angelli was thin, dark, all stringy muscles, intense eyes, and white teeth. “We've filled in all the other craters below the bridge road.”
Angelli could not speak French, and none of the workers could speak Italian or English. Therefore, Angelli used a lot of gestures and smiled a great deal, and said, “Eh? Eh?” When dealing with his relatives who had come to the States from the old country and who often spoke a different dialect of Italian than he did, he had learned the best way to be understood was to punctuate everything with numerous ehs. It never failed. No matter what you said, if you framed it with a couple of ehs you could topple any language barrier.
Angelli turned to the workers, clapped his hands. “One more hole to fill, eh? Eh? Quick job, eh? But big job gets done pòco a pòco, eh?”
The Frenchmen laughed and went to work. They all had shovels, and they energetically attacked the ring of blast-thrown soil, scooping it back into the crater from which it had come.
“Faster!” Kelly said. They seemed to be working in slow motion. “Angelli, tell them to shovel faster. We've got only six days!”
“But they are shoveling fast,” Angelli said.
“Faster, faster, faster!” Kelly demanded. When Angelli gave the order and the Frenchmen complied, the major said, “You've got excellent rapport here. If all the men could work with the French as well as you do, we might come close to building the town before the Germans get here.”
Angelli grinned. “Then you think we'll do it, sir?”
“Never,” Kelly said. “I said we'd come closer to doing it if we had your rapport with these people.”
“Do not be so negative, bon ami.” Maurice appeared out of nowhere at Kelly's elbow. “The work goes well. You will have a new bridge tonight, with my people helping. Your chief surveyor has begun to mark off the streets and lots. My wonderful people have cleared away random brush and have filled in the bomb craters. We've come so far in so few hours!”
Kelly looked at the bundle of papers Maurice was carrying. Ignoring The Frog's optimism, he said, “Those the forms?”
“Ready for signatures,” Maurice said, handing them over.
Reluctantly, Kelly took them. “The men won't like this.”
“Oh, but they will!” Maurice said. “They are sure to see what a real bargain I am giving them. Americans love bargains.”
Private Angelli looked warily at the forms. “Why won't we like those? What are they?”
“Credit contracts,” Maurice said. “Nothing sinister.”
Angelli was perplexed. “Credit contracts?” he asked, squinting at the bundle.
“One for each man in the unit,” Maurice said. He thumped the middle of his checkered shirt. “Made out by hand, written by me or members of my immediate family, very official.”
“Credit contracts?” Angelli repeated.
“Let me explain,” Kelly said, wearily.
3
Sergeant Coombs was operating the small cargo shuttler when Major Kelly found him. He had been trundling the more compact construction materials from the storage dump by the runway to the men at the bridge, and though it was now well past noon, he had not taken a single rest break. He was sweaty and dirty. His back ached, his arms ached, and his knuckles were skinned and sore. He had stoved his left thumb but had kept on working while it swelled to half again its normal size. He was in no mood for Major Kelly. Only his great respect for the rules and regulations regarding the responsibilities of rank kept him from being completely uncooperative.