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.
Baby, I don't love you at all.
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.
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…