“With Germans?” Lily asked.
“I've heard that, too,” Angelli said. “Hell, Eisenhower's investigative staff brought charges against two high-ranking officers while we were in Britain. But what does this sort of thing have to do with us?” He fondled the French girl's breast, and she giggled.
“Plenty,” Kelly said. “If American and German officers fly to neutral territory to swap black market goods… Well, suppose Blade gave a German air force officer a planeload of whiskey at one of these neutral ports — and didn't take any material goods in return. Suppose, instead, he asked his German opposite to see to the bombing of this bridge and help him establish his reputation among the Allied brass? Blade could inform this German officer each time the bridge was rebuilt—”
“You think Blade would engineer and go through with a wild scheme like this just to get a promotion?” Lily asked, incredulous.
“Either that, or he's syphilitic.”
“Bullshit,” Coombs said.
“This is paranoid,” Lily said. “The world isn't as Machiavellian as you're making it out to be.”
“Look,” Beame said, “Blade's an idiot, but he can't be the kind of manipulator you're trying to say he is.”
“I wonder…” Kelly said.
“Look,” Lily said, “maybe the radio will still work.”
“Hit it again, Dew!” Dew obliged. “If we don't destroy it, Blade will call us again tonight. He'll send in the DC-3 loaded with supplies, and he'll order us to rebuild the bridge. And as soon as the bridge is up, he'll call his German friend, get it bombed into rubble. You know… it's also possible that Blade somehow arranged for Rotenhausen's convoy to take this route, to come this roundabout back way just so the bridge would appear to have strategic importance and—”
“You can't know any of this!” Lily shouted. “This isn't some fantasy we're involved in. This is real. This is life!”
“Wrong,” Kelly said. “It's all a fairy tale, grand in color—”
“Bullshit,” Coombs said. His ugly French girl friend giggled and said, “Boolsheet.”
“Kelly,” Lily said, “if you destroy the radio, no one will know we're here. Blade will think we're dead. We won't get out of this place until the war is finished.”
“I don't care,” Kelly said. “Just so we get out alive.”
“Well, I care!” Lily said. “I have a career to think of!” She turned and walked toward the front of the convent, her firm ass swinging in a blue velvet dancer's costume, her long legs scissoring gorgeously.
Major Kelly was tempted to run after her, grab her, peel her out of that skimpy suit, and desecrate this holy convent with unspeakable acts of carnal lust. But it was more important to oversee the destruction of the radio…
“If you completely demolish this set,” Maurice said, “you're going to have to find something else with which to pay me.”
“I will,” Kelly said. “Dew, hit it again.”
Forty blows later, Dew dropped the hammer. Everyone had wandered away except the handsome young soldier whose name Kelly could not recall. The three of them stood in silence for a moment, as if mourning the departed shortwave set.
“Major,” the handsome soldier said, “I just came from a duty shift at the jail, watching over Lieutenant Slade. Lyle Fark took my place and… ”
“And?” Kelly asked.
The young soldier cleared his throat. “Well, Slade's demanding a trial, sir. He won't let up about it. Keeps wanting to know when he can have a trial. He says that a good court-martial will prove he was right all along. He expects to get medals, he says. But there has to be a trial first, you see. He's impossible to work around, sir. Fark asked me if you could give him, a tentative trial date he can use to shut Slade up.”
“Tell him after the war,” Kelly said.
“That's all?”
“That's all. Just sometime after the war.”
“He's really anxious to get those medals,” the soldier said. “He isn't going to like your answer, but I'll tell him anyway.” He left the convent by the back door.
“Gee,” Kelly said, staring after him, “I always thought I knew everyone in the unit by sight and name. But I can't place that one.”
“You're kidding,” Danny Dew said. “That's Pullit.”
“Pullit? Where's his nurse's uniform?”
“He doesn't need it anymore,” Dew said. “At least, not for the moment, not until the pressure builds up again.”
“The uniform — all of that was Pullit's way of hanging on,” Kelly said, a man to whom a spiritual revelation had just come.
“I guess so,” Danny Dew said.
Dew left by the back door, while Kelly went out and joined Lily Kain on the convent stoop. She was looking at St. Ignatius, at the quaint church and the rectory, the pleasant streets still damp with the morning's shower.
Kelly put one arm around her waist. “Pretty, isn't it?”
“It doesn't look half bad.”
Overhead, the clouds were breaking up. Scattered pieces of blue sky shone down on the town.
“Well!” Kelly said, pointing east along the bridge road. “Look up there!”
Lieutenant Beame and Nathalie Jobert were walking hand-in-hand toward the edge of town. When they reached the trees, they ducked furtively into the undergrowth, out of sight.
“Good for them,” Lily said. She leaned against Kelly and clasped his buttocks in one of her quick hands.
“I'm glad Dave's finally grown up,” Kelly said.
“Who?”
“Dave. Dave Beame.”
Lily tilted her head and smiled at him. She wrinkled her pug nose and ran all her freckles together into one brown spot. “I never heard you call him by his first name before.”
Kelly shrugged. “Well, maybe it's safe enough for things like that now. Maybe first names are okay again.” He turned her around until she was facing him, encircled her with his arms. She came against him, warm and pliant, hugged him back. “I even feel safe enough to tell you I was wrong before.” He slid his good hand down her back and cupped her buttocks. “I do love you, I think.”
“Me too,” Lily said. “At least for a little while.” She kissed him, licked inside of his mouth. “Say, how would you like to go back into this convent here and—”
“Desecrate it with acts of unspeakable carnal lust?”
Lily grinned. “Yeah.” She opened the door for him. “Let's chase out all these religious spirits and have us. a nice den of iniquity.”
Kelly let go of her, stepped back, and appraised her with one frank look. “You know, everything might really be all right. And you know what I was just thinking when we were looking at the town? I think we could have a real village here, if we wanted. We could finish the insides of these houses. We could anchor them down, put basements under them. Dig some real wells.”
“Whoa!” Lily said, still holding the convent door open. “Before you get wrapped up in that fantasy, remember that Maurice owns all of St. Ignatius. He also owns your tools, machines, supplies — and everyone's next paycheck.”
“Yes,” Kelly said. “But Maurice can be taken too.” He glanced up the bridge road to the place where Beame and Nathalie had disappeared into the trees. “I'll have to speak to Dave about the kind of dowry he should demand from Maurice, when he marries Nathalie. He ought to get a good piece of money. A bulldozer. Maybe even a budding little town… ”
Lily laughed and grabbed his hand. “Spinning fairy tales again. I thought you wouldn't need those anymore.”