Hanging On

by Dean Koontz

  Maurice shook his head sadly. "No good, mon ami. If it were any other Allied commander at the head of this force, he would help you. But this general will not even pause to listen to what you have to say. He's too caught up in the success of his one-unit campaign." The greasy, sweaty old man looked at each of them and delivered the final blow. "The Allied tanks coming this way are commanded by General Bobo Remlock."

  "We're all dead," Kelly said.

  "Well," Beame said, "I guess we are."

  General Bobo Remlock was a Texan who called himself The Fighting General. He also called himself Latter-Day Sam Houston, Big Ball of Barbed Wire, Old Blood and Guts, and Last of the Two-Fisted Cowboys. They had all heard about Bobo Remlock when they were stationed in Britain prior to D-Day. The British and Americans who had served under Remlock could never get done complaining about him. Remlock encouraged his men to call him Big Tex and Old Blood-and-Guts, though not to his face. What he did not know was that everyone called him That Maniac and Blood Beast and Old Shit for Brains behind his back. If Bobo Remlock were leading the approaching force, he would not stop for anything. He would roll up to the other side of the gorge and utterly destroy St. Ignatius in the process of liberating it.

  "We do have one chance," Maurice said.

  "We do?" Beame asked, brightening.

  "No, we don't," Major Kelly said.

  Maurice smiled. He put his two pudgy hands together, pressed them flat and tight, then threw them open as he whispered: "Boom!"

  Kelly decided that Maurice had lost his mind, just like all the men in the unit had done.

  "With the machines hidden in the convent," The Frog said, "you also have many sticks of dynamite. Many yards of wire. A plunger and battery. If we waste no more time, we might be able to plant the explosives under the bridge. In the morning, if the expected showdown between Generals Remlock and Rotenhausen comes, we will quite simply demolish the bridge. Neither commander will be able to take his tanks down a gorge as steep as this one. And because there will be nothing left to fight for once the bridge is gone, both the Allies and the Germans will have to seek elsewhere for a river crossing."

  "Blow up our own bridge?" Kelly asked.

  "That is right," Maurice said.

  "Blow up the bridge that we've busted ass to keep in shape?"

  "Yes."

  "It's not a bad idea," Kelly admitted. "But even if it works, even if Bobo Remlock goes away to look for another crossing, we're still not out of the frying pan. The krauts will come down hard on us. They'll think partisans set off the explosions, and they'll search St. Ignatius."

  Kelly had wisely decided not to assign any men to the fake house over the hospital bunker. He was doubly glad of that decision now. He had not wanted to put men in the house and then have them terrified out of their minds when Kowalski began to moan and mutter in one of his clairvoyant seizures. Even if they knew it was only Kowalski under them, any men in the house would have been scared silly by the sounds he made. Everyone was especially keyed up tonight. It would take very little to send them screaming into the streets. And if men had been upstairs right now, ears to the floorboards to listen to this conversation, they would have exploded like bombs with short fuses.

  "Perhaps the Germans will not go looking for partisans," Maurice said. "This Rotenhausen is a dedicated soldier. The first priority, so far as he will be concerned, should be Remlock's tanks. If you get to him soon after the bridge goes up, and if you tell him where to find the nearest fordable stretch of river, he will be off like a Sash, leaving St. Ignatius in peace."

  "Maurice, you are a genuis!" Beame exclaimed.

  The greasy mayor accepted the compliment with little grace, smiling and nodding as if to say that Beame was perfectly correct.

  "One thing," Kelly said. "How much will you want for the dynamite and other equipment-which was once my property, but, as you may recall, which I am now only holding for you until this present crisis passes."

  "I want nothing more than what you have already given," Maurice assured him, raising two workworn hands, palms outward to placate Kelly. "Naturally, I will expect you to rebuild the bridge and put up the tollbooth according to your original agreement."

  "And nothing new?"

  "I am no monster, Major," Maurice said, putting one hand over his heart. "I do not always require payment. When my friends need me, I am always there."

  * * *

  4

  The young Wehrmacht Schütze at the intersection of A Street and Y Street took his twentieth step eastward, turned sharply, and paraded toward the river again.

  The Schütze at the intersection of B and Y took his twentieth step westward, turned just as sharply as the first soldier had done, and marched toward the forest.

  In the half minute when both sentries had their backs on the block between them, Major Kelly and Private Tooley burst from the north side of Y Street and ran quietly across to the back of the convent yard. Kelly located the hidden door in the eight-foot-high fence-which was exactly like the hidden door in the fence behind the rectory -and they passed through. Tooley pushed it gently into place behind them.

  They both stood still for a moment, listening to the sentries' jackboots.

  No alarm was raised.

  They went across the convent yard to the small door in the back of the false structure. Kelly hesitated a moment, then softly knocked shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits.

  Lily Kain opened the door. "What's wrong?"

  "Plenty," Kelly said, slipping past her into the dark building.

  When the door was closed, one of the other nuns struck a match. Two well-hooded kerosene lanterns sputtered up, the fuel feed turned as low as possible. They barely diluted the darkness.

  The whole of the convent, with the exception of the foyer which had been finished toward the front, was one enormous room with a plain dirt floor. The walls soared up three stories to a jumble of wooden beams which supported the simple roof. There were no rooms laid off. There was no furniture. Only the phony nuns and the heavy machinery and various other supplies occupied these sacred quarters. The machines stood in two lines, one row against each of the longest walls. They looked like peacefully slumbering animals, oil and grease puddled under them instead of manure.

  In the middle of the floor, between the machines, stood the other nuns. Fifteen of them in all. Kelly recognized Nathalie Jobert, and he smiled at her. She was a sweet little piece, all right. She was a good kid.

  He also recognized Nurse Pullit, now Sister Pullit, but he did not smile and nod at the nurse. He tried to pretend Pullit was not even there.

  "Have you found Slade?" Lily asked.

  "How did you know he was missing?"

  "David was around earlier, asking about him."

  "We have a worse problem," he said. He told her about Bobo Remlock.

  While he talked, he looked her over. If her face had not been so unwholesomely erotic, and if her big jugs had not molded to the bulky habit she wore like a knit sweater, Lily would have made a fine nun. Her winged cowl was neat and crisply starched. The rim of her cowl fitted tightly around her lovely face, holding her long hair out of sight. Her robe was black and fell to the floor, with a wide white vent down the left side. The Eisenhower women who had sewn the costumes really did know what a well-dressed nun should wear. Unless the nun was Lily Kain. If the nun was Lily Kain, the habit did not look good on her at all. If the nun was Lily Kain, she should wear pasties shaped like twin crosses over her nipples-and a G-string made out of rosary beads.

  "Blow up our bridge?" Lily asked, when he finished telling her the plan. "Is that our only choice?"

  "Seems to be," Kelly said. He looked at his watch. "Almost three. We have a whole lot to do before dawn."

  He and Tooley located the T-plunger, a coil of wire, and a wooden case full of carefully packed dynamite which was wrapped in airtight plastic to keep the sticks from sweating. They lugged the stuff toward the door, anxious to get on with things.

  "
Major, wait!" Nathalie Jobert said, clutching his hand as he reached for the doorknob. "What about David?"

  Kelly looked into her lovely black eyes and smiled. "He's fine. I'll keep him right beside me, safe and sound."

  "Will you tell him I said-" She looked away, wiped at her pert nose with the back of one slender hand.

  "Yes?"

  "Tell him that I-"

  "That you love him?" Kelly asked.

  She blushed and nodded.

  "I'll tell him," the major said. He leaned over and kissed her cool forehead below her winged white hood. "Now I have to go."

  She raised his hand and kissed it, just as the lights went out. "You're a wonderful man." Then she was gone.

  But Lily was there to detain him another minute when he opened the back door and stepped into the convent yard. She came outside with him and, while Tooley crossed the yard, threw both arms around him. "I don't love you," she said, kissing him.

  Kelly put down the T-plunger and the wire. He embraced her, crushed her against him, inhaled the vaguely musky odor that always clung to her. "And I don't love you."

  "I don't love you at all," Lily said. "Not even a teensy little bit."

  "You make me so happy, Lily."

  "Do you love me even a teensy little bit?" she asked, looking up into his face.

  "No. You mean nothing whatsoever to me."

  Lily shivered. "That's marvelous, darling."

  "Yes, it is, darling."

  "Kiss me again."

  Kissing her, he lost control and slid his hands down her back and cupped her round buttocks and began to knead her firm flesh through the black gown. Abruptly, he pulled away from her. "I have to get moving. We have to get the explosives planted under the bridge."

  Lily sighed. "Don't worry about anything, Kelly. As long as neither one of us loves the other even a teensy little bit, we'll be okay."

  "You're right," he said.

  He picked up the plunger and wire and left her. He crossed the convent yard, cracked the secret gate, and cautiously checked on the sentries at the nearby intersections. When both the Germans were facing away from him, he went out into St. Ignatius. Tooley followed him, carrying the box of dynamite.

  Lieutenant Slade had just taken shelter at the base of an elm tree when he saw a gate open in the back of the convent fence. A second later, Major Kelly and that chicken-shit pacifist, Tooley, came out and pushed the gate shut and ran silently across Y Street, taking shelter by the side of the house just as the sentries turned to face that block. Both men had their arms full. But full of what?

  Major Kelly led the pacifist westward, dodging from shadow to shadow, and Slade followed them. At the intersection of Y Street and A Street, they knelt beside the nunnery and waited for the sentry to face away from them.

  Slade crept as close to them as he could, but was unable to tell what they were carrying.

  What was this? What was Kelly doing out of the rectory? What cowardly, yellow-bellied plot were they involved in now?

  The sentry turned his back.

  Kelly and Tooley went across the road, lugging the mysterious objects. They took just enough time so that Slade was unable to follow them until the sentry had made one more circuit. When he got over there, they were gone.

  Which was too bad. After all, now was the time. Slade had finished his reconnaissance. All that was left was to murder Major Kelly, preferably in silence. Knife him in the back... And then take a commando team into the rectory to slit the throats of the German officers. Soon, they would all be real heroes.

  Smiling at the darkness, the lieutenant crept southward, trying to find where Major Kelly had gone.

  * * *

  5

  Maurice opened the bunker door and ushered them into the eerily lightless room, closed the door, and switched on a flashlight. He shone the beam on the plunger and the wire, then on the dynamite which Tooley set gently on the floor. "It looks like enough," he said.

  "More than enough," Kelly said. "The bridge will drop like a rock down a well."

  Shining the flashlight deeper into the bunker, Maurice said, "Everyone is here, all the men you requested."

  Danny Dew, Vito Angelli, Sergeant Coombs, and Lieutenant Beame sat on the hospital cots, eyes gleaming with reflected light.

  "You've heard the whole story?" he asked the three newcomers whom Beame had fetched during his absence.

  "We heard," Danny said. "What a bitch of a night."

  "I think we should use the dynamite on the krauts," Sergeants Coombs said. "Not on our own bridge."

  Major Kelly had only one weapon he could use on Coombs. He used it. "I'm a major, and you're a sergeant. We'll do things my way."

  Coombs scowled, grudgingly nodded agreement. In a pinch, he was a book man, a rule man, a regulations man, who would obey even a poor disciplinarian like Major Kelly.

  "And what is your way?" Danny Dew asked, getting up from his cot and pacing in and out of the soft light

  "There will be seven of us," Kelly said. "Danny, Vito, Beame, Sergeant Coombs, Tooley, Maurice, and me." As quickly as possible, he told them how they would do the job. "Any questions?"

  Danny Dew smacked his lips. "Yas, massah. Dumb ol' Danny have a question, suh. You really think we's gonna be able to do all this without makin' a noise them guards up on the bridge would hear?"

  Kelly shrugged. "We can try to be perfectly quiet That's all I can say. We can try."

  "We can do it," Beame said, optimistic despite the way their situation had deteriorated.

  "That reminds me," Kelly said. "One other thing. The SS is guarding the bridge. There won't be Wehrmacht privates above us, but about four or five of those black-uniformed crackpots. So you better be twice as quiet."

  "Next," Danny Dew said, "he's going to tell us we have to pull off this operation blindfolded."

  Maurice switched off the flashlight

  The darkness was so deep it seemed to pull at their eyes.

  Kelly opened the door the whole way. For a while, they stood there, letting the lesser darkness of the night creep in. When their eyes adjusted, Danny Dew picked up the plunger and the wire. Tooley hefted the case of dynamite and held it close against his massive chest. Major Kelly led the way out of the hospital bunker, and they followed. Liverwright, who was dying, closed the door behind them.

  * * *

  6

  The clouds formed a thick roof from horizon to horizon. No stars shone. Only a hint of moonlight penetrated the black thunderheads.

  Kelly and the others went south along the edge of the ravine, far enough back from A Street to be hidden from the German sentry at the intersection of A and Z. Well past the last of the fake houses, they made their way cautiously down the sloped ravine wall until they reached the riverbank.

  A frog croaked in front of Kelly, startling him.

  Recovering what little nerve he had left, the major looked upstream at the black framework of the bridge which was silhouetted against the blue-black sky. From this distance, it appeared deserted. The SS guards, in their black uniforms, blended perfectly with the night and the steel beams.

  "Here's where we get wet," Kelly said. He looked at Tooley. "You sure you don't want someone to help you with those sticks?"

  "No, sir," Tooley said. "I'm strong. I can handle them. We can't afford to lose any of them-or drop them and let them get wet. If we can't keep this stuff stable, we're all dead."

  "We're all dead anyway," Kelly said.

  "Major, we have-company," Lieutenant Beame whispered, behind them.

  Kelly whirled, expecting to see hordes of Germans rushing down the ravine slope. Instead, he saw three nuns, their white-winged hoods glowing ghostily in the darkness. Lily. Nathalie. And Sister Pullit. "What in the hell-"

  "We had to come," Lily said. "We'd have gone crazy wondering if you were dead or alive. Remember, each of us has a man out here."

  Kelly looked at Pullit.

  "She's right," the nurse said.

  Kel
ly looked away from Pullit. The nurse resembled a nun too closely, so far as Kelly was concerned. Pullit was -sweet, dimpled, innocent, with a freshly scrubbed look.

  "We want to go along with you," Lily said.

  "Are you crazy? You'll get us all killed!"

  "We can help," Lily said. "Haven't you heard? Women have more endurance and strength than men."

  The major was not yet able to cope with the situation. He kept looking from the nuns to his men and back to the nuns again. He could not understand how his life had come to this, how so many years of experience could have funneled down to this absurdity.

  "They'll drown in those bulky costumes," Tooley said.

  "That's right!" Kelly said, seizing the argument. "You'll drown in those bulky costumes."

  Before anyone could object, Lily tore open her habit and shrugged out of it. She peeled away her hood and cowl and dropped that on the robe. All she wore, now, was a flimsy two-piece dancer's costume out of which everything might pop at any moment.

  Every man there drew a long, deep breath.

  "Lily-"Kelly began.

  Horrified by something he had seen out of the corner of his eye, Kelly turned and confronted Pullit. The nurse had stripped, too, and now stood there in bra and panties. Lily's bra, stuffed with paper. Kelly had no idea who had given Pullit the panties: large, white cotton things with a blue-bow rim.

  "No," Kelly said. "No, I-"

  "We have come this far," Nathalie said. "You can't send us back now. That would be more dangerous than if we went with you." She had taken off her own habit, stood there in panties and bra, giving Lily Kain a run for the money. Not a very serious run, so far as Kelly was concerned, but something of a run nonetheless.

  Lieutenant Beame seemed to be Whimpering.

  "Major," Tooley said, "this dynamite is getting heavy. The longer we wait, the more time we waste-"