Hanging on

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.
        Kelly 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-"
        "Okay. It's insane, Lily, but you can come along."
        She grabbed him and kissed him, her heavy jugs pressing into his chest and rising dangerously in the thin silken cups. "We're all in this together, anyway."
        Kelly looked at Angelli, then at Pullit. "You two stay away from each other, you understand?"
        They nodded sheepishly.
        "Oh Christ," the major said, turning away from them.
        "We'll be all right, darling," Lily said. "I don't love you."
        "And I don't love you," he said.
        "Good! I was afraid you were angry with me."
        "What's the use?" Kelly asked. "It's a fairy tale. You aren't the one who makes up the plot twists. You're just another character."
        The major went into the river first. He did not bother to remove his shoes or clothes, chiefly because there was no time left for that. The water swirled up to his knees, frothed around him like it frothed around the rocks which thrust up in the middle of it and the roots of the big trees that grew out over its eroded shore.
        Speckled with white water, the river would do a fairly good job of hiding them while they approached the bridge. If they had walked north along the riverbank, they would surely have been seen. Any movement at all on the open land would catch a sentry's eye. But the river, constantly moving, concealed their progress and covered over the ordinary noises they might make.
        And they would make a lot of ordinary noises, Kelly thought. There were too damned many of them. It was a fucking parade!
        Kelly walked carefully. For every step, he tested the muddy bottom before committing his weight to it. He knew there were holes, drop-offs that could swallow him. Furthermore, he did not want to slip and fall on a water-washed stone or on a particularly slimy stretch of mud. The splash might not reach the SS men on the bridge. However, in falling, he might involuntarily cry out and bring the Germans down on them.
        Behind the major, the others moved forward as cautiously as their chief. Nathalie watched where Kelly stepped, and still she tested every step of her own before taking it.