Hanging on

provided for a price. They drank more cheap whiskey out of more tin cups. They didn't sing, though. They just sat there, drinking, not looking at each other, as if there were a religious service in progress.
        Under the earth, in the main bunker, ten other men were playing poker at a pair of battered wooden tables. No one was enjoying the game, but no one wanted to call it off. If they called it off, there was nothing else to do but think. No one wanted to think.
        Other men wandered about the camp, going nowhere, trying not to run into anyone. These were the ones who couldn't play poker. They had to think.
        At four in the morning, Major Kelly was in the rec room. He was talking to General Blade, who had just put through an emergency call on the big wireless set. "You've got an emergency, Major," the general said.
        Lieutenant Slade, standing at Kelly's shoulder, stiffened. Maybe he would get to be in a battle, after all.
        "Sir?" Kelly said.
        "A unit of Panzer tanks, armored cars and infantry trucks are on the way toward you. They ought to be crossing the bridge in a few hours."
        "Twelve Panzers, sir?" Major Kelly asked.
        General Blade was unsettled by the major's inside knowledge. "How could you know that?"
        "They passed over the bridge three or four hours ago," Kelly told him. Then he told him the rest of it, except for the account of Slade's gun work. He wasn't trying to protect Slade, not at all. But he was afraid that, if he told Blade about the dead cyclist, the general would recommend Slade for a medal or something, and then The Snot would become unbearable.
        "Well," General Blade said, "I'm glad to see you've got such good relationships with the locals-that you've cultivated them as informers."
        "Yes, sir," Kelly said. He saw that Lieutenant Slade was fidgeting about, debating whether to insist that Kelly mention the backhoe which they had lost in the bargaining with Maurice. He was probably also trying to think how to let the general know about him killing the cyclist. Kelly placed a finger to his lips to warn Slade off.
        Still, the lieutenant said, "Aren't you going to tell him about the backhoe?"
        Slade was close enough to the microphone for it to pick up what he had said. General Blade had heard. "Backhoe?"
        "You little shit," Kelly said.
        "What was that?" the general asked.
        "Not you, sir," Kelly said.
        "What's this about a backhoe?"
        "We lost it, sir," Slade said, loud enough to be heard.
        "Lost it?" the General asked.
        Major Kelly pulled his revolver from his holster and leveled it at the middle of Lieutenent Slade's face. "You know what this will do to your face?" Kelly asked.
        Slade nodded, swallowed hard.
        "I'll put one right up your nostril," Kelly promised.
        "A backhoe?" General Blade asked. "Up my nostril? Kelly-"
        "It's all right, sir," Kelly interrupted. "I was talking to Lieutenant Slade."
        "What's going on there, Kelly?"
        "Slade's drunk," Kelly said. "Too much celebrating after the Germans went by."
        The General was surprised. "I didn't think he was that sort-to drink so much."
        "It happens, occasionally," Kelly said.
        Lieutenant Slade colored, opened his mouth to speak. Kelly thrust the revolver close to his face, shutting him up.
        "One more thing, Major," General Blade said. "I've also been informed that the Nazi high command is considering switching a Panzer division from the Russian front and moving it westward within a week or so. That would mean a convoy of eighty tanks or so, supply trucks, truck-mounted 88 mm antiaircraft guns, quite a string. Naturally, if they are dispatched and use the route that'll take them over your bridge, they're going to camp there with you for the night. It would take half a day, anyway, to put that big a force across the bridge."
        "Camp with us, sir?"
        "If they come that route," Blade said.
        "But, sir-"
        "Don't worry about them," Blade said. "They'll probably never be dispatched, and even if they are they'll come west on some other highway."
        Kelly nodded, then realized the general couldn't hear a nod. "Yes, sir. I won't worry, sir." He cleared his throat and said, "Sir, how is the front moving these days?"
        "Better. Better. You're only a hundred and ninety miles behind lines