Hanging on

"This conclusively proves that Maurice is in league with the krauts." He looked at Major Kelly, then at Beame, and he did not seem to understand that they wanted to beat his face to a pulp. Even the pacifist, Tooley, had confessed that, at times, even he wanted to beat The Snot's face to a pulp. Slade continued, "If we accept that we have a traitor in the unit, our morale will decline. But if we look outside our ranks for the culprit, our morale can be maintained and our field of suspects narrowed. And Maurice stands head-and-shoulders above all other suspects. He has access to German equipment… and you certainly don't believe those stories he told you about partisan work, about stealing the German equipment, laying ambushes for German patrols on other highways! How'd he really get those things? Hmmm?" Slade took their silences to mean they were speechless, utterly unable to imagine how Maurice had really gotten hold of those things. He said, "Suppose he was consorting with the Germans, selling them information in return for trucks, uniforms, and artillery? And then he was renting these same things to us in return for the backhoe and-and whatever else he could get, maybe the dozer the next time. Suppose that's what he's doing. You see, of course, what he has in mind, what his eventual goal is." Again, he interpreted their silence as sheer stupidity. He smirked, actually smirked, and said, "Maurice is establishing a small army of his own: trucks, artillery, construction equipment, guns, and uniforms. You mark my words. When he feels he has enough strength, he's going to declare Eisenhower a separate, free French nation!"
        Major Kelly and Lieutenant Beame walked away from The Snot. They went to the bridge and stood looking it over, each afraid that he could not control his urge to pulp Slade's face.
        Slade mistook their retreat for a concession to his point and their lack of response for a weakness of will that made it impossible for them to act. He called after them: "When the time is ripe, that village will secede from the rest of France! And when the war is over, they'll discover that backhoe and whatever else Maurice has of ours, and they'll say the United States of America urged the village to secede, that we meddled in the internal affairs of our great ally, France. It will be a black day for America's foreign image!"
        Even down by the river, where the water sloshed over the rocks and pieces of bomb-blasted bridgework, Kelly and Beame could hear the lieutenant shouting. The major wished a few Stukas would make a bombing pass. On Slade. If he just knew who the traitor was, who was reporting to the Nazis every time the bridge was rebuilt, he would try to arrange just that, a bombing run on Slade. He'd station Slade at some lonely point, far away from the camp and the bridge, and then he would get the krauts to run a bombing mission on him: three Stukas. He would use four blue runway flares to mark Slade's position. If that worked well, then he'd try it with Coombs. And, most definitely, three Stukas with full loads. This would have to be a very final sort of operation, because he didn't want to risk a badly botched bombing and end up with another Kowalski on his hands.

PART TWO
        
    Worsening
    Conditions
        
    July 15/July 17,1944

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    1
        
        Sitting at the desk in his office in the HQ building, Major Kelly dipped his fingers into a tin bowl full of mud, smeared the thick slop on his head. It was cool and soft, but it stank. He massaged the gunk into his scalp in lazy circles, then scooped more of it from the bowl and repeated the process until his head was capped in a hardening layer of wet, black soil.
        Major Kelly had been plagued by a widow's peak ever since he was a teen-ager and he had never once thought that it was in any way becoming to him. His mother said it was becoming to him and that it made him look sophisticated. So far as Major Kelly was concerned, it only made him look old and bald. He didn't want to be old or bald, and so he was always anxious to find some medication or process which would restore the hair around his widow's peak and make him look young again. He had tried massages and salves, greases and tonics, internal and external vitamins, less sex, more sex, less sleep, more sleep, sleeping with a bed cap, sleeping without a bed cap, washing his hair every day, washing it only twice a month, eating lots of carrots, eating lots of