Hanging on

bunker where the three dim bulbs cast eerie shadows on the rough plaster walls, where the centipedes ran and water dripped steadily in the black corners, Kowalski was sitting up in bed, his eyes opened wide, his mouth loose. Liverwright, currently the only other patient in the bunker, was standing at the foot of the mad Pole's bed, holding his swollen hip, having temporarily forgotten his own pain, engrossed in the miracle of Kowalski. Lily Kain and Private Tooley flanked the Pole, bent towards him as if he were a wise man whose every word was priceless.
        "Sir," Tooley said, looking sideways at Kelly, "you've got mud all over your head."
        "I know," Kelly said. "I know." He looked down at the Pole. "What's this bag of shit been saying?" As he spoke, he scanned the ceiling for any nearby centipedes. He did not know why he feared centipedes so much, but he did. Maybe he was afraid that, if they fell on his head, they would kick around and tear out even more of his hair.
        Obligingly, though he only addressed the air, Kowalski began to speak. Spittle collected at the corners or his mouth, dribbled down his chin. His lips were like two large, inflated rubber tubes glistening with oil. "Stuka bomber… in darkness… a power glide… concealed approach… people on the bridge… many people… bridge…"
        Then Kowalski was silent once more. No one else dared speak, and when the silence was thick enough to cut, Kowalski cut it with a fart.
        Lily looked up, lips puckered. Her freckles stood out like flecks of cinnamon on the soft golden tissue of a fresh-baked roll. Kelly wanted to eat her up. "What does he mean?" she asked.
        "It almost sounds like a. warning," Tooley said. "As if he were just looking into the future, as if he wants to warn us."
        "He's raving," Kelly said. "It's nothing more than that." He felt a new trickle of mud run down his nose, and he wiped it away as inconspicuously as possible.
        "But if he's really-"
        "First of all, no one ever goes out on the bridge," Kelly said. "You know that. So there couldn't be, as he said, many people on the bridge. The reason no one ever goes out on the bridge is because everyone's afraid of getting bombed." As Tooley tried to speak, the major waved him down and went on: "And the Stukas wouldn't make a special night mission of it. They always come in the daylight."
        "If you're sure," Tooley said.
        "You can take my word for it," Kelly said.
        Kowalski fell back against his pillows, returning to his dumb trance, and crapped on the sheets.

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    2
        
        On that night's edition of the Blade and Slade Show, the general told them they would probably come through this war without a single casualty in their unit-aside, of course, from Kowalski. And you never could tell when Kowalski might spontaneously reject the sliver of steel in his brain, thereby insuring complete recovery. That was what the general expected, he confided in Major Kelly: spontaneous rejection. He told the major that people were all the time spontaneously rejecting arthritis and cancer and other dread diseases. There were hundreds upon thousands of cases of spontaneous rejection in medical histories. Why shouldn't Kowalski, then, spontaneously reject his brain damage? If he could see his way clear in this matter, the general said, Kowalski would be doing the general a great service. He would, by spontaneously rejecting that sliver of steel, be vindicating the general's policy in this matter. With Kowalski cured in such a fashion, rescued from certain death, then none of them would die behind enemy lines, because this would be a good omen, a sign, a portent, an assurance. Again, the general promised the major that none of them would die in this war, for they were his favorite men, his own.
        "Yes, sir," Major Kelly said.
        "I love you guys," General Blade said, choking a little on the line-either because it was a bald-faced lie, or because he actually had deceived himself into thinking he loved them.
        "Yes, sir," Major Kelly said.
        "Kelly, if that Panzer division actually gets sent your way. if you have to fight those Nazi bastards, I want you to know one important thing. The men who die fighting to keep that bridge erect will not be dying uselessly. They will be dying for a cause, for Truth and Freedom. They will all be long remembered in the American history books and, no doubt, in