Hanging on

white flame at the southwest corner of the HQ building, not far from where Kelly and Slade had been standing. Flames spewed out in all directions. The earth convulsed, showering heavy clumps of ground in all directions. Aflame, the west wall of HQ buckled inwards, then popped out again and tore loose of the other three partitions. It fell to the earth with a sound like a slammed door. The three standing walls shuddered violently.
        The two bombs let loose over the bridge approach sailed toward the center of the span. They passed either side of it and exploded below, in the ravine. More flames. The ground near the gorge heaved and rolled and settled reluctantly.
        Dazed men streamed out of the rec room which now had only three walls. They had been awakened by the attack, startled to see their room open around them like a packing crate, and they had yet to figure out exactly what was going on.
        Major Kelly reached the head of the hospital steps and looked up at the B-17 which was circling around for another run at the camp. Far above it, in the morning sky, a trio of Allied fighter planes which acted as its escort went around in lazy little circles, waiting for big brother to finish and come back to them.
        Slade hurried up, panting. His face was flushed, but he looked more excited than frightened. "What can we do?"
        Kelly ran down the steps and tried the bunker door. Locked. He really hadn't expected anything else.
        The B-17 came back. It roared in lower than before and let go at the HQ building again.
        The missiles overshot and blew a huge chunk out of the riverbank. Shrapnel and dirt cascaded over six or seven men who had run the wrong way after coming out of the rec room.
        Major Kelly thought he heard someone screaming in pain, but he could not be sure.
        "We have to do something!" Slade insisted.
        Major Kelly watched the bomber circle again. The damn pilot wasn't done with them. Any pilot with a grain of sense would have cut out by now; this asshole had to be some patriotic, gung-ho promotion seeker with no real sense of his own mortality.
        Slade grabbed the major's arm. "Listen to me! We have to stop them, for Christ's sake!"
        Kelly pushed the lieutenant away and shouted at the men who were still too dazed to get away from the HQ building. "Over here! Run, you idiots! Move! Run! Get away from there!"
        Slade grabbed him again, using both hands this time and digging in hard with his fingers, molding a grip in Kelly's bare arm as if the major were made of clay. "What are you going to do? You cowardly son of a bitch, what are you going to do?"
        Kelly drew back his free arm and struck Slade across the face, harder than he had ever hit a man before. When the lieutenant fell back, stunned, Kelly grabbed him with a fierceness far worse than Slade's bad been a moment ago. Kelly's eyes were so wide open they appeared on the verge of falling out; his mouth was a twisted, thin-lipped hole in his face; his nostrils flared like those of an animal. "What can I do, you fucking little creep? Did Blade give me artillery? Did Blade give me antiaircraft weapons? What am I supposed to do with nothing? Can I fight a fucking B-17 with a bulldozer and pegging mallets? Use your fucking brain, Slade!" Then he let go of him, because they were both knocked off their feet by two more explosions.
        Kelly rolled to the bottom of the hospital bunker steps and smacked his head against the bunker door. Cursing, he crawled back to the top to see what had been hit.
        The bridge. It made a tortured, metallic squeal the same pitch as the squeal inside Kelly's head and collapsed into the gorge with an almost practiced grace.
        Slade was standing on top of the hospital bunker, holding his service revolver in both hands and shooting at the bomber. Kelly had lost his own gun somewhere, but he didn't feel like hunting it just now. He watched Slade fire all his chambers at the plane, to no effect.
        While the lieutenant was reloading, the B-17 climbed skyward to join its escort, and the four United States Air Force planes streaked westward, out of sight, back toward the safety of Allied territory.
        Up near the HQ building where the bombs had torn away a large piece of the riverbank, someone was screaming. It was a monotonous scream, rising and falling and rising and falling again in a predictable pattern. Kelly