Hanging on

dump by the runway to the men at the bridge, and though it was now well past noon, he had not taken a single rest break. He was sweaty and dirty. His back ached, his arms ached, and his knuckles were skinned and sore. He had stoved his left thumb but had kept on working while it swelled to half again its normal size. He was in no mood for Major Kelly. Only his great respect for the rules and regulations regarding the responsibilities of rank kept him from being completely uncooperative.
        "I have something for you to sign," Major Kelly said.
        Major Kelly had spent all morning running around the camp getting the men to sign various papers which he carried in a folder under his arm. He was not dirty or sweaty. Coombs knew that Kelly didn't have an aching back or aching arms or a stoved thumb. He regarded the proffered document scornfully and said, "What is it?"
        "Nothing much," Kelly said, evasively. "Just sign it, and I'll stop bothering you."
        Sergeant Coombs looked at the pile of materiel he had yet to transfer to the bridge, scratched the back of his sunburned neck, and was tempted to sign the damn thing, whatever it was, just to be rid of Kelly. He was still on the shuttler seat, with crates stacked on the forked platform before him. He could sign and be on his way again. But something in Kelly's manner, a sort of phony good humor, warned Coombs. "What is it?" he repeated.
        "Just sign it. Quick, now. I've got to get every man's signature if I'm going to keep Maurice's help. And I need Maurice's help. Every minute counts in this, Sergeant. So sign."
        "I won't sign anything that I don't know what it is," Coombs said.
        Kelly's smile faded. "Well, look, you know how much help Maurice has been, bringing in all these workers."
        "Frogs," Coombs said.
        "Yes, perhaps they are. But the fact remains that we need them. And in the days ahead, Maurice will be doing even more for us. And you can't expect him to do it all out of the goodness of his heart. Maurice wants to make a profit from it. That should be something every red-blooded American can understand. We Americans believe in the profit system, free enterprise. That's one of the things we're fighting for."
        "What about this paper?" Coombs asked. For such a stumpy man, he was damned difficult to fool.
        Major Kelly was distinctly uncomfortable now. He could not stop thinking about the Panzers. While he was standing here with Coombs, how much closer had the Germans come? Too much closer… Kelly looked nervously at the stack of crates beside the shuttler, at the sky, at the ground, everywhere but at Coombs. "Maurice wants to be paid for his help. Naturally, we're the only ones who can pay him. So what Maurice wants from us-he wants two hundred bucks from every man in camp."
        "I don't have it," Coombs said.
        Kelly shook his head in agreement and frustration. "Who does? But Maurice understands how things are with us. We're paid in scrip when the DC-3 comes in from
        Blade's HQ, but most of us lose it to Hoskins or Malzberg in a day or two, at best. Maurice understands, and he does not want to be at all unreasonable. He's willing to extend us credit, provided we sign these forms he's given me. You pay fifty dollars now, the other one-fifty over the next six months."
        Coombs was suspicious. "Six months?"
        "That's right."
        "We'll be gone in six months."
        Kelly shrugged. "Maybe he's banking on the war not being over that fast."
        Coombs would not swallow that. "There's something you're not telling me."
        Kelly sighed, thinking about the Panzers, about the minutes melting away. "You're right. You see, this paper you're to sign… well, it's an admission of collaboration with the Nazis."
        Coombs looked at Kelly as if the major were a stone that had come suddenly to life before his eyes. He could not believe what he was hearing. "Admit I collaborated with the krauts, even if I didn't?"
        Kelly smiled nervously. "Maurice has written a different confession for each of us." He looked down at the paper in his hand and quickly scanned the neat paragraphs of precise, handwritten English. "Yours states that you sabotaged the equipment which you were assigned to maintain, that you interfered with the building of the bridge."
        Coombs did not know what to say.
        "You can see where Maurice might feel he has to