Hanging on

use such an extreme credit contract," Kelly said. He liked to call the paper a credit contract rather than a forged confession or something equally distasteful. "This kind of document would guarantee his money even if we were transferred out of here before we paid him in full. None of us would want his contract turned over to Allied military officials."
        "What did you confess?" Coombs asked.
        "Transmitting information to the Nazis via our wireless set." He forced the rumpled paper into Coombs's hand, gave him a stubby yellow pencil. "Just sign the damn thing, Sergeant. Time is our greatest enemy."
        "I won't sign." Coombs's jaw was set, and his pulse pounded visibly at neck and temples.
        "Sergeant, you must. I've got more than forty men to sign up yet. If one refuses, others will too. And the deal with Maurice will fall through… You'll die with the rest of us!" He was trying to scare the sergeant, and he scared himself in the process.
        "I'm not afraid to fight," Coombs said.
        Exasperated, Kelly watched Coombs try to hand back the confession. He refused to touch it. He swatted Coombs's hand as if trying to push back more than the paper-as if he were fighting off the inevitable death rushing down on them. Couldn't Coombs see that one man's pride or stubbornness could kill them all? After a full minute of this thrust and counterthrust, with the credit contract getting pretty badly mutilated, Kelly leaned toward Coombs. "What the fuck rank are you?" he screamed.
        Coombs looked at him as if he were witless. "Sergeant."
        "And I am a major, right?" Kelly drew himself up to his full height. "Sergeant, as your commanding officer, I order you to sign that paper and give me fifty dollars. Now."
        Coombs's face drained of color as he realized his dilemma. He was in a spot where he had to go against one of the two moral principles that made him tick. He either had to refuse an order from a legitimate superior-or cooperate with this coward and become, in effect, a coward himself. For a long moment he sat on the shuttler, swaying back and forth as if buffeted by two gale force winds. Then, leaning quickly forward and holding the confession against one of the packing crates on the forked cargo platform, he signed his name. His need for order, for a sense of rank, for rules and regulations, had won out over his loathing of cowardice.
        "Fifty dollars," Kelly said, taking the signed document.
        As the sergeant handed over the money, something else occurred to him. "This isn't all Maurice is getting, is it?"
        Kelly was uncomfortable again. He was anxious to be off, signing up the other men. Precious minutes were being wasted! Besides, he was a bit ashamed of this business. Sometimes, he was shocked at the immoral things life forced him to do… "Maurice gets a few other little things," Kelly admitted. "Like your cargo shuttler… the camp generator when we leave…"
        Coombs was distressed. "What else?"
        "Only one other thing," Kelly assured him. "A toll-booth."
        Coombs could not make any sense out of that. He scratched the back of his neck, spat in the dust, taking as long as possible to respond. He knew Kelly and some of the others thought he was stupid. He was not really stupid at all, just taciturn and grumpy. For the life of him, though, he could not see what the major was talking about, and he was forced to look stupid. "Tollbooth?"
        "After the Panzers pass through and we're safe," Kelly said, "we're going to build a tollbooth on the other side of the gorge, in the road just before the bridge. It'll have a pole across the road and everything. Maurice's people will work there, bring extra money into Eisenhower."
        "Oh." Compared to an operator like The Frog, Coombs supposed he was stupid.
        "As soon as you pay Maurice the rest, he gives back your contract. Thanks for your cooperation, Sergeant." Kelly turned and ran back toward the HQ building where several men were hurriedly reviewing the construction plans in the shade by the rec room door.
        Lieutenant Beame was one of them. However, he was standing pretty much by himself, thirty feet from the knot of men.
        Major Kelly went straight to him, because he liked to get each man alone when he was selling the idea of the credit contract. He knew it would be dangerous to let them group together when he delivered his spiel. It had to be a