Hanging on

unpainted crate near the far wall. It was eight feet long, four deep, and four wide. It looked like a natural pine coffin. Standing at the foot of it, Coombs might have been a mourner. A disgruntled and angry mourner. "Hagendorf won't get out of this box you put him in," Coombs said, as Kelly approached.
        "He's not in there to guard it," Tooley told Coombs.
        "Then why'd you put him in there?" Coombs asked Kelly.
        "I didn't put him in there." Kelly reached the crate and peered inside.
        Hagendorf, the chief surveyor, was lying in the box on a bed of his own clothes, naked as the day he was born. If he had been born. Kelly was not sure about that. Naked, pale, chubby, Hagendorf looked more like something which had been hatched. "You put me in here," he told Kelly.
        Kelly looked at the two dozen wine bottles which surrounded the surveyor. More than half were empty. "You got wine from Maurice, and now you're drunk, Emil."
        "This is my coffin," Hagendorf said. "You put me in it. You made me get out my theodolite and survey your crazy village. You're the one who gave me a glimpse of the order and purpose I once knew and can never know again." Hagendorfs voice had grown quavery. Now, he started to cry. "You destroyed me. You put me in this coffin-you and no one else."
        "Get out of the box," Kelly said. "It's heavy enough without you in it."
        "I'm dead," Hagendorf said. "I can't get out."
        Kelly sighed, looked at the others. "Let's get him out of there."
        "No you don't!" Hagendorf screamed as they reached in for him. He spread his legs, braced his knees against the side of the box, his feet against the bottom. There was a supporting frame holding the sides of the crate together, and the surveyor gripped this with fingers like chitinous claws. Though Coombs pulled at his legs, Tooley at his left arm, Beame at his right arm, and Kelly at his head, all of them grunting and putting their backs into it, Hagendorf would not be moved. He was the most tenacious corpse they had ever seen.
        "Look here, Emil," Major Kelly said, letting go of Hagendorf's head and wiping the chief surveyor's spittle off his hand, "we don't have time to fool with you. The goddamned Panzers are coming, Emil. We have a whole town to build before they get here. This shed has to come down and fast. This site has to be made ready for another building. These walls have to be torn up so we can reuse the wood and metal. Now, you come out of that fucking box, or I won't be responsible for what happens to you."
        Hagendorf began to blubber again, and when he spoke his voice was, once more, the 78 rpm record played at an eternal 60 rpm. "I'm dead and rotting… What more can happen?" He held on to his coffin, his soft pudgy body now lumpy with muscles that had not been flexed near the surface of Hagendorf s body for as long as ten years.
        Kelly picked up an empty wine bottle, and held it like a club. "Emil…"
        "You destroyed me," Hagendorf said, tears running down his face.
        "No violence, please," Tooley said, rubbing his hands together as he watched the scene leading inevitably to spilled blood.
        "I'm sorry, Emil," Kelly said. He swung the bottle at Hagendorf s head.
        The surveyor jerked out of the way. The bottle missed him, shattered on the side of the crate.
        "Hold him down," Kelly told the others.
        Coombs grabbed the surveyor's legs, while Beame stood across the box from Kelly and pressed down on Hagendorf s chest. Tooley wanted no part of it.
        Kelly picked up another bottle and raised it over Hagendorf's head. "We haven't any time to waste, Emil. But I'll try to make this just a tap," he said when he saw Hagendorf was watching him intently through a veil of tears.
        Then he swung the bottle.
        Hagendorf let go of the box, grabbed Beame and pulled him in as a shield. The bottle smashed on Beame's golden head, spraying glass and dark wine.
        "Ugh," Beame said, and passed out. Blood trickled out of his scalp.
        "You killed Beame," Tooley said, stunned, hugging himself.
        "It's just a tiny cut," Kelly said. "I didn't swing hard enough to kill him."
        Coombs was disgusted. "Now you've got two of them in there."
        Kelly considered the crate for a while. "Maybe we could get a bunch of men in here and carry the box out with Hagendorf still inside."
        "With