Hanging on

he said, "This has got to stop."
        The private scratched the tattoo on his chest.
        "The Panzers are coming, Angelli!" Kelly shouted, spraying spittle all over the private's face. "We've no time for this sort of thing!"
        "I can't be away from her for more than a few minutes at a time," Angelli said. "I can't bear it for longer."
        Kelly was enraged. "Pullit is not a woman! Get that through your head!"
        "She's the kind of woman I always wanted to marry," Angelli said, as if he had not heard the major. "She's witty, vivacious, and yet shy. I'd never be ashamed to introduce her as my wife."
        Kelly frowned. "Vito-"
        "Don't get the idea I'm only interested in her mind and personality," Vito said, nudging Kelly in the ribs as they walked toward the school. "She has fantastic legs, a nice round ass, beautiful big jugs-"
        "That's just one of Lily's bras. Those aren't real jugs. Those-"
        "And she has such a lovely face," Angelli said. He sighed.
        "Angelli," Kelly said, with proper gravity, "you haven't-"
        "I certainly haven't!" Angelli said, scandalized by the suggestion. "It isn't that I haven't wanted to. She does excite me. But she's a virgin, and I just could not take advantage… Well, I know you just caught me trying to take off her bra, but that wasn't anything serious. I wouldn't have pressured her into going the whole way. Mostly, we've just held hands. She's too innocent a woman for me to-"
        Kelly put a new strength in his voice. "Nurse Pullit is not a woman. She-"
        "She's almost a saint," Angelli said. "I know, sir. She is not an ordinary woman. Not at all. She's a living saint!"
        Kelly gave up on Angelli. There was no reasoning with the private just now. They reached the school building, which was still swaying in the wind, and Kelly said, "I'm not going to try to explain to you the truth about Pullit. I just want you to find the trouble with this building and get it fixed. Now! Fast, Angelli. And if you run back to the hospital before you're done, I'll shoot your balls off. You won't be any good to Pullit or anyone else, ever." Wasting precious minutes…
        The afternoon was both good and bad. Five new outhouses were built. But Sergeant Coombs got into a fight with a French worker. The roof and porch roof were added to the rectory. But a truck hauling prefabricated walls had engine trouble, and its shipment was delayed an hour. The church took shape, and the pews-borrowed from a chapel outside of Eisenhower-fit in perfectly. But Coombs got into a fight with another Frenchman and tipped over a mixer of precious concrete.
        Major Kelly shrugged off the good reports and brooded about each scrap of bad news.
        At six o'clock, as the afternoon gave way to evening, he was brooding about the concrete which Sergeant Coombs had spilled. He stood at the top of the convent steps, watching the workers swarm over the church and the rectory across the street. Men came to him with problems which he quickly solved. Occasionally, he looked eastward to see if Angelli was still guiding his French work crew.
        He was watching Vito when Danny Dew drove the D-7 onto the bridge road and roared down through the center of town, throwing up a wake of yellow dust. Dew stopped in front of the convent. He left the dozer running, jumped off, and came up the steps two at a time.
        "What's wrong?" Kelly asked.
        If a black man could look pale and drawn, Danny Dew was pale and drawn. His eyes were wide, glazed with fear. "Major… there's a rumor going around…" He was unable to put his fear into words.
        "Danny? What's wrong?"
        Dew leaned against the railing and shuddered, wiped the back of one hand across his mouth. "There's a rumor going around that you traded the D-7-for more help from Maurice."
        "Well," Major Kelly lied, "it's only a rumor, Danny. I didn't do any such thing. I know what the dozer means to you."
        "I got to have the D-7," Danny said. "Nobody can take that away from me, Kelly. I'd die. I'd wither up and die."
        Kelly patted Dew's shoulder. "I know, Danny. I wouldn't pull something like that. Besides, we need the dozer. I couldn't afford to give it away." He was a bit surprised at how smoothly the lies came out, how sincere he sounded.
        Danny began to regain control of himself. The shakes grew less severe, and some of the terror left his