Koontz, R. Dean - Hanging On by Koontz R. Dean

Author:Koontz, R. Dean [Dean, Koontz, R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-08-12T17:59:31.555000+00:00

The roof had been taken off the main bunker at the south end of the clearing, and preparations made for erecting one of the fake buildings over this ready-made basement. As a result, the men who had been sleeping there were dispossessed. And for the first time since the unit had been dropped at the bridge, the tents had been broken out and set up. They were lined in a haphazard way, the rows wandering, intersecting randomly—more the work of a troop of inept first-year boy scouts than that of a trained Army group.

Major Kelly walked briskly along one of the tent aisles, followed by twenty men. He had personally chosen each of his escorts, and he had made certain that they all had four things in common: each was big and muscular; each was mean; each was rowdy; and each one had signed his credit contract.

They stopped before a tent which looked like all the others that stretched away in the darkness, and Kelly used a flashlight to consult the chart he had prepared before sundown. “This is Armento's tent,” he told the men with him. Armento had been one of the nineteen bastards who had not signed their credit contracts. Smiling grimly, Kelly leaned down, pulled back the flap, and shouted, “Up and out of there, Private Armento!”

Armento had worked hard all day on the preparations for the construction of the village, and he was sleeping sound as a stone when Kelly called him. Shocked by this intrusion into his deserved rest, he nearly knocked the tent down when he scrambled out of it. “What? What? What?” he asked Kelly and the men behind Kelly. He rubbed his eyes. “What?”

“Sorry,” Kelly said. “Emergency. Got to requisition your tent.”

And he was sorry to have to use pressure tactics on Armento and the other holdouts who had not signed their confessions. He felt like a monster, an insensitive creep, another General Blade. But he had no choice. The Panzers were coming. Death was coming. There was nothing else to do.

Five of the men behind the major, all bigger than Armento, knocked down the tent and rolled it up. Before Armento could ask any questions, Kelly led his husky escorts down the aisle to the next victim.

By now, everyone was out of his tent. Most of the men were grinning, because they knew what was up. Only nineteen of them were bewildered. . . .

Kelly was directing the tearing down of the eighth tent, embarrassedly parrying all questions, when Lieutenant Slade arrived. Slade was furious. “You are harassing the men who stood with me, the men who wouldn't sign those insane credit contacts.” Slade shook a finger in Kelly's face.

“Not at all,” Kelly said, feeling like a heel. “The hospital staff says we're short of bandage materials. If we suffer another Stuka attack, the shortage could be a matter of life and death. So we're confiscating a few of the tents to cut them into strip bandages.” He felt ill, and he hated himself.

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