I couldn’t think what to answer, so I studied the blueprints some more. “Okay, then,” I said. “Sam and Nate, why don’t you . . .”

Along about 0100 or so, everybody was working so well that I even got to turn my hand to installing a rack that needed putting up. And then, without warning, Major Garrett and Pops showed up at the door, hard-to-read expressions on their faces.

As one after another of the guys spotted them, hammering and sawing left off till the room was dead quiet.

“We didn’t think we’d wake you, Major,” I ventured. “You either, Pops. We tried to keep it down.”

The major started to say something and then stopped, and then Pops began to say something and then held it back, also.

And then the next thing, the two of them were taking off their coats and the major was saying, “It looks like you boys might need some help. You want to give us our orders?”

Everybody looked at me. And then, because I was about to lose my grip on the rack I’d been struggling to screw in place, I said, “Maybe if one of you wouldn’t mind holding this?”

And then I added, “And Nate could use a hand running that cable.”

They pitched in like I’d suggested, and when Pops finished helping Nate, he didn’t head for the blueprints but instead waited for me to give him a new task. And the major rolled up his sleeves higher and waited, too, for me to tell him what to do next.

Romeo left long enough to make a big pot of coffee, which he brought over along with biscuits and sliced ham.

Riley lugged over a radio, and plugged it in.

“You’re not going to find anything this time of night,” Nate said.

But Riley fiddled with the tuner until he picked up a station playing dance music. Must be good cloud cover, I thought, bouncing signals. I leaned back for a moment, enjoying it and thinking what a satisfying night this was.

And then Nate called, “Hey, Trawnley, just ’cause you’re bossing this job doesn’t give you leave to stop working!”

We didn’t knock off until dawn, when the mess sergeant came in to say he’d got both pancakes and oatmeal ready. By then a couple of partitions were the biggest things left to put up in one of the barracks, and electricity was the only major thing still needed in the other. But there were still lots and lots of smaller jobs undone.

Pops and the major had their heads together over breakfast, and I guessed they were trying to decide whether to go for a big final push or to play it safe and have us start setting up troop tents.