Street Boys

by Lorenzo Carcaterra

  Tippler stretched out his body, his legs flat against the cold stone floor, his shoulders and arms tight and tense. He gazed through the scope and slid his hands along the dark wood barrel of the rifle, the index finger of his right hand resting on the curve of the trigger. He lifted the butt end of the rifle half an inch higher for better leverage and bore down on his target.

  Giovanni and Frederico rested the grenade crate on a lower step and stood with their backs against a wall, inches from the German soldier. The older boy grabbed Frederico’s right hand and held it tight, looked across at him and nodded. They came out of the darkness together, throwing their bodies at the flattened Nazi. They landed on his back just as he squeezed the trigger, sending the shot astray and the rifle cascading over the edge of the embankment. Frederico picked up a rock and landed blow after blow at the head and neck of the surprised Tippler, who struggled frantically to regain his focus and turn his body. Giovanni, his hands gripped around the soldier’s ammo belt, leaned down and pushed him forward. Tippler’s arms hung over the side of the tower, several hundred feet above the battle zone.

  Tippler managed to turn his head and caught a numbing blow to the eye from the sharp end of a rock. A thick line of blood spurted out of the large gash, clouding his vision. Frederico tossed aside the rock and moved next to Giovanni, each boy pushing and pulling with all their strength to get the soldier out of the tower. Tippler kicked furiously at them, landing hard, painful blows to their backs and arms. Giovanni ducked one feverish swing of a boot, jumped to his feet and pressed his hands against a stone pillar. He lifted his legs and jammed the thin soles of his shoes against the center of Tippler’s crotch. He closed his eyes and pressed down with full force, the muscles and veins on both his arms and neck bulging, his feet shoving the Nazi’s body closer to the edge of the tower. Frederico leaned his shoulder against the soldier’s back and tugged at his ammo belt with both hands. One final push from both and Tippler slid out of the tower and fell screaming over the side. The two boys stared down after him, watching him land with a loud thump on top of a moving tank.

  Giovanni and Frederico, both drenched in sweat, the sides of their arms red with welts, turned away from the embankment and found Maldini standing behind them, the crate of grenades in his hands. “He loved to laugh and make bets with the others,” Frederico said. “How many shots it would take to kill one of us. He never lost.”

  “He did today,” Maldini told them.

  He rested the crate next to one of the stone pillars and pulled free a grenade. He peered over the side, the tanks venting their wrath against old buildings shrouded in flames and abandoned homes lost under blankets of smoke. In the midst of all that madness, soldiers with machine guns searched for street boys cowering inside the wall of fire or shielding themselves under rocks and stones. In the center of the massive square, wedged in next to a crumbling fountain, he found Connors and Nunzia, fighting back to back, their guns spraying bullets in every possible direction. Maldini checked the time on his wristwatch and then looked up at the two boys. He pulled the pin from the base of the grenade and sent it spiraling down toward a trio of Nazi soldiers. “It’s time to join our friends,” he said.

  Connors aimed his machine gun at an approaching tank and held fire, looking up at the Nazi soldier flying down out of the aquarium tower. He backed up several steps, reaching a hand out for Nunzia and pulling her along with him, as the soldier landed on the other end of the square. “I was expecting a louder signal,” Connors said, ducking under a Nazi fusillade of bullets.

  Nunzia fired off a half dozen rounds and then glanced up at the tower. She saw her father lean over the edge and toss out a German grenade. “That was just an appetizer,” she shouted. “Here comes the meal now.”

  The blast of the first grenade sent three soldiers hurtling to the ground, facedown and dead. The next dozen grenades caused a break in the Nazi offensive. Within minutes, the square was filled with street boys rising up from the sewers, running out of fiery buildings and jumping down from smoke-filled houses, each firing weapons at the now-surrounded German soldiers. Connors ran toward an open manhole, grabbed a sack of grenades from a street boy and jumped on the back of a Nazi tank. He turned to his right and saw a rainbow of kerosene cocktails rain down on two other tanks swinging away from the buildings to bear down on the boys. Connors ducked under the massive fireball that was quick to follow and then unpinned two of the grenades and tossed them into the open slot above. He jumped off the tank, the explosion hitting while he was in midair.

  The three remaining tanks were moving in a tight circle, heavily armed soldiers closing in behind them, looking to shoot their way out of a square that just minutes earlier they could claim as their own. A Panzer tank, its turret loaded and in position, blocked their path. Vincenzo stood in the open hole, a pair of goggles hanging off his neck.

  “You think they’ll be all right?” Nunzia asked, looking through the haze and smoke at the Panzer tank parked beside the aquarium.

  Connors turned to her and nodded. “The Americans have Patton,” he said. “The Brits have Montgomery and the Neapolitans have Vincenzo. Not a loser in the bunch.”

  Vincenzo lowered his head and looked down into the hull of the tank. Dante was pushing buttons and shifting gears, while Claudio and Pepe stood by his side, loading bombs into the hold. Fabrizio was huddled in a corner, the bullmastiff at his feet, trying to find comfort inside the tight space. “What’s taking so long?” Vincenzo asked. “Can you drive this tank or not?”

  “We got this far, didn’t we?” Dante shouted back. “Just give me a few seconds. There’s all these buttons and gauges I need to get used to.”

  “How soon do you want us to fire?” Claudio asked.

  “They’re closing in,” Vincenzo said, staring out at the oncoming Nazi tanks and soldiers. “They’ll be on us in less than five minutes unless we attack.”

  “Do you think they figured out we’re not one of theirs?” Pepe asked.

  “They’re Nazis,” Vincenzo said in an irritated tone. “Not morons.”

  Dante pushed three buttons and moved an iron lever toward him. He took a step back to read the gauges and accidentally stepped on the mastiff’s tail. The dog turned his head and snarled. “Why is he in here?” Dante asked Fabrizio, who was calming the dog with a pat on his massive head.

  “To protect us,” Fabrizio said with a knowing nod.

  “Get ready to fire,” Vincenzo shouted down. “And move it forward. If you can, shift that turret above ten meters to the left. You’ll hit a whole section of soldiers. Once you start, Dante, no matter what happens, don’t stop.”

  Dante was mesmerized by the power of the vehicle he commanded, his eyes staring with amazement at the array of switches, gears and gauges amassed before him. He stood atop a wine crate and looked through the slot hole at the square, smoke and fire billowing in all directions. The Nazis were running toward them, forced out of the square by the bullets and bombs fired and thrown by Connors, Nunzia and the street boys. He turned to Claudio and Pepe and nodded. “Load it,” Dante said. “And be careful. We want the bombs to go out, not come in. Wait for the signal from above.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Fabrizio asked.

  “Keep an eye on Vincenzo,” Dante told him. “It’s going to get really loud soon and I may not be able to hear his commands. You listen for me and make sure that I do.”

  Vincenzo stared out at the advancing tanks and troops, at a section of a Panzer division fleeing from the weathered guns of the boys and the damage inflicted by their own grenades. “Fire,” he shouted into the hole. He wrapped his fingers around the sides of the tank as the first shell came spiraling out of the turret, disappearing in a blur as it exploded against the far side of a building wall, its brutal force sending four Nazi soldiers down to the ground.

  The boys in the hole applauded, Claudio pumped a small fist into the dusty air and the mastiff barked his approval. Dante shifted a lever and pressed
two buttons, checking the levels on each of the gauges, smiling when the tank jolted forward. Pepe stepped in alongside Claudio, grabbed hold of the two arms of a rotating machine gun. He peered down through the opening, jammed his fingers along the trigger points and opened fire. Claudio shoved a fresh shell into the hole, slammed it shut and waited for the signal to launch.

  The street boys had the Nazis bottled inside the square.

  From the tower, Maldini launched his grenade attack. From the rear, Connors and Nunzia fired on the soldiers, directing the boys against the tanks, utilizing the flame throwers, mines and kerosene cocktails at their disposal. Angela worked the sewers, moving from opening to opening like a frenzied rabbit, tossing out bags of grenades and fused cylinders, dragging down wounded boys and those low on ammo. Vincenzo and his captured Panzer moved into the square, its fiery turret shelling the three remaining tanks, the battle raging at its fullest and angriest, boys, girls, women and soldiers all fighting for a piece of a now-demolished square.

  Connors looked up and saw flames shoot out of the rear tracks of the Nazi tank. Three of its soldiers jumped out of the smoky hole and ran down one of the empty side streets. The few remaining soldiers were now frantically searching for a way out of the inferno they had initiated. Connors turned to Nunzia, put a hand on her shoulder and yelled out, “They’ve had enough. Call everybody back.”

  Nunzia jumped to the fountain in the center of the square and fired her gun into the air, waving one arm in a circular pattern. Within minutes, the street boys disappeared as quickly as they had appeared, slipping back into the safety of the sewers, side streets and alleys. The Nazi tanks were abandoned. Dead soldiers lined the large square, many of them as young as the oldest of the boys. Connors walked among them, his head down, his machine gun at rest by his side. “Win or lose,” he told Nunzia, now walking next to him, “you always end up with that same empty feeling. Wanting to burn down abandoned buildings and houses isn’t a good enough cause to die over.”

  He and Nunzia turned when they saw the tank approach, Vincenzo and Fabrizio waving at them from the open hull. Fabrizio jumped down from the moving tank, the mastiff fast on his step, and ran toward them. He stopped when he reached Connors, who reached down and picked the boy up. “What the hell were you and the dog doing inside that tank?” he asked.

  “I was the second in command,” Fabrizio said, smiling. “I would pass Vincenzo’s orders down to Claudio. Without me, victory would have been much more difficult.”

  Vincenzo, Claudio and Pepe stepped out of the tank and stared at the bodies and the fires that filled the square. Maldini, Frederico and Giovanni were fast behind them, coming down from the steps of the demolished aquarium. “The Nazis came here expecting to find Naples,” Maldini said, gazing up at the flames and smoke. “And instead they found a pocket of hell.”

  “Let’s go,” Nunzia said in a low voice, walking between Connors and Maldini, an arm under each. “We’ve all seen enough blood for one day.”

  The mastiff ran ahead of them, stopping in front of a deserted tank, fire billowing out of its back and sides, a German pith helmet resting next to it. The dog began to bark and claw at the ground, trying to wedge his body under the tracks, reaching his head in, his large jaw swinging from side to side. “What the hell’s he doing?” Connors asked, running toward the mastiff, his machine gun cocked and ready.

  Connors stood above the dog and glanced down. The mastiff had a soldier’s hand in his mouth, its fingers curled around a semiautomatic handgun. He heard a low muffled scream coming out from under the tank. Connors reached down and yanked the gun out of the soldier’s hand, then dragged him out from under the front end. The mastiff was inches from the Nazi’s face, white foam dripping along his jaws, his foul breath hot on the soldier’s neck. Connors pulled the German to his feet. He was much younger than Connors and stood shaking and shivering despite the horrid heat. Connors took two steps back and aimed his gun at the German’s stomach, the others circling around them, each looking into the face of the enemy.

  “You speak English?” Connors asked.

  The soldier nodded. “I lived in England for six months.” His voice was shaky. “On a student exchange.”

  “Take a look around,” Connors said. “Look at what you did to this place. Then look at the people behind me. This was their home, the place where they lived and played and tried to make a life. You see it?”

  The soldier’s eyes moved slowly around the burning square and then settled on the faces gathered behind Connors. “Yes,” he said, his voice choked by smoke and fumes.

  “Maybe you’ll remember it then,” Connors said. “Unlock your ammo pack and let it drop to the floor. Then turn around and leave this place.”

  The soldier swallowed hard and undid his belt, stepping aside as it fell on the ground. “If I’m to be shot,” the soldier said, “I’d rather be facing the one shooting me.”

  “You might get that chance someday,” Connors said. “But not today. Now get out of my sight, before I let the dog rip you to shreds.”

  Connors took a step back and watched as the soldier slowly lowered his hands and turned away, then sprinted toward one of the alleys closest to the tank. Connors bent down and patted the top of the mastiff’s head, running his hand down along his jawline. The dog lifted his front paws and leaned them on the soldier’s chest, his large tongue licking drool across the side of Connors’s face. Connors stood up and shook his head, wiping off the spittle with the sleeve of his uniform. “I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “This dog is better at finding a Nazi than any of us can ever hope to be.”

  “Of course he is,” Fabrizio said. “He’s a street dog. Just like us.”

  THE THIRD DAY

  25

  PIAZZA GARIBALDI

  Von Klaus slammed his fist down against the center of the map. The blow caused the thin wooden legs of the table to collapse and sent the paper flowing to the ground, the mild breeze setting it adrift along the parched grass. “They’re like deadly rodents,” he shouted to Kunnalt.

  “It’s difficult to contain them in battle, sir,” Kunnalt said, making a feeble attempt at an explanation. “They come from all directions. They launch their attack, strip our men of their guns and grenades and then scatter. And they’ve been very good at utilizing the few weapons they have.”

  “They took one of our tanks, Kunnalt,” Von Klaus said. “That makes them very good at utilizing one of the weapons we have. They’re using German bullets and artillery to kill our men. We’re not only fighting on their ground, we’re fighting on their terms.”

  “We can alert high command and ask for air cover,” Kunnalt said. “The bombings might force them out of their hiding places and then the ground troops can take care of the rest.”

  Von Klaus stared at Kunnalt, anger and frustration etched in every line of his face. “In its history, the Sixteenth Panzer Division has beaten the British in the deserts of Africa and pounded the Americans in the hills of Italy. It has marched victorious through Poland and eastern Europe and braved the brutality of the Russian front. But now it remains stalled, at the mercy of children in an empty city, in need of airpower to allow it to stake a claim to victory. If we can’t win this fight without air support against this kind of army, then we have betrayed the history of this division.”

  Von Klaus had been convinced that the rebellion would be mild, easily quelled by his far-superior troops. But now an element of uncertainty had begun to creep into his thinking. And he was experienced enough as an officer to know that where there was doubt there lurked the seeds of defeat.

  “How much use has our young traitor been to us?” Von Klaus asked.

  “He doesn’t seem to have made any impact, sir,” Kunnalt said. “My guess would be that the Italians trust him about as much as we do.”

  “Except the Italians didn’t pay for his help,” Von Klaus said. “We did. And I expect full worth for my money. Can we find him?”

  “He’s c
amped in the hills,” Kunnalt said. “He claims he offered the street fighters his help and was rebuffed. Now he says he’s got enough boys behind him to go in and attack the ones fighting us.”

  “So, he not only betrays his own kind,” Von Klaus said, “he’s even willing to kill them.”

  “Sometime tomorrow is when he plans to make his move, sir,” Kunnalt said. “Providing we meet his two requests.”

  “Which are what?” Von Klaus said, his voice coated with contempt.

  “We supply him with the weapons needed to fight and defeat the boys,” Kunnalt said. “And we guarantee him safe passage out of Naples after it’s done.”

  “Tell him I’ve accepted his terms,” Von Klaus said. “But also tell him I wish to speak to him prior to his attack. I want to go over his plan. Soldier to soldier.”

  Kunnalt looked at Von Klaus and nodded. “How soon?”

  “Now,” Von Klaus said.

  26

  MASCHIO ANGIOINO

  Connors leaned against the side of a Corinthian column, staring out at the imposing thirteenth-century castle that came complete with a moat, five stone towers and a complex series of archways. “It’d be hard for the tanks to get up here,” Connors said, pointing out the black rock structures and the closed-in brick columns. “Most likely they’ll decide to fight us out by the grass, leaving their soldiers exposed.”

  “Unless it can fly,” Maldini said, “a tank won’t be able to take the castle. Right now, it’s probably the safest place in all Naples. But things often change faster than we would like.”