Malvolio read this and smiled.
cott grinned when he saw the deuce-and-a-half truck pulling up to the ramshackle collection of tents along the one-lane highway. The men aboard shot back grins and saluted laconically to their commanding officer.
Scott returned it and unhinged the back gate of the truck. “Took you ladies long enough to get here.”
S
“Sorry sir—the lovely locals didn’t want us to give up our positions.”
These men had been with him in North Africa and Scott knew them to be trustworthy under fire. Scott led them to the field kitchen for a hot meal and began briefing them on the mission. Present were Mazis, the Greek who was cocky but dependable, Kalk, the mountaineer, sardonic and lazy but otherwise excellent under fire, Patterson, who loved the ladies, and Rankin, who no one liked but was the best with demolition and knew his stuff, but otherwise was selfish and mean. Rankin had the bad habit of blaming people after the fact for action that had occurred during combat and many fights
broke out over his accusations. But he was the best Scott had seen around explosives-carefully efficient and amazingly fast-every charge he set never failed to detonate, and his hands were rock steady at defusing mines and booby traps. This left Pizzo, the small, quiet and deadly one whose distant family came from this island.
As they sat in the dusty clearing, eating their chow from metal mess kits, some smoking and sipping hot coffee, Scott told them the situation. They looked grim at the news and the odds they were up against, but they didn’t expect what he told them next.
“I’ll be heading out on this one alone.”
It was Pizzo who spoke up first. “You got a secret weapon?” Scott smiled. “Maybe. I just don’t think it’s going to be good for a squad of us to be out there. They’ll have reinforced the bridge by now. It’ll be best if I watch the bridge and snipe anyone coming to blow it. I can call in artillery.”
“What if the artillery you call in knocks out the bridge?” Mazis asked. “Those Germans won’t be near the bridge-they’ll be on the damn thing.”
“Let me worry about that,” Scott replied.
Mazis shrugged and said disbelievingly, “Yes, sir.”
Kalk and Patterson exchanged questioning looks about Scott being battle-wacky. Pizzo as usual said nothing at all and spat a stream of dark tobacco juice into the dust between his feet.
No one said anything for a long while. They had had a rough time since they landed, losing buddies to snipers, accidents, artillery, the replacements killed on the last patrol. They knew Scott was proposing suicide for himself but they couldn’t bring themselves to join him in what was surely a deadly mission.
Nor did Scott expect them to. These were smart men whom he had brought together for their intelligence and instinct. Like his construction crew, they were strong and smart and they wanted to survive. Heroes would be effective up until they got themselves killed. He needed men who planned on staying alive—brave men who had common sense.
Of course he could have told them about his hope for the ring saving him, but it would have given them the perfect opportunity to report him with a textbook case of combat fatigue.
It would have been like the lieutenant who suddenly swore that he could make himself invisible by wearing his father’s knit cap under his helmet. The cap had been soaked by special waters that run near his ancestral home, he told them, and these waters were known for vitality, protection and magic. They enjoyed his little joke until he stood on a ridgeline overlooking a valley in Sidri and a German sniper’s bullet went through his helmet, magic hat and skull.
Kalk said later that it could have been a lucky, random shot by the sniper and maybe the lieutenant really was invisible. Mazis, unaware of the irony, argued that he could see the damn fool the entire time. And Scott ended the conversation saying that leadership by witchcraft was probably not the most effective defensive tactics to use in this shootin’ match. The men murmured in agreement and went back to cleaning their weapons.
So to tell them now that he had a magic ring that could channel his will to make the impossible possible would lead them to never trust his judgment again. But after this mission that might not be an issue. Either the ring would save him or he would be the latest casualty, along with the men landing on that beach.
Scott had decided to parallel the route of his first recon to the bridge, then climb the ridge overlooking the town and set up to keep watch at daybreak. He needed to leave later tonight so he bade his men goodnight. They watched him step away from the fire burning in the sliced oil drum, some with sadness, others shaking their heads.
He left them without saying another word and went to prep. He would leave his Thompson submachine gun behind and would instead take the Ml rifle. He’d likely be sniping at the Germans, so the close-in Thompson would do him little good. He had the Zeiss German binoculars he’d taken from a captured tank commander in Tunis. He also packed spare ammunition, grenades, the handy-talkie PRC-11 field radio. If he stayed on the ridge he’d get an additional mile out of the five-mile range it normally had, but he worried that the batteries would not last, so he brought spares. He packed his demolition tools.
Then he checked on the ring and, for the first time since the war began, he put it on his finger. His hands trembling, Scott pawed through his musette bag and pulled out the carefully-wrapped lantern. Quickly, he touched the dormant ring to the lantern, waiting for the comforting glow of green light as the lantern recharged the ring.
Nothing.
Scott could not understand this. He tried it again but the ring remained dark.
Scott’s heart began to race as he remembered the words of the lantern: “Power shall be yours if you have faith in yourself. Lose that faith and you lose the energetic power of the green lantern, for will power is the flame of the green lantern!”
Scott knew that he could not wish the ring to work—he needed to believe in its powers and most important in his ability to use it. The death of the men on the patrol and the men of the squad that had rescued him had shaken Alan’s faith. He needed a catalyst to believe once again in himself, but he did not know what that catalyst would be.
The trek to the ridge in the darkness was tricky. Scott took his time, marking his progress by looking for strips of tape his squad had left behind on the first patrol.
Once he’d climbed the ridge overlooking the town, he scanned the area with his binoculars, being careful to shield the lenses by cupping his hands over them so that not even moonlight would reflect and give his position away. He kept his back to the Caronie mountains, sharp and steeply dropping into the Tyrrhenian Sea. Scott could feel the ominous black form of Mount Etna looming over the mountains, a massive, silent witness to the battles below.
The town was composed of a dozen buildings made from rough Sicilian stone with rooftops of dusty tile shingles. The buildings lined a road clinging to the steep mountainside that led to a cliff-side drop into the sea. By the look of it, the village had been unchanged for centuries, having undoubtedly seen many visitors, both welcome and unwelcome.
Highway 113, the dusty one-lane coast road, ran directly through the village, and the approach from inland was steep and impassable by even tracked vehicles. A sharp ravine cut into the terrain from the sea, and a small bridge crossed the ravine before the road leading just seventy-five yards into the town.
The bridge, as everything else in Sicily, was made of stone and had also been standing for centuries. The Germans set up an emplacement at the town-end of the bridge with rocks and sandbags, and Scott could see an MG-34 machine-gun in place, and two men behind it. They appeared to be on guard and expecting an attack.
The shape of their helmets was discouraging to Scott. Unlike the standard German helmets, the machine gun crew had the bowlshaped helmets of German paratroopers. Scott knew from his time in North Africa that they were an elite, known to be fearless and smart in their tactics. They would not relinquish the bridge easily.
; Scott dropped behind the ridge and slowly and methodically removed the handy-talky from his haversack, being careful not to expose the antenna over the ridgeline. Although it was night, he’d learned too many times that one act of carelessness got men killed and battles lost.
Once he was sure his gear was in working order and he’d memorized their place in the darkness on the ridge beside him, he settled in for some rest. He was too keyed up to sleep, so he lay on his back and stared at the stars, tracking Orion, and the north star, and the dippers.
Scott examined the ring on his finger. It was still cold to the touch. His head was resting on his field bag, the lantern tucked safely in it. He’d repeatedly touched the ring to the lantern and although it was less than twenty-four hours between charges, the ring still showed no signs of power.
How did he expect it to come to life? He tried talking to it, just as he had done with the lantern.
“C’mon, ring. Do something. If there’s ever a time, this would be it. I can’t do this by myself. I need... something. Otherwise, I’m just me and that ain’t good enough. Not for this.”
But Scott’s one-way conversation with the ring was cut short when he heard the clink of metal behind him. Someone was coming up the ridge.
Scott froze in the darkness, listening for the sound of metal, the slosh of water in a soldier’s canteen, anything that would give away the position of whoever was coming up the ridge. He instinctively, slowly lowered his hand to the rifle next to him. Realizing firing it would give away his position, he instead reached for the knife in his boot: a ranger knife he’d gotten in a trade.
Scott had sharpened it constantly, nervously, as a kind of physical mantra to help him clear his mind. Now he was thankful for this compulsion: the blade was razor-edged.
The knife now in his hand, he slipped behind a boulder next to him, backing away, never turning his back the sound below.
Then Scott heard a pair of boots shuffling in the dirt. It was only one pair, so he figured he’d have a chance if he could surprise the intruder. It must have been a sentry posted here after the earlier probe. Scott knew that they worked in twos, but perhaps they were short of men, or he had separated from his buddy in the darkness. He’d have to kill him before the other guard showed up.
Scott put his free hand against the boulder to steady himself. In his mind he ran through what he was about to do. If he could he’d grab the man from behind, and with his free hand pull the man’s chin up and then jam the knife in the man’s throat. The chin pulled back and the knife in the throat would prevent him from being able to yell out. If he had to attack the sentry from the front, he’d throw himself against the man and run the knife between the ribs into the heart, his free hand over the man’s mouth.
Either way there’d be a tremendous amount of blood, and Scott would be covered in it.
There were many ways to kill a man, but he hated this one more than any of the others. He’d shot a few, and thrown grenades, and once he’d practically decapitated a soldier in Tunisia by hitting him in the neck with the sharp blade of an entrenching tool, but the worst was the honest, intimate dance of holding onto a man as he was killing him. The knife trembled in Scott’s hand, and he was afraid of hesitating.
Scott moved his free hand up the face of the boulder, ready to lunge. As he did so, he could see his knife bathed in an eerie green light. The ring on his free hand was glowing. Scott’s heart leapt as he could hear the steady boots scuffle as if running.
Scott came around the boulder and saw the outline of the man in front of him. The man was swinging a weapon towards him.
Scott had less than a second to close the space between him and the man before he could get his weapon trained on Scott. Oddly, the man did not yell out.
Scott slammed into the man, knocking both of them backward down the slope. They hit the ground in a dusty thud, and Scott clawed at the man’s throat, trying to choke him before he could cry out. But the man was too fast, his hand grabbing at Scott’s wrist.
Scott used this to thrust his knife forward, but the tip caught something metal and the knife deflected upwards.
Scott could hear the grunting of the man, and a green glow came from his hand as the man pulled it away from his throat. The light was strong now, powered by Scott’s focus and intent on the task of killing. It lit up his victim’s face and Scott could see that it was Pizzo.
Both men froze as they recognized each other.
“Pizzo? What the hell?”
Scott rolled off the corporal, who was still gagging from Scott’s grip on his throat. Scott’s heart pounded in his ears and he looked at the man he had been moments away from killing. One of his own. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you, sir. We’re all down the ridge.”
“We?”
“Mazis, Kalk, me. We figured we couldn’t leave you out here alone. We also got four replacements.”
“On whose order?”
“No one sir—we volunteered.”
“What did I tell you about volunteering?”
“I don’t listen so hot. But if you want us off the ridge... ”
Scott looked at the glowing ring on his finger—the light had almost completely faded. He sighed. “No, I’m gonna need you now. What else did you bring?”
“A mortar. That’s it.”
“Good.”
Pizzo searched his pocket and pulled a dented and pierced can of chewing tobacco from his breast pocket. “Glad I’m not a smoking man.”
He opened up the dented case and pulled out a pinch of chew and crammed it in his cheek.
Scott fell backward. The green light faded from his ring as he was overcome by the disaster that had almost happened.
Pizzo watched him. “You all right?”
“Yeah. I guess. I don’t think anyone heard us.”
“I better shag ass down to the others and tell them to get up here.” Pizzo slowly got up and dusted himself off. Limping, he started making his way down the ridge to the men waiting below.
Scott waited for Pizzo to leave before looking at his ring. The power that was so easy to him before was elusive. Too much had happened for him to gather the focus to use it. Strangely, he was all right with this. He’d rather succeed or fail on his own.
He had called himself Green Lantern before but now he knew he was really Captain Alan Scott. He had no choice.
he four men peered over the ridge as the sun began to rise. They watched as the German paratroopers began to stir in preparation, moving slowly and purposefully. It was not yet warm but in less than two hours the merciless July heat would be beating down on them.
Mazis spoke in a low breathless whisper. “We can’t call in artillery—those emplacements are far too close to the bridge.”
T
Kalk nodded. “The best we can do is get to those charges.”
Scott used the binoculars to check their placement. “I can’t see their placement. They’ll either detonate from the bunker or the sandbags.”
He turned to look at the other three men. “Okay, we’ll need to take those charges out by hand. Kalk, you and the mortar crew try and hit the sandbagged emplacement. Mazis, take the rest of the men and pour fire on the pillbox. Pizzo and I will try and make our way to the bridge and get to the wire. If you keep ‘em busy enough, they may not notice us.”
Scott winced at the absurdity of what he just said. Not only was he sure that the Germans would notice him, they were going to do everything they could to kill him before he even set foot on the bridge.
The men nodded at their orders and turned to prepare. Kalk had two men set up the base plate of the mortar and stack the rounds where they would be in easy reach.
One of the replacements unfolded the bipod legs of his BAR and fiddled with the gun sight of the automatic rifle. His belt pouches bulged with spare clips of ammo, and he took the belt off and placed it nearby.
Pizzo and Scott looked at each other as they removed webbing, belts, anythi
ng that would slow them up. They both knew that they would need to scramble to the bridge.
Scott said, “You go under the bridge, I’ll go on top. Don’t go for the charges themselves. Just cut any wires you see and I’ll do the same. It’ll give us some time.”
Pizzo nodded. Scott tossed him a set of pliers.
Scott took one more look through the binoculars. The strength of the morning light was replacing the pre-dawn flatness and now everything was sharper and more distinct. Scott scanned around until he saw a German officer walking towards the emplacement. Unlike the men among him who were wearing the green pocketed smocks of the German paratroopers, this man wore a tropical jacket and a cloth hat. He had the seasoned look of a veteran, and he carried himself as a commander. He was watching everything, and for a moment he looked up at the ridge where Scott was peering down at him. Although Scott knew that he could not been seen from that distance without binoculars, he had the instinct to duck and hide.
As if making eye contact, the cloth-capped soldier stared in Scott’s direction. Scott knew that this was the unit commander, probably an Oberleutnant, overseeing his defenses. Scott also knew that this would be the man to give the order to blow the bridge.
Scott watched as the man walked toward the pillbox and disappeared inside for a few minutes. Then he exited and unhurriedly crossed the road to the sandbagged, open emplacement. Although the men there did not salute, Scott could see that they were treating him with deference and some nervousness. He gestured at the machine gun, and quickly the gunner and loader shifted the MG-34 to its left, where it could be swiveled for a greater field of fire. Scott smiled at this-it was something he’d done to his men many times-that little detail that could turn a fight in his favor.
Scott watched the man move to one side of the emplacement, and look down at something. He then crouched down, out of Scott’s sight. Scott knew that that must be where the detonator was. He saw the man stand up and say something to the junior officer behind him. The man nodded and crouched down. The man spoke sternly to the junior officer, who Scott could see was nodding while looking away in deference.
Green Lantern - Sleepers Book 2 Page 13
