by James R Benn
Walking toward the fishing boat, I felt exposed. Anyone along the shore could spot us, and there was no cover, nowhere to run. Our footsteps echoed on the weathered planks, the only other sound coming from the gulls squabbling for fish guts.
Our boat was thoroughly rusted, with what paint there was peeling off in great chunks. I saw movement in the cabin and wished I still had that Beretta.
“That you, Billy?” A large shadow emerged from the boat.
“Big Mike!” Diana said, running to give him a hug.
“Quiet down out there!” a rumbling baritone echoed from below deck.
“Come on,” Big Mike said, grinning as he helped Diana aboard. “We’re ready to shove off.”
We cleared the harbor as the sun vanished below the horizon, the only light coming from the distant stars. At the wheel, Lieutenant John Hamilton checked his compass with a flashlight, its red filter protecting his night vision.
“Will you tell this big lummox to stay out of the way?” Hamilton said. “I’m about ready to throw him overboard.” Hamilton had two crewmen along, Yugoslavian pirates by the look of them. They laughed, and I could tell it had become a running joke.
“What are you doing here, Big Mike?” Diana asked after we settled into the small cabin.
“I brought Billy his orders to go to Rome,” he said. “Then I figured I oughta hang around and make sure the OSS got him out okay.”
“It’s the only reason we’re here,” Hamilton said, keeping his eyes on the horizon. “Because then Big Mike will go back to London and leave us alone.”
“You look familiar,” Diana said to Hamilton. “Have we met before?” That got more laughs.
“You’re looking at a real movie star,” Big Mike said. “Sterling Hayden himself.”
“Never heard of him,” Diana said. Hamilton laughed loudest at that one.
He explained we were only going about twenty miles out, to rendezvous with a British submarine. They’d taken the boat up from Anzio last night, mingling with the fishing vessels that the Germans allowed out along the coast. We had about two hours, and he wanted all hands on deck to watch for German patrol boats. This was a quiet sector, most of the action was down around Anzio, but that was no reason to take chances.
Diana and I went out on the bow and squinted into the blackness, watching for any shapes moving against the stars. Time passed, the sound of the motor blending into the night, the blackness encompassing us until it seemed as if we weren’t even moving, but floating in a watery dream.
“How is Kaz taking it, do you think?” I asked in a whisper.
“It is another loss. But not terrible, and perhaps temporary. They seem quite in love, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I said. “That was a tough choice she had to make.”
“Every choice in war is a loss, one way or the other,” Diana said. She shivered, and I took off my coat and draped it around her shoulders. I wanted to tell her about the choice I had made and almost had to live with. I don’t know why, but it felt like a secret I shouldn’t keep from her. Guilt, maybe, as I thought of Bruzzone, his story spilling out of him like water over a dam.
The sound of gunfire echoed across the water. It was distant, the dark sky to the south lit with faint red flashes. Destroyers or PT boats, maybe, too far away to cause us any trouble.
“Sometimes it’s hard to know which loss is worse than the other,” I said. “Diana-”
“Look!” She pointed off the port bow. White foam churned and a black shape blotted out the stars in front of us. I thought it was a whale, about to crush our flimsy craft.
“Submarine!” Hamilton shouted. He slowed the boat and turned toward the sub. “Prepare to disembark.”
Figures spilled from the conning tower, and launched a rubber raft in our direction.
“We’re going home, Billy!” Diana shouted, her face wild with excitement as she hugged me. “What were you about to say?”
“Nothing,” I said. Instead of talking, I kissed her. There, in hostile waters, bobbing on the bow of a fishing boat in the Mediterranean, with one of His Majesty’s submarines waiting for us as exploding shells created fireworks on the horizon, and with a pair of Yugoslavs shouting their encouragement, we kissed-a kiss of pleasure, joy, and forgetfulness.
Some things are better left unsaid.
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