A Mortal Terror bbwim-6

by James R Benn

  “To Jim Cole,” Gates said. They all repeated his name, then we clinked bottles and drank.

  “Was that you up there with Cole?” Louie asked, gesturing with his beer bottle to the rust-colored stains on my jacket.

  “Yeah. Major Kearns thought I should try talking him down. You guys saw it all, right?”

  “We did,” Gates said. “Now I suppose you want to know the whole story?”

  “Yep. And why you all held back.”

  “It was for Jim,” Louie said. “We was doin’ him a favor, goddamn it.”

  “It’s okay, Louie, it’s okay,” Gates said. “Flint, tell Billy what happened.”

  Flint took a long draw on his beer, set it down hard, and pursed his lips. He shook his head before beginning, as if he wondered if this was a good idea. “I was assistant squad leader. Cole was my sergeant. He came over from First Platoon after we lost a couple of guys. He knew what he was doing; he’d been with the company longer than anyone.”

  “Since North Africa,” I said.

  “Yeah. That had started to bother him. You know, with so many guys killed and wounded, and not a scratch on him. He kept saying his number was up, it had to be.”

  “Everybody worries about that,” Gates said. “That wasn’t the problem.”

  “Right, right. The problem was Campozillone,” Flint said. He gulped the rest of his beer. “It’s a little village near the base of Monte Cesima. The division was advancing on Mignano, and we had to clear Campozillone of Germans. It was a small place, but it overlooked the main road. It was on a hill, with a big stone church at the top, like a lot of these villages.”

  “Good place for an observation post,” I said.

  “Yeah. Landry and the rest of the company stayed on the main road while Third Platoon hustled up this dirt track. The village had taken an artillery barrage the night before, and we hoped the Jerries got the message and cleared out. When we got there, it was all narrow streets, like switchbacks, heading up to the church. The buildings were real close together, made from white stone, like granite. Solid.”

  “Them switchbacks were perfect for an ambush,” Louie said.

  “Yeah. It was real quiet at first. Some buildings were piles of rubble. Others were fine. It was hard to tell if they were homes or shops or what. They were all shuttered up. So we keep going, checking out alleyways and side streets, advancing up toward the church. No sign of Germans or civilians.”

  “It was hot,” Stump said. “I remember sweating. Hot for November, even in Italy.”

  “Hot,” Flint agreed. “We were almost to the church, and it seemed like the Germans might have pulled out after all. There was a set of steps leading up to the road, so we took them, our squad. The others went around the bend in the road, and we went up the steps, figuring to save time.”

  “It wasn’t a bad move,” Louie said. Everyone nodded their agreement.

  “Then the Krauts opened up. Machine gun in a cellar window, at the head of the steps. They had the road and the steps covered. We lost two guys right away. One, MacMillan, had been with us a while. The other was a replacement, I never got his name.”

  “We was pinned down,” Louie said. “Stump and me. Rusty was with us. We had one guy wounded, out in the middle of the street, but we were all holed up in doorways, nowhere to go.”

  “We started lobbing grenades,” Flint said. “But they’d miss the window and bounce away. Some of these buildings had real narrow basement windows, and that’s where the Krauts set up. Like a pillbox. The building between us and the Krauts was nothing but rubble, which blocked all the entrances on our side. We couldn’t get at them.”

  “Bishop was out in the street, hit pretty bad in the legs,” Gates said. “They left him alone, hoping one of us would try to get to him.”

  “We was screwed,” Louie said.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “The MG42 stopped,” Flint said. “A few rifle shots, then they were gone. The medics got to Bishop, and we kept going. But now we knew they were probably setting up somewhere between us and the church. Everyone was mad. We wanted to get those bastards. Mac and Bishop, plus that kid-it got us all pissed off. You know how it is, when one minute you’re so scared you just want to get into the deepest hole you can find, and then something happens, your blood’s up, and you’re doing something that might get you killed. It was like that. We moved up, hugging the walls, watching for those basement windows, waiting for shutters to swing open and the MG to open up again.”

  “We were all jumpy,” Stump said. “Lots of firing at shadows.”

  “Our squad was in the lead,” Flint said. “Cole took point. We were about fifty yards from the church, only one more switchback to go. I was looking at the bell tower, watching for snipers. I heard Cole say something and saw him point to a building at the top of the road. The roof had been caved in, but the rest of it was intact. It had stone steps leading up to the front door, and two small windows with bars on them on either side of the steps.”

  “I heard him yell for covering fire,” Gates said.

  “Yeah, then everyone started shooting. He ran toward the building, and I followed, shooting and yelling. We were all a little crazed, you know? Cole was screaming about the basement, that he saw movement, and to fire at the windows. I did, and as we got close, he pulled out a WP grenade, one of those new M15 gizmos, you know? And I figure, good idea, even if he misses, some of that Willie Peter will spray into the basement and fix those Krauts good. So he throws, and Jesus, it was a beautiful shot. The windows were a bit high off the ground, which made it a little easier, but it sailed in there perfectly. You saw it, Louie, wasn’t that a shot?”

  “Right between the bars,” Louie said. “Cole had a helluva arm.”

  “Flint,” Gates said in a low, quiet voice. “Tell Billy what happened.”

  “Well, we took cover. You know that stuff flies everywhere and burns like the devil. But when it went in, we moved up, covering the door, figuring Krauts might come spilling out.”

  “But there weren’t no Krauts,” Louie said, helping Flint along. I felt the weight of the grenade in my pocket, as well as the weight of what I knew was coming. I thought about the fact that someone had left this grenade on Cole’s desk hours-or minutes-before he’d decided to kill himself.

  “No. Smoke was pouring out, and inside was a white-hot glow. We heard screams. We got to the window, and there was this guy, this Italian. He was on fire, his back was blazing. He had a little girl, he must have shielded her from the blast, and he was trying to push her out between the bars, but he couldn’t. Cole grabbed at the girl, but he came up empty. Except for a rag doll she’d been holding.”

  “It was a whole family,” Gates said. “Father, mother, couple of kids. They’d evidently taken shelter during the bombardment. When the roof caved in, it blocked the stairs to the basement. They were trapped.”

  “Cole just stood there,” Stump said. “Holding that rag doll. And I mean he stood there, looking into that burning basement. We couldn’t move him.”

  “We found those Krauts,” Louie said. “They was hightailing it outta the church, four of ’em, makin’ for an olive grove. We’d split up, a squad on either side of the church. Soon as they saw us, it was kamerad, kamerad. But we wasn’t in the mood.”

  “What happened with Cole?” I thought about pulling out the grenade and plunking it down on the table, but I didn’t know what that would tell me. If one of these guys put it on Cole’s desk, he might expect it. The rest would think I’d lost it.

  “Landry came up with some medics and they checked him out, but he wasn’t wounded. Flint brought him to the aid station, just to give him a rest,” Gates said. “Since he wasn’t hurt, they didn’t know what to do, so Father Dare took over and took care of him for a couple of days. The padre brought him back, and he seemed okay. Quiet, not out of his head or anything. So we think everything is back to normal, that he got over the shock. We’re closer to Mignano now, and the
next morning we shove off to occupy another hill. I left Cole’s squad in reserve, but we come up against a farmhouse with a bunch of Krauts holed up in it. I needed Cole to move his squad down an irrigation ditch to get closer, so I send him out. It’s good cover, and they get close, but they stay in the ditch. I crawl down there to see what’s the problem, and everyone’s looking at Cole, waiting for the order. But he won’t move, won’t speak. So I gave the squad to Flint, and we took the farmhouse. No casualties.”

  “Did he say why he froze?”

  “He said he just couldn’t do it anymore,” Flint said. “He was okay as soon as he got away from the shooting. But he said there was no way he could ever go up on the line again.”

  “He wasn’t shaking in his boots or anything. He just said he couldn’t do it no more,” Louie said.

  “It wasn’t like some guys who try to talk their way out of it,” Gates said. “He was ready to take whatever the army dished out, but he sure as hell was not going up on the line ever again.”

  “Fourteen months, since Fedala,” Stump said. “That’s how long it took. Fourteen months and one morning in Campozillone.”

  “We got Father Dare to talk to Captain Galante,” Flint said. “He’d just been assigned to the hospital here, and we knew he was an okay guy. If Colonel Schleck ever found out about Cole freezing, he would have transferred him to another company and courtmartialed him if he didn’t fight. We didn’t want that to happen.”

  “Schleck claimed Galante got a squad killed,” I said. Now that everyone was in the mood to tell the truth, I wanted to get as much out of them as I could.

  “Bullshit,” Gates said. “That wasn’t Cole anyway. It was another old-timer from Dog Company, couldn’t get out of his foxhole. Said he’d be dead if he did. Guy had the Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts, so he wasn’t goldbricking. Galante pulled him off the line and that very day his squad got caught in the open. The Bonesaw cut them to pieces.”

  “So Galante got Cole transferred to CID?”

  “Yeah,” Gates said. “That’s how it went. Cole was fine knowing he still had a job to do, but that he was off the front line. But we figured no one needed to know the whole story. No reason to embarrass him.”

  “You all were okay with that? No one felt left in the lurch by Cole?”

  “There but for the grace of God,” Gates said, to nods all around.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “There are no arms or weapons storage in the palace,” Kaz said as we settled in at the officer’s club. Neither of us had felt like eating, so we went directly to drinking. “There is a rule against carrying grenades within headquarters, but it is not well enforced.”

  “Who’d want to go up against some guy fresh from the line?” I enjoyed the vision of a mud-encrusted, filthy GI, grenades hanging from his web belt, M1 slung over his shoulder, as he sauntered through the palace, scaring the pants off clerks and typists, not to mention the residents of the fancy mess hall upstairs. He would seem to be from another world, a wraith who lived underground and only came out to kill or die.

  “The rule was made after a major posed for a photograph, kitted out like a combat soldier,” Kaz said, grinning. “Apparently he had political aspirations, and wanted a picture to impress his future constituents. Somehow he managed to pull the pin, then dropped the grenade and ran. The photographer threw it into a latrine, which thankfully was empty. The ensuing odor and destruction brought about the regulation against grenades as fashion accessories.”

  “So the WP grenade probably came from a combat outfit.”

  “Or it could have been stolen from a supply depot,” Kaz said.

  “Basically we’ll never know. Hundreds of people were in and out of this place tonight. All of Cole’s sergeant pals, his padre, CID staff, even those Italians,” I said. I cocked my head in the direction of two Carabinieri officers in their dark-blue uniforms.

  “Billy, the Italians are fighting on our side now. The First Motorized Combat Group performed admirably around Monte Cassino. They took heavy causalities.”

  “Yeah, I heard about that. It’s just that Italians have done more shooting at me than I like. Takes some time to get over that.”

  I finished my whiskey and got refills for both of us. I filled Kaz in on Cole’s story as I’d just heard it. When I was done, Kaz got the next round. We drank in silence; any words we might say would only seem trivial.

  “What do we do now?” Kaz finally asked.

  “What do you know about pearls?”

  “What has that to do with anything?”

  “Excellent question,” I said, leaning in closer. “There wasn’t time to tell you before, but Cole gave me something before he shot himself. Pearls.” I withdrew the necklace from my pocket, keeping it balled up in my fist. I passed it to Kaz under the table. “No one knows about this, so keep it out of sight.”

  “Did Cole say anything?”

  “ You’re the detective. ”

  “Billy, this is-”

  “Lieutenant Boyle, is it not?” I hadn’t noticed the two Carabinieri approach our table, but I was glad to see Kaz had, as his empty hand emerged from his jacket pocket.

  “Yes,” I said. “Capitano Trevisi, this is Lieutenant Baron Piotr Augustus Kazimierz.” I remembered the captain from when we met the other night, but I drew a blank on the lieutenant by his side.

  “Renzo Trevisi, at your service. Baron, this is Tenente Luca Amatori.”

  “Please join us,” Kaz said, with a slight bow and a graciousness I would not have pulled off.

  “Thank you,” Trevisi said. “We do not encounter many titled personages here, other than military, that is.” He spoke English well but with a thick accent, and slowly, so it took a second to realize he had made a little joke.

  “Ah, yes. My title is a minor one from the Polish petty nobility. I was about to tell Lieutenant Boyle about the Italian House of Savoy, and the grand balls held in this very palace.”

  “King Umberto and the great Queen Margherita of Savoy did reside here,” Trevisi said. “I am from this very town, and remember as a child watching their carriages parade through the streets. It was magnificent. Such a pity Umberto was assassinated.”

  “At least it prevented Margherita from staying on the throne. She was a notorious Fascist supporter,” Luca Amatori said. His English was rapid and perfect. He was younger than Trevisi, and he had the impatient look of a guy who was tired of agreeing with his superior officer.

  “Now Luca,” Trevisi said, in a weary parental tone. “Many of the wealthy and the aristocrats wanted stability after the last war, and they weren’t alone.”

  “You’re not a fan of royalty, Tenente Amatori?” Kaz asked.

  “On the contrary, Baron. I have the greatest respect for King Victor Emmanuel. He ordered the Carabinieri to arrest Mussolini, after all.”

  “Yes, the Carabinieri were not great supporters of Fascism. The king felt safe to call upon us when it was time to get rid of Il Duce. Mussolini,” Trevisi clarified, for our benefit. “Old habits, you know. We had to call him that for so long, it is difficult to change.”

  “Certainly,” I said, as I noticed Amatori glance away, his knuckles white where he gripped the chair. I decided it was time for a change of topic. Murder was safer than politics. “Does your jurisdiction extend to Acerra, by any chance?”

  “Yes,” Trevisi said. “Does this involve your investigation?”

  “Perhaps. We need to find an establishment that caters to soldiers. Liquor and women, nothing fancy from the sound of it.”

  “Are you looking for a recommendation?” Trevisi asked, one eyebrow raised in conjecture.

  “No, Capitano,” Kaz said. “I believe Billy is looking for a specific establishment, in connection with the investigation.”

  “We have a name,” I said. “Bar Raffaele.”

  “ Capisco,” he said. “Tenente Amatori would be glad to accompany you. Tomorrow? Perhaps he could meet you here in the morning.”
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  Luca Amatori was happy to guide us through the fleshpots of Acerra, mostly to get away from his boss, as far as I could tell. We made our arrangements, more drinks arrived, and we toasted to victory. I could picture Trevisi making the same toast with schnapps not too long ago.

  “We interrupted your discussion of the palace in the last century, I think,” Trevisi said. “Little is left of its former grandeur. You should have seen it before the turn of the century. Era bello.”

  “Yes, I was about to tell Billy about Queen Margherita. A very elegant woman, a patron of the arts, she revitalized the Italian court, made it fashionable. She held balls and parties that became famous all across Europe.”

  “People loved her,” Trevisi said, nodding his approval. “They called her the Queen of Pearls.”

  “I’d guess all queens like pearls,” I said, trying to sound casual.

  “Oh, but Margherita loved them. She wore huge strands and had many different necklaces. She was renowned for her pearls,” Trevisi said.

  “Wasn’t there a theft at one point?” Kaz asked.

  “Yes, back in the 1890s. She and the king held an anniversary ball here at Caserta. As I recall the story, a small box containing a three-strand necklace was stolen from her dressing room. It was never recovered, and apparently has never turned up. The Carabinieri chief resigned in disgrace. Very unfortunate.”

  “You have an excellent memory, Baron,” said Amatori. “I haven’t heard that story since I was a child.”

  “I was a student before the war. One tends to accumulate bits of information.”

  “Indeed,” Amatori said. “And you, Lieutenant Boyle? Were you a student in America?”

  “Not for long,” I said. “I was a police detective.”

  “Ah, a fellow officer of the law! Of course we will assist you in every way possible,” Trevisi said. We had another round to toast our cooperation, then finally parted ways.

  “T HE QUEEN OF Pearls?” I said as we got into the jeep and Kaz tossed his bag into the back. It had started to rain, a steady, incessant spitting that sounded like drum rolls on the canvas top.