A Mortal Terror bbwim-6

by James R Benn

  “I gotta go, Billy,” Danny said. “Will I see you again?”

  “Sure. Maybe tomorrow.”

  Charlie appeared at Danny’s side, moving silently for a big guy carrying two packs of gear. He didn’t speak. Next thing I knew, Danny was hugging me with more strength than I’d thought he had. We stayed that way for a moment, and the familiar feel of my brother’s grip brought me back to Southie, baseball games on the corner lot, leaves burning in the cool autumn air, and the scent of home. I gripped him even harder, and then we broke off in silent agreement that too much memory might not be a good thing right now.

  I watched him move out with Charlie, wondering what secrets the radioman might have been told and what he might have seen. And why had he lost that job? Not that anyone wanted to carry around a heavy radio, much less be a priority target for the enemy. And how much of a coincidence was it that my kid brother was assigned to Landry’s platoon and buddied up with Charlie Colorado in the first place?

  “You and the Limey officer staying in the village?” Louie asked as we walked along.

  “He’s Polish, actually, and no, we’re leaving.”

  “No disrespect meant. Just wondering if you needed a place to bunk down.”

  “Thanks, Louie, but we have beachside accommodations. Too bad they don’t have a Bar Raffaele here, eh? Some wine, women, and song would be good about now.”

  “You can sing all you want, Lieutenant, but the civilians were evacuated from Le Ferriere this morning. Bunch of Italian Carabinieri came in trucks and hauled them away. Guess they knew the place would get plastered.”

  “I wondered why they were part of all this. Good idea to bring in the local cops. Hey, too bad about Rusty,” I said. “Hard to believe that German got the drop on him.”

  “Can’t let your guard down, not for a second. Wasn’t like him to, but everyone slips up now and then. That Kraut officer didn’t even look like the type.”

  “What do you mean, the type?”

  “You know, a combat officer. He looked soft, not the type to go down guns blazing.”

  “Must have thought he had a chance,” I said. “Why else would he try it?”

  “He musta thought he had no other choice. Or maybe he was loco.”

  “Speaking of strange, how did Danny end up with you? I mean, what are the chances?”

  “Truck dumped him and that other ASTP kid off. I got ’em. Simple.”

  “Rusty assigned them to you?”

  “Nothing that official. I was short compared to the other guys, so they were mine.”

  “You guys worked pretty well together, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, with Rusty and Landry in charge, we were a good team. Now, we’ll have to wait and see. If Evans don’t get his head blown off, he might be all right.”

  “He got those replacements for you. At least he’s looking out for the platoon,” I said.

  “Naw, they came from Major Arnold direct. Luck of the draw, I guess. But still, Evans ain’t the worst we could draw for a second louie.”

  “Arnold? That your personnel officer?” I felt a twinge of guilt at not telling Louie that Arnold was dead, but I wanted to watch everyone for a reaction. The only guy here who would know Arnold was toes up was the guy who did it.

  “Yeah. A souvenir hound, and a real jerk to boot. But at least he sent us a few new guys.”

  We were close to the village. Acrid black smoke hung in the air from the remnants of a burning truck. The buildings were made of concrete and stonework, and had absorbed the shelling fairly well. The church had taken a direct hit on its roof, and craters gouged out holes in the narrow streets.

  “C’mon, double time!” Louie yelled to two men lagging behind us. “See ya, Billy. I want to find a nice deep basement.”

  I stood beneath a stone archway and watched as Stump and Louie ushered their men into buildings along the perimeter. Flint’s squad entered next, and he paused to watch Kaz and Evans behind him, scanning the hills through binoculars, watching for movements or the telltale reflection of the sun off a pair of German binoculars.

  “Have a nice chat with the kid brother, Billy?” Flint asked.

  “Yeah. Never expected to run into him here,” I said as I fell in with him.

  “You just happened to be in the neighborhood?” Flint’s eyes darted over his men, up to the hills, and to the nearest building. It was small but well built, and covered the entrance to the village. He signaled for his squad to enter.

  “I took a little detour. I figured the army is one thing, family is another. You have any brothers?”

  “Yeah. My older brother died at Pearl Harbor. I joined up the next day. Got a younger brother myself, he’s training to be a fighter pilot.”

  “Sorry to hear it,” I said. “That must have been tough.”

  “It was. Got everyone riled up, that’s for sure. I didn’t like leaving my mother and kid brother to run the ranch, but I had to get into the fight. Seemed the only thing to do.”

  “You’re a cowboy?”

  “You got to ride a horse to herd cattle, Billy. Guess you could say I am, West Texas born and bred.”

  “This is a long way from Texas,” I said.

  “You got that right. Flat like Texas, though. But cold and wet. Can’t say I like it much.”

  I followed Flint into the building, which had been used for storing farm implements. A small engine, maybe from a tractor, was unassembled on a workbench. The place smelled of oil and sweat, but it was dry and had foot-thick walls. Evans glanced in and nodded at Flint, as if he approved.

  “How’s your new lieutenant coping since Rusty got it?” I asked.

  “You heard, huh? Damn shame. I don’t know about Evans. He hasn’t done anything stupid yet, so we’ll see.” It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement.

  “Something happen to your radioman? I haven’t seen one with Evans.”

  “We don’t have a radio, and haven’t been issued a new set. Charlie kicked in the last one, so we’re short.”

  “Why’d he do that?”

  “Charlie drinks. A lot. Not often, but when he does, look out. You know how they say Indians can’t hold their liquor? Well, no one ever told Charlie. He can drink more than any man I ever met. Stays pretty sober too, on the outside at least. Then he gets to a point where all his meanness comes out, and no matter who you are, best stay out of his way. He’s big, strong, and a mean drunk. Took a swing at Landry once.”

  “And he wasn’t court-martialed?”

  “Nope. Besides being a mean drunk, Charlie’s a damn good soldier. Landry had the MPs lock him up, and it took a pile of them to do it. After the booze wore off, he was all apologetic, and Landry let it pass. Next time, he smashed the radio instead of an officer. I guess Landry knew this little tea party was coming up, and didn’t want to lose him.”

  “Lucky for Danny he didn’t.”

  “Yeah. But if Charlie finds a wine cellar, he’ll drink it dry, and then Danny boy better not be in the vicinity. Word of warning, pal.” Flint unslung his musette bag and tossed it on the workbench. It fell with a heavy clunk, and the snout of a German pistol poked out where the strap wasn’t secured.

  “Souvenir?”

  “Walther P38,” Flint said. “I bought it off Louie after he nailed that Kraut.”

  “This is the pistol Gates was killed with?”

  “It is. It was Louie’s by rights, but he didn’t want it. I figure if I can get to the rear somebody’ll give me good money for it. How about you, Lieutenant?”

  “No thanks,” I said, but I couldn’t stop myself from taking the automatic and feeling the heft of it. The Walther was easy to hold, the reddish-brown grip molded to fit the hand. The peppery smell of gunpowder still lingered over the steel, and I wondered again how Rusty had been caught unawares. “Louie didn’t say anything about shooting the German.”

  “He was pretty upset about the whole thing,” Flint said. “We all were.”

  “Billy,” Kaz said fro
m the doorway. “They want us to take two of the wounded back to the aid station. The ambulance is full.”

  “Okay. Sarge, good luck with the pistol. Maybe try Major Arnold in personnel. I hear he pays top dollar,” I said, watching Flint’s eyes. No surprise, no flicker of awareness.

  “If I get that far back to the rear, I’ll have sold it already, but thanks.”

  The field ambulance had taken the badly wounded already, and the medics were bandaging the last two GIs when we got back to the jeep. Stump was being patched up as well, a medic winding gauze around his forearm.

  “Shrapnel nicked me,” he said. “Didn’t even feel it until I saw the blood.”

  “Bad luck,” I said. “A little worse and you might have been sent home.”

  “And miss this escorted tour of beautiful Italy? No way. You takin’ those guys back? They ain’t banged up too bad.”

  “Yeah. You’re not going?”

  “I’d be embarrassed with this scratch. Make sure they fix ’em up and get ’em right back to us. I got a feeling we’re going to need every man pretty soon.”

  “It’s a long way from Bar Raffaele, isn’t it?”

  “You got that right, Billy. Paying too much to drink rotgut wine in the sunshine has got it all over this. Them Krauts are gonna keep shelling us until we take those hills up there. All Inzerillo ever did was overcharge us.”

  “What about that fight, the one Landry and Flint had to pay damages for? What happened? I never heard the whole story.”

  “I dunno,” Stump said, his voice low. “I got a dose of the clap there, you know what I mean? The docs gave me shots and I was out of circulation for a while. Don’t spread it around, okay?”

  “My lips are sealed,” I said. “Any word about replacements?” I asked, thinking that venereal disease made a good motive, for roughing up Inzerillo, at least. Or a good excuse to pretend ignorance. Either way, I wasn’t getting anywhere.

  “Arnold wouldn’t bother to tell us if he had a boatload. Not his style. He only comes around scrounging souvenirs, got a real sideline going for himself. Replacements either show up or they don’t.”

  “That’s good to know. I’ve got a nice SS dagger stashed away.”

  “Well, see Arnold, he’s always buying. I hear he ships the stuff home, got a pal who sells it off. You think rear area guys pay top dollar? It’s civilians and 4-Fs who shell out the real dough. Arnold’s smart, I give him that. You see him, tell him we need some experienced men, or he might get a Tiger tank for a souvenir, complete with crew.”

  “Lieutenant?” a medic called to me. “These guys are ready to go.”

  I wished Stump well and promised him I’d deliver the message to Arnold if I saw him, which I knew was one helluva long shot. The two wounded managed to stay upright as we drove them to battalion aid, where they joined a long line of the walking wounded. German artillery had had a busy day. So had we.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  It was easy to get back to the twin towns of Anzio and Nettuno. All we had to do was follow the pillars of smoke. The Luftwaffe had been back, going after transports anchored offshore and the buildup of supplies off the beach. Anzio had been hit hard, first by our own bombardment and now by German bombs. There was even more destruction now than when we’d driven off the beach. I maneuvered the jeep around rubble and burning vehicles, waiting as ambulances barreled by. Everyone seemed to be glancing up, watching for the next wave of attacking aircraft. Near the center of town, a row of houses had been hit, leaving nothing standing but the front facades, doors and windows opening to piles of stone, timber, smashed furniture, and debris. Three women sat at the edge of the ruins, each of them nursing a baby. A few salvaged possessions lay about them. Their clothes and hair were caked with dust, nothing but breast and child, clean and pink.

  “Is not war terrible?” Kaz said. “That we should think them the lucky ones?”

  I didn’t answer.

  Back in Nettuno, General Lucas’s villa had been renovated, courtesy of the Luftwaffe. There was a gaping hole in the roof, but no sign of an explosion. A GI told us it was from an unexploded bomb, and that Corps staff had moved into a nearby wine cellar for protection. We found Major Kearns in a deep stone basement filled with giant wooden wine casks and thick spiderwebs. A sour smell rose from a dank earthen floor. The place was a full-fledged winery, but had been unused for years. GIs carried desks, tables, map boards, radios, and other gear down a rickety flight of wooden steps.

  “Driven underground already, and the casks are empty,” Kearns said by way of greeting. “Not the best start for an invasion. What did you find out?”

  “Mainly that my kid brother was transferred into Landry’s old platoon.”

  “Life is full of coincidences,” Kearns said. “Does it mean anything?”

  “I don’t believe in coincidence,” I said. Dad had always said people mistook cause and effect for coincidence. “If the killer is in that platoon, then he’s managed to get one up on me. It’s like handing him a hostage. Danny was part of an ASTP group that just landed at Naples. Major Arnold was sending them out to platoons just before he was killed. Now maybe that’s a coincidence too, but I doubt it. Everyone knows Arnold was in the souvenir business. It would have been easy to ask him for a favor-like transferring one particular replacement into a certain platoon-in return for a Nazi flag or a pile of soldbuchs.” Cause and effect.

  “And then kill him?” Kearns said, with a touch of sarcasm.

  “It does fit,” Kaz said. “Otherwise, Arnold might make a connection, were anything to happen to Billy’s brother. And he was the right rank for the killer’s next target. It was the perfect opportunity.”

  “All right,” Kearns said. “I’ll get Danny transferred out. The division is pushing off in the morning, across the Mussolini Canal. It’ll have to wait until after that.”

  “But sir, he’s only a kid,” I said, not liking the idea of Danny under fire out on that exposed field.

  “There are a lot of kids out there, Boyle. I buy it that it will be better all around to get him out of the platoon, but there’s no time to get the paperwork going. Besides, all you need to do is not make a move until after tomorrow morning. That way we won’t tip our hand. After the attack, I’ll send up the proper paperwork, and it will look completely normal. Now, tell me what else you’ve got.”

  “Not much. I spoke to all of them about Major Arnold, but none of them seemed to know he was dead.”

  “They wouldn’t. They were all aboard ship by the time you found him. What else?”

  “We confirmed that Lieutenant Landry did have a girl at Inzerillo’s place. Seems he wanted her to go straight, but there’s no way to confirm that now.”

  “Boyle, you’re not exactly cracking this case wide open,” Kearns said.

  “I know,” I said, not wanting to admit that I was taking time to protect my kid brother. “I just need a little more time to get Danny out so I can press these guys harder.”

  “So you went easy on them today? Let me guess, you said it was just a social call, to see your brother. Picked up a little gossip, then headed back here to get the kid transferred. Am I close?”

  “I had to feel them out, Major. I couldn’t even interrogate them properly, since we were under artillery fire for most of the time. They had dead and wounded to deal with too.”

  “All right, all right. But press them hard next time. Find this guy, before he finds his next victim. I want him brought to justice, and I want it to happen before some Kraut blows his head off. Anything else?”

  “Only that Lieutenant Evans is worried about Sergeant Walla,” Kaz said. He hadn’t mentioned it to me, but between ferrying the wounded and driving through bombed-out ruins, we hadn’t had time for much conversation. “He says he’s changed since they’ve come ashore, as if something is worrying him.”

  “He should be worried,” I said, stating the obvious. “Any sane man would be.”

  “But remember Signora Salval
aggio telling us that Galante and Father Dare dined together, and that they discussed the sergeant?”

  “This is Louie Walla from Walla Walla?” Kearns asked. “Seemed like a happy-go-lucky guy to me.”

  “Yeah, that’s him. He did seem different to me today. Less cheery, none of that Walla Walla stuff. I figured he was all business out here, that’s all.”

  “He bears watching,” Kearns said, sorting through a pile of maps.

  “Louie was the one who plugged that German officer who killed Rusty,” I said.

  “Rusty Gates got it? Damn, he was a good man,” Kearns said as he gave up looking through the maps and rubbed his temples. He looked tired, the exhaustion of too little sleep and too much death.

  “I thought so too. Not the kind to let a Kraut fool him either. Apparently the guy was going to surrender but pulled his pistol and shot Rusty. Louie plugged him.”

  “Listen,” said Kearns. “I’ve been in combat with Rusty. If a Kraut had a pistol in his hands, he would have shot him dead. If it was in his holster and he went for it, Rusty would’ve put two rounds in his chest before he cleared it. There’s no way he would let his guard down.”

  “Unless the weapon wasn’t in the German’s hand,” Kaz said. “And the German was shot to inflict maximum pain and suffering. Two in the stomach.”

  “You’re saying the Kraut didn’t kill Rusty? But why would Louie, even if he is Red Heart?” I said. “What’s in it for him, especially in the middle of combat? Eliminating a veteran platoon sergeant increases everyone’s chance of getting killed.” I needed to question Louie about that. And to see if Evans really had offered to finish off the Kraut.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Kearns said. “I think we’re getting carried away. Focus on what you know. Hopefully the attack tomorrow will keep everyone busy, including the Germans.”

  It was a hell of a way to run an investigation, right in the middle of an invasion, my kid brother dead center, and hoping that the Germans left our killer alive long enough for us to catch him. It made about as much sense as anything else did.

  “Yes sir,” I said. “We’ll pick up tomorrow, after the attack.”