“It’s changing us, I guess,” Frangie says. She shakes her head slowly, troubled deeply by the thought. “What will we be by the time we’re done?”
“Alive, I hope.” Rio rises to her feet and offers Frangie a hand, pulling her up.
“What do you do now, Richlin?”
“Find the guy who came down with me and see if we can’t scrounge up some chow, check for mail, dig a nice hole for the night. Then in the morning, head back up.”
“To the front line.”
“It’s why they gave me the rifle,” Rio says. “You?”
Frangie holds up her bag. “Here, for now at least. It’s why they gave me the bandages.”
Rio does not find Beebee, which is no surprise in the chaos. It wouldn’t matter except that Vanderpool and Cole have made her responsible for him.
Well, I didn’t ask for that.
She cannot really dig a decent hole in the sand, so in the end she stumbles on an impromptu camp of lost or simply misplaced soldiers with a campfire in the lee of a barely head-high dune. It’s dark by this time and rather than introduce herself, which will mean identifying herself as female, she stays to the gloom at the very edge of the fire’s light, checking the faces for Beebee. When she fails again to find him, she spreads her shelter half out as a ground cover and curls up to sleep.
The night is warm, and it has been a very long day.
At first light Rio is up and once more looking for Beebee—who the day before had been trapped into doing some paperwork for their prisoners. She resents it in the extreme and walks the beach muttering about having to babysit the green kid instead of getting back to the squad and doing her job.
The beach is still a madhouse of noisy activity. A big LCU with its bow doors open disgorges a tank; planes roar overhead; a mired howitzer is being dragged and pushed out of the surf; crates and pallets lie open, disgorging their contents of ammo and food and blankets; a flexible fuel pipe is being squared away at a pumping station; a gaggle of reporters sit typing and smoking under a tent.
From farther inland come the occasional sounds of artillery or German bombs. Rio wonders idly where the American bombers are, shouldn’t they be hammering the Krauts? But just then she spots a high formation, two big Vs of B-17s. She shades her eyes and imagines Strand up there in the cockpit of one. She imagines that he’s looking down and wondering whether Rio is somewhere down on that confusing beach.
Then, finally, she spots Beebee. She has to blink twice to make out what he’s doing, and even then she can’t quite believe it. Beebee is leading a donkey cart. The donkey is small, mangy, and minus half of one ear, which looks to have been chewed off. The cart is small, a ramshackle wooden thing on what can only be bicycle tire rims. As she draws close she sees that the cart is nearly full. There is a forty-pound wooden crate of rations and a half dozen small metal ammo boxes, but it appears these are mostly there as camouflage, piled strategically to conceal the true treasure behind them: two big number-ten cans of peaches, four bottles of Sicilian wine, and dozens of tiny packs of Old Gold cigarettes.
“Hey, Rio,” he says.
“You’ve been busy,” Rio says.
Beebee shrugs, but he’s obviously pleased with himself. “Also, I came across this.” He takes something from his pocket and hands it to her. It’s heavy for its size. “It’s a whetstone for your koummya. Happy belated eighteenth.”
“Well . . . that is very kind of you,” Rio says, and means it. Her irritation at him is significantly reduced. “I guess we’d best head back to the platoon.”
The donkey is reluctant to move and no threat or entreaty seems able to motivate him, but just then two ships open up, sending salvo after salvo over their heads, and the donkey seems to think that’s a signal to advance.
It is soon clear that a serious battle is taking place a couple miles up the road. A passing jeep driver yells something about the Hermann Göring Division and Kraut tanks. The name Hermann Göring vaguely rings a bell for Rio—a chubby, smiling Nazi, as she recalls from newsreel footage—but the word tanks conjures up a much more compelling picture and adds hesitation to her next few steps. A Spitfire goes tearing away toward the action, flying just above treetop level. And thousands of feet above them fly three more B-17s.
Rio and Beebee (and the donkey, now named General Patton) reach the barn they’d shot up earlier. They are stopped by an MP, a thirtyish woman with the suspicious, slightly predatory look of a shopkeeper who thinks she’s spotted a shoplifter. She warns them there is fighting up ahead.
“I think our unit’s up there. We’re part of the 119th.”
“The one-one-nine?” The MP looks perfectly blank, aside from darting glances at the loot in the cart. Beebee gives her two of the small packs of Old Golds and the MP’s memory suddenly improves. “The 119th have been pulled east, other side of Niscemi.”
“Aren’t the Canadians over that way?” Beebee asks. “I heard some officers talking.”
The MP lights one of her new cigarettes, takes a deep drag, and says, “Kid, in case you haven’t noticed, no one knows what the hell is going on.”
“SNAFU,” Rio mutters.
“Situation normal,” the MP agrees. She gives them directions, which involve going back down the road to take a left turn on a road that’s barely a line on the map.
“Great,” Rio says with a sigh. They set off, keeping the pace set by General Patton, who, unlike his namesake, cannot be hurried. The war is happening, but not right here and not right now to Rio or Beebee. Rio worries about Jenou, all on her own, but the fighting seems to be north and northeast, so she’s not worried enough to try and run. The sun is already hot, though it’s not even midmorning. She’s tempted to tell Beebee to leave the cart and release the donkey, but among the treasures on the cart is a five-gallon jerry can of water.
The road is more of a dirt track running between farm fields. They reach a watermelon patch that has clearly been trampled and despoiled, with rind and red fruit lying along the road for a quarter mile, evidence that at least someone has passed this way, even if it’s not their platoon. This is heartening: Rio feels extraordinarily exposed out in the middle of open fields.
They pass an ancient, wizened peasant sitting on a stool watching a man and two women at work in a field.
“Niscemi?” Rio asks, making a chopping motion in their direction of travel.
The peasant says nothing, despite repeated queries, until Beebee hands him a pack of cigarettes, at which point the man grins so widely they can count all four of his teeth. It seems they are heading in the general direction of Niscemi. Of course they’ve been warned to pass well to the south of the town, and as they top a low rise they can see why. To their north tanks are moving along a road that according to the map will cut their own a mile back.
A German plane passes overhead, but has no interest in them. They hear distant explosions, but whether they are naval gunfire, bombs, or artillery Rio doesn’t know. What she does know is that she’s feeling strangely alone with Beebee and a donkey, on an island she’d never heard of six months ago, while men and women are fighting to her west, north, and east, as well as out at sea and in the air above.
At last though, as afternoon wears on and the sun beats down mercilessly, they come upon a new MP, a man who informs them that yes, at least some elements of the 119th are ahead in a stand of picturesque trees.
“What the hell?” Geer says. He’s on guard.
“Aren’t you supposed to ask us the password?” Rio says wearily.
“I sure would if I remembered it,” Geer says.
“The password is Old and the response is Gold,” Beebee says, and tosses Geer a pack of Old Gold cigarettes.
“So it is, so it is,” Geer agrees.
The platoon is sprawled amid olive trees, staying to the shade. Jenou spots Rio, flashes an expression of profoundest relief, and says, “Back so soon?”
Sergeant Cole says, “Good. You’re here. And you brought water. Well
done, Richlin.”
“It was Beebee. He’s the forager.”
Cole peers closely at Beebee. “A forager, are you? Well, well. You two find some shade.” Then, in a louder voice, he yells, “Magraff! Grab this water and get everyone topped off.”
Rio notes that Magraff has become the squad gofer, probably because she no longer has a carbine, having tossed it away or dropped it—again.
Rio drops into a patch of shade beside Jenou. She unlaces her boots and begins massaging her sore feet. “Guess who I ran into?”
“General Eisenhower, I hope. Did you mention to him that I’m really not meant for all this dusty marching around?”
“The colored medic, Marr. The one we picked up on the way in.”
“It’s a small war. How is she?”
Rio considers. “I don’t know. Thinking too much, maybe.”
“That thing that happened . . . the bullet that went on and nicked you . . . That was probably pretty hard for her.”
Rio says, “I got the impression she was new to that bunch so they weren’t that close, but yeah, she was a little down in the mouth.”
She was also disapproving, and just a bit of a moral scold, but Rio sees no point in mentioning that.
Jenou nods. “If there’s one thing worse than infantry, it’s all of that.” She makes hand gestures that may be meant to convey medical care given to the wounded, but they end up looking like random, disturbed hand-waving.
Rio slaps Jenou’s shoulder. “Did you miss me?”
“Not at all.”
“Me neither.”
Both laugh, and Jenou says, “My God, we’re starting to sound like men.”
“I used to worry I’d seem mannish,” Rio says.
“Because of your . . .” And this time Jenou’s hand-waving is more specific, as is the pitying look she aims at Rio’s chest.
“No,” Rio says, outraged. She gives Jenou a shove. “No. Because of my great, manly muscles, that’s why, you catty witch.”
For a wonderful moment, a golden suspended moment, they are Jenou and Rio once more. Rio feels it, feels herself back in Gedwell Falls, back at the diner stealing Jenou’s fries, and vice versa.
I was a girl. I was just a girl. And after a moment’s reflection, she silently adds, Past tense?
She is on the edge of saying to Jenou that Strand seemed quite taken with her inadequate figure and in fact spent quite some time exploring it in detail. However, that very thought, not even the memory, but the fact that she would think of saying something so vulgar, kills the fine nostalgic feeling.
Okay, Jenou: yes, I’ve changed. Happy?
This thought in turn sends Rio’s mind off inventorying the ways in which she has changed. She’s drunk alcohol with serious intent. She’s cursed. She’s killed. And she’s had sex. She strives to connect those facts to memories of herself just, what, a year ago? Back then the only connection she had to the war was via her big sister, Rachel. Even after Rachel joined the navy it had all just seemed like some distant adventure to Rio. It had not been until that terrible morning when news of Rachel’s death had reached the Richlin family that it hit home.
She remembers her mother’s collapse on the living room rug. She remembers even more clearly the way her father stood in profile against the innocent sunlight beyond the door, slumped, wounded, silent. Being a man. Being a man? Or being an ex-soldier? Will it be different for us, as Marr suggested? Or will we have to turn into them just to get through this?
The two friends sit side by side, each lost in related but separate memories, when the conversation of Sergeants O’Malley and Cole penetrates Rio’s reverie.
“We’re infantry, not search and rescue,” Cole says to O’Malley.
“That’s what I told Vanderpool, and he said that’s exactly what he radioed to the colonel, but the colonel explained that this was the goddamned army, not a goddamned knitting circle, whatever the hell that is, and he was to follow orders.” He spat undiplomatically and added, “Officers. Jesus wept.”
“Goddammit,” Cole says, and his eyes veer toward Rio, who groans.
“Three, four men, tops,” O’Malley says placatingly. “Send your corporal.”
“Stick’s foot is swollen to twice its size. Nettles,” Cole says, disgusted. He looks again at Rio, and she actually turns around to see if he’s perhaps looking at someone behind her. But no, there’s only a tree behind her. And it’s not a curious or idle stare: Cole is measuring her.
“Richlin,” Cole says at last. “If that leg of yours is okay, you are about to volunteer.”
17
RAINY SCHULTERMAN—SALERNO, ITALY
It is hot where Rainy walks as well, two hundred and fifty miles almost directly north from Gela Beach, Sicily, and perhaps a mile south of the outskirts of Salerno.
Rainy and Cisco huddle on the beach until the sun rises, not wanting to look suspicious walking in the dark. Then they climb onto the road, which runs very nearly as straight as a ruler toward the town.
At first the only traffic is a couple of Fiat trucks, both comically overburdened with open crates of vegetables and great bundles of what look like reeds. They walk far behind a donkey cart for a while, keeping pace with it until they see that it is stopped at a roadblock ahead.
“If I had a gat, I’d get up close and let ’em have it,” Cisco says. He has returned to full, swaggering arrogance during the hours since they left the Topaz. But there’s an edge to his swagger now, a defensive, angry edge.
Humiliation.
“We wouldn’t win a gunfight,” Rainy says with frayed patience. She had not liked Cisco on first meeting, she had frankly hated him aboard the sub, and so far he is doing nothing to earn a second chance. “They might have a radio or a phone. We don’t want Italians running around the countryside looking for us.”
The pistol strapped to her inner thigh chafes cruelly, and she bitterly resents having to wear the dress. Almost as bad are the shoes, which are not quite the right size and tend to crush her toes with each step.
“So what do we do?” Cisco demands. “You’re the know-it-all.”
“We have papers.”
“Forgeries!”
“And I may be able to pass off my Italian,” Rainy says.
“Yeah, well I don’t speaka de Old Country,” Cisco says.
She looks closely at him. His face is badly bruised and impressively swollen on his left side. Hers is bruised as well, and they look like they’ve either had a hell of an argument or been beaten up and . . .
“We were robbed,” Rainy says, snapping her fingers. “We were in a cart, just like that one, bringing melons to market in the city and bandits . . . And you, you’re so swollen you can’t speak.”
“But I can speak.”
“For God’s sake, Cisco, try to follow, would you?” she snaps.
“Hey, sister, we’re in my country now—”
“A country where you don’t speaka de language.”
“I won’t take that smart mouth of yours much longer,” he warns. He waves his hand back and forth in a sideways chopping motion. A threat.
“Sure you will, because if you don’t I’ll give your uncle chapter and verse on how you handled the trip here.”
They are face-to-face, eye to eye. Cisco breathes violence now; he is the real thing: a gangster. She has little doubt he could beat her in a fight despite her training in hand-to-hand combat.
Although, if I caught him by surprise . . .
In the end she gets her way, but she knows that her control over him is a slippery thing. He’s not a Lucky Luciano type, which Rainy equates in her mind with a sort of general. He’s at best a green lieutenant, a hothead with too much to prove. And he is not at all pleased to take orders from a female.
Rainy keeps her pace steady, eyes trained on three sleepy-looking Italian militia in ill-fitting green uniforms. They wear odd brown caps whose shape reminds Rainy of the fancy folded napkins at the Stork Club.
Only on
e of the carabinieri has a rifle, the main guard, while the other two lounge in chairs probably stolen from a local trattoria. The lounging men must be in their fifties. The one with the rifle might be fourteen at best. Italy is running out of men to put uniforms on.
“Papers,” the child soldier demands brusquely, eyeing their bruises curiously.
“Questo è il signor Rizzo. Io sono sua moglie.” This is Mr. Rizzo, and I am his wife. It’s a bit formal, but she figures anyone approaching an armed man would be likely to be formal. And she mangles the pronunciation in such a way as to suggest that her bruised face is the cause.
She explains to the guard that they have been robbed and her husband so badly beaten he can barely speak. The guard takes this in with the slowness of a dull and disinterested mind, then he summons the others, who saunter over trailing a cloud of tobacco smoke to be told the same story.
There follows ten minutes of sympathetic tut-tutting, followed by labored explanations that they can do nothing, nothing, signora, they have orders to stay here on guard. But when they are relieved they will naturally tell their superiors, who are certain to go rushing forth to find and arrest the malefactors.
Right.
Rainy has a pack of Italian cheroots supplied for verisimilitude and offers them around. And then they are on their way with barely a cursory glance at their forged papers.
The beach is still on their left, but it is increasingly obscured by one- and two-story houses and apartment buildings, with taller apartment blocks, some three and four floors tall on their right. They pass a hole-in-the-wall coffee shop, and the rich smell of coffee wafts toward them. Rainy sees a counter with a plate of pastries at the end and is suddenly famished, and although she’s never been much of a coffee drinker, the smell is enticing.
“Let’s stop in,” Cisco says.
“Let’s not,” Rainy says regretfully. “I’m sure your uncle will feed us.”
One of the advantages of having a battered face is that polite folk look away from you, and even the curious look first at the bruises, not at the eyes. Rainy keeps her head down and her eyes raised, glancing quickly into each face they pass, checking for signs of unusual interest. But the Italians in Salerno on that morning have better things to worry about.
Silver Stars Page 17
