A Mortal Terror

by James R Benn

  “Seems like the locals are friendlier than you expected,” I said, noticing how Gina had linked her arm with Kaz’s.

  “Yes, it appears that hunger trumps politics,” Kaz said. He tipped his service cap to the women, and kissed Gina on the cheek, which raised a howl among the older ladies, who pulled Gina into their midst. I pulled out chocolate bars from a pack in the jeep, handed them around, and all was forgiven.

  “That was a story,” Einsmann said, writing in his notebook as the jeep rumbled along. “U.S. Army Rangers rescue Italian beauties from Nazi execution. My editor will love it, the readers will lap it up, and most importantly the army censors will like it. Maybe I can get it out tonight from headquarters.”

  “If what Gina said was true, that’s the big story,” I said. “No Germans between here and Rome. I wonder if General Lucas knows.”

  “You can’t go by a story a pretty girl spins for you,” Einsmann said. “Not without corroboration. You really think the Germans are dumb enough to leave this whole area undefended?”

  “There’s times I don’t think too highly of our own brass,” I said, turning right at an intersection where a faded white road sign pointed to Le Ferriere. “Don’t see any reason why they should be any smarter on the other side.”

  The road was straight and narrow, with low-lying fields on both sides. Kaz pointed out the occasional farmhouse, a two-story stone structure, in the middle of a plowed field. At each one, I expected a machine to open up on us, but there was nothing but silence. We passed a farmer turning his field, and he looked at us with indifference. We were uniforms, and uniforms are bad for farmers. They mean crops churned up by tank treads, houses occupied, food stolen, and that was without the fighting. If General Lucas didn’t move quickly, every one of these stone buildings would become a battleground.

  I sped up, feeling giddy at how alone we seemed, how strange it was to be driving into enemy territory as if on holiday. On the side of the road ahead, I spotted a vehicle on its side in the ditch. It was a German Kübelwagen, a cross between a jeep and a command car, recognizable by the spare tire mounted on the sloped front hood. Kaz had the Thompson submachine gun out before I could even slow down. I pulled over about ten yards short and cut the motor, listening for any sign of movement. Nothing. Kaz and I exchanged glances, nodded, and got out. I motioned for Einsmann to stay put and he was eager to, scrunching down in the backseat, hugging his typewriter to his chest as if it were armor.

  Kaz and I each approached a side of the vehicle. The canvas top was down. Bullet holes dotted the windshield and the hood. The driver was half out of his seat, his neck hanging at an odd angle. Another German, probably thrown from the passenger’s seat, was on the ground next to him. He’d taken a slug or two in the throat, and the ground drank in his blood. We both made a circuit of the Kübelwagen, looking for evidence of another German. The two dead were enlisted men. Was this the detail heading to execute the women? If so, where was their officer?

  Kaz stepped up on the mounded earth beside the drainage ditch that ran along the road. “Billy, come here,” he said.

  I followed, and saw two more bodies. One was a German officer. I could tell by his shiny boots and the gray-green visor cap lying in the mud. He was on his back, his neck arched up and his mouth wide open. His chest rose and fell with a wheezing sound, his eyes gazing at the sky overhead, as if searching for the way to heaven. One hand gripped a tuft of grass, desperately hanging onto this world. His boot heels had dug into the earth, leaving gouges where he’d flailed, as if running away from death. He had two bullet holes in his gut, powder burns prominent around each one. He’d been left to die slowly, and not that long ago.

  “Hey, Fritz,” I said, leaning over him. I didn’t exactly feel sorry for him, since he probably was on his way to execute those women, but leaving him here to suffer didn’t sit right either. His eyes widened, perhaps in fear.

  “Er hat den Amerikaner getötet,” the Kraut said, grabbing me with his free hand. “Er hat gemacht!” A thin pink bubble of blood appeared around his lips, and then burst as he gave a last gasp and died.

  “What did he say?” I asked Kaz, as I unclenched his fingers from my sleeve.

  “He killed the American. He did it.”

  “The Kraut? He was confessing?”

  “No, those were his exact words. Someone else killed the American. Do you know him?”

  I knew the American. He was immediately recognizable by his red hair and tall, lanky frame. Rusty Gates, platoon sergeant. He was laid out neatly, feet together, hands on his chest. A ground sheet covered his body, but the hair was unmistakable. I pulled the cover back and knew for certain. One dog tag was gone. One bullet hole to the heart, powder burns and all.

  “Rusty,” Einsmann said in a gasp, scaring the hell out of me. I hadn’t heard him come up on us, and I swung my arm around, .45 automatic at the ready. “Jesus, don’t shoot!” He threw his hands in front of his face.

  “Yeah. Sergeant Rusty Gates, Third Platoon. You knew him?”

  “Sure. Had a few drinks with him now and then. Met him back in Sicily. He was a solid guy. Think that Kraut officer got the drop on him?”

  “Looks like it,” I said, drawing the ground sheet back over him. Rusty had seemed like a solid guy. A leader. I’d felt good about Danny being in his platoon, but now, with former supply officer Lieutenant Evans in charge, I wasn’t so sure.

  “Maybe they shot each other,” Einsmann said.

  “Not likely,” I said. “Probably the Kraut surprised Rusty as he came over the ditch. Dropped him with one shot, then somebody else shot the officer.” But as I said it, I saw that things didn’t add up. Rusty must have been shot at close range, three or four feet at the most, to leave gunpowder burns. He would have seen the German before he got that close. I looked at the dead officer again. His entry wounds were next to each other, straight on, at the same level you’d hold an M1 at the hip. Just above the belt buckle. Bang bang, you’re dead, but not right away. “The Kraut must have shot Rusty at close range, then someone else killed him for it.”

  “Which makes sense,” Kaz said. “If the German offered to surrender and instead pulled out his pistol and shot the sergeant.”

  “Yeah, if it happened that way. Strange, that’s all. The guy makes it out of his vehicle after it’s ambushed. He didn’t run, didn’t get more than a dozen yards away. Then he throws his life away to kill one American.” I looked at his face. He wasn’t young. Maybe thirty-five, forty. He wore a wedding ring. Regular army, not SS. A fanatic, never-surrender Nazi? Maybe. Maybe not.

  “He was gut-shot,” I said. “Sure to kill him, but not right away. He suffered.”

  “For his sins, most likely,” Kaz said.

  I wasn’t so sure. We’d heard the story of the Italian women who were to be shot, but I doubted Gates and his men had. Why leave him alive, in pain like that? Who killed the American? Another Kraut? A GI?

  “His pistol is gone,” Einsmann said. That was obvious. No GI could resist a souvenir, especially with so few Germans around. We went back to the vehicle and searched it, but that had already been done. Two Schmeisser submachine guns had been smashed, and the pockets of the dead searched. We got back in the jeep and started out again, more slowly this time, as I tried to work out in my mind what had happened back there, and what Danny might have seen or done. I didn’t like anything I came up with.

  A mile or so later, a signpost let us know we were in, then out, of the village of Cossira. It was hard to tell the difference. We came to a fork in the road, and Kaz traced the route we’d taken with his finger, looking around for a landmark or a sign. Drainage ditches, flat fields, and distant hills were all we saw. “This way,” he said, pointing to the right fork.

  “It’s got to be a left,” Einsmann said, leaning over Kaz’s shoulder, tapping his finger on the map. “We want to be more north.”

  I looked at the map, and then up at the sun, as if that might give me a clue. “We’ll go left,�
�� I said. “We can always turn around if it looks wrong.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “THE SIGN SAYS Carano to the left,” I said. “That’s right where it should be.”

  “Sounds right to me,” Einsmann said, turning the map around several times, viewing it from every possible angle. The jeep was idling at an intersection. Left was Carano, straight was Velletri, which I knew was up in the Alban Hills. To the right was nothing but emptiness, plowed fields, and damp gullies.

  “We should turn around,” Kaz said in an exasperated tone. “I said so back at the last turn.”

  “This feels right,” I said, gunning the jeep and taking a hard left. I hoped it was. The road narrowed and became a hard-packed dirt surface. We came to a fork in the road, one weathered sign pointing left to Carano. We went right, on my theory that keeping Carano to our left was the wisest course. It was left of Le Ferriere on the map, so logic was on my side. Kaz didn’t say a word, satisfying himself with switching off the safety on the Thompson. We drove farther and found another fork in the road. This time, the sign to Carano pointed back the way we’d come. Gianottola was to the left. I couldn’t find it on the map, so I went right, for no particular reason, the road curving around a slight rise.

  “We should turn around,” Kaz said.

  “Not yet,” I said, unwilling to admit what I was beginning to suspect. That we were lost.

  “No, I mean look behind us.”

  I pulled over and we craned our necks around. The view was stupendous. With all the twists and turns, I hadn’t noticed we were slowly climbing. In the distance, the sea shimmered with sunlight. The flat plain of the drained Pontine Marshes was laid out before us, straight roads and canals dividing the ground, stone farmhouses dotting the landscape.

  “Okay, we’re lost,” I said.

  “How far have we driven?” Einsmann asked.

  “Twenty miles or so, but not in a straight line.”

  “We haven’t seen a single German,” Kaz said. “I’m curious as to where they are.”

  “I’m not so curious I want to find any of them,” I said. “Should we go back?”

  “I think we should go on,” Einsmann said. “Until we hit a main road or town, so we know where we are. Then you can bring back some intelligence.”

  “And you get an exclusive story, as the intrepid reporter behind the German lines.”

  “Billy, I don’t think we’re behind the German lines,” Einsmann said. “I’d bet there’s no Germans between us and Rome. This could be the biggest story of the war, an invasion that achieves total surprise. Hell, it is a big story, no doubt about it.”

  “He’s right, Billy,” Kaz said. “If I can make any sense of this map, we should come to Highway 7 soon.”

  “The road to Rome, through the Alban Hills?”

  “Yes. From the height here, I’d say we are already in the Alban Hills.”

  “Okay, I’m in,” I said, studying the map Kaz was holding. “Velletri, that’s on Highway 7, and there was a signpost back a while ago.” I waited for one of them to talk me out of it, but Einsmann had an eager grin and Kaz simply nodded, folding the map and cradling the tommy gun like a Chicago gangster. I turned at the intersection headed for Velletri, high up in the Alban Hills, armed with one automatic pistol, a Thompson, and a typewriter.

  We saw Velletri, a cluster of buildings on top of a hill, and found a side road to get around it. I didn’t want to get caught in a narrow roadway without a clear way out. We found a sign with the number seven, and in a few minutes were on a well-maintained double-lane road. Highway 7, the road to Rome. We were headed due west now, the wooded slopes of the Alban Hills above us and the view to the sea below. We passed small villages, seeing the occasional farm vehicle make its way slowly along the road. No one waved, or seemed to take notice. Perhaps they thought we were Germans and were deliberately ignoring us. Or maybe they knew we were heading into an ambush and couldn’t bear to look.

  There was no ambush, not at Montecanino, Fontanaccio, or Frattocchie. No traffic either, now that we’d left farm country. The miles were easy, as if we were out for a Sunday drive. I couldn’t help but think about Diana, how tantalizingly close I was getting to her. Nothing but the German army somewhere between us.

  “This is the old Appian Way,” Kaz said. “It was the most important road of the Roman Republic. There are places where the original paving stones can be seen.”

  “Isn’t that the road where the Romans crucified Spartacus?” I asked.

  “Yes, and thousands of the slaves who revolted along with him,” Kaz answered. “I didn’t know you were acquainted with Roman history.”

  “I have a good memory for when the little guy takes it on the chin. Happens often enough.”

  “Thousands?” Einsmann said.

  “Six thousand, if I remember correctly,” Kaz said. “Look, Billy, pull over there.” He pointed to a circular stone ruin, close to the road. “It is the tomb of Cecilia Mettela.”

  “Kaz, the history stuff is interesting, but we can’t stop for a tour.”

  “What is noteworthy about this tomb is that it was built on the highest ground south of Rome. It is on a hill, and I’ve read that it provides a good view of the city.”

  I pulled over. The place was huge, a wide tower about thirty feet tall atop a rectangular base of stonework twenty feet high. I saw the possibilities, and grabbed the binoculars. We climbed the stairs and reached the top. One side of the circular wall was crumbling, pieces of stone scattered on the ground below. But the walkway was sturdy enough, and I saw that Kaz had been right. The tomb was on a hill, and from this height, I could see all around us, south to the Alban Hills, and north to Rome. Where Diana was.

  I looked through the binoculars, steadying myself against the wall. I could make out buildings, but I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Then, beyond the sea of roofs, I spotted a white dome. St. Peter’s, that had to be it. On a hill across the Tiber River. The Vatican, a tiny piece of neutral ground, and most likely home to Diana. I could be there in an hour.

  “Vehicle coming down the road,” Kaz said. I spotted a U.S. Army jeep, heading out of Rome. “It appears that we are not the first Allied tourists to visit the Eternal City.”

  “Two of them in the jeep,” I said. “Let’s flag them down.”

  We descended and stood in the street, each of us waving one hand and keeping the other on our weapon. The jeep slowed and stopped in front of us, and I could see that the lieutenant in the passenger’s seat had his carbine at the ready.

  “Who the hell are you?” He looked at us warily, and I realized that we did look like an unlikely unit: one Brit, one Yank, and one war correspondent.

  “Lieutenant William Boyle,” I answered. “Did you just come from Rome?”

  “Damn near. Lieutenant John Cummings, 36th Engineers,” he said as he extended his hand. Everybody relaxed as it became apparent we were all on the same side. “What are you doing out here?”

  “We got lost, and then decided to keep on going once we saw how close we were. Haven’t seen a German between Anzio and here.”

  “There aren’t any. We got close enough to see a few military vehicles crossing a bridge over the Tiber, but it wasn’t much. A few trucks and staff cars.”

  “We should get this news back to HQ,” I said, disappointed to hear that he had run across Germans. It would have been a swell surprise for Diana to see me show up for Mass at St. Peter’s.

  “I was ordered to reconnoiter towards Rome this morning, and we just kept going once we realized no one was in front of us. The Italians didn’t even pay us any mind. I don’t think word of the invasion has gotten up here. It’s a total damn surprise. We’ve got to get back to report. Want to follow us?”

  “That would be excellent,” Kaz said. “Otherwise we might get lost and end up in Berlin.”

  We ate their dust all the way back to the beachhead. Einsmann commented on how quick the return trip was, compared to our back-road
journey out. Kaz grinned, but kept his thoughts to himself as he swiveled in his seat, watching for phantom Krauts. It was hard to believe we had all this ground to ourselves.

  We pulled into Corps HQ in Nettuno an hour later, parking the jeep in the courtyard of the seaside villa that VI Corps called home. The Piazza del Mercato was a pleasant little square with sycamore trees and a statue of Neptune dead center. Tattered posters of Mussolini fluttered in the breeze from the wall of a bank. A few civilians scuttled by, avoiding eye contact and getting clear of Americans as quickly as they could. I’d been in towns in Sicily and southern Italy where the locals cheered and threw flowers. Here, there was nothing but sullenness and the faded glory of Il Duce looking down at us.

  We hadn’t found the 3rd Platoon, but I figured we’d come up roses anyway. General Lucas himself would probably give up a colonel or two to find out there were no Germans between here and Rome. Einsmann left to type up his story and get it to the censor before he lost his exclusive. Cummings said he had to submit a report through his regiment, so he left to get it written up so it could work its way through the chain of command. It seemed like a slow process.

  “Let’s find Major Kearns,” I said. “He can get us to Lucas right away.”

  We entered through heavy wood doors into a spacious home, with tall windows facing the Mediterranean. It was perched up on a hillside, with a view to the north of Anzio and to the south toward crystal-blue water. The polished wood floors were already scuffed and scraped by countless boots as GIs brought in desks, files, radio gear, and all the other hardware a headquarters can’t do without, cases of Scotch included. The place was crawling with brass, and I thought we were about to be thrown out when I saw Kearns, heading down a staircase with General Lucas. The general gripped a corncob pipe in his mouth and held a cane in one hand. I had the uncomfortable thought that I was looking at a man not cut out for this work.