by James R Benn
“You are a good man, Baron,” she said. “Truly noble, in the real sense of the word. I do not want you to worry about an old woman, or a young one, either.” She patted Ileana’s arm, who smiled at her with a gentle grace. “So I will tell you a secret.” Her fingers worked at the top buttons of her dress, and with a girlish smile showed us a short strand of pearls, which quickly disappeared beneath the folds of black. Ileana giggled as she took the old woman by the arm, guiding her to the car that Harding had just driven to the curb. I laughed, and winked at her as she waited for the door to be opened.
“Kaz,” I said, draping my arm around his shoulder, “I don’t believe I’ve felt this good in quite some time. Let’s ditch Harding and Cosgrove and find ourselves a bar.”
“And toast that grand lady,” he said. We were already walking away when a British Army motorcycle skidded to a halt in front of us. The rider approached Cosgrove, who had helped the ladies into the car. He handed him a note, saluted, and roared off. Cosgrove read the note, then handed it to Harding. They both looked at me.
“What?”
“Message from SOE headquarters here in Brindisi. I’d asked them to keep me posted,” Cosgrove said. I didn’t have to ask about what. Diana worked for the Special Operations Executive, and her mission to Rome had been planned here. She had even adopted an accent from the Brindisi area as part of her cover story.
“Tell me,” I said, balanced on a knife edge between two worlds, one with Diana alive, the other too terrible to imagine.
“Miss Seaton has been taken,” Cosgrove said, his voice quavering. “The Germans have her.”
Epilogue
Pain stabbed at his wrist where the old man had struck. He tucked the useless hand into his shirt, and waited his turn. That bastard had surprised him all right, but not as much as Boyle had. He didn’t think Boyle would shoot him in cold blood, not once he’d let Danny go. But shooting his own brother, that took some steel in the spine. He hadn’t expected that. It was fun giving him a moment’s temptation, and the bonus was watching the shot hit bone, seeing the puff of dust from the hit, sensing Danny’s blood in the air.
He hoped Danny had given his brother the message. He couldn’t find fault with the kid. He’d fought hard, saved his skin, and hadn’t done anything stupid. It pleased him to grant the favor, like a great lord would do for a faithful servant.
Sooner or later, though, they all disappointed him. Rusty Gates, Cole, Landry, they were all the same. Pretending to be pals, then becoming insistent, tedious, demanding, deserving of death. Danny was too young, too new for that. Besides, his plans had to wait. He didn’t get his general or Boyle. He still had the ace of hearts and the joker to play. A man had to plan things carefully, not kill everything in sight. Unless the army wanted you to. Downriver, he knew he’d come across a general somewhere. And if he was lucky, Boyle would follow once again. This time, the joker would not get away. The Ace of Hearts would taunt him, remind him of what he’d lost, and of what Flint knew about him. Draw him in deeper. Cain and Abel, in Italy.
The river was everything to Flint. It flowed to the killing sea, and he drifted in it, taking what he needed. Downriver, there would always be more. Downriver, Boyle waited.
“Kommt!” The guard poked at Flint with his rifle. There were six of them in the room, seated on a bench, guards at either end. There had been seven, but one had gone into the adjacent office and not come out. Flint wasn’t worried. He knew they did it to scare them. He let the guard prod him along into the next room. “Sitzen!”
He sat in the wooden chair facing a German officer seated at a small wooden table, a stack of papers in front of him. His cap lay on the table next to an ashtray full of cigarettes. American cigarettes. He didn’t offer one from the pack of Luckies, but lit one for himself.
“We don’t get many prisoners from among the criminals on the canal,” the German said. He spoke English well, but carefully, drawing out each syllable, pronouncing prisoners as priz-sun-ers. It took Flint a moment to understand he was referring to the First Special Service Force.
“Those guys make me nervous,” Flint said with a smile. “Can’t imagine how you feel.”
“Amusing,” the German said, consulting his paperwork. “Sergeant Peter Miller. You are now a guest of the Third Reich, as will be many others from Anzio. How long have you been there?”
“Listen to me,” Flint said, leaning forward, focusing his gaze on the German’s eyes, getting him to see this was more than another of his endless encounters with grubby Americans. “I can tell you a whole lot more than how long I’ve been dodging artillery shells in the beachhead. But first, I need a doctor for my arm. I think my wrist is broken. One of those Force men did it, the bastard.”
“And why did he do that, Sergeant?”
“We got into an argument. I mentioned my family name had been Mueller, and that they had changed it to Miller during the last war, on account of my dad getting beat up for being German. He said he’d deserved it, and one thing led to another.”
“Commendable that you defended your father’s honor. But foolish that you had your wrist broken.”
“The other guy was more foolish. I broke his damn neck. That’s why I took off across the canal.” Flint knew he needed a story. He’d been captured minutes after he went across, and this officer probably knew that. Still, it could work to his advantage if he didn’t go overboard with the Kraut stuff.
“You killed a comrade?”
“He was no comrade of mine. Those guys think they run everything. I risk my life every day bringing stuff from Nettuno and returning their reports to HQ. You’d think they’d say thanks, but no—”
“Headquarters? What headquarters?”
“General Lucas’s headquarters. In Nettuno. Every day I make the trip, and let me tell you, it ain’t easy with all that firepower you’re throwing at us.”
“Tell me about your work at headquarters, Sergeant Miller.”
“Here’s the deal. I’ll spill plenty, once you take care of my arm, and find some officer’s uniform for me. I don’t want to go to an enlisted man’s POW camp. I want medical attention and a promotion. Then we sit and talk, one good German boy to another. Ja?”
“I have another idea. I will have you taken out and shot.”
“Hey, suit yourself. Go ahead, and lose the services of a sympathetic German-American who’s seen General Lucas every day since he landed.” Flint could see the man’s eyes flicker, as he calculated what he might gain if the story were true. He knew he could spin tales of HQ long into the night, made up from bits and pieces of gossip, scuttlebutt, and even a bit of truth. Like most GIs he knew which units were where along the line in the beachhead. It might not be news to the Krauts, but it would make the rest of what he told them sound real.
“Very well, Herr Mueller. We will attend to your arm, and find a more suitable identity for you. I take it you do not care how we do so?”
“God’s honest truth, I don’t give a damn.”
Author’s Note
Kurt Gerstein, as described by Diana Seaton in Chapter Two, is a real historical figure. As a witness to the gassing at Belzec, he alerted as many religious leaders and foreign diplomats as he could, unfortunately to little effect. Gerstein surrendered to the Allies at the end of the war in 1945, and was initially treated well by his French captors, who allowed him to reside in a hotel in order to write up what became known as the Gerstein Report, documenting his wartime activities. However, he was subsequently transferred to a prison in France and treated as a war criminal. In July 1945, he was found dead in his cell. Whether it was suicide or murder by members of the SS to keep him quiet has never been determined.
Witold Pilecki, whom Kaz describes in Chapter Nineteen, was also a real person. A Polish Army officer, Pilecki deliberately allowed himself to be picked up in a Nazi roundup, knowing he would be sent to Auschwitz. In 1940, he began to smuggle out reports to the Polish Underground. Finally, in 1943, he escaped from Ausc
hwitz and wrote a detailed report on the exterminations being carried out. The report was sent to London by the Underground, which requested arms and assistance for an assault on Auschwitz. The report was either disbelieved or ignored, and nothing was done. After the war, Witold Pilecki resisted the Soviets with as much fervor as he did the Nazis. He began to collect information on Soviet atrocities and executions of former Underground members. In 1948, he was arrested, and after a show trial by the Communist government of Poland, executed.
It was during World War II that the term “thousand-yard stare” was coined. It referred to the unfocused gaze of a battle-weary soldier, who appeared to be looking through the observer to some distant image. During World War II, 1.3 million soldiers were treated for what was then known as battle or combat fatigue, and it is estimated that up to 40 percent of medical discharges were for psychiatric reasons.
Although much had been learned about shell shock—as it was called—during the First World War, the U.S. Army forgot many of those lessons and had to relearn them in the Second World War. In the Mediterranean Theater of Operations, it was not until March 1944 (after the events described in this book) that a psychiatrist was added to the medical staff of each combat division. The term “exhaustion” was used to describe conditions that came to be known as combat or battle fatigue, or later, combat stress reaction, and now post-traumatic stress disorder.
Old Sergeant’s Syndrome, as described in this novel, is an actual condition defined by the U.S. Army Medical Department during the Second World War. The syndrome was described in 1949 by Major Raymond Sobel, U.S. Army Medical Corps, in his article Anxiety-Depressive Reactions After Prolonged Combat Experience—the “Old Sergeant Syndrome” (U.S. Army Medical Dept. Bulletin, 1949, Nov. 9, Suppl.: 137–146).
In a study of men who had broken down in combat, the authors stated that the “question was not, ‘Why did they break?’, but ‘Why did they continue to endure?’” It was in this study that the calculation was made that if left in combat for prolonged periods, 98 percent of soldiers would suffer from symptoms of combat fatigue. The remaining 2 percent would undoubtedly be sociopaths. For details, see: Swank, R. L., and Marchand, W. E. (1946). Combat Neuroses: Development of Combat Exhaustion. Archives of Neurology and Psychology.
Audie Murphy makes a brief cameo appearance in this story. Murphy, at seventeen, lied about his age to join the service, and became the most decorated American soldier of the war. Murphy was at Anzio, where he suffered a recurrence of malaria, which is what brought him to Hell’s Half Acre. After the war, Murphy suffered from severe depression and insomnia, stating that he remembered the war “as I do a nightmare. A demon seemed to have entered my body.”
Murphy became addicted to sleeping pills, which he took to overcome his insomnia. To break himself from their grip, he locked himself in a motel room for a week. After that, he broke what had been a taboo about public discussion of combat fatigue, and became a dedicated spokesperson for veterans, urging the government to provide greater support and to increase the understanding of the emotional impact of combat experiences.
The battle for the Anzio Beachhead is still a matter of debate among military historians. Winston Churchill famously remarked that he “had hoped that we were hurling a wildcat onto the shore, but all we got was a stranded whale.” General John Lucas was relieved of his command after a month, and it was not until three months later that Allied divisions finally broke out of the encircled beachhead. What could Lucas have done differently? He knew his forces were inadequate and his orders muddled at best. This was a recipe for disaster, but Lucas went along with an operation he felt was doomed, even as his forces were diminished from the original planned allocations. To be fair to his reputation, many veterans of Anzio say they owe their lives to his caution, and that a more aggressive general might have gambled all and lost.
Acknowledgments
Thanks are due to Edie Lasner for once again graciously reviewing my use of the Italian language. Any errors are certainly due to my transcription in spite of her expertise. My wife, Deborah Mandel, provides constant support and vital feedback in the creation of these stories. My debt to her is profound.
The cover art was inspired by an image taken in Korea, by U.S. Army combat photographer Al Chang, in 1950. The original photograph shows a grief-stricken soldier being comforted upon hearing of the death of a friend. It is a tender, and terrible, picture.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Part Two
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventen
Chapter Eighteen
Part Three
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Part Four
Chapter Forty-One
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
