The battalion was in reserve in an open field. A pine grove bordered it on the south side, and to the north a paved road cut across it, the roadbed built up about six feet above the soggy ground. GIs were digging in the woods, or along the embankment, carving out caves in the sloped earth. A convoy of trucks carrying replacements and supplies made its way along a dirt track, skirting the customary stone farmhouse in the center of the field. In the midst of these martial preparations, a woman hung her white sheets on a clothesline, domestic chores once again uninterrupted by war.
I saw Charlie Colorado walking along the edge of the embankment, a burlap sack over one shoulder and an M1 over the other. I slowed and asked if he wanted a lift.
“Thanks, Lieutenant,” he said, setting the sack down between his legs, the dull clinks signaling full bottles of something alcoholic.
“Having a party?”
“Toasting the dead,” he said. “I traded C rations for wine at that farmhouse.”
“Hope they like Spam,” I said.
“They seemed nervous,” Charlie said, glancing back at the woman in the yard. “Maybe they thought I was coming to shoot them. The daughter spoke a little English, and said they hated the Fascists and the Germans.”
“Of course.”
“It would be foolish to say otherwise to an American soldier with a rifle and C rations to trade.”
“Good point,” I said, noting that Charlie was pretty sharp. “I heard you were Landry’s radioman.”
“Yes.”
“You went to Bar Raffaele with him?”
“Sometimes. But the owner didn’t like me there. Said I drank too much and caused trouble. He was right.”
“Did you know Ileana?”
“Everyone knew Ileana,” he said, a touch of weariness in his voice.
“Landry fell for her, right?”
“He did. I think she liked him too. She hated working there, most of the girls did. But they had to feed their families, even if it brought them shame.”
“She told you that?”
“I could see it, when they thought no one was looking. But there were worse places to work.”
“I can imagine. Inzerillo said he had his own doctor for the girls.”
“And a priest,” Charlie said. “For their shame.”
“An Italian?”
“No. Someone who wanted to keep watch on his own sinners.”
He clammed up after that, probably thinking he’d said too much. But then again, Charlie Colorado impressed me as a guy who didn’t waste a single word.
Ahead of us, trucks disgorged their passengers and handed down supplies to waiting lines of troops. I scanned the sky for enemy aircraft, not wanting to be caught in a line of vehicles during an air raid. Charlie pointed to a section of embankment and I pulled over.
Entrances to the hillside had been scraped out, with shelter halves strung up over the holes, some reinforced with thin wooden planks from ammo and ration cartons. It had a distinctly hobo look about it.
“Billy,” Danny said, walking up to the jeep. “You’re just in time. Flint’s been made Platoon Sergeant. Charlie went to scrounge some vino for a celebration.” He looked at the sack Charlie held up and whistled. “You did okay!”
I studied my little brother. He’d already lost that permanently startled look that replacements had. He was at ease, feeling part of the platoon if only because so many had died since he’d joined. Being a survivor meant he was a veteran of sorts, which gave him confidence. The fact that the odds were against him living many more days didn’t seem to bother him. For now, he was surrounded by his buddies, toasting their remaining sergeant, celebrating a promotion made necessary by three departed sergeants-two dead, one prisoner.
“Acting Platoon Sergeant,” Flint said. “How you doing, Billy? Is it true what they’re saying about Stump? He’s the Red Heart Killer?”
“Yep. Caught in the act. Denies it, of course, but they all do.”
“What’s going to happen to him?” Danny asked.
“He’s going back to Caserta in irons. Court martial, then firing squad would be my guess.”
“Hard to believe,” Flint said, shaking his head. “Stump always seemed to be a regular guy.”
“Yeah,” I said. “The way the doc explained it, that’s what guys like him are good at. Anyway, I brought you some decent tools and grub, plus some smokes. Thought I’d spend some more time with Danny before I ship out tomorrow.”
“Real shovels,” Danny said, obviously tired of digging with a folding entrenching tool.
“Okay,” Flint said. “Charlie, stow that vino in my dugout. No one touches it until we give these tools a workout and dig in good and proper. Then we eat and drink.”
They unloaded the jeep and got to work, digging wider and deeper. Father Dare came by, and took charge of the extra rations. The meat stew was a new addition, and I figured it would be a welcome relief after meat hash, Spam, ham, and lima beans every day.
“I have a cooking pot I found in the rubble,” Father Dare said. “I’ll get this heated up for the boys.” He took an empty can, punched holes in the bottom with his can opener, and dropped in a couple of heating tabs. Smokeless, the tabs ignited easily and burned hot, long enough to heat a meal. Unfortunately, one pot was going to be enough for this platoon, since it had suffered so many losses.
“Hey, Billy,” a voice called from inside a dugout. It was Phil Einsmann, sitting cross-legged in his little cave, pecking away at his portable typewriter set up on a ration box. Above the opening was a wood plank with “Waldorf Hysteria” painted on it.
“That’s funny, Phil,” I said, pointing to the sign. “What are you up to?”
“Well, I tried to get a story about your killer past the censors, but they wouldn’t go for it. Injurious to morale, they said. Ruined my goddamn morale, that’s for sure. So I’m doing a piece on the lost company.”
“What lost company?”
“Easy Company. I don’t want to call it a retreat, since that might not go over well with the censors. But the rescue of a company in a forward position, slipping away from the clutches of the enemy, using the fossi to escape, that’ll get through and sell papers.”
“Fossi?” I was there and I was having trouble following Einsmann’s story.
“Italian for ditches. The English call them wadis. Either sounds better than a daring escape through a smoky ditch.”
“No argument there. Did you talk to my brother? Make sure you spell his name right.”
“Sure did. And that Apache, Charlie. Great stuff. What do you have to say about it, Billy?”
“Talk to this guy,” I said, when I noticed Bobby K swinging a pickax not far away. “He ran through enemy fire twice to get messages through, and led everyone out. Earned a battlefield promotion.”
“No kidding? He wasn’t here an hour ago when I made the rounds.”
I walked over to Bobby K and stood with my back to Einsmann. “Bobby K, I’ll fill you in later, but have you told anyone about that colonel in the hospital?”
“No, I haven’t had a chance. The CO sent me over here, said Third Platoon needed a noncom.”
“Keep it between us, all right?”
“Whatever you say.”
“Now follow me and I’ll make you famous.”
I left Bobby K with Einsmann, glad I had a chance to get to him before he spilled the beans about the German colonel. I hadn’t expected him to show up in Easy Company, but with the losses in noncoms, it made sense that somebody would be sent to fill in. I wandered over to Father Dare and took a seat on a carton of K rations.
“Do you have your own dugout, Padre? I trust the Lord myself, but I’d rather do it underground.”
“God helps those who help themselves, Billy. I’ve got my own foxhole right over there,” he said, pointing behind him with his thumb. “I prefer to dig straight down, not into the side of a hill. Saw two fellows buried alive in Sicily when a shell sent a few tons of dirt sliding over their dugout.”
I didn’t need to mention that I’d seen what was left of a man in a foxhole at Salerno who took a direct hit from a mortar round. To each his own. “How’s your leg?”
“Okay. I got the bandage changed this morning and the nurse said it was fine. I was a little dizzy yesterday, I didn’t realize how much blood I’d lost.” He dumped a couple of large cans of meat stew into the pot.
“Padre, would you happen to know any chaplains who visited Bar Raffaele in Acerra?”
“Are you asking me to inform on my brethren, Billy?”
“I didn’t say they went there for the hookers. Maybe someone thought the men might need some guidance in such a sinful place?”
“Billy, if a chaplain showed up at a joint like that, the men would simply move on to the next disreputable establishment. I told you when we first met, we would not be welcome at such a place.”
“What if someone needed help? One of the girls, maybe? Or Lieutenant Landry?”
“Landry was brought up Protestant.”
“Interesting, but not an answer.”
“I am the chaplain for this unit,” Father Dare said. He stirred the pot, staring into the stew as wisps of steam began to drift up. I could tell he was working on a way to explain something to me. “For all the men, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and even those who do not believe. I’ve noticed that atheists enjoy talking about religion in a way that believers don’t.”
“I’ve noticed that cops and criminals sometimes sound a lot alike. More so than cops and grocers or accountants.”
“Exactly. We share a common interest, but one viewed from differing perspectives. That’s why Landry and I were friends. He was an agnostic. He believed the unknowable was… unknowable. I call it a lack of faith, but that’s another matter. We often talked of life and death. He wanted the men to have spiritual solace, but he couldn’t partake of it himself. That’s why when he asked me to help, I was only too glad.”
“Help for him and Ileana.”
“Yes. He wanted me to help get permission for them to marry. To testify to her good character.”
“To lie for him.”
“Can’t a woman sin and still be a good woman at heart? Ileana lost her father in the Allied bombing, her brother was killed in Africa, and her mother has succumbed to grief. There are two younger sisters at home, and Ileana did what she had to do to keep them off the streets. There is so much misery in this war, how could I not help alleviate some small part of it?”
“So you didn’t think it a lie?”
“What does it matter? They turned Landry down, and now he’s dead. I wonder if it’s even worth trying to help anymore. What help can I provide against all this killing? It’s monstrous, too much for any man to overcome. A priest on a battlefield, I used to think it made sense, great sense. Now it seems pathetic. Anyway, I didn’t think Landry and Ileana had anything to do with these killings, and I saw no reason for the authorities to delve into what on paper would sound sordid. Landry’s family doesn’t need to hear the army’s version of what went on between them. Call the boys, will you, the stew’s ready,” he said, putting a lid on the pot and the conversation.
I stood, heaving a sigh and wondering what would become of Ileana. I put my fingers between my teeth and whistled, signaling that chow was ready. In the distance, two trucks raced toward the stone farmhouse, slamming on their brakes close to the door. Bluejacketed men spilled out, circling the building. Carabinieri.
“What’s going on?” Flint said, pointing to the farmhouse. Just then the shrieking sound of incoming artillery tore at the sky, and men dove in every direction, heading for dugouts, foxholes, any cover at all. I tripped on a shovel and felt myself being pulled underground, strong hands gripping my shoulders. At least a dozen explosions rippled the ground all around us, spraying debris against the soles of my boots as I slithered into the dugout with Flint.
Artillery blasts thundered around us, and I wondered if the GIs caught out in the field had had time to get to cover. Green replacements and trucks filled with ammunition were not a good combination in a barrage. I couldn’t think about it long. The shelling kept up, shaking my bones every time a salvo hit close by. Dirt cascaded from above, and my thoughts went to those guys Father Dare knew, buried alive in a dugout like this one. Then I tried not thinking at all, and closed in on myself, knees to my chest, hands on my helmet. The damp, freshly dug soil jumped up at me with every blast, as I felt the impact of each explosion, the concussion traveling through the earth and air, enveloping me, reaching into our hole where the shrapnel couldn’t, letting me know that life and death had come down to mere chance, the weight and trajectory of shells alone determining who would walk away and who would remain.
The shelling stopped abruptly and I was left with ringing in my ears and dirt in my mouth. I looked at Flint, and he was already at the entrance, looking out over the open field.
“Jesus,” I said as I crawled next to him, neither of us ready to stick our necks out any farther.
“Yeah,” he said. “Hell must look like this.”
Trucks were wrecked and overturned. Gasoline burned in bright yellow-red plumes, tires in thick, acrid black smoke. Blackened shell holes were strewn in lines across the field, a half dozen in each group, testimony to the accuracy of the German fire. The ground smoldered, an odd smell drifting up, of burnt vegetation, burning rubber and human flesh. Too many men had been caught out in the field, replacements who hadn’t learned how to react without thinking or asking questions.
“They had the field zeroed in,” Flint said. He crawled out of the dugout and stood. Other men followed his cue. Danny and Charlie, Father Dare, Einsmann, Bobby K, all safe. “Look at the shell holes. This wasn’t a random barrage. There were several batteries firing, all hitting within this field.”
It didn’t make sense. We were in the rear, such as it was. The Germans couldn’t have an observation post that could see us, especially behind the roadway embankment. The farmhouse. Carabinieri still surrounded it, and not a single shell had come close. The white sheets still hung on the line.
“You’re right,” I said. “Just like Le Ferriere. There was a farmhouse there, and a woman hung white sheets on the line. A few minutes later, the shelling hit a column on the road. We were in a blind spot, the Germans shouldn’t have been able to see us.”
I took off at a run, toward the farmhouse, away from the carnage and the cries of the wounded. I should have stayed and helped, but I told myself I wasn’t a medic. I knew I was a coward. I couldn’t face the torn bodies, the pleas for help, for mercy, for mother. I ran, glad of the excuse, my palm on the butt of my. 45, itching to deliver revenge, or at least blot out the screams for a moment.
Flint was at my heels, and as we closed in on the farmhouse I recognized Luca directing the Carabinieri, who were holding the farmer’s wife back as she screamed at him, hands outstretched to heaven one second, beating at her breasts the next. A small girl clung to her skirts, and an older one stood behind her, sullen.
“Dove la radio e? ” Luca demanded.
“It’s the sheets, isn’t it?” I said, breathless. The other Carabinieri had turned toward us, weapons at the ready, uncertain if we were a threat or a nuisance. Luca acted as if he expected us.
“Yes, the sheets, the bright white sheets which can be seen at a distance. The signal for the German observers to tune to the frequency assigned to their radio. Fascisti,” he spat.
“There are others,” I said. “I know of one outside Le Ferriere.”
“There are many,” Luca said. “And we already have visited that farmhouse. Whenever they have a target to report, the wash goes out. We found out about it yesterday, when a neighbor of one family reported them, suspicious of all the laundry being hung. He said they were filthy pigs and doubted they washed once a month, much less every day.”
“Have you found their radio?”
“No, and if we do not, we may have to let them go. It could be a coincidence, after all.”
“Can we look around?” Flint asked.
Luca gave commands in Italian and one of his men led us inside, where other Carabinieri were ransacking the joint. In the kitchen, two officers had the farmer seated at his kitchen table. He had a stern face, his thick black hair peppered with gray. He wore a work shirt and vest; his hands were rough and callused. On the wall, a rectangular patch of dark wallpaper showed where Mussolini’s portrait had probably hung until the invasion.
The Carabinieri were throwing rapid-fire questions at him, to which he shook his head repeatedly. They seemed frustrated. He looked calm and haughty, as if he knew his secret was safe. He was a good actor, but then Mussolini and his bunch were pretty theatrical.
Flint moved closer, edging the officers out of the way. He reached into his pocket, and the farmer flinched. But he pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and the fellow relaxed. Flint offered one, and lit it for him.
“ Nome? ” Flint asked, smiling as he clicked his Zippo shut.
“Frederico Pazzini,” he said, giving a slight bow of his head, before taking a deep drag on his Lucky.
Before he could exhale, Flint struck him on the cheekbone with the butt of his. 45, hard. Blood spurted onto the table, and Frederico choked on smoke and blood as Flint shook off the two Carabinieri who tried to pull him away. He grabbed Frederico’s arm and held it to the table, the muzzle of his automatic pressed into the palm of one callused hand. He thumbed back the hammer, and spoke one word.
“Radio?”
Frederico shook his head, but with fear in his eyes this time. The two officers stepped back, apparently liking what they saw, or at least the fact that someone else was doing it for them. I wondered how far Flint was going to take it. Myself, I was ready to shoot the other hand, images of the dead and wounded still fresh in my mind.
But Flint didn’t shoot. He released Frederico, smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. Then he pointed outside, and simply said, “Signora Pazzini.” We hadn’t taken two steps when Frederico began bawling and pointed to a cupboard near the sink. The officers got down on their knees and pulled out cans of olive oil, tins of flour, and some large bowls. Then they pried up the floorboards, and lifted out a radio. Under one of the dials was the word Frequenzeinstellung.
That told us all we needed to know. Flint hit him again, on the other cheekbone, then wiped his. 45 with a dishrag, and left. Under the floor, where the radio had been hidden, was the portrait of Il Duce.
The Pazzini family was hauled away in a truck, their little girl in tears at the sight of her father’s face. I felt bad for her. I felt bad for the little girls back in the States who’d be crying when they heard their fathers were dead, killed in a field outside Anzio. I felt bad all around.
“What will happen to them?” I asked Luca as he halfheartedly searched through the house.
“They will be sent back to Naples. A trial for the father, perhaps a displaced persons camp for the woman and children.”
“He must have been a die-hard Fascist.”
“Many of these people are. You know Mussolini settled this area with them. They hate you, and they hate us more for fighting with you.” He tossed a pile of books off a chair and sat.
“Must be hard,” I said, taking a chair myself.
“At first I looked forward to this assignment. I thought we would be bringing law and justice here. But instead, now that General Lucas is not moving inland, we have received orders to remove all civilians.”
“Everyone?”
“Yes. First we have to track down the remaining Fascist spies and make sure they do not escape. Then all nonessential civilians will be shipped back to Naples. The entire Anzio-Nettuno area, evacuated. For their safety, the general said. Because of the bombing.”
“He’s right, you know. Especially now that the Germans won’t have observers in our midst. The shelling is not going to be as accurate. Good news for us, bad news for civilians.”
“Yes, yes. But I did not expect to spend this war putting civilians in camps, for both sides, no less.”
“It’s not quite the same, Luca.”
“No, but neither is it combat, where a man can be tested. What shall I tell my children? That I helped run a concentration camp, then worked for a capitano who was corrupt, before evicting thousands of Italians from their homes?”
“What happened, Luca? On Rab?”
“You have to understand, when the camp was first set up, it was to house partisan prisoners. Tito’s Yugoslav Partisans fought us and the Germans everywhere. The Nazis and the Fascists treated the Yugoslavian people horribly, shooting civilians without provocation. It quickly descended into bloodthirsty reprisals. The decision was made to remove many of the local Croats and Slovenes and bring in Italians, to repopulate the area. So the camp expanded, with thousands of local civilians, whole families, brought in. Soon we had over fifteen thousand, living in tents. Many grew sick and starved. When the commander of our battalion complained, saying that this mistreatment only drove more people to support the partisans, conditions improved, somewhat.” He grew quiet, surveying the wreckage of the living room, one of many he must have seen in his strange career.
“But then?”
“Then the order came for all Yugoslavian Jews to be interned. About three thousand were brought into the camp.”
“To be killed?”
“No, no, not at all. We followed the orders of our government, but the army insisted that the Jews be well treated, not as a hostile force. They weren’t fighting us; they were only peaceful people who’d been swept up in this madness. So they were put in a separate part of the camp, and provided with what comfort we could give. My commander told me it was the only way to preserve a shred of honor. We had to obey the German commands and the orders from Il Duce, but we could at least do so with some dignity.”
“I didn’t know, Luca.”
“No, and not all camps were the same. In some, Jews were treated terribly. But on Rab, we did what little we could. We were sick of fighting the partisans and all the hatred. It felt good to do something halfway decent.”
“What happened?”
“After the fall of Mussolini, orders came from the government that the Jews were to be released. For their own safety, they could remain in the camp voluntarily under our protection. Several hundred left to join the partisans, and many others were taken to partisan-controlled territory. At this point, we had an uneasy truce with the Yugoslavs, and worried more about our former German allies.”
“All the Jews got out?” I knew this story wasn’t going to have a happy ending.
“No. There were two hundred elderly and sick left in the camp. My battalion was ordered back to Italy after the armistice, and I was in charge of a detachment, which was to close the camp. The last of the Slovene and Croat prisoners were released, and I was trying to find medical care for those Jews who could not travel.”
We sat in silence, and I could hear the low murmur of other Carabinieri in the yard and smell their cigarette smoke as they waited for Luca.
“There was none. No transport, no fuel. A German column approached the camp, several hundred men in armored vehicles. We were but a few dozen, with nothing more than rifles. I gave the order. We ran. We ran away, leaving two hundred innocents behind. The Germans took them. I heard later they were sent to a camp in Poland. I expect they are all dead, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.” I didn’t expect they were dead, I knew it. From Zyklon B, probably in a place called Auschwitz. It had all been hard to believe when Diana told me Kurt Gerstein’s story in Switzerland, which seemed like another world, another time. But here it was, half a continent away. How large was this killing machine, that it would send an armored column to a little island in the Adriatic, and ship two hundred old and sick Jews to Poland? It made no sense. Of course, in a world where people were killed with assembly-line precision, nothing could make sense.
“Now you know my shame. I did nothing.”
“Once the Germans came, there was nothing you could do. Except die. And then you wouldn’t have been a witness. Believe me, I’m a cop, and sooner or later the law appreciates a good witness.”
“Perhaps. When the war is over, do you think anyone will care? The graveyards will be full. Who will want to hear the truth? Who will care?”
“The dead,” I said. I left Luca in the room staring at the wall. It wasn’t my job to absolve him. It wasn’t my job to explain that the methodical extermination of Jews and other undesirables could not be stopped by a single Carabiniere, that perhaps it was a small blessing that it was at least remembered. I began to feel the fervor with which Diana had told the story, her need to reveal the secret that burdened her.
I walked back to where the platoon was camped. Graves Registration wandered the field, carrying sacks of mattress covers, stacking the dead like cordwood. Medics treated the lightly wounded as the last of the ambulances trundled off over uneven ground to Hell’s Half Acre. The wind stiffened and I felt a cold chill rising from the damp earth.
“Billy, you won’t believe this,” Danny said as I approached the group. “The meat stew made it. It’s still warm. Have some, it’s not bad.” Danny had indeed passed over a threshold. On a field littered with the dead and injured, he still had his appetite, and celebrated what passed for the luck of the Irish at war: an intact pot of hot stew.
Father Dare ladled some into my mess tin, and I sat on a crate next to Danny. Everyone gathered around the pot and its feeble warmth. Charlie passed a bottle of wine, and it tasted good, sharp on my tongue, warm in my stomach. The living have to take what pleasures they can, from each other and whatever comes their way.
Phil Einsmann had a newspaper and was sharing pages around. “Only two weeks old,” he said. “The Chicago Tribune.”
“Says here Charlie Chaplin is demanding a Second Front now,” Flint read.
“They can give him this one,” Charlie said, and everyone laughed. Except him. He was serious.
“Coal miners are on strike for more money and decent working conditions,” Danny read from another section. “Sure feel bad for them, burrowing underground and all.” That got a laugh, and I drank some more wine, happy to be with Danny, happy to be alive.
I flipped through the paper as it was passed around. Nightclub owners in Miami were protesting having to close at midnight to conserve electricity. Business was good. In Michigan, thirteen legislators were arrested on bribery and corruption charges. Business was good there too, until you got caught.
I walked over to Einsmann, and gave him back the paper. “Phil, what do you know about what the Nazis are doing to the Jews?”
“What everybody knows, I guess. They take their property, send them to camps, shoot a lot of them. Why?”
“You ought to talk to Luca Amatori, a lieutenant with the Carabinieri here. He knows what went on in one of the Italian concentration camps.”
“No thanks. Not worth my time. The Italians are our allies now. No one wants to air dirty laundry, not when we need them fighting the Germans.”
“You’ve been told that?”
“Not in so many words. But you get the sense of things after enough stories have been squashed. Italian concentration camps? Not what the reading public wants to hear about.”
“Ask Luca about clean laundry then. Might be worth your time.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You’re the reporter, you find out,” I said as I got up and went back to my seat. Maybe if he got the story about the spies from Luca, he’d ask him about the camp. Maybe not. Maybe Einsmann was busy planning his next murder. Maybe not. Maybe I’d live to see the dawn.
We drank some more. Guys smoked and chatted. No one was trying to kill us. We had warm food and good wine, and deep holes to jump into. Anything beyond those immediate needs was insignificant.
“You sure keep that weapon mighty clean, Padre,” Flint said as he opened a letter. Father Dare had his automatic in pieces, cleaning each with a toothbrush.
“Cleanliness is next to Godliness, they say. Letter from home?”
“Yeah,” Flint said. “Mail truck had this for me, and a couple for Louie and Rusty. That’s it. Sorry, fellas.” He looked around at the others, then scanned the single page, before tucking the letter back in the envelope and stowing it away. He shook a cigarette loose from a crumpled pack. “Anyone got a light?”
“I never saw a padre carry a pistol,” Bobby K said, tossing Flint a lighter while eyeing Father Dare.
“There’s a first time for everything, son,” Father Dare said, as he rubbed gun oil on the metal. He cleaned the pieces slowly, handling each like holy relics. When he had it all put back together, he held it between his palms, as if it gave off warmth. “Especially at war, there are many first times.”
He sounded weary, and I wondered if the pistol was a temptation, a way out for a man who, in his mind, had failed at whatever good he had tried to do. Or did he worship the weapon, aware of the power it bestowed, so much more immediate than penance? Or maybe the vino had gone to my head.
Einsmann took out his. 45 and began cleaning it as well. He had a little trouble taking it apart, not being as adept as Father Dare.
“Geez,” Bobby K said. “Watch out, you could shoot someone with that thing.” Everybody thought that was hilarious.
“Flint,” a captain called as his jeep pulled up. “Your replacements never made it out of the truck. Take a vehicle down to the docks and see what you can find.” He scribbled out an order and gave it to Flint.
“Right now, sir?”
“Right now. They won’t last long.” With that, he was off.
“Okay, let’s see what we can find. Danny, you come with me. We’ll show these new boys it doesn’t take long to become a grizzled veteran. Billy, sorry, but duty calls. Good luck back in Naples.” Flint smiled, shook my hand, and walked away, giving Danny and me a minute.
“Be careful,” I said, wishing I could take Danny with me.
“I will be. I’m in good hands, Billy. And remember, you were the one who taught me how to fight.” We shook hands, even though I wanted to give him a bear hug, which would have embarrassed him. I stopped myself from reminding him that knowing how to bob and weave in the ring was not going to help at Anzio.
I watched Danny and Flint depart, taking a truck that was parked near my jeep. I said my good-byes to the others, reinforcing the story that I was leaving in the morning with Stump in custody. On the way to my jeep, I saw a crumpled envelope on the ground. It was Flint’s letter. Had he thrown it away, or had it fallen from his pocket? I was about to give it to Father Dare to hold, when I thought it would be a good excuse to follow Danny down to the docks and see him again, maybe throw some weight around and get some decent replacements for the platoon.
Always looking out for my kid brother, I thought, as I laid my carbine down on the passenger seat and drove off toward the fog that was rolling in from the sea.