Blood alone bbwim-3 Read online

  Gritty dirt turned to hard-packed sand as we approached the beach. A long line of vehicles snaked along tracks of steel grating laid to support the heavy stuff driving off the beach. Trucks and jeeps that had tried to drive around the metal mesh in their haste were sunk axle-deep in the sand. Engines roared as tires and treads fought for a foothold to pry themselves loose from the beach's grip. Scattered among the moving and straining vehicles were darkened, smoking wrecks, overturned amidst craters where bomb blasts had found them. Huge LSTs, their massive thirty-foot doors opened wide, disgorged more vehicles weighed down with supplies onto the shore. It was a swirling mass of confusion as jeeps, half-tracks, trucks, and tanks crossed paths, driving off the beach and onto the narrow road inland. Far out into the Mediterranean, I could see warships cruising, the hot North African winds pushing their smoke toward us. Between the ships and the shore, a parade of smaller craft scurried back and forth, heavy coming in, light going out, their only cargo the wounded. The living and the dead stayed here.

  Rocko sat me down on crates of K rations under camouflage netting that had been hung from the front pole of the mess tent and tied off to a tree for shade. It wasn't cool, but at least the sun wasn't broiling the top of my head. He came out of the tent with two cups of coffee in one hand and a sandwich in the other.

  "Here's a bacon sandwich, kid. You gotta be hungry. It's left over from breakfast, but it's good." He handed me the bread stuffed with crumbling strips of bacon, and I realized I was starving. I couldn't remember the last time I'd eaten, but then there was a lot I couldn't remember. He handed me an enameled steel cup and I sipped the black, sweet coffee. It tasted good, so I figured that's how I liked it.

  "Thanks, Rocko," I said with a full mouth. "I appreciate it, but I can't hang around here."

  "Where you gonna go, kid?" Rocko sat on another crate and drank his coffee.

  It was a good question. "Headquarters, I guess. Somebody there has to know who I am."

  "Seventh Army HQ is out there on one of them cruisers. I heard Patton's comin' ashore today, but where I got no idea. Stick around, kid. Another day or so, they'll have HQ set up in a palace somewheres and you can go see who remembers you. Or maybe you'll wake up in the morning and it'll all come back."

  "Yeah, maybe," I said. I couldn't think of anything else to do right now anyway. I didn't want to tell the doctors about my lapse of memory and risk getting thrown in a loony bin. Or whomever I reported to at headquarters either. It would be a lot better if things were to come back to me in the morning. And better still if they were good things. If they weren't, then that was another reason to lie low until I knew what the deal was.

  "You think your name starts with an L, like on that fancy handkerchief?" Rocko said, looking out toward the ocean. He seemed interested in that handkerchief, but working hard not to show it.

  "Doesn't ring a bell," I said. "Probably just something I picked up."

  "Lemme have a look, willya?"

  I hesitated, trying to think of a reason not to take it out of my pocket. Maybe I was naturally distrustful, and maybe he was simply curious, but something told me not to hand it over so easily. A jeep braked hard in front of us, spewing sand as it swerved to a halt.

  "You! Sergeant!" A paratroop captain wearing the double-A patch of the 82nd Airborne pointed at Rocko.

  "Yes sir," said Rocko, setting down his coffee cup. "What can I get you, sir?"

  "You can get your ass over to the weapons depot and load this jeep with grenades and ammo. Then you're both coming with me. Move!"

  "But my pal just got out of the hospital, Captain…"

  "I said move, Sergeant. Now." He said it quietly but there was no mistaking the determination in his eyes. Powder marks darkened the skin around his cheekbone. This guy had been doing his share of shooting, and it looked like we would too. He waited while Rocko trotted down the road to another nest of tents, then put the jeep in gear and watched me as I followed. A corporal with a clipboard emerged from the main supply tent. Rocko spoke to him and gestured toward the jeep with his thumb.

  "You too, Corporal! Load up and get in the jeep." The captain looked around for other candidates but the road was empty. His voice carried pretty far.

  "Captain, I need my clerk here. What if-"

  "Shut up, load up, get in," the captain said, picking up his carbine and making a show of checking the clip.

  "OK, Captain, OK. I'll get my gear." Rocko disappeared into the warren of stacked supplies. His eyes wide, the corporal set down his clipboard and picked up a crate of grenades.

  "Rocko says you can have whatever you need," he said, indicating the tent in back of him. He was a skinny, tall kid, dark black hair, long chin, wearing a pair of army steel spectacles. He looked more like a clerk in a hardware store than a candidate for the front lines. His two stripes had a T underneath for technician fifth class, junior to a regular corporal. His hands, gripping the heavy crate, were long and slender, like maybe he played the violin. His nails were clean and even. He might need a manicure after this.

  The paratroop captain grabbed boxes of ammo and began loading the back of the jeep. I pushed aside the tent flap and went inside.

  Rocko was nowhere to be seen. Crates of M1s and ammo were stacked along one side of the tent, and everything else an army ran on along the other. Cases of scotch and whiskey, cartons of Luckies, canned food-not K rations, but the real thing-piled alongside boots, helmets, and every issue of clothing the army allowed. A clawfoot bathtub, oddly stark white in the midst of all the brown and green, stood behind a wall of crates. It was filled with large green glass jars of olives. Baskets of fresh figs were set among cases of Italian wine. Now I understood why Rocko had gone out looking for more transport. He had a nice little sideline going here.

  I picked up an M1 and a couple of bandoliers of ammo. There were plenty of helmets, but I had to dig to find one with the netting already on it. Why? Was it important? I could almost hear someone telling me it was. I put on the helmet and winced as it pressed against the bandage on my head.

  At the back of the tent was a table on trestles set up as a desk. Forms and requisitions littered the top; empty crates turned on their sides served as filing cabinets. On top of the table was a web belt with plenty of extra clips and a. 45 automatic in the holster, along with a combat knife and a full canteen. It was obviously somebody's, maybe Rocko's, but right now I needed it more. I put it on and grabbed a Parsons jacket from where it had been thrown on the table. I'd left my jacket at the hospital, preferring something that more clearly showed which side I was on. Stuffing this jacket through the web belt as I walked out of the tent, I felt a flash of recognition. Something about that other one and how it didn't seem to belong to any particular army… how it could pass for either side. What did that mean?

  "Hustle, soldier!" the captain barked at me as he backed up the jeep to turn around. "And grab some of those bazooka rounds."

  I gathered half a dozen black cardboard tubes from a pile and did my best to jump into the jeep without losing anything. The skinny corporal was in the back, cases of ammo wedged all around him. A wooden crate of grenades was on the floor in front of the passenger's seat, and I gingerly rested my feet on it as I got in, grabbing the metal edge of the jeep with one hand and wrapping my bandaged arm around the tubes holding the bazooka shells. It hurt. My head hurt too, and my gut was starting to quiver, but that was from fear.

  "That supply sergeant gone?"

  "Looks like it, sir," I said.

  "Rocko said the captain wanted him," the corporal said, hanging on as the jeep climbed the incline up off the beach. "Our captain, I mean, sir."

  "What's your name, Corporal?"

  "Aloysius Hutton, sir."

  The paratroop officer nearly cracked a smile. "Well, Hutton, when we get back, I'll bust Rocko and give you his extra stripe. He just lost his."

  "I don't think Rocko will like that much, sir." Hutton shook his head as if the captain had been foolish not to
consult Rocko first on the matter.

  "Where are we headed, Captain?" I cut in before he decided to ask me my name.

  "Biazza Ridge."

  "That where all the firing's been coming from?"

  "Yep. Slim Jim has been holding on all day up there."

  "Who, sir?"

  "Colonel Jim Gavin, commander of the 505th Regiment. There were only six of us when we started out. We were lost all day yesterday. Today we found some other paratroopers and some boys from the 45th Division. We started walking toward Gela and then hit that ridge, kicked a few Krauts off, and dug in."

  He blasted his horn as we passed a column of trucks, pressing the accelerator to the floor, and kicking up a plume of road dust as we sped by the hospital. The rest of the walking wounded were gone, probably already headed up to Biazza Ridge.

  "Then we saw tanks and lots more Krauts headed down from Biscari, on the road that leads straight into Gela and our beachhead. That ridge is the only high ground around."

  As we sped around a curve, I had to lean and hold onto my helmet and the bazooka rounds. It wasn't easy. It didn't leave me with a hand to hold onto the jeep, and the way he was driving I worried about ending up in a ditch. He picked up speed on a slight downhill run as we passed a dried-up lake bed, hot air rolling over us like heat from a blast furnace. From what I had seen of Sicily so far, fresh water wasn't one of its attractions. I squinted my eyes against the wind and wondered if I'd remember anything useful about bazookas, fighting, and killing. Or maybe running.

  "Uh, sir, how many are you, up there on that ridge?" Hutton said from the back. I could hear him gulp.

  "Couple hundred by now. Lots of our guys headed that way when they heard the fighting. They've been showing up all day."

  "But no tanks. No Shermans," I said.

  "No. Plenty of Kraut armor, though, mostly Mark IVs. A bazooka can take one out if you hit 'em in the ass or take out a tread."

  "What else they got, sir?" asked Hutton, his gulp getting louder as fear dried out his mouth.

  "They got Tigers, son. I loaded a round for Slim Jim not ten yards from a Tiger, and he hit it square on the side. Damn thing ricocheted off and didn't even scratch it."

  "You got a colonel goin' ten yards from a Tiger tank? Jee-sus!" said Hutton. He was impressed.

  Me, I wondered what they made the privates do.

  CHAPTER TWO

  "Dig in, dig in!"

  The voice carried over the explosions and harsh cracks as 88mm shells from a Tiger tank split the air and thundered into the ground. Shrill whistling sounds arcing across the sky trailed mortar shells as they found the backside of the hill. Shrapnel was everywhere, zinging against hard rock, filling the air with razors of hot metal. The ground thudded, and I felt the vibration in my stomach. A machine gun fired quick bursts, sounding like a chain saw warming up before it took down a big tree. It was German. Ours made a series of dull pumping sounds. I imagined the German slugs knocking our few pitiful rounds out of the way. More bursts and a crackle of rifle fire. Dirt kicked up all around us, bullets cutting into the ground, shattering loose rock and showering us with dust and grit. Hutton was a few feet away, making love to the ground just like me.

  "Dig in, goddamn it!"

  I wanted to turn and look at whoever had a set of lungs on him powerful enough to make himself heard over the pounding we were taking. But that would have meant lifting my head a fraction of an inch. My face was flat against the ground, my hands wrapped around an entrenching tool that was doing no good with me on top of it. I'd have to raise my arms to use it, and I knew there were bullets up there. I could feel the air thrum as they passed over. Not moving felt sensible.

  "Dig in, soldier!"

  I felt a rifle butt whack my thigh and turned my head as little as I could. Kneeling down behind me was a tall guy, all knees and elbows. He had to scrunch himself up to stay low. But he wasn't facedown in the dirt. He held his M1 up and hit me in the boot heel with it to make sure he had my attention.

  "Dig in. Long and narrow. When those Tigers move in, lie down, let 'em pass over, then hit the infantry coming up behind. Got it?"

  I looked at his face. It was dirty and his eyes looked hollow, but there was still something boyish about him. He wore a jump jacket and his pants bloused over his boots. Paratrooper.

  "Got it, Slim Jim."

  Colonel Gavin didn't hear me. He was already off, running low, M1 gripped in both hands like any GI. "Dig in, dig in." I turned on my side and started scraping a hole in the ground as two paratroopers with a bazooka scurried up next to me and began some serious digging of their own. They ignored the bullets whizzing by as their entrenching tools bit at the dry, stony ground. I looked down the hill at a dark form visible beyond the sloping terrain. I could see the shimmering heat above black metal as the Tiger swiveled its turret, the long, smoking muzzle searching out another target. If that thing was getting any closer I wanted to be underground. I got up on my knees and dug, swinging the entrenching tool in rapid, swift strokes.

  "Shit!" One of the troopers held up his entrenching tool. The shovel was bent, yet all he had to show was a pile of broken shale. He threw it away and lay down flat behind a scrubby bush, the bazooka hidden in the branches.

  I wasn't doing much better. The ground was as hard as rock. Which it was, gray shale beneath hard, crusty earth. The edge of my shovel bent too and I tossed it, settling down as deep as I could, which wasn't very far. Hutton had done a little better. He had the shovel from the jeep and could do more with it. Lying down he almost filled his hole, except for a helmet at one end and boots sticking out the other. I looked back at the Tiger. It hadn't moved or fired. I could see Germans in desert khaki and dusty brown helmets running for cover behind it. Raising my M1, I closed my left eye and tried to find one in my sights, but they were moving too fast and low. The weight of the stock against my shoulder felt familiar. I'd done this before, filled my sights with the form of a man, felt my heart beat faster with forbidden excitement. The idea of killing didn't seem to bother me a bit. And that bothered me.

  "What do you think's gonna happen?" Hutton's eyes darted over the landscape. We were a few yards below the top of the ridge, and a steep gully ran to our right. In front of us the ground rose up a bit about thirty yards out, which made it hard to see the enemy. I wondered why Gavin hadn't placed us up there, under better cover.

  "We'll be OK," I said to Hutton. "This Slim Jim fella seems to know what he's doing." An explosion punctuated my answer, followed by a scream and cries for a medic. I didn't make any more promises. We'd passed the aid station in an olive grove as we brought up the ammo and doled it out. Corpses were lined up behind it and the wounded waited on the ground in front. Not knowing my name didn't seem so bad to me after I saw that. As a medic patched up the lightly wounded they went right back to the line. The colors up here were brown, dirty white, and rusty red.

  Hutton was watching a medic dodge bullets to get to the wounded man.

  "Look ahead of us, not to the rear. Watch the Tiger," I said to Hutton. "So, what's your job with Rocko?"

  He looked at me and I pointed forward as I swiveled my head left and right, taking in as much of the scene in front of me as I could. I wanted him on the lookout, but I also wanted to distract him from dwelling on the wounded behind us. Bad for morale.

  "I'm with the Signals Company," he said, eyes front. "Guess because I worked for the telephone company back home. I like to work with radios too. Built my own from a kit. When I was a kid, that is."

  Hutton was still a kid, but old enough to need to let me know he didn't play with kits anymore.

  "But Rocko's Quartermaster Company. What are you doing with him?"

  "Rocko does favors for people. When he needs something, they do favors for him. What's that?" He pointed to a clump of low green shrubs, and I saw a flicker of movement. We both opened up, emptying a full clip each to no visible effect. Tracers from the machine gun behind us sprayed the bushes too. Nothing mov
ed.

  Beyond the small rise in front of us the ground was dotted with swaying stalks of knee-high grass. Or was that wheat? The stalks were topped by seeds or grains or something. Guess I didn't grow up on a farm. Yellow wildflowers gathered in clumps all the way down to a dirt road that snaked around the ridge. The road to Gela. The road to Rocko's riches. The road we couldn't let the Germans pass.

  I laughed. A memory had popped up and it seemed funny. Hutton noticed I was smiling and gave me a look.

  "I remember why you should wear a helmet with netting," I said, raising my voice over the machine-gun chatter.

  "Why?"

  "Because a plain helmet gets shiny when it rains. Gives you away." I lay my face down on the warm ground and laughed as the bullets flew overhead. It felt like everything was wired wrong inside my head. The things I could remember were useless. Or terrible, like lining up a man in my sights and feeling the thrill of it. Yeah, now I was all set if it rained. Lucky me.

  The Tiger moved. It backed out of the ravine and started up the slope. Lines of Germans came forward at a steady trot, rising up from behind what cover they had. I saw a Kraut, pistol in one hand, waving his men on with the other. The pistol marked him as an officer and within seconds he was cut down, a dozen guys zeroing in on him. Red sprayed from his chest as he toppled backward. Slim Jim was pretty smart to carry a rifle.

  I raised my M1 and filled the sight. I fired, and fired again. A figure dropped and I was glad. I looked up again. It was important not to get tunnel vision, to remember to look up from the sight.

  Finally, a useful memory. I searched for the closest Germans and fired at a group of them clumped together. Stupid, they were being stupid. I cursed them as they dropped. I could only see them from the waist up with that rise in the way, but it was enough. Turned out I was a good shot. They kept coming, trotting through the yellow flowers, stopping to fire while trying not to get out in front of the Tiger. I heard bullets ricocheting off it as it drew fire like a corpse draws flies. Its machine-gun muzzle swiveled and bright sparkling bursts sought out our firing positions as it tried to protect the infantry around it.