Front Lines (Front Lines #1)(54)

“I overheard Sergeant Etcher talking once. . . . He said he ran.”

Sergeant Mackie makes a wry laugh. “Etch loves telling that story on himself, how he was a coward, broke and ran away. It’s true, he did.”

“Is he a coward?”

“Tell you what, Richlin.” She does the knee slap thing again and this time stands up, as does Rio. “Tomorrow we have the ceremony where we send you off home and then off to the war. We’ll all be in Class-As, fruit salad and all. So you find an excuse to get close enough to Sergeant Etcher and look at some of that fruit salad on his chest. You take a look at what’s on his uniform and decide for yourself whether he’s a coward.”

Rio suddenly sticks out her hand.

Sergeant Mackie looks at the hand, obviously torn between disdain and acceptance. In the end she shakes Rio’s hand.

“Thank you, for . . . I . . . You’re . . .” And now the tears come, silent but unstoppable. Rio forces a small laugh. “I don’t even know your first name.”

“Sure you do, Richlin. It’s Sergeant.”

At that Sergeant Mackie walks away.





17

RAINY SCHULTERMAN—NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, USA

Rainy is pretty sure this will be her last opportunity for quite some time to enjoy New York. Her family lives on the Lower East Side, in a neighborhood that was once almost all Jewish but which has begun to change as many Jews have been driven by high prices to the refuge of Brooklyn across the river. Once almost all the store signs had been in Yiddish with smaller English subtitles, but now the Yiddish has grown steadily smaller and the English larger.

It is a neighborhood of four-and five-story brick buildings, narrow cross streets and broad avenues, cars parked haphazardly, wedged in between horse-drawn carts loaded with scrap to be taken away or barrels of ale to be brought in. Laundry lines are still slung across iron fire escapes, and rugs are still draped from open windows to air out, but this has come to seem low class and fewer pairs of underwear and nightgowns and baby diapers are on display.

It is a fine day, and people are out, taking what sun they can. A trio of shopgirls take their cigarette breaks on the sidewalk, sitting in rickety bentwood chairs, and pass a chipped pottery ashtray between them. Housewives in dowdy dresses and comfortable shoes haul string bags of canned goods and newspaper-wrapped fish. Wild young boys just released from school run and tease and shove, while their female counterparts, no older but far more mature, look on with disdain and trade secrets behind hands held over their mouths.

There are businessmen in suits and ties, ancient grandfathers with untrimmed gray beards, hurrying shopkeepers in stained aprons, teamsters flicking whips at their tired horses, taxicab drivers lounging and gossiping between fares. And the newest and most obvious addition to the life of the neighborhood: soldiers and sailors on leave, few entirely sober.

Rainy loves these streets. This is her home. But her affection does not diminish her restless desire to see very different places. She knows this place; she’s spent much of her life running errands here: to the fishmonger, to the kosher grocery, to the sewing shop.

She knows it, she loves it, she’s ready to see something new.

As she heads away from the Fulton Market, she sees three drunk sailors and one very sober young man. They are just inside an alley, and the situation looks a lot like a mugging.

Rainy stops. She scans around for police, but New York’s Finest are not in view. One of the sailors pushes the civilian. He is putting up no resistance, but he is arguing loudly and without apparent fear.

“Hey, don’t push. I just got this suit pressed.”

“Don’t push, huh?”

“Yes. You didn’t hear me the first time?”

“Don’t wise off to me, you dirty Jew.”

“I apologize. I thought since you were pushing me, you would be the one to wise off to. Is there someone else I should be wising off to? How about you?” He addresses a second sailor. “Are you in charge here?”

Rainy sees what the young man is trying to do—he’s trying to sow dissension among the three sailors. She doubts very much that it will work.

Sure enough, the second sailor punches the young man in the face. It’s not a prizefighter blow, but neither is it gentle. Rainy hears the impact and sees the man’s head snap back. Blood seeps from his lower lip.

Rainy looks again for cops, again sees none, but she does spot a trio of male GIs, two privates and a PFC. She sticks two fingers in her mouth and whistles sharply. “You three. Over here.”

The three GIs are no less drunk than the three sailors, but Rainy figures that’s an advantage, as are the sergeant’s stripes on her shoulder. “Boys, there are some sailors down that alley who have been saying very bad things about the army. Talking about soldiers being lazy, good-for-nothing cowards. A friend of mine stuck up for the army, and now he’s getting beat up.”

The ensuing melee is satisfying to both the soldiers and the sailors, all of whom had just been looking for an excuse to get into a fight.

The beleaguered young man escapes with a cut lip. He nods appreciatively at Rainy.

“Thank you. I believe you may have saved me. My dignity is beyond salvation, but my body remains mostly intact.”

Up close he’s a good-looking fellow with thoughtful yet mischievous brown eyes, and he’s younger than she’d initially thought.