Front Lines (Front Lines #1)(77)

Luther lost his original kitten to the English countryside. He managed to not only replace her with a nearly identical calico but to smuggle her all the way here. The kitten, who Luther has named Miss Pat for reasons he has never volunteered, seems quite at home in his jacket pocket or occasionally stuffed down under his shirt. He takes her out now and feeds her tiny bites of Cration cheese. Rio notices Liefer apparently just now becoming aware of the cat and watches the conflict play out on her smoothly sculpted face: make an issue of it? Or pretend not to notice?

There being no practical way to dispose of Miss Pat, the lieutenant opts to look away.

“See any submarines out there?” Jenou asks as she climbs stiffly to her feet and leans on the gunwale beside Rio.

“Don’t sweat subs,” Stick says. “These boats don’t draw enough water. A torpedo would pass right under us. But you might want to glance up at the sky every now and again.”

“Planes? Out here?”

“Well, hopefully the Luftwaffe is busy elsewhere, but sure, sure there could be planes.”

“What do we do if one comes at us?” Jenou asks, head swiveling to scan the sky.

“We get our asses shot up,” Luther says. “Hope that doesn’t disturb you ladies.”

More card games. More smoking. More grumbling. Cold food and suddenly there’s a shout from the coxswain. The engine throttles down, and the boat slows.

“What the hell?” Hansu Pang yells, breaking his habit of complete silence.

The boat turns sharply, and they all soon see what the hell. One of the boats has been swamped by the agitated sea. The LCM is stopped, way too low in the water, with British commandos climbing out to hang over the side and inflating their Mae West life jackets while the other boats veer in like bees heading back to the hive.

The swamped LCM is more heavily loaded than the others as it carried one of two half-tracks, meant to give the commandos some speed on land as well as the use of its heavy machine guns.

“It’s going!” Jillion Magraff yells. Private Jillion Magraff is blond, medium-height, and has the sullen eyes and outthrust chin of a young woman with a chip on her shoulder. Rio took an immediate dislike to her. But Magraff is right, and the boat, which had never enjoyed more than nine or ten inches of freeboard, is swamped. Only its stunted bridge and the upper half of the half-track are still visible. The sounds of lusty British cursing carry across the water as the commandos release their grips on the sinking boat and are picked up by other boats.

The entire operation eats up more than an hour. To make matters worse, the accident plus the freshening seas force the navy to slow their speed from a healthy, but not exactly rip-roaring, nine knots to just six. Now they are poking along at slightly better than rowing speed, a gaggle of boats as exposed and helpless as slugs on a sidewalk.

Lieutenant Helder’s boat sidles up alongside Rio’s. Helder shouts over to Liefer, “This is FUBAR, Liefer. We’ll be landing in the dark!”

All conversation from the squad falls silent as they savor this opportunity to eavesdrop.

“Can’t turn back,” Liefer shouts, taking a face full of spray.

“That boat had most of the mortars, a bunch of the ammo too.”

“I’m not in command of this mission; talk to the captain.”

“I intend to,” Helder yells back. “I wanted to have a united front.”

Lieutenant Liefer shakes her head vehemently. “I’m not turning tail so the goddamned Limeys can call us chickenshit!”

“We have no business being on this mission in the first place! This is a commando raid. We are infantry, and green.”

Liefer shakes her head no. And after a hard look and a worried shake of his head, Lieutenant Helder and the boat he’s on veer away.

“Well, that was encouraging,” Jack says.

A second boat is swamped that afternoon, this time one of the American boats. Two soldiers from Third Platoon drown. Only one of the bodies is recovered.

Rio’s worries, blunted earlier by boredom, come back full force now. She checks her Mae West, and plans mentally for what gear she can ditch to avoid drowning if her boat founders.

And then . . .

“Plane!”

Rio spins, tries to see who is yelling, tries to spot the plane, head swiveling, Jenou now doing the same. The coxswain hits a klaxon, which echoes across the water and then points in big choppy arm motions toward a sort of black X outlined against a falling afternoon sun.

“Is it coming or going?” Jillion Magraff cries.

“Can’t tell.”

“I think it’s going . . . wait,” Jenou says.

“Shit! It’s coming! It’s coming!” Kerwin yells.

One of the sailors hops onto the machine gun mounted beside the conn, tears off the protective canvas cover, and racks in a belt of ammo.

Cole says, “Everyone down, stay down!”

Rio can hear it now, a high-pitched insect whine.

“Could be one of ours,” she says.

“Could be,” Cole says, “but don’t count on it. Get down. Take cover.”

The plane roars overhead, and there, plain as day, are the black crosses of the Luftwaffe. As it zooms past every machine gun opens up, crisscrossing its wake, missing to the left, missing to the right.

Taka-taka-taka-taka-taka!