Front Lines (Front Lines #1)(87)

“Probably didn’t hit the dirt fast enough.” A barely audible whisper from Jenou, bunching up like she shouldn’t. Instinctively moving closer to Rio.

“He never was quick,” someone else offers. “Still . . .”

“Yeah . . .”

“Okay, knock it off,” Cole says, finally shutting the whispers down now that everyone had at least been told the basics. “Back in line, Castain, and keep your goddamn intervals.”

What else should I tell them? The way his last breath made a sound like a straw at the bottom of a milk shake? The way he emptied his bowels so that he stank? The slickness of his blood? The way it looked like chocolate syrup in the dark?

They march on, miles passing beneath sore feet. Now the sky is clearing as thick, low cloud gives way to the higher, thinner stuff. The moon has set, but the stars are able to peek through in patches, so now Rio can actually see where she’s going and even see a bit beyond Luther.

Heel, toe. Heel, toe. She hears the cadence call in her head. Your left, your left, your left, right, left. The soft crunch of boots on hard dirt. The squishy sound when they hit mud. The many sounds of straps chafing, and uniform pants rubbing, and packs straining, and her helmet riding on the tops of Rio’s ears, which means she needs to adjust her helmet liner, though not just now. Definitely not taking her helmet off just now.

They were taught in basic that a helmet is not there to stop bullets. It is just there to stop ejected rifle brass and falling shrapnel from hitting your head. A bullet? A German rifle bullet will pass right through the steel helmet like a hot knife through butter.

Rio isn’t taking her helmet off to adjust it, no, not just yet; she’ll take what armor she can get. She’s seen now what bullets do. But after a while Rio’s mind travels away. It goes to that far-off movie theater. It goes to the last letter from Strand, the one where he sounded just the slightest bit distant, as though maybe he had not really been in the mood to write to her.

From there it goes to questions of whether she was a fool thinking that one real date, a few stolen kisses on the Queen Mary, and a couple of letters mean they have a real relationship. What are they, even? Boyfriend and girlfriend? Absurd. Going steady? Those are school notions. Those terms are from another life.

And from there her memory inevitably wanders to the Tiburon and Jack. She glances back at him but sees nothing but his helmet over Sticklin’s shoulder.

It was nothing, really. Nothing. Really. Even Jenou said it was nothing. Forget it. Rio is Strand’s girl. But that definite statement leads her imagination to questions about women in the air corps. They are almost certainly pretty. Why wouldn’t they be? Of course they are: a smart, good-looking young woman would naturally choose air corps over army, if she could, and if she had a lick of sense.

In my own defense, I just wanted to drive a truck.

Strand is probably already bored with the idea of her, of little Rio from Nowhere, America. Yes, he is from that same nowhere, but that will just make some bold floozy from the big city all the more enticing to him.

She chews on that for a few miles and then begins to think about life after the war. What would that be? First, she will finish school, of course. Then . . . Well, what then? College? She would be only the second person in her family to ever finish high school, and if she went to college, the first Richlin ever to do so.

Or she could forget schooling, get married, and have children. And cook. And clean house. Help the children with their homework. Say things like, “Just wait till your father gets home.”

Not yet. First this. First war.

Gradually, as the long, slow miles pass, Rio stops thinking about anything really, and just walks. She’s had practice at that. Walking doesn’t take much thought after the first few miles.

The sun turns the horizon pink, then golden, the light picking out random objects—a single big boulder sitting all by itself, a stump, a misshapen tree, the peaks of the mountains in the distance off to the right. A random beam of sunlight peeking just for a moment through the clouds brightens half of Jenou’s face but leaves her eyes in the shadow of her helmet. But the dawn has not penetrated the space directly ahead of the column; they march still toward darkness.

Somewhere out there artillery is blasting away, a sound like far-off thunder. Someone was catching hell, and she hopes it’s them, the enemy.

Kill them all, artillery, kill them all before they can kill me.

“Geer, fall back. Richlin, take point,” Cole says.

“But, Sarge, I’m—” Geer starts to complain.

“Private Geer, when I tell you to fall back, fall back.” No yelling, no threat, just that calm authority Cole always seems to convey.

And suddenly Rio is walking point.

Behind her stretch two American platoons and one British platoon. Ahead of her, presumably the enemy. Or maybe just more desert.

Possibly lions.

We’re out front because we’re expendable, she realizes. It’s the British commandos who matter; they’re the experienced soldiers and thus more valuable.

The platoon’s been briefed on the basics of the mission: a crossroads, then a detachment of Nachrichtentruppe, the communications arm of the German army. They were believed not to be defended and were expected to be easy prey.

“Shoot ’em up, blow up their radios, and run like hell,” that was the short version of the mission.