Silver Stars (Front Lines #2)(120)
“I am not some wild-eyed patriot,” Rainy says softly. “When I started out I trusted in orders. I trusted my superiors. Well, I don’t trust so much anymore, but even . . . before . . . even before, I don’t think anyone would ever have mistaken me as a sentimental person or an uncritical person.”
That earns a wry smile from both Rio and Frangie.
“But what went through my head, again and again, as I . . .” She fights through the tightening of her throat. “As I lay there in my own piss and blood, what I thought was, thank God for the US Army.” Then in a whisper, “Thank God for the US fugged-up-beyond-all-recognition Army.”
“Dammit,” Rio says, and wipes angrily at a tear.
“And you know what, Sergeant Richlin? There’s a whole bunch of people, millions of them, right over there, right across that water, who are praying for the US Army. And a bunch of green kids from Alabama and Nebraska are going to jump out of planes and go running out of boats trying to be that army. Half of them won’t know which end of a rifle to point at the Krauts. You know what those green kids will need? You know what all those GIs and all those millions of people over there will need?”
Rio grits her teeth, willing herself not to be swayed, not to be influenced by high-flown words.
“They’ll need people who know how to fight and how to keep guys from getting killed,” Rainy says. “What do we call those people, Richlin? What do we call those people, Rio Richlin from Cow Paddy or Bugtussle or wherever the hell you’re from?”
Rio shakes her head from side to side, negation but . . . but also acceptance. Yes, she is swayed by Rainy’s words, but wasn’t it always inevitable? Was she ever really going to run away and sell war bonds?
Rainy takes Rio’s shoulders in her hands and says, “Honey, I hate to tell you, but they call those people sergeants.”
Rio gazes out across the steel-gray water, out across the whitecaps, past the gray navy ships patrolling. She sees her father, warning her not to play hero, to keep her head down. She sees her mother, crying that she can’t lose another daughter, not again.
She gazes into a future of sunshine and fresh-baked muffins and the happy children she will have with Strand. Maybe.
And then she sees Geer and Pang, Cat and Beebee. She sees Stick and Jack. And Jenou. She even sees that green fool from the pub and a million like him, ignorant, lost, blustering, clueless idiots who will probably not last five minutes once the shooting starts.
And she sees Cassel.
And Suarez.
And Magraff.
“So,” Rio says at last. “Just what is the pay for sergeants?”
Interstitial
107TH EVAC HOSPITAL, WüRZBURG, GERMANY—APRIL 1945
We did not take Monte Cassino, Gentle Reader. It took three more tries before Polish troops finally climbed the last bloody feet.
By then the bombers had come and obliterated the monastery. That was a pity, I suppose, especially since it didn’t really help. But that’s war, I guess. If you don’t want to see your great old buildings blown to hell, don’t start wars.
General Mark Clark finally got his big moment of fame, capturing Rome. Yep. American forces took Rome on June 4, 1944. The world had two days to give a damn and then, well, you know what happened on June 6, 1944.
I call it justice: the great glory hound general had his glory dimmed. Too bad he left so many thousands of good men and women dead on the way. And they’re still fighting in Italy, even with the Russkies closing in on Berlin and the Americans racing to the Wolf’s Lair. I don’t know what history will have to say about the battles for Italy, but from where I sit it looks like a huge damned waste.
But that’s the word for all war, isn’t it? Waste. Villages and towns and great cities turned to rubble; civilians homeless, wandering the fields trying to find a blade of grass to eat, waiting for sons and husbands who aren’t ever coming home.
In Italy we had Brits, Canadians, Aussies, Kiwis—who came damned close to taking Cassino when it was their turn—men from every end of the French or British empire, those crazy-brave Poles, and us Americans. And yeah, Eye-ties and Krauts too, though don’t expect me to shed a tear for them, those fools who followed madmen and now sit hungry and cold in the destruction they unleashed.
Waste. A waste of staggering proportions.
Oh well, forget I said that. It’s all glory, kids, nothing but glory. After all, Gentle Reader, they’ll need you or your kids ready to fight the next war, right? We wouldn’t want you to get the idea that your war will be a waste, right?
Anyway.
Yeah, anyway.
Put it all in a box, Sergeant Cole used to say. Put it all away and lock it up and don’t open that box until . . . until you’re a wounded soldier sitting in a hospital with a typewriter.
See, the thing is, it scares me, all that stuff I’ve put away. I thought maybe writing about it would let me get a handle on it. Well, fug it all, it’s not working. Too much. Just getting this far it’s too much, and we haven’t gotten to France yet, or Belgium or Germany.
I warned you there would be hate. I warned you. And by the time we were all done with our time in sunny, delightful Italy, we’d started to feel it. It’s hard to kill a person you don’t hate. A vicious cycle, hate and killing, killing and hate.
What a wonderful world.