Silver Stars (Front Lines #2)(47)

“Hey, screw you, pal,” Cisco says.

In less than a minute the boat is lost to sight. Rainy takes a shaky breath. She has just landed in Mussolini’s Italy on a harebrained mission with a seething, unstable gangster. Her face, hand, and shoulder all hurt.

Strapped to her inner thigh where a casual search won’t find it is a Colt 1903, weighing 1.46 pounds and holding eight .32 caliber bullets.

Concealed behind a loosely sewn seam in her collar is her suicide pill.

It is still dark, but stars are already fading in the east. The only sound is the lullaby shush-shush of wavelets. The beach is empty. The closest lights might be miles away north, she can’t tell.

“Oy vey iz mir,” she whispers, echoing her mother.

Oh, woe is me.





14

RIO RICHLIN—GELA BEACH, SICILY

Harassed by intermittent shelling and occasional attacks from the air, the platoon assembles on the chaotic beach. Lieutenant Vanderpool, with orders to get them off the beach as quickly as possible, leads them inland. The 119th is spread out to their left, with Fifth Platoon holding the right of the line and Second Squad on the hanging end. There is no Allied force on their immediate right, not yet, as the division assigned that position has run into trouble getting their gear ashore.

SNAFU, Rio thinks. Situation Normal: All Fugged Up.

The division, accompanied by the single light tank they’ve managed to get ashore, bypasses the town of Gela and heads directly across the dry farm fields of southern Sicily.

Rio’s first sighting of actual Sicilians occurs when three small children come running out of a farmhouse. The children are scrawny, haphazardly dressed in cheap, patched, ill-fitting clothing, and with not a shoe between them.

The nervous platoon trains weapons on them until high-pitched cries of delight, ear-to-ear grins, and manic laughter convince them that there is no danger from these three.

One urchin, a seven-year-old girl, tugs shyly at Jenou’s leg while staring in a solemn way at the blood-soaked leg of Rio’s pants.

“Give her something,” Rio says to Jenou.

“What? Tips on how to dress? That outfit goes way beyond hand-me-down,” Jenou says, but she fishes in her pockets and comes up with half a ration chocolate bar. The little girl falls to it immediately, gnawing at the rock-hard chocolate and grinning up in surprise and pure, undiluted joy.

“Careful it doesn’t give you the runs,” Jenou says pointlessly since there is no chance of the child understanding.

A woman comes rushing from the farmhouse, yelling in Italian, obviously scolding her children, waving at them to get back in the house. The house, in truth, is little more than a pile of mismatched stones, shabbier and less likely to be permanent than anything Rio has ever seen. There are no windows, just a low, crooked door and a roof of cracked tiles patched with tied bundles of straw.

The children ignore their mother, who slows as she approaches. No grin from her. Her face is brown and deeply lined, her eyes dark with a thousand years of Sicilian suspicion.

“Keep moving,” Cole urges his troops. “This war ain’t over just yet.”

They move along, and the children follow for a few dozen yards until drawn back to their mother.

They are in a sunbaked land of small farm fields, stone fences, donkey-drawn carts, scrawny cattle, and mostly dirt tracks rather than roads. Trees are few and far between, but prickly pear stands are everywhere, with large, flat ovals like beaver tails festooned with two kinds of needles.

Tilo cuts one with his knife and gingerly picks it up, careful to avoid the obvious pricks. But the large needles are not the problem.

“Ah! Damn! Ow!”

Hansu Pang says, “You got to watch the little hairlike prickles. They go right into skin and it’s hell getting rid of them.”

“Got a lot of them prickly pears in Japan, do you?” Geer asks.

“No, but they grow around the internment camp where my grandparents are.” He says it without rancor, but it irritates Rio anyway, because she expects an argument to break out and she’s instinctively unhappy about any unnecessary noise. Sure enough . . .

“How the hell are your grandparents locked up and you’re in the army?” Geer demands.

“I’ve been living in Hawaii, where people understand that we aren’t Japanese but Americans.” This time Pang’s anger peeks out for just a flash before being smothered. “It’s mostly in California that folks are being interned, not Hawaii.”

“Japs are Japs,” Geer says with a shrug.

“Thanks for saving my life, Geer, and also, fug you.”

It is the first time Pang has defended himself in any way, and to Rio’s relief, Geer lets it go.

They halt and crouch suddenly, hearing gunfire. But it’s not close and not directed at them, so the march continues. Rio has no real idea where they’re headed. Vanderpool told them the name of the village, but it’s all Italian gobbledygook to Rio’s ears.

Besides, Cat has noticed something far more interesting. “Hey, those are tomatoes!”

Every head swivels left.

“And they’re ripe!”

Sergeant Cole yells something about mines, but no one pays any attention since it’s unlikely the local farmers would be tending crops in minefields. An old farmer at the far side of the field looks as if he’s considering protesting, but then gets back to his labor. They keep going in the same direction, parallel to the road, but now they are slowing to snatch fat red tomatoes from the vines, stuffing them into backpacks and shirt pockets and taking big bites from the most promising specimens. Soon the platoon is dripping tomato juice down mouths and necks, fingers and arms. First Platoon, farther on their left, is busily denuding their half of the same field and the farmer finally yells at them, but with no effect.