Silver Stars (Front Lines #2)(48)

Rio does not join in; she’s never been a great lover of raw tomatoes. Her leg wound is itching fiercely and at the same time aching and distracting her too much for cavorting through the fields. But a mile on, the tomato-stained, prickly-pear-maimed platoon spies a patch of watermelons, and this Rio cannot resist no matter the pain. She uses her koummya to slice open a melon heavy with sweetness and greedily gobbles it up, spitting seeds as she goes.

“It’s like watching an especially disgusting machine gun,” Jenou teases.

“What else am I supposed to do with watermelon seeds?” Rio demands.

Jack says, “You’re supposed to spit them discreetly into your spoon and lay them on the side of your fruit plate.” He winks and spits a seed about ten feet.

“Pitiful,” Tilo says. “I can beat it.”

The war is halted temporarily while Rio, Jack, Tilo, and Cat compete to see who can spit a seed the farthest.

Sergeant Cole comes over, shakes his head in disgust, grabs a hunk of melon, chews, swallows, and spits a seed through the gap in his teeth that very nearly doubles Cat’s record.

“I gotta teach you people everything? Now, get your butts moving, you’ve had your lunch.”

Another hour on and the sun is taking a toll on the GIs. A water pump used to fill a cattle trough is worked eagerly to fill helmets with water, which they dump over their heads.

“That’s better,” Rio says.

“Your leg is bleeding again,” Jenou points out. “Why are you being stubborn, Rio? Fall out and go back to the aid station.”

“It’s just a little blood,” Rio says.

“She’s right, you know,” Jack says. “You should get that attended to properly.”

“Richlin don’t want to miss the war,” Geer says. “Isn’t that right, Killer Rick? You want more body count.”

“Shut up, Geer,” Rio snaps, not liking the nickname.

“That’s why she won’t swap out that big old M1 for a carbine,” Geer says. “Can’t shoot a man from half a mile away with a carbine.”

This is too much like an insinuation of cowardice for Rio. She grabs his shoulder and spins him around to face her. “What is it, Geer? You think I’m afraid to do it up close? Because it was pretty up close and personal when we took out that Kraut mortar team.”

Geer grins and holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Don’t shoot me, Killer Rick. I surrender. You’re right, you like killing at any distance.”

“I’m doing my job. Doing what I’m told, same as you.”

“And no reason why you shouldn’t enjoy doing your job, right, Richlin?”

Rio is considering punching him in the nose, but she spots Jenou out of the corner of her eye. Jenou is standing with head down, unwilling to show her face.

My God, does Jenou believe that too?

“Knock it off,” Stick says with the authority of his new corporal’s rank. “We got actual enemies, we don’t need to go looking for more here in the squad.”

The column starts moving again, but not for long. There’s what looks like an abandoned barn up ahead, a pile of stones with a collapsed roof. Platoon Sergeant O’Malley raises a clenched fist, calling a halt. The rest of the division is lost to sight behind a rise in the land off to their left. GIs drop to a knee or sit right down in the dirt. Rio squats and watches O’Malley, now conferring with Lieutenant Vanderpool.

Clearly the old sergeant doesn’t like something about that barn. Rio tries to figure out just what exactly it is, because the same instinct is nagging at her. The land around the barn is not unusual: dry fields lying fallow, terraced vineyards bearing only stunted young grapes, prickly pear stands, two exhausted-looking donkeys standing mute beside a water trough. The sky overhead is clear blue with a blistering sun floating toward its zenith.

She glances back and only now realizes that the road has been climbing gently. That flat fields have given way to terraced fields as they’ve moved onto higher ground. It has the odd effect of making Rio a little homesick. Parched gentle hills, vineyards, dry yellow grasses and isolated patches of green, a blue sky and bright sun, these are Rio’s natural habitat, at least whenever she gets out of Gedwell Falls into the surrounding countryside.

Then she spots something. There is a line of cypress trees, tall and narrow, like spear points lined up in a row. The line of trees would block their view of the barn if it had been extended just a half dozen trees farther. She squints and shields her eyes and sees several small disks the color of the red mud so familiar from basic training in Georgia—the raw, still-moist trunks of trees recently cut down.

Cut down to reveal the barn? No. Cut down to give the barn a clear view and field of fire over the road.

Cole looks worried. “Okay, people, listen up. The Loot and O’Malley are worried about that barn, and I agree. It’s a perfect site for an MG. Third and Fourth Squads are going to make it look like they’ve stopped for chow. First and Second Squads are going back down the road like we’re heading for the beach. Then we’re going to circle left and right respectively, and get close enough to put some fire onto that barn.”

There are groans, but also murmurs of excitement.

“I hope it’s Krauts and not just Italians,” Cat says. “The Eye-ties might give up and then what? We’re marching prisoners back to the beach.”