Silver Stars (Front Lines #2)(49)

First and Second Squads amble away, faux casual, rifles slung on shoulders, heading back the way they’ve come. A quarter mile down the road, around a bend, they halt. First Squad takes the left, Second Squad takes the right, which means walking off the road into a terraced hillside field. They walk upright at first, even taking time to pick the occasional very sour and unripe grape from the gnarled vines. But as they come around into sight of the barn they crouch low, walking bent over, which only exacerbates the pain in Rio’s leg.

For about two hundred yards they are exposed, though far enough distant that they may avoid being spotted, and anxiously await the zipper sound of German machine guns. Then they are once more hidden from view by the bulk of the hill and can stand up and stretch strained muscles.

Soon they are back to where they can plainly see the barn, though now the surviving cypresses partly mask it. Here the vines are gone and the hill is covered in tall, desiccated grasses set off by the inevitable prickly pears. They are perhaps two hundred yards away from the target but not directly in line with the dark, gaping, threatening door.

Cole looks it over through his binoculars. “Can’t see anything,” he says. “Can’t see any cover either. We can either go round this hill, which is going to take half an hour, or we just walk right in.” He glances at his watch. He is supposed to have his squad in place in twenty minutes. “We’d have to do it at a run. What do you think, Stick?”

“Go around,” Sticklin says without hesitation.

“What about you, Richlin?” Cole asks.

Rio actually jumps. “What? Don’t . . . don’t ask me!”

Cole sends her a sidelong look. “You know, Richlin, you won’t be a private forever.”

That thought bothers Rio more than the action ahead. It is one thing to follow orders; it is quite a different thing to take responsibility.

Cole quickly decides the matter: they’ll go around the hill, even if it means running. This they do, running in ninety-degree heat without shade, running with gear rattling, with troops panting and tripping and cursing under their breath. It’s worse for Stick, who still carries the big BAR.

Now the pain in Rio’s leg is doubled. Every impact of boot on dirt sends a shock of pain shooting up her thigh into her belly. She grits her teeth, determined to go on, not to fall out. Part of her mind is still digesting the way Jenou looked at her, the way she refused to look at her, the way the usually protective Jenou failed to speak up in Rio’s defense.

Jenou has known her longer than anyone but her parents. Does Jenou honestly believe Rio enjoys killing?

I could prove her wrong. I could fall out. I could go find a nice clean cot in an aid station back on the beach.

But she runs on, her M1 held chest high, canteen bouncing, boots pounding dust.

“So this is why we had all those five-mile runs,” Jack says, panting.

Why didn’t Cole ask Jack? Jack’s a good soldier.

When they emerge, sweat staining their uniforms, they see the barn from the side. And they see the Italian light tank behind it.

Cole stares at his watch. “Three minutes,” he says. “No time to send word back or bring up a mortar.” On this side of the barn is a hole like a window except that it was clearly punched out from the inside, with stone bricks lying scattered beneath it.

“They’ll have their MG on the road, most likely. We’ll be getting small arms fire this direction. Unless they’ve got a second MG.” Again he consults his watch. “If we jump off a minute early maybe the Eye-ties shift their fire toward us.” He points. “We go straight across toward those prickly pears. We run like hell and hope they don’t spot us. If we reach the prickly pears, we can put some fire on that light tank, make it hard for them to crank it up. Because if they get that thing started up . . .” He shrugs and shakes his head at that prospect.

Cole is putting them at risk in order to save other lives. And that, Rio thinks, is why I’m happy being a private.

“All right. Drop your packs. We’ll go in two groups. Stick, you take Richlin, Castain, Pang, and Geer. Keep your heads low and run like hell,” Cole says. “Keep some space between you. We’ll follow on a ten count. On three. One. Two. Three!”

They break into a mad dash, moving more easily without their packs, Stick, Rio, Jenou, Pang, and Geer bringing up the rear.

Rio no longer notices the pain in her leg. She’s pushing her senses forward and away from herself, willing her eyes to see inside the stony wreckage ahead, willing her ears to hear the first click of a cocking machine gun so she can drop.

They make it halfway before the rest of the squad comes pelting after them. They run exposed now, with no cover between them and that shadowed, forbidding hole.

Rio spots an Italian officer, suspenders hanging, something in his hand, sauntering out the back of the barn toward the tank.

He is just a hundred yards away. If he but listened, he would hear the sound of their boots and their rattling gear.

He turns. He shades his hand and stares. His mouth opens in an astonished O.

“Richlin!” Stick says in a terse voice, and she drops to her belly and sights on the tan uniform. Much closer than her first kill, but farther away than others.

She is about to pull the trigger when the back half of the squad comes panting by, unaware that she is ready to shoot. They swarm into her field of view and for a moment the Italian disappears. When he reappears he is running and shouting.