Silver Stars (Front Lines #2)(77)

Tears fill Frangie’s eyes and now it’s emotion not pain that swells through her, sadness and relief and gratitude. Emotions she can’t even name. Just . . . just . . .

I’m alive.

I’m alive!





Interstitial

107TH EVAC HOSPITAL, WüRZBURG, GERMANY—APRIL 1945

They tell me yesterday was Hitler’s birthday. And here I forgot to even send him a card.

You know, it’s funny, I think the folks at home have almost forgotten about old Adolf already. They showed us a newsreel and a movie earlier tonight. The movie was Meet Me in St. Louis, which of course led various wits in the audience to yell out to Judy Garland that they’d meet her anywhere so long as it wasn’t Germany.

The newsreel was a lot of triumphant talk, pictures of long lines of German prisoners, burned-out German cities, the Stars and Stripes waving over German rubble, stirring images of Shermans and Mustangs and B-17s all heading toward Berlin.

But everyone knows it’s the Russians who will take Berlin. And everyone dreads being shipped off as soon as they’re well to invade Japan. Can’t the Japs just quit? Don’t they see we’re tired of killing?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Sicily was a bump in the road, a nasty little bump, but one that came with wine, cheese, and juice-dripping melons, so there was that at least. And although it was hot and dusty, the Eye-ties had about given up. The Krauts fought hard and well—they always do—and in the end the bickering American and British generals let the bastards escape to Italy before we could crush them like insects. The Krauts escaped North Africa, and then they escaped Sicily. They’re clever at escaping, but they won’t escape the Russkies.

The 119th didn’t do much fighting in the latter part of Sicily, and of course the whole shooting match was over within six weeks, start to finish. Rio was made corporal and was not happy about it. Stick got three beautiful stripes and was now Sergeant Sticklin and took over the squad. Sergeant Cole got an extra stripe and took over as platoon sergeant when O’Malley broke his spine falling drunk off a bluff. The handsome Lieutenant Vanderpool became Captain Vanderpool and, much to the regret of every female (with the possible exception of Cat Preeling), was shipped off to take some advanced training.

Meanwhile there was the dull routine of garrison duty for the platoon, first in a proper town and then in a remote mountain village. With the fighting over, uniforms had to be proper, boots spit-shined, ties knotted just so. But everyone got three hots and a cot, and it beat getting shot at.

Mussolini, that strutting fool, was overthrown by his own people. There was a celebration—we all managed to find something alcoholic to mark the occasion. And for about a day we had the illusion that the whole thing might be over pretty quick. But the Krauts swept down through the boot, pushed aside the few Italian Resistance fighters, and effectively made Italy far more dangerous than it had been when it was only ill-equipped, half-starved, and completely despondent Italians.

Rio got her first Purple Heart.

Frangie Marr spent those weeks enduring two more operations to pull out the last bits of shrapnel. She got a Purple Heart too.

And Rainy Schulterman? After narrowly avoiding arrest by an eager patrol, she made her way to a picturesque little town outside Rome to await the invasion.

We were all awaiting the invasion, and somehow we had convinced ourselves Italy would be easy.

Easy.

I want to put my fist through a wall just thinking of it. And it is with a sense of mounting dread that I tell myself to stop stalling and get on with telling that story. We are perhaps halfway through my long tale of war and woe, but there were laughs and fun too.

Yes, there was fun sometimes. Even in Italy.

Two more lines before I reach the bottom of this sheet of paper. The letters are getting sketchy, and I’ll need to change the ribbon in the typewriter.

And then, Gentle Reader, I will tell you about Italy.

Bloody, goddamned Italy.





PART III

OPERATION AVALANCHE

THE INVASION OF ITALY





25

RAINY SCHULTERMAN—GENAZZANO, ITALY

Rainy is dressed all in black, just another young Italian war widow walking the two miles to the nearest market, string bag at the ready to carry bread and wine and olives and maybe a small piece of fish. There is a food shortage in Italy and it is growing worse; there is no shortage of women in mourning in Italy. The older ones were still in mourning from the last war; the younger ones mourn soldiers lost in this war. Italy has much experience with mourning.

Rainy had stolen the clothing months earlier from a drying line on the outskirts of Rome, just outside the Porta Maggiore, a double arch of stone that long ago—very long ago—had formed a gate in the Aurelian walls on the eastern edge of the ancient city. It had been worth the risk taking the clothing—people didn’t look at women in mourning, they were all but invisible.

She had walked out of Rome in her purloined outfit and, after two days spent walking and hiding at night in barns or sheds, she had at last collapsed, exhausted, in a weed-grown cavern cut long ago into the hillside just beneath a vertical rise precariously topped with three-and four-story apartment houses. And there she lay for three days as a fever made her teeth chatter and her body ache. Lay there without food, the only water coming from a trickle down mossy stone walls that she had to crawl to and lick. On the fourth day, as the fever began to break, while Rainy was too weak to even crawl to water, a boy and girl, brother and sister, found her.