“Thank you again,” Flint said, his politeness a knife in my gut.
“Why go through all this, Flint? What’s the point, in the middle of a war, for Christ’s sake! Why?” I wasn’t stalling now, I wanted to know. If he killed Danny, I needed to know.
“Why? Because I can. Because I’m not one of the sheep,” Flint said, the last word hissing out between his teeth. “I’m not a man who depends on what’s sewn on his sleeve to tell him who he is and what he can do. Or who needs a uniform to run his own world. Your rules, your ranks, your salutes, they mean nothing to me. A street sweeper is the same as a bishop or a general to me. You all play roles and kiss the ass of the player above you, and thank him for the privilege. Why? Because you all make me sick. I’d kill the whole fucking world if I could.”
“You’re a powerful man, Flint, I can see that,” I struggled to keep my words even, to not react to Flint’s venom. “So how about a favor, for a kid who doesn’t even know what his role is yet? Let Danny go.”
“I don’t think so. Now, let’s go inside, like gentlemen,” he said. “I have a card to play.” Flint herded us into the house, me first, Danny between us, the shotgun at Danny’s head. I held onto the carbine, not sure how many rounds were left. The first thing I saw was a chair. Communications wire lay on floor, some of it still tied to the armrests. Cosgrove. He’d had Cosgrove tied up in here, but he’d gotten away. Blood stained one of the armrests. Not much, but enough to tell me Cosgrove was hurt.
“Big surprise,” I said. Explosions erupted outside, sending a blast of dirt and smoke into the ruined house. We each instinctively went into a crouch, Flint still pressing the shotgun against Danny. “Mortars.”
“Just the Krauts covering their retreat,” Flint said. “No heavy stuff.”
“Let me go, Sarge,” Danny managed to croak. Another series of explosions hit, closer to the canal.
“No can do, kid. As a matter of fact, if your brother doesn’t find that old Limey general and drag him back in here, I’m gonna redecorate the place with your brains.” He looked at me with a smile and raised his eyebrows, daring me to call his bluff. I had my carbine, but there was no chance to get a shot off, and he knew it.
More explosions hit the far end of the house, shaking dust and grit loose from the ceiling and showering us all. We covered our heads, the instinct of the battlefield taking over. A flash of movement caught my eye, and I saw Cosgrove, moving faster than I thought possible, a tire iron in his grasp, which he brought down on the kneeling Flint, smashing into his wrist and breaking his grip on the shotgun, not to mention bones. Flint howled, but kept a firm grip on Danny with his other hand, pulling him up and out of the house, the shotgun wrapped around his neck but hanging free. Another mortar round hit the house square above us, sending timbers crashing down around Cosgrove and me. Cosgrove’s face was gray with dust and streaked with bright red, but I could see he was more angry than injured.
“Go,” he said, working at a section of roof that had pinned one leg.
Mortar rounds churned the water in the canal, but Flint was headed straight for it, Danny in tow. He was ahead of Danny, keeping him as a shield. In seconds they were in the canal, Flint making his way through the waist-deep water. I heard a German machine gun open up, close by. There were still plenty of them out there. Then, a burst stitched across the water, driving me back. Flint and Danny were up on the other bank now, Danny fighting, punching at Flint with one hand and trying to get a grip on the shotgun with the other. Flint had only one good hand, and he needed it to hold onto Danny, to keep him between us. He kicked Danny twice, and that put an end to his fight.
Rifle fire picked up. Something was happening, but I couldn’t focus on it. Flint stood with Danny on the opposite bank, his good arm around his neck. He yelled something, but with more mortar rounds dropping all over, it was lost. I knelt, and braced my arm on my knee, aiming at Flint. I could see his white teeth, his mouth wide, speaking to Danny, his eyes on me all the time. I watched Danny, wondering if Flint would take him, or find a way to kill him. And if Danny got away, how long until a bullet or a bomb caught up to him? How long until he’d be a corpse or a combat fatigue case, unable to control the shakes, his dreams and waking nightmares, his life? I didn’t want him serving beefsteak to the brass and diving for cover every time a plate dropped. I didn’t want Danny to become one of the faceless crowd of casualties in this war.
I tried to count the number of shots I’d fired. Flint was too far away for the pistol, so it had to be the carbine. Gunfire echoed up and down the canal, louder now, and more explosions hit behind me, the Germans working their mortars overtime. I steadied myself, let out a breath, lined up the target in the sights.
Flint shouted one last time, then pushed Danny down the bank. He stood alone for a moment, silhouetted against the sky. Danny faced away from me, trying to free the shotgun, its strap still twisted around his neck. I had my target. I fired.
And shot my brother.
I
WAITED, WATCHING
for Flint, but he was gone. So was the machine-gun fire. I tossed the carbine away and ran to Danny, my legs heavy in the brackish water. His right shoulder was bloody, and his eyes dazed. He blinked, as if he thought I might not be real.
“What happened?” He clutched at my arm, wincing in pain. It tore me apart, and I held back the tears I knew would give me away.
“You’ve been hit. Take it easy, I got you.” I took the shotgun from around his neck and hung it from my shoulder. I picked up Danny like I’d done so many times, carrying him in from the backseat of the car, sound asleep, cradled in my arms. His weight was nothing as he rested his head on my chest, grabbing at my shirt with his good arm, his face contorted in pain.
“Am I going to make it, Billy?”
“Don’t talk stupid, Danny. You caught some shrapnel in your shoulder, that’s all. You’ll be fine.” I sloshed through the water, watching Cosgrove turn over Big Mike, wadding his jacket under his head for a pillow.
“Flint?” Danny said.
“Yeah,” I said. “He got away.”
“Why didn’t you shoot?”
“I did. I only had one round left, and I missed. What did he say to you?” I laid Danny down, leaning him against the fender of the car, next to Big Mike.
“He said the joker would be waiting for you, downriver.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah. He told me that he was granting you a favor, like you asked. Since I hadn’t disappointed him.”
“You have any idea what that meant?” I pulled open his uniform, sprinkling sulfa on the wound, and applied a compress from the first-aid pack that Cosgrove had retrieved from the car.
“No. I have no idea what anything means.” Danny gritted his teeth, grimacing with pain. The bullet was still in there, nestled in a mix of shattered bone and muscle. He needed a hospital, and so did Big Mike.
“How is he?” I asked Cosgrove, who was trying to clean Big Mike’s wound with water from a canteen.
“Breathing, is all I can say.”
“Thanks for getting the drop on Flint. That was just in time.”
“Old trick I learned in Cairo. Tighten your muscles when you’re being tied up. When you relax them, you’ve got a bit of wiggle room. Unfortunate, Flint getting away like that. Jerry should have no trouble bagging him, though, out alone with a broken wrist.”
“Yeah,” I said, not certain what he’d seen.
“But your brother, he’s safe now, isn’t he? Banged up, but he’s seen the elephant and will live to tell the tale. Not every man here will be able to say the same.”
I had nothing to say, nothing left. I felt a tremendous weariness settle in my body. I slumped down next to Danny, as I heard the sound of vehicles pulling to a halt and boots stomping on the ground. Jeeps, an ambulance, even a truck full of Carabinieri. I put my arm around Danny and held him close, his blood sticky and thick. I watched Big Mike, willing him to wake up and shake off the pounding he’d taken. All this suffering, and Flint had gotten away. But I had Danny, and I prayed I’d made the right choice. And that I could live with myself.
Harding, Kaz, and Luca hovered over me, but I couldn’t speak, couldn’t answer their questions or look into their eyes. Medics pushed them away and took Danny from me. Others picked up Big Mike and put him on a stretcher. Graves Registration men wandered around with the mattress covers, searching for the dead. Finally, someone came for me.
“Y
OUR SERGEANT HAS
a subdural hematoma,” Doc Cassidy said. “We’re prepping him for surgery right now.”
We were back at the hospital, in a small tent that had been set aside for our banged-up group. Danny’s shoulder was encased in bandages. Cosgrove sported a bandage over his right temple, and for some reason I was on a cot, too. Harding and Kaz sat at a small table by the open flaps.
“Will he be okay?” I asked.
“If he got here fast enough,” Cassidy said. “I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”
“Can I see him?” I asked, sitting up and getting my feet on the floor.
“You stay put, doctor’s orders. You were disoriented, in shock when you came in. I want to watch you for another day.”
“How long have I been here?” I asked, not remembering the journey here or anything since lights out back at the canal.
“A couple of hours. You don’t remember?” Cassidy pushed me back down on the cot and peered into my eyes.
“No, I don’t think so. How’s Danny?”
“I’m fine, Billy,” he said from his cot, a sloppy grin on his face. “Listen to the doctor and lie down.”
“Is he?” I asked Cassidy in a whisper. “Is he really fine?”
“He’s feeling no pain right now, due to the morphine we gave him. We got the bullet out, but he’ll need another operation in Naples. That’s a million-dollar wound he’s got there.”
That was all I needed to hear. I closed my eyes.
Time passed. I must’ve slept, because I know I dreamed. Of home. Danny, Mom and Dad. Uncle Dan telling stories at the tavern. Walking the beat, playing baseball and mumblety-peg. Sunday dinners. It was all nice until I lost Danny, and I was just a little kid myself, alone in a strange city, and my hands were smeared with blood.
“Billy, what is it, what’s wrong?” It was Kaz, seated by my cot.
“Huh?”
“You cried out in your sleep.”
“Bad dream, I guess. Where’s Danny? How’s Big Mike? How long … ?”
Kaz answered me, but I fell back asleep, the thought that Doc Cassidy had given me something bubbling up from the tiredness inside me.
It was light outside when I awoke again. I was alone in the tent. I must have slept through the night, I thought, then saw I was wearing pajamas. When the hell did I put these on? I struggled to get up, felt a little dizzy, then lay down for a minute.
“Boyle? Boyle, can you hear me?” It was Doc Cassidy, shaking my arm. I must’ve dozed off. I opened my eyes, and a lantern was the only light in the tent. How could it be night already?
“Yeah, I hear you. What’s going on? Where’s Danny?”
“In Naples by now. How are you feeling?”
“Thirsty. Hungry.”
“Good,” he said, helping me sit up and giving me a glass of water. “I was worried about you.”
“I must’ve been tired. How long have I been out?”
“Forty-eight hours.”
“Impossible,” I said, although I knew it wasn’t.
“I gave you a mild sedative when you came in here. You seemed agitated, in a state of shock. But it shouldn’t have knocked you out for two days.”
“Big Mike?”
“I don’t know. We relieved the pressure on his brain, and Harding got him on a hospital ship headed to Naples, where he can be treated by a specialist.”
“What kind of specialist?”
“A brain surgeon. Billy, he didn’t wake up. But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t by now. Your Colonel Harding didn’t want to take any chances.”
“Danny’s doing all right, isn’t he?”
Please.
“That shoulder is going to bother him whenever it rains. After a few months of physical therapy, he’ll have at least ninety percent use of it. Could have been worse.”
“Yeah. So he’s going home?”
“Definitely. He’s a lucky kid. He told me about Flint, and how he let him go. And being wounded by shrapnel. Yep, one lucky kid.”
“Can I get out of here now?”
“Can you stand?” I got my legs off the cot and stood. Wobbled a bit, but stayed vertical. I looked at Cassidy. “If you can stay upright, you can go,” he said.
“What was wrong with me?” I asked as I shuffled around, testing my legs.
“Shock, or to be more accurate, acute stress reaction. Pressure. Exhaustion. Moral dilemma. Guilt.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing at all. Just words from my psychiatric residency. Here. I saved a souvenir for you.” He pressed a small hunk of metal into my hand. “Keep your head down, Boyle.”
I waited until he left. I opened my palm and saw the misshapen but unmistakable shape of a .30 slug from an M1 carbine.
H
ARDING AND
K
AZ
walked on either side of me as we made our way to the mess tent in Hell’s Half Acre. I guess they wanted to be sure I didn’t fall facedown in the mud.
“We’re on a PT boat out of here at 0600 tomorrow,” Harding said as we each sat with our mess kits full of hot chow.
“Not soon enough,” I said. “I’m sorry Flint got away, Colonel.”
“Well, at least he didn’t fill his royal flush. We’ve sent his name to the International Red Cross, in case it shows up on a POW list. Meanwhile, we’re looking into anyone who was on that road and was reported missing. We’ll figure out whose dog tags he grabbed.”
“Any word on Big Mike?” I asked.
“Nothing yet. Your brother is shipping out tomorrow from Naples. Sorry you’ll miss him.”
“As long as he’s going home in one piece, I’m happy.”
“Any idea what Flint meant?” Kaz asked. “About a joker downriver?”
“The joker must refer to a card. Maybe he had me tagged for a joker in my pocket. Downriver? No idea. Maybe he meant in the future. Who’s to know? So what’s next, Colonel?” I said. “After Naples.”
“Cosgrove has set something up for us in Brindisi. Then back to London. I hope to God Big Mike is alive and kicking when we get back. How about you, Boyle? Are you all right? That was a helluva nap you took.”