“No. I want to sleep for a while. No disturbances till tomorrow morning.”
Driscoll swayed, the tension in his forehead tightening to a knot.
“It's December twenty-second. We have roughly fourteen hours before the Germans plan their charge. If we mount our attack, we have six hours. I can get Brigadier General Birch to handle it if you want,” Driscoll said. He knew Allman did not trust Birch. Birch was an odd man, a bachelor, and second-rate. He was a god-awful strategist. His claim to fame was that he ran a singing platoon. Driscoll knew what Allman would say.
Allman seemed far away. He sighed a moment, his head in his hands. “Give me an hour,” he said.
Driscoll backed out of the van into the traffic and flow of the division busily clattering behind him. He stood with his face to the door for a few moments, then with a sigh turned to face the bustling tanks and men going every which way. From the top of the steps to Allman's van, he saw a figure scurrying away, carrying a typewriter.
“Captain Nokes!”
Nokes turned and walked over and saluted. His leathery face wore the expression of a puppy dog caught chewing a pair of shoes.
Driscoll nodded at the typewriter. “What's that for?”
“Need to requisition some new socks for the men before we leave. Trench foot, sir.”
“Were you going to order out for a hamburger and malted milk, too?”
Nokes's face reddened. “No, sir.”
“What the hell are you waiting for?”
“Just thought it'd be okay to wait an hour or so for the weather to clear, sir.”
Driscoll felt rage crawl into his face. “Drop that goddamn typewriter right now, form that squad, take two jeeps, and get your ass out there. Don't come back here till you have bodies or dog tags or a German or all three.”
The typewriter splattered the snowy mud as Nokes saluted, turned, and fled. Driscoll watched him go, stifling the urge to run after him and kick him in the ass.
17
HECTOR
The booming artillery fire had died down, but Stamps knew the Germans were in pause mode. Whatever was coming was coming from both sides above the Serchio Valley. Another half day and the shelling that was threatening the ridges that surrounded them would land where they stood, and they would have to move because troops would not be far behind. He stood in the dead center of the village and watched the villagers moving back and forth listlessly.
Since the firing was coming from above, crisscrossing, with them near the center, they would have to decide which leg of the X to run up. Which way to run? If only he knew the woods. He decided to take a chance and trust the partisans. Not all of them, he knew, were trustworthy. They were supposed to be approved by the Office of Strategic Services at headquarters and to carry papers stating that. Otherwise, they could be the Italian army, or spies, or Fascists, or simply bandits who went with whoever was running things, German or American, he'd seen that, too. But there was no time now. The Italian with the big ears was guarding the prisoner in front of Ludovico's house. Stamps summoned him. “Go take a look up that ridge”âhe pointed to the westâ“and tell me if you see Germans over there.”
Stamps's order took several tries because the man did not speak English, but after a few more hand signals, the Italian nodded and took off, trotting for the ridge facing the village. Stamps watched the partisan's back as he climbed the mountain. Something about the guy was not right, he felt, but he had no time to think about it now.
As he climbed the ridge, Rodolfo could feel the American's eyes aimed at his back like a sniper's scope. The American
tenente
was smart, he thought. He would have to be extra careful now. The Negro Americans had nearly ruined everything. And they had come by mistake, too! They were lost. That's what the Spanish-speaking one said. Rodolfo cursed his luck. He wanted to scream, thinking about it. He paused a few seconds and breathed deeply to calm himself. Everything could still be salvaged. Then he leaped forward, climbing the ridge until the
tenente
was out of sight.
Sporadic shelling still came from several ridges over to the west, landing on the cliffs opposite Rodolfo, but that didn't bother him. He was in no danger. Still, he was cold. He headed upward to a wide chasm, forded it by walking carefully along an icy eighteen-inch ledge that took him around it, then scaled yet another ridge that led toward an uppermost peak, which he knew would afford him a view of the ridges directly across. Planting his feet into nooks and crannies, he hoisted himself up to the top of the cliff and lay on his stomach. From his position, he could see clear across the Serchio Valley, right into the eye of the Mountain of the Sleeping Man. He lay there motionless for several seconds, letting his eyes adjust to the sun, which shone directly in his face. He fully expected to see four or five advance squads of Germans making their way down Mt. Forato toward the Lama di Sotto ridge, with one or two cannon companies behind them. What he saw instead made his heart skip a beat, and he sucked in his breath.
The whitened snow trails beneath Mt. Forato were black, thick with German troops, thousands of them, marching steadily forward, clumsily stumbling and slogging down the mountain from the Sleeping Man's giant eye as they made their way toward the Lama di Sotto ridge, which led toward the Serchio Valley, Bornacchi, and the villages below. There were so many troops they blotted out the snow, pulling eighty-eights, cannons, and heavy artillery, with horses, mules, and civilians, the mass of men and machines forming a half circle nearly a mile wide, so that when they came down the ridge to blitzkrieg the valley, their flank would be several miles wide and create the pincer movement the Germans favored. There were more than he'd seen before. More than he had told the American commanders when he went to them disguised as a priest. Ten or twelve thousand maybe. And closer than he'd thought.
Still on his stomach, Rodolfo quickly slid away from the edge of the cliff, then scrambled to his feet and backtracked over the path he'd come. As he descended the ridge to Bornacchi, he saw Stamps watching him from the wall near Ludovico's. Standing next to Stamps was Renata.
Rodolfo trotted over, avoiding the
tenente
's anxious gaze. Renata asked nervously, “What did you see?”
Rodolfo shrugged. “Nothing,” he said. “They must be coming from the other direction.”
Renata translated to the
tenente,
who nodded a cautious thank you and inclined his head toward the German. “You can go guard your friend again,” Stamps said. Rodolfo headed back toward the house, where the German sat out front, where Stamps had placed him so he could easily be seen. He felt the
tenente
's eyes boring a hole in his back again.
Stamps and Renata watched Rodolfo take a seat on Ludovico's front steps.
“Something's wrong with him,” Renata said.
“Who?”
“Him,” she said, pointing at Rodolfo. “He's afraid. I think he's afraid of you.”
“He ain't got nothing to be 'fraid of, unless he owes me some money. And even then . . . hell.” That's why they were there in the first place, Train owing Bishop money. Stamps wondered if he would have gone after Train if Bishop hadn't gone first. It all seemed so ridiculous. He turned to Renata, careful not to look her in the eye but rather staring someplace over her head. Her beauty seemed to cover everything. He noted that she was wearing another dress today, an even prettier one than last night's.
“We're going west, probably. That's where the least firing is. You all can travel with us.”
“Who?”
“Whoever wants to come. Everyone here. Evacuation. We gotta evacuate the town.”
“No one's going with you,” she said simply.
“Why not?”
“Look around you,” she said.
Stamps watched as the villagers went about their business, scurrying to and fro, even as the distant shelling began again. He was incredulous. “They're loco,” he said.
“Loco?”
“
Pazzi.
Crazy.”
“Where can they go? The people who ran to St. Anna's went there because they thought it was safe. They're all dead. No place is safe.”
“There are other places,” Stamps said. “Forte dei Marmi. Viareggio. Lucca.”
Renata shrugged. Stamps had to admit, even her shrug was beautiful. “You can go there if you want,” she said.
Stamps snorted. “You don't have to worry 'bout me, honey. I'm catching the next thing smokin' when they come for me.”
She didn't understand what he said. She had a hard time understanding his English, so full of slang as it was, but as she gazed at him, she understood his intentions. He was a man who could not speak in circles. He was full of points, tall, straight, so true, she felt. She looked at his chestnut-colored face, his long arms and broad shoulders, the slender, dark fingers that were now brushing the snow off his nose, his copper-colored eyes that scanned the ridges behind her. She saw that beneath his grim stare and constant frown he was essentially a shy man, and young, ten years younger than sheâstrong in his intentions, yet burdened with the responsibility of the others. He fascinated her, as did Bishop, though Bishop was more freewheeling in his ways, his easy humor, his loud laugh, the cool manner with which he addressed life. Bishop laughed at the Italians, at himself, at their predicament. He was not afraid to touch, not afraid to flirt, not afraid to suggest the forbidden. Her friend Isoela said Bishop tried to kiss her and moreâand that prospect, the prospect of Bishop working his warm, dark hands around her, grasping, holding her, groping, looking for some clear space, Renata found unbelievably exciting. Her husband, Renzo, had been gone a long time, and even as she hoped against hope that he was still alive, she'd found herself admitting to herself recently that Renzo had not been the most exciting of lovers. He was too attached to his stupid mother, God bless her soul. Italian men were like that, she guessed, though she'd known no other man except him, and in her life had seen few foreigners save one or two white Americans in Florence, and these Negroes, who were each so different from the image she had of their fellow Americans.
Lying in bed at night, alone, as she had for months, shivering in the cold, Renata wondered about each of them, the supple, sleepy Spanish speaker; the silent, meek giant with the odd statue head, who moved as if he carried mountains upon his huge shoulders; Bishop, with his wide grin and sparkling white teeth; and Stamps, the prettiest of them all, a dark, brooding, thoughtful flower. She decided she liked Stamps the most. As she watched him, she thought of a chestnut tree in the snow, a Donatello sculpture standing in the whiteness that surrounded them, his eyes covering her with warm, eternal cocoa-brownness, his long arms reaching out to protect her like tree limbs. She could not imagine him killing anyone. Every time she stood near him, her curiosity about him awakened the kind of excitement she hadn't felt in her heart in years, even though they'd never exchanged more than a few words. It was only a feeling she had, and she wasn't sure if it was because he was a foreigner or because he was a safer version of Bishop, about whom she also had an almost irresistible curiosity. She decided that she was just a country girl, and against her better instincts and character, she wanted to ask him question after questionâwhere he came from, who his mother was, where he grew up.
“You Negroes seem different from other Americans,” she said. “Why?”
She asked just as Bishop emerged from the rear of Ludovico's house to check on the firing and ask what Stamps wanted to do next.
“Hear that?” Bishop chuckled to Stamps. “She ain't known us a week, and already she's asking them Mary McLeod Bethune questions.” Stamps ignored him and said nothing. Bishop turned to Renata. “We ain't so different from them,” Bishop said. “We just different where it counts most.”
“Where's that?” she asked. She asked it of both of them, but she wanted only one of them to answer. Stamps felt himself clamming up as she stared directly at him.
It was the first personal thing she had ever asked him, and he desperately wanted to respond. This was a full woman, a real woman, not like the young girls Stamps had seen back home, the colored girls from church in their bland peach-colored hats and conservative Sunday dresses, wearing white gloves and chatting about the Jack & Jill society, which gave brown paper bag tests to see if your skin was light enough to gain admission. She wasn't like the distant white waitresses who stared across the counter at him in Washington, D.C., with a mixture of fear and loathing as they slid cold cups of coffee at him, their frumpy dresses knotted at the waist, their long hair tied into buns, their skin stretched against their faces like plastic wrapped around old beef. She looked more like the beautiful, sophisticated young women who worked in the cosmetics department at Lerner's, smelling of sweet oils and perfume, their dresses fitted just so around their slim hips, the thick leather belts tied around them carelessly, their slender, dainty white feet tucked into tiny black high heels. They would glance up from behind the shiny glass perfume counter as he, a starving college student, his long arms and legs crammed inside a fourteen-dollar green wool suit from Wool-worth's, strolled past, his head held aloft, trying to maintain his dignity and composure and hiding his disappointment at being turned down for yet another sales job. He imagined what she'd look like behind the perfume counter, all oiled and lubed and smelling good, her beautiful breasts bouncing like puppies, her smiling at him as she did now, with total absorption, complete curiosity. He imagined her standing in front of the department store at closing time with the rest of the perfume department ladies he'd seen waiting for their boyfriends and husbands to pick them up, and he imagined himself pulling up in a new Packard, leaning over the passenger seat so he could flip the latch of the door and open it, her slipping inside, a grown woman, a white woman, a nigger's wet dream, the kind he'd seen in the movies, Ava Gardner, Betty Boop, that kind of woman, the two of them driving home, rushing inside, her flinging off her shoes, her dress, her underwear, them falling on the bed, and him sinking his hard stiffness into her wet bottom like there was no tomorrow.