23
45TH THUNDERBIRD DIVISION HEADQUARTERS
SALERNO
The young soldier stood at attention, nervous eyes scanning the cramped tent filled with maps, chairs and crumpled papers. He was a relatively fresh recruit, on loan to the 45th to help ease the burden of the heavy losses they had sustained in the beach invasion of Salerno. He had been given little time to acclimate himself to the easy ways of a division that emphasized action over formality. There was no one soldier in Salerno who epitomized that attitude better than the commanding officer who sat across from him.
Captain Anders cast aside his briefing books and looked up from the poker table, a cigar jammed into a corner of his mouth. “All right,” he said impatiently. “Let’s hear it.”
“One of the locals has brought in a pigeon, sir,” the soldier said, trying not to stumble over any of the words. “Actually two of them.”
“What’s he want me to do?” Anders asked, confused. “Eat them?”
“No, sir,” the soldier said. “They were carrier pigeons and the messages they were delivering are written in English.”
“Did he give you the messages?”
“Yes, sir.”
The soldier flipped open the front of his shirt and pulled out two rolled-up slivers of white paper. He handed them to Captain Anders, who snatched the sheets from him in mid-reach, unfurled the papers and read them both. When he looked up again, there was a wide smile across the captain’s face.
“When did these come in?” he asked, jamming the sheets into his pants pocket and reaching for a pack of matches.
“Early this morning. It took the man a few hours to get anybody to listen to him, and then awhile longer for the unit to figure out who in command should get them.”
“He still around?” Anders asked. “The man with the pigeons?”
“Yes, sir. He’s down the hill a ways, waiting for me to return.”
“And he’s still got the birds with him?”
“Yes, sir. He asked if it was okay to feed them and give them some water while I was up here with you. I told him I didn’t think it would be a problem.”
“He can give them a steam bath and a shave if that’s what they need,” Anders said. “Just so long as they’re ready to fly back out again in about ten minutes.”
Anders sat down at the table and tore off two slips of paper from the bottom of a yellow legal pad. He slowly printed out a long series of words on each and rolled them up like cigarettes. He looked up and handed the papers to the young soldier. “Have him strap these on those pigeons,” Anders told him. “And tell him to make sure they find their way back to Naples before dark.”
“Do you want me to go with him to make sure he does as told, sir?” the soldier asked as he put the papers in his shirt pocket.
“The man went to a lot of trouble to find us,” Anders answered, “when the easy thing could have been to stay home with the birds and toss the messages out. I think that’s earned him a little trust. Don’t you?”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
“Then let’s get it done,” Anders ordered. “And before you go down to him, patch me through to air command.”
“Yes, sir.”
Anders stared at the young soldier as he saluted and left the tent. He put a match to his unlit cigar and took several deep puffs, filling the tight quarters with the gray smoke and pungent smell of Italian tobacco. He looked down at the map spread out across the table, small wooden stick figures serving as point markers, and flicked down the one that stood positioned over Naples. “We might end up taking that damn city without even seeing it,” he whispered to himself. “And it would serve those Nazi bastards right. They can’t let a Thunderbird come into a town and not expect him to give them more than a handful of trouble.”
24
STAZIONE ZOOLOGICA E ACQUARIO
Eric Tippler lowered his high-powered rifle and stared down from the tower perch at a group of street boys as they turned a corner and walked in his direction. He pulled a white cotton handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped the dust from his glasses. He then raised the rifle, steadied it against the stone embankment and turned to the soldier next to him. “Pick one,” he said.
Hans Zimmler stood behind Tippler, arms folded across his chest, one side of his head resting against the cool stone. “Tall one on the far right,” he said.
“Head or heart?” Tippler asked.
“Make it more interesting than that,” Zimmler said. “Arm first, then leg, then head.”
Tippler looked away from the square and up at Zimmler. “It can’t be done,” he said. “Two shots are the most I can get off. The others will drag him away before I can get to a third.”
“I’ll make it worth it for you,” Zimmler said. “I’ll double our bet. Two cigarettes instead of the one.”
Tippler leaned down farther, all but his head and arms resting on the hard rock floor, peering through his scope, targeting the hit. “Make it three,” he said. “One for each shot I take.”
Zimmler pulled three cigarettes from his shirt pocket and rested them next to the barrel of Tippler’s rifle. “They’re yours if the boy dies.”
Tippler stiffened his body, from the neck down still as a statue, curled his finger around the trigger and squeezed off the first round. “Leg first,” he muttered.
From his perch, Zimmler watched the street boy fall to the ground, both hands grasped around his kneecap. Two of the boys reached out for him, their arms stuffed under his, rushing to drag him to the safety of a brick archway. Tippler’s second shot was fired less than one second later, bullet landing at the base of the wounded boy’s shoulder and sending him reeling backwards, its force tossing one of the other boys face forward into the brown dirt of the square. “Last shot for the gold,” the Nazi said as he pulled the trigger on the third and fatal bullet.
Tippler released his grip on the rifle and turned on his back, staring up at Zimmler, reaching behind him for one of the cigarettes he could now claim as his own. “Got a light?” he asked.
Zimmler tossed him a lighter, eyes still focused down on the square. “It seems there’ll be no shortage of target practice for you today,” he said, leaning forward and pointing at an array of street boys converging on the square from all four angles, each running low, guns and rifles in their hands.
Tippler stood up, cigarette dangling from the center of his mouth, looked out at the square filled with boys partially hidden in corners and against walls and nodded. “Well, we know they’re not here to take control of an empty zoo,” he said, blowing two thin lines of smoke through his nose. “They must have heard that Panzers are heading into the area. It’s the only reason for so many of them to gather here.”
“I’ll get Zoltan and Glauss from downstairs,” Zimmler said, picking up his rifle and moving from the ledge. “We can make better use of the box of grenades they’re sitting on from up here than they can from down there.”
“I just hope they haven’t used them all up killing water rats,” Tippler said not bothering to hide the sarcasm.
“Do you want me to bring you anything?” Zimmler asked, walking into the short alcove toward the long row of stone steps.
Tippler looked back out at the square and studied the position of the boys. “As many cigarettes as you can find,” he said. “I feel a long and profitable day coming on.”
Wilhelm Glaus stretched his arms toward the ceiling and twisted his neck from side to side, right foot resting on a large box of German grenades. The stench of the abandoned aquarium and festering zoo cages had infiltrated his clothes and gear pack, while the endless army of war-starved water rats parading up and down the stairwell had shoved his patience beyond its normal limits. Over the span of the interminably long past several days, Glaus felt as much a prisoner as any of the animals who once lived within the walls of the ancient structure.
Glaus looked up when he heard the echo of Franz Zoltan’s steps cascade down the empty halls, his low whistling coming across loud as an aria. Zoltan was a rare breed of soldier, always in a pleasant mood, never troubled by the orders he was given to carry out and content with both his place and position within the pecking order of command. He had been groomed since childhood to be a career soldier and had learned to find solace in being told what to do by others, be they strangers or friends, so long as they wore the same uniform.
Zoltan turned the corner and smiled when he saw Glaus, his chubby face red and his breath coming in spurts. “Lots of activity in the square,” he said to Glaus. “It’s filling up pretty quickly, boys hiding on all sides. Something big looks like it’s about to happen, which answers your question as to why they would want us to sit here and do nothing but wait.”
“It’s about damn time,” Glaus said, turning to reach for his rifle. “If I had to spend one more day in this shit hole, I was going to let the rats have me for breakfast.”
A different voice responded. “They’re Neapolitan rats,” Maldini said, his body shrouded in darkness, a machine gun in his hands. “They might not have the stomach for Nazi blood.”
Glaus instinctively turned, aimed his weapon at Maldini’s voice and fired twice. The return volley came at him from the side, from deep inside the empty fish tank, three bullets piercing through his arm and the side of his neck. He dropped his rifle and fell over backwards, his head resting on top of the crate of grenades. Zoltan stood frozen in place, his eyes zeroed in on the dead soldier next to his boots. “Turn around,” Maldini told the soldier, “and walk up to the tower. We’ll be right behind you.”
Zoltan glanced to his left and saw Giovanni and Frederico step out from behind the slimy terrain of the fish tank, guns in their hands, walking toward Glaus and the crate of grenades. One of the boys looked back at him and waved. Maldini came out from behind the shadows. “You’ve done well,” he told the boys.
“It wasn’t easy,” Frederico said, lifting one end of the grenade crate, his head turned away to avoid the dead body perched near it. “These Nazis were no fun to live with. All they did was sleep and talk about the war and the rats.”
“And they also made bets about us,” Giovanni said, stepping over Glaus and picking up his end of the crate. “A dead boy was worth a cigarette.”
Maldini stared down at the boys, each holding a gun in one hand and the side of a grenade crate in the other, then turned to Zoltan. “I don’t need cigarettes,” he told the soldier. “So I’ll kill you for free. Now, let’s go to the tower. It’s time we met your friends.”
Zoltan nodded and began a slow, deliberate walk up the wide stone stairwell. “Strip the dead one of his weapons,” Maldini told the boys as he followed the Nazi. “And come up along the dark end of the stairs. Any trouble, just stay hidden. If they’ve heard any shooting upstairs, let them think it’s me. Right now, you two are the strongest in here. You’re invisible and you have machine guns and grenades. Not even a Nazi would bet against you.”
Connors looked up at the imposing structures surrounding him, at the large spacious square and at the six tanks positioned in a semicircle around the zoo and the archways. He checked the dozens of boys around him, spread and scattered, laying low, guns poised. Von Klaus had, as he had expected, adapted to their continued presence, sending stronger forces into every square, each now prepared to meet a level of resistance and confront it in harshest terms.
But the boys had adjusted in their own way to the ever-shifting course of battle. Combat experience can be achieved in moments, each second of fighting worth a month of training. Connors knew that many of them still weren’t fit to be in the middle of such fiery fields. There was among them, however, a core group, led by the examples of Vincenzo and Angela, who seemed to be gaining in confidence. They had learned to adapt to the give and get of a hit-and-run street skirmish, utilizing their own knowledge of the city and its hidden secrets while exploiting the weaker points of their exposed enemy. Connors understood that future battles would only get harder, and that any talk of victory against such a superior force was more a boy’s wish than a soldier’s reality. But as he looked out across the square, just minutes away from another deadly confrontation, he also knew that rumblings of doubt were now imbedded inside the Nazi camp, chipping away at their veneer of confidence and that, in itself, was cause for hope.
Franco slid up alongside Connors, two machine guns strapped around his neck and a row of grenades clipped across his waist. “It’s here,” the boy said. “About fifty or so meters behind the other tanks. The signal for them to fire will come from Maldini up in the zoo towers. As of right now, everything that needs to be in place is in place.”
Connors nodded, glancing across the square at Nunzia, who was huddled against a stone wall, a machine gun cradled in her hands, four street boys hiding in her shadows. She looked over at him, gave him a wave and a warm smile, her face luminous under the glare of the guns and the dust swirling through the piazza. Franco caught the exchange between the two as he sat down next to Connors, checking the ammo clips on his guns.
“My uncle was a captain in the army,” Franco said. “Fought in many battles during the first world war. He told me he was always a good soldier, but when he fell in love with my
zia
Anna, he became an even better one. Maybe the same will be true for you.”
Connors looked questioningly at the boy.
Franco checked the tank movements behind Connors before speaking again. “I have eyes and I know where to look. Besides, I had a bet with Maldini. He said you wouldn’t ever gather the courage to say anything to her.”
“It’s not exactly the best time for a romance,” Connors said.
“Anytime is a good time,” Franco said with a shrug. “Even in a square filled with tanks, soldiers and snipers, you’ve touched her heart and she’s taken yours.”
“You should write a book,” Connors said, getting ready to step into the square.
“You can’t find love in a book,” Franco said as he stood and gripped both machine guns.
The tank shell exploded one floor above, shards of brick and glass spraying the ground around them. The force of the blast knocked Connors face forward, machine gun slipping from his hands. Franco dove into the darkened hall of an empty building, a thick cloud of smoke swooping down the corner stairs. German soldiers riddled the area around the two of them with heavy fire, bullets clipping off pieces of stone and sending pockets of dust floating into the air. From the other sides of the square, Nunzia and the street boys answered the barrage with one of their own, bringing down a handful of the soldiers closing in on them, all the while watching the tanks churn in a semicircle and pound at the buildings and houses above them. She looked over toward Connors and, through the pockets of smoke and fumes, could see that he was still on the ground.
The tank attack made movement into the square difficult, the Nazis looking to pin the boys into the craters of the buildings and kill them in clusters. If they did venture into the square, they would be easy targets for the soldiers on the ground and the sniper in the tower. “They’re getting too close,” Gennaro said to Nunzia, his voice coated by the dust. “And they’ve made it so we can’t advance and can’t retreat. And we can’t stay here. Which leaves what?”
“Move the children farther back into the buildings,” Nunzia said. “But they must keep shooting. We need to hold out until Papa gives the signal.”
“We have to stop at least one of those tanks,” Gennaro said, gazing down the square at a Panzer firing two shells into a building next to the zoo. “And we can’t do that with these guns alone.”
Nunzia stepped out into the square, firing her machine gun at a string of soldiers closing in on the burning house Gennaro and the others were using for shelter. “Let me worry about the tank,” she shouted over her shoulder. “You keep the children safe. Move only when you hear the signal.”
“What if it doesn’t come?” Gennaro shouted back at her.
Nunzia never answered, thrust into the middle of a crossfire battle with a quartet of Nazi soldiers, who returned her volleys with an arsenal of their own. She was down to her last few rounds, desperately reaching behind her, looking to pull a fresh clip from her waistband, the Nazis closing in, their bullets raining down on her, each shot missing her by fractions. She tossed herself to the hard ground, firing off the last of her bullets as she rolled, releasing the old clip and jamming in a fresh one. She came up on one knee and fired full force into the small circle of soldiers. Two of them took hits, grunting as they dropped to their knees. A third held his fire for a brief moment, his eyes shifting from Nunzia to the fiery second floor of the small house behind her. She saw his head shake and bounce back, a small bullet wound in his forehead sending him face up to his death. Nunzia gave a quick glance above her and saw Gennaro standing in an open window, light blue flames licking at his back and sides, a hunter’s rifle poised in his hands. He lowered the gun, tossed Nunzia a quick kiss and disappeared into the burning room.
The last soldier came at her from behind, towering over her, his shadow covering the bodies of his dead comrades. The Nazi kicked Nunzia to the ground, the bottom of his hard boot landing square in the center of her back, the machine gun in her hand sent skimming along the cobblestones. He walked toward her, watching as she struggled to reach for the gun, gasping for air from the severe force of the kick, and pulled a knife out of the protective sheaf of his ammo belt. The soldier stood above Nunzia, reached down and lifted her up to his chest, holding her by the back of her hair. His eyes narrowed and he gave her a bitter smile as he drew the knife closer to the side of her neck. Nunzia held his arm with both hands, the tip of the blade inching closer to her skin, the weight of the Nazi’s body bearing down on her slight frame. She moved her head away and braced her legs against the hard edges of the cobblestones, arching her back, using all her remaining strength to escape the sharp glint of the knife.