Front Lines (27 page)

“That was a very bad war,” LeFevre says, too much feeling packed into such a short sentence.

“So I've heard.”

“When you get to France, take care of your men—and women—Sergeant. Leave no more dead Americans in French graveyards.”

Cole holds out his canteen cup. “I'll drink to that.”

The two soldiers share a last drink of brandy and a silence that leaves Rio feeling very much like an outsider.

Then, Jenou's voice from outside. “Sarge! Tanks!”

There are many words that an infantry soldier does not want to hear:
patrol
,
dig
,
march
,
volunteer
,
air raid
,
incoming.

And
tank
.

Rio runs from the old French soldier's hut followed by Cole. Liefer is standing up in the jeep scanning the road ahead as a hazy dawn picks out details of the surrounding countryside.

No tank is in sight, but there's a sound, a sound Rio has heard before but only from friendly tanks during training. It's the sound of a barely muffled engine, punctuated by occasional backfires, the grinding of gears, and an unmistakable rapid metallic
clank-clank-clank-clank-clank
of treads.

“What's that sound like to you?” Liefer snaps at Cole and Garaman.

“Sounds like tanks, Lieutenant,” Garaman says, shooting a meaningful look at Cole. “And not far off.” They are the professionals, the sergeants; they share something that does not include Lieutenant Liefer, still less Private Rio Richlin.

“Okay,” the lieutenant says. “I'm scouting forward, see what I can see. Cole, deploy your squad. Garaman, send a runner back to the captain and Lieutenant Helder. And get the rest of Fifth Platoon into defensive position.”

She drops herself smartly into the passenger seat of the jeep, which her corporal driver guns, slamming her back.

Garaman spits tobacco juice and says, “I imagine the Tommies will form up back down the road. So, Cole, I figure your people fire a couple of rounds to keep the Krauts' heads down, then fall back, hope to draw them in. Is that how you see it?”

“Yep,” Sergeant Cole says.

“And make sure your people don't shoot the Loot when she comes hightailing it back.”

“Sure about that?” Cole says dryly. He snaps out orders. “Second Squad, right-hand side of the road. There's not much cover, so dig while you can. Millican, get the bazooka set up on that little hump there where you can cover the road. Pang, you load; Magraff, watch their backs. Stick, farther off by that, whatever the hell that is, that stumpy tree. Dig in, don't fire until you have
targets, and let Corporal Millican get off the first shot with the bazooka. Preeling with Stick. Castain, you're running ammo. Get a box of thirty-caliber up here and another pouch of bazooka rockets if you can handle it. Richlin, Suarez, you're with me.”

For a moment no one moves. Then, in a perfectly calm, even pedantic voice, Cole says, “Not next week, now.”

The bazooka team runs for the very slight elevation, while Sticklin and Cat race, heads low, for the tree that is a whole lot more like a bush once they look at it.

“All right, Richlin and Suarez, we're taking the left side of the road.”

The three of them run forward, boots loud on pebbly soil, Cole in the lead, a scared and excited Rio in his wake, Suarez bringing up the rear.

Rio sees Jenou and the others across the road, on their knees, wielding their entrenching tools with unusual vigor, scraping away enough crusty sand and rock to provide at least some sort of cover. They have a slight bit of elevation, not a hill or even a rise, but the road slopes downward and curves away behind a second rise, so while it is slightly lower than the platoon, it is mostly out of sight until the last half mile. The tanks will have to emerge from the shadow of that rise to follow the road past Rio's position. This should give Millican a clear shot with the bazooka.

“Down,” Cole says, pointing at the ground. “Make
sure not to shoot toward our people, they will be irritated if you do.”

“I'm shooting?” It comes out as a squeak.

“That's why the army invited you two to this little war. Aside from Stick, you two are the best shots in the squad.”

“Swell,” Suarez mutters under his breath.

Rio sees the squads of Fifth Platoon digging in a couple hundred yards behind them, and presumably Third Platoon is behind them. They only have a little more cover than Rio, but they're farther from that relentless
clank-clank-clank
and the hollow growl of the tank engines, and she thinks she'd rather be back there. Or back anywhere.

Won't be a paper target this time.

Suddenly the jeep barrels back down the road going flat-out and kicking up a plume of dust.

The jeep brakes in a shower of dust and gravel, and Liefer yells, “Two German tanks and a whole goddamn company of Italian infantry!” before tearing away again toward the rear.

She has given no orders. She has shouted a warning and disappeared. Rio sees a dark look in Cole's eyes. Suarez looks nervous, but Rio is pretty sure he'll do what he needs to do. Tilo Suarez might be a pain in the butt sometimes with his tiresome Lothario act, but he'll do what he has to do.

Will I?

The sound of tank treads grows louder and louder, nearer and nearer, like the slow approach of a movie villain. Rio manages to push about ten inches of dirt and rock in front of herself and lies down in the laughably shallow depression. She rests her left hand on the dirt and points her rifle. Suarez has followed suit. He's twenty feet to her right.

“Set sights for two hundred yards,” Cole says.

Rio hasn't even thought of adjusting her sights. It shames her being reminded, and she quickly clicks the elevation wheel. There is no breeze to speak of, no need to adjust for windage.

And suddenly there they are.

They seem almost to rise out of the desert, two tan steel monsters come to destroy, Panzer IIIs, two-inch main gun, two machine guns. The barrel of the lead tank's gun is pointed directly at Rio.

It sees me!

The absurdity of facing a tank with just a rifle comes home full force. The tank doesn't care about her pitiful rifle, or the human being holding it. The tank doesn't care about anything made of flesh and blood.

The Italian soldiers are a ramshackle mob walking in front of the tanks with more on the flanks. If the column on the left side just keeps walking the way they are they'll
walk directly into Rio, Suarez, and Sergeant Cole.

Five hundred yards, a quarter mile. The enemy infantry are sketched figures, two legs, two arms, a circle of head, just sticks, no face, no expression, no individuality. Yet there's an air of weariness about them, a sense of exhaustion.

“At least they didn't spot the jeep,” Cole mutters.

“How do you know . . . ?” Rio starts to ask, but then decides she probably isn't supposed to be asking questions at a time like this.

Cole answers anyway. “From the way they walk. They haven't sent out flankers, their heads are down, rifles slung.”

Now that she looks more carefully, Rio sees the same thing: the Italians are not expecting to be fired upon, or perhaps they are and have just given up caring. And yet, they are coming on, and they are bringing tanks with them.

“Maybe they'll stop,” Tilo says, which makes no sense to Rio. Of course they'll keep coming, they'll keep coming at the same leisurely pace until someone fires on them.

They'll be surprised, the Italians, as well as the German tankers. But surprise wasn't going to gain the Americans much, not with just two platoons of green troops. The enemy column stretches as far as she can see, a full company of men, easily two hundred or so. Twelve
hundred Italians might be manageable by themselves, but they aren't by themselves. They are very definitely not by themselves.

Clank-clank-clank-clank-clank.

Four hundred yards.

Rio swallows dust. Her hands sweat on the stock of her rifle. Cole is on his knees like a prairie dog, watching the enemy, glancing toward his men, glancing back at the rest of the force. The British commandos are way back, out of sight. The Americans are as dug in as they're going to get in bare rock, sand, and pebbles.

“We'll bang on 'em, then fall back,” Cole says.

“Right.”

“No time for a decent ambush. But make your shots count. Discourages the others if you shoot a few.”

“Uh.” That short grunt is all the speech Rio can manage. Suarez is silent.

Three hundred yards. Millican and Pang are the bazooka team, and they are roughly fifty yards closer to the enemy. Millican will fire at two hundred yards. Bazookas are pretty accurate at one hundred to two hundred yards, not much use beyond that unless you get lucky.

Watch your breathing. Slow it down. In, out, slow.

“Okay, Millican, get ready,” Sergeant Cole mutters, as if willing his corporal to strike at the right moment. “Wait till you've got 'em . . .”

“Unh?” Rio grunts, thinking he's talking to her.

She remembers firing the bazooka a few times back at Camp Maron. They are surprisingly simple weapons, a 54-inch section of pipe just 2.36 inches in diameter, with a chunky wooden trapezium stock and a stubby grip for each hand. Two batteries hide inside that primitive wooden stock—a tiny bulb will light up if you pull the trigger when the launcher is empty. The light on means you have enough juice to fire the round.

Pang carries two bazooka pouches, each containing three cylinders that hold the 3.5-pound rockets. He's already pushed one in the back of the tube and pulled the safety clip clear.

Suddenly there's a hollow bang, like someone striking an empty steel barrel with a hammer, and a puff of smoke.

The rocket flies right over the top of the lead tank.

“Damn it!”

The bazooka round has knocked the casualness right out of the enemy. Rio sees them diving off to the sides of the road. They may be tired, but they run and jump with impressive speed.

Good. Just stay down.

But they don't stay down, because now a German staff car, an open, gray-painted saloon, comes tearing up the side of the road, bouncing madly, and nearly driving right
over cowering Italians, who have to roll from cover to avoid being hit.

A somewhat portly German officer in the backseat of the staff car yells a blue streak at the Italians, a shrill and tinny sound at this distance. He gesticulates furiously, gestures that very clearly mean, “Get up there in front of the tanks!”

Some of the Italians heed his demands, and some do not but instead stay flat on the ground, very much like Rio and Tilo.

A second round flies from Hark Millican's bazooka. And this time it hits the side of the leading tank's turret . . . and glances off. It explodes harmlessly two hundred yards off in the dirt. But it seems to have grazed or perhaps just frightened the lead tank commander who'd been heads-up in the hatch, because he drops out of sight, as does his counterpart in the second tank, both as fast as whack-a-moles. Now slowly, slowly but inexorably, the tank's big gun comes swinging toward the bare bit of elevation where Millican, Pang, and Magraff squat. Magraff backs away fast, trips and falls, jumps up and runs.

“Millican! Get out of there! Move!” Cole yells. Millican jumps up, drops the bazooka, and hightails it after Magraff, but Pang snatches up the bazooka and run-hobbles away, trying to balance the long tube on one
shoulder while pressing down on the ammo pouch to keep it from banging against his hip.

BANG!
The tank fires. That flat, metallic sound is followed instantly by a larger explosion as the shell blows apart the ground where Millican was just seconds before. Dust hides Hansu Pang from view.

Is Pang hit?

“Fall back!” Cole roars through cupped hands, but falling rock and dirt from the explosion and the shouts of the Italian infantry drown him out. “Put some fire on them!”

It takes Rio several seconds to realize what he means. That he means that
she
should shoot. The sergeant is armed with a tommy gun, useless at this range: this is rifle work. This is M1 Garand work.

Across the road the cloud of dust from the tank round blocks Sticklin's view, which means there are only two rifles in a position to be fired. One is in Rio's sweaty hands, the stock pressed to her cheek.

She takes aim. They've taught her never to fire without picking a target. One individual target.

One man.

That one? The one to the left?

Her finger is on the trigger. The safety is off. The rifle has a two-stage trigger. Pull first to take up slack. Then just the barest movement to fire. Five pounds of pressure
on stage one. The same but a shorter pull for the actual firing.

Her heart seems both too slow and too fast, like a car being run through the gears regardless of the engine.

The first pull.

Pull the trigger again and—

“Shoot!” Sergeant Cole yells.

Convulsively Rio pulls the trigger.

The recoil punches her shoulder, but she's used to that. She does not see where her shot goes—no way to be sure since she has not really aimed. Not really. Not like she did when she earned her Sharpshooter badge.

Cole yells again. “Second Squad, fall back! Fall back!” and in a quieter tone, “Not you two.”

The tanks are moving again,
clank-clank
ing down the road, shifting through the gears. They'll be here in thirty seconds. Their shells will arrive sooner.

“Richlin! Suarez! Lay down some fugging fire,” Sergeant Cole yells.

Now he's firing his tommy gun, .45 caliber slugs in short bursts, a
chug-a-chug-a-chug
sound, but it's nothing but a noisemaker at this distance.

Shoot, Rio. Shoot.

She aims. A man in a yellow-tan uniform. Two hundred yards away.

He's perfectly centered between the two curved uprights
of the front sight, chest resting on the stubby center post, all contained within the circle of the rear sight.

She draws a breath and lets it out as slowly as her racing metabolism will allow and—

BAM!

The familiar kick to her shoulder. The familiar cordite smell. The metallic
clang
as the spent brass spins through the air before dropping to the ground.