On Distant Shores (9 page)

Paestum, Italy
September 15, 1943

In the morning sun, Hutch stood by the railing of
LST-350
. Salerno Bay curved before him as the giant gray landing craft lumbered like a hippopotamus toward Yellow Beach. The Army insisted LST stood for Landing Ship, Tank, but the men believed it stood for Large Stationary Target.

“Heads up!” someone shouted.

Hutch’s breath clumped in his throat. He dropped to a squat.

The men and women of the 93rd Evacuation Hospital crouched low, their helmets paving the deck like steel cobblestones.

Hutch peeked up. With his height, he couldn’t get as low as the others. A trio of fighter planes swooped down from the north. The LST’s antiaircraft guns opened up, walloping Hutch’s eardrums. He pressed his ears shut and hunkered under his helmet. If he had a pistol, at least he could shoot back.

After a thunderous minute, the Navy’s guns did their job and scared the Luftwaffe away.

Hutch unfolded himself to standing and drew a long breath. On the broad Salerno plain, six fighter planes rose close to the waterfront. The good guys.

The US Fifth Army and the British Tenth Corps had landed six days earlier, on September 9. The day after the Italian surrender, the Germans occupied Italy and disarmed the Italian army. The Nazis fought viciously at Salerno. Rumors were, the other day they’d almost shoved the Allies back into the sea until the 82nd Airborne dropped reinforcements on the beachhead.

No one knew what the 93rd would find on shore.

The LST slowed to a stop. A loud grinding sound vibrated the entire ship, and enormous doors in the bow of the landing craft eased open.

His bones rattling from the vibrations, Hutch peered over the heads of the men in front of him. A pontoon causeway led to the LST’s door.

Down in the belly of the hippo, truck engines roared to life, exhaust fumes spewed from the open mouth, and vehicles rolled onto the causeway. Dom Bruno would drive the truck loaded with pharmacy equipment. About half a mile north at Red Beach,
LCI-14
would land the other half of the 93rd’s personnel, including Ralph O’Shea. Colonel Currier liked to divide each department to minimize the impact if one landing craft was sunk.

Not the cheeriest thought.

A high whistling sound overhead. Hutch dropped to the deck with the others, his pulse racing. The artillery shell sent up a plume of water several hundred feet out to sea. The sooner they could get off this floating bull’s-eye, the better.

After the vehicles disembarked, Hutch joined the mass of personnel snaking off the LST. The causeway rocked and bounced underfoot, but a dip in the warm blue calm of the Mediterranean didn’t seem like a bad idea, even so early in the day.

Hutch stepped onto the relative safety of the Italian mainland.
He worked his way to the edge of the group, pulled a one-ounce medication vial from the pocket of his field jacket, and scooped up soft fine beige sand. He had a nice collection now, including the beach party at Termini.

Memories of the party intruded. Laughing and splashing with Georgie, sitting in the warm sand and stargazing.

He huffed out a breath. Good thing he hadn’t seen her since the party. He missed her a bit too much, kept thinking of things he wanted to tell her or show her.

Guilt lengthened his letters to Phyllis.

Hutch wrenched his attention to the scene around him. Rugged hills ringed the Salerno plain, which stretched flat several miles inland. The village of Paestum stood straight ahead, and Salerno lay about twenty miles north.

Even the throbbing motors of landing craft couldn’t conceal the sounds of battle. Artillery boomed and fighter planes roared—American P-40s this time. A few miles ahead, smoke rose in spots and red tracer fire zipped through the air. The Allies hadn’t secured the beachhead.

The 93rd Evac was in for a tough time of it.

Some of the hospital personnel looked nervous, but most laughed and chatted as if out for a day at the shore. Even the nurses. Hutch smiled, pleased with how the ladies handled themselves with courage and grace. Georgie could do the same, but he was glad she didn’t have to test herself.

“All right, folks. Let’s move on out.”

The trucks led the way northwest along a dirt road parallel to the beach. Hutch followed on foot with most of the enlisted men. Tan dust swirled around his feet and coated the inside of his mouth with grit.

A squat round tower stood to the right of the road, maybe fifty feet tall. Looked medieval. Weeds poked out from between the stones, and fresh divots marked battle damage.
Wouldn’t be surprising if German snipers had favored the lookout.

Now a couple of GIs stood watch. A wolf whistle floated down from the perch. “Dames! Look, a bunch of dames! Real live American dames!”

The nurses of the 93rd waved and shouted their greetings.

The medic marching next to Hutch elbowed him. “How come they’re not excited to see us, huh?”

“It’s all in the hips. You’ve got to wiggle them.”

The medic grinned, stuck one hand behind his head and the other on his hip, and sashayed down the road, hips careening from side to side. “Hiya, fellas!”

The guards jeered. One of them threw something. A K-ration tin bonked off the medic’s helmet.

“Knock it off, Carter.” The next man over punched the medic in the shoulder. “You’re gonna get us killed.”

“You’re just jealous ’cause they didn’t give you a present.” Carter waved the ration tin at the guys in the tower. “Thank you, handsome!”

“Disturbing,” Hutch said with a grin. “Truly disturbing.”

The convoy entered a beachside village, the mottled plaster on the houses revealing brick and stone walls beneath. Two small boys peered through laundry hanging from a wrought-iron balcony.

Hutch waved. The boys squealed, ducked inside, and slammed wooden shutters closed. Poor things probably didn’t know whom to trust.

The road bent inland onto a paved road pocked by shell fire and fenced by a tall ancient wall. He trailed his fingers along the porous gray stones covered with black and yellow lichen.

“Sergeant Hutchinson!” Bergie jogged down from the front of the convoy. “I need Sergeant Hutchinson. Anyone seen him? It’s an emergency.”

He frowned, stepped out of formation, and raised his hand. What kind of emergency needed a pharmacist?

Bergie beckoned. “Get up here, Sergeant. Make it snappy.”

Snappy? That word wasn’t in Bergie’s vocabulary.

“Yes, sir.” Hutch jogged forward to meet his friend. “What’s up?”

“Follow me. Faster.” Bergie broke into a full run, passing personnel and trucks.

Thank goodness Hutch’s long legs allowed him to keep up.

Bergie turned onto a road to the left, then ducked behind the wall while the convoy continued straight ahead.

“What on earth is going—” Hutch’s jaw dropped. A temple. Ancient. Greek. And another. And farther down a third. “What on . . .”

“Yeah, I thought you’d like it. Come on, we’ve got to keep moving.”

Hutch crossed a lawn spotted with low brown and green grass. “They look Greek. But this is Italy.”

“Didn’t you pay attention in Latin? The Greeks colonized this area.”

“That’s right.” The first temple had lost its roof, but fat columns still formed a rectangle. Plain capitals hinted at its antiquity. “What do you think? About 2,500 years old?”

“More. Early Doric.” He threw his arms out wide. “You may now thank me.”

Hutch shook his head in wonder. “You spotted this—”

“From the back of our truck. Knew old Kaz would never give you time off to see it.”

“Guaranteed.” The convoy rumbled along on the other side of the wall. “Know where the hospital site is?”

“On the far side of that wall there. We’ll take the scenic route.”

The men strolled toward the temple, its columns rising
high to their left, while umbrella-shaped pine trees lined the wall to the right. Away from the road, the air smelled piney, almost herbal. The constant chirp of cicadas thrummed in the warm air.

Hutch filled his lungs. “Wonder which god they worshipped here.”

“Don’t know. They didn’t exactly give us a guidebook when we landed.”

“Nope.” He turned in front of the temple and gazed deep inside. “Just think, thousands of years ago, people went in there to make sacrifices to their gods—gods in their own image.”

Bergie took off his helmet, rubbed off sweat, and made his hair stand up in spikes. “Gods in their own image. Yeah, that’s about right.”

“Mm-hmm. The fullness of the Lord Almighty broken into tiny manageable chunks.”

“Preeeeeeach it, Brother John.” Bergie waved his hands in the air.

Hutch laughed at the thought of his friend acting that way in their proper home church, of the reaction of the proper congregation.

Then he stopped. The next temple was more complete with both triangular pediments intact. But soldiers and officers strode in and out on official-looking business.

“Uh-oh,” Hutch said. “Looks like HQ.”

“Big brass, I’m thinking.”

After his encounter with Patton, Hutch had no interest in an encounter with Gen. Mark Clark, commander of the US Fifth Army. He turned around. “Let’s go.”

“Are you kidding?” Bergie grabbed his arm. “We’re not leaving.”

Hutch stared down his friend. “We’re not supposed to be here.”

“You know my motto. If you don’t belong someplace, act like you do.”

“That motto always gets us in trouble.”

Bergie clapped him on the shoulder, his broad face spread with its familiar grin. “That motto has enriched your life. And now it’ll allow you to see all three temples.”

“I have no choice.”

“You never do. I outrank you. Follow me, or I’ll write you up.”

That joke had grown annoying long ago, but Hutch wrangled up a smile. “Yes, sir. Lead on, sir. We get in trouble, you take the blame, sir.”

“Now you’re talking.” Bergie marched across the grass. “Look purposeful. Try not to gawk. You’re here on official business.”

“With my field pack.”

“With your field pack. Believe it, and they’ll believe it.”

Hutch matched his stride to his friend’s. Once again, balancing each other. Bergie talking Hutch into adventures he needed to take, and Hutch talking Bergie down from his crazier schemes.

But this was one of Bergie’s better schemes. The classic beauty of the temples captured him, the connection with history and mythology and astronomy. Without Bergie, he never would have seen it. He would have heard about it, and the inability to see the site would have festered in his stomach.

They marched past a clump of officers in front of the temple. Salutes were exchanged, but not second glances. They were getting away with it. “You’re a genius, Berg.”

“Remember that next time you try to keep me out of trouble.”

“But that’s where my genius comes in.”

Bergie laughed. “Just march and look purposeful.”

They marched purposefully down a dirt path and left the
soldiers behind. The third temple stood several hundred yards away. A maze of foundations lay on both sides of the path, hinting at the town that existed thousands of years earlier. Sandal-clad feet had trod the same path, and the sounds of ancient Greek seemed to echo in the air.

A shiver ran up Hutch’s arms. He wanted to take pictures, movie footage, something to remember every moment, every stone and column.

“What’s up with Kaz?” Bergie said. “I heard him grumbling about you.”

Now it was Hutch’s turn to grumble. “Why do you have to ruin a perfect day?”

Bergie stood in a wide stance, planted his fists on his hips, and tilted his face to the sky. “Ah yes, a perfect peaceful autumn day.”

Naval shells whined overhead and burst toward the base of the hills, and farther north a squadron of medium bombers dropped their loads.

Hutch lifted half a smile. “Granted.”

“So what’s this I hear about you being poky?”

“I told you he alphabetized my pharmacy, right?”

“Yeah . . . ?” He squinted, his familiar “what’s the big deal” expression.

Hutch pressed his lips together tight. “All right, when you do a surgery, you have your equipment on a tray. How do you want your stuff arranged?”

“In the order I need it.”

“Not alphabetically?”

“Okay. Understood.”

“Mm-hmm. So you need your scalpel, but it’s way on the far side of the tray under
S
. That’s my problem. My scales are on the bottom shelf under
S
when they belong on the counter. Everything takes twice as long.”

“Can’t you explain to—”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried? All I’m allowed to say is ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no, sir.’” Hutch studied a semicircular wall to his right. “We tried keeping the fast-movers on the counter to save steps, but Kaz got on my case about the mess. He wants things neat. As if I didn’t.”

On the LST, Hutch had finally had time to transcribe the details of the incident in a long letter to his father. Testimony like that would help the pharmacy leaders smash bureaucratic walls. He’d give the letter to Bergie for censorship. Not to Kaz.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Bergie said.

“Don’t.” He thumped his friend in the arm. “You’d make things worse. And don’t you dare say something to Currier. I’ll just look whiny and insubordinate.”

“Aren’t you?” Bergie grinned and thumped him back. “Hey, look! It’s an amphitheater.”

“Sure is.” He peered through an arched doorway in the center of the semicircular wall.

Bergie whooped and ran through the gate. “Too bad we don’t have swords.”

Hutch ambled after him. “Only tent pegs.”

“Tent pegs!” His eyes gleamed. “Give me one.”

“You’re kidding.”

“You know I’m not.” His fingers opened and closed in demand. “We’re in an ancient amphitheater, for crying out loud. Every boyhood gladiator fantasy brought to life. Prepare to defend yourself, Johnius Hutchicus.”

He rolled his eyes, but he shrugged off his field pack and found two tent pegs. After all, Bergie had a point.

The men circled each other, sizing each other up, knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses all too well.