Some Luck (39 page)

The men in the slit trenches didn’t have a chance, did they? The panzers went straight for them, driving over them and then turning a bit, and crushing them under the tracks. And the mines did nothing. They weren’t even useful as rubble—the panzers ran right over them. By afternoon, the battle in Frank’s immediate vicinity was over, and he was stranded in his little pocket. The sniper nearby, Courtney, was shot and probably dead—Frank could see him stretched across the dry hillside, unmoving, making no noise. The wounded always made noise. The others, if they were alive, were as quiet as mice, just like Frank, waiting for darkness. He hoped that the Stukas would decide he wasn’t worth strafing, but he had chosen this indentation in the hillside with that very thing in his mind—they could not see him from above or behind or in front, only from below, and now there was nothing going on below. The Germans had moved on, leaving a horrifying mess of armor and bodies strewn across the pass. Frank took out his compass. Eisenhower had been at Sidi Bou Zid that morning, which was certainly where the panzers were headed. Sidi Bou Zid was east-southeast. There was another town, Frank remembered—maybe it was T-something—he had heard it spoken of but of course could not read the Arabic of the name. At any rate, it was north-northwest. Frank put away his compass, then settled into his pocket, and waited for the sun to drop and the stars to blaze forth. The moon was almost full, but it didn’t rise until nearly midnight. Frank guessed he had about four hours to get somewhere.

BY THE TIME
the newsreels had shown the parade of prisoners after the Dieppe Raid, Rosanna and everyone else knew that Julius was dead, so they didn’t have to search the faces of the passing soldiers for a face that they knew. After the Battle of the Kasserine Pass, though (“Another fiasco!” insisted Walter. “Those German boys had been fighting for years, so they sent American boys right off the farm to take it on the chin!”), they did not know where Frankie was, only that he had been in the division, the brigade, and the company that was right in the thick of it, the very tank-and-infantry brigade that had allowed itself to be lured into the trap and destroyed. They knew Frankie was a sniper; that was their only hope, but it didn’t seem like much of one. When she saw the newsreel in Usherton,
Rosanna prayed, but thought, Well, if they capture him, they are in for a few surprises. It was a pleasant thought, although it didn’t last very long. However, only two days after the newsreel, they had a letter. Frankie had been in the battle, but, suspecting that the Germans would come back after destroying the tank brigades and the infantry emplacements to mop up outlying sitting ducks, he had retreated into the mountains (“Pretty dry and hot. I didn’t get far in the middle of the day”) for three days. Fortunately, once Rommel had won the battle, he called the operation off (“I guess he thought he’d done us in,” wrote Frankie), and so the Americans were able to regroup. Even so, there were thousands of casualties, and their commanding officer, Fredendall, had been relieved of his command (“Big stink,” said Frankie). Rosanna was of course thrilled that Frankie had turned up—alive, more than alive, perfectly fine and his usual self. She even baked him a batch of gingersnaps, boxed them up, and sent them off—gingersnaps because they traveled the best, and were often better on arrival after weeks in the mail. She didn’t really think they would get to him, but anyone in the army who might open them and eat them along the way would deserve them, she thought.

Walter swore that he had never had any doubt that Frankie would turn up—didn’t he always? And he had been worried that Frank would be punished for leaving his unit, but maybe that’s what snipers were supposed to do. And he was promoted—he had picked off a German mortar team all by himself. Now he was a corporal. Walter said, “I hope that doesn’t mean he’s in charge of anything.” But he was, according to Frankie. He was in charge of five snipers.

With the letter, he enclosed a picture of himself and a kid named Lyman Hill, whom Frank had known in Missouri and Ohio, and who had not gone over with them earlier, so hadn’t been in the battle. Frank expected there to be another battle soon. Rosanna read this line over and over: “We are going to go after those Jerries any day now, and me, I can’t wait.” Then he wrote, “Love, your son, Frank.” He had never replied to the letter in which Rosanna told him about Julius. Rosanna didn’t know whether she wanted him to have gotten that letter or not, because she didn’t know whether a sense of one’s mortality was a good thing or a bad thing in a soldier. In the meantime, her brother Gus had joined up, and what was he doing? He was lying in the bellies of airplanes as they bombed the German industrial
cities (though Rosanna didn’t know which ones). He was supposed to take pictures showing whether or not the bombs hit their targets. He had stopped writing home, according to Granny Mary, because he didn’t want his wife, Angela, to count on his return. Angela had taken to her bed and was talking about going back to stay with her family in Minneapolis, which Rosanna thought would be a good idea.

All Walter and Joey and John did was plant and plant and plant, and then cultivate and cultivate and cultivate. The weather was good. Joey had a knack for growing good seed corn, and Walter had stopped complaining or even telling Joey what to do. Joey told all of them what to do, and they had plenty of money as a result. Enough so that Joey could put an inside bathroom into that poky old house of Rolf’s, and even a bow window on the front of the living room. Once in a while, he took Minnie to the movies in Usherton, but if he wanted to do that, Rosanna had to go over and stay with Mrs. Frederick. She didn’t mind; she just read a book to Mrs. Frederick, and the poor woman was quiet enough. She was so thin now that Rosanna didn’t know how she survived, but it wasn’t Minnie’s fault—Minnie made her good, nourishing dishes, like hash and creamed spinach, and scrambled eggs with crushed-up bacon, and she made her drink milk with the cream on it, but they did her no good. Granny Mary said it was just like old people: when life held nothing for you, your food went right on through.

Even Lillian had some money, from the job she had taken at the soda fountain not far from the high school. She worked after school and Joey went by and picked her up on the way home for supper. Walter didn’t approve of how she was spending her money—on rouge and lipstick (she even had a compact, which she said was silver, though Rosanna suspected that it was only silver-plated). Being Lillian, she wasn’t spending all of it by any means—she was saving at least a third and maybe half—but Rosanna completely approved of Lillian’s ideas. It was right for a girl, especially a farm girl, who started at a disadvantage, to look as up-to-date and fresh as possible. It was right to look through the movie magazines and see what was the latest thing, and if you had the skills to reproduce this little thing or that—a snood, say—well, why not? Lillian, who had been
so unhappy at school, especially after that ingrate Jane whatever-her-name-was (Rosanna knew her name) was cruel to her, had now found her footing, and the boys were looking at her. (“Let them look,” said Walter. “They can look as often as they like.”)

Only Henry remained mysterious. All he did these days was read. He had read every book that they had at his school, and he held the book right up to his face, as if he needed glasses (though he didn’t, the doctor said). His face was still beautiful, in spite of the scar beneath his lower lip (which Rosanna sometimes found herself fixating on), and he was as slender as a reed, but if he was sitting up on the sofa or in a chair, his mouth hung open as he read, making him look half asleep, and if he was lying down, his head tilted to the side and he didn’t care if his hair stood on end. Rosanna found it bizarre that such a good-looking child—even a boy—would care so little about his appearance, but all he cared about was
Treasure Island
and
The Black Arrow
and
The Master of Ballantrae
—or
The Hound of the Baskervilles
and
The Sign of Four
and
The Valley of Fear
. If he read one by an author, then he had to get hold of them all, and he pestered everyone until he had gotten whatever there was to be had in attics, storerooms, the Salvation Army shop, and the Usherton library. And all of his favorite writers were English, not American—you couldn’t pay him to read James Fenimore Cooper, for example. Just at Christmas, too, he had decided to learn German, so he made Granny Mary and Grandpa Otto
“nein und ja”
him, and even spoke to Rosanna sometimes in German, and would only answer her if she spoke German. Well, he was a smart boy. Strange as the day was long, but smart.

Claire was four and a half, and would start school in the fall. Of all her children, Rosanna would have said that Claire was the only one who was utterly normal. She ate whatever you put in front of her, she dressed uncomplainingly in what was clean, she played with what you handed her. She went to bed when she was told, and got up when you were ready. She had nice dark hair, shiny and thick, and she never wiggled while you braided it. She could count to twenty and spell “cat,” “dog,” “mouse,” and “Claire.” She could sing “Alouette,” “Are You Sleeping?,” and “I’m a Little Teapot.” She could recite her bedtime prayer. She often looked out the window, and if you said, “Claire, you are underfoot,” she went away. She liked Walter. She
went with him out to the barn and talked while he milked cows or fed sheep. She asked for nothing, just received what she was given. Granny Mary and Granny Elizabeth thought she was darling.

Well, that’s what a war did for you—it made you look around at your shabby house and your modest family and give thanks for what you had and others had lost. It made you wonder what it would be like, bombs falling through the ceiling, craters in the front yard, nights in shelters, waking up dead, as Henry said once. It made you stop talking about what you wished for, because, in the end, that might bring bad luck.

FRANK WOULD HAVE SAID
that he was used to war now—he had been in the army for a year and a half, and in Africa for ten months, but even so, on the night of July 12, he felt as though he had been transported to a different world, although Sicily was not that different from Africa. The dawn crossing had been strange enough; the weather was so bad and the winds were so high that most of the soldiers doubted the invasion would be attempted, but it was, and his sergeant pointed out that if they didn’t make it they wouldn’t be alive to care, and if they did, the Jerries and Eyeties on the island wouldn’t be expecting them. And they weren’t—the beaches were clear, and there weren’t even any Luftwaffe around, only a few Italian bombers attacking a couple of transport vessels and warships. Even as they made their way across the beaches and inland, they met almost no resistance. They started to the east of the port—Licata, it was called—and then moved toward it. It was a town of graceful pale-apricot stone buildings that looked as if they had been there forever. Off to the east somewhere was Syracuse, a town Frank had learned about in his ancient-history class. And he also remembered Archimedes—there had been a picture in his math book of Archimedes using a lever to lift the world. Archimedes had figured out the value of pi. But Frank doubted that he would get to Syracuse. Licata was good enough for now.

Private Hill was eager to get into the backcountry and shoot himself some Jerries, though some Eyeties would be good enough in a pinch. The rumor was that Mussolini was in trouble, but Frank didn’t think that the invasion would necessarily go well because of
that. Whenever the generals thought something would work out, Frank was immediately suspicious. He knew, for example (everyone did), that they had sent the tanks and the infantry into the Kasserine Pass without even having a good map of the place. Maybe Patton had more on the ball than Fredendall had had. He hoped Patton had a good map of Sicily, though he wasn’t counting on it. Frank himself had eleven kills. He had heard that in the marines there were whole squadrons of snipers who had dozens of kills, but that was the Pacific, where the Japs were dispersed all over otherwise worthless little islands. You had to kill them or they would kill you. All of Frank’s kills had been distant ones. That was the point of being a sniper with a precision telescopic sight—you killed them, their buddies looked around for where that came from, and if you could, you killed another one, but if you couldn’t, you snuck away. They didn’t know you had snuck away, and they started to worry.

Once they had gotten through Licata (by late afternoon), their job was to spread out, past the flats and into the hills. The river was a dry bed meandering through fields, but protected by some vegetation. Frank decided that they would make their way along it, not in it, along the edge. The whole time, they could see the road—who was driving, and who was not looking out for himself. Late in the afternoon, the riverbed diverged from the road, and tilted upward into the pale hills. It was so dry that the six of them were already dusted with white. Murphy and Jones went to the east, crossing the riverbed and following the edges of some fields, and Landers and Ruben went along the riverbank. Frank kept Lyman Hill with him. They stayed in sight of the road. Lyman was itching to shoot something, and shortly before dusk he did—a cat that was itself hunting. When Lyman flipped it on its back with the muzzle of his rifle, they saw that it was a fat cat. Lyman said, “Well, someone in this place is eating, anyway.” The residents of Licata, of which they had seen only a few, had been thin and desperate-looking. But there had been no fearsome German nests of snipers in the buildings. His sergeant at Fort Leonard Wood had proved correct: while the Brits and the Americans were wondering about the rules, the Germans were breaking them. The rumor was that the Russians were even worse: they broke the rules of war and they broke the rules of life. If you killed two Russians, somehow four appeared in their place, and if you then
killed four Russians, eight appeared. That was what they had heard. When they finally defeated Rommel and took some German prisoners, some had hugged their captors, because they knew that if they got back to their own lines, they would be transferred from Africa to the Eastern Front—to Kharkov, for example, which was worse than Stalingrad. When a corporal Frank knew said to a prisoner, “What if I shoot you?,” the fellow shrugged and said,
“Hier oder dort, was ist der Unterschied?”
Frank knew this meant, “Here or there, what’s the difference?”