by James R Benn
"I'm going back to the SOE. They said I was fully recovered."
"Did they order you back?" I could feel my heart sink, and I was ready to protest the injustice of it all.
"No."
"You volunteered?"
"Yes."
"I don't want to lose you, Diana." It came to me then. On the beach, she'd said either of us could be killed any day.
She faced me. "Those dreams we had, about losing each other? Those weren't about the assignments we were on, or the danger either of us was in. It was about how we'd let Villard come between us. It was about how separated we had become, even when we were together. Don 't you see? As long as we love each other, nothing can get in the way."
"Are you certain? About volunteering, I mean?"
"I have to, Billy. All I do here is shuffle papers from one damn meeting to another. Some captain asked me to make tea for him last week!"
"One of the first things your sister told me about herself was how she brewed horrible tea and coffee, just so they'd stop asking her."
"She truly made horrible tea. I can't imagine her attempting coffee."
We laughed, and I watched the happy memory turn sad, and then saw the return of her smile, as the joy of recollection overcame the pain of loss. It's not that time heals all wounds, it's more that it lets you stay happier for a bit longer every day when you remember someone you lost.
"I miss her," she said.
"Kaz does too. I doubt a minute goes by he doesn't think of her."
"Poor Kaz. We 've got to find him a woman, Billy. Someone he can have a bit of fun with."
"Wait a minute!" I wasn't going to allow myself to be distracted. "Weren't we talking about you and the Special Operations Executive? Secret missions and all that?"
"All right. I have to make a contribution. Knowing I can and not doing it is driving me crazy."
For me, the opposite would be true. I would much rather Diana stayed at headquarters.
"When?" I asked.
"I have no idea. Nothing is on right now. I'm all yours, for these few days at least."
"Well, what's done is done."
"Right," she said. She drew closer, nestling into my arms. I realized that although I was afraid of losing her, I wasn't surprised at all that she'd volunteered to go back. It was who she was.
"Remember who you are," I said softly. I felt her breath on my arm as she fell asleep. I couldn't tell if she had heard me. It didn't matter. She knew well enough.
CHAPTER * FORTY-ONE
"TRAUMA TO THE HEAD, psychogenic amnesia. Return to the Zone of the Interior authorized. Honorable discharge due to medical reasons."
I read the paper in the file the nurse had handed me. It was signed by the doctor who had talked to me after a bunch of other doctors had examined and prodded me all morning. The file held a bunch of other papers. Travel priority AA. Orders to report to Fort Dix, New Jersey, for separation.
Zone of the Interior. That was the States. Honorable Discharge. Separation. Home.
Words that I'd waited more than a year to hear. Beautiful-sounding words.
Separation.
I was fine physically. The last doctor was a psychiatrist. He thought I was OK, sort of, but didn't like that amnesia episode one bit. It was grounds for a discharge, and that's what he gave me. I was sure he expected thanks, but I couldn't take it in. I left his office to wait for the paperwork. Then I stood outside the hospital tent, reading my orders over again. Home. Boston by way of Fort Dix. Travel priority AA. Not the highest, but not bad. I could get on an airplane bound for the States as soon as there was an empty seat or I could bump some poor schmo with a single A priority.
Nothing seemed real. I walked the mile to General Eisenhower's villa, watching the trucks and jeeps roll past, everyone going somewhere in a hurry. Going to war. I was going in the opposite direction. Home. Zone of the Interior.
All of a sudden I was returning the guard's salute and standing in front of Sue.
"Is the general in?"
"No, he flew to Algiers this morning. Anything I can do for you, Billy?"
"Sure. Can you call the airfield? See if there's a seat for me?" I gave her the folder. "Do you have a paper and pen I can use?"
"Sure, Billy. There's stationery on Marge's desk. Is this for real?" She flipped through the folder and looked at me. Couldn't blame her really; I did have some experience with forged orders.
"They're real. Top secret, OK?"
"Mum's the word." She picked up her telephone. I sat at the other desk and found a fountain pen. I thought about what to say and the best way to say it. I wrote a long letter, long for me anyway, and then sealed it in an envelope. I scrawled a name on the outside and stuffed it in my back pocket. Sue hung up the phone.
"With these orders, you can get on a plane at 1400 hours. Are you leaving now? Without--"
"See ya, Sue. Thanks for everything."
I hotfooted it over to our tent. Sciafani was sitting in the sun, reading an old Life magazine.
"Big Mike around?" I asked.
"He is at lunch and is coming after that to drive me to the POW camp. Nothing worked out last night?"
"Nothing, Enrico. Sorry. Listen, I need a favor. Will you drive me to the airfield?"
"Should I be driving a military vehicle? Here?"
"Hey, you've been in the army. Come on, you'll be back in time for Big Mike to take you to the POW camp."
"Well, it was in a different army, but what can they do to me?"
"Right, come on. There's a two o'clock flight." I enjoyed using civilian time, a lot more than was normal. Maybe it was like a connection, like Big Mike carrying around his shield.
Big Mike had drawn a jeep from the motor pool to take Sciafani south to the POW camp. We got in and drove down the busy road to the airfield.
"Thank you for everything you've done," Sciafani said, speaking loudly above the road noise.
"I didn't get anything done."
"I mean back in Sicily. It was remarkable, really."
"Stubborn is more like it."
We pulled up at the gate and I showed my orders. The sentry waved me on. I followed the markers to a waiting transport. A line of officers and civilians stood near it as GIs loaded gear into the rear. An MP held up his hand for us to halt.
"You on this flight, sir?"
"Got the orders right here."
"Both of you?"
"No, just one."
"OK, get your gear out, have your orders ready, and then get this vehicle out of here." He blew his whistle at another vehicle and stalked off to tell the driver to get a move on.
"This is it, Enrico." I stuck out my hand and we shook.
"Where are you going, Billy?"
"All depends. But you, my friend, are going to Boston. Massachusetts General." I took my dog tags off and put them around Sciafani's neck.
"What?"
"Don't ask any questions. Stand in line, get on the plane, don't talk to anyone." I handed him the file and a wad of greenbacks that I guessed would buy a train ticket from New Jersey to Boston.
"But this is a discharge for you."
"Bad timing. Busy right now. Get going before I change my mind."
The MP blew his whistle again.
"Get a move on. One of you on board, one of you out of here! Sir!"
I liked polite cops.
"Are you certain?" Sciafani asked.
"God help me, I am. Here, one more thing. When you get to Boston, go to this address." I handed him the envelope. "He's an old friend of mine. Alphonse DeAngelo. He 'll help you. I'd send you to my family, but I don't want them to know that I could have come home."
"If this is truly what you want, Billy, I will go."
"Go."
He grabbed his bag with the few belongings he had packed for the POW camp.
"Don't get hit in the head again, Billy. Promise me that."
"Odds are against it."
Sciafani waved, a grin lighting up his face.
He ran to the line, showing his orders to a bored PFC who hooked his thumb toward the open door of the transport without looking up from his clipboard. I smiled, wheeled the jeep around and floored it, certain I had done the right thing for Sciafani, and for myself.
But that didn't mean I wanted to watch him fly away to the States. I didn't want to think about what I had given up. As I heard the engines cough and turn, I kept my eyes on the road stretching ahead of me.
I drove fast, the wind whipping my face, bringing tears to my stinging eyes. This is who I am.
AUTHOR'S * NOTE
Readers may wonder how much of this story is based in fact. The extent to which the narrative is based on documented history is sufficient to prove the old saw that truth is stranger than fiction.
It is true that Lucky Luciano cooperated with the Office of Naval Intelligence from his jail cell at the Great Meadows penitentiary in New York. Through the Mob's connections with organized labor, a careful watch was kept on the docks in New York City and other ports in the Northeast. They reported on suspicious activities and threats of sabotage to ONI and also cracked down on union activities that might impede the war effort. Even commercial fishermen supplying the Fulton Fish Market were enlisted to watch for German submarines.
As planning proceeded for the Allied invasion of Sicily, ONI again worked with organized crime to recruit Sicilian-American agents who could be landed on the island prior to the invasion. These agents, trained in commando tactics and in safecracking, went ashore armed with introductions to Sicilian Mafia contacts provided by Luciano and his gang. One of them did pull off a significant coup by breaking into the safe at Italian naval headquarters, securing valuable intelligence about Axis naval forces.
Numerous accounts of Luciano's involvement with the invasion of Sicily mention the yellow silk handkerchief with the large L emblazoned on it. Some say it was dropped to Don Calogero Vizzini by Allied aircraft via parachute. Other stories relate that it was delivered by a secret agent, and that Don Calo rode on an American tank, waving it like a flag, convincing hundreds of Italian soldiers to desert. While these stories sound fanciful, it is a fact that secret agents were sent ashore to make contact with members of the Sicilian Mafia, and that a handkerchief was used to serve as a message from Luciano to Don Calo. Whatever the exact truth, Don Calo was ultimately made mayor of Villalba by the American Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT). Lucky Luciano had his sentence commuted in 1946 and was deported to Sicily, the land of his birth.
Vito Genovese did flee to Italy in 1937 to avoid murder charges in New York. When the Americans landed, he offered his services as a translator, and soon became a valued assistant to AMGOT officers. As the war progressed, AMGOT enlisted Genovese to help clean up black market activities in Naples and southern Italy. Black market activity disappeared, and AMGOT was pleased with his success until they learned that Genovese had simply eliminated the competition and taken over all black market operations himself, sending convoys of supplies to Don Calo in Sicily. He was sent back to the United States to face the murder charges from 1937, but by then all the witnesses had conveniently disappeared, and he was again a free man.
The disastrous night paratroop drop described is unfortunately true. Through either miscommunication or sheer nervousness, naval and ground antiaircraft fire hit the reinforcing wave of 82nd Airborne troopers, causing 319 casualties (88 dead, 69 missing, and 162 wounded).
While I have tried to weave history into this fictional narrative, it is ultimately a work that springs from my imagination. I am inspired by real events, to which I hope I have remained true in spirit, if not always in precise fact.
The battle for Biazza Ridge, described in Chapter Three, is a little-known but crucial action that held the Germans back from the beachhead on the day after the invasion. Colonel (later General) Jim Gavin did lead a mixed force of paratroopers, infantry, and some rear-area personnel to hold the high ground and keep the German force from breaking through and wreaking havoc on the buildup along the southern coast. The battle, as seen through Billy's eyes, is recreated based on eyewitness accounts, which include mention of the tears Gavin shed at the burial of the men who died there.
I had the opportunity to visit this site while my wife and I were on vacation in Sicily. The battlefield is on the property of a Sicilian farmer, who raises artichokes and oranges beneath the ridge where the fight took place. He has kept the bunkers untouched, and respectfully cares for the land where so much blood was shed. He and his family invited us in to share their Easter Monday celebration and showed us around the farm and took us into the bunkers below the ridge. On the outer wall of his farmhouse, facing the road to Gela, is a monument attesting to the lives sacrificed there. It reads in part:
Extreme were the losses. Supreme was the heroism, and from the sacrifice of these men is created the new history of Europe.
Who could say more?
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
CHAPTER • ONE
CHAPTER • TWO
CHAPTER • THREE
CHAPTER • FOUR
CHAPTER • FIVE
CHAPTER • SIX
CHAPTER • SEVEN
CHAPTER • EIGHT
CHAPTER • NINE
CHAPTER • TEN
CHAPTER • ELEVEN
CHAPTER • TWELVE
CHAPTER • THIRTEEN
CHAPTER • FOURTEEN
CHAPTER • FIFTEEN
CHAPTER • SIXEEN
CHAPTER • SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER • EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER • NINETEEN
CHAPTER • TWENTY
CHAPTER • TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER • TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER • TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER • TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER • TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER • TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER • TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER • TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER • TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER • THIRTY
CHAPTER • THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER • THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER • THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER • THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER • THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER • THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER • THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER • THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER • THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER • FORTY
CHAPTER • FORTY-ONE
AUTHOR’S • NOTE