Blame the Dead

by Ed Ruggero

  “What the fuck?”

  The man should have been gone hours ago, should have been on a ship by now, or at least in a holding pen in Gela. Lindner was the most dangerous loose end remaining. It wouldn’t matter that Stephenson and Drake were dead, that the troublesome nurses were gone, if Lindner and Boone were connected over the gold.

  “Colonel Boone!”

  It was the nurse, Haus, calling to him. He turned on her. “What do you want?”

  She reeled back, surprised. “You asked about ambulances, sir. It looks like there’s a problem with an ambulance platoon forward of here, down near the coast.”

  Boone only half heard the woman. Why did they have to bring every problem to him?

  “Handle it,” he said without taking his eyes off Lindner. Now he could see that the nurse to Lindner’s right was Donnelly.

  Figures, he thought. I’d like to get rid of all of them.

  “I’m not sure what you mean, sir,” Haus said.

  “I said handle it!” He spun toward her. “You nurses are so indispensable around here, so sure that you know every fucking thing! You said there’s a problem, so come up with a goddamned solution! Is that so fucking hard to comprehend?”

  Haus stepped back, raised her right hand sharply to her eyebrow in a parade-ground salute.

  “Yes, sir!”

  There was something in her eye, and Boone thought she might cry, another goddamn weeper. Then he realized what he was seeing.

  She hated him. They all hated him.

  This was not what he had wanted when he signed up. He’d been looking for something he could be proud of, something he could throw in the faces of the doubters back home, his stick-up-the-ass colleagues from the Ivy League, with their disdain of his country-doctor beginnings. But command had been too much, too complicated, with too many people wanting stuff from him; twenty-four hours a day of relentless, whining demands. He had been weak, it turned out, easily swayed by others and just as easily tempted.

  No longer. Now it was time to be hard.

  * * *

  Ronan spotted Haus talking to Boone, saw her salute and turn away, head toward the gate.

  Ronan had been assisting in surgery for hours, oblivious to her worries. As the casualties slowed and they got ahead of the tide, she realized she had not thought any further ahead than the operating table, had not thought about what she would do once the crisis passed. Boone would certainly come for her again, even if it was just to send her to North Africa.

  She ducked behind Surgical One to avoid Boone, and headed for the gate, following Haus.

  “Alice,” she called, catching up.

  Haus stopped and turned, a smile smoothing the lines in her tired face. “Moira! I’m so glad to see you!”

  The women hugged; Ronan could feel Haus’s ribs and wondered for a fleeting moment if she’d also lost that much weight.

  “What are you doing?” Haus asked.

  “I just finished assisting. Good Guy told us to take a break, and I’m trying to avoid that ass, Boone, since I’ve been AWOL and I think he’ll throw me in the stockade.”

  “I’ve got something I think might help,” Haus said.

  She took Ronan by the arm and led her to the gate, where four ambulances were parked. All had jagged holes in their boxy sides, the lead vehicle with a busted windshield and three shredded tires, some GIs hopping around, trying to get the wheels off. A staff sergeant Ronan did not recognize—he was from another command—supervised the loading of medical supplies into the three vehicles that were only a little shot up. Orderlies unpacked bandages and plasma, all of which had been crated yesterday for the move, handing the materials to medics inside the backs of the vans.

  “This is Staff Sergeant Benteen,” Haus said.

  Benteen’s right forearm was wrapped in a gauze bandage that extended from his fingers to his elbow. Blood had leaked through in several spots.

  “Can you go with us?” Benteen asked Ronan. He had what looked like a shrapnel wound to his right cheek, and a chunk of flesh was missing from his blood-caked ear.

  “Where you going?”

  “Another ambulance section got hit by Kraut artillery, a ways up the road there. Now we got the wounded they were carrying, plus a bunch of wounded medics. I’m going back up to pull them all out. I could use a nurse, could use all the help I can get.”

  “I’m in,” Ronan said.

  “Good. Great.”

  Benteen bent over and yanked a large medic’s field bag from a crate his men had broken open, handed it to Ronan. It was brand new.

  Haus gave her a quick hug, said, “Be careful, love,” and turned back to help prepare the hospital for the move.

  “OK,” Ronan said. She stripped off the surgical gown and cap, yanked the mask from around her neck, used the wadded cloth to wipe blood from her arms and blot sweat from her face, then threw the whole bloody ball to the ground.

  “Wonder if we’ll have to do one giant police call after the war,” she said. “Pick up all the trash we’ve left around.”

  “What’s that?” Benteen asked. He was thin, on the tall side, a cowboy drawl.

  “Just talking to myself. Anybody look at your arm? Dress the wound?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I did.”

  “Right.”

  Ronan climbed into the rear of the last ambulance and opened the medical bag. Because it was new, all the instruments and supplies were wrapped for shipping. She began to break things down for quick access, rearranging instruments she would need immediately.

  Pinpricks of light filtered through where shrapnel had punched holes in the sides of the vehicle. Blood pooled in the center of one of the stretchers racked on the right. She flipped it upside down, secured the handles, and used the opposite side to lay out her instruments. When she stepped sideways to throw a paper wrapper out the door, she slipped on the bloody floor, went down hard on both knees and hands.

  “Shit!” She wiped her palms on her trousers.

  And she suddenly recalled a conversation with her mother, who could not understand why she’d leave a safe, well-paid hospital job for any number of dangers as an army nurse.

  “Well,” her mother had said, “at least try to stay clean.”

  Ronan was surprised to find she could still laugh.

  * * *

  Boone spotted Harkins and Colianno walking along the church wall where the nurses’ admin tent used to stand. They did not see him.

  “What the hell?”

  Colianno was supposed to be in the stockade, and Harkins had been ordered by the provost marshal to stay clear of the hospital and away from Boone. Yet here they both were. Which either meant the provost had changed his mind, or Harkins had somehow gotten Colianno released and was here to make an arrest, ready to make a case that was so strong he could defy Colonel Meigs’ orders.

  Boone turned and headed back toward his own tent, staying close to two trucks being loaded by his exhausted orderlies. He was looking back over his shoulder and tripped over a pile of long stakes.

  “You OK, there, Colonel?” one of the soldiers asked.

  Boone didn’t answer, but began jogging, dodging in and out of the line of vehicles.

  There were only two tents remaining in the central part of the compound; one of them his field office and small sleeping quarters. The walls had been lowered, which meant someone had started to dismantle it. Boone let himself into the office section through a back flap, pulled it nearly shut behind him, and peered out to see if Harkins had followed. Nothing yet.

  A cheery voice from behind made him jump.

  “Colonel Boone, so glad to see you!”

  Boone started, turned, and saw Captain Adams, the deputy provost, who must have been in the front, where Drake’s desk had been.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m in charge of the investigation now, remember? It seems there have been some interesting developments. Do you know an Air Corps sergeant by the name of Trunk?”


  “Why would I?”

  Adams chuckled. “I should have known you’d clam up,” he said. “No matter. You’re coming back to the provost with me, and when we find Lieutenant Ronan we’ll bring her along, too. And all of Lieutenant Harkins’ various witnesses. He’s turned out to be quite resourceful, don’t you think? I mean, I didn’t expect much, him not being a detective or anything.”

  Boone could feel his pulse in his temples, his heart drumming his rib cage. He was suddenly very thirsty. He hadn’t expected Adams, did not have a plan.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” he managed. “I have a hospital to run, and we’re jumping forward. Today. Right now. Or didn’t you notice everything going on around here.”

  “I’m sure your staff can take care of all that, sir.”

  Boone looked around. All of his gear had been packed up: cot, washstand and shaving mirror, field desk and file cabinet, his footlocker, with his pistol inside. There were a few scattered papers on the ground and an oak chair that he’d had an orderly carry from the wrecked church nearby.

  “I got a message today from a Lieutenant Cohen. He’s on General Glass’ staff. G4 section.”

  Adams patted his shirt pockets absentmindedly. He always looked rumpled, which grated on Boone. Today the lawyer had left his helmet someplace else, but was wearing a sidearm. Playing soldier. Probably imitating Harkins, his hero.

  “Must have left it in my satchel. Anyway, did you know your Doctor Lindner was treating General Glass? Cohen didn’t say what for; seems very hush-hush. Cohen says that Lindner showed a great deal of interest in some maps that were on the general’s desk.”

  A wave of nausea threatened to knock Boone down.

  He had kept Lindner from being evacuated on schedule with the other prisoners because the German was a skilled surgeon. When Lindner wanted to extend his stay with the Americans he offered Boone a gift—a small gold bar; part of a stash, Lindner claimed, left behind by the retreating Wehrmacht. When Boone learned that Lindner was treating General Glass, he suspected something else was going on, but he ignored the warning signs and got Stephenson involved. After that, there was no going back.

  “What does that have to do with me?” Boone said.

  “I imagine you’ll have to explain why Doctor Lindner was given such … generous privileges. Could come and go as he pleased, apparently.

  “Shall we, Colonel?” Adams said politely, holding aside the curtain so that Boone could step into the front part of the tent and away to the provost’s headquarters.

  Boone put one foot in front of the other, ducked as if going through the door.

  “Just a sec,” he said.

  He pivoted, grabbed the oak chair, heaved it above his shoulder and then down on Adams’ head. Once. Twice.

  He stood, chest heaving, looking down on what he’d done. Another line crossed. He could not see a way back to normalcy, to his role as commander, as a respected surgeon. He was reacting, making things worse.

  He put his hands on either side of his face, squeezed, forced himself to breathe deeply, slowly. He took Adams’ pistol and belt, opened the tent flap. Outside, the war went on relentlessly.

  Boone walked outside, headed for the open-air operating theater where he’d seen Lindner. He hadn’t thought about the sergeant at the airfield, Stephenson’s choice, had no idea if the man knew his name. But there was another loose end back in the States—the guy who received the gold.

  It would take days, maybe weeks for cops back home to get involved, get the information they needed. On this side of the ocean, the threat was more immediate. Harkins was breathing down his neck. But with Lindner gone, he could buy some time to think.

  He found Lindner alone, washing his hands. Boone pressed Adams’ pistol to his back, got him moving, the German in front, calm, even resigned; Boone behind him, stepping awkwardly so he could stay close and hide the pistol.

  “Are you going to shoot me, Colonel?” Lindner asked. He did not sound afraid, which made Boone angrier.

  “What if I do?” he asked, jabbing Lindner with the muzzle. “Other than a few nurses, no one in the whole goddamn Seventh Army would bat an eye.”

  The two men made their way toward the main gate, where Boone thought he could commandeer a vehicle. He didn’t know where he was headed after that, but it wasn’t the stockade.

  * * *

  Ronan had just finished repacking her medical bag when she heard Boone’s voice outside.

  “Where are these ambulances going?”

  She froze, heard Sergeant Benteen explain the rescue mission he was preparing.

  The back doors to her vehicle were open. Ronan pressed herself against the stacked stretchers and reached for the handle so she could pull them shut without being seen from outside. She jumped when an orderly stepped into the opening.

  “Oh!”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” the private said. “Just this one more crate.”

  He lifted a heavy wooden box onto the rear of the ambulance. “You want these doors shut?”

  “Please.”

  Ronan shrunk back into the somewhat darker interior, but before the door closed completely, Boone looked in and saw her. She tried to get out, but he blocked the door, yanking someone by the arm and shoving him into the ambulance. It took Ronan a second to comprehend that the other man was Lindner.

  “Get in there,” Boone said to her. He had Lindner by the shoulder, by the shirt. Behind the two men, the orderly who’d just loaded the crate watched them, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

  “Shut that door,” Boone told the soldier.

  When the two men were inside, the door closed.

  “Well, Lieutenant Ronan,” Boone said, wild-eyed. “Finally decided to come back to your place of duty after your liberty in Palermo.”

  That’s when she saw the pistol, pointed at Lindner, and decided not to answer him.

  * * *

  Kathleen Donnelly had seen Boone and Lindner leave the gate. Lindner was in the lead, but she was pretty sure Boone shoved the German a couple of times. She followed and ran into Alice Haus, who was supervising the breakdown of a surgery suite.

  “What are those ambulances doing there?” Donnelly asked, pointing to the vehicles stacked up outside the gate.

  “Another section up ahead got hit by German artillery. Medics hurt, no one to take care of them or the other wounded. The sergeant in charge of those is riding to the rescue, like the cavalry.”

  Haus looked around, dropped her voice. “Ronan’s in the last one. She volunteered to go with them.”

  Donnelly’s breath left her. “Ohhhhh…”

  The lead vehicle pulled around a badly damaged ambulance in the front of the line. She ran holding her side where it hurt her earlier. There would be no stopping these with a gunshot—she had gotten rid of the pistol.

  The second ambulance moved before she reached the abandoned guardhouse that had marked the gate. She reached the third ambulance before it rolled and yanked open the rear door.

  Inside, a strange tableau: Ronan, as far forward as she could get, sitting on a floor streaked with blood. Lindner crouched next to her and, closest to the door, Boone, holding a pistol.

  Donnelly called her friend. “Moira!”

  When the vehicle started to move, Donnelly jumped in.

  44

  5 August 1943

  1920 hours

  Harkins and Colianno ran up to Haus, who was watching the ambulances disappear over the hill outside the gate.

  “Was that Kathleen?” Harkins asked. “Did she just get in that last ambulance?”

  “Yeah,” Haus said. “What’s wrong?”

  “We saw Colonel Boone leading that Kraut doctor out of the gate a few minutes ago,” Harkins said. He bent over, put his hands on his thighs to catch his breath. He and Colianno had been on the other side of the compound, had run hundreds of yards but were unable to close the distance.

  “Did you see Boone get in that ambulance?”r />
  “No,” Haus said. “I wasn’t really watching for that, but…” She looked at Colianno. “Moira was in that last ambulance, too. I figured that’s why Kathleen got in.”

  Colianno turned and sprinted to get their jeep.

  “Where are they going?” Harkins asked.

  “Up to the front somewhere. Some other ambulances got hit, and they need help with the wounded. There’s a Sergeant Benteen in the lead vehicle. He’s the one who knows where they’re going.”

  Colianno was back in minutes, driving fast, leaning on the horn and scattering soldiers out of his way.

  “Any sign of Adams?” Harkins asked.

  “No. Let’s go without him.”

  Harkins took Haus by the elbow. “You know that captain, the deputy provost?”

  “The lawyer who threw up when he saw his first dead body?”

  “Yeah. He’s here somewhere. Tell him that Moira and Kathleen are on that ambulance, maybe with Boone, maybe Lindner. He should follow as soon as he can. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  “We’re going after them.”

  “Bring my girls back in one piece,” Haus said.

  Harkins got into the jeep, touched the rim of his helmet, and grabbed the windshield to steady himself as Colianno punched the accelerator.

  * * *

  The roads east got narrower and more jammed with traffic as soon as they cleared the compound. In their first thirty minutes the closest they got to the ambulance was about five hundred yards, scores of vehicles between. Several times traffic came to a complete halt, and Harkins got out, thinking he could catch them on foot. But then something in the jam would give way and Colianno would catch up with him as the ambulances pulled farther ahead.

  “Shall I try going cross-country?” Colianno asked.

  Harkins looked at his map. The road Sergeant Benteen had chosen did not lead directly to the coast, but dropped south and headed for a long lake, Lago Rosamarina, passing through some hilly country. They couldn’t jump ahead because Harkins didn’t know the destination, and he wasn’t sure they could get back to the road if they got off.