Casualties of War: The Advocate Trilgy

by Bill Mesce

  I touch those yellowed sheets of paper even today, and there they are…

  PFC Bobby Hollis (Chicken)

  Mrs. Wayne Hollis

  Chillicothe, Ohio

  I’ll be with you always, Mom

  And now I’ll be with Dad too

  Sgt. Andy Thom

  Mr/Mrs Willard Thom,

  Livingston Montana

  Mom Dad I love you always

  1st Sgt. Juan Bonilla

  Mr/Mrs Alberto Bonilla

  Bakersfield, California

  Te adoro popi e mami

  Jesu Cristo me llamo y me

  fui adonde el contento

  PFC Spiro Makris

  Mr/Mrs Demos Makris

  George, Maria (bro/sis)

  Allison (girlfriend)

  Lewiston, Maine

  Don’t ever forget how much you

  all mean to me

  PFC Enos McQuill

  Mr/Mrs Henry McQuill

  Ella, Noah, Little Tom

  Henderson, Tennessee

  Heaven will be like home

  PFC Oliver “Spider” Wardell Valence

  Mr/Mrs Jefferson Valence

  Cecile, Willis, Mahalia

  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

  I hope Rev. Mayes was wrong about me

  Sgt. Millard Farron

  Mrs. Millard Farron

  DeeDee

  Lockhart, Alabama

  Don’t let DeeDee forget her poppa

  Capt. Peter Ricks

  Mr/Mrs Walter Ricks

  San Francisco, California

  It was not your fault I didn’t come home

  It was mine – I always loved you both

  Wish Julia well for me

  S/Sgt. Buddy Creedmore

  Mrs. Buddy Creedmore

  Buddy Jr.

  Mr/Mrs Monroe Creedmore

  Minneapolis, Minnesota

  You all were always the most important

  things in the world to me

  PFC Rufus Aiken

  Mrs Rufus Aiken

  Chaffee, Missouri

  I wish we had more time, Barb

  PFC Tomas Matos

  Mrs T Matos

  Newark, New Jersey

  Tu quiero

  PFC Chuck Peskin

  Mrs Chs Peskin

  Salisbury, Maryland

  Never had that honeymoon I promised

  Dream it for both of us, doll

  Tell Mom and Dad I love them

  PFC Stan Makowski (Horse)

  Miss Ela Stowski

  Detroit, Michigan

  Ela tell Mom & Dad

  I know I disappointed them a lot

  Tell them I’m sorry

  PFC Matthew Reese

  Mrs Betty Ann Mayhew

  Waterloo, Iowa

  It’s just you now, Sis

  Have a mess of babies and name

  one after me even if it’s a girl

  PFC Elroy Boyd

  Mr/Mrs Abraham Boyd

  Stillwater, Oklahoma

  I always tried to do you proud

  Tell Louise she got her wish

  Cpl. Lyle Bott

  Mrs. Lyle Bott

  Lyle Jr.

  Sparta, Wisconsin

  Tell him about his dad

  and how much his dad loved his mom

  Col. Christian Van Damm

  Mrs C Van Damm

  Peter, Audrey

  Chicago, Illinois

  Don’t miss me – daddy’s with you

  Lisa – don’t mourn for long.

  PFC Bill Foley

  Mrs B Foley

  Betty

  Mr/Mrs Otto Foley

  Lewistown, Pennsylvania

  I thought of all of you every day

  Think of me

  PFC Gilbert St. John

  Waylon St. John

  Leland, Mississippi

  I’m happy mom wasn’t here for

  this – I hope I was a good son

  PFC Donal Gwynne

  Mr/Mrs Sean Gwynne

  Lynn, Massachusetts

  Don’t cry long – Gramps and

  Granny will be there to greet me

  PFC Quincy Gormley

  Mrs Quincy Gormley

  Robby, Bernadette, Quincy Jr

  I wish I’d made it better for you

  I can’t take it back – please

  forgive me, love the kids for me

  PFC Isaiah Wright

  Mrs. Isaiah Wright

  Hayneville, Alabama

  Jesus went with me into the field, my love

  Tell ma and pop I was at peace

  Pray the baby is a girl – I’ve seen what

  happens to boys

  CHAPTER TWELVE: The sacrifice of Abraham

  HARRY WOULD LATER RECALL HE’D NEVER FELT SO ALONE as at that moment. Sisto and his men had disappeared in one direction, and I in the other, leaving he, Juan Bonilla, and Farron and his crew the only figures in the open ground of the firebreak. He did not mean “alone” in the sense of loneliness; the way he missed home, the familiar faces of his neighborhood, his children, his wife. It was “alone” the way a castaway on an island feels alone. Lost. Small.

  “Oye, Colonel!”

  Harry had been standing at the edge of the creek bed, his eyes still on that point along the tree line marking the exit of Dominick Sisto and his men. He shook off his mood and toddled after Bonilla.

  There was a long–dead tree, small but large enough to have cast a bridge of shade across the creek, at the edge of the cut. The trunk, aged and twisted, had buckled close to the ground and lay along the rim of the cut. With his bayonet, Bonilla marked out an oblong area that ran under a bow in the trunk. He handed Harry the trenching tool.

  “Dig me like a shelf, Colonel, for the tripod, tu sabe? Make sure you go down deep enough so the gun clear the tree. I gotta work out signals with that pendajo inna tan’.”

  Harry was still vainly hacking away at the frozen ground with the small shovel blade when Bonilla returned a short time later carrying two more tins of ammunition and a pair of field glasses.

  “Res’ your weary bone, viejo,” he said, taking the trenching tool from Harry. While Harry rather self–consciously massaged away the ache in his hands, Bonilla made short work of carving out a platform for the machine gun, though several times he’d had to pause as the deep breaths of frigid air he drew left him hacking. The sergeant dug the cut deep enough so that the gun would just clear ground level. The trunk would provide them with both cover and concealment, and the bow over the cut gave the gun room to traverse. Bonilla unfolded the tripod, slipped it into the firing space, then picked up the gun, eased it under the bow of the tree, and inserted the stub of the pintle into the tripod. He had Harry pass him one of the ammo tins, popped the lid and began to unfold the fabric belt.

  “Your job, Colonel, you feed the belt. Make sure it don’ kink, keep it offa the groun’. You use the glasses, you spot for me. But now this, you gotta pay attention, Colonel, ‘cause maybe son’t’in happen where you gotta take the gun, tu sabe?” Bonilla demonstrated how to open the receiver, lay the belt in place. “Now you cock it, si? But you pull the bolt twice, tu sabe? You don’ pull twice, she not gonna do for you. You keep the burst short: badadadada, badadadada. You go lon’, you gonna burn out the barrel ‘n’ we got no time for me to make sure you know how to change over the barrel.”

  “What about aiming?”

  Bonilla gave up a phlegmy laugh, coughed and spat into the snow. “Colonel, the way she gonna jump, don’ worry ‘bout the sights. You watch where the tracer come down ‘n’ correct, tu sabe? Now, you practice re–load.”

  While Harry fumbled the receiver open and closed, re–laying the ammo belt in place, Bonilla snapped off one of the larger branches of the tree and laid it down across the ad hoc gunport. “Maybe it only hide us the firs’ time, but I take that.”

  Harry turned at the sound of the tank’s engine firing up. Farron was standing on the ground wher
e his driver could see him, directing the tank rearward until the Stuart was tucked neatly behind the west side of the gasthaus.

  When Bonilla had finished, he dusted the snow from a rock protruding from the creek bank, sat, and fished a crumpled cigarette packet from the pocket of his windcheater. He proffered the pack to Harry, then lit both their cigarettes. On his first draught, he immediately set to hacking.

  “Ah, Dios!”

  “Maybe a cigarette in your condition isn’t such a good idea?”

  “Lemme tell you son’t’in, mi amigo. When I was a li’l boy, si? My family, they was pickers in California. All up ‘n’ down the Imperial Valley you go wi’ the harvest. Even a li’l boy like me, he pick wi’ the family. Whatever you pick – the lettuce, the apple, the orange – at the end, always a big fiesta, a party, tu sabe? There was this one spread, the apple tree, we go, we pick, the fiesta. Maybe I was twelve or son’t’in. Every boy, he love Isabelle. She come wi’ her family to pick the apple. I don’ know her las’ name. Who care, huh? Isabelle. Fourteen, fifteen. Que linda! Beautiful, eh? If she li’ you, she take you out a’ nigh’ inna orchard, she le’ you look at her, tu sabe?” Bonilla mimed daintily unbuttoning his blouse. “Si?”

  Harry smiled understandingly. “Si. She liked you!”

  Bonilla shrugged immodestly. “I had a lotta charm even then.”

  Harry laughed.

  “You can’ touch, no funny business, but you can look.”

  “Just look?”

  “She say she good girl, no funny business.”

  “But she’d let you see her – ”

  “I t’in’ she jus’ love to make a boy loco. ‘S funny to her. Not funny to me. But I tell you, man, the moon come through them branches on her ‘n’ she loo’ li’ she cut from marble. Beautiful. You couldn’ touch; jus’ look. But ‘s’ok, ‘cause, well, you’re twelve, righ’? Wha’ you know to do anyway? ‘N’ she look like son’t’in from Heaven. She wort’ jus’ lookin’ at. You go inna orchard wi’ Isabelle, tha’s a good idea. After that? All ideas is shit!” And with that emphatic pronouncement, he took another deep draught of his cigarette that again caused him to cough up a wad of phlegm.

  Harry looked anxiously over the top of the creek bed.

  “Don’ worry. Won’ be long.”

  “I’m in no rush.”

  “No, ‘s better this way. The wait, tha’s wha’ kill you.”

  “I thought it was the bullets.”

  Bonilla nodded appreciatively. “Well, si, you got tha’ too.” Bonilla partly unraveled the scarf about his neck to wipe at the sweat that had collected on his forehead under the “beanie” sitting inside his helmet. “I hope this is jus’ from the work. ‘S all I need now. I awready got this fockin’ col’, now I get a fockin’ fever?” As he pulled the scarf from inside the collar of his windcheater, a large wooden cross hanging by a leather thong toppled out onto his chest. Bonilla caught the smile on Harry’s face, traced it to the cross. “‘S funny?”

  “No, I’m sorry. It’s just…well…”

  “You know, jus’ ‘cause somebody say, ‘Fock this, fock tha’’ don’ mean he don’ believe. One time, when I was small, mi mami use’ ta talk ‘bout me bein’ a priest.”

  “A priest?”

  “Every priest she see, he eat regular. She li’ that for her son.”

  “How could you turn that opportunity down?”

  Bonilla smiled. “Wha’ kinda priest I could be?”

  “It would’ve been an interesting parish.”

  Bonilla laughed, ended coughing. “Si! You get outta line in my church, I kick your cojones up ‘roun’ your ears!” Then, “Don’ you believe?”

  Harry flicked his cigarette away. It hissed when it hit the snow. “I don’t know.”

  “In anyt’in’?”

  Harry fished his billfold out of his trouser pocket, extracted two photographs from their cellophane sleeves.

  “Boys,” Bonilla smiled admiringly, handing back the picture of Harry’s sons. “Bonita,” he said returning the photo of his wife. “Pretty. A nice lady. You can tell.”

  Harry studied the photographs a moment.

  “Go with God, hermano.”

  Harry looked up to see Bonilla, index and middle finger of his right hand together and extended, making the sign of the cross in his direction. He smiled until he saw Bonilla had not meant it as a joke. He returned the billfold to his pocket but without the photos. He unzipped his windcheater, slipped the pictures into the left breast pocket of his blouse, buttoned the pocket flap closed.

  Bonilla nodded approvingly. “Tha’s where I would keep ‘em alla – ”. As if some internal switch had been thrown, Bonilla’s face suddenly went hard, he flung his fag away, and turned to the .30.

  “What – ”

  “Shh!”

  Harry heard it a few seconds later: the sounds of engines echoing up of the draw.

  “Step back where Farron can see you,” Bonilla commanded as he cocked the machine gun’s bolt once and again. “Show him this.” Bonilla held up a fist. “Then get on the glasses. Sound like a scout car, maybe two. You tell me, then you tell me when they ‘bout fifty yard ‘fore they come out in the open, tu sabe?”

  After signaling Farron, Harry took a position peeping over the top of the trunk looking through the field glasses down the length of the draw. “What was that signal I gave Farron?” Harry could swear his voice sounded an octave higher.

  “This roun’ belon’ to us. You don’ play your ace ‘till you have to, hermano. Listen: relax, ok? This one gonna be easy.”

  Relax, just like the man says, Harry told himself, but saying it to himself over and over didn’t stop his heart from hammering in his chest, or the sudden parching dryness in his mouth.

  He heard Bonilla’s voice, low, but not a self–directed mutter. More like reverence:

  “He train my han’ for war,

  So tha’ my arm can bend a bow of bronze.

  Thou has given me a shield a thy salvation

  ‘N’ thy help made me great…”

  Harry ran his sleeve along his forehead to wipe away the sweat beginning to fog the eyepieces of the field glasses.

  “‘N’ my fee’ did no’ slip;

  I pursue my enemy ‘n’ destroy ‘em,

  ‘N’ did no’ turn back ‘til they was consume’

  I consume ‘em; I thrust ‘em through, so they do no’ rise;

  They fall under my feet…”

  “There…” Harry’s throat was so tight it came out as a gasp.

  “For thou did gir’ me wi’ stren’t’ for a battle;

  Thou did make my assailant sink under me.

  Thou did make my enemies turn their backs to me,

  Those who hated me, ‘n’ I destroy ‘em…”

  They had made the far turn into the lower end of the draw: two open–topped scout cars, military versions of the Volkswagen, daubed in camouflage white. Each vehicle had four occupants, two in the front, two in the back, garbed in white. They must’ve been quite cold judging by the way they huddled low in the open vehicles. The Volkswagens moved slowly, partly out of caution, partly as a result of the uphill grade and the gelid road surface. Harry could see the cars sometimes slip a bit to the side on an icy patch.

  “They loo’, but there was none to save;

  They cry to the Lor’, but he did no’ answer ‘em.

  I beat ‘em fine as a dust a the eart’…”,

  It only then belatedly occurred to Harry that he was a terrible judge of distance. Fifty yards? What the hell is fifty – “Now!”

  An explosion of fire and a shower of twigs across the lenses as the .30 caliber steel–jacketed bullets tore through the screening branch; the chattering of the gun, louder than he thought it’d be, making him jump – “Jesus!”– almost losing the glasses; the hot glow of tracers lancing across the snowy field.

  Harry immediately understood Bonilla’s philosophy on sighting the weapon. The tracers did not seek o
ut the lead Volkswagen. Bonilla simply dropped his fire on a prescribed point and when the scout car intersected the line of fire there was an eruption of glass shards from the shattering windscreen, the car immediately beginning to wobble in its path. That was all Harry had the opportunity to observe because Bonilla was yelling at him to take his place feeding the ammo belt into the gun.

  Lying in the snow alongside the sergeant, Harry could see very little under the bow of the tree trunk past the jumping gun. As he had instructed Harry, Bonilla kept his bursts short and evenly spaced. The spent casings pouring from the ejection port under the weapon quickly began to pile up on the bank and the air along the creek grew instantly acrid with the smell of cordite.

  Then…

  The gun went silent.

  The sound of a car motor – just one – quickly receding back down the draw.

  Bonilla picked up the field glasses, rose to his knees for a look over the top of the trunk. He set the glasses down and picked up his Thompson. “Get onna gun. Cover me. You see son’tin’ you don’ like, shoot the fockin’ t’in’ to pieces, tu sabe?”

  Harry slid in behind the gun, took the pistol grip – still warm from Bonilla’s clenched fist – in his own gloved hand.

  In the narrow gap over the top of the gun beneath the bow of the trunk Harry could see the first scout car. It had veered off the road a few meters short of exiting the draw, one front wheel getting hung up in a drainage cut that ran alongside the road, leaving the bulk of the vehicle jutting at an angle into the roadway. Bonilla was approaching the Volkswagen in a wide arc to the left so as to stay out of Harry’s line of fire.

  Harry knew he should stay at the gun, but he picked up the glasses, rose up on his knees as Bonilla had for a look at the scout car. Through the glasses he could see that the side of the car facing him was liberally peppered with bullet holes and both near–side tires were flat. The windscreen was completely gone and slumped in the front seat were two bodies. Harry could see no faces: just a dark space where they should be.

  Something just barely visible in the space under the scout car. He dropped the glasses a degree. A third body sprawled on the ground on the other side of the car, the white camouflage cape mottled with dark splotches.