Casualties of War: The Advocate Trilgy

by Bill Mesce

  The grenade and fuel went up in an ugly yellow and orange and black mushroom, flaming petrol raining back down on the decks of the tank. Almost immediately, the crew hatches sprung open as the crew boiled out in an attempt to escape.

  Sisto was waiting forward with his carbine and made quick work of the driver and bow gunner, while the Thompsons above him cut down the tank commander midway out of his hatch. Sisto pulled himself up the forward glacis of the Mark IV, stepped round the pools of flaming petrol to pull the commander clear of the hatchway. He thrust his carbine into the cleared space and fired several rounds inside finishing the turret crew. He then leaned inside the turret, armed a grenade and dropped it into the turret ammo racks.

  He leapt clear of the tank and ran full out toward the entrance of the draw, diving round the turn in the road as the grenade went off detonating the 75 mm shells in a series of blasts so violent that the 26–ton assembly seemed on the verge of shaking itself apart. The tank’s own fuel ignited in a dull rumble and tall flames erupted from the open hatchways and the engine grate.

  All the time Sisto had been engaged with the stranded panzer, his men had remained in a heavy fight with the Germans slowly pressing on them through the woods. And now Harry’s position was taking sporadic rifle fire as the troops facing him, newly emboldened by the destruction of the Stuart, began to reassert themselves along the tree line.

  Sisto put one of his riflemen at the wheel of the jeep and sent him speeding across the firebreak with his two wounded passengers, back toward the inn, while he and his remaining men laid down covering fire in the woods and across the draw. Harry clamped his fist about the .30 caliber’s trigger and began to do the same, the other men in the creek following suit.

  When the jeep reached the safety of the inn, Sisto called his men down from the top of the draw and sent them running across the open ground while he, Ricks, and Bonilla covered their withdrawal. The lieutenant flagged Harry’s attention, pointed to the inn: it was time to pull out.

  As Harry threaded the last belt of ammunition into the gun, he ordered the others back to the gasthaus.

  “I’ll stay with you, Suh,” Big Man Wright offered.

  “All of you; beat it!” Harry barked. “I can cover you with this thing. Once you get back, you can cover me. Trust me, Soldier: I’m not looking to win a medal!”

  Harry alternated his bursts between the trees just ahead of him, and those across the draw, trying to provide cover for Sisto, Ricks, and Bonilla as well. The trio instantly understood his intent and began to follow the rest of the squad pell mell across the open ground of the break.

  The last round of the belt cranked through the machinegun.

  Quick look down the creek bed. Harry’s men were crawling through the culvert that ran under the road. They were safe.

  Sisto and his men, hugging the drainage cut a few meters short of the creek, belly–crawling the remaining distance without the .30 to cover them. There was nothing left for him to do.

  Harry slung his carbine, tossed the machine gun over one shoulder, grabbed the tripod with his other hand, and began to stumble along the creek back toward the inn.

  A shout, off to his right. He raised to where he could just see over the top of the bank, saw Juan Bonilla charging across the snow in his direction, snapping bursts of his Thompson toward the trees. “Hold on, hermano!” he called out. “I help you!”

  Bonilla was hit. A spray from somewhere about his head, impact hard enough to spin him about and almost take him off his feet, the Thompson flying free. Fell to one knee, facing away from Harry, shaking his head as if dazed, staggered to his feet, turned round…

  The scream…

  Oh…my…God…my…sweet…Jesus…

  At first, he could make no sense of the apparition facing him, could not understand why the face no longer looked like a face. The dark eyes wide with fear, cheeks dappled with blood spray, then upper lip pulled back in that scream, the teeth exposed and…suspended in space…tongue, writhing like a panicked serpent, exposed, unhinged, shedding blood…the lower jaw gone.

  Gone.

  The scream…

  MY…SWEET…JESUS…

  It proclaimed pain and anger, fear and horror, all commingled in a tortured howl so unrestrained it sparked a fear and horror in Harry as primal as that in the man staggering about the snow in a wide–eyed search for his jaw.

  Blood bubbled up out of Bonilla’s throat, choking the scream, spilling freely down the front of his windcheater, falling steaming into the snow as he stumbled about this way and that as if was wondering, Where do I go now? What do I do now?

  Please let him die! Please! For Christ’s sake, somebody kill him!

  Later, Harry would tell himself he wished only mercy for Bonilla, but even he could not convince himself that it wasn’t a visceral wish for the screaming to stop, for that nightmarishly torn face and the bloodied, squiggling snake in the middle of it to be gone.

  He felt a twitch in his right arm: Drop the machinegun. Draw your .45. Finish it.

  Another bullet found Bonilla, taking one leg out from under him, dropping him to his knees, making him an easy target for a third bullet that finally sent him face down ThankChristThank Christ in the stained snow.

  “C’mon, Colonel! C’mon!”

  It was Big Man Wright, calling to him from the opening of the culvert.

  Harry wanted to sit down on the snow–covered bank, vomit, then lay down and wait for the next snowfall to cover him.

  “Colonel! C’mon!”

  Somehow, Harry made his legs move again, slowly at first, then in a steady trudge toward the culvert. Wright ran to him, took the heavy gun from his shoulder, then pushed him forward toward the opening. Pushing the tripod in ahead of him, Harry began to belly–crawl – the muddy pipe was too narrow for anything else.

  That same total sense of being drained he had felt back on the creek bank struck him again. He laid his head down, for the moment considered the culvert as good a grave to sleep in as any other. But Wright’s prodding brought him back to the living, pushed him through the culvert and into a quick dash to the front door of the inn. Inside, he let the tripod clatter to the floor and dropped to a seat on the stairs utterly spent.

  He began to sob, so violently the spasms brought an ache to his middle.

  “Harry. Harry, it’s me.” A quiet, calming call.

  Harry forced control on himself, wiped away the tears. It was Peter Ricks. Harry regained his breath, forced himself up on his still–wobbly legs. “Where is he?”

  Ricks nodded toward the lounge.

  Harry found Sisto sitting on the edge of the hearth, his canteen cup in one hand, the coffee pot in the other, a sad air draped about his sagging shoulders like a mourner’s shawl. Behind him, the fire had long since gone out.

  “Dominick?”

  Harry needed to call him a second time before Sisto looked up, smiled with recognition. He gestured helplessly with the coffeepot and cup. “I was hoping there’d still be some coffee.” He set the pot and cup down. “Ol’ Ja–wan. He always seemed so… I never figured him. Not him.” Sisto forced the thought off and turned to Harry purposefully. “Who else?”

  “Andy Thom.”

  The lieutenant’s face twisted painfully. “Andy...”

  “Van Damm.”

  “You were friends?”

  Harry nodded.

  “Sorry.”

  They began toting up the losses. Spider Valence. Farron and his crew: the spotty–faced Rufe; Reese who had so mourned the wagering of his Swiss chocolate; Boyd who had, the night before, been playfully jousting with Horse (My God, Harry thought in amazement, was that just last night?).

  Sisto had lost two men on his side of the road: the diligent company clerk Sergeant Creedmore, and the sharpshooter McQuill. Four wounded including Corporal Bott and Chicken Hollis.

  “The road’s blocked, Dominick,” Harry said. “We’ve done as much as we can do. It’s time to start thinking about
pulling out.”

  “Hm?” Sisto’s mind still seemed wrapped around those ten names: Andy Thom, Juan Bonilla, Van Damm, Valence, Farron, the others…

  “Dominick! Are you listening to me? We have to – ”

  “That’s not bad, if you think about it.” He was participating in some other conversation, one inside his head. “I mean, ten, all things considered… Really, that’s not too bad.”

  “Dominick!”

  “Jeep comin’!” someone called from the dining room. “From our side!”

  Sisto, Harry, and Peter Ricks collected in the dining room by the French doors that, in milder climes, opened on a café–style veranda along the west side of the inn.

  “Cavalry coming to the rescue?” Peter Ricks contemplated.

  “Not much of a rescue,” Sisto gauged.

  Indeed, there was only a single, canvas–topped jeep barreling along the road at full tilt. A few sporadic shots from the Germans along the east side of the firebreak kicked up dust and snow along the pavement, and the jeep veered sharply off the road, skidding this way and that in a shower of white powder as it dodged for the protective lee of the gasthaus. The jeep slid to a halt by the veranda. Sisto flung open the French doors, beckoning at the driver to hurry inside.

  “Good God!” Harry exclaimed.

  “I’ll be damned!” Peter Ricks chimed.

  Dominick Sisto laughed.

  Joe Ryan pulled himself from the jeep, seemingly no more disturbed at having been shot at than if he’d driven through a cloud of pestering midges. His primary annoyance was directed at the three men in the doorway. “What the hell do you clowns think you’re doing? Dominick, who told you this fat old bastard was allowed to fight a war? If his missus ever found out – ! Ricks, I thought one of you’d have some sense; God knows why I thought it might be you! You – ” and here he pointed to all three of them with a leather driving glove purchased at only one of the most posh haberdasheries on Saville Row “ – all of you are in such deep shit with me…” He threw his elegantly clad hands up in exasperation.

  Ryan blustered by them into the dining room, threw a barely acknowledging glance toward the soldiers gathered in the doorway to the lobby who stared at this strange apparition in his tailored combat fatigues, spit–shined boots, nattily tilted garrison camp. “Private business!” Ryan barked at them and chased them back to the lounge with a flick of his gloved fingers. The three of them – Harry, Ricks, and Sisto – stood awkwardly like schoolboys caught in some prank by the headmaster as Ryan turned on them only barely holding his voice in check in deference to the ears in the lounge no doubt cocked their way. To Harry and Ricks: “Where the hell’ve you two been? What’ve you been up to? Never mind. I don’t want to know. We’ll talk about it later.” To Sisto: “This has something to do with you, doesn’t it? Is that all you know how to do is make trouble? Don’t even talk to me! There’ll be plenty of time for arse–kickings later.” He took a breath, composing himself. “You’ve put on a hell of a show here, Dominick, but I’m bringing you the word: show’s over. I see you’ve got plenty of transport parked outside. Get your people together, have them load up their shit and let’s vamoose. You, Harry…” Ryan stood in front of his friend, shook his head in puzzlement and irritation, and gave one of the shorter man’s full cheeks a painful twist. “Why do you do these things to me?”

  “How’d you find us?” Harry asked, massaging his sore cheek.

  “I’ve been chasing you sneaky sons of bitches since you didn’t show up in Liege which is where we should be right now! Sitting in some nice, warm café eating hot grub and toasting how well everything came out!” He rested a hand on his admirably flat belly. “You guys give me a stomach ache, I swear to Christ! All of you! And that limey crony of yours, too!”

  “He’s Scottish,” Harry said.

  “He’s a pain in the arse,” Ryan retorted. “Dominick, I don’t see you moving!”

  Sisto and Ricks were exchanging an odd, contemplative look – a shared thought.

  Harry saw that look, the cast of their eyes, and felt the hair rise on his neck.

  “Are we done, Captain?” Sisto asked Ricks.

  Ricks beckoned him to follow. They all did, into the foyer and to the front door. Ricks opened it slowly hoping not to draw fire. He politely advised Ryan to stand clear of the opening lest a sniper “part your hair,” then directed Sisto’s attention to the wrecks still blazing at the entrance to the draw. “It’ll take engineers to clear that mess, and the engineers can’t engineer as long as we’re here.”

  Sisto nodded. His face was steeped in calculation…and conflict. He knew Ricks was spot on in his analysis…and wished he wasn’t.

  “They can’t bring anything up the road, Dominick. And because of all these lovely trees, there’s no place they can set up a field piece or even a mortar with a clean angle of fire on us.”

  “Which means…”

  “Which means it’s doughfoot against doughfoot. They have to come across all that open ground and this place is built like a pillbox.”

  “You think we can go another round?”

  “At least.”

  At which point Harry angrily slammed the door shut. “No! You two are insane! Joe! Didn’t you say we’re ordered out?”

  “I did say that, Harry. They don’t seem to be listening. What do you suggest I do about it?”

  Harry turned to Sisto. “Dominick – ”

  The lad silenced him with a hand on the shoulder. Sisto smiled gratefully, appreciatively, sadly. He turned for the lounge.

  Frantically, Harry turned to Ryan. “Joe, stop them!”

  “Harry, I don’t want that kid hurt any more than you, but I don’t see a whole hell of a lot I can do about it!” Joe Ryan had always had more of an immediate sense of what people were about than Harry; had the skill of instantly reading and gauging them. He did not bother to argue or plead with Dominick Sisto and Peter Ricks. He’d looked into their faces and knew what Harry still refused to acknowledge: the issue was beyond discussion.

  *

  The lounge was sadly empty. About the lads gathered there still lay the bedrolls of their mates whose bodies lay strewn about the snowy ground outside.

  “We’ve been ordered out,” Sisto told them, “but I think we’ve got another chance to hurt these birds before we hightail it. So…I want to stay for a bit.” He studied those weary, young faces, looking for anger, rebellion, objection. They simply sat waiting for more. Sisto pointed to Big Man Wright. “Big fella! You know how to use a .30 caliber? Good. Take the gun upstairs, take a window on the south side. You’ll find ammo and a change of barrels in one of the rooms upstairs. You with the big mouth – ” this to Horse “ – you’re upstairs at the north end of the floor with your BAR. Get yourself a good pile of ammo close by.” To Peter Ricks: “Captain, could I get you to take that chopper of yours upstairs and cover the seam between ‘em?”

  “My thought exactly.”

  “The rest of us’ll stay down here and pick a window.” To Ryan: “I’ll trade you that weapons carrier outside for your jeep. Take my wounded out?”

  Ryan nodded.

  “Ok, fellas, somebody pull the truck up to the dining room. The rest of you help get these boys loaded up. And you!” Sisto pointed at Harry. “You go, too.”

  Harry began to open his mouth in protest but Ryan silenced him with a raised hand.

  “Don’t even start!” Ryan commanded. “If you think I’m going home to tell Cynthia – ! Forget it! If I have to drag you out of here by your ear, you’re coming out of here with me!”

  As the other soldiers shuffled by, helping the wounded out, Sisto pulled Harry aside. “Signor, you wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for me. I got a lot to carry on my head as it is, but on top of that, if something happened to you…Prego, Signor, don’t stick me with that, too.”

  As I had, Harry laid his weapons and ammunition on the bar. For those who’d need it. He turned to Ricks. “Pete…”

>   Ricks took his hand, smiled. “It’s ok, Harry. Really. You know, I haven’t felt like a drink since we took that walk up in the Huertgen!” The smile faded. “If it comes to it, write to my parents for me.”

  Harry nodded, afraid if he’d spoke it’d come out a sob.

  Ricks turned to leave but Harry continued to clasp his hand. Ricks laid his hook atop Harry’s hand. “I’ve got to go to work, Harry. Get home safe.” And he left.

  Horse picked up Chicken Hollis in his arms.

  “I’m afraid, Horse.” The high, adolescent voice was weak.

  “Don’t be, kid. A short ride and you’re home free.”

  “Come with me, Horse.”

  “I won’t be far behind you, kid. I promised you you’d be awright and this is ol’ Horse keepin’ his promise.” Horse turned to Harry. “Colonel, Sir, you see he gets back ok? Please, Sir? I promised him I wouldn’t let nothing bad happen.”

  Harry looked at the ashen lad. How do I promise he won’t die? Harry managed to nod, and Horse carried the boy out.

  Harry stood alone in the lounge, looking down at the rumpled blankets, scattered playing cards, books, magazines, letters, the guitar that had lulled the lads to sleep the night before snug in its case.

  “Goddammit!”

  *

  The lorry was backed up to the French doors, its engine idling, Ryan at the wheel, the last of the wounded set carefully in the back and wrapped in blankets. Sisto stood by the tailgate to assist Harry into the back.

  “I’m real sorry, Signor. I mean…well, you know. Everything.”

  Harry nodded. “I’m not judging you, Dominick.”

  “I know I disappointed you. But I’d feel bad if, because of that…”