Silver Stars

by Michael Grant

  “Listen, Williams, I can’t have you unconscious or flaking out. So you can either die in a morphine haze or maybe get out of here. Hang on. Just hang on.”

  She draws the shovel to her, turns it awkwardly, and stabs it weakly into the dirt beneath Williams’s face. It is immediately apparent that this will never do because she has nowhere to put the dirt she digs out. It will pile up but then tumble right back down.

  The sergeant, looking down from what feels like a very distant height, sees the problem and says, “Get me a poncho. Now!”

  In less than a minute the sergeant has flapped the poncho down, like a housewife making a bed, to cover the ground to Frangie’s left.

  Frangie digs out another spadeful, and Williams screams.

  Another spadeful, and another, and Williams screams as the sergeant carefully draws the poncho and the dirt up the slope. He empties it and returns the poncho.

  This process is repeated a dozen times. The blood is rushing to Frangie’s head and hands, making her eyes tear up and her nose run and causing her legs to go numb. The heat is appalling, and she can smell her own hair singeing. After twenty minutes Frangie has herself pulled back up just long enough to clear her head.

  “Water,” she gasps. She upends a proffered canteen and some sensible fellow drains a second canteen over her head. Then she slithers back down and the slow, slow digging proceeds anew.

  Finally she notices that Williams is screaming less. She asks for and is passed a flashlight. In the light she can peer ahead and see that a small gap has opened between Williams’s back and the bottom of the tank. His shirt is soaked red.

  With infinite care despite the trembling in her fingers she walks her fingers down his back until she finds the place where a shattered rib sticks out. She feels around the hole; there shouldn’t be an artery there, but she has to be sure. Has he lost so much blood he’ll go into shock?

  “Pass me a rope. Put a loop in it!” Frangie calls, spitting dirt. “All right, Williams, I’m giving you the shot now.” She stabs down into his shoulder and squeezes the blessed pain relief into him. “Before you flake out, try to raise your hands together.”

  This brings a fresh cry of agony, but Williams can sense the possibility of life now, and he does it. He has big hands, the calloused hands of a man who has picked cotton since the age of five. Frangie passes the rope over them and tugs to tighten the knot.

  “Okay, Sarge, pull me up first,” she yells.

  She is yanked up like a cork popping from a bottle of champagne.

  The sergeant takes over. “Okay, boys, on the rope and pull, but slow and easy.”

  They pull and Williams slides up the side of the ditch and is dragged several feet away to cries of relief from his comrades, followed quickly by relieved insults and hectoring. Frangie leaps to kneel beside him. She tries not to think about the fact that within five seconds the tank slips with a muffled but earth-rumbling sound to crush the narrow gap beneath its thirty-three tons of steel.

  Thank you, Lord.

  She uses scissors to cut Williams’s shirt from tail to collar and examines his broad back. The rib is a mess and the exit wound is gruesome, but that alone won’t kill him. But that says nothing about internal bleeding and possibly fatal damage to internal organs. And she counts at least three other broken ribs, though not extruding.

  “Turn him over, gently,” she instructs the attentive soldiers around her.

  This time Williams’s scream of agony is cut off abruptly as he faints. Morphine only does so much.

  She pulls away the cut uniform and sees that a piece of root or perhaps a branch has been shoved into his belly. The wood is still in place, a bung in a barrel, limiting the bleeding.

  “We have to get him to a field hospital right now,” Frangie snaps.

  “Shouldn’t you pull out that stick?” the sergeant asks, much more deferential than he had been earlier.

  “No. It may be acting as a plug, in which case we’d need whole blood and plasma and an operating theater.”

  “Right,” the sergeant admits.

  “And a surgeon,” Frangie adds. “Move him to a jeep while he’s out—he’s better off not feeling it.”

  In less than five minutes Williams is on a stretcher tied to the hood of a jeep.

  “That was good work, Doc,” the sergeant says. “You okay?”

  “I’m going to throw up.”

  The sergeant grins. “You go right ahead, honey, you deserve a good puke. Hell, you deserve a damn Silver Star, although they aren’t handing those out to colored soldiers much.”

  Frangie vomits into a shallow depression, and a soldier solicitously shovels dirt over the mess as the sergeant hands her a hip flask.

  “It’s some French brandy we liberated from an A-rab shop.”

  Frangie has never before tasted any form of alcohol. Her church does not approve, not at all, and she has sat through many of Pastor M’Dale’s sermons on the subject of demon rum. But it would be rude not to accept, and she wants something more than water to wash away the vile taste of her own bile. Maybe it will stop the trembling in her hands. She takes a careful swig and gasps.

  The brandy burns its way down her throat to form a small ball of liquid fire in her stomach. She’s a small person and inexperienced at drinking, so even this small draft is enough to spread a strange but comforting warmth out through her limbs.

  “Thanks,” she says.

  “You saved that boy’s life.”

  She has no answer to that. She’s broken the prohibition against alcohol, but she’s not ready to abandon the humility she’s been taught. “It’s my job, I suppose,” Frangie says.

  She walks away on legs shaking from the aftereffects of adrenaline and notices that the alcohol has done its job of pushing fear back just a little.

  Just a little, but enough for now.

  3

  RAINY SCHULTERMAN—NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, USA

  “Sergeant Schulterman, sir.”

  “At ease. Please take a seat, Sergeant; we are not very big on formality around here.”

  Rainy removes her cover—her cap—and sits in a well-worn wooden chair, the kind with arms that come around and are too high for her to prop her elbows on comfortably. She places her hands flat, palms down, on her neatly ironed olive drab uniform slacks, keeps her mirror-polished shoes flat on the linoleum floor, and trains her eyes on the lieutenant colonel. Rainy is on leave in New York, having returned from a successful mission in North Africa.

  Colonel Corelli is middle-aged, with steel-gray hair cut a bit too long, a pale face, and thoughtful brown eyes sunk deep beneath bushy brows. The brass on his uniform says colonel, but his look, his demeanor, says professor.

  No sooner is she seated than there is a brief knock and they are joined by a very different sort of creature. He is a civilian in a passable dark-gray suit, starched white shirt, conservative tie, and expensive and properly shined—but not military-polished—shoes.

  The colonel performs the introductions. “Sergeant Schulterman, Special Agent Bayswater, FBI.”

  Rainy’s heart sinks. She knows immediately what this is about. The end of her career in the US Army may be only minutes away. Her expression turns from curious to deliberately blank.

  “Agent Bayswater.”

  “Sergeant Schulterman.”

  They do not shake hands, and she does not rise from her seat.

  She doesn’t like him. It’s a snap judgment, in part a reaction to what she expects he will be saying next. But beyond that, there’s something smug and condescending in the way he looks her up and down, like he’s trying to decide whether she’s a crook or a piece of meat. He has a bent nose, broken while boxing perhaps, and that prominent twist in his nose has given his mouth a permanent sneer.

  “I don’t suppose you know why you’re here, Sergeant,” Colonel Corelli says.

  “No, sir.”

  “Oh, I bet she’s got some idea,” the FBI man says. “Don’t you, honey
?”

  Colonel Corelli winces, the way refined people do when they hear someone being rude or unpleasant.

  Rainy turns slightly toward Bayswater. “Sergeant. It’s Sergeant Schulterman.”

  “Is that so? Well, Sergeant, you’re supposed to be a very bright girl, so I’m betting you have a pretty clear notion of why the FBI is here. Am I right? Or have I been misled and you’re not so bright after all?”

  “When my superior officer informs me as to his reasons for bringing me here, then I will know,” Rainy says frostily. She places the emphasis on his reasons. She is a soldier, not a civilian, and she does not take orders from the FBI.

  The colonel takes the opportunity to lean forward, his body language favoring Rainy. “There may be a mission. A mission you may be able to carry out better than anyone else.”

  Rainy is intrigued and ready to feel relieved, but she keeps her face guarded and neutral. Rainy Schulterman is of medium height and medium weight with frizzled, black hair that has been pinned down to stop its tendency to spring up and out. Her eyes are brown and distinctly skeptical, even judgmental. She gives the impression of being closed up tight, self-contained; not quite hostile, but not one to suffer fools gladly either. For a person of the female sex, neither large nor powerful, possessing neither rank nor title, and young besides, she is unsettlingly intimidating.

  “Yes, sir,” Rainy says.

  “Your old man’s a crook,” Agent Bayswater says.

  Rainy shoots to her feet. “Colonel, do I have permission to return to my duties?”

  The colonel smothers a grin and waves her down. “Sit, sit. You don’t have any duties, Sergeant, you’re on leave.” He pulls a slim manila folder from atop a pile of folders, opens it, and reads. “In fact, you are on thirty days’ leave in recognition of your actions in Tunisia, where you parachuted—and with only the most minimal training—into the middle of a retreat, joined a lost platoon, and managed by the end of it to come away with a Waffen SS colonel in your custody. I understand you’ve been recommended for a Silver Star.”

  “I have that honor, sir, though it was the GIs in that platoon who did the real work.”

  “Well, it was a hell of a thing,” Colonel Corelli says, shaking his head in admiration. “I’ve read the reports from your colonel and from a Sergeant Garaman who was in command of the patrol after both the officers were killed.”

  Bayswater isn’t having it. “Which doesn’t change the fact that your father, Shmuel Schulterman, is a numbers runner for Abe Vidor, who works in turn for the Genovese crime family. And that could mean hard time in Dannemora prison for your old man.”

  Rainy turns a cold glare on the FBI man. “Agent Bayswater, you want something from me. Threatening me is not the way to get it.” There are times, she reflects, when her own chutzpah amazes her.

  “On the contrary, honey, I don’t want a damn thing. It’s your people, Army Intelligence, who want something from us. I’m just making sure you understand who’s in charge, and it ain’t you.”

  The colonel sighs and raises pacifying hands. He has no patience for this posturing, but neither does he have the force to end it. “Maybe we should get to the point. Schulterman, the US Army is planning an action—I won’t say where or when—but there is a person in the . . . let’s say, target area . . . who may be of some use to Army Intelligence. Agent Bayswater, perhaps you’d like to explain your end of it.”

  Bayswater stares at Rainy. It is a hard, aggressive stare, an intimidating stare, no doubt a stare he has used to cow many a criminal suspect. Rainy is worried, but she is not intimidated by Agent Bayswater, and she lets him know it by returning his gaze with a blank, emotionless expression.

  Finally, the FBI man sighs, shrugs his shoulders, and mutters, “Broads in the army. You can keep ’em. It’ll never happen in the FBI; I can promise you that.”

  “A woman might have gotten to the point by now, rather than playing games,” Rainy snaps.

  Bayswater snorts a derisive laugh. “A real woman would still be gossiping; I don’t know what you are, honey. But okay, I’ve got things to do, and maybe you do too. So here it is. We’ve tried working out deals to get help from the crime bosses. A lot of ’em have connections overseas, and in addition to that they could help with labor troubles on the docks. But all any of them wants is for Lucky to be let out of jail, and that ain’t gonna happen.”

  “He means Lucky Luciano,” Corelli explains unnecessarily. Charles “Lucky” Luciano is the boss of all bosses in New York crime. He is in prison for “pandering,” which is a polite way of saying he ran a prostitution ring, along with gambling, protection rackets, union rackets, and assorted other profitable enterprises.

  “Luciano is in a hole in Dannemora and he ain’t getting out, but that’s all the mob wants, all it says it wants anyway. Give us Luciano and we’ll be good, patriotic Americans and help out the war effort. That’s their demand, and they won’t budge.”

  Corelli picks up the narrative. “The target area is a place where certain members of New York criminal gangs have useful contacts. Contacts who may provide us with intelligence on German positions.”

  “I see,” Rainy says, and she does. Obviously the target is Italy or perhaps one of its islands, Sicily or Sardinia. It was not hard to look at a map and see that the next move for US and Allied forces in Tunisia might be some portion of Italy. Knocking Italy out of the war would be very helpful.

  “I doubt very much that you do see, honey,” Bayswater says.

  Rainy’s pride flares and she very nearly becomes indiscreet, but she reins it in. Barely. “You believe my father has connections to organized crime. You believe he can introduce me to someone in the organization who wants something other than freedom for Lucky Luciano. You believe this person has connections in Sicily or Sardinia or wherever in Italy that would be helpful. You want my father to make a connection and for me to approach this person with a suggestion or at least pave the way for someone more senior to have that conversation.”

  This leaves the FBI man openmouthed and temporarily flummoxed. His mouth closes with an audible click. But he recovers quickly. “We don’t want a damned thing, the army wants it, and we are just making sure you don’t say or do something you shouldn’t. And we want a full report on whatever goes on.”

  “I don’t take orders from the FBI.”

  “You damn well will take orders from me, sister.”

  He’s moved from honey to sister. Progress, of a sort. “No. And I will not be threatened either.”

  “How about if I arrange to put your old man in the clink?”

  “Then you’ll report back to your superiors that you jailed a small-time numbers runner and blew the assignment, which I would guess was to render support to Colonel Corelli.”

  “Jesus!” the FBI agent explodes in disgust. He can no longer remain seated but jumps up, nearly knocking his chair over. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  Rainy is about to tell him when Corelli intervenes. “She’s a soldier and under military law, not civilian law, so how about we all calm down? What do you say?” He shakes his head in irritation mixed with amusement. “Sergeant, I am not going to order you to take this on. But as I understand it, there’s a lesser boss, there’s a term for it—”

  “A capo,” Agent Bayswater says, still glaring at Rainy. “Or underboss.”

  “Underboss. Le mot juste. An underboss named Vito Camporeale. He’s got family connections in . . . the target area. And he has a son named Francisco—Cisco they call him—right here in New York. Cisco has gotten himself into a heap of trouble.”

  Bayswater says, “Racketeering, pandering, pornography, and loan-sharking. Only, Cisco screwed up and got overly ambitious. He tried to take over a block that belongs to a colored gang up in Harlem. But see, there’s a peace deal between the Wops and the coons, and the Five Families don’t want a war with the coons right now, what with making money hand over fist on the docks and off drunk soldiers. Cisco shot a
colored boy who was connected, see, and now it’s blood for blood.”

  The full truth begins to dawn on Rainy. “You’re going to offer to get Cisco to . . . to a safe place. And you want me to get my father to introduce me to Camporeale and—”

  “Vito the Sack, they call him.” Bayswater now comes close. He puts his hands on the back of Rainy’s chair, leans down so she can feel his breath on the side of her neck. “Because when a fellow displeases him, see, he likes to take a razor and swipe, swipe, the man’s not a man anymore, if you take my meaning.”

  Without turning to face him, Rainy repeats, “You want me to get my father to introduce me to Vito the Sack and get him to help us in . . . the target area. In exchange, we’ll save his son.”

  Bayswater is taken aback by her calm. She feels him release his grip on her seat back. Of course her calm is mostly an act because Rainy’s mind is screaming with complications and personal fears, the foremost of which is confronting her father with this. She wrote to him months earlier to let him know that she knows about his other activities. But since coming home on leave she and her father have never mentioned it. Forcing him to face it? To face the fact that his activities have now ensnared his daughter? That feels very, very hard to Rainy.

  On the other hand, part of Rainy is excited. The part of her that wants to contribute something to destroying the monster Hitler. She is a mere buck sergeant, one of hundreds of thousands of such in the US Army, but she’s being offered an assignment that could really amount to something. She could help to save the lives of GIs like those she met in Tunisia. She has fond memories of solid, reliable Dain Sticklin and charming Jack Stafford, and she was amazed—and just a little scared—by Rio Richlin.

  Since the desperate combat in the desert, that young woman, Rio, has insinuated herself into Rainy’s mind. The mix of freckle-faced naiveté and savage Amazon brutality has affected Rainy’s worldview, has shown her a glimpse of a future in which ideas of masculinity and femininity could be utterly transformed. There is a revolution in Rio Richlin (who would no doubt snort derisively at such a notion). All over the country women are going into factories and doing jobs previously reserved for men only. All over the world clever women—and Rainy knows herself to be in this category—are contributing their intelligence and insight to the war effort. But women have always worked, if not as shipfitters and aircraft mechanics, then as maids and nurses and teachers. And there are examples going back to the time of the Romans of women bright and determined enough to wield real power, though often it was from behind the scenes.