Front Lines

by Michael Grant

  “Sarge got the machine gun!” Suarez says, running up and kicking sand as he does. He’s excited. Giddy. “You should have seen him, it was—”

  “Knock it off,” Cole snaps. “The Tommies say we’re on the wrong beach.”

  “What?” half a dozen voices chorus. Followed by variations on, “Lousy navy,” and “It figures,” and assorted curses and nervous witticisms.

  “We want to be that way.” Cole points with a chopping motion. “About two miles.”

  “Two miles? We’re off by two bloody miles?” Jack demands. “Well, that’s a bit much, what?”

  Jack is playing up his posh-sounding British accent for laughs.

  “Don’t you know this is Uncle Adolf’s’s private beach here,” Cat says. “No GIs allowed.”

  “Where’s Cassel?” Jenou asks, looking around at the dark faces.

  Rio has the answer and it’s on the tip of her tongue, but when it comes down to it, she can’t say the words. She does not want to say that he is dead. She isn’t ready to believe it herself. Kerwin dead? No, that’s nuts. But there’s a mix of sand and blood grit between her fingers.

  “Cassel’s not coming.” She doesn’t mean to sound terse but she’s feeling sick, and one more word and she might be sick. Jack makes eye contact, moves slightly as if he would comfort Rio but thinks better of it and instead pulls off his helmet to push his unruly red hair back.

  The jittery smartass talk dies out then for a while. They straighten their gear, take long pulls from their canteens, cast worried looks around, and follow Cole as he feels his way forward, leaving the beach.

  “Topping this dune, keep low. Don’t give them a silhouette.”

  They keep low.

  Cassel. Dead.

  Beyond the dune there’s a dip, a sort of natural ditch partly choked with straw-like beach grass. The depression runs parallel to the beach and they follow this, relieved to be able to stand up. A low, reassuring conversation starts up again.

  “Sarge blew the hell out of that machine gun.”

  “Is Cassel hurt?”

  “Are they evacuating him?”

  “Who was shooting, was that a German?”

  “Cassel bought it.”

  “Bought what?”

  “Just some fugging Italian, I heard, not Krauts. But Sarge got them with grenades, boom, boom.”

  “Keep quiet,” Sergeant Cole says, and there’s a raggedness to his voice. “Shut up and whoever’s got their canteen banging, tighten it down. Keep your interval.”

  Keeping an interval is easier said than done moving through pitch darkness where the person in front of you disappears within twenty yards.

  Rio follows Jenou and, as far as she can tell, is followed in turn by Sticklin.

  I’m lost. We’re all lost. Cassel most of all.

  A runner from Lieutenant Liefer comes huffing and puffing up behind them and only barely avoids being shot by yelling, “Mustard, mustard!”

  Jenou says, “Ketchup!” She’s the only one to remember the call sign.

  Rio bends down and wipes the blood off her hands onto a sparse tuft of sere grass. But it’s on her rifle as well. So she tries to wipe that with the tail of her shirt, which is soaked with salt water and coated with wet sand. Not good for the mechanism of her rifle, but necessary. She feels wrong, feels like she’s destroying evidence of Kerwin’s life, like she’s trying to forget him, insulting his memory by needing to get his blood off her.

  Luther Geer, his voice quieter than usual, asks, “Is Cassel dead?”

  Rio’s stomach heaves, and she vomits off to the side. Trying to be discreet. Trying not to look weak. Like a girl.

  “Let it go, Geer,” Stick says quietly.

  The runner is with Cole, and in defiance of orders the squad gathers around to eavesdrop.

  “Loot says this is the wrong way,” the runner announces nervously, anticipating a hostile reaction. “Go inland. She says there’s a road.”

  “I’m in a nice sheltered gully here,” Cole answers. “I’ve got cover. She wants us on an open road instead?”

  “Orders from the limey captain. Plus they can’t drive the jeep down this gully.”

  “The half-track can do it.”

  “Bit of a SNAFU there, Sarge: our only remaining half-track took a round right through the engine block. We got a jeep. One jeep.”

  “Uh-huh,” Cole says, and spits. “And what squad is taking point on this little stroll down a wide-open road where we don’t know where we are?”

  “You’re farthest south,” the runner says, and shrugs to show that it’s not his decision, he’s just the messenger.

  “Swell,” Cole mutters. He grabs Rio’s sleeve and pulls her aside. “You all right?”

  “Yeah, just like delayed seasickness or something.”

  “You can’t dwell on it, Richlin.” The way he says it makes it clear he knows this is not about seasickness. “You put it aside. You put it all in a box, and you don’t open that box until after.”

  “Right, Sarge. I’m fine.”

  “Yeah, we’re all just great,” Cole says. “Okay, Geer? You take point. Richlin, you have his back. Castain and Pang take the rear. The other squads will be on our six, so Castain and Pang, do not shoot them. They will be irritated with us if we shoot them.”

  “Right, Sarge.”

  Rio has a moment to wonder which is worse: being in the front, or bringing up the rear. Then again, if you happen to be a German gunner you might aim for the middle of the column, so . . .

  “Don’t watch Geer,” Stick mutters so only Rio can hear. “Look past him. Right? And use your ears too.”

  “Yeah, Stick,” Rio says, hoping she sounds tough and confident, but secretly glad of any advice. Private Geer (and his kitten) is on point, but she neither likes nor trusts the big redhead.

  Stick, on the other hand, pays close attention and takes soldiering seriously, but he’s humping the BAR so he can’t be walking point.

  He hasn’t talked much about it, but once in a tipsy pub conversation back in Britain during extended training, Stick let slip to Rio that he came from money. With his connections and smarts, Stick could easily have arranged a soft job far, far from the front lines. He could have had an officer’s commission without too much effort, and could have found a place on some general’s staff where he would sleep in a feather bed every night. He has chosen instead to serve as a private and to request the infantry.

  No one requests the infantry. Rio sure as hell didn’t.

  Luther seems to think he’s being singled out for his skills, and he puffs out his chest as he swaggers out in front, his face too bright against black night. Rio hears the soft rattle of something in his pack, the crunch of his boots, the sloshing of water in his canteen. She even hears when he farts. But she can see him only as an indistinct gray shape.

  Rio is next in line. Behind her Tilo, then Stick, then Sergeant Cole, who will make a habit of never being far from point, but never so far up front that he’s the first guy shot.

  Absolutely no one but no one wants Cole shot. As far as Rio can tell, Sergeant Cole is the only one who knows what’s going on, or at least can pretend to. Corporal Millican has a little rank, but Rio worries about him, and the truth is, Millican worries even more about himself. Corporal’s stripes do not a leader make.

  They stumble around in the sand until they find the road, and, while it might be more exposed, it’s a whole lot easier to walk along mostly dry, hard-packed dirt interrupted in low spots by shallow patches of slick mud.

  Rio peers deep into the darkness on either side of the road, head swiveling, just like she’s been taught. Is that a German helmet or a rock? Is that a bush or a man squatting behind a machine gun? Are there eyes out there in the night seeking just as eagerly for her?

  Geer walks with his weapon resting in the crook of his left elbow, right arm looped through the strap. Rio does the same, though she occasionally blows into her hands or sticks her fingers under
her arm to ward off the chill. It is cold, cold in the desert night, which they all agree is a travesty, a violation of the laws of the universe, and a damned dirty trick for the god of weather to play on them.

  At first they move slowly, cautiously, then word comes forward to pick up the pace, they don’t have all night, so Geer takes longer strides and the rest follow.

  “How’d he go?” Tilo stage-whispers. “Richlin. How’d he go?”

  Rio considers pretending not to understand, but she understands fine, and Tilo and the others have a right to know. Kerwin had been everyone’s friend. Well, mostly. Luther never liked him much, and not being at all good-looking, he’d been all but ignored by Jenou.

  “Two bullets, chest and neck,” Rio says at last. The callous tone of her voice surprises her. She doesn’t feel callous. She feels like her soul has been sandpapered raw.

  She listens to her news being whispered back down the line. She waits for Cole to put an end to it, but he remains silent, knowing they need to digest this new reality.

  “Was it . . . ?” Suarez doesn’t know quite how to finish that sentence.

  “It didn’t take long,” Rio says. “Doc did his best, but the whole thing, maybe two minutes.” A very long two minutes. Two minutes that will resonate, that will spread into all the minutes to follow.

  There is no follow-up question. The remaining eleven members of the squad ruminate on the fact that a man can be alive and talking and normal, and a second later be bleeding on the sand, and dead within two minutes.

  Two minutes.

  A long time for a dying man to think about the things he’ll never experience.

  There are photos in Rio’s inner pocket, wrapped in oilcloth to keep the wet at bay. She wants to look at these pictures. She wants to remember those memories. She wants to push the other thing, this new and terrible thing, down below those gentler memories, dismiss it, put it in a box, like Sarge said.

  In some way she cannot explain, Kerwin’s death makes Rachel’s death more real. Until now death has been an idea, a thing she could examine from a safe distance. It has touched her, but only through loss, not physically, not graphically, not with blood on her hands. One day Rachel was alive in Rio’s mind, the next she was gone, and Rio misses her, but Rachel’s death happened far away. Rio has had to imagine Rachel’s death. Cassel’s death requires no imagination.

  “Probably didn’t hit the dirt fast enough.” A barely audible whisper from Jenou, bunching up like she shouldn’t. Instinctively moving closer to Rio.

  “He never was quick,” someone else offers. “Still . . .”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “Okay, knock it off,” Cole says, finally shutting the whispers down now that everyone had at least been told the basics. “Back in line, Castain, and keep your goddamn intervals.”

  What else should I tell them? The way his last breath made a sound like a straw at the bottom of a milk shake? The way he emptied his bowels so that he stank? The slickness of his blood? The way it looked like chocolate syrup in the dark?

  They march on, miles passing beneath sore feet. Now the sky is clearing as thick, low cloud gives way to the higher, thinner stuff. The moon has set, but the stars are able to peek through in patches, so now Rio can actually see where she’s going and even see a bit beyond Luther.

  Heel, toe. Heel, toe. She hears the cadence call in her head. Your left, your left, your left, right, left. The soft crunch of boots on hard dirt. The squishy sound when they hit mud. The many sounds of straps chafing, and uniform pants rubbing, and packs straining, and her helmet riding on the tops of Rio’s ears, which means she needs to adjust her helmet liner, though not just now. Definitely not taking her helmet off just now.

  They were taught in basic that a helmet is not there to stop bullets. It is just there to stop ejected rifle brass and falling shrapnel from hitting your head. A bullet? A German rifle bullet will pass right through the steel helmet like a hot knife through butter.

  Rio isn’t taking her helmet off to adjust it, no, not just yet; she’ll take what armor she can get. She’s seen now what bullets do. But after a while Rio’s mind travels away. It goes to that far-off movie theater. It goes to the last letter from Strand, the one where he sounded just the slightest bit distant, as though maybe he had not really been in the mood to write to her.

  From there it goes to questions of whether she was a fool thinking that one real date, a few stolen kisses on the Queen Mary, and a couple of letters mean they have a real relationship. What are they, even? Boyfriend and girlfriend? Absurd. Going steady? Those are school notions. Those terms are from another life.

  And from there her memory inevitably wanders to the Tiburon and Jack. She glances back at him but sees nothing but his helmet over Sticklin’s shoulder.

  It was nothing, really. Nothing. Really. Even Jenou said it was nothing. Forget it. Rio is Strand’s girl. But that definite statement leads her imagination to questions about women in the air corps. They are almost certainly pretty. Why wouldn’t they be? Of course they are: a smart, good-looking young woman would naturally choose air corps over army, if she could, and if she had a lick of sense.

  In my own defense, I just wanted to drive a truck.

  Strand is probably already bored with the idea of her, of little Rio from Nowhere, America. Yes, he is from that same nowhere, but that will just make some bold floozy from the big city all the more enticing to him.

  She chews on that for a few miles and then begins to think about life after the war. What would that be? First, she will finish school, of course. Then . . . Well, what then? College? She would be only the second person in her family to ever finish high school, and if she went to college, the first Richlin ever to do so.

  Or she could forget schooling, get married, and have children. And cook. And clean house. Help the children with their homework. Say things like, “Just wait till your father gets home.”

  Not yet. First this. First war.

  Gradually, as the long, slow miles pass, Rio stops thinking about anything really, and just walks. She’s had practice at that. Walking doesn’t take much thought after the first few miles.

  The sun turns the horizon pink, then golden, the light picking out random objects—a single big boulder sitting all by itself, a stump, a misshapen tree, the peaks of the mountains in the distance off to the right. A random beam of sunlight peeking just for a moment through the clouds brightens half of Jenou’s face but leaves her eyes in the shadow of her helmet. But the dawn has not penetrated the space directly ahead of the column; they march still toward darkness.

  Somewhere out there artillery is blasting away, a sound like far-off thunder. Someone was catching hell, and she hopes it’s them, the enemy.

  Kill them all, artillery, kill them all before they can kill me.

  “Geer, fall back. Richlin, take point,” Cole says.

  “But, Sarge, I’m—” Geer starts to complain.

  “Private Geer, when I tell you to fall back, fall back.” No yelling, no threat, just that calm authority Cole always seems to convey.

  And suddenly Rio is walking point.

  Behind her stretch two American platoons and one British platoon. Ahead of her, presumably the enemy. Or maybe just more desert.

  Possibly lions.

  We’re out front because we’re expendable, she realizes. It’s the British commandos who matter; they’re the experienced soldiers and thus more valuable.

  The platoon’s been briefed on the basics of the mission: a crossroads, then a detachment of Nachrichtentruppe, the communications arm of the German army. They were believed not to be defended and were expected to be easy prey.

  “Shoot ’em up, blow up their radios, and run like hell,” that was the short version of the mission.

  Run like hell back to boats that may or may not be there.

  She freezes. Something ahead. On the road.

  It takes several frazzled seconds, several tentative steps, before she recalls the han
d signal for “freeze.” She cocks her left elbow, raises her left hand, and makes a fist. Nevertheless Tilo Suarez, who has been sleep-marching, plows into her.

  “Hey,” he protests.

  “Shut up, Suarez! Sarge!” This in urgent whispers.

  Sergeant Cole holds his palm out to the soldiers behind him, then motions for them to drop and take cover. The squad, and then the rest of the platoon, takes a knee and waits. Sticklin trots off the road, drops, and readies his BAR.

  “What do you see, Richlin?” Cole is at her side, hunched low.

  It’s still just early morning. The hope of a colorful sunrise fades, and now the light is the gray of raw oysters as cloud covers the horizon.

  Rio peers down the road through the gloom, squints, and lowers her head slightly, trying for a different perspective.

  “I think it’s a man, Sarge. I think he’s got a light.”

  Cole draws a deep breath. “I think you may be right. I make it a man and some kind of lantern. You’ve got good eyes, Richlin. Okay. Advance slowly.”

  Advance?

  “Sarge?”

  “Go on, Richlin. Keep your eyes open, issue the challenge, anything happens hit the deck and we’ll open up. Stick? Heads up with that BAR.”

  The man—if that’s indeed what it is—stands about two hundred yards up the road. There is a hut off to the man’s right, a low adobe structure no bigger than a garden toolshed. But there could easily be a couple of German infantrymen in there. There could be a machine gun.

  It can happen so fast. Instantly. Without warning. Like it had to Kerwin.

  To him. But not to me.

  “Mustard!” Rio yells, louder and shakier than she intends.

  No answer. She raises her rifle to her shoulder. She sights on the figure. She flicks off the safety.

  Elevation? Windage?

  “Mustard! Answer or I shoot!”

  “Is it shallots? Do not shoot, I beg you!”

  The words are heavily accented. German accent? Or Italian?

  “Why shouldn’t I shoot?”

  “Because I am not your enemy.”

  “Put your hands up in the air!”

  The lantern, if that’s what it is, rises from below waist height to above head height. This has the effect of spilling yellow light down on the head of an old man dressed in an aged uniform that he has not been able to button all the way.