Читать книгу For God and Country - Mark Bowlin - Страница 11

December 27, 1943

1000 Hours

CINC Southwest Headquarters, Monte Soratte, Italy

Major Douglas Grossmann sat alone at a conference table in a mahogany-paneled room, where two months before he had received the most depressing news possible: orders to establish a spy network in the Naples–Caserta–Cassino area of operations and infiltrate the American high command. On paper, it sounded challenging but doable. He was more American than German after all, and he had done it before at Salerno. But in practice, it would be more than challenging. At Salerno, the Allies were disorganized, but by the time they took Naples and continued their march north along the Italian peninsula, they had networks of their own. Intelligence collection networks of spies and collaborators. Counterintelligence networks manned by hard men—professionals who played the great game to win. He had thought it a death sentence.

Then a disagreeable prick of a colonel had told Grossmann that good men were dying by the millions on the Eastern Front. All German soldiers were expected to do their part, including dying if necessary, and he was asked, “What makes you special?”

That’s the kind of question that a soldier might have an answer to, but can’t really articulate to an unpleasant superior officer, so Grossmann had taken his orders, fulfilled his mission as best he could, and come back to the German lines. But it hadn’t been without cost. Now he was sitting in that same room, waiting for the same disagreeable prick of a colonel, in order to find out the consequences of his last mission and perhaps learn something of his next assignment.

Grossmann had been given a week off and now it was time to get back to the war. He was ready. Christmas had been spent alone in a small apartment that he kept near the Piazza Navona. He had been tempted to put on civilian clothes and cross the river to go mingle with the crowd at Saint Peter’s Square, but he decided to stay in bed and sleep instead. He was a deeply, deeply lapsed Lutheran in any case, and had no desire to participate in a Catholic ceremony simply because he was lonely.

That was the crux of the problem—the source of his discontent. Major Grossmann was lonely. His comrade and good friend, Captain Mark Gerschoffer, had been killed at San Pietro by an American captain named Berger, and his own source with access to the American camp reported that the Texan had tortured his friend for information before executing him.

His source, Antoniette Bernardi, was the one person he would have liked to spent Christmas with, but she had gone with her family to a villa they owned in the north of Italy to spend the Christmas season skiing. Grossmann had to call in several favors to get the necessary passes and arrange the rail transport, but Bernardi had earned it all. She was Germany’s premier agent in Italy.

She was an amazingly dangerous woman. Grossmann knew that she lied fluently and manipulated men like puppets. She was beautiful, hypnotic, and a dedicated fascist, and in the words of his predecessor at the Rome station, she had “a heart as cold as a witch’s caress.” He knew all of these things and more. She unnerved him, yet he still desired her. He knew that if she were to seduce him—it would never be the other way around—she would own a majority of his soul, which would never be returned. Intellectually, he knew that to become Bernardi’s lover was akin to signing a Faustian pact with the devil, but like Faust, he dallied with the notion that losing his soul might be worth it. He certainly would never really control events in this world again. He had sighed on that Christmas morning and wondered if she had been there with him, at that moment, whether he would have signed the pact. He probably would have, he reflected.

This Monday, however, was a different day. It was time to leave the self-pity, the loneliness, and the unrequited desire behind and focus on work. But what was he to do, and what was the High Command’s plan for their German-American intelligence officer?

He had been told his last mission was a success even if he personally did not see it as such. Grossmann had penetrated the Fifth Army headquarters on so many occasions that he knew the Italian workers in the canteen by name, and Bernardi’s work had been nothing short of spectacular. She was singularly successful in convincing Allied officers to demonstrate their worth to her by discussing units, locations, and destinations over a bottle of wine or in bed, and she had provided time-sensitive information on Allied operations that had been used to great effect in delaying the Anglo-American advance up the peninsula. Her greatest coup was the discovery of a stockpile of American mustard gas aboard a liberty ship in the Italian port of Bari. Weeks later, the Allies were still cleaning up the mess from the Luftwaffe bombing of the John Harvey.

All good things come to an end, however. Grossmann’s ring was broken up, although he didn’t know exactly how. When Gerschoffer had been taken prisoner and reportedly executed by Captain Berger, Grossmann suspected that his cover was blown. He certainly wasn’t inclined to wait around and find out. Grossmann hurriedly collected Antoniette Bernardi from Caserta, and they made their escape, via Naples and Mondragone, to the sea. In a contract Camorra boat, one with a rich history of smuggling cigarettes, people, and narcotics, Grossmann and Bernardi successfully made a nighttime transit to Gaeta in German-occupied Italy.

Grossmann had been told to take some time off before reporting to work again. He would have liked to return to Germany to see his father in Darmstadt, but ironically, he wasn’t sure he would be able to arrange the necessary transportation for himself. So he stayed in Rome and thought.

He had spent one evening with the wife of an Italian officer—an unfortunate soldier captured in Russia—but she was becoming resentful of the German occupation and carped incessantly about the hardships she had to endure. When he had left her flat the next morning he had tossed some lire on her entryway table in respect of happier memories, and he knew he wouldn’t see her again.

As for other carnal pursuits, it seemed that the remaining Italian ladies of his acquaintance had recently found either God or patriotism—their motivation made no difference to Grossmann as they were no longer sleeping with German officers. The lack of other available women had driven his thoughts back to Bernardi, and from there he alternately found himself wishing for her return or a transfer back to Paris. Perhaps that would be the best of all possible worlds: nightclubs and French women and fine wines and no Antoniette.

In his meeting with his Abwehr superiors this morning, he thought he might press the argument that he should return to Paris. The Allied landings in France were only a matter of time, and his services would be needed there. Too many Americans would be flooding into France and the Low Countries for him to be personally identified in that theater. It would be safer there.

Grossmann had been waiting twenty minutes past the appointed time of the meeting before the colonel arrived. The delay made him both anxious and irritable. Taking the counsel of his fears, he began to worry that he was in trouble—that despite the initial praise, he would be blamed for Gerschoffer’s death and the subsequent collapse of his network. Christ, he thought, they’re going to send me to the Russian front.

That was the preeminent thought on his mind as the door finally opened and in strode the disagreeable colonel. Grossmann leapt to his feet, offered a crisp salute, and was waved to his seat by his superior as the colonel hanged his overcoat and hat on a rack in the corner of the room.

“Major Grossmann.” The Abwehr colonel studied Grossmann for a moment before continuing. “You seemed to have survived your ordeal. I recall you were upset with the prospect that you might not.”

Grossmann decided there was no sufficient answer, so he said nothing.

After an uncomfortable moment of silence where the colonel merely stared at Grossmann, the colonel said, “Captain Gerschoffer did not. Survive, that is. Explain why you lived and he did not.” The colonel pulled out a pack of American cigarettes from his breast pocket and lit one using an American Zippo lighter with a painted image of Betty Boop. He did not offer a cigarette to Grossmann.

“Well, sir. We were operating in different areas. As you know, I was in the American encampment at Caserta, and Captain Gerschoffer was providing support to my mission as well as serving as a conduit to corps headquarters in Cassino. At the time of Gerschoffer’s death, we were respectively in the midst of two opposing armies and separated by forty kilometers . . . I guess I don’t understand the nature of your question.” Grossmann understood exactly the nature of the question. The colonel wished to make him uncomfortable and defensive.

“Yes, I see that. Just answer the questions, Major. How did Captain Gerschoffer die?”

“As I noted in my report, sir. It appears that he came into contact with an American intelligence officer of the 36th Division named Berger in San Pietro. My source said that Berger kidnapped Gerschoffer from San Pietro, tortured him, interrogated him, and then executed him before escaping back to American lines.”

“It was this same Berger, was it not, who captured your team in Pisciotta?”

“I think so, sir, but I don’t know for sure.”

“And Captain Gerschoffer had taken the responsibility of ordering that team to Pisciotta?”

“Yes, sir. To arrest the Irish priest.”

“Yes, now I remember. Back to Gerschoffer’s death. Where is your source now . . . the Roman whore?” The colonel lit another cigarette from the butt of his first.

“She’s in the Lake Como region of Italy. In Sondrio.”

“Yes. On the Swiss border, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you arranged her travel?”

“Yes, sir. For her and her parents. I got the passes through the provost’s office. They were authorized.”

“Quite.” Abruptly the colonel asked, “Did you know that your whore and your Neanderthal captain were lovers?” The colonel smiled a nasty smile and waited for Grossmann’s answer, but he didn’t have to. The look of genuine shock on Grossmann’s face was sufficient.

“No, sir. I wasn’t aware of that. I had warned—”

“Have you taken her as a lover?”

“No, sir.” Grossmann stared at the colonel and asked, “What are you getting at?”

“We knew you hadn’t. Just a few more questions, Major. Where was Captain Gerschoffer from?”

“His family moved quite a bit, sir. I understand they’re in the East now—in Posen. That’s where I sent the letter to his family.” It had been difficult—those letters always were, but this was particularly hard.

“Not Germany, Major, where was he from in the States?”

“He wasn’t born in the States, sir. He was born in the Fatherland.”

The colonel sighed in exasperation. “Do I need to ask the question in English so you can understand?”

“He was from Georgia, sir. In the South. But he was a German patriot who—”

The Abwehr colonel interrupted again. “You were saying Georgia’s in the South, correct?”

“Yes, sir. It’s in the areas called the Old South and the Deep South. They’re not exactly the same. You see—”

“Is Texas also in the South?”

“Yes, sir, but not completely in the cultural sense. Texas is unique because it’s so large. It’s bigger than prewar France and it’s part southern, part western, part Mexican, part cowboy, part redneck, part roughneck . . . and all loudmouth as far as my experience goes.”

“Indeed. They both fought for the Confederacy in their Civil War?”

“Yes, sir. Why?”

“Does . . . I mean, did Captain Gerschoffer speak in a Southern accent?”

Grossmann nodded. He wasn’t sure where the conversation was heading, but it inevitably wasn’t going to be down a good road.

“Are the accents the same?”

“No, sir. Texas has several regional accents but they’re similar to a Georgian tone in many respects. The two state accents would be distinct to a Southerner but maybe not to a Northerner. It’s the difference between a Philadelphia accent and a New York accent: they’d know the difference even if no one else did.”

The colonel smiled again—a brief, cynical smile showing tobacco-stained yellow teeth. It was a singularly disagreeable smile, Grossmann thought.

“I don’t care about Philadelphia, Major. Do you think the Southerners still have an affinity to one another?”

“Yes, sir. Absolutely. Can you tell me why you’re asking this?”

“Yes, of course. Did it occur to you that Gerschoffer’s not dead? That perhaps he defected to his fellow Southerners with the connivance of his lover, the Roman whore, who’s now poised to flee to Switzerland—with your assistance? That as we are speaking, your particular friend is being feted and debriefed by American intelligence about our military dispositions, about Abwehr operations, the state of the Fatherland, and the Führer? Answering questions about . . . you?”

1015 Hours

141st Infantry Regiment Headquarters, San Pietro, Italy

The regiment had commandeered a small house on the edge of San Pietro. It was one of the few remaining houses left standing in the unfortunate village. A week before, all the roads and walkways through the village were nearly impassable, as the buildings had collapsed from the shelling and assault of the town. Now, defined trails led back to the church and a few standing homes, but in truth, San Pietro was all but destroyed and little more than a ghost town.

The residents of San Pietro had been trucked away by the Italian authorities to displaced-persons camps, but many had already returned. Perkin had talked to many villagers, some of whom he had met in the caves before the assault, and they were still in shock and denial about their misfortune. Women sat in the rubble of their former homes and cried; children looked through the ruins searching for toys or food; the men were gone. They had been taken away by the Germans to build their defenses on the Gustav Line.

Perkin leaned against the wall of the house and watched as one of his soldiers sat on a slab of stone and played a game of jacks with a girl from the village. He recognized the girl, Stefania Frattini. She had confidently led him by the hand through the passages of the caves into the village only a few weeks before. Then she had been starving and diminished, and in the dark, she looked as though she were eight or nine years old. Fed, washed, and in daylight, she seemed older—maybe thirteen or so—but she still seemed small for her age. Conversely, watching Private Edwin Kulis on the ground playing the child’s game, he somehow seemed younger to the captain than the calm, bookish killer that he knew. What the captain didn’t know was that Kulis was much younger—he had fraudulently enlisted at fifteen and had just turned seventeen during the Battle of Salerno.

“Hello, Stefania Frattini!” Perkin waved from his wall.

“Ciao, Perkin Berger!” She turned to Private Kulis and ordered, “Don’t cheat!” and then ran over to hug the tall Texan.

“You’re looking as pretty as a peach today, Stefania. How are your mama and grandfather?

“Good, good. How is Cugino Orso?” Stefania had met Sam once and she had thought that if she lived to be a hundred, she would never again meet a man so large.

“Cousin Bear’s fine. Just this morning, I watched him eat a whole ham and two dozen eggs for breakfast.” He winced as soon as the words were out. The Frattinis didn’t have much to eat, and he wished he hadn’t made a joke about food.

No harm was done. Her eyes widened slightly, “Really? No. You kid. You have the locket? Can I see the picture again?”

The locket had been a present from Perkin’s Italian girlfriend, Gianina—an art restorer at the Neapolitan National Gallery. On the morning of her death in the terrorist bombing of the Naples Post Office, she had given Perkin a large rectangular locket. When he opened it, he saw a miniature depiction of Saint Michael subduing Satan. She had painted it onto a small ceramic tile and filed it to fit within the locket. Saint Michael, Gianina had told him, was the patron saint of soldiers and would protect Perkin. But the source of Stefania’s fascination was not just that Saint Michael was also a patron saint of San Pietro, nor the widely held belief among the ladies of the town that Perkin had been sent to San Pietro to do Saint Michael’s bidding—it was the face that was painted on Saint Michael’s muscular body. Gianina had crafted a remarkable depiction of Private Edwin Kulis, even down to his army-issued glasses.

“That’s the man I plan to marry,” she said simply.

Somewhat alarmed, Perkin muttered under his breath, “Be careful you don’t catch something.” Private Kulis had lost his virginity in an Italian brothel and had never looked back.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

“I said you’ll be quite a catch someday. Does he know?” Perkin grinned as he looked over at his soldier, who was practicing his skills at jacks.

“Oh, no. I won’t tell him until I’m sixteen,” she said in a businesslike tone. “Mama won’t let me kiss a boy until then, and I can’t get married until I’m seventeen. The war will be over I’m sure, and then I can go to America.”

“Don’t you think he’ll be a little old for you? By the time you’re old enough to date, he’ll be, I don’t know, in his mid-twenties.”

“That doesn’t matter in Italia. Besides, he’s only a few years older than me. He’s maybe sixteen or seventeen at the most.”

“No, Stefania. He’s twenty-two. Did he tell ya he’s a teenager?” Perkin’s alarm was beginning to mount again at the prospect that his rifleman was hustling a very young teenager.

Stefania faced Perkin and rolled her eyes, her hands on her hips. “Capitano. We haven’t discussed these things other than agreeing to be pen pals. He knows nothing about nothing. But I can tell you as an Italian woman, I know how old he is!”

“Is that a fact? I didn’t know that Italian women were so perspicacious.” He grinned again, relieved.

Stefania wagged her finger at him, “You should not use words I don’t know. But if it means we are smart, we are. I tell many things just by looking at people.”

“Really? What do you see in Eddie?” He nodded his head toward Private Kulis.

“He’s small like me, and has good teeth, and he’s very, very smart. Like me.”

“I don’t reckon you have to be the Oracle of Delphi to divine those things. What else do you see?”

“I think he’s very calm, and he’s very comfortable in his skin. Nothing bothers him, he likes to be a soldier, and I think he will want to stay one when the war is finished. I’ll have to give that some thought, though, because I don’t know about being a soldier’s wife. One last thing . . . I think he looks up to you.”

“That’s because I’m taller, honey, but thank you. What about Cousin Bear, what do you see there?”

“That’s easy. His heart is bigger than he is. Who else?”

“Why, me, of course.”

“Oh, my friend . . . you are very hard to see, but you are funny, smart, and . . . allora . . . troubled, I think.”

1020 Hours

CINC Southwest Headquarters, Monte Soratte, Italy

Major Grossmann was stunned. What the colonel was proposing was unthinkable, but he only had Bernardi’s word to go on. Mark Gerschoffer would not have turned sides, of that he was certain. Not unless it was true that he was Bernardi’s lover and she directed him to do so. Her influence on men was formidable.

“Sir, do you have any evidence that Captain Gerschoffer did as you imply?” he asked of the colonel.

“Evidence? No . . . what evidence do you think might apply?”

“I don’t know, sir. Why do you think the situation is anything other than what I described in my report—that Captain Gerschoffer was killed after being captured?”

The colonel smiled again, and Major Grossmann found himself wishing that the colonel would quit doing so. The senior Abwehr officer coughed harshly and then said, “Because I don’t trust you. I don’t trust your whore, and I don’t trust Gerschoffer. Or didn’t, perhaps I should say.” The colonel used his fingers to delineate his point. “Let’s see. We don’t have a body. We haven’t seen a corpse. There’s no collaborating intelligence from the American camp. Your whore is perfectly poised to defect to Switzerland, and, well, I’ve always wondered about your allegiance. It’s Occam’s razor. My hypothesis is simpler and more logical than your own, which is, to wit, that an American intelligence officer infiltrated a heavily fortified city and kidnapped one of our two German-American intelligence officers—a savage brute of a man—tortured him, and executed him. What do you say to that?”

“I can’t express what I’d like to say, Colonel. Other than noting you’re wrong about Mark, and about me, I haven’t a goddamned thing to say.” Grossmann began to feel nauseous. This morning was going worse than he imagined it possibly could. What was next? Orders to the Eastern Front? An interrogation?

The colonel shook his head and looked at his wrist-watch. “Ach, Major, you’re still stuck in your American uniform. You need to embrace your Aryan side for a moment and follow orders, which are to explain to your superior why he’s wrong. I’ll give you thirty seconds to convince me, or I’ll turn this situation over to the Gestapo for more, uh . . . well, let’s call it objective resolution. Go!”

Grossmann glared as the colonel glanced again at his watch. “Don’t bother, Colonel. It won’t take that long. You didn’t question our allegiance when we provided the operational intelligence that delayed the American advance, nor when we discovered the American stockpile of mustard gas in Bari. You never questioned my allegiance when I uncovered ties between British intelligence and the Vatican, nor when I planted the time bombs in Naples. There’s no basis to question it now. I am devoted to the Fatherland. I’ve killed for it, and I’m prepared to die for it. What more do you want?”

The colonel leaned back in his chair and studied Grossmann again as if he were fascinated with his subordinate. “I don’t know, Major. Something’s not quite right with you. Well, anyway, what is that American phrase? ‘No sense beating a horse to death’? Suffice it to say, I’m not convinced—I think you’ll turn the first time things get tough on you.” He paused, lit another cigarette, and stared in silence for a full minute at Grossmann before continuing, “I think you’ll turn, but that doesn’t really matter. Admiral Canaris doesn’t, which is truly good news for you, I suspect. He thinks your work has been exceptional. Maybe they have different standards in the navy, I don’t know. Oh, here’s a little present from the admiral.” He pulled a small rectangular box from his leather briefcase and slid it across the table to Grossmann. When Grossmann opened the box, it revealed an Iron Cross. “The admiral thought that perhaps we might do more for you, say, maybe some more leave or even a mention of your name to the Führer . . . but I convinced him this was quite sufficient.” Switching to English and then to Latin, the colonel continued, “He said to tell you as I gave you this, and I quote, ‘Audaces fortuna iuvat.’ Unquote.”

Fortune favors the bold. Grossmann stared mutely at the box for a moment. It was his first award of the Iron Cross, a medal that he had coveted greatly since the war began. The manner in which it was awarded, though, left him a little dismayed.

“Thank the admiral for me, please, sir.”

“Yes, of course. No pithy Latin or Greek phrase for him in return? No? Well, good luck then.”

Grossmann looked the colonel in the eyes, saw that the other officer was enjoying his discomfiture and confusion, and struggled to achieve a neutral tone. “Good luck with what?”

“Your next assignment, of course. The admiral and I had quite a discussion about this. I thought that you should try to infiltrate the American staff again, but he thought that perhaps the risk would be too high. Maybe a little cooling-off period and we shall try again. Wouldn’t want you to suffer the same fate as your friend, would we? That’s a rhetorical question. No need to answer. So here’s the summation of your future, if you can call it that. You are relieved of responsibility to the Rome Abwehr station immediately. That’s been de facto for some weeks in any case as you’ve seemed to have lost all your Yankee doodles—to one man, I might note. You are to be a semi-independent agent, answerable only to the admiral and me. I insisted on that, by the way. Here is a letter specifying that you are on orders from Admiral Canaris and requesting the assistance of other Axis units as required.” The colonel handed over an envelope and waited until Grossmann read through its contents. “If your whore doesn’t sleep her way into Switzerland, you may retain her services on an as-needed basis; the Abwehr will pay her fee and expenses, of course. Now, to the assignment at hand: the admiral wants you to resume your work on the Vatican.”

At this, Grossmann sat up a little straighter in his chair. Finally, the meeting was turning around. This was good news and he forgot about both the Eastern Front and Paris. He was familiar with the problem as his office had done the initial investigations and analyses. Over the course of the past year, and with Bernardi’s help, he had turned a priest in the Vatican Curia into an unwilling source of information for the Third Reich. Through the priest’s information, Grossmann was able to develop an accurate model of the internal workings of Vatican politics. More importantly, in his opinion, he uncovered indications that a renegade group within the Vatican, led by Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, had established a considerable network to assist escaped Allied prisoners of war and downed pilots in avoiding capture by the Germans. It was Grossmann’s contention that O’Flaherty’s network was acting as a front for British intelligence, although he had never been able to document the connection other than establishing that a fellow Irish priest in the Vatican had a brother in British Army Intelligence.

“You have two objectives, Major. You are to ascertain whether the Vatican is assisting escaping Allies. We are particularly interested in any connection to a foreign intelligence service. That your suspected network may have the blessing of His Holiness is of intense interest, of course, although such information would ultimately be immaterial in the Führer’s decision to demarche or depose the Pope.”

“Really? I would think—”

“No need to exert yourself, Major,” the colonel interrupted. “The Führer will do that for you, and he will do what he feels necessary to achieve the greater end. He does not require our justification, but we will provide it in any case, of course.”

“OK, what about the SS?”

“The SS? Oh, yes. As they seem to have taken over the Vatican as their own personal project, that might pose a problem. Hmm . . . what to do about the SS? Let’s see . . . Oh, here we go . . .” He stared disdainfully at Major Grossmann, and then said as if he were talking to a small child, “Let’s not tell them, Major.”

Ignoring the sarcasm, Grossmann pressed on. “And if they learn about our operation, whatever that might be?”

The colonel smiled a humorlessly. “Perhaps you can pretend to be General Wolff’s son again. Maybe that will help. But . . . perhaps it would be better to not come to their attention. So here’s your second objective. If you can confirm the existence of such an Allied network, you are to follow it to its logical and physical end. Penetrate the escape network and identify the personalities, transshipment points, safe houses, collaborators, et cetera, all the way back to Allied lines. When you are done, the Abwehr, not the SS, will expose the Vatican to the Führer, and we will shut down the Allied operation. Discretely and permanently.”

1025 Hours

141st Infantry Regiment Headquarters, San Pietro, Italy

Perkin pushed himself away from the farmhouse and said good-bye to Stefania. His meeting was about to start. He called out to Private Kulis to stand by in case he was needed, then walked around the corner of the building toward the front door.

Two soldiers who had been milling about in front of the farmhouse door saluted. Perkin automatically returned their salute, and as he glanced at the soldiers’ faces, he involuntarily exclaimed, “Jesus Christ!”

“No, sir.” One of the two second lieutenants responded, “Hiroshi Ozaki.”

Perkin laughed. “Thanks for clearin’ that up for me, Lieutenant. Y’all took me by surprise—I thought for a second we must’ve fought around the world. But,” Perkin looked around, “at second glance, it appears we’re in the same shitty valley we’ve been in for weeks.”

He offered a hand to the two lieutenants, then asked, “Y’all in the 100th, uh, Hiroshi?”

“Yes, sir. This is Scott Kawamoto, and usually Haole boys call me Craig, not Hiroshi.” He indicated the other soldier, who looked curiously at Perkin as if he were trying to divine what the tall Texan would do next.

“And what brings you here? Ain’t y’all attached to the 34th?”

Kawamoto spoke for the first time. “Yes, sir. I under-stand the Texas Division is coming off the line, and the 34th is relieving you. We don’t know if the 100th is moving or not, but we were sent to look over the terrain and get a head start on a turnover just in case.”

Perkin smiled widely and said, “That’s the best damn news I’ve heard all day. I gotta run, but it’s nice meetin’ you fellas. I’ll see ya around.”

Perkin walked into the small farmhouse, leaving the two Nisei soldiers behind. An orderly sitting at the door waved him to what was once a small living room. Today the furniture had been pushed aside to make room for a large map easel, and a dining table that had been set against a wall held stacked helmets, jackets, and weapons.

Colonel Robert Wranosky, Lieutenant Colonel Alvin Miller, and Major Bill Spaulding were standing by the map easel and as Perkin entered the room, Wranosky pointed to a coffee pot resting on a potbellied stove.

While Perkin was filling a tin cup with steaming hot coffee, he overheard Major Spaulding ask Colonel Miller, “So, no more than a week or so? That’s what you’re saying to me?” Miller was the division’s G2—the senior intelligence officer of the 36th.

“I can’t see it takin’ much longer than that. Depends on what the Limeys can wring outta him. Oh, hey, Perkin.”

Seeing Perkin with a cup of coffee in his hand, Colonel Wranosky said, “I meant for you to get me one, Professor. How’re things?”

“Another day in paradise, sir. How’re you these days?”

“Couldn’t be better. I take cream and sugar,” the thickset Alabaman said with a grin.

“Yes, sir. Would you like a back rub too?” Perkin exaggeratedly rolled his eyes, grinned, poured another cup of coffee, and added cream and sugar. As he was bringing it back to the regimental commander, he pretended to sneeze in the coffee and as he was handing the cup to Wranosky, he said, “Just like you like it, sir.”

“Thank you, Captain. The same level of quality control I’ve come to expect from you.” Wranosky was clearly in a good mood. “Perkin, Fifth Army has a good deal for you. You don’t deserve it, a’ course, but you’re gettin’ one anyway. I’ve talked to Bill, and we’re also gonna extend it to Sam as well.”

“Sir, I can’t go home on a war bond tour now,” Perkin said modestly. “Our work ain’t done here!”

“You know, sometimes I wonder what standards they have at the University of Texas that they saw fit to give you a PhD.” Wranosky shook his head in mock sadness.

“I traded ’em five box tops for it, sir. Same way I got my army commission.”

“And they both got the short end of the stick. No, the G2 at army wants you to go with their naval intelligence bubba to Eighth Army and brief them on what you know about this German intelligence officer and his outfit. Although I told ’em that Fifth Army might likely not survive without you, they indicated they were willing to accept the risk.”

“Gutsy move, sir.” Turning to Major Spaulding, Perkin asked, “Does that put you in a bind, sir?”

“No. We received notification this morning that we’re coming off the line by Thursday. Sergeant Taylor can manage your affairs here for the battalion for a few days, and if you want to take Privates Kulis and Fratelli for drivers that’s fine as well. The British expect officers to have a batman, but y’all have to share those boys.”

“Great. And what about Sam?”

Colonel Wranosky answered, “He goes too. Just for fun. General Walker’s arranged for a hotel in Naples for our officers to use for R&R, and Sam is at the top of the list of my boys to go, but Bill here says Sam’s not keen on Naples. So he can go with you and spend New Year’s celebrating with the British. Trust me. It’ll be a good time.”

“Thank you very much, sir. I got to admit, I’m looking forward to it.” Perkin was indeed pleased. There hadn’t been much time spent with Sam since the division went back on the line in mid-November. “What about uniforms? Orders?”

Spaulding replied, “We’re cuttin’ orders for you boys and the colonel wants Captain Finley-Jones to accompany you. He’ll grease the skids for you with their intel folks, and Colonel Miller has already done some of that. You’ll carry your weapons, of course, but y’all shouldn’t need them. We’re arranging to get you a hot shower and deloused before you go, and I’ve directed the quartermaster to draw clean combat uniforms and your service uniforms out of storage. The British can be kind of formal so you might want to get the stains outta your tie.”

Colonel Wranosky reached into his pocket and handed four three-inch pins to Perkin. “These are for your service uniforms.”

“What’s this, sir?” Perkin asked. He held one up to the light and looked it over—an infantry-blue rectangular box overlaid with a small metal musket and an oak leaf wreath.

“It’s the new Combat Infantryman’s Badge—it was authorized by the War Department about the time we started operations against San Pietro. A friend of mine on General Marshall’s staff sent me out a box of them for occasions like this before they were even authorized. There are two badges for infantrymen—the expert and the combat. As the name implies, this is for infantry soldiers—officers and men—who’ve been in combat. It helps people know who you are and where you’ve been, which is a dogface in shit up to his neck. You’ll wear it right above your service ribbons over your left pocket. Make sure they’re shined up before you talk to any Limeys.”

“Yes, sir. I thought the smell and the flat feet were all anyone needed to identify a rifleman, but thank you.” Perkin was oddly touched by the small piece of metal. It seemed the army’s infantry was getting little glory or recognition in the war—Marines and aviators seemed to have the best public relations—and this little recognition mattered greatly to the captain.

The meeting broke up, and Perkin and Spaulding were heading out when the regimental commander called them back. “I almost forgot. Do y’all have any objections to workin’ with Jap soldiers?”

The two officers looked at each other and shrugged. “Not if they’re fightin’ on our side,” Spaulding replied.

“I didn’t think you would. Them boys outside want a look at our positions. Give ’em a staff ride and point out the salient features of our geography and defenses. Three, four hours, tops.”

“Sir?” Perkin asked. “I thought the 100th had Caucasian officers. Both of those lieutenants are Orientals.”

“You noticed that too, Professor?” Wranosky said dryly. “Well, that’s the way it was when the battalion was sent over. These boys have battlefield commissions. About half their white officers are dead or gone, and the battalion’s promotin’ up through the ranks. I’d bet that Ozaki was a corporal a month ago.” Wranosky pointed his finger at Spaulding, then Perkin. “Don’t let their size fool you. These sons-a-bitches are tough and may just save your ass someday. Make sure they get a fair shake.”

1725 Hours

Mount Lungo, Italy

The wider reception to lieutenants Ozaki and Kawamoto left no such impression that the Nisei officers would get a fair shake. Reactions from some of the Texas officers they encountered during their staff ride had ranged from muttering to shaking of the heads. A friend of Perkin’s, a lieutenant from Atlanta, Texas, ignored their outstretched hands and just glared down at the two lieutenants with his hands on his hips. Captain Ronald Ebbins’s loud pronouncement to a gaggle of fellow officers at lunch still had Perkin fuming: “Jap officers? Next thing you know, you’ll be taking orders from niggers and Mexicans. I’ll be damned if I will!”

Perkin had started to get up from his seat to confront Ebbins but stopped when Lieutenant Kawamoto quietly said, “Let it be, sir. We’ve heard this before. We’re big boys, and anyway, words won’t change his mind.”

“I wasn’t gonna talk to him,” Perkin growled, but he sat back down. He tried to dismiss Ebbins from his mind, but it gnawed at him for the rest of the day.

Major Spaulding decided to use the staff ride for the Nisei officers as a training opportunity for all his new replacement officers in the battalion, so he pulled a heavy truck from the motor pool and loaded up a collection of second and first lieutenants. Perkin and Spaulding sat in the back of the truck with the other officers, and they headed south from San Pietro onto Victory Road. As they drove, Spaulding took a precarious stand on the bed of the truck and pointed out the salient features of the battle:

“To our immediate right is Monte Lungo. Our battalion engaged the 29th Panzer Grenadiers there on the first of December. We split our battalion between Lungo and this little spur coming off this here hill—driver, stay on the road, goddamn it! Not all these minefields have been cleared.”

The drive to the southern end of the Mignano Gap and back took several hours and the discussion was technical and animated, with Spaulding doing most of the narration. Perkin was impressed with some of the new officers who asked pertinent questions and quickly seemed to grasp the difficulties of mountain fighting and the operational stresses of fighting in such a confining battlefield.

The two Nisei officers shared their insights in mountain fighting from their experience with the 34th Division—fellow guardsmen from the Dakotas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota. Particularly chilling was Lieutenant Ozaki’s description of a bayonet battle on the mountaintops where he explained how they had held against counterattack after counterattack.

His account of their battle and Perkin’s description of the taking of the westernmost mountaintops by the 1st Special Service Force and the 142nd Infantry Regiment left some of the other officers looking nervous and confused—they sat wide-eyed in the back of the truck saying nothing, or when asked questions by Spaulding didn’t seem to understand his questions. Perkin felt a lot of sympathy for these young men, who in some cases had been in replacement camps in Africa or Sicily less than two weeks before. The casualties of the Italian campaign were higher than expected, and many of the officers simply hadn’t had the opportunity to get their bearings in this strange land before being thrust into leadership responsibilities. Welcome to the army, boys, Perkin had thought.

This dichotomy was on Major Spaulding’s mind when the truck brought them back to San Pietro. As they disembarked from the truck, Spaulding said to Perkin, “I’m glad that we’re comin’ off the line for a while. Some of these boys are ready to go, but most of ’em ain’t. We’ll have to capitalize on whatever downtime we get to train these fellas up.”

“Yep. I was thinkin’ it’d be helpful to know whether we’re going straight up this valley or gonna be back in the mountains. Any idea when we’ll find out?”

“Nope. The optimist in me thinks the army will give us a couple months or so to get sorted out again, but the pessimist in me says we won’t get more than a few weeks. And you know, since I’ve been in the army, that optimist ain’t been right once. Having said that, I don’t want you and Sam to rush back on our account. Take a week. Send word if you want more time. We’ve got you covered here at battalion, and I want to see if Ebbins can organize his movement off the line and execute a training plan without Sam there to do it for him. As far as I can see, Sam is the company commander in all but name. The good news is that Ebbins relies on him for everything. Of course, the bad news is that Ebbins relies on him for everything. The worst news is that every time Ebbins overrides Sam, Ronald’s wrong.” As if to accentuate his point, Spaulding spit a long stream of tobacco juice onto one of the few remaining bushes in the valley, then looked up at the lonely bell tower of San Pietro’s destroyed church. “Just like these youngsters here, I need to get him standin’ on his own two feet.”

Perkin nodded and contemplated sharing Sam’s conversation about Ebbins being gun-shy, but said nothing. They were beginning to rejoin the group of officers when a very angry Private Kulis came running up to Perkin.

“Sir, may I talk to you for a moment?”

Perkin nodded, and broke off from Major Spaulding. “What’s up?”

“Sir, I was watchin’ the Jap officers’ jeep like you told me, and a couple of the new guys in Able Company told me that you were lookin’ for me here in the town. But when I got up here, y’all weren’t done with your staff ride yet, so I went back down and them sons-a-bitches had let the air outta two of the Japs’ tires. I’m awful sorry. And sir, I shouldn’t say nothin’ but . . .”

“Go on.” Perkin was looking at the private with interest. In several engagements where he had personally witnessed Kulis under fire, the soldier had never even broken a sweat. He was the coolest killer he had ever met, but the diminutive rifleman’s face was almost black with anger.

“I saw Cap’n Ebbins lookin’ that jeep over just fifteen minutes before them jokers showed up. I reckon he put the idea in their heads.”

“Oh. Well. You let me deal with that. Did they cut the tires, or just let the air out?”

“They let the air out,” Kulis fumed.

“OK. Here’s what ya do: get down to the battalion motor pool and see Sergeant Ochoa—you know, the Ochoa from Gregory, not the one from Falfurrias. Tell him to get a compressor over there on the double and get those tires pumped up. Tell him this is a favor for me and there’s a pack of smokes in it for him if he gets it done in less than twenty-five minutes—we’ve got another half hour here.”

When Perkin rejoined the group a minute later, his battalion commander looked at him curiously and asked, “What’s goin’ on?”

“Oh, nothing to worry about.” Turning and addressing the group, Perkin said, “Over here, the Germans had 40mm anti-air artillery that they also used against advancing ground forces. You can see how well they sight down the valley toward Mignano. Now, if you look at the nearby craters and the wreckage of their triple-A pieces, you get a sense of our own accuracy with artillery and the effectiveness of our munitions . . .”