Читать книгу For God and Country - Mark Bowlin - Страница 12

December 28, 1943

1100 Hours

Highway 6, North of Caserta, Italy

The Italian countryside bore the evidence of fighting, although the respective armies had passed by nearly two months before. Little stone farmhouses and villages were destroyed from the intense combat as the Fifth Army pushed the Germans to the winter line, and stone walls that had marked smallholdings and town boundaries since the day of the Roman Empire had been crushed by the tracks of armored vehicles. Cemeteries marked the tragedy with newly dug graves.

While the British liaison officer, Captain Waller Finley-Jones, slept uncomfortably in the back of the jeep, Sam took it all in with deep sorrow. He had no particular love for the Italian people, but most of his exposure to the nation came with his few interactions with the Neapolitans—and Naples was in a very rough state these days. If he had been given the choice of staying with the platoon and working, or going to Naples on R&R, he likely would have chosen the work.

Although he didn’t know the country Italians, the rancher in him shared in their loss. Little farms of water buffalo, cattle, and swine had been stripped of their livestock, barns had been shelled, and the orchards, olive groves, and vineyards had been scarred by the passing of the warriors. Mile after mile of burned-out buildings, destroyed tanks, and dismantled trucks marked their passage, and Sam felt himself wishing he’d stayed with the company.

As Perkin drove, Sam pointed out the features of the land—the rock of the mountains, the fertile soil of the valley, the trees, and the few animals that he saw. But even that experience was ruined by the army. They were stuck in a southbound convoy of trucks headed to the port cities of Naples and Salerno—the trucks that would bring back food and ammunition for General Clark’s polyglot army. The trucks moved at a snail’s pace—or at least, so it seemed to the impatient soldiers—and the sight of the unshaven and weary soldiers in the trucks also struck Sam as sad.

Whenever Perkin got the chance to pass, he pushed the jeep to its limits and seemingly flew past the heavy transporters and the ubiquitous two-and-a-half-ton trucks. He had long ago lost the other jeep, which contained Privates Kulis and Fratelli. They knew where they were to rendezvous in Caserta, so Perkin didn’t seem to worry, but Sam was concerned that they would have trouble finding each other on the palace compound.

In truth, Perkin looked the happiest that Sam had seen him since Gianina’s death six weeks before. Sam had initially thought that it was the release from responsibility that was the source of his happiness—the knowledge that the fight on the winter line was not his burden for a week or more. But the more Sam studied his cousin, the more he began to recognize an old look: Perkin had done something ornery, and he was chomping at the bit to tell Sam about it.

“What’d you do?” Sam asked.

“What?”

“What’d you do?” he repeated. “You got that look.” He had to raise his voice as they passed a line of field ambulances.

Perkin looked innocently at his cousin. “What look’s that?”

“It’s the same look as when you set off the smoke bombs in the school on graduation day. I know that look. What’d you do?”

Perkin laughed out loud—a good, strong laugh. It was infectious, and Sam began to grin in anticipation.

Sam asked again, “What? Was it Ebbins?”

Perkin’s grin widened. He nodded.

“Did ya get him back for screwing with the Japs?”

“Uh-huh.”

Sam felt a momentary pang of alarm, then decided he didn’t care what happened to Ebbins. “What’d you do? Cut the brake lines on his jeep?”

Perkin slammed his fist down on the steering wheel. “Damn!” he cried out in mock anger. “I didn’t think of that!”

“Come on,” Sam protested.

“OK. I was showin’ off my combat infantryman’s badge this morning to B. G. E. Beams, and Ronnnn-allld walks by and wants to know what it is. So I tell him about it, and I could see he’s interested, so I made sure he knew he’s eligible. You could almost see the weight coming off his shoulders, cause he ain’t done any actual fighting, but this is tangible proof for back home that he was there. Know what I mean?”

Sam nodded. “Oh yeah, I know what you mean.”

“Anyway, as we both know that the only thing Ronnnn-allld likes more than undeserved laurels is money, so I’m showin’ it off and playin’ it up, and when he ain’t lookin’ I wink at B. G. E. And then I tell Ebbins, ‘Of course, you could always take the cash option.’ Without missin’ a beat, B. G. E. says, ‘That’s what I’m gonna do. I need the money.’ So Ebbins goes, ‘Whaddya mean cash option?’ and I tell him you get a choice of $500 cash or the CIB in recognition of your services. All you gotta do is get approval from the regimental commander.”

Sam started laughing, “Oh no . . . you didn’t. Besides, he’s not that gullible.”

“Oh, the hell he ain’t. Greed trumps all, you know. Besides, Beams played it up real straight: he told him, ‘You gotta let the commander know before the awards ceremony,’ which he heard was comin’ up as soon as we were off the line. I swear, Ebbins was almost running over to Colonel Wranosky’s headquarters to ask for his money. When he left, Beams told me, ‘B. G. E. stands for Beams Gigged Ebbins,’ and then he fell over laughing. I swear his platoon’ll get the point for the rest of the war, but I don’t think he cares.”

The thought of Ebbins explaining to the explosive Wranosky that he would prefer money to the Combat Infantryman’s Badge made Sam double over with laughter. “He’ll get his head taken off!”

“Who? Beams or Ebbins?”

“They both will. Wranosky will shit all over Ebbins, and then it’ll flow downhill onto Beams. But he’s an old Aggie too. He can take it.” Sam laughed again. He was beginning to enjoy the drive.

“I hadn’t known that until he said he gigged Ebbins. Was he there with you?”

“Naw. He was there before me, and he left to join the Houston PD after they cancelled his major during his sophomore year.”

“Really? What was that?”

Struggling to remember the word exactly, Sam replied, “Phrenology . . . or something like that. But he said it helped him a lot in his job in Houston.”

“I don’t doubt it. So, he’s gotta be in his thirties, then.”

“Yeah . . . I’d reckon so. Pretty old to be a platoon leader.”

“I don’t know how he gets up in the morning. So, let me tell you about the history of that town we just went through. Although we’re in the ancient land of the Samnites, who fought several wars with the Roman Republic in the fourth century BC, the interesting thing about Capua was its sacking by Mohammedans in the ninth century AD. You see . . .”

1145 Hours

Fifth Army Headquarters, Caserta, Italy

Sam’s freshly restored good mood continued for the rest of the drive despite Perkin’s history lesson about the sacking of Capua. Saracens were less interesting to Sam than the emerging sun and the warming temperature, and although the wind through the jeep was brisk, Sam found himself beginning to relax. He was on vacation.

Even the drive onto the Fifth Army compound didn’t bring him back to the darkness of earlier. Sam disliked the army, in particular the unnecessary rules and regulations and pomp that accompanied all of the army save the frontline units. As they drove up Sam woke Captain Finley-Jones, and they all straightened their ties and garrison caps to regulation standards. MPs were reportedly stopping even officers for not wearing ties, and the offending soldier was fined on the spot. Sam was sure that money went straight into the MP’s pocket.

The Italian palace, a holdover from when the Bourbons reigned in this part of Italy, was the most magnificent structure that Sam had ever seen. Mostly constructed in the eighteenth century, the palace itself had well over a thousand rooms, while the palace grounds boasted numerous gardens and other equally beautiful buildings over its thousands of acres. It was known as the “Little Versailles,” but Sam saw nothing about it that qualified as little. As a wealthy man in his own right, Sam was stunned at the opulence of Caserta.

An MP passed them through the barricade after checking their orders, and they were directed to an outlying building serving as a mess hall on the palace grounds. They didn’t know when they’d get another hot meal, so they headed for lunch first. While they drove along a magnificent avenue lined with tall trees, Sam took in the beauty of Caserta and then suddenly laughed out load as Ebbins had crept into his thoughts again.

As Sam had borne the brunt of most of Perkin’s practical jokes over his lifetime, he was delighted at the thought of Ebbins being brought up short by Colonel Wranosky. He had no particular opinions one way or the other about the Nisei officers, but his innate sense of fairness and a long-standing antipathy toward Ebbins had led him to high expectations of an eventual revenge by Perkin when he learned of the incident the night before. His cousin hadn’t disappointed, and Sam chuckled again.

He was even happier when they arrived at the mess hall. A triumphant pair of privates greeted the crestfallen Perkin, and a gloating Private Kulis crowed, “We took a back road. Ha–ha! I told Vince we’d beat y’all here!”

1230 Hours

Fifth Army Headquarters, Caserta, Italy

While Captain Finley-Jones sought out the senior British officer on the Fifth Army staff and Sam and Private Fratelli staked out a table and a coffee pot, Perkin and Private Kulis went to track down Lieutenant Commander Jimmy Cardosi.

Cardosi was a naval intelligence officer who’d been in Italy since before the landings on Sicily the previous July. He had helped prepare the battlefield for the landing forces on that island and then moved to the mainland in anticipation of the landings at Salerno. Working sometimes on his own, sometimes with the Office of Strategic Services, sometimes with his British counterparts, and almost always with the Neapolitan mob, he helped to once again shape the battlefield. He had walked through Italy dressed as an itinerant laborer looking for field work. He got a good feel for the population’s weariness of war and the fascists, their fear of the Germans, and the unlikelihood of any meaningful opposition from the Italians to the Allied landings. Cardosi’s reports, sent back to Allied planners through contacts in the OSS, helped drive the decision to land at Paestum and Salerno, even though he personally preferred the beaches at Formia and Gaeta.

As soon as it was clear that the landing force had permanently established its lodgment at Salerno, Cardosi was moved onward to Naples. It was there he reached his limits, watching impotently as the Germans systematically took their revenge on the city. Industry was looted or destroyed; the port was savaged as ships were sunk in the channel and the valuable cranes destroyed; the people were terrorized and forced into labor battalions. It was the most wanton violence Cardosi had ever witnessed against a civilian population.

When the Allies finally took Naples, they found a city population that was on the verge of starvation and living among disease and filth. They also found a lieutenant commander in desperate need of some relaxation and time away from the war. After two weeks’ leave on the island of Capri, he was assigned to the Fifth Army as a naval intelligence liaison officer to General Clark’s staff, a job that the recovering officer found to be extremely boring. So he looked for other ways to help out, and one of the passing assignments that he received was the investigation into the German terror bombings in Naples.

It was a puzzle that slowly came together during the month of November. His growing list of contacts in the Camorra, prompted by gold bullion and the word of an Italian-American capo in a New York prison, began to report on rumors of a German intelligence team that specifically targeted Americans. This German team was reportedly responsible for planting time bombs in areas where American soldiers were likely to congregate: Italian army bases, bus depots, museums, and the Naples post office.

It was during the San Pietro operation that LCDR Cardosi came to Perkin’s attention, and together they began to complete the puzzle. But Perkin had other duties to attend to, and Cardosi had been left to finish the analysis on his own. His briefing to Perkin and Kulis showed that his time had not been wasted.

“Since I saw you last, Captain, I submitted an interrogation request on the soldiers that you guys captured at Pisciotta. They had been shipped to a prisoner camp in Palacios, Texas—”

“Hey, Palacios is just north of where Sam and I are from.”

Cardosi nodded. “You have to love life’s little ironies, don’t you? So those fellows were sent to Camp, uh, Hulen in Palacios, where they were working out on the economy for local farmers: picking hayseeds or cotton balls or whatever you rednecks do down there. The CIC sent over some interrogators, and these guys talked without much, um, persuasion. It seems they’d rather talk and continue to work and almost live outside the wire than to spend the remainder of the war in solitary.

“This is what we’ve learned. They all worked at a separate Abwehr command in Rome. The commanding officer is our buddy, Major Douglas Grossmann, and his deputy was Captain Mark Gerschoffer. We knew all that already. Grossmann had an American mother, killed in a bombing raid, and a German father. His upbringing was primarily American, and he went to high school in Coronado, California. Now, take a gander at this.”

Cardosi pulled a large photograph from a folder and passed it over to Perkin. “Naval intelligence made a copy of this from his high school yearbook. Is this the guy you saw in Ogliastro?”

Perkin studied the photograph intently and tried to recall that day. He had stopped in the village looking for Able Company and chatted briefly with a man fitting Grossmann’s description and wearing the uniform of a major in the US Army. The student in the picture looked intelligently at the camera. A nice looking kid, Perkin thought, but a choirboy can grow up to be a killer too.

“It’s him. A lot younger, but definitely him. That’s damn good work!” Perkin was impressed. A lot of effort had gone into this investigation—this photo had to have been flown to Europe.

“Thanks. The Office of Naval Intelligence has made this a priority at my request. There’s more. His soldiers believe that he came back to Germany for college, and one of them thought he graduated in 1935 or ’36 with a degree in either language or linguistics. One of his soldiers non-concurred and said the major graduated with a degree in the classics. If they hadn’t said he was a womanizer, I’d have marked him as a homo. Either way, they agreed he went to the University of Heidelberg. After graduation, he went directly into Hitler’s expanding army as a junior intelligence officer.

“The interrogation reports indicate that after the war began, he served in France and was posted to Italy after Pearl Harbor. He’s never been directly in combat, only support activities. As I said, he’s described as a lady’s man, a good leader who takes care of his troops, a moderate to heavy drinker, a smoker. Fluent in English, German, French, and Italian, and—get this—Latin. Proficient in Spanish and Romanian. He was trained in Berlin to speak English with multiple accents, including West Coast and East Coast American, English upper class—what they call Etonian—and Welsh blue collar. I have a list of aliases that he’s used—my favorite is Neville Drinkwater, which is what he favors when he impersonates an Englishman. Physically, he’s exactly as you described him. Blond hair, blue eyes, slight build—uh, about 1.7 meters tall or about 5 feet 7 inches, and about 65 kilograms, which is just shy of 145 pounds.”

“Any thoughts on how he regards the United States? Does he have divided loyalties?” Private Kulis spoke for the first time.

“That’s a damn good question, shipmate. That’s why I asked it myself. They didn’t know. The whole group had either spent extensive time in the US or had American parents like Grossmann and Gerschoffer. They all claimed to have been deeply upset with the war against us, but they may have been blowing smoke up our asses. Hard to say. But there’s a possibility we may be able to turn him, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Yes, sir. I’d reckon the trick would be . . . how do we make contact with him?”

Turning the German intelligence officer may have been on Kulis’s mind, but as Perkin sat there listening to the discussion, he thought, I have other plans for Major Grossmann.

1630 Hours

San Lupo, Italy

The Eighth Army was engaged in combat operations on the other side of Italy in a town called Ortona, on the Adriatic Sea. As the crow would fly, it was less than one hundred miles across the peninsula from Caserta, but crow miles were irrelevant in Italian navigation. Even if crows could make it across the Abruzzi Mountains—the highest range in the Apennines—in winter, the small party of soldiers couldn’t. Even in jeeps.

They decided to stay on the main highways and started south with the intention of heading to a point almost even with Naples and then across the peninsula to Foggia. From Foggia, they would turn north again and reach the Eighth Army along the coast. It was fine in theory. In practice, the plan was found lacking.

No sooner had the two jeeps gotten on the highway than their progress slowed to a crawl again; out of boredom Sam even stepped out of his jeep and walked alongside the jeep carrying Cardosi, Finley-Jones, and Fratelli. It was more military traffic clogging the road. Still, they pressed on. Once they turned inward, they decided, the traffic would abate and they could make up for lost time on what Cardosi called the athwartship highway. It was another plan doomed to failure.

Less than five miles south of Caserta, they were pulled off the highway by MPs who were restricting the road to priority supply traffic. They could pull off the side of the road and wait for the supply trucks to pass, which would go on until past dark, or they could find another route. Besides, they were told, the Luftwaffe was making both day and night raids on the Fifth Army supply lines, and in the considered opinion of the MP corporal, they were better off away from that main line of communication.

It seemed like sound advice, so they turned around, and after a quick retreat, they took a narrow but paved road up into the foothills of the Abruzzi. Sitting in the jeep in a small village called San Lupo, Perkin did a rough calculation and figured that over the course of the past two hours, they had only advanced toward their objective some fifty or sixty kilometers.

“We’ve gone maybe thirty or thirty-five miles, but we got at most another half hour of daylight. What are your orders, sir?” he asked of Lieutenant Commander Cardosi.

“We’re on no specific time line. I had planned a little slop into our schedule, and Eighth Army isn’t expecting us until the day after tomorrow, anyway.” He eyed two pretty Italian women who were looking curiously at the Americans. “Maybe we see what San Lupo has in the way of lodging.”

As the other men got out of the jeeps and stretched, Cardosi walked over to the two ladies and immediately engaged in an animated conversation that lasted a full five minutes before he returned shaking his head.

“No hotel for another fifteen miles or so. They’re sisters and they offered to let us stay at some villagers’ homes, which would probably be just fine. But they had a condition.”

“What’s that?” Captain Finley-Jones asked.

“They want Sam to stay with them.”

Sam was only paying half attention when the sisters’ demand sank in. He sat down abruptly in the jeep. “What do they want?” he asked, alarmed.

Cardosi repeated the condition with a grin. “I’m guessing a six-foot-five American to share for the evening . . . no kidding, shipmate. That’s what they said.”

“But I’m married!” Sam protested, and to Perkin’s great amusement, Sam began to blush.

“I mentioned that. I’m not sure they care.”

“I’ll stay with ’em,” Kulis volunteered.

“Me too,” said Fratelli, looking hopefully at the sisters.

“Sorry, you guys. It’s Lieutenant Taft or nothing.” Cardosi looked at Sam expectantly.

“Sam, maybe they just want to cook you dinner or something. You know, mother you a little bit. I wouldn’t worry about it.” Perkin said, grinning at his cousin’s discomfort.

One of the sisters pointed at Sam, then at herself as she put a slight gyration in her hips. The other sister mockingly blew a kiss at Sam.

“My mother never did that,” observed Private Kulis. “You know, I don’t speak much Italian, but I understood that, and it ain’t what the cap’n said.”

Finley-Jones laughed. “What do you Americans say? Take one for the team? Old boy . . . I must say in case you haven’t realized it . . . this is your chance to take two.”

2005 Hours

Santa Croce del Sannio, Italy

The lobby of the hotel was cold and drafty, as there were no guests staying at the inn before the arrival of the Americans. Displaced persons frequently passed through Santa Croce, but if they didn’t have lire, dollars, or pounds sterling, they didn’t stay in rooms—although the hotelier would sometimes let them sleep in the hotel’s garage if the weather was unpleasant. Three months before, Reichmarks were accepted, but no longer.

The region had seen some fierce fighting between the Germans and the Eighth Army, although Santa Croce had been spared the destruction that had come to other nearby towns. Since an American hospital unit attached to Eighth Army had left Santa Croce the month before, the town had returned to the dull state that characterized mountain life in southern Italy, and which had led to a steady and constant migration to the United States for over a hundred years.

As soon as paying guests arrived—and they paid in advance—things picked up rapidly at the hotel. The hotelier and his son quickly got a blazing fire going in what Perkin believed was the largest fireplace he’d ever seen, and hotelier’s wife had pulled several soft and heavy chairs into a semicircle before the fire.

The hotel didn’t have a restaurant of its own, but the hotelier’s brother-in-law had a nice restaurant across the street. The six soldiers had requested—and tipped heavily—to have food brought from the restaurant so they wouldn’t have to leave the comfort of the chairs and the fireplace. This naturally led to a fierce argument between the hotelier and his brother-in-law. Such things were not done; they must eat at the restaurant, the brother-in-law insisted. He was so evidently hoping that the curiosity of American soldiers might bring in some additional customers that the hotelier knew he would not relent until the tip was shared. Eventually, about a third of the money exchanged hands, and the restaurateur was so pleased that he resolved to prepare a special dish, and would the Americans please be patient?

They would, of course, but they were hungry now. More money left the Americans’ pockets and made their way across the street to the restaurant, and soon plates of cheese, bread, olives, pickled vegetables, and salami were sent over and placed on a large coffee table. The hotel did have a bar, and several bottles of wine were opened for the Americans.

The hotelier spoke no English but he initially gathered that a massive soldier had displeased his companions. Fascinated, the hotelier watched as all of the soldiers castigated the large man, and he held his breath as twice the massive man stood up in disgust to leave, only to be coaxed back to his chair by another tall man. Americans, he had been told, love to drink and fight, and he was concerned that their apparent disapprobation of the large man might lead to an altercation, but as he watched longer, he realized that the large man was simply being teased. The hotelier relaxed as the tall, black-haired soldier eventually got the big man to smile sheepishly, and then they both began to laugh.

“I’m sorry to let you boys down. I simply couldn’t do what was being asked of me, and I deeply appreciate your . . . what’s that word, Perk? Lucent?”

“I don’t know, lurid, maybe? Oh, uh . . . lucid?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Waller, I deeply appreciate your lucid arguments that I should’ve slept with the DiRenzo sisters for my own physical well-being. You’re right. I’ve been feeling right poorly lately, and as you said, no doubt some fornication would brace me up quite nicely. Yes, Private Kulis, I know that it would have brought great credit to the regiment, and I’m prepared to answer to Colonel Wranosky when we return should the subject arise. Commander, I’m sure the navy issues Italian sisters to ensigns upon commissioning like you said, but as I say every day, to my great regret, I’m a soldier. Private Fratelli, thank you for offering, well, insisting, that you step in for me when it was evident that I let the team down. I’m sorry the DiRenzo girls suddenly had other plans. Uh . . . let’s see . . . who have I left out?”

“Me!” Perkin said.

Sam laughed and looked around the circle of his friends, “Yes. It’s hard to imagine, gentlemen, but my cousin stood up for me. Why, I don’t know, but he did. Hard to say which is was more shocking: the DiRenzo girls’ behavior or that, but this has been a night of firsts, I can tell you.”

Perkin snorted, “That’s the thanks I get? And why? I’ll tell ya why. Couple reasons. First, Maggie made me promise to protect you from the DiRenzo girls—or girls like ’em in any case—although I told her no one would be interested in you. I guess I was wrong—I certainly didn’t suspect a two-fer, that’s for sure. And second, I helped get ya outta that because I know you couldn’t navigate through a situation like that without embarrassing either yourself or the regiment—most likely both. You don’t appreciate the subtleties of delicate social situations like I do.” Perkin looked pensive for a moment, then nodded sagely. “Yes, it was just better this way.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “You remember the Three-Minute Vertical Berger Plan? That situation was proof you couldn’t handle somethin’ like this, but I could.”

Captain Finley-Jones jumped in, “The Three-Minute Vertical Berger Plan? What the devil’s that?”

Perkin started to explain, but Sam held his hand up like a king holding court.

“Silence, boy. This is my story. When Perk and I were home for the summer during our freshman year at college, our grandparents were traveling and Perk decided to throw a little party. Old Perkin has this beautiful old home on the bluff overlooking Corpus Bay, and . . .” Sam’s face grew sad for a moment as he got homesick, then the thought passed. “And Perk invited everyone he knew—including about ten girls that he’d dated in the past or was currently seeing. I think he was gamin’ the numbers . . . you know, invite ten in the hopes that one shows up. Since all ten knew that I was gonna be there, and they were just using Perk to get to me, all ten RSVP’d. So Studley here panics and goes into crisis mode ’cause if the girls get the notion that he’s not only datin’ more than one of them, but maybe all of them, well shoot, Perk might as well join the priesthood for the summer. As usual, he comes runnin’ to his older cousin—”

“By a week!” Perkin interjects.

“And don’t that just put a burr under his saddle? Anyways, he comes runnin’ to me for guidance, and I devise the Three-Minute Vertical Berger Plan—”

“You did not!”

“An ingenuous plan so breathtaking in its simplicity that I contemplated copyrightin’ the whole process and selling it to Charles Atlas. The key, as I saw it, was for Perkin not to sit down with any one girl all night long. He had to mingle. He could walk a girl out to a car or maybe down the block, but no holding hands or nothin’ forward like that. Laying down on one of the blankets with a girl was out of the question. In short, he had to remain vertical for the entire night.”

“And the three minutes, sir?” This was Private Fratelli’s first foray into the officers’ conversation.

“Ah, yes. He could only talk for three minutes before he “had” to get someone a drink or talk to this fella or somethin’ like that. As long as he was a host and in constant motion and supremely upright, he’d be fine.”

Perkin was preparing to tell his side of the story, which was that Sam’s only contribution to the Three-Minute Vertical Berger Plan was to call Perkin a dumbass for inviting all the girls in the first place, when the food finally arrived.

The owner of the restaurant, his sole waiter, and his two oldest teenage daughters brought over a large soup tureen and bowls for the soldiers on a metal cart that seemed to have four independent wheels, which caused it to go sideways when pushed through the lobby. As one daughter placed a cloth napkin into the lap of each soldier, the restaurateur watched as the other daughter carefully ladled a steaming, thick, orange-colored soup into the bowls. The waiter then ceremoniously handed a bowl and a spoon to each soldier.

“My lord, this is good!” exclaimed Sam. “What is this?”

Lieutenant Commander Cardosi spoke to the restaurateur, who answered and then bowed slightly to Sam. Cardosi then asked another question.

“It’s pumpkin soup—a house specialty. I asked him what the secondo, the next course, would be, but he said it’s a surprise.”

“I hope it’s as good as this,” said Perkin.

It was. Fifteen minutes later, the owner, his daughters, and the waiter returned. Sliced and buttered potatoes were carefully ladled onto the plates next to a meat dish, and they all stood by proudly to watch the soldiers’ first bites.

“That smells lovely,” said Finley-Jones. “What is it? Porcetta?”

“It smells like it,” Cardosi concurred. But as he took a bite, a slow smile spread across his face. “But it’s not. My grandmother used to make this. Any guesses?”

After pork, the guesses ranged from chicken to duck to goat but it was Private Kulis who had the right answer. “It ain’t pork, sir.” Kulis said with a wondrous look on his face. “It’s rabbit.”

“Rabbit?” Fratelli was surprised. “Are you sure?”

“I ate so much rabbit and squirrel during the Depression, I can’t be wrong. But I ain’t ever had it like this. Please tell him this is a damn sight better than my mom’s stewed rabbit, sir.”

The restaurateur beamed, bowed to an enthusiastic round of applause, and then they left the soldiers to their dinner.

2345 Hours

Santa Croce del Sannio, Italy

The dishes were cleared and the young enlisted soldiers departed to pursue what Private Kulis called the Three-Minute Horizontal Kulis Plan. Cigars were passed around and the hotelier had sold them a bottle of kruskovac—fiery pear brandy from Croatia. The fire was dying down, and the men simply enjoyed the warmth and comfort of a building and a fire more than they could possibly have ever imagined.

No one wanted to talk about the war, but inevitably, that’s where the conversation led. The peculiarities of old comrades from the Texas Division were discussed and, when necessary, explained to the British Army officer and the American naval officer. Finley-Jones reciprocated with a story of a fellow Welsh Guardsman in Tunisia who, upon walking into an operations briefing and seeing a chart pinned to the wall, wanted to know what the fuss was about casual ties.

“Casual ties?” asked Sam.

“Yes, casual ties,” said the Welsh officer with a smile.

“I don’t get it either, I guess.”

“The chart was a posting of casualties, not casual ties. Poor Captain Williams was exhausted, the old sod, and even when it was pointed out to him, he had a hard time reading it straight.”

Sam wrote the word out with his finger in the air, and then started laughing—a deep belly laugh that momentarily awakened the hotelier who had fallen asleep at the front desk.

“Speaking of reading,” Finley-Jones went on, “I understand that silly bugger Ebbins can’t read a compass. You need to watch him closely, Sam.”

“Oh . . . Waller, I know, but let’s not ruin a nice evening by bringing up Ebbins.”

“Fair enough, Sam.” Finley-Jones obviously wanted to say more on the subject of Captain Ebbins, but he let it pass.

“Gentlemen, I’m getting ready to hit my rack, but I want to ask you fellows: What’s next? Where do you guys head now?” Lieutenant Commander Cardosi slewed his gaze to the remaining brandy and, belying his statement about turning in, poured himself another glass.

Perkin answered, “Well, we have to breach the Gustav Line. So there’s only one way to go and that’s north.”

“I know. I’ve looked at the charts, uh, maps. I guess I mean, any idea what role you’ll have? How it’ll be done?”

“I don’t know, Jimmy.” Perkin spoke softly, seriously. “There’s a couple different ways to crack this problem, I suppose. Preferably, we’ll get up in the mountains like we were in San Pietro and keep pushing, pushing, until we work around them. Once we roll up their flanks in the mountains above the abbey at Cassino, their position on the line in the valley will be untenable. The second option is a full-scale push across the Rapido River: most of the Fifth Army in assault from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Abruzzi, with the armored divisions in reserve and ready to exploit whatever gap the infantry divisions make. That would be costly, but probably quicker. Once we breach the Gustav Line, it’s just a matter of days or weeks until we get to Rome.”

“So it has to be the whole army, not just a division?”

Perkin shivered. “A single division? No. It’d be slaughtered. There’s a German corps in prepared defense on the Gustav Line in the Liri Valley alone. You’d be sending two regiments, with the third in reserve, against . . . I don’t know . . . two or three veteran German divisions. And they’d have to effect a river crossing in order to do it. It would be like one of those forlorn hopes of ancient warfare.”

“What’s that?”

Finley-Jones answered, “Well, it’s not really ancient—except to an American. A forlorn hope is an assault force sent in against overwhelming odds to breach a defense. Rather like the storm troopers of the day. The assault force has traditionally been volunteers with the promise of promotion or advancement as the reward for successfully surviving. During the Peninsular War, Wellington used one at the Battle of Badajoz in 1812 in order to the end the siege there. Most of the forlorn hope was killed, along with another four thousand or more troops. It was a terrible affair.”

Perkin spoke again, “It’s the river crossing that has me worried. My daddy was killed at our victory on the Marne in ’18. His division, the 3rd, was in defense, and the Germans kept sending wave after wave of assault troops to force a crossing of the river. They were slaughtered by our own General Walker, no less—just like any single division trying to cross the Rapido will be. That’s why it’s imperative to have either a patient campaign up in the mountains or an assault across a broad front. Make the defenders spread their forces out, or it’ll be a repeat of the Marne. But this time, it’ll be us sucking hind tit.”