1944--Italy

Crack!

Before the echoes of the rifle shot died, all seven of us dropped and merged with the rocks on the dusty Italian hill. We were on the inside of a long, climbing curve and I was on the high side of the trail, up against the bank. That's why I couldn't see shit over the sights of my Browning Automatic Rifle--my BAR.

It was a real bitch hauling those sixteen pounds up and down these hills, but the firepower--it was a light machine gun in all but name--was a real comfort sometimes. Like now.

I eased another magazine out of my bandoleer and set it down beside the one already in the receiver--just in case.

"Anybody hit?" Sarge called.

"Dutch dropped," Padre said. "He isn't moving."

Dutch Boehm was point man, the most dangerous job in a patrol file. Usually it was Padre's, but Sarge had put Dutch there today.

"Anybody see where it came from?" Sarge was doing the next most dangerous job, calling attention to himself. I waited for another shot but none came.

"Sounded like it came from up and to the right." Russo was tail-end Charlie. He and Dutch were buddies. We called them the Axis twins.

"Okay, take New Guy and check it out."

"Right Sarge. C'mon." I heard rocks and dirt kicked loose behind me as they moved out. We all waited. Flies buzzed and walked undisturbed on our faces and hands. I squinted at the narrow view of shimmering rocks, leafless shrubs, and Shitter Jones' worn boot soles ahead.

Russo and his backup came clattering back down onto the the trail. He went over and stood near Sarge. The rest of us took that as a signal to relax--but not too much. I got up into a crouch, so I could see what was going on.

"They let out Sarge." Russo's words came between gasps. "Found this."

He offered Sarge a single dull brass cartridge. Sarge rolled in in his fingers and then sniffed it. He looked at New Guy. "What about you?"

"I d-didn't see nothing."

"Padre, you and New Guy go up and take care of Dutch. Don't dig him in, just cover him with rocks. Bring back his tag and personals... and his ammo."

"Why me? I just came--" I moved up behind New Guy and put a hand on a shoulder when he started to protest. He went off muttering. Padre followed silently.

"Fifteen minutes for water," Sarge continued. "Chick, you keep an eye out."

Chick, that's me. I climbed a little way up the steep bank and rested my ass against it. It was so steep, you couldn't call it sitting. The rest of the guys moved back down the trail, where the bank made some shade, and lay down, mostly.

I fumbled my canteen from its case on my right hip while scanning the barren hills for movement. The first sip was warm and metallic tasting. I swished it around in my mouth and spat. Then I chugged a good one, wishing it was a Pabst. I looked back toward the other guys.

Sarge was way down the trail, near where the tail of the squad had been when Dutch had bought it. He was leaning over and looking at something. Then he was picking it up. Whatever it was, it was shiny.

Shitter Jones was talking to Russo. He pulled out some Luckies and traded for some toilet paper from Russo's K-rations. The way K-rations were made, most guys got clogged up and couldn't go to the bathroom but every three, four days. This was a good thing, because it took you that long to save up the tiny packets of paper to make a decent wipe. Most guys excepting Shitter: He was always wandering off to find a bush or rock pile somewhere, and he was always desperate for paper.

Jones moved off on another privacy search and Russo started emptying his Garrand. Click-clack. He worked the action and round sprang out. Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack.

Unlike my BAR, the M1 Garrand rifle loads eight rounds through the top from a special stripper clip. When the last round is fired, the bolt locks to the rear and the clip springs out, You can't reload until the weapon is entirely empty, so if you want to make sure it's full, you have to empty it all the way first.

That's what Russo was doing. Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack. Ping! The clip jumped out. Russo pulled a full one from his ammo pouch and slid it into his rifle. He glanced over at Sarge before bending over to pick up the loose brass.

Sarge had been watching all this while he cleaned his cheap GI glasses with a handkerchief he'd died brown with old coffee grounds. Sarge's eyes weren't as bad as he let some people think. A lot of them caught hell for things they thought he couldn't see.

I looked back in the other direction. Padre and New Guy were kicking stones down onto Dutch's corpse. They had already crossed his arms and piled his effects, ammo, helmet and rifle aside. New Guy was bitching continuously. Padre just nodded.

Padre knew better than to complain. He was a queer. Sarge made up that story about him being a seminary student, explaining why he didn't go whoring with the rest of us. Me and Sarge argued about that. I said we should tell the Lieutenant. "What for?" Sarge asked. "Prison couldn't be worst than this. They don't shell prisons."

"Besides," Sarge continued, "We don't need the grief from the other squads, and we'd wait the usual forever for his replacement."

"Makes sense," I'd admitted. After that, I helped keep up the fiction and wouldn't let anybody ride Padre. We didn't need that kind of grief inside the squad either. But Sarge still gave him all the shitty details--like point man. And I made sure Padre did everything Sarge said.

At five-ten, I was the biggest guy in the squad and as Sarge's buddy from high school, I was his enforcer. (That's what got me these corporal stripes.) Before December seventh, I was a coal miner, like my dad and grandad. Dad died in a cave-in and Grandpa still coughs up black phlegm ten years after retiring. My kid ain't gonna be a coal miner. Me, I'm going to make my Mary real happy and learn a trade when this is all over. She writes that they're talking about some kind of education benefits for all of us guys when we come back, to keep us off unemployment. She writes about that a lot.

They call me Chick because of my name, John Kubchek. It used to make me mad because I'm Slovak, not Czech; but now I hardly notice.

Before Sarge got promoted, everyone called him Professor. Before the war, I used to call him Mack. He worked in his father's bookstore before we both signed up. Everyone calls him Sarge now, after he kicked the shit out of Shitter Jones. The promotion turned my old buddy real mean, from Professor Jekyll to Sergeant Hyde. But he was still as smart as ever. Smart and mean, that was Sarge. He had to be. He had kept us, mostly, alive all the way from Kaisereine Pass, across Sicily and now halfway up the Italian boot.

I heard him scrambling up the bank behind me. "Chick..."

"New Guy's a whiner." I said.

"Yeah, I noticed. That shot sound like a Mauser to you?"

"Maybe, maybe not." I thought for a moment. "Could be one of those new rifles Fritz has--a storm-gee-ware or some such."

"Means 'Assault Rifle.' They use a shorter round, like my carbine." He handed me a full sized German 7.92 mm case. It was dull, almost a dark brown in color. "Smell it."

I did: nothing.

"Now smell this." It was a shiny 30-06 round, US issue. It had the acrid smell of freshly fired cordite. "Found it back down the trail."

"Shit" I said. "Who?"

The grave detail was finishing up. Padre shoved Dutch's rifle, bayonet first, into the stone pile. Next, he placed the helmet liner--flies already buzzing around it--on the rifle's butt. New Guy picked up Dutch's net covered steel pot by the chin strap and handed it to Padre. We used our helmets, minus the liner, as a bucket or basin to carry water or wash and shave. New guys sometimes called it their brain bucket--trying to be salty. I'd seen too many brains dripping from helmets to think it very clever anymore. Padre and New Guy came back down the trail.

"Why do guys shoot each other?" Sarge's question took me by surprise.

"Money and Broads," I said. "The poker game?"

We'd had a real good time in Naples. We practically took over this one whorehouse. Even Padre seemed to enjoy himself, taking all that money away from us, his sleepy-eyed buddies, in the all night poker game. Russo, who speaks the lingo, negotiated the deal with the madam. He also got sweet on this one girl, who didn't look like a whore at all. They both seemed to like each other a whole lot before we left. Russo wouldn't let anyone else, even his best buddy, try her.

I remember the greasy feel of the cards; the smell of the sweat, olive oil and spilled vino; the sputtering candle light. We'd paid extra for those candles--the madam insisted.

I remember the young-old faces of the girls. Some would have been whores anywhere but, in Naples in 1944, many had no other way to survive. Half of them tried to get one of the guys to marry them, take them back to the States. One or two might have been worth the grief from the brass. Russo's girl, I think her name was Carmella, was a real keeper.

I remember her slender hip against Russo's shoulder as he played poker. He kept rubbing it for luck but it didn't do any good. Padre kept taking everybody's money. Russo signed over most of his next pay in markers. Padre was pretty good about it, considering.

I shook myself. Daydreaming on lookout will get you, and your buddies, killed.

New Guy was white when he walked up. He handed Dutch's helmet up to Sarge. "Brains all over inside the liner Near made me puke."

Sarge took Dutch's wallet, watch, some letters and one of his dog tags (the other was still around Dutch's neck) from the helmet and stuffed them into his blouse. He pocketed the loose change.

He passed me the bolt assembly to Dutch's rifle. I'd throw it away somewhere along the trail. No sense leaving somebody a perfectly good rifle to back at you with. We used to bring back dead guys' rifles. We used to a lot of things by the book. Not so much anymore.

Sarge was poking his finger through the bullet hole on the front, upper right side of the helmet. It was more a tear, and the lips curled out.

Padre and New Guy were already moving back down the trail, canteens half out when they got there.

"Let me show you something." Sarge pulled Dutch's wallet out and showed me some paper slips--Russo's IOU's. "Dutch bought them. They argued about them all the time so I put the whole squad between them."

"But I lent Russo the money to pay them back," I said. "He was kinda desperate."

"Maybe Dutch didn't want money." Sarge stuffed the IOU's into his breast pocket and hopped down the bank in three giant steps. "Money or broads"

Jones came back with a job well done look on his face.

"Let's move out!" Sarge shoved the helmet at Padre to put back on Dutch's rifle.

Padre took it and started to move out ahead--to the point.

Sarge stopped him. "No Padre," Then he called out:

"Russo! You take the point from now on."