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Months of training and preparation, months of bragging that they are tough, that they can take it. Hey, the Krauts better look out now that the Yanks are here.
It takes two German tanks and two hundred indifferent Italian infantry to send them all fleeing for their lives.
Behind them they hear the metallic crack of the British antitank gun firing, joined by the hollow ka-tooo! of mortars firing, followed after a pregnant pause by the flat crump! of the shells landing amid the Italians.
But Second Squad, Fifth Platoon, as well as the other squads, and Third Platoon, all the Americans in this particular section of the Tunisian desert, all run until they run into Lieutenant Eelie Liefer in her jeep. Her driver looks scared. The lieutenant looks no better.
“Sergeant Cole!” the lieutenant yells. “What’s going on?”
“We hit ’em, they hit back, and now we’re running,” Sergeant Cole says, disgusted.
“Where’s Garaman?”
“I thought he was w
ith you, ma’am. We need to form up.”
The GIs have mostly paused to see what light the officer can shed on the situation, particularly whether she has any better idea than just running away. They mill around the jeep, worried glances cast back toward the shooting, now just out of sight but very definitely audible.
“There’s no defensible ground here,” Liefer pronounces.
“Ma’am,” Cole says, “there’s those rocks over there, we can set up firing positions, defilade the road, backstop the Tommies. And try for some air support or naval gunfire. Artillery. Something.”
Lieutenant Liefer stares at him as if he’s lost his mind. “Hide in the rocks? From tanks?”
Rio can see exasperation on her sergeant’s face. “Lieutenant, let’s at least radio in, see if we can get some arty.”
“None of our artillery is in range, and there’s no air cover,” she says, sounding as though she knows what she’s talking about. “We have no choice but to pull back.”
“Ma’am, we’ll be leaving the Tommies hanging.”
“They’re commandos, experienced troops. They’re not our concern. Our concern is the safety of our own men.”
Cole’s mouth hangs open for several seconds in pure disbelief. He makes one more try. “We can carry out a fighting withdrawal, we can set up in those rocks and—”
“Sergeant Cole, I’m well aware that you used to have five stripes on your sleeve, but now you have three, thanks to your habit of insubordination. Unless you want to be minus another stripe, you will follow my orders.”
Half the GIs who’ve gathered around take this as a signal to keep moving. They don’t run, they’re tired, but they walk plenty fast, away from the sounds of a battle that has grown louder and more desperate. The British antitank gun is no longer firing, just the tanks and the mortars and rifles, lots of rifles. A terrible scream rises high in the air and is cut off in midnote. A pillar of dust rises from the direction of the fight.
“Yes, ma’am,” Cole snaps. “Where would you like us to stop running?”
“I’ll have your stripes if I hear one more goddamned word from you!” Liefer yells, and points down the road, back in the direction they came from, back to the rear. Her driver guns the engine, spins into a dusty turn, and roars away, showing them all the line of retreat.
“I guess that’s the other reason officers need jeeps,” Luther says. “Female officers, at least.”
Cole snaps, “Private Richlin has one confirmed kill, Geer, and another probable. What do you have?”
One confirmed kill. One probable.
Geer stares daggers at Richlin, and Suarez occupies himself lighting a smoke. Jack is there as well, and he frowns at Rio as if just noticing something about her face that troubles him.
They run and they walk and they run some more, putting all their PT to a use none of them expected. Finally, after hours, they manage to outrun the sounds of the fight. Or else the fight is lost and the Tommies are wiped out. Rio doesn’t know which.
She walks fast; Jenou at her side now, a strange echo of times walking together around the square in Gedwell Falls, or halfheartedly running the track at school. Rio and Jenou, two high school girls out for a stroll, but with slung rifles and pounds of ammo and gear, and mortal dread in their hearts.
“I never wanted to be in the fighting,” Jenou says, her teeth chattering either from cold or fear. “I lost my helmet. I’m supposed to be at a desk. Now we’re going to have to surrender and spend the rest of the war in a POW camp.”
“Surrender?” Rio tries the word out and doesn’t like it at all, but maybe Jenou is right. They’re licked, aren’t they? They’ve been sent packing. Where are the American lines, even? None of them really knows where they themselves are right now, aside from it being a miserable place in a country they’d never even heard of before arriving here.
