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The front end of a deuce-and-a-half truck, clear at the far end of the camp, explodes upward, rises clear off the ground on a jet of flame before falling to earth, a smoking steel skeleton. The engine block, knocked free by the power of the bomb, twirls through the air, rising twenty feet bef
ore falling like an anvil out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon as GIs scurry out of the way. Rio does not see where it lands.
The planes take a tight turn and come roaring back overhead, machine guns stitching the ground like some mad sewing machine.
And then they head off, unscathed, racing away to the relative safety of their base in Sicily.
Rio and Jenou crawl out from beneath the half-track and gaze, disgusted, at the caked-on dirt that covers their fronts from toes to knees to face.
“They could have waited till we toweled off,” Jenou says.
“We best go tell Sarge we’re still alive,” Rio says.
The air raids are fewer lately, as the Royal Air Force planes with some help from the Americans have claimed control of the North African skies. But now Rio hears a distant shriek of pain and thinks what every soldier thinks: Thank God it isn’t me, followed by, At least some poor bastard is going home.
A term has become common: million-dollar wound. The million-dollar wound is the one that doesn’t kill or completely cripple you but is enough to send you home to cold beer and cool sheets and hot showers.
A team of medics, three of them, rush past, with only one taking the time to turn and run backward while yelling, “I have some training in gynecology; I am happy to do an examination!” as he grabs his crotch.
He trips and falls on his back, and Rio and Jenou share a satisfied nod.
The US Army, Tunisia, in the summer of 1943.
