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He’s leaving me!
“Sarge,” Rio says, and emotion chokes her. “I . . .” What can she say when she has so much to express? There is not the slightest doubt in her mind that she’s gotten this far, stayed alive this long, because of the gap-toothed man before her.
Her father had told her to find a good sergeant and stick to him. She had found that sergeant. She had stuck to him.
And now . . .
Cole sticks out his hand. She shakes it.
“You’ll do fine, Richlin. You’re a natural.”
Suddenly there’s the captain cursing a blue streak. “Back up to the line, damn you all, get back forward!”
Rio ignores him until the jeep guns its engines and goes tearing off into the night bearing Sergeant Cole.
“Bye, Sarge,” Rio says.
Pang comes struggling by, loaded down with four steel ammo boxes, two in each hand, and a heavy satchel slung over his shoulder. Rio lifts the satchel, peeks inside, can’t see, so thrusts a hand in to find the familiar and somehow comforting shape of the British-made white phosphorous grenades called SIPs and nicknamed thermoses for their cylindrical shape. They go trudging forward, their hearts in their boots.
“How is he?” Stick asks anxiously when they rejoin the others.
“Million-dollar wound,” Pang says.
A lieutenant neither of them knows runs out of the gloom and says, “What platoon?”
Stick tells him, and the lieutenant says, “We’re making another push. Right now.”
“The hell we are,” Stick says. “Where’s Lieutenant Stone?”
“He caught a frag. He’ll live, but he’s gone and I’m it and my goddamned orders say to move up!”
“Shove your orders up your ass. Sir,” Stick shouts.
“Listen, Sergeant, we’ve got a whole platoon across upstream, and they’re catching it on both flanks.”
“Fug!” Stick yells.
“Now!” the officer bellows with the eerie energy of terror.
And without a word to his squad, Stick starts forward on his own, unwilling to ask anyone to follow him. Rio hesitates and sees Cat looking to her as if for guidance.
“Shit!” Rio snarls and goes after Stick.
Back to the river.
Back stumbling across GIs dead and dying.
Back to the bridge now mostly gone, but with the hand rope still in place so they pull themselves across, fighting the current, pushing floating dead men and women aside, some cursing and blaspheming, others praying, most just putting one foot in front of the other.
Again, they climb the far bank, and the Germans only then spot them. The fire is less this time. The phosphorous in the German bunker has flamed out at last, and they spill into the reeking bunker.
For the first time in an eternity, they are out of the r
ain. Two German soldiers lie dead. One still burns, his uniform wicking melted human fat into a flame.
With shaking fingers Rio taps out a Lucky Strike and settles it in the corner of her mouth. She pulls out her Zippo and lights it, letting the smoke fill her nostrils and disguise the stench of burning flesh.
“What now, Stick?” Geer asks.
