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“Ain’t it just,” Cole agrees sourly.
“Jasper, you ride back out with Daddy D,” Green orders. “I want him cared for, best they can.”
Jasper is too shaken up to argue. Almost his entire squad is dead. Rio thinks, He’s got no one to shame him into bravery now.
Rio tests her leg. It works. She ritually checks her M1, checks the straps on her pack, checks her belt, and slaps her palm on the front of her helmet to get it seated just right. Then, an afterthought: she looks ahead at the beach, still two minutes away. She estimates. She has time.
“Jen! Get my knife out of my pack for me.”
“What?”
“Just get it!”
The knife, the koummya, and its scabbard emerge. Rio has attached rawhide strips to act as a belt and quickly straps it to her uninjured right thigh, as high up as it will ride without bumping into her dangling canteen. She twists her belt slightly and tests her reach, dropping her hand several times to find the hilt.
When she looks up she intercepts a strange, cold look from Jenou. But there’s no time to ask for an explanation, and anyway Jenou shakes her head in feigned amusement, killing the moment.
Jenou wants me to take the easy way out, Rio thinks. She doesn’t understand. First Strand and now Jenou willing her to grab any excuse to go.
Neither of them understands.
The boat is in close, but the hull has not yet scraped sand. The coxswain drops the ramp, which splashes into the water, and the men and women of Second Squad go pelting out. Tilo, Pang, and Cat are in the lead, and the three of them fall from view, dropping straight down into eight feet of water.
“Goddammit!” Cole roars. “We’re too far out!”
The coxswain throws the boat into reverse and starts to raise the ramp again. Cole strips off his pack, tosses his Thompson to Jack, and readies to jump in after his men. Rio is right behind him, tearing off her pack and tossing her rifle to Jillion, and, somewhat to her surprise, Geer is diving in as well. Geer has had the presence of mind to grab a rope.
Rio jumps feetfirst and plows down until the soles of her boots land on shifting sand. She opens her eyes underwater and spots Tilo, suddenly brilliantly lit by a star shell exploding high above them. He’s desperately trying to get his pack off his back. His eyes are wide with terror. Bubbles escape from his mouth.
Rio kicks and glides toward him, drawing her koummya as she goes. Tilo nearly brains her with a panicky fist, but she slips past him, glides around behind, grabs his pack with one hand, and inserts the koummya between Tilo’s shoulder blade and the strap. One quick slice cuts through, and Tilo is able to shrug off the rest as Rio gets beneath him and pushes his head up into the air.
It’s not so hard, Rio thinks. Long as you don’t panic. Salt water stings the wound on her thigh.
Tilo manages to remove his own belt. He can swim well enough at least to keep afloat once unburdened. Rio surfaces, gasping for air, and gets a bellyful of salt water instead. She gags and coughs and looks wildly around to see that the boat is now forty feet away. The remaining soldiers are yelling a blue streak at the coxswain. Cole is bobbing a few feet away with Cat in the crook of his arm. Cat is sputtering and trying to yell, but white foam rolls over them both.
“Geer!” Rio shouts. “Geer!”
There’s a porpoise-like eruption and Geer appears. He has an unconscious Hansu Pang in his arms and is fighting to keep him afloat. Tilo, now mostly recovered, swims to his aid, and between them they pass the rope around Pang, who is larger and heavier than he looks, and haul him like a fish toward the beach. The sand rises beneath them, allowing their boots to first touch and push off, and then to walk, fighting the retreating waves and allowing incoming waves to help to push them toward the shore.
It’s like moving through molasses, as if the Mediterranean, having once tasted them, is reluctant to spit them out. Finally, Rio collapses face-first on the beach. She
hugs the sand, gasping for air and retching up seawater.
Geer is astride Pang, pushing down on his chest, forcing water from his lungs. Suddenly Pang coughs back to life and Geer stands and steps back, as if now wishing to deny any connection to the weakly stirring GI.
Frangie Marr is running beside Walter Green, a hundred yards down the beach where the landing craft has finally beached. The boat is already turning back toward the transport.
And with that a badly shaken Second Squad, Fifth Platoon, is ashore on Sicily, minus a good portion of its ammo, some of its weapons, and way too much of its food.
But alive.
13
RAINY SCHULTERMAN—ABOARD HMS TOPAZ, TYRRHENIAN SEA
The first dive was just a test dive. As were the next three. Lieutenant Commander Alger and his officers are keeping the crew at the peak of training.
Cisco has spent most of a week drugged and lashed into his hammock. From time to time he’s been allowed up on deck to blink blearily at the sun before being led on wobbly legs back to his opium dreams.
