James Benn - A Mortal Terror

There wasn’t much to say about that. I tried to imagine what it was like, winter in the high Apennines; Germans dug in behind every ridgeline, trying to kill you while you worked at not freezing to death. Yeah, no wonder. I sipped my whiskey and tried not to think about the guys who were up there right now, dying. There were times to think, and times to drink. If you knew which to do when, you might stay sane. I took another sip, then slammed back the rest of the booze, waiting for the warmth in my belly to spread while visions of cold and wet GIs faded from my mind.

They didn’t. As Einsmann and I gabbed, about the war, the women in the room, the brass, all the usual bull, I knew they were out there. I’d been there too, not as high as in those mountains, but out in a foxhole with cold water pooled at the bottom, hot lead flying above, and the cries of the wounded all around. I could see it now, even as I watched Einsmann return with a couple of fresh glasses, and for a moment it felt like there was no time at all, but simply here and there, the bar and the mountains, and I could as easily be in one as the other. I must be tired, I thought, too much travel. We talked, and drank, and the noise of the

conversations in the room rose into an incessant buzz as it grew more crowded. I could barely make out what Einsmann was saying and had to lean closer when I heard him mention ASTP.

“What did you say about ASTP?” My kid brother Danny was in the Army Specialized Training Program back home. He’d enlisted as soon as he was eighteen, and the army put him into ASTP after basic training. It was a program for kids with brains, sending them to college for advanced courses while keeping them in uniform. The idea was that they’d graduate as officers, keeping the army supplied with second lieutenants as the war went on. It was tailor-made for Danny; he was a bright kid in some ways, but he was too young to have any common sense about staying alive. A college campus was the safest place for him.

“Working on a story about it,” Einsmann said. “The army is pulling most of those kids out of college.”

“Why?”

“They’re short on infantry replacements. The brass figures it doesn’t make much sense to keep those boys in college when they need bodies now. They pulled over a hundred thousand of them out, about two-thirds of the program.”

“When did this happen?” I’d had a letter from Danny a month ago and he hadn’t mentioned a thing about it.

“Few weeks ago. There’s a transport landing in Naples tomorrow with the first batch for Italy. Most are going to the 3rd. I’m going down there to interview some of them. Then I’ll follow up in a few days when they’ve been assigned to their platoons. Ought to be interesting.”

“My kid brother is in ASTP, but I guess I would have heard if he’d been called up. I can imagine these veterans giving college boys a cozy welcome, especially since they’ve been sitting out the past few months on campus.” I hoped Danny wasn’t among this bunch. They’d have a hard time before they ever got to the front.

“I figure that’s what will make it interesting,” Einsmann said. “Word is some noncoms think the ASTPers will have a monopoly on promotions when they hand out new stripes. Especially the Southern boys.”

“Everything will probably smooth out once they get up on the line,” I said. Yeah, it’ll be peachy up there, one big happy family united by butchery and misery.

I saw Major Kearns making his way through the crowd, with two Carabinieri officers in tow. They both wore dark-blue dress uniforms, with the flaming grenade emblem of the Italian national police on their service caps.

“Lieutenant Boyle,” Kearns said, after a nod of greeting to Einsmann. “This is Capitano Renzo Trevisi, and Tenente Luca Amatori. Capitano Trevisi is in charge of the local Carabinieri garrison.”

“Billy Boyle,” I said, standing to shake hands.

“Pleased to meet you,” Trevisi said in heavily accented but precise English. He looked to be about forty, with a thick, dark mustache, a slight paunch, and a friendly smile. “If I can be of any assistance, I am at your service. Major Kearns has told us of your investigations. I do not think there is any civilian involvement in this unfortunate matter, but please ask should you require anything.”

“Thank you, Capitano, I will.”

Trevisi spoke in Italian to his lieutenant, who had been silent during the exchange in English. I heard Galante and Landry’s names mentioned as he gestured to me. “Tenente Amatori will provide whatever you need if I am not available. Buona sera.”

“Interesting,” Einsmann said as they moved off.

“What?”

“I’ve never seen Italian officers here before, army or Carabinieri. I wonder what’s up?”

“Well, the Italians are on our side now. They have a combat group fighting near Cassino, and most of the Carabinieri are loyal to the new government. Stands to reason they’d show up at HQ sooner or later. Plus there have been two murders.”

“Yeah,” Einsmann said. “But the killings are an army matter. No way they’d let the locals in on that unless they needed them for something.”

“Well, not my problem,” I said as I watched Kearns and the two Italians huddled in conversation. Maybe it was somebody else’s problem, maybe not. I decided I had enough to worry about without adding Italian cops, and got back to the subject of Galante.

“This Colonel Schleck, who got Galante transferred out. Where do I find him?”

“Personnel section, 3rd Division HQ, over at San Felice.”

“I’m headed there tomorrow. I’ll see what he knows.”

“What can he tell you? I doubt he killed Galante because they disagreed about combat fatigue.”

“No, but if he had it in for Galante, he had to know him, right? You can’t have a beef with a guy and not get to know him, even if it’s only his weaknesses.”

“And Galante’s weakness might tell you about who killed him?”

“It’s all I have right now,” I said.

I finished my drink and made my way out of the room, passing a group of colonels and women in low-cut dresses. The colonels were flushed and loud, their lips smacking with drink and lust. The women laughed, a harsh, high laugh that echoed off the marble floor and stayed with me as I stood in the rain, looking toward the invisible mountains to the north, where men shivered, suffered, and bled.

San Felice was a fair-sized village, or at least had been before the fighting passed through. Now it was a fair-sized pile of rubble, with the few intact buildings housing the 3rd Division staff. In front of a burned-out church, a water pipe stuck up from the ground, a spray of water gushing into the air. Women and children with buckets were lined up, eager to haul the fresh water home. At the base of the pipe, a gleaming white stone arm lay on the ground, its fingers gracefully pointing to the sky. Debris and masonry cascaded from the buildings into the street, making it hard to tell where the outline of homes and shops had been, but it was obvious this had been the piazza, the center of the village. Now it was crammed with shattered stone, a line of black-clad women, and American military vehicles.

I found G-1, Personnel, on the ground floor of a two-story school that was missing its roof. Colonel Raymond Schleck was seated at a desk near a boarded-up window, a tin bucket catching drips of rainwater from the ceiling. Files were stacked in wooden boxes all around him, and two clerks at the other end of the room pecked at typewriters, making piles of forms in triplicate, some nearly a foot high. They had the grimly bored look of men who knew there was probably an easier way to do this job, but also understood it had to be done the army way.