James Benn - A Mortal Terror

“Just as long as I’m not the one to lead them.”

“No one likes being responsible for other men’s lives. I’d bet you have been, and the experience didn’t sit well with you.”

“Really, Padre, I’m okay. I don’t need to tell it to the chaplain.”

“Well, I’m here if you need me. For a while, anyway.”

“Pulling out soon?”

“The signs are all there. Plenty of supplies, extra socks, and ammo. Good food, replacements coming in. Not hard to figure. It pays to be ready.”

“From what the noncoms tell me, things have been pretty rough for your outfit.”

“Yes,” Dare said, looking right through me for a fleeting moment, as memories danced just out of his field of vision. “Rough. There seemed to be no end to the minefields, machine guns, and mortars.” He kept looking into that middle distance, the place where the mind’s eye sees everything it wants to forget. Finally he rubbed his eyes and sighed. He stayed quiet, and I wondered if he were praying.

“Sorry,” he said, standing. “We lost a lot of men before we came off the line after Monte Cesima. Took the starch out of my collar.” He forced a weak smile. “The men get torn up horribly. I never imagined there were so many ways to be wounded and still live. I work with the litter bearers mostly.”

“It’s hard to imagine there’s someone living in the midst of this carnage and committing murder,” I said, trying to bring Father Dare back to the present.

“Evil exists in the world, we know that to be true,” he said. “It saddens me, but comes as no surprise. This person must have a tortured soul. Perhaps the exposure to so much violence has released demons that might have stayed buried in peacetime.”

“That’s generous of you.”

“No, not generous-realistic. Being a man of God means that you also have to accept the devil for what he is. Why wouldn’t the prince of darkness haunt a battlefield, probing for weaknesses, uncovering what lies beneath our civilized exteriors?”

“I was a cop in civilian life. I found the reasons for murder were more mundane. Love and money usually topped the list.”

“Don’t you think it takes the devil to turn what once was love into murderous intent?”

“Maybe,” I said, not wanting to get into a theological argument. My money was on the devil within us, not the guy with horns and a pitchfork. “Did Landry or Galante have any problems with love or money?”

“There’s little time for love of the kind you mean. Lust can be satisfied for chocolate or cigarettes, I understand. I have no idea what Landry may have done while in town, but I know Captain Galante was not the type to pursue lust. He was a not a lighthearted man. He took his responsibilities seriously. Any free time he had he spent studying Italian culture. He loved the language, the history, everything about it.”

“So I’ve heard. The only guy he seemed to antagonize was Colonel Schleck.”

“The colonel does his job the best way he knows how. So did Galante; he just didn’t care whose feathers he ruffled. Can’t say why. No one really knew him well. There was another chaplain, a rabbi, who he got along with, but he was wounded in Sicily and shipped home.”

“Galante was Jewish?”

“Yes, he was. Does that matter?”

“I don’t know. Maybe some guy said something, you know, ‘dirty Yids,’ that sort of thing. And Galante took offense.” I tried to sound like I neither approved nor disapproved of the term, so I could go along with the good Father whichever way he went.

“Some people aren’t too used to Catholics either, but they don’t murder them. Landry was Protestant, I believe. I never heard anything about remarks directed against Galante’s religion.”

“I’m trying to find a way to look at this, Father. So far, there’s no reason I can find for anyone to do more than pin a Good Conduct Medal on these guys.”

“Yes, I understand. It’s a bit like my line of work, isn’t it? People seem to be fine on the surface, but it’s their eternal soul that I worry about. It takes some digging to find out the truth about a soul.”

“Sounds like you didn’t dig anything up on Landry or Galante.”

“No, and I’m not keeping anything from you. Neither took confession with me, or shared confidences. Perhaps they were what they seemed.”

“What about Sergeant Jim Cole?” I was getting a little tired of people singing the praises of the living and the dead. I needed to hear their secrets, not their eulogies. “Did he do his job?”

“He did,” Father Dare said, not meeting my eyes. He stood and began taking things out of his field pack and repacking them.

“Past tense?”

“I’m sure he’s doing a good job at CID as well.”

“When was he transferred out of the division?”

“After Monte Cesima, about a month ago.”

“Why?”

“Jim Cole is a good man. He was one of the most selfless leaders you’d ever hope to find up on the line. He never asked a man to do what he wouldn’t do, or hadn’t done a hundred times. Night patrols, taking the point, it didn’t matter, he was always there.”

“Was he in Landry’s platoon?” I couldn’t believe Cole would leave that out if he was, but I was beginning to wonder what he had left out.

“No, he was with 1st Platoon.”

“But same company? Did he know Landry and his men?”

“Damnation, Boyle! Of course they knew each other. There weren’t but a few dozen who’d been with the outfit that long. Everybody knows everybody, except for the replacements, until they’re dead or veterans.”

“What happened to Cole, Padre?”

“Leave him out of this.”

“I’ve been told that before.”

“Then I don’t need to say it again.” He threw a few decks of cards into his pack. He had a cardboard box full of them.

“Where do you get the playing cards?”

“Quartermaster. Chaplains are morale officers, among other things. I’m issued sports equipment, cards, that sort of thing. I don’t think there will be much time for baseball when they ship us out.”

“Do you usually play poker with the enlisted men?” Chaplain or no, it was frowned upon for officers and men to gamble together.

“All the time, Lieutenant Boyle, all the time. They’re a lot more fun than most of the officers, who never let me forget I’m a priest. And I love poker. I cleaned up at the seminary.” He grinned, and I couldn’t help taking a liking to him.

“But not tonight.”

“No, Flint won big. I can read most people. It comes with the profession, and it’s useful in poker. But Flint is different. Bluffing or holding four aces, it’s all the same on his face. Unreadable. The best damn poker player in the platoon.”

“They asked him if he was going to give the money back. Why?”

“It’s sort of a tradition. If I win, I use the money to help out any boys who need it. Problems at home, that sort of thing. Sometimes for the local children, if we’re in a village. When I lose big, the winner will usually pass some scrip back to me.”

“Like tipping the dealer.”

“Sort of. Word got around it was good luck, so my private goodwill fund is never entirely depleted.”

“Pretty creative, Padre. Did you play cards with Landry?”

“A couple of times. He didn’t like to gamble with the men under his command. Said he didn’t want any of them owing him money.”

“Because someone might question who he chose to take point?”

“I think so,” Father Dare said. “It’s strange, though. He’d gamble with a captain or major who might send him to his death, but he wouldn’t play with an enlisted man whom he might have to give the same order to. Doesn’t really add up, does it?”