James Benn - A Mortal Terror

The field ambulance had taken the badly wounded already, and the medics were bandaging the last two GIs when we got back to the jeep. Stump was being patched up as well, a medic winding gauze around his forearm.

“Shrapnel nicked me,” he said. “Didn’t even feel it until I saw the blood.”

“Bad luck,” I said. “A little worse and you might have been sent home.”

“And miss this escorted tour of beautiful Italy? No way. You takin’ those guys back? They ain’t banged up too bad.”

“Yeah. You’re not going?”

“I’d be embarrassed with this scratch. Make sure they fix ’em up and get ’em right back to us. I got a feeling we’re going to need every man pretty soon.”

“It’s a long way from Bar Raffaele, isn’t it?”

“You got that right, Billy. Paying too much to drink rotgut wine in the sunshine has got it all over this. Them Krauts are gonna keep shelling us until we take those hills up there. All Inzerillo ever did was overcharge us.”

“What about that fight, the one Landry and Flint had to pay damages for? What happened? I never heard the whole story.”

“I dunno,” Stump said, his voice low. “I got a dose of the clap there, you know what I mean? The docs gave me shots and I was out of circulation for a while. Don’t spread it around, okay?”

“My lips are sealed,” I said. “Any word about replacements?” I asked, thinking that venereal disease made a good motive, for roughing up Inzerillo, at least. Or a good excuse to pretend ignorance. Either way, I wasn’t getting anywhere.

“Arnold wouldn’t bother to tell us if he had a boatload. Not his style. He only comes around scrounging souvenirs, got a real sideline going for himself. Replacements either show up or they don’t.”

“That’s good to know. I’ve got a nice SS dagger stashed away.”

“Well, see Arnold, he’s always buying. I hear he ships the stuff home, got a pal who sells it off. You think rear area guys pay top dollar? It’s civilians and 4-Fs who shell out the real dough. Arnold’s smart, I give him that. You see him, tell him we need some experienced men, or he might get a Tiger tank for a souvenir, complete with crew.”

“Lieutenant?” a medic called to me. “These guys are ready to go.”

I wished Stump well and promised him I’d deliver the message to Arnold if I saw him, which I knew was one helluva long shot. The two wounded managed to stay upright as we drove them to battalion aid, where they joined a long line of the walking wounded. German artillery had had a busy day. So had we.

It was easy to get back to the twin towns of Anzio and Nettuno. All we had to do was follow the pillars of smoke. The Luftwaffe had been back, going after transports anchored offshore and the buildup of supplies off the beach. Anzio had been hit hard, first by our own bombardment and now by German bombs. There was even more destruction now than when we’d driven off the beach. I maneuvered the jeep around rubble and burning vehicles, waiting as ambulances barreled by. Everyone seemed to be glancing up, watching for the next wave of attacking aircraft. Near the center of town, a row of houses had been hit, leaving nothing standing but the front facades, doors and windows opening to piles of stone, timber, smashed furniture, and debris. Three women sat at the edge of the ruins, each of them nursing a baby. A few salvaged possessions lay about them. Their clothes and hair were caked with dust, nothing but breast and child, clean and pink.

“Is not war terrible?” Kaz said. “That we should think them the lucky ones?”

I didn’t answer.

Back in Nettuno, General Lucas’s villa had been renovated, courtesy of the Luftwaffe. There was a gaping hole in the roof, but no sign of an explosion. A GI told us it was from an unexploded bomb, and that Corps staff had moved into a nearby wine cellar for protection. We found Major Kearns in a deep stone basement filled with giant wooden wine casks and thick spiderwebs. A sour smell rose from a dank earthen floor. The place was a full-fledged winery, but had been unused for years. GIs carried desks, tables, map boards, radios, and other gear down a rickety flight of wooden steps.

“Driven underground already, and the casks are empty,” Kearns said by way of greeting. “Not the best start for an invasion. What did you find out?”

“Mainly that my kid brother was transferred into Landry’s old platoon.”

“Life is full of coincidences,” Kearns said. “Does it mean anything?”

“I don’t believe in coincidence,” I said. Dad had always said people mistook cause and effect for coincidence. “If the killer is in that platoon, then he’s managed to get one up on me. It’s like handing him a hostage. Danny was part of an ASTP group that just landed at Naples. Major Arnold was sending them out to platoons just before he was killed. Now maybe that’s a coincidence too, but I doubt it. Everyone knows Arnold was in the souvenir business. It would have been easy to ask him for a favor-like transferring one particular replacement into a certain platoon-in return for a Nazi flag or a pile of soldbuchs.” Cause and effect.

“And then kill him?” Kearns said, with a touch of sarcasm.

“It does fit,” Kaz said. “Otherwise, Arnold might make a connection, were anything to happen to Billy’s brother. And he was the right rank for the killer’s next target. It was the perfect opportunity.”

“All right,” Kearns said. “I’ll get Danny transferred out. The division is pushing off in the morning, across the Mussolini Canal. It’ll have to wait until after that.”

“But sir, he’s only a kid,” I said, not liking the idea of Danny under fire out on that exposed field.

“There are a lot of kids out there, Boyle. I buy it that it will be better all around to get him out of the platoon, but there’s no time to get the paperwork going. Besides, all you need to do is not make a move until after tomorrow morning. That way we won’t tip our hand. After the attack, I’ll send up the proper paperwork, and it will look completely normal. Now, tell me what else you’ve got.”

“Not much. I spoke to all of them about Major Arnold, but none of them seemed to know he was dead.”

“They wouldn’t. They were all aboard ship by the time you found him. What else?”

“We confirmed that Lieutenant Landry did have a girl at Inzerillo’s place. Seems he wanted her to go straight, but there’s no way to confirm that now.”

“Boyle, you’re not exactly cracking this case wide open,” Kearns said.

“I know,” I said, not wanting to admit that I was taking time to protect my kid brother. “I just need a little more time to get Danny out so I can press these guys harder.”

“So you went easy on them today? Let me guess, you said it was just a social call, to see your brother. Picked up a little gossip, then headed back here to get the kid transferred. Am I close?”

“I had to feel them out, Major. I couldn’t even interrogate them properly, since we were under artillery fire for most of the time. They had dead and wounded to deal with too.”

“All right, all right. But press them hard next time. Find this guy, before he finds his next victim. I want him brought to justice, and I want it to happen before some Kraut blows his head off. Anything else?”

“Only that Lieutenant Evans is worried about Sergeant Walla,” Kaz said. He hadn’t mentioned it to me, but between ferrying the wounded and driving through bombed-out ruins, we hadn’t had time for much conversation. “He says he’s changed since they’ve come ashore, as if something is worrying him.”

“He should be worried,” I said, stating the obvious. “Any sane man would be.”