James Benn - A Mortal Terror

“You sure you want to go through with this, Cosgrove?” Harding asked as our phony general eased himself into the backseat of the staff car. “The Force men are a rough bunch. Between Flint, the Krauts, and them, you won’t have a friend within miles.”

“Don’t worry, Sam,” Big Mike said. “I got my. 45 automatic, a Winchester Model 12 trench gun, and a. 38 police special for backup.” Harding permitted a causal familiarity from Big Mike, which no one else would ever dare to try to get away with. Big Mike did it so naturally, I don’t think Harding could take offense. Plus, Big Mike knew when to call him ‘sir.’

“Where the hell did you get a shotgun?” Harding asked.

“It’s not hard when you’ve got a supply officer desperate to get his fancy jeep back,” Big Mike said. “Automatic at my hip, shotgun by my side, revolver in my pocket, and walkie-talkie on the seat. If Major Cosgrove gets killed, you can fire me.”

“That’s General Paget to you, Sergeant,” Cosgrove said. “And if he does get me killed, Harding, break him to private and keep him in the army for life.”

“In that case, you’re safe as a baby with me,” Big Mike said, settling in behind the wheel.

“Remember, the SCR-536 has a range of only a mile. We’ll stay close, but don’t wander off, or we’ll lose you. Check in every thirty minutes.”

“Will do.” With that they were off.

Their first stop would be Valmontorio, on the coast where the Mussolini Canal ran into the sea. It was the far end of the line that the Force held, and the plan was for Cosgrove to kick up a big stink, so word would spread ahead of him. Kearns had already radioed General Frederick, who agreed to go along with the plan, and let word slip to his staff about an inspection by a British general who thought highly trained units like the FSSF were a waste of resources.

The unit held the canal north up to Sessano, and that was where Luca and his Carabinieri came in. He was there with a truckload of men, supposedly searching for spies. If we needed help, we’d send a radio message and then have reinforcements from another direction. It was a good plan, especially since GIs were used to seeing the blueuniformed Carabinieri, and tended to ignore them.

The dull crump of distant artillery rolled in from the north, and I had the usual thought: glad it’s them, not me. We went in the MP office for one last check. No one had reported seeing the missing jeep, no sign of Flint or Danny. By the time we left, the artillery was louder. Closer.

“Why’d you switch to that peashooter?” Harding said as we got into the jeep. He was carrying a Thompson submachine gun. Kaz was armed only with his Webley revolver, but he was pretty good with it and didn’t like carrying anything else. Ruined the cut of his uniform, he claimed.

“Traded with a guy who got us out of a scrape,” I said. “Besides, it’s light, and more accurate than the Thompson.”

“Just make sure you shoot him more than once with that,” Harding said. “I’ve seen Krauts take a couple of those slugs and keep running.” He was right; compared to the M1 rifle, or the Thompson, the M1 carbine round was small and less powerful. Still, it had its uses.

I drove, Kaz at my side, Harding in the back. We went along the coast road, and watched destroyers cut circles in the bay, smoke pots churning on their fantails, disappearing into the white clouds that they created. All that smoke was camouflage for an incoming convoy, and the German gunners registered their disapproval by sending a few shells after the destroyers, not even getting close but sending up great geysers of blue-and-white foam. The wind kicked up, and dark clouds drifted in from the sea, blowing the smoke in our direction. The water, air, and sky became the same uniform gray, the heavy weather covering the land with an opaque, damp, shivering chill. I steered the jeep around the occasional bomb crater not yet filled in by the engineers, who had round-the-clock work keeping roads, bridges, and airfields functioning.

Where was Danny? What would I do if he were killed out here, not by the Germans, but by a man I’d been sent to track down? How could I tell my mother, or confess my failing to my father? I ached to find Danny, and I prayed as I drove, bargaining with God, offering everything I could think of, frightened that it wasn’t God who held Danny’s future in his hands, but a homicidal maniac. I’d bargain with him too, if I knew what he wanted, and if it were mine to give.

“Look out,” Kaz said, leaning forward in his seat. “Slow down, there are shell holes all around.”

“Good reason to go faster,” Harding said from the backseat, where he’d just finished checking in with Big Mike on the walkietalkie. I maintained my speed, weaving between the blackened holes, aware of the burned-out wrecks of vehicles on either side of the road. “Looks like the Germans have this area zeroed in. Narrow road, nowhere to go. We’d be sitting ducks if it wasn’t for this fog.”

The wind had died down, leaving the coast shrouded in mist, making it hard to see where I was going. But if I couldn’t see, the Germans up in the hills sure as hell couldn’t either, and I was glad not to have a ton of explosive steel raining down on us.

“Stop!” Harding yelled. I braked, and he jumped out, running to an overturned truck, where a body lay sprawled on the ground. All I could think was, please let it not be Danny.

It wasn’t. There were bloody compresses on his chest, where medics had worked on him. Other medical debris was scattered around him. There may have been other wounded, so the medics left the corpse behind for Graves Registration.

“False alarm,” Harding said.

“Perhaps not,” Kaz said, holding the dead man’s dog tag. “This says Amos Flint.”

“Search him,” I said. “We need to find out what name Flint is using.” Kaz and I went through his pockets, but Flint must have beaten us to it.

“Nothing,” Kaz said. “The man is clever, I must say.”

“Save the compliments,” Harding said. “The fog is clearing, let’s go.”

We crossed a wooden bridge and took the road into Valmontorio, a cluster of cinderblock buildings scattered about on either side of the road as it bent north, along the bank of the Mussolini Canal. Every building had been hit. Roofs were gone; the contents of homes tumbled out into the street or were left charred inside gutted structures. It looked like a ghost town.

“Get that goddamn jeep out of sight!” barked a GI who appeared from nowhere. Suddenly men appeared in doorways and at windows. One of them waved us into a spot between two houses and beckoned us to follow inside. “What are you boys doing here?” he said, as if we’d been caught trespassing. At the far end of the room, two GIs were eating their rations, glancing occasionally at the foggy view of the shoreline and canal. A radio sat on a table, along with binoculars and a map of the coast. A rather casual observation post.

“Your rank, soldier?” Harding said, stepping forward so his insignia could be seen.

“Lieutenant George Bodine, First Special Service Force. What can I do for you, Colonel?” He made it sound like a chore to even answer the question.

“Why did you pull us in? Are there Germans close by?”

“No, Colonel, there ain’t a live Kraut within a mile of here,” Bodine said as the other two men chuckled. “But the fog is about to blow off, and in five minutes you’d be dead if you went up that road. German gunners have been waiting for hours now to spot something.”

“It doesn’t look like it’s clearing,” Kaz said, peering out through the glassless window.

“It is. You wait.”