James Benn: Blood alone

The paratroop captain grabbed boxes of ammo and began loading the back of the jeep. I pushed aside the tent flap and went inside.

Rocko was nowhere to be seen. Crates of M1s and ammo were stacked along one side of the tent, and everything else an army ran on along the other. Cases of scotch and whiskey, cartons of Luckies, canned food-not K rations, but the real thing-piled alongside boots, helmets, and every issue of clothing the army allowed. A clawfoot bathtub, oddly stark white in the midst of all the brown and green, stood behind a wall of crates. It was filled with large green glass jars of olives. Baskets of fresh figs were set among cases of Italian wine. Now I understood why Rocko had gone out looking for more transport. He had a nice little sideline going here.

I picked up an M1 and a couple of bandoliers of ammo. There were plenty of helmets, but I had to dig to find one with the netting already on it. Why? Was it important? I could almost hear someone telling me it was. I put on the helmet and winced as it pressed against the bandage on my head.

At the back of the tent was a table on trestles set up as a desk. Forms and requisitions littered the top; empty crates turned on their sides served as filing cabinets. On top of the table was a web belt with plenty of extra clips and a. 45 automatic in the holster, along with a combat knife and a full canteen. It was obviously somebody's, maybe Rocko's, but right now I needed it more. I put it on and grabbed a Parsons jacket from where it had been thrown on the table. I'd left my jacket at the hospital, preferring something that more clearly showed which side I was on. Stuffing this jacket through the web belt as I walked out of the tent, I felt a flash of recognition. Something about that other one and how it didn't seem to belong to any particular army… how it could pass for either side. What did that mean?

"Hustle, soldier!" the captain barked at me as he backed up the jeep to turn around. "And grab some of those bazooka rounds."

I gathered half a dozen black cardboard tubes from a pile and did my best to jump into the jeep without losing anything. The skinny corporal was in the back, cases of ammo wedged all around him. A wooden crate of grenades was on the floor in front of the passenger's seat, and I gingerly rested my feet on it as I got in, grabbing the metal edge of the jeep with one hand and wrapping my bandaged arm around the tubes holding the bazooka shells. It hurt. My head hurt too, and my gut was starting to quiver, but that was from fear.

"That supply sergeant gone?"

"Looks like it, sir," I said.

"Rocko said the captain wanted him," the corporal said, hanging on as the jeep climbed the incline up off the beach. "Our captain, I mean, sir."

"What's your name, Corporal?"

"Aloysius Hutton, sir."

The paratroop officer nearly cracked a smile. "Well, Hutton, when we get back, I'll bust Rocko and give you his extra stripe. He just lost his."

"I don't think Rocko will like that much, sir." Hutton shook his head as if the captain had been foolish not to consult Rocko first on the matter.

"Where are we headed, Captain?" I cut in before he decided to ask me my name.

"Biazza Ridge."

"That where all the firing's been coming from?"

"Yep. Slim Jim has been holding on all day up there."

"Who, sir?"

"Colonel Jim Gavin, commander of the 505th Regiment. There were only six of us when we started out. We were lost all day yesterday. Today we found some other paratroopers and some boys from the 45th Division. We started walking toward Gela and then hit that ridge, kicked a few Krauts off, and dug in."

He blasted his horn as we passed a column of trucks, pressing the accelerator to the floor, and kicking up a plume of road dust as we sped by the hospital. The rest of the walking wounded were gone, probably already headed up to Biazza Ridge.

"Then we saw tanks and lots more Krauts headed down from Biscari, on the road that leads straight into Gela and our beachhead. That ridge is the only high ground around."

As we sped around a curve, I had to lean and hold onto my helmet and the bazooka rounds. It wasn't easy. It didn't leave me with a hand to hold onto the jeep, and the way he was driving I worried about ending up in a ditch. He picked up speed on a slight downhill run as we passed a dried-up lake bed, hot air rolling over us like heat from a blast furnace. From what I had seen of Sicily so far, fresh water wasn't one of its attractions. I squinted my eyes against the wind and wondered if I'd remember anything useful about bazookas, fighting, and killing. Or maybe running.

"Uh, sir, how many are you, up there on that ridge?" Hutton said from the back. I could hear him gulp.

"Couple hundred by now. Lots of our guys headed that way when they heard the fighting. They've been showing up all day."

"But no tanks. No Shermans," I said.

"No. Plenty of Kraut armor, though, mostly Mark IVs. A bazooka can take one out if you hit 'em in the ass or take out a tread."

"What else they got, sir?" asked Hutton, his gulp getting louder as fear dried out his mouth.

"They got Tigers, son. I loaded a round for Slim Jim not ten yards from a Tiger, and he hit it square on the side. Damn thing ricocheted off and didn't even scratch it."

"You got a colonel goin' ten yards from a Tiger tank? Jee-sus!" said Hutton. He was impressed.

Me, I wondered what they made the privates do.

"Dig in, dig in!"

The voice carried over the explosions and harsh cracks as 88mm shells from a Tiger tank split the air and thundered into the ground. Shrill whistling sounds arcing across the sky trailed mortar shells as they found the backside of the hill. Shrapnel was everywhere, zinging against hard rock, filling the air with razors of hot metal. The ground thudded, and I felt the vibration in my stomach. A machine gun fired quick bursts, sounding like a chain saw warming up before it took down a big tree. It was German. Ours made a series of dull pumping sounds. I imagined the German slugs knocking our few pitiful rounds out of the way. More bursts and a crackle of rifle fire. Dirt kicked up all around us, bullets cutting into the ground, shattering loose rock and showering us with dust and grit. Hutton was a few feet away, making love to the ground just like me.

"Dig in, goddamn it!"

I wanted to turn and look at whoever had a set of lungs on him powerful enough to make himself heard over the pounding we were taking. But that would have meant lifting my head a fraction of an inch. My face was flat against the ground, my hands wrapped around an entrenching tool that was doing no good with me on top of it. I'd have to raise my arms to use it, and I knew there were bullets up there. I could feel the air thrum as they passed over. Not moving felt sensible.

"Dig in, soldier!"

I felt a rifle butt whack my thigh and turned my head as little as I could. Kneeling down behind me was a tall guy, all knees and elbows. He had to scrunch himself up to stay low. But he wasn't facedown in the dirt. He held his M1 up and hit me in the boot heel with it to make sure he had my attention.

"Dig in. Long and narrow. When those Tigers move in, lie down, let 'em pass over, then hit the infantry coming up behind. Got it?"

I looked at his face. It was dirty and his eyes looked hollow, but there was still something boyish about him. He wore a jump jacket and his pants bloused over his boots. Paratrooper.

"Got it, Slim Jim."

Colonel Gavin didn't hear me. He was already off, running low, M1 gripped in both hands like any GI. "Dig in, dig in." I turned on my side and started scraping a hole in the ground as two paratroopers with a bazooka scurried up next to me and began some serious digging of their own. They ignored the bullets whizzing by as their entrenching tools bit at the dry, stony ground. I looked down the hill at a dark form visible beyond the sloping terrain. I could see the shimmering heat above black metal as the Tiger swiveled its turret, the long, smoking muzzle searching out another target. If that thing was getting any closer I wanted to be underground. I got up on my knees and dug, swinging the entrenching tool in rapid, swift strokes.