Frank Polizzi - Somewhere in the Stars

“Why Nannu? Pirichi?”

“Pirichi —I would not have left after seeing you. E la verità. Iu sugnu felici e tristu a chistu momentu. At this moment, my grandson— comu the two masks of drama that we learned from our Greek ancestors— one happy, the other sad. Chista è nostra vita, Nicolo, this is our life, Nicky.”

Nannu’s tales punctuated Nick’s thoughts on his drive back to retrieve Nathan. The jeep swirled in the gravel and awoke his friend. Nathan had saved the stubs of the cigars and when he jumped into the jeep, Nick lit them up.

“So how did it go with your grandfather?”

“Like listening to an epicurean and stoic at the same time.”

“I like the epicurean better.”

“He told me wonderful stories about my father. Things I never knew about him.”

“Making up for lost time, Nick.” Nathan slid the cigar to the side of his mouth. “We’d better hit the road.”

The old lady waved and her grandson ran over to the jeep and tossed a few blood oranges into Nathan’s lap. Nick flipped a Hershey’s chocolate bar to the boy and sped away.

They got back just in time, but Sergeant Ackers pounced on them from out of nowhere. “Who gave you permission to leave? You’re both AWOL.” Two MPs stood behind him. “Arrest these guys! They stole the colonel’s jeep.”

“What are you talking about, Sergeant? The colonel gave us permission,” Nathan protested, as the MPs put them in irons.

“What are you nuts? We’re not AWOL! I just spent the afternoon with my grandfather. Talk to Captain Monroe, if you don’t believe me, for Christ’s sake.”

The sergeant motioned to the MPs. “Take them away.”

“When I get out of these cuffs, we’re going to settle this once and for all,” Nick spat out.

“Listen to the thieving dago,” the sergeant snickered.

“Release those men immediately,” the captain ordered as he came from behind a supply truck. “As for you, sergeant, you’re lucky we’re in a war zone. Now do something productive!” The captain went around the truck to finish his conversation with the supply sergeant.

“Some day you guys aren’t gonna have your little savior around. Just watch out someone don’t toss a grenade into your turret while you’re star gaping.” Nathan and Nick glared at the sergeant as he strutted away.

“Why do I think that man is a Nazi in an American uniform?” Nathan asked.

In the evening Nathan’s crew sat on the ground near their tent and passed around K-rations, the highlight being canned chicken paté and two ounce chocolate bars that they nibbled on while they wrote letters. When it got dark, Nathan, Paul and Al turned in and Nick sat on the fender of the tank. There were no stars out, just clouds that cut across the full moon. The more he stared at the sky, the more he recognized images in the vapors. One of them turned into the shape of Nannu’s hair. Nick remembered the touch of his grandfather’s rough hand on his face and the gleam of recognition in his light blue eyes. Nick wished Papà had been there to share the moment. Someday he would return with Papà to see Nannu before he expired over the grinding wheel.

At dawn the armored division fired up their vehicles. The colonel gathered all the officers and tank commanders in his squadron and briefed them. “Since we’re the swiftest, our tank destroyers will lead the division. We’re heading northwest to Palermo, not, I repeat, not northeast to Messina. These orders are straight from General Patton himself. If there are no questions, mount your tanks!” As Nick steered onto the new course, he questioned Nathan on the logic of this move. His crew commander shrugged it off.

Nick kept the tank destroyer at full throttle, 32 miles per hour, while the rest of his squadron was stretched out along the main road in a column, followed by another squadron of heavier Sherman tanks and infantry battalions. They first followed the coastal road west to Agrigento and then headed north on the route to Palermo. As they proceeded north and began to climb higher, the spinning tracks of the tanks ricocheted off the short, stone walls on the sides of the road, giving off an eerie Martian-like sound, reminding Nick of the book, War of the Worlds, that he had read after listening to the chilling rendition by Orson Welles on the radio. They continued several days over dilapidated roads of serrated stones through high mountains with scary hairpin turns, as if the column following was one elongated coil of a thick-skinned serpent. They reached the extended stretch of the valley, as Nick grinded the tank tracks by farmlands that ran up hills, rectangles of once yellow harvested wheat fields now scorched brown by the Sicilian sun, the only sign of life, clusters of hard green grapes in scattered vineyards shielded by mountains. Nathan took note of a huge mountain to the left, signaling they were getting closer to the sea, later on moving west along the north coastal road to Palermo.

Nathan’s crew had been cruising so fast they lost sight of their tank column in the rear. The road ahead was littered with rusted farm machinery and Nathan ordered Nick to veer off onto a nearby secondary road. They had gone a half-mile when Nathan ordered him to stop the tank.

“What’s up Nate?”

“I have a feeling this is a setup.” Nathan aimed the 50-caliber Browning, secured on the front of the turret, and shot off a volley that detonated land mines 50 yards away.

“Holly shit!” Nick called out to Nathan. Several minutes later, stray mortar rounds from a faraway position whammed right in front of them.

“Nick, back out! Double time!”

By the time they got back to the fork, their squadron had caught up with them with Captain Monroe’s company in the lead. The captain radioed Nathan to join them ‘toute suite’ !”

“The krauts must have mined the roads,” Nathan shouted out as they approached the captain’s tank.

The captain ordered his tank crews to clear away the blockade, and then a Sherman ‘Crab’ minesweeper was brought up from the rear to detonate any anti-tank mines on the road. When the Seventh Army made it to the Tyrrhenian Sea, it was a flat run to Palermo. The monotony of the road broke for Nick when he spotted the blue-green waters that met the jagged rocks along the coast. When the sun went down, they halted to eat and rest up. They were surprised by the lack of resistance from the Axis troops.

Nathan’s crew sat on the ground in a circle near their tank and had just finished their K-ration supper. They were already looking like a bunch of unshaven hobos in uniform, their fatigues filthy and bodies reeking, not having a shower since the invasion began. They unraveled their sleeping bags to get some rest before they mounted the assault on Palermo.

By oh five the next morning their squadron was moving along the coastal road. As the tank destroyers approached the edge of the foothills, the city of Palermo stretched across the plain all the way to the blue bay. They could see the dome of the Cathedral of Palermo with its Gothic campanile and, not far away, at the highest point, the crenellated wall of Palazzo dei Normanni , grand enough for General Patton to pick as his headquarters. Monte Pellegrino rose to the west of the city.

The rapid advance on Palermo made some sense to Nick after Nathan explained to his crew that the Germans had already fled to Messina, leaving the Italians alone to defend the city and its important harbor. Some advance patrols had already captured key officers. On the evening of July 22nd, Nick witnessed the surrender of the capital of Sicily by Generale di Brigata Giuseppe Molinaro with the Junker-like scar across his left cheek. General Patton had got what he craved—the liberation of the first city of Europe.