The First Wave (26 page)
“Billy! Here it is! An order to the 21st General Hospital, Colonel M.Walton Commanding. For the receipt of a shipment of penicillin, to be delivered tomorrow! It’s dated 9 November.” He turned it over, looking for the signature on the back of the form indicating receipt by the proper command. It was a carbon copy, so the signature wasn’t exactly clear. But it was still unmistakable.
Sgt. J. Casselli.
“Joe signed this on the 9th and was dead the next day,” I said.
“Is it normal procedure for a sergeant to sign such a receipt?” asked Kaz.
“Sure, when he’s the supply sergeant, like Joe was. Only thing is, normal procedure is to give it to your CO after signing for it.Walton would have gotten the original.Walton had to know about the shipment.”
“So he lied to us?”
I thought about that question. Could Casselli have kept the receipt from Walton? Why would he? I sat there with the sweat running down my face, dripping onto the plywood floor, evaporating in a second. I watched as the little drops hit the floor and then disappeared. Now you see it, now you don’t, just like the missing orders. I thought about that phone in Walton’s office, and how quickly that shooter had had us in his sights. I thought about gambling, and wondered what other vices Walton dabbled in. I thought about Blackpool, and how he was CO of a hospital in a city where the organized crime boss was related to a crooked French soldier in Algiers. I thought about letters, and codes, and disappearing supply sergeants.Now they’re here, now they’re gone. Drip, splash. Vanishing orders, evaporating in an instant. First here, then gone, now back again. I looked down at the piece of paper in my hand. Joe Casselli had scribbled his own death warrant, never knowing what that hasty scrawl had meant. I wondered what had happened. Had he taken the order to Walton, only to be told to keep it on the QT? Had he refused? Walton would yell and scream, Casselli would stand his ground.Walton would seem to give in . . . and then contact Mathenet, who would arrange to eliminate Casselli, the guy who wasn’t crooked enough for their plans.
“Billy?”
“Yeah, he lied. Let’s go.”
“BECAUSE EVERYTHING FITS, that’s why!” I gunned the jeep up the sloping roadway, away from the stinking docks, forcing Kaz to hang on, and hopefully to shut up.
“But there is no real evidence . . .” Kaz said, as he was slammed back in his seat. He alternated using his good arm to hold onto the brim of his service cap and to clutch the frame of the jeep. As usual, nothing stopped him from talking.
“Whaddya mean, no evidence? Walton had to have known about the second supply shipment. If Casselli never gave him the receipt, why did he end up with his throat slit? They must’ve argued, and Walton decided he had to be silenced. He had access to the only telephone within miles, and he came here from the same city in England where the Bessette family ran the local rackets. Plus, he gambles. He may have gotten in too deep in Blackpool and this is his payback.”
I took the next corner hard, glad I had the steering wheel and gearshift to hang onto. Kaz braced himself with his feet and clung to his hat.
“Circumstantial evidence,” Kaz said, shifting upright in his seat as I came out of the turn.
“Nothing wrong with circumstantial evidence if there’s a ton of it.”
“No, no, I mean the film,
Circumstantial Evidence
. We saw it one evening in London, at Headquarters.”
Ike loved movies, and nearly every night there was something showing at HQ.
“What about it?” I asked, slowing down in the crowded streets of the business district.
“An American journalist wishes to demonstrate that circumstantial evidence should not be enough to convict someone. So, he arranges evidence that shows he killed a man, and has the so-called victim go into hiding, to reappear after he is convicted.”
“Sounds a little farfetched, even for a reporter.”
“It would be a scoop, correct?”
“Yeah, I guess.What happened?”
“The alleged victim does not show up, and the reporter is almost executed. Finally, he arrives and saves him.”
“So?”
“Well, if that reporter could be convicted only by circumstantial evidence, and it was all false . . .”
“Kaz, no one made this stuff up. People are really dead.” We stopped at an intersection. A French cop, directing traffic, held up a white-gloved hand.
“Yes, they are,” he said. “And Diana was very badly hurt. Which may cause you to not think quite clearly.”
The cop waved us through. I didn’t say anything. It’s hard to argue with a movie.We drove up a narrow, winding street that finally opened into a thoroughfare that led to the residential area and then out of the city. A stone wall about five feet high ran along one block, enclosing some Frenchman’s mansion. A message was painted on it, the whitewash still wet and dripping from the bottom of the letters.
“Darlan à la guillotine!” Kaz read.
“Darlan to the guillotine?” I asked.
“Exactly. The Admiral does not appear too popular here.”
“Not my favorite guy either, or the bums he has working for him.”
“Your opinion is shared by many, especially in London and amongst the members of the press. Do you know that he has made the SOL legal again? They were outlawed right after the landings, and Darlan has already canceled that.”
“Ike must’ve loved that.”
“Yes, I learned some new curses from him . . . ‘Jesus Christ on the mountain’!”
Kaz gave that in a passable imitation of Ike’s flat Kansas accent, and we both laughed. Just two pals out for a ride, making fun of the boss. It felt like old times, until I thought about Diana and those marks on her body. I understood why’d she contemplated raising that gun to her head, and why Kaz didn’t care much for living now that Daphne was gone. Everything fell into place, the perfect misery of it all, the cycle of brutality, death, and guilt and the ruin it brought to those left behind. I had to find a way to stop that wheel from turning, just for a minute, so we could get off without breaking our necks. I knew nothing would ever be the same again, but I also knew that it didn’t have to get any worse, not if I had anything to do about it. Darlan à la guillotine. Villard à la guillotine.
We left the thoroughfare and crossed railroad tracks on our way to the coast road and the hospital. The tracks paralleled the road and up ahead we could see a long train, unmoving. There must’ve been thirty or so cars, so many that I could barely make out the steam from the locomotive up front. Kaz swiveled his head around, looking for something as he cupped his hand to his ear.
“Do you hear that, Billy?”
I heard it the moment he asked. A steady droning sound, coming from where? I checked the train, thinking it was some sort of machinery working on the tracks. I slowed, craning my neck as the droning became a high-pitched scream. The sky behind us was swarming with aircraft, the six lead planes beginning their steep dive, straight at us.
I downshifted and slammed on the gas, not wanting to hang around and offer the Jerries a stationary target. The road sloped off on either side into two deep ditches. There was nowhere to go but straight ahead. We were alongside the train now, about fifty yards separating the roadbed and the tracks. The train whistle blew and I could see the cars jolting forward as the locomotive driver got the same idea I had, except you can’t floor it when you’re dragging thirty loaded boxcars.
“Ju88s!” Kaz cried out, and I turned for a second and spotted the bulbous glass nose sprouting machine guns as a twin-engine dive-bomber hurtled straight at our jeep. No, not toward us, of course not! They were headed for the train. A single vehicle was nothing, not when a fat juicy supply train was sitting there, barely moving, just waiting to be blown to bits. Kaz grabbed for my Thompson in the back seat, but with only one hand he couldn’t hold it and pull the bolt back. The screaming whine of the six dive bombers grew louder. They were almost on top of us when the first one let go its bomb load and pulled up, about even with us. I could see the swastika on its tail clear as day. I heard explosions before the bombs hit but it was Kaz, blasting away at the next incoming plane with his revolver. Not that it would do much good, but it was better than just sitting there.
The bombs hit wide of the train, crashing into the culvert, blasting dirt and debris over the train, the road, and us. I covered my head with one hand and drove with the other, wishing I had my helmet on. The train had picked up speed, which meant that it was going to stay alongside us for too damn long.
“Hang on!” I yelled and thrust out my right arm to get Kaz’s attention. “Hang on tight!”
I slammed on the brakes and spun the steering wheel, sending us on a sideways skid down the road as I fought to keep control and not roll us over.We were dead even with the locomotive, and, as we skidded, I was facing it head on. I saw the engineer look at me and then up into the sky, his eyes and mouth wide open, fear showing on his face as if it had been painted there. The skid slowed and I pumped the brakes, getting the jeep to halt facing back the way we had come. Peeling out, I gave it all I had, racing against time and bombs and what they would do if that train was loaded with munitions.
The next bombs hit their target, and the next, until there was nothing but one continuous detonation. I looked back and saw the engine lift off the tracks and explode, sending a geyser of steam into the air before the next car hit the burning wreck and burst into a huge fireball of black smoke and angry red flames engulfing the front of the train, the road, and everything within a hundred yards of where we had been.
The next planes struck farther back along the train, their bombs impacting just behind us as they methodically took the boxcars apart. There were huge explosions of gas,multiple secondary explosions of all sorts of ordnance, and the screeching, crashing sound of boxcars sliding off the tracks and breaking up before the fire and bombs devoured them. By the time the last of the six dive bombers had hit the rear of the train, we were back to where we had crossed the tracks, looking down the rails at the burning wreckage, fire and smoke filling the air, obscuring where the planes were headed next.
I stopped the jeep and took my hands off the wheel. They were shaking so hard I put them right back, to steady them.
“Billy . . .” Kaz looked at me with wide eyes, his still smoking revolver in his good hand.
“Yes, Kaz, I will teach you how to do that, when your arm is better.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem. But I need a minute here.”
“Thanks to your driving, we have more minutes than we reasonably should have.We would have been incinerated. . . .” He was excited, the thrill of almost dying lighting up his face. I was just about getting my heart back into my chest, and didn’t want to hear about how we were nearly blown up.
“Yeah, I know. You hit anything with that?”
Kaz was reloading, still smiling, his grin split by the scar on his cheek.
“I—”
He was cut off by the chatter of a machine gun and a Ju88 flying low out of the smoke. One of them had come back for us. Jesus Christ on the mountain. The bullets chewed up dirt and gravel around us but didn’t really come close. If we stayed here we wouldn’t be so lucky next time. I pulled a tight turn and headed back for the train, hoping to hide in the smoke until the plane became bored with searching for such a worthless target. I could hear the engines behind us. Since he was flying in the clear, it would be easy for the nose gunner to line us up this time before the smoke concealed us. Kaz kept firing at the airplane with his revolver. I pressed the gas pedal down and didn’t let up.
“Stop shooting that thing, you’re just making him mad!”
“You use the Thompson, Billy! I can’t work it with one hand.”
“Screw that— ” I was interrupted by a bursts of machine gun fire that hit the road ahead of us. I glanced back and saw the Ju88 off to our left a bit, lining up for a better shot. I swerved, trying to throw his aim off yet stay on the road at the same time. The smoke from the burning train was close, but we weren’t going to make it. The nose gunner let go a long burst and I swear I could feel the bullets as they parted the air just above us. The pilot had to pull up. The shadow of the Ju88 spread slowly over us as we raced at top speed and he tried to fly as slowly as he could to give his machine gunner a chance. The shadow faded and I hoped we were home free. Then I saw the rear-facing twin machine guns underneath the fuselage emit bright flashes, like fireworks, as the gunner fired straight down at us. Bullets slammed into the hood of the jeep and I felt the vibrations in the steering wheel as I tried to keep my hands from flying off it. Everything slowed down, and I noticed that the bottom of the airplane was a light blue, just like the sky. It was almost pretty. Kaz had his arm raised and was firing that damn revolver of his again. I heard the
pow, pow, pow
of Kaz’s bullets, but they were up against the hard, ripping sound of the twin machine guns spitting hundred of slugs at us. Another burst of fire came from the machine guns as the plane pulled up and away and I heard one of our front tires blow out at the same time as the hood flew up with a mix of smoke and steam. The jeep swerved wildly and I fought to hold on, but the wheel rim couldn’t take it and we spun around, off the road, into the air.
I WAS ON THE ground. There were bodies all around me. My head hurt. I tried to sit up, which took all the strength I had. It wasn’t enough. I heard voices. It might have been an hour after the crash, or two seconds. The last thing I remembered was the jeep going off the road, into the ditch. No one was around, just me and Kaz. Kaz? Was he one of the bodies? Who were they?
I was about to open one eye when somebody did it for me. Two fingers pulled my eyelids apart and a pair of eyes stared down at me. The sun made a halo behind the figure standing over me and I turned away. I heard the voices again and tried as hard as I could to understand, but there was a ringing sound coming from somewhere. Was somebody talking to me? To Kaz?
I opened both eyes and looked around. Everything was blurry. I tried to get up, used my hands to push myself up an inch. What was that? It wasn’t the ground. Cold metal. I heard a door slam and an engine roar to life. Someone was moaning and the ringing sound kept on as I felt the vehicle lurch forward. What the hell was going on? I managed to raise myself onto my elbows, my head pounding. Slats of wood were in my way. Canvas. I was on a stretcher. That made sense, and I lay my head back, wondering about Kaz.
Green and white figures moved around me as I heard the engine stop. They took the stretcher and moved me outside. A big red cross floating on pure white appeared and yells pierced the air. More ambulances. My head throbbed and everything rotated around me in a blur. I wanted nothing more than to lie there, but I had to find Kaz. Rolling onto my side, I tried to lever myself onto one knee. It didn’t work out well and I found myself face down on the dry, gritty ground. Where was that ringing coming from?
“Whoa, fella, where do you think you’re going?” The voice was close to my ear, but tinny and distant.Who was ringing those damn bells?
I turned my head, squinted, tried to get the face in focus.
“What?” I said, even though I had heard him. I hadn’t understood the question.
“Stay right there, you’re going to be fine, Mac.” I felt hands under my shoulders lifting me back onto the stretcher. Then they were gone. Okay, I was going to be fine, I had to stay here, but somebody needed to stop ringing that goddamn bell. And I had to find Kaz.
“Where am I?” Nobody answered. They probably couldn’t hear me with all that ringing going on. I put my hands over my ears but it got louder as I shut out the other noises. My right hand felt sticky. I pulled it away. Blood. Jesus Christ on that fucking mountain. Bells in my head
and
I’m bleeding.What happened? Where was Kaz?
“Get this one inside, X-Ray.”
I knew that voice. Hands lifted the stretcher and I went from the hot sun to a cool hallway. X-Ray. Who was that guy? Was he talking about me? I got it.
“Doctor Perrini. Doc!” I tried to yell but it came out a croak. The hospital. This had to be the hospital. I grabbed at the first green leg that walked by me.
“Leggo, Mac! Wait your turn!”
“Is this the 21st? General Hospital?”
“Yeah,” green leg said, impatience battling with pity in his voice. He knelt down. “You don’t look too bad, Lieutenant, but you have to have an X-Ray to see if you cracked your skull. You probably have a concussion at least.”
“Where’s the guy I came in with? British uniform.” I tried to keep my eyes focused and to understand what he was telling me. I looked at his sleeve. PFC. Must be an orderly.
“No fucking idea, sir.We got casualties from Medjez el Bab coming in. They ran into
beaucoup
Germans up there. Plus the air raid. Krauts hit some ships in the harbor and a convoy of GIs on the road. They really plastered us.We got casualties coming in from everywhere. I never expected it to be like this!”
My vision cleared for a second. He was just a skinny kid, nineteen tops. His face was white, and his thin bony fingers gripped his pants leg in a desperate attempt to hang onto something solid. He didn’t appear to want to keep going. He looked up and down the hallway, stretcher cases running the full length of it. He had probably not seen this much suffering in his entire life.
“What’s your name?” I asked him. He looked startled.
“Uh, Johnston, Lieutenant.”
“No, I mean your first name.”
“John, sir, but everybody calls me Jay because John Johnston sorta sounds silly.”
“Okay, Jay. Now listen, I gotta find the guy I came in with. Help me up.”
“You’re in line for an X-Ray, Lieutenant, I can’t—”
“Sure you can. Just help me up and we’ll look around. Then bring me back here for the X-Ray.” It sounded like a good plan to me. But I needed a little help, and for those bells to stop.
“You got hit on the head too hard, Lieutenant. You have to stay there!”
Jay scurried off. At least he looked more scared of me than of the other casualties now. My head was beginning to clear a little, and the ringing racket going on between my ears was down a few notches. With no help available, it was time to either lay back and forget about Kaz, or get up by myself. I wondered what an X Ray would find. I touched the side of my head again and felt a crusty patch of matted hair and dried blood. I realized my shirt was gone. I found the blood-soaked pieces on the stretcher beside me. They must have cut it off, looking for other wounds. I did a quick check and couldn’t find any other sharp pains anywhere. I knew I could move my legs and arms, even if not real well. Screw the X Ray. I just needed a shirt so I could walk around without being put back on a stretcher.
I looked up and down the hall. No Jay, no doctors. I took a deep breath and rolled off the stretcher, onto my knees and elbows. Oh boy. The bells started ringing louder, my skull was pounding, but I stayed steady on all fours. Good so far. I got up on one knee. Still no one in the hallway. I had to stand upright now, while I had the time. Push, I ordered myself.
I was up. My legs were shaking. I rested my hands on my knees while my stomach decided if it was coming with me or not. The hallway started to spin but it slowed to a stop, like a top on its last few turns. My stomach stayed put and I managed to stand up straight. That lasted two seconds, but long enough for me to get one hand to the wall and that was enough to keep me vertical. I took a couple of deep breaths and let my hand fall to my side. Not bad.Who needs an X-Ray anyway?
I took slow steps until I was sure my legs remembered how to work together. They did and I kept going, aiming for the open door on my right. I passed one guy on his stretcher who had his leg in a splint. He smiled and gave me the V for victory sign. I nodded like I was out for a walk in the park. The next guy was unconscious. His chest was taped up and he had a gauze bandage on his head. His breathing was ragged, bubbles of blood popping out of his mouth when he exhaled. If this was the area for guys who weren’t hurt too badly and could wait, I didn’t want to see the others.
I made it to a door. I went in. No one was inside. Just what I wanted. A supply closet with a sink, soap, and shelves full of bandages, towels, all sorts of medical supplies. I ran the water and stuck my head underneath the spigot. It felt like an ice pick. I gasped but made myself stay under. I had to look presentable, and that meant no dried blood. I washed my face and toweled off, carefully dabbing around the wound above my ear. I had a big goose egg, and a long cut still oozing blood after I cleaned it out. I went through the bandages, found a gauze pad, and wrapped a bandage around it, ripped the ends and tied them off. There wasn’t a mirror and I hoped I looked like a discharged walking wounded, not an escaped madman.
Clothes. I needed a shirt. The shelves were stacked with operating gowns but I didn’t think I could pass for a doctor. I looked around and saw khaki shirts and pants hanging on the back of the door. Perfect. I checked the shirts. There was one with lieutenant’s bars and one with captain’s. I decided against adding impersonating a senior office to whatever regulations I was breaking already and took the second louie’s shirt.
My hands rested on the sink for a minute. The cold water had cleared my head some. I was still dizzy and things were a bit blurry, but I was ready. I was even getting used to the ringing in my ears. Time to find Kaz.
I moved down the hallway, and recognized where I was. This was a wing off the main hospital. I walked past a double door with X-Ray painted on it. I couldn’t bust in to see if Kaz was there, but I checked the stretchers lining the hall. Mostly GIs with broken bones or cracked skulls. A few sailors, maybe from the air raid on the harbor. I was almost to the end of the corridor when a nurse turned the corner and walked toward me.
“Are you all right, Lieutenant?” she asked, concern and confusion wrinkling her brow.
“Yeah, they checked me out and said I was fine, told me to get out of the way,” I said, as cheerfully as I could, hooking a thumb back in the general direction of the X-Ray room.
“Well, this is your lucky day, Lieutenant,” she said, and hustled by me to kneel down and check one of the sailors. I wanted to tell her if I was really lucky I wouldn’t have had this knock on the head, but thought better of it and turned left, toward the main emergency room.
As I got closer I understood why there were so many stretcher cases lined up outside. The place was packed. Nurses and doctors were running back and forth, threading their way between gurneys as orderlies shifted the wounded from waiting areas into treatment rooms or surgery. Some of the doctors had on their white operating gowns, splashed with blood, while others were working on guys right in the hall, doing God knows what. One GI was screaming bloody murder as two nurses held him down while Perrini worked on his leg. I didn’t interrupt.
I remembered Gloria had told me they had new doctors coming in, and I figured they got here just in time. The 21st was a General Hospital, not a Field Hospital. They were supposed to get cases sent up the line from the Field Hospitals, not fresh casualties. No one expected the Luftwaffe to be this active so far in our rear. The staff looked a little overwhelmed, and a lot scared.
As I approached the operating theaters, the odors got worse. Antiseptic, dried blood, the smell of shit and piss mixed with the smoky burned smells of fabric and flesh, all blending into the gut-wrenching stink of the ass-end of war, a military hospital under siege by the wounded and dying.
“Outta the way, outta the way!” An orderly ran by pushing a gurney with a still form on it, a white sheet over his body, soaking up blood wherever it touched him. His eyes were open and staring at the ceiling as I stumbled back, out of the way, wondering if a dirty brown ceiling in a makeshift Algiers hospital was going to be the last thing that kid ever saw.
I had to back up to lean against the wall or fall down. The smells were getting to me and I needed to catch my breath. I moved on, checking the conscious and unconscious wounded on either side of me. No British uniforms, not that I could tell anyway, as most had been cut away.
I began to be able to tell the difference between the GIs who ran into the Germans at the front, and those in the convoy who’d been bombed and strafed just outside of town. The convoy GIs wore clean uniforms. They were dressed in herringbone twill coveralls, with the American flag patch sewn on the shoulder. Their woolen clothes were probably in their duffle bags, blown to hell on some deserted stretch of Algerian highway, with whatever wasn’t burned or looted by Arabs. The GIs from the front were dressed in filthy, dirty wool pants, shirts, and twill coveralls in all sorts of combinations. They looked like they had been wearing everything they owned, dressed for cold nights in the desert. As their clothes were cut away by orderlies searching for secondary wounds, each layer would cover another shirt, or long johns, or whatever they had piled on for warmth. I wondered about the cold-weather gear stacked up in the warehouses down by the harbor. Had the army a clue how damn cold it got in the desert?
I passed a hallway leading to another wing of the building, this one also stacked up with wounded on stretchers or sitting on crates. It looked like another holding area for those who could wait for treatment. I walked the corridor searching for Kaz, hoping to see him sitting there with a big grin on his face.
There was some yelling going on. “You get the fuck out of here,” hollered a GI, a huge bandage wrapped around one shoulder. It didn’t stop him from jabbing a finger on his good side at the guy across from him.
“Shut up, dogface. Don’t they teach you not to talk to an officer that way?” This from a guy in a leather jacket, an Army Air Corps pilot, a lieutenant with his trousers ripped open and bandages on both legs.
“Don’t they teach you not to shoot up your own troops? Yesterday two P-38s killed four of our guys, and it wasn’t the first time. I’m getting sick of it!” The GI tried to get up but winced at the effort and sat back down.
“You tell him, Morrie,” said another GI. There were murmurs of assent and anger, but not one of them seemed to be as willing as Morrie to take on an officer, even if he was Air Corps.
“Listen, Private, it works both ways. You guys are supposed to know aircraft recognition, right? They ever teach you WEFT procedures? Wings, Engine, Fuselage, Tail?”
“Kinda hard to pick out that WEFT bullshit when half a dozen P-38s are blazing away at you with their .50 calibers,” Morrie said.
“You probably fired on them first. You know what WEFT really stands for in the infantry? Wrong Every Fucking Time!”
This time Morrie stood up. “Yeah, well you murdering bastard, we have a saying too. If it flies, it dies!” Morrie raised his one good arm in a fist and advanced on the pilot, who lay immobile on his stretcher. Three guys who could get up did and pulled Morrie back.Words continued to fly, but not fists.
I kept checking for Kaz. As I did, on the stretcher to my right, I saw a Luftwaffe pilot, an amused look on his face. His blue tunic displayed the Luftwaffe eagle, grasping a swastika in its claws. I don’t know if he spoke English, but he seemed to understand exactly what was going on. Our eyes met and he smiled. His entire left leg was swathed in bandages, and from what was left of his pants, it looked like he’d been burned. He must have been pretty doped up; I doubted he’d be smiling tomorrow.