She grabbed him by the arm. “Come in, you silly boy. You’re dirty and tired and you need little Elise to take care of you.”
Lew Dubbins awoke with a start. The feel of cold steel against his throat was as great a shock as could be imagined and his bladder almost released. He’d gone to sleep in what he called his spider hole, a narrow slit in the ground hidden from view by a rock overhang and made comfortable by the fact that it was in the shade most of the afternoon. He and the hole were also covered by a blanket. When he peered through the bushes, it also commanded a good view of the Raleigh area.
The pressure of the knife increased and he felt even more extreme pressure to void his bladder. “Don’t talk, don’t move,” a man’s voice hissed. “You understand me? Blink a lot if you do.” Dubbins blinked like a man possessed.
The pressure eased a little. “You’re Dubbins, aren’t you?”
Dubbins nodded. There was no point in denying it. Who the hell else could he be? Olson and the Germans had finally caught him and he was going to hang. He could only hope that he would die bravely. “Who are you?” he managed to croak.
“My name is Joe and I’ll wait to tell you my last name, ’cause you might laugh and then I’ll really have to kill you. You see, I can’t stand people laughing at me. I’m a scout with the U.S. Army.”
Dubbins felt like crying with relief. “Jesus, I’ve been waiting a long time for you guys to come. They killed my brothers and they’re hurting a lot of soldiers down there.” The knife disappeared. “You could have killed me, you know. What if I’d jumped?”
Joe Flower laughed mirthlessly. “I used the blunt edge, you asshole.”
Dubbins turned and saw the grim face of Joe Flower glaring at him. This man is an Indian and very dangerous, he thought. “You here to help the prisoners?”
“No, I’m prospecting for gold and then I’m going to plant cotton,” Flower said. “Yeah, and I hope you’re gonna help me.”
“Can I kill Olson and Steiner?”
“Can’t make any promises,” Joe said, “but I’ll do everything I can to make it happen.”
Dubbins had a sudden fear of the two of them taking on the Germans and the Mexicans. “You alone?”
“No.”
Dubbins smiled. “Good. Then let me out of this hole so I can take a piss and I’ll let you in on what’s happening down there. You do know we have someone inside, don’t you?”
Joe Flower did not know that. Something more to let Montoya and the dozen Mexican-American cavalrymen he’d brought in on.
General Oskar von Hutier watched his men maneuver. The training wasn’t going to be perfect given the limited amount of time he had, but he was confident it would be enough. It had to be. He was thankful that the American Army was so awful. Had it been any better, the combination of good troops and rugged terrain would have either stalled the advance or made it so costly as to be unsustainable.
As it was, climbing up and down the rugged, brush-covered foothills was exhausting his men, and using up food and supplies at an enormous rate. He was thankful also for the fact that the German Navy controlled Los Angeles, which meant a steady stream of ships bringing those badly-needed supplies.
He saw one of his favorite young officers. “I trust all is going well, Captain Richter.”
Captain Horst Richter saluted and grinned. “Very well indeed, General. The Yanks will get a tremendous shock when our storm troopers swarm all over them. I only wish we had started this training so much sooner.”
“So do I, Richter, so do I. But we must make do with what we have. And besides, the Yanks weren’t holding still for us to attack and kill them like we wished.”
“Indeed, sir.” Richter saluted again and the general moved away to watch some other units train themselves to ignore fire and swarm enemy defenses. It was a simple truth that modern soldiers in the defense could lay down such a withering fire that slowly approaching attackers would be cut to pieces. It was also true that attacking soldiers being fired on would very logically go to ground to protect themselves from such a deadly rain of fire.
Thus, it was necessary to move quickly and punch hard at selected points, ignoring strong ones, and rushing through the weak. If it worked, his men would be in the American rear as an unstoppable force.
That is, if it worked.
Kirsten thought that her work on a ranch had inured her to the sight of blood. As a ranch owner, she’d helped mend the cut flesh and broken bones of her ranch hands. She’d stitched them and splinted them and, while some had complained, none had died. She’d known to use basic sanitation, which was still an undiscovered art in some places.
And of course, she’d helped her husband, Richard, while his infected leg grew gangrenous and caused his death. She cursed the fact that there was no doctor in the vicinity at that time, and that poor stubborn Richard had kept his injury a secret for so long. A bruise was all he’d called it until his leg had swollen up and red lines extended from the “bruise.” When she’d finally gotten him to a hospital in San Diego, the doctors there had amputated the leg, but the infection had already spread too far.
St. Ignatius College, located on the corner of Hayes and Schrader Streets, was the site of the new military hospital. Several of the Jesuits on the faculty had also volunteered and a few even had some medical experience, although informal and from the school of hard knocks.
She was stunned by the sights and smells. Even though so-called experts, including journalists, said that the fighting had barely begun, there were hundreds of casualties in St. Ignatius and elsewhere.
Kirsten’s decision to volunteer had come from the fact that she was no longer needed to distribute ration cards to civilians. Most civilians had departed, leaving San Francisco a garrisoned ghost town. Those few civilians who remained were, like her, part of the war effort.
The first time she’d seen a man disemboweled she’d vomited. Doctor Rossini, the surgeon who headed her group, had congratulated her on being able to make it outdoors before puking on his floor. Since the floor was already covered with blood and dirt, she assumed he was being sarcastic. He wasn’t. Rossini wanted the place clean and, after a brief and terse discussion, cleaning it up was Kirsten’s new job.
Over the next few days, she slowly graduated to getting supplies for the harassed doctors and nurses. When they found that she could keep her lunch down and could both read and follow directions, she was considered an asset. Even the acid-tongued Rossini grudgingly gave her respect.
If Luke was occupied, which was usually the case, she spent her spare time talking to the wounded and comforting the dying. It was a task she hated, but if she could give comfort to someone in agony, or terrified of being a cripple, or, worse, of dying, then it was her duty. She did not quite think of volunteering as an honor, but one other volunteer did.
Rossini came over and grabbed her arm. “I need a nurse and you just volunteered. Congratulations.”
He took her to a surgical table. A young man, he couldn’t have been in his twenties, lay naked on his back and on the table. Another doctor was picking pieces of shrapnel and other debris out of his body. The boy was only marginally unconscious. He groaned and tried to turn, but others held him still.
“Hold this,” Rossini said and handed her a tray. She held it while the doctors dug into the boy’s shattered body and plunked items into it.
Rossini laughed bitterly. “When he really wakes up, he’s going to be in a sea of pain and not realize how lucky he is. He’ll have a ton of sores and scars, but nothing vital was touched. All he has to do is avoid infection.”