"Good. We've been out of touch with headquarters since we landed. There will probably be a report from Sam waiting for me on the cruiser. We're returning tonight on the Vincennes." Uncle Ike glanced at the bandage sticking out from under my helmet, and then studied my face, his eyes searching mine. "Are you all right, William?"
"Yes sir, I'm OK. Not much sleep the past few days, that's all."
He looked at me as if he saw into my soul. Uncle Ike was a good judge of character. You had to be if you were in charge of the entire war in the Mediterranean, balancing egos like Patton's and Montgomery's while keeping the brass and politicians back home happy. He knew something was wrong.
"Did you run into much trouble?"
"A fair bit," I admitted. I took off my helmet and wiped the sweat from my forehead with my sleeve. I thought about taking out the handkerchief and seeing what Uncle Ike's reaction would be, but that was too risky. "I got pulled into the fight on Biazza Ridge the other day."
"Is that where you got that?" Uncle Ike asked, pointing to the bandage wrapped around my head.
"No, that happened before. Just a scrape."
"How did you end up that far east?" His eyes narrowed as he watched me and waited for an answer.
Again, I figured the truth was the best way to lie. Part of me wanted to tell him everything and ask him what I was supposed to do, but the other part couldn't face letting him down. Not to mention the fact that I wasn't sure if I was mixed up in something a commanding general would take kindly to.
"I was in a field hospital getting bandaged up, and some paratroop officer shanghaied me. Next thing I knew I was on Biazza Ridge, trying not to get run over by a Tiger tank."
"Well, William, that's not what I intended when I sent you on this mission, but I'm glad you were there to lend a hand, and lived through it. Jim Gavin and his boys saved the day, I'll tell you that."
"Do you know about the paratroopers last night, sir?" I didn't know why I said that. Maybe I wanted to steer the conversation away from me. Maybe I was still haunted by visions of C-47s in flames arcing across the night sky. Uncle Ike's lips tightened and he looked away. He shook his head slightly and spoke to the ground at his feet.
"It shouldn't have happened, William. It shouldn't have happened. Men die in war, like those boys you fought with on Biazza Ridge. I accept that my role is to send them where they may well be killed. But to have so many die through a goddamn mistake… " He clenched and unclenched his hands. I saw his eyes race around the GIs surrounding us, perhaps wondering which of them would be dead before nightfall.
"I'm sorry, Uncle Ike, I didn't mean-it's just that I saw it all. I was down by the beach, and I saw it happen. We thought it was an air raid. It was awful. I'm sorry," I said again, turning away. I felt as if I were confessing, another burden he didn't need. But I couldn't help myself, I couldn't stop the words. "Some of the planes exploded, and some burned as they fell. I watched men jump and parachute into the water. Their chutes were the only things that floated. They all drowned. I was so close but I couldn't help them. I'm sorry."
I looked at the crowd around us, scanning it for MPs who might be out hunting for me, avoiding Uncle Ike's eyes.
"William. Look at me."
I did.
"I have to ask you to focus on the job right now. Can you do that? I know it's tough, and it's a lot to ask. Can you do it?"
I wanted to say no, that I needed a good night's sleep and to get off this damned island. I wanted to tell him there were things I couldn't remember, and that I was afraid of that dark hole in my mind. That I feared there were memories waiting even worse than those pitiful white parachutes floating on the water. I looked away, then back into his eyes.
"Yes. Yes, sir. I can. I'm close, General. Not too much longer."
"That's good, William. This is very important. What you do over the next few days will affect the rest of the campaign here and save lives. Plenty of these Italian troops are ready to give up, and I want to hurry that along as much as possible. I'm sorry to put all this on your shoulders, but I know you can do the job. I can't excuse a member of my family from danger, not when I have to send so many of these boys straight into it. Do you understand, William?"
For a second, I thought I saw pleading in those eyes, a desire for me to understand his burden.
"Yes, I do. Don't worry, Uncle Ike, I do." I spoke in a whisper, so no one else would hear, and I gripped tightly as we shook hands.
He smiled, his eyes lighting up, almost overcoming the dark circles. We stood in the middle of the hot, dusty road, and I knew I had to find out what it was I was supposed to do, and then finish the job for my weary uncle.
"OK, I've got to go," he said. "I've caused enough of a traffic jam already. Come back with Harry and tell me all about it when you're finished."
He slapped me on the back and made his way to his jeep, waving to GIs as he did. Harry Butcher stood a few yards away, where we'd left him. I looked at him and wondered what Uncle Ike had meant. Was I supposed to go somewhere with Harry Butcher?
"What's the matter, kid?" Butcher asked as he saw me staring.
"Ike said I should go back with you when I'm finished. Why would he say that?"
"Wrong Harry, pal. You've been out in the sun too long."
The small convoy pulled out, and the MPs waved me on. I drove, looking for the road to Capo Soprano, wondering who the other Harry was. And what the hell it was I was supposed to be doing that was so damned important. Not to mention how to do it before they threw me into a loony bin or the stockade.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Capo Soprano was the perfect POW compound as long as you didn't care whether your prisoners escaped. A wide promontory, it was covered with ancient ruins, situated below groves of palm trees and stands of flowering cactus. Thick stone walls stood amidst dunes that swept up from the sea, and I wondered how tall the buildings that once stood here had been. In some places the crumbling walls were only a few feet high; in others, more than five. Columns and towers dotted the landscape, the walls dividing the sands neatly into open compartments, each containing Italian POWs, seated in the shade or stripped to the waist, enjoying the sun and soft sand. The breeze off the water was cool and lent a festive feeling to the gathering, as if it were one big beach party. GIs walked along the tops of the thick granite walls, surveying hundreds-no, thousands-of Italian POWs. They hardly needed guarding; it was more crowd control to keep them from rushing the landing craft that beached along the shore to take them aboard and off to the real POW camps in North Africa. For you, the war is over.
I went down the path from the roadway, walking toward a cluster of tents, wondering how I could possibly find one Italian POW among thousands. I stepped into the shade of the first tent I came to and caught the eye of a noncom with a clipboard and a harried look. His shirt was sweat-soaked, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Other GIs sat at makeshift desks piled with mounds of paperwork. Tent flaps were up, and rocks served as weights for the papers that fluttered and struggled to be released to the winds. Two MPs, their helmets off, ate K rations and eyed me indifferently.
"Hey, Sarge, where do you keep the wounded Italians?" I asked the noncom.
Sweat plastered his hair over his forehead, and he brushed it aside with a beefy forearm. He was a staff sergeant, maybe thirty-five or so, and he had the steady look of a bull who knew his way around a cell block.
"Who wants to know, sonny?" He took a long drink from a canteen then set it down on a table made from a door and two crates with an empty, hollow sound.
"You a cop?" I asked.
"Yeah," he said. "Kansas City. That obvious?"