“Enough about the war.” Russo hopped off the sponson.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The driver mingled among the citizens of Algiers, shaking hands. “Diplomacy, Boss.” Eyes flashing, a buxom brunette placed a garland of winter roses around the driver’s neck and pecked him on the cheek. He blinked in a daze. “Minch! I think I’m in love!”
Before Austin could growl a warning about fraternizing, an Army truck honked its way through the crowd. “Now what?”
The driver leaned out and flashed Austin fingers extended in a V. “I got some barrels of wine in the back for you and your boys! Courtesy of the colonel!”
Swanson rubbed his big hands together. “Now we got us a party.” He shot Austin a worried look that turned into an ingratiating smile. “I take it back about calling you Sergeant Killjoy. I was just teasing. You’re a great commander.”
Austin pictured Mad Dog drunk and thrown in the clink by the MPs for pawing the locals. He called out, “Send it back!”
“Killjoy,” Swanson muttered.
The driver cupped his hand around his ear. “What?”
Whitley jogged over to the truck to talk to the man. The platoon commander would get this sorted out.
The lieutenant turned and waved at his platoon. “All right, come on, boys! A helmet full of hooch for every man!”
With cheers, the tankers scrambled from their vehicles. Boomer’s crew eyed their commander with hope.
“Come on, Sarge,” Swanson said. “Live a little. We’re celebrating.”
Austin gazed back at them. Damn foolish, leaving their tanks before the ink on the peace deal had even dried. There still were snipers in the city who hadn’t gotten the message the war was over in this part of the world.
Although, they’d done well over the past few days. They’d earned a rest.
He took off his helmet and handed it to Swanson. “Bring me some.”
The crew whooped and spilled pell-mell off the tank in a tangle of uniforms. They rushed to the truck to fill their helmets with Algerian red.
Let them enjoy themselves, he thought. While there’s something to enjoy and the time to do it. Time, he believed, that would eventually run out.
TUNISIA
MAP: Tunisia and its major mountain ranges.
Tunisia, the next theater of operations in the North African campaign, showing its major mountain ranges that restricted roads and movement east.
CHAPTER SEVEN
RACE TO TUNIS
Scores of vehicles choked the coastal road. M4, M3, M5, tank destroyer, deuce-and-a-half, mobile artillery, jeep, kitchen truck, maintenance, hospital van, and other vehicles, all heading toward Algiers. Under the Berbers’ enigmatic gazes, the whole mess crawled, stopping and starting, starting and stopping, so much hurry up and wait it exhausted PFC Russo behind the sticks.
“For two hundred fifty years, the Barbary Pirates operated out of Algiers,” Wade cheerfully lectured from his station inside the tank. “America fought two wars against them.”
Russo groaned. They’d stopped near the ancient ruins of a Roman city, a colony Emperor Trajan established for military veterans. French archaeologists had dug it up and exposed fragmented walls and columns that jutted into air like a graveyard of colossal beasts. The gunner went out of his mind roaming its limestone streets, reading Latin inscriptions, and pocketing a chunk of marble he found in what he said was the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.
Now he wouldn’t shut up.
“George Washington had the country’s first navy built to protect our merchants from them. Jefferson beat Adams in the 1800 election on a promise to stop paying tribute to the pirates, which was something like a fifth of the annual federal budget—”
“Put a lid on it, Wisenheimer,” Swanson said. The loader was standing in the turret, the top half of him sticking out of the hatch with his arms draped over the .50-cal MG’s barrel. “What, making history ain’t enough for you? We’re in a world war, for land sakes.”
“Yeah, Wisenheimer,” Russo growled. “It’s your fault we got into this mess.”
For the past week, Boomer’s crew had whiled away their time chasing French girls, swilling Algerian wine, and haggling in bazaars filled with silk, grass mats, oversized teapots, and skinned goats. In base, they’d spent their hours writing letters home, playing cards, bickering, and watching “Mickey Mouse” Army films warning against the dangers of venereal disease.
Overall, it wasn’t exactly easy living, but it was comfortable enough. Discipline was relaxed, and nobody was trying to kill them. They were waiting for the bulk of 1st Armored to arrive, which was somewhere on the Atlantic.
Meanwhile, the Germans had gotten busy responding to the invasion of North Africa. They’d invaded Vichy France and rapidly occupied the whole country. They’d also tried to capture the French fleet at Toulon, but the admiral had scuttled it with the Germans right on their doorstep. At the same time, they’d poured men and materiel into Tunisia and rushed inland to plug the mountain passes.
As a result, General Sir Kenneth Anderson’s British and American brigades, which had struck east from Algiers to capture Tunis, didn’t have the strength to push through. So close yet so far, they were unable to advance, and soon they were retreating. They needed help. Around the middle of November, the tankers of 1st Battalion had been ordered back into the fight, and now everybody was sore at Wade, like it was his fault his prediction had come true.
Because it is, Russo thought, who believed in jinxes and malocchio, the evil eye. If you said the worst that could happen, he believed it would happen.
“Did we win?” Clay asked the gunner. “Against the pirates?”
The driver glared at him. The bog shrugged and chomped his Wrigley’s.
“Eventually, yes,” Wade said and went on with his lecture.
“Why are you encouraging him?” Russo hissed at Clay.
Another shrug. “I’m bored.”
“No need to take it out on the rest of us.”
“You know, I wouldn’t be so bored if you’d let me drive.”
The driver snorted. “Not a chance.” Truth be told, he could use a break from the march, but it was a point of pride for him to stay behind the sticks. He wasn’t Sicilian anymore, and he apparently wasn’t American enough. No, he was something entirely different—a Sicilian-American, combining the strengths of both worlds, a new breed of man, a man with cazzo made of steel.
“Are there any girls in this story?” Swanson asked.
“No girls,” Wade said.
“Then it ain’t a good story. Tell us one with girls in it.”
“Now you’re encouraging him,” Russo groused.
“He’s gonna beat his gums no matter what we say,” the loader explained. “At least this way, maybe he’ll be interesting.”
“I’d prefer a story that will help us fight the Germans,” Austin chimed in.
“History’s filled with sex and violence,” Wade said, “I could tell you about Dido, the founder and first queen of Carthage.”
“Was she good-looking?” Swanson drooled.
Russo studied the instrument panel, which told him speed, oil pressure, fuel level, and temperature. All indicators were in the normal range, and the column was moving at a steady five miles an hour. Wheat fields sprawled on his right, reeking of human waste the farmers used as fertilizer. In the distance, he spotted another fly-ridden mud-wattle village the tankers had taken to giving names like East Someplace, New Nowhere, and Another Shithole. The monotonous blue Mediterranean stretched into the northern horizon on his left.