Page 44

“All right, we’re going in,” the coxswain yells.

The circling landing craft all line up abreast and race at full speed toward shore, smacking waves and banging their passengers around. The pink of dawn begins to give shape to the island ahead. Its most prominent feature is a steep, singular mountain that dominates the eastern end of the island. There is a small but clear plume of smoke twisting leisurely up from the top, smoke turned orange as the sun peeking over the horizon touches first the highest thing in view. It reminds

Rio of Jillion’s sketch, the curl of smoke at the end of Rio’s rifle.

“Etna,” Stick says. “It’s a volcano.”

“Like with lava?” someone asks.

“The whole island is just cooled-down lava. Etna created Sicily. But I don’t think it’s—”

The sea explodes around them, a vast gout of water. The defending Italians seem to be taking matters more seriously, and daybreak has improved their aim. Seawater rains down on them, running off Rio’s helmet. Geer curses and urges Miss Lion deeper into his jacket. Everyone flinches as a shell passes overhead, howling like a racing locomotive.

Just ahead is another landing craft, much like theirs, but seemingly stuck and unable to move though its engines are churning the water into a small bubble bath.

“We’re going to take some of them aboard,” the coxswain yells down from his squat bridge, chopping his hand in the direction of the stranded boat. He gentles the engine and one of his small crew perches atop the ramp, peering down into the turbulent sea, trying to locate the limits of the sandbar with a length of rope and a lead weight.

“Looks like thirty feet, Skipper!”

“Got it.”

“I make it twenty.”

“Twenty it is.”

“Getting hairy here, Skipper!”

The coxswain has his work cut out for him. He has to bring his boat in close enough to pass a line to the stranded boat, but not let the swell push him up onto the sand or send it crashing into the back of the other boat.

Geer yells, “It’s a boatful of Nigras!”

“Throw ’em a line,” the skipper shouts, and his crewman twirls a rope like a lasso before he sends it flying.

This activity, ever more visible as the sun threatens to leap into view from behind the horizon, attracts small-caliber fire from shore. At least one machine gun chatters away from a pillbox just beyond the sand of the beach, but the rounds splash harmlessly into the sea. They are beyond machine gun range, but not beyond mortar range, and someone with blessedly inadequate skill is firing, dropping rounds to their left, their farther left, behind, ahead, not yet zeroing in.

Rio is unnerved by the helplessness of being trapped in the boat, nowhere to run to, nowhere to dig a fighting hole, no cover, no control. No one to shoot. Any random shell . . . Tilo Suarez is working his rosary; Pang is mouthing silent words that must surely be a prayer. Rio thinks a quick Take care of me, Lord, but is too restless and worried to focus on divine intervention.

“Figures, fugging Nigras,” Geer mutters. “Going to get us killed.”

Pang says, “Looks to me like the guy driving the boat is white.” This earns him a shrug from Geer.

The rope is secured and drawn tight across a mere twenty feet of water. Looking over the side, Rio can see the sandbar just below the surface, revealed and then concealed by each passing wave, like a fan dancer teasing. They try pulling the stuck boat free, but a cleat breaks loose and the rope has to be reattached, and now the effort focuses on getting the trapped GIs to crawl along the rope.

The rest of the platoon is just reaching the beach. Rio follows them, eyes squinting beneath an anxious brow. She can just make out a man she thinks may be Lieutenant Vanderpool, and is that Sergeant Alvarez beside him?

The rope is stretched, drawn taut by the engines now in low-gear reverse. A tall young private is bold enough to give it a try. For the first few feet he does fine, hands clasping, legs wrapped around the rope, face upside down and looking toward Rio. Then the swell pushes the boats closer, the rope slackens, and the soldier is dunked in the foam.

He pulls his way up, hand over hand, legs wrapped tight around the rope, and in a few seconds he is hauled aboard, spitting seawater and coughing. The second person across is a stocky sergeant, followed by a short young woman who moves with surprising agility.

“Hey,” Rio says. “Don’t I know you?”

Frangie Marr squeegees water from her face and blinks, clearing her vision. “Why, if it isn’t Rio Richlin.”

“Fancy meeting in a place like this,” Rio says, and laughs, oddly delighted. “Jenou! It’s Private Marr.”

“What on earth?” Jenou says, and grins at Frangie. There is something reassuring about the chance meeting, a feeling that providence must be looking down kindly on them.

That warm feeling does not last. A fourth black soldier is coming across when the distant mortarman gets lucky.