pronounced him fit to travel. Rita had kissed Kaz goodbye and told him to come back and see her in four days to have the stitches removed. I'd seen Harding and Gloria Morgan whispering about something, maybe catching up on changes to the Army field manual since they last parted company. We were headed back to the St. George Hotel and now all I had to do was find a way to get to Bone from there. I reminded myself that Bone was still beyond our front lines, and might be defended by Vichy troops or even Germans, if they had already reached the town. Or both. I thought it might be time to inquire as to the progress of the war.
'Are we still shooting at the Vichies, Major?' I asked as I drove as carefully as I could to keep Kaz from bumping his arm. The road outside the hospital was rough hard packed gravel and sand that sent jolts through the jeep even at twenty miles an hour. A hot breeze blew dust at our backs and the sand hitting the back of my neck felt like sandpaper on soft pine.
'Not around here,' Harding said, turning up his collar. 'Darlan surrendered all French forces in the Algiers area; the French troops are in their barracks under orders not to resist. It's a mixed bag outside of Algiers. First, Darlan ordered all French forces in North Africa not to resist us. Then Petain overruled him, but before Darlan could countermand his orders we arrested him. Right now everything's quiet in and around Algiers. There's some fighting in Oran and we don't know what to expect when we move east toward Tunisia. Reports are in that the Germans are landing there and the French are not opposing them.'
'They fired on us when we came to liberate them from the Germans, but they let the Germans in to fight us?'
Harding nodded. 'It's a crazy war so far. A lot of civilian rebels were freed when the fighting in Algiers stopped, but others still haven't been released. I heard that Colonel Baril has been arrested,' Harding said, his jaw clenching.
'I'm sorry, Major. He seemed like a good guy.'
'The best. We need to get this mess straightened out, fast. There's no time to play politics here while the Germans are forming up against us.'
'I'm afraid you may find politics are not that easy to get away from,' said Kaz from the back seat. 'There are the Vichy politicians, the French army, the Arabs, all wanting something. General Eisenhower will have to accommodate them if he wishes to move against the Germans rapidly.' He grimaced as we hit a pothole.
'Why?' I asked, downshifting to take a corner as slowly as I could.
'He can either garrison this country with his army…' Kaz stopped and hung on as we rounded the bend.
'… or keep the Vichy structure in place to govern it for him so the army can fight,' he finished.
'What about de Gaulle and the Free French? Why don't we let them take over?'
'You saw how most French officers here feel about following orders,' Harding explained. 'To them de Gaulle is an opportunist who disobeyed the lawful orders of his government when he kept on fighting. Darlan hates him, Giraud thinks de Gaulle should report to him… There'd be a civil war if we brought the Free French in.'
'And then there are the Arabs,' Kaz added, with a sharp gasp as I hit another bump.
'Sorry, Kaz. What about them?'
'You may have noticed that there are quite a few of them here,' Kaz said.
'You're a funny guy. So, what, are the natives restless?'
'Some want independence, but most want stability. They are conservative, and for the most part go along with the right-wing Vichy policies. Like repression of the Jews. The Vichy government has stripped Jews in North Africa of their French citizenship. That made many friends for them among the Arabs.'
'Isn't that the kind of thing we're supposed to be fighting against?' I asked, knowing that I sounded like a naive schoolkid as soon as I spoke.
'We're supposed to be fighting, and defeating, the Axis powers. That's Germany and Italy in Europe,' Harding said. 'If we stop along the way to make everything right in North Africa we might never get to Berlin. We may need to leave the Vichy structure in place so we can move through Algeria quickly and take Tunisia before Rommel gets there.'
'Wait a minute! The Vichies are the bad guys, remember? The collaborators, the ones shooting at us. Are we going to leave a bunch of junior-league fascists like them in power?' I was almost yelling, and had to relax my grip on the steering wheel as the road curved slightly and we entered a residential area, palm trees and green bushes casting welcome lines of shade in front of us.
'It may come to that, or face a civil war in our rear areas. Or an Arab revolt, which the Germans would be only too glad to foment,' Kaz said. 'Welcome to the world of European politics, Billy.'
'Major, he can't be right, can he?' I asked. Harding didn't say a word. I wanted to be reassured that we were the good guys, not pawns in some power play that let killers and thieves stay on top while guys like Colonel Baril rotted in jail and Georgie and Jerome did the same in the ground. I drove as slowly as I could toward the setting sun as we passed a column of trucks heading out of Algiers. Dust choked the road as the deuce and a halfs, crammed with GIs, headed for the front. I hoped none of them had someone along explaining the intricacies of French politics. It would confuse things when the bullets started flying.
The last truck rolled by and we drove out of the dust, into the city.
A cool breeze came off the water as I turned down a side street toward the hotel. I slowed at a curve and glanced back at Kaz to be sure he was all right. The windscreen cracked in front of me as I heard a sharp noise and felt something tug at my sleeve. Harding was pulling out his automatic and saying something I couldn't understand. I tried to take in what was happening. I heard the noise again, a shot. I swerved hard to the right, driving down an alley between two buildings. At the end of a driveway I saw a wooden gate between two houses and I floored it. I had no plans to be caught in a dead-end ambush. Hot steam was gushing from the engine and pouring over the shattered windshield as we headed for the gate.
'Hang on!' I yelled as we hit the gate with a thud and it toppled off its hinges. The jeep went over it with a jolt that made Kaz yell, so I knew he was still alive. I drove like a maniac until we reached the next street with two solid rows of houses between the shooter and us. Steam and water hissed out of the engine and there were shards of glass all over the floorboards.
'Kaz, are you all right?' I asked.
'Yes, Billy,' he said, grasping his bad arm and gritting his teeth. He looked around as Harding jumped out, holstered his automatic, and pulled a Thompson from under the seat. I was still gripping the steering wheel. I felt the blood drain from my face. The evening was cool but I started to sweat. I looked at the windscreen. A bullet had struck the metal frame where it joined the window, leaving a half-moon hole in the frame and shattered glass inside the jeep. I got up slowly, making sure I wouldn't fall flat on my face. My hands were shaking and my legs felt like jelly.
'Billy,' Kaz said, 'look at your right shoulder.'
There was a neat hole in my Parsons jacket, beneath my lieutenant's bar. Two neat holes, actually, one in and one out, right where the fabric was bunched up at the seam. I stuck my finger in one and wiggled it out the other.
'Damn close,' Harding said. 'The second shot hit the engine, so he could pick us off when the jeep stopped. Good thinking, Boyle, to take that turn.'
A nod was about all I could manage. Someone had tried to kill me. Me, not just any dogface, but me in particular. Me.
'Let's go,' Harding said. 'We can hoof it to the hotel. We're not hanging around here.' He grabbed his gear and I took the keys. I helped Kaz out of the back seat and we followed Harding down the road. I looked back to see a bunch of Arab kids appear from behind houses and doors and gather around the jeep, which was still leaking steam and water. I should've taken the jack. Those tires would be history as soon as we turned the corner. It was kind of comforting, sort of like being back home, in the wrong neighborhood.
As we took a left and came to the next intersection, Harding held up his hand. We stopped. Across the street, the same street we had been driving down, there was a low stone wall encircling a small park. Inside was a water fountain, palm trees, and a bunch of green, shady plants, with nice chalk-white benches to sit on. Very peaceful. At the corner, the wall made a right angle and then there was an entrance from the street. We followed Harding at a trot as he made for it. In the distance I could hear someone laying on the jeep's horn. Kids will be kids. Kaz and I caught up as Harding pointed the Thompson over the wall, glancing in each direction.
'No one home,' he said. 'This was where he hid. Look at this.' He pointed to some branches that had recently been snapped. I looked down on the other side of the wall and could see where the ground had been
