I’d stayed with Stump for hours after my talk with Cassidy, just watching, talking a bit, trying to size him up. He was sure of his innocence, but worried about the military justice system taking him in and spitting him out. It seemed like a sane way to look at things. They finally gave him something to help him sleep and kicked me out. I’d been dog-tired, and went back to the house where Kaz and I had bunked, only to find everyone sleeping in the cellar. Between a snoring captain and a couple of artillery barrages, I didn’t get much sleep.
This morning I’d hoped to get Danny’s transfer in the works, but Kearns had put the kibosh on that. At least Danny’s outfit had been pulled off the line and put into reserve, which meant a couple of miles between them and the front. Still in artillery range, but then what wasn’t?
There were no messages from Kaz, and I couldn’t check with him since I didn’t know exactly where he was. So I drove back to the field hospital, looking for Lieutenant Evans and Father Dare. I wanted to find out what Evans had been trying to say about Ileana at Bar Raffaele, and I was still curious about the pistol-packing padre. I’d known my share of priests, and while some liked a good game of poker, none of them carried a. 45 automatic. Being a man of the cloth could be a good cover for the kind of maniac I was hunting. Like the army, the church gave you a nice set of rules to follow, and it had been my experience that rules were good things to hide behind. Then another talk with Stump. I wanted to look in his eyes and see-what? All that I saw last time we talked was derision at the idea he was the killer. His only proof he wasn’t was an uncrumpled playing card. If he wasn’t lying, then the real killer was bound to strike again. How sure was I?
Then I’d visit Danny and Flint, and question anyone in the platoon who might have seen a GI with an automatic in his hand during the retreat. What about Flint? If I was right about the killer being in the 3rd Platoon, then he had to be on the list of suspects. But I’d seen him helping Evans out of the smoke. Could he have gone after Harding, then left the job half-finished? Why? If the object was to frame Stump, a dead Harding would have been even better. Could the 88 have interrupted him? But Flint had looked fine, as fine as anyone who’d been through that attack and retreat. If the Tiger had stopped him, he would have shown some effect from the explosion. It didn’t make sense.
“Father Dare? He left early this morning,” a nurse told me. “Said he had to get back to his unit and be of some use. We wanted to keep him another day or so, but his leg will be all right if he keeps it clean.”
“How was he? Was he upset about anything?”
“He just said he didn’t want to become a permanent resident of Hell’s Half Acre. Can’t say I blame him.” She consulted a chart and led me to the tent where Evans was resting, a cast encasing his shoulder and arm, bandages wrapped around his head.
“Flint saved my life,” Evans said. “I took a load of shrapnel in my shoulder. They told me I would’ve bled to death if he hadn’t pulled me out. There was so much smoke, I’m damn lucky he found me.”
“He’s the senior noncom now. He’s probably in command of the platoon.”
“What happened to Louie and Stump? Are they wounded?”
I filled him in on Louie being shot in the head, and Stump being in custody as the Red Heart Killer.
“It’s hard to believe. Stump? And why kill Louie? They were buddies. It doesn’t add up.”
“He’s killed whomever he needed to, not just officers. There had to be a reason, I don’t think he killed randomly. Is there anything you can think of? Something Louie said or saw that he shouldn’t have?”
“Louie spoke to me about believing his time was up,” Evans said. “But that was about the war, not these killings. That’s how I took it, anyway.”
“Were he and Gates close?”
“Yeah, they went back to North Africa. He took Gates’s death hard, kept saying he wished he’d been with him, maybe he could have gotten the drop on that officer. Caught out there yesterday, I think he’d given up all hope.”
The snarl of aircraft approaching interrupted us, and the crash of bombs down by the sea, a few hundred yards away, signaled the approach of the Luftwaffe, hard at work hitting the ships supplying the beachhead. Our antiaircraft batteries opened up, and the pounding of the guns combined with explosions was deafening. The medical staff grabbed helmets and stood by their patients.
“Can you make it to a shelter?” I asked Evans, yelling into his ear.
“No, takes too long. Best to ride it out. You go.”
Now, I had a burning desire to make it home from this war in one piece, and normally at the sound of air-raid sirens I dive headfirst into the nearest bomb shelter. But with those nurses, doctors, and orderlies staying put, I felt embarrassed to skedaddle. Dumb, I know. I held my helmet in place with my hands and sat on the floor, pulling my knees up to protect myself. If a bomb hit close by, it would be meaningless, but it gave me something to do.
I felt the vibrations from the bomb hits in the wood flooring, and then a tremendous crash, the cots and me bouncing a couple of times. That was real close, and I was glad that no one tried to dig a tunnel out of there. I would have been tempted to join in.
“Now I know why they call it Hell’s Half Acre,” I said as the explosions receded.
“I won’t miss the place,” Evans said. “They say I’ll be shipped out to Naples in a few days.” He shifted in his cot, trying to get comfortable. His arm was set up, a brace in the cast supporting it.
“Does it hurt?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Still got some shrapnel in there. The doc said it would take a few operations to get it all out.”
“Hey, a million-dollar wound, congratulations,” I said, meaning it. Evans had done all right. But I still had questions for him. “Do you remember when we were talking about Bar Raffaele, right after you were wounded? About the girl, Ileana?”
“I remember Ileana, but I don’t recall talking with you about her. They gave me morphine out there, so everything’s kind of hazy.
“You started to say something about one of the guys and her, but then you faded away.”
“There was a lieutenant who was sweet on her. It was kind of sad, really.”
“Could that have been Landry?”
“No idea. I guess so. I didn’t know the guy, maybe saw him there a few times. It was just something you talked about, you know? Was she playing him for a sap, or was she going to give up the business? Either way, it’d be tough for him.”
“You got that right. Rest up, and enjoy Naples.”
“Thanks. You find that killer and end this, okay? There’s enough dead bodies here for a lifetime.”
I couldn’t argue.
Outside, I buttoned my jacket up against the cold wind coming off the sea. The sky was leaden gray, the ground damp, and I felt the chill creep up through my boots. I decided a cup of joe was in order, and headed for the mess tent. I saw that the dug-in tents were finished, set four feet underground and reinforced with sandbags. Litters were being carried down the steps into what looked like an operating room. Not the fanciest hospital, but likely the best north of Naples.
In the mess tent, I spotted Bobby K, wearing his new corporal’s stripes.
“Those look good on you, Bobby K,” I said, sitting across from him with my coffee. We were at the end of a long trestle table, and I set my Thompson down next to the coffee.
“Thanks, Lieutenant,” he said. “I lost sight of you yesterday. Glad you’re okay.”
“I am. What are you doing here?”
“I was escorting some Kraut prisoners when we got caught in the bombing and had to bring a few of them in to be treated. Soon as they’re patched up they’re getting loaded on a transport and shipped out. How lucky, huh?”
“No kidding. You’re not hurt, right?”
“Nope, just enjoying the privileges of rank. I got three privates watching the wounded prisoners while I sit here. So thanks again. Colonel Harding came through, like you said he would.”
“You deserve it, Bobby. You’re in reserve with Second Battalion, right?”
“Yeah, we’re digging in deep. They’ve been shelling us pretty bad. We had the POWs in a holding pen but we had to bring them into our shelters. Some of the guys wanted to leave them out there for a taste of their own medicine, but that didn’t seem right. Anyway, our captain ordered us to, so that was that.”
“So when did they get hit?”
“After it was over. The Kraut observers must have seen the trucks coming in to load them up, ’cause all of a
