Blood Alone (8 page)
WE DROVE FOR NEARLY an hour, mostly at a crawl, in the midst of a convoy of trucks and tanks. I tied back the rear canvas flaps for some air, but loosely so they gave us shade and cover from prying eyes. We passed an artillery unit, the short barrels of their 75mm pack howitzers sticking out beneath camouflage netting. Dappled shade cut across the backs of the crewmen kneeling to fire and feed new shells into the smoking breech as each empty casing was rapidly cast aside. The roar of cannon fire was followed by dull
crumps
on a far hillside where brown dirt puffed into tiny explosions that looked harmless at this distance. But I knew there were small red-hot shards of metal flying through the air, rending flesh wherever they encountered it. Sciafani sat with his head in his hands, and I knew he too was thinking about the men on the ground, his comrades of yesterday, still suffering today. Perhaps he couldn’t bear to watch, with his parole in his pocket and thoughts of safety, home, and a life to be lived vying with his sense of duty. The war had made it possible for
me
to think and believe entirely contradictory things. I knew I wanted nothing more than to go home, and yet I was willingly being carried to the front lines, the only place I would find what I was missing, what I needed to feel whole again, to understand what home really meant.
The sound of artillery fire faded as we drove. I put it out of my mind because to think too much about what we were doing to the enemy did no good at all. The same kind of bombardment could land on me tomorrow, so it was best not to imagine the results or think too deeply about it. Shrapnel didn’t care about the color of the uniform it shredded.
Occasional rifle fire rippled across the landscape, but it was impossible to tell if it was from the side, front, or rear. A few quick
pop pop
pops
and a burst of machine-gun fire here and there—the sounds of tentative skirmishes rather than a full-scale battle. Traffic slowly thinned out, vehicles taking turns or pulling over and stopping to disgorge GIs in fresh uniforms, their clean shirts and full packs marking them as replacements for units chewed up since the landings.
We drove a while through silent, gently rolling farmland, the soil almost black where it had been recently turned. Kaz took a side road, little more than a dirt track, and pulled over. Banville pulled the jeep off the road and into a field of ripe grain. The stalks fell away from us, the wind from the sea carrying the faint smell of salt as it brushed our backs. Banville took a gas can from the back of the jeep and sprinkled gasoline over it, then lit a match and tossed it into the backseat. A soft
thurmp
and flames burst over the vehicle, shimmering in the hot air, red-yellow brightness quickly dulled by black smoke from burning rubber.
Banville got up front with Kaz and we drove off, leaving the harsh sound of an exploding fuel tank behind, the smell of gas and rubber trailing us. Sciafani looked at me. But I was a stranger here myself. Or maybe not. The burning wreck disappeared as we turned a corner. There was something familiar about Banville and fire. I wondered what it was. Thinking about fire caused a pounding in my chest, so I tried not to dwell on it.
We drove on, the road winding and rising as we passed more farmland. Grain was everywhere, ready to harvest, but farmers were scarce. So were farmhouses, for that matter. We drove through one small village that could’ve passed for a heap of stones if it wasn’t for the blue daisies neatly bordering small vegetable gardens. The houses were squat and square, built from white-gray rock that looked like it had been bleached in the sun for a hundred years. A woman dressed in black, squat and square as her house, fed an outdoor oven from a stack of firewood. The oven, made from the same stone but blackened by smoke, looked like a charred entrance to the underworld.
“She makes the bread
di campagna
,” Sciafani said. “They cook outside to keep the house cool.”
“They?” I asked.
“The peasants,” he said.
“So I guess your mother cooks inside the house then?”
“It depends upon which house. But never mind about my mother. Tell me where we are going.”
“Sorry, Dottore, but all I know is that Kaz can be trusted.”
“Is he a relation of yours?”
“No,” I said. “He’s Polish, I’m Irish.”
“You have known each other for a long time?”
“No,” I said, “about a year.”
“A year? Then he is a
staniero
to you. As you are to me. A stranger. You cannot know a man well enough to trust him if he is not a relation, or if you have not known him since you were both
bambini
.” “You wouldn’t trust anyone except a blood relation or childhood friend?”
“Why should I?” He looked at me, his dark eyes steady as the truck rumbled over the dirt track.
“Because you have to, when there’s no one else. Kaz and I have gone through a lot together, maybe a lifetime in that year.”
“Yes, perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps.Was the vehicle stolen?”
I was surprised by his sudden shift in conversation, and wondered if his command of English was all it seemed. “It was,” I said.
“Then he is a smart friend, at least. He speaks Italian like a Tuscan, but, still, he is smart.”
“I think he studied in Florence before the war.”
“Ah, yes, that would explain it,” Sciafani said, as if bemoaning a sad but inescapable fate.
I lifted the canvas side of the truck and stuck my head out. The ground had changed from gently rolling fields to steeper hills and deep gullies. No entrenchments, supply dumps, or burned buildings marred this landscape. It was oddly quiet, and I realized how accustomed I had become to the sounds of an army at war: the echoes of fighting as well as the rear-area noise of machinery, engines, shovels, shouts, and curses. Here, it was calm and peaceful, and that worried me. Kaz slowed as the road narrowed where a small stone bridge crossed a stream. Beyond the stream he turned onto an even smaller path, lined with lemon trees, their yellow fruit ripening in the sun. On either side were fields of purple cauliflower, their huge heads looking ready for market. Bushy green trees flourished along the streambed. More color surrounded me here than anywhere I had seen before on this island.
“Now you begin to see the real Sicily,” Sciafani said.
The truck slowed to a crawl as Kaz turned a corner, halting in front of a stone barn, its double wooden doors swung wide open. An elderly Italian man, wisps of white hair flying out from under his cap, hobbled out, hitching his suspenders up over a worn gray collarless shirt that might once have been as white as his whiskers. He nodded to Kaz, who spoke to him in Italian, with his Tuscan accent.
“He asks if anyone has been here. The old man says no, not since last night, and asks if he brought the American cigarettes,” Sciafani said, translating the exchange.
Apparently Kaz had, so the old man motioned him to drive the truck into the barn. As we got out, the old man stopped short when he saw Sciafani in his Italian Army uniform. He pointed at him and spouted off at Kaz, but Sciafani interrupted him. All I understood was
siciliano, siciliano,
which seemed to do the trick and calmed the fellow down. Sciafani introduced himself, not mentioning his discarded rank.
“Dottore Enrico Sciafani,” he said somewhat formally, straightening up as he did so. The old man removed his cap and murmured what sounded like apologies.
“
Mi chiamo
Filipo Ciccolo, Signore,” he added with a bit of a bow as he backpedaled and stuck his cap back on. Kaz handed him four cartons of Lucky Strikes, which he took and hid under a tarpaulin.
“Filipo did not wish to have a Fascist under his roof,” Sciafani explained. “I assured him that as a Sicilian neither would I.”
It made sense, as far as it went. I had been told that Sicilians were not too fond of Mussolini and his Fascists. But there was something about old Filipo’s reaction to Sciafani that interested me. It was as if he acknowledged him, respected him, and maybe feared him. And now, for the first time, I noticed that the truck we’d been riding in didn’t have the regular army paint job. No white star, no serial numbers or unit designations were stenciled on it. It wasn’t even army green, more of a nondescript tan color. At a distance, covered in dust, it might pass for any small truck in any army.
“It’s like my jacket,” I said to no one in particular.
“Exactly,” Kaz said.
We filed out of the barn, Filipo shutting the double doors behind us. Kaz led us around the back to a house made of the same stone as the barn. It was larger than the ones I’d seen in the village, but still square, with thin slits for windows. A small patch of peas and beans stood outside a side door, surrounded by more of the familiar blue daisies. A grove of orange trees, growing near the stream, shaded the front of the house.
“We will stay here for the night,” Kaz said as he stood in the doorway.
Above the door frame, a little niche had been carved out of the wall. A ceramic tile bearing the image of the Virgin Mary was surrounded by cut flowers, a small candle flickering in front of it. Framed in the dark doorway, with the religious symbols floating above his head, Kaz looked menacing, a small but dangerous holy warrior.
“Dottore,” he added, “I believe you would find civilian clothes more to your liking?”
“Certainly,” Sciafani answered.
“For now, we must insist on your company, Dottore. May I have your word you will accept our hospitality, or will it be necessary to impose it upon you?”
Kaz had a way with words. No one else I knew could tell a guy he was still a prisoner and have it come out so nicely.
“You have my word, for now.”
“Good. It will make for a much more pleasant evening,” Kaz said, walking into the house under the Virgin’s gaze as the candle sputtered out in a sudden, sharp breeze.
Signora Ciccolo showed us to the well, where we could pump water to wash up, and then led Sciafani away to give him the couple’s son’s Sunday suit. The son was missing. If he was in an American POW camp in North Africa, he was in the safest place he could be, she told Kaz. They hoped for the best. She reappeared minutes later carrying the discarded uniform, which she put into the smoldering fire in her outdoor oven. Smart woman, I was sure Sciafani was thinking.
While Sciafani was changing clothes inside, Banville, Kaz, and I sat at a wooden table under a grape arbor attached to the rear of the house. An earthenware jug of red wine and four cups waited for us, but the time didn’t feel right for a toast, although the smell of grapes filled the shaded air and I could almost relax.
“Well?” I said. “Does Harding know about this?”
“You know Major Harding,” Kaz said. “He wouldn’t approve, so I didn’t ask. Nor did he ask why I went with the MPs this morning.”
“Why are those MPs after me?”
Kaz and Banville exchanged confused looks. They’d gone to a lot of trouble to snatch me and hide me out here, but they hadn’t seemed too happy about it. Now they seemed at a loss for words.
“Don’t tell me you don’t know?” Banville said, an edge of anger creeping into his tone. I was about to assure him I didn’t when Kaz broke in.
“For desertion in the face of the enemy and for the murder of Sergeant Rocko Walters. Both offenses are punishable by death. Which is why we are hiding you. The road we came in on is a dead end. There is nothing of military value here, so we should be unmolested.”
“Good, because there’s probably another charge against me by now. An Italian POW, Roberto Bellestri, was murdered last night. I went to the POW camp to talk to him, but it was too late.”
“Was it to silence him, Lieutenant?” Banville asked.
“No. I needed him to tell me what had happened. Who brought those charges against me? Was it Harding?”
“No,” said Kaz. “He defended you, but in the end a JAG officer filed charges.”
“What the bloody hell is that?” asked Banville.
“The American army legal branch,” Kaz answered. “The Judge Advocate General’s Corps.”
“How did JAG hear about me?”
“First, you need to explain what’s happened. The whole truth,” Kaz said, his expression giving away nothing.
“OK, guys, I have to start from the beginning. I don’t have everything straight, but here goes. . . .”
I told them about waking up in the field hospital and not remembering a thing. About Rocko appearing and his story about finding me with an Italian soldier and bringing me to the hospital. About Biazza Ridge, Slim Jim, Clancy and Joe, and Aloysius Hutton. About how I made it back to the field hospital and saw them looking for me, except I didn’t know who
they
were. About sneaking into Rocko’s tent of treasures and what I heard there: Andrews, the yegg, Charlotte, everything. About the note, the bath, and Rocko’s fear of what would happen to him if he squealed. How I was clobbered on the head and woke up to find Rocko dead in the tub. How the paratroopers were shot to pieces and fell to the sea in flames. About remembering Roberto Bellestri and Harding, and how things were coming back to me, but not everything, and that the good
dottore
had said the things I hadn’t yet remembered were the worst of my vanished memories.
“You remember me, it seems,” Kaz said, disbelief battling with hope on his face.
“Yes, you came back to me. But there’s something else, something about a fire. When I look at Banville I see visions of fire.”
“Do you remember Banville from before?” Kaz asked.
I studied Banville’s face a long time. I connected him with a building or a car or both, on fire. But where?
“No. You’re familiar, but I can’t place you,” I said to Banville. I looked at Kaz, and his face was ashen.
“Can’t place me? What the hell are you up to? And where’s my captain, that’s what I want to know!” Banville’s voice rose with his anger, and his last words were accompanied by his fist slamming on the table. He still meant nothing to me. Kaz turned his head to avoid my eyes. He knew. I wanted to ask but I was afraid of the shattered look on his face. I was scared of what I didn’t remember, but it was easier to lash out at Banville.