Dry Bones (9 page)

He never got used to the initial shock, sudden absence of saliva in his mouth, willing his sphincter shut, tumble into the void, commotion of plane’s engines, and sharp, cold, numbing wind, plummeting free fall until brusque, upward jerk of parachute’s deployment, noise and buffeting replaced by soundless tick-tock sway of descent.

The plane was quickly out of view. One chute drifted a hundred yards or so below. Dunne couldn’t tell if it was Bunde’s or Van Hull’s.

He landed nearby in a snow-covered field ringed by firs. No sign of Bunde, his radio, or the crates of small arms and medical supplies. Van Hull sidled up beside him. They hurried into the woods, buried their chutes—working hard to break the frozen ground—huddled against the penetrating chill, and waited.

Mizzling, colorless dawn revealed the trail they’d left moving across the snow into the woods. They couldn’t stay where they
were. Since they had landed almost directly on their target area, Van Hull said, they were about twenty miles north of Banská Bystrica.

Maybe Bunde had been wafted south or north by a rogue wind. Every drop had its quotient of unpredictability, eccentric wind, dissenting breeze, contrary current. Maybe he’d already hooked up with the underground. They stood motionless amid the expectant quiet. The sun broke through, quickly retreated. The morning grew warm. An otherworldly veil of vapory wisps made the woods seem vague, insubstantial.

Van Hull displayed a dime between thumb and forefinger. “My lucky charm.”

“It doesn’t seem to be working.”

“We’ll give it another try.” Van Hull laid the dime atop his right thumbnail. “Now for that most time-honored instrument of scientific decision making, the coin toss.” He catapulted it into the air, caught it in his palm, and slapped it on the back of his left hand. “Heads, we go north; tails, south.”

“Shit.” He rushed the dime back in his pocket and pointed over Dunne’s shoulder. In the distance, a thin drape of silk hung limply from a tall pine, its train lost in the low-lying mist. Dunne circled left; Van Hull, right. They kept each other in sight, starting and stopping alternately, ready to provide covering fire.

Dunne reached the site first. The top of Bunde’s parachute, which had never fully deployed, was snagged on the pine tree. His legs were splayed, arms sprawled open, head twisted backward, eyes wide. There’d be no need for him to fret over whether to use Victor or not.

They cut the chute free and placed Bunde’s body on it. Van Hull slipped the dime into the vest pocket of Bunde’s jacket. “The Greeks always supplied the dead with a coin to tip Charon for ferrying them across the Styx to the land of the dead.”

Dunne spotted the Miraculous Medal several yards away,
bright oval of gold on a patch of ice freckled with pine needles. He put it back in Bunde’s palm, closed it, whispered: “Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord; perpetual light shine upon him.”

They folded the chute over Bunde, an impromptu shroud, covered it with snow and pine branches.

They decided that though the main partisan strongholds were farther north, in the mountains, it made more sense to head south, toward Banská Bystrica, and get the mission under way. Whatever the reason that Anton and his men hadn’t made contact—a mix-up in signals, German activity in the area—the underground had to be aware of the drop and be on the lookout for the rescue party and the much-needed supplies.

They shouldered packs and submachine guns and set off. They passed several farmhouses, abandoned ruins, walls broken and tumbled, some half razed. The ugly, greasy odor of burned bodies hung around them. Van Hull led the way along a ridge. A paved, two-lane road threaded its way through the narrow, steeply sloped gorge below. It was empty of traffic. He held up his hand. Steady half-grind, half-whine of heavy trucks grew stronger. They lay down and took cover.

Van Hull peered through his binoculars, methodically tightening the screw as he brought them into focus. A file of three slow-moving vehicles approached. In the lead was an armored car. An uncovered truck followed. Two rope-trussed men were bookended by soldiers with their Schmeissers at the ready. A canvas-covered truck filled with troops was behind. He rolled on his back, rested the binoculars on his chest, and crossed forefingers, imitating the stick-grenade insignia of Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger.

The column moved out of view. Van Hull put away the binoculars. “Those prisoners are probably what’s left of the partisans sent to meet us. They looked pretty banged up. The SS probably knocked the truth out of them. Once they confirm where we landed, they’ll shoot them.”

“And then come after us.”

Van Hull reshouldered pack and weapon. “Let’s move.”

They climbed off the ridge and trotted north along the road, breaking the trail of footprints. Smashed and derelict vehicles, sides emblazoned with the double-barred Slovak cross, littered the fringes of the road. A charred corpse—top of its head blown off, right hand frozen in position as if to protect now-vanished eyes—stuck out from the turret of a flame-scorched tank. They reentered the woods. A wet snow began to fall. They took refuge in a cowshed, devoured a meal of cold rations, and pushed north again.

Van Hull led. He told Dunne to be careful to step in his tracks and leave a single row of footprints. As difficult as it was, Dunne kept up. His breathing grew labored; trickle of sweat ran down his back and made him shiver. He felt as if snow were falling inside his head, fuzzy, cottony, obliterating any thought other than leaden weight of his own legs. More sweat formed on his forehead, dripped into his eyes, blurred his sight.

It was dark when the snow stopped. They paused beneath an outcrop in a shallow, cave-like indentation on the side of a steep hill, took off their packs, and sat on the dry ground. The temperature had sunk noticeably. The cold tightened around them.

“We need a plan,” Van Hull said.

“I plan to get warm.” Dunne stood. He decided to see if there might be a larger, deeper cave farther along the ledge in which it would be safe to light a fire. He’d gone only a few yards when his feet shot out from under him. His helmet flew off. He crashed hard and slid down the frozen stream he’d inadvertently stepped on. He tried to grab a shrub or tree to stop his descent but tumbled into a ravine.

He lay still. A clamor of falling ice and rocks announced Van Hull’s descent. “You okay?”

“Christ, I did something to my back.”

“Where?”

Dunne touched the base of his spine. “Here.”

“You probably bruised your coccyx.”

“My what?”

“Coccyx is Greek for cuckoo—the tailbone is shaped like a cuckoo’s beak.”

“Thanks for the anatomy lesson.”

“See if you can stand.” Van Hull extended his hand.

Dunne took it and tried to get on his feet. The surge of pain in his right ankle made his eyes well. “My ankle is screwed up.” He fell back down

Van Hull knelt, untied the boot, and felt the ankle and the area around it. “The bone isn’t displaced. Probably just a bad sprain.”

“Some plan, hey?”

“‘The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.’ So wrote the Scottish poet Bobbie Burns. ‘The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go astray’ is how it’s rendered in English.”

“Just what the doctor ordered. A poetry lecture.” Dunne grasped Van Hull’s shoulder, made another attempt to stand, but the pain prevented him.

“You should know better than to travel with a teacher.”

“Next trip, I’ll sign on with a medical student, or better, a nurse.”

“For now, let’s concentrate on getting back upstairs.” Van Hull looked up. A three-quarter moon had appeared. A scatter of stars slipped from behind the fast-dispersing clouds. “
Ad astra per aspera.
”

“It’ll take more than prayers.”

“It’s the state motto of Kansas. ‘To the stars is through hard work.’”

“You know Latin?”

“Yes, I know Latin. And Greek.”

“College boys like you and Bassante usually do. But you were never an altar boy. You’re a left footer, aren’t you?”

“A what?”

“Protestant.”

“I was raised Episcopalian, high church—ritually closer to Catholic than Protestant. But we don’t believe in infallibility, either of the pope or the Bible, and we never let orthodoxy get in the way of sanity. Besides, being Catholic isn’t a prerequisite for mastering Latin. Some of the greatest scholars of it are Jews and nonbelievers.”

“
Suscipiat?
”

“What?”

“
Suscipiat.
It’s a Latin word. What’s it mean?”

Van Hull helped Dunne stand on one leg and had him put his arms around his neck. “I know what you’re doing, Fin. You’re stalling. It’s not going to work.”

“You don’t know, do you?” The intense pain in Dunne’s ankle made him wince.

Steep, pine-studded slope loomed above. Van Hull bent, hooked his arms under Dunne’s knees, and hoisted him onto his back. “‘
Suscipiat
,’ third-person singular present active subjunctive of ‘
suscipio
.’ ‘May he accept.’ A prayer from the Catholic Mass, if I remember correctly. Do you know the words?”

“I memorized them as an altar boy. I remember them in Latin. I’m not sure about the English.” The opening phrase suddenly came back to him: “May the Lord accept.”

“Repeat it to yourself and hang on tight.” Van Hull took hold of a cone-laden branch and began to climb. He pushed ahead with steady, strong strides, grasping one branch, pulling, and grabbing another. Dunne clung to his back, aware—more than he’d been before—of Van Hull’s prowess, which wasn’t manifest in bulging calves or forearms but coiled inside, taut and compact, like a metal spring.

Van Hull didn’t stop until he reached the cleft in the side of the hill. He placed Dunne against the back wall; sat beside him, panting.

“About that plan,” Dunne said, “we still need one.”

“You were on the right track.”

“But landed on the wrong ankle.”

“We’ll see to that first, then find a proper place for a fire, where it can’t be seen.” Van Hull culled two rod-like branches from a tree, took an undershirt from his pack, and used his knife to fashion several strips. He bound them around the branches, secured the splint with the straps from Dunne’s pack, and immobilized the lower leg.

“That helps,” Dunne said. “But I’m certain it’s broken.”

“Me, too.”

“A few minutes ago, you said you thought it was a sprain.”

“First rule of doctoring: Say whatever necessary to put the patient at ease.”

“The legal term is lying.”

“I learned it from my mother’s father. He was a doctor.”

“Sounds more like a lawyer.”

“That was my father’s father.” Van Hull pulled a sock over Dunne’s foot and laid pack and submachine gun by his side. “I’m going to find the best place to dig a fire hole. Stay awake. I don’t want you to freeze to death. And stay put.”

“Sure, unless a taxi comes along. But given our luck, it’ll probably be off-duty.”

“I’ll blink my flashlight twice—one long, one short—so you know it’s me.” Van Hull slipped off into the woods.

Dunne lit a cigarette, miniature flare enlarged by encircling night, cupped glowing tip in palm, sucked smoke into lungs, exhaled a spectral, slowly rising string. When the stub was so small another drag would raise a blister on his lip, he flicked it into the dark.

He shivered. He dug at the frozen ground, as if he might find warmth below. Above, the clouds were gone. The night sky was crowded with stars. His chin sank to his chest. He struggled to remember why it was important to stay awake but couldn’t.

“
Was haben wir hier?
” Harsh brightness played across his face and eyelids. Unsure where he was, unable to see beyond the encircling glare, he lifted his hand to shield his eyes. The barrel of a submachine gun knocked his hand away. The nozzle rested a few inches from his nose. How long had he been unconscious? He had no idea. He reached for his gun. It wasn’t there. He stared into the light.

A second voice chimed in: “
Es ist ein Amerikaner, glauben Sie nicht?
”

“
Es riecht wie ein!
”

The two voices laughed in unison.

The light raced over his chest and legs. He was hauled to his feet, propelled against the wall, and patted down; .45 pistol was jerked from his shoulder holster, knife from its sheath on his belt. The pain in his ankle was excruciating. He fell down, rolled on his side, and slipped hand into pocket, into tiny aperture that held the LP.

The light fixed on his face. “
Sind Sie allein?
”

He tried his best with pidgin German, tried again in English: “I don’t speak German.” He turned his head. With a rapid, furtive gesture, he slid the capsule into his mouth.
Ecce Victor.

The quick and the dead all rolled in one.

A boot rested on the leg splint, pressure steadily increased. “
Sind Sie allein?
”

In the face of death, straight line of conscious mind bent, curved, turned circular, round and round, closed in on itself, subconscious grooves embedded in memory, words he’d been trained to hear/heed—and trained others to hear/heed—chorused in his head.

Remember what you were told?

Words easy to say back then, hard to act on now.

Don’t let terror take charge of your mind …

Terror has a mind of its own.

Focus on where you are …

Prone, alone, maneuver lozenge to back teeth.

Concentrate on what’s directly in front …

Eyes shut, black screen, last image: Roberta across the table from him at Ben Marden’s, long ago and far away, so far away, face illumined by a single candle, perpetual light.

He prepared to bite.

The SS trooper removed his foot, took hold of him again, and had him half hauled to his feet when the light from behind went out. Strangled, gurgling sound was followed by the thump of a body hitting the ground. The trooper let go. As he swiveled around and pointed his submachine gun, Dunne grabbed his legs.

The trooper pulled loose, reeled forward, and fell to his knees. A blade slashed across his neck. Blood spurted from his carotid artery. A gun butt whacked him squarely in the face. He tumbled backward.