Purple Hearts (Front Lines 3)

Frangie shrugs. “Not in this weather, but I hear the same latrine rumors you do, Moore.” It’s perhaps more curt than she intends—she is feeling better . . . better . . . but not exactly fresh as a daisy. Her mouth tastes like a dead squirrel. And while the rain has slowed, the wind is still whipping water off the deck to sting Frangie’s cheeks.

“Yeah.” Moore is silent for a long while. “Some of the boys are worried. Not scared, exactly, just worried. They’ve heard stories about panzers. How our 76s just bounce off their armor and their 88s go right through ours.”

Frangie looks at him in surprise. Not because worry is unusual; a GI who doesn’t worry about going into battle should be Section Eight, mustered out as crazy. No, it’s the fact that he is confiding this to her. Is it because she’s a woman, or because she’s a medic?

Then it dawns on her: despite carrying a medical bag rather than a rifle, Frangie is a veteran. And Moore is not. He’s seeking reassurance. And not just for “some of the boys.”

“I suppose the air corps will have destroyed a lot of the panzers by the time we even get there,” Frangie says.

Moore snorts derisively. “Air corps. We’ll be lucky if they don’t bomb us.” Another silence. “They’re just nervous, is all. Some of the boys. They don’t know what it will be like.”

Neither do you, Moore.

“I guess it’s better to have all that armor plate around you than just be walking along like infantry,” Frangie suggests.

Moore shakes his head. “Infantry can dig a hole. A tank? See, Doc, a tank is a big fat bull’s-eye. A prize! No Kraut tank driver goes around bragging about how many infantry he killed, he wants to kill tanks. Heck, I want to kill tanks! I want to go home someday, prop Tom Trey—that’s his nickname—up on my knee and tell him how Daddy wiped out all these panzers and saved the day! Problem is, old Fritz over in that panzer has better armor and a heavier gun than I do.”

And more experience.

And his own children to whom he too would like to brag.

“They teach us that most wounds are superficial, and most fellows don’t get hurt at all,” Frangie says, squeegeeing rain water from her eyes.

She doesn’t know how to reassure Moore. In her first artillery barrage she had seen her friend, Doon Acey, a boy from back home, spill his intestines like fat sausages falling from a split grocery bag. She’s seen traumatic amputations, chest wounds, head wounds, and the bullet to the left foot that is the signature of a soldier looking to escape the war by any means available. She knows the statistics and they’re true enough, but she’s held the hands of the dying, and she is all out of optimism.

“They say this new Tiger tank the Krauts have . . .” Moore makes a low whistle.

“They say lots of things.”

“Yeah. I guess that’s so. The only thing is, Doc, I’m . . . some of the boys are real scared of burning.”

“Burning?”

Moore shrugs. “You know what the limeys say? They call it a ‘brew-up.’”

“That’s when they’re making tea,” Frangie says. “They call that a brew-up.”

Moore shakes his head. “Not when they’re talking about a tank battle. Your tank catches fire, that’s a brew-up. Men trying to get out of the hatches. Maybe our own Willy Pete going off.”

“Who’s Willy Pete?”

“Willy Pete. WP. White phosphorus. We carry some white phosphorus rounds, you know, to make smoke. But if the Willy Pete gets on you, you can’t put it out, see. It’s like glue that just burns and burns and burns, all the way down to the bone.”

Now Frangie definitely wants out of this conversation. She cannot reassure him because of all wounds it is burning that frightens her the most as well. The very thought of it makes her heart race with fear. She glances around, hoping for an easy escape.

“I wouldn’t want to live if I got burned bad,” Moore says.

And suddenly Frangie has the feeling the floor is slipping away for a whole different reason.

“We give you morphine and—”

“I don’t want to burn in a tank, Doc. None of the boys do. I mean, if you find me in that, you know, condition, I wouldn’t mind at all if maybe I got too much morphine. If you understand me.” He laughs insincerely as if it’s a joke.

“Sergeant Moore,” Frangie says firmly. “I’m just a bedpan commando, I’m not God. My job is to keep you alive, not to kill you.”

Moore stiffens and tilts his head back to look down his nose at her. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand. You’re a woman.”

“Right. Good-bye, Moore,” Frangie says, and walks away.