Purple Hearts (Front Lines 3)

“It’s good you spoke up, Richlin,” Stick says.

“Captain’s all right,” Rio says through a mouthful of burning-hot apple cobbler.

What is unsaid is that Lieutenant Horne is not okay. His panic on the beach has left him tarnished in the eyes of the platoon. And since then he has been taking risks with himself and his soldiers, trying to prove himself.

“I’m wondering about some NCO-to-NCO outreach,” Stick says.

“What’s that mean?” Cat asks.

“Look, we have a push on tomorrow. Captain’s got to talk to his colonel, who has to think it over and then maybe get hold of the colonel of that colored tank battalion, and in this army nothing gets done in twenty-four hours.”

“You’re saying we go talk to some of the tank drivers?” Cat asks. “Captain will blow his top if it goes bad.”

But in the end the three of them take a detour on their way back to the front line, a detour that takes them to the motor pool—two tents and a jumble of treads, bogie wheels, carburetors steeping in cans of gasoline—of the tank battalion. There they find a furiously angry master sergeant puffing intensely on a huge meerschaum pipe who begins by telling them that he (puff) does not take orders (puff) from some staff sergeant just because he’s white. (Puff, puff.)

Stick, being an educated fellow, turns to logical argument. But Rio has had experience with men whose lives are spent with machines. She knows their language. She grabs a piece of wrapping paper and sketches the tank-dozer, and sure enough the pipe-puffer cannot resist looking.

“It wasn’t like an actual bulldozer blade,” Rio explains. “It was more like this, see. Like teeth, kind of.”

The master sergeant stares and puffs. He takes the pencil and begins drawing. Stick starts to speak but is stopped dead by a raised hand and an angry puff.

“We could bring up some of the scrap metal off the beach . . . (puff), cut at a bias (puff), . . . weld it here . . . (puff, puff). Hmm.”

(Puff.)

“I might could get my captain to let me try it out. (Puff.)” Then a crafty look comes into his eye. “Of course that’s a lot of work. I don’t have men to spare bringing scrap up off the beach. And you know, all that welding (puff) would take a lot of my energies.” He sucks on nothing, takes out his pipe, and knocks the ashes against his boot. “A man can’t plan right without a little pipe tobacco. Sure can’t work without it. No, not even if he had a mind to.”

A year earlier Rio and Stick and Cat might have missed the implications of that speech. But they are veterans now and understand that the army runs on favors.

“How much pipe tobacco would it take to focus on a job like that?” Cat asks.

“Oh, I’d say a full two pouches. And it’s thirsty work besides.”

“I had a premonition it might be,” Cat says.

In the end they agree on a single pouch of pipe tobacco and two bottles of liquor (or four of wine) for two modified tanks.

“I can get my hands on the scrap metal,” Stick says. “The other stuff . . .”

“I have a guy,” Rio says.

Back with her squad, Rio calls Beebee over. “I need a pouch of pipe tobacco and some booze.”

Beebee considers. “It’ll take me two hours . . . if I can get a jeep.”

It takes him three hours, but in addition to the bribes he comes back with a complete ham, a part of which is sent along to encourage progress at the motor pool.

The next morning two Shermans with dramatic dentures at the front come rattling up. One is assigned to Rio’s objective.

“Okay, here’s how we do this,” Rio explains to her squad as the tank commander sits in his turret listening in. They are in a cleared field facing a secured hedgerow. “Tank goes through this hedgerow. We follow. Marching fire, people. Marching fire: walk and shoot, walk and shoot. Don’t make me have to yell at you when I should be shooting Krauts. We cross the field, with us behind it, figuring the tank will pop any mines. The tank goes right ahead, bang into the facing hedgerow. Right? And we go through the gap, split left, Preeling’s people go right, we roll the Krauts up and the tank skedaddles before the Kraut spotters can zero in. We dig in. And listen up: I mean dig in. Half the time we get somewhere they come right back at us while we’re draining our canteens and boiling coffee. Through the safe hedge, follow the tank, through the next hedge, left and right and shoot anyone you see. Right?”

“Right, Sarge,” a few voices mutter.

Well, Rio thinks, I’d be more worried if they were cocky. Better scared. “We jump off in ten minutes.”

Heads nod. Geer says, “You sure these colored boys know how to drive a tank?”

“You have a white tank unit you can call up?” Rio asks.