Purple Hearts (Front Lines 3)

An 88 fires from concealment, point-blank, right from the tree line down the line, and a Sherman blows up, fire shooting from every porthole and seam.

“All right, Mannin

g, let’s go,” Frangie says.

“Make sure your red cross is clean and shiny!” Manning yells as she guns the engine, and the jeep goes tearing out of the cover of the forest, bumps out into the firebreak, and turns a hard, two-wheel right. Because the infantry occupies the safer ground to the right side of the tanks, Manning drives along the left of the Shermans, between the Germans and the tanks.

Machine guns blaze on both sides now, tracers crisscrossing over Frangie’s head.

The exploded tank goes pop-pop-pop as machine gun rounds inside cook off from the heat and the slugs ricochet around inside, making mincemeat of anything made of flesh and blood. At any moment one of the tank’s own high-explosive rounds will reach the necessary heat and blow the tank apart like a firecracker in a beer bottle.

“There’s a man down!” Deacon yells, pointing ahead, like a hunting dog on the scent. Manning brakes, and Frangie and Deacon jump out. There is indeed a man, or what’s left of him. He appears unhurt from the waist up, but everything below is smoking meat. A white infantryman has broken both cover and the rules to run out and throw dirt on the man’s still-burning clothing.

“We got him, go!” Frangie yells to the white soldier.

The wounded man gasps, mouth working like a beached fish. He’s trying to speak, but he can’t form words. His breath is short, sharp inhalations and quick moans, but he’s trying to get at something in the breast pocket of his tanker’s jacket.

“Lie still, Soldier, we’ve got you.”

But the man keeps clawing at his uniform, eyes bulging with some desperate need.

Frangie cuts away the edges of burned uniform to find the line of damage, to see just how much is lost. “Deacon, look in his jacket!”

Deacon fumbles and pulls out a rosary. “This?”

The man shakes his head.

Deacon pulls out a letter. From the letter falls a photograph of two little girls with their parents. The wounded man takes it reverently and presses it to his chest.

Manning cries out, “Shit!”

Frangie looks up to see blood pouring down the side of her neck. “Deacon!” He’s already leaping toward Manning as Frangie fights down nausea. The wounded man is more charcoal than flesh below the waist. His thighs have melted and then resolidified, as a wax nightmare version. His flesh is so hot that raindrops hiss and steam when they land.

“I’m going to give you something for the pain,” Frangie says, and stabs a morphine syrette into him.

“My. Babies.” He holds the picture for her to see.

“They’re beautiful little girls,” Frangie says.

“My. Babies.”

“You’ll be with them soon. Million-dollar wound. You’re going home, Soldier.”

His body jerks violently, as if the top half is trying to shake itself free of the destroyed bottom half. Shock. She would elevate his legs if he had legs. When the spasm passes, the soldier grows sleepy. His eyelids droop.

“How’s Manning?” Frangie yells.

The battle is not going to plan. A second Sherman explodes, and the flaming wreckage is blocking the path. Oily smoke rolls over Frangie, and she’s glad for the foul-smelling reek as it might conceal her for a while at least.

Deacon does not answer.

“I’m cold, I’m cold. Funny, huh?” the burned man says.

“Yeah, kind of,” Frangie says, frantically digging out plasma. It won’t save the man: it’s just all she knows to do for him.

Deacon, in a shaky voice, says, “Manning’s okay. Took a piece of her earlobe, is all!”

Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk!