To Rainy’s utter astonishment, Rio blushes and stammers and looks down, appalled at the state of her uniform, until Mackie takes mercy on her. “This isn’t basic training, Richlin, and this is not an inspection. Take it easy. What are you doing here?”
“They threw us on trucks and here I am. I have a rump platoon, two dozen people, most of them still green.”
“Where’s your lieutenant?”
“He’s checking out the big picture down at the castle,” Rio says.
Mackie makes a snorting sound. “Colonel Fuller will make short work of that nonsense. Fuller likes fighters! Well, good to see you, Richlin. Go see Lieutenant Dubrowski. He’s West Point, but he’s a good officer. Dismissed. And, Richlin?”
“Yes?”
“It’s Diane.”
For a moment it almost seems as if the filth-covered killer with the koummya might start to cry. “Diane,” Rio says, and flees.
“As for you, Schulterman,” Mackie says, “I’m going to see if I can’t get you some POWs to interrogate. I don’t suppose you speak German?”
Outside the tent Rainy and Rio hold each other at arm’s length and look each other up and down.
“Old home week,” Rainy says. “I haven’t seen you since our days of debauchery in England.”
“Yeah, when you managed to talk me into coming to this little holiday in Europe.”
Rainy nods. “I know it’s been tough. I see some of the after-battle reports.”
“And now you’re an officer too,” Rio accuses her. “First my old drill sergeant, and now you. Traitors, both of you.”
“What was that about Diane?”
Rio grins. “I never knew her first name. I asked her once, and she said it was Sergeant.” She shakes her head. “You have no idea how much that woman used to terrify me. Mackie is who I wanted to . . . She’s a good soldier.”
“Who you wanted to be when you grew up?”
“Go ahead, laugh. But I guess it’s true. Jed Cole and Mackie. Diane Mackie.”
“How’s Jenou? And you haven’t heard anything from Marr, have you?”
“Marr could be ten feet away and I wouldn’t know, I just got here. And Jenou is fine, she can still count to twenty on her fingers and toes.” Rio sighs. “Well, I have orders to go shoot some Krauts.”
“Take care of yourself, Rio,” Rainy says in an echo of the friends-more-than-soldiers voice from their days in Britain.
“You too, Rainy.”
They separate, and Rainy turns and calls after Rio, “Hey, if you happen to come up with any Kraut prisoners . . .”
“I’ll look you up.”
Rainy watches Richlin saunter away toward a gaggle of soldiers slumped against tree trunks, talking, cajoling, kicking the occasional boot sole.
I wonder if I talked her into her own death?
25
FRANGIE MARR—MALMÉDY, BELGIUM
The crossroads, like every crossroads in Belgium, Luxembourg, and western Germany, is a tangle of vehicles, with divisions trying to go two different ways. It takes hours to sort it out, hours during which Frangie lies comatose in the seat of her jeep with Manning—bandaged ear and all—equally asleep, leaning against and drooling on Frangie’s shoulder.
BLAM!