Purple Hearts (Front Lines 3)

“She confirms the other accounts,” Rainy says.

Herkemeier nods. “This is bad. It’ll scare the hell out of some GIs, stiffen the spines of others, but mostly it will mean revenge. After word gets around about Malmédy, no German prisoner—certainly no SS—will be safe.”

“I can’t spare too much pity,” Rainy says.

“It’s not a question of pity, Rainy. Soldiers fight soldiers. Eventually the two sides really come to hate each other—but as soldiers. This? This is different. There aren’t many rules in war, but one of them is that you care for your prisoners.”

Rainy sighs. “We need to minimize the damage, then. Make sure this ends up being seen as a purely SS thing. If our people are going to be looking for revenge, we can at least focus the worst of it on the worst of them.”

Herkemeier makes a face like he’s just bitten into a bad peach. “We’ll need some friendly Germans when this is all over. So in the end we’re going to lie about how deeply the Wehrmacht is involved in atrocities, and pin it all on the SS. We’ll most likely whitewash the Wehrmacht and the German people too. Political necessity.”

“I have to get back,” Rainy says, squirming at talk of politics. “I’m borrowing this.” She goes behind Herkemeier’s desk, slides open a drawer, and takes out a bottle of German schnapps. She leaves quickly, not angry at Herkemeier, angry at the fact that he’s right. She forces herself to calm down before opening the door to the interrogation room.

Frangie has a coffee mug before her. Rainy takes it, pours the last inch of coffee into a trash can, then pours an inch of schnapps for Frangie. Frangie sniffs at it. Says, “Smells like chewing gum,” and then downs the shot in one gulp.

“Listen, Frangie,” Rainy says. “GIs who deal with this kind of thing often experience severe guilt. You know? They ask themselves, ‘Why me? Why did I live?’”

“Oh, I’ve already done plenty of that,” Frangie says. She hates to admit it, but the alcohol burning a hole in her stomach has settled her nerves. “I’m not a combat soldier who lost some buddies, Rainy, I’m a medic. All I see of this war is wounds and death. Folks crying. Folks screaming. Folks begging for Jesus to save them. You can’t—”

Suddenly she cannot speak. Her throat is choked, her eyes swim with tears.

Rainy waits, watching Frangie try to master herself, try to push a million pounds of pain down, down, down inside herself. Where it will fester and eat at her. Where it may become a poison that will destroy her.

She reaches across and lays a hand on Frangie’s hand.

They sit that way in silence for many minutes. Outwardly silent, as Frangie tries to get control of emotions that roll through her like a series of waves, cresting, waning, crashing in again.

“I forgot what I was going to say,” Frangie says at last. “Anyway, I should be getting back.”

“Back to where?”

“Back to my battalion.”

“Frangie.”

“What?” A slow, terrible dawning, and a second, more anxious “What?”

“The battalion suffered seventy percent casualties. They’re off the line, and basically, sparing you the army jargon, the remains will be folded into some other group.”

Frangie hears nothing after “seventy percent.”

Rainy pours her another shot of schnapps.

“Listen, Frangie, there are two ways this goes now. Either you get sent to the rear to see if another colored unit can take you, and of course they will, but it may be a while. You could probably get some time off, some Paris time even. Or you could get shipped back to Blighty and be assigned to a hospital.”

Frangie nods dully. “Or?”

Rainy sighs. “You should go—”

“Or?” Frangie demands angrily.

“Or you could sit tight here, because Bastogne is in big trouble now and is going to be in worse trouble soon. We’ll need medics, whatever color they are.” She leans across the table a little and squeezes Frangie’s hand. “You’ve done enough. You’ve done more than enough. You’ve had your war. Let me get you out of Bastogne while I can. Go back to England, finish your time there. And when it’s all over, go home with your head held high.”

Frangie snorts dismissively. “My head held high? Until I run into my first white person and have to step off into the gutter.”

Rainy, confused, asks, “Is that a metaphor?”

“A metaphor?” Frangie looks at Rainy with disbelief. “You really don’t know, do you? In the south—maybe other places, too, I don’t know, but in the south if a colored person is on a sidewalk and a white person’s coming toward them, the colored person steps aside. Into the street if necessary.”