Purple Hearts (Front Lines 3)

“Do you mean this battle? This war? Or what’s going on back home to colored folks?”

“Yes,” Rainy says.

28

RIO RICHLIN—CLERVAUX, LUXEMBOURG

Rio leans back against the cool stone of the castle wall and lets her eyes close. She knows how this will play out. She doesn’t need to see it.

“Lieutenant Horne, I’m ordering Richlin to try and break out with as many of her people as she can,” Mackie says.

The inside of the castle is chaos and blood. Blood fills and freezes in the cracks between cobblestones. The dead are lined up in a row in the courtyard. The air smells of smoke, and Rio’s eyes sting. The town is lost.

“I’ll lead that breakout,” Horne says.

Mackie shakes her head. “No. Richlin’s the—”

“She’s my sergeant!” Horne protests angrily.

Mackie turns on him the gaze that had once reduced Rio to a puddle on the barracks floor. “Lieutenant, I have rank, and I have Colonel Fuller’s approval.”

“But . . . I can’t be taken prisoner! How will that look?”

“The same as it’ll look for me,” Mackie says grimly. “I’m sticking it out. And so are you. Richlin?”

Rio opens her eyes. “Right here, Captain.”

“You have your orders.” She hands Rio a small packet. “Letters from the colonel and a few pieces of mail. Get them to the general if you can.”

Rio comes away from the wall and executes a more careful, more exact salute than she has in a while. “Thank you, Captain.”

Mackie shakes Rio’s hand. “Good luck. You’ll need it.”

Rio turns and trots down the circular stairway, down the tower, and out into the courtyard without so much as a glance at Lieutenant Horne.

Her platoon—scarcely more than a squad now—gathers around. “Okay, here’s the deal. Captain Mackie has asked me—some others, too, but that’s their problem. Anyway, we are to try to break out and get some documents to HQ. Wherever the hell that may be at this moment. We go as soon as it’s dark.”

“What are the odds?” Rudy J. Chester asks. The question is on every face.

“Bad. People who stay here will probably survive and be taken prisoner. Those who come with me have a higher chance of dying, a lower chance of being a POW. This is volunteers only.”

She is down to fifteen people not including herself.

Jenou raises a hand.

“All right, Castain.”

“I was just raising my hand to go to the bathroom,” Jenou says, breaking the unbearable tension.

In the end seven volunteer to go with her—not surprisingly they are almost all members of her old squad, the soldiers who know her best: Jenou, Geer, Jack, Beebee, Molina, Mazur the mad bazooka man, and Rudy J. Chester. Rio solemnly shakes hands with all of those who will stay behind, and accepts various letters home.

“I’m just tired,” Jenny Dial says by way of apology. Her wound is bleeding through the bandage on her leg.

“You’ve done enough, Dial. You fought your war, and you’ll fight some more before surrender.”

Dial looks like she might start crying.

“This is hard,” Rio says to all of them. “This is a hard day. But if everyone keeps their head we’ll be okay. All right, back to work. People coming with me, I want to see light packs—food, water, socks, ammo. Wrap everything for quiet. We move out in an hour.”