EXCERPT FROM SILVER STARS
THE SECOND BOOK OF NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR MICHAEL GRANT’S EPIC ALTERNATE HISTORY SERIES, WHICH FOLLOWS THE YOUNG WOMEN IN THE US ARMY AS THEY MOVE TO THE FRONT LINES IN ITALY.
1
RIO RICHLIN—CAMP ZIGZAG, TUNISIA, NORTH A
FRICA
“What was it like?” Jenou asks. “That first time? What did you feel?”
Rio Richlin sighs wearily.
Rio and Jenou Castain, best friends for almost their entire lives, lie faceup on a moth-eaten green blanket spread over the hood of a burned-out German half-track, heads propped up against the slit windows, legs dangling down in front of the armor-covered radiator. The track is sleeker than the American version, lower in profile, normally a very useful vehicle. But this particular German half-track had been hit by a passing Spitfire some weeks earlier, so it is riddled with holes you could stick a thumb into. The bogie wheels driving the track are splayed out, and both tracks have been dragged off and are now in use as a relatively clean “sidewalk” leading to the HQ administrative tent.
The road might once have been indifferently paved but has now been chewed to gravel by passing tanks, the ubiquitous deuce-and-a-half trucks, jeeps, half-tracks, bulldozers, and tanker trucks. It runs beside a vast field of reddish sand and loose gravel that now seems to have become something like a farm field with olive drab tents as its crop. The tents extend in long, neat rows made untidy by the way the tent sides have all been rolled up, revealing cots and sprawled GIs in sweat-soaked T-shirts and boxer shorts. Here and there are extinguished campfires, oil drums filled with debris, other oil drums shot full of holes and mounted on rickety platforms to make field showers, stacks of jerry cans, wooden crates, and pallets—some broken up to feed the fires.
The air smells of sweat, oil, smoke, cordite, and cigarettes, with just a hint of fried Spam. There are the constant rumbles and coughing roars of passing vehicles, and the multitude of sounds made by any large group of people, plus the outraged shouts of NCOs, curses and blasphemies, and more laughter than one might expect.
At the edge of the camp some men and one or two women are playing softball with bats, balls, and gloves assembled from family care packages. It’s possible that the rules of this game are not quite those of games played at Yankee Stadium, since there is some tripping and tackling going on.
Both Rio and Jenou wear their uniform trousers rolled up to above the knee, and sleeveless olive drab T-shirts. Cat Preeling, fifty feet away and playing a game of horseshoes with Tilo Suarez, is the only female GI with the nerve to strip down to bra and boxers. She’s a beefy girl with a cigarette hanging from her downturned mouth. Tilo, like many of the off-duty men, wears only his boxers and boots, showing off a taut, olive-complected body that Jenou would be watching much more closely if only Tilo were six inches taller.
The bra and boxers look is a bit too daring for Rio and Jenou, but Cat seems to have a way of deflecting unwanted male attention, like she’s wearing a sign that reads: Don’t bother. Even the ever-amorous Tilo is content to toss horseshoes with her, though the shoes in question are actually brass rings roughly cut from discarded 155 brass and the peg is a bayonet.
Rio and Jenou both have brown-tanned faces, necks, and forearms, but the rest of them blazes a lurid white with just a tinge of pink where the skin is beginning to burn.
“What was what like?” Rio repeats the question slowly. She has a wet sock laid over her eyes to afford some shade. There is a half-empty bottle of Coca-Cola beside her. It was almost cold once and now is the temperature of hot tea. Jenou has a book held up to block the sun, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, in a paperback edition.
It is the summer of 1943 in Tunisia, and it is hot. Desert hot. Completely immobile—except when they swat at a fly—both young women are still sweating.
“You know,” Jenou insists. “The first time. I’m just trying to get an idea.”
“What are you, writing a book?” Rio says sharply. “Suddenly you’re reading books and now you’re trying to plumb the depths of my soul?”
“My usual appetite for fashion and Hollywood gossip isn’t being satisfied,” Jenou says, adopting a light, bantering lilt before restating her question in a more serious tone.
Rio sighs. “I don’t know, Jen.” She pronounces the name with a soft j, like zh. Jenou’s name is inspired by the word ingenue, a perfectly inappropriate reference point for Jenou, who is far from being the innocent the name suggests.
Jenou is blond, with hair cut short to just below the ear. General Patton has decreed that all female soldiers will have hair cut to above the bottom of their earlobe. The general is improvising—army regulations have not quite caught up with the realities of female soldiers. In addition to being blond, Jenou is quite pretty, just shy of beautiful, and has a pinup’s body.
Jenou remains silent, knowing the pressure will build on Rio to say something. And of course she’s right.
“It was . . .” Rio searches for a word picture, a metaphor, something that will convey enough meaning that Jenou will not feel the need to ask anymore. Thinking about it takes her back to that moment. To the sound of Sergeant Cole’s voice yelling, Shoot!
Richlin! Suarez! Lay down some fugging fire!
Rio remembers it in detail. It had been as cold then as it is hot now. Her breathing had become irregular: a panicky burst followed by a leaden thud-thud-thud.
She remembers lining up the sights of her M1 Garand. She remembers the Italian soldier. And the pressure of her finger on the trigger. And the way she slowed her breathing, the way she shut out everything, every extraneous sound, every irrelevant emotion. The way she saw the target, a man in a tan uniform lined up perfectly on the sights.
The way her lungs and heart seemed to freeze along with time itself.
The moment when her right index finger applied the necessary seven-point-five pounds of pressure and the stock kicked back against her shoulder.
Bang.
The way she had first thought that he had just tripped. The way the Italian had seemed to be frozen in time, on his knees, maybe just tripped, maybe just caught his toe on a rock and . . . And then the way the man fell back.