Front Lines (Front Lines 1)

The Italians know now they’re being fired on, they know they’re exposed and no matter what the Kraut officer yelled, they are ducking, running, cowering behind the tank, some preparing to return fire, most just trying to make themselves as small as possible.

You.

BAM!

“Aaaahh!” Rio cries, and the sound is something animalistic, some terrible blend of terror and triumph.

“Okay, Richlin, let’s go!” Cole grabs her shoulder, and she is aware in a distant, disconnected way that he’s had to repeat it a couple of times, so she rolls over, gets awkwardly to her knees, then jumps up to run with bullets whizzing by overhead.

They run, the three of them, and ahead now she sees the rest of the squad. Jenou, still okay it seems, still hauling ammo though she’s lost her helmet and her short-cut blond hair is like a bird in panicked flight. The rear tank sends another round after them, blowing another hole in the desert, and lends speed to Rio’s legs.

It is flat-out, undignified running, track and field, kicking divots in the dirt.

Italian soldiers see them fleeing and now aim, aim at her, willing their bullets to find her, to blow a hole in her, to see her fall, to see her die. They’re shouting in their foreign tongue, angry, scared shouts, firing fast, bullets everywhere.

Rio runs, Cole just behind her, Suarez ahead, runs and up ahead some rocks and the other squad is up in there, squinting from beneath their helmets, aiming their rifles but not shooting yet, not wanting to hit Second Squad.

Rio pants and sweats though it is still cold, even with the sun coming up now in a clearing sky. She runs to catch up to her own long shadow.

Suddenly the rest of the platoon opens up, blazes away at the advancing Italians as Rio, Suarez, and the sergeant rush past them, but already Rio sees some breaking, pelting away from the advancing Panzers.

Rio falls into a bare scraped depression in the ground, each frantic breath painful in her raw throat. Her heart pounds like it will physically break her breastbone. Tilo Suarez drops beside her.

“Fugging tanks!” he yells.

“Unh,” she grunts in response.

“Never even got a chance to get off a shot,” he says, like he’s making an excuse, like he’s defending himself.

I shot at them.

Tilo says, “On us too fast. We’re going to have to pull back. Tanks.” He sounds panicked.

The Italians hang back a little now as the rest of both platoons fire into them. They hold back, letting the tanks run on ahead, but now there’s the German officer again in the staff car, yelling, berating them in harsh, German-accented Italian, clearly audible despite the cacophony of rifle fire. He waves a baton of some sort, a riding crop, waves it furiously, demanding the infantry advance.

But the Italians, the distant descendants of the greatest empire the world has ever known, do not seem in a hurry to get shot at in this particular place at this particular time.

Yet there’s no stopping the tanks. Someone from another squad fires a hasty bazooka round that does explode this time, but with all the apparent destructive effect of a cream puff thrown against a brick wall.

The tank fires back, and as the explosion fades Rio hears screams. She starts firing, somewhat wildly, not targeting, not picking out individual targets now, just shooting off the remaining rounds in her clip, which pops out with a musical clang. Sh

e cannot at that particular moment, cannot, just cannot coldly locate and target an enemy. She can manage to fire, she can make noise with her rifle, but she cannot right then take careful deadly aim and end another life.

She fumbles a clip from her belt and first tries to shove it in backward before turning it around and, with numb fingers, inserting it as she had done long ago in training, long ago, weeks ago, in the world of paper targets.

BANG! and ka-boom! A tank fires and punches a round into the dirt just thirty feet from Rio, pelting her with debris that rattles on her helmet and dusts her shoulders and clogs the air.

Cole yells, “Where’s the Loot? Where’s Liefer?”

If the lieutenant is around, no one knows where she is. But Platoon Sergeant Garaman comes running up just then and says, “Come on, Cole, we’re falling back.”

“Yeah,” Cole says, because there isn’t much else to say. It’s GIs versus tanks, and the bazookas aren’t doing a damned thing, so it’s fall back or die. “Fall back to where?”

Garaman shakes his head. “I’ll be damned if I know, Jedron.”

It is the first time Rio has ever heard anyone call Sergeant Cole by his first name. It’s a bad omen.

“Well, I guess we aren’t knocking out any goddamn Kraut radio,” Cole mutters as Garaman stumbles away, looking for the lieutenant.