“Did you say steelhead, miss?”
“Sorry. Yes, sir. I didn’t mean . . . it’s just . . .” and she waves vaguely at one of the fish. “That’s a steelhead trout. Rainbow trout, some call them.”
The colonel stares sideways at her and lights a cigarette without offering one to her. “And what would you say that was?” He points to a second drawing.
“I’m not completely sure, Colonel. Some type of salmon, but I’m not as up as I should be on salmon species.”
“It’s a Coho salmon. I caught him in Scotland. Twenty-nine inches. No record, but a fine fish that cooked up very nicely over a campfire.”
For a moment he seems lost in memory. Rainy is fascinated at the possibility that an actual smile might appear beneath the unfortunate mustache, but no. He is content to smoke and contemplate his various fishes. “You must be a country girl.”
“No, Colonel, I’m from New York City. But every summer we had Jewish camp up in the mountains. We fished a bit, and I got so I liked it.”
Almost as if his primacy has been challenged, Colonel Clay says, “I tie my own lures.”
“It’s a skill I wish I had, sir.”
He still looks sourly at her, but she senses that she has passed some kind of test and been found to be of at least marginal intelligence and wit. He waves her over to his desk. “These are transcriptions of a dozen unguarded German radio intercepts. They’ve been written down phonetically since we are short of German speakers. Can you make any sense of them?”
She gathers up the flimsy sheets and, without being asked or given permission, sits down in the colonel’s chair and frowns in concentration.
For five full minutes she ignores the colonel as he stands, impatient and annoyed by the effrontery of a mere three-striper, a female at that, sitting there like a schoolgirl working out her homework.
“This one is a Kraut lieutenant asking about some crates of brandy. He says he is short of brandy, and if he is to move as ordered he will need more.”
“And what would you make of that?”
“There’s another one here from a tanker also talking about brandy, so I think unless the Wehrmacht is composed of drunks, they are not talking about brandy. Either ammo or fuel, most likely fuel.”
Colonel Clay’s eyes narrow. “Cigarette?”
She takes one but sticks it behind her ear to trade later. “The others are more obvious, I think. This one is a fellow asking about an injured soldier. This one asks whether there has been any mail.” She hesitates. “No, wait, there are two asking about mail. . . . It’s hard to be sure since these are just phonetic but yes, I think they are both asking about mail. Post. Is post available.”
“Artillery support,” Colonel Clay says. “A sort of crude code, barely disguised. They lack landlines, but they haven’t got the latest code, I suppose. Dismissed.”
She nearly misses that last word, but after a moment’s hesitation, jumps up, snaps a salute, and walks away, deflated.
Later that day she learns that she has been reassigned to Colonel Clay’s staff.
It is a step down in the sense that she’ll be working for a lieutenant colonel of intelligence rather than a full bird colonel in charge of the detachment, but she allows herself a satisfied grin. She has a feeling Colonel Clay might put her to better use.
And there is the added advantage of not working for a complete fool.
Clearly some sort of major German attack is coming. It may already have started, and General Fredendall is in “Speedy Valley” obsessing over his new headquarters construction, and Colonel Jasper is not inclined to make waves. Only Colonel Clay seems to have a clear notion of what he’s doing.
Somewhere out there in the vast reaches of the trackless Sahara, someone is very likely catching hell and perhaps about to catch a great deal more of it. Now at least Rainy Schulterman may be able to help them.
28
RIO RICHLIN—TUNISIAN DESERT, NORTH AFRICA
They run.
Rio and the rest of Fifth Platoon run from the gunfire and the intermittent BOOM of the tanks’ cannon and the relentless clank-clank-clank of the tracks.
They run past Third Platoon, which promptly bails out of its shallow holes and starts running too.
They are a mob, feeding on their own fear, tensing against the bullets that can at any moment pass through their defenseless bodies, tensing against the shrapnel and flying rock that can rip and batter them to death in an instant.