Silver Stars (Front Lines 2)

Cole sends her a sidelong look. “You know, Richlin, you won’t be a private forever.”

That thought bothers Rio more than the action ahead. It is one thing to follow orders; it is quite a different thing to take responsibility.

Cole quickly decides the matter: they’ll go around the hill, even if it means running. This they do, running in ninety-degree heat without shade, running with gear rattling, with troops panting and tripping and cursing under their breath. It’s worse for Stick, who still carries the big BAR.

Now the pain in Rio’s leg is doubled. Every impact of boot on dirt sends a shock of pain shooting up her thigh into her belly. She grits her teeth, determined to go on, not to fall out. Part of her mind is still digesting the way Jenou looked at her, the way she refused to look at her, the way the usually protective Jenou failed to speak up in Rio’s defense.

Jenou has known her longer than anyone but her parents. Does Jenou honestly believe Rio enjoys killing?

I could prove her wrong. I could fall out. I could go find a nice clean cot in an aid station back on the beach.

But she runs on, her M1 held chest high, canteen bouncing, boots pounding dust.

“So this is why we had all those five-mile runs,” Jack says, panting.

Why didn’t Cole ask Jack? Jack’s a good soldier.

When they emerge, sweat staining their uniforms, they see the barn from the side. And they see the Italian light tank behind it.

Cole stares at his watch. “Three minutes,” he says. “No time to send word back or bring up a mortar.” On this side of the barn is a hole like a window except that it was clearly punched out from the inside, with stone bricks lying scattered beneath it.

“They’ll have their MG on the road, most likely. We’ll be getting small arms fire this direction. Unless they’ve got a second MG.” Again he consults his watch. “If we jump off a minute early maybe the Eye-ties shift their fire toward us.” He points. “We go straight across toward those prickly pears. We run like hell and hope they don’t spot us. If we reach the prickly pears, we can put some fire on that light tank, make it hard for them to crank it up. Because if they get that thing started up . . .” He shrugs and shakes his head at that prospect.

Cole is putting them at risk in order to save other lives. And that, Rio thinks, is why I’m happy being a private.

“All right. Drop your packs. We’ll go in two groups. Stick, you take Richlin, Castain, Pang, and Geer. Keep your heads low and run like hell,” Cole says. “Keep some space between you. We’ll follow on a ten count. On three. One. Two. Three!”

They break into a mad dash, moving more easily without their packs, Stick, Rio, Jenou, Pang, and Geer bringing up the rear.

Rio no longer notices the pain in her leg. She’s pushing her senses forward and away from herself, willing her eyes to see inside the stony wreckage ahead, willing her ears to hear the first click of a cocking machine gun so she can drop.

They make it halfway before the rest of the squad comes pelting after them. They run exposed now, with no cover between them and that shadowed, forbidding hole.

Rio spots an Italian officer, suspenders hanging, something in his hand, sauntering out the back of the barn toward the tank.

He is just a hundred yards away. If he but listened, he would hear the sound of their boots and their rattling gear.

He turns. He shades his hand and stares. His mouth opens in an astonished O.

“Richlin!” Stick says in a terse voice, and she drops to her belly and sights on the tan uniform. Much closer than her first kill, but farther away than others.

She is about to pull the trigger when the back half of the squad comes panting by, unaware that she is ready to shoot. They swarm into her field of view and for a moment the Italian disappears. When he reappears he is running and shouting.

Rio curses under her breath and jumps to her feet. She leaves a small patch of blood-red mud behind.

The Italian officer disappears from view, and now two Italian soldiers rush toward the tank. It is a pitiful thing by the standards of an American Sherman, let alone a massive German Tiger, but more than enough to tear up a column of infantry.

Stick slows to a deliberate walk and fires the BAR from his hip, collapsing the two soldiers.

Now the machine gun they’ve been expecting to hear opens up on the two squads advancing down the main road.

B-r-r-r-r-r-t! B-r-r-r-r-r-t!

Geer throws a grenade in the direction of the tank. It explodes but only marks the side of the tank with a spray of smoke.

Rio runs, sees Jenou just ahead of her, Jenou firing her carbine at waist height. Jenou stops firing when Jack reaches the wall of the barn and flattens himself against it. He pulls a grenade from his webbing belt, yanks the pin, lets the clip fly, counts one . . . two . . . three, and tosses it through the hole. Two seconds later it explodes, sending a big cloud of hay fragments billowing out on a wave of smoke.

Rio runs and spots the Italian officer running at full speed away from the barn, away from the tank, seemingly heading for the hills and leaving his men to the mercy of the Americans.