Purple Hearts (Front Lines 3)

But they almost don’t get the chance. The American lines are crumbling. The castle itself is on fire in parts, and the whole town is layered in smoke. But a desperate sally by defending troops buys Rio just enough time.

She leads her people down dark, cobbled streets illuminated by fire and obscured by smoke. She’s studied the maps carefully, but they don’t really offer much guidance. What she knows is that she has to get across the river, run into the woods, and hope that somehow advancing Germans don’t see them.

The riverbanks are covered in snow—snow that leaves big fat footprints. Rio has them walk backward down the short slope, leaving footprints pointed the wrong way. She steps into the water and has to stifle a yelp: the water is freezing cold and the current is strong.

Rio makes a chopping gesture, showing where she thinks they can land on the other side. They are able to keep their feet only for a few steps before letting the water rise to their necks and abandoning themselves to the current.

They dog-paddle and float and finally climb up the other side, ice crystals already forming on their sodden uniforms. Chester drops to his knees, but Rio grabs the collar of his uniform and drags him back up. And now they climb, hand over hand, grabbing tree trunks to lever themselves up another few feet.

Rio squats and raises a fist. A German patrol is sauntering along, obviously unconcerned since their forces are already pushing into the town. They pass and Rio leads the way forward, peering into near-total darkness to find the ravine she’d used to come down this same slope. But there are no landmarks in the forest, and she sits everyone down for a few minutes as she doubles back and forth before practically falling into the ravine.

“Okay, let’s go.”

They descend into the cut and start climbing again.

Three times they stop and listen as German voices and footsteps are heard. And it is becoming clear that more and more German troops are being moved down toward the town.

Suddenly, Geer disappears from view with a yelp of surprise. Rio crawls toward him and is surprised in turn when his head pops up, seemingly out of the ground.

“There’s a hole down here,” he hisses.

“How big?”

“Big enough.”

“Molina. Find a branch and try to hide our tracks,” Rio says in a terse whisper. “Geer in the entryway. Everyone else: sack out. We may be here a while.”

By now they are all veterans, and if any one order is instantly followed it is the order to sleep. Frightened as they each are, they are even more exhausted.

Molina spends a half hour crawling in the snow with a leafless branch confusing their tracks. Fresh snow falls and soon all sign of their passage will be invisible even in daylight.

When Molina crawls back in she’s shivering so hard she can’t speak. Jenou and Chester make her the filling in a human sandwich, holding her between them until her core body temperature can rise to something just short of corpse.

Mazur, carefully shielding his flashlight so only a dim and narrow beam emerges, plays the light around the room. And it is definitely a room of some sort, made by human hands. But it has been a very long time since any human has been here. The ground shows evidence of animal burrows, mostly in the form of animal excrement that adds an extra pungency to the funk of eight unwashed bodies in a hole no larger than a child’s bedroom.

Geer trades the door position with Chester, then digs out a hole in the dirt floor. “Richlin, I’m thinking we can put a spirit stove in a hole and have at least a little light. No smoke, no smell, at least not enough for the Krauts to find us.”

The light is indeed dim. Rio vetoes the notion of making a small pot of coffee—the Krauts might not smell a spirit stove, but they’re quite likely to notice the smell of coffee wafting up from the middle of the woods.

Molina snores in a corner beneath the few warm things anyone can spare for her. Jenou writes in her journal for a few minutes then passes out. Geer lies b

ack and is out before he reaches full horizontal. Jack takes the burning cigarette from Mazur’s slack mouth and sits beside Rio, alone near the entrance.

He holds a flask out for her.

“Bless you,” Rio says fervently, and takes a swig of the cognac.

“What do you make of our chances?” Jack asks.

Rio scratches her armpit and her neck, considering. “Well, Stafford, we know where we are, but we don’t know where the Krauts are. Or where our lines are. So I’d say our chances are not good.”

“Ah. Yes.” He is silent, but Rio senses he has something to say.

“Spit it out, Stafford.”

He winces. “Just for the duration of this conversation, do you suppose I could call you Rio and you could call me Jack?”

Rio shifts uncomfortably, having the feeling that this is going to be a difficult talk. She is in a strange fugue state, simultaneously tinglingly alert and desperately weary.