Purple Hearts (Front Lines 3)

She lets them go, and stays behind for just a moment, needing to compose herself. The sight of the tanks foundering unsettled her. The odd emotion of hearing the song, the sudden realization that she, Francine Marr, little Frangie, was part of a moment on which the whole course of human history turned. . . .

Injury and death on the beach, yes, she had prepared her mind for that. But to see human beings suddenly plunged beneath the waves . . . and to feel for a moment anyway that their deaths, and her life—and yes, her death if it came to that—was the stuff of history. . . .

She is afraid. She knows what bullets and shrapnel do to a human body. She knows what pain does to people. She has seen tough old sergeants cry for their mothers.

But her job is not to show fear. Her job is not to cower. Her job is to run out into enemy fire, protected by nothing but some red-and-white paint on her helmet.

Frangie takes several deep breaths. She has managed to fill her days with work that was not hers, tending to patients, getting to know the soldiers in the platoon, keeping busy. In her off time she’d written letters home. And she’d read and reread the various manuals. Anything not to think about what is coming. Coming now.

Her hand goes to her stomach, feeling for the scar where the shrapnel went in and ripped through her intestines.

She has tried not to think about that day on a cobblestone street in an Italian village whose name she never knew. She has tried not to think of Doon Acey, or the nameless white officer in Tunisia, or of her own wounds.

After she won the Silver Star she could have gone home to tour Negro churches and theaters to sell war bonds. But she had chosen this, because this is what you were supposed to do if you are a Silver Star recipient.

Frangie’s mouth makes a wry smile. No, she’s being dishonest. She wasn’t roped into this by the Star. She was roped in by thinking about colored boys and girls lying on beaches and in ditches, terrified, alone, and in pain.

You’re doing the right thing for the right reason, Frangie, she chides herself. It’s not the sin of pride to give yourself some credit!

That and a nickel will buy me a cup of coffee.

Thin porridge, good intentions are. So much less compelling than what she knows is coming, what is already making her heart race, her throat clench, her mouth go dry as dust: fear.

Fear is back.

She pictures a Sherman DD plunging down and down through the dark water. It would sink all the way to the bottom, fast, like a cinder block. You sit cramped inside that metal shell, and suddenly green seawater pours in. . . . She imagines their panic, their frenzy, their despair. . . . Would they still be alive when the tank landed on the seabed, disturbing the crabs and the fishes?

Would their bodies . . .

Fear is back.

She closes her eyes and prays for the fear to be replaced by faith. The Lord is her shepherd. He counts the sparrows that fall. He sees her. He hears her. He will watch over her.

But when she opens her eyes, the fear is back.

9

RIO RICHLIN AND JENOU CASTAIN—OMAHA BEACH, NAZI-OCCUPIED FRANCE

The ride to shore is much longer than Lupé Camacho expects. The Higgins boat turns tight circles for half an hour, breasting waves that rain chilly spray on the men and women of the platoon.

On and on and on, as seasickness claims one person after another.

Around and around in the dark, around and around while the assault forces form up. Hundreds of landing craft must all reach the beach at the same time, so around and around they go, a not-so-merry go-round.

People try to smoke, but it’s too wet. A couple of GIs try to get a dice game going, but no one wants to use up their luck on dice.

Some pray or count the rosary, but time wears them down, and most stop and just stare.

There is a brief distraction when hundreds of American bombers release their loads and massive columns of smoke rise from the direction of the beach. Some cheer and shout, “Get ’em, fly-boys! Plaster ’em!”

Lupé watches Richlin as Richlin watches the bombing. When it is over she sees a look of disgust on her sergeant’s face, quickly concealed.

Soldiers are telling each other it’ll be easy after what the air corps has done, but Richlin and Preeling must have seen something much less cheering. Glances between them reveal disappointment.

Lupé clutches her M1 to her chest, smoothing the stock down as if to quiet her heart and slow her breathing. Sergeant Richlin’s instructions echo in her mind. Save your rifle. Abandon anything else but not your rifle. Keep it dry. Keep it clean. Be ready.

Kill Germans.