Purple Hearts (Front Lines 3)

A swirl of movement in the smoke. Rio stops, shoulders her rifle, and fires. There is a cry of pain.

Stick’s Thompson opens up, a half-dozen rounds that earn a German curse.

Suddenly a gust of breeze parts the smoke, and Rio is close, very close to the German position. She dashes up a short slope and there it is right at her feet. As Stick predicted, it is a trench, with two main branches, one leading to their target machine gun position, the other branch ending in a similar embrasure no doubt overlooking some other gully. The firing positions are concrete frames around the long rectangular slits, open to the sky. She sees three Germans with their backs to her, working two machine guns, the brass flying. She senses rather than sees Jenou and Jack behind her.

In both machine gun nests the Germans fire on, pouring lead on the troops below, but other Germans are grabbing their weapons and running for the exits, some pausing to fire up at the looming Americans above them.

“Grenades,” Rio says to Jack and Jenou.

Jack opens the musette bag of grenades, and he and Jenou pull pins and toss, pull pins and toss.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Rio stands at the edge of the trench and picks her targets. The old guy grabbing a Schmeisser. Bang! Through the chest. The young kid, scared, running and nearing the exit. Bang! Through the side and a second Bang! in the back. He falls and blocks the exit with his body.

Stick’s Thompson spits fat .45 caliber rounds into the backs of the nearest German gunners. One machine gun falls silent.

A German peeks up over the side of the trench, leveling his rifle. Rio shoots him in the head.

But she has been too preoccupied with the slaughter in the trench, with grenades exploding and targets presenting themselves in her sights, to look behind her. Neither has Stick.

Rio senses rapid movement behind her just as she fires the last round in her clip. The clip pings out. Her hand goes automatically to her ammo pouch, even as she turns, turns . . . way too slowly.

The German’s Schmeisser is leveled. His finger is on the trigger.

And then he seems to trip, takes a big step to steady himself, falls to his knees, and then to his face. Behind him Maria Molina’s carbine smokes.

The young woman who practically had to be kicked ashore by Geer has come up on her own initiative to join the fight.

Having killed everyone at this end of the trench works, Rio and Stick walk cautiously around the trench, looking for an angle on the remaining German machine gunner who still, despite everything, fires down at the beach. Stick tosses a grenade and the machine gun is silenced.

A dust-caked German comes running, firing his rifle wildly. But Rio and Stick are above him. Both shoot the German.

A voice yells, “Kamerad! Kamerad! Nicht schiessen!”

“Come on out of there!” Stick yells.

“Nicht schiessen!”

Rio speaks no German but she can guess what it means: don’t shoot.

Another German comes staggering along the trench, passing directly below Rio, holding his arm and dragging one leg. He is unarmed. He walks up the ramp and of his own accord drops to his knees and laces his fingers behind his neck.

Rio stares. The German has a wrinkled face, the wrinkles made more prominent by dust. He’s lost his helmet, and his head is mostly bald.

The German must be in his fifties. An old man!

“That’s what’s been killing us?” Stick demands. “Richlin, secure the trench.”

“Trade me your Thompson,” she says.

Rio hops down into the trench with the submachine gun, followed by Molina. Beebee, too, has now materialized.

The emplacement is more developed than it looked from above. There is extensive use of concrete to strengthen the sides of the trenches, and there are side chambers, none deep but still covered, where ammo crates or rations are stacked. The grenades have burst most of the crates, spilling ammo. The ammo is of no use as salvage since it is of the wrong caliber, but Beebee drops into the trench and now begins digging through the rations, stuffing sausages and cans into a musette bag. On the body of a dead German officer he finds the ultimate war souvenir: a Luger pistol. He winks at Rio and stuffs it in his belt.

The two machine guns are still mounted, one tilted skyward since the gunner died still gripping his weapon. He grips it still, though the back of his uniform looks like it has been attacked by furious badgers. Two German soldiers lie atop each other. A third German has been blown against a concrete wall and now looks as if he’s sitting down, legs out, unblinking eyes staring at nothing. A fourth German is in two pieces, feet pointed up, face pointed down.

“All clear!” Rio shouts.