Better empty if you’re gut-shot.
“If you see dead Krauts, fire a round into their heads to make sure. And do not loot the bodies because—”
“I wouldn’t do that!”
“Shut up, Private Dumbass. Don’t touch dead Krauts because sometimes the bodies are booby-trapped. Same with their dugouts. We got a guy with the squad, name of Beebee, he’s our scrounger. He knows his way around Fritz’s little wires and such, and he’s fair with dividing up the booty.”
“The artillery stopped,” Joe observes. “Maybe we’re not—”
“Kid, listen to me: shut up. Shut. Up. You know nothing about nothing. Do what you’re told and only what you’re told.”
Joe has not until this minute noticed that the tapes marking the path are gone. Instead he’s noticed that there are very few leaves or branches on tree trunks that are often scorched black. And suddenly he realizes they are walking through a thin line of foxholes. He sees helmeted heads peering cautiously out.
A young female sergeant spots Castain and gives her a brief wave. Castain leads the way to the sergeant who, on closer inspection, must be even younger than Joe himself.
“This is . . .” Castain pauses, holding a hand toward Joe. “What’s your name?”
“Joe. Joe Pastor.”
“Yep. Pastor, Richlin; Richlin, another idiot who doesn’t know how to carry a grenade or which end of the gun to point.”
A woman? His sergeant is a woman?
“Right,” Richlin says, not even looking up from loading loose .45 caliber rounds into a Thompson clip. “As usual, we’re giving the Krauts time to reset the table.” Then she glances at Joe and says, “Put him with Pang.”
Pang, to Joe’s shock, is a Jap. Or something pretty darn close to being a Jap. But he’s polite—for a Jap—and makes space in his foxhole for Joe to climb down in with him.
“Got a name?” Pang asks.
“Joe Pastor.”
“Welcome to World War Two,” Pang says. “And yeah, I look like a Jap. I am one, partly, so you can either get used to that or go dig your own hole.”
Joe does not want to dig. He wants to vomit and defecate simultaneously. Water fills his boots. He looks down and sees that Pang is standing on a piece of wooden crate, keeping his boots dry. There is no room on the crate for Joe.
“We’ll be jumping off here pretty quick. Make sure to take the safety off. It’s hard to shoot with the safety on. No, not yet! I didn’t live this long letting greenhorns run around loose shooting me in the behind.”
“What do we do when we . . . when we jump off?”
“We get up out of this hole and go where Richlin points. Then we shoot and we get shot at.” Seeing the distress on Joe’s face, Pang softens a little. “Look, kid, on the bright side maybe you get a million-dollar wound? A nice through-and-through in the meat of your calf, let’s say. Just stay next to me.”
A big man drops into the foxhole and curses on finding Joe.
“What’s this, Pang, you making friends?”
“New guy, Geer.”
“Hmm,” Geer says. “What are the odds, you figure?”
Pang shrugs. “Beebee says any new guy is five-to-one in the first twenty-four hours. Odds will change after the first fight.”
“Yeah, he’ll be dead or crying, one or the other,” Geer says, and only slowly does it penetrate Joe’s nearly paralyzed brain that they are talking about him. Betting on him.
Betting on his life.
“I’ll go ten bucks at five-to-one,” Pang says, eyeing Pastor like a racing tout checking out a horse.
For the first time Geer looks at Pastor. It’s an up-and-down appraisal that takes in Joe’s uniform, his weapon, the contents of his webbing belt, his face, and ends with an intent stare into his eyes. “Nah. You’re wrong this time, Pang. I’m going to take that bet, and you’re gonna give me back what you won on Dial.”