Purple Hearts Read online

  Stamp, stamp, staple, staple, and it was off to war for Guadalupé Camacho, private, US Army.

  Lupé had been drafted very much against her will. She was not a coward, nor lacking in patriotism, but she was needed at home. She had already missed the spring roundup, and if she didn’t get out of the army and back to Utah she would miss the drive up to the Ogden railhead. It was to be an old-fashioned cattle drive this year—trucks, truck tires, truck spare parts, and most of all truck fuel were hard to come by. You could buy everything on the black market, but Lupé’s father simply did not do things like that. Besides, Lupé knew, he’d been pining for the days of his youth, when cowboys still occasionally ran cattle the old-fashioned way. So her father, looking younger than he had in twenty years, had decided to do it with horses and ropes and camping out under the stars, bringing some extra hands up from below the border—Mexican citizens not being subject to the rapacious needs of the US military.

  Lupé felt she was missing the opportunity of a lifetime.

  She looks around her now, trying not to be obvious, sizing up the others in the truck. Five men, one woman. The woman draws her eye: she is an elegant-looking white woman with blond hair and high cheekbones and an expression like a blank brick wall. Closed off. Shut up tight.

  The only one who returns her gaze is a cheerful-looking man, or boy really, with red hair and a complexion that would have doomed him out under the pitiless sun of the prairie. He is gangly, with knees so knobby they look like softballs stuffed into his trousers. He has long, delicate fingers unmarked by scars or calluses.

  Not the sort of man she’s been raised around. The men she knows are Mexican or colored or Indian for the most part, compact, quiet, leathery men who can go days without speaking more than six words. Cowboys. Men whose list of personal possessions started with a well-worn saddle and ended with a sweat-stained hat. Some also owned a Bible and/or a Book of Mormon, because Guadalupé’s father was a Latter-Day Saint, and he tended to hire fellow Mormons on the theory that they were less likely to get rip-roaring drunk. They were also less likely to get ideas about his young daughter.

  Guadalupé’s mother had died of the fever shortly after her birth. Her father, Pedro, who everyone called either Pete or Boss or (behind his back) One-Eyed Pete, was determined to raise his daughter to be a proper lady.

  A proper lady who could rope, throw, and tie a two-hundred-pound calf in thirteen seconds. Not exactly rodeo time, but quick just the same. A proper lady who could cook beans and rice for twenty men and laugh along as they farted. A proper lady who could string wire, castrate a bull calf, cut a horn, or lay on a branding iron.

  Now instead of putting her skills and talents to work, Lupé sits in the back of a truck beneath a threatening British sky being eyeballed by a city boy with red hair and a happy grin.

  The truck lurches off, rattling through the hectic camp, weaving through disorganized gaggles of soldiers and daredevil jeeps before heading out into the English countryside.

  “Hey,” the redhead says.

  “Me?”

  “What are you, some kind of Injun?”

  Lupé blinks. “No.”

  “What are you then?”

  “My folks come from Mexico. I come from Utah.”

  “Utah, huh? Well, that beats all,” he says, and shakes his head. Then he leans forward and extends his hand. “Hank Hobart, from St. Paul, Minnesota. Pleased to meet you.”

  She’s been expecting hostility—there are a lot of Texans in the army, and few of them are ready to be civil to Mexicans. So she is nonplussed by his open expression and the outstretched hand. She takes it and feels a softness she’s never felt before in any hand, male or female.

  “What do you do, Loopy?”

  “Guadalupé,” she corrects. Then, “Or Lupé.”

  “Loopy. That’s what I said, isn’t it?” He seems sincere, as though he hears no difference between his pronunciation and hers, which is more loo-pay than his loo-pee.

  “Okay, Hank. I live on a cattle ranch.”

  His blue eyes go wide and his pale eyebrows rise to comic heights. “You’re a cowgirl?”

  “I guess so,” she says, feeling uncomfortable since that title is generally earned by many long years of work. Where she comes from, cowboy means a whole lot more than major or captain.

  “Guess what I do?” Hank asks. He’s tall, lanky, and so pale he’s practically translucent, and he owns an almost comically large nose that belongs on a statue of some noble Roman.

  Lupé shakes her head. “No idea.”

  “I play trombone in an orchestra.” He mimes moving a trombone slide.

  This is so far from anything Lupé might have guessed that for a moment she can only frown and stare.

  “You like jazz?” Hobart asks.

  Lupé shrugs. “Like Tommy Dorsey?” It’s a lucky guess. There is no radio on the ranch, and what she knows of music is restricted to cowboy tunes and church hymns. But some of her school friends have radios, and she’s heard a few of the big names.

  He nods. “Best trombone player around, I guess. Man, if I ever got that good . . . If ever ‘I’m Getting Sentimental Over You’ comes on the radio, sit down and open your ears. Man, that is one cool T-bone.” He has a look on his face that Lupé associates with religious ecstasy. Then he snaps back to reality. “So, where you figure we’re going?”

  Lupé shrugs. This is more conversation than she’s had in a long time.

  “Reckon we’re going to France,” Hank says. He looks concerned by the idea.

  Lupé nods. “Reckon so.”

  “Hell, yes, we’re going to France,” another male GI, a big slab of beef with an incongruous baby face, sandy hair, and tiny blue eyes, interjects. “We’re going to finish off the Krauts. They won’t know what’s hit ’em.” He bounces his legs a bit, with either nervousness or anticipation.

  Neither Hank nor Lupé is excited at this prospect, and conversation dies out. They ride for an hour on roads choked with trucks and jeeps, ammo wagons and half-tracks, 155 Long Tom artillery pieces towed behind trucks, and even Sherman tanks. All of it, everything, is heading southeast.

  At last the truck pulls into a new camp with well-ordered tents in endless rows. It looks remarkably like the last camp, and the one before that. The army, Lupé notes, owns a lot of tents.

  “Last stop! Everyone off,” the driver yells.

  They are met by a woman corporal who appears to be in a permanent state of irritation, rather like Sergeant Bonemaker. The corporal snatches paperwork, glances, and says, “All right, you three are going to Fifth Platoon. Report to Sergeant Sticklin.” In response to their blank, sheepish stares the corporal points and says, “Go that way till you come to the company road, turn right. You know your rights from your lefts, don’t you? Go right till you see a tent with a sign that says Fifth Platoon. Got it? Good. Now get lost.”

  The three detailed to Fifth Platoon are Lupé, Hank, and the eager fellow with the baby face who is named Rudy J. Chester. He makes a point of the J. He’s from Main Line Philadelphia, and he says that as if it’s supposed to mean something special.

  They find the company road, and after some questioning of busy noncoms they find the right tent. Sitting in a camp chair outside the tent are a male staff sergeant with a prominent widow’s peak, pale skin, and intelligent eyes. And a woman buck sergeant with her mud-caked boots up on an empty C ration crate and a tin canteen cup of steaming coffee in her hand.

  “Here they are,” the staff sergeant says, at once weary and amused.

  “Those are mine?” the woman buck sergeant asks. There is no attempt to disguise a critical, dubious look. “These are what I get in exchange for Cat Preeling?”

  “Look at it this way, it’s three for one.”

  “Except Cat can handle a BAR and won’t wet herself the first time she hears an 88.” The woman sergeant stands up, and now Lupé sees that she has a long, curved knife strapped to her thigh—definitely not army issue. />
  “Line up,” the woman sergeant says. “No, not at attention, do I look like an officer? Is this a parade ground? I’m Sergeant Richlin. You can call me Sarge or you can call me Sergeant Richlin.”

  Lupé looks closely and sees that amazingly the sergeant is quite young, probably no older than she is herself. Sergeant Richlin is a bit taller than Lupé, paled by weeks living with British weather, dark hair chopped man-short, blue eyes alert and probing.

  “How about I call you sweetheart?”

  This from the big boy from Philadelphia, Rudy J. Chester. He’s grinning, and for a moment Lupé is convinced that Sergeant Richlin will let it go. Then she sees the way Sticklin draws a sharp breath, starts to grin, looks down to hide it, shakes his head slowly side to side, and in a loud stage whisper says, “The replacements are here.”

  There’s the sound of cots being overturned and a rush of feet. A pretty blond corporal bursts through the tent flap, blinking at the gray light as if she’s just woken up, glances around, and says, “Uh-oh.” And then, “Geer! Beebee! Get out here. I believe one of the replacements just back-talked Richlin.”

  There’s a second flurry of movement, and a young man with shrewd eyes and a big galoot with an impressive forehead come piling out, faces alight with anticipation.

  “What’s your name?” Sergeant Richlin asks.

  “Rudy J. Chester, sweetheart.” He grins left, grins right, sees faces that are either appalled or giddy with expectation, and then slowly, slowly seems to guess that maybe, just maybe, he’s said the wrong thing.

  Rio Richlin steps up close to him, her face inches from his. He is at least four inches taller and outweighs her by better than fifty pounds. Which is why it’s so surprising that in less time than it takes to blink twice, he is on the ground, facedown, with his right wrist in Richlin’s grip, his arm stretched backward and twisted, and Richlin’s weight on her knee pressed against his back-bent elbow.

  “Oh, come on, Richlin!” the big galoot says. “Should of used the knife!”

  The pretty blond shakes her head in mock disgust. “She’s gone soft, Geer. It’s all this high living.”

  Richlin lets Rudy J. Chester writhe and struggle for a few seconds before explaining, “The average human elbow can be broken with just fourteen pounds of pressure, Private Sweetheart. How many pounds of pressure would you guess I can apply against your elbow?”

  Chester struggles a bit more before finally saying, “More than fourteen pounds, I guess.”

  “More than fourteen pounds, I guess, Sergeant Richlin.” She gives his arm a twist that threatens to pop his shoulder out of its socket.

  “More than fourteen pounds, I guess, Sergeant Richlin!”

  Rio releases him. The blond corporal mimes applause. The big corporal named Geer goes back under cover. Beebee shakes his head and mutters, “I missed the first part. Can we do it over?”

  Private Rudy J. Chester gets to his feet.

  “Now listen to me, the three of you,” Richlin says. “This is Second Squad, Fifth Platoon, Able Company, 119th Division. This is a veteran division, a veteran platoon. Everyone in this squad has been in combat. You have not. Therefore everyone in this squad outranks you. Are we clear on that?”

  Three voices say, “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “Okay.” Now Richlin allows her voice to soften. “We have a few days, at best a week, to get you ready for the real thing. The real thing will be like nothing you learned at basic. Whatever ideas you have, get them out of your head, because you know nothing.”

  Three heads nod. Lupé thinks, I should have mouthed off and maybe she’d break my arm and send me home.

  At the same time, she thinks she’s never before met any woman who could convincingly threaten to break a man’s arm. Let alone a freckle-faced gringa who can’t weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds.

  “This is Sergeant Sticklin, the platoon sergeant,” Richlin goes on, explaining in a tone that suggests she’s talking to the slow-witted. “Here’s the way it goes: Franklin Delano Roosevelt gives an order to General Marshall, who gives an order to General Eisenhower, who gives an order to General O’Callaghan, who gives an order to Colonel Brace, who gives an order to Captain Passey, who gives an order to Lieutenant Horne, who gives an order to Stick—Sergeant Sticklin—and then Sergeant Sticklin and I try to figure out how to carry out that order without getting you people killed. Is that about right, Stick?”

  “It is,” he allows, mock-solemn.

  It might be funny, but it doesn’t feel that way to Lupé. There’s something specific in the way she says killed. It’s not a word to Richlin, it’s a memory.

  “Keeping you from getting killed is the main job of a sergeant. When I was a green fool of a private fresh out of basic, I had Sergeant Jedron Cole to keep me from getting killed. He kept me and Stick both from getting killed in Tunisia, and in Sicily and in Italy.”

  “Many times,” Stick agrees.

  “Now it’s our job to do the same for you. Maybe you don’t care about staying alive to get home again someday, but I suspect you’d prefer to stay alive, so here’s how you do that: you listen to Sergeant Sticklin. You listen to me. You listen to Corporal Geer there.” She crooks a thumb toward the big galoot who has already disappeared back into the tent. “Corporal Geer is my ASL, my assistant squad leader. He and I are going to train the living sh—stuffing out of you in whatever time we have in hopes that you can stay alive long enough to carry Corporal Castain’s extra gear.”

  Still not funny, Lupé thinks. Even Rudy J. Chester looks solemn. Hank Hobart looks positively petrified.

  “Now get over to Company HQ to process in,” Rio says. “When you’re done, grab some chow and get back here and Corporal Castain will get you settled. And about eight seconds after that, Geer is going to march you over to the rifle range and make sure you know which end to point at the Krauts.”

  The three recruits turn and flee, not even bothering to ask where the company HQ tent is.

  But as they walk away, Lupé, who is in the rear, overhears Corporal Castain saying, “That was very good, Rio. Very Sergeant Mackie, if I may say.”

  And she hears a low chuckle from Dain Sticklin.

  2

  RIO RICHLIN—CAMP WORTHING (SOUTH), HAMPSHIRE, UK

  “Two packs of smokes and the gin,” Rio Richlin says.

  The corporal, a chubby young woman with a smiling face and cold eyes, leaning insolently against a jeep, sizes Rio up. “I can get gin anywhere. Give me your knife.”

  Rio makes a thin, compressed smile. “I have a sentimental attachment to my koummya,” she says. “Besides, you wouldn’t like it; I haven’t cleaned all the blood from it yet.”

  The smile disappears from the corporal’s face. She glances at the knife, then at Rio’s chest, then back at the knife. “Four packs plus the gin.”

  “Done. I’ll have it back in twenty-four hours tops.”

  Rio Richlin seldom wears her dress uniform, in fact, never recently, but there is one advantage in the remarkably uncomfortable getup with its multiplicity of buttons, its impossible-to-keep-on cap, and its khaki tie: in full dress one wears one’s medals.

  The three stripes of the buck sergeant will impress precisely no one in a Britain neck-deep in the soldiers, sailors, coast guards, and airmen of a dozen nationalities. But the red, white, and blue ribbon, beneath which hangs a pale gold star, is the Silver Star (despite the baffling color of the actual star) and is given for Gallantry in Action. Quite a few Silver Stars have been handed out, but when Rio received hers it was the first time the medal had been awarded to a female combat soldier. Ever.

  The star cuts down considerably on the number of leering, obnoxious, improper suggestions Rio has been on the receiving end of. Mostly you didn’t get the Silver Star unless you’d made a fair number of German and Italian widows and orphans, and that realization causes some male soldiers to . . . well, reconsider making a crude pass at Rio.

  Alongside the Silver Star is a se
cond medal, a purple ribbon above a gold heart, which has within it a lacquered purple valentine, all framing a gold profile of George Washington himself.

  This is the Purple Heart, given to soldiers wounded in battle. On the back in raised letters the citation reads, For Military Merit, which is a bit silly since to Rio’s mind there’s no great merit in getting shot or sliced up by shrapnel. But resting as it does beside her Silver Star, the combination sends a clear message in the language of the US Army: this is the real deal.

  This is a combat soldier.

  And that separates Buck Sergeant Rio Richlin from 90 percent of the men and women in uniform swelling the trains and roads and villages and village pubs of Britain.

  The transaction complete, Rio hops in the jeep and drives away, moving fast because that’s how all the jeep drivers drive, fast like gangsters trying to outrun the cops in a James Cagney movie.

  It is forty-seven miles to the air base where Strand Braxton is based. It should be an hour’s drive at most, but the road through the damp-lovely springtime English countryside is jammed with every manner of military vehicle from jeep to truck to tank. Military police man crossroads and try to direct traffic, sometimes in loudly profane ways, and at one point Rio is told she cannot take a particular road but must go far out of her way. Here, too, her medals (plus two packs of smokes and a silk scarf) convince the MP that the restriction somehow does not apply to her.

  The slowness of the drive eats up hours of time she doesn’t have, and worse, leaves her free to think. Rio has a lot to think about—the imminent invasion and the role of her squad. It still seems strange to think of it as her squad. The squad, nominally eleven men and women led by a sergeant, in this case Rio, consists of her lifelong friend, Jenou Castain—Corporal Jenou Castain—as well as her longtime companions Luther Geer, Hansu Pang, Cat Preeling, Beebee whose real name no one even remembered anymore, some replacements that didn’t yet matter, and Jack Stafford.