Purple Hearts Page 6

  Since Frangie is small, young, and reasonably agile, she’s been assigned a top bunk—just three high in this particular space. She unlaces and kicks off her boots, lies back on her wool blanket, and runs a mental inventory through her supplies. Bandages, plasma, tourniquets, splints, salves, sulfa powder, tape, scalpel, scissors, needle and thread, and yes, morphine.

  She has never dealt with a serious burn injury. And now that Moore is no longer there to annoy her, his worries and questions persist.

  What will it be like?

  How will I do?

  And just what exactly am I supposed to do to help a man inside a burning tank?

  She draws out and unfolds her most recent letter from home. It’s all the usual chitchat, all but one paragraph:

  Your father has been feeling poorly of late and has had to skip some work this week. But he’s going to see Dr. Teller if he doesn’t feel better.

  It doesn’t sound like much, but her dad generally has to be missing a limb to even consider going to the doctor. Frangie rolls onto her side, closes her eyes, and prays fervently.

  Please, Lord, if it is Your will, care for my father.

  She then asks divine protection for Harder, for her little brother, Obal, and above all, and most fervently, for her mother.

  She has too much to carry, Lord. Harder exiled from the family, me here, and . . . and the other things You know of, Lord.

  The prayer brings terrible, sickening images to her mind. She was not born when it happened, and she grew up never knowing, but she knows now, and her imagination will not cease supplying lurid mental images of the great Tulsa riot, of colored men and women fleeing as white folk fired down at them from biplanes and threw gasoline bombs on black businesses.

  But now, added to those images, come imagined scenes of Sergeant Moore burning alive.

  Please, Lord, if it is Your will, care for Sergeant Moore.

  For almost the last two days she’s been dealing with seasickness, venereal disease, and various psychosomatic illnesses, each accompanied by some version of “I gotta go home, Doc! I can’t be fighting Germans with this back pain!” This is not strictly her job, but the day-in, day-out of dealing with soldiers has kept her distracted from what is coming.

  Coming eventually.

  Coming soon.

  The suspense is killing everyone. It’s almost as bad for morale as the seasickness. Everyone wants to go, and everyone is afraid—anxious to get on with something that frightens them. In a hurry to discover whether they will live or die.

  Though of course Frangie knows the majority of them simply do not believe in their own mortality. The men and the women, the average GIs, the ones who will soon be driving Shermans and being hunted by Tigers, just want to get it all over with.

  And then go home. Because if the American army has a single, unifying thought that runs through every division, every battalion, every platoon, white or black, it is: Let’s get this over with and go home.

  Frangie is not in a hurry, though she shares the general annoyance at the delays. She has been on the front line in Italy. She’d been badly wounded, though she has only hazy memories of being hurt. She had a long spell in recovery from her wounds, a pleasant spell once her pain was mostly gone, during which time she had worked in an unofficial capacity in the same hospital that treated her. There she spent some time with her brother, Harder Marr, now working as an army orderly.

  She had also spent an unreal interlude with Rio Richlin and Rainy Schulterman, two women she knew as acquaintances, when the three of them were awarded the Silver Star. The three then had leave for a week and, joined by Richlin’s friend Jenou Castain, they had enjoyed themselves in London, going to shows and dining in restaurants like nothing Frangie had experienced.

  The strangest experience for Frangie was simply being able to go into restaurants and pubs with three white girls, sit at the same table, and be served by white or brown waiters indifferent to her race. That was not the sort of thing that went on in Tulsa.

  But that pleasant coffee break is now over. The war is coming back. Soon this LST will sail to meet it. Soon, very soon, the guns will erupt, the shells will fly, and men and women on both sides will be blown apart.

  And some will burn.

  Not that, Lord. Gentle Jesus, not that.

  She should sleep. But sleep won’t come.

  A loudspeaker squawks, but she can’t make out the words through steel bulkheads.

  And then she hears the sound of running feet—sailors called to their stations. And the LST’s engines come to life, sending vibrations reverberating through the deck.

  Frangie checks her watch. Midnight has come and gone.

  It is the morning of June 6, 1944.

  5

  RAINY SCHULTERMAN—NEAR ANGOULÊME, NAZI-OCCUPIED FRANCE

  The boat ride up the Charente had been pleasant and mostly problem-free. Rainy and her two French companions had been stopped and their boat boarded by the milice, the French police supposedly under the control of the treasonous Vichy regime, but effectively now under direct Nazi control. But this had been handled with some of the currency Rainy had brought with her.

  At the dock in Cognac there had been another offer of currency and another cursory look around the boat before its cargo—mostly oysters, but some black market cigarettes as well—could be off-loaded.

  The truck had been where the truck was supposed to be, already loaded with three big barrels of cognac, the local brandy named for the town. It was just under a hundred miles from Cognac to Limoges, and the first part of that had been easy as well.

  Rainy found herself almost relaxing, or relaxing to the extent she could while crammed onto the narrow bench between Étienne and Marie. The seat had a loose spring that seemed determined to dig a hole into Rainy’s tailbone.

  The countryside outside the truck’s dirty windows is beautiful, though bleakly empty to Rainy’s New York City sensibilities. From time to time Rainy asks Marie what is growing in a particular field.

  “Grapevines, of course.”

  “Ah. Right. I’ve seen grapevines before.” She has, but not being very interested in agriculture, Rainy has not quite made the connection between the stunted, misshapen vines and grapes. Or wine. “And what’s this, now?”

  “That? Why that is maïs—corn—to feed the geese and the ducks and the pigs.”

  “Huh.”

  It is a boring drive. The only interesting bits come when the road winds through a village, but after a while all the villages look the same. Stone houses, tile roofs, small windows, narrow doors opening directly onto barely there sidewalks; a baker, a butcher, a grocery store, a café, a shoe store, a dress store, all with small display windows, many with no sign to indicate their function because this area does not get many tourists, certainly not since war came.

  “Okay, what’s going on there?” Rainy sits forward, suddenly alert. The field beside the road has armed civilians slouching before it.

  “Ah, that is tobacco. It must be guarded.”

  “We have a choice,” Étienne says. “We are coming to Château de La Rochefoucauld. There we have a split. We can go left, which avoids the town and goes most directly to Limoges. Or we can go through the town and then pass through the forest, where we may come upon elements of our friends the Das Reich. The Boche hide their tanks under the trees, fearing the RAF.”

  “That sounds good,” Rainy says. But she senses something in the way Marie glances at her brother and makes a face.

  Sure enough, as they enter the town, Étienne suddenly announces a need to stop off and check on a friend.

  “A friend?”

  Étienne shrugs. “A person I know.”

  “A woman,” Marie says with sudden heat. “A woman who is a collaboratrice horizontale.”

  “A what?”

  “A horizontal collaborator, a woman who sleeps with Germans.” She spits dramatically out of the window and makes a gesture with her hand like she’s trying to fl
ing her chin at Étienne.

  “She sometimes provides useful information,” Étienne says defensively.

  “Yes, but to whom?” Marie demands sourly.

  Étienne shrugs. “Marianne is a patriot.”

  Marie’s response is a snort.

  “She may be able to give me information about the Das Reich. It is true that one of her . . . friends . . . is a Sturmbannführer, what you would call a major.”

  In the end the decision comes down to Rainy’s need to use the toilet and her desire to stretch her legs. The stop is approved.

  Étienne parks in a narrow street near a small, arced bridge over the River Tardoire. The street is walled by limestone and stucco homes built right to the edge of the road. Windows are mostly shuttered, though Rainy hears a child singing through one open second-story window.

  “There is a café just over the bridge,” Marie says, leading the way as a somewhat embarrassed Étienne knocks on one of the doors. They cross the bridge, and Rainy is delighted to see an impressive chateau looming over the town. It is like something from a fairy tale, something a princess might inhabit while pining for her Prince Charming.

  So this is France, Rainy thinks. She’d always hoped to visit France, but not like this.

  They find the café, a small, dark room smelling of damp limestone, garlic, and red wine. There are six tables, only two occupied, and a small bar with no stools.

  At the threshold Marie freezes for a moment, and Rainy plows into her. It is immediately clear what has made Marie hesitate: one of the tables is occupied by a middle-aged French couple; the other is occupied by three German soldiers, junior officers by the look of their youthful faces, and confirmed by collar boards with three silver pips. They are the equivalent of lieutenants, Rainy’s own rank.

  And they are Waffen SS, as clearly indicated by the twin lightning-flash insignia. They wear camouflage uniforms, not the formal black, and Rainy notes a grease stain on one man’s trouser leg, evidence that they are not on leave or enjoying a day pass, but have managed to escape some sort of field maneuver for a quick bite in town. No doubt the food is better in the café than in the field kitchen.

  Three Schmeisser submachine guns lean against the wall by the table.

  One of the men, an Untersturmführer with prominent brows and a mangled left ear, looks up. He grins wolfishly at Marie. Then sees Rainy, sees the widow’s black, and nods politely. He tears off a chunk of bread and goes back to his plate of langoustines.

  Sitting too far from the SS men will be a signal. So will sitting too close. Marie guides them to the one table that is neither.

  Rainy sees a hand-lettered sign pointing to “WC.” The toilets, which are outside in an alley, a Turkish-style squat toilet with privacy provided only by a short, greasy draw curtain. Rainy does what is necessary, all the while in a sort of fugue state, half paralyzed with fear, half working through the odds.

  Every part of Rainy resists going back into the café. Of course she knows she must, she can hardly abandon Marie, let alone her mission, but it will not be pleasant eating within a few feet of the Germans.

  Back inside, Rainy listens while Marie orders a dozen oysters, two cheval steaks—horse meat, the only meat on the menu—and fried potatoes, as well as white wine and a bottle of mineral water. All perfectly normal and perfectly unremarkable.

  Rainy has her back to the Germans and listens intently while seeming to carry on a sort of minimalist, whispered exchange with Marie.

  Water, wine, and a baguette arrive and are plopped on the table by the proprietor, who is the only visible staff.

  The Germans discuss prostitutes in ways that make Rainy glad Marie does not speak German. Though some notion of what they are so crudely talking about must have penetrated Marie’s consciousness, because she blushes and bites her lip.

  The oysters arrive.

  The Germans move on to talking about someone named Burkhart, who is apparently a drunk, a loafer, and utterly useless, but knows all the best jokes. The Germans begin repeating jokes and laughing in a deliberately noisy, demonstrative way that makes the old French couple cringe.

  The Germans call for another bottle of wine. Their second? Their third?

  The atmosphere in the room, never exactly convivial, grows increasingly tense and menacing. Drunk German soldiers are never a good thing; drunk SS are worse. Drunk members of the Das Reich are worse still. Rainy has read the dossiers: the Das Reich fought on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Red Army, where even among the brutal forces in that pitiless fight, the Das Reich stood out for its monstrous treatment of prisoners, civilians, and especially Jews.

  The untersturmführer with the mangled ear is clearly looking at Marie, but also, increasingly, at Rainy.

  The oysters are cleared away and the steaks arrive.

  In ten minutes they can be finished and on their way. Ten minutes. Ten minutes in which Marie and Rainy must mimic an innocent pair of young Frenchwomen who have stopped for a quick lunch. Two women who are aware of the Germans, but not overly aware.

  Suddenly Mangled Ear pushes back from the table, wobbles a bit to the hooting enjoyment of his compatriots, demands to know where the toilet is, and lurches right into Rainy and Marie’s table.

  Rainy glances at Marie and sees fear in her eyes.

  “Pardonnez moi,” the German says in barely decipherable French.

  “Pas de quoi,” Marie says in a whisper. She looks down at her plate.

  “Untersturmführer Fritz Weiss, à votre service, mesdemoiselles. Zwei, er, deux jolies mademoiselles. Pourquoi toutes seules?”

  It’s mostly French, not grammatical, but comprehensible. He’s asking why two pretty young women are there alone.

  Marie offers their cover story. They are traveling to a wedding, the madame’s wedding, in fact, in the company of Marie’s brother, Étienne, who will be back at any moment.

  At this the German grabs a chair, pulls it close, and sits down with them. “You don’t mind? More wine here! The ladies are parched!” He leers openly at Marie’s chest, and she pulls back. Then he turns shrewd eyes on Rainy and asks, “Where are you from?”

  “Fouras,” she lies in a hoarse whisper she hopes will disguise her accent.

  The Walther is hard against her back. A suicide pill is sewn into the collar of her dress. She can feel the knife strapped to her leg.

  The German waves that off. “I mean your family. You’re not French.”

  Rainy offers a baffled smile. Marie steps in and says of course she is French, they are cousins.

  The German tilts his head to the side. Then he reaches over, takes Rainy’s chin, and turns her face sideways in profile.

  “No Frenchie ever had a nose like that,” he says, and now the other two Germans are quiet and attentive, sensing their companion is up to something.

  Rainy allows the hand, then, with disdain, pushes it away.

  “I know a Jew when I see one,” the untersturmführer says, his voice silky but slurred with drink.

  Rainy puts on a baffled look.

  The German rests both his elbows on the table and leans close, his breath stinking of red wine and cigarettes. “I’ve seen many a Jew,” he says, watching Rainy closely. “I know the look of a Jew. I know the smell of a Jew.” He has a sudden idea. “Patron! Bring us ham!”

  “Ham, monsieur?”

  “Something pork. Ham. Bacon. A snout, a trotter, it doesn’t matter.”

  As they wait, the air is so tense it vibrates. A small slice of ham appears on a plate. The German tears open a piece of the baguette and carefully folds the ham into it, making a sandwich.

  “Eat it, Jew.”

  Rainy picks up the ham sandwich and takes a bite.

  Jewish but not kosher, you stupid Nazi asshole.

  Rainy smiles and renders her hoarse whisper again. “Merci.” Thank you. And proceeds to eat the rest of the sandwich.

  The other two Germans now erupt in guffaws, yelling good-natured taunts to their fel
low, who smiles and nods a sort of apology to Rainy. He gets up unsteadily and heads for the back door, toward the toilet.

  At that moment, Étienne comes rushing in the front door and in an agitated voice says, “We must go!” and only then spots the Germans.

  Étienne freezes. The untersturmführer with the mangled ear stops. Marie’s eyes go wide. And from outside on the street comes the shrill sound of a furious Frenchwoman shouting, “Liar! Bastard!”

  It all looks like a domestic row of some sort and the Germans are grinning again in anticipation. Until the woman bursts in through the door, still yelling curses at Étienne, and then turns to the Germans and says, “Il est maquis, lui, ce bâtard!”

  He’s maquis, the bastard.

  There is a frozen moment when the entire scene is an oil painting. Two Germans are seated. One German is turning back toward them. Étienne is blushing, already embarrassed and now appalled. Marie stares at her brother, her expression torn between rage and fear.

  Rainy does the math:

  Three Germans.

  Truck down the street.

  A long way still to go.

  And then: no choice.

  She pulls the Walther from her back, points it at the two seated Germans, BANG! shoots the one on the left, then BANG! the one on the right. Mangled ear is caught off-guard, but after a split second’s hesitation, rushes at Rainy. She fires.

  Jammed!

  Marie pushes the German and he stumbles, but in the wrong direction: toward the stacked submachine guns.

  Rainy is up, knocking the table over. She slams the Walther down on the German’s head, hitting him on the crown of his head, stunning but not killing him. He staggers to one knee. The cutlery and glasses and bottles have all fallen to the floor. She dives for a broken water glass, cutting her own palm, seizing the glass by its base and plunging a pointed shard into the German’s neck.

  But his collar board turns the glass shard aside, and now, drunk or not, the German’s training kicks in. He twists and drives a fist into Rainy’s belly, doubling her over. The glass drops from her hand.