Chapter 4: El dolor del fantasma
September 9, 1943 OT (Original Timeline)
9:04 A.m.
The war torn Waves, Salerno, Italy
“Eh. Hermano? Quiere un cigarillo?”
“Eh… no, estoy bien. Gracias, comandante.”
“No soy su jefe. Solo su hermano.”
Jack Wallace smoked his own Cuban cigar regardless, taking a long puff of smoke as their boat hummed along with the waves racked hard by the elements of both the weather and man. A harsh wind and light rain had set in as the small group of soldiers approached the coastal city of Salerno, the starting point in what was going to become the official first day of combat in the invasion of Italy. Called Operation Avalanche, the point was clear and simple; hit them fast and hit them hard. Show the Axis that they weren’t the only ones who understood the meaning of blitzkrieg.
A move that Jack had been begging for years, along with his supporting officer remaining on the naval ship, Roger Piddock. An elder Englishman, most of the forces attacking the beachhead were unofficially under his command; they answered to their usual commanding officers, but if the Major wanted something he got it… including mixing up the troop deployments.
Only reason why the young Diego Gutierrez was with the European regiment as opposed to his Hispanic friends. A patriotic American who knew it was better to serve and die than hide and live, he had signed up in a heartbeat though he lacked any sort of formal military training… or even English linguistic abilities. Without Jack, he’d be entirely mute as the rowdy soldiers continued to jostle each other and joke as they tried to calm themselves for the coming fight.
It wasn’t working. With every second the sounds of bullets and cries of death grew louder, causing them to become cruder in turn. For the most part Jack ignored them, the only one of two men unafraid for the coming fight.
The other was the prim Henry Lionel, a Lithuanian and Jack’s half-brother. Dressed in the olive jumpsuit just like all the rest, the only difference was that he decided not to wear the mostly ineffective helmet as to show off his neatly combed hair, a brown that matched the long scarf that had been knitted by his wife. His good luck charm, if such things existed.
Speaking as he rubbed his fingers through the fibers, Henry titled his head to the anxious young Mexican American next to him and asked “So, Jack, what’s up with this?”
“Roger’s idea…. Not mine.”
“Not the question. Why bring him along with us? Roger wants us to protect him?”
Jack shook his head, ashes falling from his cigar as he did. Having indulged the practice long enough to speak without dropping the smoke, the veteran answered sadly “Hate to say it’s the opposite… he’s a meat shield, a distraction. Kid isn’t more than five foot four… he’ll be exhausted after five minutes of fighting. Best Roger hopes for is that he can last the first couple minutes and draw fire away from us.”
“Does he know that?” Henry asked, turning his face to look at the darker skinned neighbor. The blank stare and unmoving lips seemed to say no, though the doctor and psychologist turned soldier was inferring more to simple experience than anything he learned at Oxford.
“No. He doesn’t.”
“Shame, and not just him. I was speaking with Roger about future plans should things go swimmingly, or rather more swimmingly than this rickety boat.” Henry complained, kicking out against the metal cage that would serve as a coffin to many within the coming days. “British intelligence indicates that the Germans and Italians are fortifying the town of Cassino as a sort of bottleneck. Terrain is abysmal around it, meaning the only way to get north is through Cassino or by sea… given how well this day has been going, I imagine we’ll be attacking Cassino within six months.”
“So what’s so bad about that? Why mention it now?”
“The 141st regiment is almost entirely Hispanic. The powers at be elected to have them be the first American assaulters on Salerno and Cassino. We aren’t sending our best to the front lines first; we’re sending the surplus of your country that our commanders have no love for.”
Jack lifted his cigar from his mouth and angrily flicked it away, the lit tobacco swallowed beneath black waves already dyed dark from smoke and black powder. That there was clear racism and favoritism in command was only half the problem; that he, the so called greatest soldier of the twentieth century thus far, couldn’t do anything about it made it worst. The times, the bureaucracy, hate… why could he kill everything except for the enemies that truly mattered?
“Now, the question is what you do about your friend here.” Henry yawned, just as easy and sure of himself about the coming battle. “You can tell him to stay back, to be with you and obey your every order… he’ll survive if he does at the cost of another. Or, you let him rush first and take the bullet meant for our more experienced and better troops, men who will actually make a difference in the coming battles. Many of these men will survive the war if they can make it through today; Mexican amigo here won’t. If he does see the end of today, he’ll be killed at Cassino, Paris, Berlin, or any number of cities we have to take. When death comes, he’ll be calling for him first.”
“In Latin cultures, Death is a woman.” Jack sighed, trying to buy time to think the reality over. Henry had none to offer; their ears were ringing now with the bombs being fired from the naval carriers, the only support they’d be getting as they could make out the corpses on the beach head and the anxious soldiers tucked behind buildings at the edge, struggling to even enter the perimeter of the old city.
So Henry made the final point. “Then let the man have his lover. He’ll find more embrace in her than the devastation we have to face.”
A sharp yell of a soldier filled their ears, a blood driven shriek that caused every soldier to turn their heads. They saw a man who survived a grenade in the sands, sans his legs. With exposed muscles and bones, it was a guaranteed death; even if he didn’t bleed out, infection and lack of proper medical care in the middle of a warzone meant a long, prolonged pain that would consume him to the core. This would not be an easy passing, especially if the tears and cries he emanated now were a good predictor of how he would handle his fate in the future.
Jack didn’t need his troops to deal with this. Standing up upright, exposing himself and risking a sniper shot that would blow him clean off the boat, he aimed his service rifle and pulled the trigger once; the soldier, no matter his history, came to an end in an instant as his head resembled his legs, blown apart and gushing. A mercy kill, but a gorier one than these men could have dreamed of.
“Listen up, troops.” Jack announced, sitting back down as he ignored the bullet that whizzed overhead. “We’re walking straight into the worst that humanity has to offer… you’re going to see a lot of people get shot. You yourself might get hit too… if that happens, you’re done. Your chances of surviving are next to nothing… if you’re missing a limb, you’re better off blowing your brains out.
“Other commanders would tell you otherwise… they’d say to fight to the last ounce of blood. Don’t… it’s not worth it. There’s honor in a good death… it’s okay to die. It sucks, but no one’s going to blame you if you do.
“But if you survive, you have a responsibility… you carry with you the will and legacy of those who pass. You carry the heritage of those who sacrificed themselves for you, the responsibility to be the fathers and husbands for those who wanted to be but weren’t allowed to… so fight. Fight like a man, die like a man; show the times that we will not be its slaves, that we will not suffer its injustices anymore… Fight today for a future, whether it be here on Earth or the Great Beyond.
“So go! For the future… por el futuro!”
“Por el future!”
The boat crashed into the beach, the front gate deploying as a bridge as the soldiers leapt from the boat and forward. The Mexican, enthusiastic youth, so hopeful and ready, the volunteer who signed up the day he heard of the attacks in Hawaii, wa
s the first to touch sand. Whether Jack wanted to or not, the man obeyed the will of the masters who condemned him to die, part of the charge as the rest of the troops fell behind him.
Diego Gutierrez didn’t last ten seconds. Sniper rifle picked him off first, an easy shot as he ran up the sandy hill towards the city. The bullet tore through his left cheek, blowing half his face off as his neck was snapped, the Mexican prince dying instantly as he turned and fell into the sand with a thud. Nobody stopped to pick him up; nobody paused to mourn him as his blood painted the dirty ground red, his only mark on the war until the waves came to wash his contributions away. The bullet had even passed through his head completely and was already sinking into the seas; the family wouldn’t even get the relic that killed him, that stole their son and his so called future.
Who was it that stole that from him? The Times? The Germans? The Allied Powers who made him a meat shield? That was the only thought that plagued Jack’s mind as he continued to run, his old instincts taking over as he worked the dance of death once more. Diego was already a memory, joining the hundreds of others whose pointless death he simply couldn’t ratify in his depressed mind…