the German intelligence officer may have been on Kulis’s mind, but as Perkin sat there listening to the discussion, he thought, I have other plans for Major Grossmann.
1630 Hours
San Lupo, Italy
The Eighth Army was engaged in combat operations on the other side of Italy in a town called Ortona, on the Adriatic Sea. As the crow would fly, it was less than one hundred miles across the peninsula from Caserta, but crow miles were irrelevant in Italian navigation. Even if crows could make it across the Abruzzi Mountains—the highest range in the Apennines—in winter, the small party of soldiers couldn’t. Even in jeeps.
They decided to stay on the main highways and started south with the intention of heading to a point almost even with Naples and then across the peninsula to Foggia. From Foggia, they would turn north again and reach the Eighth Army along the coast. It was fine in theory. In practice, the plan was found lacking.
No sooner had the two jeeps gotten on the highway than their progress slowed to a crawl again; out of boredom Sam even stepped out of his jeep and walked alongside the jeep carrying Cardosi, Finley-Jones, and Fratelli. It was more military traffic clogging the road. Still, they pressed on. Once they turned inward, they decided, the traffic would abate and they could make up for lost time on what Cardosi called the athwartship highway. It was another plan doomed to failure.
Less than five miles south of Caserta, they were pulled off the highway by MPs who were restricting the road to priority supply traffic. They could pull off the side of the road and wait for the supply trucks to pass, which would go on until past dark, or they could find another route. Besides, they were told, the Luftwaffe was making both day and night raids on the Fifth Army supply lines, and in the considered opinion of the MP corporal, they were better off away from that main line of communication.
It seemed like sound advice, so they turned around, and after a quick retreat, they took a narrow but paved road up into the foothills of the Abruzzi. Sitting in the jeep in a small village called San Lupo, Perkin did a rough calculation and figured that over the course of the past two hours, they had only advanced toward their objective some fifty or sixty kilometers.
“We’ve gone maybe thirty or thirty-five miles, but we got at most another half hour of daylight. What are your orders, sir?” he asked of Lieutenant Commander Cardosi.
“We’re on no specific time line. I had planned a little slop into our schedule, and Eighth Army isn’t expecting us until the day after tomorrow, anyway.” He eyed two pretty Italian women who were looking curiously at the Americans. “Maybe we see what San Lupo has in the way of lodging.”
As the other men got out of the jeeps and stretched, Cardosi walked over to the two ladies and immediately engaged in an animated conversation that lasted a full five minutes before he returned shaking his head.
“No hotel for another fifteen miles or so. They’re sisters and they offered to let us stay at some villagers’ homes, which would probably be just fine. But they had a condition.”
“What’s that?” Captain Finley-Jones asked.
“They want Sam to stay with them.”
Sam was only paying half attention when the sisters’ demand sank in. He sat down abruptly in the jeep. “What do they want?” he asked, alarmed.
Cardosi repeated the condition with a grin. “I’m guessing a six-foot-five American to share for the evening . . . no kidding, shipmate. That’s what they said.”
“But I’m married!” Sam protested, and to Perkin’s great amusement, Sam began to blush.
“I mentioned that. I’m not sure they care.”
“I’ll stay with ’em,” Kulis volunteered.
“Me too,” said Fratelli, looking hopefully at the sisters.
“Sorry, you guys. It’s Lieutenant Taft or nothing.” Cardosi looked at Sam expectantly.
“Sam, maybe they just want to cook you dinner or something. You know, mother you a little bit. I wouldn’t worry about it.” Perkin said, grinning at his cousin’s discomfort.
One of the sisters pointed at Sam, then at herself as she put a slight gyration in her hips. The other sister mockingly blew a kiss at Sam.
“My mother never did that,” observed Private Kulis. “You know, I don’t speak much Italian, but I understood that, and it ain’t what the cap’n said.”
Finley-Jones laughed. “What do you Americans say? Take one for the team? Old boy . . . I must say in case you haven’t realized it . . . this is your chance to take two.”
2005 Hours
Santa Croce del Sannio, Italy
The lobby of the hotel was cold and drafty, as there were no guests staying at the inn before the arrival of the Americans. Displaced persons frequently passed through Santa Croce, but if they didn’t have lire, dollars, or pounds sterling, they didn’t stay in rooms—although the hotelier would sometimes let them sleep in the hotel’s garage if the weather was unpleasant. Three months before, Reichmarks were accepted, but no longer.
The region had seen some fierce fighting between the Germans and the Eighth Army, although Santa Croce had been spared the destruction that had come to other nearby towns. Since an American hospital unit attached to Eighth Army had left Santa Croce the month before, the town had returned to the dull state that characterized mountain life in southern Italy, and which had led to a steady and constant migration to the United States for over a hundred years.
As soon as paying guests arrived—and they paid in advance—things picked up rapidly at the hotel. The hotelier and his son quickly got a blazing fire going in what Perkin believed was the largest fireplace he’d ever seen, and hotelier’s wife had pulled several soft and heavy chairs into a semicircle before the fire.
The hotel didn’t have a restaurant of its own, but the hotelier’s brother-in-law had a nice restaurant across the street. The six soldiers had requested—and tipped heavily—to have food brought from the restaurant so they wouldn’t have to leave the comfort of the chairs and the fireplace. This naturally led to a fierce argument between the hotelier and his brother-in-law. Such things were not done; they must eat at the restaurant, the brother-in-law insisted. He was so evidently hoping that the curiosity of American soldiers might bring in some additional customers that the hotelier knew he would not relent until the tip was shared. Eventually, about a third of the money exchanged hands, and the restaurateur was so pleased that he resolved to prepare a special dish, and would the Americans please be patient?
They would, of course, but they were hungry now. More money left the Americans’ pockets and made their way across the street to the restaurant, and soon plates of cheese, bread, olives, pickled vegetables, and salami were sent over and placed on a large coffee table. The hotel did have a bar, and several bottles of wine were opened for the Americans.
The hotelier spoke no English but he initially gathered that a massive soldier had displeased his companions. Fascinated, the hotelier watched as all of the soldiers castigated the large man, and he held his breath as twice the massive man stood up in disgust to leave, only to be coaxed back to his chair by another tall man. Americans, he had been told, love to drink and fight, and he was concerned that their apparent disapprobation of the large man might lead to an altercation, but as he watched longer, he realized that the large man was simply being teased. The hotelier relaxed as the tall, black-haired soldier eventually got the big man to smile sheepishly, and then they both began to laugh.
“I’m sorry to let you boys down. I simply couldn’t do what was being asked of me, and I deeply appreciate your . . . what’s that word, Perk? Lucent?”
“I don’t know, lurid, maybe? Oh, uh . . . lucid?”
“Yeah, that’s it. Waller, I deeply appreciate your lucid arguments that I should’ve slept with the DiRenzo sisters for my own physical well-being. You’re