Friday, October 13
The next day began quietly, but that changed midmorning when a pair of litter bearers rushed into the hospital, their load a wounded Air Corp officer.
Dr. Bolliger motioned the men into the operating room. “Genevieve, Vittoria, I’ll need your help.”
“What happened?” Dorothy, another nurse, asked.
“There was an explosion at the airfield,” one litter bearer said. “A big tank of gasoline blew, lit up one of the B-24s, and killed a few men. We’ve got more wounded coming in right behind us.”
Two more stretchers came in as the man spoke, with an additional thirteen men admitted over the next hour. Genevieve followed orders from Bolliger, Vittoria, and Dorothy, fetching bandages and hauling away clipped-off burnt skin and pieces of metal dug from flesh. Most of the sixteen new patients had burns, and some of them had shrapnel wounds as well. Two corpses lay in a nearby room, men who hadn’t survived the journey from the airstrip to the hospital.
One of the ambulance drivers sent for Lombardelli, and he arrived within the hour, bringing two additional nurses. By late afternoon, Genevieve was exhausted, but things had calmed down enough that she could stop running. She glanced at her skirt, noticing the blood smears for the first time. One of the patients in a nearby bed reached out and grasped her hand. Bandages covered burns on his face, and blood covered his hand. Bolliger had removed three pieces of shrapnel from the man’s body, and Genevieve could tell he was still in pain.
“Did they bring in Albert?” he gasped.
Genevieve was touched by the man’s concern for his friend. “I’ll look for him.”
She checked all the patients, asking them their names if they were conscious and pulling out their dog tags if they weren’t. She wrote the names on existing charts or began new ones. Albert was four beds from his friend, burned and unconscious but stable and alive.
She went back to Albert’s friend and washed his bloody hands. “Albert is alive, just a few beds over.” She gave the man a smile and finished gathering names for the remaining patients.
Genevieve took a break to eat that evening, glad to be off her feet for a few minutes.
Bolliger returned from a smoking break, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. He was a handsome man, and Genevieve knew of at least two nurses who were secretly in love with him.
“What a day. I feel like I’m back in a field hospital.” The tall doctor from Chicago looked older than his thirty years as he sat next to her and stretched his long legs. “You have a good bedside manner. On days like this, it’s easy to forget we’re treating individuals, not just cases.”
“I’m not doing anything special, just trying to remember how important they are to someone.”
“One of your smiles goes a long way.”
Genevieve turned her head, surprised. “All the nurses are friendly with the patients when they have time.”
Bolliger shrugged as he stood and returned to the ward.
As Genevieve was leaving that night, Lombardelli pulled her aside. “That explosion wasn’t an accident.”
She inhaled sharply, not sure she wanted to hear more. “It wasn’t?”
“I spoke with someone from the airfield. Sabotage. It’s a bit of an assumption, but I’ll bet Giacomo’s contact was behind it. He was planning something. I wonder what else Ercolani has in the works.”
Genevieve was weary and discouraged as she trudged to her tent. The latest war news was dismal. A daring paratroop raid into the Netherlands had ended badly, and now the liberating armies from Britain and the United States were bogged down in the thick forests along the French and Belgian borders with Germany. Progress in Italy was painfully slow, and in the east, the Nazis had crushed the Polish Home Army. Things had seemed so different that summer, when it had been possible to believe the war might end in just another month or so. Now it seemed like it would take much, much longer.
Nightmares of Weiss and the prisoners he’d executed still haunted her sleep. She made it through with prayer, Peter’s Purple Heart, the book of scripture he’d given her, and his letters. Genevieve reread all of Peter’s letters often, except one. The tent was cold, and she shivered as she knelt at the foot of her cot, in front of a chest. She’d never read the letter Peter had written to his family and left in her care, afraid reading it would be admitting he wasn’t coming back.
As she pulled the envelope from the chest and stared at it, she wondered if Peter’s family worried about him like she did. They would have already received a telegram telling them Peter was missing in action—Baker had changed his status from AWOL. Of course they worry about him. She wondered if their concern was worse, knowing no details, or easier, ignorant of the mystery surrounding his disappearance.
He’d been missing for more than a month, and she knew it was time to mail his letter to his family, but first, she was going to read it.
September 3, 1944
Dear family,
If you are reading this letter, you have no doubt already received a telegram telling you I’m missing or dead. I apologize that I let you believe I was still working in an office far from any danger when I was really carrying out other activities. It wasn’t my intention to be misleading, but it was my duty to be quiet about my assignments.
I hope receiving this letter won’t shock you too much. I had a friend keep it with the promise that she would mail it should I disappear. The thing is, I’ve written letters similar to this one several times, but I have a feeling this one might actually be sent.
I don’t regret volunteering to fight. I’ve seen how bad things can be when liberty is in chains and people live in fear. And I’ve remembered how good things can be when there is freedom and family and love. If I could go back, I would repeat my efforts to oppose tyranny. I only hope they will not have been in vain and that the war will end soon and that good will prevail.
I love you all. I also love the Lord, and I’ve come to realize He never leaves us alone—even in a war zone. I pray He will help and bless you all. If each of you stays close to Him, everything will be all right in the end.
Love,
Peter
* * *
Basileo Ercolani glanced over his shoulder, making sure no one was behind him. He turned and crossed the street, entering the apartment complex through the back entrance. He knocked on the door three times before entering and smiled when he saw her. The best part of my job. She had black hair, wide, brown eyes, playful lips, and a curvy, feminine figure. No, not the best part of my job, he corrected himself. The best part of my life.
“How was your day, Belina?”
She smiled. “Not as exciting as yours. Congratulations. All the rumors say the explosion at the airfield was sabotage, but no one knows who’s responsible. Except me.”
Basileo loosened his tie and removed his coat, placing it on a hanger in the closet near the front door. “Good thing I trust you; otherwise, I’d have to kill you. What exactly did you hear today?” Belina worked as a telephone operator and was sometimes privy to useful conversations.
She sat on the sofa and waited for him to join her. He lowered himself to the floor in front of her and sighed with pleasure as she rubbed out the knots in his shoulders. “Just the normal—a few stores placing orders, a few neighbors calling one another . . . and rumors about the explosion.”
“Mmm. I wonder why every man doesn’t marry someone who gives good back rubs.”
“Because not every man is as smart as you. I’ll expect repayment though—after dinner.”
Basileo took her hand and kissed it. “Gladly.”
She bent and brushed his ear with her lips. “Such a good soldier, Basileo, taking orders from Il Duce and from your wife.”
“We’re still on our honeymoon. Wait six months, and I won’t be so malleable.”
“I doubt that.”
He smiled, shaking his head. She was right; she had him wrapped around her finger, and he doubted that would change. Other things would but not the way he felt about Belina. He thought of his country and of his leader. Italy had suffered a setback, but he had faith that Il Duce would return Italy to greatness, the way it was supposed to be.
Basileo hadn’t begun life as a Fascist. He’d originally found Mussolini appealing for his firm stance against the Mafia—the very entity that had ruined his family’s life. Basileo’s father had refused to pay for protection when the Mafia had insisted. The next day, Basileo’s father had disappeared, until young Basileo found his mutilated body a week later.
He had seen enough of human avarice. Fascism promised something different from the corrupt struggle of greedy capitalists concerned only with themselves. He could still remember his favorite uncle telling him how Mussolini would lead the country to glory. Under Fascism, everyone worked together as a unified whole. No more did individual greed determine the future and act as the primary motivator. Everyone devoted themselves to the greatness of Italy, and under the leadership of Il Duce, Italy went from a kingdom to an empire, and Basileo’s heart had soared.
Much had happened since those days when Basileo had sat at the scratched-up table across from his uncle, wearing the black-and-olive uniform of the Italian Fascist Youth and eagerly absorbing all his uncle promised. Now his uncle was dead, Il Duce in exile, and southern Italy in the hands of the British and Americans. Perhaps if everyone had been truly devoted to Italy, Basileo thought, then things might not be so dire. But at least he had Belina, and she shared his beliefs. He stood and helped her from the sofa, pulling her into an embrace.
She kissed him on the cheek. “I should go make supper.”
He nodded, then kissed her mouth, delaying their meal for a few minutes. There was a sweetness and hunger in her kisses that increased the longer they were together. He would never grow tired of kissing her. “I love you.”
“I know.” She smiled as he followed her into the kitchen and watched her work. “There was one odd call today, placed from the air base to the hospital where the survivors were taken.”
“That doesn’t seem so odd.”
“No, it wasn’t the connection that was strange. It was the conversation—nothing about the casualties, just information about the explosion itself and all the evidence they’d gathered to suggest sabotage. It seemed more like a report they’d make to the police or someone in charge of security. Why would they make a report like that to the hospital?”
Basileo didn’t know, but he’d find out. His work in Bari had just begun—he had men to assassinate, buildings to destroy. And he needed to find that woman, the one he’d seen with Giacomo last week. He doubted it was coincidence—she had to have been helping the traitor. He didn’t know who she was, and he hadn’t seen enough of her face to recognize her if he saw her again. All the same, she was now on his hit list.