A Bitter Wind, page 17
“This is Tomo,” Dilas said. He stood back with his arms akimbo. “He’s Croatian with Italian mixed in. He served with the Italian Croatian Legion until Mussolini was toppled. Then his company was sent to reinforce the Tiger Division, a German Croatian unit organized for anti-Partisan operations. He says he never wanted to fight for the fascists but was forcibly drafted. He and several men from his squad deserted and have been living in the hills. He says the Germans hadn’t hunted them before, but someone must have betrayed them.”
“Doesn’t sound like the Krauts were looking for us,” I said.
“They seemed focused on hunting deserters. The SS officer told him if he didn’t give them the location of his friends, they’d hang him,” Dilas said. “He claims he didn’t, but why would he say otherwise.”
“Did they ask him about escaped POWs?” I asked. Dilas raised a finger and spoke to Tomo, who watched us with bewildered eyes.
“No,” Dilas reported. “Nor about Chetniks. Only deserters.”
“That’s good,” I said. “What are you going to do with him?”
“That’s not my call,” Dilas said. He eyed Big Mike and Nikola as they returned from their search.
“The Kraut officer had a map,” Big Mike said. “There’s a village marked in red on the other side of that hill. That must be where they nabbed these two. Then another about two miles farther on.”
“There’s another bridge off to the west,” I said, and traced the possible line of advance. “They might have planned to cross back over the river and approach the village from the rear.” The map showed where the road split, one route heading to Pranjani, the other curving back along the river and leading to a bridge behind the targeted village.
“They weren’t coming for us,” Dilas said. “We could have just let them go.”
“We couldn’t have known,” I said. “There was no choice.”
A few words came from Nikola in a low, harsh growl. His eyes narrowed as he studied Tomo, who’d gone from captive to captive again in a matter of moments.
“Can you show him mercy?” I asked. I looked at no one in particular, especially not Tomo. Dilas took me literally and translated for Nikola, who rubbed his beard, and finally nodded his head. He bent down and undid the leather harness from a corpse. It held ammo pouches, a canteen, and a scabbard. He handed it to Tomo, then gave him a Mauser. Finally, he took a bag from his shoulder and gave it to the deserter, showing him the half loaf of black bread and a tin of something undecipherable.
“Idi!” Nikola said as he flicked his hand in the air in a gesture of dismissal. Tomo stood, dumbfounded, and Nikola repeated the word, gently. Tomo awoke to what he was being told. A smile dawned as he backed away.
“Idi!” Nikola repeated, this time with a laugh. Tomo ran and made for the hill that he’d descended in the clutches of the Germans.
Nikola raised his rifle, aimed, and shot Tomo square between the shoulder blades.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“GODDAMN!” I SHOUTED. “Why? What happened to mercy?” Even though we were surrounded by death, adding this last corpse to the pile was too much for me. I stood in front of Nikola and asked the question again. He shouldered his rifle and remained silent.
“Ask him,” I demanded of Dilas. “Ask him that question, damn it!”
“You don’t know how things work out here, Captain Boyle,” Dilas said. “Things are complicated.”
“Ask him.”
Dilas obliged with a few sentences in Serbian. Nikola responded, his eyes on mine the entire time.
“He says he did show mercy, even though the Croat did not deserve it,” Dilas translated. “He betrayed Yugoslavia when he joined the Italian Croatian Legion and supported the fascist occupiers. Then he betrayed once again and deserted the Tiger Division. He had no honor.”
“That may be true, but where is the mercy?” I said as I gestured with my hand to the body sprawled in the roadway.
Dilas continued after Nikola finished speaking. “He gave Tomo bread and a weapon. He gave the man hope, and he died quickly, believing he was free. So many more die with so much less. It was a mercy, but perhaps one you Americans may not comprehend.”
Both Dilas and Nikola turned away. Did they feel shame, or were they unable to comprehend my naivete? Dilas was an American, and I wondered if he felt out of place amid this savagery, even though he was only a generation gone from these hills. But then again, I was Irish American, and barely removed from the religious killings and civil war that had scarred my own homeland. Who was I to judge?
“Strange place, ain’t it?” Big Mike asked as he surveyed the carnage.
“Yeah. Let’s hope we find Johnny soon and leave it in the rearview mirror,” I said. Dilas and his men were still checking bodies, gathering food and ammunition. We decided to go up the hill and watch the road for approaching vehicles. I signaled to Dilas, and we hustled to the vantage point and scanned the road in both directions.
“Nothing,” Big Mike said. He shielded his eyes as he checked the route the Germans had taken.
“Same this way,” I said. I looked down the hillside and along the lane, thinking that if there were any more Krauts in the area, the gunfire would have brought them running. “Nobody.”
“Except for the guy who lobbed a grenade your way,” Big Mike said. “He’s still running around loose.”
“Yeah, I hope they catch the sonuvabitch. I don’t know how he did it. I was sure no one moved across the bridge once we opened fire,” I said.
“Maybe he was already there,” Big Mike suggested. “Coming back from scouting out the route.”
“Could be. I’ll check with the flyboys and see if they found anything.” I tilted back my helmet and looked at the terrain beyond the bridge. The thick pines and rocky incline could have easily hidden a single German scout, and I hoped our boys nabbed him before he got too close to Pranjani.
“Will you look at that,” Big Mike muttered. He nudged my arm and shot a look toward the vehicles below. Nikola and Dilas had pulled the bloody body of the other Croatian out of the half-track and outfitted him with German gear, just like Tomo. They dragged him next to the Kübelwagen and dropped him there with a Schmeisser submachine gun draped around his neck. “They’re making it look like this was the work of a gang of deserters.”
“These are brutal men,” I said. “Dilas included.”
“We don’t know much about their war,” Big Mike said. “Maybe these Croatian Italians or whatever they are were ten times as brutal when they had the upper hand. Just because the Krauts are hunting them now doesn’t mean they didn’t butcher Serbs together last year.”
“I think you’re beginning to get the hang of the place,” I said. “Let’s go.”
The saying is that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Around here, the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy if he ever looks cross-eyed at me. As we shuffled downhill, I promised myself a kick in the pants if I ever found myself thinking that way.
“Do you think this bit of stage managing is going to fool the Germans?” I asked Dilas.
“It may confuse them and at least buy time,” he said. “If the engines hadn’t been all shot up, we could have driven the vehicles farther away and dumped the bodies. But this will have to do.”
“Yeah,” I said, with a glance back at Tomo, who looked like a rag doll cast aside by a careless child. “It will have to do.”
I hoisted a canvas bag of potato mashers over my shoulder and lugged a couple of ammo pouches away from the scene of the ambush. Nikola took enough for two men, and Big Mike carried the food they’d scrounged. We headed up to the observation post, abandoned now that its location would be obvious from all the bullet holes in the German vehicles. At the trench, we met up with two of the airmen who’d been on our flank.
“Any luck tracking that Kraut?” Dilas asked.
“Nothing,” one of them said. “We circled back here in case he was going to have another go at you but came up empty. Shakey and Rip went up the road about a half mile to see if they could find him.”
“We’re going to have to use your spot as our new OP and keep eyes on the ambush site,” Dilas said. “Dejan and the radio operator should be there already. I’ll send some men from the fallback position to reinforce you, then you can make your way back.”
“No problem, Marty,” the lieutenant said, then turned his attention to us. “You must be the guys who flew in today. I’m Joe Irwin, former B-24 navigator, currently employed as a ground pounder. This is my copilot, Al Hooper.”
“Hoop,” the copilot said. We shook hands and I introduced the two of us. “What brings you to beautiful Pranjani? We appreciate the place, but we’re not here voluntarily. You OSS reinforcements for Marty?”
“No, we’re just here to help,” I said. Joe and Hoop took some of the supplies from Big Mike and we began the hike back up the path. “There are POW escapees who may be working their way here, and we don’t want them to be left behind.” I left it at that, seeing no reason to advertise Johnny’s name or how much the Germans would like to get their hands on him again if they learned about his special operator duties.
“You guys been here long?” Big Mike asked to move the conversation in a different direction.
“It’s been two months for Joe and me,” Hoop said. He held a branch back for the rest of us to pass. “Longer for Shakey. Rip is the newest guy. He blew in a couple of days ago. Kinda hard to keep track of time here. One reason we were glad to volunteer for this job.”
“Nice to hit back after hiding in haylofts for weeks on end,” Joe said. “It’s the least we can do for these guys. The Chetniks would give you the shirt off their backs.”
“That reminds me,” I said. Ahead, Dilas came to the flank position, and we followed, dumping the supplies next to the radio. Dejan searched through the food bag right away. “What’s with the guys who left this morning tossing out their boots and jackets? It’s going to be a cold flight to Italy.”
“It’s a tradition,” Hoop said. “The Chetniks aren’t getting any more supplies, not enough that matter, anyway. So when a planeload takes off, everyone gives away their stuff. I seen guys leave their socks in their boots.”
“These people would die to get us back into the fight,” Joe said. “Have died. I can’t understand why the brass is ignoring them.”
“I stopped trying to figure out the brass long ago,” Dilas said. “You guys stay here and work on camouflage. You’ll need to patrol down the path to check the bridge for Krauts.” He handed Nikola his binoculars. Then he arranged for a truck to wait at the road for the Yanks once the other two returned.
“What’s with Shakey’s nickname?” I asked. “Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”
“Flight engineer on a B-17,” Hoop said. “He manned the top turret. Said he earned the nickname from getting the shakes so bad he couldn’t eat breakfast before a mission. But once he got on board, they went away.”
“What about Rip?” Big Mike asked.
“That’s his name. Fred Ripper,” Joe said. “B-17 pilot and the only survivor from his crew. Doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t either,” Big Mike said. “What could you say, anyway?”
We left some of the food and ammo with Hoop and Joe, and they helped themselves to grenades. We followed Dilas and trudged out with Dejan and Nikola, all of us bearing the trophies of war. At the fallback position, we left more supplies and picked up the machine gunner, who deserved a rest after being peppered by that blast.
When we finally piled back into the Opel and drove into Pranjani, the sun was about to set. The sky turned a reddish blue that matched my mood. I hadn’t much liked almost being blown up by a grenade, and I didn’t appreciate Tomo’s execution, no matter how much of a mercy Dilas and Nikola dressed it up as. Come to think of it, I didn’t really like killing people either, except that when it came to the SS, someone had to do it.
We drove into Pranjani, where airmen with their collars turned up walked along the road or sat in front of houses and smoked.
“We had a flight scheduled for tomorrow, but I canceled ’cause of the Krauts,” Dilas said, hollering out his open window so we could hear from the truck bed. “Now it feels like rain. We’re going to have a lot of guys waiting here.”
I looked up at the sky, heavy cloud cover moving in from the west. First the Germans threatened to stall the rescue plan, now the weather.
“Kiša,” Nikola said, thrusting a thumb skyward, then moving his fingers down like fluttering raindrops.
“Kiša is rain,” I said. “Sada means now. Nacisti is Nazis, and lep is nice. Idi means go,” I said. “Five words.”
“Dobro,” Nikola said. “Good. Veliki Mihajlo, dobro.”
Six words. I’d already lost count. I agreed Big Mike was a good guy, and we had a laugh about it, working at putting blood, death, and betrayal behind us.
Dilas let us off at Sanja’s house and told us he would send a runner up the hill to tell Rudy and Sanja it was safe to return. He promised to drop by later and let us know the plan for tomorrow once he got the waiting airmen squared away for the night. He said to go into the root cellar behind the house and lift the third floor plank from the right. We found the cellar, a stone foundation built into the earth with an upper level of timber. Inside were casks and barrels arranged across the width of the small structure. We moved a few, grasped the floorboard by the edge, and lifted.
Our rucksacks were underneath, with a bottle labeled SLIVOVITZ on top. I didn’t know what that meant, but by the shape of the bottle and the picture of a cluster of plums, I figured we would toast our first evening in Yugoslavia with the local plum brandy.
And I’d raise my glass to Tomo. That would be a mercy.
Chapter Twenty-Five
WE WARMED OUR hands over the kitchen stove after we started the wood fire. The stove was a big, ornate thing, done up in bright blue tiles, built for cooking as well as heating the joint. Big Mike organized chow out of the C rations we’d brought, and before long, Rudy and Sanja returned.
“We got the all clear,” Rudy said. He set down his radio gear and wiped his hand across his forehead, damp with sweat. “Sounds like you stopped the Krauts.”
“All but one,” Big Mike said. “He’s running around loose somewhere. Almost took us out.”
“He will not try again,” Sanja said. She dropped her bag of supplies and investigated the canned rations. “Germans are afraid to be alone in our mountains.”
“They’re searching for him now,” I said. “And Dilas set up a new OP to watch the bridge in case they try again.”
“Good,” Rudy said. “We’ll be stacked up with guys here. Rain and fog expected tomorrow, so that run will probably be canceled too. Right now, I’ve gotta get the radio set up in the attic and check in.”
Rudy headed upstairs. Sanja held up a can, trying to read the contents.
“Spaghetti,” she sounded out. “Špageti. Is it good, American spaghetti?”
“Are you hungry?” Big Mike asked. She nodded. “Then it’ll probably taste fine.”
He opened three cans of meat and spaghetti in tomato sauce and dumped them into a pot. Sanja warmed it over the stove while Big Mike opened packages of bread biscuits. The slivovitz was opened and glasses were arranged on the table. This was a lot better than heating C rations in a foxhole.
“If we had been at my father’s cabin longer, we could have hunted boar. Boar is good. I think better than spaghetti in tomato sauce,” Sanja said, her nose over the pot as she stirred.
“Does your father hunt boar?” Big Mike asked.
“He did. Before the Germans killed him when they first came. It is a small cabin, only for hunting, you understand. A good hiding place for Rudy and the radio,” she said. “We do not have time to hunt the boars now. And we do not want the Germans to hear the gunshots. Or Tito’s men. It would be good to have a feast, as we used to.” Her eyes set on a picture of a man and a woman standing in front of this house. “But nothing is as it used to be.”
It wasn’t. Not in this house, or in so many others, near and far, that carried the weight of death, hunger, and fear. Sanja’s house was one of the lucky ones, still standing, and with warm food close at hand.
A knock sounded at the door and Dilas let himself in.
“Welcome, Marty,” Sanja said. “Do you wish to eat?”
“No, I just wanted to be sure you and Rudy were back okay,” he said. “And to see if he received a weather report.” Rudy’s footsteps sounded on the stairs.
“Just got it,” he said as he entered the kitchen. “Light rain and fog forecast through tomorrow afternoon. Bari confirmed no flight tomorrow, too risky.”
“Ask for three Skytrains the day after tomorrow. Tell ’em we’re standing-room-only here,” Dilas instructed.
Rudy pushed up the sleeve of his jacket to check his wristwatch. “I’ve been told to stand by for a message. I’ll get it out right after that. Hey, fellas, give that slivovitz a try, it’s the local specialty,” he said, and disappeared back upstairs.
“My father used to make his own, but this is almost as good,” Sanja said. She poured the clear liquid into the small glasses. “Živeli,” she said, and stared directly at me, Dilas, and Big Mike in turn. “Cheers.”
Seven words.
Sanja downed her portion and smiled. I took mine and gasped. The taste reminded me of grappa without the finesse. And it had the aroma of almonds, but so did cyanide.
“Wow,” Big Mike said, with a smack of the lips. “That’s some hooch.”
“Billy, every Yank who tastes this stuff for the first time has the same look as you do,” Dilas said, and laughed. “Profound shock. Then they learn to love it.”
“If I can eat American spaghetti in tomato sauce, you can drink slivovitz,” Sanja said, with a fair amount of logic. She poured me another glass, and I was about to give it a go when Rudy came downstairs with a puzzled look on his face.
