Once there was a war

Not many German planes have got through the air cover, but some have and nearly every one was after the command ship. They have straddled her with bombs. There have been near misses that jerked her in the water and it is a wonder her plates aren’t sprung.

And this has been going on for four days. No one has had any sleep. What has made it even worse, the Jerry planes have been talking to each other on their radios and not bothering to code their messages. They have been looking for this particular ship and aiming for her. They know that if they get this ship they may get the controlling brains of the whole operation.

There are very tired colonels and generals on board, waiting for the order to go ashore and establish headquarters. They will feel much better when they are ashore. It is not nice to be aboard the target of the whole fleet. But the command ship has not been hit. Other ships about her have been blasted, but not the command. The feeling aboard has been that the luck is getting pretty thin and that the next one must get her.

Meanwhile, the litter spreads out to sea on little currents. There will be C-ration cans come ashore for a thousand miles. The litter will coat the shores of Italy.

What has made the command ship’s life even more lively is that the Germans have a new bomb. At least, that is the rumor. This bomb is released and then controlled from the plane. It is directed by radio, and if it seems about to miss it can be turned by its master. At least that is what is said. And surely these bombs do not seem to act like other ones. They come down more slowly, and they glow as they come, with something like a phosphorescence that you can even see in the daytime.

When the red signal for an air attack goes out, the destroyers move in circles, belching smoke, and the small smoke carriers dart busily among the big ships, trailing ribbons of white, choking smoke which smells like sulphur. The little boats weave in and out, until they have covered the fleet with their artificial fog. The sound of coughing is deafening. At least it is until the anti-aircraft starts. And then, through the smoke, you hear the deep blow of the bombs. They don’t sound like anything else. And their explosions come through the water and strike the ship. You can feel them in your feet.

The endless lines of landing craft go ashore, carrying the supplies for men who are lying off in the bushes on the forward lines. Cases of food and tons of shells and cartridges. A hell of them lines the shore, waiting to be transported inland.

And the battle line has moved up. The beach is taken now and the invasion moves ahead. The white hospital ships move inshore to take on their cargoes.

PALERMO

SOMEWHERE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN THEATER, October 1, 1943—The sea off Sicily was running in long, smooth waves without whitecaps and the day was bright and the sea that Mediterranean blue that is unlike any other blue in the world. The PT boat ground its way through, making a great churned wake and taking even what little sea there was over the bow. It’s the wettest boat of all, the torpedo boat. The crew, in their rubber clothes, huddled on the deck trying to keep out of the constant spray, and on each side of the bridge the machine-gunners, at their stations, sat in their turrets behind their guns and the water glistened on their faces. The cartridge cases of the .50-caliber shells were green from contact with the sea water.

Off to the right a body was floating in the sea, rising and falling on the long waves. It was pretty swollen, and the brown lifebelt and collar made it float high in the water.

The captain was dressed in a bathing suit and he was barefooted. The First had a rubber coat on but his trousers were rolled up and his feet were bare, too. The two of them looked off across the port torpedo tube at the floating body.

“Should we go over and take a look?” the First said.

“Not in the shape it’s in,” the captain said. “Besides, we have to make our schedule.”

The first said, “I think that’s the loneliest thing in the world. A body floating at sea. I don’t know anything that looks so alone.”

The captain let go his hold on the torpedo tube and turned and held onto the rail behind the port gun turret. “Before you came on I had one that gave me the willies,” he said. He broke abruptly into his story.

“After Palermo fell,” he said, “there was a night and a part of a day before the Seventh Army got to the city. I was on patrol with five PTs and we got the flash and we were in the neighborhood anyway, so we came to take a look. You know what Palermo looks like. That great, big, strong mountain right beside the city and the crazy lights that get on it and then the city spilled down there at the base. It looks like Ulysses has just left there. You can really get the sense of Virgil from that mountain, from the whole northern coast of Sicily, for that matter. It just stinks of the classics.