The grenade roared, then he crept to the next machine gun nest and repeated the action.
While tossing a third, a mortar round landed close behind him, this one American; an airborne mortar crew had arrived and was attacking the Germans from behind. Concussion shredded the back of his blouse, at the same time that a fragment struck him in the back, breaking his shoulder blade, another punctured a lung, and a third mangled a buttock. Then he lay unconscious, unaware that his final grenade toss had been successful.
He was lucky the shock had disrupted his invisibility spell. Even so, he very nearly died.
Three days later he awoke in a base hospital. In the dream he’d awakened from, Varia and Melody and Mary and Vulkan all had been caring for him. A day later, General Ridgeway, 82nd Airborne commander, came through the ward with an aide and a surgeon, stopping to talk briefly with the airborne patients who were awake. At Macurdy’s bed he looked at a clipboard and smiled. “How are you feeling, Sergeant?” he asked.
“Getting by,” Macurdy murmured.
“Colonel Massey here”–the general indicated the doctor–“says he’s sending you to England to get your shoulder blade reconstructed. Meanwhile I have a brief report written and signed by a Lieutenant Maye, describing what you did. You’re as lucky as you are brave. When things get a little more organized, I expect you’ll hear more about it.”
“You’ll be glad to know your people held the bridge, but it was touch and go for a while. The Germans got panzers there ahead of our Shermans.”
Macurdy’s eyes had closed before the general finished.
PART THREE
Actor Without A Script
20
Das Weutische Projekt
The hospital’s sitting room for convalescents held about twenty men ust then, some in summer khakis, most in pajamas, playing cars, checkers, or chess, reading, or just listening to the BBC. When the visitor crossed the room toward him, Macurdy knew him at once. The last time he’d seen him, the man had worn a German uniform and cropped hair, and been half scalped. Now he was dressed as an army officer, his hair longer than regulation, and he looked fit.
The man grinned. “Remember me, Macurdy?”
“Tunisia, last winter. `Vonnie,’ you said. Captain William Von Lutzow.”
Von Lutzow laughed. “You lit my cigarette with your finger, warmed me, healed me, and made us-what? Invisible? On top of all that, you hunted feldgrau with a trench knife; at least that’s what your men claimed. I talked with some of them before I left Gafsa.”
Macurdy shrugged. “I went off with Cavalieri a couple times, trying to be useful. There was a kind of thrill in it. But I never knifed a feldgrau. I suppose someone said, “I wonder what he’s doing out there?’, someone else made a guess, and a reputation was born.” He paused. “That was a good platoon. Like brothers.
“-four new platoon must have been pretty damned good, too, considering what it did.”
“How do you know what it did?”
“I researched you.” Von Lutzow looked like the cat that got the cream. “I also know that Ike draped a Distinguished Service Cross around your neck for that night on Sicily. That’s one hell of an honor.”
Researched you. The words did not reassure Macurdy. His green-hazel eyes studied the captain. “How did you find me? And why? You connected with the provost marshal?”
Von Lutzow laughed. “Don’t worry about that; it’s already taken care of. We need to talk, you and I. Privately.” He gestured, indicating the other convalescents in the room, some of them listening. “How’d you like to get out of here? Take a ride; eat in a restaurant. I’ve cleared it with your doctor.”
Macurdy stood up, curious about where this was leading. “I could stand a change. Is this going to be your treat? I’m broke. My pay status is screwed up.”
“That’s taken care of too. Your back pay will catch up with you next payday.”
“Huh!”
After he’d changed his slippers for shoes, Macurdy followed the captain outside and got into a jeep with him. Von Lutzow starteit, then drove out the long driveway to the road. A country road; four years earlier, the hospital had been the palatial residence of a British earl. “You’re walking well, Macurdy,” he said, “for someone who had a chunk torn out of his ass by a piece of steel.” He turned an intent eye on his passenger. “And that was about a month after a truck drove over your leg. According to Doc Alden, your leg looked like a giant purple watermelon.”