July, 1943
Sicily
It was hard to believe how much one letter could hurt.
Sergeant Sam Troy wasn't used to getting mail. He would get a letter every now and then from David, his younger brother, but that was it. So it came as a surprise when a young soldier wearing a massive bag of letters and small packages over his shoulder approached Troy one warm morning in Sicily, holding out an envelope and saying, "Sergeant Troy?"
"Yeah. Thanks." Troy took the envelope, expecting it to be from David. It had his return address on it after all. Privates Mark Hitchcock and Tully Pettigrew were nearby, preparing the jeeps and their weapons for a scouting mission, while Sergeant Jack Moffitt was in their tent, getting his shave taken care of by Anah, a talking Egyptian cobra they found in a temple back in North Africa. Troy glanced at Hitch and Tully, then walked away while opening the envelope. His heart was pounding as he recognized the handwriting on the folded sheet of paper he pulled out. It definitely wasn't from David. Mom hasn't written anything to me before. We haven't even spoken to each other since I left. Is she writing to apologize? Troy snorted to himself. Doubtful.
No, that letter wasn't an apology. There was no asking how Troy was, if he was alright. Even though he couldn't hear his mother's voice, nor see her expression when she had written this, Troy could sense the vitriolic hatred dripping from the ink of every word. It twisted his stomach harder and harder as he kept reading.
"I hope you're proud of yourself, Sam. Really, I do. It's hard to believe just how selfish you became. You spent all that time with your grandparents growing up, but you didn't really love them, did you? You just had to throw a tantrum because honoring their legacy was too hard. You wanted to take the easy road…"
His mother went on with some particularly foul language and awful, baseless accusations that made Troy feel that he needed to sit down. He went behind the mess tent, and sat on a rock, unsure why he was continuing to read this. He wanted to know the point—if there was one.
"I hope you're proud of yourself, because your grandparents' farm can no longer be sustained at this rate. I'm currently looking for a buyer. Someone who's actually capable of taking care of it. That person could have been you, if you weren't such a brat, if you actually took some responsibility with your life. You would have gotten the thing you always wanted, but you couldn't be patient. You were lazy. You didn't want to challenge yourself. I will be sending this to your brother first because I don't know where you are. Did the Army actually take you? I'll be surprised if they did, with how useless and self-serving you are. They have rules, Sam. You couldn't follow the rules at home. How do you expect to follow rules much stricter? I can't say this rash, stupid decision you've made is a surprise. When faced with a problem, you run away. You don't actually try to solve it. You simply run.
"It's hard to find more to say beyond that you are a disgrace and I am deeply ashamed of you. You disrespected your grandparents, and your father. You disrespected all of us. All for what? Your wants and desires. Your dreams. You refused to look at the bigger picture. On one hand, I would say that you have squandered the futures of your children. On the other, I don't think you're capable of raising children. I hope you never have any. You will never be able to take care of a wife, let alone children.
"If your brother wishes to continue speaking to you, fine, but I will be writing him and your cousins and aunts and uncles about this. Let them decide how to deal with you. As for me, I am so appalled by you letting this happen that I don't want to consider you my son anymore. Wherever you are, know that you are no longer welcome in my home."
She didn't sign it with "Mother," but rather her name, "Marigold." Troy stared at the letter for several long minutes. He didn't want to believe that his grandparents' farm was being sold. Could it actually no longer be sustained, or was this a petty move by his mother to wipe away everything that Troy ever cared about? He let out his breath. She's really carrying this on because I wanted a ranch of my own. She and Dad really believed that was preventing the family from moving forward, that we were going to be stuck as farmers for generations. This is over me not wanting to go to college. Can you get much more stupid than that?
Troy was pulled from his thoughts by Moffitt's voice saying, "Troy? Are we ready to head out?"
We need to focus on the task at hand. Troy glanced at Moffitt, noticing the concerned look on the lanky Englishman's face, as well as Anah's from her place on Moffitt's left shoulder. "Yeah. Just a minute." He realized he sounded hesitant, doubtful. Not what a good leader should sound like.
"Are you… alright?" Moffitt asked.
"Fine. Yeah." Troy really didn't want Moffitt—or anyone—seeing him like this.
"You don't look—"
Troy snapped. "I said, 'fine.' Go find Hitch and Tully and wait by the jeeps."
A look of shame flashed in Moffitt's gray eyes before he nodded and turned away. Troy cursed to himself under his breath. Great. I'm the one who keeps telling him to not feel bad about everything under the sun and here I am getting angry at him over my own crap. Good job, Sam. He looked down at his letter. Maybe Mom's right. I'm useless. A disgrace. Disrespectful. Hard-headed. Stubborn. Stupid. Selfish.
He found himself wondering if anyone was actually going to believe his mother's words about him being the reason behind the farm needing to be sold. They all saw that he did much of the work on the farm after his father's death and David going off to college. What they didn't see was Troy being underpaid and berated by his own mother. It was strange, really. Troy told his mother that they needed to hire more hands. His mother's response was that would mean he would be paid less so there was enough to go around. He argued he wasn't getting the same rate as hands in the past anyway. She responded that until she saw a letter of acceptance from a college, that was all he was getting—and that he was horrible for "demanding money from his own mother." There was more, of course. A lot more. So much more that he didn't want to be thinking about right before a mission.
Troy hid the letter in his belongings before meeting with the rest of his team. He noted that they were all giving him concerned expressions. He paid them no attention. This isn't important. He got in his jeep with Hitch, and the group headed off to conduct their mission. He could see Hitch giving him looks in the corner of his vision. What's so hard about telling everyone the truth? Troy thought. It's nobody's business. They don't need to be thinking about this. They don't need to have anything that would cast doubt on my ability to take care of them.
When the two jeeps stopped at the crest of a hill overlooking a creek, Troy got out to give Moffitt, Anah, and Tully instructions. Moffitt wasn't looking too well thanks to having pollen allergies. It struck Troy that he had been meaning to ask Captain Boggs about having someone take Moffitt's place for the day, but then he got that letter and neglected it completely. See? Mom's right. I'm useless.
After Tully turned his jeep in the direction of where he, Moffitt, and Anah would be scouting, Troy looked over his shoulder at them before Hitch began driving east. Moffitt beats himself up all the time. He would be good to talk to about this. No, he doesn't need more burdening him. Don't bother.
The land sloped downward a few miles east, unveiling more of Sicily's scrubby landscape. It wasn't nearly as dry and sparse as North Africa. Troy would have liked the change of scenery if his mind wasn't elsewhere. He could see the red tiled roofs and church steeples in towns and villages off in the distance, sitting atop the hills overlooking the quiet, untouched land below. Focus. Just… focus.
They were able to cross the creek using an old bridge used by drovers. It was remarkable that it held up under the weight of the jeep, but Troy figured it had held up decades, possibly even centuries of herds of cattle and flocks of sheep. He thought back to all the cattle drives he had done with his father. He enjoyed that. He did well with that. Raising livestock was important, he told himself. It didn't seem like something he should be ashamed of wanting to do. His parents becoming hellbent on making him and David go to college made no sense. So what if it meant the family would be farmers in the coming generation? Troy figured that was better than being stuck in a career he had no desire to be in. They just wanted the money. They wanted us to have a good status. Meanwhile, I don't care about status. I just don't. I care about hard work, dedication, and being a good person in general. That's it.
Troy realized he was letting his thoughts spiral out of control. He tried to keep his sigh quiet while taking his Thompson submachine gun and getting out of the vehicle after Hitch parked it under the shade of a patchy tree.
"Where to, Sarge?" Hitch asked.
"We're going to hike up to the ridge ahead of us," Troy said.
Hitch nodded, then paused to look at Troy before they headed out. "Everything okay?"
Troy struggled to keep his expression neutral. "For the last time, that's not important."
Hitch didn't look like he wanted to accept that answer, but he nodded anyway and began walking. He followed Troy's lead, sticking close to him as they made their way through the dry forest. When they reached the ridge, Troy lay flat on his stomach, and took his binoculars to get a better look at the terrain ahead. He saw nothing but more flat, scrubby ground. "Damn. Not even a recon outfit," Troy murmured. "I would've thought there'd be some this far north."
Hitch nodded in agreement, thoughtfully chewing his bubblegum. "Wonder if we'll run into Dietrich again."
Troy remained still for a while, wondering if he would catch of a glimpse of anything out of the ordinary. "Doesn't matter. We can play the same game we did in North Africa." He lowered his binoculars. There was a bit of dark humor in how often things went back-and-forth between his unit and Dietrich's in North Africa, but truthfully, Troy didn't view it as a game. He was doing his job and nothing more, and that job happened to involve going out and destroying Dietrich's equipment and killing his men. His first interactions with Dietrich yielded a grudging respect for the worryingly skinny German officer. The "grudging" part was soon dropped, as each time they had a chance to speak, Troy found himself wondering more and more just who Dietrich was as a person. It was clear that Dietrich didn't believe in what the Nazis were selling. Why was he there, then? Did he not have a choice? Was he following the demands of his family? Was he, like Troy, there to escape his family?
Hitch's voice cut through his thoughts. "Sarge?"
"What?" Troy said.
"You looked a bit lost."
"Not lost." Troy went back to looking through the binoculars, keeping quiet and trying not to let his thoughts run wild.
A pillowy dull gray blanket of clouds encroached on the clear blue sky within the next couple of hours. It wasn't long after Troy and Hitch returned to their jeep that they were hailed on the radio by Moffitt, saying that he, Anah, and Tully had an interesting encounter in a village several miles west. They all made haste back to the spot across the creek, just in time for rain to begin misting the area.
"Alright, what happened?" Troy asked, taking out a pack of cigarettes. "I know you gave me the basics, but now I want the full story."
Moffitt's face and eyes were still quite red from his allergies, but it seemed the rain was helping relieve them a little. He took a drink from his canteen before speaking. "Before we could cross the bridge in the village, we were shot at by a sniper camped out in a church belltower. German. We hid in an alley, and Anah went on ahead to find the sniper. Tully and I split up to get to the church. I got to the church first, went inside, and ran into Dietrich talking with Anah up in the belltower."
"The sniper had gotten a little spooked when he saw us," Anah said. "Before I could confront him, Dietrich caught me, telling me that he was not there to pick a fight. I demanded to know why his sniper shot at us. Dietrich was not happy about learning this and reprimanded the corporal. After that, we talked and I learned that the village leaders had went to Dietrich for help with a necromancer. The necromancer had been taking bodies and skeletons from cemeteries and mausoleums. Dietrich made an agreement that all the village people would be evacuated and brought to his camp, while he sent a man in to deal with the necromancer."
"Was he not worried about the necromancer hiding among the people?" Troy asked.
"They were all checked over thoroughly," Anah replied. "As repayment, the sick are receiving care from Dietrich's medics."
Troy looked at Moffitt. "You heard all this?"
"I did," Moffitt said.
Troy took a few moments to smoke his cigarette, deep in thought. This was unusual, yes, but it didn't seem out of character for Dietrich. Troy wondered just how Dietrich was going to get away with certain things now that the war was forcing everyone a bit closer together. Was he going to have the same autonomy that he had in North Africa? The Rats were able to maintain theirs to some degree here in Sicily, as Boggs had vouched for them to his superiors. Given how nearly all of what was left of Dietrich's unit had surrendered to the Allies at the end of the campaign in North Africa, along with a handful of incidents involving the SS, Troy wasn't sure Dietrich was going to get the same privileges. "Well, if this was anyone else, I'd say we go back and hang around just to make sure, but Dietrich's no liar and when he says he'll keep his end of the bargain, he does."
Ultimately, they decided to leave Dietrich alone, though there was a part of Troy that was tempted to seek him out, and he wasn't sure why.
The rain came down harder that night. Troy was lying awake in his cot, while the others were sound asleep. His thoughts kept turning to the letter his mother sent. It was both a surprise and not a surprise, and the realities of what would happen when his grandparents' farm was sold had begun sinking in. The memories of the joy shared in that place would always be with him, but now they were tainted. There were things within the house that Troy had wanted to keep. The old books that his grandfather used to teach him how to speak and read Greek. The photographs of them and their home in the seaside town of Galaxidi. The furniture, the cooking utensils, the photo albums… what would become of them?
On top of that was the fact that the rift between Troy and his mother had split so wide open that he wasn't sure it could ever be repaired. He wondered if time away from her would help, that maybe she would come to realize her mistakes, or miss him. Instead, she became more bitter, more hateful. She wasn't the woman Troy grew up with. He knew there was more than just the arguments over college at play here. Three people she had been close to—her in-laws and her husband—had died in rapid succession, leaving little room for proper grief. But, it was no excuse for her behavior, and it was going to cost her oldest son in the process. Not by death, but by estrangement.
He knew while making the decision to enlist that when he was able to return to Wyoming—if he even survived the war—he wasn't going to have anything to go back to. He hoped he would have enough money saved to start his ranch, but for all he knew, the war would end tomorrow and he wouldn't have much. He would return to Wyoming and be homeless. He would have nothing, and he was starting to feel that he deserved nothing.
Troy looked to his right when he heard Moffitt making a soft sound before stretching out on his cot, with Anah cuddled up by his chest. I still have a responsibility to them, Troy thought. Moffitt, Hitch, Tully… they all have families who love them and are waiting for them to come home. I'm going to get them home, no matter what. He went back to looking at the top of their tent, letting out a sigh when something else came to mind. The stupid prophecy. I'm part of Dietrich's prophecy. I don't even know what the damn thing means, because Anah won't give anyone any straight answers. He wasn't sure how being a part of the prophecy would affect his path. Anah had said that their choices shaped the path to the prophecy's fulfillment, rather than the other way around. Troy didn't bother trying to understand what that meant. He thought the whole thing was ridiculous.
In the morning, Troy got up with the rest of his team and went to the mess tent for breakfast before heading out on their next scouting run. He didn't have much of an appetite, but ate in an effort to look like everything was okay.
"Each day brings us one step closer to ending this war, so I can go home to Mama's grits," Tully said. "Chicken and biscuits, pecan pie. All the good stuff."
"Chocolate walnut cake," Hitch said. "I miss that. Clam chowder with a bit of bacon in it."
"Homemade gooseberry jam," Moffitt added. "Spread over a crumpet."
"You will have to get the recipe for me, dear," Anah said.
"I will. And I'll have to teach you how to make a good batch of fish and chips."
"I'll have to invite the rest of you over for a big cookout," Tully added. "Bring all sorts of good food and just relax." He glanced at Troy. "How about you, Sarge? Any dishes you miss from home?"
Troy kept his gaze on the table. His thoughts completely froze, as he wasn't sure whether to lie, keep quiet, or divert the topic. He focused on his coffee, muttering, "We have a job to do today. Finish up and let's go."
He could sense the others exchanging looks, but they said nothing, finished their breakfasts, and went out to the jeeps. Troy was beginning to wonder how much longer it would be until someone cornered him and made him spill his guts about what was bothering him. He hoped that he would push all of this in the back of his mind, and the letter from his mother would be buried along with everything else. Just add it to the pile of all my mental crap, Troy thought while getting in the passenger seat of his jeep.
Both jeeps headed out to the ridge that Troy and Hitch had explored the day before. The previous day and night's rain had kept the pollen somewhat low, so Moffitt wasn't sneezing and sniffling nearly as much. The sky was still a dingy gray, and it could very well rain again before the Rats headed back to base. The jeeps couldn't cross the ridge, but the aerial photographs Troy had studied showed a pass that they would be able to drive through. Hopefully, the Germans hadn't found it yet.
The terrain was rocky and uneven, not unlike some areas in the Sahara. Troy ordered the jeeps to park close to where the pass began, wanting to inspect it himself for any signs of an enemy presence. He hopped out of his jeep, taking his Thompson and heading into the pass. While the ridge was roughly jagged, the pass had a rather steep incline. A good vantage point for anyone on the other side. Troy crept over behind a large rock, crouching and peering out. When the coast was clear, he slunk out, making his way over to the next rock. He stood still, listening. He could hear birds and the wind. Nothing else. Just before he left the cover of the rock, he suddenly began to feel that he wasn't alone, and looked behind to make sure it wasn't Moffitt, Hitch, Tully, or Anah. When he didn't see any of them, he looked ahead.
At the highest point of the pass, many yards above Troy, stood a tall, thin, familiar figure. Troy stared at Dietrich for a while, knowing that the German could see him as well. They were too far away to speak to each other, unless they wanted to shout, but the last thing Troy wanted to do was attract unnecessary attention. He imagined Dietrich didn't want that, either.
Neither man moved. Troy realized he had quite possibly the easiest shot in the whole war, but he refused to raise his gun, even slightly. He noticed Dietrich didn't have his hands near his holster. With anyone else, Troy would have assumed it was a trick. He made an exception for Dietrich and only Dietrich.
The captain usually looked stoic during their encounters, though in the waning days of the campaign in North Africa, Dietrich seemed to be losing his composure. Even before that, Troy could help but notice how tired, worn, and sad Dietrich looked. Anyone would say that it was a natural consequence of being in the conditions of war for a long period of time, but Troy felt there was more to it. There were moments when Dietrich looked tearful, the tone of his voice would seem strangely soft, he wouldn't make eye contact, and he stood or sat with a very slumped posture. Troy was aware of the supply issues being faced by the Germans, but he noticed that Dietrich's appearance was much thinner than that of several of his worst-off enlisted men. That hadn't changed, even with the move north into Sicily.
Moffitt and Anah had mentioned that during their brief encounter with Dietrich in the village, he seemed relatively normal. He had taken charge of the situation and was standing firm in the face of potential trouble by his perpetual nemeses, though Moffitt and Anah admitted that Dietrich looked and acted as though there was more he wanted to say.
That was certainly the case here as well. Troy was staring up at Dietrich, wondering what the skinny German was thinking. The longer they stood there, the more trouble Dietrich was having keeping his expression neutral. His mask slipped, albeit briefly, and Troy could sense a very pained loneliness. He knew that feeling, as he had been experiencing it himself for many years, made worse by his mother's letter. He had kept so much of his life at home bottled up, no matter how many times Moffitt or Hitch or Tully would ask him questions. He refused to answer, not wanting to burden them with his problems, or cause them to doubt his leadership.
He wondered if Dietrich was in a similar boat.
Troy had once thought, jokingly, to himself, that Dietrich needed a friend. More and more, he was beginning to think that perhaps that was true. Troy knew it was true for himself, but he couldn't bring himself to say anything to his own team. He was tempted to leave the cover of his rock, and go up to Dietrich. Tell him that he could defect if that was what he really wanted. Tell him that there was hope for all of this to be over. Tell him that whatever the problem was, he now had people who could help him solve it.
When he stepped out from behind the rock, however, Troy saw that Dietrich had vanished. He crept up the pass, pausing to hide behind a scraggly bush not too far from where Dietrich once stood. Troy could now see the other side of the ridge—where a few German reconnaissance vehicles were parked. Dietrich was heading back toward them. Now Troy really couldn't go over to him, not with several armed and potentially less amiable soldiers surrounding him. He turned and headed back down the pass. "Well, at least now it looks like we'll have more to do over the next few days," Troy said. "German recon outfit on the other side."
Moffitt gave him a grim look. "Dietrich."
Troy noted the certainty in Moffitt's voice. "Why do you say it like that?"
"Because I went to check on you and found you and him staring at each other."
"Ah." Troy drew in a breath. "Yeah. You know, we could just say nothing and leave Dietrich alone."
"You realize the amount of trouble we could get in for that would cost us all dearly. Not only that, we would be putting the lives of our own troops at risk, and possibly prolong the war." Moffitt gave Troy a sympathetic expression. "Trust me, I don't like it anymore than you do, but… if Dietrich is going to keep doing his job, we have to keep doing ours."
"What about the prophecy?"
"The prophecy will continue to play out its course, regardless of what actions you take," Anah said.
Hitch looked at Troy. "Sarge, Boggs worked hard to keep us together. I don't think we should disappoint him by doing something so negligent."
Tully nodded in agreement.
Troy looked at each of his men, along with Anah. "Alright. We'll report what we saw, and… take it from there."
In the days that passed since encountering Dietrich, the Rats received similar assignments to the ones they had in the desert. The strange part was that they didn't see Dietrich since that particular day. The answer seemed as simple as his unit was recalled elsewhere, and that was alright with Troy.
Troy was also receiving letters from family members, some of who he had never met. They were all angrily worded, berating him for being the reason that his grandparents' farm had been sold, accusing him of being selfish, the same things his mother said. The fact that he was getting many of these letters after hard-fought missions felt immensely bizarre. He knew where he was. He knew he was out fighting a war. He was being shot at and watching his men be shot at and having to shoot or blow up people who were likely younger than he was. He was having to spend long days and nights in horrid conditions. He was providing first aid to his men or soldiers in other units or captured German or Italians. He was dealing with all manner of Italian resistance fighters. Some were well organized and cooperative. Others were practically rabid, unorganized, treating themselves and their followers like expendable attack dogs. He watched barbarism on both sides, and it made him all the more determined to maintain his humanity. The others, too, maintained theirs. It brought them closer to each other, keeping their sparks of hope alive, though they all had moments of wanting to break.
Still the letters came and came and came. An endless torrent of bitterness. His mother had crafted the perfect scapegoat for the supposed loss of his grandparents' legacy, for supposedly destroying everything they worked for after moving to Wyoming from Greece roughly sixty years ago. Troy approached Captain Boggs one morning after receiving yet another, and told him to hold all incoming mail addressed to him. He never explained the reason to Boggs, but he did to David, who agreed to hold Troy's mail until the war ended.
The Rats would receive word that they were being transferred to Britain for a time in order to prepare for the invasion of France. Their talents would be needed to clear the way for the landings. The day before they were flown to London, Troy headed out to a secluded area just east of camp, carrying a bundle of letters. All the letters from his family, except David. Troy put an unlit cigarette in his mouth before digging a pit for the letters and pouring a small amount of gasoline on them. He flicked on his cigarette lighter, and held the tip of the flame to the corner of the letter his mother had sent him. The paper burned, and he could feel a similar smoldering in his chest as he tossed the letter into the pile. He then touched the flame to his cigarette, closed the lighter, and slid it back in his pocket.
Heat bathed over him as the fire engulfed the letters. Troy wasn't sure if the tears rolling down his face were from the heat and acrid smell, or his own sadness and anger. He watched the flames dance and flicker upward. He wished things were different, but he decided this was for the best. He would try one last time to talk to his mother when the war ended, but if she continued to be unreasonable, then Troy was done. He was far more hopeful about the war coming to a swift end at this point.
Maybe things would change, but for now, Troy was doubtful.