Chapter 6
They make every mistake in the book, on purpose, trying to let the Germans spot them. Jim has to fight every hard earned instinct he’s developed during the war. He doesn’t hop frequencies. He transmits using the older codes, the ones based on simple letter transposition, the ones the enemy can crack in a moment. His skin crawls, knowing Hydra and the rest of the Nazis are listening in. He uses the codename for Cap they’ve fed the enemy very carefully.
When they get to the kickoff point, Dugan does much of the heavy lifting, which is what he’s there for - but with every second counting, every man but Jim gets to work setting up the imaginary company they have moving into position north of Monte Cassino. Jim’s sending them orders by radio. Captain America lifts tanks like they weigh as much as barbells. This time, they’ve even set up some dummy infantry near the shadow tanks, using paper cutouts that have been arranged in spirals, so that they move with the wind as if they are real people.
One of the double agents working for Hydra, whom no one has even seen but Agent Carter but whom she assures them can be trusted, tells them within an hour that their ruse has worked. Hydra thinks the dummy tanks are real. They would’ve known soon enough anyway: barely twenty minutes later they have to hunker down while the Luftwaffe passes overhead. The plane is almost too high to be seen, not daring to risk RAF retaliation, but it casts shade like a big dark predatory bird, passing over the bumpy, frosty terrain. Jim knows the aerial reconnaissance photos will show what they want, what they’ve practiced: a massed army.
A shadow puppet army.
The Germans start shelling a little after 1030. Rogers, Monty, and Jim all listen carefully to the German radio signals as they aim closer and closer to their actual positions.
“Forty one thirty nine eighteen, thirteen eighty-two four!” Jim shouts to Rogers, who puts up his hand to force them to hold their place. The coordinates are marked out in a grid in their heads, burned into their brains. They have to stay within a mile or so of where the Germans think they are to keep sending radio signals: in one half-track, him and Rogers and Monty - who is on a second radio pretending to be an entire British detachment working with the Americans - and Dugan driving the other with Barnes, who in his red-white-and-blue is the target they’re directing the Germans to aim at.
A shell strikes less than five hundred yards away. The ground erupts in dirt and little scraps of trees and rocks, banging up against the windows. It is impossible to get used to the sound, to the spray of shrapnel. They play recordings themselves, of men’s voices in the distance and gunfire and shouts - shouts of wounded, visible in the background behind their radio broadcasts. The sounds are realistic. They were taken from other battlefields.
But the shell strikes are louder. Morita can feel his lips moving, thanking God maybe that it drowns out what? Their own deception?
Shells sound like train cars.
“Just like living near the BMT!” Rogers shouts, and Monty says, “What?”
Rogers says, “The BMT!”
“Haven’t any notion!”
Now Rogers is the one yelling “What?”
Jim shakes his head and puts his headphones back on, listening to the radio once his hammering heart slows. Whatever Rogers says, he won’t get used to the sound of shells anytime soon. Like a lion’s roar, it shocks him every time. Howard is working on some technology to weaponize a sonic boom, and Jim has the uncomfortable feeling the Nazis may get there first. But they haven’t yet.
German Morse floods in and he consults the translation book, now dog-eared and scuffed from much handling. The Germans, dependent on ULTRA for long range codes, are lazy with their field ciphers. And their code names are ludicrously on-the-nose. He gives the coordinates to Rogers, and the half-track roars to life. Around them, shreds of neoprene flutter like ghosts in the harsh winter breeze, skidding over the ground. One catches like a flag on the rear bumper of their half-track and waves there, a little scrap of what used to be a tank. They move forward.
They are creating a sort of concentric ring up in the mountains. As the German bombings advance, following Rogers, Monty, and Jim, Gabe and Dernier move up behind them, setting up the scene to look from above like realistic destruction and laying mines in place in their wake, so that the German infantry will stumble upon them when they advance. They also reinflate some neoprene tanks that will have begun to droop, muzzles slumping to the ground like flaccid elephant trunks. In the cold, the air that’s expanded to fill the neoprene condenses. Later, if it warms up and expands too much, the tanks will pop. That’ll give the Germans a surprise.
It’s backbreaking, finger-breaking work. Jim’s knuckles go raw with cold, fumbling with the radio dial, and the fizz of crackling static puts him to mind of a snap-crackling fire, absent the heat he yearns for. Back home on the flat wide fields of Fresno he recalls trundling in his tractor with his chichi, sweat trickling, the smell of hot cows all around like a fumous itching blanket. He’d take even cow shit now, over this cordite-scented chill. All the stink of combustion. None of the warmth.
It’s always worse for Rogers. As they drive up to the rendezvous point Barnes is already out and waiting. He comes quick towards Rogers as they yank their half-track to a halt, who pushes him off with one hand. As they all gather, Barnes puts a hand on his shoulder anyway, and Rogers lets him.
Jim sees it as he knows what to look for - for a while he tried not to see it, something in his brain flinching away from the picture of it the way he flinches away from looking directly at dead men. He has this sense that there was something wrong and ignoring it or trying to paint a different image in his brain might help. But no: they stand exactly like that, like two people who are used to each other’s bodies, maybe not exactly like a man and a woman, not as gentle, but even that’s confusing - it’s something he can’t quite put words to. Even in a battlefield, he can see that Barnes wants to snake an arm over Rogers’s shoulders and grab him. Like a kid brother, but - Jim shivers - not like that, either.
“Alright,” Rogers says, voice deep and furry with asthma that worsens in the chill air. It’s the voice of a much larger man. “Jones and Dernier have their pieces in place. The bombing’s gone pretty quiet. Morita, the Germans think we’ve got Cap out here?”
Jim nods.
“They’re sending out infantry soon, Carter says,” Rogers goes on, clearing his throat with an impatient, hoarse cough. “Oh, and we figure they’ve dropped a few thousand-dollar bombs,” he adds with satisfaction. It’s a funny thing, war: it’s not just about killing. It’s about beggaring the opponent of money as well as of lives. They all know how much their equipment costs, they know how much their bombs cost. They know that the Captain America comics that sell war bonds keep them alive, as if they’re buying lives. They’re saving lives out here, but to the army brass, they’re also saving money, the money that would otherwise be used to build real tanks rather than ones made of neoprene.
It’s a cold calculation.
-
Dernier and Jones show up at the rendezvous looking scuffed and winded and a little soot-streaked. Dernier and Dugan burst into an avid discussion, Dugan being a fan of Dernier’s explosives. Their communication takes place mostly in gesture and expression and burst of mangled French and English, respectively. Rogers has his binoculars trained from where he perches on the top of his half-track. There’s a boom in the near distance: one of Dernier’s mines has gone off.
“Incoming,” Rogers shouts, bug-eyed even when he lets the binoculars flop down from over his eyes. They’re special lenses Stark made, to let even his astigmatism work through them. Beside him, Jones hops down off the half-track too and pulls out the giant Browning he’s had stowed in the truck bed. His flair for the theatrical shows up even in his choice of weaponry. Jim himself sticks to a lighter M3 grease gun, and shifts it now from its strap to his palms, settling his shoulders under the new load.
A couple of Heinies straggle out of the sparse tree cover behind a little outcropping of rock. Jim glances at Dugan and Dernier. Dernier shrugs. A few have made it past the mines - probably not many, and one of those they can see is limping, his coal-scuttle helmet dented on one side and sitting askew on his head.
Barnes, perched on the half-track near Rogers, cocks his rifle. The white A is stark between his eyes, and the star on his chest flashes dully in the winter light. It’s almost impossible to see his expression behind the mask: all Jim can make out is the narrowing of his eyes as he stares through the scope. They all pause to let him shoot, because supersoldier or not he’s the best sniper on the team.
One blast - two - and the first soldier drops, helmet flinging off behind him like slapstick, twirling through the air and bumping to a stop on the ground after its owner has. Barnes nods to himself, jaw set.
“Ah bon,” Dernier says with satisfaction, rubbing his hands together. Monty shoots down the last straggler and holsters his Webley revolver with a flourish. He’s just turned to Dernier to say something when the muzzle of a real, solid tank breaks over the ridgeline and the sound of German 20mms rip through the air.
Jim slaps a hand on his own head to secure his helmet and takes a dive for the dirt, cursing and wishing he’d set himself up closer to the emergency foxholes they’d dug. Dugan is still standing feet planted, so Jim knocks him over at the back of the knees. He crumples, almost kicking Jim in the face, and his bowler hat rolls away, flopping into the foxhole itself like it’s seeking shelter there.
They crawl forward and Jim tips himself sideways into the foxhole, coming up to peek over the edge. He sees Barnes has swung himself out of the half-track, which has been hit with shrapnel from a nearby burst of fire. One of the tires hisses, leaking air. Rogers still has the damn binoculars up, and Barnes is shouting something at him, then finally seems to give up and throws the big damn shield right at him. Rogers catches it and yanks Jones behind it with him just in time for a 20mm to explode with a crack on its front - the Vibranium makes a high singing sound like a tortured soprano’s aria, but it holds. Rogers peers up over the rim, shocked, and then ducks again as Gabe scrambles behind him down into the foxhole adjacent to Jim’s.
“Get down!” Barnes shouts at Rogers, motioning frantically, but Rogers shakes his head and yanks open the door of the half-track, tugging Barnes by the sleeve until he thumps down behind the half-open door. Tank fire zings by close and and a shot cracks the thick glass of the door. “Fuck!” Barnes says.
Jim agrees. But this, too, is part of their crazy plan. The tank might be a little early, but they knew she’d be knocking on their door sooner or later.
It’s still some distance off, maybe a kilometer or more, firing at them from the next ridge over. Infantry must have taken the brunt of the mines, although the tank looks scorched and reluctant to move. It won’t have to, of course - it can kill them just fine from where it is.
Jim wiggles out of the foxhole on his belly, keeping low, and joins Barnes and Rogers at the half-track. The cab is shredded, maybe not driveable, but the compartment where his radio is looks okay. Monty’s returning fire, stuck some yards away behind a cluster of boulders.
“So what now?” Barnes asks, pulling a grenade loose from his belt.
Jim takes a glance up over the hood and tells him, “Two o’clock, group of three, maybe - a hundred yards.”
There’s a little pfft of sound as the hydraulic pump in Barnes’ gloves launches the grenade into space. It’s a clean hit, and the three Heinies fall down. “Gonna scout me for the Dodgers!” Barnes yells, which confuses Jim for a moment; he’s never liked baseball too much.
The tank fires again, and they all duck, though it wouldn’t do much good. The shell hits on the mountain above them and the air turns muddy and dark for a moment. Through the side mirror of the half track Jim can see more soldiers coming up over the ridge.
Rogers isn’t looking that way; he’s craning his neck back the way they came, binoculars stuck to his face. Dugan and Dernier are shooting too, from their foxhole. Dugan’s mustache and eyebrows are clogged with dirt.
“That big crater!” Rogers shouts. Jim can barely hear him over the rattle of gunfire, the plink and thud of the bullets hitting metal and earth around them. “Forty one hundred and one, eleven nineteen oh five three!”
They hadn’t even bothered with mines at those coordinates, a thick ring of trees and a sudden drop. It had taken eight days of bloody fighting for the II Corps to get a foothold in the mountains north of the abbey, and the landscape around them was dotted with scars. “May and I’ll take that,” and Rogers points at the other half-track, sheltered from the bombardment, “we’ll cover the hole. You lead them to us.”
Jim hefts his grease gun, wipes one palm and then the other against his chest, wondering who May was, if that was a codename. Barnes’ jaw works. He makes a motion towards Rogers and then checks it and moves one gloved hand to grip Rogers’ skinny shoulder.
“Okay,” he says. “You be careful.”
“You too,” Rogers says. He and Jones scramble into the half-track and roar off down the road, the rest of them laying down covering fire.
In the commotion, Monty’s able to run across to them. He sags back against the door. His mustache is much cleaner than Dugan’s. “Well now, shall we give them hell?” he says, and Jim laughs.
“They’ll need a minute,” Barnes says tightly.
“One Mississippi,” Dugan roars, over the sound of his tommy gun, and Barnes cracks just a little and says, “That in France?”
He grabs Jim by the arm and hustles them into the foxhole. It’s hot and abruptly quieter crowded in with him and Dugan and Monty and Dernier, who all cock an ear to hear their orders. He feels the ground tremble; the tank is starting to move.
Barnes’ face is grim. “All right, you heard the Captain,” he said. “Frenchie, you’re first out. Make sure those mines are all right. You two follow, lead the infantry that way. You remember what I taught you?”
“Er zol kakn mit blit un mit ayter,” Dugan says, grinning.
“The German stuff,” Barnes groans, and shakes his head. “Jim, you’re with me.”
“Where’re we going?” Jim says. All he can smell is wet cold earth and the sweat coming off all of them. Go for broke.
Barnes shakes his head again, this time maybe at himself, or at God above, and says, “We’re gonna catch some shells.”
The moment that you turn and run is the worst in Jim’s life, every time he has to do it. To lay bare the back of your neck, your ass, the broad plane of your body, and run. Ten yards to the treeline. A short and vertical scramble over the ridge. The tank will take the easy way around, the only way it can - the thin road that winds down from the monastery. Infantry will follow behind, hurrying to keep up.
This, again - mistakes they make with every step, never running so fast that the spotters can’t see Barnes’ bright blue shoulders through the trees - zigzagging through the terrain maps they all carry in their heads.
And then they melt away, like ghosts.
Jim fetches up against an outcropping of stone, breathing hard. Far off he hears: “Hier lang! Mir nach!” and, “Lauft ihr da entlang!”
Even Dugan’s accent is better than Jim’s attempts.
And then: Captain America bursts through the trees, running full out. Legs pumping, arms up, dirt kicking up behind him. And Jim gapes, honestly gapes - and then the grinding of the tank, plowing right through the scrubby forest on Barnes’ heels, and he can only watch as Barnes breaks through that last ring of trees and kicks off into space -
The tank follows. Barnes hits the ground, and the tank does too, crashing right through the camouflaged tarp Rogers and Jones had laid out for it. Barnes has leapt right across the hole in the ground. The tank lodges there grinding furiously away at the dirt, its treads helplessly, ineffectually churning, eating up the camouflaged piece of tarp they’d used to cover the hole. It’s stuck like a gopher Jim once saw trying to fit its way into a hole too small for it. It’s almost funny, but for the wildly swiveling gun turret that will regain its aim all too soon.
Jim breaks cover and runs towards the tank just as Barnes clambers on top of it. Pfft go Barnes’ gloves again, and the hatch yanks all the way free, staggering him backwards. Jim sprays the interior of the tank with bullets.
Behind them, in quick succession, are four explosions as the remaining German soldiers follow Dugan and Monty’s calls right into Dernier’s mines. Then pop pop pop as the survivors are picked off. And then everything is very, very quiet.
Rogers and Jones materialize from the trees, both of them smeared liberally with dirt. Jim can’t even see where they’ve hidden the half-track. Barnes gives Rogers a hand up onto the defeated tank. Jim gives a hand to Jones, and they stand for a moment looking at the five dead Germans in the tank.
He stares at the faces around him. Barnes has yanked off that hood of his and his hair sticks matted to his forehead, like Frankenstein’s Monster. He absently scrubs it aside. Rogers blinks in something like surprise and his mouth twitches, then firms up. There’s high color in his face. His cheeks are all red and he’s - he’s more collected than Jim would’ve thought. He’s still holding the big round shield, leaning on it actually, one end dug into the ground.
“You hear that?” he asks.
Jim listens hard. One of the dead soldiers tilts over to the side inside the tank, and something metal plinks and rolls. He thinks he can even hear the dull drip of blood.
“No more shelling,” Jones says, and casts his eyes up the mountainside, towards the abbey they can just barely see jutting out over the edge of its high cliff.
“Maybe they don’t wanna shell their own men,” Barnes says.
“Maybe,” Rogers says, “or maybe they’re outta ammunition."
“Radio to Tuker,” he tells Jim. “Let him know Captain America has captured Hill 593, and can mount an assault on Monastery Hill. That oughta get Clark back.”
By the time Dugan and Monty have returned to declare their part of the mission a success, and Dernier has drawn up a little map with the coordinates of the mines they’ve planted that never went off, Jim has managed to pull the radio out of the Germans’ wrecked tank. He finds the right frequency, but first sends a message out to Carter in Morse. ACES. GFB. That means mission accomplished.