Migs

Years later Private First Class Andy Migliore would remember the zip. It came first—a cross between a passing mosquito and hot metal hissing through cold water. Then the splat—the sound a hand makes when slapping concrete, and finally the blood: hot and guilty. Hot because a heartbeat previously it had been pumping in another human. Guilty because that human was Corporal Matt Shank, Migliore’s best friend, and Migs, as Shank liked to call him, was grateful the bullet had blown through Shank’s head, not his.

Shank’s corpse flipped onto its back, the blood from the shattered skull spreading across the room’s hard wood floor. The lighter Shank had held to Migs’ cigarette but a second before, spun across the room. Two more rounds ripped through the window, tearing chunks from the opposite wall, showering the couch below with plaster and dust.

Migs tossed his cigarette into the pool of blood, and crawled to the room’s other window. Below him, on the small Italian house’s first floor, the squad’s BAR began hammering at their assailants. On his knees now, Migs peered over the window’s sill. The squad’s firing position looked over a small traffic circle. At least that’s what they called them in Jersey. A fountain—as dry as Migs’ mouth—adorned the center of the circle. Streets fanned from the circle like spokes on a wheel. Across the way, a small café faced his building, and from the lower window a German MG34 chattered, the bullets walking across the stone facing below him.

Whoosh! A stream of white smoke shot from the cemetery to his right. The stream disappeared into the MG34’s window and erupted, dust belching from the opening. Oh hell yeah! Migs grinned at the silence. Fatman and Hillbilly were the best bazooka team in Italy.

Then he heard the sound all infantrymen dreaded, heard it and his grin disappeared—the sound of squeaking sprockets. Sarge had told them there were Tigers south of the village, but Migs hoped the Tigers had had bigger fish to fry than a squad of riflemen and their 57mm anti-tank gun. The squeaking grew louder. Now the machine’s rumbling diesel thrummed against the morning air. A pair of gray-uniformed German infantry appeared at the end of the street. He didn’t fire. No one in the squad fired. No one wanted the squeaking sprockets to know where they were. Migs prayed, prayed hard. I’m sorry Matt died. I’m sorry I lived. Please Lord let the squeaking be something the boys on the Fifty-seven can handle.

It wasn’t.

First he saw the flash suppressor. He knew that flash suppressor, knew it was bad news. The long barrel slid inexorably into the street facing him, then the tracks, the fender, and finally the monster, turned onto the street proper, facing Migs. The Fifty-seven crew fired. It was hopeless. Migs knew that, the men on the Fifty-seven knew that, but still they fired. The 57mm anti-tank gun popped impotently, the sound seemingly no louder than Migs’ own Garand. The shell struck the Tiger dead on, sparking bright on the gun mantle, ringing like a church bell.

Migs held his breath. Please, God, please. Migs didn’t know, maybe the 57mm round might scare the tankers, maybe it might hurt something, hurt someone.

It didn’t.

The motors whined as the massive turret swung the gun toward the Fifty-seven. The eight-eight millimeter gun spoke, and it was anything but impotent.