The Beginning Of The End | Pt. 5

Sicily | 1943

9:05A.M

Garret forcefully pushed, and shoved himself through the stampeding crowd of fleeing citizens. In the tussle, someone had tried to grab onto him, but when he turned around all he saw was the face of a young nun, with her arms stretched out, getting washed away in the rippling wave of people.

He continued his pursuit until he was reunited with Rosalie, nearly tackling her from his crazed momentum.

She was cowering behind a large, propped up cafe menu, weeping and erupting with feral moaning.

He didn’t need to ask what happened, because he knew what happened. He saw Corrado get shot too. Being taller than most of the people in the crowd, his vantage point was better.

The boy had been shot through the upper right part of his back, and he was laying limp in a pool of dark blood. It was a damn good shot. Garret knew that the odds of surviving the gunshot were bad. But there was no way those were about to come out of his mouth.

The scene was unraveling into chaos faster than he hoped. The crowds were stampeding in every direction, and American and British soldiers were swarming the entire street, setting up choke points to inspect the civilians for weapons. No one seemed to know where the rogue shot came from, or who was responsible, but there were at least eight bodies laying in puddles of dark blood inside of the factory as a result.

The day had turned into a nightmare, and a terrible massacre had been carried out by the soldiers responsible for liberating the people from the vice grip of Hitler, and the rising shadow of communism.

“We can’t stay here, Rosalie. We need to move. The soldiers are rounding everyone up. If we stay here, they’ll catch us and we’ll never make it to Etna.”

“I can’t leave him,” she said, softly as she stared deep into Garret’s blood-shot eyes with her own crimson pupils.

“There’s nothing we can do for him. We won’t get far if we try to take his body with us. Once the area is secured, the soldiers' protocol will be to gather up all of the fallen civilians, and transport their bodies to the churches, hospitals, and morgues. None of the bodies will be buried, or cremated until they have been identified.”

He tried to drive the words home, hoping that she could wrap her brain around the reality of Corrado’s fate, but his attempt failed.

“I can’t leave him! I can’t leave him!”

Rosalie craned her neck back around the propped menu, and saw three soldiers kneeling down around Corrado’s body. One of them had his fingers pressed up against his neck, just below the chin, while the other two rummaged through his satchel and pockets.

Too distracted by the flames of furiosity to think logically, she tried to run towards Corrado but was kept at bay by the strong embrace of Garret. She began wailing her arms, and slapping Garret in the face as hard as she could to get him to release his hold.

“Get off of me! I can’t leave him! I can’t leave him!”

Her agony started to turn heads, and a few soldiers began to cautiously seek out the source of the commotion.

Garret grabbed her by the bicep, and tried to pull her to her feet towards the direction of a back alley, but she continued to wail her fists, kick her feet and sob thick tears.

“Hey!” One of the soldiers hollered, “Let her go!”

Garret ignored the confrontation and began pulling harder.

“I said let her go!” The soldier said, while firing two shots above their heads.

“Hold your fire!” Another voice yelled out, but it was futile.

The gunfire fueled the crowd once more, and the stampede resumed. People flocked with fury, trying to get as far away from the area as possible. The soldiers were quickly overrun by swarming civilians, and Garret saw his opportunity to take control.

Garret scooped Rosalie off of her feet, and slung her body over his shoulder in one fluid motion. It was a tactical move he had practiced hundreds of times in boot camp. It was meant for transporting wounded soldiers out of hot zones, but Garret had no other choice. They could not stay on the street, it was a death sentence. He would deal with the consequences of carrying Rosalie once they were in a safer place.

Garret turned left down the cafe’s back alley, and hurried into the shadows. He was deflecting elbows and fists to the head, neck and spine with every stride he took, as well as the occasional kick to the groin from her flailing feet, but he kept running.

He wasn’t sure if he was going in the direction of Grande croce Gesù redentore, but he didn’t care. Once they were out of sight, they could regain their composure. He hoped.

One final elbow to the back corner of the skull finally made him stop his retreat. His knees buckled from the pain, and his shoulders dropped low enough for Rosalie to slide away from him.

Enraged, she kneed Garret in the stomach, then swung as hard as she could and punched him in his mouth. Blood spewed from the split lip, and he arched back in pain from the sudden attack.

“Rosie,” he said, spitting blood from his mouth while he cradled his gut, “I’m sorry. I had no choice.”

“Never do that again,” she said, heaving, " You stole me away from my brother. Left him behind to die in the street like an animal.”

“There were too many soldiers, Rosalie. If we tried to get Corrado we would have been either shot or captured. I didn’t want to leave him there. You have to believe me. He saved my life, remember? My debt to him will now never be paid. I wasn’t able to protect him in the end. But we can’t undo what’s been done. I’m a soldier, Rosalie, any loss is a tragic loss but the losses cannot be allowed to stop the cause, or else all of the sacrifice will be for nothing. We cannot allow Corrado’s sacrifice to be for nothing. We must continue this fight, for him.”

Rosalie’s heavy pacing had finally come to an end, and she collapsed down onto both knees. Her face fell into her hands, and tears seeped through her fingers. Her hands then dropped beside her, and she angled her wet face towards the sky and prayed to father Gioacchino in Italian.

Two figures suddenly came barreling around the sharp corner, rifles in hand.

“It’s the girl! The one from the convent,” the shorter man said with a British accent.

“Are you certain?” asked the slightly older man, also in a British accent.

“Affirmative. I saw her and her brother fleeing through the convent, while this traitor led their escape. He’s a paratrooper. A Sergeant.”

“I’m not a traitor,” Garret declared with force, “You boys are way out of line. Find Captain Lynch. He’ll explain my situation.”

“Oh I do not think so soldier,” the older man said, stepping forward slowly, “You were seen fleeing from a murder scene with the two lead suspects. If anyone is out of line, I’m afraid it’s you.”

He stepped forward again, keeping his rifle aimed at Garret’s chest.

“You are both being detained for the murder of an American soldier.”

The shorter man tightly wrapped his sweaty fingers around Rosalie’s swinging arms, and began dragging her to her feet. Garret moved to intervene, and to drive his fist through the young man’s face, but the barrel of a loaded Lee-Enfield deterred him from any such action.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Garret said.

“I know exactly what I’m doing, Sergeant. I am arresting two murderers. Now move.”

Garret stepped away from the wall, turned towards Rosalie, then watched as the man who was dragging her released his hold, then toppled to the ground.

The taller man stepped away from Garret, and swung his rifle to meet the tall priest who stepped out of the shadows behind the dead British officer - holding a bloody knife in his right hand. His finger twitched to pull the trigger, but it fell limp as his throat opened - draining the blood from his body onto his khaki uniform.

Garret shuttered back against the wall as a nun swept past him with impossible speed, and slit the British soldiers throat from ear to ear.

His head craned right, and watched in ominous terror as the lengthy priest with oval glasses stepped fully into the light, wiping away the blood from his dagger onto the sleeve of his dark brown robe.

Garret tried to quickly study the grisly features of the two murderous clergy members, and could tell that they weren’t Italian. Combining that with the brutality in which they killed two British officers, he deduced that they were neither British nor American. Then, the woman spoke, and he instantly knew who these people were.

“Hello Rosalie.”

“You know these two? Garret said strongly, trying to make himself seem like a threat.

“Of course she knows who we are,” The priest said, while lighting up a long cigarette with blood stained fingers, “We’re old friends.”

“You did it. You finally killed Corrado,” Rosalie said, stuttering with rage and sorrow.

The nun stepped to meet Rosalie face-to-face, and sheathed her dagger back beneath her black robe.

“No. But I know who did.”