Four-Four-Two by Dean Hughes

Author:Dean Hughes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers

CHAPTER 11

For an entire week the Germans continued to retreat. Yuki’s battalion chased them across hills and vineyards and through villages. Lieutenant Freeman informed his men that the battalion officers believed the Germans were falling back to the Arno River, near Florence. That may have been true, but along the way, they were attempting to inflict as much damage on the Allied troops as they could. There were plenty of tough fights for the Nisei soldiers as the Germans set up ambushes or left behind snipers to pick off Americans one at a time.

As the troops continued to move ahead, pockets of enemy soldiers had to be engaged and forced to retreat northward or captured. After a skirmish in a little town one day, members of Fox Company were moving through the streets, checking houses in search of German soldiers who might be hiding in attics or wine cellars. After Yuki and Shig inspected one house, an older couple, clearly relieved that their town had been liberated, thanked Yuki and Shig profusely and offered them each a glass of wine. They drank the wine, accepted the embraces of the man and woman, and started down the street. But just then they heard the whoosh of an incoming shell.

Yuki and Shig automatically dove toward the street, but the shell struck the cobblestones in front of them before they were down. Yuki felt the blast hit his eyes. He curled up in the street and held his hands over his face, but after a few seconds, when he took his hands away and tried to see, everything was a blur. Still, he knew he had to get out of the street. He raised himself up on his knees, felt for Shig and got hold of his jacket. “Are you okay?” Yuki asked.

“I don’t know.”

“We gotta move. Can you see?”

“No.”

They managed to stand up, clung to each other, and stumbled off the street to a house, and then Yuki felt his way into a little alley that he remembered was on the south side. By then, his vision was clearing a little. Tears were flowing, washing the grit from his eyes. He and Shig sat down, their backs to the wall, and Shig said, “I can see a little now. But I’m bleeding. Pretty bad.”

Yuki was feeling stinging pain, and he looked at his hands to see the dirt and blood that had come off his face. “The splintered stones from the street got us,” he said. “I don’t think we took any shrapnel.”

Shig was looking at Yuki by then. “You’re all cut up,” he said.

“You too.” But the good news was, he could now see quite well. “We need to doctor each other up as much as we can.”

But as usual, a medic showed up rather quickly. He had obviously heard the shell hit and had come looking to see whether there were casualties. Shig saw him hurry past the alley and yelled out to him, “Hey, in here!”

The man was back in seconds.

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