Private Billy Gustavson was sitting on his M1 combat helmet, watching the moon over Italy with a Lucky Strike hanging from the corner of his mouth. Thanksgiving was on its way.
The distant gunfire sounded vaguely like a typewriter. Crickets screamed. A dog barked. Meanwhile, a few of the soldiers nearby were playing poker, laughing loudly, listening to a Bud Freeman record.
Just a few of the strange sounds of Hitler’s War.
Billy’s cigarette was lit, even though smoking outdoors was expressly forbidden. A glowing ember could be seen by snipers from a mile away in the dark. A fella smoking in the open-air darkness usually ended up in the obituaries.
But tonight, Billy was preoccupied, busy dreaming of home the way all privates do. The way all officers do. The way all boys from Billy’s Minnesota hometown did whenever they crossed the Goodhue county line.
“What’cha daydreaming about?” asked Billy’s friend, Chappy.
Chappy was not an official military chaplain, but all the guys viewed him as one, hence the name. He was a lay minister back in his hometown in Georgia. Chappy
was thirty-one. In military years that made him a granddaddy.
“I kinda miss my mom tonight,” said Billy.
“And where is your mom right now?”
Billy blew smoke. “Died when I was fifteen. Bled to death when she had my little sister.”
“And your dad?”
“He’s back in Red Wing. Remarried. His new old lady’s a nightmare.”
Chappy said nothing.
They listened to the nightscape. The insects, distant shells exploding, a corporal screaming about a straight flush, and Bud Freeman tearing up his tenor horn.
“You shouldn’t be smoking outside,” said Chappy. “You know the rules. Snipers would love to grease another one of us.”
“Nah, they don’t care about a peon like me.”
Chappy pulled rank and yanked the cigarette from the boy’s lips. He stabbed it out, and to his surprise, Billy started crying.
Chappy…